"Second-best" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forth to call upon Miss Chetwynd, with whom she had remained very friendly: she considered that she and Miss Chetwynd formed an aristocracy of intellect, and the family indeed tacitly admitted this. She practised no secrecy in her departure from the shop; she merely dressed, in her second-best hoop, and went, having been ready at any moment to tell her mother, if her mother caught her and inquired, that she was going to see Miss Chetwynd. And she did go to see Miss Chetwynd, arriving at the house-school, which lay amid trees on the road ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... college law against a student's keeping domestic animals, and a boat was a domestic animal within the meaning of the statute. Manual labor was thought less reprehensible; but schools on this basis have never yet proved satisfactory, because either the hands or the brains have always come off second-best from the effort to combine: it is a law of Nature, that after a hard day's work one does not need more work, but play. But in many of the German common-schools one or two hours are given daily to gymnastic exercises with apparatus, with sometimes the addition of Wednesday ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... shameless publicity. A damp waterproof, shawl, and open newspaper were lying across the once brilliant sofa; a powder-puff, a plate of fruit, and a play-book were on the centre table, and on the marble-topped sideboard was Mr. Hooker's second-best hat, with a soiled collar, evidently but lately exchanged for the one he had on, peeping over its brim. The whole apartment seemed to mingle the furtive disclosures of the dressing-room with the open ostentations of the stage, with even a slight suggestion of the auditorium in a few ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... unintelligible to him; the tawdry, meretricious Italian overtures filled him with disgust. In the end the two confined themselves to patriotic airs and old-time domestic ditties. Medora accompanied on her second-best violin (which was kept at the farm) and Abner enjoyed a heart-warming sense of doing his full share in "Tenting Tonight" or "Lily Dale." The girl's parents had advanced far beyond this stage, but willingly relapsed into it now and then for ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... I'll lick you. No, I've lent my clothes to a young feller as was goin' to a party, and didn't have none fit to wear, and so I put on my second-best for a change." ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... had been most of the morning at the rectory, arranging flowers, or moving furniture about, or helping with some dainty cooking, and then had gone to the church at noon for the wedding, they saw no reason why they should not come again in the evening. So the sisters had put on their second-best black silks, and, summoning Gifford, had walked through the twilight to the rectory. Miss Deborah Woodhouse had a genius for economy, which gave her great pleasure and involved but slight extra expense to the household, and she would have ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... our standard of success, judged by this test we must admit that Hyperides is a far superior orator to Demosthenes. For in Hyperides there is a richer modulation, a greater variety of excellence. He is, we may say, in everything second-best, like the champion of the pentathlon, who, though in every contest he has to yield the prize to some other combatant, is superior to the ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... if you'd slep' in it. That comes from layin' on the ground same as a caterpillar. Smooth your hair down with your hands an' p'r'aps Emma Jane can braid it as you go along the road. Run up and get your second-best hair ribbon out o' your upper drawer and put on your shade hat. No, you can't wear your coral chain—jewelry ain't appropriate in the morning. How long do you cal'late to be gone, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... German silver and the most ordinary table service. . . . Ever since our marriage we have always eaten off the finest French china, and had all things pretty and tasteful; because, you know, I would never have second-best services, considering my husband to be my most illustrious guest. But now! It is really laughable to think of the appointments of the table at which the Ambassador to Lisbon and the American Consul sat down last Saturday, when they ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... having hit on the most exalted subject tractable by the Muse, it follows that he must be the most exalted poet. Let me tell you—if it will shorten argument—that in general, and in all walks of life, I hate the second-best.' ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 'progresses the dateless and irrevoluble circle of its own perfections, joining inseparable hands with joy and bliss in over-measure for ever'. Once this ideal has presented itself to our hopes or desires, it degrades by comparison with it to a second-best, the former ideal of endless development from lower to higher. What we want and seek is to be there, to have done with getting there. 'Here is the house of fulfilment of craving, this is the cup with the roses around it.' Compared with this, how disconsolate a prospect ...
— Progress and History • Various
... particularly towards the end of the play. This taste was, it seems, first acquired in consequence of a feud that formerly existed between Doria's family and his own, in which his side came off so decidedly second-best, that he only remains of his race; all the rest having been murdered by Doria and his father's faction. From such deadly foes, it may be observed, that tragic heroes always select their most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... beds," "flocke beds," "downe bedds," "wool beds," and even "charf beds," the latter worth but three shillings apiece, all of importance enough to be named in wills and left with as much dignity of bequest as Shakespeare's famous "second-best bed." Even so influential a man as Thomas Dudley did not disdain to leave by specification to his daughter Pacy a "ffeather beed & boulster." In 1666 Nicholas Upsall, of Boston, left a "Bedstead fitted with ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... raised also to certain individual socialists, whose record in the first coalition government made one doubt their willingness to adhere honestly to any coalition program. This objection was withdrawn later; but the non-socialists gave only their second-best men as members of the new government. The non-socialists also had demanded that the Provisional Government be absolutely independent, its members not responsible to any councils or party committees. For the Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies were as we saw exclusively socialistic, ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, no file of old yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope to discover whether the boy Shakspeare poached or not, whether he held horses at the theatre door, whether he kept school, and why he left in his will only his second-best bed to Anne ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... peach-dumpling for dinner, and of course Aunt Trixie was the last and crowning suggestion. It was not far to send, and she was not long in coming, with her second-best cap pinned up in a handkerchief, and her knitting-work and her spectacles ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... can't say we did exactly," said Mr. Holden, with the same unpleasant smile, "We tried to, but the road being narrow, there was a collision, and I came off second-best." ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... while Kate chose a second-best cushion from the couch and, lifting the bandaged foot as gently as might be, placed it, with many little pats and pulls, under the afflicted member. Josephine screwed her lips into a soundless expression of pain, smiled afterwards when Kate glanced at her commiseratingly, and pulled a long, ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... about dyspepsia and love, Mrs. Brewster took her chair at the table. Immediately after giving thanks, the host stood up to carve the roast. Then, to the surprise of all present, it was seen that the rancher had donned his second-best black coat and had taken the trouble to wear cuffs and a ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... tied pencils the points of which are always blunt, and to the incessant longs and shorts of a dozen telegraph instruments they put their epoch-making news on the neat blanks. Martin did not intend to be left out of it. His best pal was off the map, and so he chose a second-best friend and wrote triumphantly: "Have been married to-day. Staying in New York for honeymoon. How are you?" He was sorry that he couldn't remember the addresses of a hundred other men. He felt in the mood to pelt the earth ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the morning they went to church. The children there all looked so glad, so happy and so clean and neat in their second-best clothes and so nicely washed. They now made their confessions for the last time; and it all went so pleasantly: they had done no wrong for such a long while and all their sins had already been forgiven two or three times over, yesterday and the day before. ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... Hester could be very keen about the poet's wife. Hester, indeed, had it firmly in her head that she was not kind to him. "Otherwise," she said, "he would have left her his best bed instead of his second-best bed." ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... to infer, then, that dancing must be the primary prescription? It would not be a bad one. It was an invaluable hint of Hippocrates, that the second-best remedy is better than the best, if the patient likes it best. Beyond all other merits of the remedy in question is this crowning advantage, that the patient likes it. Has any form of exercise ever yet been invented which a young girl would not leave ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... the contrary; and the baronet always treated him well, as one of those easy-handled personages who, frequenting the society of gentlemen, without being exactly gentlemen themselves, can be the more serviceable, like the second-best articles of our wardrobe, which we use with ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... moment when he would be turned out. He plunged his hands down into his trousers pockets and fished up a knife, his second-best one, fortunately. ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Francois, that you chose a place to make your fire that looks as if it might be second-best? According to my notion, over yonder is an ideal ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... only the plans of mice and men didn't go so aft agley! If only the railway had come through to link us up with civilization, and the once promised town had sprung up like a mushroom-bed about our still sad and solitary Casa Grande! But what's the use of repining, Tabbie McKail? You've the second-best house within thirty miles of Buckhorn, with glass door-knobs and a laundry-chute, and a brood to rear, and a hard-working husband to cook for. And as the kiddies get older, I imagine, I'll not be troubled by this terrible feeling of loneliness which has been weighing like a plumb-bob ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... pretentiousness. She had a fine best dress, and when she put it on everybody knew that it was her best; a stranger would have known. Whereas of a coquette none but her intimate companions can say whether she is wearing best or second-best on a given high occasion. Rachel used the pinafore-apron only with her best dress, and her reason for doing so was the sound, sensible reason that it was the usual and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... was mourning the death of his little son Hamnet, and that his hopes of founding a family were at an end? Another piece of evidence, far more important, is the fact that Shakespeare does not mention his wife at all in his will, except by an interlined bequest of his "second-best bedroom set." But here, again, it is easy to misread the motives of the man who makes a will. Such omissions have been made when no slight was intended, sometimes because of previous private settlements, sometimes ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... as is always the case when athletes and scholars compete for feminine favor, the scholar was almost ignored, while his muscular rival was petted to a degree that Owen declared simply scandalous. Although the latter was still allowed to act as second-best escort to the ladies, and form a fourth in their various excursions, it was always Peveril who walked, sat, strolled, and talked with Miss Rose, while Owen was monopolized by ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... parade-ground, and pours out fire like one continuous thunder-peal;" so that, strange as it seems, you find there will actually be nothing for you but—taking to your heels, shall we say?—rolling off with despatch, as second-best! These things are of singular omen. Here stands one that will avenge Friedrich Wilhelm,—if Friedrich Wilhelm were not already sufficiently avenged by the mere verdict of facts, which is palpably coming out, as Time peels the wiggeries away from them ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope to discover whether the boy Shakespeare poached or not, whether he held horses at the theatre door, whether he kept school, and why he left in his will only his second-best bed to Ann Hathaway, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... banker's a tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, friends from every side poured in, all in hot haste, to lend him their last farthing. The Sawyer was pleased with their kindness, but thought that his second-best whiskey met the merits of the case. And he was more particular than usual with his words; for, according to an old saying of the diggers, a big nugget always has children, and, being too heavy to go very far, it is likely ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... a life, of course, that abounded in what pass for hardships. There is no desolation to surpass that of the second-best hotel (rates two dollars a day), in a small middle western city, except the same kind of hotel in the same sort of city in the South. Bad air, bad beds and bad food are their staples and what passes for service seems especially calculated to ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... various places of this book, French critics are apt to insist so much, is not always present. Of actual passion he has little, and his books are somewhat open to the charge—which has been brought against those of so many of our own second-best novelists—that they are somewhat machine-made, or, if that word be too unkind, are rather works of craft than of art. Yet the work of a sound craftsman, using good materials, is a great help in life; and a person who wants good story-pastime ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... after the hour of noon. Moses wore his Zouave cap, and his second-best summer clothes, and Mr. St. Clair wore a black alpaca coat, a blue neck-tie tied in a bow, a broad-brimmed straw hat, a white vest, and white trousers. Moses drove the horse, and they reached the mill without accident. While the miller was taking in the corn, Moses bought a roll of ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... money; but when it came to the Jack-in-the-box it simply sat in the tray and laughed at them, as Cyril said. They tried to light it with paper and they tried to light it with matches; they tried to light it with Vesuvian fusees from the pocket of father's second-best overcoat that was hanging in the hall. And then Anthea slipped away to the cupboard under the stairs where the brooms and dustpans were kept, and the rosiny fire-lighters that smell so nice and like the woods where pine-trees grow, and the old newspapers ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... taken place over Shakespeare's legacy to his wife. It may very simply and naturally have arisen from some conversation in which a reference had been made to giving her "the best bed." But that was the visitor's couch. "The second-best" would have been her own, that which she had used through the years, and he wished her to feel that that was not included in the "residue." That was to be her very own. As to any provision for her, it must have taken the form of a settlement, ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... set to to clean the house, which was cleaner than most people's already, and I got a nice bit of dinner and took it up on a tray. But no, that wasn't right, for I'd put the best instead of the second-best cloth on the tray. ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... back to the same job he had done the day before, making do with skin strips he had considered second-best before, smoothing, cutting. Only the trap occupied his mind, and close to sunset he knew just what he was going to ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... to such a succession of incidents, and that was war. Accordingly, in June, 1812, war was declared; and as a contest for the rights of seamen, it was largely waged on the ocean. We also had not a little fighting to do on land, in which, as a rule, we came out second-best. Few or no preparations for the war had been made, and the result was such as might have been anticipated. After dragging on through three dreary and uneventful years it came to an end in 1815, by a peace which left ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... pincushion, which I made on purpose for him, and not knowing what to present Fred with, I allowed him to rip open my second-best doll, which was still in quite a good state of preservation. Fred had always possessed an inquiring mind, and an inclination to inspect the contents of everything, in consequence of which my possessions often suffered—and this employment now afforded him the most intense satisfaction; while I, ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... valuable article of furniture and must often, judging from the wills, have been a brilliant and beautiful object indeed; Shakespeare has earned a great deal of unmerited obloquy for leaving Ann Hathaway his second-best bed, though it is not to be denied that he might have left her his first-best. Even more beautiful than dressings and bed or chamber hangings are the brocaded and embroidered vestments mentioned in wills, and the ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... understood to be the joyful signal that some parent or friend had arrived as a visitor. I was immediately hurried into the house, a whispering took place between Mr and Mrs Root, and the consequence was, that I was bustled up into the bedroom, and my second-best clothes, which I then had on, were changed for the best, and, with a supererogatory dab with a wet towel over my face, I was brought down, and, my little heart playing like a pair of castanets against my ribs, I was delivered into the tender ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard |
