"Mere" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hertzog replied that it was a principle in law that a delegate is not to be regarded as a mere agent or mouthpiece of his constituents, but, on the contrary (when dealing with public affairs), as a plenipotentiary—with the right, whatever his brief might be, of acting to the ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... reflectors, for lamp shades, for the soles of boots and shoes, which have been heretofore patented as designs, and to this class might be added, with great propriety, that class of so-called "mechanical" patents, granted for mere changes of form, such as plowshares, fan blowers, propeller blades, and ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... have been that of half-waking in trance; or, perhaps, a shade nearer the lightest form of trance-sleep. To increase the force of the scene, they appear to have exhibited some degree of trance-perceptive power. But, without this, the mere aspect of such persons is wonderfully imposing. If the pure spirit of Christianity finds a bright comment and illustration in the Madonnas and Cherubim of Raffaelle, it seems to shine out in still more truthful vividness from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... like the solemn fool that I was, first with one and then with another; and all the while I told myself, like the prophet that "I did well to be angry"; and that I would shew her that no man, of my ability, could depend upon any mere woman for his content. Yet the pain ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... sometimes the subjects are weak in intellect and in a condition similar to cretinism. Kaufmann quotes a case in a weakly boy of twelve whose penis was but 3/4 inch long, about as thick as a goose-quill, and feeling as limp as a mere tube of skin; the corpora cavernosa were not entirely absent, but ran only from the ischium to the junction of the fixed portion of the penis, suddenly terminating at this point. Nothing indicative of a prostate could be found. The testicles were at the entrance of the inguinal canal ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... impregnable citadel of virtue is religion; for there is no bulwark of mere morality which some temptation may not overtop, or undermine ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... that they were then in. The informer went on to say that Sir Clement Smith and the Recorder, who were present, laughed at the prayer. But inasmuch as the informer had not been present himself, and that what he had laid before the court was mere hearsay evidence, little attention ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... "Nay, love, these are mere words to me. Rich or poor, high or low, noble or ignoble, thou only hast my heart. It beats and throbs only for thee. I have thought upon thee, dreamed upon thee, loved thee. I can not marry Don ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... thought to deprive the poor of souls. They have liked to think that they would forever bear their cross in peace. Yet when anarchism comes and touches the souls of the poor it finds not dead blocks of wood or mere senseless cogs in an industrial machine; it finds the living, who can pray and weep, love and hate. No matter how scared their souls become, there is yet a possibility that their whole beings may revolt under wrong. When the anarchist deifies even the veriest ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... about matters connected with the war, and he always, as far as one could judge, deeply impressed such visitors. I do not think that the warmth with which some of them spoke about him after such pow-wows when I ushered them out, was a mere manifestation of politeness. He was gifted with a special bent for diplomacy, and he prided himself with justice on the skill and tact with which he ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... matter of mere history, this devoted blade had drawn nobody's blood; since, in the six years that followed their enlistment, the Looe Die-hards had never been given an opportunity for a brush with their country's hereditary foes. How, then, did ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... by aspiring to my cousin's hand," answered Harry. "Were he a man of family I should say nothing, of course; but he is, sir, a mere adventurer. His father is a common boatswain—a warrant officer—not a gentleman even by courtesy, and his mother, for what I know to the contrary, might have been a bum-boat woman, and his relations, if he had any, are probably ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... some other reasons which you have omitted to state. In the first place, his Lordship has no grandmother. Now the author—and we may believe him in this—doth expressly state that the 'British' is his 'Grandmother's Review;' and if, as I think I have distinctly proved, this was not a mere figurative allusion to your supposed intellectual age and sex, my dear friend, it follows, whether you be she or no, that there is such an elderly lady ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Do all you can for them, and they will slide back again; give them work, and if they are willing to take it at all, they soon lose their positions. Some belong to the pseudo-social class and are mere parasites feeding on society. Others are anti-social, ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb
... of Port Said is that connected directly or indirectly with the transshipment of vessels to and from the Red Sea by way of Suez. The town contains nothing of interest, and is a mere sandy plain. The languages spoken are French and Arabic. There are, counting the floating population, some eight thousand people here, not more, composed of every possible nationality; while the social status is at as low an ebb as it can possibly be. The region ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... I shall," said West; "for I'm horribly sorry for the poor fellow. He couldn't withstand the temptation to buy the diamonds for a mere nothing and sell ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... the way towards what I regarded as the natural solution of the immediate problem. "Come," I said, "the idea of a marriage between Banks and your sister doesn't appear so unreasonable. The Bankses are evidently good old yeoman stock on the father's side. It is a mere accident of luck that you should be the owners of ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... patriot I shall devote myself with anxious solicitude. It will be my desire to guard against that most fruitful source of danger to the harmonious action of our system which consists in substituting the mere discretion and caprice of the Executive or of majorities in the legislative department of the Government for powers which have been withheld from the Federal Government by the Constitution. By the theory of our Government majorities rule, but this ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... on the 27th of July. The country which, when we passed up, looked as if the hard winter frosts had passed over it, had now assumed a new face, so much of vernal freshness had been given to it by the rains. The Platte was exceedingly low—a mere line of water among the sandbars. We reached Laramie fort on the last day of August, after an absence of forty-two days, and had the pleasure to find our friends all well. The fortieth day had been fixed for our return; and the quick eyes ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... encouraging smile to Tom, turned away. He meant to go to the engineer's office before his return to town, now that his affairs with Grogan were settled. As he swung back the door in the board fence, he stumbled over a mere scrap of humanity carrying a dinner-pail. The mite was peering through the crack and calling to Cully at the horse-trough. He proved to be a boy of perhaps seven or eight years of age, but with the face of an old man—pinched, weary, and scarred all over with suffering and pain. ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... now supreme lord of Japan, the mikado, for whom he acted, being a mere tool in his hands. Yet one great conflict had still to be fought by the shogun's younger brother, whose romantic story we have ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and Arsenal; with innumerable glimpses of other and scarcely less prominent buildings, which unite in forming this wonderful maze of sacred and royal edifices. It would be very difficult, if at all practicable, to convey by mere verbal description a correct and comprehensive idea of the strange mingling of architectural styles here prevailing. The churches present, no doubt, the most picturesque effects, but this is not owing to any grandeur in their proportions. None of them ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... cut both ways. You could trade with it, using it as a bribe, bartering vote for vote; that was one edge. Or you could threaten with it, promising nay for nay, and thus compel some member to save your bill to save his own; that was the other edge. A mere bribe from the lobby owned but the one edge; it was like a cavalry saber; you might make the one slash at a required vote, with as many chances of missing as of cutting it down. Every argument, therefore, pointed to a seat; whereat Patrick ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... humour so that his sallies surprised by their unexpectedness. He knew how to appropriate opportunity, and saw the humour of a situation. A reputation for wit is thus gained not only by what is said, but by the mere indication of the ridiculous. This it is impossible to reproduce, and the celebrity of Selwyn as a wit must be allowed to rest on the opinion ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... Byron would, at this time, have been selected as the object of them. A seniority of two years gives to a girl, 'on the eve of womanhood,' an advance into life with which the boy keeps no proportionate pace. Miss Chaworth looked upon Byron as a mere schoolboy. His manners, too, were not yet formed, and his great beauty was still in its ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... talents and accomplishments accompanied by the modesty with which our young student spoke of his pursuits. Nor was he a mere recluse, though his health appeared feeble; for he entered with zest into conversation on the various topics of European interest suggested by a visit from foreigners, while he did not hesitate to expose, with patriotic zeal, the follies and abuses which opposed the march of civilisation in his ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... smiled a little. He did not again attempt to speak, yet, for all that, Donna heard the man-call to the woman that belonged to him, the mate for whom he had been destined when the world was first created. There are in this world personalities so finely attuned to each other that mere words are unnecessary to express the feelings of each for the other when first they meet. Between certain rare souls the gulf of convention may be bridged by a glance; the divine miracle of a pure and holy love, leaping to life in an instant, can suffer no defilement ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... bodies. Thus a new world, as it were, was revealed for human thought and speculation. We learned that our globe was not, as we had supposed, the centre of the universe. It was assigned its place far from that centre, and was known to be no more than a mere atom, lost amid an incalculable number of other globes. The revelations of the telescope proved that those who formerly were considered wise actually knew nothing. Quickly following these discoveries, extraordinary narratives of excursions ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... buffaloes. For many years no one dreamed that there was any end to the supply of buffaloes. And so both east and west they were killed for their skins, which sold for a few cents, for their horns, for a supply of steak, or for mere sport; and then one day people woke up to find that the buffalo had disappeared, not in one settlement only, as they had supposed, but everywhere. There are a few remaining, carefully cared for by the ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... before him into the valley. And craning forward I looked too, and saw far in the distance a white speck—a mere speck—moving rapidly on the cross road to Montgeron, and then we lost him behind a ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... regards the circumstances and needs of each other would have been fatal objections to any such scheme. The claim of the colonists seems to imply a misapprehension of the character of parliament; for parliament is not a mere meeting of delegates, it is an imperial assembly, and its sovereignty is neither derived from the perfection of its constitution nor lessened by its imperfection. Taxation is an attribute of sovereignty, and parliament had a right to tax the colonies because the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... can be no strong races—the qualities of courage and resolution in both men and women, of scorn of what is mean, base and selfish, of eager desire to work or fight or suffer as the case may be provided the end to be gained is great enough, and the contemptuous putting aside of mere ease, mere vapid pleasure, mere avoidance of toil and worry. I do not know whether I most pity or most despise the foolish and selfish man or woman who does not understand that the only things really worth having in life are those the ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... notwithstanding their pretence of great expenditure, there was, so he was informed, little outward show for it.(125) Fault was found with them, not only for failing to build houses according to the articles of agreement, but for their humane treatment of the "mere Irish," instead of driving them forth to perish in the narrow districts set ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... attachment formed by him to a young lady of Quebec, during his residence there. It is said that the lady preferred a wealthier suitor, and that he never again became heart-whole. This, like the other story above mentioned, rests upon mere rumour, and is entitled to the credence attached to other rumours of a similar nature. His name is perpetuated in this Province by that of the stately Palace of Justice on Queen Street West, Toronto; also, by the name of a township in ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... scarcely listening. He kept saying "well?" and "what else?" mechanically, without the least curiosity, and by mere ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... year following lived more than two months in Dublin, I am able to speak to a few points, which as a mere traveller I could not have done. The information I before received of the prices of living is correct. Fish and poultry are plentiful and very cheap. Good lodgings almost as dear as they are in London; though we were well accommodated (dirt excepted) for two guineas and a-half a week. ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... never been taught to think for herself; the duty of obedience, which had been early inculcated upon her by a severe father, had grown easy by habit; and she was glad to save herself the trouble of relying upon her own resources. She is, therefore, the mere echo of her husband's sentiments; she believes him to be "the greatest wight on ground," and would as soon think of contradicting the scriptures, as any thing that he says. This acquiescence gratifies the vanity of her husband; he thinks her an admirable wife, but to every ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... precious possession and her sole support she refused at once, tho' frightened at her own boldness. The stranger, however, was rather insistent and asked if she would rent the cow, then, for fifty francs an hour? Was there ever a queerer offer? Of course fifty francs was a gold-mine to Mere Gavin, so she accepted, and was fairly overcome when the man laid down three hundred francs on the table and told her to keep them for him. Then he drove the cow away over the hills while Mere G. sat staring stupidly at her gold. After a time he came ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... original independence. During an extended period at the middle of the fifteenth century Sweden even had a king of her own. None the less, there was a form of union, and at times the preponderance of Denmark tended to reduce the northern nations to the status of mere dependencies. The union with Sweden lasted only a century and a quarter. Under the leadership of Gustavus Vasa the Swedish people, in 1523, effectually regained their independence, although in accordance with the Treaty of Malmoe, in 1524, certain of the southernmost ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... ribbons and plumes, and flew a flag before his dwelling with the initials of the North American Trading and Transportation Company on it—a defunct Alaskan corporation. We could not learn the origin thereof; the flag and the letters were plainly home-made. It was probably a mere imitation of a flag he had seen years ago at Tanana, copied without knowledge of the meaning of the letters, as the Esquimaux often copy into the decoration of their clothing and equipment the ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... the air, in the same manner that fishes come to the top of the sea, then we should behold the true earth and the true heaven and the true stars. Our earth is everywhere corrupted and corroded; and even the land which is fairer than the sea, for that is a mere chaos or waste of water and mud and sand, has nothing to show in comparison of the other world. But the heavenly earth is of divers colours, sparkling with jewels brighter than gold and whiter than any snow, having flowers ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... scrupulously investigated facts and characters: we do not ask to be credited on our mere word only. Although we have not encumbered our work with notes, quotations, and documentary testimony, we have not made one assertion unauthorised by authentic memoirs, by unpublished manuscripts, by autograph letters, which the families ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... be unable to decide definitely for an hour or so yet, unless he regains consciousness in the meantime. It may be a fracture of the skull or a mere concussion." ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... was Victor Nevill's mother—I began to feel that I had been too harsh with Mary. My remorse grew, giving me no rest, until recently I determined to find her. But I might never have succeeded had not mere chance helped me. I was struck by your resemblance to Mary when I first met you ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... passed off better than could have been hoped. The full-grown, grave-looking man was so different from the mere youth whom Mrs. Murrell had been used to scold and preach at, that her own awe seconded the lectures upon quietness that had been strenuously impressed on her; and she could not complain of his reception of his ''opeful son,' in form at least. Owen held out his hand to her, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... officer with behaving rudely, and attempting to take by violence the calf which he had refused as a present, we had reason to suspect that he purposely sought this quarrel, and had more important objects in view than the mere captiousness of his temper. What these motives might be we had then no means of determining, or even guessing at; but we afterwards found, by letters which fell into our hands when in the South-Seas, that he had dispatched an express ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... ease now. Poverty and anxiety can throw even a Napoleon out of gear, but Richard Royson was hard as granite in some ways, and the mere decision to go to South Africa had driven the day's distempered broodings from ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... of the man was not very interesting. He watched him in mere idleness while waiting for the girl to bring the supper Donald had ordered. If there had been anyone else in the room Neal would not have wasted a second glance on the unobtrusive stranger. Yet, as he watched the man he became aware of something about him which was attractive. ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... that, something in the mere sound of the words seemed to reveal more clearly to her heart what had befallen her, and for the first time she began to cry and to remember. She remembered all Maurice's tenderness for her, all his little acts of kindness. They seemed to pass ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... expected to see Big Swinton step forward, but he did not. His revenge was not to be gratified by mere insubordination. The man who did at last step forward was an insignificant fellow, who had been nicknamed Spitfire, and whose chief characteristics were self-will and ill-nature. He did not lack courage, however, for ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... belong to the field,—not a drop of it,—and it ought not to be allowed to show itself within the reach of the roots of ordinary plants. It has fallen on other land, and, presumably, has there done its appointed work, and ought not to be allowed to convert our soil into a mere ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... old times again, to be flying through space," remarked Jack. "My! but we aren't making half the speed of which the projectile is capable. Why, we're only going about twenty miles a second," and he spoke as if that was a mere nothing. ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... Nicholas's nature still showed supreme? Or was it a question of fate—and of first and last? Had Dudley come upon her in the red sunset, in the little shanty beside the road, would she have gone out to him in the mere leaping of youth and womanhood? Was it the moment, after all, and not the man? Or was it something more unerring still—more profound—the prophetic call of individual to individual, despite the specious pleading of the race? But she put the thought ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... them. But in process of time they grew more cruel to all sorts of men, nor could any one escape from one or other of these seditions, since they slew some out of the hopes of gain, and others from a mere custom of slaying men. They once attacked a company of Romans at Emmaus, who were bringing corn and weapons to the army, and fell upon Arius, the centurion, who commanded the company, and shot forty of the best of his foot soldiers; but the rest of them were ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... No surface of madrepores is more sensitive to a touch than a Cabinet full of Spirits to a chilling syllable of failure. To regain my lost position, therefore, I said hastily, 'But can it be Effie?' (It was a mere hap-hazard name; I know no 'Effie.') The Medium went to the Cabinet and returned with the answer, 'She says she's Effie, and she wants to see you.' Of course, I went with alacrity to where the curtains of the Cabinet stood open, and there, just within it, saw a Spirit whom ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... of an office were a mere pretext. He spent his time at M. Roque's house, where he had begun not only by sounding the praises of their friend, but by imitating his manners and language as much as possible; and in this way he had gained Louise's confidence, ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... Market-place, in the time of the Romans. There is also to be seen in this town, a Mosaic pavement discovered only a few years since, wonderfully beautiful indeed, and near ten feet square, though not quite perfect, being broken in the night by some malicious people, out of mere wantonness, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... like it before," commented Dick, "and maybe it's worth more to them than to us. It was only a mere guess of ours, after Colonel Snow undertook to interpret it to us, that there might be anything behind it, and it was only because it had evidently come from an Arctic country that we even thought of ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... would have but little bearing upon one so different from it as English. This would be a just objection if Schopenhauer treated literature in a petty spirit, and confined himself to pedantic inquiries into matters of grammar and etymology, or mere niceties of phrase. But this is not so. He deals with his subject broadly, and takes large and general views; nor can anyone who knows anything of the philosopher suppose this to mean that he is vague and feeble. It is true that now and again in the course of these essays ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... precious child's disaster and miraculous rescue from death, she urged, that same child, as a matter of fact, being as gay and chipper as though a header from the stern of a crowded launch into a more crowded river was a mere daily ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... unjust war as not only immoral, but as one of the greatest of crimes—murder on a large scale. Such are all wars of mere ambition, engaged in for the purpose of extending regal power or national sovereignty; wars of plunder, carried on from mercenary motives; wars of propagandism, undertaken for the unrighteous end of compelling men to adopt certain religious or political ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... Friends, credulous incredulity is a strange matter. But when a whole Nation is smitten with Suspicion, and sees a dramatic miracle in the very operation of the gastric juices, what help is there? Such Nation is already a mere hypochondriac bundle of diseases; as good as changed into glass; atrabiliar, decadent; and will suffer crises. Is not Suspicion itself the one thing to be suspected, as ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... was nothing like it ever seen! Where we swept by squads of scampering English, the mere wind of our passage laid them flat in piles and rows! Then we plunged into the ruck of Fastolfe's frantic battle-corps and tore through it like a hurricane, leaving a causeway of the dead stretching ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... refuse to remove his hat when other heads were bared, and little better to refuse to pledge in company the name of Pitt, because he preferred Washington, cannot admit of a doubt; but that he deserved to be written down traitor, for mere matters of whim or caprice, or to be turned out of the unenvied situation of "gauging auld wives' barrels," because he thought there were some stains on the white robe of the constitution, seems a sort ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... they may come to this, to scout the whole gospel to be nothing but a heap of delusions, and a cunningly-devised fable, or but mere notions and fancies. ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... constantly increasing. He was then released, but was not for some two years permitted to approach the Court. Meantime, men of not half his descent, but with an unblushing brow and unctuous tongue, had become the favourites at the palace of the Prince, who, as said before, was not bad, but the mere ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... conventional silly stuff, but Roxane was probably not very critical; of Catcott's brother, the Rev. A. Catcott, who had a fine library and was the author of a treatise on the Deluge; of Smith, a schoolfellow; of Palmer an engraver, and a number of others—mere names for the most part. Baker, Thistlethwaite and a few more were contemporaries of the poet, but the rest of the circle consisted mainly of men who had reached middle age—dullards, perhaps, who condescended to clever adolescence, whom Chatterton certainly mocked ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... made his capture for the mere pleasure and glory of such a novel chase. The flesh of the NANDOU is highly esteemed, and Thalcave felt bound to contribute his ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... Admirals," authorized by the Star Chamber and confirmed in their authority by 10 and 11 William III., c. 25, had already asserted a de facto jurisdiction on the spot, for it is hardly credible that the mere wantonness of legislative invention can have produced such a tribunal. To anticipate for a moment: the Act provided that the master of the first ship arriving from England with the season should be admiral of the harbour; to the masters ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), but Denmark has decided not to join the 12 other EU members in the euro; even so, the Danish Krone remains pegged to the euro. Given the sluggish state of the European economy, growth in 2003 was a mere 1.1%. ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... successive Governors of Australia—in the beginning, be it remembered, the continent was one colony—were captains in the Navy. Governing in those rough days was not a mere master-of-the-ceremonies appointment, and Phillip, Hunter, King, and Bligh, if they made mistakes, considering their previous training, the populations they governed and the times in which they lived, amply justify Palmerston's ...
— The Beginning Of The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... dispelled by the clear daylight of scientific knowledge. In our own country, footmarks on rocks and stones are by no means of unfrequent occurrence. Some of them, indeed, although associated with myths and fairy tales, have doubtless been produced by natural causes, being the mere chance effects of weathering, without any meaning except to a geologist. But there are others that have been unmistakably produced by artificial means, and have a human ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... from Japan, I learned that during my absence Nalini had been stricken with typhoid fever. I rushed to her home, and was aghast to find her reduced to a mere skeleton. She ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... of the Memoirs. In a literary point of view, they are beneath criticism. They are as shallow, flippant, and affected, as Barere's oratory in the Convention. They are also, what his oratory in the Convention was not, utterly insipid. In fact, they are the mere dregs and rinsings of a bottle of which even the first froth was ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the lane, this time at so fast a clip that the faces of the spectators who lined the course were a mere ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... confederation of the German States in 1820, constitutional freedom made little or no progress in Germany. The only advance made in Prussia was in 1823, when the Provincial Estates, or Diets, were established. These, however, were the mere shadow of representative government, since the Estates were convoked at irregular intervals, and had neither the power to initiate laws nor grant supplies. They could only express their opinions concerning changes in the laws pertaining ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... tedious days. Occasionally, when she would stumble and fall, she was cuffed and kicked by the nearest of the frightful men. Long before they reached their journey's end her shoes had been discarded—the soles entirely gone. Her clothes were torn to mere shreds and tatters, and through the pitiful rags her once white and tender skin showed raw and bleeding from contact with the thousand pitiless thorns and brambles through which she had ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and at each flash clapping his hands and shouting, unconscious of danger, and stirred to ecstasy. David, too, felt all the poetic elevation, and natural awe, in the presence of the crashing storm; but he felt something more. To him the thunder was not a power to tremble before, not a mere subject for poetic contemplation. Still less was it something, the like of which could be rubbed out of glass and silk, and which he had done with when he knew its laws. No increase of knowledge touching the laws of physical phenomena in the least affects the point ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... down to the essence of what appears on the surface as a mere trick of speech. It may seem far-fetched to say, but it is none the less the actual fact, that Ulysses is a Nobody, and a very active one to Polyphemus. That is, he has shown himself the negative power which overwhelms the giant, ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... reached in the social problems presented by the times. In the old days of the struggle between the orders the question of privilege had sometimes overshadowed the purely economic issue, and although a close scrutiny of those days of turmoil shows that the dominant note in the conflict was often a mere pretext meant to serve the personal ambition of the champions of the Plebs, yet the appearance rather than the reality of an issue imposes on the imagination of the mob, and political emancipation had been thought a boon even when hard facts had shown that its ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... with their conscience and all religion, which was the very foundation of the rising of his spirit against them; though, according to their explication of the text, this was what they should have done, and so have pacified the ruler's wrath. It is but a mere shift to tell the world, that it is only in lawful matters they are to yield; the yielding must surely correspond to the rising of the spirit spoken of. But with such deceitful shifts are they forced to cover over a doctrine, which, if presented in its native dress, would not meet with such ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... one might know from his speaking that he is not an Englishman. The English place the accent oftener on the adjectives than they do on the substantive, which, though undoubtedly the most significant word in any sentence, has frequently less stress laid on it than you hear laid on mere epithets. On the stage they pronounce the syllables and words extremely distinct, so that at the theatres you may always gain most instruction in English elocution ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... comprehend how he should dare to commit such a wrong," persisted Mr. Knight. "He must have known that his marriage with you was legal, according to the laws of the State in which it occurred, and the mere fact of his leaving the country could not annul it. If he had assumed a name while he was here, it would not seem so inexplicable, but all the papers which you hold go to show that he married you under his own ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and begged the "All the Year Round" publisher to send you directly four weeks' proofs beyond the current number, that are in type. I hope you will like them. Nothing but the interest of the subject, and the pleasure of striving with the difficulty of the forms of treatment, nothing in the mere way of money, I mean, could also repay the time and trouble of the incessant condensation. But I set myself the little task of making a picturesque story, rising in every chapter with characters true to nature, but whom the story itself should express, more ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... existence of this extraordinary fact, and had also made known which of them was in possession of the legs yesterday—and this would, of course, indicate where the guilt of the assault belongs —but as this would be mere hearsay evidence, these revelations not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... our nerves deceive us that I even thought it grated against my teeth as I opened my mouth to give it passage. At any rate the choking was gone, only now I felt as though I were quite empty and floating on air, as though I were not I, in short, but a mere shell of a thing, all of which doubtless was caused by the stench of those burning roots. Still I could look and take note, for I distinctly saw Zikali thrust his huge head, first into the smoke of what I will call my fire, next into that of Saduko's fire, and then lean back, blowing the stuff in ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... and has the best practice here; besides being courted by everybody who is anything. I am confident that the Hunters, and those people, call him in for mere trifles, just to cultivate his friendship. I know that Laura Hunter is fairly wild about him—and she is a chronic dyspeptic, luckily," my step-mother added ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... in the liberty of Christians! Can anything be more pitiable than the sight of so many, who should be the choosers and creators under God of their own spheres of utility and happiness, self-degraded into mere slaves of propriety and custom, their true natures undeveloped, their hearts cramped and shut up, each afraid of his neighbor and his neighbor of him, living a life of unreality, deceiving and being deceived, and forever walking in a vain show? Here, now, we have just left ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... purifying of the life from the desire of mere sense pleasures. It means the noble manhood which claims for itself the privilege of chastity and ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... I know! We witch-doctors read hearts. But do not weep, Little Flower. Why should you for such as I, a black man, a mere savage cheat, as your father named me? Yet I have not been altogether a cheat, O Imba, though sometimes I used tricks like other doctors, for I have a strength of my own which your white people will never understand, because they are ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... commercial. But we felt that credit was due the honest people of Ludlow, who preferred the music of the sweet-toned bells to sordid business; and, as the maid said, the bells did not awaken anyone who was used to them—surely a fit reward to the citizens for their high-minded disregard of mere ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... inspired one. Dr. Johnson, the friend of that wretchedest of lewd fellows, Richard Savage, and of that gay man about town, Topham Beauclerk,—himself sprung from an amour that would have been disgustful had it not been royal,—must also have felt something more in respect of Rousseau than the mere repugnance of virtue for vice. We must sometimes allow to personal temperament its right of peremptory challenge. Johnson had not that fine sensitiveness to the political atmosphere which made Burke presageful of coming tempest, but both of them felt that there ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... in a mood of lethargy not to be fathomed by mere affection. Not only did he turn away at the mere suggestion of eating, but he feebly hid his face ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... Duryodhana thus weeping, Karna in great grief approached them both and said, 'Ye Kuru princes, why do you thus yield to sorrow like ordinary men, from senselessness? Mere weeping can never ease a sorrowing man's grief. When weeping can never remove one's griefs, what do you gain by thus giving way to sorrow? Summon patience to your aid to not gladden the foe by such conduct. O king, the Pandavas only did their duty in liberating thee. They that reside ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... unknown. Huet, the theologian, indeed, supposes that it is founded on the history of the reception of the Angels by Abraham. This is a bold surmise, but entirely in accordance with his position, that the greatest part of the fictions of the heathen mythology were mere glosses or perversions of the histories of the Old Testament. If derived from Scripture, the story is just as likely to be founded on the hospitable reception of the Prophet Elijah by the woman of Zarephath; and the miraculous increase of the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... day, his exasperation growing upon him, he was heard in a public place saying sardonically, "that it would be the very luckiest thing for Lieut. D'Hubert, because the next time of meeting he need not hope to get off with the mere trifle ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... confident of just treatment. Our aim was also to secure good laws wherever the National Government had power, notably in the Territories, in the District of Columbia, and in connection with inter-State commerce. I found the eight-hour law a mere farce, the departments rarely enforcing it with any degree of efficiency. This I remedied by executive action. Unfortunately, thoroughly efficient government servants often proved to be the prime offenders so ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Stuart interest, which seemed confirmed by his long visit to the Jacobite Baron of Bradwardine. When, therefore, he came to his cave with one of Glennaquoich's attendants, the robber, who could never appreciate his real motive, which was mere curiosity, was so sanguine as to hope that his own talents were to be employed in some intrigue of consequence, under the auspices of this wealthy young Englishman. Nor was he undeceived by Waverley's neglecting all hints and openings for an ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... be silent, it may be for his sake, who did not want to be made a mere wonder of, but more probably for their sakes, that the holy thing might not evaporate in speech, or be defiled with foolish talk and the glorification of self-importance in those for whom a mighty wonder ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... met Miss Carson and her mother by chance in Paris, at the rooms of Father Paul, where they had each gone on the same errand, and since that meeting his whole manner toward the two worlds in which he lived had altered so strangely that mere acquaintances noticed the change. ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... much in du Bousquier's relations with others. And yet in him, as in the chevalier, symptoms appeared which contrasted oddly with the general aspect of their persons. The late purveyor had not the voice of his muscles. We do not mean that his voice was a mere thread, such as we sometimes hear issuing from the mouth of these walruses; on the contrary, it was a strong voice, but stifled, an idea of which can be given only by comparing it with the noise of a saw ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... disguised solemnity, the prolonged futility of her search might have been grotesque to a more ironic eye; but Maggie's provision of irony, which we have taken for naturally small, had never been so scant as now, and there were moments while she watched with her, thus unseen, when the mere effect of being near her was to feel her own heart in her throat, was to be almost moved to saying to her: "Hold on tight, my poor dear—without TOO MUCH terror—and it will ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... is very doubtful whether a flower-bud has ever been found actually on a leaf. Mere adhesion of the pedicels of the leaf, such as happens in Ruscus, in Helwingia, Erythrochiton hypophyllanthus, and a few other plants, is, of course, not really to be considered in the light of an actual growth from ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... not one of the other children, for the part of Mamilius? some one may ask. It was not mere luck, I think. Perhaps I was a born actress, but that would have served me little if I had not been able to speak! It must be remembered that both my sister Kate and I had been trained almost from our birth for the stage, and particularly in the important branch of clear articulation. Father, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... prayer. He prays without ceasing, not by uttering without cessation the language of prayer, but by living holily. Every act of every hour, which is done conscientiously is a prayer, as well as the words we speak, and is more pleasing to God, for the reason that practice is better than mere ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... and contains some authors (Leo Diaconus, Johannes Lydus, Corippus, the new fragment of Dexippus, Eunapius, &c., discovered by Mai) which could not be comprised in the former collections; but the names of such editors as Bekker, the Dindorfs, &c., raised hopes of something more than the mere republication of the text, and the notes of former editors. Little, I regret to say, has been added of annotation, and in some cases, the old incorrect versions have ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... them, probably during the gradual upheaval of the country, and the hollow became afterwards the receptacle of the comparatively modern freshwater beds A, B, C, and D. They may well represent a silted up river-channel, which remained for a time in the state of a lake or mere, and in which the black peaty mass B accumulated by a very slow growth over the gravel of the river-bed A. In B we find remains of some of the same plants which were enumerated as common in the ancient lignite in 3 prime, ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... log-cabin in the backwoods of Iowa. In 1852, the family removed to Kansas, where the father of young Cody, two years later, became a martyr to the Free State cause. From the moment the family was thus deprived of its support, the only boy, though a mere child, at the age of nine years, commenced his career. As a collaborator in the preparation of this work, he has been prevailed upon to relate all the incidents of his life, so far as they confined ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... symphony and overture, and suite and sonata, were interchangeable; but that does not at all concern us here. The symphony or sonata or quartet form is what these early groups of movements led up to. That these groups of movements originated in the theatre is quite probable; this is indicated by the mere fact that the word "overture" was frequently used to describe them. When the fugue was in its fullest maturity composers were turning overtures out in vast quantities. Our own Arne tried his hand at them, and no one looking at his would dream that the ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... him as he went, and must have known from his gait what was the nature of the answer he had received. But yet she went quickly upstairs to inquire. The matter was one of too much consequence for a mere inference. Mary had gone from the sitting-room, but her stepmother followed her upstairs to her bed-chamber. "Mamma," she said, "I couldn't do it;—I couldn't do it. I did try. Pray do not scold me. I did try, but I could not do it" Then she threw herself into the arms of the ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... the police! I'll give him to the police!" he broke out in a sudden flame at Keith's glance of inspection. "He thinks he has been very smart in taking from me all the papers. He thinks no one will believe me on my mere word, but I've got a paper ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page |
