"Nothing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him to go about at night, and certainly not beyond the enclosure without a guard—it was insufficient. In unfolding the paper Laflamme purposely dropped it in the mud. He hastily picked it up, and, in doing so, smeared it. He wiped it, leaving the signature comparatively plain—nothing else. "Well," said the sentinel, "the signature is right. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... lunatic member of a family among the poor is thus graphically described by a member of the Committee which prepared this valuable Report: "There is nothing so shocking as madness in the cabin of the peasant, where the man is out labouring in the fields for his bread, and the care of the woman of the house is scarcely sufficient for the attendance on the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... not the stomacke, all with a like sauorinesse, but some carrie a rancke taste, and require a former mortification: and some are good to bee eaten while they are young, but nothing tooth-some, as they grow elder. The Guls, Pewets, and most of the residue, breed in little desert Ilands, bordering on both coastes, laying their Egges on the grasse, without making any [36] nests, from whence the owner of the land causeth the young ones to be fetched about Whitsontide, for the ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... watchful eye on this young girl. I should not be surprised to find that she was carrying out some ideal, some fancy or whim,—possibly nothing more, but springing from some generous, youthful impulse. Perhaps she is working for that little sister at the Blind Asylum. Where did she learn French? She did certainly blush, and betrayed every sign of understanding the words spoken about her in that language. Sometimes she sings while ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Parties are nothing to these leaders, except as parties may be used by them. So long as there is Republican administration and Congress, they will lead their followers to support Republican tickets; but if, by any ...
— Conditions in Utah - Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United States • Thomas Kearns
... to Tom, to find that there was no danger from an earth tremor. Now that he had made up his mind to go in search of the diamond makers, he wanted nothing to interfere with it. Lest the feelings of Mr. Parker might be hurt by the mistake he had made, the young inventor cautioned Eradicate not to say anything ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... I can speak to you as I could to no one else. I will conceal nothing from you. I was partly to blame ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... there were a great many persons of my acquaintance who owned to serious qualms over flesh-eating, and perhaps the greater part of refined persons were not without pangs of conscience at various times over the practice. The trouble was, there really seemed nothing else to do. It was just like our economic system. Humane persons generally admitted that it was very bad and brutal, and yet very few could distinctly see what the world was going to replace it with. You people seem to have succeeded in perfecting a cuisine ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... and never opened his mouth to say a word. But he was thinking of his friend who was dead, and whose words in Spanish had reminded him of his sunny home. The people around him did not know that, and thought nothing of his silence. So the parrot in his cold and bleak cage pined and pined for his sunny home land, but never a ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... rather of the ship's anchorage, at the time this survey was made, was 66 deg. 42' 30", and the longitude 164 deg. 12' 50". There were several circumstances which induced Kotzebue to hope that he had at length found the channel which led to the Atlantic: nothing was seen but sea to the eastward, and a strong current ran to the north-east. Under these circumstances, thirteen days were occupied in examining the shores of this opening; but no outlet was discovered, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Park or Whitechapel, and in next to no time at all, you'd run into the whole jam-boiling of them. London's the queer place for seeing queer people. Never be content, John, when you're a man, to stay on in this place where nothing ever happens to anyone, but quit off out of it and see the world. There's all sorts in London, black men and yellow men, and I wouldn't be surprised but there's a wheen of Red Indians, too, with, ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... comparison of remedies made before administering them. The overseer must record in the prescription book every dose of medicine administered." Weston said he would never grudge a doctor's bill, however large; but he was anxious to prevent idleness under pretence of illness. "Nothing," said he, "is so subversive of discipline, or so unjust, as to allow people to sham, for this causes the well-disposed to do ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... le Duc d'Orleans, and proposed to Frejus to administer it immediately. Frejus proposed it to the King as a fitting thing, and M. le Duc instantly took it. Shortly after, M. le Duc went away; the crowd in the adjoining rooms augmented his suite, and in a moment nothing was talked ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... pupil like Theodore is in the nature of an investment," Bauer hastened to explain. "An advertisement. After hearing him play, and after what Schabelitz here will have to say for him, Wolfsohn will certainly give Theodore lessons for nothing, or next to nothing. You remember"—proudly—"I offered to teach him without charge, but you would ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... the colour rubbed off their wings. Do you mean to tell me that that chap is catching those insects for nothing?" ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... than two thousand acres; at the present day scarcely a single tree can be found there. It is also said that in 1709 there were quantities of dead trees in Sandy Bay; this place is now so utterly desert that nothing but so well attested an account could have made me believe that they could ever have grown there. The fact that the goats and hogs destroyed all the young trees as they sprang up, and that in the course of time the old ones, which were ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... toward the letter that still gleamed in the young man's hand. "We goes on document'ry evidence," he said. "I takes a bold and open stand on the general plea of 'Not guilty' to nothing. That's technical, and it's arbitrary. Should you be asked had I ever expressed an opinion as to being a highwayman, or a lowwayman, you can report me ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... normal activity of growth may be restored. Till this moment nothing would be gained by any of these changes. One or other of them is now conducive to progressive absorption of energy by the organism, and one or other occurs, most generally the best of them, subdivision. Two units now exist; the total mass immediately ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... river and rail run through a deep cleft in the North Downs forming the Mole valley and facing the sandstone hills of the Weald. In the shallow depression between the two ranges lies Dorking (23-1/4 m.). The town is pleasant but has nothing of much interest for the visitor. It is for its fine situation from a scenic point of view and as a convenient headquarters from which to explore the best of Surrey that it will be appreciated. The rebuilt parish church is imposing and stands on the site ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... Not that the thirty calendar years of that lady would necessarily have conducted her across the indefinite boundaries of the uncertain region known as "middle age," but the second Mrs. Allan was born middle-aged, and the almanac had nothing ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... cried the king good-naturedly; "but a moment gone you were chiding me because I did nothing. I may not fill my coffers as you suggested, but I shall please my eye, which is something. Come; you have something to ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Ferice sent an auditor from time to time to look into the state of affairs, a proceeding which Contini bitterly resented while Orsino expressed himself perfectly indifferent to the interference, on the ground that there was nothing to conceal. Had the books been badly kept, the final winding up of each contract would have been retarded for one or more weeks. But the more deeply Orsino became involved, the more keenly he felt the value and, at last, the vital importance, of the most minute accuracy. If worse came to worst ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... with a suggestion that Indian colonization in Texas would be far preferable to colonization elsewhere, although if nothing better could be done, he would advocate the selection of the Osage land on the Arkansas and its tributaries.[670] Why he wanted to steer clear of ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... "I am saying nothing! The law protects them in their lawlessness. It doesn't protect us in our lawfulness. The American citizen is the law-maker. There is only one thing for an American citizen to do—get to ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... an important part in the production of the criminal, needs to be carefully guarded. It means precisely this and nothing more:—That where an hereditary influence (such as above described) making crime easier, has been transmitted, there that influence is an important factor in the production of the criminal. It does NOT mean that this influence ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... heaped in ridges, or broken into hollows in a manner not to be described. Even my animal, though used to the path, felt his footing at every step, and if the torch was by accident extinguished, he stopped, and nothing could make him move. My guide, Andrea, was very vigilant and attentive, and, in the few words of Italian he knew, encouraged me, and assured me there was no danger. I had, however, no fear: in fact, I was infinitely too much interested ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... until they could procure a wagon. In his reply the brother scorns this advice, says that he would not stop in New York if he were offered 10,000 pounds besides his expenses, and adds "Brothers, sisters, fathers or mothers, when they put a stumbling block in the way of my salvation, are nothing more to me than Gentiles. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and when we start we will go right up to Zion, if we go ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... proverbial expression for having no judgment. See Sophocles, Fragm. 307; Plato, "Charmides," 154 B; Erasmus, "Adagia." So we say a person's mind is a blank sheet on a subject he knows nothing about. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... when I once attempted to read Pope's poems, out of school hours, I was laughed at, and called "a sap;" as my mother, when I went to school, renounced her own instructions; and as, whatever school-masters may think to the contrary, one learns nothing now-a-days by inspiration: so of everything which relates to English literature, English laws, and English history (with the exception of the said story of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Essex,) you have the same right to suppose that I was, at the age of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... youth nothing is certainly known, but it is believed that he was b. near Aberdeen, and studied at Oxford and Paris. He entered the Church, and rose to ecclesiastical preferment and Royal favour. He is known to have been Archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357, when, and again ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... is nothing at all except a memory. There is to-day little suggestion of royal origin about the smug and murky surroundings of the Chateau de Vincennes; but nevertheless, it once was a royal residence, and the drama which unrolled ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... be supposed that a singer's breathing is something strange or complex, for it is nothing more than an amplification of normal, healthy breathing. In contrast, however, to the undisciplined casual breathing of the general public, the singer is ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... never extinguished. To defile the altar by blowing the flame with one's breath was a capital offence; and to burn a corpse was regarded as an act equally odious. When victims were offered to fire, nothing but a small portion of the fat was consumed in the flame. Next to fire, water was reverenced. Sacrifice was offered to rivers, lakes, and fountains, the victim being brought near to them and then ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... the interest of Christian writers; accordingly, among the earliest of these mention is made of the Buddha or Phthah, though there were as yet few or none to appreciate all the religious significance of his teachings. Terebinthus declared there was nothing in the pagan world to be compared with his (Buddha's) P'hra-ti-moksha, or Code of Discipline, which in some respects resembled the rules that governed the lives of the monks of Christendom; Marco Polo says of Buddha, "Si fuisset Christianus, fuisset apud Deum maximus factus"; ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... sculptors, and as Greek sculpture is the finest sculpture of which we have any knowledge, it follows that Phidias was the first sculptor of the world. And yet, in spite of his fame, we do not know the time of his birth. We know that he was the son of Charmidas, but we know nothing of the father except that he had a brother who was a painter, and this makes it probable that the family of ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... rapidly undermined all this theological chronology. Not to speak of other noted men, we have early in the present century Young, Champollion, and Rosellini, beginning a new epoch in the study of the Egyptian monuments. Nothing could be more cautious than their procedure, but the evidence was soon overwhelming in favour of a vastly longer existence of man in the Nile Valley than could be made to agree with even the longest duration then allowed ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... forty miles with no stations between. On this route we used two sets of drivers. This gave one driver a chance to rest a week to recuperate from his long trip across the "Long Route." A great many of the drivers had nothing but abuse for the Indians because they were afraid of them. This made the Indians feel, when they met, that the driver considered him a mortal foe. However, our author says that had the drivers taken time and trouble to have ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... the end of the tenth chapter, added fifty more, and issued the whole in The Golden Era. When the continuation had been running some time, Mr. Harte discovered the fraud, and inserted a card in the same paper, advising the public that he had nothing whatever to do with this further amplification of his story. Afterward, when the whole was published in book form, he instituted legal proceedings ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... indeed, could I forbear smiling at myself, when the queen used to place me upon her hand towards a looking-glass, by which both our persons appeared before me in full view together; and there could be nothing more ridiculous than the comparison; so that I really began to imagine myself dwindled many degrees below ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... folly should be in thy heart while thou livest, and after that to go to the dead, when so much life stands before thee, and light to see the way to it? (Eccl 9:3). Surely, men void of grace, and possessed of carnal minds, must either think that sin is nothing, that hell is easy, and that eternity is short; or else that whatever God has said about the punishing of sinners, he will never do as he has said; or that there is no sin, no God, no heaven, no hell, and so no good or bad hereafter; or else they could not live as they do. But perhaps ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... had started for the expected scene of battle, intent on doing good, with a small party of the thralls of Aescendune, just after Edwy had left the hall; consequently, he knew nothing of the death of the thane or the subsequent events. Oh, how sweetly his words fell upon Elfric's ears, "Carry him home ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... they have conspired together,—I will not say, you shall see a masque; but if you do, then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a bleeding[65] on Black Monday(B) last, at six o'clock i'the morning, falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... long while he heard nothing but the monotonous boom of the water plunging into the deep. But, strangely enough, there was a vague, hushed rhythm in this thundering roar; and after a while he seemed to hear a faint strain, ravishingly sweet, which vibrated on the air for an ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... extremely unfair to let it be supposed that the fabliaux contain nothing but obscenity, or that they can offer attractions to no one save those whom obscenity attracts. As in those famous English followings of them, where Chaucer considerably reduced the licence of language, and still more ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... he is the nephew of Reuben Gray; but that explains nothing! Gray is a rude, ignorant, though well-meaning boor; but this lad is a refined, graceful, and ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the little boy to be the result of the most unspeakable mental agony. He knew by experience that he had done something which failed to meet the approval of Uncle Remus, and he tried to remember what it was, so as to frame an excuse; but his memory failed him. He could think of nothing he had done calculated to stir Uncle Remus's grief. He was not exactly seized with remorse, but he was very uneasy. Presently Uncle Remus looked at him in a sad and ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... in December, 1849, statesmen of the old school, who could agree in nothing else, were of one mind in this: the Union was in peril. In the impressive words of Webster, "the imprisoned winds were let loose. The East, the North, and the stormy South combined to throw the whole sea into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its profoundest depths." ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... escaping. And the news broadcasts from Ilen-dar would have notified the entire population by this time. There would be rioting, panics, murder and suicide in the cities of the accursed Llotta and in their subject countries. A frantic effort of the scientists to stop the gap would avail them nothing: it was an impossible task now. The construction of the great shell had been a different matter; there was some natural atmosphere remaining in those days. And, finally, they would suffocate, every last one of them. They'd die miserably, purple of ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... accomplishes magical effects, with it he makes beautiful copper caldrons, humble vegetables, leeks, carrots, potatoes, onions, shining rounds of beef, hares, and fish become eloquent witnesses to the fact that there is nothing dead or ugly in nature if the vision that interprets is artistic. It is said that no one ever saw Chardin at work in his atelier, but his method, his facture has been ferreted out though never excelled. He employs the division of tones, his couches are fat and his colour is laid on ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... say, and I have nothing To confirm what you advance here But your word. Some proof now give me, Give me something I can handle, Something tangible to convince me Of this truth, that I may grasp it, And know what it is. And since So much power and influence have you With your God, implore ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... nothing; but I knew of what he was thinking. It was the old business of religion which so much entered into everything and distorted men's judgments: for he had just been speaking of ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... he develops a passion for stories, and nothing delights him more than an interesting tale from the loving lips of father or mother. In good kindergartens and primary schools, there are teachers who tell stories to the little ones and do it well, but parents will not wish to delegate it entirely to teachers, for story-telling is the best way ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... conference which will tolerate no spirit of conquest, but will aim to cultivate an American sympathy as broad as both continents; a conference which will form no selfish alliance against the older nations from which we are proud to claim inheritance—a conference, in fine, which will seek nothing, propose nothing, endure nothing that is not, in the general sense of all the ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... frightfully disfigured from the above cause, exceedingly black, and the features distorted. Nothing is necessary here; in a few days the face ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... over, we made up our minds that Chad was the silliest, most conceited creature; he did nothing but talk of himself and his possessions, and in the most lordly way imaginable. No matter what subject was introduced, he'd go right back to the one thing that seemed to interest him,—himself. He lounged back in his chair and made not the slightest effort to join in the entertainment. In fact, ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... June, 1867, these three men, who knew nothing of the past history of Captain Nemo, succeeded in escaping in one of the Nautilus's boats. But as at this time the Nautilus was drawn into the vortex of the Maelstrom, off the coast of Norway, the captain naturally ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... public opinion, and of the means at his disposal for keeping the movement of things in the right direction. His policy was what is sometimes claimed, and correctly, I believe, to embody the highest administrative wisdom: that of doing nothing himself that he could get others to do for him. In this way all his energies could be devoted to his proper work, that of getting the best men in office, and of devising measures from time to time calculated ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... us is a president of Parliament, or a governor of the city?" shouted another of the same gentry. "We care nothing for their ministration. We recognize them not, save in their own courts. All their authority fell to the ground at the gate of the Rue Saint Jacques, when they entered our dominions. We care for no parties. We are trimmers, and steer a middle course. We hold ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... heaps of shells, often many waggon loads together, some appearing to be very old, and others recent. We saw no cultivation in this place, which had a desolate and barren appearance: The tops of the hills were green, but nothing grew there except a large kind of fern, the roots of which the natives had got together in large quantities, in order to carry away with them. In the evening Mr Banks walked up the river, which at the mouth looked fine and broad, but at the distance of about two miles was not deep enough ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... knew. It is the answer which we are all bound to make. Let us see how deep and wide its scope is. It expresses the entire surrender of the will to the will of God. That is the secret of all peace and nobleness. There is nothing happy or great for man in this world but to love and do God's will. All else is nought. This is solid. 'The world passeth away, ... but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.' Everything besides is show and delusion, and a life directed to it is fleeting as ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Cuthbert, says Bede, had served God in the solitude of Farne for many years, the mound which encompassed his habitation being so high that he could see nothing from thence but heaven, to which he so ardently aspired, he was compelled by tears and entreaties—King Egfrid himself coming to the island, with bishops and religious and great men—to become himself bishop in Holy Island. There, as elsewhere, he did his duty. But after two years he went ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... Nothing much. The Quaker lady had been again for sugar. Again Mrs. Day had unconditionally pledged herself that the canes from which it had been derived had not ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... its fog to make clearer The heart of the poet to that of his hearer; Then the poet brought heaven to the people, and they Felt that they, too, were poets in hearing his lay; Then the poet was prophet, the past in his soul Pre-created the future, both parts of one whole; Then for him there was nothing too great or too small. For one natural deity sanctified all; Then the bard owned no clipper and meter of moods Save the spirit of silence that hovers and broods O'er the seas and the mountains, the rivers and woods He asked not earth's verdict, forgetting the clods, His soul soared and sang to ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... of violence were not reprisals; nothing of the kind took place at the banquet of the body-guards (October 1st). "Amidst the general joy," says an eye-witness, "I heard no insults against the National Assembly, nor against the popular party, nor against ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Then throw the fish in her face, and say, 'This one shall be for thee, old witch.'" In the evening the witch came, and when she had put this question, he threw the fish in her face. She behaved as if she did not remark it, and said nothing, but looked at him with malicious eyes. Next morning she said, "Yesterday it was too easy for thee, I must give thee harder work. To-day thou must hew down the whole of the forest, split the wood into logs, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... France are using thousands and thousands of planes and ships and tanks and heavy guns. They are carrying with them many thousands of items needed for their dangerous, stupendous undertaking. There is a shortage of nothing—nothing! And this must continue. ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... filled the planks and piles of wood that hemmed it in like a trough. I might agonize in words for a day and I should not express the delight. And, lest my readers should apprehend a diary of a tour, I shall say nothing more of our journey, remarking only that if Switzerland were to become as common to the mere tourist mind as Cheapside is to a Londoner, the meanest of its glories would be no whit impaired thereby. Sometimes, I confess, in these days of overcrowded cities, when, in periodical floods, the lonely ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... duly disavowed; but an envoy was at Russian headquarters, and Alexander had entered Prussian territory in his advance against Eugene; Napoleon was demanding an increased auxiliary force. The temporizer could temporize no longer. He firmly believed that nothing short of a coalition between Austria, Russia, and Prussia could annihilate France, and Austria had virtually refused to enter such a combination. Russia, moreover, was under no engagement in regard to Prussian Poland. What was to be done? ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... eh?" was Tom's dry comment. "It seems to me that it is nothing but tricks lately. I suppose you placed the boxes in the pantry just so the mice wouldn't catch cold, didn't you?" he went ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... tension, and with less force the shaft hits the mark, so did I burst under that heavy load, pouring forth tears and sighs, and the voice slackened along its passage. Whereupon she to me:—"Within those desires of mine[34] that were leading thee to love the Good beyond which there is nothing whereto man may aspire, what trenches running traverse, or what chains didst thou find, for which thou wert obliged thus to abandon the hope of passing onward? And what enticements, or what advantages ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... had been prepared for him, on which he was carried into the town, but before he reached it he was dead. Nothing more could be done that night, but next day, when the tide was out, men were lowered down the precipitous sides of the fatal bay, and the bodies of the unfortunate seamen were sent up to the top of the cliffs by means of ropes. These ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... intercepted letter revealed the fact that Ludovico had killed Vittoria with his own hand, and when the place was finally reduced and surrender inevitable, the noble assassin coolly gave up his arms, and then began to trim his finger-nails with a small pair of scissors, which he took from his pocket, as if nothing had happened. It is evident that, having accomplished his revenge upon this woman who had sullied the name of his family, he was now content to take whatever fate might come; and when he was strangled in prison, by order of the republic of Venice, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... "Nothing as stale as that," scoffed Tom Reade. "That wouldn't call for any brains, you see. Come along and we'll look over the lay of the land. Cheer up, Timmy! You'll have plenty of chance to slip into the house, get upstairs, undressed and be in bed before your father has time ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... instructions in theology; but to Pope, who, in a youthful frolick, advised the diligent perusal of Thomas Aquinas. With this treasure Young retired from interruption to an obscure place in the suburbs. His poetical guide to godliness hearing nothing of him during half a year, and apprehending he might have carried the jest too far, sought after him, and found him just in time to prevent what ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... if such a one has business with a king! Poor people, not of gentle blood, cannot approach him, for they must apply to those who are his friends, and certainly these are not persons who tread the world under their feet; for they who do this speak the truth, fear nothing, and ought to fear nothing; they are not courtiers, because it is not the custom of a court, where they must be silent about those things they dislike, must not even dare to think about them, lest ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... clear eye; she embraced it with effusion. "An admirable idea," she said, "and the others, too, perhaps, would join us if you would not mind. It would be one hour a day at least secure from ennui: I shall have great cause to thank you, if we can arrange it. For these girls get so tired of doing nothing; my mind is always on the strain to think of an amusement. Charlotte! Come here, I want to ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... way to make a little fortune for us. He heard of a company in Florida that was developing orange lands, and it looked so good to him that he bought a share in it. He thought he was going to make money enough out of it to make us safe for life. But nothing ever came ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... the position he holds to outside affairs, he turns just so far away from the surest path of success. To do one thing perfectly is better than to do two things only fairly well. It was told me once, of one of our best known actors, that outside of his stage knowledge he knew absolutely nothing. But he acted well,—so well that he stands at the head of his profession, and has an income of five figures several times over. All around geniuses are rare—so rare that we can hardly find them. To know one thing absolutely means material success and commercial and mental superiority. ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok
... the abolitionists there was at no time any sudden break in the principles which they advocated. Lundy did nothing but revive and continue the work of the Quakers and other non-slaveholding classes of the revolutionary period. Birney was and continued to be a typical slaveholding abolitionist of the earlier ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... We have not yet gone through what they have to go through, but we have been in and out amongst them all the time, and we know. Thank goodness this spell of dry weather seems to have come for a few days at least. Cold at night is nothing. It's wet at night that just kills men right and left. Alan died yesterday morning. Died of exposure. He caught a chill while we were up in front, and then got much worse, and it finally developed into peritonitis and ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... the Isabella quagga, is supposed to exist in South Africa; but there are doubts upon this subject. The name is derived from the colour of a specimen seen by a very untrustworthy traveller, which was of the hue known as Isabella colour; but nothing is known of the animal, and most naturalists believe that the Isabella quagga is identical with the other species, and that the specimen reported by Le Vaillant was only a young quagga of ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... in this space, reefs, which, if I had known nothing of those in other parts of the Red Sea, I should unhesitatingly have considered as barrier-reefs; and, after deliberation, I have come to the same conclusion. One of these reefs, in 20 deg 15', is twenty miles long, less than a mile in width (but expanding at the northern end into a disc), slightly ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... vain had she flirted for ten years; in vain had Mr. and Mrs. Malderton assiduously kept up an extensive acquaintance among the young eligible bachelors of Camberwell, and even of Wandsworth and Brixton; to say nothing of those who 'dropped in' from town. Miss Malderton was as well known as the lion on the top of Northumberland House, and had an ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Nothing could stay the fury of Decatur. He easily identified the commander by his immense size and gorgeous uniform. He eagerly sought out the American and they instantly came together in the fight to the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... too little imaginative or too conscientious to make merit for them out of the things they suggested. He treated the poor altar-pieces of the Quebec cathedral with the same harsh indifference he would have shown to the second-rate paintings of a European gallery; doubted the Vandyck, and cared nothing for the Conception, "in the style of Le Brun," over the high-altar, though it had the historical interest of having survived that bombardment of 1759 ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... reached to the palace. The prince, so far from thinking it small, found it large enough to shelter two armies as numerous as that of the sultan his father; and then said to Pari Banou, 'I ask my princess a thousand pardons for my incredulity: after what I have seen, I believe there is nothing impossible to you.' ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... on Collin's sketch of the "Vorgeschichte" of Hamlet, for it contributes nothing that is new. Hamlet was a characteristic "revenge tragedy" like the "Spanish Tragedy" and a whole host of others which had grown up in England under the influence, direct and indirect, of Seneca. He points out in a very illuminating way how admirably the "tragedy ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... very comfortable and happy in her bed in the parlor. The sunlight was pouring in over her shoulders, the baby was asleep on a pillow in a big rocking-chair beside her. Whenever he stirred, she put out her hand and rocked him. Nothing of him was visible but a flushed, puffy forehead and an uncompromisingly big, bald cranium. The door into her mother's room stood open, and Mrs. Kronborg was sitting up in bed darning stockings. She was a short, stalwart woman, with a short neck and a determined-looking head. Her skin ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... he became—"I admit that the question is not a political one, but an important one, nevertheless. According to Skoropikin, every ancient work of art is valueless because it is old. If that were true, then art would be reduced to nothing more or less than mere fashion. A preposterous idea, not worth entertaining. If art has no firmer foundation than that, if it is not eternal, then it is utterly useless. Take science, for instance. In mathematics do you look upon Euler, Laplace, or Gauss as fools? Of course not. You accept their ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... with Hebraisms, promoted that prejudice so far, as to cause many Greeks in the fourth century to doubt of the book. But whilst the Latins, and a great part of the Greeks, always retained the Apocalypse, and the rest doubted only out of prejudice, it makes nothing ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... of this new grievance, and would not be comforted. He seemed cunning enough in his determination to thwart the attorney in his plan of buying the estate, and explained to Ussher that he had made up his mind not to be taken personally; assuring him, that from that time nothing should induce him to leave his own fireside, or so much as show himself at the hall-door; that he would have the hall-door barricadoed; and, in short, that he would himself take all those precautions which Brady had enumerated to his son, as proper ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... Mowbray," said Diana, with sudden viciousness. "She's the sort of person who has nothing whatever to talk about ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... there are a few things the people had better take for granted— Of course, we haven't been "in action" yet but the first bombardment made me nervous until it got well started. I think every one was rather nervous and it was chiefly to show them there was nothing to worry about that we fired off the U. S. guns. They talk like veterans now— It was much less of a strain than I had expected, there was no standing on your toes nor keeping your mouth open or putting wadding ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... and start new from scratch. I postulate, as a working hypothesis drawn from original data as modified by these tests, that that particular conglomeration of materials generates at least two fields about the properties of which we know nothing at all. That one of those properties is the tendency to become preferentially resonant with one mind and preferentially non-resonant with ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... soon asleep in their cots in the camp tent, and after Tom had told his story to Mr. and Mrs. Brown, he, too, was given his old bed. He had nothing more to fear from Mr. Trimble, and he need not have run away, only he was afraid of the farmer. And for that reason he did not go back to camp, or send any word to ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... noticed in her face: always with her father, sleeping in a room adjoining his, eating with him, caring for his comfort in every way, thoughtful and affectionate, allowing no other person to do anything for him, she had to present a smiling face, in which the most suspicious eye could detect nothing but filial tenderness, though the vilest projects were in her heart. With this mask she one evening offered him some soup that was poisoned. He took it; with her eyes she saw him put it to his lips, watched him drink it down, and with a brazen countenance she gave no outward sign of that ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... like other babes and sucklings, and when he grew to be a hobedy-hoy, there was a seriousness in his visage, and a much-ado-about-nothing-ness in his eye, which were proclaimed by good natured people to be indications of deep thought and profundity; while others less "flattering sweet," declared they indicated naught but want of comprehension, and the dulness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... The audience seemed to me both indulgent and discriminating. They applauded the pretty prima donna con furor; they praised the bass when he deserved it, the tenor when it was possible; but where he sang false, nothing could extort from them a solitary viva. This discrimination makes their applause worth having, and proceeds less from experience or cultivation, than from a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... evidently was, and whither? The child she was leaving knew little of what was bright and pleasant in this world, and nothing of the next. "Miss ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... all seem to be toward steady concentration in great centers. The evils of congestion do not deter the thronging multitudes. The attractions of the city are irresistible, even to those who exist in the most wretched conditions. The tenement districts baffle description, yet nothing is more difficult than to get their miserable occupants to leave their fetid and squalid surroundings for the country. To the immigrants the city is a magnet. Here they find colonies of their own people, and ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... It was nothing very much, she said. Only she had broken finally with a friend she had known a long time, and such ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... "Nothing, I guess...." Belle thought for a minute. "We couldn't stuff any part of that down the throat of a simple-minded six-year-old. We haven't really got anything, anyway. Time enough, I think, when we have six or ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... from the lofty promenade, to which the Earl of Dufferin has bequeathed his name. Let us now accompany one of our genial summer butterflies, fluttering through the mazes of old Stadacona escorting a bride; let us listen to W. D. Howells in the WEDDING JOURNEY. "Nothing, I think, more enforces the illusion of Southern Europe in Quebec than the Sunday-night promenading on the Durham (now Dufferin) Terrace. This is the ample span on the brow of the cliff to the left of the Citadel, the noblest and most commanding position in the whole city, which was ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... ill-considered word; commending to the cordial warmth of Humanity my unhatched score and more of book-eggs, to perfect which I need an Eccaleobion of literature; and scorning, as heartily as any Sioux chief, to prolong palaver, when I have nothing more to say; suffer me thus courteously to take of you my leave. And forasmuch as Lord Chesterfield recommends an exit to be heralded by a pungent speech, let me steal from quaint old Norris the last word wherewith I trouble you: "These ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... statesmen to convert what was simply apparent into a solid reality. Had they been wise men, they would, during the long peace that followed 1815, have made of Austria a state as powerful in fact as the world believed her to be. Nothing could have been easier, as her undeveloped resources ever have been vast; but they did nothing of the kind, their sole aim being to get over the present, without any regard for the future. Hermayr says of Thugut, who was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... tale in the second chapter of that brief work, where it is headed 'First Rout.' Thackeray tells his version of it with a sense of fun and humour. Miss Corelli tells hers with the voice and manner of a Boanerges.. Nothing is to be done without the divine afflatus, and plenty of it. The temperamental difference between the satirist and the scold is well illustrated by a large handling and a little handling ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... had heard any thing of Theodosius, who it seems had left his Chamber about Midnight, and could nowhere be found. The deep Melancholy, which had hung upon his Mind some Time before, made them apprehend the worst that could befall him. Constantia, who knew that nothing but the Report of her Marriage could have driven him to such Extremities, was not to be comforted: She now accused her self for having so tamely given an Ear to the Proposal of a Husband, and looked upon the new Lover as the Murderer of Theodosius: In short, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... have heard from you here. I've nothing from you or Eliza since last Friday, when I got yours of the 12th. I shall direct this to Eliza's care, as I do not even know ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... appreciated. Therefore, they listen best to music who hear the best continually. The assertion is often heard that a person must be educated up to an enjoyment of high class music. Certainly, one who has heard nothing else must be educated down to an enjoyment of ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... and anxiety, Nicholas Crips visited other shops. The experts all told the same tale. The chamois bag held nothing but carbon counterfeits! The prospect of a life of ease and elegance faded away. It had been a vision, an illusion. Nickie's philosophy was not proof against this stroke. He felt broken, beaten. In the seclusion of ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... of a sense of present reality more diffused and general than that which our special senses yield. For the psychologists the tracing of the organic seat of such a feeling would form a pretty problem—nothing could be more natural than to connect it with the muscular sense, with the feeling that our muscles were innervating themselves for action. Whatsoever thus innervated our activity, or "made our flesh creep"—our senses are what do so oftenest—might then ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... degree of intimacy with the water, from the amphibian life of many Malay tribes who love the wash of the waves beneath their pile-built villages, to the Nama Bushmen who inhabit the dune-walled coast of Southwest Africa, and know nothing of the sea. In the resulting nautical development the natural talents and habits of the people are of immense influence; but these in turn have been largely determined by the geographical environment of their previous ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... you mean, sir. Mr. Monson, that would be degrading lawful wedlock to the level of a bet—a game of cards—a mercenary, contemptible bargain. No, sir—nothing shall ever induce me to degrade this honorable estate to such ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... and looked in. He could not see the box, but a quantity of loose earth lay there, under which it was doubtless buried. He knelt down and began to scoop the earth out, using his two hands together. Then he thrust one hand in, and felt about for the box. There was nothing there. He cleared out the cavity thoroughly, and tried to loosen the soil at the bottom, tearing his nails in his excitement. It must be there, he ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... to make one, as well as I could, out of one of the broadswords, or cutlasses, which I saved among the arms out of the ship. However, as my first crop was but small, I had no great difficulty to cut it down; in short, I reaped it in my way, for I cut nothing off but the ears, and carried it away in a great basket which I had made, and so rubbed it out with my hands; and at the end of all my harvesting, I found that out of my half-peck of seed I had ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... turn and brought out a squirming, squeaking imitation of a young lobster. Then he handed the hooks to the boys. Ned got overboard and began to haul out crawfish at the rate of two a minute. Dick was less successful, for Molly had promptly commandeered his hook and left him nothing to do but watch her when she tried to hook the shell-fish. They didn't get many fish and when Ned came along with a bunch of crawfish which he dropped ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... nothing that I don't enjoy," Lord Theign rejoined with some asperity—"and so far as I do follow the fellow he assumes on my part an interest in his expenditure of purchase-money that I neither feel nor pretend to. He ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... young lady come in with such a silver pan and such a flat, wide knife, and she scraped the crumbs off between every one of them three courses. I felt awful funny. I tell you they was tony. I sayed to the missus, 'I hadn't ought to of came here. I'm not grand enough like yous'; but she sayed, 'It's nothing of the kind, and you're always welcome.' Yes, she made herself that nice and common!" concluded the doctor. "So you see I have saw ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... jury! what if I had acted, and he had escaped then! but other motives influenced me. Pompey would have made a personal quarrel of it with me. He would have come into the city.[9]—He would have taken up with Clodius again. I know that I was wise, and I hope that you agree with me. I owe Pompey nothing, and he owes much to me; but in public matters (not to put it more strongly) he has not allowed me to oppose him; and when I was flourishing and he was less powerful than he is now, he let me see what he could ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... Nothing, surely, is more common, it is believed, than this heedless manner of making promises which cannot be fulfilled. The modes in which such promises are made are multitudinous, but it is not within the compass of this article to specify them. That they are ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... pass by, I tended him with 'Pray, sir;' 'For God's sake, sir;' 'For the Lord's sake, sir;'—To which he answered gravely, 'Sirrah, sirrah, you ought to be whipped for taking the Lord's name in vain;' and in vain it was indeed, for he gave me nothing. My father, overhearing this, took his advice, and whipped me very severely. While I was under correction I promised often never to take the Lord's name in vain any more. My father then said, 'Child, I do not whip you for taking his ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... for power; or does she hold them in order that she may carry out the duty which has devolved upon her of extending civilization, freedom, and well-being through the new uprising nations of the world? Does she hold them, in fact, for her own benefit, or does she hold them for theirs? I know nothing of the ethics of the Colonial Office, and not much perhaps of those of the House of Commons; but looking at what Great Britain has hitherto done in the way of colonization, I cannot but think that the national ambition looks to the welfare ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... surrender, and, giving hostages not to trouble Wessex any longer, they settled themselves in Mercia, after the example of so many of their countrymen, and became occupants of the land they had before ravaged. Thus Alfred, in the seventh year of his reign, had lost nothing by the war waged under so many difficulties and disadvantages, enough to have overwhelmed a man of less energy and genius; he still retained that portion of the kingdom which lies south of the Thames, the only part ever belonging to him in separate sovereignty, while the Danes possessed all the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... to be done? I racked my brains during the whole of the long, hot, breathless night in a fruitless endeavour to devise some satisfactory way out of the difficulty, and arose from my sleepless bunk next morning with a splitting headache, and nothing in the shape of a settled plan beyond the determination to find a good long job for the men, the execution of which should afford me further time for reflection, and perhaps allow events ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... themselves, a source of weakness. The beams supporting them are like the rafters of a house, which, of course, work the walls apart under pressure from the floors—and here, as in every other detail, the stability required for a house is nothing to what is required for a ship. The way to overcome this difficulty is to make the decks and beams so many bridges holding the sides together. At the point of junction of every beam-end with a shelf-piece, waterway, and rib there ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... can do nothing for me," replied Mrs. Jacobs, in a voice as unmoved as her face. "He will never come back. He will be drowned." And from that day no one ever heard her mention her son. It was believed, however, that she had news from him, and ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... totally different from the idea that was intended to be expressed by d e v a; but even the Greek and Roman concept of gods would be totally inadequate to convey the thoughts imbedded in the Vedic d e v a. D e v a meant originally bright, and nothing else. Meaning bright, it was constantly used of the sky, the stars, the sun, the dawn, the day, the spring, the rivers, the earth; and when a poet wished to speak of all of these by one and the same word—by what we should call ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... Nothing at first but a confused medley of figures and incidents of the preceding night; things to be put away and forgotten; things that would not have happened but for another thing—the thing before which everything faded! A ball-room; ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... were styled the chosen People was a Religious Art. The Songs of Sion, which we have reason to believe were in high Repute among the Courts of the Eastern Monarchs, were nothing else but Psalms and Pieces of Poetry that adored or celebrated the Supreme Being. The greatest Conqueror in this Holy Nation, after the manner of the old Grecian Lyricks, did not only compose the Words of his Divine Odes, but ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele |
