"Better" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... better still! He assumed the character of 'Simon Batter-text;' and he mimicked his preaching, and his praying, and his sighs, and his 'ahmens' in a wonderful way. It really was perfect. I'm so sorry you were not there, you would have so thoroughly ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... endure cold climates; none of them are fitted for swimming as are the seals and whales, or for flying as the bats, or for burrowing as the moles; they are dull, weak things, which are not able to contend with their stronger, better-organized, higher kindred. They seem not only weak, but unable to fit themselves to many different ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... southern army—so long as they remained existent as separate organizations—were indisputably mediocre, when not atrociously bad. But it must be recalled that there was little time to practice, even in the beginning; literally no chance to obtain new music, or instruments; and that the better class of men—who usually make the best musicians—always preferred the musket to the bugle. Nor was there either incentive to good music, or appreciation for it, among the masses of the fighters. The drum and fife were the best they had known "at musters;" and they were good enough still, to ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... most stupendous example being the Duiffoprugcar instruments with which he imposed on the violin world so successfully. May we infer that he had equal facility in the fabrication of historical "facts"? De mortuis nil nisi bonum, but at all cost our history must be made accurate. Better no facts at all than ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... often find a better market by sending their fish to Paris; much of the fish caught off Brighton goes there. It is fifty miles to London, and 250 to Paris; how then can this be? Fish somehow slip through ordinary rules, being slimy of surface; the maxims of the writers on demand and supply are quite ignored, ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... and women who can be happy in any—even in such circumstances and worse, but they are rare, and not a little better worth knowing than the common class of mortals—alas that they will be common! content to be common they are not and cannot be. Among these exceptional mortals I do not count such as, having secured the corner of a couch within the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... "You had better have been fishing," returned Will. "See what a fine catch I have made. A man should never dream in daylight—that's the time to ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... respectable Europe, so Mirabeau, on the eve of his public greatness, was the most isolated politician of his age. "Mean men, in their rising," says Lord Bacon, "most adhere; but great men, that have strength in themselves, were better to maintain themselves indifferent and neutral." Instinctively feeling that this was the policy of his position, when repelled by both sides, he haughtily repelled them in return, and the more he was despised the more inevitable did he make the establishment ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... clearest public teaching, there are all too many who, practically, "have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." [Acts xix. 2.] The belief in His glorious Personality is faint and vague. The confusion of His Presence and Power with our "better feelings" is very, very common. The solemn questions which the Scripture bids us put to ourselves, [Rom. viii. 9.] whether or not we "have the Spirit of Christ"—not merely "a Christian spirit" in the sense of tone and temper, but the Holy Ghost, ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... better be described in Dick's own words, as he pencilled them in his memorandum-book, from time to time, keeping a sharp lookout with his pistol also. ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... something interesting has just come up." He spoke in a voice of forced calmness. "I can't go into it now, but you'll want to hear about it. I'm sending a car for you. Better bring Dalla along; she'll want ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... these labours I beheld this inquirer, of a tender frame, emaciated, and study-worn, with hollow eyes, where the mind dimly shone like a lamp in a tomb. With keen ardour he opened a new plan of biographical politics. When, by one who wished the author was in better condition, the dangers of excess in study were brought to his recollection, he smiled, and, with something of a mysterious air, talked of unalterable confidence in the powers of his mind; of the indefinite improvement in our ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... replied Rathburn. "Anyways I had a hole-up down there for a few days, an' as luck would have it, I had to put up with a Mexican. All that Mex would do was argue that a knife was better than a gun. He claimed it was sure and made no noise—those were his hardest talking points, an' I'll be danged if there isn't ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... of those quiet chaps a man always likes to find close beside him in a row. Driscoll almost weeps over him to me sometimes. "He's the devil's own at close quarters," says the Irishman. "Never want a better chum when it comes to bashing the enemy. If he could only shoot a bit 'straighther and talk a bit sweether to the colleens he'd be perfect." All the same, I have, and hold, my own opinion concerning the "talking." Many a smile which ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... said the old lady, wrapping her daughter up. "Tell him not to think too much about his cases. . . . And he must rest. Let him wrap his throat up when he goes out: the weather— God help us! And take him the chicken; food from home, even if cold, is better than at ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... "You had better say," replied the exasperated teniente-mayor, "that cowardice begins in selfishness and ends in shame! This very day I'm going to hand in my resignation to the alcalde. I'm tired of passing for a joke without being ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... moreover, be consulted on a large table, or better an adjustable stand (to avoid frequent lifting or shifting of the position of the volume when inspecting the plates) and always under the eye of the librarian or an assistant not far removed. These precautions will insure far more careful treatment, and will result ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... 'Better put the kid to bed,' said Loveridge, presently; and, indeed, I was beginning to feel exceedingly curious as to my ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... year 1779 many of the Indians at Machias and Passamaquoddy began to waver in their adherence to the Americans and to imagine they would fare better by withdrawing from John Allan and returning to their old haunts on the River St. John. Allan wrote in the autumn of this year, "The unsteady conduct of the Indians has obliged me to use every means to prevent their going to St. Johns. I have not met with such difficulty ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... she is," insisted Archibald. "Why, she flirts outrageously with me. I'm sure I don't know how many heads the little witch is going to turn when she grows up. And her sister, Margaret—I couldn't tell you which of the two I like the better—has quite an extraordinary talent for plastic art. I mean to give her a commission before I return to my place. I'd like for one thing to have a bust of her mother in my study—that would be so inspiring. And long ago I took a fancy to have a nice sphinx. A thing of that kind, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... as good as another,' responded her ladyship. 'I 've my doubts of the one that's much better. I fancy Rose is as good a judge by this ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... necessitie, or occasion, constraineth thee to faight, and that thy souldiours are evill to be trusted, and smally disposed to faight: where it is necessarie in thone case, to make theim afraied, and in the other to incourage theim: In the firste case, when perswacions suffiseth not, there is no better waie, then to give in praie, a part of them unto thenemie, to thintent those that have, and those that have not fought, maie beleve thee: and it may very wel be doen with art, thesame which to Fabius Maximus hapned ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... same who had come to our camp in Berber, has done his uttermost to promote a good disposition in his people towards the Osmanlis, and has made the Pasha a present of several hundreds of very fine camels, within the last two days. His house is not built of better materials than those of his people, and differs from them only in being larger. Shendi stands about half a mile from the easterly bank of the river. Its immediate environs are sandy; it derives its importance solely from being the rendezvous of the caravans of Sennaar and the neighboring ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... attention to my mother and sisters while he was away. I am afraid they may feel themselves neglected. But the truth is, that my father hardly knows them. They had not been here a twelvemonth when he left England. If he knew them better, he would value their society as it deserves; for they are in fact exactly the sort of people he would like. We are sometimes a little in want of animation among ourselves: my sisters seem out of spirits, and Tom is certainly not at his ease. Dr. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... come, Miss Lesley. I don't want to tell you the dreadful news just now: you'd better hear it at home. Then you'll be glad you came. It's ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... figures. No such dream can abide the daylight for a moment. No such theory of Inspiration, (for a theory it is, and a most audacious one too!), is even intelligible. It is as illogical as it is worthless; and cannot be too sternly put down. The philosophical mind of Greece, (far better taught!), knew of only one word for both Reason and the expression of it. Lodged within the chambers of the brain, or put forth into living energy,—it was still, with them, the Logos.—I invite you, as the only intelligible ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... have found your way up at last," she exclaimed, throwing down her book with an air of disgust and weariness; "my head ached this afternoon, and so mamma thought I had better stay here quietly." ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... had," regretted Larry. "Confound my shyness! I don't see why anybody ever let you travel alone from San Francisco to New York anyway," he added. "Your Geoffrey ought to have taken better care of you." ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... the prison relative to the confinement of prisoners during the day, their sleeping at night, their taking their meals, and other matters of gaol economy, have been all altered-greatly for the better—since this sketch was first published. Even the construction of the prison itself ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... of the Castello and library at their disposal, but they had the best of company in the person of Messer Galeazzo di Sanseverino, who had been charged by his father-in-law, Signor Lodovico, to supply his place during the interval of his enforced absence. And certainly no better squire of dames could have been found than this courteous and brilliant cavalier. He took Isabella and Beatrice out riding in the park, and showed them some of the beauties of that wide domain, which in the French chronicler's eyes seemed more like the garden of Eden ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... "No one is better able to solve this difficult problem than you," said Lord Evandale. "We will carry this box full of secrets to our boat, where you will, at your leisure, decipher this historic document and read the riddle set by these hawks, scarabaei, kneeling figures, serrated ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... to create the basis for a new or revised constitution to govern the island and to better relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots have been held intermittently; in 1975 Turkish Cypriots created their own Constitution and governing bodies within the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus, which was renamed the Turkish Republic ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... got higher, served to shelter their heads, and to prevent the risk of a sunstroke. The awning, however, could only be kept up as long as it remained calm, when it was of course most required. Although some progress might have been made by rowing, Tom was unwilling to fatigue his crew, thinking it better to husband their strength for any emergency which might occur. At the usual hour Tom piped to breakfast, which was made to last as long as possible. Tom's great difficulty was to find occupation for all hands. Unfortunately they ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... suggesting that such evidence would be the better for a trusty witness.—Padre Vicente heard him, and puffed his cigarro, and half closed his eyes in his strange ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... not understand him, but the older I became the better did I feel that there was a sad secret germinating in the bottom of his soul, where it grew like a spreading tree, the branches of which crept up to the castle and covered the walls, little by little overshadowed the sunlight, absorbed the air, and darkened everyone's heart. I gritted my teeth ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... assured him. "You couldn't have come at a better time. Every one's away. Is there ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hung; and it would be too merciful to shoot you!" roared the colonel, his wrath getting the better of him. ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... Charles. "There is a better friend with you, who can yield support when earthly friends are far away, or too feeble to give comfort. I hope you ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... Ebenezer, "I think you will find Seventeen will do better after this. Don't blame the poor ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... romantic construction; but, although it had been perfectly authentic, it is almost incredible that a lady of delicacy should make such blazon of the affair, for the sake of securing a copyright to "Her Majesty's Publisher in Ordinary." We are sorry that Mrs. Dawson has not made a better debut in literature. As for Mr. Bentley, we can characterize his conduct in the matter only by the word—disgraceful. In the whole history of griping literary piracies (of which Americans must bear their share) we can recall no one which shows so bad a taste, and so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... no reply. Grace leaned forward. "Peggy is right," she said, softly. "It was a trick, Lobelia, and not meant for you at all. I—I never thought about you, I'm afraid. Do you feel better now? ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... it now exists. The Port Jackson shark, however,—a creature that to the dorsal spines and shagreen-covered skin of the common dog-fish adds a mouth terminal at the snout, not placed beneath, as in most other sharks, and a palate covered with a dense pavement of crushing teeth,—better illustrates the order as it first appeared in creation than ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... provided a short distance in front of the nozzle, preferably at a pocket formed by some fitting and the water running along the bottom of the main drawn off, weighed, and added to the moisture shown by the calorimeter; or, better, a steam separator should be installed at ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... Vince; and then, quite cheerily: "I say, this is better than wading, the same as we did in the ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... loves a woman who wants to keep open a loophole of escape from her. It would be well if women would always apply this test to the passionate protestations of men. Real love is love without reserve. True sexual intimacy in itself means taking each other for better or for worse, and when lovers unite themselves though still unwilling for such permanent unions, their love is not perfect. They are not really united by love. They are letting mere present desire carry ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... Goodwin, ashore for the evening, with the empty hours of his leisure weighing on him like a burden, heard that music rise about him, as he moved along the saloon-dotted sidewalk, with something of the mild surprise of a swimmer who passes out of a cold into a warm current. For lack of anything better to do, he had been upon the point of returning to his ship, where she lay in her dock. He had not spoken to a soul since he had come ashore at sundown, and the simple music was like a friendly prompting. He hesitated a moment for he was not a frequenter of missions ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... principles, we have done so with the full understanding that what we seek in the seventies, what our quest is, is not merely for more, but for better for a better quality of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Richard Nixon • Richard Nixon
... the King," he growled. "But if you come to grief through your carelessness, remember that I told you so. If I wore the magic belt which enables you to work all your transformations, and gives you so much other power, I am sure I would make a much wiser and better ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... but solid comfort of his bedroom, and on past the open door to take in appreciatively the equally comfortable and masculine living room.... Pretty nice! That leather-upholstered couch and armchair had been a real bargain, and he liked them all the better for being rather scuffed and shabby. Then his eyes halted upon a covered cage, swung ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... them has been tried, I know, and succeeds admirably. Dives and Lazarus do hobnob; and though the former occasionally tenders a silver coin for his entree, he does not feel that he is thereby entitled to a better seat. The committee gets the benefit of his liberality; and when the accounts are audited in the spring, Lazarus is immensely pleased at the figure his pence make. Then, again, as to the quality of the entertainment. Let us remember Lazarus ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... submission of Clement V. to his will, the apparent incredibility of the charges from their monstrousness, the just prejudice against confessions obtained by torture and retracted afterwards; the other prejudice, not always so just, but in the case of those not convicted on fair evidence deserving a better name, in favour of assertions of innocence made on the scaffold and at the stake, created, as they still preserve, a strong willingness to disbelieve the accusations which come so suspiciously before us.[61] An approximation to the truth may ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... his weak and broken state ready to soften, nay, to shed tears, at the thought of his mother; evincing feelings that might be of little service if he had recovered, but if he were crippled for life might be the beginning of better things. Harold had given him the Bible, and the stockings, and had left him alone with them. The Bible was as yet left untouched, as if he were afraid of it, but he had ever since been turning over and fondling the stockings, as though all the love that the poor mother had ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... light irony. "One regrets one is at present unable to offer better social standing. To-morrow, it may be ... But ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... can adopt of altering the intensity of the comparison light is by means of rotating sectors, which can be opened or closed at will, and the two shadows thus made equally luminous. [Shown.] But although this is an excellent plan for some purposes, we have found it better to adopt a different method. You will recollect that the brightest part of the spectrum is in the yellow, and that it falls off in brightness on each side, so instead of opening and closing the sectors, they are set at fixed intervals, and the slit is moved in front of the spectrum, just making ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... I conceal my flame, Hiding from Flavia's self her name, Lest she, provoking Heaven, should prove How it rewards neglected love. Better a thousand such as I, Their grief untold, should pine and die; Than her bright morning, overcast With sullen clouds, should ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... dedicate this wondrous frame, So lofty, lest through your forbidden gates It pass, and intercept our better fates; For, once admitted there, our hopes are lost; And Troy may then a new Palladium boast For so religion and the gods ordain, That, if you violate with hands profane Minerva's gift, your town in flames shall burn; (Which omen, O ye gods, on Græcia turn!) But if ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... its grace of glow, And the lark its radiant glee; But, better than all, I know, I know God gave you, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... worst, is still better than a concert merely for the ear, or a pantomime entertainment for the eye. Supposing the articulation to be wholly unintelligible, we have an excellent union of melody and harmony, vocal as well as instrumental, for the ear. And, according to ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... world that was fit for the utterances and the delectation of scholars, and that language, of course, was the language which he wrote so well—the Latin of old-time Rome. If a man must take the love-sickness, so Messer Brunetto argued, and must needs express the perfidious folly in words, what better vehicle could he have for his salacious fancy than the forms and modes and moods which contented the amorous Ovidius, and the sprightly Tibullus, and the hot-headed, hot-hearted Catullus, and the tuneful Petronius, and so ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... ask this great assembly to listen to me in silence. I have come to make an appeal to your hearts and to your reason and I could not do so unless you were prepared to listen to whatever I have to say in absolute silence. I wish to offer my tribute to the departed patriot and I think that I cannot do better than say that his death, as his life, has poured new vigour into the country. If you were present as I was present at that great funeral procession, you would realise with me the meaning of my words. Mr. Tilak lived for ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... lamely enough, to speak to you. You may judge this service by rules of rhetoric, or anything else you like. But you have not got to the bottom of things unless you feel, as I am praying that every one of you may feel, that even with all my imperfections on my head—and I know them better than you can tell me them—I, like all true men who are repeating God's message as they have caught it, neither more nor less, and have sunk themselves in it, may venture to say, as the Apostle said: 'Now, then, we are ambassadors for God, as though God did beseech by us, we pray in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Editorially, the Tocsin leaned to the facetious: "Mr. Louden has but recently 'returned to our midst.' We fervently hope that the distinguished Happy Fear will appreciate his patron's superb generosity. We say 'his patron,' but perhaps we err in this. Were it not better to figure Mr. Louden as the lady in distress, Mr. Fear as the champion in the lists? In the present case, however, contrary to the rules of romance, the champion falls in duress and passes to the dungeon. We merely ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... things might not always continue, and that the day would come when China might be exposed to a grave peril from this side. The successors of Alompra inherited his pretensions if not his ability, and when the Chinese called upon them to keep the borders in better order or to punish some evildoers, they sent back a haughty and unsatisfactory reply. Sembuen, the grandson of Alompra, was king when Keen Lung ordered, in the year 1768, his generals to invade Burmah, and the conduct of the war was intrusted to an officer ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... letter to her from me?" said Vivian. "If you think I had better not attempt to see her yet, you will ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... "So, partly from sentimental reasons, and partly because there was no one better, I've left the property at Rudham to you," he went on with a smile. "There would have been plenty of money to have left with it; but I've made some very bad speculations lately, and lost a great deal. I took to speculation ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... chooses, as he chooses. His light canvas haversack is much like the English one, and his round, rather flat water flask is covered with canvas. It is made of tin, and the one I inspected was rusty inside. It would be better if of aluminum. In the haversack is a pannikin with a hinged handle that may be used as a saucepan. Over this fits a tin plate, and when the two are covering one another the handle of the pannikin fits over both by way of handle. It is an excellent arrangement, but should be of aluminum instead ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... black-haired, she had given promise of beauty to come. Left to her own devices she had acquired accomplishments most unusual in that day and by no means feminine. She could ride, shoot, swim, run, fence, much better than she could dance the old courtly minuet, or the new and popular waltz, just beginning to make its appearance. A love of reading and an ancient library in which she had a free range had initiated her into many things which the ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... and this nature may linger in memory: but matter does not express the nature of Spirit, and matter's graven [25] grins are neither eliminated nor retained by Spirit. What can illustrate Dr. ——'s views better than Pat's echo, when he said "How do you do?" and echo answered, "Pretty ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... in such a lonely place. He told his tale, and inquired about boats; there were no boats, and no lodging nearer than Callander, ten miles beyond the foot of the lake. A laugh was on every face when William said we were come to see the Trossachs; no doubt they thought we had better have stayed at our own homes. William endeavoured to make it appear not so very foolish, by informing them that it was a place much celebrated in England, though perhaps little thought of by them, and that we only differed from many of our countrymen in having ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... an evening, he was secure in his room, the blind drawn down and the gas flaring, he made vigorous efforts toward sanity. It was not of his free will that he allowed terror to overmaster him, and he desired nothing better than a placid and harmless life, full of work and clear thinking. He knew that he deluded himself with imagination, that he had been walking through London suburbs and not through Pandemonium, and that ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... "Well, you had better sit down here with us and read your Sunday-school book," said his mother. She and Miss Elvira had agreed that it was wiser that Willy should not be too much with the Dickey boy ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... of leering curs, that rather snarle than bite, whereof I coulde instance in one, who lighting upon a good sonnet of a gentlemans, a friend of mine, that loved better to be a Poet, then to be counted so, called the author a rymer, notwithstanding he had more skill in good Poetrie, then my slie gentleman seemed to have in good manners or humanitie. But my quarrell is to a tooth-lesse ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... he had done. Then he came readily to action; picked her up bodily—a tender, listless weight. In the bend of his arms, he carried her into the other room. An uncushioned settle, no springs, the seat of plain wood, was where he laid her, propping her head, because he knew no better, with a pillow which he brought from the inner room. The sounds from the yard at the back still reached his ears. He strode through to the window and closed it; brought back with him a glass of water, and stood beside the settle, looking down at the slowly disappearing ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... towards the Monti when the moon is high, a far-off voice rings through the quiet air—one of those voices which hardly ever find their way to the theatre nowadays, and which, perhaps, would not satisfy the nervous taste of our Wagnerian times. Perhaps it sounds better in the moonlight, in those lonely, echoing streets, than it would on the stage. At all events, it is beautiful as one hears it, clear, strong, natural, ringing. It belongs to the place and hour, as the humming of honey bees to a field of flowers at noon, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... robbing got into our neighborhood and old Master told me I better not have my old horse at the house, 'cause if I had him they would know nobody had been there stealing and it wouldn't do no good to hide anything 'cause they would tear up the place hunting what I had and maybe ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... The fool! He's in a furious mood—and let him rave— He'll never win his way with Isabelle. My chances there are better, but not good. Young Bolton's in my way. He loves her well; And she, I fear, loves him. But then his father Is proud as Lucifer, and selfish too. Ambition makes the generous nature selfish. He'll ne'er consent his only son should wed The portionless daughter of a pedagogue. ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... house there. But," he added, reverting to his stronger position, "my going back there was an accident, and my picking up the outcrop was an accident, and had no more to do with our partnership prospecting than you had. In fact," he said, with a reassuring laugh, "you'd have had a better right to share in my claim, coming there as you did at that moment, than they. Why, if I'd have known what the thing was worth, I might have put you in—only it wanted capital and some experience." He was glad that he had pitched upon that excuse (it had only just occurred ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... the rapid disappearance of many of the old hunting grounds, all betokened a sad destiny for the red man. Naturally superstitious, he was prepared for the advent of some divine agency to help him in his distress. No one understood this better than the Prophet. He may have been the dupe of his own imposture, but impostors are generally formidable. He was no longer Laulewasikaw, but Tenskwatawa, "The Open Door." "He affected great sanctity; did not engage in the secular duties of war or hunting; was seldom in public; devoted most of his ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... popular with the ladies. I reckon McDonald ain't objectin' none to his chasin' after Miss Molly; thet's why he 's let her stay in this God-forsaken place so long. Well, 'Brick,' I reckon I 've told all the news, and hed better move 'long." ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... agonies of remorse, and that he had no love to give to her in return for a love which was ready to do and dare all for him. Yet bravely she addressed herself to the task of soothing and pleasing and calming the man whom she had taken 'for better or ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Legitimacy's crutch, A prop not quite so certain as before: The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch, Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore; And Waterloo has made the world your debtor (I wish your bards would sing it rather better). ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... accident, struck up the anthem of "John Brown's soul goes marching on;" the men caught up the strain, and never before or since have I heard the chorus of "Glory, glory, hallelujah!" done with more spirit, or in better ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... practice of the primitive professors of Christianity. As to the prosperity or extent of the dominion of their church, which Cardinal Bellarmin counts among the proofs of its orthodoxy, the Mahometans, who have larger empires, and have made a quicker progress, have a better plea for the visible protection of Heaven. If the fopperies of their religion were only fopperies, they ought to be complied with, wherever it is established, like any ridiculous dress in fashion; but I think them impieties: their devotions are scandal to humanity from ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Baltazar Gerard, a Burgundian, undertook and executed the same design against the prince of Orange; and that great man perished at Delft, by the hands of a desperate assassin, who, with a resolution worthy of a better cause, sacrificed his own life, in order to destroy the famous restorer and protector of religious liberty. The Flemings, who regarded that prince as their father, were filled with great sorrow, as well when they considered the miserable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... of movement, any jerk or chaotic action, is an exercise. They think that the more effort put forth, the better. Thus some teachers of voice contend that, to be an exercise, there must be muscular effort in producing tone. On the contrary, many movements are injurious; unnecessary effort will defeat some of ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... himself, when he was no longer "moved by childish notions, but by lofty ideas full of truth." "It was Pushkin," he writes, "who made me look at the thing seriously. I saw that in my writings I laughed vainly, for nothing, myself not knowing why. If I was to laugh, then I had better laugh over things that are really to be laughed at. In the Inspector-General I resolved to gather together all the bad in Russia I then knew into one heap, all the injustice that was practised in those places and in those human relations in which more than ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... he will be here to-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes, you had better let him look at ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the sublime, of the rhapsodical, metaphorical, allegorical genius, Hugh Trevor: for in that case I suspect Hugh Trevor would find a more pleasant and profitable employment than the honourable trade of authorship. I have read books much, but men more, and think I can bring my wit to a better market than the slow and tedious detail of an ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Bianca"; jeers and laughter followed her to her unmarked grave in the Church of San Lorenzo. But through the ages her picture has come down to us as she strutted on the world's stage in all her pride and beauty, with a vividness which few better women ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... us not think that these are mere empty words wherewith they console themselves, words that in vain seek to hide the wound that bleeds but the more for the effort. But if it were so, if empty words could console, that surely were better than to be bereft of all consolation. And further, if we have to admit that all this is illusion, must we not, in mere justice, also admit that illusion is the solitary thing that the soul can possess; and in the name of what ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... "Gives me a better identification. If I can get into the story, it's easier to draw the reader in." He forced a casual smile. "I'll change that name later, ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... up on the border—figured he'd circulate to both sections," Izzy said. "We'd better get out a block up and walk. And I hope ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... one of whose earliest acts was to send Sir Henry Wotton to Venice as his ambassador. The appointment of Sir Henry Wotton was a movement of gratitude on the part of the King; and the cause of it cannot be better told than in the words of Sir Henry's biographer, who ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... better—and you oughtn't to have lent them a cent. Yesterday old Wilmot was hawking two of his grandfather's watches about. And all the Wilmots have got brains, just as our family has. Nothing wrong with either of us, but that stream ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... ever Of the Better Land; Waiting for the promised glory, That shall bind their temples hoary With a brightness fading never On that holy strand, Crowning life's devout Endeavour With a ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... duties which are in truth loves—and loves are joys—whether breathed in silence, or uttered in words, or embodied in actions; and if they filled all life, then all life would be good—and heaven would be no more than a better earth. And how may all men go to heaven? By making themselves a heaven on earth, and thus preparing their spirits to breathe empyreal air when they have dropped the dust. And how may they make for themselves ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... right conclusion, I am sure, for I decided to go and face the danger, if there was any; for I said to myself, "Better to see it coming ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... better clothed now than formerly. Corduroy trousers and slops are the usual style. Smock-frocks are going out of use, except for milkers and faggers. Almost every labourer has his Sunday suit, very often really good clothes, sometimes glossy black, with the regulation "chimneypot." His unfortunate ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... old cries are again heard, and the executive authorities are implored and adjured to forbid export, to fix fair prices, and to clip the profits of the corn merchant. During the Bengal famine of 1873-4, the demand for the prohibition of the export of rice was urged by men who should have known better, and Lord Northbrook is entitled to no small credit for having firmly withstood the clamour. The more recent experiences of the Russian Government should be remembered when the clamour is again raised, as ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... ledger. "You dawdling fellows," he went on, addressing three journeymen, who had long finished their suppers, "why don't you go to bed? It is eight o'clock, and you have to be up at five; besides, you must carry home to-night President de Thou's cap and mantle. All three of you had better go, and take your sticks and rapiers; and then, if you meet scamps like yourselves, at least ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... with my gown? Don't you like it?" demanded Jane, twisting her head sideways for a better view of the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... equal Athene? old mother," she said. "In good sooth thy dwelling must be with the goat-herds in the far-off hills and thou art not a dweller in our city. Else hadst thou not spoken to Arachne of equalling the work of Athene; excelling were the better word." ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... is no better way of arriving at a just estimate of the present state of general musical culture in this country than by looking at what may be called the creative department, and examining the vocal and instrumental sheet-music of native composers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the Doctor. "You'll find a better one when you get away from this. Older men than you, Dan, have fought this thing all their lives. Don't think that you can settle it in a couple of days thinking. Take time to fish a little; it'll help a lot. There's nothing like a running stream to clear one's mind and set one's ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... forbad the presidents from deferring their judgment or from retarding the regular course of justice. Charles VI., before he became insane, contributed no less than his father to the establishment on a better footing of the supreme court of the kingdom, as well as that of the Chatelet ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... sure, Strong in the faith entire and pure Thou dost profess, Depart, thy hope is certainty, The third, the better life on high ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... of disciples who had a common mode of life Gotama created nothing new. He merely did with conspicuous success what every contemporary teacher was doing. The confraternity which he founded differed from others chiefly in being broader and more human, less prone to extravagances and better organized. As we read the accounts in the Pitakas, its growth seems so simple and spontaneous that no explanation is necessary. Disciples gather round the master and as their numbers increase he makes a few salutary regulations. It is almost with surprise that we find the result to be an ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... with this ability to move people's minds that the Southern Conspiracy were right to hate this man. He, better than any at the time was able to uncover their stratagems and tear down their sophisms ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... ancestor had bequeathed him short hair, had bristles all over his face just like his master. They were a couple of cynics, but they believed in one another, and loved one another with an affection that was quite edifying. The dog wished for nothing better than to lie hour after hour near his master, hoping always, however, for an occasional fight to keep him in health and spirits. The cobbler did nothing to make himself liked by the inhabitants, but he could afford to work more cheaply than others who were 'established,' and who had a ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... haste he could think of nothing better than an old onion-loft, some sixty paces up the lane at the back. It was a store merely, not connected with any house, but owned by a rich merchant of the city who had acquired it for some debt and straightway forgotten all about it—at least, so Messer' Fazio declared. If we were discovered in hiding ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... humanities, general literature, and the story of the rise and progress of democracy and free institutions. Not a man of genius, Charles Sumner was gifted with talent of a very high order. He had, what is perhaps better than genius, a capacity for sustained labour and prodigious industry. He did nothing by halves. In his chosen realm he became a master of the details of every movement related to free institutions, since the days of the republics of Greece and Switzerland, Holland ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... China to-day are very much the same as were those of India when railways were introduced. The only difference is that the Chinese people are better off per man, and that the Chinese and Indo-Chinese, unlike the natives of India, are born travelers and traders. Yet, even in India, contrary to expectation, the passenger traffic on the railways has, from the first, exceeded ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... upon the shoulder, the muzzles of the nearest weapons always pointing at me. It was no use remonstrating, as they might perhaps have misunderstood it as fear. So all I could do was to trust in Providence. I could not have done better, for Providence indeed watched over me and protected me on that expedition in a most merciful way—for which I am truly grateful. On several occasions—as was to be expected from the careless way in which the weapons were ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Every inch of the apartment was searched, the floors torn up, the walls dismantled, but the Crimson Diamond had vanished. Chief of Police Conlon detailed four of his best men on the case, and, as I had nothing better to do, I enrolled myself as a volunteer. I also offered $25,000 reward for the recovery of the gem. ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... of every one of my movements since I left Mafeking, and even of my rides during the last fortnight. He also told me General Cronje and a great number of Boers had left Mafeking and trekked South. This encouraged me in my belief that it would be better for me to be in that beleaguered town than to submit to the possible insults ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Your father is my brother, and I take the liberty with my brother, if you like that better—not ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does ...
— The Republic • Plato
... said Tom Gray, consulting his watch. "I don't believe we'd better go on through the wood. We'll have to about face if we expect to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... and rivers, the beavers make no dams; they have water enough without putting themselves to that trouble; but in small creeks they dam up, and make a better stop-water than is done by the millers. The spot where they build their dams is the most labour-saving place in the valley, and where the work will stand best. When the dam is finished, not a drop of water escapes; their ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... improvements. This is a very desirable kind of artist to know at home; but, after all, it is not easy to distinguish him from a highly-cultivated and successful merchant prince, with a taste for bric-a-brac. He is not in the least like the painter of romance; perhaps he is better—he is certainly more fortunate; but he is not the real old thing, the Bohemian of Ouida and Miss Braddon. One might as well expect a ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... shall send for you; this place is not fit for you, for you would die of cold and hunger. When the good man had said this, Doa Sol turned to Doa Elvira and said, Sister, the good man saith well, and it is better that we should go with him than remain and die here, for so shall we see the vengeance which I trust in God our father will give us. So they gave thanks to God, and to that man. And he set them upon his beasts, and led them to the village, when it was now night; and they entered ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... Episodes were added, in which, on a slender suggestion, Benoit set his own inventive faculty to work, and among these by far the most interesting and admirable is the story of Troilus and Briseida, known better to us by her later name of Cressida. Through Boccaccio's Il Filostrato this tale reached our English Chaucer, and through Chaucer it gave rise to the strange, half-heroic, half-satirical play ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... "It would have been better to send these sixty thousand men directly into the field, instead of losing time by useless ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... reproof to Hannah because she had had no children, and thus did every year, and provoked her to wrath, but she wept for sorrow and ate no meat. To whom Elkanah her husband said: Hannah, why weepest thou? and wherefore eatest thou not? Why is thine heart put to affliction? Am I not better to thee than ten sons? Then Hannah arose after she had eaten and drunk in Shilo and went to pray unto our Lord, making to him a vow if that she might have a son she should offer him to our Lord. ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... because of their great reputation, they certainly did not deserve to be mutilated by the Huguenots in 1562; and in 1793 when a barrelmaker's child was slashing the heads of the statues with an axe, the crowd could think of no better comment than "Celui-la sera un fameux patriote!" Of the facade they were intended to adorn, which was probably the work of Ambroise Harel, I have already spoken in describing the exactly reverse plan of the original west front of St. Ouen. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... morning that Sackville Street has been burned out and levelled to the ground. It is said that the end is in sight; and, it is said, that matters are, if anything rather worse than better. That the Volunteers have sallied from some of their strongholds and entrenched themselves, and that in one place alone (the South Lotts) they have seven machine guns. That when the houses which they ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... witness, Who have within my veins kindled this fire, The gods, who take a barbarous delight In leading a poor mortal's heart astray. Do you yourself recall to mind the past: 'Twas not enough for me to fly, I chased you Out of the country, wishing to appear Inhuman, odious; to resist you better, I sought to make you hate me. All in vain! Hating me more I loved you none the less: New charms were lent to you by your misfortunes. I have been drown'd in tears, and scorch'd by fire; Your own eyes might convince you of the truth, If for one moment you could look ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... "We had better get towards the Council House," he cried. "That is where they will swarm. Even now the ruins ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... anger utterly, is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time. We will first speak how the natural inclination and habit to be angry, may be attempted and calmed. Secondly, how ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... easy to hope, in Lattimore, then. It was not many days after our talk in the park before I noticed a change for the better in Giddings, even. Just before Jim's house-warming, he came to me with something like optimism in his appearance. I started to cheer him up, ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... be from every point of view a better house when my alterations are carried into effect. And as for my becoming a monk, that is in the main an idea of my mother's. Monastic life, I admit, presents great attractions for me, but that does not mean that I shall become a monk. ...
— Celibates • George Moore |
