"Nigh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his fellow-slaves might come and bathe his wounds in warm water, to prevent his clothing from tearing open his flesh anew, and thus make the second suffering well nigh equal to the first; or they might from their scanty store bring him such food as they could spare, to keep him from suffering hunger, and offer their sympathy, and then drag their own weary bodies to their place of rest, after their daily ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... memories; what more absorbing fellowship than the little busy intimate reflections that came swarming around her, more exciting, more impetuous, more exquisitely disturbing as the hurrying, sunny hours sped away and the first day of June drew nigh? ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... American engineers in many directions. The war itself taught the world that we possessed such a supremacy, and the world will be slow to forget—especially the purchasing side of nations themselves so crippled of man-power as to be for a generation well-nigh helpless. ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... Alexandria, established as a town in 1749, showed signs of becoming a major seaport, and its merchants complained that travel to the courthouse at Springfield was burdensome, and that service of process and execution of writs was well-nigh impossible.[12] They actively campaigned for moving the courthouse to Alexandria, and overcame the opposition of the "up-country" residents by offering to provide a suitable lot and build a ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... his hands were all black, saving only his teeth. His shield and his armour were even those of a Moor, and black as a raven. He rode his steed at full gallop, with many a forward bound. When he beheld the knights, and drew nigh to them, and the one had greeted the other, he cried aloud to Sir Lancelot: "Knight, now give me to wit of one thing which I desire, or guard ye against my spear. The truth will I know. I shall tell ye herewith my custom; ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... throbbing brow, and, pressing like molten lead upon the brain, crushes out thought and feeling, leaving but a dull consciousness of the racking agony which renders each limb a separate instrument of torture. If, on the other hand, it be the mind that is pestilence-stricken, the disease becomes well-nigh unbearable, as it is incurable; and thus it was with me on the night in question. The suspense and anxiety I had undergone during the preceding day had indisposed me for sustaining any fresh annoyance with equanimity, and now, in confirmation of my worst fears, that hateful sentence in old ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... and zeal he set himself to seeking out the neglected, unskilled, and casual laborer. Within a few years he so dominated the movement that, in the public mind, the I.W.W. is associated with the Chicago branch and the Detroit faction is well-nigh forgotten. ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... comin' to Lubbertoo off and on for mighty nigh a month, and as the parents of a family it's time ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... movements of his soundless lips, while his blood seemed freezing to insensibility. His eyelids were closed, and pale, and without sign of animation, he lay at the foot of a tree nigh which he ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... which were as necessary for the advancement and instruction of a young man as mere dry law, after applying with tolerable assiduity to letters, to reviews, to elemental books of law, and, above all, to the newspaper, until the hour of dinner was drawing nigh, these young gentlemen would sally out upon the town with great spirits and appetite, and bent upon enjoying a merry night as they had passed a pleasant forenoon. It was a jovial time, that of four-and-twenty, when every muscle of mind and body was in healthy action, when the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lady referred to. "Yes, your old man asked me, and I accepted, because I have got such loads and loads and loads to tell you about that grand vilyun. Didn't he come nigh doing for that lamb? Never mind, honey"—this to the half-conscious Odalite—"I know it seems hard for you, 'specially if you was fond of him—though why you should 'a' been—Lord! Anyhow, bad as it is now, it would 'a' been ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... a discourteous phrase To say our Lord would make a lie, Who surely pledged thy soul to raise, Though fate should cause thy flesh to die. Thou dost twist His words in crooked ways Believing only what is nigh; This is but pride and bigotry, That a good man may ill assume, To hold no matter trustworthy Till like a judge he hear ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... everyone had left the neighbourhood of the Cross, and a few guards alone stood around it, I saw five persons, who I think were disciples, and who had come by the valley from Bethania, draw nigh to Calvary, gaze for a few moments upon the Cross, and then steal away. Three times I met in the vicinity two men who were making examinations and anxiously consulting together. These men were Joseph of Arimathea ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... how her end was hastened. Brighteye could not, at any rate, have suffered seriously, else he would have succumbed, either to some enemy ever ready to prey on the young, the aged, the sick, and the wounded of his tribe, or to starvation, the well-nigh inevitable follower of disease in animals. He always seemed to me to be full of vitality and happiness, as if the dangers besetting his life only provided him with wholesome excitement, and ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... to and fro. And when I held up the torch to look at his face, there leered down upon me the eyes of my old fellow 'prentice Peter Stoupe! At the sight the torch fell from my hands, and I reeled back into my comrade's arms, stark and cold, well-nigh as the corpse itself. Then there came upon me, with a rush, an inkling of what all this meant. I seized the light again, and dashed past the hall and up the staircase. Every room was still and empty as death. We searched every nook and corner, and called aloud, till the place ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... his unhappy burden towards the river. Walled in by the rush of snowflakes about him he made what way he could, but it was well-nigh impossible to see. The lamps gave no light, for the flakes had built a shutter across the glass like a policeman's dark lantern. The flying multitudes in the air turned him dizzy; he could not tell upon which side of the road he drove, and he ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... of Sherlock J. Andrews, a leading lawyer of the town, who persuaded him to remain and read law in his office until a year should elapse and he could be admitted to the Ohio bar. However, in less than a week he fell ill of a fever which did not leave him until the expense of it had well-nigh emptied his slender purse. His physicians, fearing he was too slight and delicate for Western hardships, urged him to go back to Canandaigua, but when he left Cleveland he again turned westward, resolved in his own mind never to go back without the evidences of success in his life. It is doubtful ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... contact. Leggings and skin robes took their place southward, giving way at last to the nearly nude. Head coverings also were gradually tabooed south of the 49th parallel. Tattooing and painting the body were well-nigh universal. Labrets, i.e. pieces of bone, stone, shell, &c., were worn as ornaments in the lip (Latin, labrum) or cheek by Eskimo, Tlinkit, Nahuatlas and tribes on the Brazilian coast. For ceremonial purposes all American tribes were expert in masquerade and dramatic apparel. A study of these ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... "I'm nigh dead for a drink," he whined. "Let me take your luggage aboard, sir—just a peseta, sir. I've had jungle fever and was shipwrecked—in the H.B. Leeds it was that went down in a typhoon. I can't get a ship out of this blasted place. I'm an honest sailor ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... in the same even tone: "I wanted you should stay and fix up that stove in Mattie's room afore the girl gets here. It ain't been drawing right for nigh on a month now." ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... grab most any chance that comes along. Why, say, kid, it kind of looked to me as if it was sort of meant. Coming just now, like it did, just when it was wanted, and just when it didn't seem possible it could happen. Why, a week ago I was nigh on two hundred votes behind Billy Burton. The Irish-American put him up, and everybody thought he'd be King at the Mardi Gras. And then suddenly they came pouring in for me, till at the finish I had Billy ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... calmly, half hoping that the end of his troubles was drawing nigh. Valentine, whom his mother loved so well, would intercede for Dora. Lord Earle would be sure to relent; and he could bring Dora home, and all would be well. If ever and anon a cold fear crept into his heart that simple, pretty Dora would be sadly out of place in that magnificent ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... roguish glint of them, which so far disconcerted the usually self-possessed professor of the whip that he heard not the landlady's laugh, but gathered up the reins in such a hasty and careless manner as to cause Demon, the nigh-leader, to go off with a bound that nearly threw the owner of the eyes out of her place. The little flurry gave opportunity for Mrs. Dolly Page—that was the lady's name—to drop her veil over her face, and for Sam Rice to show his genteel handling of the ribbons, and conquer ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... Ma'am, the binzole. It's the Divil's own stuff to manage, an' there's no thrustin' it wid so much as the light uv a pipe nigh hand. The air is full of it; and if you was so much as to sthrike a match here where we stand, it ud be all day wid us 'fore we'd time to think uv it. You should know that yersilf, Sir," continued he, turning to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... turned towards the part of the horizon which Quirini had pointed out; and as he looked, his face changed. "Quick," said he, calling to the sailors who were nearest, "bid them draw in the sails. Let the rudder be bound firmly, for the tempest is well nigh on us—alas! for these terrible ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... no description from me—even if I could give it. It seemed the very expression of the man, his interpretation of himself. Mr. Beecher was to all appearance well-nigh reckless in the vigour with which he made statements that seemed to him to be true, with little or no regard to their relation to other truths. The result was that he was charged with being grossly inconsistent. One day he would preach a sermon that would have delighted the ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... he said. "Blame the devotion of thy servant to thee and to the Faith he serves with little reck to life. In this very expedition was I wounded nigh unto death. The livid scar of it is a dumb witness to my zeal. Where are thy ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... to hold the girl's trembling hands in a strong, protecting clasp, while she still gazed steadily into her eyes, until, as if overcome by a will stronger than her own—her physical strength being well-nigh exhausted—the white lids gradually drooped, the rigid form relaxed, the lines smoothed themselves out of her brow, and she was soon sleeping ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... open air would diminish the sick line, produce better work, and help to put a soul in any prison. Desultory exercise—say two or three hours of baseball on Saturdays—does not meet the need—it emphasizes it rather. But at present the well-nigh universal aim seems to be to render the gray monotony of prison slavery as monotonous and as gray as possible. Any relief from it is opposed or made difficult. It is true that at Atlanta and elsewhere we have music (that is what ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... living? Yes, so long As there is wrong to right, Wail of the weak against the strong, Or tyranny to fight; Long as there lingers gloom to chase Or streaming tear to dry, One kindred woe, one sorrowing face, That smiles as we draw nigh."[7] ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... moment listened to the cry That thickened as the chase drew nigh, Then, as the headmost foes appeared, With one brave ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... other night," one of the boatmen remarked to Frank, as a few days after the adventure he strolled down with Ruthven and Handcock to talk to the boatman whose boat had been lost, "a very narrow shave. I had one out there myself when I was just about your age, nigh forty years ago. I went out for a sail with my father in his fishing boat, and I didn't come back for three years. That was the only long voyage I ever went. I've been ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... characteristics of harmony and modulation is often obliged to take a flying leap backwards over a space of centuries in order to investigate old Church modes, or Persian and Arabian scale systems, both so ancient as to be well-nigh forgotten ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... we turn to the subject of this study that we see most clearly the deficiencies in these explanations—to the "classic well-nigh universal major taboo" of the woman shunned. Dr. Marett uses her as his most telling argument against the inclusiveness of the concepts of Dr. Frazer and of MM. Hubert and Mauss. He says: "It is difficult to conceive of sympathy, and sympathy only, as the ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... "But that was nigh twenty years ago. It were Mr. Baldwin as keeps a inn at Salthill as started to run 'em daily. The coach stops at the Belle Savage, Ludgate. Be that near where you want to ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... theories have been founded upon 'Hamlet' —the drama richest in philosophical contents. Over and over again men have hoped to be able to ascertain, from this tragedy, the great master's ideas about religion. It is well-nigh impossible to say how often such attempts have been made, but the reward of the exertions has always remained unsatisfactory. On the feelings which this masterwork of dramatic art still excites to-day—nearly three hundred years ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... not at this pleasant jink in high life. She had been invited, but her ladyship had once let Tommy kiss her hand for the first and last time, so he decided sternly that this was no place for Elspeth. When temptation was nigh, he first locked Elspeth up, and ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... "'Most nigh the place," came the prompt reply. "This here's the burnin' where the charcoal was made last year. On'y a little furder, an' we'll be up to dad. And oh! I hopes he's alive yet, I ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... Jaspar had well-nigh recovered his self-possession under the stroke of this, to him, severe satire; but De Guy gave him ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... "the singular silence" as to authorship which runs through the whole of the early Icelandic literature is rather a blessing than otherwise. It frees him from those biographical inquiries which always run the risk of drawing nigh to gossip, and it enables him to concentrate attention on the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... telling on her enfeebled constitution; she said she could not have got along at all had it not been for Miss Latimer's great kindness. It seemed that the old maid was her constant visitor, bringing her flowers, taking her drives, comforting her in the dark hours when her courage was nigh spent. "A good and noble woman," wrote the old lady, "and very much in love with ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... Wallachs, and Turks, promised to desolate the slopes of the Balkans, of Rhodope and the Pindus, and to spread the lava tide of war over the half of the Continent. The Russians and Bulgars, swarming over Roumelia, glutted their revenge for past defeats and massacres by outrages well-nigh as horrible as that of Batak. At once the fierce Moslems of the Rhodope Mountains rose in self-defence or for vengeance. And while the Russian eagles perforce checked their flight within sight of Stamboul, the Greeks and Armenians of that capital—nay, the very ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... lucky maid, my Margery, for instead of only one mother you have two: me, here below, to care for you and foster you, and the other up among the angels above, looking down on you and beseeching the all-gracious Virgin who is so nigh to her, to keep your little heart pure, and to preserve you from all ill; nay, perhaps she herself is wearing a glory and a heavenly crown. Look at her face." And Cousin Maud held up the lamp so that the light ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... by a Compliment in prose and verse, addressed to Mlle. Silvia the same year that the first Surprise de l'Amour appeared. Marivaux joined also in the well-nigh universal chorus of praise which rose on all sides in celebration of the graceful actress. If the author contributed much to the perfection of her talent, she, too, lent no small part to the popularity which ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... knowed 'bout it. Paw knows nigh everything 'bout what's doin' up here. Reckon you-all'll have er right smart time gittin' to the loot'nant's property ever, 'cause that's where Bat an' ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... The strokes and stripes of flatterers, which within Are lechery unto him, and so feed His brutish sense with their afflicting sound, As, dead to virtue, he permits himself Be carried like a pitcher by the ears, To every act of vice: this is the case Deserves our fear, and doth presage the nigh And close approach of blood and tyranny. Flattery is midwife unto prince's rage: And nothing sooner doth help forth a tyrant, Than that and whisperers' grace, who have the time, The place, the power, to ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... approaches the patient's pillow, and sees a new and strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the insufferable moment draws nigh, knows that it is God's will his idol should be broken, and bends his head, and subdues his soul to the sentence he cannot avert, and scarce ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Eretrians, making mention of them only by the way, he passes over in silence a great, gallant, and memorable action of theirs. For when all Ionia was in a confusion and uproar, and the King's fleet drew nigh, they, going forth to meet him, overcame in a sea-fight the Cyprians in the Pamphylian Sea. Then turning back and leaving their ships at Ephesus, they invaded Sardis and besieged Artaphernes, who was fled into the castle, that so they might ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... my first duty, therefore, to discover the murderer, I saw no reason why I should not at the same time find the well-nigh priceless gem, inasmuch as I hoped that the latter would ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... the cry when the news of this mischance was noised about the city. Such a tumult of mourning was never before heard, for the whole city was moved. All men hastened forth to the place where the lists were set. Meetly to mourn the dead there rode nigh upon two thousand knights, with hauberks unlaced, and uncovered heads, plucking upon their beards. So the four lovers were placed each upon his shield, and being brought back in honour to Nantes, were carried to the house ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... expression or manner. They went into the dining-room, and talked together much as usual during dinner. As soon as dinner was over, and the parlor-maid had gone out, having finished her ministrations, which to Dion that night had seemed innumerable and well-nigh unbearable, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... o' hated," he said, "to be a-telling on the gals, but then, agin, he hadn't been there nigh eighteen years without learning that gals were gals, as well as boys were boys, and weren't allers—not zactly allers—doin' jist right; perhaps it was best to let Miss Ashton know, and then—there now—he hated ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... There wasn't one of us rough nuts but respected her. She was one of the few beautiful Injin women I've seen. Well, it come out that Piccadilly had ruined her, and one morning she was found dead. It drove my pal well-nigh crazy. Not that she was anything partik'ler to him; but the thing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... less forcibly or fraudulently obtained. There were, however, a great number of modest competencies, which were recognized by public opinion as being no more than a fair measure of the service rendered by their possessors to the community. Below these there was the vast mass of well-nigh wholly penniless toilers, the real people. Here there was indeed abundance of ethical title to property, for these were the producers of all; but beyond the shabby clothing they wore, they ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... President who had so wisely and successfully conducted his great office and administered all its powers to the attainment of that happy result, and it was not unnatural or strange that the shocking event should greatly re-inflame the passions of the strife that the joys of peace had at last well nigh laid. ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... company has been committed to the fire fight, verbal commands cannot be heard, and it is well nigh impossible even to secure attention to signals. It is, therefore, most important that we should train and practice the company as much as possible during time of peace in the rapid and accurate transmission of orders and signals along ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... fighting for the Legionnaires, save over the frontier in Morocco, or far away in the South! The shrine of Sidi-bel-Abbes stood neglected in the Arab graveyard. Even the meaning of the name, once sacred to his followers, was well-nigh forgotten; and all that was Arab in Sidi-bel-Abbes had been relegated to the Village Negre, strictly forbidden as Blue Beard's Room of Secrets, to the Soldiers ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... synonyms as our constant lackeys—that we should be able to summon, not a word that will do, but a word that will express the idea with precision. Exercises scattered throughout the book, together with five of the six appendices, provide well-nigh ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... effort, to endeavor. By about the year 2200 B.C. we find Egypt fallen into the grip of a cold and lifeless formalism. Everything was fixed by law; even pictures must be drawn in a certain way, thoughts must be expressed by stated and unvariable symbols. Advance became well-nigh impossible. Everything lay in the hands of a priestly caste the completeness of whose dominion has perhaps never been matched in history. The leaders lived lives of luxurious pleasure enlightened by scientific study; but the people scarce existed except ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... digging, reaping, sowing, Bearing burdens, and far and nigh Begging for him on the highway Of the ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... well nigh crushes me at times, for the Lord knows that I want to lead His people aright. How I yearn for absolute surrender upon the part of myself and of my church! When I remember Christ's words, 'Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,' it makes me fear that many, indeed, of this generation ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... the father. Then he proceeded to explain. "You see my poor wife she was down in lodgings and hadn't no friends nor relations no'ther nigh her, and she took ill and never got over the birth of this here babe, and so it couldn't be done. But the kid's aunt'll see to all that right enough when I've ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... was now on the close, and the time for the election of consuls drew nigh; but a letter from Marcellus, in which he stated, that it would not be for the interest of the state that he should depart a single step from Hannibal, whom he was severely pressing while retreating before him and evading an engagement, had excited anxiety, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... may recall, I had on their arrival noted the jaded condition of their cattle, whilst I bestrode a horse that was comparatively fresh, so that pursuit had but small terrors for me. Nevertheless, they held out longer, and gave me more to do than I had imagined would be the case. For nigh upon a half-hour I rode, before I could be said to have got clear of them, and then for aught I knew they were still following, resolved to hound me down by the aid of such information as they might cull ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... small marsh-surrounded knob in the Mississippi river—had been selected by General Beauregard, and fortified with all the appliances of his great engineering skill, until deemed well-nigh impregnable. It was looked upon as the key to the defenses of the river, and of the line of railroad communication between New Orleans and the West with the Capital. In the middle of March the Federal flotilla commenced a furious ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... fifty lasts of rye and fifty lasts of peas still remained over around the fort after a large quantity had been burnt and destroyed by the Indians, who in a short time nearly brought this country to nought and had well nigh destroyed this good hope, in ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... sooner had Julius Caesar restored and rebuilt the ruined city, than it sprang at once again into importance, and among the societies addrest in the Epistles of St. Paul, none seems to have lived in greater wealth or luxury. It was, in fact, well-nigh impossible that Corinth should die. Nature had marked out her site as one of the great thoroughfares of the old world; and it was not till after centuries of blighting misrule by the wretched Turks that she sank into the hopeless decay from which not even another ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... with the dawning of day the fiend of the flood is but mortal—that with the crowing of the cock his power is at an end; and they are urging their limbs to their utmost speed, for see, the gleam of red tells that day is nigh. The little messenger from the Great Spirit still points the pathway, and under his care and guidance they speedily gain the mid-height. Alas for the lovers! Heaven preserve them in this their hour of extreme peril, for see, the horrible fiend is on their track, straining every ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... prescribed limits of the "vulgar tongue," or the Italian in which Petrarch and Boccaccio had written. What he says about grace, however, applies also to conversation: "I say that in everything it is so hard to know the true perfection as to be well-nigh impossible; and this because of the variety of opinions. Thus there are many who will like a man who speaks much, and will call him pleasing; some will prefer modesty; some others an active and restless man; still others one who shows calmness and ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... difficulties were well-nigh appalling. Towering buildings along the streets had to be considered, and the streets themselves were already occupied with a complicated network of subsurface structures, such as sewers, water and gas ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... said the old skipper, 'I only wish that I was a young man, for the girl is said to be as handsome as a mermaid, and as for money, I s'pose she's worth devilish nigh upon two ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... we are confident of, and hope for, a future in which this prophecy shall anew powerfully manifest itself The broken power of the Mahommedan delusion opens up the prospect, that the time in which this hope is to be realized is drawing nigh. ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... beyond any reasonable doubt, the fact that, in a large number of cases, a flower is a piece of mechanism the object of which is to convert insect visitors into agents of fertilisation. Sprengel's observations had been most undeservedly neglected and well-nigh forgotten; but Robert Brown having directed Darwin's attention to them in 1841, he was attracted towards the subject, and verified many of Sprengel's statements. (III, p. 258.) It may be doubted whether there was a living botanical specialist, except perhaps Brown, who had done as much. If, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... is, Madame, that now we approach or, so to speak, draw nigh or adjacent—in other words, Madame, ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... excellent accord these tenors and basses, so blameless in their living, lifted up their voices and sang they "would that the wavelets of ocean were wavelets of sparkling champagne!" It was a blithe and rippling morceau if one could forget the well-nigh cosmic depravity of it; but Miss Caroline, it appeared, was not able to forget. She confided as much to Marcella Eubanks and Aunt Delia McCormick, intimating that while she was doubly desirous to be pleased because of her position as an outsider, she was, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... from bemoaning his fate, but the other passengers counted the hours one by one and their hearts began to drum against their ribs. They scanned the sea and the harbor bar with aching eyes, for the two days were well-nigh spent and there was never a sign of the long-boat and the messengers with the ransom of medicines which should avert the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... ropes about him was not necessary as he did not leave the cabinet anyhow, but it added to the effectiveness of the illusion. But on this evening, after the electric wire broke causing a short circuit, the tying of the ropes was well-nigh fatal, for the professor could not move in order to escape, and had to stay while the current burned him. Luckily, however, Joe ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... few days Pat had a sharp struggle for his life. Pneumonia clutched him in its grip, and the sound of his painful breathing was heard all over the little flat. There was a dreadful night when hope was well-nigh extinguished, when Stephen Glynn and the two sisters seemed to wrestle with the very angel of death, and Pat himself to face the end. "Shall I—die?" he gasped, and Bridgie's answering smile seemed to hold ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... replied Seth, holding forth the missive in his shriveled and bony fingers, "for nigh on to sixty-five year, Mr. Martin, I've fit and work'd and work'd and fit jest for my vittles and drink. Neow when I'm tew old tew 'joy it, a fortin comes ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... things besides the lovely clothes to make him contented and happy. First, the beautiful woman of the hills who loved and cherished him and made him call her by the sweet name of "mother" so many times every day that he well nigh forgot she was not his real mother. Then there was the great stony hill-side on which he now lived for a playground, where he could wander all day among the rocks, overgrown with creepers and strange sweet-smelling flowers he ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... hurried out and throwed boords down for dhe poor little baste to stand on, an' let down a hoe on a sthring, an' whin she got dhe poor little dhing out, she was dhat faint that she dhrapped on dhe grass. An' it cost Mr. Lawrence nigh onto thirty dollars to have dhe docthor's well ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... instant he saw his master down, and the buffalo turning to charge again, he sprang forward with a roar that would have done credit to his bovine enemy, and seized him by the nose. So vigorous was the rush that he well-nigh pulled the bull down on its side. One toss of its head, however, sent Crusoe high into the air; but it accomplished this feat at the expense of its nose, which was torn and lacerated by the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage? Perhaps it was the gift of Heaven—a happy convergence of natural laws. Among other things opportunity had of late years been denied her of learning to be undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation on a heath renders vulgarity well-nigh impossible. It would have been as easy for the heath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her. A narrow life in Budmouth might have completely ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... to make, if he had not read the Neo-Platonists; for Marsilius Ficinus himself regarded this work as a pendant to them, and published it as such. Which work I declared was not a Christian Platonic forgery, but based on old Egyptian works, as has since been well-nigh proved from recent discoveries. (I think it was Dr. Garnett who, hearing me once declare in the British Museum that I believed Hermes was based on an ancient Egyptian text, sent for a French work in which the same view ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... soon drew nigh, Not in his Shape Celestial; but as Man Clad to meet Man: over his lucid Arms A Military Vest of Purple flow'd, Livelier than Meliboean, or the Grain Of Sarra, worn by Kings and Heroes old, In time of Truce: Iris ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Gwyllim Jones—with the black eyes, abundant black hair, beautiful features (he was a handsome lad) and glorious voice, addressed meetings in the open air and in every available building of four walls. Thousands withdrew their names from foot-ballery, nigh on Two Millions must have taken the pledge—and not merely an anti-whiskey pledge but a fierce renunciation of the most diluted alcohol as well; and approximately two hundred and fifty thousand confessed their sins of unchastity and swore to be reborn Galahads for the rest ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... channel for the expression of their sentiment, the sentiment is going on rapidly, and before their next meeting those three States will be solidly embodied in sentiment with the six southern and western ones. The atrocious proceedings of France towards this country had well nigh destroyed its liberties. The Anglomen and monocrats had so artfully confounded the cause of France with that of freedom, that both went down in the same scale. I sincerely join you in abjuring all political connection with every foreign ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... France the outward signs of religion were still adhered to, the savants and literati were already paving the way by their false philosophy for that terrific outbreak of popular fury which deluged their country in blood, and well-nigh rooted out all that was noble and good and worthy in the land. At this time in Saint Domingo, and probably in the other French dependencies, there was an ostentatious show of religion which was sadly belied ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... me," one little dried-up old man with fierce moustaches and very gentle eyes was saying, "what we got a sheriff for. This sort of gun play's been runnin' high for nigh on six months now, an' Cole Dalton ain't boarded anybody in his little ol' jail any worse'n hoboes an' drunks for so long it makes a feller wonder what a jail an' a ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... matters that just happen. They require any amount of work and experience with audiences. None of the singers I have named is a novice. Nor will you find novices who are able to sing Schumann and Franz lieder, although they may be blessed with well-nigh perfect vocal organs. ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... Evan the outlaw, and my life is yours because you forgave me a little once, and saved me from the wolves, giving that life back to me when I knew it well nigh gone." ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... This represents the well-nigh universal Greek opinion. Poetry inspires, teaches, makes better men. A further example of this idea is furnished by Timocles. "Our spirit," says one of the characters in the drama, "forgetting its own sorrows in sympathizing ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... "thy commandment shall be done: but I would have thee give me a dagger that has been tempered in water of dearth,[FN158] that I may despatch him the quicklier for thee." "So be it," said Sasan and gave her a knife that would well-nigh forego destiny. Now this woman had heard stories and verses and committed to memory great store of witty traits and anecdotes: so she took the dagger and went out, considering how she should compass Kanmakan's destruction. Then she repaired to the prince, whom she found sitting ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... a bit of criticism to be made on Evaleen's conduct, nor on Arlington's. He couldn't help himself, no more than a fly in a honey-pot. The minute he saw your gal, he fell slap dab in love with her. The poor feller was nigh about dead for love the day we sot on ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... said David. "Wa'al, the's worse places 'n Homeville—after you git used to it," he added in qualification. "I ben back here a matter o' thirteen or fourteen year now, an' am gettin' to feel my way 'round putty well; but not havin' ben in these parts fer putty nigh thirty year, I found it ruther lonesome to start with, an' I guess if it hadn't 'a' ben fer Polly I wouldn't 'a' stood it. But up to the time I come back she hadn't never ben ten mile away f'm here in her hull life, an' I couldn't budge her. But then," he remarked, "while Homeville ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... because you love me, and I wish to die as easily as may be and to join my husband. Only if the child could have lived, as I think, all three of us would have dwelt together eternally. Nay, not all three, all four, for you are well-nigh as dear to me, Nou, as husband or ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... that they would travel safely, and she had put them in and taken them out again so many times that when at last she had done, and glanced up with a sigh of relief to look for the others, she saw with dismay that the short winter's day was well-nigh over. The sun had disappeared quite suddenly, leaving behind it a leaden, lowering sky, while in the distance hung a thick mist, which told of heavy ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... keen, amused eyes,—nor how Miss Prissy assured Mary, in the confidential solitude of her chamber, that her fingers just itched to get hold of that trimming on Madame de Frog—something's dress, because she was pretty nigh sure she could make some just like it, for she never saw any trimming she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... the town she troll'd by him; A lang half-mile she could descry him; Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him. She ran wi' speed; A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam' nigh ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... "Wal, arter all, I nigh upon forgot my arrant. Here's a letter they giv' me fur Lurindy, at the post-office; ev'rybody else's afeard ter come up here";—and by-and-by she brought it up from under all she'd stowed away there. "Thet jest ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... was one of well-nigh unmitigated misfortune, and his bearing up against it is not more of a proof of stoic fortitude than of innate cheerfulness. His cause lost, his ideals in the dust, his enemies triumphant, his friends dead on the scaffold, or exiled, or imprisoned, his name ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... of this work began much earlier, for we find in the inventory of "St. James's House, nigh Westminster," 1549: "42 Item. A table wherein is a man holding a sword in his one hand and a sceptre in his other hand of needlework, partly garnished with seed pearl" ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... I'd nigh 'pon given you up. Your table's been spread this hour, an' at last I was forced to ask some o' the young folks if ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... running and coursing through your veins, that, in spite of all the teachings and practices of self-denial in the convent life in which you had lived so many years, yet, when the hour of death drew nigh and your soul was hovering on the borders of the unknown eternity, your thoughts once more went back to the old home-scenes, and you longed, as only a child can, for the sight of a mother's face, the sound ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... her sofa, and sipping her chocolate, had heard nothing but the low word business, for which she had a mortal aversion, insomuch that she had long banished it from her vocabulary, and had gone nigh, in a charming manner and with an immense amount of heart, to say nothing of soul, to ruin divers milliners and others in consequence. Therefore Mrs Skewton asked no questions, and showed no curiosity. Indeed, the peach-velvet bonnet gave ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... tears I pray That thou wilt not go lightly nigh them, But ride about another way, Far distant off thou ...
— Proud Signild - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... not have troubled you again, but that she, poor lady, is anxious to possess the books soon, as she never looks forward to living through a year: and she finds that Jeremy Taylor sounds a good note of preparation for that last hour which she looks upon as drawing nigh. I myself think she will live much longer: as she is wonderfully healthy for her time of life—seventy-six. {45} Sometimes I talk to her about you: and she loves you by report. You never grudge any trouble for your friends: but as this is a little act of kindness for an old and noble ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... the Christmas-pie, That the thief, though ne'er so sly, With his flesh-hooks, don't come nigh, To catch it ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... without book, an' the stannin' up to one long prayer, istid o' changin' your postur. But la! there's nothin' as you mayn't get used to i' time; you can al'ys sit down, you know, before the prayer's done. The ministers say pretty nigh the same things as the Church parsons, by what I could iver make out, an' we're out o' chapel i' the mornin' a deal sooner nor they're out o' church. An' as for pews, ourn's is a deal comfortabler nor ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... not his only joy. He hovered till he saw "A something-pottle-bodied boy," Who spurned MCKINLEY'S Law. He stooped and clutched him, fair and good, Flew nigh o'er roof and casement, Whilst the Republicans all stood ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... the Pyrenees; from seaports in France and cities of the plain, we hear that the cholera has been striking down its victims. The Phantom with the deadly breath has shown strange caprice in his coming and going; but when he has been suspected to be nigh at hand, wild-eyed Panic has shown herself as of old. It is sad and discouraging to find that, spite of all our boasted progress—all that science has taught us, and all that we are supposed to have learnt—the attitude ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... details, the Stevensons often were on their wanderings, and how supremely happy people, whose tastes and habits suit each other, can be without the artificial surroundings and luxuries of society and civilisation that most folk consider well-nigh necessary to ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... plucky lad was well-nigh exhausted. The strain of holding to the slippery rock in the face of the swift current was one that would have taxed the strength of the strongest man, to say nothing of the almost freezing cold water, which chilled the blood ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... tell you, and do you meditate well upon it, that) you yourself are not destined to live long, for even now death is drawing nigh unto you, and a violent fate awaits you,—about to be slain in fight by the hands of Achilles, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... mortally hurted by the fust shot," said Hank, as they stood over the gaunt animal, and surveyed her proportions with almost a touch of awe; "but seemed like the critter had enough strength left t' make thet leap, as nigh knocked me flat. Then she jest keeled over, an' guv up the ghost. Arter this the young heifers kin stray away from their mother's sides, without bein' dragged off. Thar'll be a vote o' thanks sent ter ye, Bob, from every ranch inside of fifty ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... thousand and one nights; to see even a thousand and one days increased by a thousand and one battles, adding to that a thousand and one victories, one would have a thousand and a million million things —fine, glorious, delightful, to hear. For, remember, comrades," and the old man well-nigh exploded with his mathematical calculation, and the grandeur of his own recollections, "remember you this: I never ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... this. I had well-nigh forgot that, at the close of my history, I should find one remembrance so endearing, and one pang so keen. Rapidly I sketched to Gerald the ill fate of Aubrey; but lingeringly did I dwell upon Montreuil's organized and most ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
