"Better" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... left it there a fortnight before, the last time she had played for me. I am very fond of Chopin. I am an uneducated fellow and the lyrical mostly appeals to me both in poetry and in music. Besides, I have understood him better since I have been a crock. And I loved Betty's sympathetic interpretation. So I sat there, listening and watching, and I knew that she was playing for the ease of both our souls. Once more I thanked God for the great gift of Betty to my crippled ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... rowers singing to the stroke of their oars, sometimes accompanied by musical instruments. These rude vessels seem not to have been the only ones the Britons possessed, but were employed solely for the purpose of sailing to the opposite coasts of Gaul and of Ireland. They were, indeed, better able to withstand the violence of the winds and waves than might be supposed from the materials of which they were built. Pliny expressly states that they made voyages of six days in them; and in the life of St Columba, (in whose time they were still used, the sixth century,) ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... vigesimal system is to be found with greater frequency than in Europe or Africa, but it is still the exception. As Asiatic languages are much better known than African, it is probable that the future will add but little to our stock of knowledge on this point. New instances of counting by twenties may still be found in northern Siberia, where much ethnological work yet remains to be done, and where a tendency toward this form of numeration ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... reserve between workers on the land, be they large farmers, small farmers, or plotholders is the result of combining husbandry with the habits and qualities of the salesman. If a man's business is to get the better of his neighbours on market days, it will be his pleasure to doubt them ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... more the better. A jolly old sportsman. My word, what a brain! Talk of master criminals, ... and to think that I once thought the Assembly scarcely worth coming for. Live and learn. I shall never miss another." He called to ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... with an expression of blank terror. "But why should Grandmother be told? Think of the consequences. Would it not be better to ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... was not a person of delicate instinct. The repudiation which he had twice suffered by the better element of the Republican Party, seemed only to redouble his determination to be its candidate. He had much personal magnetism. Both in his methods and ideals, he represented perfectly the politicians ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... talk to the common people began to savor of patronage, and this also enhanced his reputation. It is much better, as a rule, to call attention up to you rather than charity down to you. The shrewd impostor became also more absolute now. It was known that the Grand Duke had once asked him to dine, and that Monsignore had the hardihood to refuse. Indeed, he sympathized too greatly with ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... peculiar chirp, not very fierce, but bantering and confident. They quickly come to blows, but it is a very fantastic battle, and, as it would seem, indulged in more to satisfy their sense of honor than to hurt each other, for neither party gets the better of the other, and they separate a few paces and sing, and squeak, and challenge each other in a very happy frame of mind. The gauntlet is no sooner thrown down than it is again taken up by one or the other, and in the course ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... set foot on its soil, was in a helpless state of decadence, having become little better than a dependency of France. If ever it needed a strong ruler then was the time, but Charles XIII. was incapable as a monarch, and from the time of his landing the new crown prince ruled the country as though there were no ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... at him, and I could see she was making an impression. Of course she was free. She had a perfect right to marry again, but I will say this: Bella is a lot better looking by electric light than she is the ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... would prevent your marriage to Miss Sloane and keep you from access to an immense amount of money which you needed—who's going to believe you didn't kill her, didn't strike her down, there in the night, according to a premeditated plan, with a dagger which, for better protection of yourself, you had manufactured in a way which you hoped would make ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... wood. The former gates of St. Peter's at Rome were made of cypress in the time of Constantine. When they were removed and brass ones substituted by Pope Eugenius IV. they were still sound, though it was 1100 years since they were first placed in position. Brass itself could hardly have lasted better. ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... from that time till now, would not interest the public, but are extremely interesting to me. The book brought me many friends. One story, at any rate, elicited the gracious laughter of Queen Victoria. A pauper who had known better days wrote to thank me for enlivening the monotony of a workhouse infirmary. Literary clerks plied me with questions about the sources of my quotations. A Scotch doctor demurred to the prayer—"Water that spark"—on the ground that the ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... Since, according to the Philosopher (Peri Herm. i), "words are the signs of what we understand," it must needs be that in naming things we follow the process of intellectual knowledge. Now our intellectual knowledge proceeds from the better known to the less known. Accordingly with us, names of more obvious things are transferred so as to signify things less obvious: and hence it is that, as stated in Metaph. x, 4, "the notion of distance has been transferred from things that are apart locally, to all kinds of opposition": ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... acted as shepherds, or cattle-drovers, probably received better wages than the native Babylonians. They were less numerous and were in more request; moreover, it was necessary that they should be trustworthy. The herds and flocks were left in their charge for weeks together, on the west bank of the Euphrates, out of sight of the ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... released from arrest by the Earl of Warwick's intercession], and that "before the close of the month, he sailed with cattle for Virginia," as previously noted. Dr. Neill, than whom there can be no better authority, was himself satisfied, and unequivocally states, that "Thomas Jones, Captain of the MAY-FLOWER, was without doubt the old servant of Lord Warwick in the East Indies." Having done Sir Robert Rich's (the Earl of Warwick's) "dirty work" for years, ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... and although Gryphus, to do him justice, stoutly enough refused to open it, yet evidently it could not resist much longer, and the jailer, growing very pale, put to himself the question whether it would not be better to open the door than to allow it to be forced, when he felt some one gently ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... without grasping the meaning of a word of it. He realised slowly that it was incumbent upon him to go over to her, but he postponed his departure very readily in order to play hockey. Besides which it would be a full moon, and he felt that summer moonlight was far better than sunset and dinner time for the declarations he was expected to make. And then he went on phrase-making again about Germany until he had ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... at the proper hours, all through the fine season, to question them, to watch them at work, now this one, anon that, according to the chances of the day. What I did not see very plainly yesterday I can see the next day, under better conditions, and on any of the following days, until the phenomenon under observation is revealed ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... see no tears. As for that cheerfulness, that reconciliation to his fate which she desired, he knew it to be impossible. He almost brought himself to believe as he travelled down to Pegwell Bay that it would be better that they should not meet. To thank the Lord for all His mercies was in her mind. To complain with all the bitterness of his heart of the cruelty with which he was treated was in his. He had told ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... "We'd better take an early start," remarked Tom. "We haven't got on very far, because we started so late this morning. If we get off by six every morning, we can lie off in the middle of the day, and start again about three o'clock. It's no fun rowing with ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... It may be guessed by the suspicious that at first the intention was that Lord Falconbridge should seem to be visiting France for his own curiosity or pleasure, the Protector only taking advantage of his whim, and that letters 1 and 2 were then drafted, but that afterwards it was thought better to send Lord Falconbridge on an avowed embassy of congratulation in Cromwell's own name, and letters 3 and 4 were then substituted. Perhaps, however, there was no duplicity in the affair at all, and the idea of the embassy did actually originate in a whim of Lord Falconbridge. Anyhow all ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... the manner of one to whom the fact was somehow of the most immediate and lively practical interest, "and to consider a thousand is better." Then, after a pause, "Yes," he said, "I know she could not like that move, but you remember our talk of ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... and give it him. They will all be sitting in the drawing-room, and he with Olympia on the sofa. That damned Olympia! She laughed at my looks on one occasion and refused me. I'll pull Olympia's hair, pull Zverkov's ears! No, better one ear, and pull him by it round the room. Maybe they will all begin beating me and will kick me out. That's most likely, indeed. No matter! Anyway, I shall first slap him; the initiative will be mine; and by the laws of honour that ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... a bit like his royal master's roar), and making for the cheese, fell into a steel trap, which snapped off his tail; without which he was obliged to go into the world, pretending, forsooth, that it was the fashion not to wear tails any more; and that the fox-party were better without 'em. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... well-arranged oration. For some people think that it is the iambic rhythm, because that is the most like a speech, on which account it happens that it is most frequently employed in fables, because of its resemblance to reality—because the dactylic hexameter rhythm is better suited to a lofty and magniloquent subject But Ephorus himself, an inconsiderable orator, though coming from an excellent school, inclines to the paeon, or dactyl, but avoids the spondee and trochee. For because the paeon has three short ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... Amelie! I believe you would have done better to have kept him! Do you remember, I was the first to say "Forgive him?" Do you remember that? You would be married now and have a home. Remember that Christmas when you went out to visit your fiance's parents in the country? How you gloried in the happiness ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... thoughts were far from pleasant. Foremost among them figured a crushing sense of shame. She had wickedly misjudged a man who had given her many proofs of the fineness of his character; the evil she had imputed to him was born of her own perverted imagination. She was no better than the narrow-minded, conventional Pharisees she detested, who were swift to condemn out of the uncleanness of their self-righteous hearts. Then, as she began to reason, it flashed upon her that she was, perhaps, wronging herself. Her mind had been ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... That's Christian of Balla-Christian. The man snubbed me six months ago. He'll know better six months to come. . . . That's Eyreton. His missus was too big to call on your mother—she'll call on you, though, you go bail. See yonder big tower in the trees? That's Folksdale, where the Farragans live. The daughters have been walking over the world like peacocks, but they'll crawl ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... scattered at long intervals along a road the better way to arrive at an estimate of the quantity of storm water which may be expected is to ascertain the average impervious area of, or appertaining to, each house, and divide it by five, so as to get the area per head. Then the flow off from any section of road is directly ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... boys and girls had to go out and face the world. They had somehow all got on very well, and his brothers and sisters were happy enough out there, Australians in mind, thoroughly persuaded that theirs was the better land, the best country in the world, and with no desire to visit England. He had never felt like that; somehow his father's feeling about the old country had taken such a hold of him that he never outlived it—never felt at home in Australia, however ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... say: "'In' the holy Catholic Church," this must be taken as verified in so far as our faith is directed to the Holy Ghost, Who sanctifies the Church; so that the sense is: "I believe in the Holy Ghost sanctifying the Church." But it is better and more in keeping with the common use, to omit the 'in,' and say simply, "the holy Catholic Church," as Pope Leo [*Rufinus, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... musquittoes were also buzzing round and biting every thing. The breakfast was no sooner laid on the table than it was blackened with flies. The beds were hiving, and intolerable. No. 4, the halfway-house, was rather better. It is the largest of them all, and has a long row of bedrooms, and two public saloons. It has a large courtyard, in which were turkeys, geese, sheep, and goats, for the use of travellers. The Arab coachman ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... represented generations of hardy, simple folk, their energy of late recruited in the large air of Canada. Why, had he gone forth deliberately to seek the kind of wife best suited to him, he could not have done better than chance had done for him in his indolent shirking existence. If he had children, they might be robust and comely. In May's immediate connections, there was nothing to cause embarrassment; as to her breeding it would compare more than favourably with that of many high-born young ladies whom Society ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... my dear, you had better untie it before we get home. We will lunch at the Station Hotel, and you can comb it out there. It will give the mater a shock if she sees you looking so changed. She would ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... brother vas one shump, vas he?" he yelled. "Your brother vas a long sight better man zan you, mine frient. He go fight for la France. You stay here. Get out!" And he put me out, and saved ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... Highway 30S when Mrs. Newhouse noticed a group of objects in the sky. She pointed them out to her husband; he looked, pulled over to the side of the road, stopped the car, and jumped out to get a better look. He didn't have to look very long to realize that something highly unusual was taking place because in his twenty-one years in the Navy and 2,000 hours' flying time as an aerial photographer, he'd never seen anything like this. ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... know, all horses are alike to me unless there is some violent distinction in their colour. This horse I bought from —, to whom Mr. FitzGerald kindly gave me a letter of introduction. I thought I could not do better than buy from a person of known character, seeing that my own ignorance is so very great upon the subject. I had to give 55 pounds, but, as horses are going, that does not seem much out of the way. He is a good river-horse, and very strong. ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... of comparative embryology grew rapidly during the nineteenth century as the field of comparative anatomy became better known, and when naturalists became interested in animals, not only as specific types, but also as the finished products of an intricate series of transformations. When life-histories were more closely compared, the meaning of the resemblances between early stages of diverse adult organisms was ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... Government. Another theory and another practice were now to prevail; for it had been demonstrated to the thoughtful statesmen who then controlled the Government, that every thing which may be done by either Nation or State may be better and more securely done by the Nation. The change of view was important and led ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... resisting Mr. Phipps, shews the decision of his character. When he saw Mr. Phipps present his gun, he said he knew it was impossible for him to escape as the woods were full of men; he therefore thought it was better to surrender, and trust to fortune for his escape. He is a complete fanatic, or plays his part most admirably. On other subjects he possesses an uncommon share of intelligence, with a mind capable of attaining any thing; but warped and perverted by the influence of early impressions. ...
— The Confessions Of Nat Turner • Nat Turner
... with "bright longitudinal lines of various tints." (31. 'Indian Cyprinidae,' by Mr. M'Clelland, 'Asiatic Researches,' vol. xix. part ii. 1839, p. 230.) Mr. M'Clelland, in describing these fishes, goes so far as to suppose that "the peculiar brilliancy of their colours" serves as "a better mark for king-fishers, terns, and other birds which are destined to keep the number of these fishes in check"; but at the present day few naturalists will admit that any animal has been made conspicuous ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... looking ower his castle wa', Beheld his daughter's sorrow; "O haud yer tongue, daughter," he says, "And let be a' your sorrow; I'll wed you wi' a better lord, Than he that died ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... boundary, and Shoal Haven river its southern. The range that surrounds this district on the north and west is a branch of the Blue Mountains; and the only road at present known to it, is down a pass so remarkably steep, that unless a better be discovered, the communication between it and the capital by land, will always be difficult and dangerous for waggons. This circumstance is a material counterpoise to its extraordinary fertility, and is the reason ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... depressed this evening. For a very little I could break down altogether and give way to tears. You can't imagine what horrid thoughts possess me. If I felt your love close to me, I should be less sad." Against his better inclination Georges promised to take the widow to the ball on the 13th. He was to come to Paris on the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... assessment: service has improved recently with increased use of digital switching equipment, but better access to the telephone system is needed in the rural areas and easier access to pay telephones is needed by the urban public domestic: microwave radio relay transmission and coaxial and fiber-optic ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... our negligence by the existence of that confusion. It is no uncommon thing, I say, for men to say, "that in religious matters God has willed that men should differ," and to support their opinion by no better argument than the fact that they do differ; and they go on to conclude that therefore we need not perplex ourselves about matters of faith, about which, after all, we cannot be certain. Others, again, in a similar spirit, argue that forms ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... Principle of Gender, which operates in the direction of attracting the Masculine to the Feminine energies, and vice versa? We cannot offer you scientific proof of this at this time-but examine the phenomena in the light of the Hermetic Teachings on the subject, and see if you have not a better working hypothesis than any offered by physical science. Submit all physical phenomena to the test, and you will discern the Principle ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... very likely to find yourself there, unless you answer my questions better. Tell me at once where ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... from him? Ten hours have I been sewing to-day, Alb, and ten it will be to-morrow. Truth, dear, upon my soul. What's father care so long as the kettle boils and he can read the papers? And you're no better—you'd take me away if you were—right away from here to the gardens where he couldn't find me, and no one but you would ever find me any more. That's what you'd do if you were as I want you to be. But you ain't, Alb—you'll never care for any ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... not, Sandy, and none know it better than we; and I long for a grip of your hand, lad, and to feel the winds blow through the rowans at Stair and the copper birches of Arran; to hear the blackbirds whistle across the gowan-tops; to see the busy burn-folk through the break in the old south wall; and ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... have scalded the eldest boy with a skilletful of hot water in which she had soaked bacon, pouring it out of the window on his head. But she probably did as well as she knew how, and Mallston did much better. The photographer watched him go back a dozen times to straighten the baby's sturdy legs, tap it under the chin with his colossal fore finger, cluck in the laughing red cavern of his mouth and change the folds of its quilted cloak with quite a professional ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the Dark Ages. There has hardly been a single year, when he has not stirred up strife among the nations. Sometimes, as in France less than fifty years ago, he has been seized with fits of frenzy, and murdered thousands of innocent people at noonday. He pretends, indeed, that he has grown wiser and better now. Trust him who will; for my part, I rejoice that Time shall not live forever. He hath an appointed office to perform. Let him do his task, and die. Fresh and young as he would make himself appear, he is already hoary with age; and the very garments that he wears about the ...
— Time's Portraiture - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... equilibrium is in itself a good or desirable thing may be open to argument. I have discussed it at length in my "War and the World's Life"; but I venture to suggest that to no one would a renewal of the era of warfare be a change for the better, as far as existing humanity is concerned. Meanwhile, however, with every year that elapses the forces at present in equilibrium are changing in magnitude—the pressure of populations which have to be fed is rising, and an explosion along the line ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... cigars, nor even his suggestions towards a corporation, would stand in the way of a whole-hearted acceptance of a companion for life who had somehow managed to be such a pleasant companion during that visit at the Towers. At least, she would be better off than her four sisters. For this lady had a wholesome aversion for her brothers-in-law, tending to support the creed which teaches that the sacrament of marriage makes of its votaries, or victims, not only parties to a contract, but one flesh, and opens up undreamed-of possibilities of real ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... power to regulate local political activities as such of State officials, it does have power to fix the terms upon which its money allotments to State shall be disbursed. * * * The end sought by Congress through the Hatch Act is better public service by requiring those who administer funds for national needs to abstain from active political partisanship. So even though the action taken by Congress does have effect upon certain activities within the State, it has never been ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... eyes quick and alert, his face grimly purposeful, there was about him that indefinable air of authority I had noticed more than once. Thus, with no better weapons than his staff and knife, and my sword, bow and poor arrows, we held on after these five Spanish soldiers, Sir Richard nothing daunted by this disparity of power but rather the more determined and mighty cheerful by his looks, but myself full of doubts and misgiving. ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... not heed Pike's warning to shun all Beaulieus; they rarely fail to breed trouble. If I had realised all this last night before coming to the open lake I would have taken the whole outfit back to Resolution and got rid of the crowd. We could do better with another canoe and two men, and at least make better time than this ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... unnecessary to pass the Civil Rights Bill; "that it was not necessary, but it was well to do it to prevent doubts and differences of opinion." It is not well to leave any man's rights and liberties subject even to a doubt, and the Congress of the United States had better adopt amendment after amendment than to allow the slightest cloud to rest upon the tenure of the rights of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it—I defy him—if he finds me going there in good temper, year after year, and saying, 'Uncle Scrooge, how are you?' If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something; and I think I ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... daughter in a large family of busy people. They are in moderate circumstances, and the original breadwinner has been long gone; so in order to enjoy many of the comforts and a few of the luxuries of life the young people have to be wage-earners. I am not sure that they would enjoy life any better than they do now if such were not the case, though there are doubtless times when they would like to be less busy. Still, even this condition has ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... flowers with which we were working, she avoided my gaze, and, turning slightly from me, began watching our horses, which had strayed away some distance. But I gave her little time for meditation, and when I aroused her from her reverie, she rose, saying, "We'd better go back—they'll miss us ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... appear a dashing, large-eyed, entirely innocent young man, his mouth, full of axioms, prepared to be the stay of Farvie's gentle years. But this rude torrent of perverse philosophy bore her along and she liked it, particularly because she felt she should presently contradict and show how much better she knew herself. Anne, too, evidently had an unlawful interest in it, and wanted him to keep on talking. She took that transparent way of furthering the flow by asking a ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... twist in my saddle and see them all, ruddy and sound and happy, whistling as they rode. And I knew that it was all right. It had been good for them and good for me. It is always good to do a difficult thing. And no one has ever fought a mountain and won who is not the better for it. The mountains are not for the weak or the craven, or the feeble of ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... did it less good at first than they did to Margate; but the completion of the two railways, and the building of the handsome extensions on the east and west cliffs, turned it at once into a frequented watering-place. It is the fashion nowadays rather to laugh at Ramsgate. Marine painters know better. Few harbours are livelier with red and brown sails; few coasts more enjoyable than the cliff walk looking across towards the Goodwins, the low shore by Sandwich, the higher ground about Deal and Dover, and the dim white line of Cape ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... Senatorial convention; David J. Mitchell; my renomination and election. My third year of service, 1866. Speech on the Health Department in New York; monstrous iniquities in that Department; success in replacing it with a better system. My Phi Beta Kappa address at Yale; its purpose. My election to a Professorship at Yale; reasons for declining it. State Senate sits as Court to try a judge; his offense; pathetic complications; his removal from office. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... called today to an article written by you in your regimental paper under the title War and Baseball: Two Games Where Brains Wins. In this article you state that our generals would be better able to accomplish their task if they had enjoyed the benefits of strategic training in baseball. I have always been a great admirer of the national game of baseball and I heartily agree with what you say. But unfortunately ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... discuss any plan for ameliorating the condition of the Greeks; but we can easily point out what it is necessary for them to do before they can, by any possibility, better their condition. The system of selling the tenths must be abolished; for a government so inefficient as to be unable to collect them by its own officers, is incompetent to perform the functions for which it was created, and ought to be destroyed. The owners of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... 'If you are really sure of your own resolution,' he said, 'I agree with you—the sooner you see her the better. You remember how strangely she talked of your influence over her, when she forced her way into your ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... scuff of passing snow-cloud beat in my face. A tall man wrapped in a cloak edged suspiciously nearer as if to take stock of me, but my haste, and perhaps a certain wildness in the disorder of my dress and hat made him think better of it—that is, if indeed he ever thought ill of it—and with a muttered "Good-e'en to ye," he passed ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... trouble don't like to crowd in among busy people, for they jostle her about, and never give her a quiet resting place, and so she soon departs, and creeps in among the idle ones. I can't give any better explanation, Mrs. Bland." ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... "Waverley" does not set off its Macwheebles and Callum Begs better than the oddities of Jonathan Oldbuck and his circle are relieved, on the one hand by the stately gloom of the Glenallans, on the other by the stern affliction of the poor fisherman, who, when discovered repairing "the auld black bitch of a boat," in which his boy had been lost, and congratulated ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the field of view. Fred waited incuriously for him to return, suddenly conscious of the fact that he now had nothing better to do with ...
— Waste Not, Want • Dave Dryfoos
... by the way, for the better vnderstanding of the said agreement, I haue thought good to set downe the verie tenor of the charter made by king Stephan, as I haue copied it out, and translated it into English out of an autentike booke conteining the old lawes of the Saxon and Danish kings, in the end whereof the same charter ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (4 of 12) - Stephan Earle Of Bullongne • Raphael Holinshed
... does not apparently create any indignation or even astonishment in the political world which Mr. Masterman adorns. On the contrary, he seems to be generally regarded as a politician of exceptionally high ideals. No better instance need be recorded of the peculiar atmosphere it is the business of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... is at home, certainly," said Mrs. Mountjoy. There was something in the tone which made the young man at once assure himself that he had better go back to Brussels. He had even been a favorite with Mrs. Mountjoy. In his days of love-making poor Mountjoy had been absent, declared no longer to have a chance of Tretton, and Harry had been—the very evil one himself. Mrs. Mountjoy had been assured by the Brussels Mountjoy that, with the view ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... his fish, Woodseer decided abruptly, that as he could not have the spot to himself, memorable as it would have been to intermarry with Nature in so sacred a welldepth of the mountains, he had better be walking and climbing. Another boat paddling up the lake had been spied: solitude was not merely shared with a rival, but violated by numbers. In the first case, we detest the man; in the second, we fly from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... assuredly come, and find you out, when I am better. I am driven from house and home by Mary's illness. I took a sudden resolution to take my sister to Edmonton, where she was under medical treatment last time, and have arranged to board and lodge with the people. Thank God, I have repudiated Enfield. I have got out of hell, despair of heaven, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... "All is opinion," said Marcus Aurelius. "That which does not make a man worse, how can it make his life worse? But death certainly, and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things happen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us neither better ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... which only gathered strength from being dammed up, and at last burst over all bounds. I never could forgive his father for whipping the poor boys so severely for what they could not avoid. He was too just and generous a man, however, to have been so unmerciful, if his better feelings and his better judgment had not been warped by a burst ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... least lead you in the right direction. You all know enough to eat when you are hungry and to drink when you are thirsty, even though you don't always know when to stop, or just what to eat. You like sunny days better than cloudy ones, and would much rather breathe fresh air than foul. You like to go wading and swimming when you are hot and dusty, and you don't need to be told to go to sleep when you are tired. You would much rather ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... abatement. In fact, let the bargain be settled by a lawyer. At the moment of each taking possession, the ship-owner says to the citizen, "Very well; the transaction is completed, and nothing can prove its perfect equity better than our free and voluntary consent. Our conditions thus fixed, I shall propose to you a little practical modification. You shall let me have your house to-day, but I shall not put you in possession of my ship for a year; and the reason I make this demand of you is, that, during this year ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... an hour ago, sir, the dogs all around started howling, sir. I thought I'd better mention it, as Inspector Gatton asked me this morning if I had ever heard the ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... better with it," she would add; "and that you'll see when he comes to be a man. He'll be the making of ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... papers next mornin', an' everybody's laughin' at'm, because he called his wife 'My darlin' Tootsie,' which she never been accustomed to answer to anythin' but the name o' Sarah. An' it's up to him to pay the costs, when ten to one it's the other party's to blame. I guess p'raps we better leave good enough alone. If we begin to get the l'yers after us, no tellin' where we'll end. Who knows but they might find the accident injured the auto, 'stead o' Francie. If we work hard, an' they give us time, me an' Sammy can, maybe, make out to pay ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... butter, cream and milk on credit: and though Virginia and I were not on good terms and I never went to see her any more; and though Grandma Thorndyke was, I felt sure, trying to get Virginia's mind fixed on a better match, like Bob Wade or Paul Holbrook, I used to take eggs, butter, milk or flour to the elder's family almost every time I went to town: and when the weather was warm enough so that they would not freeze, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... only to receive curses: "You know better than to come yet; another thing you know, this soup is for white folks, the other is ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... interrupted Grandma Nichols, who overheard the girl's remark. "She got hum the fust night of the storm, and what's queerer than all, she's been married better than a year." ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... story tells us that when man was created he was put by the Creator into a garden to dress it and to keep it. He could not have been put into a better place nor could a more honorable and necessary occupation have been given to him. No doubt the woman who lived in the garden with him aided him in this work. Not having a house to care for or dressmaking and sewing to do, or cooking ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... farther let us consider briefly the condition of the two armies, and which had the better grounds to hope for success in the great conflict now impending. With the exception of one—Sharpsburg—which was a drawn battle, the Confederates had been victorious in every general engagement up to this time. Scant rations, deprivation, and hardships of every kind had made them ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... instances of connection and quasi-convertibility, that an esoteric doctrine, known to the priests and communicated by them to the kings, taught the real identity of the several gods and goddesses, who may have been understood by the better instructed to represent, not distinct and separate beings, but the several phases of the Divine Nature. Ancient polytheism had, it may be surmised, to a great extent this origin, the various names and titles of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... where the fatal shots came from, and he determined that there was no better time to "square accounts." Calling the larger portion of his company about him, he started backward and away from the ravine, his purpose being to reach the rear of his enemy ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... for an envious railer," cried a miller, "he mars all our pleasures with his peevish humours. He would have us all as discontented with the world as himself—but we know better. He will not let us have our lawful sports as enjoined by the King himself on Sundays, and he now tries to interfere with our recreations on holidays. A pest upon him ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... the fairy tale. Sometimes, in telling a story one cannot tell it exactly as it is. This may be the case when the story is too long for a purpose, or if it contains matter which had better be omitted, or if it needs to be amplified. In any case one must follow these ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... than she could bear. If she was a silly and ignorant creature, she had the heart of a woman-child; and that precious thing in the sight of God, wounded and bruised by the husband in whom lay all her pride, went on beating laboriously for him only. She did not blame him. Anything was better than that. The dear, simple soul had a horror of rebuke. It would break hedges and climb stone walls to get out of the path of judgment—ten times more eagerly if her husband were the judge. She wept and wailed like a sick child, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... "Aw, he's better," vouchsafed the other rider. "Nagger needed to lose some weight. Lin, have you got an extra ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... cook you? Shall I make an omelet? No, it is better to fry you in a pan! Or shall I drink you? No, the best way is to fry you in the ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... I have forfeited all right to ask you; that it is an unpardonable intrusion my presuming even to address you. Well, perhaps, you are right," he added, after a moment's pause; "it may be better that I should not say what I was hoping to say. It cannot mend existing things; it cannot undo the past. I dare not ask your forgiveness: it would seem too much like an insult; nevertheless, I would rather have it than any earthly gift. Fare you ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... whole. The beautiful choir is after a design by De Goste, the altar and sanctuary are of marble and porphyry, whilst tesselated pavements and variegated shrines adorn the numerous chapels. The pictures are good in general; as to the tapestry, I think it had better be removed, which I dare say it will be as taste refines. It is to be regretted that the towers of Notre-Dame have so heavy and black appearance, which is increased by a parcel of dark unseemly shutters. On the outside towards the ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... us one chilly evening, as we sat around the open fireplace, "is the greatest treatise on humanity ever written. Go with me to-day to any city in any country in Christendom, and I'll show you a man walk up the steps of his church on Sunday who thanks God that he's better than his neighbor. But you needn't go so far if you don't want to. I reckon if I could see myself, I might show symptoms of it occasionally. Sis here thanks God daily that she is better than that Barnes girl who cut her out of Amos Alexander. ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... and a better method which some employ in explaining this story. They assert that what is related of Typhon, Osiris, and Isis is not to be regarded as the afflictions of gods, or of mere mortals, but rather as the adventures ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... pleasing. I have a correspondent whose letters are always a refreshment to me; there is such a breezy, unfettered originality about his orthography. He always spells "kow" with a large "K." Now that is just as good as to spell it with a small one. It is better. It gives the imagination a broader field, a wider scope. It suggests to the mind a grand, vague, impressive new kind ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... though it did not protect the neck from the gnawing chafe of the stiff collar. She noted the red line of it with amusement which quickly vanished as she glanced at his clothes. They really fitted him,—it was his first made- to-order suit,—and he seemed slimmer and better modelled. In addition, his cloth cap had been replaced by a soft hat, which she commanded him to put on and then complimented him on his appearance. She did not remember when she had felt so happy. This change in him was her handiwork, and she was proud of ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... postcard will have the most impact. A letter is better than a fax, a fax is better than a phone call, and a phone call is better than ...
— United States Congress Address Book
... natives of towns in the high Andes, where the intense cold and the difficulty of making a living have reacted upon the Indians, often causing them to be morose, sullen, and without ambition. The residences of the wine growers are sometimes very misleading. A typical country house of the better class is not much to look at. Its long, low, flat roof and rough, unwhitewashed, mud-colored walls give it an unattractive appearance; yet to one's intense surprise the inside may be clean and comfortable, with modern furniture, a piano, ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... found themselves far better off under James than they had been under Elizabeth. Far greater scope was allowed to the local influence of Catholic magnates in protecting their co-religionists. The penal laws, which as regards pecuniary payments were virtually ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... their knowledge of the country and the lightness of their equipment they could easily go wherever they pleased. When winter set in, they did much greater damage by invading Macedonia again. Rhoemetalces and his brother Rhascuporis got the better of this ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... old boy sabes cows some little," said the latter. "The chances are that he's forgotten more about cattle than some of these government experts ever knew. Anyway, he reads the sign without much effort. His survey of this range and the outlook are worth listening to. Better look up an outfit ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... of the nature of these demands, the assurance which Austria subsequently gave Russia, that she would do nothing to lessen the territory of Servia, goes for nothing. From the standpoint of Servia, it would have been far better to lose a part of its territory and keep its independence and self-respect as to the remainder, than to retain all its existing land area, and by submitting to the ultimatum become virtually a vassal state of Austria. Certainly if ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... said, I have been an alien in a strange land'; and that of the second, 'For the God of my fathers, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.' These two names give us a pathetic glimpse of the feelings with which Moses began his exile, and of the better thoughts into which these gradually cleared. The first child's name expresses his father's discontent, and suggests the bitter contrast between Sinai and Egypt; the court and the sheepfold; the gloomy, verdureless, gaunt peaks of Sinai, blazing in the fierce sunshine, and the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... 601: No better justification for the government of the brothers Columbus can be found than to contrast it with the infinitely worse state of affairs that ensued under the administrations of Bobadilla and Ovando. See below, vol. ii. ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... haven't got a hotel chef on board," observed Dan Baxter, as he came in during the supper hour. "But I'll try to get something better on board ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... with a consistent and strong line of outposts we might have stopped his main road north, although we should be too late to man the river. But, anyhow, I'll have a try at convincing them at headquarters that I am a better man outside than inside a cattle-truck. So here goes. Mr Intelligence, paper and ink and take it down, and mind it is to go in cipher!" The brigadier then roughly drew a comparison in the saving of time involved by a direct march ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Sprier, after trial, shall not think it for his interest, or agreeable to his disposition, to live at the plantation where Deborah Leaming now resides, then, and in such case, she to remove with him elsewhere upon a prospect promising to better his circumstances or promote his happiness, provided the landed interest of the said Deborah's late husband be taken proper care of for the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... enjoined. And then the merchant said, "Dyangs, if ye Love Bidasari, see ye vex her not." They dried their tears and said: "Be without fear. Intrust thy daughter to our mistress dear." "My child," he said, "I'll come to see thee oft. Thou wilt be better there, my love, than here." But Bidasari wept and cried: "Oh, come, Dear mother, with me! Wilt thou not, alas?" But the fond parents were astounded then To learn the mother was not asked to come. She stayed ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... or more. The secular changes in man's economic condition and the liability of human forecast to error are as likely to lead to mistake in one direction as in another. We cannot as reasonable men do better than base our policy on the evidence we have and adapt it to the five or ten years over which we may suppose ourselves to have some measure of prevision; and we are not at fault if we leave on one side ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... uncontrolled power of such masters as she describes Captain I—— and Mr. D—— of Turk's Island? All things considered, it is indeed wonderful to find her such as she now is. But as she has herself piously expressed it, "that God whom then she knew not mercifully preserved her for better things."] ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... "Morning will be better," I thought, remembering the painful noises at night, especially about midnight, when people were being thrown out of a public-house higher up the street, where there was a placard in the window saying the ale sold there could be guaranteed to ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... Hazlitt: not one in any twenty is not well worth reading and, if occasion served, commenting on. They are, indeed, as far from being consecutive as (according to the Yankee) was the conversation of Edgar Poe; and the multitude and diversity of their subjects fit them better for occasional than for continuous reading.[13] Perhaps, if any single volume deserves to be recommended to a beginner in Hazlitt it had better be The Plain Speaker, where there is the greatest range of subject, and ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... the shawl around her neck, and shivered. "I thought I might be all right to-day, and that I'd get better. But I didn't. And now I've got about a chance in a hundred. I ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... with them is establishing them, and teaching the Americans to look up to them for deliverance and protection. We have been guilty of a fatal error in this from the beginning; we now see and feel the consequences. This should teach us wisdom and better policy. Though we should conquer the rebels, yet, if an accommodation is settled with the Congress, I shall consider the colonies as eventually lost, and that in a little ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... parcels, and even to sleep upon the floor that she might profit by my empty seat. Nay, she was such a rattle by nature, and so powerfully moved to autobiographical talk, that she was forced, for want of a better, to take me into confidence and tell me the story of her life. I heard about her late husband, who seemed to have made his chief impression by taking her out pleasuring on Sundays. I could tell you her prospects, her hopes, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... compliment more than appreciated, mademoiselle," Gerard smiled. "There is going to be a splash when we strike that puddle ahead; had you not better draw ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... collect; my own I well know, nor can it be improper to describe it. I do not here allude to the personal pleasures I enjoyed in her conversation: these increased every day, in proportion as we knew each other better, and as our mutual confidence increased. They can be measured only by the treasures of her mind, and the virtues of her heart. But this is a subject for meditation, not for words. What I purposed alluding to, was the improvement that I ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... the atmosphere has cleared a little," said John Chetwynd, reflectively, "and then I'll tell her that at the end of the year we will leave Camberwell and take a larger house in a better neighbourhood." ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... hand you had the traditional seats of militariasm; on the other, famous names—and the heirs to the glory (a good deal tarnished now) that once had been Greece. The former were Macedon and Syria, or Macedon with Syria in the background; what better could you ask that a good square se-to with these? Oh, one at a time; that was the fine old Roman way; divide et impera; Mecedon now, and, a-grace of God, Syria—But let be; we are talking of this summer; for next, the Lord (painted bright vermilion) it may be hoped ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... a good many shanks to it when you come to write it, though," reflected Smith. "It looks a lot better printed out. I think I'll git me one of these here typewritin'-machines. But say! Stop in and take a look at that sign the first time ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... knowledge concerning these things, let us remember him, and lay aside our sins, and not hang down our heads, for we are not cast off; nevertheless, we have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... when a good farmer sees a weed in his field he has it pulled up. If it is taken early enough, the blank is soon filled in, and the crop waves over the whole field. But if allowed to run too late, the bald patch remains. It would have been better if the weed had never ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody |
