"Less" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... services done by him, he will prove that they were done for some private object, and not out of any good will; or else he will prove that he has conceived hatred since or else that all those services have been effaced by his frequent offences, or else that his services are of less importance than his injuries, or that, as he has already received adequate honours for his services, he ought also to have punishment inflicted on him for the injuries which he has committed. In the next place, he will urge that it is discreditable or pernicious ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... itself that Tita and Tom Hescott have gone for a walk together; somewhere—anywhere beyond the ken of those of her own household. To think that he should have sacrificed his whole life—that he should have married this child, who is less to him that thistledown, to be cast aside by her, and to let her bring down his good name ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... and unjust," said Joe, and an indignant frown contracted his brow,—"here is our birth-place, and here, for forty years have I toiled early and late to enrich my master; and you, my poor wife, a few years less; and now we are to be sold, separated, and all without a choice of our own. We must go, Rosa. If we die, let ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... belong to her family or have won her favour and done her essential service, are the chiefs of the State and the leaders in war. The royal patronage extended this influence over the Church and the universities. But we find it no less in all other branches. Sir Thomas Gresham, the Queen's agent in money-matters, was the founder of the Exchange of London, to which she at his request gave the ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... recognized. But she was so faithful to Nature, that many of her acquaintance, whose characters had never entered her mind, were much offended, and could not be persuaded that they or their friends had not been depicted in some of her less attractive personages: a feeling which we have frequently shared; for, as the touches of her pencil brought out the light and shades very quietly, we have been startled to recognize our own portrait come gradually out on the canvas, especially since we are not equal to the courage of Cromwell, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... nature essentially temporary and changeable: we have no right to assume that they will be continued, and therefore a miracle at any time might justly require us to forsake them; and not only an outward miracle, but the changed circumstances of the times may speak God's will no less clearly than a miracle, and may absolutely make it our duty to lay aside those ordinances, which to us hitherto, and to our fathers before us, were indeed the ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... None the less, she had arrived at the point when, the tension on her own nerves becoming too great, she felt she must scream, drive her clenched hand through the glass of the window, or perform some other act of hysterical violence; then he ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... had less philosophy. Every time Nana showed her a fresh bruise on the white skin she screamed aloud. They were killing her niece; things couldn't go on as they were doing. As a matter of fact, Fontan had turned Mme Lerat out of doors and had declared that he would not have her ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... drew off, and their apparently disinterested hearer turned the page of his paper. It was five minutes before they came back. This time it was the old gentleman who was speaking, and as he was more discreet than his companion or less under the influence of his feelings, his voice was lower and his words less easy ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... fighting, step by step, each man towards his own dwelling, where he fell dead on its threshold. Swart himself, with a few of the bravest, had driven back that part of the enemy's line which they attacked. Thus they were separated for a time from their less successful comrades, and it was not till the smoke of their burning homesteads rose up in dense clouds that they became aware of the true state of the fight. At once they turned and ran to the rescue of their families, but their retreat was cut off by a party of the enemy, and ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... impatient and revengeful study the example of Hannah, who did not allow herself to utter an angry word, or even to cherish a resentful feeling against Eli, when he preferred against her an inconsiderate and aggravating accusation; much less did she indulge a spirit of malignity. How many would have felt an invincible aversion, even though his frank acknowledgment had compelled them to a momentary reconciliation; and, viewing his character ever after through the medium of prejudice, would have magnified every feeling, and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... that afternoon journeyed down to Montfield, he recalled all the details of this interview. The more he considered the more he respected Candish and the less satisfaction he found in his own conduct. Yet perhaps the human mind cannot cease self-justification at any point short of annihilation, and Philip still had in his secret thought a deep feeling that the church should more absolutely settle the question of the celibacy ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... he said, 'less because I was in this direction than to ask you, Mrs. Clark, what you mid well guess. I've come ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... cheerful and joyous of weddings, though the bride was a far less brilliant spectacle than the bride of last year, Mrs. Robert Brownlow, who with her handsome oval face, fine figure, and her tasteful dress, perfectly befitting a young matron, could not help infinitely outshining the little girlish angular creature, looking the browner for her bridal white, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the news had penetrated, nobody knew just how. Roberta learned, to her surprise and distraction, that Richard Kendrick was somehow a particularly interesting figure in the eyes of her young players, and she speedily discovered that they were all more or less excited at the knowledge that he was somewhere below the footlights. Olivia, indeed, was immediately in a flutter, quite as her mother had predicted, at the thought of Cousin Richard's eyes upon her ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... "More or less directly, I came here, and lunched, in the conviction that you were closeted with Belasco. Did you ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... Z. says he would be glad to have this charge (originally brought forward in 1767) sifted. He will find that it has been sifted, and in the most full and satisfactory manner, by persons of no less distinction than Archbishop Secker and Bishop Halifax. The strong language employed by the archbishop, when refuting what he terms {573} a "gross and scandalous falsehood," and when asserting the bishops "abhorrence of popery," need ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... suffering crowd, amid such exclamations as 'Oh! please don't touch my foot,' or, 'For mercy's sake, don't touch my arm;' another, 'Please don't move the blanket; I am so terribly cut up,' down to the hold, in which were not less than one hundred and fifty, nearly all sick, some very sick. It was like plunging into a vapor bath, so hot, close, and full of moisture, and then in this dismal place, we distributed our bread, oranges, and pickles, which were seized upon with avidity. And here let ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... think that they receive the bread from heaven only for their own use, and that they have done all that they have to do with it, when they eat it themselves. And so come all manner of spiritual diseases. A selfish, that is an inactive, religion is always more or less a morbid religion. For health you need exercise. 'In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread'; that law expresses not only the fact that work is needed to get it, but that toil must give the appetite and fit the frame to digest it. There is such a thing as a morbid Christianity ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... you hear Uncle Ben say that he would be ashamed to send anything less than a real magazine through the mail?—That we would have to do our work over again if it was poorly done?" said ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... numerical preponderance of the Hindu population as a whole. Intelligent Mahomedans are conscious that all this is to a great extent the result of the backwardness of their community, but hardships are none the less hardships because they are largely of one's own making. Again, the principal seat of the Government of India and those of the two great Presidency Governments are in centres of Hindu life where the voice of the Mahomedan element does ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... in nests in trees like birds or in the ground like moles and worms, these tiny germs, less than one twenty-five thousandth of an inch long, make their homes on the roots of legumes. Nestling snugly together, they live, grow, and multiply in their sunless homes. Through their activity the soil is enriched by the addition of ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... of exquisite Vienna, while their legs stretched in melancholy inactivity on the Piazza pavement, and their arms encircled no ductile waists. They tried to despise it more than they disliked it, called their female foes Amazons, and their male by a less complimentary title, and so waited for the patriotic epidemic ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... growing up in ignorance in one Southern State alone. The same report stated that outside of the cities and towns, while the average number of school-houses in a county was sixty, all of these sixty school-houses were worth in lump less than $2,000, and the report further added that many of the school-houses in Georgia were not fit for horse stables. I am glad to say, however, that vast improvement over this condition is being made in Georgia under ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... felt between one man and another as soon as they begin to talk: every little trifle shows it. When two people of totally different natures are conversing, almost everything said by the one will, in a greater or less degree, displease the other, and in many cases produce positive annoyance; even though the conversation turn upon the most out-of-the-way subject, or one in which neither of the parties has any real interest. People of similar nature, on the other hand, immediately come to ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... situation became less and less, and he saw clearly that Serpentina still loved him, and that it was she alone, who had rendered his confinement in the crystal tolerable. He disturbed himself no more about his frivolous companions in misfortune, but ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... great difficulty—"Miss Vernon cannot suppose—you, sir, cannot believe, that I have forgot your interference in my difficulties, or that I am capable of betraying any one, much less you?" ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... instrumentality of sailing ships alone, there was no necessity for a steam ship of war—the narrow-minded policy of the ministers who have figured in these pages never conceiving that to maintain maritime preponderance is scarcely less difficult than to achieve it. Hence, to get rid of the paltry sum of L13,000 due—and still due—to my brother for his advances on the ship, she was rejected; the consequence was, that after my departure, the independence of Chili was again placed in jeopardy, whilst Peru ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... that they are evidently preparing to refresh themselves for farther toil and journeying. The foliage of the trees is elaborately executed; the distance is well preserved; and the whole possesses great truth to nature; perhaps however, like all 'green' pictures, it is less attractive in an exhibition than works of a warmer color. No. 163, 'Portrait of a Gentleman,' has great force, and shows the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... that personage literally at his word. The message was, No. When writing it in the office it seemed to him to be uncourteous, but he found it difficult to add any other words that should make it less so. He supplemented it with a letter on his arrival in London, in which he expressed his regret that certain circumstances of his life which had occurred during the last month or two made him unfit to undertake the duties of the very ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... competition. The strongest point is the importance of diversity combined with group unity for the fullest enrichment of life and the widest development of human capacity. A world all of one sort would not only be less interesting, but less progressive. We are stimulated by different customs, temperaments, arts, and ideals. But all this is the strongest argument for genuine cooperation, since by this only can diversity be helpful, even as it is only through diversity in its members that a community can ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts
... friend, that I employ the liberty of that intimacy with which you have honoured me, in reminding you of circumstances, which I am not less sure that you revolve with a melancholy pleasure, than I am desirous that they should live for ever in your remembrance. That sweet susceptibility of soul which is cultivated by these affectionate recollections, ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... Robert. "It is always a relief to hear that I am likely to have one candidate the less for my poor perpetual curacy in Pimlico. They're at me like flies round a honey-pot, don't you know. I thought I had made the acquaintance of all the perpetual curates in Christendom. And what a sweet team they are, to be sure! The last of them came yesterday. I was ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the assumption which the experience of Apuleius had suggested to him: it was what, in different forms, certain persons in every age had instinctively supposed: they would be glad to find their supposition accredited by the authority of a grave philosophy. Marius, however, yearning not less than they, in that hard world of Rome, and below its unpeopled sky, for the trace of some celestial wing across it, must still object that they assumed the thing with too much facility, too much of self-complacency. And his ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... they would be returned to him at that point. Thompson naturally demurred; whereupon the man offered to deposit with him in cash the value of the horse and cab, to be refunded upon their return in the morning less fifty dollars for their hire. This was too good to let slip and Thompson acquiesced, fixing the value at three hundred and fifty dollars, which sum the man skinned off a roll of yellow-backs. Then the fare buttoned his coat around him, jumped on the box, and drove east on Massachusetts ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... district, covering a very wide area, and including six circuits, whose total membership was only 11,460, after a hundred years of Methodism. The various branches of the recently established London Mission report more than a third of this number after less than ten years' labour. ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... little Shetland pony. I called her Bessy. She is less than four feet high. She likes ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... men's minds that the previous state of the Continent has been a somewhat neglected topic. The Incas and their civilization, it is true, have attracted no small share of attention to themselves, and the subject has become more or less familiar to the average English reader through the medium of the work of Prescott, who has been followed by a number of later writers, many of whom have dealt very exhaustively with this subject. Yet, after all, the Incas, for ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... and already a good part of July. The thunder storms had become less frequent, but thick fog often so enveloped the mountain that one could hardly see two steps away, and only here and there a black head appeared, looking gloomily through the mist. The cattle often wandered so far that the man found some of them ...
— Toni, the Little Woodcarver • Johanna Spyri
... could have hit hard. We have heard much of Faraday's gentleness and sweetness and tenderness. It is all true, but it is very incomplete. You cannot resolve a powerful nature into these elements, and Faraday's character would have been less admirable than it was had it not embraced forces and tendencies to which the silky adjectives 'gentle' and 'tender' would by no means apply. Underneath his sweetness and gentleness was the heat ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... Chateau-Landon was made the head of a new Chapter: after which Mauburn proceeded to reform the Abbey of Livry, a few miles to the north-east of Paris. The second mission, though promoted by influential men in Paris, had less result. St. Victor's, the Benedictine Abbey which the Bishop of Paris wished to reform, was one of the most important in his diocese; and its inmates were averse from the proposed changes. For nine months the mission from Windesheim sat in Paris, expounding, ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... But my nephew will gain fame for our name by his renown as an artist; the only difference between us is that he makes his fortune with his brushes, and I have made mine with ships. Art, to-day, Madame, may be as important as trade, but it is less profitable. Take my nephew. Although he has made a very early success, it is I who have enabled him to. When my poor brother died, his wife following him almost immediately, I found myself, while quite a young man, left alone with this baby. Well, I made him learn everything ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... in those on Sheriffmuir and in Skirving's amusing ballad on Preston Pans, or were mere doggerel, or were brief songs to old tunes. They survive in print, whether in flying broadsides or in books, but, popular as is 'The Queen's Marie,' in all its many variants (Child gives no less than eighteen), we do not know a single printed example before Scott's made-up copy in the 'Border Minstrelsy.' The latest ballad really in the old popular manner known to me is that of 'Rob Roy,' namely, of Robin Oig and James More, sons of Rob ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... kernel of the reforms ordered by His Majesty, Kuang Hsum in 1898, and which led to his dethronement and imprisonment, substantially adopted less than three years later by the Empress Dowager and her advisers. . . . The bare notation of the tenor of these far-reaching edicts gives to the Occidental reader but a vague notion of the tremendous intellectual revolution which ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... the frozen bosom of a great lake, no less than an inland sea, and a hundred miles must be travelled before night, or the snow, overtook them. It was a hard run. But it must be accomplished. Failure? But failure must not be considered. No man could contemplate ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... and sparkle of the sea; and for awhile both remained silent, looking down on the cottages, and the creels, and the drying nets. The whole village seemed to be out, and the sands were covered with picturesque figures in sea-boots and striped hanging caps, and with the no less picturesque companion figures in striped petticoats. Some of the latter were old women, and these wore high-crowned, unbordered caps of white linen; others were young women, and these had no covering at all ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... tide-rips in the narrow channels between the islands of the Central group; but inside, the sea is fairly good, and the reefs offer plenty of anchorage for small craft. Much less safe are the open archipelagoes of the Banks and Torres Islands and of the Southern New Hebrides, where the swell of the open ocean is unbroken by any land and harbours ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... time. It is cheaper and easier to highly fertilize and prepare a small area for the nursery, while at the same time much stronger and more uniform plants are secured than would be possible by sowing in the field. The labor of weeding and caring for the plants in the nursery is far less than would be required in the field. It would be practically impossible to fit the entire rice areas as early in the season as the nursery beds are fitted, for the green manure is not yet grown and time is required for composting or for decaying, if plowed under ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... too late," said Kit after we were again snug in the back parlor, "to get a yacht built and launched so as to make a voyage this summer. Such a vessel as we want can't be built and got off the stocks in much, if any, less than a year. What are we to do meanwhile?—wait ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... information which your Holiness very properly refused to reveal. At the same time official channels have disclosed to his Majesty's Government the nature of the conspiracy of which your Holiness so patriotically forewarned them. This conspiracy appears to be no less serious than an attempt to assassinate the King, but as detailed knowledge of so vile a plot is necessary in order to save the life of our august sovereign, his Majesty's Government asks you to grant the Prime Minister the honour of an audience with your ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... most questions that are intimately concerned with personal opinions, is not geographical at all. The internal management of railways ought not to be in the hands of the geographical state, for reasons which we have already considered. Still less ought it to be in the hands of a set of irresponsible capitalists. The only truly democratic system would be one which left the internal management of railways in the hands of the men who work on them. These men should elect the general manager, and a parliament of ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... are more or less apparent at or near the sources of the principal rivers; but with the exception of the Southern Alps and some patches in the counties of Bathurst and Murray this fundamental rock is visible in Australia only where it appears to have cracked a thick overlying ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... went. Although Sir Reginald was now so reduced that he could scarcely support the least fatigue, he insisted on giving Ellen away. He was that morning, and had been, for the last two or three days, considerably better, and our happiness seemed to grow less selfish in our increasing hope ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... over which the rainfall is taken is increased. For instance, a rainfall of lin may occur in a period of twenty minutes, being at the rate of 3 in per hour, but if a period of one hour is taken the fall during such lengthened time will be considerably less than 3 in In towns where automatic rain gauges are installed and records kept, the required data can be abstracted, but in other cases it is necessary to estimate the quantity of rain which may have to ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... some at least, if not most, of those who have read him to some extent, may urge that Decency—taking her revenge for the axiom of the boatswain in Mr. Midshipman Easy—forbids Duty to let him in. And yet others, less under the control of any Mrs. Grundy, literary or moral, may ask why he is let in, and Choderlos de Laclos[418] and Louvet de Courray, with some more, kept out, as they most assuredly ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... papa, why will you mortify one so?—Well, if he refuses, instead of breaking my heart at his indifference, I'll only break my glass for its flattery, set my cap to some newer fashion, and look out for some less difficult admirer. ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... at Mrs. Browning lately has very much confirmed my notion that the fault of her things is lack of condensation. They are almost without exception too long. I doubt if one should ever leave less than fifty per cent. of a situation to one's readers' own imagination, if one aims at the highest class of readers. That swan song to Camoeens from his dying lady would have been very perfect in FIVE verses. As it is, one gets tired even of the exquisite refrain "Sweetest eyes, were ever seen" ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... been analyzed and labelled, have made her a social star; who has come to wonder, then to resent, then to yawn at the general vanity of life, is suddenly swept out of her calm orbit by a man's passion; and, with the swiftness of decision natural to her, goes to Europe. She returns in less than three months. For these two people there is but one sequel. The second chapter will be written the first time they are alone. Then they will go to Europe. What will be ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... dust has been raised about civil and criminal actions. But to what purpose? Is not reparation to be made to the public for any injury which it may have sustained, as much as to an individual? Is the welfare of the nation in general, of less consequence than that of a single person? Where then is the propriety of making such a bustle about the malice or innocence of the intention? The injury done is the only proper measure of the punishment to be inflicted, as well as of the damage to be assessed. Since ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... Selarus, that in a few hours turns a rod or a wand into stone (and our Camden mentions the like wonder in England:) that there is a River in Arabia, of which all the Sheep that drink thereof have their Wool turned into a Vermilion colour. And one of no less credit then Aristotle, [in his Wonders of nature, this is confirmed by Ennius and Solon in his holy History.] tels us of a merry River, the River Elusina, that dances at the noise of Musick, that with Musick it bubbles, dances, and growes sandy, ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... physics; economics and sociology never troubled him; he had small Latin and less Greek; he never traveled, and the history of the rocks ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... in tones less coldly calm than I could have wished, "if you have thought it necessary to—to orate at this length merely to tell me that I am to have no share in this ridiculous treasure of yours, you have wasted a great deal of energy. In the first place, I don't believe ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... aspirations before the audience of a larger planet; others, perhaps the majority, would choose, with more humility as well as with more common sense, the shadowy scenery, the softer footlights and the less exigent public of a modest asteroid, beyond the reach of our earthly haste, of our noisy and unclean high-roads to honour, of our furious chariot races round the goals of fame, and, especially, beyond the reach of competition. But we have no choice. ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... large leaves is best. It is richest in mineral matter and is less liable to conceal insects that are difficult to dislodge. Buy the crisp, green spinach that has no withered leaves or stalks. That ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... a strong man, with strong men under him, could have saved England then. Morlac of Gascony is not the easy reading which many people insist on in novels which deal with the past, and for this reason it may not be so popular as some historical novels of far less merit; but if you are prepared to make something of an effort to carry the trenches of the earlier portion of the story you will have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... month before Nekhludoff would have argued that he was powerless to change the existing order of things; that he was not managing the estate, and living and receiving his income far away from the estate, would feel more or less at ease. But now he resolved that, although there was before him a trip to Siberia and complex and difficult relations to the prison world, for which social standing, and especially money, were necessary, he could not, nevertheless, leave his affairs in their ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less, whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more, whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... wisdom of the law, we may not approve of its provisions, but we can not violate it merely because it seems to confine our powers within limits narrower than we could wish. It is not a question of individual or class or sectional interest, much less of party predominance, but of duty—of high and sacred duty—which we are all sworn to perform. If we can not support the Constitution with the cheerful alacrity of those who love and believe in it, we must give to it at least the fidelity of public servants who act under solemn obligations ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... situation by long and large, society must cease to be a sham and become truly social. The thing seems inconceivable, and still less practicable; but it is not. Nor has history failed to admonish us that it has sometimes been the most difficult and improbable things which have been nevertheless accomplished; as if their very difficulty, and the labor and self-sacrifice involved ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... of the Lodge, our Brethren of the York Rite say, "are unlimited, and its covering no less than the canopy of Heaven." "To this object," they say, "the mason's mind is continually directed, and thither he hopes at last to arrive by the aid of the theological ladder which Jacob in his vision saw ascending from earth ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... nearly a foot deep. It now froze hard, and the river was covered with small pieces of floating ice. I rubbed my burning forehead with the snow, and felt relief. For some time I assisted Tom to heave it overboard, but the fever pressed upon me, and in less than half-an-hour I could no longer stand the exertion. I sat down on the water cask, and pressed my ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... I think, Lamb's last contribution to the London, which had been growing steadily heavier and less hospitable to gaiety. Some one, however, contributed to it from time to time papers more or less in the Elian manner. There had been one in July, 1825, on the Widow Fairlop, a lady akin to "The Gentle Giantess." In September, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... prayed, seeing that he had an exceedingly great multitude of men, he attacked the city on all sides at the same time, because the inhabitants would be thus at less leisure to observe the peril that was threatening them from the mine. As to the men of Veii, they knew not that the oracles of the stranger, yea, that their own prophets, had betrayed them, that the gods of their land ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... by far the more important so far as the legitimate duties of the marshal are concerned, contains scarcely six thousand inhabitants. Massachusetts is a district with over a million and a third of people: so is Arizona, with less than ten thousand. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... weird history," remarked Dr. Lith. "No less than seven deaths, as well as many accidents, have been attributed to the malign influence of that greenish yellow coffin. You know the ancient Egyptians used to chant as they buried their sacred dead: 'Woe to him who injures the tomb. The dead shall point out the evildoer ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... make a trifling error in the use of so peculiar a language, but it is singular that a seaman himself should commit the same fault in precisely the same words. This did the youth of whom we are speaking; and, what is no less surprising the old man assented to the same, just as if they had been ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... diurnal bird or animal flies or ranges only by day: in contradistinction to nocturnal flowers, birds, etc. A diurnal motion exactly fills an astronomical day or the time of one rotation of a planet on its axis, while a daily motion is much less definite. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... summoning their companions to horseback, rode away, they scarcely knew whither but with the cheering hope that they should draw the attention of the enemy from the retreat of the king to the pursuit of themselves. In less than an hour a troop of horse from Cotsal, under the command of Colonel Ashenhurst, arrived at Whiteladies; but the king was already gone; a fruitless search only provoked their impatience, and they hastily followed the track of the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... had his will; she is a lone girl; and her unnatural father was no less eager that the marriage should be than the baseborn himself. Let it be!' Then a startled gleam came into ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... like that, anyhow. But it was a nasty business, and it made matters worse that he didn't care that a telegram which must pass through a half dozen hands was more or less incriminating to me. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... It is nothing less than the surrender to such a life of simple and entire obedience that is implied in becoming a Christian. There are, alas! too many Christians who, from the want either of proper instruction, or of proper attention to the teaching of God's word, have ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... not less bloody took place in the western part of Greece, in the island of Corcyra, before which a naval battle was fought between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians. The island had been governed by oligarchies, under the protection of Sparta, but the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... revived, Rodney, the culprit, was nowhere in sight. He had rescued his precious toad, and had fled from the house, greatly puzzled over the confusion which had been made over his simple action. Little did he know, much less care, that for years to come he would be considered a "bad boy" by many of the leading people of Hillcrest, and totally unfit to associate with other children ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... members of the ruling faction of the time it may not become us now to speak harshly, for most of them were men of education and refinement, and in their day did good service to the State. If, in the exercise of their office, they lacked consideration at times for the less favoured of their fellow-colonists, they had the instincts and bearing of gentlemen, save, it may be, when, in conclave, occasion drove them to a violent and contemptuous opposition to the will of the people. But men—most of all politicians—naturally ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... frightful to her. She turned even from the thought of Isy's restoration, as if that were itself an added wrong. From the occasional involuntary association of the two in her thought, she would turn away with a sort of meek loathing. To hold her James for one moment in the same thought with any girl less spotless than he, ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... taken a position on the other side which commanded the crossing. Their position was not only strong but its natural strength had been increased by breastworks. Two pieces of artillery were posted on a slight hill less than half a mile back. In front of the hill were the breastworks; in front of the breastworks woods. A line of skirmishers firing from the edge of the woods kept the pioneers ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... out of the way or less exigent, the Lords of Trade returned to the affairs of New England. They wished, before proceeding to extremes, to give Massachusetts another chance to be heard; so, in dismissing the agents in the autumn of 1679, they instructed the colony to send ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... it won't be 'free,'" grumbled Billy Burton. "I won't feel 'free,' till I get those awful examinations off my mind. They'll be here now in less than a week, and I can't ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... and also that of the castle, after he had returned across the court-yard in the same way in which he crossed it before. It was evident Hubert had intended to go away on horseback, but had suddenly changed his mind; and no less evident was it that there was a dangerous understanding of some sort between Hubert and the old house-steward. V—— looked forward to the morning with burning impatience; he would acquaint the Freiherr with the occurrences of the night. Really it was now time to take precautionary measures against ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... absolute—we call one end of the scale Good and the other Bad, or one end Good and the other Evil, according to the use of the terms. A thing is "less good" than the thing higher in the scale; but that "less good" thing, in turn, is "more good" than the thing next below it—and so on, the "more or less" being regulated by ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... the present, any other portion of your command but the corps of General Granger necessary for operations in this section; and, inasmuch as General Grant has weakened the forces immediately with him in order to relieve us (thereby rendering the position of General Thomas less secure), I deem it advisable that all the troops now here, save those commanded by General Granger, should return at once to within supporting distance of the forces in front of Bragg's army. In behalf of my command, I desire again to thank you and your command for ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... varied in direct proportion to their fear of revolution at home. Thus France, whose capital had suffered most in the war and was weakest, was the most uncompromising, while America, whose capital was in a good position, was ready for agreement. England, with rather less confidence, he thought was ready to follow America. Need of raw material was the motive tending towards agreement with Russia. Fear that the mere existence of a Labour Government anywhere in the world strengthens the revolutionary movement elsewhere, was the motive for the desire ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... humming and buzzing of myriads of insects, the occasional chattering of monkeys in a neighbouring wood, and, with a passing gust, a chorus of frogs from a distant swamp. Unconscious of this din, from being accustomed always to hear more or less of it, the boy amused himself with chasing the fireflies, whose light began to glance around as darkness descended. His sister was poring over her work, which she was just finishing, when a gleam of greenish light made both look up. It came from a large meteor which sailed ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... had passed since that Christmas-eve in the cloister of Pfalzel. A little company of pilgrims, less than a score of men, were travelling slowly northward through the wide forest that rolled over the hills ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... 'Tis ours the doubtful remedy to find, To shun the fury of the seas and wind; For in this hollow swell, with labour sore, Her flank can bear the bursting floods no more. One only shift, though desperate, we must try, And that before the boisterous storm to fly: Then less her sides will feel the surges' power, Which thus may soon the foundering hull devour. 'Tis true the vessel and her costly freight To me consign'd, my orders only wait; 630 Yet, since the charge of every life is mine, To equal votes our counsels I resign— Forbid it, Heaven! that in ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... side by side, I will reveal to thee my thought. Thou shalt know all, to thee I will confide The evil by a woman wrought. A woman, yes! (mayhap, poor friends, ye guess, Or ever I have said the word!) To such a one my soul was bound, no less Than is the vassal to his lord. Detested yoke! within me to destroy The vigor and the bloom of youth! Yet only through my love I caught, in sooth, A fleeting glimpse of joy. When by the brook, beneath the ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... whispered that the festivities kept up until a late hour in the night. Whether that be true or not, it is generally conceded that from that time to this the Legislature of New Jersey have always been more or less interested in the affairs of the Camden and Amboy Railroad and its successors, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... house, and especially with those in the main flight. Business, or pleasure, often compelled me to keep late hours, and on such occasions, on arriving home, I would naturally try to reach my room as quietly as possible. With my shoes in my hand, and by a series of agile leaps from one less noisy stair to another, I usually succeeded in attaining the upper part of the ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... down the basket till it was almost flat, and it did not look as though there was any space in it for a kitten, much less an eight-year-old boy. Then the men formed a circle around the basket, and began a sort of chant. Something like a voice seemed to be sounding in at the open windows. It continued to come nearer, and at last appeared to proceed from the basket, which began to be distended, till it was restored ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... that this is our lucky morning," remarked Garry. "Here we might have been days and days before we ever found the slightest bit of evidence on which to base our search for the band of smugglers, but in less than an hour after the starting of our mission, we stumble upon this ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... others. What, in the case we have supposed, disguises the incorrectness of the expression, is this: that the various conditions, except the single one of eating the food, were not events (that is, instantaneous changes, or successions of instantaneous changes) but states, possessing more or less of permanency; and might therefore have preceded the effect by an indefinite length of duration, for want of the event which was requisite to complete the required concurrence of conditions: while as soon as that event, eating the food, occurs, no other cause is waited ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... found ourselves obliged to acknowledge and assert the present and persistent power of God, in the maintenance and in the continued formation of "types," what happened was the abolition of a time-limit. We were forced only to a bolder claim, to a theistic language less halting, more consistent, more thorough in its own line, as well as better qualified to assimilate and modify such schemes as Von Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious—a philosophy, by the way, quite intolerant of a merely mechanical evolution. (See Von Hartmann's "Wahrheit ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... on the authority of no less a personage than Charles the Bold of Burgundy (the Charles of Quentin Durward, at least) that "never was Englishman who loved a dry-lipped bargain;" and the same thing may safely be said of the modern Russian. But although the trakteer (or coffee-house, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... anxiety, Javert had not taken the prisoner prisoner. The assassinated man who flees is more suspicious than the assassin, and it is probable that this personage, who had been so precious a capture for the ruffians, would be no less fine a prize for ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... but not so badly as Elma, I think we must wait to hear the whole story explained; at present we are more or less in the dark." ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... spectres out of the dust of ancient days. They are so rude and queer, these Roman puppets; and yet they were loved once, and had pet names, and their owl-like faces were as tenderly kissed as their little mistresses had been by their mothers. So the Romany girl, unlike the Roman, is generally doll-less and toy-less. But the affection between mother and child is as warm among these wanderers as with any other people; and it is a touching sight to see the gypsy who has been absent all the weary day returning home. And when she is seen from afar off there is a race among all the little dark-brown ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... elementary and in high schools the possibility of utilizing their original nature for the sake of that development which will result in action which is socially desirable is still present. The problem which the teacher faces will be more or less difficult in proportion as the child's endowment by original nature is large or small, and as previous education has been successful or unsuccessful. The skillful teacher is the one who will constantly seek to utilize to the full those instincts or capacities which seem most potent. This utilization, ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... revolution effected by British aid, said Dayton gravely, an expedition would be undertaken against Mexico. Subsequently Dayton unfolded a still more remarkable tale. Burr had been disappointed in the expectation of British aid, and he was now bent upon "an almost insane plan," which was nothing less than the seizure of the Government at Washington. With the government funds thus obtained, and with the necessary frigates, the conspirators would sail for New Orleans and proclaim the independence of Louisiana and the ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... said Norah. "And the more you can carry on as usual, the less bad it will seem. Now, let's plan what you can tackle first. Can you ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... very hard labor [for wages of (1/2 rupee) for twelve hours' work.] They carry mats of sugar on their heads (70 pounds) all day lading ships, for half a rupee, and work at gardening all day for less. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to the sheds, and soon had out both my machine and Kantos Kan's. Making his fast behind mine I started my engine, and skimming over the edge of the roof I dove down into the streets of the city far below the plane usually occupied by the air patrol. In less than a minute I was settling safely upon the roof of our apartment ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... surveying the scene, or walking from desk to desk, noticing faults, and considering what plans he could form for securing, more and more fully, the end he had in view. He found that the great object of interest and attention among the boys was, to come out right, and that less pains were taken with the formation of the letters, than there ought to be, to secure the most ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... days where they began. I have had much confidence in thy discretion hitherto, and I have satisfaction in saying it has never failed thee, notwithstanding thou hast necessarily been a witness of some exploits of youth which might have drawn embarrassment on thy master were thy tongue less disposed to silence." ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... But that old clown Circumstance was piping in the market-place, shewing his cheap-jack wares to catch the fancies of the maidens, and my sweetheart, caught in the excitement of the moment, presently paid down for one of his flashy baubles no less a price ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... in a common pot; but Paulette, who is a bandbox-maker, had put it into a case of varnished paper, ornamented with arabesques. These might have been in better taste, but I did not feel the attention and good-will the less. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it lieth near my heart. Sith thou art no more Prince of Wales but King, thou canst order matters as thou wilt, with none to say thee nay; wherefore it is not in reason that thou wilt longer vex thyself with dreary studies, but wilt burn thy books and turn thy mind to things less irksome. Then am I ruined, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... illustrate the stages through which life forms pass in descending from the realistic to highly specialized conventional shapes. In the first series (Fig. 277), we begin with a meager but graphic sketch of the alligator; the second figure is hardly less characteristic, but is much simplified; in the third we have still three leading features of the creature: the body line, the spots, and the stroke at the back of the head; and in the fourth nothing remains but ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... animation to her vivid oval face, her hair was parted, after an earlier fashion, under its plaited crown, and allowed to break in a mist of little curls over her temples. Even in repose there was a joyousness in her look which seemed less the effect of an inward gaiety of mind than of some happy outward accident of form and colour. Her eyes, very far apart and set in black lashes, were of a deep soft blue—the blue of wild hyacinths after rain. By her eyes, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... This has less than no self-induction. It feeds back to instead of fighting an applied current. Put any current in it, and it feeds back to increase the magnetism until it reaches saturation. Then it starts to lose its magnetism and ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... furnished with fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the objects they converse with afford greater or less variety; and from the operations of their minds within, according as they more or less reflect on them. For, though he that contemplates the operations of his mind, cannot but have plain and clear ideas of them; yet, unless he turn his thoughts that way, and considers them ATTENTIVELY, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... battalion had not been improved by the sight. They obeyed their orders like sheep, but they were sheep that had gone astray, and their confidence in their leaders' powers to lead them back into the path of victory was growing less every day. ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... of Arthur Murphy's life he possessed a certain income of 500 pounds, and added to this was 150 pounds for the copyright of his Tacitus, which, however, was less than half the sum he had been frequently offered for it. The translation of Sallust, which Murphy left unfinished, was completed by Thomas ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... his fainting breast upbears. Then on the soul from some ancestral place Floods back remembrance of its heavenly birth, When, in the light of that serener sphere, It saw ideal beauty face to face That through the forms of this our meaner Earth Shines with a beam less ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... What we have ourselves built, we are at liberty to throw down; but what other men gave their strength and wealth and life to accomplish, their right over does not pass away with their death; still less is the right to the use of what they have left vested in us only. It belongs to all their successors. It may hereafter be a subject of sorrow, or a cause of injury, to millions, that we have consulted our present convenience by casting ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... history of England as were those which he attacked:' —and Hampden's conduct may claim analogous justification. If the Parliament could appeal to those mediaeval precedents which admitted the right of the people through their representatives, to control taxation and (more or less) direct national policy, Charles, (and Strafford with him), might as lawfully affirm that they too were standing 'on the ancient ways'; on the royal supremacy undeniably exercised by Henry II or Edward I. by Henry ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... in joy we united our praises. Truly our Jesus has all power, not less in the elements of Nature than in the savage hearts of the Tannese. Precious Jesus! Often since have I wept over His love and mercy in that deliverance, and prayed that every moment of my remaining life may be consecrated to the service of my precious Friend ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... off the remainder of the discourse, but a shrill screaming voice might still be heard. Percival was certain that the tide of eloquence flowed on undiminished, though of articulate words he could distinguish none. It is to be feared that Emma was less fortunate. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... will have them to be infinite, there will be no end of starving himself, and wanting what he has: and what pains does such a one take to be poor Furthermore, if a man shall think that there may be an industry less greasy or more noble, and so cast his thoughts upon the commonwealth, he will have leisure for her and she riches and honors for him; his sweat shall smell like Alexander's. My Lord Philautus is a young man who, enjoying his L10,000 a year, may keep a noble house in the old way, and have ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... many establishments he had passed by, omitting to apply in them for employment. He little dreamed he had been too select. He had entered not into any house of the Samaritans, to use a figure; much less, to speak literally, had he gone to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Mary, hiding away in uncomfortable quarters a short stone's throw from Madame Zenobie's, little imagined that, in her broad irony about his not hunting for employment, there ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... you," smiled Tzu Chuean, "take the scissors and cut that tassel when there was no good reason for it? So isn't Pao-yue less to blame than yourself, Miss? I've always found his behaviour towards you, Miss, without a fault. It's all that touchy disposition of yours, which makes you so often perverse, that induces him to act ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... us. If we could have captured Miko and his band, our danger would have been less imminent. With the treasure insulated, and our camp in darkness, the arriving brigand ship might never find us. But Miko knew our location; he would signal his oncoming ship when it was close and ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... series of reminiscences more or less entertaining, until after a while, Sis, who had been growing more and more ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... lose no sting, would wish no torture less; The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless; And robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine, If it but herald Death, the vision ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... was self-evident. It was seriously discussed both in England and America, and a plan was very nearly adopted that might have altered the map of America to the advantage of the Canadian dominion. This plan was nothing less than to divide the colony of Maine, giving to that part extending from Saco to the River St. Croix the name of New Ireland and settling it with Loyalists who had been driven from the other colonies in rebellion. The project is believed to have been countenanced by the King and the ministry, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... arrival before he was able to walk. From time to time messengers had arrived from Hannibal and his father to inquire after him, and from them he learned that the Carthaginians had captured the towns of Vercella, Valentinum, and Asta, and the less important towns of ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... to suppose that the author of the Annals was actuated by the simple purpose of Peter of Calabria; there is ground for believing that some deeper, and less pure, motive instigated him to commit forgery. Though no Peter of Calabria, he was a matured Fabio Orsini; and the only drawback from his fabricated work is that it is not to be looked upon as Roman history, always in the most reliable ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... have loved and watched and prayed for, all these long years, hoping against hope, and believing against knowledge. If he had ceased to love me, grown tired of me, and wished to be rid of me, could he not have told me so, frankly, from the first? It would have been less cruel than to have inflicted on me this long anguish of suspense! less cowardly than to have attempted to justify his desertion of me by a charge of crime! What crime—he knows no more than I do! Oh, Herman! ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth |
