"Bigg" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Aprile has fairly come, An' birds may bigg in winter's lum, An' pleisure's spreid for a' and some O' whatna state, Love, wi' her auld recruitin' drum, Than ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... own clothes were nothing but rags. He felt in the right-hand pocket of his father's coat, and there, sure enough, he found the dried windpipe of a goose. He took that and he took a pot of burning peat, and covered it over so it would keep hot; and he took also a big kitchen knife. Then he went out and led Feetgong from the stable. He sprang upon his back and slapped him on the right shoulder, and ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... generations, and have nothing to complain of; and he is a good farmer, too, is Job, none better; a little too fond of experimenting, but then he is young. But I am very much afraid he will leave me. I think it is this new thing the big-wigs have set up in London that has put him wrong, for he is always ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... doin' now?" said Jamie the Scotchman, as the boy returned to the Blue Ball with his big kite and wet hair. "Kite-flying and swimming don't ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... paper, and came on him suddenly from behind. As he started and turned round, I put the note into his hand, pressed his hand, and passed on. Before I had taken ten steps I heard him behind me. I can't say he didn't look round—I saw his big black eyes, bright and glittering in the dusk, devour me from head to foot in a moment; but otherwise he did what I told him. 'I can deny you nothing,' he whispered; 'I promise.' He went on and left me. I couldn't help thinking at the time ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Molly, the memories of Bob, and the vagaries of Mr. Dolan. They were as light as air. But in John Barclay's life a vision was rising—a vision that was real, palpable, and vital; a vision of wealth and power,—and as the days and the months passed, the shadow of that vision grew big and black and real ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... the whole fabric of St. Paul's, and throwing a flood of light across Waterloo Bridge, which set out in bold relief the dark outline of the Surrey hills." That "flood of light" was beheld by me, held up in my nurse's arms at a window under "Big Ben," which looks on Westminster Bridge. When in later years I have occasionally stated in a mixed company that I could remember the burning of Covent Garden Theatre, I have noticed a general expression of surprised interest, and have been told, in a tone ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... chosen to interfere in a very difficult and dangerous matter. He runs his own risks and he asks for a big reward. It is not our ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the nights with Sir Arthur we spent, Around a big fire in the air too, Or may be enjoying ourselves in a tent, Exactly like Donnybrook fair too. How he'd call out to me: "Pass the wine, Mr. Free, For you're a man never is lazy!" Then some one will cry, with a wink of her eye, "Arrah, Mickey, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the brutal herd, and death is big with promises, they alone are subject to blind authority who have no reliance on their own strength. "They are free who ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... o'erladen muncher Of heaps of "vacant chaff well-meant for grain," If, like the pious spouse of Jerry Cruncher, You "flop," and, camel-wise, won't rise again To bear big burdens that strength staggers under, On fodder most inadequate, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... me," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm very contented if it comes to that; and so is Karen. She's known so much that's worse, the same as I have. But she's known what's better, too; she was a pretty big girl when her Poppa died and she was a companion to him and I reckon that without figuring it up much to herself she's ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... big as a ninepence, thrown into coffee while it is boiling, tends to make it clear. If you use it just as it comes from the salt-fish, it will be apt to give an unpleasant taste to the coffee: it should be washed clean as a bit of cloth, and hung up ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... been laid aside, and the little one was placed upright, she stared bewildered into the shaggy faces around her. Her big blue eyes were open to their widest extent, the mass of golden curls rippled about her shoulders and the fairy-like feet were inclosed in thick, warm shoes and stockings. The dress of a dull brown color and thick texture, fitted her tiny frame perfectly and she formed ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... as if the 'disobedience' was the prior condition, from which we see him in the very act of passing, by the melting of his nature and the yielding of his will. Surely there have been few decisions in the world's history big with larger destinies than that which the captive described to Agrippa in the simple words: 'I became not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... prancing back delicately, with a malicious enjoyment on his wrinkled face. "Once more I return to apologise," he said. "My poodle 'as permit 'imself ze grave indiscretion to make a very big 'ole at ze bottom ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... which was about as big as two common cats, was just as savage as a tiger. When the first mate called the man on deck, the fellow left his cat behind him in the fore peak, just as if it were now here, and it got into a dark corner, growling and humping its ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... big drops of rain fell on their heads and shoulders, and the delay grew tedious. Sue ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... from without, before which a man must fear and shudder. I, myself, saw and heard a girl who complained of a temptation of this nature; namely, that while she stood in the church and saw the sacrament elevated, the thought occurred to her: Lo, what a big knave the priest is elevating. And she was suddenly so frightened at the terrible thought that she sank to ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... after the blackberries, as it was sure as fate that she would have done, then she would have met him first, and he would have courted her instead of Nancy Ellen. Suddenly Kate shook herself savagely and sat straight. "Why, you big fool!" she said. "Nancy Ellen went to the berry patch in a pink dress, wearing a sunbonnet to match, and carrying a blue bowl. Think of the picture she made! But if I had gone, I'd have been in a ragged old dirt-coloured gingham, Father's boots, and his old straw ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and pried up the bateau, and after much labor succeeded in getting it over the side, though he had nearly gone with it, when a big sea, swooping over the deck, finished his work. The effect of the step was instantly apparent in the working of the Isabel. She no longer scooped up the seas, but rode over them. Before night it began to rain, and the gale increased in violence. The bonnet had been taken off the jib, ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... and gold: Flamboyant arch and high-enscrolled War-sculpture, big, Napoleonic — Fierce chargers, angels histrionic; The royal sweep of gardened spaces, The pomp and whirl of columned Places; The Rive Gauche, age-old, gay and gray; The impasse and the loved cafe; The tempting ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... disappointment when this illusion was dispelled, by our reaching the end of the lake, so operated on our feeble minds as to exhaust our strength, and we decided upon encamping; but upon ascending a small eminence to look for a clump of wood, we caught a glimpse of the Big Stone, a well-known rock upon the summit of a hill opposite to the Fort, and determined upon proceeding. In the evening we saw several large herds of rein-deer, but Hepburn, who used to be{48} considered ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... man may who has no money to spend. Now and then I pick up something in the rubbish heap; and I go and look on at the big sales." ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... his sabre more than he can help." Then I understood it all and most thankfully thanked him, and me and the Major and him drove over to Kennington and there we found our boy lying quite comfortable before a blazing fire having sweetly played himself to sleep upon a small accordion nothing like so big as a flat-iron which they had been so kind as to lend him for the purpose and which it appeared had been stopped upon a very ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy; but the books of the Big-endians have been long forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable by law of holding employments. During the course of these troubles, the emperors of Blefuscu did frequently expostulate by ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... forcing-houses, heated with hot water, which he was one of the first in that neighbourhood to make use of for such a purpose. He did not take so much pleasure in flowers as in fruits. At one of the county agricultural meetings, he said that he intended yet to grow pineapples at Tapton as big as pumpkins. The only man to whom he would "knock under" was his friend Paxton, the gardener to the Duke of Devonshire; and he was so old in the service, and so skilful, that he could scarcely hope to beat him. Yet his "Queen" ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... to break poor Casper Herdicker's heart—and he had one, and a big one, despite his desire for blood and plunder; and they broke it when his wife Brunhilde deserted the hearthstone back of the shoe-shop, rented a vacant store room on Market Street and went into the millinery way of life. And it wasn't enough that the tired ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... could from such suffering. Jerrold had learned the same lesson. Through life, he took the side of the poor and weak. It was the secret, at once, of his philosophy and his politics. He got endless abuse for his eternal tirades against the great and the "respectable,"—against big-wigs of every size and shape. But the critics who attacked him for this negative pole of his intellectual character overlooked the positive one. He had kindness and sympathy enough; but he always gave them first to those who wanted them most. And as humorist and satirist ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... away. Supposing there's no truth in what I hold About the need of trial to man's faith, Still, when you bid me purify the same, To such a process I discern no end. Clearing off one excrescence to see two, There's ever a next in size, now grown as big, That meets the knife: I cut and cut again! First cut the Liquefaction, what comes last But Fichte's clever cut at God himself? Experimentalize on sacred things! I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain To stop betimes: they ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... your Excellency's letter by the last packet, and thank you for the information it contains on the communication between the Cayahoga and Big Beaver. I have ever considered the opening a canal between those two water courses as the most important work in that line which the State of Virginia could undertake. It will infallibly turn through the Potomac all the commerce of Lake Erie, and the country west of that, except what may ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... roof and put in windows and doors, and in return the owner pays them with a gallon of brandy, and by a like good service in turn. Then he lays out his garden and pasture and fields, cuts out the underbrush, tops the big trees and strips the bark, so that he can sow and reap, the trees die and hurt neither land nor crops. Many hunters have thus settled the wilderness,—they are soon followed by poor Scotch or Irish who are looking for homes,—these they find in this half improved condition,—they ...
— Achenwall's Observations on North America • Gottfried Achenwall
... day I did a perfectly dreadful thing: I intruded, all unconsciously but in the most blundering way, on a love scene. It was in the National Gallery, long famous as the meeting-place of affinities, in the big room where the pictures lent by the Duke of WESTMINSTER and the Duke of BUCCLEUCH are now hanging, and before I knew it I found myself standing between two young people whose eyes were fixed on each other. Naturally I moved away ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... biggest thing in Dayton is the Soldiers' Home, three miles from town. It is the largest of all the Homes, though they have a small one at Milwaukee, Wis., and several others. They have three thousand disabled soldiers here, and a big hospital, a church built of stone, barracks, stores, dining-room, library, and everything just like a little town. Then lovely lawns, gardens, lakes, fountains, rustic bridges, etc. Lots of people say it ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... days before the thing was done— They was a family of themselves, and I another one; And a very little cottage one family will do, But I never have seen a house that was big enough for two. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... stood up in, and was then on my way home from the wreck of the Duck Sammy brig, which went ashore on the back of the Wight. But if you ask me what was peculiar about the man, he was called Bart.—Sir Samuel Brooks Bart.—and lived in a fine house as big as Greenwich Hospital, with a gold watch-chain across his belly you could have moored a pinnace by, and gold in his pockets correspondin'. Whereby I larned ever since to know my betters when ashore, and behave myself lowly and give 'em a wide berth. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... caught fifty cod, a hundred lobsters and a halibut which John declared to be half as big as the ship. Two French boats appeared, full of Indians ready to trade beaver skins for red cloth. The strawberry season was past, but John found wild cherries, small, deep red, in heavy bunches. When he tried to eat them, however, they ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... and mamma are talking about?' 'Yes, papa.' And quoth Mr. Thrale, 'What are they saying?' 'They are disputing, and mamma has just such a chance with Dr. Johnson as Presto (a little dog) would have were he to fight Dash (a big one).'" He adds that she left the room in a huff to the amusement of the party. If scenes like this were frequent, no wonder ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... would have taken Walker for an engineer of some sort, rather than the head of the United States Secret Service. His lean face and his angular manner gave that impression. Even now, motionless in the big chair beyond the table, he seemed—how shall ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... toward the ceiling, or the floor, or the wall, it makes no difference. Finally you have to put your hand into the pitcher and pull the water out. It comes. Not a drop runs between your fingers—which way can it run, since there is no down? The big lump of water stays right on your hand. This surprises you so much that you let go of the pitcher. Never mind; the pitcher stays poised in mid-air. But how are you going to get a drink? It does not seem reasonable to try to drink a large lump of water. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... chiefs, Sehi Pandash, wishes to place himself under our protection, and he has sent to ask that the ship might go up and fire her big guns, that the tribes round may see that he has strong friends who ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... eligible that the king should improve his ancient kingdom all he could, and make it flourish as much as possible; that he should love his people, and be beloved of them; that he should live among them, govern them gently, and let other kingdoms alone, since that which had fallen to his share was big enough, if not too big for him. Pray how do you think would such a speech as this be heard?"—"I confess," said I, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... seen in public) was placed upon the table first. Above the whip were laid the gauntlets, crossed at sixty degrees. On top of whip and gloves rested the hat, indented never more nor less. Beyond these, the personal belongings of Battersleigh of the Rile Irish were at best few and humble. In the big city, busy with reviving commerce, there were few who cared how Battersleigh lived. It was a vagrant wind of March that one day blew aside the cloak of Battersleigh as he raised his hat in salutation to a friend—a vagrant wind, cynical and merciless, which showed somewhat of the poverty with which ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... mean-looking, grovelling British Lion by the ear (in his cartoon) asks him, "Why don't you hit someone of your own size?" With the exception of the occasion when he disrespectfully represented the noble beast as stuffed and moth-eaten, this is the only "big cut" wherein the Lion has been unworthily treated, or on which, in foreign politics, Punch has failed to back ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... about an age when men took what they wanted by force giving way to an age in which they took what they wanted by subtlety? Now, I believe, you want society to restrain the man of clever wits just as it has learned to restrain the man of big biceps. And when that is done will not man discover some other means of taking what ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... advantages—of which one is quite conceivably an average essential superiority—will probably ensure a satisfactory result from the Schooling process in the case of a much greater proportion of better-class than of lower-class boys and girls. [Footnote: In most big public schools, I am told, there is a system of superannuation about sixteen, but I know nothing of the provision for those ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... this case it's different. We've waited so long for Clavey to do the big thing that we must let ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... meanest capacity. An instance of this was witnessed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they were present at an examination of a little blackguard boy, by Mr. Saunders Welch, the late Westminster Justice. Welch, who imagined that he was exalting himself in Dr. Johnson's eyes by using big words, spoke in a manner that was utterly unintelligible to the boy; Dr. Johnson perceiving it, addressed himself to the boy, and changed the pompous phraseology into colloquial language. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was much amused by this procedure, which seemed a ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... integrity of purpose might well have sought the shelter of conventional expressions. Lord Milner dispenses with any such protection. "In a rational world," he said, it would have seemed better to everybody that he, "with a big unfinished job awaiting him," and many of his fellow workmen unable to take the rest which they both deserved and needed, "should have arrived, and stayed, and returned in the quietest possible manner." But it was an age in which it "seemed impossible for many people to put a simple and natural ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... and then Miss Devine rides out alone one mornin' on a big white stallion. In a hour the horse trots into camp with the saddle empty. For the next twenty minutes they's more excitement in and about Film City than they was at the burnin' of Rome, but while Duke is gettin' up searchin' ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... trip to the High Cliff House. He went out again, to walk along the path and think over what he had just heard. It was interesting, as showing the attitude of one of the contracting parties toward the "engagement," the announcement of which had been such a staggering finish to the "big day" of ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... slipped away, leading off both the horses to the other side of the hut, where I found a shepherd, who showed me a grass paddock to feed the nags a bit before turning them out for the night. I said to him, "What is the meaning of all this going on between your mate and his wife, and the big stockman?" ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... even when they are old and have lost their energy; but for a girl like you it is ten times worse. Don't be too hard on yourself, and expect resignation to come all at once. I believe the best plan is to face it fully, and to say to yourself, 'It's a big test—one of the biggest I could have to bear. I shall feel the pinch not to-day only, but to-morrow, and the next year, and as long as I live. It is going to take a big effort to save myself from growing bitter and discouraged, but it's worth fighting, for my whole life hangs ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... reconciled to big money and big prices, and fond and vain of both—it is a descent to little coins and cheap prices that is hardest to bear and slowest to take hold upon one's toleration. After a month's acquaintance with the twenty-five ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... only chance was to re-cross the river and give chase. Mahomet would not have ventured upon another voyage to the other side and back again, for the world, and as to giving chase in boots (highlows) four sizes too big, and without strings, that would have been as absurd as to employ a donkey to catch a horse. Mahomet could do nothing but rush frantically to the very edge of the cliff, and scream and gesticulate to a crowd of Arab women who had passed the day ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... Shannon was riding toward the bunch of cattle gathered at Diamond X ranch for the big, spring round-up, leaped forward at the sound of his master's voice, and in response to the little jerk of the reins and the clap of heels against his sides. Into the herd of milling, turning and twisting cattle the intelligent animal made his way, needing hardly any guidance from Nort. The lad, ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... familiar names. They are the "Plough," or "Charles's Wain" of Northern Europe; the "Seven Plough Oxen" of ancient Rome; the "Bier and Mourners" of the Arabs; the "Chariot," or "Waggon," of the old Chaldeans; the "Big Dipper" of the prosaic New England farmer. These three groups are just the three which we find mentioned in the earliest poetry of Greece. So Homer writes, in the Fifth Book of the ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... the Governor Paganetti leaving the tribune, his face white, the eyes wide open, his mouth half opened, like some Pierrot scenting in the air a formidable blow. Monpavon, motionless, expanded his shirtfront. The big man puffed violently into the flowers of his wife's little ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... The big tortoises that inhabited the island used to come backwards and forwards past the beach on their passage up to the hills, utterly regardless of the ship and the men working, especially towards the evening, as now; and just as the fracas happened, one of these huge creatures waddled by the trench, ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... still, looking straight in front of her, a very attractive picture, as some of the hurrying men who turned to glance at her seemed to find, in her long light dress. Her face, which showed a delicate oval under the big white hat, was a trifle paler than is usual with most Englishwomen of her age, and the figure the thin fabric clung about less decided in outline. Still, the faint warmth in her cheeks emphasized the clear pallor of her skin, and there was a depth of brightness in ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... upon his feet, although he staggered. Then Slade pulled trigger, and a searing, burning pain shot through his left shoulder. Dizzy and weak he raised his rifle, nevertheless, and fired at the hairy face of the big man. He saw the huge figure topple and fall; he heard another shot, and again felt the thrill of pain, this time in the head, heard a shrill whistle repeated over and over, and did not remember anything definite ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... wrong principle. Ask any of the worn-out men who are inmates for the time being of the splendid institutions in the country devoted to the recuperation of health: ask the medical superintendents of the large sanitariums; ask Muldoon; ask the busy men of big business why they keep in the harness after they have made enough to retire upon; why they strive and fight and sacrifice themselves, and you will be told that the force which impels them is the desire to protect, with ample fortune, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... half-baked reformations. They carry me with him into an opposition to negro equality—all this stuff of Horace Greeley, Emerson, and in which men like Seward and Sumner, and American writers and poets, big and little, share." ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... and one asked him to dinner, and the other to spend a week at his country-seat. And amidst these congratulations at the stroke that left him penniless, the distinguished pamphleteer left the room. How he cursed big ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sizes for the Life Boat. But he has sent all yours of the large size, except one for the Boy. I had told him I thought you were all of you biggish Men, except the Boy. I suppose I have blundered as usual. But if the Jackets are too big you must change some of them. That will only cost carriage; and that I must pay for ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... his arm, and solemnly they went. The room, which had been designed to enable twenty-four people to dine in comfort, held now but a little round table. In his present solitude the big dining-table oppressed old Jolyon; he had caused it to be removed till his son came back. Here in the company of two really good copies of Raphael Madonnas he was wont to dine alone. It was the only disconsolate hour of his day, this summer weather. He had never been a large eater, like that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is a peaceful, prosperous, and stable modern market economy with low unemployment, a highly skilled labor force, and a per capita GDP larger than that of the big Western European economies. The Swiss in recent years have brought their economic practices largely into conformity with the EU's to enhance their international competitiveness. Switzerland remains a safehaven for investors, because it has maintained a degree of bank secrecy and ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... by a big Australian firm to its traders may run from L50 to L200 a year, with board (that is, the run of the store) and ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... wasn't so big I would shake thee, Joseph! The idea of John Randolph being in this house and thee beating round the bush with thine angels!" and with all her motherhood shining in her eyes, Ruth Makepeace started for ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... Big Lodge. They talk together, when they are making ready to go on raids among other tribes, and Taggarak gives them his commands; but he likes to appear in their villages when they do not look for his coming. What does my brother ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... daughter Catherine had besought her not to grieve to-night, and she had said, "No, sweetheart, I promise I will not, since it vexes my children." But when Elias whispered "Sit wider!" says she, "Ay! the table will soon be too big for the children, and you thought it would be too small;" and having delivered this with forced calmness, she put up her apron the next moment, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... glass jars of biscuits, chocolate cakes, and sweetmeats—in this room, there was not a soul; only a grey cat blinked and purred, sharpening its claws on a tall wicker chair near the window and a bright patch of colour was made in the evening sunlight, by a big ball of red wool lying on the floor beside a carved wooden basket turned upside down. A confused noise was audible in the next room. Sanin stood a moment, and making the bell on the door ring its ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... the battle, he felt the lustful rage of Captain Wow as the big Persian tomcat detonated lights while he approached the streak of dust which threatened the ...
— The Game of Rat and Dragon • Cordwainer Smith
... think you may be allowed to call the place in which the little Victims were kept a prison, for it certainly was a great big place with walls all round, and they were locked up at night, and not allowed to go in and out as ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... take a lesson from the foregoing, and clothe them all in Cuba pants as soon as possible; scenes are generally more interesting when the imagination is partially called into play. Boys, both little and big, are kept in order by a fine of fifteen shillings for every stone they throw, besides paying in full for all damage caused thereby. No one is allowed to carry a stick more than one inch in diameter under a penalty of ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... still is a title, though used chiefly as a name. Some day the title-meaning will overlap the name-meaning. We may never cease thinking of it as a name, but there is a time coming when events will make the title-meaning so big as to clear over-shadow our thought and use of ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... certain marked resemblance. Reynolds painted pictures of both Burke and Goldsmith, and when I looked at these portraits this morning, side by side, I said, "Sir Joshua hadn't quite got the Burke out of his brush before he painted the Goldsmith." Burke is Goldsmith grown big. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... of our troops had Escario come up in time. The incident but adds another to history's long list of instances where desperate energy and economy of time have wrested safety out of the jaws of imminent disaster. The occasion was one that called upon us to take big risks; and success merely justifies doubly an attempt which, from the obvious balance of advantages and disadvantages, was antecedently justified by its necessity, and would not have been fair subject for blame, even had ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... volley, yet in no way a volley stroke, is the overhead smash. It is the Big Bertha of tennis. It is the long range terror that should always score. The rules of footwork, position, and direction that govern the volley will suffice for the overhead. The swing alone is different. ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... at San Diego, the southernmost city of California, from whence the Mexican line is in plain sight, but drove to the bay, where Wampus guided the limousine on to the big ferryboat bound for Coronado. They all left the car during the brief voyage and watched the porpoises sporting in the clear water of the bay and gazed abstractedly at the waving palms on the opposite shore, where lies nestled "the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... now before us has been represented by those that oppose it, as big with destruction, and dangerous both to the lives and to the virtue of the people. We have been told, that it will at once fill the land with sickness and with villany, and that it will be at the same time fatal to our trade, and to our power; yet ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... came in a big grey car and was sitting on the doorstep when Aunt got up. He told her not to disturb you, but of course Aunt thought that you ought to know at once and when she found that you were gone"—a ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the baby, and ever since Bobberts was born—and that was nine months next Wednesday, and just look what a big, fat boy he is now!—his parents had been putting all their pennies into a little pottery pig, so that when Bobberts reached the proper age he could go to college. The money in the little pig bank was officially known as "Bobberts' Education Fund," and ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... have played and been merry in the autumntide about the edges of the stubble-fields; and we gathered the nuts and bramble-berries there, and started thence the missel-thrush, and wondered at his voice and thought him big; and the sparrow-hawk wheeled and turned over the hedges, and the weasel ran across the path, and the sound of the sheep-bells came to us from the downs as we sat happy on the grass; and she is dead and gone from the earth, for she pined from famine after the ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... he had on, Like Lord Eldon, an ermine gown; His big tears (for he wept well) Turned to mill ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... not a vague idea of a future state. They are exceedingly superstitious; they never venture out of their huts from sunset till sunrise, for fear of encountering goblins and evil spirits. When any of their tribe dies they say, 'He'll soon jump up, white man, and come back again in big ship;' and when a stranger arrives, they examine his countenance minutely, to trace the lineaments of some deceased friend; and when they think they have discovered him they sometimes request him to expose ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... of a big word, but did not always get hold of the right one. I rather suspected that in the above instance she ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... unusual demonstration from the big boy, now at the age when sisterly companionship is often despised, and Charlotte appreciated it. More than Justin Birch could understand was in her voice as her fingers rested upon his hair, but what she said gave him great satisfaction, although it ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... in a night. The skin was dressed and made into caps or robes for the sleigh. On two or three of these expeditions, our dogs caught a Tartar by running foul of a coon not so easily disposed of—in the shape of a bear; and then we were both glad to decamp, as he was rather too big a job to undertake in the night. Bruin was fond of young corn, but he and the wolves had ceased to be troublesome. The latter occasionally made a raid on a flock of sheep in the winter, but they were watched pretty closely, and were trapped or shot. There was a government bounty of $4 for ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... of the World," had come to town. It came in the night and packed itself away in the big tents on ...
— Sonny Boy • Sophie Swett
... who lived in a Southern city in a small three-roomed wooden house on the lot in the rear of Mrs. Bowles's garden, and Mrs. Bowles was their landlady and very good friend. Indeed, I don't know what they would have done without her, for when she came from the North, and rented the big house, they were in the depths of poverty. The kind lady found them work, gave them bright smiles, words of encouragement, fruit, vegetables, and spelling lessons, and so won their simple, grateful hearts that they looked upon her as a miracle of ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... thither he went as rapidly as his pony could carry him. When he arrived at the meeting-place he found all his neighbours and friends gathered in groups and discussing the situation. Certain ones of them had brought with them big white-tented ox-waggons for conveying ammunition, commissariat stores, and such extra luggage as some might wish to carry; and these were sent ahead as soon as the field-cornet, the military leader of the ward, learned that all his men ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... permitted, the camp was broken up. They retraced their steps to the Isla, and found the enemy occupying the old position on the lower slopes of the Hill of Blair—battle-hill; probably so called in memory of the big fight now impending. It was a well-chosen position, showing no little military skill on the part of Galgacus, the Caledonian chief. From the foot of the hill a plain extended southward to the junction of the rivers. ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... their attention in that direction, and that those who were going round might as much as possible escape notice. 3. But when the rear-guard came to a ravine, which they had to pass to gain the ascent, the Barbarians then rolled down masses of rock,[183] each big enough to load a waggon, with other stones greater and smaller, which, striking in their descent against the rocks, were hurled abroad in all directions;[184] and it was utterly impossible even to approach the pass. 4. Some of the captains, when they could not succeed in this part, made ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... to be taking a glass of wine. Wine had unlocked his heart,—the prospect of the forest and the advancing night excited him,—and even of such a child as myself he was now disposed to make a confidant. "Did you observe," said he, "that ill-looking fellow, as big as a camel, who stood on the landlord's left hand? "Was it the man, I asked timidly, who seemed by his dress to be a farmer? "Farmer, you call him! Ah! my young friend, that shows your little knowledge of the world. He is a scoundrel, the bloodiest ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... did his father guess—that this pug-nosed boy, making pictures in the sand with his big toe, would also leave his footprints on the sands of time, and a name that would rival that of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... thought open and noble." The next time that the king appears all is altered. His Majesty's eyes are without the smallest expression; he has a vulgar laugh which seems like idiocy, an ignoble figure, an awkward gait, and the look of a big boy ill brought up. It is the same with more important questions. Barere is for the parliaments on the Monday and against the parliaments on the Tuesday, for feudality in the morning and against feudality ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for mechanical solidarity, based upon likenesses. The umbilical cord, as Marx said, which connects the individual consciousness with the collective consciousness is cut. The personality becomes more and more emancipated. But on what does this phenomenon, so big with consequences, itself depend? The author goes to social morphology for the answer: it is, he says, the growing density of population which brings with it this increasing differentiation of activities. But, again, why? Because the greater density, in thrusting men up against ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... edge of the woods the blackberry pickers were scattered about, lying and sitting on the ground in groups and pairs, chatting and watching the preparations going on before their eyes. Pretty and wild the preparations were. Under a big tree just at the border of the clearing a fire was kindled; a stout spike driven into the trunk of the tree held a tea-kettle just over the blaze. Wreaths of blue and grey smoke curling up above the tea-kettle made their way through the tree branches into the upper air, taking hues and colours ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... 4. At Big Bethel, on the 10th, they found the regiment of Colonel Hill supporting a battery of the "Richmond Howitzers." There were also present two infantry and three cavalry companies belonging to Virginia. ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... was a darkly tinted, strongly built man, with big brown eyes, tremendous arms, and an oppressive manner. To him Mr. Ricketty ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... virtuous fight, When right with right wars who shall be most right! True swains in love shall in the world to come Approve their truth by Troilus, when their rhymes, Full of protest, of oath, and big compare, Want similes, truth tir'd with iteration— As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, As iron to adamant, as earth to th' centre— Yet, after all comparisons of truth, ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... apprehension of it and diligence after it. It is strange that all men who have pursued satisfaction in the things of this life, being disappointed, and one generation witnessing this to another, and one person to another, that, notwithstanding, men are this day as fresh in the pursuit of that, as big in the expectations as ever. And yet, in this business of religion, and the happiness to be found in it, though the oracles of God in all ages have testified from heaven how certain and possible it is, though many have found it in experience and left it on record ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... "Like big guns. Oh, yes, we know," interrupted Allen; "Janet does not think anyone worth listening to that hasn't got a whole ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the course, the rush of wind from the big propeller sent more than one Ecuadorean's wide-brimmed hat flying from his head, and to the enjoyment of all, a native who was perched precariously upon an up-ended cask ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... 'Oh, a big, coarse-looking fellow. Came back from Australia just before it happened. A brute! He's egging on the Crown. She left him all her money—about twenty thousand—but the jewels are supposed to be worth nearly as much more, and he's lost ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... Babel of sounds in the barn-yard. The turkeys left off gobbling and made a queer sound that they thought was "honk!" the ducks left off quacking, the chicks left off peeping, and said nothing at all, for "honk!" was too big a mouthful for them; and the soft billing and cooing of the doves were turned ...
— The Little Brown Hen Hears the Song of the Nightingale & The Golden Harvest • Jasmine Stone Van Dresser
... considers that with the same propriety with which the amount of heat which a pound weight produces by falling through the distance of a foot, may be called its equivalent in one sense, may the amount of feeling which the pound produces by falling through a foot of distance on a gouty big toe, be called its equivalent in another sense, to wit, that of consciousness. Yet he protests against these tenets being deemed materialistic, which, he declares, they certainly neither are nor can be, for that while he himself certainly holds them, he as certainly is not himself a materialist. ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... exorcised by Domphius, Michaelis, and a company of circumventing friars. If any man (saith Lemnius) will attempt such a thing, without all those juggling circumstances, astrological elections of time, place, prodigious habits, fustian, big, sesquipedal words, spells, crosses, characters, which exorcists ordinarily use, let him follow the example of Peter and John, that without any ambitious swelling terms, cured a lame man. Acts iii. "In the name of Christ Jesus rise and walk." His ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... pride held them inexorably apart. He drifted into an entanglement with Mrs. Raikes, and she deliberately cultivated the friendship of Dr. Bauerstein. Do you remember the day of John Cavendish's arrest, when you found me deliberating over a big decision?" ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... was a long, pleasant gossip, and I thought Judy seemed rather glad to let her husband dictate its level, which, of course, he did. I noticed when the three rode away together that the Colonel was beginning to sit down rather solidly on his big New Zealander; and I watched the dusk come over from the foothills for a long time thinking more kindly than I had spoken ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... nigh, these Impediments are very obvious. They have very small Limbs. They wear but two Garments; a Frock, and a sort of Petticoat; the Petticoat is only a piece of Cloth, sewed both ends together; but it is made two Foot too big for their Wastes, so that they may wear either end uppermost; that part that comes up to their Wastes, because it is so much too big, they gather it in their Hands, and twist it till it fits close to their Wastes, tucking in the twisted part between their Waste and the edge of the Petticoat, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... caused by the big mouthfuls of codfish and potato which, between phrases, Mr. Peaslee conveyed to his mouth. It was plain to see that he was greatly pleased with his ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... me in going through the camp was its businesslike aspect. It did not suggest a big picnic, nor an encampment of militia for annual summer drill. It was manifestly a camp of veterans; and although its dirty, weather-beaten tents were pitched here and there without any attempt at regularity of arrangement, and its camp equipage, cooking-utensils, and weapons ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... on 'em is a big, long, rangy cuss, like a yearlin' colt, by gosh, and ther other's the dead spit of the school teacher at ther Four ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... this, when the car sped round a wide curve in the road and beyond big lodge gates a large imposing mansion of modern architecture came suddenly into view about half a mile away, partly concealed by beautiful woods sloping down to it from both sides of the valley. Slackening speed as we ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... the Eiffel Tower that breezy afternoon saw a sight that never a man saw before. Out of the haze a yellow shape loomed larger each minute until its outlines could be distinctly seen. It was a big cigar-shaped balloon, and under it, swung by what seemed gossamer threads, was a basket in which was a man. The air-ship was going against the wind, and the man in the basket evidently had full control, for the amazed people on the tower saw the air-ship ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... much now—ten a week—that's all." Hastily he continued: "But it won't be for long. The big men down town know me—they know what I'm worth to them. They're just watching me. Any day they may make me an offer that would land me in Easy Street. Besides, sooner or later I'll astonish people with one of my inventions. I'm ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... were befitting a mere dependency. Yielding to the inevitable, the King decided to return to Portugal, leaving the young Crown Prince to act as Regent in the colony. A critical moment for the little country and its big dominion oversea had indubitably arrived. John understood the trend of the times, for on the eve of his departure he said to his son: "Pedro, if Brazil is to separate itself from Portugal, as seems likely, you take the crown yourself before any ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... leather breastplate, leaned on a pair of foils. The feminine attraction, a rose in her hair, with a man's overcoat protecting her against the freshness of the evening air over her ballet-dancer's dress, played at the same time the cymbals and the big bass-drum a desperate accompaniment to three measures of a polka, always the same, which were murdered by a blind clarionet player; and the ringmaster, a sort of Hercules with the face of a galley-slave, a Silenus ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... young men, among whom Patty liked best a young Englishman of big-boyish, good-natured type, named Bert Chester, and a young Frenchman of musical tastes. The latter was a violinist, by the name of Pierre Pauvret. He seemed a trifle melancholy, Patty thought, but exceedingly refined and well-bred. He stood by her side as she leaned ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... tolerable, because it is sanctioned by the customs, habits, and practices of what is called high life. If this sin wears kid gloves, and patent leathers, and coat of exquisite fit, and carries an opera-glass of costliest material, and lives in a big house, and rides in a splendid turn-out, is it to be any the ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... What were their big movements relative to the Promised Land? What is the history of Israel up to the time of the Savior? What is their history subsequently? Are we ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... the professor and I, obeying a common impulse of travellers, got up early and went forth to survey our new quarters. It was a splendid morning, the whole atmosphere steeped in sunshine, and musical with the songs of birds. The big sun was peeping over the distant wall of the crater, but we did not feel his rays uncomfortably hot. A sky of the loveliest azure was streaked with thin white clouds, drawn across it like muslin curtains, and a cooling breeze ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... The big, broad-shouldered man with the huge mustache and deep, bass voice looked like some grey-haired knight whose giant arm could have dealt that Swabian stroke which cleft the foe from skull to saddle, and yet at that time he was occupied from morning until night in the delicate ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... returned, and that returned in further performances, and they returned again. Nor can the push of charity or personal force ever be anything else than the profoundest reason, whether it bring arguments to hand or no. No specification is necessary—to add or subtract or divide is in vain. Little or big, learned or unlearned, white or black, legal or illegal, sick or well, from the first inspiration down the windpipe to the last expiration out of it, all that a male or female does that is vigorous and benevolent and clean is so much sure profit to him or her in the unshakable ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... a nice time in the end. This girl out here has a basket of scraps on her arm, and a big old shawl all round her, and doesn't seem to care a bit, though the water runs out of the toes of her boots. She goes paddling along, laughing at the rain, and eating a cold potato as if it tasted nicer than the chicken and ice-cream ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... wilder and more masterful, still following the lines of the song, rising to towering height. And now in the strains, slow and faster, sounds the sigh above and below, all in a madrigal of woe. The whole is surmounted by a big descending phrase, articulate almost in its grim dogma, as it runs into the line of the first legend in full tumult of gloom. It is followed by the doom slowly proclaimed in thundering tones of the brass, in midst of a tempest of surging ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... Wrangle to the stable. The sorrel's shy a shoe, an' I've got to help hold the big devil ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... good high hat indeed. "Budgeree!" thought the king, that was a good hat. He could go down the streets like a king indeed, able to hold up his head with any rich man in Ballarat. He tried it on, and though it was much too big, he knew it shone. And the glory of a hat is in its shining as much as its shape; even a black ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... at its western end, is the avenue de la Grande Armee, crowded with bicyclists and with a multitude of creatures fearfully and wonderfully clad, who do incomprehensible things in connection with motor-carriages. Also there are big cafes in plenty, whose waiters must be smoothly shaven: and moreover, at the time when Hippolyte came into his own, the porte Maillot station of the Metropolitain had already pushed its entree and sortie up through the soil, not a hundred metres from his door, ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... usual occurrences as there were always such on a big ranch. One or more of the cowboys was continually getting hurt, more or less seriously, and being doctored in the rough and ready fashion that, perforce, prevails in the unsettled part of ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... professional and business-like manner; capable members of the gang set to work not too nicely, for they had in fact to share the spoil with the advocates and the jurymen, and the more they stole, they did so the more securely. The notion of honour in theft too was already developed; the big robber looked down on the little, and the latter on the mere thief, with contempt; any one, who had been once for a wonder condemned, boasted of the high figure of the sums which he was proved to have exacted. Such was the behaviour in the provinces of the successors of those men, who had ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... you think of a law that will take away a man's mine because it apexes on another man's claim? I discovered this mine and I formed the company, keeping fifty-one per cent. of the stock. I opened her up and she was paying big, when Andy McBain comes along. A shyster lawyer—that's the best you can say for him—but he cleaned me, down ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... far as the ferry, but you won't get taken over. There will be a big sea in the Crouch, for the wind is pretty nigh straight up it; but you will be able to sleep at the inn this side. In the morning, if the wind has gone down, you can cross; if not, you will have to go round by the bridge, nigh ten ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... he went to a school in {13} the city, taught by a Mr Bromley on Lancaster's system. 'What kind of a boy was Joe?' was asked of an old lady who had gone to school with him sixty years before. 'Why, he was a regular dunce; he had a big nose, a big mouth, and a great big ugly head; and he used to chase me to death on my way home from school,' was her ready answer. It is easy to picture the eager, ugly, bright-eyed boy, fonder of a frolic with ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... will or not," answered David. "Catch me losing a chance like this to ring one on Phoebe for several reasons. Hurry up!" and as he spoke he had lifted little Mistake from his cot and was dextrously winding him in his blanket. The youngster opened his big dewy eyes and chuckled at the sight of his side ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess |
