"Proverbially" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The biographies of artists, proverbially picturesque, present few scenes more pleasant to look on than the early years in Rome of the Brotherhood of German Painters, of whom Overbeck and his friend Cornelius were the leaders. Exiles in some sort from their ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... The second mate's is proverbially a dog's berth. He is neither officer nor man. The men do not respect him as an officer, and he is obliged to go aloft to reef and furl the topsails, and to put his hands into the tar and slush, with the rest. The crew call him the "sailor's waiter," as he has to furnish ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... until a method of manufacturing this substance was discovered at the end of the last century by Gravenhorst of Brunswick. The fields in the delta of the Nile are supplied with no other animal manures than the ashes of the burnt excrements, and yet they have been proverbially fertile from a period earlier than the first dawn of history, and that fertility continues to the present day as admirable as it was in the earliest times. These fields receive, every year, from the ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... notwithstanding his money, was unfortunate in love, being jilted by Lady Jane Paget, rejected by Miss Floyd (afterwards the wife of Sir Robert Peel), and then by Lady Caroline Churchill. The young ladies hearing of his numerous disappointments, were disinclined to encourage a man so proverbially unfortunate. By way, perhaps, of revenge, Hughes Ball this year ran off with and married Mademoiselle Mercandotti, premiere danseuse at His Majesty's Theatre, a beautiful girl of sixteen, reported in the scandal of the day to be a natural daughter ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... of Ellwood's, entitled "An Epitaph for Jeremy Ives," will serve to show that wit and drollery were sometimes found even among the proverbially sober Quakers of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... house from the fire, with which we left the alarmed Elwood and his wife contending, was, indeed, easily overcome by dashing pails of water over the roof. But scarcely had they achieved this temporary triumph in one place over an element proverbially terrible when it becomes master, before it was seen kindling into flickering blazes on the roof of the barn and the locks of hay protruding from its windows and the crevices between the logs of which ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... The handwriting of the scrivener in the body of the instrument is quite distinct and legible, considering its antiquity. The signature of Shakespeare appears at the bottom of each sheet. The chirography of men of genius is proverbially bad, generally from its fluent facility, but the autographs of Shakespeare are clumsy, uncouth, and awkward, their disconnected and sprawling letters seeming to have been formed with difficulty by fingers unfamiliar with the use of the pen. They may perhaps have been written in an unaccustomed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... national character. If all this be a truthful picture, and really we see no reason for doubt, it does but add another to the many proofs of the springing elasticity of that element of light-hearted short-sightedness which is so proverbially characteristic of the French. But we will say no more, for our paper has already exceeded the limits we had assigned to it; and the things that are must ever prevail in our pages over ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... feels most deeply his utterances are the most commonplace, and an Englishman is proverbially incapable of expressing his feelings. In the supreme moments of their lives, it is true, a few men, and those not always the most sincere, may speak eloquently; but for the most part a proposal of marriage from an Englishman is—as ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... his good will beyond all question. So saying, he made a signal, and forthwith a beautiful young horse, of a brown color, was led, prancing and snorting, to the place. Captain Bonneville was suitably affected by this mark of friendship; but his experience in what is proverbially called "Indian giving," made him aware that a parting pledge was necessary on his own part, to prove that his friendship was reciprocated. He accordingly placed a handsome rifle in the hands of the venerable chief, whose benevolent ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... you that the cottage door has never been darkened by her presence: that she indeed would not acknowledge her if passed by chance on the road. For the landlady sails forth to the adjacent town in all the glory of those fine feathers that proverbially make the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... as and very much finer than any woollen material that he had ever seen—could scarcely be classed as mere savages; they must certainly possess some at least of the elements of civilisation. And then those "second thoughts", which are proverbially best, or more just, gradually usurped in young Escombe's mind his first crude ideas relative to the ignorance and benighted condition generally of the inhabitants of the unknown City of the Sun. And as they did so, a feeling of curiosity to see for himself that wonderful city gradually took root, ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... in New England villages is proverbially old, so the doctor in small Colorado towns twenty-five years ago was generally young. Dr. Archie was barely thirty. He was tall, with massive shoulders which he held stiffly, and a large, well-shaped head. He was a distinguished-looking ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... odes written after the War, was Lowell more completely the poet. For it is well known that his was a divided nature, so variously endowed that complete integration was difficult, and that the circumstances of his career prevented that steady concentration of powers which poetry demands. She is proverbially the most jealous of mistresses, and Lowell could not render a constant allegiance. At thirty his friends thought of him, rightly enough, as primarily a poet: but in the next fifteen years he had ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... and impeded traffic at all crossings, the class which had always been rowdily inclined was now far more rowdy, and that its ranks were reinforced, doubled in strength, by recruits from a class which, a few years before, had been proverbially noted for its decorous and decent reserve. And this was Sunday Night. I learned afterwards that the clergy had preached to practically empty churches. A man we met in The Times office told us of this, ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... by Suez is made in the Peninsular and Oriental line of steamers. The passage is proverbially comfortless,—through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, across the Bay of Bengal, through the Straits of Malacca, and up the Chinese coast, under a tropical sun. Bayard Taylor thus describes the trip ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... dresses, and Lady Delacour's bon mots: every thing that her ladyship said was repeated as witty; every thing that her ladyship wore was imitated as fashionable. Female wit sometimes depends on the beauty of its possessor for its reputation; and the reign of beauty is proverbially short, and fashion often capriciously deserts her favourites, even before nature withers their charms. Lady Delacour seemed to be a fortunate exception to these general rules: long after she had lost the bloom of youth, she continued to be admired as a fashionable ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... Nash was, proverbially more generous than just. He would not pay a debt if he could help it, but would give the very amount to the first friend that begged it. There was much ostentation in this, but then my friend Nash was ostentatious. One friend bothered ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... is proverbially dangerous, and often lures vague people into unsuspected perils. One of the most charming ladies of my acquaintance, remonstrating with her mother for letting the fire go out on a rather chilly day, exclaimed, "O dear mamma, how could you be so careless? If you had been ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... vaticination' is proverbially unsafe, and therefore to be carefully avoided by all judicious inquirers, and especially by practical statesmen, it must at the same time be admitted that some of the general laws controlling such events are well understood; and whenever all the facts of a case are ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... legislature, under a just sense of its responsibility, must judge for itself; and if it think proper, it may revise, or amend, or absolutely undo the work of any predecessor. The laws of the Medes and Persians are said proverbially to have been unalterable; but they stand forth in history as a single example where the true principles of all law ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... to the school, this reading of "Dodd's." After the first floating breath of laughter had passed over the room, every pupil was full of attention, and was listening to the reading of this proverbially bad boy. ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... people raised on fish and Johnny-cake, amid the stunted pine swamps and sand-hills of that Lord-forsaken country—Lev never increased it. Lev had an uncle, an old bachelor, without "chick or child," and was reported to be pretty well off. Old man Gunter was proverbially mean, and as usual, heartily despised by one half of the people who knew him. He had a small estate, had lived long, and by his close-fisted manner of life, it was believed that Gunter had laid by a pretty considerable pile of the root of all evil, for something or ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... sad stirring is the sleeper's rest and ease disturbed and broken, whereof the first feeling and stinging smart admonisheth that he must patiently endure great pain and trouble, and thereunto provide some remedy; as when we say proverbially, to incense hornets, to move a stinking puddle, and to awake a sleeping lion, instead of these more usual expressions, and of a more familiar and plain meaning, to provoke angry persons, to make a thing the worse by meddling with ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... as the leanest and the worst of their neighbours. I have asked whether Henry the Eighth was an amiable character? Whether Pope Alexander the Sixth was a good man? Whether Mr. Murderer and Mrs. Murderess Manning were not both unusually stout people? Whether hired nurses, proverbially as cruel a set of women as are to be found in all England, were not, for the most part, also as fat a set of women as are to be found in all England?—and so on, through dozens of other examples, modern and ancient, native and foreign, high and low. Holding these strong ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... confessed that she thought a great deal about that. Also she reflected that what she deserved was to marry some person with even a worse temper than hers, who would bully her at times and generally keep her straight. And from that, of course, it was only a step to the fact that red-haired people are proverbially bad-tempered! ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Danes is paralleled to an irruption of the sea, 'overpeering of his list;' in the well-known soliloquy is the expression, 'a sea of troubles,' which, in spite of Pope's suggested and tasteless emendation, commentators have shewn to have been used proverbially by the Greeks, and more than once by AEschylus and Menander. Still, Shakspeare, again like Horace, was not insensible to the merits of sea-air in a sanitary point of view. Dionyza, meditating Marina's murder, bids her take what the Brighton ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... feel that something decisive was about to be done at last. Henri did not pause, but with a flying dash he sprang like a spread eagle, arms and legs extended, right into the bear's bosom. At the same moment he sent his long hunting-knife down into its heart. But Bruin is proverbially hard to kill, and although mortally wounded, he had strength enough to open his jaws and ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... perhaps you would prefer alarming Miss Neelie by telling her in plain words that we both think her in danger? Or, suppose you send me to Miss Gwilt, with instructions to inform her that she has done her pupil a cruel injustice? Women are so proverbially ready to listen to reason; and they are so universally disposed to alter their opinions of each other on application—especially when one woman thinks that another woman has destroyed her prospect of making a good marriage. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... as Zoe's is proverbially limited; but the limit to its power, while it does last, has not yet been discovered. It is a fact that, as soon as she came close to the table two male gamblers looked up, saw her, wondered at her, and actually jumped up and offered their seats: she made a courteous ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... material and civilizing rather than its spiritual aspects. They do not, as officials, feel that the salvation of men from sin and the command of Christ to evangelize all nations are within their sphere. Moreover, diplomacy is proverbially and necessarily cautious. Its business is to avoid risks, and, of course, to advise others to avoid them. The political situation, too, was undeniably uncertain and delicate. The future was big with possibility of peril. In such circumstances, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... United States senator. Each possessed rare talents, but they were totally dissimilar in mental traits and political methods. Both were statesmen of scrupulous honesty, who despised jobbery. Marcy was wily and loved intrigue. Wright was proverbially open and frank. Marcy never trained himself to be a public speaker, and did not shine in the hand-to-hand conflicts of a body that was lustrous with forensic talents. A man's status in the United States Senate is determined by the calibre and skill of the opponents ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and the post were cleared away and uprooted respectively by that evening. Late summer weather is proverbially treacherous, and during dinner-time Mrs Collins sent up to ask for a little brandy, because her husband had took a nasty chill and she was afraid he would not be able ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... Kaisarieh, about ten miles west of the latter city. A long caravan of camels was moving majestically up the road, headed by a little donkey, which the devedejee (camel-driver) was riding with his feet dangling almost to the ground. That proverbially stubborn creature moved not a muscle until we came alongside, when all at once he gave one of his characteristic side lurches, and precipitated the rider to the ground. The first camel, with a protesting grunt, began to sidle off, and the broadside movement continued ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... Wounded lions proverbially come badly off, and Fritz and Carl, who had suffered from many an act of petty tyranny on the part of the steward, thought they could not do better than follow their master's example, which they did to such good purpose, that when the unfortunate Klootz did escape from the cottage at last, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... fast, and the thermometer fell pretty low, the men found that their ordinary dreadnoughts and pea-jackets, etc., were not a sufficient protection against the cold, and it occurred to the captain that his furs might now be turned to good account. Sailors are proverbially good needle-men of a rough kind. Meetuck showed them how to set about their work. Each man made his own garments, and in less than a week they were completed. It is true, the boots perplexed them a little, and the less ingenious among the men made very rare and curious-looking ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... was a typical Indian in the matter of legal subtlety and ready-made wit, and that, if not capable of conducting my own case, how, then, could I be fit to undertake a logomachy for any third parties? finally, that it is proverbially unnecessary to keep a dog when you are equally proficient in the practice ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... money rapidly increased, doubling every five or six years through his shrewd mode of management, and every year he grew more economical. His wife had died ten years before. She had worked hard for very poor pay, for the squire's table was proverbially meager, and her bills for dress, judging from her appearance, must ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... species, though proverbially rare in other parts of the world, is here by no means uncommon . . . a very noble bird, larger than the common swan, and equally beautiful in form . . . its wings were edged with white: the bill ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... to stand on the very utmost verge of its commanding hill, within the limits of the two required latitudes, as well as over the centre of the land's physical and radial formation, and at the same time on the sure and proverbially wise ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... taken by priests to perpetuate the dominion of that ignorance which proverbially is 'the mother of devotion.' What care they for universal emancipation? Free themselves, their grand object is to rivet the chains of others. So that those they defraud of their hard earned substance be kept ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... people of the South are proverbially musical. They might well be called, in that section of the country, a race of troubadours, so great has ever been their devotion to and skill in the delightful art of music. Besides, it is now seen, and generally acknowledged, that in certain of their forms of melodic expression is ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... in France, food seemed plenty and we heard no complaint of shortage. The French are proverbially thrifty and can and do live comfortably upon the equivalent of what Americans waste. When a Frenchman finishes his meal there is nothing left on the plate, on dishes or in the glasses. This was particularly noticeable at all the banquets and ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... Donkeys are proverbially obstinate animals, and Mrs. Henchman's this afternoon proved no exception to the rule. He had evidently made up his mind that the road to the Landslip was not a congenial one. In vain the boy who drove him cheered him onwards, in vain Denys tugged at his bridle, ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... had seen the reading of the note and Mr. Allen's strange action gaining brief eminence by their repeated statements of what they had witnessed and their varied surmises. The role of commentator, if mysterious human action be the text, is always popular, and as this explanatory class are proverbially gifted in conjecture, there were many theories of explanation. Some of the guests had already the good taste to prepare for departure, and when Dr. Mark appeared from the sick room, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... independence of tone which is rarely popular, and some absurdities, as, for example, the imputations upon the American Federalists, in the Sketches of Switzerland. The book on England excited most attention, and was reviewed in that country with as much asperity as if its own travellers were not proverbially the most shameless libellers that ever abused the hospitality of nations. Altogether the ten volumes which compose this series may be set down as the most intelligent and philosophical books of travels which have been written ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... to see Mr. Losely, the Colonel, in his turn, as he glided past him towards Mrs. Haughton, had, with what is proverbially called the corner of the eye, taken the whole of that impostor's superb personnel into calm survey, had read him through and through, and decided on these two points without the slightest hesitation,—"a ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mrs. Washington was proverbially kind to her slaves, though not more so than her husband. They constituted a part of her family, for whom she had to provide both in health and sickness. This fact explains several entries in his journal concerning the quantity of provisions used. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... Necessity has been proverbially termed the mother of invention; the aphorism may be extended to virtue. It is an acquirement, and an acquirement to which pleasure must be sacrificed, and who sacrifices pleasure when it is within the grasp, whose mind has not been opened and strengthened ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... physical one of free exercise in the open air. "The health," he said, "attainable by other means than this is scarcely worth the name." He pointed to the tillers of the earth—the only people who, as a class, are proverbially more happy than others—and then he instanced the high ecstasies of the fox-hunter. His second principle was the love of woman. His third was the contempt of ambition. His fourth was an object of unceasing ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the wind was high and swept the skirts of my riding habit so determinedly against the side of the poor beast, that before long its false coat was transferred to the dark cloth, and my innocent ruse exposed. The French are proverbially and really a polite and considerate nation, but I never heard more hearty peals of laughter from any sides than those which conveyed to me the horrible assurance that my scheme ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... than the irritating inquirers; and so long as there seemed any possibility of his father's return to sanity and his office, he felt that he could never regard his position as wholly satisfactory; on the other hand, though a sick lion may possibly be compared with a live dog, a defunct lion is proverbially out of the running. ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... equally necessitated by this prime distinction of right and left. Here are a very few of them, which the reader can indefinitely increase for himself. (I leave out of consideration obvious cases like boots and gloves: to insult that proverbially intelligent person's intelligence with those were surely unpardonable.) A scarf habitually tied in a sailor's knot acquires one long side, left, and one short one, right, from the way it is manipulated by the right hand; if it were tied by the left, the relations would be reversed. The ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... of knocking from house to house, and the pain of being observed by the whole street, while the footman is examining him from the area. Some few may be seen in England about the inns of court, where the locality is favorable (where, however, the owners of the chambers are not proverbially soft of heart, so that the harvest must be poor); but Paris is full of such adventurers,—fat, smooth-tongued, and well dressed, with gloves and gilt-headed canes, who would be insulted almost by the offer of silver, and expect your gold as their right. Among these, of course, our friend ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fine house indeed last night, and everything went off remarkably well. I had every reason to be satisfied with the audience, who, though proverbially a cold one, were exceedingly enthusiastic in their applause, which, I suppose, is the best indication that they were satisfied with me. Good-by, my dear Mrs. Jameson; believe me yours ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... speculative and too often led captive by metaphysical and epistemological speculations. Sometimes girls work or worry more over studies and ideals than is good for their constitution, and boys grow idle and indifferent, and this proverbially tends to bad habits. Perhaps fitting for college has been too hard at the critical age of about eighteen, and requirements of honest, persevering work during college years too little enforced, or grown irksome by physiological reaction of lassitude from the strain of fitting and entering. ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... metropolis, through the principal streets of which our command passed to the Jersey City ferry. Without much delay we reached Philadelphia in the evening, where we were bountifully supplied with rations by her proverbially generous and patriotic people. True to the instinct of "Brotherly Love," the citizens are making arrangements such as would indicate that millions of Union soldiers might be fed at their tables. Here we spent the night. The next morning at 6.30 we were on our way southward. ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... of the most lovely days possible: all the morning we have been observing a large ship right a-head, on which we draw rapidly, though a stern chase is proverbially a long chase. The alley all alive, books and pencils in great demand: odds offered freely that this ship is the Tallahassie, Captain Glover, which sailed from Liverpool on the morning of the day we left; but owing to our taking the north channel, whilst she pursued the south, had thus gotten a ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... time supposed in the poem, and had the pleasure to satisfy myself that it was quite practicable." The success of the poem "was certainly so extraordinary, as to induce him for the moment to conclude, that he had at last fixed a nail in the proverbially inconstant wheel of Fortune, whose stability in behalf of an individual, who had so boldly courted her favours for three successive times, had not as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... profit under the Crown (including, for four troubled months, the Premiership), and served impartially under moderate Whigs and crusted Tories, finding, perhaps, no very material difference between their respective creeds. The experiences of the hen that hatches the duckling are proverbially pathetic; and great must have been the perplexity of this indeterminate statesman when he discovered that his only son was a young man of the most robust convictions, and that those convictions were frankly democratic. To men possessed by birth of ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... fighting. As a matter of historical fact, however, it has played a comparatively small part in the world's annals. Almost all the great campaigns have been fought out in the lowlands. It is Belgium, for instance, and not Switzerland, that has been proverbially the battle-ground of Europe. Napoleon and Suwaroff marched armies through the Alps, but only as a means of striking unexpectedly at the enemy ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... Malta, he had landed in Sicily, and visited Etna; his ascent up whose side, to the crater, he graphically described, with some striking features; but as this is a subject proverbially enlarged upon by all travellers, I waive further notice, and proceed to state, that Mr. C. after leaving Sicily passed over to the south of Italy, and journeyed on ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... of whom he obtained a glimpse during his ascent. Nina Algernon was but a few paces ahead of him, scouring along at a speed only accomplished by those who feel that goad in the heart which stimulates exertion, far more effectually than the "spur in the head," proverbially supposed to be worth "two in the heels.'" Nina had overheard enough from her hiding-place to make her angry, unhappy, and anxious in the highest degree. Angry, first of all, with herself and him, to think that she could have set her affections on one who was untrue; unhappy, to feel she ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... The Indians are proverbially famous for the facility with which they attract animals towards them. Bates and Wallace also mention having seen, on several occasions, jaguars perfectly tame, roaming in and out of the huts, as their smaller ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... could reason in favor of a privilege which goes proverbially by favor, the young maid was gone upon the winding path, with the pitcher truly balanced on her well-tressed head. Then Pet sat down and watched her; and she turned round in the distance, and waved him a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... arguments by a new article, where his aversion to war seemed incidentally to condemn revolution as well. Poets are proverbially ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... her subsistence, on her manual exertions, or an inmate in the house of a relative or friend, she may do great good by an habitual watchfulness that nothing be wasted. Servants are proverbially lavish and careless in this matter. The head of the family may be deficient in economy, or what is by no means uncommon, so engrossed with other inevitable cares, as to have little time to look after the savings, which might daily be made. But ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... always peculiar characteristical destinations, and the ancient tragedians felt so little the want of communications between a hero and his confidant, to make us acquainted with the hero's state of mind and views, that they even introduce as a mute personage so important and proverbially famous a friend as a Pylades. But whatever ridicule was cast on the confidants, and however great the reproach of being reduced to make use of them, no attempt was ever made till the time of Alfieri ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... imaginary fruits of liberty were sought, and its absolute worth misunderstood. And now that experience, dearly bought, has modified visionary and moulded practical theories, how much of the normal interest of the French character has evaporated! Even the love of beauty and the love of glory, proverbially its distinctions, are eclipsed by the sullen orb of Imperialism; the Bourse is more attractive than the battle-field, material ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... hand, the soil is proverbially fertile. The chief products are best exhibited in connection with the four botanical zones into which Junghuhn has divided ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... say the lower edge. If you had at all been gifted with the intuition proverbially attributed to young ladies in your situation, you would have known that I meant the western edge—in ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... not prevent his young master frequenting the tables, and though he kept the purse, with the exception of a few pounds, and would certainly have stood between him and ruin, he could not prevent his winning. Richard had the luck, and more, that proverbially attends young people—he had the luck of the devil; his few napoleons swelling to a great many on the very first day, and he was in the seventh heaven of happiness. The next day and the next he won largely, immensely; ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... sanitation and of combating epidemics, refused to allow the maintenance of the shed, which was to be the temporary home of Jarimari, for more than thirty days. Yet it matters but little, this time-limit: for a month is quite long enough for the complete assuagement of the anger of one who, though proverbially capricious, is ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... man who has got thoroughly into a woman's mind in this manner, is half way to her heart; the distance between those two stations is proverbially short. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... aggravated still more cruelly the moral and physical evils which Tuscany and the other Italian States were doomed to suffer, and from which they have enjoyed but brief respites during the whole period of modern history. The Maremma was already proverbially unhealthy in the time of Dante, who refers to the fact in several familiar passages, and the petty tyrants upon its borders often sent criminals to places of confinement in its territory, as a slow but certain mode of execution. ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... which they heard every night, and which were also heard by many others along the same corridor, that they refused to sleep there after the first few nights. Those who serve under her Majesty's colours are proverbially brave; they will gladly die for their country, with sword in hand and face to the foe. For this reason a distinguished officer [Colonel A——, above quoted] was the next occupant of the haunted chamber, and was told ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... had struck dead with the sword. Even the rude seamen shed tears for the lost and ill-fated girl; and a silence like that of the death-chamber reigned on board the little brig, as it swept noiselessly over the waters. No class of people are more proverbially light-hearted and thoughtless than seamen. The sad event of the preceding night seemed to have passed from the memories of all on board the Raker with the morning's dawn—from all save Julia. She, indeed, often thought ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... work doing by the Republicans who have gone south, and am especially proud of the acknowledged honorable conduct of those from Ohio. The Democrats make a mistake in sending so many ex-Republicans. New converts are proverbially bitter and unfair towards those they have ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... at first did not seem to have understood the character of the frigate. Her people were not keeping so good a look-out as were Lord Claymore's crew; when they did, all sail was crowded in flight. Away she went before the wind. A stern chase is proverbially a long one; a tub can sail with the ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... the men must inevitably take charge of two of the ladies; fate must determine which! Cuthbert Aston—a youth unaccustomed to deny himself any gratification upon which he had set his mind—had probably resolved that it would not be he! But fortune is proverbially fickle. The train was crowded and seats were at a discount. It was impossible for all five to travel together. Violet—with a woman's perversity, perhaps, because of Cuthbert's evident intention, or, it may be, to show a deliberate preference for Murray—contrived ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... proverbially said to lead to as much evil as any impulse that agitates the human bosom, must be held responsible for only too many of those crimes which from time to time outrage society, for, as the authors of "Guesses at Truth" have remarked, ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... of a Sandwich, a Dashwood, and a Potter, must temper their judgment by remembering the affection that Wilkes was able to inspire in the heart of Churchill. While the scoundrels of Medmenham were ready to betray their old associate, and, with no touch of the honor proverbially attributed to thieves, to drive him into disgrace, to exile, and if possible to death, the loyal friendship of the poet was given to Wilkes without reserve. Churchill was not a man of irreproachable character, of unimpeachable morality, or of unswerving austerity. But he was as different ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... thought they showed very poor taste, for her music was simply horrid and couldn't compare with the warblings of the woods birds. It is well, however, to make allowance for the admiral's opinion, for musicians are proverbially jealous of each other. ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... of life are proverbially very uncertain; and it may happen that you may be obliged to do without me; in which case, would it not be well for you to be ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... grounds in the most remote parts of the island, and the mariner can discern his snowy crown more than a hundred miles. But Sicily abounds in luxuriant plains and charming valleys, and its soil is proverbially rich: it once bore the appellation of the Granary of Rome; and it is now said that if properly tilled it would produce more grain than any country of its size in the world. Its beauty and fertility were often celebrated by ancient bards, who described the sacred ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... scarcely possible for any man to preserve much personal dignity, he to the last impressed those who surrounded him with the deepest awe and reverence. The illusion which he produced on his worshippers can be compared only to those illusions to which lovers are proverbially subject during the season of courtship. It was an illusion which affected even the senses. The contemporaries of Louis thought him tall. Voltaire, who might have seen him, and who had lived with ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... experience is proverbially said to be more quick-{witted} than a wizard, but the reason is not told; which, now for the first time, shall be made ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... Coleridge pointed out, is not a constitutionally jealous man, such as Leontes in The Winter's Tale. His distrust of his wife is the natural suspicion of a man lost amid new and inexplicable surroundings. {183} Women are proverbially suspicious in business, not because nature made them so, but because, as they are in utter ignorance of standards by which to judge, they feel their helplessness in the face of deceit. Othello feels the same helplessness. Trained ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... occurs, such as Mary's first mistress, the kind-hearted Mrs. Williams, the favoured condition of the slave is still as precarious as it is rare: it is every moment at the mercy of events; and must always be held by a tenure so proverbially uncertain as that of human prosperity, or human life. Such examples, like a feeble and flickering streak of light in a gloomy picture, only serve by contrast to exhibit the depth of the prevailing ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... sees "the doctor," who, at the moment, has stepped from within the wigwam, where he had been unperceived, there is a sudden revulsion of feeling among the savages—a return to hostility, the antipathy of all Fuegians to the African negro being proverbially bitter. Strange and unaccountable is this prejudice against the negro by a people almost ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... scornful as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor's name) professed to be of the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and fully appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage conferred on him in a mushroom-place like X——, concerning whose inhabitants it was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his own grandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were still independent; and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his success in business, to restore to pristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of his house. These circumstances considered, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... inventions of low cunning, schemes of mischief and deception, and false and mysterious pretensions. In his moral phrenology the professor might have marked the organ of secretiveness as very large, and that of conscientiousness omitted. He was, however, proverbially good natured, very rarely, if ever, indulging in any combative spirit toward any one, whatever might be the provocation, and yet was never known to laugh. Albeit, he seemed to be the pride of his indulgent father, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... fills his later days. Since the wandering Comstock and Curry, proverbially unfortunate discoverers, like Marshall, pointed to hundreds of millions for the "silver kings," along Mount Davidson's stony, breast, he gambles daily. The stock ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... them lining the road on a pouring wet night, outside a town already full to overflowing with like unhappy sufferers; the while Belgian soldiers, with fixed bayonets, have prohibited any further entrance to that which promised a lodging place. Soldiers are not proverbially given to overmuch sensitiveness where human suffering is concerned, for a daily intercourse with terrible scenes cannot fail to harden a man, but I declare that I have seen strong men burst ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... their tormenting squibs were exploded in my eyes. I felt like a rustic pony, who comes in his simple way into town on the Fourth of July, and has Chinese crackers and fiery serpents cast under his heels. One evening, in particular, they asked me to play the game of Comparisons (a proverbially odious game, that could exist only in an effete and degenerate civilization), in which the entire company tried to see how Funny they could be; and because I made stupid answers, I was laughed at ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... here add, has been well served by its Curates. "Comparisons are (proverbially) odious," we will not therefore refer to any of these in recent years; but we may take three typical cases of men whose memory is still green and ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... crows hover continually about the Indian villages. The most proverbially suspicious of all birds is here familiar and confiding. The Indian exercises superstitious care over them, but whether from love or fear we could never discover. It is very difficult to find out what an Indian believes. We have sometimes heard that they consider the crows their ancestors. ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... years ago, called the Rue de l'Empire, but republics are proverbially sensitive. Once they are established they become morbidly desirous of obliterating a past wherein no republic flourished. The street is therefore dedicated to St. Gingolphe ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... young and vigorous males, previously mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while those female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter; excepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met, and these will fight you like grim fiends ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Flambeau had often heard that negroes made good cooks. But somehow something in the contrast of colour and caste increased his surprise that the hotel proprietor should answer the call of the cook, and not the cook the call of the proprietor. But he reflected that head cooks are proverbially arrogant; and, besides, the host had come back with the sherry, and that was ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... to be found merely in the forgiveness of man or of woman. Women are proverbially, and perhaps divinely, willing to forgive. But a woman's forgiveness does not necessarily make a man able to forgive himself. Nor does it always cleanse an unclean inner life. To many a man it has been just the fact that his fiance or wife was so sublimely willing ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... and favourite appeal with the disciples of political exclusion. I endeavoured to persuade him that the art of administering was no great art; that there was more danger of rulers knowing too much than of their knowing too little, old soldiers proverbially taking better care of themselves than young soldiers; that he must not expect too much, for they that know the practices of free governments, well know it is hopeless to think of keeping pure and disinterested men long in office, even as men go, there being a corrupting influence about the very ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... having quarrelled with some of his brotherhood, under pretence of wishing to be reconciled, invited them to a banquet, at the conclusion of which he called for the fruit, a signal for the assassins to rush in and dispatch those whom he had marked for destruction. Hence, adds Landino, it is said proverbially of one who has been stabbed, that he has had some of the friar Alberigo's fruit. Thus Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xxv. Le frutte ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... to fling the reins on to the neck of his mad vanity, to indulge to the very fullest his crazy passion for ostentation and magnificence. Because the Court of France was proverbially renowned for splendour and luxury, Buckingham felt it due to himself to extinguish its brilliance by his own. On his first coming to the Louvre he literally blazed. He wore a suit of white satin velvet with a short cloak in ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... especially of statues, are proverbially unsatisfactory; only a vague idea can be given in words, to the unprofessional reader; otherwise we might dwell upon the eager, intent attitude of Orpheus as he seems to glide by the dozing Cerberus, shading his eyes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... proverbially odious, they must be specially so if drawn out upon insufficient data. I must not, therefore, on such a flying inspection, go very deeply into my comparative analysis. And yet, under all the circumstances, the ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... behind, he could hear wheels tearing madly down the hill, and he laughed. The race had, for the time, banished from his mind the history of the previous week, banished the memory of his horrible losses, banished his sense of danger, banished his nervous fears. It was a stern chase, proverbially a long one, and he had the best horse, and knew that he could not be overtaken. The sound of the pursuing wheels grew fainter and fainter, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... were generally pessimists. Country people are proverbially prudent, and pessimism is prudence. We feel safe when we doubt the success of another, because if he should succeed we can say we were glad we were mistaken, and so step from a position of good judgment to one of generous disposition without ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... and culmination of the season as keenly as the most active sharer in its gaieties; and, as a looker-on, she enjoyed opportunities of comparison and generalization such as those who take part must proverbially forego. No one could have kept a more accurate record of social fluctuations, or have put a more unerring finger on the distinguishing features of each season: its dulness, its extravagance, its lack of balls or excess of divorces. She had a special memory for the vicissitudes ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... very notable figures. Particularly so was Malise, the Earl of Strathearn, who figured prominently in the Battle of the Standard. But, more particularly notable still, was his grandson, Gilbert, who held the Earldom in the reign of David I. Like his King—proverbially known as the "sair sanct for the crown"—Gilbert was most lordly in gifts to the Church, which was then fast rising into power. Dr Wilson[12] quotes an old writer to the effect that, at this time, the Earldom of Strathearn included "the haill lands lying ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... I said, 'but not probable. In the course of nature, I ought to die many years before you; and sailors are proverbially short-lived.' ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... stairs to the police nursery where the child at last found peace and a bottle. But when the matron tried to coax him to stay also, he screamed and carried on so that they were glad to let him go lest he wake everybody in the building. Though proverbially Police Headquarters never sleeps, yet it does not like to be disturbed in its midnight nap, as it were. It is human with the rest ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... wounds, a prison, and death in the sight of Monsieur, who remained motionless with his army. In the rapidity of the Queen's enunciation he had not time to examine whether she had employed this expression proverbially or with a direct reference; but at all events, he decided not to notice it, and was indeed prevented from doing so by the Queen, who continued, looking ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... are studies in impressionism, Percy's seemed to me to be a study in madness. It was covered with hieroglyphics, but what they meant, or what they did there anyhow, it was absurd to suppose that I could tell,—I never put them there!—Proverbially, the man's ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... are placed in some position of dependence and subordination, where they have seldom to exercise the initiative of choice, but just to do what they are bid, by degrees all but lose the power of making up their minds about anything. And so a slave set free is proverbially a helpless creature, like a bit of driftwood; and children who have been too long kept in a position of pupilage and subordination, when they are sent into the world are apt to turn out very feeble men, for want of a good, strong backbone of will in them. So, many a woman that has been accustomed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... cold neglect and even disdainful suspicion with which the most useful and valuable devices are often received, or rather, we should say, haughtily disregarded and rejected. Seldom or never do we find these inventions appreciated according to their merits. The Government is proverbially slow to adopt improvements of any kind; and the army and navy, like all similar professional bodies, are averse to every important change, and wedded to the instruments and processes in the use of which they have been educated ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... into twelve sees with territorial titles. The assumption by Pius IX. of spiritual authority over England was a blunder; indeed, no better proof in recent times of the lack of infallibility at Rome could well be discovered. One swallow, proverbially, does not make a spring; and when Newman took refuge in flight, other leaders of the Oxford Movement refused to accept his logic and to follow his example. Englishmen have always resented anything in the shape of ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... Dane was proverbially scarce a patient man after a certain line was passed. He left his chair now, stooped and took Hazel's hands and gently pulled her up from her low cushion; and then took her in his ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... had dawned, Vajramukut carried the princess's ornaments to the market, and entering the nearest goldsmith's shop, offered to sell them, and asked what they were worth. As your majesty well knows, gardeners, tailors, and goldsmiths are proverbially dishonest, and this man was no exception to the rule. He looked at the pupil's face and wondered, because he had brought articles whose value he did not appear to know. A thought struck him that he ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... gloaming in tropical countries," said Bertie indulgently; "but I like the masterly reticence with which you treat the cobra's motive for gloating. The unknown is proverbially the uncanny. I can picture nervous readers of the SMOKY CHIMNEY keeping the light turned on in their bedrooms all night out of sheer sickening uncertainty as to WHAT the cobra might ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki |
