"Merit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are consistent with almost any form of the doctrine of progressive modification; they would not be absolutely inconsistent with the wild speculations of De Maillet, or with the less objectionable hypothesis of Lamarck. But Mr. Darwin's views have one peculiar merit; and that is, that they are perfectly consistent with an array of facts which are utterly inconsistent with, and fatal to, any other hypothesis of progressive modification which has yet been advanced. It is one remarkable peculiarity of Mr. Darwin's hypothesis that it involves no necessary progression ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... literature. Were not Pope and Swift famous for their distinguished miscellanies? What could be more amusing than a collection of poems that represented a different poetic ideal—a collection of verse with none of the pretensions to artistic merit claimed by the superstars of the poetic world—the spontaneous productions of nonpoets in moments of idleness or desperation. Apparently some of the inscribers in the bog-houses used excrement as a medium for—as well as a subject of—their inscriptions. The Merry-Thought, then, is not even ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... at Cananor about the end of January 1526, in the thirtieth year of his age. He was a man of large stature, with a pleasing countenance, just in all his actions, continent, free from covetousness, a true patron of merit, and of the most unblemished honour. During his government he refused uniformly to accept any of the numerous presents offered him by the eastern princes; and conducted himself with such perfect integrity in every transaction, that at his death his whole treasure ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... mention. In returning at the end of the plaine are the abouesaid 4. pillers, to wit, two on ech side of the way, through the midst whereof they say it is needfull that euery one passe, saying, that who so passeth without looseth all that merit which in his pilgrimage he had gotten. Also from the mountaine of pardons vntill they be passed the said pillers none dare looke backward, for feare least the sinnes which he hath left in the mountains returne ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... mole-hills are mountains. His colouring is so badly managed that the effect of distance, light, and shade are lost. Thus a man will so insist upon the use of difficult words by George Elliot that a person unacquainted with her writings would think that the whole merit or demerit of that author lay in her vocabulary. A man will so exalt the pathos of Dickens or Thackeray that he will throw their wit and humour into the background. Some person's only remark on seeing Turner's ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... he, "from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve. How can the gentry show that they are greater lords than we?"[1] In 1355 there were heretics in the diocese of York who maintained that it is impossible to merit eternal life by good works, and that original sin ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... for success that merit attention: the graft must not be roughly handled or allowed to dry, or be subjected to chemical irritation; it must be brought into accurate contact with the new soil, no blood-clot intervening between ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... dialect as to that old time it was the chastest English; and even then his materials were essentially dialect when his song was at best pitch. Again, our present dialect, of most plebeian ancestry, may none the less prove worthy. Mark the recognition of its own personal merit in the great new dictionary, where what was, in our own remembrance, the most outlandish dialect, is now ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... there, and bid him not go on; 'Twas merit, he said, and not presumption, Must carry it; at which Ben turned about, And in great choler offered to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... be noted, this balance dispenses entirely with knife edges, and this statement carries with it the gist of its entire merit. There is no friction, and the elegance of the work and the nice adjustments of the parts ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... the functions of the Council is to interest public spirited women and men, particularly artists and scientists in Girl Scout work and get them to act as referees in awarding Merit Badges for proficiency in the many lines ...
— Girl Scouts - Their Works, Ways and Plays • Unknown
... an hour earlier, Miss Caldegard?" asked Sir Randal, as he came up. "Dick—my brother—is coming by an earlier train. Just like him, always changing his mind." And he smiled, as if this were merit. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... with the indifference of slaves, the spirit and union of a religious party might assist the popular leader, to whose service, from a principle of conscience, they had devoted their lives and fortunes. [25] The example of his father had instructed Constantine to esteem and to reward the merit of the Christians; and in the distribution of public offices, he had the advantage of strengthening his government, by the choice of ministers or generals, in whose fidelity he could repose a just and unreserved confidence. By the influence of these dignified missionaries, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... to have more of it than less," said her father, gravely. "These Americans have some curious ideas. While they are proud enough to trace their ancestry back to French or English or even Italian rank, they taboo titles except such as are won by merit. And it must be confessed they have had many brave men among them, heroes animated by broader views than the first conquerors ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... certainty that his work would receive recognition. But, still, he would argue with himself, his feeling of confidence might very well be due to the dear old gentlewoman's enthusiastic faith in him rather than in any merit in the book itself; and it was a well-established fact—to all unpublished writers at least—that publishers are a heartless folk, and exceedingly loth to extend a helpful hand to unrecognized genius, however great the worth of its offering. He could ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... consequence it gave him. Sir Francis Mitchell acted likewise; and it was about this time that the connection between the worthy pair commenced. Hitherto they had been in opposition, and though very different in temperament and in modes of proceeding, they had one aim in common; and recognizing great merit in each other, coupled with a power of mutual assistance, they agreed to act in concert. Sir Francis was as cautious and timid as Sir Giles was daring and inflexible: the one being the best contriver ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... John came forward, and gave the boys a good fatherly talk. He told them that they had the happiness to live under a free government, where all offices are alike open to industry and merit, and where any boy might hope by application and talent to rise to any station below that of the sovereign. He made some sensible, practical comments, on their Scripture lessons, and, in short, gave precisely such a kind ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... these men in England, whether for or against, were all personal. The Dost was the favourite—which was generous—as he had no solitary merit to plead except that he had lost the election; or, as the watchmaker's daughter so pointedly said on behalf of Nigel Lord Glenvarloch, "Madam, he is unfortunate." Searching, however, in all corners for the undiscovered virtues of the Dost, as Bruce for the coy fountains of the Nile, one man ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... oftener without; but there was nothing of the old Mentzel-Trenck atrocity permitted them, or ever imputed to them; and they did, usually with good military talent, sometimes conspicuously good, what was required of them. Regular Generals, of a high merit, one or two of their Captains came to be: Wunsch, for example; Werner, in some sort; and, but for his sudden death, this Mayer himself. Others of them, as Von Hordt (Hard is his Swedish name); and 'Quintus Icilius' (by nature GUICHARD, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... round her, quite stiff and grand; even perhaps a little too stiff and too grand for a familiar and domestic frock, yet marked none the less, this time, she ventured to hope, by incontestable intrinsic merit. She had glanced repeatedly at the clock, but she had refused herself the weak indulgence of walking up and down, though the act of doing so, she knew, would make her feel, on the polished floor, with the rustle and the "hang," still more beautifully bedecked. The difficulty was that it would ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... I took all Abednego's tales for gospel. That was the reason you got the place, mark you, and not on account of your miserable three thousand pounds. Well, sir, a fortnight after you were with us at Fulham, I met Preston in the House, and made a merit of having given the place to his cousin. 'Confound the insolent scoundrel!' said he; 'he my cousin! I suppose you take all old Drum's stories for true? Why, man, it's her mania: she never is introduced to a man but she finds out a cousinship, ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... kind to stay with them then, and I hope the Messrs. Sands will properly appreciate his merit. Now, Katy," continued the mayor, who had been writing while he questioned his visitor, "you may take this note to the City Hall and deliver it to the city marshal, he will do all he can to recover your ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... people alone; that to look for exact knowledge of natural and spiritual phenomena in the sacred books is an utter mistake; and that the narratives of the Old and New Testaments, while they surpass those of profane history, differ among themselves not only in literary merit, but in the value of the doctrines they inculcate. As to the authorship of the Pentateuch, he arrived at the conclusion that it was written long after Moses, but that Moses may have written some books from which it was compiled—as, for example, those which are mentioned in ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and much were these prints admired as the works of Guido, Rembrandt, and others. Having had his joke, they were published under the title of Imposteurs Innocentes. The connoisseurs, however, are strangely divided in their opinion of the merit of this collection. Gilpin classes these "Innocent Impostors" among the most entertaining of his works, and is delighted by the happiness with which he has outdone in their own excellences the artists whom he copied; but Strutt, too grave to admit of jokes that twitch the connoisseurs, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... capacities they are exposed to all the risks and horrors of the war, yet even if they are shot, they must not, under any circumstances, be mentioned in the casualty lists, nor must they carry arms, lest their behaviour should merit recognition; their heroic deeds and acts of valour must, on account of their colour, not be recorded. These native drivers are classed with the transport mules, with this difference, that while the owner of a mule receives monetary compensation for each animal that falls on the battlefield, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... residence of some years at Rome, devoted to painting and the study of the antiquities and galleries of the Eternal City, was followed by a visit to Naples and Sicily, and by the publication, at Palermo, of his first work, a poem of no merit. The island explored, he betook himself to Florence, Milan, Bologna and Venice, acquiring a complete archaeological knowledge of these and other cities. In 1795 he took up his abode at Modena, and was for twelve years ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... however, from this, that the English nation is incapable of appreciating the highest degree of eminence in the fine arts, or that we are never destined to rise to excellence in any but the mechanical. It is the multitude of subordinate writers of moderate merit who obstruct all the avenues to great distinction, which really occasions the phenomenon. Strange as it may appear, it is a fact abundantly proved by literary history, and which may be verified by every day's experience, that men are in general insensible to the highest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... but only de nomine; in fact, he had with him agents of the government to watch him, and who took a decided pleasure in counteracting all his views; they were young men, without any kind of experience, whose only merit consisted in their being more or less related to the members of the existing government. Every one of them wished to act as a general, looking upon the old commander as a mere convenience upon whom they would throw all the responsibility ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... as a surprise on the occasion of the twenty-fifth performance of Le Reve. It will cost me a king's ransom, and her, for the time being, an infinite amount of anxiety. She sets great store by the valueless trinket solely because of the merit of its design, and I want its disappearance to have every semblance of a theft. All the greater will be the lovely creature's pleasure when, at my hands, she will receive an infinitely precious jewel the exact counterpart ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... angry collision of any kind, was likely, to take place: at which news her face glowed with pleasure, and her lips flowed with many an expression of gratitude, although he assured hex again and again that he had done nothing on earth to merit her thanks. ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... according to the profit that so many of our citizens, both young and old, daily extract from my conversation, and the fruit that you all reap from me, you cannot more duly acquit yourselves towards my merit than in ordering that, my poverty considered, I should be maintained at the Prytanaeum, at the public expense, a thing that I have often known you, with less reason, grant to others. Do not impute it to obstinacy or disdain that I do not, according to the custom, supplicate and go about to move you ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... with her own peculiar fire and tears. The fire is, fortunately, so much stronger than the tears that her passion never degenerates into the maudlin. All the same, she makes too universal a use of her own strongest gifts, and this is why she cannot be said to excel as a portrait painter. One merit, however, is certain: if her earliest writings were dangerous, it was because of her wonderful power of idealization, not because she filled her pages with the revolting and epicene sensuality of the new Italian, French, and English schools. Intellectual ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... done. Whatever might be the merit of the natural voices, it was evident there was spiritual melody ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... afternoons thinking how lonely it would be in Heaven with nobody there but God and the angels and the Starr family. Even the family, it seemed, was not to be admitted as an entity, but separately, according to individual merit. Grandmother and Aunt Matilda had many a wordy battle as to who would be there and who wouldn't, but both were sadly agreed that Frank ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... of course, an impossibility to treat adequately, in the remainder of the space at our disposal, the poetic and general literary merit of Fritz Reuter (1810-1874), the great regenerator and rejuvenator of Low German as a literary language. His lasting merit in the field of the village story is that by his exclusive use of dialect he threw an effective safeguard around the naturalness of the emotional life ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... sell dear. The other road to wealth is by bold speculation, with risk of proportionate loss; in short, by gambling with cards, or without them. Now, look into the mind of the gambler—he wants to make money, contrary to nature, and unjustly. He wants to be rewarded without merit, to make a fortune in a moment, and without industry, vigilance, true skill, or self-denial. 'A penny saved is a penny gained' does not enter his creed. Strip the thing of its disguise, it is avarice, sordid ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... offered in cajolery to encourage my pistol practice. I was, in short, "elected," by an obsession equal to a conviction; and what with her insistently obtruded as a bonus I never was permitted to lose sight of the ghastly prize of skill added to merit. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... hate, as it added grandeur to the idea of his despotism. In the eyes of his suffering subjects it brought him face to face with the catastrophes no less than with the glories of his reign, and without the merit of the avowal—adsum qui feci! gave him all its dread responsibilities. An old despot surviving his greatness while retaining the stinging irony of its title—a saint amid the standing reminiscences of his adulteries, expiating his pleasures by annihilating ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... by the strength of the man, at length unbent, and showed him such favor as a commonplace mind could accord to native superiority. He advised him to compete for the Prix de Rome, warning him, however, that whatever might be the merit of his work, he could not take it that year, as it was arranged that another, approaching the limit of age, must have it. This revolted the simple nature of Millet, who refused to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... has been said, 'All that a man hath he will give for his life;' and, while all contribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, then, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... the head. The mane and tail are dark; the head, neck, body, and limbs dark brown, excepting the pastern joints, which are white; this figure cannot be referred to a known species, and is sufficiently curious to merit an engraving." ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... visibly affected the decorum which had been usually observed towards him; and the ratification of the treaty brought sensations into open view, which had long been ill concealed. His military and political character was attacked with equal violence, and it was averred that he was totally destitute of merit, either as a soldier, or a statesman. The calumnies with which he was assailed were not confined to his public conduct; even his qualities as a man were the subjects of detraction. That he had violated the constitution in negotiating a treaty without ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... authors with American girls than Mrs. L. T. Meade, whose copyright works can only be had from us. Essentially a writer for the home, with the loftiest aims and purest sentiments, Mrs. Meade's books possess the merit of utility as well as the means of amusement. They are girls' books—written for girls, ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... had never stood in any close relation to her. His iniquity had not profoundly affected her. But she found it impossible to realise that Majendie's influence could count for anything in his redemption. Where her husband was concerned Anne's mind was made up, and it refused to acknowledge so fine a merit in so gross a man. She was by this time comfortably fixed in her attitude, and any shock to it caused her positive uneasiness. Her attitude was sacred; it had become one of the pillars of her spiritual life. She was constrained ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... represented Russia as Charge d'Affaires. The South Americans were famously bedizened with embroideries, and nearly all of the Ministers, Secretaries, and attaches wore the broad ribbons of some order of merit across their right shoulders, or crosses upon their breasts. Some of them sported at least a dozen of these ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... at the sight of the clergyman and the lady, pulled her cap forward and her apron to the middle, curtsied low, and in a voice of conscious merit, though out of breath, explained that she was "arter Elizabeth," who was that terrifying and contrary that she would not ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Wolfe's work in 1543 is Robert Recorde's The ground of artes teachyng the worke and practise of Arithmetike moch necessary for all states of men, a small octavo printed in black letter, but of no particular merit. In the same type and form he issued in the following year a tract entitled The late expedicion in Scotlande, etc. Chrysostom's De Providentia Dei and Laudatio Pacis were printed in the Roman and Italic founts during 1545 and 1546, and are the only record we have left of Wolfe's work ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... us acquainted with so few actions that can be compared to yours,—an offer like this from a stranger and a tailor seems to me so astonishing,—that you must pardon me for thus making your virtue public, and acquainting the English nation with your merit and your name. Let me add, Sir, that you live on the first floor; that your clothes and fit are excellent, and your charges moderate and just; and, as a humble tribute of my admiration, permit me to lay ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... resident in Spain.[846] Among rights specifically guaranteed are those of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, peaceful assemblage, the formation of associations, petition, unrestrained choice of professions, and eligibility to public offices and employments, "according to (p. 612) merit and capacity." Immunities guaranteed include exemption from arrest, "except in the cases and in the manner prescribed by law"; exemption from imprisonment, except upon order of a competent judicial official; freedom ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... she fled away and entered upon the vocation in which we found her engaged. Meantime her brother had risen in. rank, and at the close of the war had been transferred to the regular army as a reward of distinguished merit. Then his hereditary foe had laid siege to his weakened frame, and a brother officer had telegraphed to the sister in the Bankshire hills the first warning of ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Cabinet called Lavallee to bring Cavalier to Versailles. This message more than fulfilled all Cavalier's hopes: he knew that he had been greatly talked about at court, and in spite of his natural modesty the reception he had met with at Times had given him new ideas, if not of his own merit, at least of his own importance. Besides, he felt that his services to the king ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... impressed, not by the words of Isaura, but by the passionate earnestness with which they were uttered, and by the exquisite spiritual beauty which her face took from the combined sweetness and fervour of its devout expression,—"Isaura, I merit your censure, your sentence of condemnation; but do not ask me to give back your plighted troth. I have not the strength to do so. More than ever, more than when first pledged to me, I need the aid, the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... most of the previous night, with jealous care studying the libretto Gillier had sold to Claude, which had been put into her hands by Mrs. Shiffney. At once she had recognized its unusual merit. She had in a high degree the faculty, possessed by many clever Frenchwomen, of detecting and appraising the value of a work of art. She was furious because Gillier's libretto had never been submitted to her husband; but she could not say all that was in her mind. She and Adelaide Shiffney ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... doctor accompanied them to examine the place chosen, see to the water supply, the drainage, and sanitation. In addition to this, our commanders had to find the battalion a resting-ground easy to defend and of merit ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... of the literary tastes of many writers or bookmakers during the Middle Ages. More convincingly than by argument they show the utility of paper. Manuscripts of the Gospels, of the Iliad, and of works of the highest merit, often of great beauty and accuracy, are dimly seen underneath stupid sermons, and theological writings of a nature so paltry that no man living cares to read them. In Some instances the first writing has been so thoroughly scrubbed out that its ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... the way of constellation, but was wholly attentive to the service of his mistress, and his dexterity, experience, and merit therein challenged a room in the Queen's favour which eclipsed the other's over-seeming greatness, and made it appear that there were others steered and stood at the helm besides himself, and more stars in the firmament of grace ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... he took with him a hollow staff of horn, which he had filled with gold, and offered this staff to the oracle as a likeness of himself,—perhaps as one empty of wit and whose whole merit lay in his gold. When the three young men had performed the bidding of the king, and asked the oracle the meaning of the prodigy, they were told that it portended the fall of Tarquin. Then they said, ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat, by merit rais'd ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... ZUNIGA, a Spanish poet, born at Madrid; took part in the war of the Spaniards with the Araucos in Chile, which he celebrated in an epic of no small merit called "La Araucana"; he ended his days in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to have some points of merit, and it is whispered that even Uncle Sam has sometimes let his affairs be managed on this plan, but that need not enter into this case; for you and I are both of us intelligent beings, observers after ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... himself. When you rose up out of Jordan, after bathing in the same waters as God himself, with palm-leaves in your hands, and the cross upon your breast, it was something else you promised, sire, than to eat flesh-meat on a Friday. If a meaner man were to do so, he would merit a heavy punishment. This royal hall is not so beset as it should be, when it falls upon me, a mean man, to challenge ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... sectional club was forming, "The Mountain Club," into which Jason naturally had gone; but broadly the students were divided into "frat" men and "non-frat" men, chiefly along social lines, and there were literary clubs of which the watchword was merit and nothing else. In all these sectional cliques from the Purchase, Pennyroyal, and Peavine, as the western border of the State, the southern border, and the eastern border of hills were called; indeed, in all the sections except the Bear-grass, where was the largest ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... Eleusis—coming—the coming of Demeter thither, as thus told in the Homeric hymn, is the central instance in Greek mythology of such divine appearances. "She leaves for a season the company of the gods and abides among men;" and men's merit is to receive her in spite of appearances. Metaneira and others, in the Homeric hymn, partly detect her divine character; they find charis;—a certain gracious air—about her, which makes them think ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... greatest straits, and compelled to exercise their utmost ingenuity to keep their children from starving. Abstinence, on the part of the elder members of the family, is regarded both as a duty and a merit. Every effort is made to satisfy the importunity of the little ones for food, and if there be a story-teller in the lodge, he is sure to draw upon his cabin lore, to amuse their minds, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... I began, "who owned racehorses and all the rest of it. He lost every penny he had, and a lot more besides. He knew, as you call it." I did not feel that my tale, though it had the merit of being true, was a ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... could expect no good from Him. Whatever good He had still left to them, they could consider as only a gift of unmerited mercy, and destined to lead them to repentance,—a consideration which makes a natural man recoil and draw back, inasmuch as, in his relation to God, he always thinks only of merit. That which we thus perceive in them is even now repeated daily. We need only put in the place of idols, the abstract God of the Rationalists and Deists, man's own power, or the power of other men, and many other things besides, and ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... face concealing, In a cloud withdraws from sight, So in Mary then lay hidden He Who is the world's true light. Honor, glory, virtue, merit, Be to Thee, O Virgin's Son! With the Father, and the Spirit, ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various
... three horses and a mule. for each horse I gave an ax a knife handkercheif and a little paint; & for the mule the addition of a knife a shirt handkercheif and a pair of legings; at this price which was quite double that given for the horses, the fellow who sold him made a merit of having bestoed me one of his mules. I consider this mule a great acquisition. These Indians soon told me that they had no more horses for sale and I directed the party to prepare to set out. I had now nine ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... his blood), David was twenty-seven years of age when, in 1775, he won the Prix de Rome, which enabled him to go to Italy for four years at the expense of the government. He was the pupil of Vien, a painter whose chief merit it was to have inspired his pupil with a hatred of the frivolous Pompadour art of the epoch; and David only obtained the coveted prize after competing five successive years. It is instructive to learn that of ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... German has argued that the people who prefer sport to knowledge, self-will to a sense of duty to the community, selfishness to sacrifice,[215] wire-pulling and patronage to efficiency—this people is no longer worthy of the first place among the nations. By right of merit, morality and efficient fitness—that place ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... in which it is written, inventing at times quite another harmony and melody. It is impossible to do otherwise in playing at such a pace, for the eyes cannot see the notes, nor the hands get hold of them. What merit is there in this? The listeners (I mean those worthy of the name) can only say that they have SEEN music and piano-playing. All this makes them hear, and think, and feel as little—as he does. You may ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... Herakleids and the Dorian conquest of the men of the Bronze Age might very probably embody, in a fanciful form, a genuine historical fact; the Homeric poems were to be treated with respect, not only on account of their supreme poetical merit, but as possibly representing a credible tradition, though, of course, their pictures of advanced civilization were more or less imaginative projections upon the past of the culture of the writer's own ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... round to inspect the quadruped in front. It appeared to be a mule—a mule with a jaundiced view of life. It rolled a sad eye towards William, then with a deep sigh returned to its contemplation of the landscape. William gazed upon caravan and steed fascinated. Never, in his future life of noble merit, would he be able to annex a caravan. It was his last chance. No one was about. He could pretend that he had mistaken it for his own caravan or had got on to it by mistake or—or anything. Conscience stirred faintly in his breast, but he silenced ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... Immortality is the recollection one leaves Kings feel they are born general: whatever else they cannot do Kiss the feet of Popes provided their hands are tied Let women mind their knitting Malice delights to blacken the characters of prominent men Manufacturers of phrases More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one Most celebrated people lose on a close view Necessary to let men and things take their course Nothing is changed in France: there is only one Frenchman more Put some gold lace on the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... India. In India, at the beginning of the Christian era, there was a development of drama of a high character. The one called the Clay-waggon (a child's toy) is described as of very great literary merit,—realistic, graphic, and Shakespearean in its artistic representation of life.[2078] Every drama which has that character must be in and of the mores. In the Clay-waggon the story is that of ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... excellent work in the large orchestral forms, if we may count festival performances as a measure of success. Edith Greene has composed a symphony, which was well received at London in 1895. To her credit may be placed many smaller works of real merit, among them a worthy violin sonata. Amy Elsie Horrocks, born in Brazil, brought out her orchestral legend, "Undine," in 1897. She has also composed incidental music to "An Idyl of New Year's Eve," a 'cello sonata, variations for piano and strings, several dramatic ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... the present copy is not only elaborate but also of unusual merit. The first of the twelve-line initials of the thirty-seven books is finely illuminated in gold and colors. The others, in the outlines of which grotesque features are occasionally introduced, are set off by skilful pen-work, harmonizing in general effect, but carefully avoiding repetition ...
— Catalogue of the William Loring Andrews Collection of Early Books in the Library of Yale University • Anonymous
... plants of great merit. They are elegant when in flower, and will endure the open air. They should be trained to a south wall, or over a vase, or up a pillar. Any light loamy soil suits them, and they are easily increased by cuttings. Flower in July. Height, 10 ft. ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... lighted windows. Yet neither spoke of love, though loving was their intercourse. Solita for that her modesty withheld her, and she feared even to hope that so great a lord should give his heart to her keeping; Rudel because he had not achieved enough to merit she should love him. "In a little," he would mutter, "in a little! One more thing must I do, and then will I claim my guerdon of ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... so, other Americans regard this fact with pride, rather than with envy. They accept the principle that some unusual advantage should attend exceptional and unremitting responsibility. Whatever path an American officer may walk, he enjoys prestige. Though little is known of his intrinsic merit, he will be given the respect of his fellow citizens, unless he proves himself ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... to himself a large share of the merit of the revolution in Thermidor. The men who had risked their lives to effect that revolution, and who knew that, if they had failed, Barere would, in all probability, have moved the decree for beheading them without a trial, and have drawn up a proclamation ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... who deemed it just to arrange His creatures according to their merit, brought down these different understandings into the harmony of one world, that He might adorn, as it were, one dwelling, in which there ought to be not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay (and some, indeed, to honor, and others to dishonor) ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Harvey giggled, "we're all a little nearer'n second cousins down here to Wallencamp. Ned's mother didn't use to let him go to school much, teacher," Harvey added, turning to me; "it used to wear him out luggin' home his 'Reward o' merit' cards." ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... luck as is not the blundering blindness of one's opponents is usually the result of one's magnetism. However, it is about the most dangerous of the free gifts of nature,—which are all dangerous. Burbank's merit lay in his discreet use of it. It compelled men to center upon him; he turned this to his advantage by making them feel, not how he shone, but how they shone. They went away liking him because they had new reasons for being in love ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... exquisitely shaped china pitcher, which doubtless represents some gift received through his commercial relations with the East. The picture of Mr. Webster, also full length, was painted by Harding in 1849, and is an excellent likeness as well as a painting of much merit, though lacking the charming qualities ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... Me, and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God'—if we had learned that, and laid it to heart, and applied it to our own worship and our lives, mountains of misconception would be lifted away from many hearts. In our service we do not need to bring any merit of our own. This great principle destroys not only the gross externalities of heathen sacrifice, and the notion that worship is a duty, but it destroys the other notion of our having to bring anything to deserve God's gifts. And so it is an ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... thing different from the worth, or value of a man; and also from his merit, or desert; and consisteth in a particular power, or ability for that, whereof he is said to be worthy: which particular ability, is usually ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... are as thoroughly insulated against heat and cold as any one of several highly efficient materials can make them; windows and doors are products of large wood-fabricating factories noted for superior work. All these are points of advantage with tangible merit, but time and your own efforts are the only means by which your new home can acquire personality and charm. This new structure is yours, made to your desires; and what you make of it is your ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... me to Mrs. Hamilton. I have learned from a friend of yours that she has, as far as the comparison will hold, as much merit as your treasurer as you have as treasurer of the wealth ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Philippe deux, Tibere; translations from Sophocles and Lessing, from Gray and Horace, from Tacitus and Aristotle; with elegies, dithyrambics and Ossianic rhapsodies. As a satirist he possessed great merit, though he sins from an excess of severity, and is sometimes malignant and unjust. He is the chief tragic poet of the revolutionary period, and as Camille Desmoulins expressed it, he decorated Melpomene with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... of this ludicrous association Mr. Browning always recognized great merit in Watts's hymns, and still more in Dr. Watts himself, who had devoted to this comparatively humble work intellectual powers competent ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Kennedy, "is a little instrument called the microphone. Its chief merit lies in the fact that it will magnify a sound sixteen hundred times, and carry it to any given point where you wish to place the receiver. Originally this device was invented for the aid of the deaf, but I see no reason why it should not be used to aid the law. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... and obstinacy first involved and still continues the nation in the most hopeless and expensive of all wars, should now meanly flatter them with the name of a free people, and make a merit of his crime, under the disguise of their essential rights and permanent interests, is something which disgraces even the character of perverseness. Is he afraid they will send him to Hanover, or what does he fear? Why is the sycophant thus added to the hypocrite, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... they originated. These have frequently received the names of the seedsmen who first sent them out. Many of these seedmen's varieties have dropped out of cultivation, as well as other varieties which have appeared from time to time, but which have not possessed sufficient distinctive merit. Some varieties, from not having been kept up to their original standard, have reverted to those from which they sprang, or become so like them that their names have come to ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... there were hostile as well as friendly critics of monasticism; Jovinian, whom Neander compares to Luther, is a type of the former. Although a monk himself, he disputed the thesis that any merit lay in celibacy, fasting or poverty. He opposed the worship of saints and relics, and believed that one might retain possession of his property and make good use of it. He assailed the dissolute monks and claimed ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... Barzaeus, a Fleming by nation. Father Francis had already heard speak of him, as an excellent labourer, and a famous preacher; but his presence, and the testimony of all the ship, gave the saint such great ideas of his merit, that he looked on him from thenceforward as an apostle of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... Browning should in any fashion, however sidelong, acknowledge Byron as anything but the most despicable of mortals, cannot for a moment be imagined; he who understood so many complex beings failed entirely here. Thus, ever in perplexity, I must abjure the theory of Byronic merit. There lurks in this poem no hidden plea for abstention, for the "man who doesn't"—hinted at through compassionate use of his name who made one of the great disastrous ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... list is not formed on any comparative rank or merit, length of service, or other rational principle, but appears to me to be dependent on parliamentary influence alone. Lieutenant Ellison, who lost his arm, is allowed 91l. 5s., Captain Johnstone, who lost his arm, has only 45l. 12s. 6d., Lieutenant Arden, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... prevailing errors on the subject of military science, he wrote his seven books on The Art of War. This excellent work is in the form of a dialogue. The opinions of the writer are put into the mouth of Fabrizio Colonna, a powerful nobleman of the Ecclesiastical State, and an officer of distinguished merit in the service of the King of Spain. Colonna visits Florence on his way from Lombardy to his own domains. He is invited to meet some friends at the house of Cosimo Rucellai, an amiable and accomplished ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... vociferous applause and the simultaneous waving of sixty thousand handkerchiefs. Marcus Marcellus Valerian (stage name—his real name is Smith,) is a splendid specimen of physical development, and an artist of rare merit. His management of the battle-ax is wonderful. His gayety and his playfulness are irresistible, in his comic parts, and yet they are inferior to his sublime conceptions in the grave realm of tragedy. When his ax was describing fiery circles about the heads of the bewildered ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... your schoolmen teach, within Myself, alas! I know; Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, Too small the merit show. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... agent sold a book which had been declined by fifteen houses to the sixteenth. He is willing to persevere with a manuscript and with an author, in spite of rebuffs and discouragement, if he believes that the author has merit; and if he is willing to persevere with an author in the day of small things, he will reap his ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... explaining that to you as far as it is allowable for me to do, my dear Monsieur Froment. You are a priest, your book is a success, you have published a cheap edition of it which sells very readily; and I don't speak of its literary merit, which is remarkable, for it contains a breath of real poetry which transported me, and on which I must really compliment you. However, under the circumstances which I have enumerated, how could we close our eyes to such a work as yours, in which the conclusion arrived at is the annihilation ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... intertwined with the great epoch. In the eyes of the masses and of the vulgar observers, such names acquire a high importance on account of the commonly made confusion between circumstances and personal merit, and, moonlight-like, such names reverberate not their own, but a borrowed splendor. Thus much for the official ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... manny thanks to returne your ladyship for the favour of your letter and oblidging congratulations. My Lord Darwenwater's great merit and agreable temper makes me think I have all the prospect imadgenable of being intierly happy. I desier the favour your ladyship will present my humble sarvise to Sir William. My father and mother joinse with me in this, and dessiers there complements to your ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... Critical Observations upon the Cid; the other, a still more prolific author of novels, and alternately styled by her contemporaries the Sappho of her age, and "un boutique de verbiage;" but unquestionably a writer of merit, notwithstanding the many unmanly sneers of Boileau, whose bitter pen, like that of our own illustrious satirist, could not even consent to spare a female that had been so unfortunate as to provoke his resentment. She died in 1701, at the advanced age ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... we had come to this conclusion, we still continued to follow the trail. We were curious to see what sort of a creature had made it. Perhaps it might be some animal unknown to naturalists,—some new species; and we might one day have the merit of being ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Saul's too, works death: no merit can restore self-respect; when once a man has found himself out, he cannot be deceived again. The heart is as a stone: a speck of canker corrodes and spreads within. What on this earth remains, but endless sorrow, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... were I not to devote a few lines to the great convenience and merit of so-called "centering cement." This substance has two or three very valuable properties. It is very tough and strong in itself, and it remains plastic on cooling for some time before it really sets. ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... Wood (1937) suggest that varieties of high merit should be developed for home plantings over much of the region from lower New England and Great Lakes on the north, and to the Potomac and Arkansas Rivers on the south, and that much of Wisconsin, southern Minnesota, South Dakota, and Nebraska might ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... episode could be buried in oblivion. And I would be willing to wager anything you like that if this war does come off, so false is its sentiment that it will not inspire one great patriotic poem, nor even one of merit, and that the only thing you will accomplish will be to drag Cuba from the relaxing clutches of one tyrant and fling her to a horde of ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... prominent citizen, Edinburgh has been in possession, for some autumn weeks, of a gallery of paintings of singular merit and interest. They were exposed in the apartments of the Scotch Academy; and filled those who are accustomed to visit the annual spring exhibition, with astonishment and a sense of incongruity. Instead of the too common ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cried Doris, "his merit will be recognized; I saw him in my dreams, with a great ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
