"Valueless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whole mystery consisted in the simple fact that the people, the nation, had steadily refused to sanction the act of their leaders; and all the pretensions of English kings, statesmen, and lawyers, were valueless. Those Irishmen who subsequently entered into the various Geraldine and Ulster confederacies, and summoned foreign armies to their aid, were neither rebels nor traitors, but citizens of an independent state, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... manner and the way Holmes had answered that simple question about the soil; how he had made the survey secretly, because Greenfield would have refused to close the deal if he had known that Worth wanted it after he had it investigated, and because if Greenfield believed the district stock to be valueless he would sell at a very low figure rather than not sell at all; and how it was that same low figure that enabled him to give the men who were working on the canal a chance to acquire ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... you describe belong to the class known as business tokens. They are issued by private parties, and are valueless. ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... all its care and strife and toil Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees Which grew by our youth's home, the waving mass Of climbing plants heavy with bloom and dew, The morning swallows with their songs like words. All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts: So, aught connected with my early life, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... will require to be dried, as it is very essential indeed that none of the materials used in the manufacture of gelatine should contain more than the slightest trace of water. If they do, the gelatine subsequently made from them will most certainly exude, and become dangerous and comparatively valueless. It will also be much more difficult to make the nitro-cotton dissolve in the nitro-glycerine if ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... still sulkily, "has had enough borrowing of Egeskov; and my horse may be valueless, but he is one of the few things dear to me, ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... differ in nothing from all brutish and inanimate nature that follows necessarily, fatally, the bent of its instinctive inclinations and obeys the laws of its being. Under these conditions, there can be no morality or responsibility before God; our deeds are alike blameless and valueless in ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... investigated by a technically trained forester and the cutting is regulated according to his findings. Special attention is given to discovering new uses for species of trees which have hitherto been considered valueless, and the demand upon certain rare species is lessened by introducing more common woods which are suitable for ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... said, "are absolutely valueless to me except so far as they testify to the importance of my work. Before long," he went on, "I think that there will be many other people like you, Miss Lois. They will believe that there is a little more in life than their dull eyes can see. You ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to coin money out of a valueless material, like the coinage of leather, or ivory, or cowrie shells. It is a pledge of the national credit. It is a promise by the government to pay dollars; it is not an attempt to make dollars. The standard of value is not changed. The government simply ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... a term; and because of the very qualities that make it a good definition, accuracy and brevity, it may be almost valueless to the ordinary reader. For instance, this definition, "An acid is a substance, usually sour and sharp to the taste, that changes vegetable blue colors to red, and, combining with an earth, an alkali, or a metallic oxide, forms a salt," would not generally be understood. So ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... devils for things of no value in order to accumulate them in great ugly houses; always collecting and collecting, like mad children, possessions that they never really possess—things external to themselves, valueless and unreal—" ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... the river, enough remained to keep up a galling fire, and hold Reno strictly on the defensive. These reds skulked in ravines, or lined the banks of the river, their long-range rifles rendering the lighter carbines of the cavalrymen almost valueless. A few crouched along the edge of higher eminences, their shots crashing in among ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... the dog and his tail, again, for, when the question is reduced to a comprehensive statement of fact, it will be readily seen that capital is the offspring of labor, not labor the offspring of capital. Capital can produce nothing. Left to itself, it is as valueless as the countless millions of gold, silver, copper, lead and iron that lie buried in the unexplored womb of Nature. This storied wealth counts for nothing in its crude, undeveloped state. As it is to-day, so it was a thousand years ago. Years may add to the bulk, and, therefore, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... apothecaries' advertisements cautions against counterfeits, and rewards for their detection, and I always noticed, from these printed evidences, that the counterfeits were exactly in proportion to the worthlessness of the genuine article, and that medicine which was utterly valueless itself suffered most from the abundance of counterfeits. So it was with the Lady of Remedios; after she had fallen below the dignity of a humbug, and no man was found so poor as to do her reverence, she was spirited away to ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... Lucifer, after all, as the corner which he had cut off for the "Goodman's" share was perhaps the most worthless and sterile spot on the whole property. Some may look upon such superstitions and superstitious practices as matters utterly vulgar and valueless in themselves; but in the eyes of the archaeologist they become interesting and important when we remember that the popular superstitions of Scotland, as of other countries, are for the most part true antiquarian vestiges of the pagan creeds and customs of our ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... refuse to hear a case either for or against one of these unlicensed shops. They carry on their trade in daily fear of the rowdies who infest every Chinese town, granting loans to these ruffians on valueless articles, which in many cases are returned without payment either of interest or principal, thereby securing themselves from the disturbances which "bare poles" who have nothing to lose are ever ready to create at a moment's notice, and which ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... attempts to be rampantly facetious at her expense. But the damsel with the unkempt auburn locks flowing about her comely face, lit up by a pair of blue Irish eyes under their dark lashes, takes the cad's vulgarity together with his money, like the pill with the jam, giving in return the valueless pieces of carved wood, until her little stock is exhausted and a good ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... gwei has really determined to injure your child, it is sometimes necessary to kill a dog and wrap your boy in its skin, that it may be perfectly evident to the whole spirit world that if you are bestowing any affection, it is only on a valueless beast. In the case of Mrs. Fan's little girl, no gwei could reasonably be supposed to attach much value to her, and it was therefore sufficient for this neighbour to pronounce herself willing to stand in the place of a mother. She ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... each other, I foresaw then what I tell you now. Every woman that I meet I compare with you; and if I imagine the ideal woman she has your face and your mind. I should have spoken when I was here last autumn, but I felt that I had no right to ask you to share my life as long as it remained so valueless. You see'—he smiled—'how I have grown in my own esteem. I suppose that is always the first effect of a purpose strongly conceived. Or should it be just the opposite, and have I only given you a proof that I snatch at rewards before doing the least ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... that he has the other essential qualification, that of being misunderstood by his admirers. Mr. Baildon has many interesting things to tell us about Stevenson himself, whom he knew at college. Nor are his criticisms by any means valueless. That upon the plays, especially "Beau Austin," is remarkably thoughtful and true. But it is a very singular fact, and goes far, as we say, to prove that Stevenson had that unfathomable quality which belongs to the great, that this ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... corner of the canvas. Are they, or are they not, a signature? Whatever the final decision may be, the picture will remain unchanged; but if it can be proved that the marks are the signature of the disciple, it will be valueless. If the Venus of Velasquez should turn out to be a Spanish model by del Mazo, the great ones who guide us and teach the people to love art will see to it, I trust, that the picture is moved to a position befitting its mediocrity. It is this unholy alliance ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... damsons for market should be gathered and sent before they are quite ripe; if soft and pulpy on arrival, they are valueless. Sort in size and quality as even as possible: keep back all inferior stuff. Only good produce, well sorted and properly packed, placed on the market in good condition, is likely to sell well. Foreigners as well as neighbours compete ...
— The Book of Pears and Plums • Edward Bartrum
... male coyote went into action. Days ago he had managed to work loose the lower end of the mesh which fronted his cage, but his mind had told him that a sortie inside the ship was valueless. The odd rapport he'd had with the human brains, unknown to them, had operated to keep him to the old role of cunning deception, which in the past had saved countless of his species from sudden and violent death. Now with teeth and paws he went diligently to ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... Continental money; and Janice, when she went to make her usual purchases one day, found that she could buy nothing, and had but stinted and pinched herself only to husband what in a moment had become valueless. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... which is often damaged by the animals fighting amongst themselves. Furthermore, at a certain season of the year, the seals moult, and if taken within a certain time of this natural process, the skin is almost valueless. These facts were ignored by the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... stories—that after a time astonishment becomes so habitual with us that we almost cease to wonder. The fact, however, is sufficiently curious to be worthy of notice. But, on the other hand, how shall we explain to ourselves the aim that nature can have in thus favouring the valueless drones at the cost of the workers who are so essential? Is she afraid lest the females might perhaps be induced by their intellect unduly to limit the number of their parasites, which, destructive ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... needed: a fact which seems not to be understood by those patriotic assassins—French and Italian—whose elaborately contrived infernal-machines do but betray the anxious precautions taken to insure lives which, according to their own professions, have been rendered valueless by tyranny, and ought therefore to be the more freely risked. Felton and Charlotte Corday understood their business better; but even their preparations may be called elaborate, compared with those of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... kinds will rapidly depreciate in value. The slums and the wretched dwellings now occupied by the working classes—the miserable, uncomfortable, jerry-built "villas" occupied by the lower middle classes and by "business" people, will be left empty and valueless upon the hands of their rack renting landlords, who will very soon voluntarily offer to hand them and the ground they stand upon to the state on the same terms as those accorded to the other property owners, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... in bed, in very great agony, the surgeon making copious notes on the case, noting that under such and such circumstances, under conditions such as the following, such and such remedies and treatment proved futile and valueless. Grammont had a hole in his abdomen, when he entered, about an inch long. After about a month, this hole was scientifically increased to a foot in length, rubber drains stuck out in all directions, and went inwards as well, pretty deep, and his pain was enhanced a ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... in worthless bits of printed paper, and that the morality of the two schemes being the same, that of refusing outright the payment of dues, was preferable practically, because at least, it would not further derange trade by putting a debased and valueless currency in circulation. But I fear he did not see it at all, if he even gave me credit for sincerity, and yet he is an honest, well-meaning chap, and more intelligent than the common run ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... metals, but also of plants and-most effective of all-faultless jewels of not less than two carats. The preventive uses of astrology have seldom been seriously studied outside of India. One little-known fact is that the proper jewels, metals, or plant preparations are valueless unless the required weight is secured, and unless these remedial agents are ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... chambermaid received the approval of the higher authorities of the household and the collection was moved up to a kind of bookcase in the back hall upstairs. It was the ordinary small boy's collection of curios, quite incongruous and entirely valueless except from the standpoint of the boy himself. My father and mother encouraged me warmly in this, as they always did in anything that could give me wholesome pleasure or ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... theory. The British aerial raids upon Cuxhaven and other places would have been impossible, and probably valueless as an effective move, but for the fact that it was possible to release the machines from a certain point upon the open sea, within easy reach of the cooperating naval squadron. True, the latter was ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... as the agent. He had been in Nova Scotia; he had never been in Cape Breton; but he presumed we would find no difficulty in reaching Baddeck by so and so, and so and so. We consumed valuable time in convincing Brown that his directions to us were impracticable and valueless, and then he referred us to Mr. Cope. An interview with Mr. Cope discouraged us; we found that we were imparting everywhere more geographical information than we were receiving, and as our own stock was small, we concluded ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... would be valueless, so have strength to disregard the blame. Let our friends read and talk as much as they like. Can't you console yourself with the thought that I am not contemptible, though I may have been forced to ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... valueless? Far from it. They valued her as the fruitful earth values the sun—they fully believed she could produce the crop, but that it was in their line of business, not hers, to take it off. They had a deep and superstitious reverence for her ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... prize captured. The cargo was then rummaged, and the state of the ship looked to, with an eye to using her as a cruiser. As a rule, the prisoners were put ashore on the first opportunity, but some buccaneers had a way of selling their captives into slavery. If the ship were old, leaky, valueless, in ballast, or with a cargo useless to the rovers, she was either robbed of her guns, and turned adrift with her crew, or run ashore in some snug cove, where she could be burnt for the sake of the iron-work. If the cargo were of value, and, as a rule, the ships they ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... upon this central knowledge of and power over her own body and her own instincts, education for woman is valueless. As long as she remains the plaything of strong, uncontrolled natural forces, as long as she must docilely and humbly submit to the decisions of others, how can woman ever lay the foundations of self-respect, self-reliance and independence? How can she make her own choice, exercise her own discrimination, ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... most minute knowledge of the scientific aspect of music, dating from more than five hundred years before the Christian era. This knowledge, however, is worse than valueless, for it is misleading. For instance, it would be a very difficult thing for posterity to form any idea as to what our music was like if all the actual music in the world at the present time were destroyed, and only certain scientific works such ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... vulgarity, mental laziness, sentimentality, and greed. The ignorance which does not know facts; the vulgarity which cannot appreciate values; the laziness which will not try to learn either of these things; the sentimentality which, knowing neither, is stirred by the valueless and the untrue; the greed which grabs and exploits. But fear is worst; the fear of public opinion, the fear of scandal, the fear of independent thought, of loss of position, of ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... turned black within a few days and began to shrivel. Development was stopped, with the result that the nuts on all varieties were very poorly filled. The cavities appeared on first cracking to be full of kernel, but on drying these shrunk so that they were practically valueless. Some of the nuts were planted in a nursery row in the fall and germinated fairly early, showing viable embryos ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... is due to an admixture of ill-assorted elements. Not to gold itself or the lust of gold. The personal history of the gold hunters is almost valueless. No hallowed memory clings to the miner's grave. No blessing such as hovers over the soldier, dead under his ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... I am depressed by the awfulness of it all. I feel of so little consequence—so small and helpless in the face of all these myriad manifestations of life stripped to the bone of its savagery and brutality. I realize as never before how cheap and valueless a thing is life. Life seems a joke, a cruel, grim joke. You are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less powerful or more powerful than some other form of life which crosses ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the desired object. If water could not be found, all this beautiful park through which he was passing would be as valueless to him ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... cleverly written, what is called "smart" journalism, with grip and epigram, with hint of universal knowledge and the true air of British superiority. Having scanned the writer's comment on the Slavonic peoples, Piers laughed aloud; so evidently it was a report at second or third hand, utterly valueless to one who had any real acquaintance with the Slavs. This moment of spontaneous mirth did him good, helped to restore his self-respect. And as he pondered old ambitions stirred again in him. Could he not make some use of the knowledge ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... is impossible to recall without a shudder that there was at that time neither money nor credit, that the pressing debts were immense, the revenues exhausted in anticipation, the resources annihilated, the public securities valueless, the coinage impoverished and without circulation, the discount-fund bankrupt, the general tax-exchequer (ferme general) on the point of failing to meet its bills, and the royal treasury reduced to two ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... determination—he would put the world between them. Once let him have this money in his hand and he would start his life afresh in some new country; he was not too old for it, and he would be a rich man, and then perhaps he might get rid of the cares which had rendered so much of his existence valueless. If Belle would go with him, well and good—if not, he could not help it. If she did go, there must be a reconciliation first, for he could not any longer tolerate the life ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... our first experience of the present currency,—the valueless circulating medium of Cuba. When one has occasion to visit the island it is best to take American funds, either in bank-bills or gold, sufficient to meet all ordinary expenses. Our bank-bills and our gold are both at a premium. This will also save all necessity for drawing on home ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... particularly the apple industry. Apples could not be shipped any very great distance. Crops had to be marketed immediately and when they were large the markets were soon glutted and the fruit became almost valueless. The first hot spell would demoralize the trade altogether. Then later in the season the supply would become exhausted and famine would ensue where but a few weeks before there had been a feast. ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... were lines of trenches and barbed-wire entanglements. To the eye of a man not skilled in military science all these signs of a strong defence were comforting. And yet I think they were known to be valueless if the enemy broke through along the road ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... nearer to the magistrate, who demanded my name, where from, and to whom I belonged, and what I was doing in the barn, which I still appeared not to hear, and merely looked at him, and at last acted as if I was deaf and dumb, and so effectually that he discharged me, convinced I was a valueless deaf and dumb nigger; and when told by the officer to go, I dared not move for fear of being found out in my acting, and would not move until I was forced out of the door, and for some time (for fear of detection) I acted deaf and dumb in the streets, to the fear of women and children, until ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... the Flying Fish. We will then move her to this spot, and all hands of us can then go to work at diamond-hunting in good earnest. Meanwhile, if these large stones are of such inestimable value, it seems to me that they are likely to prove, after all, practically valueless, for the simple reason that nobody will be found willing to spend the enormous sum which would enable ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Marquis to find the means of bringing me a few scraps of the late M. le Comte de Naquet's—Madame la Marquise's first husband—handwriting. This, fortunately, he was able to do. They were a few valueless notes penned at different times by the deceased gentleman and which, luckily for us all, Madame had not thought it worth while to keep under lock ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... president Wingfield lived in sumptuous indifference. His gluttony appropriated to itself the best provisions the colony could afford—"oatmeal, sacke, oyle, aqua vitae, beefe, egges, or whatnot"—and, in this intemperate feasting, it seemed as though his valueless life were only spared that he might endure the disgrace he so richly merited. Seeing the forlorn condition of the settlement he attempted to seize the pinnace, which had been left for their use by Newport, and make his escape to England. These outrages so wrought upon the council that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... arms are almost valueless in the hands of weakhearted soldiers, no matter what their number may be. On the contrary, the demoralizing power of rapid and smokeless firing, which certain armies still persist in not acknowledging, manifests itself with so much the more force as ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... essential part of the creative spirit, and I now fully accept your theory. But what of criticism outside creation? I have a foolish habit of reading periodicals, and it seems to me that most modern criticism is perfectly valueless. ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... exceeding love, to bestow all that could be spared of his worldly means, to purchase for his sons, that which is beyond price, EDUCATION; well judging that the means so expended, if hoarded for future use, would be, if not valueless, certainly evanescent, while the precious treasure for which they were exchanged, a cultivated and instructed mind, would not only last through life, but might be the fruitful source of treasures far more precious than itself. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Redlands, ten miles by rail east of San Bernardino, is as good an illustration as any of rapid development and great promise. It is devoted to the orange and the grape. As late as 1875 much of it was Government land, considered valueless. It had a few settlers, but the town, which counts now about 2000 people, was only begun in 1887. It has many solid brick edifices and many pretty cottages on its gentle slopes and rounded hills, overlooked by the great mountains. The ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... made, (and are made), in order to be of any value whatever, they would spare their tongues. In comparing the deaths of one hospital with those of another, any statistics are justly considered absolutely valueless which do not give the ages, the sexes, and the diseases of all the cases. It does not seem necessary to mention this. It does not seem necessary to say that there can be no comparison between old men with dropsies and young women with consumptions. Yet the ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... imprisonment for life. They instigated murders, and clamoured because the murderers were not regarded as heroes; or if they were hung, canonised them as martyrs. They attempted to prostitute the law to their own base standard of political morality. They assiduously laboured to render life valueless in Ireland and property worthless, whilst no deed was too cowardly, no atrocity too barbarous, for them to praise. They alone in modern times warred against women and children. Animals were the dumb victims of the inhuman ferocity they in ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... makes prices high for the very limited amount upon the market, when availability is taken into account, and the advice that such goods be used would be valueless if it had any general acceptance. Prices would go higher, and the amount in the ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... ("Ocean Highways," June, 1873), now explains the word as A-nzi-co, "people not of the country," barbarians, bushmen. This kind of information, derived from a superficial knowledge of an Angolan vocabulary, is peculiarly valueless. I doubt that a negative can thus be suffixed to a genitive. The name may simply have been A-nziko (man) of the back-settlement. In 1832, Mr. Cooley writes: "the nation of the Anziko (or Ngeco):" in 1845, "the Anziki, north of Congo:" in 1852, "the Micoco or king of the Anziko"—und so ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... they are valueless," exclaimed his chum somewhat testily, for his disappointment was almost more ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... now, and that it was all for her sake and through her influence that this sudden and unexpected transformation had come to pass. And it seemed to him that if he were not to see her again, very soon, his life would be rendered valueless; and that only to see her were worth all the honor and glory that he had ever aspired to in his wildest dreams; and that to be near her always and to feel that he were much—nay, everything—to her, as before God he felt that at that moment ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... hand disabled, he of course had become valueless at the time as a tool to rid her of Cochise. Yet there was the chance that he could be used in the Hole. That would account for the seeming devotion and self-sacrifice by which she had saved him from the Gila monster poison, from death by thirst, ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... the whole on the title-page of the book. The "Tales" are of course designed for young readers—they are told, as it has been recognized, with a kind of Wordsworthian simplicity—as an introduction to "the rich treasures from which the small and valueless coins are extracted." How admirably they have served their purpose for generations of readers is to be seen in the long succession of editions in which the work ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... ineffectual &c (failure) 732; incompetent &c (unskillful) 699; stale, flat and unprofitable; superfluous &c (redundant) 641; dispensable; thrown away &c (wasted) 638; abortive &c (immature) 674. worthless, valueless, priceless; unsalable; not worth a straw &c (trifling) 643, dear at any price. vain, empty, inane; gainless^, profitless, fruitless; unserviceable, unprofitable; ill-spent; unproductive &c 169; hors de combat [Fr.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Peter the next day to pay the debt and during the time the money was left and when I arrived at St. Peter it had depreciated in value ten per cent and it kept on going down until it was entirely valueless. Money was very scarce at that time and times were hard. We had some ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... speaking to you on the same subject," said Frederic, hesitatingly, "I have already told you that it is my fixed determination to leave the army, and retire to peaceful life on my own estate. But although my fortune is princely, I feel it would be valueless without your lovely daughter. Signior Morelli, I love Bianca; I have made no attempt to conceal it from you; were my intentions dishonorable, do you not think that I would endeavor to hide them from a father's eye? Do you take me for the bold, hardened libertine that ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the real estate holdings of Clayton & Worthington to his partner before the old trouble came on. Only this, a then valueless, tract was forgotten. ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... apron." Obeying this command, Barbara emptied the contents into the large apron that the mistress upheld to receive them, and she sat down to the examination. One by one the papers fell from her fingers to the floor as valueless trash, and she pushed them with her foot toward the open fire-place. Suddenly she descried upon the floor a dark brown paper, loosely folded, that had fallen from her lap unobserved. picking it up, she drew from it a small book, bound in Russia leather, the size of a man's hand. Upon the ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... to anything, of course this certificate is valueless, and the presumption of law prevails, viz., "that all property found under the enemy's flag is enemy's property," until the contrary be shown by competent and credible testimony under oath, duly certified to by a Consul or another officer. ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... inwardly it owned many things, one thing especially, which no money could buy, and without which fine houses, fine furniture, and fine clothes—indeed, all the comforts and splendors of existence, would be worse that valueless, actual torment. So as she looked around her she felt not the slightest envy of her ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... at first in astonishment, and then with impatience. Many of the things that seemed so important to him were valueless in her more practical eyes. Instead of a regime which ennobled those who enjoyed its privileges, she saw only a slavish devotion to worn-out traditions, and a clannish provincialism which proved to her all the more clearly the narrow-mindedness of ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... perish. Who will count himself deceived by overfulfilment? Would a parent be deceiving his child in saying, 'My boy, you will have a great reward if you learn Greek,' foreseeing his son's delight in Homer and Plato—now but a valueless waste in his eyes? When his reward comes, will the youth feel aggrieved that it is ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... knew how to refer to them or where to leave off. Had I referred to all authors consulted for every fact, I should have greatly increased the bulk of the book, while a large portion of the references would be valueless in a few years, owing to later and better authorities. My experience of referring to references has generally been most unsatisfactory. One finds, nine times out of ten, the fact is stated, and nothing more; or a reference to some third work ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... us that there is power enough in a single acre of grass to drive all the mills and steam-cars in the world, could we but concentrate it upon the piston-rod of a steam-engine. But it is at rest, and so, in the light of science, it is comparatively valueless. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... utterly spoil its beauty, causing incalculable loss, and destroying altogether the refrangibility, lustre and colour of the stone, thus rendering it liable to easy fracture: in every sense converting what would have been a rare and magnificent jewel to a comparatively valueless specimen. ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... to her eager longing for greater adventure. And now she walked rapidly about the roads, her eyes full of despair, her heart heavy, her brain active and contemptuous. She knew her own cleverness. She knew it too well. And it was smarting now at being proved such an ignominiously valueless possession. She might be clever, she might have brains enough to despise May Pearcey; but she had not the power to make a living. She must still pinch and starve beside her mother. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... says of their legislative genius. He dwells with unction on the strong tendency to institutions that ever characterized them. This tendency, he observes, strongly indicates "the profound sentiment of perpetuity, inherent in the Norman mind, to which everything was valueless that shared not in some degree its own enduring character. Abhorrent alike of despotism and license, they imparted this love of institutions wherever they came. In their days the world was passing through a fierce ordeal. A stern necessity lay on the whole ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... especially strove to give expression, through these laws and through executive action, was that a right is valueless unless reduced from the abstract to the concrete. This sounds like a truism. So far from being such, the effort practically to apply it was almost revolutionary, and gave rise to the bitterest denunciation of us by all the big lawyers, and all the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... breadth forms itself into lakes, one is shown Indian villages clustering down upon the bank. Some years ago these Indians were rich, for the price of furs, in which they dealt, was high; but furs have become cheaper, and the beavers, with which they used to trade, are almost valueless. That a change in the fashion of hats should have assisted to polish these poor fellows off the face of creation, must, one may suppose, be very unintelligible to them; but nevertheless it is probably a subject of deep speculation. If the reading world were to take to sermons again ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... her last half hour in contemplation of the Italian masterpieces at the National Gallery, or the Greek bronzes at the British Museum. Certainly she would not be at the Royal Academy, for the culture of Riseholme, led by herself, rejected as valueless all artistic efforts later than the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a great deal of what went before. Her husband with his firm grasp of the obvious, on the other hand, would be disappointingly capable even before her maid confirmed ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... be permitted to appropriate to his or her use any article belonging to the Asylum, or purchased for the use of the patients, however small or comparatively valueless it may be. From the salary of the person so offending, the cost of the article will be deducted, and he or she ...
— Rules and Regulations of the Insane Asylum of California - Prescribed by the Resident Physician, August 1, 1861 • Stockton State Hospital
... in like manner, to be one of many supernatural patrons, locally important but not absolute in power.[1803] The Zulu Unkulunkulu is revered by the natives as a very great being, morally good according to the standards of the people, but he is of uncertain origin and is valueless in the existing cult.[1804] The much-discussed Australian figures, Baiame, Bunjil, and Daramulun, appear not to differ essentially from those just mentioned. The reports of the natives who have been questioned on the subject are often vague and sometimes mutually ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... frequently stipulate for such trials in their contracts with English shipbuilders, and get wonderfully economical results on paper, but the fact that the trials only extend over a few hours renders them valueless, however carefully the coal may be weighed during that period. An authentic record of the absolute quantity of coal consumed, say by each of the eight fastest Atlantic liners, together with their average indicated horse power on the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... represents the great unpaid laborer of the world—a slave, who, as wife and daughter, absolutely works for her board and clothes. The question of finance deeply interests woman, but her opinions upon it are valueless while deprived of the right of enforcing them at the ballot box. You are here in convention assembled, not alone to nominate a candidate for president, but also to promulgate your platform of principles to the world. Now is your golden opportunity. The Republican party ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... that you keep this one scrupulously secret.' He then hurried off, leaving Bertrand in a state of utter amazement. This feeling, however, slowly subsided, especially after assuring himself, by the aid of his chamber-lamp, that the note was a genuine one, and not, as he had half feared, a valueless deception. 'This Monsieur Derville,' drowsily murmured Bertrand as he ensconced himself in the bed-clothes, 'is a bon enfant, after all—a generous, magnanimous prince, if ever there was one. But then, to be sure, he wishes to do Marie a service by secretly ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... years a new system of farming has been developed in the West, which is of great interest to all of us, both because it is opening up for production a large part of our country that has seemed valueless, and because the lessons that have been learned there are of the greatest advantage in every part ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... Peru as Superior to Paraguay, on his arrival gave up an estate (with Indians in 'encomienda') which his predecessors had enjoyed, alleging that he did not wish to give the example of making profit out of the unpaid labour of the Indians,* and that without their work the estate was valueless. ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... when insulted at the tables, had sat like a tame rabbit and had sought him in the garden. No wonder he had accepted the accusation of adventurer. No wonder he had refused to play for the cheque which he knew to be valueless. But why, thought Aristide, did he not at once consent to sell the papers on the stipulation that he should be paid in notes? Aristide found an answer. He wanted to get everything for nothing, afraid of the use that ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... a husband, whenever he goes from home, should always endeavour, if possible, to bring back some little present to his wife. If ever so trifling or valueless, still the attention gratifies her; and to call forth a smile of good-humour should be ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... allurements. 'Surrounded as we should have been by steep and lofty hills, we could have obtained only the most local records of climatic conditions, and our meteorological observations would have been comparatively valueless; but the greatest drawback would have been that we should be completely cut off from traveling over the sea-ice beyond the mouth of our harbor.... It is when one remembers how naturally a decision to return to this place might have been made, that ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... pray, and are in despair about, will yet return to us with the words, Thy supplication is heard, endorsed on them in our Father's handwriting. Not infrequently dividends are paid on investments which we have given up as valueless. Fruit that mellows longest in the sun is ripest. Such things may transcend altogether our philosophy of prayer; but we are prepared for this, since God is accustomed to do exceeding abundantly above all that ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... Paklin exclaimed with some warmth—the less sympathy he met with, the more heated he became—"I admit that the question is not a political one, but an important one, nevertheless. According to Skoropikin, every ancient work of art is valueless because it is old. If that were true, then art would be reduced to nothing more or less than mere fashion. A preposterous idea, not worth entertaining. If art has no firmer foundation than that, if it is not eternal, then it is utterly useless. Take science, for instance. In mathematics do you look ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... of the workers into eyes, arms, fingers, legs, the plucking out of some one of his faculties and discarding the rest of the man as valueless, has seemed to be an organic requirement of machine evolution. So commendable the scheme has been to business enterprise that this division of labor has been carried from the machine shop and the factory to the scientific ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... of a British naval officer. Some twenty-five or thirty small vessels were built in the course of as many years, but gradually the whole organization was allowed to fall into decay. Except for petty repairs this establishment was in 1909 valueless to the Chinese government. There were also small dockyards at Kiang-nan (near Shanghai), Whampoa and Taku. There are well-equipped arsenals at Shanghai and at Tientsin, but as they are both placed up shallow rivers they are useless for naval repairs. Both are ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... a piece of a torn handkerchief with a deep blood-stain on it," pursued Kennedy. "He said it clearly didn't belong to the murdered man, that it indicated that the murderer had himself been wounded in the tussle, but as yet it had proved utterly valueless as a clue. Would I see what I could make ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... old woman who used to sell tapers and other Popish trickeries in front of the cathedral. If so, as she had frequently seen us, I had no doubt that from the first she knew who we were. I immediately guessed that, finding her old calling valueless, she had betaken herself to her present mode of life, in the hopes of preying on the superstition and credulity of her fellow-creatures. And I found that I was correct ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... Government," the Prince admitted. "Yet what you did was in itself of no consequence. It is as sure as north is north and south is south that you and America would never quarrel for the sake of Japan. That is another reason, if another reason is needed, why a treaty between us would be valueless. You and I—the whole world knows that before a cycle of years have passed Japan and America must fight. When that time comes, it will not be ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were few and far between; the distance between Carthage and Alexandria, and the labour of his diocese, and, worse than all, the growing difference in purpose between him and his beautiful teacher, made his protection all but valueless. And now Aben-Ezra was gone too, and with him were gone a thousand plans and hopes. To have converted him at last to a philosophic faith in the old gods! To have made him her instrument for turning back ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... which they present themselves. Disconnected objectless outbreaks, they seem, of some obscure power, they may be compared to the attraction of light bodies by amber after friction, and are as yet as unmeaning and valueless as were the first indications of the electric force. Therefore, doubtless, are they so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... guns and agricultural implements which our fathers taught us to use are valueless in the hands of their descendants, if the samplers our mothers worked and the stockings they knitted are become superfluous through the action of the modern loom, yet more are their social institutions, faiths, and manners of life become daily ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... emotions. Every piece of vocal music, moreover, carries its explanatory programme in its words. Still more tolerable and even righteous is it in the opera where it is but one of several factors which labor together to make up the sum of dramatic representation. But it must ever remain valueless unless it be idealized. Mendelssohn, desiring to put Bully Bottom into the overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream," did not hesitate to use tones which suggest the bray of a donkey, yet the effect, ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... but without success; he adds that he relinquished his own rights to Hawthorne, who had sold the tales to him so far as they had appeared in "The Token," and that he also joined in the bond given by Bridge; but in these remarks he seems to be taking credit to himself, for the tales were valueless to him and his property in them was of a sort not often claimed by an editor, while Bridge took the real risk. This transaction was unknown to Hawthorne at the time, and Bridge felt obliged to warn him not to be too grateful ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... valley this usually occurs about the first week of July. Full-grown trees require about a pound of sulphur which should be thoroughly distributed throughout the foliage. The old method of throwing a handful of sulphur in the branches of the tree or on the ground under the tree is valueless. The use of a blower is economical in large orchards, but a can with perforated bottom is frequently used on young trees or small orchards with good results. In normal seasons the spider is easily, controlled by dry sulphuring. When the ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... of the people have their eyes on the goal of integrity, our investments are secure; but with fifty-one per cent of them headed in the wrong direction, our investments are valueless. The first fundamental of ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... gain by it? The few who are successful work very hard for little pay and no thanks,—or nearly equally hard for no pay and as little thanks. The many who fail sit idly for hours, undergoing the weary task of listening to platitudes, and enjoy in return the now absolutely valueless privilege of having M.P. written on ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... what they are thinking and saying!... And, in the midst of this confusion, in the storm that tosses them to and fro, to catch sight of the tiny spark which will flash forth somewhere or other!... Look at him! Look at the fellow! A hundred thousand francs for a valueless pebble ... if not, prison: it's enough to turn any ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... Dodge would be a little more distinct in his names," said Mademoiselle Viefville, who had begun to take an interest in the subject, that even valueless opinions excite in us concerning ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of machinery has called into existence a great number of factories, especially in worsted and mixed stuffs, has given value to many descriptions of wool formerly valueless, and, coupled with the repeal of the duty, brought into the market many kinds unknown a few years ago. "Properties once prized," Mr. Southey remarks in his Essay on Wools, "have given way to some other property upon which machinery can better ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... hung with beautiful draperies embroidered in real gold. In many places the walls were inlaid with precious stones curiously and indiscriminately mingled. Next to a valuable uncut sapphire or a ruby one would find a carbuncle or some valueless stone. Many of the chairs in the finer apartments were of gold inlaid with precious stones, and about many of the rooms were inscriptions from the Koran applied in solid gold." Other conspicuous buildings as seen from the water are the Government House, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... with a menacing gesture. "Don't waste your gratitude. Greek you pretend to be, more the shame! Such as you it is that have brought Hellas under the heel of the oppressor; such as you have made the word of a Hellene almost valueless in the Roman courts, so that juries have to be warned to consider us all liars; such as you have dragged down into the pit many an honest man; ay, ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... he said, "hide a little gold in a claim that is valueless, and, digging it up as you have seen, wash it out in the presence of newcomers, in the hope of taking them in. But here we come to a party who will show you a little ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... years after Parkes, but a patent of his for dissolving the nitrated wood fiber, or "pyroxyline," in alcohol and camphor was decided by Judge Blatchford in a suit brought against the Celluloid Manufacturing Company to be valueless. No further progress was made until the Hyatt Brothers, of Albany, N.Y., discovered that gum camphor, when finely divided, mixed with the nitrated fiber and then heated, is a perfect solvent, giving a homogeneous and plastic mass. American patents of 1870 and 1874 are ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... Similarly, religion comes to a point—to the point. Thus religion is always insisting on the shortness of human life. But it does not insist on the shortness of human life as the pessimists insist on it. Pessimism insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is valueless. Religion insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is frightfully valuable—is almost horribly valuable. Pessimism says that life is so short that it gives nobody a chance; religion ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... There is a paper in the Journal de Physique of 1789,[96] on the disappearance of the forests of Dauphine, pointing out that when the woods are removed from the sides of mountains, the soil soon follows, and the district becomes utterly valueless. The writer traced the mischief to the emancipation of serfs, and the consequent formation of communes, where each man could do that which was right in ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... stated, comprised the leading statesmen of the country, for using force in order to ensure Couza's abdication, and so far as the mere legality of the document is concerned, his signature, thus obtained, was of course valueless. But in order to be able to form a correct opinion on the crisis and the acts of the revolutionists, it would be necessary to understand not only the character of the prince (which would alone have justified extreme measures, if one half ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... bustle about in our immediate little circle like the ant, running hither and thither with all the sublime conceit of that insect. We pick up, as he does, a burden which on close inspection will be found to be absolutely valueless, something that somebody else has thrown away. We hoist it over obstructions while there is usually a short way round; we fret and sweat and fume. Then we drop the burden and rush off at a tangent to pick up another. We write letters to our friends explaining to them what we are about. We even ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... invaders, and then impoverished by having for a year and a half to maintain the armies of occupation. Large tracts on the borders of Holland, Utrecht and Friesland, submerged by the sea-waters through the cutting of the dams, had been rendered valueless for some years to come, while those parts of Holland and Zeeland on which the enemy had not set foot had been crushed beneath heavy taxes and ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... neither teach nor lecture at Florence, his services to the Court were valueless. He was a disgraced ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... of the conversation fell upon his shoulders. Fitz, no great talker at any time, was markedly quiet. He had nothing to offer for the general delectation. His remarks upon all subjects mooted were laconic and valueless. The duties as temporary host occupied him for the moment, and his thoughts were obviously elsewhere. His attitude towards Eve had been friendly, but rather reserved. There was no suggestion of sulkiness, but on the other hand he had failed to take advantage of one or two opportunities ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... it!—why, my old boy, when they used to tell me I would shorten my life ten years by smoking, they little knew the devotee they were wasting their puerile words upon; they little knew how trivial and valueless I would regard a decade that had no smoking in it! But I won't persuade you, Twichell—I won't until I see you again—but then we'll smoke for a week together, and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... close together behind us, but continued to talk indifferently, chiefly of dress and jewels—which surprised me, both in the strange circumstances, and because I knew that Helene had seen no more of them than the valueless trinkets that had belonged to my mother, and which abode in a green-lined box in the Red Tower. Yet to speak of such things seems to come naturally to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... these suggestions, not to be worked out, but merely to indicate how notions for articles should come to life in you. A constant effort to evolve ideas in this way cannot fail to be fruitful, and though most of the ideas will be cast aside as valueless, a few promising ones will remain. On no account abandon good articles because you fear they have been done before. Rorrison said: "Of course they have, but do them in your own way; the public has no memory, and besides, new publics ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... the landlady, reported the disappearance of her two roomers on August first, a week after she last saw them. First, however, to the disgust of the police, she cleaned their apartment, giving to the trash man all valueless and inconsequential articles, including a box of old sea shells which she found in the closet. It was a curious fact that neither Sutter nor Travail possessed relatives or friends to make inquiry as to their ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... allow her to see distinctly. There was the fragment of a hedge—all that remained of a 'wet old garden'—standing in the middle of the mead, without a definite beginning or ending, purposeless and valueless. It was overgrown, and choked with mandrakes, and she could almost fancy she heard their shrieks.... Should she withdraw her hand? No, she could not withdraw it now; it was too late, the act would not imply refusal. She felt as one in a boat without oars, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... melodramatic story; but it is so exceptional in its incidents and episodical in its character, that its heroine is quite worthless as a specimen for examination and analysis; and it is, beside, so very French as to be almost valueless in this regard, for that reason alone. What it would be well to have written is the story of an abandoned woman, told simply and without any reserve, except that of decency, and purely from a woman's point of view. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... sometimes important results! Had it not been for Mark's transgressing in the matter of Tiny's milk we should never have learnt the circumstances which give to this simple relation of facts—valueless in itself—such interest, speculative and suggestive only, I am aware, as it ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... be someone else," said the judge. "I am afraid my evidence would be valueless, although I want to be here. ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... found, and that it exists in law and custom, they believe them, and take their antiquity as a proof of their truth, and not simply of their authority apart from truth. Thus they obey laws, but they are liable to revolt when these are proved to be valueless; and this can be shown of all, looked ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... like youth—not that after-life is valueless. Even in extreme old age one may get on very well, provided we will but accept of the bounties of God. I met the other day an old man, who asked me to drink. 'I am not thirsty,' said I, 'and will not drink with you.' 'Yes, you will,' said the old man, 'for ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... misery in front of him held Stephen in a spell. Figures stood out from the group. A white-haired patriarch, with eyes raised to the sky; a flat-breasted woman whose child was gone, whose weakness made her valueless. Then two girls were pushed forth, one a quadroon of great beauty, to be fingered. Stephen turned his face away,—to behold Mr. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of affection which appear very elevated and very perfect in the eyes of creatures, but which in the sight of God are of low degree and valueless. Such are all friendships based, not only on true charity, which is God, but only on natural ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... piece for our use. She works nicely enough, but no two people work exactly alike, so no one else could now take this and complete the corner. So, you see the piece is valueless, and we must charge for it. Moreover, I should have to deduct fifty cents if it had been finished, because long stitches show on ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... influence—and of which, each member, albeit bowed down by sympathetic grief, attempts to lift his drooping head, and to others open some source of comfort, which to the kind speaker, is inefficient and valueless indeed! ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... opium-eater who by nature would scorn a lie as profoundly as the boy Washington, is sometimes so thoroughly changed by his habit that the truth seems a matter of the most trifling consequence to him, and his assertion upon any subject whatever becomes quite valueless. Occasionally this arises from an entire bouleversement of the veracious sense—similar to certain perversions of the insane mind, and then other faculties of his nature are liable to share in the alteration. If the ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... jet-black eye of the gazelle. Although the desert appears incapable of supporting animmial life, there are in the undulating surface numerous shallow sandy ravines, in which are tufts of a herbage so coarse that, as a source of nourishment, it would be valueless to a domestic animal: nevertheless, upon this dry and wiry substance the delicate gazelles subsist; and, although they never fatten, they are exceedingly fleshy and in excellent condition. Entirely free from fat, and nevertheless a mass of muscle and sinew, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... introspective results of experiments in which the observer has endeavored to hold together the largest possible number of elements in a simple group. When such an attempt is made a wholly artificial set of conditions, and presumably of mechanisms, is introduced, which makes the experiment valueless in solving the present problem. Both the direction and the form of attention are adverse to the detection of rhythmical complications under such conditions. Attention is directed away from the observation of secondary accents and toward the realization of a rhythm form having but ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... immense works of charity have succeeded to some extent in getting him a foothold in New York, but the foundation of his social position is very insecure. I need scarcely tell you, Beverly, that although money is a lever that can do much to help a man along in society, it is almost utterly valueless in the diplomatic world. In that smallest of small worlds one's name, one's record, one's wife, one's family must be almost immaculate, subject to the most minute scrutiny. You are in the diplomatic world; your name will pass muster. But what of the woman you ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... supply additional illustrations of the conclusions previously arrived at, and occasionally, I hope, to carry the argument a step or two further than had been done before. I have thus tried to render the following pages not wholly valueless ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... and cut its own channels. Laughter may be as devout as fasting. Joy is to be expressed in religion as well as grief. No outward form is worth anything unless the inner man vitalises it, and such a mere form is not simply valueless, but may quickly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Legend says that by his own desire he was buried in the dress of a Franciscan Tertiary. Yet there is evidence that he felt the inefficacy of any external bond. Experience taught him that the serge robe and the binding cord might only be the concealment of the hypocrite; and that they were worse than valueless without the purification of the heart. In the eighth Bolgia of the eighth circle of the "Inferno" he sees the givers of evil counsel, and among them Guido da Montefeltro, who, toward the close of his life had become a Cordelier or Franciscan ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Flanders that the Spanish armies drew a great portion of their supplies. It was by the forts erected on the coast of Flanders in the neighbourhood of Ostend that this important possession of the States was rendered nearly valueless. It was by privateers swarming from the ports of Flanders, especially from Nieuport and Dunkirk, that the foreign trade of the republic was crippled, and its intercommunications by river and estuary rendered unsafe. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... elderly man. He did not believe in all this prohibition agitation, he believed that a gentleman always knew where to stop in the matter of wine. What right had a few temperance fanatics to vote that seven hundred acres of his, Clifford Frost's property, should be made valueless because they happened to ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... twelfth part of the normal price elsewhere,(11) shows with indisputable clearness that the producers of grain in Italy were wholly destitute of a market for their produce, and in consequence corn and corn-land there were almost valueless. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... note at all," replied Stafford. "It was in a plain envelope with a typewritten address and was sent to me personally. The letter, of course, was valueless by itself." ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... images, though there are great megalithic structures, suggesting the existence of a great religious aristocracy. This aristocracy imposed itself on the Celts.[1010] We have seen that there is no reason for believing that the Celts had no images, hence this argument is valueless. M. Reinach then argues that the Celts accepted Druidism en bloc, as the Romans accepted Oriental cults and the Greeks the native Pelasgic cults. But neither Romans nor Greeks abandoned their own faith. Were the Celts a people without priests and without religion? ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... years. Mark was not indulging in sentiment; he really felt that by the intensity of the emotion with which he would live those twenty-four hours he should be able to achieve for himself as much as he should achieve in four years. So far as the world was concerned, this experience would be valueless; for himself it would be beyond price. So far as the world was concerned, he would never have been to Oxford; but could he be granted this privilege, Oxford would live for ever in his heart, a refuge and a meditation until the grave. Yet this coveted ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... of the work. They did their best, and the result was something not only strong and structural, but beautiful. But, as time has shown, it would have been better had they been less respectful of the valueless legacy bequeathed to them in the piers, though in defence of their sagacity it must be admitted that what they deemed sufficient for the purpose then in view was able to carry their own tower for five hundred years in safety, and not only this, but, in addition, a spire, the erection ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... of kindly compensations, and it is a proof of the universal benevolence we see about us that so many heiresses should be plain. Plain girls have a right to be cheered and comforted by the thought. It teaches them the happy lesson that beauty, as compared with a settled income, is skin-deep and valueless; and that what man looks for in the companion of his life is not so much a bright cheek or a blue eye, as a substantial and useful amount ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... The engouement about the poet, the search for personal details, did not manifest itself with any vigour till nearly thirty years after 1664—and we are to wonder that the gleanings, at illiterate Stratford, and in Stage tradition, are so scanty and so valueless. What could have been picked up, by 1680-90, about Bacon at Gorhambury, or in the ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... when the population becomes relatively dense that land, apart from what it produces, is of any value. A time, however, would soon be reached when land would have a value of its own. The good soil would soon be taken up, and in the days of a primitive mode of culture third-rate land would be valueless. Then the house-father would be forced by circumstances to make provision, ere his death, for the sons sharing the ancestral ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... characteristic, I think.] and precise insertion of its point in the angle of the hexagon, prepared for by the archaic masonry indicated in the oblique joint above; [Footnote: Prints of these photographs which do not show the masonry all round the hexagon are quite valueless for study.] architect and painter thinking at once, and doing as ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... letters from the penny post. It is true that the number of letters written must have increased enormously; it is also true that many more are published than heretofore, and that as a great many of these are not above mediocrity, are valueless as literature, and of little worth biographically, they produce on the disappointed reader the effect of a general depreciation of the standard. Nevertheless, this article will have been written to little purpose, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... soon seem no prize; And the heart, which you hold not in keeping to prove it True or untrue, will lose worth in your eyes. The one drop to-day, that you deem only wanting To fill your life-cup to the brim, soon will seem But a valueless mite; and the ghost that is haunting The aisles of your heart will pass ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox |
