"Gift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the inexorable laws of gravitation are around you. If you flinch, you fail; if you slip, you fall. That bar, that rope, that weight shall test you absolutely. Can you handle it, it is well; but if not, stand aside for him who can. You may have every other gift and grace, it counts for nothing; he, not you, is the man for the hour. The code of Spanish aristocracy is slight and flexible compared with this rigid precedence. It is Emerson's Astraea. Each registers himself, and there is no appeal. No use to kick and struggle, no use to apologize. Do not say ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... was grieved to find them so small. Perhaps they might be enlarged, so that they would hold more. He knew of a poor woman who lived in a cottage at the foot of the mountain, so he went to her and begged her to sew pockets all over his robe, paying her with the gift of a diamond ring which he had worn upon his finger. The woman was delighted to possess so valuable a ring and she sewed as many pockets on Ruggedo's robe as ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Chloe: 'For a kiss, I'll give thee the choice of my flock.' Said Chloe to Strephon: 'What bliss, If you'll add to the gift a new smock,'" ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Unworthy of a royal birth, to shrink 355 From the appointed charge. Yet, while we wait The awful sanction of convened Illyria, In this brief while, O let me feel myself The child, the friend, the debtor!—Heroic mother!— But what can breath add to that sacred name? 360 Kiuprili! gift of Providence, to teach us That loyalty is but the public form Of the sublimest friendship, let my youth Climb round thee, as the vine around its elm: Thou my support and I thy faithful fruitage. 365 My heart is full, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... "Yes, Bug is a gift of God." Lloyd Fenneben was bending over her. "He is Victor Burleigh's nephew, who found him ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... and the widened world of modern thought Africa came no less suddenly with her new-old gift. Shakespeare's "Ancient ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... employment was creating a demand for a benevolent gift from some friend of christian education he was unconscious of that fact, and is happy in the consciousness, that he is earning his way through school like a man;—one, who wants to make most of himself. He goes forth to enter upon the duties of active life as ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... disappears from the stage, having introduced upon it a violent element of interest. Her utmost wishes were gratified. She quitted her native town a few days later, well supplied with money and good clothes, among which was a fine dress of green reps and a charming green bonnet lined with pink, the gift of Monsieur de Valois,—a present which she preferred to all the rest, even the money. If the chevalier had gone to Paris in the days of her future brilliancy, she would certainly have left every one for him. Like the chaste Susannah of the Bible, ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... is very pretty, Hubert," she said ironically, "but Jessie Bain would never thank you for so inexpensive a gift. That diamond bracelet is much more to ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... would build a church, A temple vast and grand; And that the praise might be his own, He gave a strict command That none should add the smallest gift To aid the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... state visits, devils fly off with people, all to hold the eye by their rapidly interchanging diversity; but few of them pause to be painted in detail as individuals. Only the women steal from the author's gift-box a few qualities not hackneyed by other writers, and, decked in these, make rich return by bestowing upon their master a reputation which no other part of his work could have won ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... reached me last evening. How worthy the daughter of Francis Jackson! How it carries me back to his generous gift of $5,000; to that noble, fatherly man and that quiet, lovely daughter in his home. Never going to Boston during the past fifteen years, I had lost sight of her, though I had not forgotten her by any means. How little thought have I had all these years that she cherished this marvellous ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... has taste and a poetic gift, and his verses are easy and natural, rarely, if ever, betraying the fact that they are the work of ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... this. At length it was decided that a deputation should be sent to Rome to obtain an authoritative statement on the point, and that it should consist of Susannus of Vannes, Felix of Quimper, and Convoyon, who was to carry "gold crowns inlaid with jewels" as a gift from Nomenoe to the Pope. The decision given by Pope Leo on the matter is far from clear. The Nantes chronicle asserts that Leo made Convoyon a duke, and gave him permission to wear a gold coronet. He also presented him with a valuable gift—the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... orders have not sense enough to dance, and that men should dance alone is a proposition of such free and forthright idiocy as to be but obscurely conceivable to any understanding not having the gift of maniacal inspiration, or the normal advantage of original incapacity. Altogether, we may rightly consider China the heaven appointed habitat of people ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... then, to perceive a ready Liberality in three things, which go with this Native Tongue, and which would not have gone with the Latin. The first is to give to many; the second is to give useful things; the third is to give the gift without being asked ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... cooked by the cook-boys, and they ate thereof; though bad effects came upon all from it afterwards. Then began Thorhall, and said, "Has it not been that the Redbeard has proved a better friend than your Christ? this was my gift for the poetry which I composed about Thor, my patron; seldom has he failed me." Now, when the men knew that, none of them would eat of it, and they threw it down from the rocks, and turned with their supplications to God's mercy. Then was granted to them opportunity of fishing, and after that there ...
— Eirik the Red's Saga • Anonymous
... you not write yourself?" was the plaintive cry of all the Earl's friends, from highest to humblest. "But write to her now," they exclaimed, "at any rate; and, above all, send her a present, a love-gift." "Lay out two or three hundred crowns in some rare thing, for a token to her ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... casuistry is not argumentative; it lies in an appeal to some passion or some intuition that is above our common levels of passion or of insight, and his power of uplifting his reader for even a moment into this higher mood is his special gift as a poet. We can return safely enough to the common ground, but we return with a possession which instructs ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... about. Ritschl reversed the process. He aimed to begin with certain facts of life. Such facts are sin and the consciousness of forgiveness, awareness of restoration to the will and power of goodness, the gift of love and of a spirit which can feel itself victorious even in the midst of ills in life, confidence that this life is not all. These phrases, taken together, would describe the consciousness of salvation. This consciousness of sin and salvation is a fact in individual men. It has evidently ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... a group of men near the smoking-room door, and having received from his turtle-jawed neighbor of the dinner table, who was among them, the gift of a cigar, interrogated him as to musical gifts. "I shall recite mesel'," he explained complacently, sucking in his smoke. "Might we hope for a song, now, from you? I've asked yon artist chap, but he says he ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... still so quiet and suited to her sex; and the entire air and manner, which denoted equally, buoyant health and happiness, the gracefulness of one who thought not of herself, and the refinement which is quite as much the gift of native sentiment, as the fruit of art and association. I could not tell what her companion was saying; but, as they approached, I fancied them acknowledged lovers, on whom fortune, friends, and circumstances smiled ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... strange, triumphant happiness filled my heart. The short Darrow evening wore to its close, and I neither spoke to Lillie again nor looked at her, but sat silent, rejoicing, until at even-song I poured out my thankfulness to God, and praised him for this great gift,—Lillie Burton, my peerless, truthful Lillie, mine until death should part us, mine in all joy and sorrow, always my own! With what certainty of peace I went to my rest that night,—with what instinct ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... other attraction than that which always subsists between enemies of any great dominant power. He must have looked to the Parthian monarch as a friend who might make a diversion on his behalf upon occasion; and that monarch, by accepting his gift, must be considered to have shown a willingness to ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... of more consequence, Mrs. Cousin John, invited the girl to come down to New York and spend the winter with them and develop her talent for drawing; though Mrs. Willard did not think so much of Henrietta's developing her gift for art as that she had a fine face, and would undoubtedly develop into a beauty under city influences. And as Mrs. Willard had no children, and her house was lonesome, she thought it might add to her own consequence and to the cheerfulness of ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... turned back from their sports, to offer themselves as scouts and messengers on behalf of the colony. From some glade of the woods appeared the monk, charged with the blessing of his convent; or the grazier, with a string of horses— his gift, for the service of the army. Around the crosses which, half concealed by the long grass of the plains, yet served to mark the road, were gathered groups of women, bearing bags of money, or ornaments of gold and silver, which they would have thrust upon him, to whom they declared that they owed ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... have bestowed on man, indeed, the gift of teaching man his duty by means of speech and reasoning, but the horse, it is obvious, is not open to instruction by speech and reasoning. If you would have a horse learn to perform his duty, your best plan will be, whenever he does as you wish, to show him ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... fact that the umbrella was not property that could be bought, sold, and stolen, but a free gift of the manufacturer to universal creation. The right of ownership in umbrellas ranked henceforward with our right to own the American continent, being merely a right ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... a child in his eighth year. It was first printed in 1640 (London), but the earliest edition in the British Museum, where alone I have been able to find a copy, is that of 1646, which is described as the fourth edition.[1] The cover is stamped in gilt, "Gift of G. III." The translations are indeed rude, and sometimes inaccurate as to the sense, but that they were the unaided work of a child under eight is one of the "things hard to be believed" which a Maxim admonishes us not to tell. In the edition of 1651 there is a portrait of ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... bid you adieu, Monsieur de Bragelonne, and wish you every sort of prosperity," said the king, rising; "you will confer a pleasure on me by keeping this diamond in remembrance of me; I had intended it as a marriage gift." ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... He had a conduct sheet filled up in red and black, and his entries would have been even more numerous if he had not possessed a great gift of cunning. He had had several passages of arms with the C.S.M. of "A" Company and had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... had Bessie in the very depths of her trouble, and with her face pale and eyes so heavy with her last night's vigil—what gift that helped her to be gay? Apparently not with an effort, not forced, she was as joyous and frank as her sunniest self. No exaggeration of laughter or fun, but the brightness of her every-day manner, teasing and sparkling round Aunt Sloman, coquetting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... eagerness of partisans. On old man from Athenry says: 'Raftery travelled Ireland, challenging all the poets of that time. There were hundreds of country poets in those days, and a welcome for them all. Raftery had enough to do to beat them, but he was the best; his poetry was the gift of God, and his poems are sung as far away as Limerick and Dublin.' There is a story of his knocking at a door one night, when he was looking for the house of a poet he had heard of and wanted to challenge, and saying: 'I am a poet seeing shelter'; and a girl ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... The sorrowful response. "Oh that my grief Were in the balance laid by faithful hands And feeling hearts. To the afflicted soul Friends should be comforters. But mine have dealt Deceitfully, as fails the shallow brook When summer's need is sorest. Did I say Bring me a gift? or from your flowing wealth Give solace to my desolate penury? Or with your pitying influence neutralize My cup of scorn poured out by abject hands? That thus ye mock me with contemptuous words And futile arguments, and dig a pit In which to whelm the ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... obtain a fort or two in this country, just as others of your countrymen have done (2), and territory. It is only right and proper therefore that you should honour Seuthes in the most magnificent style. Be sure, I give this advice out of pure friendliness, for I know that the greater the gift that you are ready to bestow on him, the better the treatment you will receive at his hands." Xenophon, on hearing this, was in a sad dilemma, for he had brought with him, when he crossed from Parium, nothing but one boy and just enough ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... laying aside the beams that shone all around his head, bade him approach, and embracing him, said, "My son, you deserve not to be disowned, and I confirm what your mother has told you. To put an end to your doubts, ask what you will, the gift shall be yours. I call to witness that dreadful lake, which I never saw, but which we gods swear by in our most solemn engagements." Phaeton immediately asked to be permitted for one day to drive the chariot of the sun. The father repented of his promise; thrice and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... is a very nice thing; there are only two hundred parishioners; there are four hundred acres of glebe; and the great and small tithes, which both go to the rector, are worth four hundred pounds a year more. Crabtree Canonicorum is in the gift of the dean and chapter, and is at this time possessed by the Honourable and Reverend Dr Vesey Stanhope, who also fills the prebendal stall of Goosegorge in Barchester Chapter, and holds the united rectory of Eiderdown and Stogpingum, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... mistress of the art of cleverly extracting and combining flavours,[105-*] besides the gift of a good taste, requires all the experience and skill of the most accomplished professor, and, especially, an intimate acquaintance with the palate she ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... up our remaining meal into dampers and cooked them in the ashes. We found there was enough tea left for two brews; one of these we prepared at once. Then we filled our pipes with some of the kind Australians' seasonable gift, and sat puffing in a condition of mind that ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... Charlotte," said the old gentleman. "Well, I've concluded you ought to have your way, and make Charlotte a gift of some ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... cynic, saint, Salt, humourist, Christian, poet; with a free, Far-glancing, luminous utterance; and a heart Large as ST. FRANCIS'S: withal a brain Stored with experience, letters, fancy, art, And scored with runes of human joy and pain. Till six-and-sixty years he used his gift, His gift unparalleled, of laughter and tears, And left the world a high-piled, golden drift Of verse: to grow more golden with the years, Till the Great Silence fallen upon his ways Break into song, and he that had ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... of Lucretia Mott, the only representative of her family present. He paid a tender tribute to the noble woman whose life-long friendship he had enjoyed. Mr. Davis having a seat on the platform, received the gift with evident emotion, and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Outside its limits we have hardly any even passable satirical verse; within them there are half-a-dozen works of the highest excellence in this kind. And if we except Chaucer, there is no one else in the whole range of English poetry who have the narrative gift so completely as the classic poets. Bentleys will always exist who will assure us with civility that Pope's Homer, though "very pretty," bears little relation to the Greek, and that Dryden's Vergil, though vigorous and virile, is a poor representation ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... "What a gift, sir, that child always had! Why, when she was no more than four, I well remember her going to fetch the beer, and her being a little late, and Gullick with the thirst on him, when she came in with the jug, he made a cuff at her, not to ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... sounding winds do with the seas make wars, What spirit moves the world's well-settled frame, And why the sun, whom forth the east doth bring, In western waves doth hide his falling flame, Searching what power tempers the pleasing Spring Which makes the earth her rosy flowers to bear, Whose gift it is that Autumn's fruitful season Should with full grapes flow in a plenteous year, Telling of secret Nature every reason, Now having lost the beauty of his mind Lies with his neck compassed in ponderous chains; His countenance with heavy weight declined, Him ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... sign from Birnier, Mungongo brought from the tent a nickel-plated revolver and cartridges, which he placed at the feet of Bakahenzie without comment. Apparently Bakahenzie did not notice the action or the gift. He held out the matches to return to the white man. Birnier requested him to keep them. He wrapped up the box in his loin-cloth and fell to further contemplation of the cases. He was cogitating. The value of this white had suddenly ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... reckless type wield, especially over women. Their very daring and unscrupulousness seems to render them more attractive. He himself at college had fallen entirely under the man's spell. There was no doubt that he was responsible for all his troubles. Underwood possessed the uncanny gift of being able to bend people to his will. What a fool he had made of him at the university! He had been his evil genius, there was no question of that. But for meeting Underwood he might have applied ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... fry it up with bacon fat and chopped onions, or boil it again and add rice and curry powder when procurable. Nevinson[O] says that when the Anzac men threw over tins of meat to the Turks in exchange for packets of cigarettes it was a cheap gift, and the enemy returned the messages, "Bully beef non, envoyez milk." Now and again one came across a treasure in the form of a stray tin of a Canadian brand, or of "Maconochie" (a very substantial and nourishing stew), but looked in vain for ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... "Thou must look at it in this way, dear child! That if God deprived thee of one father he gave thee another in his place! Make the best of that gift before it be ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... his Bible in his hand, telling us that "every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving." What does he mean; that ardent spirit is the gift of God? Pray, in what stream of his bounty, from what mountain and hill does it flow down to man? O, it is in the rye, and the apple, and the sugar, and the Mussulman has taught us Christians how to distil it. And so the poet tells us Satan taught his legions how ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... that is the hull thing in a few words," cried Mr. Spriggins very much elated, "Isn't it a wonderful gift you fellars have of speakin' right to the pint. By hokey, I'd give a good deal if I was a lawyer—an honest, fair-square ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... a translation from my dull and rigid pen, is not a gift but a very paltry offering which I dare make to the superiority ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Retrospective Review Ballad Time, Hope and Memory Flowers Ballad Ruth The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies Hero and Leander Ballad Autumn Ballad The Exile To —— Ode to Melancholy Sonnet—to my Wife Sonnet on Receiving a Gift Sonnet The Dream of Eugene Aram Sonnet—for the 14th of February The Death-Bed Anticipation To a Child Embracing his Mother Stanzas Sonnet to Ocean To —— Lines Stanzas Ode to Rae Wilson, Esq. To my Daughter Miss Kelmansegg and her Precious Leg ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... well-known sound. I climbed up the nearest rock, and looking down into a hollow, I perceived two Indians whom I had seen the day before, driving their llamas to the nearest mine works. I prevailed on them, by the gift of a little tobacco, to let me have one of their llamas to carry my luggage, and having strewed a few handfuls of earth on the corpse of the murdered man, I departed. The scene of the incidents above described was the Cave ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... closet in the dark for a left patent-leather pump, or some other missing bit of foot-gear, the conviction grew upon him that of the great reforms of which the world stood in crying need, the reformation of the Christmas gift was possibly the ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... "a duke is a taller man than you. And why should I not be grateful to one such as his grace, who gives me his heart and his great name? It is a great gift he honours me with; I know 'tis a bargain between us; and I accept it, and will do my utmost to perform my part of it. 'Tis no question of sighing and philandering between a nobleman of his grace's age and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for the Homes to refuse Uncle Sandy's kindness. Their natural pride and independence of character could not stand in the way of so graciously and gracefully offered a gift. When the old man came to see them the next day, he was received with all the love and gratitude he deserved. If he could give well, Charlotte and her husband knew how to receive well. He now told his niece plainly that he had come to pass the remainder of his days ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... delay, for great was the need of haste, Hirsch unfolded his plans, and Itzig, in consideration of a sum of money, consented to undertake the journey at once. The money, destined as a gift to the bal-shem, was securely strapped about his waist, and arrangements were made with a moujik, who was going part of the way, to carry Itzig on ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... most of them run into the Liya, which we crossed, and it flows to the Lualaba. We passed through many villages, for the paths all lead through human dwellings. Many people presented bananas, and seemed surprised when I made a small return gift; one man ran after me with a sugar-cane; I paid for lodgings too: here the Arabs ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... very small owners was suddenly ruined by the falling of a rock, his cottage, cow and pig being destroyed. Without saying a word, his neighbours, like himself in very humble circumstances, made up a purse of five hundred francs, a large sum with such donors, and, too delicate-minded to offer the gift themselves, deputed an outsider to do it anonymously. Another instance in point came to my knowledge. This was of a young woman servant, who, during the illness of her employer, refused to accept wages. "You shall pay me some other time," said the girl to her mistress; ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... unparalleled gift, will it surprise readers very much to learn that the lieutenant who was once cashiered from the Navy for losing his ship is now Captain Sir Murray Frobisher, Baronet, holding the rank of post-captain on board one of the battleships which he ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Cynthia, who had no special gift of imagination. "What could have happened to him? I suppose he climbed ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... incurring a disaster like that at Teneriffe could rise to the level of daring, which, through hidden perils, sought and wrought the superb triumph of Aboukir Bay. Such is genius, that rare but hazardous gift, which separates a man from his fellows by a chasm not to be bridged by human will. Thus endowed, Nelson before the walls of Bastia showed, though in a smaller sphere, and therefore with a lighter hazard, the same keen perception, the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... deed of gift, by which "Sir Edward Mauley, otherwise called Elshender the Recluse, endowed Halbert or Hobbie Elliot, and Grace Armstrong, in full property, with a considerable sum ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... she knew, though it must be confessed she had not studied that token of Mr. Roscorla's affection with the earnest solicitude which most young ladies bestow on the first gift of their lovers. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... did come, and James sought his brother's kingdom, it is on record that Louis hastened to receive and console him, and promised to restore, incontinently, those islands from which the canaille had turned him. Between brothers such a gift was a trifle; and the courtiers said to one another reverently:* "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." There was no blasphemy in the speech: on the contrary, it was ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of Ovid in literature and his gift to posterity lay in the new and vivid life which he imparted to the fables of Greek mythology. 'No other classical poet has furnished more ideas than Ovid to the Italian poets and painters of the Renaissance, and ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... transmute him into a mere auditory machine. His individuality would become lost in the official, and teaching as teaching resolve itself into a stereotyped function; and this latter consideration leads me to remark that one man has the gift of imparting knowledge, in which another fails entirely. One instructor has a way of putting things so that they ale retained in the memory of his pupils for ever, while another so fails to express himself that not one clear idea is carried ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... an' lost, an' bought, an zwold Or whose, a-roll'd vrom hand to hand, The highest money that's a-twold? Vrom man to man a passen on, 'Tis here to-day, to-morrow gone. But there's a blessen high above It all—a soul o' stedvast love: Zoo let it vlee, if God do gi'e Sweet Jessie vor a gift to me. ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... Oulad Said and Owareme are exclusively the protectors, while the Koreysh and Rahamy are not only excluded from the right of protection but also from the transport of passengers and loads. Of the Oulad Said each individual receives an annual gift of a dollar, and the Ghafeir of this branch of the Szowaleha is the convent's chief man of business in the desert. If a Sheikh or head man calls at the convent, he receives, in addition to his bread, some coffee beans, sugar, soap, sometimes ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... contracted as if at a sudden dart of pain, but his voice was perfectly level as he made reply: "Whatever she gave you was the gift of a good woman of which you have proved ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... one, too, if the present had been any piece of plate but a candlestick!—I believe I must melt it into a bowl to make verses on it, for there is no possibility of bringing candle, candlestick, or snuffers, into metre. However, as the gift was owing to the muse, and the manner of it very friendly, I believe I shall try to jingle a little on the occasion; at least, a few such stanzas as might gain a cup of tea ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... 1831, before Lockhart Southey and Carlyle by their biographies of Scott, Nelson, and Frederick had appeared as rivals, why is it no less true now? What singular gift or quality can account for this singular aloofness from the ordinary or extraordinary class of writers? Why does Boswell yet wear the crown of indivisible supremacy in biography? His own words will not explain it, the possession of Johnson's intimacy, the twenty years' view of his subject, his ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... Guards were "pleased to intimate" that Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, should be allowed "such length of leave" as he chose to apply for, and a secret compliment upon his "gift to the Crown" of the recovered property was supplemented by a request to name any future station "agreeable at present" to the young Benedict. And the solicitors had now deftly arranged the complete machinery of the care of the great estate, until ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... After the meal the monks spent three hours in the chapel, on their knees, still silent; then they confessed in turn to the abbot and then sought their hard-earned rest. They held all things in common; no one even received a gift for himself. War never reached them; it was the rarest thing for an armed party to molest their composure; their domains were regarded as a haven for the stormy world. Because there were so many such places in Ireland, it was known as ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... shocked at Dave's indelicacy, but her mother had been frivolous throughout the affair. Her mother said, too, that she would like to wear silk stockings at all times. But Winona—she spoke of the gift as hose—put the sinister things away at the bottom of her third bureau drawer. Once, indeed, she had nearly nerved herself to a public appearance in them, knowing that perfectly good women often did this. That had been the day she was to read her paper on Early Greek Sculpture at the Entre ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... which had been generated by the Quaker's words as to Marion's health. Till he had heard something of that story of the mother and her little ones, it had not occurred to him that the girl herself was wanting in any gift of physical well-being. She was beautiful in his eyes, and he had thought of nothing further. Now an idea had been put into his head which, though he could hardly realize it, was most painful to him. He had puzzled himself before. Her manner to him had ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... between pleasure at the gift and apprehension at its cost, but Clayton, having determined to do a thing, always ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... as if either he was not quite deaf, or he had some gift that went toward compensation. To all motion about him he was sensitive as no other man. I am afraid to say from how far off the solid earth would convey to him the vibration of a stag's footstep. Bob sometimes thought his ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... of life which he had just witnessed. It was true that the demons had come with the one settled purpose of killing him, and there was no reason therefore why he should regret their death. But life to him was always precious, no matter in what form it might be enshrined. Life was the special gift of Heaven, and could not be wilfully destroyed without committing a ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... do we gather hence but firmer faith That every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath; That virtue and the faculties within Are vital, and that riches are akin To fear, to change, to cowardice, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... nae manager—no that he was a very great misguider—but he hadna the saving gift, and he got twa terms' rent in arrear. He got the first brash at Whitsunday put ower wi' fair word and piping; but when Martinmas came, there was a summons from the grund-officer to come wi' the rent on a day preceese, or else Steenie ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... fleet all day long. I feel it in me bones. If we get the ship back we'll head due west for the coast av South America an' hug the three-mile limit-an' the devil scoort them thin. Riggins, ye gossoon, what for the cause av Merry England? They wouldn't take ye for a gift in the British Arrmy, for I doubt if ye'd weigh ninety pounds soakin' wet an' a rock in yer hand, but for all that, here's an iligant opporchunity for ye to serrve yer counthry, an' should worrd av yer brave action reach the king—bad cess to him—he may call ye Sir Thomas Riggins ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... contributed by the people of Iowa, since it was estimated that the benefits to be derived from the Distribution Act would more than meet all additional obligations. Besides the State would receive five hundred thousand acres of land as a gift; while all the lands reserved for the support of schools could, under State organization, ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... not surprising to find in this message also a name that was later to become famous in the Great War. Roosevelt had an uncanny gift of prophecy. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... all otherwise they doo esteeme 85 Of th'heavenly gift of wisdomes influence, And to be learned it a base thing deeme: Base minded they that want intelligence; For God himselfe for wisedome most is praised, And men to God ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... is a gift that I have; simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... said he, "this is the finest fish I ever caught, and so I've kept it for you. I want nothing for it; take it as a free gift." ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... man, and of his unfaithfulness as a bishop. The revival was marked by a deep sense of the lost condition of men by nature, by a vivid sense of the evil of sin, by an intelligent and cordial embrace of salvation as the gift of sovereign grace, by a hearty self-consecration to the service of Christ, by earnest desires for the salvation of others, and by a remarkable quickening of the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... table was tied the mast—a broom stick with electric light wires strung with tiny bulbs going from its top to the deck. This electrical display was a contribution from Roger who had asked his grandfather to give it to him for his Christmas gift and had requested that he might have it in time for him to lend it to the Jason. It was run by a storage battery hidden in a box that was safely bestowed under the deck. Aft of the mainmast were two kitchen chairs placed side by side to give the ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... to say that personal beauty was a better introduction than any letter;[761-3] but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this description of it, while Aristotle called beauty "the gift of God;" that Socrates called it "a short-lived tyranny;" Theophrastus, "a silent deceit;" Theocritus, "an ivory mischief;" Carneades, "a sovereignty which stood in need of ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... not something someone else applied to them. Land was similarly not something bestowed on them by generous parents, but something one took from Nature, or Nature's surrogate, the Indian. Labor was no longer a privilege allowed the individual by the community, but a precious gift contributed by the individual to the community. In sum, the ordinary people who had removed themselves to the New World soon discovered that they were no longer humble servants of great lords, but were themselves lords of the American earth. If they had the power ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... the House of Commons, Lord George wrote, 'The considerations which obliged me to surrender a post of honour which every independent and high-minded English gentleman has at all times prized above the highest rewards in the gift of the crown, "the leadership of the country gentlemen of England," will never influence me to swerve from any endeavours of which my poor abilities and bodily energies are capable in the promotion of the prosperity of all classes ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... sister's choice. There was only one visitor who ever called at the Vicarage in anything approaching to state. Her visits usually occurred about twice a year, and possessed something of the nature of a Royal favour. This was Lady Caryl, the Lady of the Manor, in whose gift the living lay. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... on behalf of my country, and of the whole land of Greece, that, leading it to the altar of the Goddess, they may sacrifice it, since this is ordained. And, as far as I am concerned, may ye be fortunate, and obtain the gift of victory, and reach your native land. Furthermore, let no one of the Greeks lay hands on me, for with a stout heart I will present my neck in silence." Thus much she spoke, and every one marveled on hearing the courage and valor of the virgin. But Talthybius, whose office ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... in Sixteen Hundred Fifty-three by one Laurence Sherif, a worthy grocer. The original gift was comparatively small, but the investment being in London real estate, has increased in value until it yields now an income of about thirty-five thousand ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... Cool courage, of course, he showed, but also patience and wisdom in handling the Indians, a clear sense that the crafty and well-trained Frenchmen could not blind, and a strong faculty for dealing with men, always a rare and precious gift. As in the little Barbadoes diary, so also in this journal, we see, and far more strongly, the penetration and perception that nothing could escape, and which set down all things essential and let the "huddling silver, little worth," go by. The clearness, terseness, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... suspected it of old.... In the time of my youth, I had many friends whose presence seemed to attract every adventure; but the days when I went forth with them, for the encounter of joys or sorrows, they came back again with empty hands.... I think I palsied fate; and I long took pride in this gift. One lived under cover in my reign.... But now I have recognized that misfortune itself is better worth than sleep, and that there must be a life more active and higher than waiting.... They shall see that I too have strength to trouble, when I will, the water that seems dead at the bottom of ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the apprenticeship. They will, as an act of grace, and with a view to their future arrangements with their negroes, terminate the apprenticeship either of all at once, or by giving immediate freedom to the most deserving; try the effect of this gift, and of the example afforded to the apprentices when they see those who have been discharged from the apprenticeship working on the estates for wages. If such a course is adopted, it will afford an additional motive for inducing the Legislature to consider whether the good feeling of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... achievement revealed them as doing again and again. Further, once in control, once free to put into action the plans for a truly vast concern, of which he had so often dreamed, he could give Tecumseh a far larger income than it had ever hoped to have through his father's gift, and also could himself be rich and powerful. To the men who have operated with success and worldly acclaim under the code of the "larger good," the men who have aggrandized themselves at the expense of ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... Beautiful! A chapel for me! Built by a young man that has faith in me. Wonderful! And built with such free-hearted care! For me to preach in! Why, a minister of a great metropolis might well envy me such a gift!" ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... are typical of the girl. The wishy-washy sentiment would appeal to her, and she's of that partly educated type which thinks a Latin tag imposing. I wonder who gave it to her? Oh, I have it! It was probably a gift from young Heredith, and she added the inscription on her own account so as to enhance the value of the gift and keep ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... money as will enable you to hire a house of refuge for a hundred fallen women, and give such dowries to thirty of them yearly as will enable them to find suitable husbands. I have set down every detail of my plan. On its exact fulfilment depends the continuance of my gift.' ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... gift sent to me to-day. A sacred cup saved from a blazing shrine Of our great Goddess, in some city where Antonius past. I had believed that Rome Made war upon the ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... but though he admits the possibility of absorption and identification with the deity, he holds that the double relation of a loving God and a loving soul constitutes greater bliss. "The saint was not absorbed into the divinity for this reason that he had already received the gift of faith."[620] And in a similar spirit he says, "Let those preach in their wisdom who contemplate Thee as the supreme spirit, the uncreate, inseparable from the universe, recognizable only by inference and beyond the understanding; but we, O Lord, ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... own free will Adam relinquished seventy of his allotted years. His appointed span was to be a thousand years, one of the Lord's days. But he saw that only a single minute of life was apportioned to the great soul of David, and he made a gift of seventy years to her, reducing his own years to nine ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... with several little wood-cut tail-pieces, are beautifully executed; and altogether, the New Year's Gift deserves a place on the cheffonier shelf of every ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... my getting to college, and somehow, lately, this miserable old back of mine seems to be getting to be a wetter and wetter blanket than ever on my ambition. Ah, if I but had a physique like Phil's! She used to say, "Remember always, Felix, that your fine mind is a gift from God, a responsibility given you by Him." Oh, why, then, did He not give me a body to match? All things are possible to Him; He could have ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... fails because he has not assimilated into his existence the vital essences which genius put into the books that have merely passed before his eyes; because genius has offered him faith, courage, vision, noble passion, curiosity, love, a thirst for beauty, and he has not taken the gift; because genius has offered him the chance of living fully, and he is only half alive, for it is only in the stress of fine ideas and emotions that a man may be truly said to live. This is not a moral ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... very stupid, and that there was an unreasonable amount of wonder and gratitude over whatever it was I did. It was often so easy to save a life, where there were the means of living, that a little courage or common sense seemed like a miraculous gift to people whose mental powers had been ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... him to the best of beer offered for sale under legitimate conditions. In fact, he cares not a rap about good beer—that is, intrinsically good, a genuine product of malt and hops. He would rather grumble at it, unless, perchance, it was a gift; and even then would criticise it behind the donor's back, holding the quart cup aslant so as to see the bottom in one place, and get a better view of the liquor. The great breweries whose names are ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... potentialities—she was not afraid to rank herself among them—went unrecognized and undesired? If Rosie Fay had been content with the honors of a local belle, she could have had her choice among half the young men in the village. What was her gift? What was the gift of that great sisterhood, comprising perhaps a third of the women in the world, to whom the majority of men turned instinctively, ignoring, or partially ignoring, the rest? Was it mere sheep-stupidity in men themselves that sent one where the others went, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... loved him best of us all, and trusted and believed him; for he was the youngest child, and others hated him—these qualities being in all ages sufficient to win a parent's dearest love; and he had a smooth persuasive tongue, with an admirable gift of lying —and these be qualities which do mightily assist a blind affection to cozen itself. I was wild—in troth I might go yet farther and say VERY wild, though 'twas a wildness of an innocent sort, since it hurt none but me, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... this slender gift, to make two throws of one stone at the same time, may likewise serve, if you please, to testify the honour and respect which I entertain for your ability and high qualities; for as to those gifts which are adventitious and accidental, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... parcel, disclosing a beautiful bit of jade; not too costly a gift for a friend to accept, yet really a defiance of the convention which forbids marriageable maidens to receive from their male admirers presents less ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... practice must, precede perfection. But in modern days while the fashion of writing poetry has become far too common, and should, if possible, be discouraged, the fashion of lying has almost fallen into disrepute. Many a young man starts in life with a natural gift for exaggeration which, if nurtured in congenial and sympathetic surroundings, or by the imitation of the best models, might grow into something really great and wonderful. But, as a rule, he comes to nothing. He either falls into careless ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... a century later that the second record-breaking Chester weighed in, at only 200 pounds. Yet it won a Gold Medal and a Challenge Cup and was presented to the King, who graciously accepted it. This was more than Queen Victoria had done with a bridal gift cheese that tipped the scales at 1,100 pounds. It took a whole day's yield from 780 contented cows, and stood a foot and eight inches high, measuring nine feet, four inches around the middle. The assembled donors of the cheese were so proud of it that they asked royal permission to ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... flew up to Olympus with some fresh honey from the hive as a present to Jupiter, who was so pleased with the gift that he promised to give her anything she liked to ask for. She said she would be very grateful if he would give stings to the bees, to kill people who robbed them of their honey. Jupiter was greatly displeased with this ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... the hill—the most prominent object for miles about, after the castle—is the gift of the present Duke. It is a pretty structure, pointed Gothic in style, consciously reproduced with all the aids of flying buttresses, niches, pinnacles, and arches. It was doubtless a splendid gift. Perhaps in the twenty-first century, when the weather has done its architectural work on ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... instruction," that fact became apparent so soon as she took her pen in hand. Her great natural endowments shone on paper with difficulty, through faults of every kind which escaped her notice. It is really no small gift to be able to express one's sentiments and ideas in their natural order, and with all their true and various shades, in terms neither too homely nor far-fetched, or which neither enfeeble nor exaggerate them. It ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... true prophet, and in the British Museum we may still admire the beautifully illuminated deed of gift, adorned with friezes of exquisite cherubs and medallion-portraits of Lodovico and Beatrice, by which the fair palace and lands of Cussago became the property of the young duchess. This favourite villa of the Visconti had ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... part, I consider this jealous sensibility as belonging to generous natures. I should look upon my countrymen as fallen indeed from that independence of spirit which is their birth-gift; as fallen indeed from that pride of character which they inherit from the proud nation from which they sprung, could they tamely sit down under the infliction of contumely and insult. Indeed, the very impatience which they show as to the misrepresentations of the ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... that are so mean There's none like Minnie Smellie. I'll take away the gift I gave And pound ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... defend me, neither do I desire to have any concessions made for me, nor do I ask my friends to sacrifice their ideals for me. I too have ideals which I shall always hold. All that I desire—and I claim it as my right—is the freedom to exercise this divine gift of loving, which is not a menace to society nor a disgrace to me. Let it once be understood that the average invert is not a moral degenerate nor a mental degenerate, but simply a man or a woman who is less ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... gift for the invention of episodes in his stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he never knew what he was going to write. He ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... picks up a trifle about the street by means of her voice, which, she says, was once sweet, but has now been injured by the poorness of her living. She is a pale woman, with black eyes, Fanny says, and may have been pretty once, but is not so now. It seems very strange, that with such a gift of Heaven, so cultivated, too, as her voice is, making even an unsusceptible heart vibrate like a harp-string, she should not have had an engagement among the hundred theatres and singing-rooms of ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... tradition should be rewarded in ready money. ("I always," explained a Polpier matron, "pays 'en ver one when I engages 'en ver the next; an' the laast I'll never pay ver"— and she never did.) On top of this, Polpier folk argued that doctoring wasn't, like property, a gift which a man could pass on to his heirs, and most certainly not if they happened to be—as they were—a corn-factor and an aged maiden sister of independent but exiguous means. "As I look at it," some one put this argument, ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... gave the Princess goodness, and one gave her beauty rare; One gave her sweetest singing voice; one, gracious mien and air; One, skill in dancing; one, all cleverness; and then the crone Came forth, and muttered, angry still, and good gift gave she none; ...
— The Sleeping Beauty Picture Book - Containing The Sleeping Beauty; Bluebeard; The Baby's Own Alaphabet • Anonymous
... abstinence. When we come down to the sixteenth century outbreak of Protestantism we find that Luther's revolt against Catholicism was in part a protest against the teaching of sexual abstinence. "He to whom the gift of continence is not given," he said in his Table Talk, "will not become chaste by fasting and vigils. For my own part I was not excessively tormented [though elsewhere he speaks of the great fires of lust by which he had been troubled], but all the same the more I macerated myself the more I ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... than for my omens.... I know them jokes, we've 'eard them afore; but I'm not making jokes; I'm talking serious." The company nodded approval. "I was saying there was times when the mind is fresh like the morning. That's the time for them what 'as got the gift of reading the omens. It is a sudden light that comes into the mind, and it points straight like a ray of sunlight, if there be nothing to stop it.... Now do you understand?" No one had understood, but all felt that they were on the point of understanding. "The whole thing ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore |
