"Undertook" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could make of all these things in the Northern States. The Northern States made two (or I shouldn't wonder if it were three) times as good a showing in men and resources as the Confederacy had. 'Judge,' said my father, 'this is the most foolhardy enterprise that man ever undertook.' But Yancey of Alabama was about that time making five-hour speeches to thousands of people all over the South, declaring that one Southerner could whip five Yankees, and the awful slaughter began and darkened our childhood and put all our best men where they would see the sun no more. Our ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... undertook the responsibility and henceforth, night and day, he kept vigilant watch over ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... that three squaws, with many children, having been reduced to misery by the death of their husbands in the last war against the Crows, this young man, although the deceased were the greatest foes of his family, undertook to provide for their widows and children till the boys, grown up, would be able to provide for themselves and their mothers. Since that time, he had given them the produce of his chase, reserving to himself nothing but what was strictly necessary to sustain the wants of nature. This was ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... people who might sit with him on the lawn, ask him to translate some of it. But he always refused. One couldn't translate it, he said. It lost so much in the translation that it was better not to try. It was far wiser not to attempt it. If you undertook to translate it, there was something gone, something missing immediately. I believe that many classical scholars feel this way, and like to read the Greek just as it is, without the hazard of trying to put it into so poor a medium as English. So ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... under the influence of her blustering father as was Lord C—- under that of his mother. What took place at the interview one can only surmise; but certain it is that the two girls, each for her own ends, undertook to aid ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... that, I reckon—and you might burn yourself if you undertook to do it. I reckon it's hot where ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... mentioned, was so judiciously framed that it gave equal satisfaction to the King and the Catholics, and to the King my husband and the Huguenots, and obtained him the affections of both parties. He likewise acquired from it the assistance of that able general, Marechal de Biron, who undertook the command of the army destined to raise the siege of Cambray. The King my husband was equally gratified in the Marshal's removal from Gascony and having Marechal de Matignon ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... disgust felt by the Kawars for the rude and uncouth behaviour of the Bhainas. For on one occasion a Kawar went to ask for a Bhaina girl in marriage, and, as the men of the family were away, the women undertook to entertain him. And as the Bhainas had no axes, the daughter proceeded to crack the sticks on her head for kindling a fire, and for grass she pulled out a wisp of thatch from the roof and broke it over her thigh, being unable to chop it. This so offended ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... inspect the sanitary condition of the Army. His connexions had brought him into touch with the most influential leaders of both Greek parties; and with the sanction of M. Briand, procured through M. Guillemin, who, himself no longer received at Court, saw an advantage in reaching it by proxy, he undertook to negotiate an amicable arrangement between ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... matter-of-course way of the mocking-bird, but, as it were, more individual and spontaneous. He is not merely an imitator of the human voice, like the parrots, (and a better one as regards tone,) nor of other birds, like the thrushes, but combines both. The tame crow already mentioned very readily undertook extempore imitations of words, and with considerable success. I once heard a crow imitate the warbling of a small bird, in a tone so entirely at variance with his ordinary voice, that, though assured ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... impossible that he or any other person living should know anything but by conjecture. He is expert in all the dead and in most of the living languages; but he can neither speak his own fluently, nor write it correctly. A person of this class, the second Greek scholar of his day, undertook to point out several solecisms in Milton's Latin style; and in his own performance there is hardly a sentence of common English. Such was Dr. ——. Such is Dr. ——. Such was not Porson. He was an exception that confirmed the general rule, a man that, by uniting ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the Mahratta war; and the interpreter having died, Hume, who had meanwhile studied and mastered the native languages, was appointed in his stead. He was next made chief of the medical staff. But as if this were not enough to occupy his full working power, he undertook in addition the offices of paymaster and post-master, and filled them satisfactorily. He also contracted to supply the commissariat, which he did with advantage to the army and profit to himself. After about ten years' unremitting ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... who undertook to direct excavations, who manufactured and sold antiquities, selling new ones when the supply of the old happened to fail. Nothing about him, however, smacked of the vulgar exploiter of strangers. He wore a red felt fez from which hung a long blue silk tassel; under the narrow edge of ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... May morning of which we write, Copplestone Grange had fallen at public sale to Edward Young, a well-to-do banker of Bideford. He was a descendant in direct line of that valiant Young who, together with his fellow-seaman Prowse, undertook the dangerous task of steering down and igniting the seven fire-ships which sent the Spanish armada "lumbering off" to sea, and saved England for Queen Elizabeth and ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... in 1857, is alone a sufficient reply to the calumnies of those enemies who never ceased to assert that ever since his return to Rome he had pursued a retrograde policy. Reform was always an object of his solicitude. It was with a view to improve the condition of his people that he undertook, when almost a septuagenarian, a four months' journey through the States of the Church. He travelled slowly, and sometimes on foot, in order the better to observe and ascertain the state of the provinces. All could approach him and address him freely. He visited churches, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... not think, when I undertook your education, that I was laying the foundation of any comfort for myself. For a long time you were only a good girl, and what ignorant people called a prodigy of learning. In your circumstances a commonplace child might have been both. I subsequently came to ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... territory. By the time of his death in 1873 he had brought this entire region within the view of civilization. On his first journey, or series of journeys (1849-1856,) starting from Cape Town, he made his way northward for a thousand miles to Lake Ngami; then pushing on to Linyanti, he undertook one of the most perilous excursions of his entire career, his objective for more than a thousand miles being Loanda on the West Coast, which point he reached after six months ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... Birkett's friends for their help. Mrs. Birkett, who approached the bazaar from the point of view from which she had artlessly imagined it was being undertaken, that of ensuring some sort of provision for the expenses of the chaplain who undertook the summer duty of Schleppenheim, received a series of shocks as she came face to face with the different points of view of the various stall-holders with whom she was successively brought into contact. Lady Chaloner—she looked on this as a great ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... tried to emancipate himself from the Empire or warred for independence against the Emperor. The Rex, the local man, undertook all government simply because the old Government above him, the central Government, had failed. No Rex ever called himself a local Imperator or dreamed of calling himself so; and that is the most significant thing in all the ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... the time Mr. Hussey was residing in Baltimore that he turned his attention to the idea of a reaping machine and spent his leisure hours in working out his model. This satisfied him that the thing was practical, and he undertook an operating machine, which, although lightly made, was fully sufficient to test the great principle. At this time he had no knowledge whether any others had undertaken anything in this direction and there was nothing in his ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... being debated a few of the hot heads on the lower floor undertook to precipitate the crisis. They seized what they thought was a favorable opportunity, overpowered the guard who stood at the foot of the stairs, and poured into the street. The other guards fell back and opened fire on them; ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... right, she'll fetch a dear little yelp and spring right out of her shoes. But you MUST get the pause right; and you will find it the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain thing you ever undertook. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that his son was engaged in a conspiracy against his life, and Crispus was executed by his father's orders, together with Caesar Licinius, the son of Constantine's favorite sister. Helena, the aged mother of Constantine, undertook to avenge her grandson. Fausta was finally proved to be unfaithful to her husband, and put to death, with many of her friends and followers. These fearful scenes within the palace recalled to the Roman people the memory ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... bank, with the risk of being recognized as the sister of Cornelius and rousing speculation, she begged the major when he came to be her messenger to her uncle, and tell him that she had come from her father, asking him where it would be convenient for him to see her. The major undertook the commission at once, and went without ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... know him.' Unziar looked round in some surprise. 'He was the frontier fellow who undertook to be my second at the station when I fought De Balsas because he insisted that our trains were inferior to those in Germany. Rallywood—you don't mean to say?' a slow comprehension dawning upon him. 'But it's impossible! The fellow's an Englishman. How could such a thing be possible? On the ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... superintend the manufacture of the wire, its insulation and its insertion in the lead tubes, and Professor Gale's scientific knowledge was to be placed at the disposal of the patentees wherever and whenever it should be necessary. F.O.J. Smith undertook to secure a favorable contract for the trenching, which was necessary to carry out the first idea of placing the wires underground, and Morse himself was, of course, to be general ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... as the ecclesiastical order a traditional creed, and the organisation is explicable only by historical causes. The system represents a series of compromises, not the elaboration of a theory. If the squire undertook by way of supererogation to justify his position he appealed to tradition and experience. He invoked the 'wisdom of our ancestors,' the system of 'checks and balances' which made our Constitution ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... to enter the service as pilots, but the training accommodation was wholly inadequate. The Bristol School at Brooklands, the Grahame-White School at Hendon, and the Eastbourne Aviation School were pressed into the service; in addition to these the naval air station at Calshot undertook to make seaplane pilots of some of those who had taken their flying certificates elsewhere. As was to be expected, training under these conditions proved difficult. All efficient machines were wanted for the war, so that machines ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... 1994, Senegal undertook a bold and ambitious economic reform program with the support of the international donor community. This reform began with a 50% devaluation of Senegal's currency, the CFA franc, which was linked ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... in the spring of the year, 1835, when your grandfather undertook a tour of visitation to the southern and western shores of Newfoundland, for the purpose of ministering to the scattered families in the remote settlements of that region. He left me at St. John's in the month of March, as travelling over the snow in the island is considered less difficult in ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... a man with a fertile mind; he made a study of whatever he undertook; he was a hard man to beat. He bought the "Rochester," and next bought out the old line. For a long time he had things pretty much his own way; then came a new opposition. This time, through negotiations, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... thought these contradictions might arise from experiments made indifferently on virgin queens, and on those with whose history I was not acquainted from the origin, and which had perhaps been impregnated unknown to me. Impressed with this idea, I undertook a new method of observation not on queens fortuitously taken from the hive, but on females decidedly in a virgin state, and whose history I knew from the ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... and its tenants; and the doings and character of its inmates struck our mind as something so extraordinary, and in some respects so beautiful, that we resolved, if possible, to pay it a visit. We did so a few days thereafter, under the conduct of a young friend, who kindly undertook to smooth away all difficulties in the way of our reception. We can, therefore, give some account of the dingy house, with a tolerable assurance that, strange as the matter may appear, it is no ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... would run a great risk; for supposing that he should chance not to have his ears, and she were detected feeling for them, she was well assured that he would put her to death; but nevertheless she would do this. So she undertook to do this for her father: but as for this Magian Smerdis, he had had his ears cut off by Cyrus the son of Cambyses when he was king, for some grave offence. This Phaidyme then, the daughter of Otanes, proceeding to perform all that she had undertaken for her father, when her turn came to ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... habit too congenial at all times to the Roman mind to call down any severe disapproval. What Laelius lacked was force. On one occasion a murder had been committed in the forest of Sila, which the consuls were ordered to investigate. A company of pitch manufacturers were accused, and Laelius undertook their defence. At its conclusion the consuls decided on a second hearing. A few days after Laelius again pleaded, and this time with an elegance and completeness that left nothing to be desired. Still the consuls were dissatisfied. On the accused begging Laelius ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... us a rest, our friends the enemy immediately filling their place. They opened fire from some kopjes to the east of the camp, and endeavoured to round up some of our cattle. The South Wales Borderers undertook to dislodge them, and speedily did so, the 'Cow-gun' joining in at long range as soon as the Boers evacuated their positions. Having disposed of man for the time being, Nature again rolled up in dense masses of magnificent clouds to the attack. The storm which followed was also one to be remembered; ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... a messenger. He found a young shepherd watching his flock. The natural messengers of the bandits are the shepherds who live between the city and the mountains, between civilized and savage life. The boy undertook the commission, promising to be in Frosinone in less than an hour. Carlini returned, anxious to see his mistress, and announce the joyful intelligence. He found the troop in the glade, supping off the provisions exacted as contributions from the peasants; but his eye vainly ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... hunter; he was very nimble, quick, and exceedingly persevering, in everything he undertook. But he was also a natural lounger and idler, whenever he was not busy with preparations for the hunt or repairing his own scanty clothing. Work in the fields he avoided. He even showed marked contempt for the people of the Rito, because the ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... the religious deprived themselves of a good part of the food and clothing which they could very badly spare. The Mother of the Incarnation admitted many of their daughters into the seminary, and undertook, though in her fiftieth year, to learn the Huron tongue, that she might be enabled to impart the blessing of spiritual instruction to the exiles. Her teacher was Father Bressani, who had almost miraculously escaped from the hands of the Iroquois, after having undergone ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... about in the literature and always cites the names of plants with scrupulous accuracy. It was because he felt the want of such a work for his own researches that he urged the preparation of the "Index Kewensis", and undertook to defray the expense. It has been thought singular that he should have been elected a "correspondant" of the Academie des Sciences in the section of Botany, but it is not surprising that his work in Geographical Botany made the botanists anxious to claim him. His heart went with them. "It has ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... he did, a rare courage (and that of the best kind, for it was a courage based upon experience and qualified by discretion) in beginning the publication of the "Atlantic" during the very storm and stress of the financial revulsion of 1857, it was by no means as a mere business speculation that he undertook what seemed a doubtful enterprise. His wish and hope were, that the "Atlantic" should represent what was best in American thought and letters; and while he had no doubt of ultimate pecuniary profit, his chief motive was the praiseworthy ambition to associate his name with an undertaking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... now explain why I had become so suddenly a favourite in the ward-room. The very stout gentleman, who came off with the admiral and captain, undertook the aquatic excursion on my account. He made every inquiry as to my equipment, my messmates, and my chance of comfort. Yet I, the person most concerned, was sent out of the way, lest by accident I should meet with ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... astonished that young lady, who was a good judge of accomplishments. Evelyn's performance on the piano astonished her yet more; but Caroline consoled herself on this point, for her voice was more powerful, and she sang French songs with much more spirit. Caroline showed talent in all she undertook; but Evelyn, despite her simplicity, had genius, though as yet scarcely developed, for she had quickness, emotion, susceptibility, imagination. And the difference between talent and genius lies rather in ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... work, besides sketching and keeping a diary, which was the most troublesome of all, consisted in making geological and zoological collections. With Captain Grant rested the botanical collections and thermometrical registers. He also boiled one of the thermometers, kept the rain-gauge, and undertook the photography; but after a time I sent the instruments back, considering this work too severe for the climate, and he tried instead sketching with watercolours—the results of which form the chief part of the illustrations in this book. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... further involved. They fell into the hands of a lawyer in Portsmouth, who undertook to see them righted, but the only advantage they gained from his intervention was the acquisition of certain information that the woman who had married Thomas ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... was dropped.' When he first started work in India, he found that there was no physical laboratory, or any grant made for a practical experimental course. He had to construct instruments with the help of local mechanics, whom he had to train. All this took him ten years. He then undertook original investigation at his own expense. The Royal Society became specially interested in his work and desired to give him parliamentary grant for its continuation. It was after this that the Government of Bengal came forward and offered him facilities for research. In the Educational Service ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... nothing!" He had an answer for everything, he was prepared to convince me at all points, to persuade me about everything, and to smooth over every difficulty, and he won a consent which, though almost involuntary on my part, was legalised by a contract in due form, by which I undertook to be at New York not later than November 05, 1880, and to be ready to open at Philadelphia with "Othello" on the ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... objections from Aerssens, that the thing must be done and his instructions carried out to the letter. So much he expected of the States, and they should care no more for ulterior consequences, he said, than he had done for the wrath of Spain when he frankly undertook their cause. Conde was important only because his relative, and he declared that if the Prince should escape, having once entered the territory of the Republic, he should lay the blame ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... result. It would seem as if he had aimed his studies, directed his researches, timed his travels, and planned his occupations, with a kind of presentiment, that he should in time be called to the very task he undertook. Indeed some have said that there was an actual precognition of it, by means of a vision, while he was yet a student in theology with the Abbe Guissot. But, the Society, upon the motion of a learned ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... you have got to pay yourself a fair compensation for the brains and energy you use on it. I want to call your attention to one other thing. This farm I bought nine years ago from a man who had farmed it until it wasn't capable of producing enough income to enable him to keep it, and I undertook to build an orchard on that farm, and I have done it. Last October, where these hogs are grazing in the picture, I planted a crop of oats and I got forty bushels of oats to the acre the latter part of April. I then turned around ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... Popoff, an intelligent, vivacious Russian, with very Calmuck features, susceptible as a girl, and passionately fond of music, hung over Sybil's piano by the hour; he brought Russian airs which he taught her to sing, and, if the truth were known, he bored Madeleine desperately, for she undertook to act the part of duenna to ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... the early Seventeenth Century, mind you, when the main salons of the French houses were filled with such institutions as rows of red chairs and boxed state beds. She undertook, first of all, to have a light and gracefully curving stairway leading to her salon instead of supplanting it. She grouped her rooms with a lovely diversity of size and purpose, whereas before they had been vast, ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... Wallingford or high altar screen. This screen was sorely dilapidated, and all its niches were stripped of their statues, no record remaining of whose statues originally filled them. Mr. H. Hucks Gibbs (now Lord Aldenham) undertook to restore this screen, making good the canopies and filling them again with statues. The screen is of clunch, a hard stone from the lower chalk formation quarried at Tottenhoe near Dunstable, a stone much used for interior work in ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... to be done was to take the child to the house of the Quinones. The baron undertook to take the little creature back, and then he would tell her godmother what he thought of her; he would tell her she was an infamous woman, a vile, perverse creature, and if she dared ill-treat the poor helpless child again, he would go to her house, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... Augustinians were succeeded by the Recollets, who, during the period from 1607 to 1680, founded missions at Agno, Balincaguin, Bolinao, Cabangan, Iba, Masinloc, and Santa Cruz. Then in 1680, more than a hundred years after Salcedo landed at Bolinao, the Dominicans undertook the active ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... that he reached what he called his Mission of the Immaculate Conception, on the Illinois River, through snow, and water and mud, hunger and misery. He preached until after Easter, when, his strength being exhausted, Pierre and Jacques undertook to carry him home to the Mission of St. Ignace. Marquette had been two years away from his palisaded station on the north shore, and nine years in the ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... and persevering exertions; and as I proceeded, he encouraged me by the most animating hopes of future prospects; he informed me that he had remarked with no small pleasure my determination to excel in every thing that I undertook; and that I set about every thing with an enthusiasm calculated to surmount all difficulties, which was, as he justly observed, the only way to attain any object, or to arrive at any ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... Madame Barbe de Kabyline. How and why it had come into their possession they did not know. It contained several French and a great many Russian poems and prose extracts, of which the following reflections on Cicero form a fair example—"The disposition in which Cicero undertook the office of quaestor may be gathered from the following: Calling upon the gods to testify to the purity of his sentiments in every rank with which he had hitherto been honoured, he considered himself ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... injustice: he was in truth a combination of heroes; for he was of a sturdy, raw-boned make like Ajax Telamon, with a pair of round shoulders that Hercules would have given his hide for (meaning his lion's hide) when he undertook to ease old Atlas of his load. He was, moreover, as Plutarch describes Coriolanus, not only terrible for the force of his arm, but likewise of his voice, which sounded as though it came out of a barrel; and, like the self-same ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... promised the youth the favour he asked for. Shortly afterwards the bishop, Carthach, whom we have mentioned as sent for by the king, arrived, and to him the latter entrusted Mochuda to be instructed in reading and writing. With great joy the bishop undertook his charge for he saw that his pupil was marked by grace, and under the bishop's guidance and tutelage Mochuda remained till his promotion to ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... hand, to tell his charge he must have patience for awhile; when, taking out his handkerchief, he spreads it on the ground, sits cross-legged thereupon, and says his prayers, though in the open market, which, having ended he leaps briskly up, salutes the person whom he undertook to convey, and renews his journey with the mild expression of Ghell yelinnum ghell, or Come, dear, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... time were absolutely in griskins, nor was I by any means prepared for a most unexpected proposal, which the spokeswoman, after some private conversation with the other, undertook to make. I could not imagine what the purport of the dialogue was; but I easily saw, that I myself was the subject of it, for I could perceive them glance at me occasionally, as if they felt a degree of hesitation ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... Aramis, "that this poor prince was the unhappiest of human beings, when Heaven, whose thoughts are over all his creatures, undertook ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... was to read a manuscript for him and place it. I raised feeble objections. "You seem to make a great number of unnecessary difficulties," said Gregory. "I don't think that any of my requests can be called unreasonable. You know enough of me to be able to say that I should discharge any duty I undertook thoroughly and competently." "Yes, I know," I said; "but one cannot force people's hands in these matters." "I don't ask you to force their hands," said Gregory; "I merely ask you to give me these introductions, and to write a perfectly ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... remain of this prince in England, are the Tower, Westminster-hall, and London-bridge, which he built. The most laudable foreign enterprise which he undertook, was the sending of Edgar Atheling, three years before his death, into Scotland with a small army, to restore Prince Edgar, the true heir of that kingdom, son of Malcolm, and of Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling; and the enterprise proved successful. It was remarked in that age, that Richard, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... and commiseration is accorded to her, who, unluckily for her own peace, became involved in such a destiny,—who, with virtues and attainments that would have made the home of a more ordinary man happy, undertook, in evil hour, to "turn and wind a fiery Pegasus," and but failed where it may be doubted whether even the fittest for such a task would have succeeded,—full allowance is, at the same time, made for the great martyr of genius himself, whom so many other causes, beside that restless fire within ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... disposed of by friendly arbitrament during the present year. It was referred, by the joint consent of Brazil and the United States, to the decision of Sir Edward Thornton, Her Britannic Majesty's minister at Washington, who kindly undertook the laborious task of examining the voluminous mass of correspondence and testimony submitted by the two Governments, and awarded to the United States the sum of $100,740.09 in gold, which has since been paid by the Imperial Government. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... will read it. When I first undertook this Poem, or, as some very skilful in this kind have pleased to term it, this Herculean labour, I was by some virtuous friends persuaded, that I should receive much comfort and encouragement therein; and for these reasons; ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... more to add, but that it is a very surprizing thing, that Milton ever undertook to write in such a Stile as he has made use of, and yet more surprizing that he should be read by all sorts of People, considering that the Stile is more properly Latin ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... settle. Railroads want law and order. Robbery and murders don't make business for railroads. They depend on settlers for developing a country, don't you know; otherwise they would have no traffic, not to speak of wanting their trains and men let alone. When Mr. Bucks undertook to open up this country to settlers, he needed a man of patience and endurance and with courage and skill in dealing with lawless men, and no man has ever succeeded so well as this terrible man you have heard about. ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... with George, and stayed to dinner, after which he talked over business with Flora, whose sagacity continually amazed him, and who undertook to make her husband understand, and do ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... He was acquitted, but with such damage to his financial integrity and in the face of such public indignation that he abandoned Austria for Italy and Vienna for Rome. There, heedless of first rebuffs, he undertook to realize the third great object of his life, the gaining of social position. To the period of avidity had succeeded, as it frequently does with those formidable handlers of money, the period of vanity. Being now a widower, he aimed at his daughter's marriage with a ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... fruition. And it was late in the day to begin reversing the powerful engine of her will. She was not even sure that she could reverse it. Hitherto she had never genuinely tried to do that. She did not want to try now, partly—but only partly—because she hated to fail in anything she undertook. And she had a suspicion, which she was not anxious to turn into a certainty, that she who had ruled many people was only a slave herself. Perhaps some day Jimmy would force her to a knowledge of her ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... thing, current among the natural philosophers of antiquity, and which only two centuries ago Sir Thomas Browne thought it worth while to place first and foremost among the Vulgar Errors that he undertook to refute, was plainly traceable to a confusion occasioned by the name. Crystal, as men supposed, was ice or snow which had undergone such a process of induration as wholly and for ever to have lost its fluidity: [Footnote: ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... Israelites did not break through the ministry of the law and death, to see Jesus there, because a vail was upon their hearts. They thought God had been dealing with them in the terms of a covenant of works, and they would stand to all God had said, and undertook indeed very fairly, "All which God hath commanded, we will do, and be obedient." But though(462) they perverted God's meaning of the law, and did not see Jesus intended; for they did not look steadfastly ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... what terms we made in the end with the Protectorate Government; but thanks to Monty's tact and influence, and to their sense of fair play, we were treated generously. And if, when the world war at last broke out and the Germans undertook to put in practise the treachery they had so long planned, there was a secret fund of hugely welcome money at the disposal of the out-numbered defenders of British East, its source will no doubt be accounted for, as well as its expenditures, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... making a larger income than most of them in the doing of it, and accomplishing all this purely by force of his personality. He succeeded where others failed, because so few could help liking him; and if he failed but seldom in anything he undertook, that was probably due in part to the fact that he never thought and never spoke of failure, preferring always as topics more cheerful matters. His wife had become a permanent invalid very shortly after their marriage, yet no person could ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... this assumed prerogative, the judges undertook to send a remonstrance to the king, setting forth the pernicious consequences that might be expected to flow from the proposed measure if put into execution. However unfounded in history, the claim of the Parliament of Paris appears to have been viewed with indulgence ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... occasion, he arose as early in the morning as the shortness of the day permitted, and proceeded to calculate the nativity of the young heir of Ellangowan. He undertook the task secundum artem, as well to keep up appearances, as from a sort of curiosity to know whether he yet remembered, and could practise, the imaginary science. He accordingly erected his scheme, or figure of heaven, divided into its twelve houses, placed the planets therein according ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... doctor, who wandered up and down the river, a loved and welcome guest at every station, happened along when a gin was stricken. He diagnosed strychnine poisoning. The greatest mystery surrounded the affair, and some of the whites undertook to watch the camp. A clue was furnished by the old doctor, who, when attending to the dying gin, noticed that one of the men seemed to find her sufferings most diverting. He laughed, wandered away, and returned ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... these transparent waters he is easily seen when in this condition, and the native fishermen then dive down and place a stout hook in his mouth! Though this may sound like a "fish story," we were assured by others of its truth. Bushy undertook to give us the names of the various fishes which abound here, but the long list of them and his peculiar pronunciation drove us nearly wild. Still a few are remembered; such as the yellow-tailed snapper, striped snapper, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... career Scheele undertook the solution of the composition of black oxide of manganese, a substance that had long puzzled the chemists. He not only succeeded in this, but incidentally in the course of this series of experiments he discovered oxygen, baryta, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... 'that before I left the country, where I have been for some time past, I undertook to ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... chairman of the committee having the matter in charge, and expressing the hope that the application would be granted, he received for answer: "We had made up our minds to allow the appropriation, when the Professor came in and upset everything. Why! he undertook to tell us that he could send ten words from Washington to Baltimore in two minutes. Good heavens! Twenty minutes is quick enough, but two minutes is nonsense. The Professor is too radical and visionary, and I doubt if the committee recommend the sum to be risked in such a manner." ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... well be urged against the method employed in these pages that, although we undertook to speak of the last American frontier, all that we really thus far have done has been to describe a series of frontiers from the Missouri westward. In part this is true. But it was precisely in this large, loose, ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... very perfect and instructive geological section of variously bent and lifted strata of limestone, which was afterwards found to contain innumerable fossils, particularly corals and a few bivalve shells. The Rev. W. B. Clarke, of Paramatta, kindly undertook to examine the fossils brought from this locality. One he determined to be an undescribed species of Cyathophyllum, and has done me the honour to give my name to it [Refer Note 1 at end of chapter]. The others belonged principally to the ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... Prince of Wales, and of meeting His Royal Highness's suggestions and advice in the preparation of a new die for the Canadian stamps. The Prince, with his characteristic energy and courtesy, cheerfully undertook the task, and it will be seen from our illustration with absolute and conspicuous success. H. R. H. wisely decided, in the first instance, that it is advisable to have some continuity of design in succeeding issues, and ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... Govinda, his shadow, walked the same paths, undertook the same efforts. They rarely spoke to one another, than the service and the exercises required. Occasionally the two of them went through the villages, to beg for food for themselves ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... as if the prospect was full of pleasure instead of work, and the hearty good will with which she undertook the new task, seemed to dignify her humble hopes and plans, and make them interesting ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... the banks of Po, Was he that undertook to cure the knight, All what green herbs or waters pure could do, He knew their power, their virtue, and their might, A noble poet was the man also, But in this science had a more delight, He could restore to health ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... came nearer my mother's heart, and as I was never lazy, I shared many of her joys and trials and learned to keep my rebellious nature almost wholly in check. Father was a good man, but unfortunate in business affairs, and the first time he undertook to carry out an enterprise of his own, he pulled everything over on to his head—just as I did the baby. This was of course a misfortune of which his wife had her share, but she never complained. The lines ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... evacuate and re-embark. Defeated in this direction, the Chilian troops directed their course to the northern provinces, where Orbegoso's rebel band were collected. Gen. Santa Cruz, in the ardor of his determination to rid the territory of the Confederation from this treacherous foe, undertook a march of two hundred leagues, under the severity of which many of his troops sank, and the result of which was his defeat at Yungay, by the rebel forces. The defection of Generals Ballivian and Velasco, who commanded two ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... Dutch merchant, whose goods were so comically mixed up with this whole history, never had any poetical or material justice for his loss of them. But it is as much the reader's business as mine to settle these casuistries. I only undertook to tell him who it was that paid for the Prima Donna,— and I have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... now of his hold on the populace, Bonaparte, at the close of the year, undertook a journey to Suez and the Sinaitic peninsula. It offered that combination of utility and romance which ever appealed to him. At Suez he sought to revivify commerce by lightening the customs' dues, by founding a branch of his Egyptian commercial ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... was particularly enthusiastic in praise of the Princess. He said that she was a "fine intelligent young lady; that she asked no end of questions, would not rest until she understood everything, and afterwards undertook to explain it all to her less-informed companions." A somewhat amusing incident occurred while they ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... reader to judge of the author's capabilities for the task he undertook, and of the degree of confidence that may be due to his impressions or opinions, it may not be out of place to state, that the Expeditions of 1840—1 were not entered upon without a sufficient previous and practical experience ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Paul forsake his religion! But that her husband was so ill and aged as not to be able to bear her absence, she would have hastened to London to rescue her son out of that perdition. She sent for her younger son, who undertook the embassy; and the Prince and Princesse de Moncontour, in their hotel at London, were one day surprised by the visit of the Abbe ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was no half-hearted friend; when he undertook to do a thing, it was done well and promptly, so that before a week from her first mentioning the matter Mrs. Clair was settled in very pleasant lodgings not ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... in Washington, who performed these duties, during the first two years of the war, while as yet the Sanitary Commission had not fully organized its system of Field Relief. In the West, every considerable town furnished its quota of supplies, and, after every battle, voluntary agents undertook their distribution. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... After this defeat I undertook the bust of a beautiful child, Miss Multon, a delightful little American, whom later on I came across in Denmark, married and the mother of a family, but still ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... ago a firm at Sioux Falls undertook to manufacture table tops, mantels, pedestals, and various decorative articles out of sections of this agatized wood by cutting them into the desired forms and polishing them. Tiffany and Company, the famous jewellers, also used this material for the base of the beautiful silver testimonial ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... When Congress undertook to reduce the revenue to a peace basis, it found that every approach to the tariff aroused classes of interested manufacturers, while every attack upon the internal revenue was welcomed by the public. As a result, ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... of three successive crews from the stout ship "Laughing Lass" in mid-Pacific, is a mystery weird and inscrutable. In the solution, there is a story of the most exciting voyage that man ever undertook. ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... probable that one of these unfortunate men might have been revived under judicious treatment; but he was not fated to receive it. Spike, who knew nothing of such matters, undertook to direct everything, and, instead of having recourse to warmth and gentle treatment, he ordered the bodies to be rolled on a cask, suspended them by the heels, and resorted to a sort of practice that might have destroyed well men, instead of resuscitating those in whom the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... confuting the reasonings they made use of, every one for their own practices, demonstrated that such reasonings were vain and void of truth: whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading other men also to assent to him. He communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for before Abram came into Egypt they were unacquainted with ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... of that ascent. If a traveller were not prepossessed that these mountaineers are the surest-footed carriers in the universe, he would be in continual apprehensions of being overturned. I, who never undertook this journey before, must own, that I could not be so fearless, on this occasion as Sir Charles was, though he had very exactly described to me how every thing would be. Then, though the sky was clear when we passed this mountain, yet ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... with all his powers in their strongest training, and after the total change in his feelings and principles which I have endeavored to describe, he undertook the series of "England and Wales," and in that series introduced the subject of Llanthony Abbey. And behold, he went back to his boy's sketch, and boy's thought. He kept the very bushes in their places, but brought the fisherman to the other side of the river, and put him, in somewhat ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... feat finished satisfactorily, the ambition of our young engineers led them further afield, as told in "The Young Engineers in Arizona." A great, man-killing quicksand had to be filled in and effectively stopped from shifting. Reade & Hazelton undertook the task. Incidentally Tom came into serious, dangerous conflict with gamblers and other human birds-of-prey, who had heretofore fattened on the earnings of the railway laborers. It was a tremendously exciting time that the young engineers had in Arizona, but they at last ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... the matter end there, as is so often the case where parish work and young ladies are concerned. Angela set to her charitable duties with a steady determination that made her services very valuable. She undertook the sole management of a clothing club, in itself a maddening thing to ordinary mortals, and had an eye to the distribution of the parish coals. Of mothers' meetings and other cheerful parochial entertainments, she became the life and soul. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... rest of my life has been spent in teaching in Beirut. Since the massacres, I have been teaching the orphans in the Prussian School, where I at present reside. Indeed it has been my home ever since I undertook this work which I love dearly, and which I hope to continue so long as the Lord sees fit, and gives me strength to ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... the barrister of to-day: he wished to rise; he wished, if you will, to make his fortune, not by the taking of fees, but by extending himself into higher influence by the authority of his name. No doubt he undertook this and the other case without reference to the truth or honesty of the cause, and, when he did so, used all his energy for the bad, as he did for the good cause. There seems to be special accusation made against him on his head, as though, the very fact that he ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... not the only punishment decreed upon them by God. He undertook a thoroughgoing campaign against them. When Pharaoh was preparing to persecute the Israelites, he asked his army which of the saddle beasts was the swiftest runner, that one he would use, and they said: "There is none swifter than thy piebald ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... fact that they began to talk French to each other, thinking that she could not understand them; that they spoke of deceiving Lady Harry by some statement which had already deceived the authorities; that the doctor undertook to get the lady out of the house; that they engaged herself as nurse to a sick man; that she suspected from the beginning that their design was to profit in some way by the death of this sick than, who bore a slight resemblance to Lord Harry himself. And so ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... it seemed to him that his intercourse with Susanna was now assuming this character, and therefore was it perhaps that, as he could no longer excite her abhorrence as a misanthropist, one fine day he undertook to ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... brought in their pouches, and some wild fruit they had met with, but were very glad when the captain allowed them at last to light the pile of sticks they had collected, to put on the kettle, and to begin roasting the game. Harry and Reggy undertook to make some fresh dampers, Paul to attend to the camp oven, while Hector was set to turn the spits. The rest of the party were clearing the ground round the fire, bringing water, looking after the horses, ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... The preparation of colours also, whether for painting or for dyeing threads and textile fabrics, was a matter which, M. Lefebure points out, received close attention from the artists of the Middle Ages. Many undertook long journeys to obtain the more famous recipes, which they filed, subsequently adding to and correcting them as experience dictated. Nor were great artists above making and supplying designs for embroidery. Raphael ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... conceive, in short, that Nature, by rendering these and similar truths unreservedly patent to the whole human race, has affixed to them her own contraband,—interdicting their communication; and that Dr Reid, in making them the staple of his publications, was fighting against an eternal law. He undertook to teach the world certain truths connected with perception, which by his own admission the world already knew just as well as he did—and which required no labour for their production. This way of going to work ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... get rid of the refuse vegetables, &c.; of these he had a constant supply. The pigs, too, helped him with manure. Next he emptied ash-pits in the town, and sifted the cinders; the better part went on his own fire, the other on his land. As he understood gardening, he undertook the care of several small gardens, which brought in a little money. All the rubbish, leaves, trimmings, &c., which he swept from the gardens he burnt, and spread the ashes abroad to fertilise ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... has occurred or may occur," said Mr St Lys to Egremont, "I blame only the Church. The church deserted the people; and from that moment the church has been in danger and the people degraded. Formerly religion undertook to satisfy the noble wants of human nature, and by its festivals relieved the painful weariness of toil. The day of rest was consecrated, if not always to elevated thought, at least to sweet and noble sentiments. The church convened to its ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Pizarro, as one anxious to promote the interests of government. Yet he did not so far trust his companion, as to neglect the precaution of sending a confidential agent to represent his own services, when Hernando Pizarro undertook his mission ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... with it went all Aquitaine north of the Dordogne. Savary took service with the conqueror, and was made warden of La Rochelle and of the adjacent coasts, while Lusignan received the reward of his treachery in a grant of the Isle of Oleron. When Louis returned to the north, the Count of La Marche undertook the conquest of Gascony. He soon made himself master of St. Emilion, and of the whole of Perigord. The surrender of La Reole opened up the passage of the Garonne, and the capture of Bazas gave the ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... regard a love for the beautiful, whether in literature or art, as synonymous with effeminacy. Mummius, also, who destroyed Corinth, is said to have been so little aware of the value of the artistic treasures which he carried away, as to stipulate with the carriers who undertook to transport them to Rome, that if any of the works of art were lost they should be replaced by ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... mention two names of illustrious travellers, living before the Christian era; those of Caesar and Strabo. Caesar, born B.C. 100, was pre-eminently a conqueror, not an explorer, but we must remember, that in the year B.C. 58, he undertook the conquest of Gaul, and during the ten years that were occupied in this vast enterprise, he led his victorious Legions to the shores of Great Britain, where the inhabitants were of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... resolute commander in the action, and an assured Christian in his death. We intended to have carried his body to Surat, to have there performed his funeral rites according to his great merit, and oar surgeons undertook to preserve his body by means of embalming and cere-cloth, but it became so noisome that we were forced to bury him at Jasques, which was done on the 7th, with all the solemnity and respect ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... caused me physical suffering until I left the Army of the Cumberland the next spring; but I had still more reason to feel for my captured men, and on this account I have never ceased to regret that I so thoughtlessly undertook to rejoin my troops by rail, instead of ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... complacent sense of having got the value of their money. The great cage was taken apart and carried off. The stage was speedily transformed. And two trick comedians, with slippers that flapped a foot beyond their toes, undertook to wipe out the memory of what ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... and pathetic character. His success in each capacity sprang from his intense sympathy and his equally intense earnestness. Whatever with him was worth doing at all, was worth doing thoroughly. Anything he undertook, no matter what, he went in at, according to the good old sea phrase, with a will. He always endeavoured to accomplish whatever had to be accomplished as well as it could possibly be effected within the reach of his capabilities. ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... Sunday, 8th.—Undertook, in company with a Boston friend, to walk out to the seat of Colonel Wilkins, where I was invited to dine; a conveyance had been sent for me; I was, however, desirous to see if exercise would warm me, and set off under the guidance of my Yankee companion, in whose good company I had ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... undertook no movement, but, as if in defiance, they increased the fires in the red ring around the fort and they showed themselves ostentatiously. Robert several times saw De Courcelles with a thick bandage about his head, and he knew that the Frenchman's mortification and rage ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... behind him. There were only four hundred of us altogether. Captain Villiers, who had recovered from his wound, and Ensign Norton set out on horseback, with despatches for Fort George; and, in case they should be captured, Lieutenant Foster undertook to convey them by water, and we volunteered to accompany him. We got a fisherman's boat at Frenchman's Bay. It was a long, tough pull across the lake, I tell you. At night the wind rose, and we were drenched with spray and nearly perished with cold. After two ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... veil could be more effectual than her beautiful Catholic quiet. Catholicism invented the invisible purdah. She is far more akin to that sweet little Indian lady with the wonderful robes whom Carmine brought over with her tall husband last summer, than she is to Letty or Cissie. She, too, undertook to play hockey. And played it very much as Madame Van ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... an earlier and better version of the Caxton that I had just copied part of?[1] I drank seven cups of tea, and eat five or six large slices of bread and butter, in honour of the event;[2] and Mr Skeat, with his never-failing kindness, undertook to copy and edit the Oriel text for the Society. With three texts, therefore, in hand, I could not well stick them at the end of the Postscript to the Babees Book, &c.,[3] and as I wanted Caxton's name ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... English and American students of geographic environment it is a closed book, a treasure-house bolted and barred. Ratzel himself realized "that any English form could not be a literal translation, but must be adapted to the Anglo-Celtic and especially to the Anglo-American mind." The writer undertook, with Ratzel's approval, to make such an adapted restatement of the principles, with a view to making them pass current where they are now unknown. But the initial stages of the work revealed the necessity of a radical modification of the ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... oneself to any long aim one must reckon with minor disasters. This Research I undertook grows and grows. I believe in it more and more. The more it asks from me the more I give to it. When I was a youngster I thought the thing I wanted was just round the corner. I fancied I would find out the noble life in a year or two, just what it was, just where it took one, and ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... said that the Gascon dialect was gradually expiring when Jasmin undertook its revival. His success in recovering and restoring it, and presenting it in a written form, was the result of laborious investigation. He did not at first realize the perfect comprehension of the idiom, but he eventually succeeded ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... and to do these things during a contest which was expected by the consensus of expert opinion to last not more than a few months. All these things we accomplished, and we were the only Power at war which did actually accomplish all that it was expected and asked to do. More than that, we also undertook a great task which was not in our programme; we created a great army on a Continental scale, and, at the same time, continued to carry out the other tasks which had been assigned ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... and for half an hour held Jimmy entranced with his playing. The little boy then undertook to teach Phil how to draw, but at this Phil probably cut as poor a figure as his instructor would have done at playing ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... I have said enough in proof of the first point, which I undertook to maintain, viz., the claim of Theology to be represented among the Chairs of a University. I have shown, I think, that exclusiveness really attaches, not to those who support that claim, but to those who dispute it. I have ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... about arranging matters with his creditors, who put obstructions in the way of his leaving Rome, and were clamorous, he applied to Crassus, then the richest man in Rome, who stood in need of the vigour and impetuosity of Caesar to support him in his political hostility to Pompeius. Crassus undertook to satisfy the most importunate and unrelenting of the creditors, and having become security for Caesar to the amount of eight hundred and thirty talents, thus enabled him to set out for his province. There is a story that ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... when the apprentice (who had been strictly forbidden to do so) undertook to do some ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton
... I at length said: 'Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal better about this argument than I, for you have always lived under the slave system. I can only say, in reply to your statement of the case, that it reminds me of a man out in Illinois, by the name of Case, who undertook, a few years ago, to raise a very large herd of hogs. It was a great trouble to feed them, and how to get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit on the plan of planting an immense field of potatoes, and, when they were sufficiently grown, he turned ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... had been wiser. He stuck to his theories still; but his practice would have been more of the practical kind, if it had come back to be done again. But his children and his wife had no claim to bring up anything, because everything was gone before he undertook their business. However, he obtained reproach—as always seems to happen—for those doings of his early days which led to their existence. Still, he liked to make the best of things, and laughed, instead ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... chamber; and a small quantity of it lay as a fine powder at the bottom of the posterior one. In the latter, however, its presence might, by possibility, have been accidental. My colleague, Dr. Percy, who kindly undertook to examine this substance, informs me that he has been unable to detect uric acid in it. The follicular appendages of the branchial arteries present remarkable differences in their external appearance. The eight which hang into the four anterior chambers are ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... harbor were not less than two hundred and twenty vessels, large and small. On the north side of the harbor, near the forts, were about one hundred and fifty vessels. These Jones undertook to destroy. The others were left to Lieut. Wallingford, with his boat's crew ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot |
