"Average" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he said that, knowing well that the average young Rajput of good birth would rather fight a tiger with cold steel than walk a mile or two. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... the average experience of Miss Freer's party, he would only have been attacked on about two days. The last day his tormentor left—doubtless to avoid a journey with Father H. and subsequent recognition. How these ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... a grimace. "I read part of it once. That was enough for me. Think of the price they charge for it, too. Think of pretending it is such a good thing for everybody to have, and then putting a price on it that prohibits the average pocketbook." Eloise's smile annoyed her mother. "Weren't you with me the day Nat Bonnell's mother said so ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... which assumed rather the appearance of outdoor sports than of scientific demonstrations, that in a short time we had provided the asteroid with a very large number of little moons, or satellites, of gold, which revolved around it in orbits of various degrees of ellipticity, taking, on the average, about three-quarters of an hour to complete a circuit. Since, on completing a revolution, they must necessarily pass through the point from which they started, they kept us constantly on the qui vive to avoid being knocked over by them ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... covers her head with her cloth to show that she has become a married woman. After the wedding the bridegroom's parents say to him, "Now your parents have done everything they could for you, and you must manage your own house." The expenditure on an average wedding is about fifteen or twenty rupees. A widow is usually taken in marriage by her late husband's younger brother or Dewar, or by one of his relatives. If she marries an outsider, the Dewar realises twelve rupees from him in compensation ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... incidents drawn from an experience of Jim's. Eleanor was an excellent critic of her own work, and she knew that this was good; not so unusual, perhaps, as the other one had been, but vivid, swinging, full of life and color, far above the average of student work. It should go to Miss Raymond the first thing in the morning. She would like it, and the "Argus" perhaps would want it—Eleanor closed her tired eyes, and in a moment was ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... alert of body and mind. Now, for four years, she had born a heavy burden of fear and of crushing responsibility, for the sake of a cause for which she was willing to sacrifice comfort, wealth and other things which the average woman counts dear, and her heart ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... made in almost the same way as the savoury omelet, but without the addition of flavouring herbs. 2 average-sized tomatoes are cut up fine, and mixed with the ingredients given above. When tinned tomatoes are used the juice may be made hot and the bread soaked in it instead ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... the level at the rate of one foot in 0.006 minutes. The average distance of the piles of pig iron from the car was 36 feet. It is a fact, however, that many of the pig-iron handlers ran with their pig as soon as they reached the inclined plank. Many of them also would run down the plank ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... one thing which, in the presence of average modern journalism, is perhaps worth saying in connection with such an idle matter as this. The morals of a matter like this are exactly like the morals of anything else; they are concerned with mutual contract, or with the rights ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... was dead and Balzac had retired to his country house on the borders of the Charente, some friends, "men of letters and of merits very much above the average," says Pellisson in his Histoire de l'Academie Francaise, "finding that nothing was more inconvenient in this great city than to go often and often to call upon one another without finding anybody at home, resolved to meet one day in the week at the house of one of them. They ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Kut-le serenely. "Indians are pretty good to their women as a general thing. They average up with the whites, I guess. Molly, get up and help Cesca with these!" He flung some newly killed rabbits at the gaping squaw, who still lay where she ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... future to blossom, which made the hardships of the present go down. He had, amongst his points of superiority to the Duke of Mayenne, a marvellous gift of promptitude and vivacity, and far beyond the average. We have seen him, a thousand times in his life, make pat replies without hearing the purport of a request, and forestall questions without committing himself. The Duke of Mayenne was incommoded by his great bodily bulk, which could not support the burden either of arms or of fatigue ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... "Charity" from the genre sentiment or incident of some German or Italian "professor?" Qualities of style, of refined taste, of elegance, of true intelligence. Its artistic interest is purely decorative and sentimental. Really what its average admirer sees in it is the same moral appeal that delights the simple admirers of German or Italian treatment of a similar theme. It is simply infinitely higher bred. Its character is developed no further. Its significance as form is not insisted on. The parts are not impressively differentiated, ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... picture to the other and to say that I for one heard a crowd of American gunners singing "Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me Over Life's Tempestuous Sea." The mothers and fathers of America must know that the average American boy will have the lighter songs at the end of his lips, but buried down deep in his heart there is a feeling of reverence for the old hymns, and whether he sings them aloud or not they are there ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... the use of more wholesome food and healthy houses, the diminution of the two most active causes of deterioration, namely, misery and excessive wealth, must prolong the average duration of life, as well as raise the tone of health while it lasts. The force of transmissable diseases will be gradually weakened, until their quality of transmission vanishes. May we then not hope for the arrival of a time when death will cease to be anything ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... young, but otherwise the prescription is filled. They reduced me to weakness, dependence, and a sort of sour-mash, and now they say that on this foundation they will build me up. Tho' I am still to lose some weight, being only twenty-four pounds under my average for twenty years. I will emerge from this spot, if I emerge at all, a regular Apollo, and will do Russian dances for you on that lovely lawn under the mulberry tree. And what happy memories of that spot I do have, and they cluster about you, with your soft hand and your understanding ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... that many treated me as a prince, I found myself an average man. I had no military genius. In argument, persuasive, graceful—even eloquent—were the adjectives applied to me; not sweeping and powerful. I should have made a jog-trot king, no better than my uncle of Provence; no worse ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... whom know so much more about it than I do. But after many trials we have had the best results from grafting in the greenhouse. The black walnut stock is about four years old when potted, and the scions are cut in January or February and used immediately. Fifty per cent. is our average of success by this method, and some of the trees not two years ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... persuasive. He had a frank and easy way of addressing an audience, which he had picked up from a popular tribune—leaning one shoulder towards them at an angle of about eighty degrees, and rounding his periods with a confidential smile, which seemed to assure his hearers that they were as far above the average audience as he was above the average candidate. He did not feel the slightest difficulty in talking for an hour at a stretch, and two or three times on the same day; and, indeed, it would have been strange if he had, considering his Union experience ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... he knew the Penningtons well. He had often been there for bait and milk and had listened times out of mind to Mrs. Pennington's dismal tales of her tribulations with hired girls. She never could get along with them, and they left, on an average, after a fortnight's trial. She was on the lookout for one now, he knew, and would likely be cross, but he thought she would give him ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... more than eager to hear what his proposal might turn out to be; for novelty always appeals to the average lad. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... number of tear gas shells—which at that time was a new horror introduced to the sufferings of the British armies. Who will forget the Redans, Le Grand and Le Petit, the Bridges Putney and Pelican? The last named was renewed or rebuilt on the average three times every twenty-four hours. No words can describe what took place between the 10th and 13th of that awful month. The Germans, expecting an attack, made one. After these terrible three days, the Battalion, whose luck it was on this occasion to be spared the brunt of the action, ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... generally settle the average gentility and good breeding of the people you meet in the street by the manner in which they return or evade your glance. "A gentleman," as the Autocrat has wisely said, is always "calm-eyed." There is just enough abstraction in his look to denote his individual ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... the information of the Honorable Department, I have to state that after lying over one hundred days in San Juan De Nicaragua, with an average sick list of about 15, the first case of fever made its appearance on the 17th ultimo, then a second, then a third, when I thought it advisable to put to sea, hoping that a change of air would dispel the disease. After a few days the ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... "I want to catch up some one who has carried off the woman I love and is making for Nantes by motor. The abduction took place at midnight. It is now about eight o'clock. Suppose that the motor, which is just a hired taxi with a driver who has no inducement to break his neck, does an average of twenty miles an hour, including stoppages—in twelve hours' time—that is to say, at twelve o'clock—our man will have covered two hundred and forty miles and reached a spot between Angers and Nantes, at this point on ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... love," says a contemporary, "are what will pay the average writer best at the moment." It is not known whether Labour or the Peace Conference has done most to send up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... with animation, for he played over the deciding game in that day's match at checkers by which, at the harness shop, he had vanquished an acclaimed rival from over Higgston way. The fellow had been skilled beyond the average, but supremacy was still with the Newbern champion. So absorbed was he, achieving again that last bit of strategy by which he had gained the place to capture two men and reach the enemy's king row, that his soft-stepping daughter, who had come from the house, had to ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... importance in the geography of the state are the Cascades, having an average altitude of from 5,000 to 8,000 feet and named for the many hurrying streams that have cut their deep courses upon the shady slopes. They extend from the British Columbia line slightly southwest until divided by the Columbia river, whence they continue through ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... impulse to the legislation which afterwards appeared as Deuteronomy. But in the terrible reign of his son Manasseh, the efforts of the reformers met with violent and bloody opposition. Judah was under the iron heel of Assyria, and, to the average mind, this would prove the superiority of the Assyrian gods. Judah and her king, Manasseh, would seek in their desperation to win the favour of the Oriental pantheon, and this no doubt explains the idolatry and worship of the host of heaven which flourished ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... birds have discontinued their songs, he would probably, if he knew the reputation of the Northern birds, marvel a little at their silence. If there are as many birds singing at one time during the whole year, in the hot climates, as we hear in this country in the latter half of summer, the greater average would appear to be on the side ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... all an individual of genius, healthy or happy without a profession, that is, some regular employment, which does not depend on the will of the moment, and which can be carried on so far mechanically that an average quantum only of health, spirits, and intellectual exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge. Three hours of leisure, unannoyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as a change ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... multiplied? At this moment there are twenty-one counties in England and Wales without any asylum whatever, public or private. The expense is one cause. In some cases the cost of construction has been exceedingly great. The asylum most cheaply constructed is that of Wakefield, of which the average cost per head was L111, whilst the highest price was that of Gloucester, which had cost on the first accommodation L357 per head. In many cases the cost of construction had exceeded L200 per head. The cost of the Bedford Asylum, for 180 patients, was L20,500; that of Gloucester, ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... under-classmen, Lyman was an object of healthy awe. Older than the average senior, he had been already in the larger world. His opinion of things had especial value even in his Junior year. After the football season, when he had been acknowledged the keenest manager the college had ever found, the under-classmen had a blind faith in his infallibility. ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... overwhelmingly superior (sometimes he is a woman!) that in his presence you are a child of wrath, a hopeless imbecile, and a black sheep all in one, and yet—how you hate him and how you long to see some brave young David come along and hit him with a sling shot! Such a man as he, is fitted to bring the average human to the dust as quickly and as surely as a well aimed bullet ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... less fascinating than valuable. Of course the class suggested would not be a class in English law, but in the principles on which evidence should be estimated, and the special errors to which, in common life, average minds are most liable. We regard this suggestion as a most useful one, and as one which would not only greatly contribute to the educational worth of an institute for adults, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... a book depends not so much upon the information given as upon the permanent interest stimulated and the initiative aroused. The youthful mind, and indeed the average adult mind as well, is singularly non-logical and incapable of continued concentration, and loses interest under too consecutive thought and sustained style. For this reason the author has sacrificed at times detail to general effect, logical ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... from that of his early surroundings; Brook Farm and Fruitlands had completed his knowledge of the outside world; but the Redemptorist novitiate and studentate and his sojourn in England did not give him a similar knowledge of the Catholic people, priesthood, and hierarchy. To the average looker-on Catholicity is what Catholics are, and Catholics in America viewed from a standpoint of morality were then and still are a very mixed population. Why the fruits are worse than the tree is a sore perplexity even to expert controversialists, and Father Hecker ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... The general average of the Dozen in the matter of studies was satisfactory enough; for, while Sleepy was always at the bottom of his classes, and probably the laziest and stupidest of all the students at Kingston, History was certainly at the head ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... across from Waljeers. The country opened more and more as we proceeded, and the basin of reeds was more extensive. The bergs on the opposite side (on which I had fixed several points) were distant on an average about eight miles, which was the breadth therefore of that low margin of reeds. The winding borders of this plain terminated on our side in rich grassy flats, some of which extended back farther than ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... friendship with her. Undoubtedly the prime attraction was that she was young and pretty. But she was also a girl of considerable character. Without being as well educated as I was, she was above the average girl in general intelligence. She was fond of reading; books formed our chief subject of conversation and common interest. She was, in fact, a girl of more intelligence than I had yet encountered. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the average adult person might well consist of taking simple exercises in his room, and to get out of doors once a day and walk rapidly for at least half an hour. In addition, it is desirable for any one up to fifty years of age to take some kind of moderately violent ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... routes—northeast from Virginia, east from the Carlisle and Chambersburg region and the Alleghanies, and southeast from the upper Susquehanna country—poured upon the Quaker City a trade that profited every merchant, landholder, and laborer. The nine tollgates, on the average a little less than seven miles apart, turned in a revenue that allowed the "President and Managers" to declare dividends to stockholders running, it is said, as high as ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... steadily paler, having recourse to rouge, the eyes getting dimmer, the voice growing harsher, the temper becoming more variable. And then—other fresh faces came in their stead. There are killed, on an average, twenty girls a year here, I should say; killed to satisfy the appetites of men, as beeves are killed in ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... beginning of the year 1862, was selling at one dollar and thirty cents per bushel, thus but little exceeding its average price in time of peace. The other agricultural products of the country were at similarly moderate rates, thus indicating that there was no excess of circulation. At the same time the premium on coin had reached about twenty per cent. But ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... born of respectable Catholic parents in Dublin, in June, 1824. He received a liberal education, by which he profited extensively, showing even in his school-days strong evidences of natural ability, and talents, of more than average degree. He directed his attention to the medical profession on completing his education, and was in the full tide of lectures and hospital attendance when the development of the national sentiment that pervaded the year '48 drew him into ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... methods of filtration are employed, the average correction necessary must be determined in the following manner:—About 500 c.c. of the same or a similar tanning solution is filtered perfectly clear, and after thorough mixing 50 c.c. is evaporated to determine ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... additions, due to the establishment of the Government of Upper Canada, and the portions allotted to the Duke of York (on the occasion of his marriage with a Prussian princess) and the Duke of Clarence. The expenditure would, therefore, stand at L15,811,000; but, taking the average of four years, he reckoned the probable surplus at no more than L401,000. On the other hand, he anticipated no new expenses except for the fortification of posts in the West Indies and the completion of forts for the further protection of the home dockyards. On the whole, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... necessary to protect the interests of Virginia. He brought back "nine volumes of manuscripts and one book containing forty-eight maps" (see his report, Virginia Legislative Documents, No. 39, 1861,). The volumes of manuscripts contained, upon an average, 425 pages each, and were filled with valuable historical documents, of many of which no copies had ever been seen on this continent since the originals were sent from the Colony of Virginia. In a conversation with the writer, held soon after his return from England, in March, 1861, Colonel ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various
... the ancient navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over in twenty-four hours; this was the average speed, or about seven knots. From the mouth of the Tiber vessels could usually reach Africa in two days, Massilia in three, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven; from Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate winds, in nine days. These facts, however, apply ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Lombard Deeps. Ogilvie and Rycroft, both assayers of knowledge and experience, declared that they had carefully examined the lodes, that they had struck four veins of rich ore yielding, after crushing, an average of six ounces to the ton, and that the extent and richness of the ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... point that I may mention in connection with "Gladys Fane." Whilst I was writing the book, I was doing my full work as editor of the Leeds Mercury, and was not only editing the paper, but was writing for it an average of twelve columns a week. "Gladys Fane" is a long story, containing a hundred and sixty thousand words. I wrote it during my scanty leisure in exactly sixteen weeks, or at the rate of ten thousand words a ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... original book has an average of 30 footnotes per page. These were of three types: (A) Glosses or explanations of obsolete words and phrases. These have been treated as follows: 1. In the poems, they have been moved up into the right-hand margin. Some of them have been shortened or paraphrased ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... just this much fiction mingled with its obvious fact, that it ends with a general pairing off and the prospect of three weddings—which seems, as Lady Bracknell observed in a similar connection, "a number considerably above the average that statistics have laid down for our guidance." But at least it is the amende honorable to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... all the gold is precipitated in two or three days. The amount of zinc to be added naturally depends on the quantity of gold present. Freshly prepared gold baths for gilding in the cold contain on the average 3.5 grms. gold per liter, while those used for the hot process contain 10.75 grms. To precipitate all the gold in the original bath, 1.74 grms. or 0.37-0.5 grms. zinc dust would be necessary, and, of course, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... "If the average man knew one-ninth of what Mr. Clark tells him in this book, he would be able to save money every ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... private affairs. He will tell him how much business he is doing, how much profit he is making, how much he owes, what are his future prospects, and everything of that kind. The credit man who was once a salesman would also know that these commercial agency books—the bibles of the average credit man—don't amount to a rap. For my own part, I wish old Satan had every commercial agency book on earth to chuck into the furnace, when he goes below, to roast the reporters for the agencies. A lot of them will go there because a lot ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... writers assert that twenty dollars was the average minimum. In many places, however, the great majority of debts were for less than ten dollars. Thus, for the year ending November 26, 1831, nearly one thousand citizens had been imprisoned for debt in Baltimore. Of this number more than half owed less than ten dollars, and of the ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... seventeen years which followed the appearance of Waverley, Scott wrote on an average nearly two novels per year, creating an unusual number of characters and illustrating many periods of Scotch, English, and French history, from the time of the Crusades to the fall of the Stuarts. In addition to these historical novels, he wrote Tales ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... have increased the average number of syllables in the line to better adapt it to ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... more than encamp, throw up intrenchments for its own defence, and wait for attacks to be made upon it,—attacks which it usually repulsed with great loss to the attackers. The month of June is the hottest month of the year at Delhi; the average height of the thermometer being 92 deg.. There, in such weather, the force must sit still, watch the pouring in of reinforcements and supplies to the city which it was too small to invest, and hear from day ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... came the solemn answer. It seemed that he scarcely felt that either of these were deep lacks in his assets. Very likely fathers and mothers were not on the average desirable kindred in the neighborhood from which he came. The man ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... think Mrs. Webster Pratt would believe it, if she knew everything that we know?" I argued. "She'd believe it with only half as much proof, and she has just about the mental equipment of the average juryman. There'll be about four Mrs. ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... tons of the stores, besides 3,745 oxen. The remainder was conveyed in running ships at current rates. The transports engaged by the Admiralty were the property of thirty-six owners, mostly Liverpool or London firms; their average size was 6,400 tons gross, ranging from 12,600 to 3,500 tons, the range of speed from nineteen to eleven knots. The proportion of tonnage per man and per horse turns out, over the whole, four tons per ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... sound!" repeated Giovanni, impatiently. "People are so fond of exclaiming that what they do not like is not sound! Do you think that it would not be a fair case to put five hundred schoolmasters against five hundred gentlemen of average education? I think it would be very fair. The schoolmasters would certainly have the advantage in education: do you mean to say they would make better or wiser electors than the same number of gentlemen who cannot name all the cities and rivers in Italy, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... not,' returned Mr Swiveller, 'but the average number of letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far as eight without any effect at all. I'll write another tom-morrow morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it out of the pepper-castor ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... was born in Edinburgh in 1736. His father an architect, of course the baby soon began to play with the parental pencils. That is not remarkable—but he evidenced rather more ability than the average baby artist. At twelve he was out in the fields with paints and brushes, filling a sketch-book with crude representations of rocks, clouds, trees, and water. At fourteen he was a student under John Norris, whom it pleased the period ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the face. And we well remember now what pain these petty jealousies gave to the sensitive nature of our departed friend. But these gradually subsided, until there was hardly an antislavery editor of average discernment who did not come to see that a national organ like the Era, by legitimating discussion and keeping up the heat and blaze of a vigorous agitation, at the nation's very centre, against ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... regards the events of their own period. That might be and has been amended by the labours of impartial scholarship. The real crime of the fabulists lies in this, that their tainted testimony constituted for honest Englishmen the only information about Ireland easily obtainable. The average Englishman (that is to say, the forty millions of him who do not read learned books of any kind) comes to the consideration of contemporary Ireland with a vision distorted almost beyond hope of cure. The treasured lies of seven hundred years are in his heart ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... gives a capital description of life in the Navy in days of the old three-decker, and many interesting particulars of the naval warfare in the revolutionary period, including the battle of the "glorious first of June." It differs from the average boys' story in one important respect. The hero, instead of gaining a title and a fortune, refuses to rise above the class in which he was born, and attains no higher rank than that of a warrant-officer. The author skilfully introduces ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... a par with the average question asked a lawyer," answered Gilman, "but part of it I can answer definitely and at once. I think every acre of land suitable for garden or field cultivation is taken. I doubt if there is much of the orchard land ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... more valuable than that of the elephant. It is remarkable, moreover, for the extreme hardness of its enamel, which is quite incapable of being cut, and will strike fire with a steel instrument. The large teeth of the hippopotamus weigh on the average 6 lbs., and the small ones about 1 lb. each. Their value ranges from 6s. to 40s. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... is well established by the early deeds and documents that a large proportion of Puritan women could not write their own names; and in Boston especially, for a hundred and fifty years, the public schools included boys only. In the year 1789, however, the notable discovery was made, that the average attendance of pupils from April to October was only one half of that reported for the remainder of the year. This was an obvious waste of money and accommodations, and it was therefore proposed that female pupils should be annually introduced during this intermediate period. Accordingly, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... Spring Squaw Jim Squaw Jim's Religion Stirring Incidents at a Fire Strabismus and Justice Street Cars and Curiosities Taxidermy The Amateur Carpenter The Approaching Humorist The Arabian Language The Average Hen The Bite of a Mad Dog The Blase Young Man The Board of Trade The Cell Nest The Chinese God The Church Debt The Cow Boy The Crops The Duke of Rawhide The Expensive Word The Heyday of Life The Holy Terror The Indian Orator The Little Barefoot Boy The Miner at Home ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... "We make an average of three hundred per cent on every garment, and we have contracts with some 'sweat-shops' or other for a dozen grades ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... difficult study of theoretical music, and in a very short space of time mastered the notes sufficiently to be able to read a tolerably hard score or piece of music. This seemed to him like a phenomenal phase, and he can only account for it on the ground that a love of music is inherent in the average bad boy. He has usually in training a band of twenty pieces: but he says that this number he could easily augment at any time to two, three, or even four times as many; for he very rarely finds a boy that has not a taste for some musical instrument. The greatest trouble he has ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... ships were all comfortably housed with boards, and so banked up with snow that ordinary coal fires made them uncomfortably warm. It was painful to see, however, that scurvy had broken out in the fleet, and each vessel has had an average of half a dozen cases during our stay with them. They had more than the usual amount of fresh meat at this season, and it was difficult to account for the unusually large percentage of scurvy, unless Captain Fisher's theory were the correct one. He attributed ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... he said very distinctly and in his most cynical tone and apparently apropos of nothing, which usually augured that the lightning of his criticism was about to strike somewhere, "is so much better than the average man that it's an insult to the dog to compare them. The dog's really decent. He has no sloppy vices. You set a plate of food before a regularly-fed, blooded dog, and he won't think of gorging himself sick or silly. He eats what he needs, and then ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... age. That she was perfect in her beauty I cannot ask the muses to say, but that she will some day become so, I think the goddesses may be requested to prophesy. At present she was very slight, and appeared to be almost too tall for her form. She was indeed above the average height of women, and from her brother encountered some ridicule on this head; but not the less were all her movements soft, graceful, and fawnlike as should be those of a young girl. She was still at this time a child in heart and spirit, and could have ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... hundred miles, 10 cents, and an additional rate for every additional half ounce or fraction of half an ounce. Drop letters and printed circulars were by the same Act, to be charged 2 cents each. This was considered by the Post-office Department as an average deduction of 53 per cent. from the previously ...
— The Postal Service of the United States in Connection with the Local History of Buffalo • Nathan Kelsey Hall
... there! Just like a patient going to the dentist, so she had the intolerable recollection of all their past meetings, one a week on an average, for the last two years; and the thought that another was going to take place immediately made her shiver with misery from head to foot. Not that it was exactly painful, like a visit to the dentist, but it was wearisome, so wearisome, so complicated, so long, so unpleasant, that anything, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... conceal. He had just emerged from the sick chamber; the trained nurse, methodical and quick, and singularly attractive looking in her neat uniform, had closed the door noiselessly behind him. Two young girls, one about eighteen and the other some four years her junior, both possessing more than average good looks, stood timidly in the background anxiously awaiting, together with their grief-stricken mother, to ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... ago, and it's such a big place and the paths run so criss-cross I got sort of mixed up, and it took me longer to get out than it did to get in. I had the gen'ral points of the compass, and I guess I could have made a pretty average straight run for home, but every time I wanted to cut across lots there was a policeman lookin' at me, so I had to stick to the channel. That's what made me so late. Now do go and eat your breakfast. I won't feel easy till ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... were addressed to her was "Mademoiselle Jeromette." Among the ignorant people of the house and the small tradesmen of the neighborhood—who found her name not easy of pronunciation by the average English tongue—she was known by the friendly nickname of "The French Miss." When I knew her, she was resigned to her lonely life among strangers. Some years had elapsed since she had lost her parents, and had left France. Possessing a small, very small, income of ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... mountainous land. No spot in Greece was over forty miles from the sea. Attica, where a most wonderful intellectual life arose and flourished for centuries, and whose contributions to civilization were the chief glory of Greece, was smaller than two average-size Illinois counties, and about two thirds the size of the little State of Rhode Island. [1] The country was sparsely populated, except in a few of the City-States, and probably did not, at its most prosperous period, contain much more than a million and a ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... as now organized, consists of one cadet from each congressional district, and a few at large, making an average of two hundred and thirty-seven. The course of instruction is four years, after which time the cadet is sent to his regiment or corps, with higher rank if there are vacancies, but if there are no vacancies, he goes as a cadet, with the brevet ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... knew. I was aware of nothing against him. Indeed, when six months previously, on my first coming to St. Albans, I had been introduced to him, I had been rather favourably impressed. He was a tall dark man of thirty-five, with more than the average endowment of good looks. He could tell a good story, had shot big game in most parts of the world, was well-read, intelligent, possessed unexceptionable manners, and yet—— Well, Winter had none of his various qualifications, but I would at any time far rather have had one friend ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... expressed by different combinations of these letters differ specifically; therefore, in saying, in the next chapter, that each person has "roughly, on the average, one fertile relative in each and every form of specific kinship," it means in each and every combination of the above ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster
... many cups Peggy Saville drank, and what were her views about cweam and sugar. I used to time him by my watch, and see how long it would be before he managed to intwoduce the subject, and seven and a half minutes was the wecord. The average ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... Some barometrical observations made by M. C. Gay, during a journey in Peru, in the years 1839-40, with one of Bunten's barometers, deviate very considerably from all those above mentioned. Between the calculations of Gay and Rivero there is an average difference of from six hundred to ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... beginnings and endings. (A fire in the city is an exciting event to the average boy.) (It seemed that the unprincipled fellow had forged his father's name.) In the first sentence, the important words are "exciting event," and they should occupy the most conspicuous position,— at the end of the sentence. The ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... grown the tree under glass in England; it requires a warmer temperature than either tea or coffee, and only after infinite care can one succeed in getting the tree to flower and bear fruit. The mean temperature in the countries in which it thrives is about 80 degrees F. in the shade, and the average of the maximum temperatures is seldom more than 90 degrees F., or the average of the minimum temperatures less than 70 degrees F. The rainfall can be as low as 45 inches per annum, as in the Gold Coast, or as high as 150 inches, as in Java, provided the fall is uniformly ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... the climatic influences only a defence of one thickness of cotton, while her brother has been carefully guarded by thickly woven woolen garments. But from seven to fourteen, the deteriorating causes in the average American family increase rapidly in intensity, in fact, much faster than the increase of the growing strength. The food remains nearly the same, though even this is not always the case, for the times at which it is taken often become ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... pony, with which Europeans in the Far East are so well acquainted, is a native of the Mongolian plains. He stands on an average about thirteen hands, and is a coarse, thick-set, cobby animal, with a large, ugly head carried low on a wedge-shaped neck, so that when mounted you have practically nothing in front of the saddle. He much resembles, and is evidently closely allied ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... immediately bearing on their examinations, beat their better-born competitors, who will not degrade themselves into the mere slaves of success in the concours. Our other object was to obtain the best public servants. In that we have failed. We have brought knowledge and ability to an average; diminished the number of incompetent employes, and reduced, almost to nothing, the number of distinguished ones. Continued application to a small number of subjects, and those always the same, not selected by the ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... first steamer to go through the canal, and on her maiden journey from Norfolk to Currituck County in 1858, she was the observed of all observers. Furthermore, continues Mr. Bruce, the writer of the article, who stopped at Currituck Courthouse for several days, "We must say that for average culture, intelligence and physical vigor, the people of this 'kingdom by the sea' will hold their own with most other communities, North ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... mean it. And Annabel—isn't it too splendid?—every one of the Lambs has brought her average up to eighty, so we can all go! We are to leave Friday and get back early Monday morning. Patty's perfectly wild about it, and her ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... something, however, to reformers by declaring, as his final excuse, that he would not have thus yielded to circumstances if the average life of man were a hundred years instead of twenty; for, given sufficient time, all adverse circumstance may be overcome. "The body dies if it be thwarted. Mind—in other words, intellectual truth—triumphs through opposition. Envy, hatred, and stupidity, are to it as the rocks which obstruct ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... have reached their high attainments in theoretical and applied science, in philosophy and in practical politics, because of their unique brain-structures, brains secured through millenniums of biological evolution. The following statement may seem to be rank heresy to the average sociologist, but my studies have led me to believe that the main differences between the great races of mankind to-day are not due to biological, but to social conditions; they are not physico-psychological ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... Persians, Medes, and Sacae served as marines, in addition to the native crews of each; this farther number amounts to thirty-six thousand two hundred and ten. To this and the former number I add those that were on the penteconters[51] supposing eighty men on the average to be on board of each. Three thousand of these vessels were assembled; therefore the men on board them must have been two hundred and forty thousand. This, then, was the naval force from Asia, the total being five hundred and seventeen thousand ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... come over and see us—and I shall watch your work here. Most of these fellows around here are pretty slovenly farmers in my estimation; I hope you will do better than the average." ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... is only one other circumstance in which they differ. It may be worth while, however, to look for such instances. Thus, that the temperature of ocean currents influences the climate of the shores they wash, seems to be shown by the fact that the average temperature of Newfoundland is lower than that of the Norwegian coast some 15 deg. farther north. Both regions have great continents at their back; and as the mountains of Norway are higher and capped with perennial snow, ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... him the Shakespearian brow he had so little use for. She laughed his memory to scorn, and employed the episode as best she could in quelling her mother's simple trust of passing strangers. They worked along together, in the easy, unambitious village fashion, and kept themselves in the average comfort, while the time went by and Cornelia had grown from a long, lean child to a tall and stately young girl, who carried herself with so much native grace and pride that she had very little attention from the village youth. She had not even a girl friendship, and her ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... out his note-book. "I'll tell you what I wrote down, practically from her dictation. 'A tall man—taller than the average Englishman. A loosely-hung fellow; (he doesn't care for any kind of sport, I gather). Thirty five years of age; (seems a bit old to have married a girl—she won't be twenty till next month). He has big, strongly-marked features, and a good deal of fair hair. ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... today. They must have thought this was a mobile vetrinary hospittle insted of a battery. Whoever grooms those things will have to lean them up agenst something. I read somewhere how the average life of a horse in this war is only 60 days. Accordin to that this bunch has seen about seven ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... of course, things were happening. The croupier had long since pressed the alarm button, and five men had carefully surrounded Howley. They looked like customers, but they were harder-looking than the average, and they were watching Howley, not the wheel. Farther back from the crowd, three of the special deputies from the sheriff's office were trying to look inconspicuous in their gray uniforms and white Stetsons ...
— ...Or Your Money Back • Gordon Randall Garrett
... features were clean-cut, his forehead high and above the average intelligence; his hair, though a trifle scanty on top, was as yet untinged by grey, while he wore the ends of his carefully-trimmed moustache upturned, which gave him a slightly ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... town, but the intense cold and the barren mountains surrounding it make it a gloomy place to stay in. Since the great earthquake of the 4th February, 1797, the temperature has considerably decreased, and Bouguer, who registered it at an average of from 15 degrees to 16 degrees would be surprised to find it varying from 4 degrees to 10 degrees Reaumur. Cotopaxi and Pinchincha, Antisana and Illinaza, the various craters of one subterranean fire, were all examined by the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... himself, so thoroughly a workman, a genuine denizen of South of the Slot, that he was as class- conscious as the average of his kind, and his hatred for a scab even exceeded that of the average loyal union man. During the Water Front Strike, Freddie Drummond was somehow able to stand apart from the unique combination, and, coldly critical, watch ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... a lower voice, glancing at my Indians with the ineradicable distrust of the average woodsman, that our advanced guard had discovered white captives in several of the Indian towns—in one a young mother with a child at her breast. She, her husband, and five children had been taken at Wyoming. The Indians and Tories ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... to-day from Ostend to Arlon will at once recognize its main features: first a low-lying plain, between the sea and Brussels, then a district of smooth hills, as far as Namur, and finally, beyond the Meuse, the deeply cut valleys and high plateaux of the Ardennes, reaching an average of 1,500 feet above sea-level. In this last region only will the aspect of the country suggest to him the idea of some natural obstacle to free communications, though it could in no way appear forbidding when compared to the mountains ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... were as uncomfortably crowded as the sidewalk of Fourteenth Street on a summer's day, and showed much the social average of a New York shopping thoroughfare. Distinction is something that does not always reveal itself at first sight on land, and at sea it is still more retrusive. A certain democracy of looks and clothes was the most notable thing to March in the apathetic groups and detached figures. His criticism ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Denry would have maintained the average dignity of labour on a potbank had he not at the age of twelve won a scholarship from the Board School to the Endowed School. He owed his triumph to audacity rather than learning, and to chance rather ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... moreover, that the real culture which the child derives from these literary classics is far greater than that which he would gain from the "information" stories so common in the average second and ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... Poverty, which also powerfully and directly affected the English working class, in that it suggested a financial scheme, of great apparent simplicity and ingenuity, for the compensation of the landlords; it was shorter, and more easily to be grasped by the average working man; and it was written in a singularly crisp and taking style, and—by the help of a number of telling illustrations borrowed directly from the circumstances of the larger English towns, especially of ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lie. Whitaker says he's gone for good." His look was wistful and indignant. "Garry, what's wrong?" he demanded. "What on earth is it? Why couldn't things have gone on as they were, without God knows how many people picking me for a target? As far as I can see I'm merely maintaining my usual average of imperfection and all the rest of ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... character had gained for him among rude and uncultivated settlers on the borders of civilization, then, being a born leader of men, as Jackson was, it was perfectly natural that he should aspire to be a politician. Politics ever have been the passion of Western men with more than average ability, and it required but little learning and culture under the sovereignty of "squatters" to become a member of the State legislature, especially in the border States, where population was sparse, and the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... occur on and about the signature proper must be treated as exaggerated loops, and their shoulders, arcs, hooks and toes carefully measured and noted. For this purpose an average genuine signature should be selected and gauged, which is done in this way: Place over it a sheet of transfer paper. With the scale-rule and a fine pencil draw horizontal lines that will touch the tops and bottoms of the bodies of the letters, lines that touch the tops and ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... wanted to get under his cloak, d'ye know what he'd do? Why, run you in straight away. And in quod you'd stop; there isn't a soul in the city here who'd say a word for you." Of course all this was a bluff, but I knew the average Briton has an intense belief in official lawlessness on the Continent, and I thought I'd reckoned up this specimen pretty accurately. It looked as if I was right. He changed tack promptly, dropped the dictatorial schoolmaster, and started ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... farm-houses near Canal Street. Between this and the last of August, a hundred and fifty- four negroes, exclusive of whites, were thrown into prison, till every cell was crowded and packed to suffocation with them. For three months, sentence of condemnation was on an average of one a day. The last execution was that of a Catholic priest, or rather of a schoolmaster of the city, who was charged with being one. Mary Burton, after an interval of three months, pretended to remember that he was present ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... possess inadequate buildings and equipment. The average rural schoolhouse consists of one room, with perhaps a small hallway. The building is constructed without reference to architectural effect, resembling nothing so much as a large box with a roof on it. It is barren and uninviting as to its interior. The walls ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts
... in New York than she had intended to be. There were plenty of servants out of work on the lists of the various employment agencies which she visited. But Martha's requirements were such as the average servant can not meet or will not face, and candidates for the place and wages she offered asked questions and were not satisfied ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris
... The average Scot, says an Anti-Prohibition writer, cannot stand many drinks. Our experience supports this view; but he can be stood ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... intent to invade us, public excitement in the twin towns of East and West Looe rose to a very painful pitch. Of this excitement was begotten the East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery, which the Government kept in pay for six years and then reluctantly disbanded. The company on an average numbered sixty or seventy men, commanded by a Captain and two Lieutenants of their own choosing. They learned the exercise of the great guns and of small arms; they wore a uniform consisting of blue coat and pantaloons, with scarlet ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... well meaning, but, like most Persians, he is slow about everything but asking questions. Being a telegraph-jee, he is, of course, a comparatively enlightened mortal, and, among other things, he is acquainted with the average Englishman's partiality for beer. One of the first questions he asks, is whether I want any beer. It strikes me at once as a rather strange question to be asked in a Persian village, but, thinking ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... long time at a loss. At length, however, he took 300 measurements, without selection, including the length of the trunk, of the head and neck, and of the fork, and adding them all together, struck the average: from which it resulted, that the average head and neck gives 10-1/2 inches; trunk, 25 inches; and fork, 32 inches; making the whole figure, from the crown of the head to the sole of the shoe, 5 feet 7-1/2 inches. The word we have italicised is the drawback: a tailor measures with the shoes on; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... waiting outside the station, and Willis, jumping in, offered the driver an extra pound if he was at Ferriby within fifty minutes. He reckoned the distance was about twenty-five miles, and he thought he should maintain at average of thirty ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts |
