"Abler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his real merit, admit any acquaintance more dangerous than that of Savage; of whom likewise it must be confessed, that abilities really exalted above the common level, or virtue refined from passion, or proof against corruption, could not easily find an abler judge ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... yet, with more labour in collecting, or more skill in using, the materials within his reach, illustrated as they have been by the labours of Dr Henry, of the late Mr Strutt, and, above all, of Mr Sharon Turner, an abler hand would have been successful; and therefore I protest, beforehand, against any argument which may be founded on the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... success is the proper proof of merit, when nothing necessary to its winning is denied to the players in the world's great games. Richmond is worshipped, and Richard detested, not because the former was good and great, and the latter wicked and weak, for Richard was the better and the abler man, but for the reason that the decision was in Richmond's favor on Bosworth Field. The only difference between Catiline and Caesar, according to an eminent statesman and scholar, is this: Catiline was crushed by his foes, and Caesar's foes were crushed by him. This may seem harsh, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... by throats abler to vocalize, just then, than Milla's, for in her great surprise she said nothing whatever—the shriek came from the other girls as Milla left the crest of the overhanging bank and almost horizontally disappeared into the brown water. There ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... this inquiry were made in general terms, I should have thought it presumption in me to stand up and defend measures in which so many abler men have been engaged, and which, consequently, they could so much better support; but when the attack grows more personal, it grows my duty to oppose it more particularly, lest I be suspected of an ingratitude which my heart disdains. But I think, Sir, I cannot be suspected ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... attempt to describe the charming scenery of this most beautiful of all rivers, which has already been so amply described by abler writers. I was delighted with everything I saw; but nothing ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... his successor, he answered, "You will find my will in SUCH a drawer of my cabinet." Some of his counsellors thought he named his son Richard; and no one ever found the drawer with the will in it, in which it was thought that his son-in-law Fleetwood, a much abler man, was named. ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... as a diamond breastpin sometimes kills the social effect of the wearer, who might have passed for a gentleman without it. Your arid patch of earth should seem to the natural birthplace of the leaner virtues and the abler vices,—of temperance and the domestic proprieties on the one hand, with a tendency to light weights in groceries and provisions, and to clandestine abstraction from the person on the other, as opposed to the free hospitality, the broadly planned burglaries, and the largely ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of its insensible master. His horse was shot, John Grimbal carried home with all despatch, and Doctor Parsons arrived as quickly as possible, to do all that might be done for the sufferer until an abler physician ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... than whom there is no abler or more renowned biblical scholar in the New World, has in a recent paper in the New York Herald defended Dr. Briggs. That journal aptly says: In his paper, he defines in the most trenchant language, the apparent inconsistency of the New York Presbytery in practically ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... will brook No more! This outrage following upon his insults, 310 Perhaps his guilt, has cancelled all the little I owed him heretofore for the so-vaunted Aid which he added to your abler succour. Ulric, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... is prefaced by an Epistle to the Reader, couched in plain but pungent language, in which he says: "It is a great pity that the matters of fact, and indeed the whole, had not been done by some abler hand, better accomplished, and with the advantages of both natural and acquired judgment; but, others not appearing, I have enforced myself to do what is done. My other occasions will not admit any further scrutiny therein." A Postscript ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... the Lodge; where he had only one old Man, his Father, well skilled in Surgery, and a Boy. They put him to Bed; and the old Forester, with what Art he had, dress'd his Wounds, and in the Morning sent for an abler Surgeon, to whom the Prince enjoin'd Secrecy, because he knew him. The Man was faithful, and the Prince in Time was recover'd of his Wound; and as soon as he was well, he came to Flanders, in the Habit of a Pilgrim, and after some Time took the Order of St. Francis, none ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... and far abler forger saw the light of day. Jose Marchena, a Spaniard of Jewish extraction, was destined for an ecclesiastical career. He received an excellent education which served to fortify a natural bent toward languages and historical criticism. In his early youth ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... our Wordsworth to the Queen—she crowned him with the bays, And wished him many happy years, and many quarter-days; And if you'd have the story told by abler lips than mine, You've but to call at Rydal Mount, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... realizes or than her discontented face and voice suggest. Etta is fat and contented, the mother of many, and fond of her fat, fussy August, the rich brewer. John Redmond—a congressman, a possession of the Beef Trust, I believe—but not so highly prized a possession as was his abler father. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... their fathers had done on those plains under his great uncle, roused them to the highest enthusiasm. While assuming the title of commander-in-chief, he was wise enough to leave the conduct of the war to his abler subordinates, MacMahon, Niel, ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... enduring, keen in perception and in sense, and warm in his feelings and affections. Many men would have become heavy and useless in these years of quiet country life, but Washington simply ripened, and, like all slowly maturing men, grew stronger, abler, and wiser in the happy years of rest and waiting which intervened ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... for the tribunate.] It was rash provocation to give to such a man at such a time. If he was accused, he was acquitted, and he at once stood for the tribunate. Thus the party which had slain his brother found itself again at death-grips with an even abler and ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... 26th; Dresden Siege gone awry).... "I am to keep the Russians from Frankfurt, to cover Glogau, and prevent a besieging of Breslau! All that forms an overwhelming problem;—which I, with my whole heart, will give up to somebody abler for it than I am." [Ib. ii. 369-371 ("Landsherg, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... This nobleman, described by Disraeli in a famous passage as an 'arch-mediocrity' was Prime Minister for fifteen years. He owed his long tenure of office largely to the tolerance with which he allowed his abler lieutenants to usurp his power: perhaps he owed it still more to the victories which Wellington was then winning abroad and which secured the confidence of the country; but at least he seems to have been a good judge of men. In 1811 he promoted Peel ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... any of their energy in Japan, for those who know them intimately, know that they are pursuing numerous original investigations, and that so soon as one is finished, another is commenced. It would have been difficult then to have found an abler exponent of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... the poor dear Admiral were here," said I. "I should like to ask an abler sailorman than Peterson what to do, with the glass falling as it is, and the holding ground none too good for an anchor. I thought it just as well to come and tell you to prepare for ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... stranger, was beyond expression; and, was it not impertinent to make observations to you, I could inlarge upon this sort of behaviour; for I am firmly of opinion that there is neither spirit nor good sense in oaths, nor any wit or humour in blasphemy. But as vulgar errors require an abler pen than mine to correct them, I shall leave that task to you, and am, sir, your humble ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... encounter in the management of affairs. In the old diplomatic school, Austria could hold her own with any foe, or friend either,—the latter the more difficult matter of the two. There seldom have been abler men in their way than Kaunitz and Metternich, but they would be utterly useless were they to come back and take charge of Austrian diplomacy, so changed is the world's state. And their successors are of their school, with abilities far inferior ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... cry unto Thee. For what is nearer to Thine ears than a confessing heart, and a life of faith? Who did not extol my father, for that beyond the ability of his means, he would furnish his son with all necessaries for a far journey for his studies' sake? For many far abler citizens did no such thing for their children. But yet this same father had no concern how I grew towards Thee, or how chaste I were; so that I were but copious in speech, however barren I were to Thy culture, O God, who art the only ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... not worthy of the commission with which I had been invested, and I besought heaven to degrade the wretch who could not speak at the seasonable moment, and to bestow it upon one worthier of its love, and abler to perform his duty. I passed a miserable night of remorse, and bitter self-accusation, and in the morning was distracted by the battling feelings that were marshalled against each other in my soul. Now, a sense of my unworthiness was victorious over every other thought, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... let me do things my way," said Mrs. Todd scornfully. "No, dear, we won't take no big bo't. I'll just git a handy dory, an' Johnny Bowden an' me, we'll man her ourselves. I don't want no abler bo't than a good dory, an' a nice light breeze ain't goin' to make no sea; an' Johnny's my cousin's son,—mother'll like to have him come; an' he'll be down to the herrin' weirs all the time we're there, anyway; we don't want to carry no men folks havin' to be considered every ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the throng Of his Apostasy. He might have learnt Less overweening, since he failed in Job, Whose constant perseverance overcame Whate'er his cruel malice could invent. He now shall know I can produce a man, 150 Of female seed, far abler to resist All his solicitations, and at length All his vast force, and drive him back to Hell— Winning by conquest what the first man lost By fallacy surprised. But first I mean To exercise him in the Wilderness; There he shall ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... meet and beat the enemy if he again appeared. To this order he made no objection, and I relied upon its execution. It was not executed. I feel most sensibly how inadequate are my powers in speaking of the troops, to do justice to their merits, or to my own sense of them. Under abler direction, they might ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... compendium of Virginia conventions, with the names of the delegates returned by Loudoun County. Few, if any, counties of Virginia have had an abler or more influential representation in the various State conventions. From the meeting of the first to the adjournment of the last Loudoun has been represented by fifteen of her ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... "unfortunate devils whose obstinacy has been streaked by a black mark, or which ought rather to be termed a black and blue mark, for that is an abler and more significant illustration, Poor quadrupeds who have lived their whole miserable lives as married men under an iron dynasty; and who know that the thunderings of Jupiter himself, if he were now in vogue, would be mere music compared to the fury of a conjugal tongue ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... circumstances, towards the close of the session some of the Whigs took office. Thus Lord Lansdowne was appointed secretary for the home department; Lord Carlisle, privy-seal; and Mr. Tierney, master of the mint. But about this time the opposition received a more regular form and abler direction. Hitherto Mr. Peel had acted with moderation and urbanity, but he now gave indications of decided hostility. In discovering this Mr. Canning said, that he rejoiced to see the standard openly raised: he always preferred direct hostility to hollow ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... was changed, to y^e rejoysing of y^e harts of many, for which they blessed God. And y^e effect of their particuler planting was well seene, for all had, one way & other, pretty well to bring y^e year aboute, and some of y^e abler sorte and more [104] industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... the demands of the rebels and to the tone in which they stated them? Patience! They have selected a field of battle on which I am an abler general than they—that of a conference. No, we shall beat them by merely temporizing. They want food already. They will be ten times worse off ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... our own trade and commerce, abundantly justified the statement of the Minister. Some additional reliance on the stability of our prospects might also have been drawn from the fact that the destinies of England were never in abler hands than those to whom they were confided in 1792, with Mr. Pitt at the Treasury and Lord Grenville ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... labour, and must live by care. Another matron, of superior kind, For higher schools prepares the rising mind; Preparatory she her Learning calls, The step first made to colleges and halls. She early sees to what the mind will grow, Nor abler judge of infant-powers I know: She sees what soon the lively will impede, And how the steadier will in turn succeed; Observes the dawn of wisdom, fancy, taste, And knows what parts will wear, and what will waste: She ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... is no record of travel in Central Africa. There are many such to be had at any circulating library, written by abler and more fantastic pens. Some of us who have wandered in the darkest continent have looked in vain for things seen by former travellers—things which, as the saying is, are neither here nor there. Indeed, there is not much to see in a vast, boundless ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... strong thought—that a man is perfected, so far as strength goes; that he will never be abler to do his work than under the very sun which is now shining on him. There is a seriousness that few call to mind in the reflection that whatever you do in this age of manhood is an unalterable type of your whole bigness. You may qualify ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... will then emerge a truer, simpler, and yet grander conception of the motions of the universe, which, when perfected by abler minds, will be as perfect a theory as human intelligence and philosophy can make it. So that, what an atomic and gravitative Aether has done for Newton's corpuscular theory of light, in showing that it can be united and combined with the undulatory theory, and by such combination, ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... your demand requires; The war once done, I'll do what heaven inspires; And while this sword this monarchy secures, 'Tis managed by an abler arm ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... quoted; we may however notice as a sign of progress that Euphues has substituted a moral narrative for his usual discourse. The relations between the two friends have become distinctly amusing, and might, in abler hands, have resulted in comic situation. Euphues, having learnt the lesson of the burnt child, is now a very grave person, proud of his own experience and of its ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... hope be expressed that this is but the beginning of a movement which may be taken up by abler and wealthier men in business and broadened in many ways. A growing literature on "The Morals of Trade," representing the best thoughts of our best minds, is likely to live and to do splendid service in elevating commerce and in ...
— The business career in its public relations • Albert Shaw
... Signori Arienta and Tonetti, and to many other kind friends whom if I were to begin to name I must name half the town of Varallo. With such advantages I am well aware that the work should be greatly better than it is; if, however, it shall prove that I have succeeded in calling the attention of abler writers to Varallo, and if these find the present work of any, however small, assistance to them, I shall hold that I have been justified in publishing it. In the full hope that this may turn out to be the case, I now leave ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... Erie road, Fisk and his colleagues managed it in their own interests. It was commonly believed in the city that Fisk was but the executor of the designs which were conceived by an abler brain than ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Gentleman, & permitted to return to my Family in the Spring. I find my Health declining, and the Air of this Country is unfriendly to it. I am therefore steadfastly determind to get my self excusd in April or May at farthest. In doing this, I shall immediately make Room for an abler Man. Such may easily be found, and, I hope, prevaild upon to come. I shall also gratify those whose Hearts are bent upon my Removal, and shall save them Abundance of Pains in making their Interest to effect it. These Men agree with me, if in Nothing else, in wishing ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... something had displeased the Indian, sent his interpreter for an explanation. The latter soon returned with an account, that Tecumseh, not wishing to wear such a mark of distinction, when an older, and as he said, abler warrior than himself, was present, had transferred the sash to ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... on which to hang all your own best ethical and spiritual conceptions. If you will do this, and wriggle out of that wretched relic, with that not less wretched picture—if you will make me out to be much better and abler than I was, or ever shall be, Sunchildism may serve your turn for many a long year to come. Otherwise it will tumble about your heads before you ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... to a new world," he said, "the world of suffering. You are in a fury because your career has been checked, and because you have been put on the shelf; you, of all people. Now you will learn how many quite as able as yourself, and abler, have been put on the shelf too, and have to stay there. You are only a pupil in suffering. What about the professors? If your wonderful wisdom has left you with any sense at all, look about ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... for his betters; We had a hundred abler men, Nor need depend upon his pen.— Say what you will about his reading, You never can defend his breeding; Who, in his satires running riot, Could never leave the world in quiet; Attacking, when he took the whim, Court, city, camp,—all ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the land, and thus won over the petty lords. Cities were built, fortresses erected, the enemies of Russia defeated; Siberia was brought under firm control, and the whole nation made to see that it had never been ruled by abler hands. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... An abler work than any of these, but exhibiting less power of observation is a treatise, περι γονης {peri gonês}, On generation, that may perhaps be dated about 380 B. C.[13] It exhibits a writer of much philosophic power, very anxious for physiological explanations, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... Seaman declared. "Fate has gone against me. I thank God that our master has abler servants than I and the strength to crush this island of ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... men who came out in Easter Week and bore arms were largely the men whom Larkin had organised and whom Connolly's doctrine had influenced. From the point of view of mental calibre Connolly was by far the abler man. He was not as well known outside Labour circles in Dublin as he has come to be since his death, but to anyone who has given any thought or study to his life and writings he must appear a person of ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... best of his power of reading the country, his countrymen had manifested no such wish; and that if they did so, if by the fresh election it should be shown that the ballot was in truth desired, he would at once leave the execution of their wishes to abler and younger hands. Mr. Turnbull expressed himself perfectly satisfied with the Minister's answers, and said that the coming election would show whether he or ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... she now gathered from this conversational reconnaissance that the younger and abler general at the front was about to alter the object of attack. She had, in fact, come in not to warm, but ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... of countenance, which hinders us from discovering by words, actions, or even looks, those passions or sentiments by which we are inwardly moved or agitated; and the discovery of which gives cooler and abler people such infinite advantages over us, not only in great business, but in all the most common occurrences of life. A man who does not possess himself enough to hear disagreeable things without visible marks of anger and change of countenance, or agreeable ones, without sudden bursts ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... his tragic downfall. Henry took matters in his own hands and had his own English bishops divorce him. England joined the ranks of the nations denying the authority of Rome. Sir Thomas More and other nobles who refused to follow Henry's bidding were beheaded. Thomas Cromwell, a new minister, abler perhaps than even Wolsey, and risen from a yet lower sphere of life, directed England's counsel. By one act after another the break with Rome was made complete. A thousand monasteries were suppressed and their wealth added to the crown. Cromwell earned his name, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... them, and observing everything with a keenness, an intensity, an exactness, and a permanency, which only youth and a quick pulse, and fresh blood and spirits combined, can achieve,—a boy who teaches himself natural history in this way, is not only a healthier and happier boy, but is abler in mind and body for entering upon the great game of life, than the pale, nervous, bright-eyed, feverish, "interesting" boy, with a big head and a small bottom and thin legs, who is the "captain," the miracle of the ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... concluded by declaring his design to exert himself in the endeavor to allay the heart-burnings and jealousies which had been fomented in the state legislature; and he fervently prayed, if he was deemed unworthy to effect it, that it might be reserved to some other and abler hand to extend this ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... get this to him, a poor, timid woman had gone out into a raging crowd, had borne its brutality for hours, and then, a piteous bundle of broken nerves, had by sheer accident accomplished that which hundreds of others, braver, abler, more confident, and more deserving, had tried to do and failed. Morally this small slip of paper had upon it the blood, and the tears, the sweat, the agony, and the despair of all the rest; and only by accident had he ever come to know ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... not fall, as at present, on the parents. They will receive, like adults, their share of necessaries, and their education will be free.[60] There is no longer to be the present competition for scholarships among the abler children: they will not be imbued with the competitive spirit from infancy, or forced to use their brains to an unnatural degree with consequent listlessness and lack of health in later life. Education will be far more diversified than at present; greater ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... garrulity. Methinks I hear the questions asked by my graver readers, "To what purpose is all this?—how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?" Alas! is there not wisdom enough extant for the instruction of the world? And if not, are there not thousands of abler pens labouring for its improvement?—It is so much pleasanter to please than to instruct—to play the companion ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... occupied by the halt and the crippled, the feeble and the paralytic, who used their influence at Court to become thus exempted from the performance of the severer duties of which they were incapable. This violation of the priestly constitution excited at first great murmurs among the abler but less influential brethren. But the murmurs of the weak prove only the tyranny of the strong; and so completely in the course of time do institutions depart from their original character, that the imbecile riders of the black bulls now avowedly ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... Russian Government, though this sentiment does not include the Russian people. In fact, nowhere in all Europe have Russian political exiles found more secure refuge than in Bulgaria, where they are received with hearty welcome, and the abler ones of them offered Government employment. As an instance: the national university in Sofia was founded by a Russian scholar upon the invitation of the Bulgarian Government. Had this same Russian scholar dared to cross over the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... about rank, which a military life had strengthened. The liberal theories which the war had engendered were not understood, and, during the French Revolution, they became associated with acts of atrocity which Mr. Jefferson himself condemned. Abler men than the Federalists failed to discriminate between the crime and the principles which the criminals professed. Students of affairs are now in a better position than Mr. Jefferson was, to ascertain the truth, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... "Abler pens than mine," says Jack, "have put on record the sorrowful glory of that dreadful campground by Valley Forge. It is strongly charactered in those beseeching letters and despatches of the almost heartbroken man, who poured out his grief in language which even to-day no man can read ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... eclipse which must dim the luster of all who walk in the shadow of a greater of the same name. For surely there never was a finer gentleman, a truer friend, a nobler patriot, or, according to his opportunities, an abler officer than was our beloved colonel ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... shady side, but in winter there ain't no sunny side. At last, one night as I lay awake, I made up my mind I would go and see whether my father was as hard-hearted as people said. Perhaps he would help us over a week or two; and if I hadn't got work by that time, we should at least be abler to bear the hunger! So the next day, without a word to mother or Artie, I set ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... translator. The chief object of the present inadequate version has been to render the sense intelligible as well as the words. The attempt stands in need of all the indulgence which the German scholar will readily allow that a much abler ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... an indication of this. Never was there a people left in worse plight than they were at the close of the war. In a country ravaged and denuded by a long and destructive conflict, themselves penniless, with none of the knowledge and training that would fit them for competition with shrewder and abler classes, there seemed small hope of their getting more than a bare livelihood. But ambition, mother wit, and a rare aptitude for learning have helped them on till the gains they have made for themselves are quite astonishing. Not long ago the New York Independent ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... Russell, and give him credit for great ability.' There is no doubt that the Tories have put themselves in a better position for getting office, and the Whigs in a worse for keeping it, than they were in before, because impartial men who look at these debates will say that Peel and his people are the abler practical men, and as time settles the great questions in dispute, and renders the public mind more indifferent about those which still remain, there will be a growing opinion that the direction of affairs ought to be entrusted to those who display the greatest capacity to ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the old-fashioned archway, and alighted in the court-yard of Meg Dods's inn, and delivered the bridle of his horse to the humpbacked postilion. "Bring my saddle-bags," he said, "into the house—or stay—I am abler, I think, to carry them than you." He then assisted the poor meagre groom to unbuckle the straps which secured the humble and now despised convenience, and meantime gave strict charges that his horse ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... us are functions not tied up by the exercise of other functions. Relatively few medical and scientific men, I fancy, can pray. Few can carry on any living commerce with God. Yet many of us are well aware of how much freer and abler our lives would be, were such important forms of energizing not sealed up by the critical atmosphere in which we have been reared. There are in everyone potential forms of activity that actually are shunted out from use. Part of ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... kind friends everywhere would aid me in my endeavor to attract a little attention to the GALAXY portraits. I feel persuaded it can be accomplished, if the course to be pursued be chosen with judgment. I write for that magazine all the time, and so do many abler men, and if I can get these portraits into universal favor, it is all I ask; the reading-matter ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... those of the headquarters and the officers by whom the Imperial Family were surrounded. After the third catastrophe, public opinion called for the removal of the authors of these disasters and the employment of abler men. Todleben, the defender of Sebastopol, who for some unknown reason had been left without a command, was now summoned to Bulgaria, and virtually placed at the head of the army before Plevna. He saw that the stronghold of Osman could only be reduced by ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... ascertain the proper task for the speeders, a time-study was made of the work of one of the abler workers, who may be called Mrs. MacDermott, a strong and skilful Scotch woman, who had been employed at speeding in the mill for 14 years. Mrs. MacDermott was employed to teach the other speeders how to accomplish the same amount in the same time. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... presumptuous that one of my age and sex should venture to give to the public an account of personal adventures in a land which has so often been descanted upon by other and abler pens; but when I reflect on the many mothers, wives, and sisters in England, whose hearts are ever longing for information respecting the dangers and privations to which their relatives at the antipodes are exposed, I cannot but hope that the presumption of my undertaking may be pardoned in consideration ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... not my purpose to treat exhaustively of any of these battles, scientific, legal, or physical. All this has already been written down by abler pens than mine, and has now become history. My aim in following the career of Morse the Inventor is to shed a light (to some a new light) on his personality, self-revealed by his correspondence, tried first by hardships, poverty, and deep discouragement, and then by success, calumny, and fame. Like ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... war we have to wage with the Iroquois than by comparing them to a great number of wolves or other ferocious beasts, issuing out of a vast forest to ravage the neighboring settlements. The people gather to hunt them down; but nobody can find their lair, for they are always in motion. An abler man than I would be greatly at a loss to manage the affairs of this country. It is for the interest of the colony to have peace at any cost whatever. For the glory of the king and the good of religion, we should be glad to have ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... illustrating "Pickwick." From what we know of the graphic abilities of Thackeray and the fastidious requirements of Dickens, we may readily understand why the post rendered vacant by Seymour's suicide was given to an abler artist. ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... year of Csar's campaigns in Gaul, it seemed as if all was to be lost to the Romans. There arose a young general named Vercingetorix, who was much abler than any leader the Gauls had ever opposed to their enemies, and he united them as they had never been united before. This man persuaded his countrymen to lay their own country waste, in order that it might not afford any abiding place for the Romans, but contrary ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... authoress seems to strive after effects that don't come naturally to her. What does come naturally to her is seen in a background sketch of the unhappy countries of Asia Minor in the hands of the Turk and the Hun, which is so much the abler part of the book that one would almost rather the too intrusive narrative were brushed aside entirely. Personally, at any rate, I think I should prefer Mrs. INCHBOLD in essay or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... could be only a momentary stopping-place. What lay beyond she didn't know. What her fate held further of evil she couldn't guess. But at least, she thought, it would be in her own hands. It wasn't. Unexpectedly and mercifully was it put into the abler and stronger hands of ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... a great improvement on the Hon. J. Warren Keifer, of Ohio, who was the Republican leader (so-called) last winter. It would be hard to imagine a more imbecile leader than Keifer was, and it would be hard to find an abler leader than Reed will be, provided his natural physical indolence does not get the better of his splendid ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... most profitable employments among my own relations and nearest allies, it was not out of any partiality, but because I know them best, and can best depend upon them. I have been at the pains to mould and cultivate their opinions. Abler heads might probably have been found, but they would not be equally under my direction. A huntsman, who hath the absolute command of his dogs, will hunt more effectually than with a better pack, to whose manner and cry he ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... back again, to find the first of the five hostels nearly ripe for its opening. There had to be a manageress and a staff organized and neither Lady Harman nor Mr. Brumley were prepared for that sort of business. A number of abler people however had become aware of the opportunities of the new development and Mrs. Hubert Plessington, that busy publicist, got the Harmans to a helpful little dinner, before Lady Harman had the slightest ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... are five or six first-rate men of equal, or nearly equal, pretensions, none of them likely to acknowledge the superiority or defer to the opinions of any other, and every one of these five or six considering himself abler and more important than their premier''; and Sir James Graham wrote, "It is a powerful team, but it will require good driving.'' The first year of office passed off successfully, and it was owing to the steady support of the prime ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... desired an interview with Murat. Lauriston waited. The chief of the Russian staff, an abler negotiator than soldier, strove to charm this monarch of yesterday by demonstrations of respect; to seduce him by praises; to deceive him with smooth words, breathing nothing but a weariness of war and the hope ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... nevertheless, himself a young man of uncommon parts, and, as far as I could judge from my short intercourse with the reserved Joseph and with the haughty Napoleon, he is abler and better informed than either, and much more open and sincere. His manners are also more elegant, and his language more polished, which is the more creditable to him when it is remembered how much his education has been neglected, how vitiated the Revolution made ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... refinements enjoyed by the middle classes in Europe. There were many circumstances, too trifling even for my gossiping pages, which pressed themselves daily and hourly upon us, and which forced us to remember painfully that we were not at home. It requires an abler pen than mine to trace the connection which I am persuaded exists between these deficiencies and the minds and manners of the people. All animal wants are supplied profusely at Cincinnati, and at a very easy rate; but, alas! these go but a little way in the history ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... least more polite and cordial than George's kinsfolk of the Warrington side. In spite of his behaviour over the cards, Lord Castlewood, George always maintained, had a liking for our Virginians, and George was pleased enough to be in his company. He was a far abler man than many who succeeded in life. He had a good name, and somehow only stained it; a considerable wit, and nobody trusted it; and a very shrewd experience and knowledge of mankind, which made him mistrust ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the elder brother of George, Archbishop of Canterbury. Fuller says, "George was the more plausible preacher, Robert the greater scholar; George the abler statesman, Robert the deeper divine. Gravity did frown in George, and smile in Robert." As one might infer from so strong an opponent of Laud, amid the large number of his published works ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... intention of going to Waterford, and followed Brereton into Dublin. Why he had delayed a day after discovering that the river and the city were open to him, it is impossible to conjecture. But his presence was of little benefit, and only paralysed his abler subordinates. As soon as he had brought his army into the city, he conceived that he had done as much as the lateness of the season would allow. The November weather having set in wild and wet, he gave up all thought of active measures till the return of spring; and he wrote ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... there is a large class who would scarcely be much moved by stronger and abler words than, I suppose, we heard to-day—spoken as they were spoken. These preachers won't study the fitness of things; that's the worst of it. I have known a garrison chaplain deliver a discourse that, I am convinced, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... greatest damage. During the time he was operating in this way he killed, wounded and captured several times the number he ever had under his command at any one time. He destroyed many millions of property in addition. Places he did not attack had to be guarded as if threatened by him. Forrest, an abler soldier, operated farther west, and held from the National front quite as many men as could be spared for offensive operations. It is safe to say that more than half the National army was engaged in guarding lines of supplies, or were on leave, sick in hospital or on detail ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... tales of chivalry are not my trade; So if you wish to read that five years' story Of lady-love, romance, and martial glory,— The mighty feats of arms that Gawayne did,— The ever ripening love that Gawayne hid Five long years in his breast, biding his time,— Go seek it in some abler poet's rime. My tale begins with the young knight's brave soul All Elfinhart's. She thinks ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... In the summer of '88, finding I had more than seemed needful, I left all but four dozen behind me. I wet only fifteen of them in a seven weeks' outing. And they filled the bill. I have no time or space for a dissertation on the hundreds of different flies made and sold at the present day. Abler pens have done that. I will, however, name a few that I have found good in widely different localities, i.e., the Northern Wilderness of New York and the upper waters of Northern Pennsylvania. For the Northern Wilderness: Scarlet ibis, split ibis, Romeyn, ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... and Janet Breadheid of Auldearne both said that the Devil was 'a meikle, blak, roch man, werie cold; and I fand his nature als cold within me as spring-well-water'. Isobel continues, 'He is abler for ws that way than any man can be, onlie he ves heavie lyk a malt-sek; a hudg ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... light is necessary to see the essence of God, not in order to make the essence of God intelligible, which is of itself intelligible, but in order to enable the intellect to understand in the same way as a habit makes a power abler to act. Even so corporeal light is necessary as regards external sight, inasmuch as it makes the medium actually ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... was no other than that of the mighty and terrible king of beasts. Although the dignified and truly monarchical appearance of the lion has long rendered him famous among his fellow quadrupeds, and his appearance and habits have oftener been described by abler pens than mine, nevertheless I consider that a few remarks, resulting from my own personal experience, formed by a tolerable long acquaintance with him, both by day and by night, may not prove uninteresting to the reader. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... my purpose to pronounce his eulogy. That pleasing task has been assigned to abler hands, and to a more suitable occasion. He will there be presented in other, though not less interesting lights. As the penetrating delineator of manners and character in the British Spy; as the biographer of Patrick Henry, dedicated to the young men of ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy |
