"Lay claim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unable quite to understand how a girl could be so wrapped up in the memories of a murdered father, that no place was left in her mind for the tendernesses of a present adorer. After all, this father, what was he? A middle-aged and, doubtless, quite uninteresting burgher, who could lay claim to but one distinction, that of great wealth, most of which had been amassed ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... proposed, the Margravine declined positively to entertain the idea. 'There was no precedent,' she writes, 'of a King's daughter and the Empress having met, and I did not know to what rights I ought to lay claim.' Finally, however, she is induced to consent, but she lays down three conditions for ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... afraid of Bessie. She can't get over it that I was once considered to be Bessie's property—by Bessie. I never was; but Bessie chose to lay claim ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... the King; "do you dare to call yourself the Princess's lover, and to lay claim to such a treasure? Do you know that you are a dwarf—that you are so ugly that one cannot bear to look at you—and that I should have killed you myself long before this if you had been worthy of such a ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... unfeeling calculation, and offensive suspicion. He, Don John, the not all unworthy son of the great Emperor Charles, was not born to obey all his life, and allow himself to be turned to account, worn out, and abused for the benefit of another. He, too, might lay claim to the right of governing a kingdom of his own as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to lay claim, humbly, to some credit ... We did our part honestly. We was on the spot ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... said that, while it was possible that Brother Rabbit was no great hand with the fiddle, he was a drummer, and a capital singer to boot. Furthermore, Uncle Remus declared that Brother Rabbit could perform upon the quills,[16] an accomplishment to which none of the other animals could lay claim. There was a time, too, the old man pointedly suggested, when the romantic rascal used his musical abilities to win the smiles of a nice young lady of quality—no less a personage, indeed, than King Deer's daughter. As a matter of course, the little boy was anxious ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... it not odd?—the very fate I said she had escaped from * *, she has now undergone from the worthy * *. Like Mr. Fitzgerald, shall I not lay claim to the character of 'Vates?'—as he did in the Morning Herald for prophesying the fall of Buonaparte,—who, by the by, I don't think is yet fallen. I wish he would rally and route your legitimate sovereigns, having a mortal hate to all royal entails.—But I am scrawling a treatise. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... correctness, which consists in the expression of any meaning in its appropriate form. The artistic ideal is not to be thus understood. For any content whatever is capable, according to the standard of its own nature, of adequate representation, but yet it does not for that reason lay claim to artistic beauty in the ideal sense. Judged by the standard of ideal beauty, even such correct representation will be defective. In this connection we may remark that the defects of a work of art are not to be considered simply as always due to the incapacity of the artist; defectiveness of form ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... confessed Andrews. "I have had so many theories and have changed them so rapidly that all I lay claim to believing, outside of the bald facts that I have stated, is that there must have been some poison. I rather sense it, feel that there is no doubt of it, in fact. That is why I have come to you. I want you to clear it up, one way or another. The company ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... pretensions to recognition were based on a less worthy footing. For while those previous votaries of fashion, although derided and caricatured according to the humour of their day, were, none the less, valuable patrons of art and literature, the exquisites of a later date could seldom lay claim to such distinction. To dine, to dress, to exhibit sufficient peculiarity in their habits and rudeness in their manners whereby to enhance that fictitious value in the eyes of those who did not dare to emulate ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... is clinging to chair.) Let you be comforted now, knowing he cannot come back to lay claim to you in marriage, as it is likely ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... slowly re-entered his room, Fink called out cheerfully, "How goes it, man of business? Am I to be tenant, or will the baron himself undertake the matter? He would like it dearly. In that case, I lay claim to compensation—free room for myself and my horse as long as they play ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... without. If it be true that, in pursuing its system of tutelage and oppression, the Russian Government was genuinely actuated by the desire to graft the modicum of European culture, to which the Russia of Nicholas I. could lay claim, upon the Jews, it certainly achieved the reverse of what it aimed at. The hand which dealt out blows could not disseminate enlightenment; the hammer which was lifted to shatter Jewish separatism had only the effect of hardening ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... 492: Elizabeth, when she came to the throne, refused to admit that she was under any real obligation to Philip. She was entirely right in her refusal. The Spaniards had sworn, if possible, to make away "with all those which by any means might lay claim to the crown." ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... was the state of India sixty years ago. Of the existing governments not a single one could lay claim to legitimacy, or could plead any other title than recent occupation. There was scarcely a province in which the real sovereignty and the nominal sovereignty were not disjoined. Titles and forms were still retained which implied ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in any way except as I may lay claim to the wisdom of my other half," she returned, ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... hold as an essential article of faith, that in him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily; in other words, that our Redeemer and our Creator, though two persons, are but one God. It is true that Divines of our 'Reformed Protestant Church,' call everything but gentlemen those who lay claim to the equivocal privilege of feasting periodically upon the body and blood of Omnipotence. The pains taken by Protestants to show from Scripture, Reason and Nature, that Priests cannot change lumps of dough into the body, and bumpers of wine into the blood, of their ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... with a perplexed pain. Was he then so selfish? "The one great absolute 'I' scrawled on the face of Nature!" Could that apply to him? Surely not! since in his present state of mind he could hardly lay claim to any distinct personality, seeing that that personality was forever merging itself and getting lost in the more clearly perfect identity of Sah-luma, whom he regarded with a species of profound hero-worship such as one man seldom feels ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... alleys, in the scheme, but only the broad highway of life, open always to the sunlight and to the gaze of all mankind. All this must become thoroughly enmeshed in the social consciousness and in the daily practice of every individual, before the school can lay claim to success in the art of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... finds me wet-footed and engaged in fording a series of aggravating little streams, that obstruct my path so frequently that to stop and shed one's foot-gear for each soon becomes an intolerable nuisance. I should think I can lay claim, without exaggeration, to crossing fifty of these streams inside of ten miles. A good-sized stream emerges from the Elburz foot-hills; after reaching the plain it follows no regular channel, but spreads out like an open fan into a gradually ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... towards the sovereign; and finally, because—and the word, too, burnt like a hot iron—because, in fact, it was nothing but a mystification after all. This girl, therefore, who, in strictness, could not lay claim to beauty, or birth, or great intelligence—who had been selected by Madame herself, on account of her unpretending position, had not only aroused the king's regard, but had, moreover, treated him with disdain—he, the king, a man who, like an eastern potentate, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... eminent German thinkers assert that Christianity is a drop of foreign blood in the Arian peoples, they are certainly correct in so far as Christianity actually came to them as Semitism, as having sprung from Judaism; nevertheless the Arian world can lay claim to the fundamental conception of Christianity as its own, since it is most highly probable that the Semitic peoples received the first germ of it from the Arians. I say this not for the purpose of depreciating ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... wish to lay claim to having made any startling discovery; similar thoughts, especially those concerning the non-reality of Time and Space, have no doubt occurred to others, but the whole problem "What is the Reality?" has been insistently ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... work, called 'Manhood,' is one of the few books now coming before the public on such a subject which can lay claim to the character of being strictly professional, at the same time that it is fully intelligible to all who read it. The moral and medical precepts given in it render ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... individual. A dozen, at least, of stout Liddesdale yeomen with whom he has been acquainted, and whose hospitality he has shared in his rambles through that wild country, at a time when it was totally inaccessible save in the manner described in the text, might lay claim to be the prototype of the rough, but faithful. hospitable, and generous farmer. But one circumstance occasioned the name to be fixed upon a most respectable individual of this class, now no more. Mr. James Davidson of Hindlee, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... necessity, were centered in myself and at home. Ludloe appeared to have no visitants, and though frequently abroad, or at least secluded from me, had never proposed my introduction to any of his friends, except Mrs. Benington. My obligations to him were already too great to allow me to lay claim to new favours and indulgences, nor, indeed, was my disposition such as to make society needful to my happiness. My character had been, in some degree, modelled by the faculty which I possessed. This deriving all its ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... to detail, no suspicion of the personal non-existence of Homer ever arose. So far, the voice of antiquity seems to be in favour of our early ideas on the subject: let us now see what are the discoveries to which more modern investigations lay claim. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... Souris River, on whose southern bank the little town of Millford is built, is but an insignificant stream; but if bold and precipitous banks, sheer cliffs, and a broad valley are to be considered, then the Souris may lay claim to some distinction. For a few weeks in the spring of the year, too, it is a swift and mighty flood that goes sweeping through the valley, carrying on its turbulent waters whirling ice-jams, branches of trees, and even broken bridge-timbers from the far country known as the "Antlers of the Souris." ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... when the second confederation election came to be run, thereby inflicting upon them a blow from which it was impossible they could recover. William H. Needham, whose name has already appeared in this volume, did not lay claim to any high political principles; but having retired some time before to private life, he found in the confederation struggle a good opportunity of getting into the legislature. He was a man of very considerable ability, and had his principles been only equal to ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... government, whether it is a majority or a minority, governs without full consideration for the interests of other parties or of the community as a whole. We shall try to get some idea of how this happens, and also of methods proposed to prevent it; for as long as it happens we cannot lay claim to a full measure of democracy in ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... struggles between the daily cares of him who carves out his own career and fortune, yet he has never experienced the darkest poverty of fate who has not felt what it is to be a wanderer, without a country to lay claim to. Of all the desolations that visit us, this is the gloomiest and the worst. The outcast from the land of his fathers, whose voice must never be heard within the walls where his infancy was nurtured, nor his step be free upon the mountains where he gambolled in ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... in Denmark. He arrived formally in Copenhagen, gave a tip to every one who pretended he could lay claim to it, spent three days in tramping the town with his hotel as a starting-point and carrying his Baedeker open before him, and behaved just like the better class of strangers who desire to increase their information. He studied the King's Newmarket with the "horse" in the middle ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... keep what I have gained,—at any price. And at least your proffer of friendship gives me better right to monopolise you than that chap Desmond can lay claim to. But he appears ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... "No; they lay claim as far as Horsethief Canyon, but they'd just as well claim all our lease—they've got just as ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... a sort of courage, to which—I frankly confess it—I do not lay claim; a boldness to which I dare not aspire; a valor which I cannot covet. I cannot lay myself down in the way of the welfare and happiness of my country. That, I cannot, I have not the courage to do. I cannot interpose the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... moment a loud manly voice rang out amidst the group of listeners who were beginning to rally Abellino, and ironically beg him not to suspect them as they were quite innocent, and could not lay claim to the honour of making ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... reference to what must, even at this early date, be called the human kingdom, it must be stated that none of those who, at the present day, can lay claim to even a moderate amount of mental or spiritual culture can have lived in these ages. It was only with the advent of the last three sub-races of this Third Root Race that the least progressed of the first group of the Lunar Pitris began to return to incarnation, while the ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... at your putting the question like that," said Luzhin, getting more and more irritated. "Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you, I may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some member of your family. Though I lay claim to the happiness of your hand, I ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... preach, whether or no," said Billy stoutly, "an' I can't lay claim to creating nothing lawful or unlawful in my Maker's image. 'Tis something to say that, in these godless days. I've allus kept my foot on the world, the flesh, an' the Devil so tight as the best Christian in company; an' if that ban't ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... died in a doubtful and mysterious manner, and not without suspicion of having been poisoned. The authority, from which M. Quesnel had received this information, would not allow him to doubt its truth, and he told Emily, that she had now only to lay claim to the estates of her late aunt, to secure them, and added, that he would himself assist in the necessary forms of this business. The term, for which La Vallee had been let being now also nearly expired, he acquainted her with ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the mountain road, and the driver sounded his horn, while echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to little share. The great hills played a concert among themselves, each contributing a strain of ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... certainly lay claim to having commanded, more often than any other man, cowardly troops, but this experience of 1884 beats all past experiences; the worst of the matter is that you cannot believe one word the ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... variety of taste—flippancy and learning, sensation and sentiment, careful dissection of character and audacious definition and epigram—failure seemed to him almost impossible. And when he could feel able to lay claim legitimately to the title of genius, surely then the memory of his fraud would cease to reproach him—the means would be justified by the result. He amused himself by composing various critiques on the book (all of course highly eulogistic), and thus pleasantly occupied the way until he gained ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... looked at her and recoiled. That such a one as this should have the right to lay claim to so holy a title and asperse ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... which, when the stranger departed, was by the trumpeter delivered with great ceremony into the hands of Sir Launcelot, who read it in these words:—"To the knight of the Crescent, greeting. Whereas I am informed you have the presumption to lay claim to the heart of the peerless Aurelia Darnel, I give you notice that I can admit no rivalship in the affection of that paragon of beauty; and I expect that you will either resign your pretensions, or make it appear in single ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... class? I, therefore, contend, finally, that the standard by which the Negro is measured is seriously at fault, if not wholly wrong. Coming out of the most untoward circumstances, with less than a half century in which to outlive and unlearn the deadly doings of two hundred and fifty years, who can lay claim to more or to so much as the Negro? Measure him by the depths from which he came as well as by the heights which you would have him attain, when ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... as the Sappho of her age; she made so considerable a figure amongst the Anglo Norman Trouveurs, that she may very fairly lay claim to the minutest investigation of whatever concerns her memory. She informs us that she was born in France, but has neither mentioned the province that gave her birth, her family name, nor the reasons of her going to England. As she appears, however, to have resided ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... Mrs. Starkweather; "beside the Bible there are few books in any household in the settlement. I doubt if the minister can lay claim to a half dozen. He has ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis
... with many of these less known matters, claim for my master a reputation wholly different from that given to him in any garbled "history" of his life. I lay claim in his name for foresight beyond that of any man of his time. He made mistakes, but he made them bravely, grandly, and consistently. Where his convictions were enlisted, he had no reservations, and ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... exceptions, like Sir Robert Peel and Gladstone. And yet it would be unwise to decry college honors, since not one in a hundred of those who obtain them by their industry, aptness, and force of will can lay claim to what is called genius,—the rarest of all gifts. Moreover, how impossible it is for college professors to detect in students, with whom they are imperfectly acquainted, extraordinary faculties, more especially if the young men are apparently ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... liberties with my person, and also because I had reached the conclusion that he was simply a shallow dissembler and rascal. In a minute more I had cause to reconsider my charge of hypocrisy, and to question whether he might not lay claim to the nobler distinction of lunacy. The conductor came down the car, picking out Troubletonians with his undeceivable eye, and leaned toward us with outstretched fingers. Mr. Riley rose to his whole gaunt height at a jerk, and laid his hand on the official's arm ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... return to the present work: it is devoted to an account of what befell me in Spain whilst engaged in distributing the Scripture. With respect to my poor labours, I wish here to observe, that I accomplished but very little, and that I lay claim to no brilliant successes and triumphs; indeed I was sent into Spain more to explore the country, and to ascertain how far the minds of the people were prepared to receive the truths of Christianity, than for any other object; I obtained, however, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... now practised so widely and, indeed, preferred to the older system in many families, the Domestic Pharmacopoeia could scarcely lay claim to be considered complete without a brief mention of the principal remedies used and recommended by homoeopathic practitioners, and the disorders for which these remedies are specially applicable. The principle of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the physical and social environment, heredity perpetuates physical and mental worth or defectiveness and tends to produce social good or evil, and that the right to a worthy parentage belongs with the other rights to which individuals lay claim. It is as important as the right to a living, to an education, to a good home, or to the franchise. Without it society is incalculably poorer and the ultimate effects of failure ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... said Little Miss Grouch, aggrieved, "and you want my lawyer. Is there anything else of mine you'd like to lay claim to?" ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... that Hand and Soul ought not to continue to lie in the back numbers, of a magazine. The story, being more poem than aught else, might properly lay claim to a place in any fresh collection of the author's works. I could see no natural objection on the score of its being written in prose. As Coleridge and Wordsworth both aptly said, prose is not the antithesis of poetry; science and poetry may stand over-against each other, as Keats implied by his ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... shall have to bring Cap into court face to face with that demon to bear witness against him! Suppose losing one ward, he should lay claim to another! Ah, but he can't, without foully criminating himself! ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... evolution." [Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 243 (Fr. p. 205).] "In a word, if it is agreed to call every act free, which springs from the self, and from the self alone, the act which bears the mark of our personality is truly free, for our self alone will lay claim to its paternity." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 172 (Fr. p. 132). It is interesting to compare with this the remark by Nietzsche in Also sprach Zarathustra, Thus Spake Zarathustra,—"Let your Ego be in ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... Corinne's house along with Lord Nelville, and said to him on their way home, "allow, my dear Oswald, that I may lay claim to some merit for not having paid my court to so charming a lady." "But," observed Nelville, "it seems, according to general opinion, that she is not easy to please in that respect." "It is said so," replied the Count, "but I can hardly believe it. A single woman of ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... Scuderi with all the great respect to which the venerable lady, highly honoured as she was by the king himself, might justly lay claim. He listened quietly to all that she had to adduce with respect to the terrible crime, and Olivier's relations to the victim and his daughter, and his character. Nevertheless the only proof he gave ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Quintus, when bishop, always respected St. Felix as his father, and followed his advice in every particular. The remainder of the saint's estate having been confiscated in the persecution, he was advised to lay claim to it, as others had done, who thereby recovered what had been taken from them. His answer was, that in poverty he should be the more secure of possessing Christ.[4] He could not even be prevailed ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... it had been. [See Arp and all his works.] There had come, as the years went by, a few recruits; but faces were missing: the two Tabors had gone, and Uncle Joe Davey could no longer lay claim to the patriarchship; he had laid it down with a half-sigh and gone his way. Eskew himself was now the oldest of the conscript fathers, the Colonel and Squire Buckalew pressing him closely, with Peter Bradbury no ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... born to be neither slaves nor beggars, but to dominion and to plenty. This is our rightful heritage, if we will but recognize and lay claim to it. ...
— Thoughts I Met on the Highway • Ralph Waldo Trine
... obliged, for my part, to confess that, being almost entirely a stranger to the Indian character and habits, I was going among them with no settled plans of any kind—general good-will, and a hope of making them my friends, being the only principles I could lay claim to at present. I must leave it for time and a better acquaintance to show me in what way the principle could be carried out for their ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... you," replied Fosdick. "My friend Stephens, here, is a man of few words; he credits me with more talkativeness than he'll lay claim to. So I'm to tell the tale. There mayn't be much in it, and there may be a lot. We think there's a big lot! But this is what it comes to: Ashton was a close man, a reserved man. However, one night, when the ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... de frolic on 'nother plantation dey git de pass. Dat so dey can cotch runaway niggers. I never heared of stealin' niggers, 'cept dis-a-way. Sometime de runaway nigger git fifty or hundred miles away and show up dere as de stray slave. Dat massa where he show up take care of him so long, den lay claim to him. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... details which regard my title and the rank that I lay claim to. With these I do not trouble you. I will merely say I reserve them if we ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... brother was almost convinced beforehand of the virtue and devotion of the maid, and was willing enough a few hours later to join their hands in troth plight. After that, unless the father were prepared to draw upon himself the fulminations of the Church, he could not lay claim to his daughter, or try to give her in wedlock to another. Her place was now with her betrothed's kindred, where she would remain until the marriage ceremony itself took place, and made her indeed ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... honor to which Athens could lay claim was that she had been a democracy of sailors, her freemen serving their country as rowers and all her famous men as ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... with these broad admissions, if we would compare the sovereignty acknowledged to exist in the mass of our people with the power claimed by other sovereignties, even by those which have been considered most purely democratic, we shall find a most essential difference. All others lay claim to power limited only by their own will. The majority of our citizens, on the contrary, possess a sovereignty with an amount of power precisely equal to that which has been granted to them by the parties to the national compact, and nothing beyond. We admit of no government ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... selfish, dishonest, and grasping in their struggle for notoriety than the miser for gold. They lay claim to every thing within reach, whether it belongs to them or not. I know absolutely that many of the reports in the volume before me are base exaggerations—romances, founded upon the smallest conceivable amount of fact. They are simply elaborate essays, which seek to show ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... destitute of property, and who, generally speaking, have been no benefit to the society in any way, but, on the contrary, after having enjoyed its hospitality, and brought no small share of trouble upon the people, have had the assurance to lay claim to wages which they never earned, or property to which they never had any just ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... and I am saved. He assures me that those who come unto him shall never be cast out. I do go to him and commit my sinful soul to his keeping; I shall not be cast out. As many as receive the gift of his Son, receive at the same time power to become the children of God. I do receive his gift, and lay claim to his promise. He is my reconciled Father, and I am his adopted child, and he hath sent his Spirit into my heart, by which I can ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... be afraid you will lose anything by it," he said in a bitter tone; "you know I shall never lay claim to my father's property, even though ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... lay claim to any anti-trust glory? Is it not a Republican administration that is at present investigating the alleged ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... characters of the play, and the actors who perform them, lay claim to the first and most particular investigation. Those upon whom the more enlightened part of the public have bestowed the greatest approbation, require the most severe scrutiny, since they only can affect the public taste. Birds of passage too who like ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... unshaken on fields of disastrous battle, in foreign garrets and cellars, and at the bar of the High Court of justice, was scarcely to be found among the rising courtiers. As little, or still less, could the new chiefs of parties lay claim to the great qualities of the statesmen who had stood at the head of the Long Parliament. Hampden, Pym, Vane, Cromwell, are discriminated from the ablest politicians of the succeeding generation, by all the strong lineaments which distinguish the men who produce revolutions ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cautiously, "I'm not saying he is precisely, but I'm not saying he is not, either. The Campbells and the McGregors have lived in these parts for better than two hundred years, and it's not likely that Alan could lay claim to both names and be no relation at all. If there were still clans, as there used to be in the old days, we'd all belong to the same one, and ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... give here. My immediate object is to show, while the attention of the scientific public is more particularly directed to the subject, that, with respect to this remarkable discovery, English astronomers may lay claim ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... indeed was the latter lost that Ulster—nominally the patrimony of the Duchess of Clarence—is not even alluded to by her husband as part of the country over which his government could attempt to lay claim. ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... suppress the circumstances in which the Jewish lamp had been discovered and to proclaim that he did not know the culprit's name. But, as between man and man, between Lupin and Shears, between burglar and detective, there was, in all fairness, neither victor nor vanquished. Each of them could lay claim ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... can fairly lay claim to being a broadminded ''vert'" said Judith, "but of course, you know, I can't help feeling I've got something in the way of what makes things ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... reason why it should be so. The disclosure, it is true, will be received by all who regard sculpture as simply a mechanical art with a feeling of disappointment. They will brand the artist who cannot lay claim to the entire manipulation of his statue, whether in clay or marble, as an impostor,—nor will they resign the idea that the truly conscientious sculptor will carve every ornament upon his sandals and polish every button upon his drapery. But those who look upon sculpture as an intellectual art, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... theory every living man and woman is merely an ancestor or ancestress born again and therefore should be his or her equal, in practice they appear to admit that their forefathers of the remote alcheringa or dream time were endowed with many marvellous powers which their modern reincarnations cannot lay claim to, and that accordingly these ancestral spirits were more to be reverenced, were in fact more worshipful, than their living representatives. On this subject Messrs. Spencer and Gillen observe: "The Central Australian native is firmly convinced, as will be seen ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... be; but she was bound to him all the same by her wifely duty. She might have saved him, but instead of that she has been his ruin. How dare any woman rob her husband of his own children, and forbid him to lay claim to them? She is a false, perjured wife!' exclaimed Mrs. Ross, ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "I do not lay claim," he continued, "to any remarkable amount of insight, but it is possible, is it not, that I have stumbled upon your present ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... much distinguished from the men by their features, as by their general form, which is, for the most part, destitute of that strong fleshy firmness that appears in the latter. Though the features of some are so delicate, as not only to be a true index of their sex, but to lay claim to a considerable share of beauty and expression, the rule is by no means so general as in many other countries. But, at the same time, this is frequently the most exceptionable part; for the bodies and limbs of most of the females, are well proportioned, and some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... had murdered his two nephews, he was crowned king, as Richard III, much pleased that his plans had succeeded so well. He thought that now nobody could lay claim to the throne. But he was mistaken. One person did claim it. This was Henry Tudor, ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... suspiciously, wondering whether he was again about to lay claim to the previous embarrassing acquaintance. "I have several things in view," he said sketchily, "from which a man in my position ought to be able ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... must be a cause. What is it? Measured by scale and tape, our athlete's are not so much superior as a class. The theory of 'more beef' must be discarded. We may not lay claim to having all the best trainers of the world. We must look to some other ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... suitable to this state; otherwise, why is the Prelatical government rejected, that another and a better may be erected instead thereof? But the pinch lies in this, Whether there be any government in the Church visible of divine right? And, if so, which of those church governments (which lay claim to a divine right for their foundation) may be most clearly evinced by the Scriptures to be of divine right indeed? If the former be convincingly affirmed, the fancy of the Erastians and semi-Erastians of these things will vanish, that deny ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... more "proper" than she was at first. Her improprieties, so far as I could ever learn, arose from nothing more heinous than her possession of an intelligence more powerful and a courage more daring than that to which any of her neighbours could lay claim. Her outspokenness was a stumbling-block to many; and the offence of speaking her mind was aggravated by the circumstance, not always present at such times, that she had a mind to speak. To quote ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... Finding that doctrines which his philosophical mind perceived to answer the deepest questions of the soul were taught only in one society, and there taught with authority, he argued validly that that society could lay claim to the right to teach. From the doctrine to the teacher, from the truth to the external authority that teaches it, is an inference of sound reason. This applies to Father Hecker's case also, for he was of a bent of mind truly philosophical, and he has placed on record the similarity of ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... too flattering," says Monkton. "Considering the gray hairs that are beginning to make themselves so unpleasantly at home in my head, I, at all events, can hardly lay claim to ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... told him how things were with my Lord and me, which he received very gladly. I was this day told how Baron against all expectation and law has got the place of Bickerstaffe, and so I question whether he will not lay claim to wait the next month, but my Lord tells me that he will stand for it. In the evening I met with T. Doling, who carried me to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... know of as many as ten satellites circling around Saturn, which is more than any other planet of the solar system can lay claim to. Two of these, however, are very recent discoveries; one, Phoebe, having been found by photography in August 1898, and the other, Themis, in 1904, also by the same means. For both of these we ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... nobles, discredited by the calamities which their misrule had brought upon the nation, were compelled to give way, and the estates represented in the Danehof surrendered, in a measure voluntarily, a considerable portion of the privileges to which they had been accustomed to lay claim. The monarchy was put once more upon an hereditary basis and its powers were materially enlarged. The intent of the aggressive sovereign of the day, Frederick III., was to proceed with caution, but not to stop halfway. By the promulgation ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... appear from anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I undoubtedly lay claim to both of ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... please you," she returned gayly, doing as he directed. "I suppose my right hand is not all of me that you lay claim to?" ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... truths of religion, though perhaps even more certain, are less evident than the facts of sense, there could have been no misunderstanding. Thus the demonstrations of algebra possess equal certainty with those of geometry, but cannot lay claim to the same evidence. Certainty is positive, evidence relative; the former, strictly taken, insusceptible of more or less, the latter capable of existing in many ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... the letter, found the gold pieces and put them carefully into his pocketbook. He did not mention the letter to Grace at present, for he knew not but Deacon Pinkerton might lay claim to the money to satisfy his debt if ...
— The Cash Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... breaking out upon her in language as far removed from that of conventional politeness as his puritanical principles would permit. Doubtless he considered it a rebuking of Satan, but forgot that, although one of the godly, he could hardly on that ground lay claim to larger privilege in the use of bad language than the archangel Michael. For the old woman, although too prudent to reply, she scorned to flee, and stood regarding him fixedly. Richard sought to interfere and check the torrent of abuse, but ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... place where we now live is called Patuxet, and that about four years ago all the inhabitants died of an extraordinary plague, and there is neither man, woman, nor child remaining, as indeed we have found none; so as there is none to hinder our possession, or to lay claim unto it. All the afternoon we spent in communication with him. We would gladly have been rid of him at night, but he was not willing to go this night. Then we thought to carry him on shipboard, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... about 200 acres, and the wall on the north side, provided with numerous redoubts and watch towers, was much the longest, the western wall being the shortest. Santo Domingo is one of the cities of the Spanish main which lay claim to the story that when the accounts for the city's walls were laid before the king of Spain, he went, to the window and gazed at the horizon, saying he was "looking for the reflection of those walls, for they must be built of gold, they cost so much." Judging by the relative size of the ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... doubtless, 'tis a mortal Sin, a Crime of the blackest Dye, to touch a Piece of Fish. Besides, you cannot justly boast of so illustrious an Origin, and you are both of you mere Moderns, in Comparison to us Chaldeans, You Egyptians lay claim to no more than 135,000 Years, and you Indians, but of 80,000. Whereas we have Almanacks that are dated 4000 Centuries backwards. Take my Word for it; I speak nothing but Truth; renounce your Errors, ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... feeling, the subject must not be treated historically, however indispensable this was in the case of 'St. Paul.' In historic handling, Christ must appear in the earlier part of St. Peter's career; and where he appears, St. Peter could not lay claim to the chief interest. I think, therefore, it must be symbolical; though all the historical points might probably be introduced,—the betrayal and repentance, the keys of Heaven given him by Christ, his preaching at Pentecost,—not in an historical, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... however, is judicious advice. How many who have the eyes of their body open, keep the eyes of the soul perpetually shut up. 'Seeing, they see not.' Such persons, on arriving at the age of three or four score, may lay claim to superior wisdom on account of superior age, but their claims ought not to be admitted. A person who has the eyes both of his mind and body open, will derive more wisdom from one year's experience, than those who neglect to observe for themselves, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... not rightly unhorsed!" he cried, hoarsely and with livid lips, to the Marshal and his attendants, who had ridden up. "I unhelmed him fairly enough, but my over-girth and breast-strap burst, and my saddle slipped. I was not unhorsed, I say, and I lay claim that ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... stranger.' He had no wit, and for humour hardly a relish. Robertson's reputation for wisdom may have been easily won. Dr. A. Carlyle says (ib. p. 287):—'Robertson's translations and paraphrases on other people's thoughts were so beautiful and so harmless that I never saw anybody lay claim to their own.' He may have flattered Johnson by ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... America may justly lay claim to this new species of short narrative. Beginning in the early part of the nineteenth century there had begun to appear in this country stories showing variations from the English type of story which "still bore upon it marks of its origin; it was either ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... these wild men, (for such they truly were), had been gifted with all the powers that most white men lay claim to,— vigour, muscle, energy, pluck, fun, humour, resolution. Only principle is wanted to make them a respectable and useful portion of the human family. Like all the rest of us they are keenly alive to the influence of kindness and affection. Of course if your kindness, ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... house, and to-night, who can tell, Help may come and give that man his hand. When the Slough of Despond is drained, and its bottom laid bare, what a find of all kinds of precious treasures shall be laid bare! Will you be able to lay claim to any of it when the long-lost treasure-trove is distributed by command of the ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... because the inhabitants, not having the fear of the Lord before their eyes, were prone to make merry and get fuddled with mint-julep and apple-toddy. They were, moreover, great horse-racers and cock-fighters, mighty wrestlers and jumpers, and enormous consumers of hoe-cake and bacon. They lay claim to be the first inventors of those recondite beverages, cock-tail, stone-fence, and sherry-cobbler, and to have discovered the gastronomical merits of terrapins, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... literature. It is too well known, too easily accessible, for any snippets to be quoted from it here. But with the English version of Mandeville at the beginning of our period, and Malory's Arthur completed in 1469 and published in 1483, it is evident that we can lay claim to two masterpieces which have not yet lost their hold on modern readers. The simplicity and feeling of Everyman has lately obtained recognition. I hope that, when boys and girls are taught a little more of their own language, ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... this exhortation of the apostle is the reason why a great many do not know what to say. The Paraclete was not only an instructor, but he was an infallible guide. This is evident from the fact that no apostle ever contradicted another nor said anything foolish. I never heard a man of to-day lay claim to being guided "into all truth by the Spirit," who did not say something foolish in the next five minutes. If any man claims the direct guidance of the Spirit to-day, he can not consistently deny that same claim to others. But we have all sorts of men teaching all sorts ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney
... established his reputation as a scientific geologist. But this work was the fruit of long years of patient observation and research. As he modestly states in his autobiography, "The only merit to which I lay claim in the case is that of patient research—a merit in which whoever wills may rival or surpass me; and this humble faculty of patience, when rightly developed, may lead to more extraordinary development of ideas than even ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... which are all without rhyme. The author of the work Volkslieder der Polen, assumes the absence of rhyme in some of them as a proof of their antiquity. Of Slavic popular songs only those of the Malo-Russians or Ruthenians are rhymed; and none of these lay claim to great antiquity.] ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... familiarity the studious hours of the scholar. One of the most stupid and pertinacious of these is the theory that the Southern States were settled by a class of emigrants from the Old World socially superiour to those who founded the institutions of New England. The Virginians especially lay claim to this generosity of lineage, which were of no possible account, were it not for the fact that such superstitions are sometimes not without their effect on the course of human affairs. The early adventurers to Massachusetts at least paid their passages; no felons were ever shipped thither; and though ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... conjuncture of civil and religious life in Judah no less than in Israel. On one point only do we find a disagreement, and that is in connection with the one and only Holy of Holies to the possession of which the southern kingdom had begun to lay claim: in a passage full of significance Jahveh declares, "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen: in every ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Town a certain High Priestess of the Socially Elect and a Queen Bee of the Cotillion Tribe. Whatever she said, Went. No one could lay claim to any Class in this Town until he had seated himself at one of her Dinners, with the $28,000 Gold Service in front of him, and dissected a French Artichoke ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... wished them to lay claim to certain material wealth now held by others, we could not better stimulate them to lay hands on the objects coveted than by showing them that these were ancestral possessions (9) to which they had a natural right. But since our ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... Wardour, Godfrey's mother, that she had seen the growth of an intimacy between the two young women. The society of a shopwoman, she often remarked, was far from suitable for one who, as the daughter of a professional man, might lay claim to the position of a gentlewoman. For Letty was the orphan daughter of a country surgeon, a cousin of Mrs. Wardour, for whom she had had a great liking while yet they were boy and girl together. At the same time, however much she would have her consider ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... meet Jesus. "Welcome, best of teachers, O what joy that thou shouldst honor my house with thy entrance. Dear friends, be also welcome," he exclaimed; but he was startled to hear the reply, "Simon, for the last time I, with my disciples, lay claim ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... wild beasts upon the mountains, in woods, marshes, and caves. Even there we are not secure against their fury; they even envy us those dreary and terrible abodes; they are incessant and unremitting in their pursuit after us, endeavouring to chase us from among them; they lay claim to every place in which they can discover us with unwarranted audacity and injustice; they allege that the whole kingdom belongs to them of right, and that an Irishman has no longer a right to remain in his ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... presents itself to the human mind. Continual changes are then every instant occurring under the observation of every man: the position of some is rendered worse; and he learns but too well, that no people and no individual, how enlightened soever they may be, can lay claim to infallibility;—the condition of others is improved; whence he infers that man is endowed with an indefinite faculty of improvement. His reverses teach him that none may hope to have discovered ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Chiverses and Mansons so actively represented. Most people imagined them to be the very apex of the pyramid; but they themselves (at least those of Mrs. Archer's generation) were aware that, in the eyes of the professional genealogist, only a still smaller number of families could lay claim to ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton |
