"Gratify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or a choleric disposition, married or a bachelor; with other particulars of a like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings; and shall give some account in them of the persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be here, and there is much to be seen to. He writes that he has worked very hard to get things in shape so that he can leave them, and that he wishes to take a vacation. As far as possible I shall gratify him. He can be with you here, and come to town occasionally as I need him. It's all turning out very well, and I am better off than many in these ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... said he would gratify him with the sight, and without staying to finish his breakfast—indeed he had had his "coceada," and didn't care for any,—he started to his feet, and began to ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... which were primarily addressed to the man, as the very form of the Greek words demonstrate, were tacitly transferred to the woman. When, in a standard dictionary of the English language, I look out the word "virtue," which etymologically means "manliness"—the manliness which would scorn to gratify its own selfish passions at the cost of the young, the poor, and the weak, at the cost of a woman—I find one of its meanings defined, not as male but as "female chastity." Long ago I suggested that as manliness thus goes ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... excellent—excellent in his life and doctrine—excellent, above all, in his self-denied and disinterested sacrifice of all that life holds dear to principle and to friendship. But you shall read his history. I shall be happy at once to gratify your curiosity, and to show my sense of your kindness, if you will have the goodness to procure me the means of accomplishing my object." I replied to the Benedictine, that, as the rubbish amongst which he proposed to search ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... not the courage to go patiently onward in the condition of life in which it has pleased God to call us, but must needs live in some fashionable state to which we ridiculously please to call ourselves; and all to gratify the vanity of that unsubstantial genteel world of which we ...
— The Skilful Cook - A Practical Manual of Modern Experience • Mary Harrison
... for Mucianus. Antonius has been suspected of delaying treacherously after receiving a secret communication from Vitellius, offering him as the price of treason the consulship, his young daughter, and a rich dowry. Others hold that this story was invented to gratify Mucianus. Many consider that the policy of all the Flavian generals was rather to threaten the city than to attack it. They realized that Vitellius had lost the best cohorts of his Guards, and now that all his forces were cut ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... and wealth, however, do not acquire their imperativeness unless at the same time they gratify some deep-seated group of desires or instincts. Wealth gives too many things to catalogue here, but fundamentally it gives power, and so beauty which may lead to wealth is always a source of power, although this ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... He declined to gratify her curiosity and said a wife ought to trust her husband; to which she responded that he didn't ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... an obliging temper is a very dangerous temper!—By endeavouring to gratify others, it ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... money, he would apply to Craggs as a friend. A negotiation of the same kind took place with Halifax, who aimed at the glory of being the great literary patron. It seems that he was anxious to have the Homer dedicated to him, and Pope, being unwilling to gratify him, or, as Johnson says, being less eager for money than Halifax for praise, sent a cool answer, and the negotiation passed off. Pope afterwards revenged himself for this offence by his bitter satire on Bufo in the Prologue to his Satires, ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... recovered from my attack of influenza. She continually pressed me to take exercise and invented a hundred different excuses for getting me out of doors. When I saw that her heart was really set on seeing me walk I did what I could to gratify her. I promised to go over to the rectory after luncheon on the very next fine day. There seemed no prospect of a fine day for at least a month, and so I felt tolerably safe in making the promise. But there is nothing ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... with one toe the earth he pressed, Still as a post, with sleepless eye, The air his food, his roof the sky. The year had past. Then Uma's lord,(198) King of creation, world adored, Thus spoke to great Bhagirath: "I, Well pleased thy wish will gratify, And on my head her waves shall fling The ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... orderly, Mrs. Medlycott took great pride in the faultlessness of her domestic arrangements, so far as cleanliness and precise order were concerned. To maintain the whiteness of the pipe-clayed steps before the front door of her Bedford Square mansion was a chief object of her existence; and to gratify her in this particular, Sergeant Hill use daily to leave his premises by the kitchen steps. Having outlived the lady, Hill observed to a friend who was condoling with him on his recent bereavement, "Ay, my poor wife is gone! She was a good sort of woman—in her way a very ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Plate XIII.), passionate love will affect the whole career, and such persons, it will be found, usually place their affections on impossible people or on those who are in some way tied up by marriage or who otherwise are unable to gratify the love that the other person demands. This is a most unlucky sign for affection to find in ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... as good an education as I desire, I feel it would be highly criminal in me not to improve it. I feel, also, that it would be equally criminal to desire to be well educated and accomplished, from selfish motives, with a view merely to gratify my taste and relish for improvement, or my pride in being qualified to shine. I therefore resolved last winter to attend the academy from no other motive than to improve the talents bestowed by God, so as to be ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... say the same things precisely when the child has shown a willingness to make some little sacrifice to aid or to gratify her mother, so that the sentiment expressed may enter her mind in the form of approval and not of condemnation, and the effect will be very different. The sentiments will, at any rate, now not be rejected from the mind, but the way ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... fear of the Canal ring that his administration would lead to its discomfiture. Indeed, the flankers of the reform movement found it difficult to agree upon a candidate, and when Amasa J. Parker finally consented to stand he did so to gratify Church's friends in the middle and western portions of the State, who resented the Kelly interview. That the bad blood between the Warren and Kelly factions did not break out in the convention was probably due to Seymour's ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... partial to innocent pasquinade, to turn to the "Lyric," in a recent volume of the New Monthly Magazine, commencing as above. It is too long for entire insertion here, but its raciness will doubtless gratify those who may be induced ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... having broken down my self-control, and hoped to win me over further by extreme docility. I walked away to the window, angry with myself, and yet angry again that that anger should be necessary. I had always been so free till now, able to gratify the fancy of the moment. This need for ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... that, once you convince them you are near enough to their lives to understand their needs and to try and gratify their natural longings, all your worries will take wing and fly away; for your children will cease to hide and cloak their actions and natures, and they will no longer wish to deceive ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of Napoleon, and with it the supremacy of France, was scarcely overthrown—the Titanic contests, to gratify the ambition of one man at the expense of the intellectual progress of humanity, were scarcely at an end, before an honourable rivalry awoke once more, and new scientific and commercial expeditions were set on foot. A ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... a low example. Suppose a machine, the sight of which would raise, and discoveries in its contrivance gratify, our curiosity: the real delight in this case would arise from its being the effect of skill and contrivance. This skill in the mind of the artificer would be a higher object, if we had any senses or ways to discern it. For, observe, the contemplation of that principle, faculty, ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... were yet in my power to gratify you!" sighed the regent. "But I cannot give what is no longer mine! Why came you not a few hours earlier, field-marshal? then it would have been yet possible to comply with your request. But now it ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... though this story be, it is after all only a story, with no higher purpose than merely to gratify curiosity, than merely to amuse. Its art has no higher purpose than to copy faithfully the event, than to be a faithful photograph; and moreover it is the story not of an emotion, but of a passion, and an ignoble passion ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... a character as Hocque, a man who, without provocation, and to gratify his ill-will, kills an infinite number of animals, and causes great damage to innocent persons, is capable of the greatest excess, may give himself up to the evil spirit, by implicated or explicit compacts, and engage, on pain of ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... to all rebel falling into his hands. That if they wished to treat as prisoners of war our colored soldiers, to be exchanged for theirs, the decision was their own; but if they could afford to murder our colored prisoners to gratify their fiendish dispositions and passions, the responsibility of commensurate retaliation, to bring them to a sense of justice, was also their own. But, notwithstanding the kindness shown to their prisoners, so soon as our command left, a Texas soldier, in the presence ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... the door closed, Hugh Ritson tramped the floor in restless perambulations. What had he thought of doing? Delivering himself to justice as a perjurer? Had he, then, no duty left in life that he must needs gratify his revenge in a kind of death? What of the woman who had suffered for him? What of the broken heart and the wretched home? Were these as nothing against the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Gabriel, which it is criminal to gratify.' Burling went home in a four-wheeler. Cummerbridge had left after the first act—a severe attack of ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... accompanied by the alteration of the name of the month Quintilis to Julius, in honour of the great man. Later Augustus had the name of the month Sextilis altered to Augustus for his own glorification, and in order to gratify his vanity a law was passed taking away a day from February and putting it on to August, so that August might have thirty-one days as well as July, and not the inferior total of thirty previously assigned to it! At the same time, so that three months ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... Rames chosen to attend upon the Prince Amathel? At once the answer rose in her mind. Doubtless it had been done to gratify the pride of Amathel, not by Pharaoh, who would know nothing of such matters, but by some bribed councillor, or steward of the household. Rames was of more ancient blood than Amathel, and by right should be the King of Kesh, as he should also be Pharaoh of Egypt; therefore, to humble him he was set ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... predecessors had attained. During their composition he was smitten with the desire (perhaps owing to his Asiatic tour) to write an epic poem on the wars of the gods and giants, but Corinna, determined to keep his muse for herself, would not allow him to gratify ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... by my parents, though my father had been no inconsiderable traveller himself, as will appear before I have reached the end of my singular, and, I may add, interesting adventures. A cousin, by my mother's side, took a liking to me, often said I was fine forward youth, and was much inclined to gratify my curiosity. His eloquence had more effect than mine, for my father consented to my accompanying him in a voyage to the island of Ceylon, where his uncle had resided ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... returned to the porch. She seated herself on her bed and began to struggle against the desire to go down and ask him what had happened. "I'd rather die than do it," she muttered to herself. With a word he could have relieved her uncertainty: but never would she gratify him by saying it. ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... forming the daring project which he had conceived." The "United States Gazette" for October 9th states, more sarcastically, that "the General is said to have manifested the utmost composure, and with the true spirit of heroism seems ready to resign his high office, and even his life, rather than gratify the officious inquiries ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... ought to be said to gratify constituents is not always what ought to be said in order to serve the party to which Representatives profess to belong. The general interest of a party frequently demands that members belonging to it should not speak on great ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the Academy of Florence, was once asked to attest the originality of an Andrea brought to him by some speculators. "I should be happy to gratify you, gentlemen," he replied, "but unfortunately I saw the picture painted." Nevertheless, certificates were obtained from more facile authorities, and the painting officially baptized for ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... of the fair, plentiful, for the use of the young who were inclined for equestrian exercise, while archery grounds and throw sticks held out their attractions to the adepts in such practices, and roundabouts and swings were ready to gratify the tastes of the adventurous. Kensington Gardens were, as usual, open to the public, and not a few who were fearful of joining in the crowd, contented themselves here, in viewing the gay scene from a distance. Timorous, however, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... living in his town or village, respected by all, should call on the persons of his own caste who may be worth knowing. He should converse in company and gratify his friends by his society, and obliging others by his assistance in various matters, he should cause them to assist one another ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... dislike the man," interposed Carteret, "and if I consulted my own inclinations, would say expel him with the rest; but my grievance is a personal one, and to gratify it in that way would be a loss to the community. I wish to be strictly impartial in this matter, and to take no step which cannot be entirely justified by a wise regard ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... long cherished a violent passion for Zobeide, the wife of his son Veli Pacha. Having vainly attempted to gratify it after his son's departure, and being indignantly repulsed, he had recourse to drugs, and the unhappy Zobeide remained in ignorance of her misfortune until she found she was pregnant. Then, half-avowals from her women, compelled to obey the pacha from fear of death, mixed with confused ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... vigorous, very original, or very wise, I still contend that, in the humblest sort of literary work, we have it in our power either to do great harm or great good. We may seek merely to please; we may seek, having no higher gift, merely to gratify the idle nine days' curiosity of our contemporaries; or we may essay, however feebly, to instruct. In each of these we shall have to deal with that remarkable art of words which, because it is the dialect of life, comes home so easily and powerfully to the minds of men; and since that is so, we ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to Cytherea! Do, The picture was not painted, sir, for you! Your mind to gratify and taste address, The masking dove had been a dove the less. Provincial censor! all untaught in art, With mind indecent and indecent heart, Do you not know—nay, why should I explain? Instruction, argument alike ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... all three of the shepherds were clapping their hands; while I, shivering with cold, dried myself by the fire, and thought that our adventures would gratify the taste of admirers of Cooper or of Jules Vernes; there was shipwreck, then came hospitable aborigines, and a savage dance round the fire. And while I reflected thus, I felt very uneasy as to the chief point in every ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... among the Idees Napoleon of the nephew. She is aware, too, that Napoleon the Third has the means at his command which will enable him to place any number of troops on her shores. She is satisfied that upon the first provocation which she offers, he will gratify the treasured hatred of the French and of his family, by consummating the darling project of his uncle. The terror of invasion has induced her to change the nature of her foreign policy. She will cling to the French alliance until the French emperor has satiated his national craving ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Antioch, in his letter to Autolycus, place the Christian opinions concerning women in startling contrast with the revolting scheme proposed in relation to them by the most refined philosopher of antiquity. Well might the matrons of Antioch refuse to gratify Julian by a sacrifice to gods whose votaries had steeped their sex in impurity and degradation. The death of Hypatia is indeed a blot in Christian annals, but she fell the victim of an infuriated multitude; and how often had the Proconsul and the Emperor beheld, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... of relief. The degree of liking she had for De Burgh made her feel greatly distressed at having been obliged to give him pain. Yet she was not by any means disposed to trust him; his restless eagerness to gratify every whim and desire as it came to him, the kind of harshness which made him so indifferent to the feelings and opinions of those who opposed him—this was very repellent to Katherine's more considerate ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... daily bread, enough so that we shall no longer see the strange spectacle of over-production and hunger and nakedness existing side by side. Men's desires were made by an All-wise Creator to be always in advance of their ability to gratify them. And the commercial supply of that ability—the supply of men willing to work—ought always to be behind the ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... owners and the resident planters, the city factors and the country merchants of means and respectability, have taken no personal part in the terrorizing of the negro, but they have tolerated it, and sometimes encouraged it, in order to gratify their preference for "white government." The negroes have suffered the more because they have not resisted and defended themselves; now they have begun to convince those who have persecuted them ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... coals. A moment later, as with a shrinking sense of fear she furtively looked at him again, his eyes suggested those of some animal of prey that is possessed only with the wolfish desire to devour, caring for the victim only as it may gratify the ravenous appetite. ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... beautiful form was his strong predilection for finery. None ever loved better the play of light upon jewels and satin and armor, the rich effectiveness of Oriental stuffs and ecclesiastical vestments. Unable to gratify this taste in the portraits which he painted to order, he took every opportunity to paint both himself and his wife, Saskia, in costume. Wherever the subject admitted, he introduced what he could of rich detail. In the picture of Israel Blessing the Sons of Joseph, Asenath, as the ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... the one sort of facts and never collecting the other, we do, as poets in their diction and quacks of all denominations do in their reasoning, put a part for the whole, and at once soothe our envy and gratify our love of the marvelous, by the sweeping proverb, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... unkind motive, as he professes to be an admirer of Charlotte's works, pays a just tribute to her genius, and in common with thousands deplores her untimely death. His design seems rather to be to gratify the curiosity of the multitude in reference to one who had made such a sensation in the literary world. But even if the article had been of a less harmless character, we should not have felt inclined to ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... allowing that I did not myself wish to proceed," replied Alexander. "You escorted me safe through the country to ascertain a point in which you had not the slightest interest, and it would indeed be rewarding you very ill, if I were now to refuse to gratify you: but the fact is, I am gratifying myself ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... sewing, but Minnie plead so earnestly for one more story, a good long one, that her mother, who loved to gratify her, complied, and read the account which I shall give you in closing this chapter ...
— Minnie's Pet Monkey • Madeline Leslie
... been usual for me to write to you of War or Politicks,—but I know how deeply you have always interrested yourself in the Welfare of our Country and I am disposd to gratify your Curiosity. Besides you will hope that from these Movements of our Enemies a Communication between Boston and Philadelphia will be more safe and we may the more frequently hear from ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... her nineteenth year, but no proposal of marriage had as yet reached her mother's ear. Accustomed to gratify her fancies, Mademoiselle Evangelista wore cashmeres and jewels, and lived in a style of luxury which alarmed all speculative suitors in a region and at a period when sons were as calculating as their parents. The fatal remark, "None but a prince can afford to marry Mademoiselle ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... question you from time to time, and, if I seem possessed of too much information concerning your private affairs, do not be too greatly astonished, but rest assured that all my researches have been made to serve another, not to gratify myself." ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... illusory statements, together with the expense of carrying into effect the law of the last session of Congress establishing new mail routes, and a disposition on the part of the head of the Department to gratify the wishes of the public in the extension of mail facilities, have induced him to incur responsibilities for their improvement beyond what the current resources of the Department would sustain. As soon as he had discovered the imperfection of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... himself before the people for the sake of gaining popularity. When invited to attend the annual exhibition of the Maryland Agricultural Society, shortly after his inauguration, he declined, and wrote in his Diary: "To gratify this wish I must give four days of my time, no trifle of expense, and set a precedent for being claimed as an article of exhibition at all the cattle-shows throughout the Union." Other gatherings ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... July, September and November, should have each thirty-one days, and the other months thirty, excepting February, which in common years should have only twenty-nine, but every fourth year thirty days. This order was interrupted to gratify the vanity of Augustus, by giving the month bearing his name as many days as July, which was named after the first Caesar. A day was accordingly taken from February and given to August; and in order that three months of thirty-one days might not come together, September ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... their backs on him, and we find him only among tipplers and associates of the lowest kind. At one of their carousals his half-intoxicated companions asked him for a specimen of his witchcraft. He declared himself willing to gratify them in any request. They then demanded that he should make a grape-vine full of ripe fruit grow out of the table around which they sat. Faustus enjoined complete silence, ordered them to take their knives and keep themselves in readiness for cutting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... our hero was to volunteer to gratify the curiosity of his worthy sire, but a glance at the old man's countenance changed his "notion," and he remarked that "Bill was a long ways the best hand." Bill, who did not deem Simon's modesty an omen very favorable to himself, was inclined to reciprocate, compliments ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... he ought to furnish it with the most useful volumes in all arts and sciences, and procure such as are scarcest and most valuable, from all parts, that the learned, of whom there are many classes, may instruct themselves in what may be useful to them, and may gratify their enquiries. But as the condition and abilities of such as would form Libraries are to be distinguished, so regard must likewise be had to places, for it is very difficult to procure, or collect books in some ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... have led me to commit some mistakes, I alone am answerable for them. And if any traveller hath a curiosity to see the whole work at large, as it came from the hands of the author, I will be ready to gratify him. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... that our mutual fondness has hitherto treated him with rather too much indulgence. While we have been over-solicitous to remove from him every painful and disagreeable impression, we have made him too delicate and fretful; our desire of constantly consulting his inclinations has made us gratify even his caprices and humours; and, while we have been too studious to preserve him from restraint and opposition, we have in reality been ourselves the cause that he has not acquired even the common attainments ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... disappointment. I dislike to think of it, much more to speak of it. I recollect, on a former occasion, you expressed some curiosity concerning it. I then repelled that curiosity, for my mind was not in a situation to gratify it. But now, since I have been talking of myself, I think I can go on with my story with a very decent composure. In complying with your request, I cannot say that my own experience warrants, in any degree, the old and commonly received idea that ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and all your mind,—and your neighbour as yourself'? Whereas in truth you love nothing, not even your own soul; but only set a superlative value on whatever will gratify your selfish lust of enjoyment, and insure you from hell-fire at a thousand times the true value of the dirty property. If you have the impudence to persevere in mis-naming this "love," supply any one instance ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... have been led to piety by your influence. Beginning to act from christian principles is the beginning of a new life, and it may be an interesting subject of inquiry to you, to ascertain how many of your pupils have experienced the change. But, in many cases, it would merely gratify curiosity to know. There is no question too, that in very many instances, the faint glimmering of religious interest, which would have kindled into a bright flame, is extinguished at once and perhaps for ever, ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... was a deception that she was practicing upon her child, when she promised to gratify her wishes ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... the piano. Here was an opportunity to gratify his palate without regard to the consequences. Quickly he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... it is," said Anna, mildly; "for the last two weeks I have begged so much, and my requests were so often refused, that it would truly gratify me to hear from others a request which I might be able ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... adopted in the rearing of domestic cattle, and stock in general, to gratify the arbitrary mandates of luxury and fashion, we can have veal, like lamb, at all seasons in the market, though the usual time in the metropolis for veal to make its appearance is about ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Krafft-Ebing gives it as an example of the former. There is a great difference between these two mental derangements. The victim of homicidal impulse kills without any ulterior object, while the sadist kills in order to gratify his unnatural ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... sovereign his throne. He had a beautiful concubine, for the sake of whose company he neglected the affairs of government. The lady was of a melancholy turn, never being seen to smile. She said she loved the sound of rent silk, and to gratify her whim many fine pieces of silk were torn to shreds. The king offered a thousand ounces of gold to any one who would make her laugh; whereupon his chief minister suggested that the beacon-fires should be lighted to summon the feudal nobles with their armies, as though the royal ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... not opportunity, travel, higher environment bring to her? She was a diamond in the rough. His heart beat wildly. Lucky chance had thrown her in his way. He might win her love, if she did not already care for him. As his wife he could gratify her every desire, and yet— and yet—The situation had its disagreeable side. How could he think of becoming the son-in-law of a man like Tom Drake? What would old Mitchell say? What would his fashionable sister and his entire social set ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... two men's characters. The one, although no hero in daily life, imperils himself from sheer, dog-like fidelity to a master who had given him many hard words and sometimes a flogging in punishment for drunkenness, and the other to gratify his pride, also perhaps because my death would have interfered with his plans and ambitions in which I had a part to play. No, that is a hard saying; still, there is no doubt that Saduko always first took his own interests ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... Knight, in Henry the Eight's time, an excelent archer at twelvescore merks; and went up with his men to shoote with that reknowned King at the dissolution of abbeys: and the King says to him, Curwen, why doth thee begg none of these Abbeys? I wold gratify thee some way. Quoth the other, Thank yow, and afterward said he wold desire of him the Abbie of ffurness (nye unto him) for 20^{ty} one yeares. Sayes the King: take it for ever: quoth the other, it is long enough, for youle set them up againe in that time: but they not likely to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... afforded. Others were satisfied to receive the powerful aid of the townsmen in their own feudal quarrels, with such other marks of respect and benevolence as the burgh over which they presided were willing to gratify them with, in order to secure their active services in case of necessity. The baron, who was the regular protector of a royal burgh, accepted such freewill offerings without scruple, and repaid them by defending the rights of the town by arguments in the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... heavy spectacle occasions a new demand for their services. To this mode of life the man was compelled to resort; and taking the chair every night, at some low theatrical house, at once put him in possession of a few more shillings weekly, and enabled him to gratify his old propensity. Even this resource shortly failed him; his irregularities were too great to admit of his earning the wretched pittance he might thus have procured, and he was actually reduced to a state bordering on starvation, only procuring a trifle occasionally ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... with a Trumpet.' Addison was bolder. 'It is impossible that anything should be universally tasted and approved by a Multitude, tho' they are only the Rabble of a Nation, which hath not in it some peculiar Aptness to please and gratify the Mind of Man.' With these and other encouragements the popular poetry of England was not lost to sight; and in 1765 the work of the good Bishop of Dromore gave the ballads a place ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... and was lighting another cigarette. She looked at the two men with interest. She now knew that what Garstin had done he had really done for himself, not for her. As he had said, he did not paint for the pleasure of others, but only for reasons of his own. Apparently he would never gratify her vanity. But he gratified something else in her, her genuine love of talent and the ruthlessness of talent. There was really something of the great man in Garstin, and she appreciated it. She admired him more than she liked him. Even in her frequent irritation against him she knew what ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... gratify a woman's curiosity is ever one of the most flattering embassies with which we ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a difficult and delicate task to draw with justice and propriety the character of a public man. Fulsome panegyrics have often been pronounced upon the character of the dead either out of flattery to the deceased or to gratify the ambitious desires ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... the kingdom to the Queen his mother, and earnestly recommended to her care his wife and children. He was obliged to continue his expedition all the summer, and as soon as he departed the Queen-mother sent her daughter-in-law to a country house among the woods, that she might with the more ease gratify her ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... but you will wish to know what has been the result of all the pains of an indulgent father, and a masterly teacher; and I wish I could gratify your curiosity with such a recital as you would be pleased with; but that is what I am afraid will not be the case. I have, indeed, kept pretty clear of vicious habits; and, in this respect, I hope, my conduct ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... it, Miss Stanley, for the past, for the future, trust to it! You gratify me more than I can express—you do me justice. I wished to return these letters to you with, my own hand," continued he, "to satisfy myself, in the first place, that there was no mistake. Of that your present ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... to thwart M. de Perrencourt and gratify the Duke of Monmouth. If I refused it, another might accept and accomplish it; if such a champion failed, M. de Perrencourt would triumph. If I accepted, I should accept in the fixed intention of playing traitor to one of my employers. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... had the rarest, the finest friends. I have loved my friends; the rarest wits of my generation were my boon companions; everything conspired to enable me to gratify my body and my brain; and do you think this would have been so if I had been a good man? If you do you are a fool, good intentions and bald greed go to the wall, but subtle selfishness with a dash of unscrupulousness pulls more plums out of life's pie than the seven deadly virtues.[4] If you are ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... where the new station was to be situated, that an interested audience congregated daily. Perched on an overturned packing case Mr. Crowninshield surveyed the installment of the novel toy which was not only to gratify Dick's birthday longings but also, he hoped, bring to him the information ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... enough not to let Gillian sell the Indian screen for two shillings and sixpence, under the impression that this was the half of five pounds. Mysie was the only one who kept her senses fairly undisturbed, and could balance between her duty to the schools and her desire to gratify a child, happy in that she never saw more than one thing at a time. Valetta and Primrose were yachting, so that the distraction was less, and Captain Armytage lingered round, taking messages, and looking in wistful earnestness for some one ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... let me go a-gunning for this afternoon. He told me you had expressly forbidden it and he therefore could not. Now I should wish to go once in a while, for I always intend to be careful. I have no amusement now in the vacation, and it would gratify me very much if you would consent to let me go once in a while. I suppose you would tell me that my books ought to be my amusement. I cannot study all the time and I need some exercise. If I walk, that is no amusement, and if I wish to play ball or anything else, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... ever, we think, darkened the horizon of letters. The reader of the "Confessions" is dismayed to find a man frankly avowing the most disgraceful vices; abandoning them, not upon principle, but merely because they have ceased to gratify; prepared to return to them if they promise to reward him better; without natural affection, neither loving, nor beloved by any; without peace, without hope, "without God in the world." When we search into the mysterious cause of this ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... to settle with Eagen on general principles. This did not mean that he necessarily would have to shoot Eagen down; but he wanted Eagen to hear straight out what he thought of him. It might be a long time before he could gratify that desire after the events of ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... and vertuous sex, (preferable to all the admired composure of the most skilful musitians) join consort in hymns and hallelujahs to the bountiful and glorious Creator, who has left none of the senses, which he has not gratify'd at once, with their ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... David (whom Heaven long preserve!) and from his household much civility; and here, with capital fare, over a fire of wood,—never use anthracite in a close room,—will find, if he has been as observant as he ought, much to amuse and gratify him in a retrospective glance over a journey of some hundred miles, performed with little fatigue or inconvenience, between the chief cities of quaker Pennsylvania ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... respectable as his sinister and forbidding countenance would permit, and though Deede Dawson had made him as smart as possible, he had permitted him to gratify his own florid taste in adornment, so that his air of prosperity and wealth had the appearance of being that of some recently-enriched vulgarian whose association with a motor-car and a well-dressed girl of Ella's type was probably due to the fact that he had recently ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... women it is to protect them. Protect them from whom? The brute that would invade their rights would coerce the suffrage of his wife, or sister, or mother as he would wring from her the hard earnings of her toil to gratify his own ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... I didn't know any of your folks were away. Perhaps Mrs. Harris is down East? I'm sure a summer amid the orchards of her old home would be a delight to her, and, of course, Mr. Harris, you are able to gratify yourself in these little matters now. Things are not what they were in the early days, Jack, when I preached in Tom Morrison's log-house, and you led the bass at the services. I'll warrant that voice of yours could sing yet if you gave ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... think of him my dream recommences, and I say to myself, 'This must all come to pass, for it perfects my desire to become a queen.' Is it, then, Monseigneur, a bad thing to love him more because he can gratify all my childish wishing by showering down miraculous floods of gold upon me as ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... Papa depending on me, and yet I do it. Sometimes I'm up half the night, hammering and hammering at my own things; things, I mean, that won't sell, just to gratify my ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... from Vance as, drenched with rain, I entered his abode and approached a blazing fire, was, "Are you dry?" It would only gratify an idle curiosity to tell how the first moments of this memorable visit passed. Suffice it to say that old-time Southern hospitality was at its best, and so continued till the morning of the fifth day, when I descended in company with my host to the accustomed ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... my dear boy, that fellow would swim ashore even if the harbor were swarming with sharks, to gratify his ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... by surprise. Then both laughed together. They could understand each other better and if Prebol felt himself being drawn in spite of his own reluctance by a new current in his life, Rasba did not fail to gratify the river man's pride by turning always to him for advice about the river, its ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... old man bore himself with perfect courage and composure. Asked on what principle he justified his acts, he replied: "Upon the Golden Rule. I pity the poor in bondage, that have none to help them; that is why I am here; not to gratify any personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive spirit. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and wronged, that are as good as you and as precious in the sight of God." The Virginians recognized his sincerity and integrity. The Governor of ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... frequent visits to old blind Alice, hoping it would be easy to lead her to talk on the subject which at present she had so imprudently admitted to occupy so large a portion of her thoughts. But Alice did not in this particular gratify her wishes and expectations. She spoke readily, and with pathetic feeling, concerning the family in general, but seemed to observe an especial and cautious silence on the subject of the present representative. The little she said of him ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... Christ's Kingdom; and this is his ruling motive in all his conduct. But the former, though he may do many things good in themselves, yet does them all with selfish motives. His ruling desire is to gratify himself, and to promote his own honor and interest, either in this world, or in that which ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... public grounds, those who are prosecuted on private grounds. Among peasants in the same village, workmen of the same trade and shopkeepers in the same quarter, there is always envy, enmities and spites; those who are Jacobins become local pashas and are able to gratify local jealousies with impunity, something ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... as a mean to support his pride and his independence. And it is easy, as I have often thought, for a person to part with a secondary appetite, when, by so doing, he can promote or gratify a first. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... go by all means," I answered: and I was glad of the unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eye—for the company were gathered in one mass about the trembling trio just returned—and I closed the ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... that you despise no communications that may gratify curiosity, amuse rationally, or add, though but a little, to the stock of public knowledge, I send you a circumstantial account of an animal, which, though its general properties are pretty well known, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... entertained one passion in common, one which he was better able than I to gratify, for good diamonds and emeralds. I have often wondered what became of his collection. He had ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... no right to say that. You remember what we once were. Whose fault is it that I am where I am to-day? When you broke our engagement and married old Jeffries to gratify your social ambition, you ruined my life. You didn't destroy my love—you couldn't kill that. You may forbid me everything—to see you—to speak to you—even to think of you, but I can never forget that you are the only woman I ever cared for. If you ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... I think, to have a just appreciation of one's own powers or lack of powers," said Denham, slowly. "Ambition, without the corresponding strength to gratify it, ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... reached his nostrils, he began to feel a regret that he had not reserved a part of his funds for the purchase of a cigar. His opposite neighbor observed his look, and, for a reason which will appear, saw fit to gratify Martin's desire. ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... new altar, as he had seen Tiglath-Pileser do. To cap the climax, Ahaz introduced certain pagan religious ideas, copied from the Assyrian worship, into the cult of the Temple, simply to please and gratify his Assyrian master. ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... earnestly. It was the custom of the citizens of Philadelphia to do this when any exciting event occurred, or when any stirring measure was before the Congress. Peggy's curiosity as to the cause was therefore natural, but there was no one near who could gratify it, so she turned reluctantly from the fence, and resumed her task of cutting the roses. Abstractedly she worked, oblivious to her surroundings, when all at once the sound of flying feet brought her back to reality. Startled she ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... at a time when such were not sanctioned by the general opinion of the nation. From its very commencement, he objected to that disastrous contest the American war, which, commenced in ignorant and presumptuous folly, was prolonged to gratify the wicked obstinacy of individuals, and ended, as Walpole had foretold it would, in the discomfiture of its authors, and the national disgrace and degradation, after a profuse and useless waste of blood and treasure. Nor must his sentiments upon the Slave Trade ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... what you mean, and I should like to gratify you," said Bartley. "Not that I care a rap what all the people in Equity think. I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll go down there with you and hang round a day or two; and then I'll come after you, when your time's up, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... all that is necessary for the comfort of my family, and to gratify any reasonable desire on the part of my little girl. What is it you ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... and he had remained, in consequence, plunged in a disconsolate frame of mind throughout the whole day. But, contrary to his expectations, the incident eventually occurred, which afforded him, after all, an opportunity to dangle in P'ing Erh's society and to gratify to some small degree a particle of his wish. This had been a piece of good fortune he so little expected would fall to his share during the course of his present existence, that as he reclined on his bed, his heart swelled with happiness and contentment. Suddenly, he reflected that Chia Lien's sole ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... availed itself of their triumph to gratify the Nonconformists by a repeal of the Schism and Occasional Conformity Acts, and to venture on a great constitutional change. Under the Triennial Bill in William's reign the duration of a Parliament was limited to three years. Now that the House ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... Veronique had her fresh bunch of flowers, which on the morrow decked her little salon and was carefully concealed from the neighbors. She admired the beautiful jewels, the pearls and diamonds, the bracelets, the rubies, gifts which assuredly gratify all the daughters of Eve. She thought herself less plain when she wore them. She saw her mother happy in the marriage, and she had no other point of view from which to make comparisons. She was, moreover, totally ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... word alone a slave might be put to the rack; let an unfortunate incur his displeasure, and he had endless ways of revenge. His predominating characteristic was an oily sleekness; the very voice of him was smooth with unctuousness. Violent likes and dislikes he took, and was in a position to gratify both, a bad enemy and a worse friend. And his methods had but one trait in common,—an entire and often apparently irrational unexpectedness. It was the one thing which in him might be relied on; he would do the thing he was ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... allegory of Mars, Bacchus, Apollo virorum, and the rest, that I had so often looked at from Hofarchitect Speck's window, as I sat there, by the side of Dorothea. The old gentleman had given me one of these very pipes; for he had hundreds of them painted, wherewith he used to gratify almost every stranger who ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... assembled to see them. After these more distinguishing attentions, they were shewn the Tower, the public buildings, Greenwich Hospital, and all the great and interesting spectacles in London; and nothing was neglected that might serve to awaken and gratify their curiosity, and to impress them with the grandeur and power of ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... old man was aching to tell something, but they didn't purpose to gratify him by any questions. The rain dripped from the awning in front and fell upon the roof of the storeroom at the back with a soft ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... universal asylum for idiots? If wanton waste makes business better, then Uncle Sam has but to squander in bal-masques, or other debauchery, his seventy-five billions of wealth to inaugurate an industrial boom! To gratify their taste for the barbaric, to advertise themselves to all the earth as the eastern termini of west-bound equines, the Bradley-Martins wiped out of existence $500,000 of the world's wealth, leaving just that much less available capital for ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... majesty, those who are burdened with secrets such as we have just now discussed must, as a necessity of their nature, satisfy their craving desire to divulge them, and they feel they must gratify that desire before they die. Among the various preparations for their final journey, the task of placing their papers in ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that they might come directly to Craigie Hall, and said he would take them to their own house in the evening. Accordingly they managed to drive up the dale, in the morning, both with a wish to please Mr. Scott, and to gratify themselves by a view of all the well-known scenes, among which their infant years had been spent. John, even in the midst of happiness, wept bitterly, when he came within sight of that house, which had been a home to him in his orphan state; and which from the kind treatment and instruction ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... that Madame intended to convey those girls to the North if she possibly could; but I confess I should have despised him if he had turned informer against the daughters of his friend, who had been his own favorite pupils. If you will gratify me by releasing him, I will make you an offer for those girls, and take my chance of ever ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... a poor soap-and-candle maker, with a dozen children or more to support or assist, and Benjamin being a printer's apprentice, he was more and more puzzled to gratify his love of knowledge. But one day he hit upon an expedient that brought in a little cash. By reading a vegetarian book this hard, calculating Yankee lad had been led to think that people could live better without meat than with it, and that killing innocent animals for food ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the room, smiled to himself like a madman free at last to gratify a desire like the longing of pregnancy. He flung himself down beside Pons, and yet again he held his friend in a long, close embrace. At midnight the priest came back and scolded him, and Schmucke returned to his prayers. At daybreak the priest went, and at seven o'clock in the morning ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... would willingly have emulated this attractive model—if we had possessed the money to spend upon luxuries! Barrack No. 2 is the domicile of the elite and wealthy of Ruhleben. The prisoners, flush of funds, have been permitted to gratify every whim and fancy. They have expended large sums of money upon the purchase of furniture and knick-knacks, the result being favourably comparable with a smart and fashionable flat, that is if a flat can be squeezed into a horse-box ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... go! No violence will I bear! Take not such a murderous hold of me! I once did all I could to gratify thee. ...
— Faust • Goethe
... "There are not two women in Paris who understand making life pleasant as she does. To keep such a home as this on twelve thousand francs a year!" he thought, looking at the flower-stands bright with bloom, and thinking of the social enjoyments that were about to gratify his vanity. "She was made to be the wife of a minister. When I think of his Excellency's wife, and how little she helps him! the good woman is a comfortable middle-class dowdy, and when she goes to the ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... you are obliged to give us this advice in order to gratify the Spaniards," wrote Captain Rogers. "If you do not allow my agent to come on board my ship, you may expect a visit from my guns at eight ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... attempt to run counter to the great principle of progress here stated. There is an abundance of men who will be very happy to side with Mr. Wells. Men have never been wanting, in any time or place, who were happy to gratify their instincts without having to answer for the consequences; and it has always been the first issue of any society that was to endure, to see that they did not have their way: hence human marriage. The "endowment of motherhood" sounds as if it were a scheme greatly for the benefit of women. ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Ilbrahim that could be delegated, their affection for him became, like the memory of their native land or their mild sorrow for the dead, a piece of the immovable furniture of their hearts. The boy, also, after a week or two of mental disquiet, began to gratify his protectors by many inadvertent proofs that he considered them as parents and their house as home. Before the winter snows were melted the persecuted infant, the little wanderer from a remote and heathen country, seemed native in the New England cottage ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... me by some that my accounts and descriptions of things are dry and jejune, not filled with variety of pleasant matter to divert and gratify the curious reader. How far this is true I must leave to the world to judge. But if I have been exactly and strictly careful to give only true relations and descriptions of things (as I am sure I have) and if my descriptions be such as may be of use not only ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... yes. Though not a quarrel, this is a sorrow which has come between us, and there must be a peace-offering. Besides I would not have you think that you had reached the limits of my will, and of my means to gratify you." ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... people that he is not going to die of a boil; fire refused to burn; water positively declined to seek its level, but stands up like a wall; grains of sand become lice; common walking-sticks, to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents, and then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring streams, laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill for years, following wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic; prophecy becomes altogether easier than history; the sons ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... principally owing to the circumstance of so many knaves, blockheads and conceited characters being engaged in the business.—If then, the subject could be improved, I fancy our country would yield all the necessary liquors, and in a state of perfection, to gratify the opulent, and ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... dollars found their way into the hands of charity, but then his desire to aid and gratify humanity was not satisfied. ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... me of several instances. And the wives (of course) are such wretched cowards! That great big carpenter, East, is under his wife's thumb, and she has been imploring him not to vote Liberal for fear of consequences—she sits weeping, and talking about the workhouse. Contemptible idiot! It would gratify me extremely to see her ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... an appeal to her love of dominion might prove stronger than the habit of self-indulgence. He said to himself that nothing had ever been done to rouse her ambition, that hitherto, if she had meddled in politics, it had been merely from thwarted vanity or the desire to gratify some personal spite. Now he hoped to take her by higher passions, and by associating her with his own schemes to ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... letters, I turned to the newspapers of the day, and found Logan's speech, as translated by a common Indian interpreter. The version I had used, had been made by General Gibson. Finding from Mr. Martin's style, that his object was not merely truth, but to gratify party passions, I never read another of his letters. I determined to do my duty by searching into the truth, and publishing it to the world, whatever it should be. This I shall do at a proper season. I am much indebted to many persons, who, without any acquaintance with me, have voluntarily ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... bottle-conjurer, John Bull, Is of all dreams the first hallucination; So that the streets of colour'd lamps are full, That Sage (said john) surrenders at discretion His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense, To gratify, like a huge moth, this ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... of their leader, and which had terminated so tamely. That they would have liked a "row," in which Jack Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to disgorge his winnings, there was no doubt, but that their interference was asked solely to gratify some personal spite of Steptoe's against Van Loo was equally plain to them. There was some grumbling and ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte |
