"Second-best" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the halibut is not altogether unprecedented. I remember, when I was cruising in the China Seas in the year 1854, witnessing a combat between a dolphin and a Bombay duck, in which the latter came off second-best. And some thirty years later, during a yachting excursion off the Scilly Isles, I saw an even more remarkable duel between a porbeagle—as the Cornish people call the mackerel-shark—and a pipit, in which, strange to relate, the bird ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... a fine view of the squire's new tomb and the poorhouse, with a wing of the jail behind the trees. And I've stuck my second-best hat in that broken pane of glass, and there's a chest of drawers to set against the door; so you'll be warm and free from intrusion. I wish ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... demonstrated I. 1, nor explained the action of a pump. Truly an elevation to look up at! It came, further, to my knowledge that the Royal Society—if I might judge by the claims made by very influential Fellows—considered itself as entitled to the best of everything: second-best being left for the newer bodies. A secretary, in returning thanks for the Royal at an anniversary of the Astronomical, gave rather a lecture to the company on the positive duty of all present to send the very best to the old body, and the absolute right of the old body to expect it. An old ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... sculpture, have all been torn from the homes or the temples of Sicily or Greece. Countries were pilaged and nations crushed that an Apicius might dissolve pearls[12] in the wine he drank, or that Lollia Paulina might gleam in a second-best dress of emeralds and pearls which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, or more ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... then seated in the best rocking-chair. As for Patsey, herself, she could not think of wearing the elegant new dress, Uncle Josie's present—that was much too fine; she preferred what had now become her second-best—a black silk, which looked somewhat rusty and well-worn. To tell the truth, this gown had seen good service; it had been not only turned, but re-turned—having twice gone through the operation of ripping and sponging; and doubtful as the fact may appear to the reader, yet we have ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... difficult for a girl," explained Georgie. "Even when I was getting fond of him I knew it wasn't what I'd imagined falling in love to be like, but I thought it might be all I could manage. You see, in real life, the second-best has such a disconcerting habit of coming along first. You know all the time that it is only the second-best, but you think to yourself, 'Suppose the first-best never comes along for me, and I have said No to this, then ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... he seek alone. And if it is the most, it is also the least. Yet in our present mood we seem not to feel this. We misunderstand the considerations which should rightly lead us in practice to surrender some of what we desire, in order to secure the rest; and rightly make us acquiesce in a second-best course of action, in order to avoid stagnation or retrogression. We misunderstand all this, and go on to suppose that there are the same grounds why we should in our own minds acquiesce in second-best opinions; why ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... pain and limitation and incompleteness. There shall be no night—no sorrow—no tears—no sighing, and the like. These negatives of the strong and stinging griefs and limitations of the present are perhaps our second-best way of coming to some prophetic vision of that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... fact is that the Tinkers' raid upon Jerry Dunne's premises, although carried out with unusual success, had led, not at all unusually, to complications when it was time to divide the spoil. Over Mrs. Dunne's second-best shawl it was that the difficulty arose. Mrs. Dunne, despite her husband's thrifty turn, owned many shawls, few of them inferior enough to be worn at all frequently, and she had pinned on this one three times only during the half-dozen years of her proprietresship. So it ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... timid among the boys seemed to think that Scranton would come out second-best when the great meet was a thing of the past; but others only found themselves more determined than ever to win, after learning how their rivals had entered into the affair ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... say the elderly folk. But Sym, he would laugh when he ought to be sad; Said his aunt, "Lawk-a-mussy! What's wrong with the lad? He romps with the puppies, and talks to the ants, And keeps his loose change in his second-best pants, And stumbles ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... red-nosed, autumnal boon-companion of John a' Combe,—and finally (or else the Stratford gossips belied him), the victim of convivial habits, who met his death by tumbling into a ditch on his way home from a drinking-bout, and left his second-best bed ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... considered that she and Miss Chetwynd formed an aristocracy of intellect, and the family indeed tacitly admitted this. She practised no secrecy in her departure from the shop; she merely dressed, in her second-best hoop, and went, having been ready at any moment to tell her mother, if her mother caught her and inquired, that she was going to see Miss Chetwynd. And she did go to see Miss Chetwynd, arriving at the house-school, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... the beds to "plump," had stolen a look at the glass, and put on her second-best Sunday cap, in honor of a real officer; and she looked very nice indeed, especially when she received a compliment. But she had seen too much of life ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... It is all very fine, now that Allister is new. But wait and see. You won't like to be second-best, after having been ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... no file of old yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope to discover whether the boy Shakspeare poached[598] or not, whether he held horses at the theater-door, whether he kept school, and why he left in his will only his second-best bed to Ann ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the end of luncheon when Margaret came in, they were sipping fine wine from very thin glasses, they were all saying their second-best things, because each one was afraid that if he said his very best before dinner one of the others would steal it; and Mrs. Rushmore was ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... Mary; there's a good deal to do," Aunt Olivia said at the door. She did not go in. "Yes, in your second-best—don't you see I've put it out. You can wear that every day now, till—for a while." Something in the voice startled Rebecca Mary out of her subdued ecstasy and sent her down to breakfast with a nameless fear tugging ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... going, Polly?" asked Phronsie, hearing Alexia's voice; and laying down her doll, she went into the blue and white room that was Polly's very own. "Oh, may I go too?" as Polly ran to the closet to get out her second-best hat. ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... Fraser than on the Dog Creek hotel. Every week I had my dinner there before starting in mid-afternoon on my return to the ranch, and this day had succeeded one of misunderstanding with "Cookie" wherein all the boys of our outfit had come off second-best. I was hungry and that dinner at the hotel was going to taste mighty good. Out there on the range we had heard rumors of a war in Europe. We all talked it over in the evening and decided it was another one of those fights that were ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... they went to church. The children there all looked so glad, so happy and so clean and neat in their second-best clothes and so nicely washed. They now made their confessions for the last time; and it all went so pleasantly: they had done no wrong for such a long while and all their sins had already been forgiven two or three ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... Vavasor's usual taste: he had forgotten his best manners. But in truth he never had any best manners: comparatively few have anything but second-best, as the court of the universe will one day reveal. Hester did not like the remark, and he fancied from her look she ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... domestic detail or private relaxation with shameless publicity. A damp waterproof, shawl, and open newspaper were lying across the once brilliant sofa; a powder-puff, a plate of fruit, and a play-book were on the centre table, and on the marble-topped sideboard was Mr. Hooker's second-best hat, with a soiled collar, evidently but lately exchanged for the one he had on, peeping over its brim. The whole apartment seemed to mingle the furtive disclosures of the dressing-room with the open ostentations ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... always in the kitchen at Ansdore. When Joanna reached home with Martin, the two tables, set end to end, were laid—with newly ironed cloths and newly polished knives, but with the second-best china only, since many of the guests were clumsy. Joanna wished there had been time to get out the best china, ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... But Diana detects the change, guesses at the cause, and promptly makes capture of Cupid. His wings clipped, his bow burnt, all his arrows broken, he is beaten and set to a task. Meanwhile the day of sacrifice has arrived and, in default of a better, a victim is found. But Neptune will have no second-best: what promises to be a tragedy changes to joy on the god's refusal to accept the proffered girl. However, the sacrifice is only postponed. Moreover the delay has given rise to a stricter search, which means ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Logos."[222] And in this sense, it is "intermediate ([Greek: methorios]) between God and man."[223] What such passages mean is that the separation of the Logos is a stage in man's progress up to the true idea of God. It is a second-best Deity, so to say, rather than a second Deity; for those who regard the Logos as God have no conception at all of the perfect Being of which it is ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... table was looking eagerly at Mrs. Cayley-Binns—hitherto insignificant—she felt forced to say something worth saying about Miss Grant. She swallowed hard, choked in a crumb, hastily sipped the excellent champagne Lady Meason gave at her second-best parties, and recovering herself said that "well, really, what she knew was almost too shocking to tell." There was a Frenchman, good-looking, evidently a sort of gentleman, in the train with Miss Grant when she was travelling from England. They had pretended to be strangers, but had ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for the world, Mr. Hand," she tossed back. "You'd stumble and break Parson Thayer's best china that I've washed for seventeen years and only broke the handle of one cup. She wouldn't drink her coffee this morning outer the second-best cups; went to the buttery before breakfast and picked out wunner the best set, and poured herself a cup. She said it was inspiring, but I call it wasteful—and me with ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... to tell Aunty Edith, and she looked very severe, and gave me my second-best cap and said, "William, do be careful, this time." But I only told her that the boy threw my cap into the water. I didn't tell that he said he was ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull
... that Sinn Fein's second-best war-cry, "Up the KAISER," is causing some irritation in the Wilhelmstrasse, where it is freely admitted that the KAISER is already far higher up than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... linen tablecloths as her contribution to the warming. After accepting the present with profuse thanks and unmeasured praise of it and of the giver, Mrs. Morris conducted the newcomers across the passage into the best sitting-room, which the young folk had already appropriated, leaving the second-best room to ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... ain't be'n out o' bed but two hours an' your head looks as rough as if you'd slep' in it. That comes from layin' on the ground same as a caterpillar. Smooth your hair down with your hands an' p'r'aps Emma Jane can braid it as you go along the road. Run up and get your second-best hair ribbon out o' your upper drawer and put on your shade hat. No, you can't wear your coral chain—jewelry ain't appropriate in the morning. How long do you cal'late to be gone, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... beyond, and though it be lost in one aspect, in sight, it will be eternal as trust, will be ours, imperishable as ourselves, and as God. Therefore, do not give all the energy of your lives to amassing the second-best riches. Seek the highest things most. 'Covet earnestly the best gifts,' and let the coveting regulate your conduct. And do not be put off with wealth that will fail you sooner ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... her first breadth. Each matronly member of good society possessed a substantial silk gown of some sober color, which gown, having done duty at two years' tea-parties, descended to the grade of "second-best," and so descended, year by year, until it disappeared into the dim distance of the past. The young ladies had their white muslins and natural flowers; which latter decorations invariably collapsed in the course of the evening, and were worn during the latter half of any festive occasion in a flabby ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to to clean the house, which was cleaner than most people's already, and I got a nice bit of dinner and took it up on a tray. But no, that wasn't right, for I'd put the best instead of the second-best cloth on the tray. ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... imperfect, a faulty synthesis, and I linger in the provisional, from timidity and from loyalty." "As soon as a thing attracts me I turn away from it; or rather, I cannot either be content with the second-best, or discover anything which satisfies my aspiration. The real disgusts me, and I cannot find the ideal." And so one thing after another is put away. Family life attracted him perpetually. "I cannot escape," he writes, "from the ideal of it. A companion, of ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... particularly towards the end of the play. This taste was, it seems, first acquired in consequence of a feud that formerly existed between Doria's family and his own, in which his side came off so decidedly second-best, that he only remains of his race; all the rest having been murdered by Doria and his father's faction. From such deadly foes, it may be observed, that tragic heroes always select ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... irascible, but still joyous—else he might have become morbidly miserable. As it was, these manifestations only provoked his anger, and led him forthwith into a rough-and-tumble fight, in which, whether victor or not, he always showed unquestionable pluck. If he came off second-best a dozen times, he went confidently into the thirteenth trial, brave as Bruce, and equally successful. At length the voice of gossip was hushed. Joel became the most popular lad in the village. Every body liked him, and what is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... unintelligible to him; the tawdry, meretricious Italian overtures filled him with disgust. In the end the two confined themselves to patriotic airs and old-time domestic ditties. Medora accompanied on her second-best violin (which was kept at the farm) and Abner enjoyed a heart-warming sense of doing his full share in "Tenting Tonight" or "Lily Dale." The girl's parents had advanced far beyond this stage, but willingly relapsed into it now and ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... beautiful show-windows, went into Demuth's to buy a number of things for the honeymoon tour of Italy, her true, character showed itself. Only the most elegant articles found favor in her sight, and, if she could not have the best, she forewent the second-best, because this second meant nothing to her. Beyond question, she was able to forego,—in that her mother was right,—and in this ability to forego there was a certain amount of unpretentiousness. But when, by way of exception, it became a question of really ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the world's unchallenged professional, amateur and scholastic record made by the late Hickey Hicks! The champion's belt is now the Tennessee Shad's to have and to hold. According to the program the champion and Doc Macnooder, second-best score, will now run another heat for the mysterious sealed prize, guaranteed to be worth over three dollars ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... don't blame your papers for bearing down hard on the local news. I suppose it's mighty interesting to you New Yorkers to learn every morning just how much more money you owe on your new subway, and whether or not the temperature of Mrs. Van Damexpense's second-best Siberian wolf-hound is still rising. That's what newspapers are for—to save you the trouble of stepping around and collecting the events of the day from the back fence. But your papers don't bear down hard enough on the Homeburg happenings, and ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... the moment when he would be turned out. He plunged his hands down into his trousers pockets and fished up a knife, his second-best one, fortunately. ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... had come through to link us up with civilization, and the once promised town had sprung up like a mushroom-bed about our still sad and solitary Casa Grande! But what's the use of repining, Tabbie McKail? You've the second-best house within thirty miles of Buckhorn, with glass door-knobs and a laundry-chute, and a brood to rear, and a hard-working husband to cook for. And as the kiddies get older, I imagine, I'll not be troubled ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... made to be stared at. The staring was suspended only when the bargaining went on; for Havre, clearly, was a sailor and merchant first; its knowledge of a woman's good points was rated merely as its second-best talent. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... Henry a little pincushion, which I made on purpose for him, and not knowing what to present Fred with, I allowed him to rip open my second-best doll, which was still in quite a good state of preservation. Fred had always possessed an inquiring mind, and an inclination to inspect the contents of everything, in consequence of which my possessions often suffered—and this employment now afforded ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... milk and water; tolerable, fair, passable; pretty well, pretty good; rather good, moderately good; good; good enough, well enough, adequate; decent; not bad, not amiss; inobjectionable[obs3], unobjectionable, admissible, bearable, only better than nothing. secondary, inferior; second-rate, second-best; one-horse [U.S.]. Adv. almost &c.; to a limited extent, rather &c. 32; pretty, moderately, passing; only, considering, all things considered, enough. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... scattered about in a comfortable, haphazard fashion; a tea-table here was stacked high with novels and magazines; a card-table there bore a violin, a couple of tennis racquets, a silver-handled crop and a box of papa's second-best cigars. (The really-truly best were under the basketwork sofa.) There was also a sewing-machine, a music-stand, a couple of dogs asleep on the floor, a family Bible full of pressed wild flowers, a twenty-two-bore rifle, and the messy remains of a Latin exercise that the son of the house ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... up a hull heap on 'em and laid 'em down in front of me, but I calmly walked past 'em, and took down my second-best dress and bunnet, and a good deep water-proof cape, ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... anything on the site. Suppose one is castle-stalking in Maine, suppose one is looking for primaeval walls in the Volscian or the Hernican land. If one does not find the exact thing that one wishes, the second-best luck is to find the place where it once was, and to find nothing there. Best of all is to find a fortress of the right age on its mound surrounded by its ditch; next to this is to find the mound surrounded by its ditch, but ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman |
