"Take on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my brother, "is, I am afraid, in a very poor way; ever since the death he has done nothing but pine and take on. A few months ago, you remember, he was as plump and fine as any dog in the town; but at present he is little more than skin and bone. Once we lost him for two days, and never expected to see him again, imagining that some mischance had befallen him; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... live over to Chadwick's Harbor," inquired Mrs. Bean, "and don't this boat-ride stop there to take on more folks?" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... nail on the head, Parmly," admitted the other, with a nod of appreciation. "I mean to show that it can be done. Just as soon as I can get that big bomber here, and the permission to take on the job, well start some fine night for Berlin and give Heine the ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... telegram was directed to the admiral commanding the French iron-clad fleet in the Baltic to send an armored cruiser to Brest with all haste possible, there to await further orders, but to be fully prepared in any event to take on board certain goods designated in cipher. This we knew in a general way, though Speed understood that Lorient was to ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... circumstances develop in an organic and legal manner, respecting the rights of the Crown, which are just as sacred as the rights of the burgher; respecting also law and order, which are not disregarded 'from above,' and will not be disregarded. If ever our circumstances take on an absolute, a Caesarian, form, it will be as the consequence of revolution, of convulsion. For on revolution follows Caesarism as W follows U—that is the rule in the A B ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... setting when the dock at Key West was reached. Tom waited no longer than was necessary to take on a supply of gasoline for the "Winged Arrow." He paid Captain Britten a generous fee and added a bonus for the divers who had helped him. Then with a hasty good-bye the excited young inventor roared off in the gathering darkness ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... as Tamburlaine itself. It is doubtless a better piece of work than Marlowe ever did; I dare not say, than Marlowe ever could have done. It is not for any man to measure, above all is it not for any workman in the field of tragic poetry lightly to take on himself the responsibility or the authority to pronounce, what it is that Christopher Marlowe could not have done; but, dying as he did and when he did, it is certain that he has not left us a work so generally and so variously ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... tranquil as a lake should conclusions be drawn from its almost landlocked position. On the contrary, it is noted among sailors the world over for the roughness of its waters; and a breakwater behind which ships can lie in quiet and take on or discharge their cargoes is essential to the proper development of the city's shipping. But, so far as we were concerned, this was a possible joy of the future. So, one by one we descended the narrow stairway at the side of the ship, and then leaped at opportune ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... in general was sufficiently depressing. Then one afternoon she met Owen Kresney; and all at once life seemed to take on a new complexion. Here, at least, was some one who wanted her, when every one else seemed only to want Theo; some one who was really glad to see her—rather too emphatically glad, perhaps; but the eagerness of his greeting ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... for a debater to take on the stage is in the centre well toward the front. He should take the centre because in that position he can best see the entire audience, and the entire audience can best see him. He should stand near the front edge of the platform for several reasons: first, he can make himself more easily ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... it seemed to her, as so often in that half-sleep, half-wakefulness, when the drowsy brain knows all necessary things and awakes alert again in an instant at any unusual movement or sound, as if these sounds began to take on them tones of other ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... could it suddenly and unnaturally turn into wine, depart from its being and at haphazard take on another being? Ah no, he knew it ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... those Monsters and Ab-human creatures, which are so wondrously cushioned from us at this normal present. And thus there had materialized, and in other cases developed, grotesque and horrible Creatures, which now beset the humans of this world. And where there was no power to take on material form, there had been allowed to certain dreadful Forces to have power to affect the life of the human spirit. And this growing very dreadful, and the world full of lawlessness and degeneracy, there had banded together the sound millions, ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... of these dead bodies now residing and abiding pending the coming of the Last Day? Are the souls of the dead with their bodies? If not, then they must be living a life independent of the physical body—and if such be the case, why should they afterward be required to take on their worn-out physical bodies which they have managed so well without during their disembodied life? What becomes of those who had diseased, deformed or frail bodies during their mortal life—will they be compelled to inhabit these bodies through all eternity? ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... news an' th' want ads, an' afther he has r-read thim over twinty times he looks at his watch an' says he, 'Holy smoke, 'tis two hours to thrain time an' I suppose I'll have to r- read th' news fr'm th' Philippeens.' War, be hivins, is so common that I believe if we was to take on a fight with all th' wurruld not more thin half th' popylation iv New England'd die iv hear-rt disease befure they ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... up in the trench and looking over to see the effects of our shells. It was a brave thing to do, but absolutely reckless. I pulled him down by the tail of his tunic. He got up time and again, swearing that he would "take on the whole b——German army." He gave us pleasing information of the effects of our bombardment, but as I did not want him to lose his life prematurely, I saw to it that we kept him down in the trench till the time came for a display ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... (by the hypothesis) the abstract idea of Life, before he first 'envisaged' it in material terms as 'breath,' or 'shadow.' He next decided that mere breath or shadow was not only identical with the more abstract conception of Life, but could also take on forms as real and full-bodied as, to him, are the hallucinations of dream or waking vision. His reasoning appears to have proceeded from the more abstract (the idea of Life) to the more concrete, to the life ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... Deb," said little Love Winslow, running up and throwing her arms round the dog's rough neck; "thou must not take on so; thy master will be back again; so be a good dog now, ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... suffusion of sympathy and never to be remembered without a recurring tenderness. Remembered, did I say? It is unforgettable. There are few books of American origin that resist so well the passing of the years, that take on more steadily the glamour of "the unimaginable touch of time." "Rezanov" is a classic, or I miss my guess. This, though it was first published ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... would take time; but his Father had time enough and to spare. It would take courage and strength and self-denial and endurance; but his Father could give him all. It would cost pain of body and mind, yea, agony and torture; but those he was ready to take on himself. It would cost him the vision of many sad and, to all but him, hopeless sights; he must see tears without wiping them, hear sighs without changing them into laughter, see the dead lie, and let them lie; see Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted; he must ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... shows the Idea in its other-being. Out of the realm of logical shades, wherein the souls of all reality dwell, we move into the sphere of external, sensuous existence, in which the concepts take on material form. Why does the Idea externalize itself? In order to become actual. But the actuality of nature is imperfect, unsuited to the Idea, and only the precondition of a better actuality, the actuality of ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... Discobolus [Footnote: See Samuel Butler's poem, "Oh God! oh Montreal!" —Ed.] is very well, and, nowadays, looks the whole world in the face, almost quite unabashed. West of Montreal, the country seems to take on a rather more English appearance. There is still a French admixture. But the little houses are not purely Gallic, as they are along the Lower St Lawrence; and once or twice I ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... and a good deal from interest in his companions and their errand of mercy, he had decided to come with them, not merely to show them the way to Basildene, which he could find equally well by night as by day, but to see the result of their journey there, and take on with him to Guildford the description of the old sorcerer's home ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... variety of refined interest, comprehended in "the love of beauty.'' Finally, aesthetic activities are directed by ideal conceptions and standards to which hardly anything corresponds in play save where games of skill take on something of the dignity ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... held the Boy in a spell by his lofty manners. He had been a sailor on board an ocean-going brig. To him the landing of his vessel was an event, no matter how often the stop was made, whether to put off a single passenger, or take on a regiment. In fact, he never landed the AEtna, even to take on a cord of wood, without the use of his enormous speaking trumpet ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... on hips, breath coming quickly, cheeks flushed and eyes alight with some intimate and inscrutable emotion, she surveyed the room. Out of the dusk that lay beyond the plash of illumination beneath the lamp, the furniture began to take on familiar shapes: the divans, the heavy leather-cushioned easy chairs, the tall clock with its pallid staring face, the small tables and tabourettes, handily disposed for the reception of books and magazines and pipes and glasses, the towering, old-fashioned mahogany ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... new country, with its marvelous possibilities, the danger has been in having an excessive and exaggerated estimate of our national advantages, and our civilization has tended to take on a too mechanical and material character. We need to have more time to cultivate the nobler nature, and, by Christian and scholarly associations and more intimate friendships, discover and prize the fineness and sweetness ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... gave him almost equal delight, was that of the revenge which he would be able to take on Russell. Russell had stirred up his deepest hate. He had insulted him at Madrid, and had put a stop to his attentions to Katie. He had publicly expelled him from the railway-carriage. Had he been Katie's father, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... animal with longer ears, each would make an ass of himself. So far so good, only they do not know the name of this animal, familiar as they are with him. The teacher writes the name under the picture. The article "A" is also written, which, though it puzzles them, they must take on trust. It cannot be explained at this stage. The teacher then holds up an ear of corn. Of course they know that very well, and make the sign for it, shelling the fore finger. It is then laid upon the opposite end of the blackboard, and its name written under it. A short pause, with a glance first ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... and withy as so many snakes, or blowing up the faded old frock that reached the knees of two slim legs, shiny white, which had known no stockings other than the coat of brown the sun burned over their extremities in summer. Or for hours also she would lie face downward on the sand, which would take on the imprint of her body under her, bathing her face in the thin ripple of water that the surf threw up and sucked back again over the shining beach spangled with all the capricious tracings ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and besides, that mutual seditions arise among them, and that they quarrel about men, and this so far, that they not only lay hands upon one another, but that they are wounded by men, and lament, and take on for such their afflictions. But what is the grossest of all in point of lasciviousness, are those unbounded lusts ascribed to almost all of them, and their amours; which how can it be other than a most absurd supposal, especially when it reaches to ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... embitter the strife of parties. Those who oppose war find abundant cause for criticism in the conduct of Ministers, who in their turn perforce adopt measures alien to the traditions of Westminster. A system founded on compromise cannot suddenly take on the ways of a military State; and efforts in this direction generally produce more friction than activity. At such times John Bull, flurried and angry, short-sighted but opinionated, bewildered but dogged as ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... be the cape now known as Galeota, the southeastern cape of the island of Trinidad. The country was as green at this season as the orchards of Valencia in March. Passing five leagues farther on, he lands to refit his vessels and take on board wood and water. The next day a large canoe from the east, with twenty-four ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... the small and silken dogs surrounded her, as she slowly descended towards the beach. She caught the two most eager creatures in her arms:—"Mia Teeta! Mia Tomoteeta!" and fondling them, inquired how many could we take on board. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... horrible battle of Sartilmont, we found a Belgian soldier's cap lying in the middle of the path in the woods. It seemed like a human thing and stirred me to the profoundest depths. I never thought that clothes could take on life and a personality all alone, but they do. Has its owner been in hiding all these weeks or is he lying yet unburied among the friendly trees? In these places where Death has walked so boldly one feels his accompanying presence at ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... no authentic information could be attained. My original motive for publishing the work anonymously was the consciousness that it was an experiment on the public taste which might very probably fail, and therefore there was no occasion to take on myself the personal risk of discomfiture. For this purpose considerable precautions were used to preserve secrecy. My old friend and schoolfellow, Mr. James Ballantyne, who printed these Novels, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Sandwich, and then steamed along the coast of Malekula, calling every few miles at some plantation to discharge goods, horses, cattle and fowls, and take on maize or coprah. At last we arrived at Dip Point, Ambrym, where I was kindly received by Dr. B. of the Presbyterian Mission, who is in charge of the fine large hospital there. Its situation is not more picturesque than others, but the place has been made so attractive ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... thought, with high amusement. "Egad, some of 'em 'ud feel like Rothschild himself if they could shove that bit in their pockets—they'd take on all the ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... that. If I've done pretty well—and I'm sure I have—it will bring a lot more work. We can have all the things our mouths used to water for. We'll move into a very nice apartment at once, and have a maid, maybe a nurse for Davy Junior. We'll take on the club again—think of hearing the crack of a good drive once more! There'll be theaters and concerts, with a taxi on rainy evenings. And when we're settled in that new apartment we're going to give a beautiful dinner to celebrate our return to the ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... taking of the doctoral degree. Two of these three errors he has committed, while ostentatiously displaying his own accuracy, and correcting what he represents as the loose assertions of others. How can his readers take on trust his statements concerning the births, marriages, divorces, and deaths of a crowd of people, whose names are scarcely known to this generation? It is not likely that a person who is ignorant of what almost everybody ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... last all that could be done had been done, the east was beginning to take on a sort of ashen light—the forerunner of dawn. Alexander had held to the sticking-point the quailing energies of spent men for more than six agonized hours. Below them the river bed that had been almost dry forty-eight hours ago was a ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... be condemned previously by the elders among the brethren, by the bishop, or by the Apostle. To kill is not a great thing; to kill a traitor is even as pleasant as to kill a bear or a wolf. But suppose Glaucus to perish innocently? How take on his conscience a new murder, a new sin, a new offence ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... let unfurnished. The incoming tenant was willing to take on the remainder of their lease and continue in occupation of the house after its expiry, but he had furniture of his own, and so he had no use for theirs. Roger took his furniture to a small house in Hampstead, and offered to buy most of what was left, but they would not listen to his ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... time to have formed a controversy of some celebrity, for the ingenuity with which some instructors of the public gave their assurance on the subject was extremely persevering. I now think it further necessary to say that, while I take on myself all the merits and demerits attending these compositions, I am bound to acknowledge with gratitude hints of subjects and legends which I have received from various quarters, and have occasionally used as a foundation of my fictitious compositions, or woven up with them ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... generally and by those elsewhere, interested Berenice greatly. As she thought of him—waging his terrific contests, hurrying to and fro between New York and Chicago, building his splendid mansion, collecting his pictures, quarreling with Aileen—he came by degrees to take on the outlines of a superman, a half-god or demi-gorgon. How could the ordinary rules of life or the accustomed paths of men be expected to control him? They could not and did not. And here he was pursuing her, seeking her out with his eyes, grateful for a smile, waiting as ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... gray, or possibly a white door? The building across the street, at the left, has yellow and red and purple tones; do you think these were the actual colors? If not, why has the artist selected these particular shades? Do parts of buildings or other objects in shadow take on different shades from parts in bright lights? What colors appear most frequently in the picture? Has the artist succeeded in giving the picture the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... strained, and it is not in him alone that I find this fault, but in nearly all foreign actors. There seems to be a limit of passion within which they remain true in their rendering of nature; but beyond that limit they become transformed, and take on conventionality in their intonations, exaggeration in their gestures, and mannerism in their bearing. I left my box saying to myself: "I too can do Hamlet, and I will try it!" In some characters Irving is exceptionally ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... men kept very quiet; but we need not suppose for that reason that there were none. Our Ice Folk, who dropped their stone axes in the river banks, may have passed away with the Ice Age, or they may have remained in Ohio, and begun slowly to take on some faint likeness of civilization. There is nothing to prove that they went, and there is nothing to prove that they staid; but Ohio must always have been a pleasant place to live in after the great thaw, and it seems reasonable to think that the ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... in following up our present clue, that Mr. Grey has had dealings with this Wellgood or this Sears; or if you, with your advantages for learning the fact, should discover that he shows any extraordinary interest in either of them, the matter will take on a different aspect. But we have not got that far yet. At present our task is to find one or the other of these men. If we are lucky, we shall discover that the waiter and the steward are identical, in spite of their seemingly different appearance. A rogue, such as this Sears has shown himself to ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... of Joan's show us what's happening, I think it will take on-the-spot investigations to find out ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... interest in sight, talk between them was desultory. Jim Bailey thought they'd take on some men at Plymouth when they stopped there to victual up. The messenger, squinting at the swimming yellow distance, yawned and said it might be a good thing, nobody knew when Knapp and Garland would ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... and has inspired much more or less fantastic speculation. The shells begin to assume such strange forms that observers speak occasionally of the "convulsions" or "death-contortions" of the expiring race. Some of the coiled shells take on a spiral form, like that of a snail's shell. Some uncoil the shell, and seem to be returning toward the primitive type. A rich eccentricity of frills and ornamentation is found more or less throughout the whole race. But every device—if we may so ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... contentment. If one hates work, the face will reflect discontent, the vital organs will grow flabby and affect the health, and looks will suffer. Enthusiasm in work stimulates the vital organs, causes circulation of the blood and makes the eye bright and the skin to take on a more ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... window of the salon and her mental eyes scanned that road—the coveted road of freedom, the way of splendid isolation—and in a vague, dumb fashion she wondered why the whiteness that had gleamed like snow in the distance should take on the hue of dust seen at close quarters. She wondered why she should feel so absolutely numbed—why life, with its exuberances of joy and sorrow, should suddenly have receded from her ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... know your Shakespeare if you don't know prudence. However, we're plotters now, and you must take on your wisest humor. You must not breathe a word to Rosa. Love is a freebooter in confidences. It has no conscience, as it has no law. It is an immense friction on the sober relations of life. It is cousin to the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... have tested many grades of paper, to ascertain if they were well adapted for blue process work. Some grades of brown Manila are very good; others have little specks embedded in their surfaces which refuse to take on a blue tint; still others, when printed upon, have white lines that are wider than the corresponding black lines of the negative. The blue obtained upon bond paper appears to be particularly rich, and the whites remain pure; but bond paper cockles badly, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... tenth century they terrorized repeatedly the populations of Germany and France, until, in 955, their signal defeat at the Lechfeld by the German king (the later Emperor Otto I.) checked effectually their onslaughts and re-enforced the disposition already in evidence among them to take on a settled mode of life. In the second half of the tenth century they occupied definitely the valleys of the Danube and the Theiss, wedging apart, as do their descendants to this day, the Slavs of the north and those of the ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... whereof I have no remembrance, which I take on others' words, and guess from other infants that I have passed, true though the guess be, I am yet loath to count in this life of mine which I live in this world. For no less than that which I lived in my mother's womb, ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... the tears running down her face, for she was very tender-hearted, "oh dear, Miss Hoodie, don't take on so. I hope birdie's not badly hurt. The cat didn't touch him. It knocked over the cage, and it must have been the fall; but perhaps he's more ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... in grafting trees, the capacity of one species or variety to take on another is incidental on generally unknown differences in their vegetative systems; so in crossing, the greater or less facility of one species to unite with another is incidental on unknown differences in their reproductive ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... Spirit of God for the purposes of God for which it served. There is, to be sure, no revelation of this in Holy Scripture, but there are facts which suggest themselves to the devout meditations of saints which we feel that we may safely take on the authority of their spiritual intuitions. Such a fact is this of Mary's purposed virginity which I am content to accept on the basis of its congruity with S. Mary's life and vocation. Of the fact of her perpetual virginity there can be ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... Adam, "All this misery that you have been made to take on yourself because of your transgression, will not free you from the hand of Satan, and ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... the "Moons" are the first to take on a bluish look, and later on the entire Nail becomes blue or almost ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... there? Oh, you are Captain Corcoran. Well, I bring orders from headquarters. You are to discontinue unloading, Captain, retain the remainder of the provisions on board, and prepare at once to take on men. What's ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... to go with bunkers filled with coal. We are to carry abundant clothing supplies for tropical service. We are to carry all the large and small arms ammunition that we can stow away. We are to take on food supplies to our fullest commissary capacity. In a word, we are to go prepared for ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... "Don't take on so, Dorcas," said Grandma, tremulously, but cheeringly. "I'll come right along, an'—why, child, what air you ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... take on a new phase. Whatever should become of the British and American armies, the Germans would be no nearer having England than they now are. They would not have command of the sea. The combined British and American fleets ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... and a snatch of band-music take on a hopeful color when they're lit up by red fire overnight," remarked the State chairman. "So do some other things. But a fellow with good eyesight usually comes to himself ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... the elevator stopped at the next floor down to take on a pair of maids, he strolled over to the shaft, and without frills or verbiage consigned me and my detail to perdition. But I liked him. He had pluck and was unafraid, and he knew, as well as I, that death clutched ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... clumsy looking wooden machine, four or five feet in length, and just wide enough to take on the cloth, which at that mill was all made double width. It consists chiefly of heavy rollers, so arranged that the cloth passes between them. There is a deep pit at the bottom of the machine, which will hold several bushels of "flocks," in addition to the bulk of a large web of cloth, from ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... inflammatory brain symptoms, unconsciousness, convulsions, delirium, excessive temperature, and rapid pulse. This may happen even without the eruption becoming fairly recognizable. In such severe epidemics the throat symptoms are apt to take on the aspect of diphtheria. The renal discharge exhibits the conditions of a catarrh of the urinary canals originating from causes we ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... gracious Virgin Mother. And they who came remained gazing and listening, till at length, first one and then another threw off their bravery, and took his poor cassock and girdle instead: or, if they kept it, it was to put haircloth under it, or to take on them a rule of life, while to the world they ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... her presently with consolation, on whose shoulder Amelia wept confidentially, and relieved herself a good deal. "Don't take on, Miss. I didn't like to tell you. But none of us in the house have liked her except at fust. I sor her with my own eyes reading your Ma's letters. Pinner says she's always about your trinket-box and drawers, and everybody's drawers, and she's sure ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... glad to take on Zeb in place of his cousin. And from young Pauling he had learned at least one piece of news connected with affairs on Wreckers' Head. Zeb told him that the girl he had brought to the Pauling house had talked with Elder Minnett and that ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... outer room till Sir Andrew was in danger; and the dog was to have all his estate if he died; and it is an ignorant, worthless, scoundrel-rake: and the nurses were comforting him, and desiring he would not take on so. I dined to-day the first time with Ophy Butler(4) and his wife; and you supped with the Dean, and lost two-and-twenty pence at cards. And so Mrs. Walls is brought to bed of a girl, who died two ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Jesus! how didst thou discover thy love to man in thy thus suffering! And, O God the Father! how didst thou also declare thy purity and exactness of thy justice, in that, though it was thine only, holy, innocent, harmless, and undefiled Son Jesus, that did take on him our nature, and represent our persons, answering for our sins, instead of ourselves! Thou didst so wonderfully pour out thy wrath upon him, to the making of him cry out, 'My God, my God, why ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... woodland which overhung the river on a high point. The wind rustled the oak leaves and roughened the surface of the water, which spread out into a wide inland bay. The clouds began to gather in the west and to take on wonderful colors, as if such a day must be ended with a grand ceremony, and the sun go down through banners and gay parades of all the forces of the sky. Nan had watched such sunsets from her favorite playground at the farm, and somehow the ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... dear," said the old soldier, uncomfortably. "Don't take on so. He'll find his feet, you know. It's not so bad as that. You can ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... quinze, and so do I; we want money; he has more than he knows what to do with; I will bespeak a splendid supper, he shall pay for it. Send your maitre-d'hotel to me, and trouble yourself no further, except in some precautions, which it is necessary to take on such an occasion." "What are they?" said Matta. "I will tell you," said the Chevalier; "for I find one must explain to you things that are as ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the candle-shine Take on suspicious purples. All The viands in their gravy's wine Grow ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... use in the church—at first with a touch of hesitation, and then more confidently. For as they went on his sense of strangeness and fear at his new experience diminished, and his thoughts began to take on their habitual assurance and complacency. Were not these people going to the Celestial City? And was not he in his right place among them? He had always looked forward to this journey. If they were sure, ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... been slaves may not take on this, and their children may not in great numbers. But their children's children are coming on multitudinously, and from them must go those who shall preach the Gospel to their own race in Africa. For psychological as well as physiological reasons this must be. Not only because they can ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... discuss, and which, if possible, we must settle. I say, notwithstanding some observations to the contrary, that the people of the three kingdoms are looking with anxious suspense at the course which Parliament may take on this question. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary on one occasion spoke of this question, of this proposition, as being something in the nature of a revolution. But, if it be a revolution, after all it is not so great a one as we might suppose from the force and energy ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... actions which, at the outset, claimed conscious attention and were deliberately willed may become so habitual that the doer lapses into unconsciousness or semi-unconsciousness of his deed. They take on the nature of acquired reflexes. The habit of acting appears to have been acquired by the mind and then turned over to the body, that the mind may be free to occupy itself with other activities. The man has become less the doer than the spectator of his acts; perhaps he is even less ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... took down the river in that direcshun. I never seed varmint so shy. They wouldn't a been, blast 'em, if I had er had my traps, but there wa'n't a critter, from the minners to the buffler, that didn't take on as if they knowed how this nigger war fixed. I could get nothing for two days but lizard, an' scarce at that. I chewed up the old leggings, until I was as ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... assuming that in his primitive state, before he was corrupted by contact with the manners and customs of the white man, he represented all that was pure, good and simple, and that only after the European came, did this child of nature take on that ferocity and savagery that made his name the terror of the wilderness. They said that he was cruelly and unjustly despoiled of his lands and possessions; driven like a wild beast before the face of ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... th' life to come, hoo cannot think of th' present. Now I, yo' see, am bound to do the best I can here. I think a bird i' th' hand is worth two i' th' bush. So them's the different views we take on th' strike question.' ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to separate from the cotton. I have a drawing of one of these contrivances in a book up at the house, and when the time comes you fellows shall make me one. It will be work for us to do indoors when the weather is too hot to be out. Of course if I find that it succeeds, and pays well, I shall take on more hands, get proper machinery, and extend the cultivation. I intend to plant the rows rather wide apart, so as to use the light plow with the ridge boards between them, instead of hoeing, to ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... German and Dutch shores, arrived in five days at Grave-line. General Gordon, whom the pretender had left commander-in-chief of the forces, assisted by the earl Marischal, proceeded with them to Aberdeen, where he secured three vessels to sail northward, and take on board the persons who intended to make their escape to the continent. Then they continued their march through Strathspey and Strathdown, to the hills of Badenoch, where the common people were quietly dismissed. This retreat ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... cutting his eye teeth, that's what makes him cry so. AND dribble—I never seen a baby dribble like this one." She wiped his mouth and nose with a corner of her skirt. "Some babies get their teeth without you knowing it," she went on, "and some take on this way all the time. I once heard of a baby that died, and they found all it's teeth ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... and nights passed by in ceaseless toil, under a perpetual menace, in the midst of an ever-growing fatigue which gave things the substance and aspects they take on in ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... will get loose and come back to-night, or to-morrow night sure, if I can't get loose to-night; so don't take on so. I know my way back and a circus tent is not a hard thing ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... were so casual and fortuitous, Bowers's studio was the one fixed thing in Thea's life. She went out from it to uncertainties, and hastened to it from nebulous confusion. She was more influenced by Bowers than she knew. Unconsciously she began to take on something of his dry contempt, and to share his grudge without understanding exactly what it was about. His cynicism seemed to her honest, and the amiability of his pupils artificial. She admired his drastic ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... says I, "if you've got the Mary-Jane infirmity at your age. I thought it wasn't going to take on you. And patent leather shoes! All this in two ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... approaches the Chinese, in which roots had the same sound and the same form as the corresponding noun, adjective, and verb. Even in Sanskrit roots appear at times still unchanged, although it is quite right that as soon as they take on grammatical functions, they should no longer be called roots. Much may be said in favour of both views, without arriving one step nearer our goal. If we now only remember that the whole Sanskrit language has been reduced to 121 primitive ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... waited half an hour or so in the hall, I gave the Captain no trouble, not even that of speech, which he disdained to take on his own initiative. ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... assumption, however, ultimately necessitates an abstraction from meaning, though Formal Logic does not avow this openly. Every assertion is meant to convey a certain meaning in a certain context, and therefore its verbal 'form' has to take on its own individual nuance of meaning. What any particular form of words does in fact mean on any particular occasion always depends upon the use of the words in a particular context. Meaning, therefore, cannot be depersonalized; ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... be very well accommodated in the house where they were; forgetting they had not a sixpenny piece among them. The gentleman would not be denied; and, informing himself how far they were travelling, he said it was too long a journey to take on foot, and begged that they would favour him by suffering him to lend them a servant and horses; adding, withal, that, if they would do him the pleasure of their company only two days, he would furnish ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... strangers was very real. They spoke each other's tongue; they had common interests and common experiences. He told himself that here was a suggestion as to the new friends he might make in Delafield, without forgetting the old ones. And the prospect of life in Delafield began to take on new values. ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... unknown to me, but in Norfolk if I mistake not, and methought I was in an orchard behind a pedlar's house, and in that orchard was a great oak-tree. Then meseemed that if I digged I should find beneath that tree a great treasure. But think you I'm such a fool as to take on me a long and wearisome journey and all for a silly dream. No, my good fellow, learn wit from a wiser man than thyself. Get thee home, ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... There were advantages in being a recruit, even if one was ordered about by a man in Rogers' who didn't wash. Hunter and Jeffries raged furiously; they swore that they would not turn up. "Who is Clarke, damn his eyes, to take on the privileges of a brigadier-general? It's a House tradition that ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... shoulders of a sustained deception. She and Arthur had to dress up a story to deceive the neighbourhood, and they gave out that Ellen was in London, staying with Mrs. Williams—her husband had forbidden her to go, so she had run away, and now there would have to be some give and take on both sides before she could come back. Joanna had been inspired to circulate this legend by the discovery that Ellen actually had taken a ticket for London. She had probably guessed the sensation that ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... may find its full play; and the desire to be of service to one's fellow men in a spirit reasonably disinterested may find opportunity to satisfy itself every day. Under these circumstances there is no reason why railway administration should not take on the same ethical standards as belong rightly to governmental administration, to educational administration, or ...
— The business career in its public relations • Albert Shaw
... first society openly to define itself in terms of both spirituality and of human liberty. It is that unique self-definition which has given us an exceptional appeal, but it also imposes on us a special obligation, to take on those moral duties which, when assumed, seem invariably to be in ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... whispered tenderly, "don't take on so, I didn't mean anything. I was just trying to dope it out; get it through my bean what in thunder——! Say! Did he TELL you he wanted you to marry ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... perceiving the brig lying with her sails torn, and her yards not trimmed, had sent a boat to ascertain whether there was any body remaining in her. I was afraid that if I told them what had happened, they either would not believe me, or else would refuse to take on board a person who had been in company with such examples of divine vengeance. I therefore stated that we had been attacked by dysentery about six weeks before, and all had died except myself, who was ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... to know, that hundreds of such may be seen day by day, year by year, waiting at the different gates of the docks, in stolid weariness, for the chance of a day's work—the wage of which is half-a-crown. When a foreman comes to a gate to take on a few such hands, the press of men, and the faces, hungry and eager beyond description, make one of the saddest of the sad sights to be seen even at the east end ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... ground on which they often escape paying anything. An employe is supposed when making his contract with his employer to take on himself all the ordinary risks arising from his employment. These in many cases are very numerous. He does not assume extraordinary risks, but he does assume all ordinary risks that are likely to happen to him. Employes are injured every day and yet can recover nothing, because their injury is simply ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... pass ere thou return To daylight. Then the winged hound of Zeus, The ravening eagle with devouring maw, Shall deeply trench thy quivering flesh and come, Day after day, an uninvited guest, To feast upon thy ulcerated heart. Of this thy agony expect no end Until some god appears to take on him Thy load of suffering, and for thee descend To the dark depths of the dread under-world. Advise thee then, and deem not that my words Are feigned, for I in bitter earnest speak. The lips of the Almighty cannot lie; Each word they utter surely is fulfilled. ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... of earth shall ever be yours if this day you do not take on yourself the vows that were taken by ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... A werwolf, or loup-garou, is a legendary man who, it was formerly believed, could at will take on the form ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... over yet well enough," said Varney, "if my lady will be but ruled, and take on her the character which ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... England in search of arms, and he required a commander-in-chief for the forces which he proposed to raise for the purpose of bringing the Celestial Empire up to date.[2] The Field-Marshal wanted me to take on the job. But the project somehow did not appeal to me—people do say that the Chinese have old-fashioned ways when they come to deal with persons whose conduct they are unable to approve—and I no ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... odor of tobacco perfumed the sitting-room: Bacon tumbled over the laundress's buckets in the passage through which he had to pass; Warrington's shooting jacket was as shattered at the elbows as usual; and the chair which Bacon was requested to take on entering, broke down with the publisher. Warrington burst out laughing, said that Bacon had got the game chair, and bawled out to Pen to fetch a sound one from his bedroom. And seeing the publisher looking round the dingy room with an air of profound pity and wonder, asked ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'have the gals been jiltin' you?' 'No, no,' says he; 'I beant such a fool as that, neither.' 'Well,' says I, 'have you made a bad speculation?' 'No,' says he, shakin' his head, 'I hope I have too much clear grit in me to take on so bad for that.' 'What under the sun is it, then?' said I. 'Why,' says he, 'I made a bet the fore part of the summer with Leftenant Oby Knowles that I could shoulder the best bower of the Constitution frigate. I won my bet, but the anchor was so etarnal ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... was uncertain as to what steps he should take on the death of his father, it was considered that the best and safest place for his temporary residence was the Castle at S. Helier, in Jersey, known by the name of Queen Elizabeth, where he had already lived for a short ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... daybreak on Sunday morning, we passed Kettle Bottom Shoals safely, and found much more open water in the lower river. The day was mild and calm, and we made good progress to Fort Monroe, where we stopped in the evening to take on board a supply of ammunition. While this work was going on, I took advantage of the opportunity to land in a small boat and pass through the place by moonlight. As one of the largest and most important of the fortresses of the old style, with heavy walls of masonry, casemated, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... you need a complete equipment. It would take a year, two years, or three to climb Robson, very likely. So with two or three days at our disposal I'll have to ask to be excused from the attempt; let us take on something easier for ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... righteousness as for their unrighteousness. They make that the covering of their nakedness and filthiness which is in itself as menstruous and unclean as any thing. It is now the very propension and natural inclination of our hearts, to stand upright in ourselves Faith bows a soul's back to take on Christ's righteousness, but presumption lifts up a soul upon its own bottom. "How can ye believe that seek honour one of another?" The engagements of the soul to its own credit or estimation,—the engagements of self-love and self honour,—do lift up a soul that it cannot ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... and now, straw hat in hand, he was coming up the brick walk that led to the veranda. His eyes were fixed upon Julia with an intensity that seemed to affect his breathing; there was a hushedness about him. And Florence, in fascination, watched Julia's expression and posture take on those little changes that always seemed demanded of her by the approach of a young or youngish man, or a nicely dressed old one. By almost imperceptible processes the commonplace moment ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... of the great things which he had done for the country. It is probable, however, that so large a sum would not have been given without debates and divisions, had it not been understood that he meant to take on himself the charge of the Duke of Gloucester's establishment, and that he would in all probability have to pay fifty thousand pounds a year to Mary of Modena. The Tories were unwilling to disoblige the Princess of Denmark; and the Jacobites abstained from offering any opposition to a grant ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... one will suppose that this capacity is a specially endowed quality, but will admit that it is incidental on differences in the laws of growth of the two plants. We can sometimes see the reason why one tree will not take on another, from differences in their rate of growth, in the hardness of their wood, in the period of the flow or nature of their sap, &c.; but in a multitude of cases we can assign no reason whatever. Great diversity in the size of two plants, one being woody and the other herbaceous, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin |
