"Stepping-stone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nob, and one for his heels." The old lady of "The Choughs" liked nothing so much as her game of cribbage in the evenings, and the board lay ready on the little table by her elbow in the cozy bar, a sure stepping-stone to her good graces. Tom somehow became an enthusiast in cribbage, and would always loiter behind his companions for his quiet game; chatting pleasantly while the old lady cut and shuffled the dirty pack, striving keenly for the nightly stake of sixpence, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... but no causal nexus, no direct connection of any kind is immediately apparent between the two, and Schopenhauer in developing his theory did nothing to supply the want. The doctrine cannot therefore be regarded as more than a helpful stepping-stone to ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... the people. These notions, however, were ridiculed by Mr. G. Bankes, who contended that, although the house did not surrender all the rights of the Protestant church at once, they gave the Catholics the first stepping-stone for reaching everything they might desire. It was admitted, he said, that the adherents of the Catholic faith would struggle for ascendancy; and that this bill was to give them the political power which would be the great instrument used in the struggle: and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... parents.[29] This is the lower mystery. The higher, which is not revealed to all, is the gradual expansion of love until it comprehends the eternal Idea. The beauty which we love in the individual becomes a stepping-stone from which we may rise to the love of all beautiful things, passing from one to many, from beautiful forms to beautiful deeds, from them to beautiful thoughts, laws, institutions, sciences, until we contemplate ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... characteristics change entirely, following the banks of the little river Avon. Bristol was a great seaport in days gone by, but today only coasters and colliers make use of its wharves. The town is charmingly situated, but it is unlovely, and, for the tourist, is only a stepping-stone to somewhere else. The Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland directs one to the suburb of Clifton, or rather to Clifton Down, for hotel accommodation, but you can do much better than that by stopping at the Half Moon Hotel in the main street, a frankly commercial house, but with ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... silent. He was much annoyed, and saw no way out of his morass of contradiction. Then I offered what looked like a plank, a stepping-stone to safety. "Surely," said I, "there is some room for judgment. The later and smaller laws and regulations give many directions for killing. All through ancient Hebraic history it was frequently a special mandate, the people being distinctly commanded ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... grasped. His own pictures were for Cezanne nothing but rungs in a ladder at the top of which would be complete expression. The whole of his later life was a climbing towards an ideal. For him every picture was a means, a step, a stick, a hold, a stepping-stone—something he was ready to discard as soon as it had served his purpose. He had no use for his own pictures. To him they were experiments. He tossed them into bushes, or left them in the open fields to be stumbling-blocks for a ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... small observances. All this his father had been rather proud of in the days when he had looked forward to a brilliant career at Cambridge for his son; he had at that time regarded Osborne's fastidiousness and elegance as another stepping-stone to the high and prosperous marriage which was to restore the ancient fortunes of the Hamley family. But now that Osborne had barely obtained his degree; that all the boastings of his father had proved ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... straight gospel. The Mexicans won't get converted all at once, and they won't become like us, ever. But I'm about ready to say that whether missions are needed anywhere else or not, they surely are needed in Mexico. And Mexico is the first stepping-stone to South America; which is next on my list of the places that ought to have the whole scheme of Christian ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... she is, and rich as I shall make her, what husband will be worthy of Micheline? But if she believes me when it is time to choose one, she will prefer a man remarkable for his intelligence, and will give him her fortune as a stepping-stone to raise him as high as she ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... mount upon this humble stepping-stone of low personal interest to sincerity for the sake of his own advantage, he will, after a while, be able to climb higher, to the exalted plane of truthfulness for the sake of truth; and then he will behold the beatitudes of righteous living, and experience the joys which ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... advance from my present situation, and would doubtless prove a stepping-stone to other and better appointments; but I had a mother living at Fazeley, bedridden and paralytic, who had no pleasure in existence except having me to dwell under the same roof with her. My head was growing more and more ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... been Fitzgerald's ideal hero; but he did not worship him blindly, no. He knew him to have been a brutal, domineering man, unscrupulous in politics, to whom woman was either a temporary toy or a stepping-stone, not over-particular whether she was a dairy-maid or an Austrian princess; in fact, a rascal, but a great, incentive, splendid, courageous one, the kind which nature calls forth every score of years to purge her breast of the petty ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... and Duke of Marlborough—who had entered the army at sixteen, was the son of a poor cavalier knight who had come to London after the Restoration. Love, not War, was the first stepping-stone to his subsequent high fortune. The Duke of York, heir to the Crown, "young and ardent in the pursuit of pleasure," became enamoured of Arabella Churchill one of the maids-of-honour to his first wife, and afterwards his avowed mistress. Through this lady's interest, her ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Yet there was no one within earshot. "It is none so far now to the Dutch settlement of Curacao. At this time of the year the voyage may safely be undertaken in a light craft. And Curacao need be no more than a stepping-stone to the great world, which would lie open to you once you were delivered from ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... husband, we have Selysette, the meek, self-sacrificing wife; instead of the instinctive, unconscious love of Pelleas and Melisande, we have great burning passion. But this play, too, was only a stepping-stone—a link between the old method and the new that is to follow. For there will probably be no more plays like Pelleas et Melisande, or even like Aglavaine et Selysette. Real men and women, real problems and disturbance of life—it is these that absorb him now. ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the world is turned upside down! You will drive me to despair about our future if you see things so awry. Exert yourself to do something, so as to make of this accident a stepping-stone to higher things. The gentleman will give us the slip if we don't pursue the friendship ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... me just suited to my cousin's woodland nature. I could not picture him nailed to a desk in a counting-room. The salary was not bewildering, but the sum was to be elastic, if ability were shown. Here was an excellent chance, a stepping-stone, at all events; perhaps the large opportunity itself, artfully disguised as fifteen dollars a week. I spoke of Flagg to Mr. Nelson, and arranged a meeting between them ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... first-rate sort. He helps the Lion to support The royal arms of England's King And keep the Throne from tottering. I wonder what the King would do If his supporters all withdrew? Perhaps he'd try the Stage; a Throne Should be an easy stepping-stone To histrionic Heights, and who Knows till he tries what he can do? The King, with diligence and care, Might rise ...
— The Mythological Zoo • Oliver Herford
... she making a stepping-stone of every trial, and learning to think less and less about herself, and more and more about other people? And does she remember that little girls cannot always understand the error that grown-up people have to meet, especially those who have not Science to help them? They must ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... in an awful voice, "that the prisoner shall amass three buckets of the best gravel. The same to be taken from the shallow by the seventh stepping-stone." ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... nothing! I merely tried to smooth the way for you. I feel such pity for men of talent in misfortune that you may ever count upon my help. Yes, I would go so far as to be the mere stepping-stone over which you ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... right, the cells were one straight over the other, and the floor of the one formed the ceiling of the other. The fourth cell was in ruins. Two broken pillars lying one on the other presented a very convenient stepping-stone to the fifth story. But the colonel stopped our zeal by saying that now was the time to smoke "the pipe of deliberation" after the fashion of ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... occurred. One of the guests, a diplomatist, of Mephistophelian aspect and species, took advantage of it to turn the conversation. One of the eternally repeated trifles of the day—a so-called piece of news that must be repeated to the prince—was skilfully used as a stepping-stone; and in ten minutes, the whole table was alive with a dispute between the spokesman and another person who had contradicted him on a most important point—what "aurora" signified in the slang of the Roman coffeehouses, whether a mixture of chocolate with coffee or not. Niebuhr was silent. At ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission to railroad influences serves as a stepping-stone to a high position in the employ of railroad combinations, with a salary of three or four times that of an Interstate Commerce Commissioner, so long will it be unsafe to permit such powers to be vested in ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... benediction, miscalled a curse, which requires mankind to earn their bread. Besides domestic duties and a very thorough public school training she learned the general rules of business by acting as clerk and book-keeper for her eldest brother. Next she betook herself to the district school, the usual stepping-stone for all aspiring men and women in New England. She taught for several years, commencing when very young, in various places in Massachusetts and New Jersey. The large circle of friends thus formed was ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... falling into a state of health which she attributed to malaria. M. de Nailles was at first much concerned about the condition of things which seemed likely to upset all his plans for retirement in the country, but, his wife having persuaded him that his position in the Conseil General was only a stepping-stone to a seat in the Corps Legislatif, where his place ought to be, he presented himself to the electors as a candidate, and was almost unanimously elected deputy, the conservative vote being still all powerful in ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... application of legal principles, from the great variety of supplementary codes (edicta), and the instability of case-law. Moreover, the praetor was seldom a veteran lawyer, but generally a man of moderate experience and ambitious views, who used the praetorship merely as a stepping-stone to the higher offices of state. Hence it was by no means certain that he would be able to appreciate a complicated technical argument, and as a matter of fact the more popular advocates rarely troubled ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... Captain's place was in the antechamber, where he could almost hear the conversations between her and her counsellors. To share them he had but to be beckoned within. Naturally the command seemed to be a stepping-stone to a Vice-Chamberlainship at least, if not to the Keepership ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... destruction of the maritime resources of the Greeks, Ibrahim's troops should pass over the narrow sea between Crete and the Morea, and complete their work by the reduction of the mainland, thus left destitute of all chance of succour from without. Crete, like Sicily, is a natural stepping-stone between Europe and Africa; and when once the assistance of Egypt was invoked by the Sultan, it was obvious that Crete became the position which above all others it was necessary for the Greeks to watch and to defend. But the wretched Government of Konduriottes ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... on my boots, a bear suddenly made his appearance, and was stealing towards me round the corner of a rock. After throwing away my slippers, I attempted to step across to an island, by means of a rock, projecting from the waves in the intermediate space, that served as a stepping-stone. I reached the rock safely with one foot, but instantly fell into the sea with the other, one of my slippers having inadvertently remained on. The cold was intense; and I escaped this imminent peril at the risk of my life. On coming ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... of the United States said that he hated cheats and liars (only he mentioned names) and the stock-market went to smash. Saturday it was still in a messy state, and the people who came out Saturday afternoon couldn't or wouldn't talk about anything else. They came by the 4:30 to Stepping-Stone, and were ferried over to the island in the motor boat. Sally and I rode down to the pier in the jinrikishas that my father's secretary had had imported for us for a wedding present; and, I give you my word, the motor-boat as it slowed into the pier looked like an excursion steamer out to view ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... phrases for him, too, and his heart rejoiced when she achieved the epoch-making revision of Stuart into Stookie-tookie! He had thought that Toodie was wonderful, but it was a mere stepping-stone to Stookie-tookie. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... giant thou graspest power; but, when in thy hands, it becomes a means of serving the baser ends of factious demagogues. Hypocrite! With breath of poison thou hast sung thy songs to liberty while making it a stepping-stone to injustice; nor hast thou ever ceased to wage a tyrant's war against the rights of man. Thou wearest false robes; thou blasphemest against heaven, that thy strength in wrong may be secure-yea, we fear thy end is fast coming ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... preparatory to the real study of history in the higher grades. The need for this stage lies in the fact that the child's "ideas are of the pictorial rather than of the abstract order"; yet his spontaneous interest in these things must be made to serve "as a stepping-stone to the acquired interests of civilized life." The definite ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... expected; however, the more they beheld their creditors yielding, the more were they emboldened, as if they were successful by a kind of right; and consequently they regarded the various concessions almost as matters of course and strove for yet more, using as a stepping-stone to that end the fact that they had already obtained something. (Mai, p.167. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... an adventure—this is an opportunity," said Disraeli; "it would be nursed into a stepping-stone. I know fifty men who are worrying themselves to ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... to find that she was not missing Nancy. She wondered if she were heartless and selfish? But after all, how could one be missed from a life in which she had never, could never, have part? And full well Joan realized that in this big venture of hers the old, except as a stepping-stone, was separated forever. ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... this adoption would have been applied to more extensive uses, and as a station of vantage for introducing him to the public favor. From the inheritance of the Julian estates and family honors, he would have been trained to mount, as from a stepping-stone, to the inheritance of the Julian power and political station; and the Roman people would have been familiarized to regard him in that character. But, luckily for himself, the finishing, or ceremonial acts, were yet wanting in this process—the political heirship was inchoate and imperfect. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... of the hour were such that, without waiting for an announcement, they broke into the presence of the duke with the entreaty that he would accept from them the lieutenant-generalcy of the kingdom, which was merely the stepping-stone to the throne. The duke was still very undecided, or, to save appearances, feigned to be so. The deputies assured him that the crisis was so imperious, that not only the destinies of France, but also his own life, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... I am only a stepping-stone?" he asked himself. He rose, and went into Madame Rabourdin's bedroom, where she followed him, understanding from a motion of his head that he wished to ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... stanzas, as well as many others like them, have affected the lives of large numbers of people. Those born a generation ago not infrequently say that the following stanza from The Ladder of St. Augustine (1850) has been the stepping-stone to their success ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Mr. Garson, a useful and much-esteemed minister of religion in his native district; while his brother, a medical man of superior parts, was fast rising into extensive practice in the neighboring town. They had been prepared for their respective professions by a classical education; and yet the stepping-stone to positions in society at once so important and so respectable was simply one of the smaller holdings of Orkney, derived to them as the descendants of one of the old Scandinavian Udallers, and which fell short, I was informed, of ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... lovely," she said with a happy sigh as he lifted her out. Then she reached up from the stepping-stone and ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... French must be to the majority of English readers. I read for the sense and that was all; the language itself seemed to me coarse and plain, and awoke in me neither aesthetic emotion nor even interest. "Marius" was the stepping-stone that carried me across the channel into the genius of my own tongue. The translation was not too abrupt; I found a constant and careful invocation of meaning that was a little aside of the common ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... frosts are making havoc with the tender sprouting leaf and bloom in every part of the garden those little things will be safe under their glass cover, and slight experience will show that a common frame may become a miniature hot-house in the hands of one who has learned to make failure the stepping-stone to success. We must not omit to mention that the owner of such a garden, or, indeed, of any garden, will be prudent to take advantage of the first fine weather to sow in the open ground whatever flower or vegetable seeds should be sown at that season. The frame garden can be reserved, if needful, ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... the young minister followed her course for twenty minutes, not consciously observant; for he was thinking over his ambitions, and at his time of life these are apt to soar with the moon. Though possessed with zeal for good work in this small seaside town, he intended that Troy should be but a stepping-stone in his journey. He meant to go far. And while he meditated his future, forgetting the chill in the night air, it was being decided for him by a stronger will than his own. More than this, that will had already ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of enjoyment contemplated. In more scientific language an opposite polarity is induced, giving rise to a current which stimulates a particular mode of sensation, which sensation in turn becomes a fresh starting-point for still further action; and in this way each successive stage becomes the stepping-stone to a still higher degree of sensation—that is, to a Fuller ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... of the new year I shall send you the score of my "Kunstler" chorus, which I have had autographed here. Devote a quarter of an hour to it, and tell me plainly your opinion of the composition, which of course I look upon only as a stepping-stone to other things. If you find it bad, bombastic, mistaken, tell me so without hesitation. You may be convinced that I am not in the least vain of my works; and if I do not produce anything good and beautiful all my life, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... the setting sun, it came into her mind how Christ had taken all that was sweetest on earth, the love and trust of little children, the love of the father for the child, of the shepherd for the sheep, and made earthly love the stepping-stone to raise us into the thought of the possibility of that greater Love ...
— Daybreak - A Story for Girls • Florence A. Sitwell
... urge—first, that the Irish distrust Mr. Gladstone, and are not grateful to him or his party; and, second, that no bill short of complete independence will ever satisfy the Irish people. It is what they expect and look forward to as the direct outcome of Home Rule, which they only want as a stepping-stone. This cannot fail to impress itself on any unbiassed person who rubs against them for long. The teaching of the priests is eminently disloyal, and although the utmost care is taken to prevent their ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... heard it. I was wondering how best to tell you. I thought Garafield's might be a stepping-stone, these hard times, but it may prove the veritable ladder ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... shouted back, staring over King's shoulder. "There's a mugger's head between us and the next stepping-stone!" ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... clothed with good associations II. That all minds are not open to reason III. That a false opinion, considered in relation to the general mental attitude, may be less hurtful than its premature demolition IV. That mere negative truth is not a guide V. That error has been a stepping-stone to truth We cannot tell how much truth has been missed Inevitableness is ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... time favourable beyond every other to sudden changes of fortune; a time in which any fearless audacity might easily become the stepping-stone to a supreme authority; and yet Machiavelli, whom the world still holds as its ablest statesman—in principle—never in practice rose above the level of a servant of civil and papal tyrannies, and, when his end came, died in obscurity ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... upon the corset may not be out of place here. We know that its use is of no small antiquity. We have lately come to learn that civilization stepped across to Europe from Asia, using Crete as a stepping-stone; and in frescoes found in the palace of Minos, at Knossos, by Dr. Arthur Evans, we find that the corset was employed to distort the female figure nearly four thousand years ago, as it is to-day. There must be some clue deep in human nature to the persistence ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... the outstanding figures of Alfred, St. Swithun, and the great clerical craftsman, William of Wykeham, the builder of much of the cathedral, and the founder of St. Mary's College, Winchester, and New College, Oxford—the former of which, although of later foundation, was intended as a stepping-stone for the latter. ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... can support himself while there. Not even the President of the Confederation may in time of peace propose any man for a commission who has not studied at the Thoune academy. A place as commissioned officer is not sought for as a fat office nor as a ready stepping-stone to social position. As a rule only such youths study at Thoune as are inclined to the profession of arms. Promotion is according to both merit and seniority. Officers up to the rank of major are commissioned by the cantons, the higher grades ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... No! the pivot of my assault must be something that a boy can afford to be able to comprehend for eighty pounds a year and a clerk's desk in a Government office. Now, Mr. Hawes has, for many months past, furnished false reports to the justices and to the Home-Office. Here is the true stepping-stone to an inquiry, here is the fact to tell on the official mind; for the man's cruelty and felonious practices are only offenses against God and the law; but a false report is an offense against the office. And here I ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... life, society, statecraft serve us at last but as commentaries on him, and whatever we have gathered of thought, of knowledge, and of experience, confronted with his marvellous page, shrinks to a mere footnote, the stepping-stone to some hitherto inaccessible verse. We admire in Homer the blind placid mirror of the world's young manhood, the bard who escapes from his misfortune in poems all memory, all life and bustle, adventure and picture; we revere in Dante ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... repelled me, and denied what I dared not request. Had you but given me the kind attention which a master gives to a dog, I would have followed you like a dog to the world's end, and died for you—like a dog, too," he added, in an under-tone. "But you have used me as a stepping-stone; thinking that, like such, I could be spurned aside when you were done with me. You have not thought that I am not a stone or a block, but a man, with a man's heart within me. And it is now as a man that I speak to you, because you force me to ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... imagination and enthusiastic spirit. He therefore joyfully accepted the post, which was kindly and delicately offered as a means of employment and support to himself and of pecuniary relief to his parents, as a stepping-stone to fortune; while the romance with which his disposition was tinged, served to picture to his prophetic vision, scenes of official gradation and pre-eminence. How often do young men of similar temperament ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... position. He would neither do anything in the least discourteous beyond admitting frankly that he had not believed her, when she taxed him with incredulity; nor would say anything which might serve her as a stepping-stone for returning to the original situation. He was, perhaps, inclined to blame her somewhat less than at first, and her changed manner in speaking of Kafka somewhat encouraged his leniency. A man will forgive, or at least condone, much harshness ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... on surveying in a boys' camp have been especially prepared by H. M. Allen. Surveying is an important subject for study and practice, as it is both interesting and useful and may serve as a stepping-stone in the ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... kindred was with such as Pascal, far more than with such as Voltaire. Vauvenargues is, however, a writer for the few, instead of for the many. His fame is high, but it is not wide. Historically, he forms a stepping-stone of transition to a somewhat similar nineteenth-century name, that of Joubert. A very few sentences of his will suffice to indicate to our readers the quality of Vauvenargues. Self-evidently, the following antithesis drawn by him between Corneille and Racine is subtly and ingeniously thought, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... sullenly, "I had my reasons—Bulmer had treated me with scorn. He told me plainly that he used me but as a stepping-stone to his own purposes: and that these finally centred in wedding Clara. I was resolved he should wed her, and take with her infamy ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... marked and almost affectionate respect. "Don Martin," said he, and there seemed a touch of true feeling in the tremor of his rich sweet voice, "I owe you the greatest debt one man can incur to another—it was your hand that set before my feet their first stepping-stone to power. I date my fortunes from the hour in which I was placed in your father's house as your preceptor. When the cardinal-duke invited you to Madrid, I was your companion; and when, afterwards, you joined the army, and required no longer the services of the peaceful scholar, you demanded ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was trying to make it, to go far back into his vigorous past for strength to meet his present—because he dreaded what we would find at the end of our work on these dusty books, the last grim figure in dollars and cents that would stand there as the result of his life, as the stepping-stone for Sue's and mine. And that was why he wanted me here, this was his way of telling me the story of his business life—before I saw what lay at the end. And as in our work that story unfolded, though at times it cast its spell on me hard, revealing what a man he had ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... mocked him. "Deny, too, that, bribed by the title of Duke of Calabria, you turned to the service of the Queen, to abandon it again for ours when you perceived your danger. You think to use us, traitor, as a stepping-stone to help you to mount the throne—as you sought to use my brother even to the extent of ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... justified in his own eyes by his ready adaptation to the land of his choice and to the opportunities offered in the rebuilding of San Francisco after the earthquake and fire, as well as in the renovation of its politics. He had made his ranch profitable, read law as a stepping-stone to the political career, and had just been elected to Congress. Ruyler was one of his few intimate friends and had promised to go to this farewell dinner if possible. A place would be kept vacant for him ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... from the king, dispensing with his presence. Fisher alone offered opposition. He caused the royal supremacy to be accepted with the proviso, "so far as the divine law permits." And as this proved only a stepping-stone to the unconditional headship of the Church, he regarded it as his own fault. He refused submission, and put himself in communication with the Imperialists with a view to effective intervention. Sir Thomas More, the most modern and original mind among the men of his time, showed greater caution. ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... Simara, Banton, and Sibali [143] (which is called Maestro de Campo by the Spaniards). The province of San Nicolas received those places, for they considered them as the entrance into the Visayas Islands, and a good stepping-stone for their religious to go to the lands of Cebu and Caraga. Consequently, the Recollects began to increase and organize what had until then been useless, in the year one thousand six ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... apprehension of life which makes the poet, and which Marlowe and Shakespeare possessed so fully. And therefore it was his fate to be nothing more than a forerunner, a straightener of the way; and before his death he realised with bitterness that he was only a stepping-stone for young Shakespeare to mount his throne. He was, indeed, the draughtsman of the Elizabethan workshop, planning and designing what others might build. He was the expert mathematician who formulated the laws which enabled Shakespeare to read the stars. Of the heights ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... said Gregory, smiling. "One man's ambition is for high position, another's an illustrious alliance: the former will owe everything to himself, the latter will make a stepping-stone of his wife, then they raise their eyes ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the proposition, and Maria's objections having been overruled (she kept to herself the hope that this might, after all, prove to be but a stepping-stone to the fulfilment of her wishes), in a very short time Joseph and his father were seated in the waggon and jogging on their way ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... because he has been well trained into habits of work, and has a notion of educating the mind; a third because he has set his heart on a fellowship; a fourth, because he is intensely ambitious, and looks on a good degree as the stepping-stone to literary or political honours. The fewest perhaps pursue learning for her own sake, and study out of a simple eagerness to know what may be known, as the best means of cultivating their intellectual powers for the attainment ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... intellect entirely untrammelled; and he was more ambitious than ever of attaining a high position in society. Inasmuch as he had such a stepping-stone, the very least he could do was to make use ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... however, plume ourselves too much upon our superior knowledge, for inklings of the truth, more or less dim, have been had through all ages, and we are now stepping into the inheritance of times gone by, using the long and painful experience of our predecessors as the stepping-stone to our more accurate knowledge of the present time. In this, as in many other things, we are to some extent in the position of a dwarf on the shoulders of a giant; the dwarf may, indeed, see further than the giant; but he remains a dwarf, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... little longer and more daring every time, until they reached England; the captains of Prince Henry of Portugal feeling their way from voyage to voyage down the coast of Africa—there are no bold flights into the incredible here, but patient and business-like progress from one stepping-stone to another. Dangers and hardships there were, and brave followings of the faint will-o'-the-wisp of faith in what lay beyond; but there were no great launchings into space. They but followed a line that ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... time I reached the village of Luray. I galloped up to the hotel where we had left our horses that morning and without dismounting called out to the loafers on the veranda to ask if anyone had seen Colonel Gaylord. Two or three of them, glad of a diversion, got up and sauntered out to the stepping-stone where I waited, ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... first seemed probable; and on the other, many of the gaps which it was most hoped to fill still remain. A number of most remarkable 'missing links' have been discovered, such as, for example, Archaeopteryx, the stepping-stone between the Reptiles and the Birds, and the faith of the palaeontologist in the truth of evolution is everywhere confirmed. But the hope of finding all the stages, especially in the ancestry of Man, has not been realized, and it has been found that what at one time were regarded as direct ancestors ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... used are from the blocks prepared for the late Mr. Todhunter's well-known edition of Euclid, to which Mr. Dodgson's manual forms an excellent stepping-stone. ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... a stepping-stone to a centralization of the Government and the overthrow of the local powers of the States. Whenever that is consummated, then farewell to the beauty, strength, and power of this Government. There is nothing left ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... me something to abandon a vocation to which I had looked for years as the stepping-stone to success in life; and as my health and spirits returned, I began to doubt whether I was acting wisely; but having embarked in a new pursuit, I determined to go ahead, and to this determination I unflinchingly adhered, for at least THREE MONTHS, when I fell in with a distant ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... was the Lord's and the other brethren's, therefore it is of no comfort to me, but rather a hurt. And these forks I gave to the priests to hang their caldrons on. And this stone on which I always sit I took off the road, and threw it into a ditch for a stepping-stone, before I was a ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... shrunk from appearing before boys in bare feet. But this was a special kind of day which held no room for embarrassment; and, more quickly than it takes to tell it, shoes and stockings were off and the new game was on. Missy stood on a stepping-stone, suddenly diffident; the water now looked colder and deeper, the whispering cascadelets seemed to roar like breakers on a beach. The girls were all letting out little squeals as the water chilled ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... is the one thing that must modify everything in American life; it is, and will long continue to be, a leading feature in the life of a country so rich in openings for man and woman that domestic service can be only the stepping-stone to something higher. Nevertheless, we Americans are great travellers; we are sensitive, appreciative, fond of novelty, apt to receive and incorporate into our own life what seems fair and graceful in that of other people. Our women's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... were set up high in the tower so that men could see them against the blue sky. "And as for me," he said, "let my body be buried, with my face downward, outside the great church, in front of the middle entrance, that men may trample on my vainglory and that I may serve them as a stepping-stone to the house of God; and the little child shall look on me when ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... discovery Mr Kavanagh seems to have made is, that he knew nothing of grammar; and had he stopped here, he would have been entitled to no small praise for discernment. But this was but a stepping-stone to greater things. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... its energies mainly on extending its hold on India and the Far East, and on strengthening its communications with them. The purpose of the battle of the Nile was to evict Napoleon from Egypt, which he had occupied as a stepping-stone to India, and Malta was seized (1800) with a similar object. Mauritius, too, was taken (1810), because it had formed a profitable basis of operations for French privateers against the East India trade; and the Cape of Good Hope was conquered from the Dutch, the ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... formed of low stunted irregularly branched tea-trees, where we found a shallow water-course, which gradually enlarged into deep holes, which were dry, with the exception of one which contained just a sufficient supply of muddy water to form a stepping-stone for the next stage. Our latitude was 17 degrees 19 minutes ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... and stood like the Colossus of Rhodes, with one foot on one stepping-stone, and the other on another three feet away. It is hard for even a janitor to be dignified in such a position, and while he was gathering his scattered impressions Patty looked longingly around the room for some one to enjoy the spectacle with her. She felt that the silence was becoming ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... and ignorance of the nature of the cause they were espousing, together with an inconceivable degree of short-sightedness as to the most obvious consequences of it, or of infamous hypocrisy in making the restoration of Shah Soojah only the pretext and stepping-stone to the conquest of Affghanistan, in the most criminal and reckless spirit of imaginary aggrandizement and extension of territory that ever has actuated the rules of India. Will they pretend that it was really ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... been going on; you may read it in the worn limestone layers that have been eaten through, inches in centuries, by the impetuous stream. Thus, also, has the St. Lawrence carved out its mile-wide bed beneath the Heights of Abraham—the stepping-stone to Wolfe's fame and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... had waded into the water, and was making the best of his way across the Swirl, in order that he might reach the precipitous hill to the right; up this he could scramble and bid defiance to Mr. Roarer. But there is many a slip 'tween cup and lip. Poor Verdant chanced to make a stepping-stone of a treacherous boulder, and fell headlong into the water; and ere he could regain his feet, the bull had plunged with a bellow into the stream, and was within a yard of his prostrate form, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... no place in society would not come from the caprice or forgetfulness of his employer, but from his own peculiar temptations and weaknesses. If he could patiently do his duty in his present humble position, he justly believed that it would be the stepping-stone to something better. But, having learned to know himself, he was afraid of himself; and he had seen with an infinite dread what cold, dark depths yawn about one whom society shakes off as a vile and venomous thing, and who must eventually take evil and its consequences as his only portion. The ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... each other in speechless satisfaction as Uncle Henry guided the surrey up to the marble stepping-stone. Betsy jumped out first, and while Uncle Henry was helping Aunt Frances out, she was dashing up the walk like a crazy thing. She flung open the front door and catapulted into Aunt Abigail just coming out. It was like flinging herself into ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... said the samurai, drawing his long sword;—"I am now going to cut off your head. Directly in front of you there is a stepping-stone. After your head has been cut off, try to bite the stepping-stone. If your angry ghost can help you to do that, some of us may be frightened... Will you try to bite ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... days he had been blackballed at the T—— and the G——. These were accidents which Lopez had a gift of keeping in the background. His present companion, Everett Wharton, had, as well as himself, been an original member;—and Wharton had been one of those who had hoped to find in the club a stepping-stone to high political life, and who now talked often with idle energy of ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... yet raised one stepping-stone upon which other men can climb and say: Now we can see farther ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... day to day, and, as it continually advances, what is today a phrase of inner harmony becomes tomorrow one of outer harmony. It is clear, therefore, that the inner spirit of art only uses the outer form of any particular period as a stepping-stone ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... friend of mine, while out shooting from elephants, came to such a marshy place, which at first they refused to cross. Then, before anything could be done to prevent it, his elephant seized the driver with his trunk and, placing him in the mud, used the poor native's body as a "stepping-stone." The driver was, of course, crushed to death, and my friend only escaped a similar fate by scrambling off his elephant by the tail. Generally elephants are docile enough, but are not always fond of Europeans and very much dislike a rider to approach too closely; ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... rules of Euclidean geometry on account of the Lorentz contraction; thus if we admit non-inert systems we must abandon Euclidean geometry. The decisive step in the transition to general co-variant equations would certainly not have been taken if the above interpretation had not served as a stepping-stone. If we deny the relation between the body of axiomatic Euclidean geometry and the practically-rigid body of reality, we readily arrive at the following view, which was entertained by that acute and profound thinker, ...
— Sidelights on Relativity • Albert Einstein
... the competition for success in life, it is often necessary to have not only ability and worth, but the commercial instinct to gain public recognition. The safe rule for men of talent to follow is to make themselves conspicuously great in their present position, and make it a stepping-stone for something greater. Charles Kingsley occupied, in England, an apparently humble position in his rural pastorate, but the thinking world has felt the power and influence of ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... had come into that land to sell. He had set out from Omaha full of enthusiasm and youthful vigor, incited to the utmost degree of vending fervor by the representations of the general agent for the little instrument which had been the stepping-stone to greater things for many an ambitious ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... ago, consequently before many of my guests had arrived. My son, who was one of the few spectators gathered on the porch, tells me that there was only one other carriage behind the one in which Mr. Deane had brought his ladies. Both of these had stopped short of the stepping-stone, and as the horse and buggy which had made all this trouble had by this time been driven to the stable, nothing stood in the way of his search but the rapidly accumulating snow, which, if you remember, was falling very thick and fast ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... are the people who, when I approach the subject, brighten up, look intelligent, even eager, but in a moment make it clear that what they are eager for is a chance to talk about their own gardens. Mine is merely the stepping-stone, the bridge, the handle. This is better than indifference, yet it is sometimes trying. One of my dearest friends thus tests my love now and then when she walks in ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... distress; realising how much this rich and illustrious person had already entered into his day dream. For all his pride as an artist—and he was full of it—his trembling, crude ambition had already seized on Lord Findon as a stepping-stone. He did not know whether he could stoop to court a patron. His own temper had to be reckoned with. But to lose him at the outset by a silly falsehood would be galling. A man who has to live in the world as a married man must not ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... powerful combination. In fact, the great value of the position of Culebra being its distance toward the enemy, which necessitates a great distance away from our continental coast, and a long line of communications from that coast suggest an intermediate base as a support and stepping-stone. Analogous cases are seen in all the countries of Europe, in the fortresses that are behind their boundary-lines—the fortresses existing less as individuals than as supporting members of ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... electors. It is what I have long wished, and I am delighted that the chief barrier between him and the Radical part of the Whig party should be knocked down by it. In short, patriotically I am quite pleased, but privately far from it; I dread its being a stepping-stone to office, which, not to mention myself, would kill him very soon. He has already quite as much work as his health can stand, so what would it be with office in addition? However, I do not torment myself with a future which may never come, or which, ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... an almost exclusive part in the management, and dissenters were excluded even from entering Oxford as students.[22] But the clergyman did not as a rule devote himself to a life of study. He could not marry as a fellow, but he made no vows of celibacy. The college, therefore, was merely a stepping-stone on the way to the usual course of preferment. A fellow looked forwards to settling in a college living, or if he had the luck to act as tutor to a nobleman, he might soar to a deanery or a bishopric. The fellows who stayed in their colleges were ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... only an additional security for the past, not only a pillar more for the maintenance of the Ghent Pacification, but also a sure precursor of a closer union in the future. The Union of Brussels became, in fact, the stepping-stone to the "Union of Utrecht," itself the foundation-stone of a republic destined to endure more than two centuries. On the other hand, this early union held the seed, of its own destruction within itself. It was not surprising, however, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fellow-members in the enemy's camp, as Masons fought Masons in the American Civil War and in the wars of Europe. In peace they were epicures. They consorted together only for pleasure and comfort in their reunions. The Arioi made their order no stepping-stone to power or office, but in it swam in sensuous luxury, each giving his talents to please his fellows and to ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Spenser was given a post which took him south. His new home was the old castle of Kilcolman in Cork. It was surrounded by fair wooded country, but to Spenser it seemed a desert. He had gone to Ireland as to exile, hoping that it was merely a stepping-stone to some great appointment in England, whither he longed to return. Now after eight years he found himself still in exile. He had no love for Ireland, and felt himself lonely and forsaken there. But soon there came another great Elizabethan to share his loneliness. This was Sir Walter Raleigh, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... seriously tried to find evidence of Atlantis having existed in the Atlantic, whether as a portion of the American continent, or as a huge island in the ocean which could have served as a stepping-stone between the Western World and the Eastern. From a series of deep-sea soundings ordered by the British, American, and German Governments, it is now very well known that in the middle of the Atlantic basin there is a ridge, running north ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... from its natural course by some little rock or knoll, causing it to make an abrupt turn! On a wild road in Ireland I had heard Irish spoken for the first time; and I was seized with a desire to learn Irish, the acquisition of which, in my case, became the stepping-stone to other languages. I had previously learnt Latin, or rather Lilly; but neither Latin nor Lilly made me a philologist. I had frequently heard French and other languages, but had felt little desire to become acquainted with them; and what it may be asked, was there connected with the Irish ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... red-lettered temptations. Docile and hopeful as a tired animal thinking of its stable, she walked through the dark crowd that pressed upon her, nor did she even notice when she was jostled, but went on, a heedless nondescript—a something in a black shawl and a quasi-respectable bonnet, a slippery stepping-stone between the low women who whispered and the workwoman who hurried home with the tin of evening beer in her hand. Like one held and guided by the power of a dream, she lost consciousness of all that was not of it. ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... Italy, which had been torpid in the decadence of mediaevalism and its mysticism and piety, seized with avidity the revelation of the classical world which the scholars and their manuscripts brought. Human life, which the mediaeval Church had taught them to regard but as a threshold and stepping-stone to eternity, acquired suddenly a new momentousness and value; the promises of the Church paled like its lamps at sunrise; and a new paganism, which had Plato for its high priest, and Demosthenes and Pericles for its archetypes and examples, ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... things, in the bustle of life dormant and unheeded, then started froth into notice, and became to him objects of interest or diversion; the dreary present, once made familiar, glided away from him, not less than if it had been all happiness; his mind dwelt not on the dull intervals, but the stepping-stone it had created and placed at each; and, by that moral dreaming which for ever goes on within man's secret heart, he lived as little in the immediate world before him, as in the most sanguine period of his youth, or the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I could, I should feel almost at peace with her and with myself. It is mystery all—except that the accursed bridal will be the stepping-stone to her grave! ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... decided that I would a thousand times rather be an honest doubter out of the church and ministry than a hypocrite in it. Thus my fond hope of entering the ministry had to be given up, and instead I determined to use the teaching profession as a stepping-stone to law, and law as a ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... it to the entire satisfaction of his patrons. It is impossible to estimate just how many houses he built, but the number is not small. He had made a beginning, and secured some capital. He did not like the builder's trade, and only entered it at the first from necessity—as a stepping-stone to his own trade, for which he had a great deal of enthusiasm. In 1836, ten years after his arrival in Cincinnati, he engaged in the manufacture of bedsteads. For six years he carried on this business—found a ready market ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... interrupted by an official notice that he had been appointed professor of history at Jena and would be expected to enter upon his duties in the spring. It was only an 'extraordinary' professorship without salary, but its possibilities as a stepping-stone were alluring. He ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... prospects were in a very bad way. This had been for over a century a vexed and perplexing problem. I have dealt cursorily with primary education, which is even still in a deplorably backward state in Ireland. Secondary education has not yet been placed on a scientific basis, and is not that natural stepping-stone between the primary school and the university that it ought to be. There is no intelligent co-ordination of studies in Ireland and we suffer as no other country from ignorantly imposed "systems" which have had for their object, not the development of Irish brains but the Anglicisation ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... enjoyed in the establishment of the Florentine envoy appeared to him the stepping-stone to the attainment of these objects, but the embassy had not been long settled at Constantinople, when Alessandro found that his master was one who, being ignorant himself, was jealous of the talents displayed by others. Great interest had alone procured the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... doctrines was the spirit of progress and of change; it taught that there were no fixed rules for writing well; that art, no less than science, lived by experiment; that a literature which did not develop was dead. Therefore it was inevitable that the Romantic ideal itself should form the stepping-stone for a fresh advance. The complex work of Balzac unites in a curious way many of the most important elements of the old school and of the new. Alike by his vast force, his immense variety, his formlessness, his lack of critical and intellectual ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... heroic fashion. There is at command a practically unlimited variety of vegetarian dishes, savoury enough to tempt the most fastidious, and in which the absence of "carcase" may, if need be, defy detection. Not a very lofty aspiration certainly, but it may serve as a stepping-stone. ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... President of the Chamber at Paris. I have read this panegyric of him: "He is known to possess no individuality or opinion of his own whatsoever." The second Assistant, M. Quesnault, a Liberal, a Deputy, a Public Functionary, Advocate-General, a Conservative, learned, obedient, had attained by making a stepping-stone of each of these attributes, to the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, where he was known as one of the most severe members. 1848 had shocked his notion of Right, he had resigned after the 24th of February; he did not resign ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... hoped-for permission, and we all jumped out of the car. There was the little bridge—Kleine Brucke—and beyond Holland, the promised land. A few formalities, a few good-bys, a few planks traversed, and we were safe in a country that was neutral for the nonce: Holland, the stepping-stone ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans
... handsome study, in a complacent frame of mind. The caucus was to be held in the evening, and he confidently expected the nomination for mayor. It was the post he had coveted for a long time. There were other honors that were greater, but the mayoralty would perhaps prove a stepping-stone to them. He must not be impatient. He was only in middle life, and there ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... degree—rash, brave, and adventurous, prone to make the most of the bright side, and as little as possible of the dark; his was the nature that sticks at no crime if there is anything to be gained by it, and laughs at the vice which serves as a stepping-stone. Just now these tendencies of ambition were held in check, partly by the fair illusions of youth, partly by the enthusiasm which led him to prefer the nobler methods, which every man in love with glory tries first of all. Lucien was struggling as yet with himself and his own desires, and not ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... running up into Manitoba and reaching Winnipeg was all very well as a start. It had paid so well that the original group of men had become millionaires almost overnight. But Hill meant to show the public that, after all, the early success was only an incident and merely a stepping-stone ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... among the many thousands of other known worlds, that have been set in their places in honour of the hand that made them. These brief but vivid glances at the immensity of the moral space which separates man from his Deity, have very healthful effects in inculcating that humility which is the stepping-stone ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... trusted that the range of hills he had called Flinders Range, and which he had seen stretching to the north-east, would continue far enough to take him out of the depressed country around Lake Torrens, and in fact, as he says, form a stepping-stone into the interior. His party was a small one for those days, consisting of six white men and two black boys. They had with them three horse drays, and a small vessel called the WATERWITCH, was sent to the head of the Gulf, with the heaviest portion ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... schools, his elder brother Henry was rejoicing his father's heart by his career at the University. He soon distinguished himself at the examinations, and obtained a scholarship in 1743. This is a collegiate distinction which serves as a stepping-stone in any of the learned professions, and which leads to advancement in the University should the individual choose to remain there. His father now trusted that he would push forward for that comfortable provision, a fellowship, and thence to higher dignities and emoluments. ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... out a new name and to induce the public to take up an author and his book, as to make a success with the Theatres etrangers, Victoires et Conquetes, or Memoires sur la Revolution, books that bring in a fortune. I am not here as a stepping-stone to future fame, but to make money, and to find it for men with distinguished names. The manuscripts for which I give a hundred thousand francs pay me better than work by an unknown author who asks six hundred. If I am not exactly a Maecenas, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... it. As long as the Catholics were only an obscure faction they might be ignored, but when, towards the close of the reign of the second Charles, it appeared to be absolutely certain that a Catholic dynasty was about to fill the throne, and that Catholicism was to be the court religion and the stepping-stone to preferment, it was felt that a day of vengeance might be at hand for those who had trampled upon it when it was defenceless. There was alarm and uneasiness amongst all classes. The Church of England, which depends upon the monarch as an arch depends upon ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... called "the master key of the Mediterranean and the Levant," "the stepping-stone to Egypt and the Dardanelles," and "the connecting link between England and India," is one of our Empire's most valuable possessions, and its physical formation has made it for generations past of great maritime value. The island is, in itself, ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... man her ultimate aim and desire, Nature knows that man is but the stepping-stone to the child. In the end woman agrees with Nature. We may ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... has taken such a novel way to render assistance. Mrs. Dunn is tall and slender, with dark hair and eyes. She is a shrewd observer, does not talk much socially, but when she says anything it is to the point. Her character sketch, "Zekle's Wife," will be a stepping-stone to many a woman on her way to the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the depths of his character and the causes of his rise, we shall show that fortuitous commercial events which strong brains dominate, may become irreparable catastrophes for weak ones. Events are never absolute; their results depend on individuals. Misfortune is a stepping-stone for genius, the baptismal font of Christians, a treasure for the skilful man, an ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... Connection. — N. vinculum, link; connective, connection; junction &c. 43; bond of union, copula, hyphen, intermedium[obs3]; bracket; bridge, stepping-stone, isthmus. bond, tendon, tendril; fiber; cord, cordage; riband, ribbon, rope, guy, cable, line, halser|, hawser, painter, moorings, wire, chain; string &c. (filament) 205. fastener, fastening, tie; ligament, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Prestbury parish, in or about 1740. This does not in the least detract from Jenner's merit, but shows that to his genius for observation, analogy, and experiment, we are indebted for this application of a simple fact, only incidentally remarked by others, but by Jenner rendered the stepping-stone to his great discovery—or, in other words, extending its benefits from a single parish in Gloucestershire to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various |
