"God knows how" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that would worry me, and he said, 'You're drinking too much. People that drink can't be trusted.' 'You know,' I replied, 'I didn't drink too much when I was with you. I'm not drinking as much as you are, right now.' He answered, 'I've been off on a desert island for God knows how many months, and I'm celebrating my escape.' 'Well,' I answered, 'let ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... I'll tell you along the way. You mustn't be here an hour longer. I saw their signal smokes this very morning. They're murdering everyone—men, women, and children. It's Little Crow who started it, and God knows how many settlers they've killed. They chased me for hours, but I had a good horse. It only gave out yesterday; and since then—But come. It's suicide to chatter like this." He turned insistently toward the door. "They ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... does, bid him come to me. Make him come to me! Tell him that I will do him no harm. God knows how truly it is my ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... freedom in criticism of your acts, and I take leave to think that I have been generally in the right. You know that I am no flatterer. But I tell you, sir, from my inmost heart that you are the only man to lead the people, because you are the only man whose courage never fails. God knows how you manage it. I am of the bull-dog type and hold on because I do not know how to let go. Most of my work I do in utter hopelessness. But you, sir, you never come within a mile of despair. The blacker the ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... and naturally savage, so that God knows how the conversation would have ended, if the Chevalier de Grammont had not unexpectedly come in to appease them. It was some time before he could find out what their debate was; for the one had forgotten the questions, and the other the answers, which had disobliged him, in order ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... our first bite to eat about noon of this second day out. We had then been nearly three months at sea, or, to be exact, it was seventy-eight days since we had left port. It was thirty hours after the coffee and biscuit on the El Dorado, and God knows how much longer since we had had a whole meal, and now we didn't have much. The old man bossed it. He took a half-bucket of fresh water, and into this he put a can of soup. This he served, and gave ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... said he, 'and the menacing situation you even now witness, fully justify our not rejecting foreign aid, though God knows how deeply I deplore the necessity of such a cruel resource! But, when all internal measures of conciliation have been trodden under foot, and the authorities, who ought to check it and protect us from these cruel outrages, are only occupied in daily fomenting the discord between ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... advantage of this state of affairs was something never dreamed in Heart's Desire. Yet one day a sensitive young man, fresh from the States, who had blundered, God knows how, down into Heart's Desire, and who was at that time reduced to a blue shirt, a pair of overalls, one law book, one six-shooter, and one dime, slipped into the hotel of Uncle Jim Brothers, since by that time he was very hungry. He sat on the edge of ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... cow, the Jersey—whose milk and temper are alike subjects of admiration—she gives good exercise to the farming saunterer, and refreshes him on his return with cream; two calves, a bull, and a cow; God knows how many ducks and chickens, and for a wager not even God knows how many cats; twelve horses, seven horses, five kine: is not this Babylon the Great which I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shall take my seat, when I return in April across the Alps. But later (and perhaps from 1859) I must not only live in Prussia, which is prescribed by good feeling and by the constitution, but I must stay for some time in Berlin. They all wish to have me there. God knows how little effort it costs me not to seek the place of Minister of Instruction, to say nothing of declining it, for everything is daily going more to ruin. But it could only be for a short time, and Bethmann-Hollweg, Usedom, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... of the workshop as a boy might be to his master in the first year of his apprenticeship. . . . But as I was to take a part the next year in the oratorios, I had, for a whole twelvemonth, two lessons per week from Miss FLEMING, the celebrated dancing-mistress, to drill me for a gentlewoman (God knows how she succeeded). So we lived on without interruption. My brother ALEX. was absent from Bath for some months every summer, but when at home he took much pleasure in executing some turning or ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... if I marry you—you do understand, don't you? Isn't it all right for me to ask you whether, if we should have children, this thing would menace them? Oh, Duane—Duane! Have I any right to marry? Children come—God knows how, for nobody ever told me exactly, and I'm a fool about such things—but I summoned up courage to ask Dr. Bailey if there was any way to tell before I married whether I would have any, and he said I would if I had any notion of my duty and any pretence to self-respect. And I don't know what ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... "God knows how it happened. I don't think there is any use of worrying ourselves about it. I have still four days. Then we go for good and all. But not back, no, no, not back ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations." 1 Pet. 1:6. Christian, do you not value your spiritual prosperity above all else? Then never complain nor become discouraged because of the heavy and manifold temptations. God knows how to deal with you. You may sometimes think you know best, but in this you are mistaken. Father knoweth best. He loves you and will not suffer you to be tempted beyond what your needs are, and what he will enable you to bear, if you will but ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... and how, if they were raised while the living slept, there would not be the space of a pin's point in all the streets and ways for the living to come out into. Not only that, but the vast armies of dead would overflow the hills and valleys beyond the city, and would stretch away all round it, God knows how far. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... him) to be an interest in his death. Well! I declare positively that the alarming news from London spoilt my breakfast. There is something about that friend of my wife—that smug, prosperous, well-behaved Englishman—which seems to plead for him (God knows how!) when my mind is least inclined in his favour. While I was reading about his illness, I found myself hoping that he would recover—and, I give you my sacred word of honour, I hated him ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... with all his power. A proof of what I advance may be known as regards the chevalier or chevaliere d'Eon, I know not which. But these secret agents were, unknown to the king, all devoted to the parliaments, and consequently inimical to courtiers, favorites, and especially mistresses. God knows how they disposed of us! By these unpropitious channels the king had learnt all the hatred which was borne to madame de Pompadour. He was afraid of exciting the discontent of the people by announcing another mistress, and was no ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... hour of hilarity. 'Since we sat down,' he said, 'I have been watching it—it fascinates my eye—it never stops—page after page is finished, and thrown on that heap of MS., and still it goes on unwearied; and so it will be till candles are brought in, and God knows how long after that. It is the same every night—I can't stand a sight of it when I am not at my books.' 'Some stupid, dogged engrossing clerk, probably,' exclaimed myself, 'or some other giddy youth in our ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... have not the heart to do it, for I think he is ashamed of himself-he must be so indeed, and such inquiries could not fail to be painful to both. My forbearance pleases him—touches him even, I am inclined to think. He says he is glad to be home again, and God knows how glad I am to get him back, even as he is. He lies on the sofa, nearly all day long; and I play and sing to him for hours together. I write his letters for him, and get him everything he wants; and sometimes I read ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... a dealer in cast-off clothes, Madame la Duchesse; for in such matters every lady applies to women whose business rests on a basis of perfect secrecy. I have never betrayed anybody, though God knows how many great ladies have intrusted their diamonds to me by the month while wearing false jewels made to imitate ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... to find first," said Simpson, "no question of it. It's God knows how far to the next water, and we don't know how long it will take us to get there in that little boat. If we run our water entirely out before we start, we're going to be in trouble. We'll have a good look to-morrow, and if we don't find her, we'll run down to Mollyhay[4] and ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... came back again. I travelled up the river road, past our island refuge of that dark night; past the sweeping, low-voiced currents that bore me up; past the scene of our wreck in the whirlwind; past the great gap in the woods, to stand open God knows how long. I was glad to turn my face to the south shore, for in Canada there was now a cold welcome for most Yankees, and my fists were sore with resenting the bitter taunt. I crossed in a boat from Iroquois, and D'ri had been waiting for me half a day at the landing. I was never so glad ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... good girl like my sister saw in him. He had a bad name, even out in that rough country. Horrible tales were circulated about his cruelty to animals for one thing. His cowboys deserted him and told stories. His very dog turned on him, and bit him. God knows how he was torturing the animal. I saw the scar on his hand when he lay on his death-bed. Well, however it was, my sister loved him and married him, and he treated her like a fiend. She died, and it was a merciful release. He deserted her three months before her death. Sold out all he had, and ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... draw at all, I would draw an accurate portrait of the old, old, brown great-coat he wore, with no other coat below it. His whiskers were large. I saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates, and dishes, and pots he had, on a shelf; and I knew (God knows how) that the two girls with the shock heads were Captain Porter's natural children, and that the dirty lady was not married to Captain P. My timid, wondering station on his threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes, I dare say; but I came down again to the room below with ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... pretty kettle of fish. I was to be packed off to Cairo by sea, which would take weeks, and God knows how I would get from Egypt to Constantinople. I saw all my plans falling to pieces about my ears, and just when I thought they ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... him," he replied, "though the good God knows how he has carried me along this far. Yes, he is attached to a post. Well, we are off, and may the paper stay still till we get it. You ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... then east again, all along the under-side of Europe. Then south again, God knows how far.' The explanation did not enlighten Bessie in the least, but she held her tongue and looked to Dick's patch till they came to ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... but you stood as though you loved her so; your arms were so tender, it was just as though they said 'wife.' You are deceiving yourself, dear, believe me, you are. God knows how I love you; I have nothing in the ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... were merely outward signs of mourning for nations in ages past," he told her. "It didn't help anyone get into heaven. It didn't even show how great were their sorrow and grief; and when people came to realize that, they ceased to follow the custom. God knows how sorrowful we are, for He can read our very thoughts. It doesn't need sackcloth and ashes to carry our loved ones home, dear. They lived good, noble, true lives in His sight while they were here on earth, and ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... of the Court of Justice of Holland, which, I am told, is drawn up in a manner that will not at all satisfy the Regency of Amsterdam, and consequently will not be suffered to be delivered; and so things will remain in statu quo, God knows how long. All this is owing to the devices of the friends of Great Britain in this country, and not in the least to any disaffection from Russia, &c. How can people be helped, that will not be helped? In the meantime, the enemies carry on with success their perfidious scheme. Congress ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... when one Saturday evening she sat down by his side and made all that was so dark, clear and plain before him. It was nothing but a startled look in Paul's wan face—a flush—a smile—and then a close embrace—but God knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... harder than all of you to do my duty. I've lived with her." She turned angrily upon them. "I've borne the shame of mother while you bought her off with a present and a treat here and there. God knows how hard I tried to civilize her so as not to have to blush with shame when I take her anywhere. I dressed her in the most stylish Paris models, but Delancey Street sticks out from every inch of her. Whenever she opens her mouth, I'm done for. You fellows ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... dear wife, that your son is the child of a true man, and who, in his own respect, despiseth Death, and all his misshapen and ugly forms. I cannot write much. God knows how hardly I stole this time, when all sleep; and it is time to separate my thoughts from the world. Beg my dead body, which living was denied you; and either lay it at Sherborne, if the land continue [yours], or in Exeter Church, by my father and mother. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... wavered for a moment, and then came on a third time. One man went down, but someone sprang to my sword arm and pulled me forward. I tripped over something, and came to my knees, and as I did so the mob went over me like a wave, and I heard Diane's voice and its shrill note of agony. God knows how I managed it, but I rose to my feet once more—the very thickness of the press perhaps saved me then—but I could ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... severe headache and empty pockets (who had left him losing at four or five in the morning), he was found in a sound sleep, without a night-cap, and not particularly encumbered with bed-cloathes: a Chamber-pot stood by his bed-side, brim-full of—-'Bank Notes!', all won, God knows how, and crammed, Scrope knew not where; but THERE they were, all good legitimate notes, and to the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... conspicuous women. A land of thinkers. Old Zavarroni, born in 1705, gives us a list of seven hundred Calabrian writers; and I, for one, would not care to bring his catalogue up to date. The recently acquired Biblioteca Calabra at Naples alone contains God knows how many ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... our duty? Will God perform a miracle to feed this multitude? I can not ask you, "Is it safe to leave them in the hands of the Government or the city?" I have for six years plead, as for the life of them, with both. None but God knows how earnestly I have laid their claims before officials in the highest departments. By the greatest efforts, and with the sympathy of a small number of friends, who in Congress see with us, and have from the beginning, that the repudiation of this claim must ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... has ever taken a shot at him yet. He may be more vulnerable than he looks.... Speaking of money, I suppose I'd better take that apartment. God knows how I'll pay for it, especially ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... trust in the religion of Jesus Christ. Oh, Beulah, it makes my heart ache when I think of you, struggling so fiercely in the grasp of infidelity! Many times have I seen the light shining beneath your door, long after midnight, and wept over the conflict in which I knew you were engaged; and only God knows how often I have mingled your name in my prayers, entreating him to direct you in your search, to guide you safely through the paths of skepticism, and place your weary feet upon the 'rock of ages.' Oh, Beulah, do not make my prayers vain by your continued questioning! Come back to Christ and the ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... said Button impulsively, "here are you and Stannard and Sumter—three of the 'old liners,' as you are called in your respective grades—and I see plainly enough you three, and God knows how many more, are tacitly condemning my attitude toward Lanier. You think, if you don't say, that I have treated him with harshness and injustice—have listened solely to his accusers and enemies. Now, I've had enough of this! There is nothing that requires a commander to show his hand ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... sorry for you. Only God knows how I feel about Pat. I've been worse than a fool. Don't tell her when she wakes up. Get the Cousin woman to take her out of sight. It will be very hard but I will try to go through it ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... my Nell as they'd left her, dead in her berth that night; The flames flung a smile on her features,—a horrible, lurid light. God knows how I reached and touched her, but I found myself by her side; I thought she was living a moment, I forgot ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... think, for a long time suffice my collection. The brasses for the shelves I like—but not the price: the notched ones, after all, do very well. I have had three grand hawls since I last wrote to you. The pulpit, repentance-stool, King's seat, and God knows how much of carved wainscot, from the kirk of Dunfermline, enough to coat the hall to the height of seven feet:—supposing it boarded above, for hanging guns, old portraits, intermixed with armour, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... sheath and put into Bernard's hands a Persian dagger nine inches long, the naked blade damascened in wavy ripplings and slightly curved from point to hilt. "That would do your trick better. Under the fifth rib. I bought it of a Greek muleteer, God knows how he got hold of it, but he was a bit of a poet: he assured me it would go in 'as soft as a kiss.' For its softness I cannot speak, but it is as sharp ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... the Game called great! I was four days a scullion at Quetta, waiting on the wife of the man whose book I stole. And that was part of the Great Game! From the South—God knows how far—came up the Mahratta, playing the Great Game in fear of his life. Now I shall go far and far into the North playing the Great Game. Truly, it runs like a shuttle throughout all Hind. And my share and my joy'—he smiled to the darkness—'I owe ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... and then east again, all along the under-side of Europe. Then south again, God knows how far." The explanation did not enlighten Bessie in the least, but she held her tongue and looked to Dick"s patch till ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... threw the murderer off his balance and hurled him backwards. There was a tremendous crash, I found myself beneath the tonneau, and then, as it seemed, on the top of it again. At last I went rolling over and over on to the grass, and lay there, God knows how long, in very awe and terror of all that ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... ride. On his way down to take possession of his new kingdom the king distributed the honor of knighthood right and left liberally; at Theobald's he created eight-and-twenty knights, of whom Sir Richard Baker, afterwards the author of "A Chronicle of the Kings of England," was one. "God knows how many hundreds he made the first year," says the chronicler, "but it was indeed fit to give vent to the passage of Honour, which during Queen Elizabeth's reign had been so stopped that scarce any county of England had knights enow to make ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... luminous dimness—a subtle seduction to the senses in the silence and the solitude; a bird chirruped once among the tangled roses overhead, and a soft, sighing breeze fluttered for one instant amid its long, trailing branches. And then, God knows how it came to pass, or what madness possessed the man; but suddenly there was no longer any faith, or honour, or truth for him—nothing on the face of the whole earth ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... asked him. "In this sieve," he said. "What are you thinking about, to draw water in that sieve? Just wait!" He went to a house near by and borrowed a bucket, with which he returned to the well and filled the pail. "Thank you, good man. God knows how long I should have had to remain here!"—"Here," thought he, "is one who is a greater fool than ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... and wandered off into a devil of a big forest there is down there, covering two or three townships. It was in the night of that awful storm in April, and she went miles away, and finally overcome, lay down to die, and was covered with the snow, when a young chap found her—God knows how—took her up, carried her across the Chagrin River, or one of its branches, in under some rocks, built a fire, and brought her to, and finally got her to a man's house in the woods, sent word to her father, and went off. Do you know anything ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... horror at these unkennelled hounds! In one of his letters he vents his indignation at their atrocities; but, by-and-by, in the same epistle, he glides into his bookworm habit of apostrophizing the ancient heroes of Rome, Brutus, Camillus, and God knows how many more! ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... can't help it. [To Footmen] Put it here! [To Alexndra Ivnovna] God knows how glad I should be not to cause him unpleasantness. But I think he has become ...
— The Light Shines in Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... presented to him in the ancient forms of the Apostolic Church, it is with pain that his ears are assailed with charges which he knows to be as lacking in truth as they would be if they were levelled against ourselves. God knows how far we have all drifted from our ideal, and those who have the best excuse, not the farthest. But this offensive and ungrateful spirit is surely unbecoming on the part of those who owe so much to the Church which they censure. If Christian ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... in; she was forced to turn aside, to seek admittance at one of those other doors. This it is that matters—matters greatly. Perhaps only God who made the woman heart and who Himself set that door open wide—perhaps only God knows how ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... "Good heavens, child, not that!" he cried aghast. "What do you take me for? I am asking you to marry me—but not the kind of marriage that every woman has the right to expect. If I could offer you that, God knows how willingly I would. But there has been that in my life which comes between me and the happiness that other men can look forward to. For me that part of life is over. I have only friendship to offer. I know I am asking more than it seems possible for you to grant, more, ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... one woman—God knows how many more—very ill, shall serve hundreds of thousands well. Geoffrey Stonor shall make it harder for his son, harder still for his grandson, to treat any woman as he ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... such a thing was preposterous. So preposterous that he'd perfectly understand it if her father—well, whatever her father chose to do he'd perfectly understand. In fact, nothing short of desperation, nothing short of the fact that this was positively his last day in England for God knows how long, would have screwed him up to it. And even now... He chose a tie out of the chest of drawers, a blue and cream check tie, and sat on the side of his bed. Supposing she replied, "What impertinence!" would he be surprised? Not in the least, he decided, turning up his soft ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. I starved there, God knows how, a year or two On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, My stomach being empty as your hat, The wind doubled me up and down I went. Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) And so along the wall, over the ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... Mark, as he strained her to his breast, "do you not see that you are digging a gulf between us, and that you will soon be standing on the other side, shrinking from me in abhorrence as the man who has brought this charge against your father? And God knows how I have striven to ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... living, since leaving Sandling, on "bully beef" and biscuits, but here on the dock we found one of those wonderful little coffee canteens, maintained and operated by one of the many thousands of noble English women who, from the beginning of the war, have managed, God knows how, always to be at the right place at the right time, to cheer the soldier on his way; working, apparently, night and day, to hand out a cup of hot coffee or tea or chocolate to any tired and dirty Tommy who happened to come along. If you have any money, you pay a penny; if you are broke, ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... have achieved everything we wanted to achieve. We have proof of the crime done you, and we have Ku Sui, too. Your position will be restored and the blame put where it belongs. But we must leave for Earth at once! God knows how near the asteroid is, or who's ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... a good lad, John, and it is truly marvellous what charity I have received at the hands of young men who might have scorned and mocked me. God knows how my heart has been filled with gratitude, and I . . . have mentioned your names in my unworthy prayers that God may do to you all according to the kindness ye ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... his father to him, "I am not displeased with you for enjoying the present moment, and thinking it the best that can happen to you; but you see how necessary it is that our wishes should not always be complied with. God knows how to govern this world much better than any human being can pretend to. Had you last winter been indulged in your wish, we should have had neither spring, summer, nor autumn; the earth would have been perpetually covered with snow. The beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, would either ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... of torture wondering what would happen to the five if she broke down. Asylums and homes and hospitals don't imply any great disgrace to most of the tenement dwellers but to a woman of that type they mean Hell. God knows how she did it but she kept the five alive and clothed and in school until the boy was about fifteen and went to work. When I hear of the lone widows of the tenements, who are apt to be very husky, and ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... Wolf in advance, I behind him. God knows how he found the road, but he rarely halted, and then only to listen to the sound of the axe. "You see," he muttered between his teeth. "You hear? do you hear?" "But where?" The Wolf shrugged his shoulders. We decended into a ravine, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... these boys, these boys!" The minister's voice quavered. "We give them our very life-blood. We love them, cherish them, pray over them, do our best to guide them, yet they take the path that leads from home. In some way, God knows how, we fail to call out the return love, or even the filial duty and respect!—Well, we won't talk about it, Reba; my business is to breathe the breath of life into my text: 'Here am I, Lord, send me!' Letty certainly continues to say it heroically, ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Master Domenico, called Menichella, who has been to see me on your behalf. God knows how dear it was to me. After so many sorrows, hardships, and dangers, Almighty God has left us alive and well in His mercy and pity. A fact truly miraculous when I think over it; everlasting thanks to His Divine Majesty, and if I could express ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... Heidi replied: "One must wait patiently, for God knows how to turn the saddest things to something happy in the end. God will show us what He has meant to do for us. But He will only do so if we pray to ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... all expression. "If you married me you would have to live always here in the desert. I cannot leave my people, and I am—too much of an Arab to let you go alone. It would be no life for you. You think you love me now, though God knows how you can after what I have done to you, but a time would come when you would find that your love for me did not compensate for your life here. And marriage with me is unthinkable. You know what I am and what I have been. You know that I am not ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... "God knows how we have sweated farthings to produce it," said I. "But eight thousand and sixty is the sum, beside odd shillings. And if you can think my patron miserly after that, this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... could, humble, honest, but never happy, till I came here, for here I saw Gilbert. In the poor companion of your guardian's daughter he seemed to see the heiress I had been, and treated me as such. This flattered my pride and touched my heart. He was kind, I grateful; then he loved me, and God knows how utterly I loved him! A few months of happiness the purest, then he went to make home ready for me, and I believed him; for where I wholly love I wholly trust. While my own peace was undisturbed, I learned to read the language ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... not of itself throw the door wide open for trade at the western establishments. But as time went on the plan was much abused by the granting of private licenses to the friends of the officials at Quebec, and "God knows how many of these were issued," as one writer of the time puts it. Traders often went, moreover, without any license at all, and especially in the matter of carrying brandy into the forest they frequently set the official ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... question; it was in the Bates blood to marry about the time I did; I had seen only the very best of your father, and he was an attractive lover, not bad looking, not embarrassed with one single scruple—it's the way of the world. I took it. I paid for it. Only God knows how dearly I paid; but Adam, if you love me, stand by me now. Let me have this eleventh hour happiness, with no alloy. Anything I feel for your Uncle Robert has nothing in the world to do with my being your mother; with you being my son. Kiss me, and ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... live here," explained the captain, "but God knows how long it will be before we sight a ship. Our only hope is for some tramp freighter that's trying to find a short cut through the reefs. Even if we sight a tramp, how'll ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... thirteen; bound for the docks, you could tell at a glance; and by the way he looked about you could tell as easily that in stepping outside Charing Cross station he'd set foot on London stones for the first time. God knows how it struck him—the slush and drizzle, the ugly shop-fronts, the horses slipping in the brown mud, the crowd on the pavement pushing him this side and that. The poor little chap was standing in the middle of it with dazed eyes, like a hare's, when the 'bus ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... both ways—afraid it would be discovered, but more afraid I'd be found out if I tried to get rid of it. So I buried it in the cellar of my little shop and did my level best to forget it. I'd almost succeeded when, God knows how, Paddington found me. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... since Neufchatel, you are my life. Let me say this to you plainly, after having so often proved it to you. The miseries of my struggle and of my terrible work would have tired out the greatest and strongest men; and often my sister has desired to put an end to them, God knows how; I always thought the remedy worse than the disease! It is you alone who have supported me till now, . . . You said to me, 'Be patient, you are loved as much as you love. Do not change, for others ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... going alone, for nobody would listen to me. They'd tell me to go back to the shop or they'd think me demented. But with you, Mem, it would be a different matter. They wouldn't disbelieve you. So I want you to come with me, and to come at once, for God knows how soon our need will be sore. We'll leave your cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's the place for her, and then you and me will be off ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... Petersburg immediately, on a charge of treason. My conscience tells me that I have done nothing; but, alas! for me, the emperor has no mercy. Ekaterina," for that was the name I went by, "will you accompany me?—it will be a long, and a melancholy journey. God knows how it ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... mourning, the watchers watched me very exactly, 'but they whose hands were mightiest have found nothing:' so I shall leave the town, I hope, in a good disposition towards me, though I am sullen enough with the town for fancying me such an amorous idiot that I am dying to enjoy every filthy fellow. God knows how distant such dispositions are from the heart and constitution of H.L.T. Lord Loughboro', Sir Richard Jebb, Mr. Piozzi, Mr. Selwyn, Dr. Johnson, every man that comes to the house, is put in the papers for me to marry. In good time, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... misunderstood. God chooses that men should be tried, but let a man beware of tempting his neighbour. God knows how and how much, and where and when: man is his brother's keeper, and must keep him according to his knowledge. A man may work the will of God for others, and be condemned therein because he sought his own will and not God's. That our Lord gave this company wine, does ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... "God knows how I did, but the truth is just as I have told you; and although I was blind enough at the time, I can read the whole story now in letters of fire. I hope you will never have such a thing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... sortie by the garrison, and it was my part to give the alarm. Even as I sprang forward, a savage leaped from the ruck, but I escaped his hand, and raced up the dark trail, the one thought urging me on. God knows how I made it—to me 'tis but a memory of falls over unseen obstacles, of reckless running; yet the distance could have been scarce more than a hundred yards, before my eyes saw the darker shadow of the stockade outlined against ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... he quite calmly. "God knows how many there are. I might use up all our ammunition and still leave enough of 'em to pick our bones. They'll be all around us in a minute; they'll be worrying at us, dragging us down! Come ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... mining camp on the edge of the Mojave Desert when I was running a line of preliminary surveys through that country for the S. and C. last year. He was born in the camp and his mother died when he was a baby. God knows how he pulled through! You know what those mining places are. His father, Frank Lee, was killed in a drunken row while I was there, and Abe showed so much cool nerve and downright manliness that I offered him a place with my party. He has been with me ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... contented together. Even now it thrills me to think of those moments. For my father's sake I tried hard to learn my lessons, for I could see that he was spending his last kopeck upon me, and himself subsisting God knows how. Every day he grew more morose and discontented and irritable; every day his character kept changing for the worse. He had suffered an influx of debts, nor were his business affairs prospering. As for my mother, she was afraid even to say a word, or to weep aloud, for fear of still further ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... over and hardly breathing, I waited with a horribly strained expectation. Nothing happened. It was maddening, but a dull, growing ache in the lower part of my face made me aware that I had been grinding my teeth madly enough, for God knows how long. ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... make me easier in my mind," said Mr. Wardrop, plaintively. "I know half the condenser-tubes are started; and the propeller-shaftin''s God knows how far out of the true, and we'll need a new air-pump, an' the main-steam leaks like a sieve, and there's worse each way I look; but—paint's like clothes to a man, 'an ours is ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... sorry as we are, I know, or you would never have gone away. You are too good. Your father sits and sighs till my heart aches to hear him. He cannot hold up his head for grief; and yet he only did what he thought was right. Perhaps he has been too severe, and perhaps I have not been kind enough; but God knows how we love you, my dear only boy. Don looks so sorry you are gone. Come back, and make us happy, who love you so much. I know you will ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the clerk gave his reply, and when he spoke, God knows how he praised his most fair and kind mistress, saying that she excelled all others in beauty and goodness, of that he was sure. Nevertheless, that service or any other he would perform with all his heart, and never leave her whatever might happen, but inform his master of all that occurred, ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... you a great deal—she was very fond of you. And God knows how I loved her. If I had not been forbidden to come home, I should have told her all. Does my father ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing the book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right—in the ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... about. And to make my task the more easy, he insists on living in a servant's room, buying the butler's overcoat, and running down the street whistling for cabs, and carrying my trunks on his shoulder. There never was such madness; God knows how ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... Nicky-Nan took a step to the door, half-repentant, on an impulse to call Mrs Penhaligon back and bid her fetch a candle. God knows how much of subsequent trouble he might have spared himself by obeying that impulse: for Mrs Penhaligon was a woman honest as the day; and withal had a head on her shoulders, shrewd enough—practised indeed—in steering the clumsy ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... been many a man among our ancestors who, if it had been merely a question of his own life, would sooner have given it up than nourished it by bread snatched from others. But this he was not permitted to do. He had dear lives dependent on him. Men loved women in those days, as now. God knows how they dared be fathers, but they had babies as sweet, no doubt, to them as ours to us, whom they must feed, clothe, educate. The gentlest creatures are fierce when they have young to provide for, and in that wolfish society the struggle for bread borrowed a peculiar ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... were interesting. Life in these trenches (five warring or quarrelling governments mining and sapping under me and shooting over me)—two years of universal ambassadorship in this hell are enough—enough I say, even for a man who doesn't run away from responsibilities or weary of toil. And God knows how it has changed me and is changing me: I sometimes wonder, as a merely intellectual and ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... exclaimed Morris. "Hamilton, you are the least visionary man in this country, but you are God knows how many years ahead of your times. If we are ever on two legs again, you will put us there; but your golden locks will thin in the process, and that rosy boyish face we love will be lined with the seams of the true statesman. Only you could contemplate imbuing ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... they'll fit you'd better get them. It's better to do that than for me to catch cold and be laid up for God knows how long.' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... tell you, Honey, I can take no bitter leaving; But softly in the sleep-time from your love I'll steal away. Oh, it's cruel, dearie, cruel, and it's God knows how I'm grieving; But His Loneliness is calling and He ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... Though of seven volumes none before Could ever reach the fame of four, Henceforth I sacrifice all Glory To the Rinaldo of my Story: I've sung his health and appetite (The last word's not translated right— He's turned it, God knows how, to vigour)[98] I'll sing them in a book that's bigger. Oh! Muse prepare for thy Ascension! And generous Rizzo! thou ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... way. I laugh, and talk nonsense, and make them hear me. There are two or three houses where I go quite at my ease, am never asked to touch a card, nor hold dissertations. Nay, I don't pay homage to their authors. Every woman has one or two planted in her house, and God knows how they water them. The old President HainaUlt(886) is the pagod at Madame du Deffand's, an old blind debauch'ee of wit, where I supped last night. The President is very near deaf, and much nearer superannuated. He sits by the table: the mistress of the house, who formerly was his, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Miss Chase, and God knows how sorry I am to see my dear master so," Franklin said, sorrowfully, as she desisted at last, and gazed in silent anguish at the ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... a judgment for wicked men; God will be even with wicked men. God knows how to reserve the ungodly to the day of judgment to be punished (2 Peter 2). And this is one of his ways by which he doth it. Thus it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that there was no need for me to go into the village in order to reach Ruth's house. Perhaps it would be better to ride there direct, and make the necessary inquiries. Perhaps—God knows how I hoped it—she was still in the house, Wilfred not having been able to concoct a plan sufficiently plausible to get her away alone. If so, I should meet her, and be able to warn ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... not altogether that I'm thinking of; but the old monks with their cowls; and Merlin; and God knows how many ghosts beside;—I could fancy that I saw some of them just now at the end of these long galleries. ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... ignorance, because not one amongst his men, except the priest and the surgeon, could boast greater learning. Every man, officer or private, had his purse full of gold; half of them, at least, were married, and we had in the fortress a colony of five or six hundred women, with God knows how many children! I felt greatly interested in them all. Happy idleness! I often regret thee because thou hast often offered me new sights, and for the same reason I hate old age which never offers but what I know already, unless I should take up a gazette, but I cared nothing ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... truly think your last objection is not so strong as it looks at first. You never make an objection without doing me much good. Hurrah! a seed has just germinated after 21 1/2 hours in owl's stomach. This, according to ornithologists' calculation, would carry it God knows how many miles; but I think an owl really might go in storm in this time 400 or ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... seven days," said Cumshaw, "we've travelled God knows how many miles, we've climbed up a Hades of a lot of mountains, and I don't think there's a blind creek for twenty miles that we haven't followed to the end and back again, and at the end of it all we're no nearer the Valley than we were when we started. Gordon ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... by the window, this tale need never have been written. For he might then have observed (as the porters did not fail to do) the arrival of a second passenger in the uniform of Sir Faraday Bond. But he had other matters on hand, which he judged (God knows how erroneously) to be ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... too, stood at the window and clapped my hands. If ever Grand Duke deserved benediction this Duke does. We hear that he was quite moved, overpowered, and wept like a child. Nevertheless the most of Italy is under the cloud, and God knows how all may end as the thunder ripens. Now I mustn't, I suppose, write politics. Our plans about England are afloat. Impossible to know what we shall do, but if not this summer, the summer after must help us to the sight of some beloved faces. It will be a midsummer ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... not, like Mr. Wilmot, follow up this wish by a proposition that as he was not her brother she would accept him for a husband, but he pressed the hand, which, with seeming unconsciousness, had been placed on his, and said, "God knows how ardently I once hoped to ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... stood before my God. Every weakness or error or sin, in thought, word, and deed, was revealed to me. All stood out strangely clear in my soul, as though it were doomsday—and it was my festival. God knows how humble I felt when men ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... officials, asking questions, sending telegrams, begging for news. Here they look for the names of their dead,—that's all,—and then go out without a question. You can't ask questions of a Government! The Titanic lasted a week, and this goes on— God knows how long! ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... shuder everytime I hear the sound of a gun—I have been to dinner with two of the Generals, Lee & Putnam and I just took a look at pore Boston—& Charlestown—from prospect Hill Charlestown has only a few chimneys standing in it, there seems to be a number of very fine Buildings in Boston but God knows how long they will stand; they are pulling up all the warfs for fire wood—to me that never see any thing of war, the preparations are very terable indead, but I endevor to keep my fears to my self as well as ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... happier than for some one to go and tell him I was dead. I always have to hide like a wicked thief when he comes, and I'm sure it is a great deal worse for poor mother than it is for me. Nobody but God knows how father uses her, and I daren't go ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... clean white linen and flowers; I love good food, good clothes, good wine, good music, good sermons, and good books. All—all it is within me to love and to desire mightily. How I want those things—not morbidly—but because I have five good senses and God knows how many more; because I was ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... I do, John; only God knows how deeply, how desperately. My love was the cause—my love was ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... I got,—an' now look at it. I ain't had a new dress in God knows how long. Pap ain't much on dressin' me up. Mr. Lapelle he promised me a new dress but—say, who ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... rows with his father, and his mother was for ever interceding for him. He was idle at school; but he was a manly boy enough over games and sport, and a capital shot. Anyway, she managed to be proud of him, God knows how. I shouldn't wonder if this war was the making of him, though, poor chap, if he's spared to see the end ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... for the chances that the water found between would be dried up, were great! Only one man unwounded and one suffering the most awful tortures of pain; and nobody with the smallest medical skill, within God knows how many miles! Death seemed certain, but while life remained they were not the men to give in, and they thought of a plan whereby the life of their mate might be saved if only their horses held out. They travelled five miles, then camped, and the available man returned to the rocks ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... comfort it is to be told that God knows how easily our nature may become jangled and out of tune. He can attribute our doubts and fears to their right source. He knows the bow is bent to the point of breaking, and the string strained to its utmost tension. He does not rebuke his servants when ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... sins, but in mercy, I hope, to my soul, would not suffer me to keep it any longer: but I was forced to confess the truth of all before the magistrates, who would not believe me; but it is their pleasure to put me in here, and God knows how soon I shall be put to death. Dear father, let me beg your prayers to the Lord on my behalf, and send us a joyful and happy meeting in heaven. My mother, poor woman, is very crazy, and remembers her kind love to you, and to uncle; viz., D.A. So, leaving you ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... make too much of me; I do not deserve it, nor my compositions either. And what shall I say to your present, my dearest baron, that came like a star in a dark night, or like a flower in winter, or like a cordial in sickness? God knows how I am obliged, at times, to toil and labour to gain a wretched livelihood, and Staenerl, (Constance,) too, must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... me, Mr. Attwater," said the clerk, "and God knows how unjustly! Thou Gawd seest me, was the tex' I 'ad in my Bible, w'ich my father wrote it in with 'is own ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... drawing him closer to her and speaking in a low voice, "I grieve to part from you, but I grieve more when I think of your poor father. God knows how earnestly I have prayed for him, and I cannot even now believe that he was taken out of the world still ignorant of God's love and free pardon to all who believe in His Son. I have often dreamed that he has come to me, looking just as he was when he went away, ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... that has passed heretofore, and can you wonder that my worst fears are now confirmed? God knows how I struggled against those doubts, which were nearly removed, when, by the evidence of my own eyesight, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... God knows how I wish at the present moment I were back in the Old Market Place, even if I only had Richard's society to ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... audiencia). I named captains and sergeants: these again wanted to kill me, but I had them all hanged. In the midst of these adventures we navigated for eleven months, till we reached the mouth of the river. We sailed more than fifteen hundred leagues. God knows how we got through that great mass of water. I advise thee, O great King, never to send Spanish fleets into that accursed river. God preserve thee in his ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... there. If she's gone, Mark has made it right with his family and taken her home. If she hasn't, why, God knows how that matter will be straightened out. Anyhow, she has a husband now, and he seems to value her; and Waitstill is alone on the top of ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... got here any way and they signed us to our different billets and they's 20 of us in this one not counting a couple of pigs and god knows how many rats and a cow that mews all night. We haven't done nothing yet only look around but Monday we go to work out to the training grounds and they say we won't only half to march 12 miles through the mud and snow ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner |
