"Main" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... think he'd naturally support you in anything he thought was fair and reasonable. Well, there you have them. Get them all on your side if you can. Don't ask for the LaSalle Street tunnel right away. Let it come as an afterthought—a great public need. The main thing will be to avoid having the other companies stirring up a real fight against you. Depend on it, Schryhart will be thinking pretty hard about this whole business from now on. As for Merrill—well, if you can show him where he can get something out of it for ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... I suppose, renders it at least not improper that I should make some sort of reply to him. I shall not attempt to follow him in the precise order in which he addressed the assembled multitude upon that occasion, though I shall perhaps do so in the main. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... division (unseen hitherto) is into equal and Unequal, and this is the main point, especially as to domestic peace and tranquillity; for to make a commonwealth unequal, is to divide it into parties, which sets them at perpetual variance, the one party endeavoring to preserve their eminence and inequality ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... between the inhabitants of Tryon County might lead, in the immediate future, to something more serious than town brawls and tavern squabbles; and, more-over, as the Iroquois agitation had already resulted in the withdrawal to Fort Niagara of the main body of the Mohawk nation—for what ominous purpose it might be easy to guess—Sir Lupus forbade the children to go a-roaming outside ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... tilting back and forth on a stool, suddenly tipped forward, and hit her nose furiously. Blood flowed from the wound; and the sight of it, together with the pain, made the child frantic. She forgot where she was and screamed. Poor Mrs. Pragoffyetski! Though a good woman in the main, she was rather proud of appearances, and had just been thinking the four children did her credit. But now! The shrill cry of distress called everybody's attention to her pew. The whole audience were looking up ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... more or less permeated with the prevailing spirit. They could not but feel that they were regarded as spies and informers—a humiliating conviction, little calculated to develop that feeling of self-respect which is the main foundation of uprightness—and that all their efforts could do but little good. They were, in fact, in pretty much the same position as Peter's Procurator-General, and, with true Russian bonhomie, they disliked ruining individuals who were no worse than the majority of their fellows. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... of this depression from which Babylon suffered at almost regular intervals, as though stricken with some periodic malady? The main reason soon becomes apparent if we consider the nature of the country and the material conditions of its existence. Chaldaea was neither extensive nor populous enough to afford a solid basis for the ambition of her princes. Since nearly every man capable of bearing arms was enrolled in the army, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the main road that passed through the tamarack swamp. At one end of it was Pine Camp; in the other direction, after passing the knoll on which the Vanderwillers lived, the roadway came out upon a more traveled road to the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... at the idea. "Oh, let's play that!" So the four little Peppers drove down Badgertown main street, where all the shops were, and old Mr. Beebe happened to be standing by his little window watching for customers. "Ma—Ma!" he screamed, "here's the Pepperses goin' by in a sleigh; it's Miss ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... economy of this volcanic island is small and open, with economic activity centered on tourism and related services. Tourism accounts for roughly one-quarter of Montserrat's national income. The island's main export is electronic components which are mainly shipped to the US. The agriculture sector is small; cabbages, carrots, cucumbers, and onions are grown for the domestic market; additionally, some hot peppers ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... punctuation, omitted or transposed letters, etc.) have been amended without note. Inconsistent hyphenation and accent use has been made consistent within the main text, again without note. Any inconsistencies between quotations and the main text remain ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... I stand— All dangers now are o'er; No sigh to reach my native land Shall rend my bosom more. Ah! oft, beyond the heaving main, I mourn'd at Fate's decree; I wish'd but to be back again To Scotland and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... is entered. This is regarded by many as the rich jewel of Lake Tahoe. The main body of the Bay is of the deep blue our eyes have already become accustomed to, but the shore-line is a wonderful combination of jade and emerald, that dances and scintillates as the breeze plays with the surface of the waters. A landing is made at Emerald Bay Camp, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... like a frightened frog to a bend in the street caused by the projection of a mill just where the square opens into the main thoroughfare; but in spite of his agility his hob-nailed shoes echoed on the stones with a sound easily distinguished from the music of the mill, and no doubt heard by the person who ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... certainly on its events and fate, probably also on the turn of his thoughts and the shape and moulding of his work, was his migration to Ireland, and his settlement there for the greater part of the remaining eighteen years of his life. We know little more than the main facts of this change from the court and the growing intellectual activity of England, to the fierce and narrow interests of a cruel and unsuccessful struggle for colonization, in a country which was to England much what Algeria was to France some thirty years ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... and sudden reverses of fortune, still farther interest us; and it is from that concern our satisfaction arises. Human life is so tiresome a scene, and men generally are of such indolent dispositions, that whatever amuses them, though by a passion mixt with pain, does in the main give them a sensible pleasure. And this pleasure is here encreased by the nature of the objects, which being sensible, and of a narrow compass, are entered into with facility, and ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... my pipe's delight, Whose pleasing sound y-shrilled far about, Or thither led by chance, I know not right: Whom when I asked from what place he came, And how he hight, himself he did y-clep, The Shepherd of the Ocean by name, And said he came far from the main sea deep. He sitting me beside in that same shade, Provoked me to play some pleasant fit;** And, when he heard the music that I made, He found himself full greatly pleased ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Winnipeg, as you know, was formerly known as Fort Garry, and one of the chief trading stations of the Hudson Bay Company. Of the old fort, I am sorry to say, there is very little left, and that is shortly to be swept away for the continuation of Main Street. The Governor, now occupying the old house, is to have a splendid building, which, with the Houses of Legislature, are in the course of construction, rather farther ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... the ugly step-sister pushes the bride into a river or the sea, and takes her place. The true bride is changed into a swan (or otherwise miraculously preserved), and at last resumes her lawful place. In the above stories the substitution of the false bride is the main incident in the story; but there are many other tales in which the same incident occurs, but it is subordinate to the others. Examples of this latter class will be given as soon as we reach the story of "The ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... old, and Henry was still a young man, and his blood shot through his veins like streams of fire. Hut he was yet somewhat virtuous and timid, and the main peculiarity of his character was as yet undeveloped. He was not yet bloodthirsty, that is to say, he had not yet licked blood. But you will see how with each new queen his desire for blood increased, till at length it has now become a wasting disease. Had ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... shoved my head through the hatchway, I saw that the brig was coming up rapidly after us. I had been down some little time, when just as I came up and was looking about me, my ears were saluted with a loud hissing whirl, and I saw our main gaff shot away at the jaws and come tumbling down on deck. This made the schooner fall off ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... then they compromised on a taxi, it was because distances were too great at times, and other means of transportation too slow. But in the main they stuck to their original plan, and Marie-Louise entered a ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... He is also partly induced to this observation of the rules of temperance by his respect for religion and the laws of his country; which things, it may once for all be noted, do add especial assistances to his actions, but do not and cannot furnish the main spring or motive thereto. His first ambition, as appeareth all along, is to be a good clerk; his next, a good Christian, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... made consistent in the main body of the text without note. Please note that the author uses the term 'high light' rather than ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin
... travelling about six miles, our guide showed me the river, much increased in width, and said they called that the "Barwan." As it was still a mere chain of ponds, though these were large, I was sure this was not the main channel; he also said this joined the main channel a good way lower down. I was convinced that it was only the Castlereagh that had thus augmented the channel of the Macquarie, which I found afterwards to be the case, the junction taking place two miles higher. I willingly encamped on ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... economic cooperation among developing nations; to act as the main political organ ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... made upon the main gates, but when it was found that these were too strong to be taken easily, the assailants retreated with a loss of a score of men shot by the defenders from the wall. Then other tactics were adopted, for the Syrians, possessing themselves of the ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... two main divisions of "meditation," i.e., of the process by which one extinguishes ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... done by the intervention of this House. But whatever our original opinions were on that policy—and the opinions of the majority of those who sit on this side of the House were decidedly adverse to it—we had to confront a state of facts; and the main fact which met us was the existence of the large native population in the Transvaal, to whom, by the establishment of the Queen's supremacy, we hold ourselves to have given a pledge. That is the acceptance of facts, and that is the sense in which my right honourable friend, and all those who ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... be mainly confined to the upper classes; it is now a raging disease among that lower middle-class which used to form the main element of our national strength, and the tradesman whose cart comes to your area in the morning gambles with all the reckless abandonment that used to be shown by the Hon. A. Deuceace or Lady Betty when George the Third was King. Your clerk, shopman, butcher, baker, barber—especially the barber—ask ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... heave-to; but there was danger in that where neither spars nor rigging could be trusted. The seas came breaking over her bows, and sweeping her decks. Another huge billow, larger and more foam-covered than any of its predecessors, was seen ahead. "Up with the helm, lower the peak, ease away the main-sheet, square away the maintopsail!" cried Mr Owen, with rapid utterance. The crew quickly obeyed his orders. The effect of these orders was to take the pressure off the after-part of the vessel, and round her head flew from the ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... novel has for its hero Cotton Mather Thayer, whose father was a Boston blueblood, and whose mother was a Russian musician. The latter gave to him his musical temperament, and the title of the book suggests the author's main motif—the warring strains, Puritan and Slav, in her hero. The central idea is the mistake a woman makes who attempts to reform a man after marriage. Beatrix Dane, the heroine of the book, discovers during her engagement that Lorimer, her lover, has an inherited appetite ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... hospitality to criminal scoundrels. In the evening, when La Saget went to get her black-currant syrup at the wine dealer's, she prepared her budget for the next morning. Rose was but little given to gossiping, and the old main reckoned chiefly on her own eyes and ears. She had been struck by Monsieur Lebigre's extremely kind and obliging manner towards Florent, his eagerness to keep him at his establishment, all the polite civilities, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... therefore, do much more at this time than commend the immense importance of monetary reform, urge prompt consideration and action when the commission's report is received, and express my satisfaction that the plan to be proposed promises to embrace main features that, having met the approval of a great preponderance of the practical and professional opinion of the country, are likely to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... Lucile, pulling Jessie away from the mirror by main force; "you look wonderful, Jessie," and down the stairs they ran and out onto the veranda, where a good many of the guests had assembled ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... in connecting Niccolo, the great-grandfather of Joseph, with Guglielmo della Scala, the son of Can Grande Secundo. And yet such is the charm of genius, that the Confutatio, altogether defective in the main point as a reply, will ever be read with delight by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... Y-shaped chain of four main islands and 80 smaller islands; several of the islands have ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... room, and however still the atmosphere, there is always a feeling of liberty and spaciousness in the open air, that partially supplies one's wants. With this idea running through my head, I arose, lit another cigar, and passed out into the long, intricate corridors that led to the main staircase. As I crossed the threshold of my room, with what a different feeling I should have passed it had I known that I was never to set foot ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... I commend your prudence," the pastor continued "Not for ourselves are we wooing! To woo for others is serious." So they started to meet the worthy magistrate seeing How in the course of his business he was ascending the main street. And the wise pastor straightway address'd him with foresight as follows "We, by-the-bye, have just seen a girl in the neighbouring garden Under an apple-tree sitting, and clothes for the children preparing, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... seeds terrene, since ponderous most And most perplext, in close embraces clung, And towards the centre conglobating sunk. And as the bond grew firmer, ampler forth Pressed they the fluid essences that reared Sun, moon, and stars, and main, and heaven's high wall. For those of atoms lighter far consist, Subtiler, and more rotund than those of earth. Whence, from the pores terrene, with foremost haste Rushed the bright ether, towering high, and swift Streams of fire attracting as ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... The main building is built in the form of a cross, with its chief front to the magnetic north. It is formed of wood, all iron and other metals being carefully excluded; for its purpose is to contain three large ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... gardens, and enjoy the fresh evening air, and the sight of the shining Thames. After walking for a brief space, and looking at the many peaceful and happy groups round about him, he grew tired of the exercise, and betook himself to one of the summer-houses which flank either end of the main walk, and there modestly seated himself. What were his cogitations? The evening was delightfully bright and calm; the sky was cloudless; the chimneys on the opposite bank were not smoking; the wharves and warehouses looked ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sun rioting over them, whatever that may mean, till my head ached. I can't quite understand all this now, but it seemed a very picturesque, impressionist description when I wrote it. Then I went for a walk down Main Street. I think it is about 400 miles long, for I got nowhere near the end, but this was perhaps owing to my uncertainty as to which side was the pleasanter to walk on. At last I gave it up, and sat down on the side-walk. Now, the wisdom of Vermont, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... was an amusing sight. She was so full of exultation, and yet had too much propriety to utter the main point of her hopes, fears, doubts, and gratitude; and she durst not so much as hazard an inquiry after poor Lord Fordham, lest she should be suspected of ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... uninhabited town is never noisy, and at five o'clock in the morning it is not merely not noisy but deadly still. Greatly astonished, I followed the sound through a long succession of ruined rooms, until I came upon a soldier with a broom, steadily sweeping the floor of a small empty room a little off the main sacristy. He had a steel helmet upon his head, like myself. Slowly and like a man in a dream he plied his work. He looked at me as if I too were part of the dream, and when I asked him what his regiment ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... on board who, by their terror-stricken conduct, seem to have added greatly to the weirdness of the scene. They were deaf to all entreaties to leave the saloon, and when, almost by main force, the stewardess (whose conduct throughout was plucky) managed to get them on to the companion-ladder, they sank down on the steps and stubbornly refused to go another step. They seemed to have returned ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... my friends, is no political movement, where the main point is your getting the ballot. Chartism is a knife and fork question: the Charter means a good house, good food and ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... squire, Hinves, and Charlie Purdie, a brother of Tom, in those days the most celebrated fisherman of the district. This little group of Waltonians, bound for Lord Somerville's preserve, remained lounging about to witness the start of the main cavalcade. Sir Walter, mounted on Sybil, was marshalling the order of procession with a huge hunting-whip; and among a dozen frolicsome youths and maidens, who seemed disposed to laugh at all discipline, appeared, each on horseback, each as eager as the youngest sportsman in the ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... instant that I hesitated seemed an age of cool deliberation to me. Then the wickedness of my self-gratulation rushed into my mind, making me feel like a murderer. 'O, God,' I cried in anguish of spirit, 'why have I been put to this test?' The next instant I was working with might and main to extinguish the fire, which with the aid of blankets and a pitcher of water ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... participial noun, in the regular syntax of a noun; but also as a mixed term, in the double character of noun and participle at once. Nor are these its only uses; for, after an auxiliary, it is the main verb; and in a few instances, it passes into a preposition, an adverb, or something else. Thus have we from the verb a single derivative, which fairly ranks with about half the different parts of speech, and takes distinct constructions even ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... small avail, for Erec follows him close and cries aloud: "Vassal, vassal, turn about now, and prepare to defend yourself, so that I may not slay you in act of flight. It is useless to try to escape." But the fellow has no desire to turn about, and continues to flee with might and main. Following and overtaking him, Erec hits him squarely on his painted shield, and throws him over on the other side. To these three robbers he gives no further heed: one he has killed, another wounded, and of the third he got rid by throwing him to earth from his steed. He took the horses of all ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... allusion to the Chicago Exposition. My conversation with the Archbishop of Warsaw. Conversation with the Empress; her reference to the Rev. Dr. Talmage. Impression made upon me by the Emperor. My presentation to the heir to the Throne, now the Emperor Nicholas II; his evident limitations; main cause of these. Presentation to sundry Grand Dukes. A reminiscence of the Grand Duke Michael. The Grand Dukes Vladimir and Alexis. The diplomatic corps. General von Schweinitz. Sir Robert Morier; his victory over the United States at the Paris Arbitration ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... which, though its bearings were not visible to Catharine, was, by a murmur around, acknowledged as that of the Black Douglas. They halted within arrow shot of the castle, and a herald with two trumpets advanced up to the main portal, where, after a loud flourish, he demanded admittance for the high and dreaded Archibald Earl of Douglas, Lord Lieutenant of the King, and acting for the time with the plenary authority of his Majesty; commanding, at the same ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the people looked kind everyone looked so interested in the children that they began to feel a little shy and turned out of the big main path into a narrow little one that wound among trees and ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... as they left the breakfast table and went to sit in the main parlor of the hotel. "It's snowing, and we can ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... gratifying modification of those extreme rulings of the Department which occasioned so much dissatisfaction among the churches. While we rejoice in these modifications, we must not conceal from ourselves or our readers the fact, that the main point against which objection has been so strenuously urged—the right of the churches to be guided by their own wisdom and experience in expending their own funds—is not granted by this order, as will be seen in Article 3. "In purely mission schools," "toward whose support the ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... Vanity or Affectation, as it is made use of among some of the little spruce Adventurers of the Town, I should be glad if you would give it a Place among those Extravagancies you have justly exposed in several of your Papers: being very well assured that the main Body of the Clergy, both in the Country and the Universities, who are almost to a Man untainted with it, would be very well pleased to see this Venerable Foppery well exposed. When my Patron did me the Honour to take me into his Family, (for I must own my self of this Order) he was ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... although the extent of its execution was unknown. After half an hour of incessant broadsides, the two vessels had approached each other so close, that the jibboom of the Frenchman was pointed between the fore and main rigging of the Portsmouth. Captain Lumley immediately gave orders to lash the Frenchman's bowsprit to his main-mast, and this was accomplished by the first lieutenant, Alfred, and the seamen, without any serious loss, for the fog was still so thick that the Frenchmen on ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... the dark facade of the palace comes in view, with its balustraded terrace; the carvings around the main entrance are in that old, exaggerated German rococo which I have seen before and have admired in the palace in Dresden. This kind of barbaric taste has something charming about it, and entertains the eye, satiated with chefs d'oeuvre. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... and we stopped at five iron and copper manufactories. I found it was not necessary to have much technical knowledge to make notes on what I saw; all I required was a little sound argument, especially in the matter of economy, which was the duke's main object. In one place I advised reforms, and in another I counselled the employment of more hands as likely to benefit the revenue. In one mine where thirty convicts were employed I ordered the construction of a short canal, by which three wheels could be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... vanished many a sea-girt isle and grove, Their forests floating on the wat'ry plain; Then famed for arts, and laws deriv'd from Jove, My Atalantis sunk beneath the main." ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... musketry was poured into us. Strange to say, though the bullets sent a perfect shower of splinters flying about our ears, not a man in either boat was hit; and before the Frenchmen had time to load again we were alongside—the launch on the port quarter, the first cutter under the main chains on the starboard side, and my boat under the bows. Luckily for us, they had not had time to trice up the boarding nettings, so that, with the aid of a volley from our pistols, we had not much difficulty in making our way in over the craft's low bulwarks. ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... We see likewise that some places instituted for physic have annexed the commodity of gardens for simples of all sorts, and do likewise command the use of dead bodies for anatomies. But these do respect but a few things. In general, there will hardly be any main proficience in the disclosing of nature, except there be some allowance for expenses about experiments; whether they be experiments appertaining to Vulcanus or Daedalus, furnace or engine, or any other kind. And therefore as secretaries and spials of princes and states bring in ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... him in the talk of the day. Ben knew no men except the surly Gus, Minnie's husband. Gus, the firebrand, thought Ben hardly worthy of his contempt. If Ben thought, sometimes, of the respect with which he had always been greeted when he clumped down the main street of Commercial—if he thought of how the farmers for miles around had come to him for expert ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... thorough appreciation of values. Although Congress had not provided for a general staff, he himself appointed a Naval War Board, which served many of the same purposes. Upon this Board he appointed Rear Admiral Sicard, who but for ill health would have commanded the main fleet; Captain A. S. Crowninshield; and, most important, Captain A. T. Mahan, whose equal as master of the theory and history of naval warfare no navy of the world could show. The spirit of the fighting force was speedily exhibited by such exploits as that of Lieutenant ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... borrowed from the sinking fund. The Spanish war which began in 1739 was principally a colony quarrel. Its principal object was to prevent the search of the colony ships, which carried on a contraband trade with the Spanish Main. This whole expense is, in reality, a bounty which has been given in order to support a monopoly. The pretended purpose of it was to encourage the manufactures, and to increase the commerce of Great Britain. But its real effect has been to raise the rate of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... him, hurled his spear at Asteropaeus, but failed to hit him and struck the steep bank of the river, driving the spear half its length into the earth. The son of Peleus then drew his sword and sprang furiously upon him. Asteropaeus vainly tried to draw Achilles' spear out of the bank by main force; thrice did he tug at it, trying with all his might to draw it out, and thrice he had to leave off trying; the fourth time he tried to bend and break it, but ere he could do so Achilles smote him with his sword and killed him. He struck him in the belly near the navel, so that all ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the plea advanced by ardent fox-hunters that the fox enjoys the sport of being hunted. Neither, although it is satisfactory to learn that the slaves are now generally well treated, does this fact in itself constitute any justification for slavery. The system must disappear, and the main question is to devise some other less objectionable ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... back-fire is a fire started for the purpose of stopping another. Usually a road, or a plowed strip, or even a cattle path, is used for a base. On the windward side of this base the back-fire is started and allowed to eat its way back against the wind until it meets the main fire which is rushing forward with the wind, and chokes it out for lack of fuel. A few men, stationed along a furrow or a trail, can keep the small back-fire from jumping it, although they would be powerless to check the ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... doctrine will be applied in all its sternness and rigor, and from pole to pole no European power will defile this continent. The so-called Americo-Hispano-Latin races humbugged by Europe, will have found how cursed is any whatever European influence. The main land and the Isles must be purified therefrom. Will any European government, power, or statesman permit the United States to acquire even the most barren rock on the European continent? The American continent is equal, if not more to Europe, and the degrading ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... coast of the Main as closely as was at all prudent, a good look-out for rocks and shoals being maintained; and at dawn on the following morning high land was descried on the north-western horizon, which Dyer, having inspected it from aloft, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... me to the main," he said; although bad, he was too honest to quote the other line, feeling that he had ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... had received permission to smoke a cigarette as they walked, but could not light it in the breeze that was blowing. "Wait a moment, little girl," he finally said, and he stepped aside to the protection of a broad tree trunk, perhaps forty feet away, leaving Antoinette on the path. It was the main-traveled way from Madison-avenue gate to the Mansion House, but at the time no one was near. Suddenly, however, a tall man loomed up from behind Antoinette and seized her ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... celestial kites by which she proposed to communicate with the other world. Occasionally the advocates of various political theories would secure possession, consuming the time and diverting attention from the main issue. At the convention just closed, the hobby-riders were present in greater force than ever before and it seemed imperative that some means should be adopted to shut them out thereafter. It was proposed to change the name to Woman Suffrage Association, which would bar all discussion ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... hair would soon creep up from thigh to horn of him. At times he will still do us a friendly turn: will lend a helping hand to poor little Psyche, wilfully seeking her own salvation; will stand shoulder to shoulder with us on Marathon plain. But in the main his sympathies are first for the beast: to which his horns are never horrific, but, with his hairy pelt, ever natural and familiar, and his voice (with its talk of help and healing) not harsh nor dissonant, but voice of very brother as well as ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... stood on the beach, And still her eyes did strain, To catch of mast or sail, a glimpse, Upon the inland main. ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... accompanying him; my object was simply to seek pleasant adventures; the "cacoethes ambulandi" was strong upon me, and I thirsted to visit the capital of ancient Bactria; the circumstances which prevented our reaching Balkh will hereafter be detailed, but the main object of the expedition was attained, as Sturt executed an excellent map of the passes alluded to, and satisfactorily demonstrated that almost all the defiles of this vast chain, or rather group ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... would indicate. Those that I bring together were wisely subordinated and kept apart in the discourse, and ran together only in minds like my own, eager for one or two other hearers to be specially impressed by them. And one, at least, was. Before the third sentence of the main discourse was finished the fierceness of the Baron's attention was provoking me to ask myself whether a conscience also was not coming to birth ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... Ben, touching his forelock with an old sailor trick—a token of respect involuntarily forced from him by Frank's manly promptitude in taking the bull by the horns, "We're with you to the last ditch, the top of the main-top gallant, the bottom of the deep-blue sea, or the ends of ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... with the new house, "which was much livelier than this big barn of a place that was not even on a main road," but her mistress ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... out, when, early one morning, we made an American ship, on our weather quarter. Both vessels had everything set that would draw, and were going about five knots, close on the wind. The stranger made a signal to speak us, and, on the Hudson's main-topsail being laid to the mast, he came down under our stern, and ranged up alongside to leeward. He proved to be a ship called the "London Packet," from Charlestown, bound to Havre, and his chronometer having stopped, he wanted to ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the art of navigation no longer render it so necessary to make well-known landfalls during transit. The third is, that the multiplication of our great ports of distribution have divided the old main flow of trade to the Channel into a number of minor streams that cover a much wider area and demand a greater distribution of force for effective attack. It will be obvious that the combined effect of these ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... to sights, sounds and smells seems to be a common attribute of genius. This sort of sensitiveness has even been credited with being the main-spring of genius, but it is improbable that the curbing of such aversions would in any way endanger it. However this may be, such supersensitiveness ill becomes the rest of us, and these extreme aversions surely clog, rather ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... leaders of the movement against the bill had themselves no idea that the political storm which they had raised by their inflammatory harangues would become a whirlwind so entirely beyond their control. Their main object was to bring about a ministerial crisis. Sir Allan MacNab, the leader of the opposition, himself declared that he was amazed at the dangerous form which the public indignation had at last assumed. He had always been a devoted subject of the sovereign, and it is only ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... later have been observed, but probably was not, walking briskly in the chill night toward the gate that led to the outer world. But he wheeled abruptly before reaching this gate, and walked again briskly, this time debouching from the main thoroughfare into the black silence of the Western village. Here his pace slackened, and halfway down the street he paused irresolutely. He was under the wooden porch of the Fashion Restaurant—Give our Tamales a Trial. He lingered here but a moment, however, then lurked ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... upon him; and sore was the battle upon the cliff; for when Sciron felt the weight of the bronze club, he dropt his own, and closed with Theseus, and tried to hurl him by main force over the cliff. But Theseus was a wary wrestler, and dropt his own club, and caught him by the throat and by the knee, and forced him back against the wall of stones, and crushed him up against them, till his breath was almost gone. And Sciron cried panting, "Loose me, and ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... half of New Granada are three ranges of lofty mountains, into which the main branch of the Andes is divided, extending from Quito northwards to the Caribbean Sea; a fourth branch, running close to the shores of the Pacific, extends towards the Isthmus of Panama. These four ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... the ocean-side; Its waves rolled bright and high; Upon its waters, spreading wide, I gazed with beaming eye. At last, at last, I said, is found A charm to banish pain,— Here, where the sprightly billows bound Athwart the heaving main. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... later Kitchell came on deck from his supper in the cabin aft. He glanced in the direction of the mainland, now almost out of sight, then took the wheel from one of the Chinamen and commanded, "Ease off y'r fore an' main sheets." The hands eased away and the schooner played off ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... prison-like buildings loomed in heavy and sombre masses before the stranger, as he leaned from the carriage to deliver his order to the gatekeeper. The Hospital, with its walls of dark stone blackened by age, its sombre wings sweeping out from the main building and lowering above the massive walls, struck him with a feeling of gloom. It seemed like a prison that he was entering. The Hospitals were drear to him, and the dull, heavy atmosphere seemed full of contagion. He looked at the poor creature thus unconsciously ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... class man," who owned 100 acres of land, with one family of slaves, and was more of a truck farmer than a plantation owner. He raised enough cotton to supply the needs of his family and his slaves and enough cattle to furnish food, but his main crops were corn, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... as much as possible the main north road (for I did not wish, as you may suppose, to set fire to a train of associations that might blow us up to the dog-star), and where that avoidance was not possible, travelling by night, I got him into the neighborhood ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with Winthrop which began the proceedings, Mrs. Hutchinson had decidedly the best of the controversy; and Winthrop himself confesses that "she knew when to speak and when to hold her tongue." The evidence failed wretchedly upon the main charge, which was that Mrs. Hutchinson alleged that all the ministers in Massachusetts except Mr. Cotton preached "a covenant of works." On the contrary, by her own evidence and that of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Leverett, it appeared that Mrs. Hutchinson had said that "they ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... otherwise reach, and this becomes all the more desirable if the Fram herself does not get so far north as we had hoped. If we cannot actually reach the Pole, why, we must turn back before reaching it. The main consideration, as I must constantly repeat, is not to reach that exact mathematical point, but to explore the unknown parts of the Polar Sea, whether these be near to or more remote from the Pole. I said this before setting out, and I must keep it continually ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... a feeling that he had not put forward the main cause of his unhappiness, though he had given a true cause; that he had made some lesser sense of wrong stand for a greater, as people often do in confessing themselves; and I was not surprised when he ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... is not peculiarly suited to express that concentrated grandeur, that majestic combination of high eloquence with high poetry, which make the early Alcaic Odes of Horace's Third Book what they are to us. The main difficulty is in accommodating its structure to that of the Latin, of varying the pauses, and of linking stanza to stanza. It is a difficulty before which I have felt myself almost powerless, and I have in consequence been driven to the natural expedient of weakness, compromise, ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... others running to rounds and segments of circles, like M. Ingres' drawings, their eyes a trifle prominent for the better understanding of others, and mouth, like the typical French one, at a forward angle, as if for ready speech. But, different as these people are, they are alike in the main features of symmetry and balance; they haven't two sets of lungs and a duplicate stomach, like Centaurs, whom every one found so difficult to deal with; nor do any of them end off in a single forked tail, twisting ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... put on at the Abbey Theatre on December 4, 1903, is the first play of Mr. Colum with which, in after years, he was in any way content, but he was not too content with it, rewriting it in 1907 as "The Fiddler's House," and, I think, in the main improving it. ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... was fifteen years old when she entered on a career of higher education. For two hours daily she was released from the store, and in that interval she strove with might and main to conquer the world of knowledge. Katrina Petrovna, her teacher, praised and encouraged her; and there was no reason why the promising pupil should not have developed into a young lady of culture, with ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... intended; for him the unity of Germany was a matter of secondary importance; what he desired was complete control over the north. In this he was going back to the sound and true principles of Prussian policy; he, as nearly all other Prussian statesmen, looked on the line of the Main as a real division. He, therefore, on the 9th of July, wrote to Goltz, explaining the ideas he had of the terms on which peace might ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam |
