"Proverbially" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be guilty of positive waggery; but it must be confessed that in this line his attempts were few and far between, and not always successful. He had seen, however, that the professor, though not exactly poking fun at him, had nevertheless intended a sly touch of irony upon his proverbially prosing character. He therefore determined to "be up to him," as the fancy have it; and having somewhere found the copy of an obsolete satirical epic which an enamored snuff-taker had once addressed to a mistress, who could reciprocate the ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... David Hume, Esq., might, as bookmakers know now, be driven out to a handsome quarto. Line 1st admits of a descant upon eggs roasted, boiled or poached; 2d, a history of Carlisle Cathedral with some reasons why the choir there has been proverbially execrable; 3d, the whole history of 1745 with minute memoirs of such as mounted guard on the Scotch gate. I remember the spikes the heads stood upon; lastly, a description of Corby Castle with ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... that we have never in our lives seen anything like the French in this season of their anguish. They are treading the winepress as no other modern nation has trodden it, pressing their hearts' blood into the bitter wine of war. They grumble, of course, as they do their hard stint. The French proverbially are a nation of grumblers. Napoleon took them grumbling for fifteen years to glory. He took them grumbling to Moscow, and brought them grumbling back. They grumbled under the Second Empire and into the Republic. ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... well; and as the stranger gradually edged away, the Vincejo got more and more into her wake. A stern chase is proverbially a long chase; and though it was apparent from the first that the British, though much smaller, was the faster vessel, it was many hours before she was enabled to get within range. About dusk, however, this was effected, and the first shot from the Vincejo produced an instantaneous ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... while under the name of Rossae Mariance (the dikes of Marius), is filled up nowadays; but at its southern extremity the village of Foz still preserves a remembrance of it. Trained in this severe school, the soldiers acquired such a reputation for sobriety and laborious assiduity, that they were proverbially called Marius's mules. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... plan in all parts of the country are pretty nearly the same, though the furniture varies; the hospitable door (inns are proverbially hospitable) stands always open, but the guests are sheltered from the thorough air by a screen, composed like the rest of the mansion, of mud; the partition walls which separate it from the adjoining rooms reach no higher ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... he had landed in Sicily, and visited Etna; his ascent up whose side, to the crater, he graphically described, with some striking features; but as this is a subject proverbially enlarged upon by all travellers, I waive further notice, and proceed to state, that Mr. C. after leaving Sicily passed over to the south of Italy, and journeyed on ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... in order." She recalled certain of Uncle Harry's observations to the effect that in a truly civilized state housekeeping would be so conducted and houses would be so contrived that instead of causing care and labor proverbially endless, housekeepers would no more be burdened by their domestic duties than are the fowls of the air. Jill had too much of the rare good sense, incorrectly called "common," to attempt to reduce Uncle Harry's theories to practice all at once. She knew that though we may not reach the ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... proverbially ungrateful. The Honourable Hilary might have voiced this sentiment, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... It was proverbially dangerous to contradict him. Dr Mortimer, head of Lincoln college, happened occasionally to interrupt him, by saying, "I deny that," while Johnson was holding forth. At length he said, "Sir, sir, you must have forgotten that an author has said, (he then repeated in Latin,) one ass will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... world has justly attached to the name of Dante Alighieri is 'the Sublime'. I am almost afraid to say it, but we all know how proverbially short is the distance between the sublime and the ridiculous. And I venture to submit to the private personal thought of each of you whether it be not merely the horror of the subject and of the conception, and the almost stupefying ...
— Brendan's Fabulous Voyage • John Patrick Crichton Stuart Bute
... signs, and even his peculiar word? Because, whether invented by Aeschylus or not, these signs were a canonical part of the story by the time Euripides wrote. Every one who knew the story of Orestes' return at all, knew of the hair and the footprint. Aristophanes in the Clouds (534 ff.) uses them proverbially, when he speaks of his comedy "recognising its brother's tress." It would have been frivolous to invent new ones. As a matter of fact, it seems probable that the signs are older than Aeschylus; neither ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... succumbed to the subtle evils of our times, whereby the weak are corrupted into effeminate fools and the strong into abominable bullies. John Carvel's Latin has survived his school-days, and his manliness has outlived the university. He belongs to that class of Englishmen who proverbially speak the truth. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... with this disgusting topic. And I think I may justly conclude, after all the scandalous charges which tea-table gossip, and long-gowned hypocrisy have brought against the slaveholders, that a people whose men are proverbially brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaffectedly chaste, devoted to domestic life, and happy in it, can neither be degraded nor demoralized, whatever their institutions may be. My decided opinion is, that our ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... ease,' pursued Zero, 'in this age of scientific studies, you fill me with surprise. Are you not aware that chemicals are proverbially fickle as woman, and clockwork as capricious as the very devil? Do you see upon my brow these furrows of anxiety? Do you observe the silver threads that mingle with my hair? Clockwork, clockwork has stamped them on my brow— chemicals have sprinkled them upon my locks! No, Mr. Somerset,' ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... favorite food of the poor); a little further on are the dealers in wine, fruit, and garden produce. Lentils and peas can be had either raw, or cooked and ready to eat on the spot. An important center is the bread market. The huge cylindrical loaves are handed out by shrewd old women with proverbially long tongues. Whosoever upsets one of their delicately balanced piles of loaves is certain of an artistic tongue lashing. Elsewhere there is a pottery market, a clothes market, and, nearer the edge of the Agora, are ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... the bravest and wisest gods, so that it was customary to say proverbially, "As bold as Tyr," "Wise ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... events of life are proverbially very uncertain; and it may happen that you may be obliged to do without me; in which case, would it not be well for you to be ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... cruelly the moral and physical evils which Tuscany and the other Italian States were doomed to suffer, and from which they have enjoyed but brief respites during the whole period of modern history. The Maremma was already proverbially unhealthy in the time of Dante, who refers to the fact in several familiar passages, and the petty tyrants upon its borders often sent criminals to places of confinement in its territory, as a slow but certain mode ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... mystery and pomp, easily affected by flattery, loving dearly to hear himself talk, and unable to control his temper. His incessant quarrels with Captain Lewis were one cause of the loss of the schooners off Puerto Cabello. A want of quickness and energy was felt in all his operations. Delays are proverbially dangerous, but in a coup de main fatal. The time wasted by him at Jacquemel and at Aruba was employed by the Spaniards in making preparations for defence. They had few troops, and did not dare to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... development of society it has become increasingly less necessary, and humanity is now at a stage where the contributions of women to society are absolutely vital to its welfare and progress. Woman is proverbially and rightly regarded as more intuitive than man. This need not be taken to mean that, given the opportunity of intellectual development (until now practically denied to her), woman would not show as great ability in this direction as man. But it is an undeniable fact that woman has kept more closely ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... Methodism in the capital of Upper Canada. But of the religious zeal of the little company of believers, we may judge from the fact that several of the members of the society came from two to eight miles, through the proverbially wretched roads of "Muddy York," to the class meeting. [Footnote: Carroll's "Case and his Cotemporaries," ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... mediators between God and man, everywhere confronted him. Religion was then much more intimately blended with the life of man than it is now; and on all matters of religion, Western Europe seemed to present a united front and to be impervious to change. Appearances, however, are proverbially deceitful. Beneath this apparent uniformity and general conformity, there lurked countless forces, spiritual, intellectual, social and political, making for change. Dissent and dissatisfaction, with myriads of tiny teeth, had undermined and weakened the stately columns that upheld ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... the black man should be so cruelly dwarfed and robbed of his manhood. . . . Such are the not very flattering impressions made on my mind during a five months' tour in Northern Ohio, after an absence of nine years. There must and will be a reform; it has become a public necessity. Temporizers are proverbially short-sighted. God gives only to the pure-hearted the divine privilege of foreseeing the coming of those beneficent revolutions, which exalt and dignify humanity. Ambitious and selfish men are left to go blindly on and fall into their ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... of his mules. The young backwoodsman and I were thus left free to interchange with our respective "sweethearts" those phrases of delirious endearment—those glances of exquisite sweetness, that only pass between eyes illumined by the light of a mutual love. Proverbially sweet is the month after marriage; but the honeymoon, with all its joys, could not have exceeded in bliss those ante-nuptial hours spent by us in recrossing the prairies. Clear as the sky over our heads was the horoscope of our hearts; all doubt and suspicion had ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... work, almost invariably dwell on its material and civilizing rather than its spiritual aspects. They do not, as officials, feel that the salvation of men from sin and the command of Christ to evangelize all nations are within their sphere. Moreover, diplomacy is proverbially and necessarily cautious. Its business is to avoid risks, and, of course, to advise others to avoid them. The political situation, too, was undeniably uncertain and delicate. The future was big with possibility of peril. In such circumstances, we should expect diplomacy ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... condemnation on the criminal is proverbially a sorrowfully-minded man; and still more would he be so had he to undertake the part of executioner as well. This is equivalent to saying that the simple pleasures are no longer with us; it must be a personal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... drumming on the window, I began The Sea Cook, for that was the original title. I have begun (and finished) a number of other books, but I cannot remember to have sat down to one of them with more complacency. It is not to be wondered at, for stolen waters are proverbially sweet. I am now upon a painful chapter. No doubt the parrot once belonged to Robinson Crusoe. No doubt the skeleton is conveyed from Poe. I think little of these, they are trifles and details; and no man can hope to have a monopoly of skeletons or make a corner in talking ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... snakes; some of these were good, but many were utterly useless. No one knows this better than the cunning negroes themselves, but strangers, only touching at Nassau, they do not expect to see again, and there is proverbially cheating in all trades but ours. A bright, thrifty-looking colored woman had spread out her striped shawl upon the ground, and on this arrayed a really fine collection of conch-shells for sale, delicately polished, and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... in the crowded street, the landlubber at sea, the ignoramus in sport at a contest between experts in a complicated game, are further instances. Put an inexperienced man in a factory, and at first the work seems to him a meaningless medley. All strangers of another race proverbially look alike to the visiting stranger. Only gross differences of size or color are perceived by an outsider in a flock of sheep, each of which is perfectly individualized to the shepherd. A diffusive blur and an indiscriminately shifting suction characterize what we do not understand. The ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... expedition was given to the first lieutenant, who accepted of it with cheerfulness, and retired to his bed in high spirits, with the anticipation of the honour and profit which the dawn of day would heap upon him. He was proverbially brave and cool in action, so that the seamen followed him with confidence as to certain victory. Whether any ill-omened dreams had disturbed his rest, or whether any reflections on the difficult and dangerous nature of the service had alarmed him, I could not tell; ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... [referring to new wants, see p. 346] as compared with more modern and now widely received theories, it must be observed that it is only an extension of his third law; and that third law is a fact. The strengthening of the blacksmith's arm by use is proverbially notorious. It is, therefore, only the sufficiency of the Lamarckian hypothesis to explain the first commencement of new organs which is in question, if evolution by the mere operation of forces acting in the organic world be granted; and surely ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... Arthur and his nephew Medrod about the year 540 on the banks of the Camel between Cornwall and Somerset, where Arthur received the wounds of which he died. The combatants being relatives and former friends, it was characterised with unwonted ferocity, and has consequently come to be used proverbially for any fray or scene of more ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... The invasion has proved more expensive than he had foreseen. The English are proverbially a nation of shopkeepers, and they had put up their prices in all the shops for his special benefit. And he was expected to do such a lot of tipping. Four hundred and fifty a week would ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... orange, and so ample the supply, that it promises to rival the apple in its popularity. The orange-tree is considered young at the age of a hundred years. The pulp of the orange consists of a collection of oblong vesicles filled with a sugary and refreshing juice. The orange blossom is proverbially chosen for the bridal wreath, and, from the same flower, an essential oil is extracted hardly less esteemed than the celebrated ottar of roses. Of all marmalades, that made from the Seville orange is the best. The peel and juice of the orange are much used in culinary preparations. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... circled, and seasons rolled, and brought no serious business, then time was a burthen; existence a weariness; and the hungry soul, which craves some outward satisfaction, was found fallen back upon itself and preying upon its own vitality. Are not the idlest of men proverbially the most miserable? And is not the young woman often to be seen passing restless from place to place, because exempt from the necessity of industry, till vanity and envy, growing rank in her vacant mind, makes her far more an object of compassion than those who work ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... plates of clear glass, so that both sides can be inspected. The handwriting of the scrivener in the body of the instrument is quite distinct and legible, considering its antiquity. The signature of Shakespeare appears at the bottom of each sheet. The chirography of men of genius is proverbially bad, generally from its fluent facility, but the autographs of Shakespeare are clumsy, uncouth, and awkward, their disconnected and sprawling letters seeming to have been formed with difficulty by fingers ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... and the answers must be sent by a special messenger. The post is proverbially uncertain, and the non-arrival of an expected invitation or its answer, ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... action gaining brief eminence by their repeated statements of what they had witnessed and their varied surmises. The role of commentator, if mysterious human action be the text, is always popular, and as this explanatory class are proverbially gifted in conjecture, there were many theories of explanation. Some of the guests had already the good taste to prepare for departure, and when Dr. Mark appeared from the ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... answered Andrew, reaching for his pocketbook. When it appeared, it was fat and full, and Gavin stole a wistful glance; for, in Scotland, colonial pocketbooks are proverbially plump. "What shall it be?" ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... Lions and tigers are proverbially fond of music. Professional trainers tell us that these animals, when tamed, will not do their stunts without the accompaniment of music. The story is told of a group of tigers which recently refused to perform, because the musicians, while the performance was going on, went on a strike. ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... thronging to our shores: not starving and miserable, as one saw them a few years afterwards, but unmolested as yet, and bringing with them some token of their national splendour. I was walking with Lady Lyndon, who, proverbially jealous and always anxious to annoy me, spied out a foreign lady who was evidently remarking me, and of course asked who was the hideous fat Dutchwoman who was leering at me so? I knew her not in the least. I felt I had seen the lady's face somewhere (it was now, as my ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... proverbially picturesque, present few scenes more pleasant to look on than the early years in Rome of the Brotherhood of German Painters, of whom Overbeck and his friend Cornelius were the leaders. Exiles in some sort from their native land, they ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... Pharmacists are proverbially neat-handed, as Mr. Martindale would say, and their habit of conducting dispensing operations which involve the dexterous manipulation of very small quantities of material fit them admirably to undertake volumetric ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... the Turk found that the subtle intellect of the Greek could be made use of as an instrument of dominion over the other subject nations, the Bulgarian felt the hardship of the state of things in which, as it was proverbially said, his body was in bondage to the Turk and his soul in bondage to the Greek. But we may suspect that this neatly turned proverb dates only from the awakening of a distinctly national Bulgarian feeling in modern times. The Turk was felt to be an intruder and ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... merely told each other that little Miss Page would be awfully pretty in decent things, and the women and girls and children who formed the classes at The Alexander never saw her at all. The women were too much absorbed in their own affairs, children are proverbially blind to beauty, and the girls who came to the monthly dances, the evening sewing classes and reading clubs, thought their sober little guardian rather plain, as indeed she was, when judged by their standard of dress, their ruffled lace collars and high-heeled shoes, their ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... house to house, and the pain of being observed by the whole street, while the footman is examining him from the area. Some few may be seen in England about the inns of court, where the locality is favorable (where, however, the owners of the chambers are not proverbially soft of heart, so that the harvest must be poor); but Paris is full of such adventurers,—fat, smooth-tongued, and well dressed, with gloves and gilt-headed canes, who would be insulted almost by the offer of silver, and expect your gold as their right. Among ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... strong or healthy. One sees a good many deformed people, and they all look pale and thin—much less robust than the people of the Black Forest. But that may come from their poverty—the peasants of the Black Forest are proverbially well off." ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... imaginative. The war-song—the death-song—the song of victory—the cradle-chant—the lament for the slain—these are the overflowings of the essential poetry of their untaught souls. Their eloquence is proverbially soaring and figurative; and in spite of all that renders gross and mechanical their ordinary mode of marrying and giving in marriage, instances are not rare among them of love as true, as fiery, and as fatal, as that of the most exalted hero of romance. They, indeed, live ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... handbarrow, and wheeled by two men a few hundred yards, the whole occupying half an hour of time. For this service ten francs were demanded. I offered five, or double what would have been required by a drayman in New York, a place where labour is proverbially dear. This was disdainfully refused, and I was threatened with the law. Of the latter I knew nothing; but, determined not to be bullied into what I felt persuaded was an imposition, I threw down the five francs ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... giants, robbers, dragons, are proverbially stupid, and a clever hero with more wits than brawn has no difficulty in thoroughly frightening them. Grimm's story of "The Brave Little Tailor" (No. 20), with its incidents of "cheese-squeezing," ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... decay and decease, as at the outset it owed its existence to the success of their previous efforts, and which, in spite of constant opposition and bitterest attack, flourishes still, as though possessed of that longevity which is proverbially the attribute of the threatened. 'The Academy,' said Haydon, 'originated in the very basest intrigue.' Undoubtedly there was intrigue in connexion with its origin, but not necessarily of the 'very basest' character. Some allowance ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Great bodies are proverbially slow in their movements, and in this regard all governments seem to be great bodies. It may be that a healthy difference of opinion within a cabinet tends to cautious procedure, but that type of caution is rather trying on people whose nerves ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... she casts her eyes to heaven, she vows that Harry knows nothing of the truth and fidelity of women; it is his sex, on the contrary, which proverbially is faithless, and which delights to play with poor female hearts. A scuffle ensues; a clatter is heard among the knives and forks of the dessert; a glass tumbles over and breaks. An "Oh!" escapes from the innocent lips of Maria, The disturbance has been caused by the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this,—that she should send a neighbour to watch for Tamar on the side of the moat, the young girl having assured her kind protectress, that she had nothing to fear for her, and that as the Laird was proverbially a procrastinator, he might let half the day pass, before he had settled ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... Time, which proverbially works wonderful changes, at length subdued the urchin to a condition of calm goodness and felicity, that would have rejoiced his mother's heart, had it only been brought on in ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... dressing it in this country is by adding a white sauce, and parmesan or Cheshire cheese, and burning it; but this makes a dish which is proverbially unwholesome: its bad qualities arise from the oiled and burnt cheese, and the half-dressed flour and butter put into the ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... [*] Crocodiles are proverbially long-lived, but Leonard could never discover the age of this particular reptile. On enquiry he was able to trace it back for three hundred yards, and tradition said that it had always dwelt among the People of the Mist from "the beginning of time." At least it was very ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... arises—the thing is proverbially spoken; but may be applied to him—as if we should say in general terms, he only is secret who never was trusted; a satirical proverb upon our sex. There's another upon yours—as she is chaste, who was never asked ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... not ashamed to declare that I, too, felt pleasure in this sort of thing: like all old soldiers and sailors, who proverbially delight to ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... maintenance of the shed, which was to be the temporary home of Jarimari, for more than thirty days. Yet it matters but little, this time-limit: for a month is quite long enough for the complete assuagement of the anger of one who, though proverbially capricious, is ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... December is proverbially a sad day. It was so with us, but not sadder than the day before. A few shells were sent out among the Boers to ascertain how they got Christmas over them; and they by way of reply made some good practice on the Premier Mine. A water-pipe ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... dependence and subordination, where they have seldom to exercise the initiative of choice, but just to do what they are bid, by degrees all but lose the power of making up their minds about anything. And so a slave set free is proverbially a helpless creature, like a bit of driftwood; and children who have been too long kept in a position of pupilage and subordination, when they are sent into the world are apt to turn out very feeble men, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to be a rough and lawless set of marauders, fearing to come out and show themselves on being challenged, and further insist that none ever ventured in such wilds who had not got in view some desperate enterprise. In short, it was proverbially men of their sort who were the general plunderers of honest navigators. They therefore seize his weapons, cut and break his bow and arrows, and let him go; though some of the crew advocate his life being taken, and others, that the whole party should ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... her subsistence, on her manual exertions, or an inmate in the house of a relative or friend, she may do great good by an habitual watchfulness that nothing be wasted. Servants are proverbially lavish and careless in this matter. The head of the family may be deficient in economy, or what is by no means uncommon, so engrossed with other inevitable cares, as to have little time to look after the savings, which might daily be made. But here is an individual, whose habits ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... I didn't find out with that screen I just put out. It didn't reach them, and it went so far that the distance is absolutely meaningless, even expressed in parsecs. Well, a stern chase is proverbially a long chase, and I guess this one isn't going to ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... in County Cork and was a fashionable watering-place in the eighteenth century, when it was known as the "Irish Bath." Croker says that the young men of that fashionable water-drinking town were proverbially called "the rakes of Mallow," and he adds: "A set of pretty pickles they were, if the song descriptive of their mode of life, here recorded after the most delicate oral testimony, ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... Sandwich, a Dashwood, and a Potter, must temper their judgment by remembering the affection that Wilkes was able to inspire in the heart of Churchill. While the scoundrels of Medmenham were ready to betray their old associate, and, with no touch of the honor proverbially attributed to thieves, to drive him into disgrace, to exile, and if possible to death, the loyal friendship of the poet was given to Wilkes without reserve. Churchill was not a man of irreproachable character, of unimpeachable morality, or of unswerving austerity. But he was as different ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... there any remedy to be found merely in the forgiveness of man or of woman. Women are proverbially, and perhaps divinely, willing to forgive. But a woman's forgiveness does not necessarily make a man able to forgive himself. Nor does it always cleanse an unclean inner life. To many a man it has been ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... accomplished as much. In some kinds of labor the older men did better than the younger because usually more patient of detail and less restive in monotonous toil. In the larger enterprises older men are proverbially less speculative, more conservative, less venturesome than the young. American business would, perhaps, not suffer if a larger admixture of these qualities were found in all the walks ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... is proverbially a dog's berth. He is neither officer nor man. The men do not respect him as an officer, and he is obliged to go aloft to reef and furl the topsails, and to put his hands into the tar and slush, with the rest. The crew call him the "sailor's waiter," as he has ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... about doubting on account of inaccuracy in the detail of the phthisical symptoms, is a mere fetch, as the Cockneys have it, in order to make a very few little children believe that it, the Post, is not quite so stupid as a post proverbially is. It knows nearly as much about pathology as it does about English grammar—and I really hope it will not feel called upon to blush at the compliment. I represented the symptoms of M. Valdemar as "severe," to be sure. I put an extreme case; for it was necessary that I should leave on the reader's ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... my pocket. Fifteen minutes after the fracas, Mrs. Pinkerton came to my room, completely dressed, and insisted upon coming in to hear all about it and to overwhelm me with thanks and admiration. I was as modest as heroes proverbially are, and then and there told her never to refer to the subject again unless she addressed me ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... take my word for it, my dear madam, that you had better leave Pluto alone. The interference of a mother-in-law is proverbially ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... proverbially styled the "staff of life." In nearly all ancient languages the entomology of the word "bread" signifies all, indicating; that the bread of earlier periods was in truth what it should be at the ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... brow. The maiden ladies owned about eighteen head of this kind of property, far more than they understood how to treat justly or civilly. They bore the name of being very hard to satisfy. They were proverbially "stingy." They were members of the Christ ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... presented to the view. In the former instance, the imagination is called into play and fills out the picture on a scale corresponding with the actual features, as far as they are subject to observation; but the imagination proverbially ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... comely, robust fellow in his youth, given to dissipated courses. In a Carnival frolic, he appeared in the streets with two companions in the character of bipeds with feathers,—a scanty addition to Plato's definition of man. This airy costume was too much for French modesty, proverbially shrinking and sensitive. The mob hooted and gave chase. The maskers fled from the town and hid themselves in a marsh to evade pursuit. The result of this venturesome travestissement was the death of both his friends, and an attack of inflammatory rheumatism which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... by the present eminently practical generation, that a busy people like the English, whose diversified occupations so continually expose them to the chances and changes of a proverbially fickle sky, had ever been ignorant of the blessings bestowed on them by that dearest and truest friend in need and in deed, the UMBRELLA? Can you, gentle reader, for instance, realise to yourself ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... Sachs's peculiar audacity has lain in his taking the risk of a perfectly justified revolt on the part of the masters against his high-handed proceeding; he has counted on the restraining effect of the public occasion; has counted on luck, which proverbially follows the bold. High-handed, his course, undeniably, but too much was at stake for any narrow consideration to hold back Sachs: the happiness of Eva,—of, as he says, at the conclusion of his announcement, "the amiable stainless one, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... estimate of the queen is quite at variance with the views which have obtained the widest currency; but it is the estimate which history, carefully read, seems to require us to adopt. Catharine's plans were proverbially narrow in their scope, never extending much beyond the immediate present. After the catastrophe, which had perhaps been the result of the impulse of the moment, she was not, however, unwilling to accept the homage of those ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... as tall as a donkey; a lean, long-necked, ragged, bristly, savage-looking beast, as ill kept as its master, and it runs like a greyhound when approached. The Breton cow is very small, small as the Kerry cows of Ireland, very pretty and very productive. The Breton butter is proverbially good, and is given out most liberally, in lumps as big as loaves, at the tables-d'hote. It is brought to market in jars which the women carry upon their heads. It is to the Queen-Duchess that Brittany, and indeed all France, owes the privilege of eating butter in Lent. It was forbidden ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... there ensued some Correspondence, high enough on his Serenity's side; but it soon languished on the Prince's side; and in private Poetry, within a two years of this Brunswick scene, we find Lippe used proverbially for a type-specimen of Fools. ["Taciturne, Caton, avec mes bons parents, Aussi fou que la Lippe met les jeunes gens." OEuvres, xi. 80 (Discours sur la Faussete, written 1740).] A windy fantastic ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... the post were cleared away and uprooted respectively by that evening. Late summer weather is proverbially treacherous, and during dinner-time Mrs Collins sent up to ask for a little brandy, because her husband had took a nasty chill and she was afraid he would not be able to do ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... These worthies found the material a little too solid for the tools of their workmen, which, in General, were employed on a substance no harder than the white pine of the adjacent mountains, a wood so proverbially soft that it is commonly chosen by the hunters for pillows. But for this awkward dilemma, it is probable that the ambitious tastes of our two architects would have left us much more to do in the way of description. Driven ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... proverbially the perfect number. It is of a quantity sufficiently complex to stimulate the eye to resolve it, and yet so simple that it can be analyzed at a glance; as a center with two equal sides, it is possessed ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... qualifications upon the bench and bar of the national capital that one of the judges publicly, and without precedent, complimented him in open court and set his methods up as an example for other lawyers who practice there. Eminent as are his abilities, Mr. White is proverbially modest. Of strong character, well-balanced mind and an unswerving sense of justice, liberal in views upon all subjects, political, social or religious, companionable in private life, unostentatious in manner of living or in the bestowal of charity, ready to sacrifice personal ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... in the country, for a year preceding the convention, was that Mr. Seward would be nominated. As the time drew nigh, however, symptoms of dissent appeared in quarters where it had not been expected. New parties are proverbially free from faction and jealousy. Personal antagonisms, which come with years, had not then been developed in the Republican ranks. It was not primarily a desire to promote the cause of other candidates which ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... two hundred novels, chiefly historical, which have been, in their day, popular. It was soon found, however, that he repeated himself, and the sameness of handling began to tire his readers. His "two travellers," with whom he opens his stories, have become proverbially ridiculous. But he has depicted scenes in modern history with skill, and especially in French history. His Richelieu is a favorite; and in his Life of Charlemagne he has brought together the principal events in the career of that distinguished monarch with logical ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... turns, they have more respect for one another than that given by mere position in the service, and hence that position is less taken advantage of. They are brought more into contact, and hence those engaged in the surveying service almost proverbially stick by one another. To me, whose interest in the service is almost all to be made, this is a matter of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... proverbially famous for the facility with which they attract animals towards them. Bates and Wallace also mention having seen, on several occasions, jaguars perfectly tame, roaming in and out of the huts, as their smaller ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... for national character. If all this be a truthful picture, and really we see no reason for doubt, it does but add another to the many proofs of the springing elasticity of that element of light-hearted short-sightedness which is so proverbially characteristic of the French. But we will say no more, for our paper has already exceeded the limits we had assigned to it; and the things that are must ever prevail in our pages ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... you say to this threat?—why, entre nous, I like to give way to a sprightly vein, when writing to you, that is, when I am pleased with you. "The devil," you know, is proverbially said to be "in a good humour, when he is pleased." Will you not then be a good boy, and come back quickly to play with your girls? but I shall not allow you to ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... forenoon occupation. Miss Flora does not like being criticized, I find. One must not presume to set her right in the smallest particular. Singers are proverbially irritable! I am not certain I could belong to a glee-club, and never get cross or unreasonable. I hate to be corrected; but I hate more to be incorrect. I could give Canary a hint or two now and then that would be serviceable, if she would permit it. I have no right, however, to take it upon ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... There are still some of the hard Radicals from Scotland who have never wavered in the idea that the Irish members ought to remain at their full total. They have been partially relieved by what Mr. Sexton had said. But then Scotchmen are proverbially tenacious of opinion; and not even his appeal—joined to the appeal of their leader—will altogether change the purpose of those rugged sons of bonnie Scotland. And so, Mr. Shaw, the member for Galashiels, gets up to ask a question. He plainly declares that according to ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... this nation hung. Do you think you would be likely to believe it without first saying, 'That is a strange place for such a person to be born in'? Galilee was the despised part of Palestine, and Nazareth obviously was a proverbially despised village of Galilee; and this Jesus was a carpenter's son that nobody had ever heard of. It seemed to be a strange head on which the divine dove should flutter down, passing by all the Pharisees and the Scribes, all the great people and wise people. Nathanael's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... is proverbially dangerous, and often lures vague people into unsuspected perils. One of the most charming ladies of my acquaintance, remonstrating with her mother for letting the fire go out on a rather chilly day, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... or without demanding far more than an adequate security. Count Timascheff, a Russian nobleman, was evidently rich; to him perhaps, for a proper consideration, a loan might be made: Captain Servadac was a Gascon, and Gascons are proverbially poor; it would never do to lend any money to him; but here was a professor, a mere man of science, with circumscribed means; did he expect to borrow? Certainly Isaac would as soon think of flying, as of lending money to him. Such were the thoughts that made him receive ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... Caribs over a great part of the continent, joined to the remembrance of their ancient greatness, has inspired them with a sentiment of dignity and national superiority which is manifest in their manners and their discourse. "We alone are a nation," say they proverbially; "the rest of mankind (oquili) are made to serve us." This contempt of the Caribs for their enemies is so strong that I saw a child of ten years of age foam with rage on being called a Cabre or Cavere; though he had never in his life ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... being, and at the same time retained all his present mental infirmities, it would be difficult to say of what extravagances he would be guilty. It is proverbially affirmed that power has a tendency to corrupt the best dispositions. Then ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... disposed of and Shafto's room inspected and criticised, his companion still lingered talking. To Salter, the proverbially eccentric, this new-comer appeared to be an intelligent young fellow whom he would like and take to. There was no superior "just out from London to the back of God-speed" air about him. On the contrary, he appeared to be genuinely ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... (38/1. The Royal medal was given to Sir Joseph in 1854.) I heard that it was decidedly the best speech of the evening, given "with perfect fluency, distinctness, and command of language," and that you showed great self-possession: was the latter the proverbially desperate courage of a coward? But you are a pretty fellow to be so desperately afraid and then to make the crack speech. Many such an ordeal may you have to go through! I do not know whether Sir William [Hooker] would be contented with Lord Rosse's (38/2. President of the Royal ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... proverbially uncertain, Mr Thompson. That is principally the reason why I was so bent on making him confess if he had anything to confess. I can't expel a boy and ruin his whole career on mere suspicion. The matter must be proved, doubly ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... I had wished to narrate. Reminiscences come crowding in unbidden, and, like the flickering lights of the Will-o'-the-wisp, they tend to lead the wayfarer far astray from the path he had originally traced out for himself. "Jack-o'-lanthorn" is proverbially a fickle guide to follow, and should I have succumbed to his lure, I can only proffer my excuses, and plead in extenuation that sixty years is such a long road to re-travel that an occasional deviation into a by-path by elderly feet may perhaps ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... decks, while Ithuel seated himself on a knight-head, and his chin resting on his hand, he sat ruminating, in bitterness of spirit, like Milton's devil, in some of his dire cogitations, on the atrocious wrong of which he had really been the subject. Bodies of men are proverbially heartless. They commit injustice without reflection, and vindicate their abuses without remorse. And yet it may be doubtful if either a nation or an individual ever tolerated or was an accessory in a wrong, that the act, sooner or later, did not recoil on the offending party, through that mysterious ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... scornful as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor's name) professed to be of the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and fully appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage conferred on him in a mushroom-place like X——, concerning whose inhabitants it was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his own grandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were still independent; and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his success in business, to restore to pristine ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Danes is paralleled to an irruption of the sea, 'overpeering of his list;' in the well-known soliloquy is the expression, 'a sea of troubles,' which, in spite of Pope's suggested and tasteless emendation, commentators have shewn to have been used proverbially by the Greeks, and more than once by AEschylus and Menander. Still, Shakspeare, again like Horace, was not insensible to the merits of sea-air in a sanitary point of view. Dionyza, meditating Marina's murder, bids her take what ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... which he now entered roused all the slumbering passions of his soul, which lay there, perhaps unconsciously to himself; cruelty, avarice, revenge. He found ample exercise for them in the war with his countrymen; for civil war is proverbially the most sanguinary and ferocious of all. The atrocities recorded of Carbajal, in his new career, and the number of his victims, are scarcely credible. For the honor of humanity, we may trust the accounts ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... strapped clown very tightly over his polished boots; a shining new silk hat was on one side of his head; and in his hand he was dangling an ebony cane. In spite, however, of all these gaudy trappings, he could not muster up an easy air; and, as he knocked, he had that look proverbially attributed to dogs who ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... have any communication with him, don't mention having seen me; for, to tell you the truth, I am just returned from India, where I should have scraped up a little money, but that I spent it as fast as I got it. However, you know that I was always proverbially the luckiest fellow in the world—(and so, Sir, your father was!)—and while I was in India, I saved an old Colonel's life at a tiger-hunt; he went home shortly afterwards, and settled in Yorkshire; and the other day on my return to ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... seventeen wounds, a prison, and death in the sight of Monsieur, who remained motionless with his army. In the rapidity of the Queen's enunciation he had not time to examine whether she had employed this expression proverbially or with a direct reference; but at all events, he decided not to notice it, and was indeed prevented from doing so by the Queen, who continued, ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... other. They had almost reached the outer door, and were eagerly hoping they would see some friendly passer-by when a noise behind her caused Mollie to turn quickly. She saw a tall white object in a proverbially ghostly winding sheet. It had ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... Wounded lions proverbially come badly off, and Fritz and Carl, who had suffered from many an act of petty tyranny on the part of the steward, thought they could not do better than follow their master's example, which they did to such good purpose, that when the unfortunate ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... their misery a compound of brimstone, gunpowder, and butter, to be "rubbed on the mandible." This colonial remedy is still employed on New England farms. Burnaby, writing in 1759, said that New England dames had universally and even proverbially very indifferent teeth. The Abbe Robin says they were toothless at eighteen or twenty years of age, and attributes this premature disfigurement to tea-drinking and the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... but it takes much sharpening of the intellect to appreciate the fact that "he cannot speak for himself." His sex is popularly coupled with the sense of strength. The illusion conceals his feebleness, and deprives him of help, often of sympathy. It is thus even with regard to the child. Proverbially weak and needing support, the child, nevertheless, is not everywhere a victim in the existing social order. Only in remote sense does the child of the ruling class suffer. The invocation of the "Rights of the Child" leaves substantially ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... responsibility rested upon him. The failure of his house was not only disaster and possible dishonor, but the ruin of thousands who had confided in him. A strong intellect might well be bowed down under the apprehension of such a catastrophe. Women, too, are proverbially calmer in such emergencies than men. To them it simply means sacrifice, but to men it is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... assistance of the surviving mules. But while we may congratulate ourselves on the lifting of the clouds in that direction matters in West Ham give ground for the gravest anxiety. The wood-lice of West Ham are proverbially of an irritable nature, and the attitude of the Government has been calculated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... (symbols of physical profligacy), are located just between the ears (see Fig. 60). Inferior animals distinguished for breadth between the ears are not only cunning and treacherous, but very excitable and irritable. The head of the Fox is remarkable for its extreme width at the region of Fear. He is proverbially crafty and treacherous, always excitable, and so variable in temper that he can never be trusted. He is a very timid thief, exceedingly suspicious, irregular in habits, and frequently driven by hunger ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... proverbially said to be more quick-{witted} than a wizard, but the reason is not told; which, now for the first time, shall be made known ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... physical aspect of their country on the development of the Serbs has been the fact that right through the middle of it from south to north there had been drawn a line of division more than two centuries before their arrival. Artificial boundaries are proverbially ephemeral, but this one has lasted throughout the centuries, and it has been baneful to the Serbs. This dividing line, drawn first by the Emperor Diocletian, has been described on p. 14; at the ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... from Sacramento and Marysville for miners working the gold placer diggings along the American and Yuba rivers. We camped beside the little hotel, and the next morning were for the first time permitted to enjoy a sample of the proverbially generous California hospitality, when the landlord invited our entire company ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... same moment glanced his eyes after the flying cattle, with the longings of a Western Indian. The struggle between thirst for vengeance and cupidity was severe but short. The latter quickly predominated in the bosom of one whose passions were proverbially grovelling; and scarcely a moment intervened between the flight of the animals and the swift pursuit of the guards. The trapper had continued calmly facing his foe, during the instant of suspense that succeeded his hardy act; and now that Weucha was seen following his companions, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... details that, as the General admitted, delay the movements of great armies, and the striking of heavy blows. T's must be crossed when we ought to be crossing the Potomac; i's dotted when we ought to be dotting Virginia fields with our tents. And war so proverbially, so historically uncertain, has its rules, which, if adhered to, will save commanders from censure—judgment not allowed to interfere. It would appear so from many movements in the history of the Army of the Potomac. What ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... in the representation, was, I thought, sufficiently favorable for me to stop there. I was, I say, determined, to let them only be seen by Candlelight, that I might give no room for any one to use the Proverb; [Footnote: In Moliere's time it was proverbially said of a woman, "Elle est belle a la chandelle, mais le grand jour gate tout." She is beautiful by candle-light, but day-light spoils everything.] nor was I willing they should leap from the Theatre de Bourbon into ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... my own land of the Heavenly Dynasty is proverbially elaborate," I said, with a gesture of self-abasement, "but in comparison with yours it may be regarded as an undeviating walk when opposed to a stately and many-figured dance. Among the company of the really excessively select ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... Venice renders it impossible to bring horses into the town; accordingly, the Venetians are proverbially bad riders. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... that drapery which ever surrounds with grace those the heart loves first. I believe he never for an instant reflected on the effect his devoted attentions might produce, and, absorbed in the magic of his own rapturous thoughts, he had no time for calmer reasoning. Love is proverbially credulous; and although neither promise nor protestation had been spoken, Theresa never doubled what she hoped, and, perhaps, in her girlish faith, believed his feelings the deeper ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... certain supply exists at the fountain head, within practicable distance, which might be stored and led from the mountains to the lower lands for the purposes of irrigation. When we reflect that in the proverbially wet climate of England there is a considerable difficulty in assuring a supply of wholesome water, and that the various water companies have made enormous profits, it is not surprising that in a ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... be a variety of answers given to your first query, Miss Hazel. People that want to marry each other are proverbially subject to hindrances—from the days of fairy tales down ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... swan, which species, though proverbially rare in other parts of the world, is here by no means uncommon . . . a very noble bird, larger than the common swan, and equally beautiful in form . . . its wings were edged with white: the bill was tinged ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... he said, had called him "Greek, lazy lubberly Greek," which he would not bear. The word Greek rankled in the sailor's mind, and stung him to the very core. Mr. B., who seemed to be perfectly acquainted with the character of Welshmen in general, who are proverbially obstinate when opposition is offered to them, and who saw at once that the dispute had arisen on foolish and trivial grounds, now told the man, with a smile, that he would inform him of a way by which ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... house from the fire, with which we left the alarmed Elwood and his wife contending, was, indeed, easily overcome by dashing pails of water over the roof. But scarcely had they achieved this temporary triumph in one place over an element proverbially terrible when it becomes master, before it was seen kindling into flickering blazes on the roof of the barn and the locks of hay protruding from its windows and the crevices between the logs of which it was built. Here, also, they soon succeeded in ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... "Of course there is always the lady's point of view. The sex is proverbially fickle, you know. 'Woman, thy vows are traced in sand,' Lord Byron ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... proverbially cautious, but it seemed to his visitor that his demeanour this morning exceeded all reasonable limits. For nearly a minute he answered absolutely nothing, and then he said ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... is upon record, that a surgeon who had bandaged the broken leg of a dog, was afterwards visited by his patient, who brought another, requiring a similar operation. The horse, in like manner, is proverbially sagacious in the application of his knowledge. Mismanagement in a groom in one instance, may create a "vice," which may lessen his value during life. This "vice," which is confirmed by practice, is nothing ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... have ours; yours are white, ours are black. I say yours are white; I should except your free blacks, who are the most miserable class of human beings I ever saw. They are indolent, reckless, and impertinent. The poorer classes of society, are proverbially improvident—and yours, in sickness, and in old age, are often victims of want and suffering. Ours in such circumstances, are kindly cared for, and are never considered a burden; our laws are, generally speaking, humane and faithfully administered. ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... constitutional powers. Each legislature, under a just sense of its responsibility, must judge for itself; and if it think proper, it may revise, or amend, or absolutely undo the work of any predecessor. The laws of the Medes and Persians are said proverbially to have been unalterable; but they stand forth in history as a single example where the true principles of all law have been so ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various |
