"Phrase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anything," I protested as earnestly as I could, not quite knowing what his slang phrase meant, but believing it to imply that I was pretending to be ill to shirk duty when I was all right. "Weeks, I'm terribly ill, I ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... determined never to comply, acting according to the custom of Governors in South America, who, when an order reached them from Madrid, either absurd or quite impossible to execute, solemnly answered, 'I obey, but I do not comply,'* saving by the phrase the honour of their sovereigns and themselves. Upon their side the Jesuits pressed the judge conservator, Father Nolasco, to issue his sentence, and free them from the charges under which they lay. This he did, and ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... example of how we ought to live, but that He provided the power that enables us to live as He lived. Also He gave us the point of view from which to estimate life. The writer of the Epistles to the Hebrews uses a striking phrase when he speaks of "the power of an endless life." Is not that an illuminating phrase when we think of our relation to our Lord? His revelation of the meaning of human life has brought to us the vision of what that life may ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... postchaise should come for us this day. While we sat at breakfast, Dr. Johnson received a letter by the post, which seemed to agitate him very much. When he had read it, he exclaimed, 'One of the most dreadful things that has happened in my time.' The phrase my time, like the word age, is usually understood to refer to an event of a publick or general nature. I imagined something like an assassination of the King—like a gunpowder plot carried into execution—or like another fire of London. When asked, 'What is it, Sir?' he answered, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... and plain but plentiful food soon made the Battalion as hard as nails, a phrase coined by the London Evening News, and a phrase that stuck. Quite as important, too, was the fact that a member of the "hard as nails" Battalion had to prove he was capable of acting up to it. So it was just a matter of honour that every man should keep ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... and I had no fault to find with him, beyond that he was of a dusky hue, and inclined to hairyness; two characteristics that I disliked. It was his mind that puzzled, and yet attracted me. The doctor's phrase—an innocent—came back to me; and I was wondering if that were, after all, the true description, when the road began to go down into the narrow and naked chasm of a torrent. The waters thundered tumultuously in the bottom; and the ravine was filled full ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the cathedrals of the Isle of France, we are at once in the midst of the best examples of French Gothic architecture, or of French Mediaeval architecture, if the phrase is ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... Liszt make a remarkable literature. The two men were bound together by such artistic sympathy, and Liszt was so much a soldier for Wagner's crusade, and so ready with financial help, that he was more than friend or brother. It was, in Wagner's own phrase, "the gigantic perseverance of his friendship," that endeared him beyond words to the struggler. Even Minna seems to have been extremely fond of Liszt—what woman was not? It was to Liszt that she was indebted for rescue from downright starvation. More than this, Minna's parents ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... and first of all to get a design for a cover which should both ensnare the heedless and captivate the fastidious. These things did not come properly within March's province—that had been clearly understood—and for a while Fulkerson tried to run the art leg himself. The phrase was again his, but it was simpler to make the phrase than to run the leg. The difficult generation, at once stiff-backed and slippery, with which he had to do in this endeavor, reduced even so buoyant an optimist to despair, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... no individual poem embodies this ideal perfectly; of course every human word and phrase has its imperfections, and if we choose an instance to illustrate that ideal, the instance has scarcely a fair chance. By contrasting it with the ideal we suggest its imperfections; by protruding it as an example, we turn on its defectiveness the microscope of criticism. Yet these ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... notable how commonly the poets, creating for themselves an ideal of motion, fasten upon the charm of a boat. They do not usually express any desire for wings, or, if they do, it is only in some vague and half-unintended phrase, such as "flit or soar," involving wingedness. Seriously, they are evidently content to let the wings belong to Horse, or Muse, or Angel, rather than to themselves; but they all, somehow or other, express an honest wish for ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... Louis XVIII. agreed "that the titles and dignities of all the members of the family of the Emperor Napoleon should be recognized, and that they should not be deprived of them," remained something more than a mere phrase. ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... written to burlesque the modern poets.' His genius was nothing if not critical, and literature afforded him plenty of material for fun. Romance-writers with their jousts and duels and armed heroines, would-be epic poets with their extra-mundane machinery and pomp of phrase, Marino and his hyperbolical conceits, Tuscan purists bent on using only words of the Tre Cento, Petrarchisti spinning cobwebs of old metaphors and obsolete periphrases, all felt in turn the touch of his light lash. The homage paid to Petrarch's stuffed cat at Arqua supplied him ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... "Well, you know father doesn't weigh out nails any more; he's the Eagle Man's right-hand man." She remembered the phrase and brought it out roundly. "And father helped build all those nice new homes for the people who work in the Massey ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... fine temper of its steel in scimitars and lance-points. These were eagerly bought at high prices by the Turks, and their quality was such that one blow of a Kerman sabre would cleave an European helmet without turning the edge. And I see that the phrase, "Kermani blade" is used in poetry by Marco's contemporary Amir Khusru of Delhi. (P. Jov. Hist. of his own Time, Bk. XIV.; ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... be before the fall of the leaf. I have too many things to do this summer to have any time for it." He had not forgotten that bold and amusing speech, and every day he became more pressing, every day he pushed his approaches nearer—to use a military phrase—and gained a step in the heart of the fair, audacious woman, who seemed only to be ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... of this tone, Liza? Where has it suddenly sprung from? What do you mean by 'we haven't long to be together'? That's the second mysterious phrase since you ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... opinion on Mr. Punch's own book, which is no formal history of the War in the strict or scientific sense of the phrase; no detailed record of naval and military operations. Rather it is a mirror of varying moods, reflecting in the main how England remained steadfastly true to her best traditions; a reflex of British character during the days of doubt and the hours of hope ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... his brow significantly; "mad, the old snuff-and-pepper-box." He smiled at the recollection of his latest phrase. "These scholars stagnate so. They see not enough of the women. Ha! I will go ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... with its victims, making the fearless timorous, the proud lowly, the trusting doubtful. Who was it coined that mischievous phrase, "Too good to be true"? He has much to answer for. Nothing is too good to be true. Not even the love of a man for a maid, Valerie. You found it so good that you were thoroughly prepared to find it false. And the moment you saw the clouds, you believed the sun to be dead. That is heathenish ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... Stow's phrase, "long before the Conquest," though somewhat ambiguous, has been thought to point to a date posterior to the Roman occupation. Some authorities, therefore, contend that the Romans had erected London Bridge and left the country before St. Mary's was founded, and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... opinion that this is not at all a question of etymology, I shall not say more in reference to this view of the case than that "rack," spelt as in Shakspeare, is a word in popular and every-day use in the phrase "rack and ruin;" that we have it in the term "rack off," as applied to wine, meaning to take from the rack, or, in other words, "to leave a rack" or refuse "behind," racked wine being wine drawn from the lees; and that it ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... of the south and western fronts: that facing the north being more ancient, and containing female figure ornaments which are palpably of a disproportionate length. The Louvre quadrangle (if I may borrow our old college phrase) is assuredly the most splendid piece of ornamental architecture which Paris contains. The interior of the edifice itself is as yet in an unfinished condition;[4] but you must not conclude the examination of this glorious pile of building, without ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... this year at the Court. His sermons, in which he often repeated twice running the same phrase, were much in vogue. It was from him that came the saying, "Without God there is no wit." The King was much pleased with him, and reproached M. de Vendome and M. de la Rochefoucauld because they never went to hear his ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... The phrase "to redeem them" is, in the original, /ana padi-sunu/, the verb being from /padu/, "to spare," "set free," and if this rendering be correct, as seems probable, the Babylonian reasons for the creation of mankind would be, that they might carry on the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Theophilus G. Pinches
... as an advertisement, the first public reference to Pamela, on October 11, 1740.[4] Webster owed (an obligation eventually forgiven) "a debt of 140 l. to my most worthy Friend, Mr. Richardson, the Printer,"[5] and Richardson reprints the letter using Webster's phrase: "To my worthy Friend, the Editor of Pamela." These first two letters, de Freval's and Webster's, respond to an author's request for criticism. The rest, new with the ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... the optimism of this difference of language; the very beasts of the country do not understand English. Say "poor fellow" to a dog, and he will probably bite you; the cat will come if you call her "Meeth-tha," but "puss" is an outlandish phrase she has not been accustomed to; last night I went to supper to the fleas, and an excellent supper they made; and the cats serenaded me with their execrable Spanish: to lie all night in Bowling-Green Lane,[53] would be to enjoy the luxury of ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... of her tones. In this instance, he knew that the words "serving mankind" were a contemptuous use of a phrase she had heard, a phrase which represented the philosophy ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... filled the store, all talking at once, rapidly and loudly. Here and there we could distinguish a snatch of conversation, a word, a phrase, now and then even a whole sentence above the rest. There was the clink of glasses. I could hear the rattle of dice on a bare table, and an oath. A cork ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... Amongst her ancestors there were many remarkable men, some remembered for their faithful service of their heavenly as well as of their earthly King. The memory of one has passed down to posterity in the phrase "the Good Lord Brodie." His diaries reveal a life lived in great humility and special nearness to his Lord. Those around him found in him not only a benevolent neighbour but also a faithful instructor in the highest learning. His delight was to visit the sick, and to declare the love ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... ceased to care for that. He has done what he has done, because it is his duty; and now he is to do his duty once more, and wake the sleeper, and argue, coax, threaten him into recantation while "his heart is still tender from the torture," so Eustace's employers phrase it. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... entertainment and instruction. But two or three other points of distinction should be kept in mind as having sensible relation to the question of competency to bear witness. Byron wrote of the women of a corrupted court; Thackeray of the women of that society indicated by the phrase "Persons whom one meets"—and meets now. Byron wrote of an obsolete dance, described by Irving in terms of decided strength; Thackeray wrote of our own waltz. In turning off his brilliant and witty verses it is unlikely that ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... always love him," gasped Lady Newhaven, recovering herself sufficiently to recall a phrase which she had made up the night before. "I look upon it ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... our sage legislators, then, set upon finding A measure that's "final, conclusive, and binding," As lawyer-phrase puts it? They might as well try To fix dawn in the East, or nail clouds to the sky! There's nothing that's "final" in infinite time, That great, goalless, measureless race-course sublime? In which relays of runners must keep up the race? There's nothing "conclusive" in limitless ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 25, 1893 • Various
... there's sympathy: you are merry, so am I; ha! ha! then there's more sympathy; you love sack, and so do I; would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page, at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice, that I love thee. I will not say, pity me: 'tis not a soldier-like phrase; but I say, Love me. By me, Thine own true knight, By day or night, Or any kind of light, With all his might, For thee to fight, ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... or two. But from that day forth—from the very beginning, I mean—he had a natural horror of going BENEATH a cliff, and he liked to get as high up as he could, so as to be perfectly sure there was nobody at all anywhere above to hurt him." And then she went on to describe in short but graphic phrase how he loved to return to the place of his son's accident, and to stand for hours on lonely sites overlooking the spot, and especially on a crag which ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... that is so; but I am putting the side that wants putting. I am constantly seeing it stated that any measures are justifiable so long as they are likely to end the war. "Well, but we must end it somehow," is a common phrase. That is all rubbish. We must fight fairly, that's the first rule of all. I daresay there may have been individual acts of cruelty or treachery on the part of the Boers, but I am sure that any just and unprejudiced officer will tell you that on the whole they have ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... Relief. By outdoor relief we mean relief given to the poor outside of an institution. Usually, outdoor relief refers simply to the public relief of dependents outside of institutions, but we shall use the phrase to cover both public and private relief. It is evident from what has already been said that the class of persons to whom this form of relief is appropriate are those in temporary distress, whose condition of dependence is not a permanent one and, therefore, usually those whose condition ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... The phrase apa? ?e?? mue?a—literally, once spoken—may be traced back, I think, to the Alexandrian grammarians, centuries before our era, who invented it to describe those words which they observed to occur once, and only once, in any author or literature. It is so convenient an expression ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... Lady Davenant—"true; a husband is certainly a thing to be cared for—in Scottish phrase, and General Clarendon is no doubt a person to be considered,—but it seems that I am not a person to be considered ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... "That is a stock phrase, mother," he continued. "But it means something. Everything is not what it should be. If the demand were as great as people say it is, there would not be half a dozen houses—better houses than ours—unsold in our street. That is why I am afraid of a big contract. ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... will, it all leads back to the sweet paths of the past. To-day—all day—my mind has been on"—he stopped, afraid to pronounce the word and hunting around in the scanty lexicon of his mind for some phrase of speech, some word even that might not awaken in Alice ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... again! thought Desmond, secretly admiring the care with which that remarkable man, in his own phrase, "sealed ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... phrase, in certain quarters, ever since the rebellion broke out. The men who use it are doubtless well aware of the prodigious power of such cries adroitly raised. The history of their influence over the unreflecting masses in all ages would be one ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Monday, 16th November.—"Let us think imperially," said DON JOSE in a famous phrase. Just now we are thinking in millions. Suppose it's somewhere about the same thing. Anyhow PREMIER to-day announced with pardonable pride that we are spending a trifle under a million a day in the war forced upon mankind ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... in a form which bore even a shade of relief from the horror of what awaited the victim. It was, indeed, an extraordinary request; and told, as no words spoken by mortal had ever told, the pregnancy of an anguish that could seek for alleviation (if I may use so inadequate a phrase) from so fearful an alternative. All were, for a time, now silent, and there was no sound to be heard but the deep sobs of the daughter, as she recovered from her swoon; the struggle in the throat of the mother; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... not an avowed authoress; but she was a professed critic, a well-informed woman, a woman of great conversational powers, etc., and, to use her own phrase, nothing but conversation was spoken in her house. Her guests were therefore, always expected to be distinguished, either for some literary production or for their taste in the belles lettres. Two ladies from Scotland, the land of ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... in the kindest manner to get a carriage and go in pursuit. The good-natured fat man gets down from his high seat, and receives her with pious congratulations; the man in the spectacles looks askant, and advances with extended hand. To use a convenient phrase, she is received with open arms; and so meek and good is the aspect, that she finds her thoughts transported to an higher, a region where only is bliss. Provided with a seat in a conspicuous place, she ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... in demand by princes and nobles involved in a struggle. Noteworthy also is the fact that a considerable number retired to some monastery or [13] religious house to end their days (se rendet, was the technical phrase). So Bertran of Born, Bernart of Ventadour, Peire Rogier, Cadenet and many others retired from the disappointments of the world to end their days in peace; Folquet of Marseilles, who similarly entered the Cistercian order, became abbot ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... us away with sentimentalism. Sentimental people, in her phrase, 'fiddle harmonics on the strings of sensualism,' to the delight of a world gaping for marvels of musical execution rather than for music. For our world is all but a sensational world at present, in maternal travail of a soberer, a braver, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... man of parts, a keen sportsman and a reliable personal friend. From the very first day of his arrival both his charming countess and himself won the hearts of the people. One may almost say that it was love at first sight, if this phrase can be applied to popular feeling. The outward signs of the approval spontaneously given to the appointment ripened during his term of office into personal affection, which was returned by both the holders of ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... his discourse, give a flat contradiction. I will acknowledge, Gentlemen, I think that I have even a right to decline the epithet of "unfortunate," which one of our most respectable colleagues in the French Academy has pronounced relative to this celebrated phrase, while doing justice at the same time to the sentiments of the author. The poison contained in the few words that I have quoted, was very inoffensive, since more than a year passed without any courtier, though furnished like ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... never," continued the poet, with difficulty, "rung my door bell at night, nor eaten me out of house and home, nor written begging letters—" this phrase was well-nigh ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... elementary and clerical schools to the detriment of the latter; called to mind the massacre of St. Bartholomew a propos of a grant of one hundred francs to the church, and denounced abuses, aired new views. That was his phrase. Homais was digging and delving; he ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... a turning English into French, rather than a refining of English by French. We meet daily with those fops, who value themselves on their travelling, and pretend they cannot express their meaning in English, because they would put off to us some French phrase of the last edition; without considering, that, for aught they know, we have a better of our own. But these are not the men who are to refine us; their talent is to prescribe fashions, not words: at best, they ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... now, let us take the common phrase, Place-hunters. I thought they had hunted without regard to any thing, just as their huntsmen, the Minister, leads, looking only to the prey[661].' J. 'But taking your metaphor, you know that in hunting there ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Chiaia I find little tumult; it used to be deafening. Ten years ago a foreigner could not walk here without being assailed by the clamour of cocchieri; nay, he was pursued from street to street, until the driver had spent every phrase of importunate invitation; now, one may saunter as one will, with little disturbance. Down on the Piliero, whither I have been to take my passage for Paola, I catch but an echo of the jubilant uproar which used to amaze me. Is Naples really so much quieter? If ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... the chosen legislative representatives, our citizens everywhere may fairly judge the progress of our governing. I am confident that today, in the light of the events of the past two years, you do not consider it merely a trite phrase when I tell you that I am truly glad to greet you and that I look forward to common counsel, to useful cooperation, and to genuine friendships ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... resumed, and he was considered convalescent; but it was seldom indeed that he recovered the tone of tranquil spirits which he had preserved until his late attack. Hitherto he had always loved to prolong this meal, the only one he took—or, as he expressed it in classical phrase, 'coenam ducere;' but now it was difficult to hurry it over fast enough for his wishes. From dinner, which terminated about two o'clock, he went straight to bed, and at intervals fell into slumbers; from which, however, he was regularly awoke by phantasmata or terrific dreams. At seven in the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... coldly on the enterprise. To use the vulgar phrase both literally and metaphorically, she "took no stock" in the Suez Canal, and she sent no royal personage, nor other representative to the opening ceremonies; the only Englishman of official rank who was present ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... in the morning, except for the faint sound of firing to the northward, in the direction of Los Hatos. Captain Mitchell had listened to it from his balcony anxiously. The phrase, "In my delicate position as the only consular agent then in the port, everything, sir, everything was a just cause for anxiety," had its place in the more or less stereotyped relation of the "historical ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... a mansion, and has its steward too. But what a steward—how active! what a universal genius I how inefficient by comparison are the stewards of the greatest lords! He goes, he comes, he is everywhere at once; and this really, and not as we use the phrase in speaking of a merely active man: for the being everywhere at once is in this case, a fact. He keeps everything, not in a storehouse, but what is far better, in his very pockets, which he empties by degrees as he goes about, distributing their contents without ever making a mistake, without ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... bandy-legged, sturdy young man, with long, fair hair, a tanned complexion, light-blue eyes not quite looking the same way, spectacles, and a general air of industrious common sense about him, if one may use such a phrase. There was certainly little of the lover in his manner toward Ziska, and as little in hers toward him. They were very good friends, though, and he called her Ziska, while she gave him his nickname of Fidelio, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... my ken only to drift into this adventure that, unavoidable, waited for him in a world which he persisted in looking upon as a malevolent shadow spinning in the sunlight. Often in the course of years an expressed sentiment, the particular sense of a phrase heard casually, would recall him to my mind so that I have fastened on to him many words heard on other men's lips and belonging to other men's less perfect, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... saying, "God bless my soul, you don't say so," so exactly after the fashion of old Jos that it was impossible to refrain from laughter. The servants would explode at dinner if the lad, asking for something which wasn't at table, put on that countenance and used that favourite phrase. Even Dobbin would shoot out a sudden peal at the boy's mimicry. If George did not mimic his uncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin's rebukes and Amelia's terrified entreaties that the little scapegrace was induced to desist. And the worthy civilian ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... remembered how her father's dull, joyless face used to brighten when Roland was talking to him—talking with slow, unaccustomed fingers, which the dumb man would watch intently, and catch the meaning of the phrase before it was half finished, flashing back an eager answer by signs and changeful expression of his features. There would be no need of signs and gestures where they had gone. Her father, perhaps, ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... before he entrusted me with his secret,' said Abdullah to Slatin, 'I knew that he was "the expected Guide."' [Slatin, FIRE AND SWORD, p.131.] And though the world might think that the 'Messenger of God' was sent to lead men to happiness in heaven, Abdullah attached to the phrase a significance of his own, and knew that he should lead him to power on earth. The two formed a strong combination. The Mahdi—for such Mohammed Ahmed had already in secret announced himself—brought the wild enthusiasm of religion, the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Humour in Tragedy." This is a title that you may well take as a motto for the whole book. It will have, I think, a warm welcome from Sir HERBERT'S many friends and admirers, even should it turn out to be the case that some of his plots have been (in his own quaintly attractive phrase) "prophetically plagiarised" by other writers. Certainly this welcome will not be lessened by the knowledge that all profits from the sale of the volume are to go to support a cause that, to all who love the Stage, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... own version I have utilized a few of these incidents but reserve most of them for their proper story environment. I have introduced, from the Campbell version, the phrase "seven Bens, and seven Glens, and seven Mountain Moors," which so attracted Stevenson's Catriona, in order to point out as a remarkable coincidence that Hasan of Bassora, in the Arabian Nights, flies over "seven Waddys, seven Seas, and ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... was gone through at each successive courtyard, and in a big Chinese temple they are neither few nor small. Hart, who was behind the other two, could scarcely stifle his amusement at the half-snarling, half-contemptuous face of the Fantai as Parkes in one phrase insisted sotto voce on his coming farther, and in the next, spoken a little louder for the benefit of listening servants and secretaries, thanked him profusely for his great courtesy and hospitality in seeing a humble guest so far. Only at the outermost gate, around which a crowd had collected, ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... made an attempt at some unctuous form of address, an effort at formality, a mechanical tribute to habit. Failing to finish his phrase, he stood before her, not as the lauded leader, not as the interesting martyr, but claiming recognition merely as a man, a large, coarse man feeling his own coarseness in her presence, a sinful man feeling his own sinfulness, but at the same time a man with a ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... said Agnes confidently, overhearing this last phrase; and with that most prized of all encouragement, the faith in his prowess of the one woman, Bobby, for that night at least, felt quite contemptuous of the grilling fight ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... Alexandra Hall, at Hanbridge, on the 6th, 7th and 8th November, and that the box-plan could be consulted at the principal stationers. The Alexandra Hall contained no boxes whatever, but "box-plan" was the phrase sacred to the occasion, and had to be used. And the Festival more and more impregnated the air, and took the lion's share of the columns of the Staffordshire Signal. Every few days the Signal reported progress, even to intimate ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... mineself rememper it. Ven I vas dell der Herr Karl Blind pout dis intercommixture of perplexified dransitions from Scotch to English, and dence into German, and dereafter into a barody, vitch vas be done ofer again indo Herr Breitmann's own slanguage, he sait it vas a Rattenkönig - a phrase too familiar to mine readers to ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... nieces, totalling nine in all—but two of them, being still, in Sir WALTER'S phrase, composed of "that species of pink dough which is called a fine infant" do not count—I think that my favourites are Enid and Hannah. Enid being the daughter of a brother of mine, and Hannah of a sister, they are cousins. They are also collaborators in literature and joint editors of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... another name for vice and cruelty. The purest and best of men necessarily mate themselves before they are twenty. As a rule, it is the selfish, the mean, the calculating, who wait, as they say, "till they can afford to marry." That vile phrase scarcely veils hidden depths of depravity. A man who is really a man, and who has a genius for loving, must love from the very first, and must feel himself surrounded by those who love him. 'Tis the first necessity of life to him; ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... Memoirs she is generally content to keep herself in the background, while giving us a faithful picture of the brilliant Court at which she was for long the most lustrous ornament. It is only by stray touches, a casual remark, a chance phrase, that we, as it were, gauge her temperament in all its wiliness, its egoism, its love of supremacy, and its shallow worldly wisdom. Yet it could have been no ordinary woman that held the handsome Louis so long her captive. The fair Marquise was more than a mere leader of wit and fashion. If she ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... sixtieth birthday, Ibsen wrote out for Henrik Jaeger certain autobiographical recollections of his childhood. It is from these that the striking phrase about the scream of the saws is taken, and that is perhaps the most telling of these infant memories, many of which are slight and naive. It is interesting, however, to find that his earliest impressions of life at home were of an optimistic character. ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... From this phrase it is not clear whether the actual news of his suicide had arrived. It ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... data from Yount for a political editorial. Yount did not show up until half-past eight; after he had disgorged the necessary information he left the Dock cocked and primed for quick work. But the Dock had no sooner got fairly started—in fact, had scarcely reached his first politico medical phrase—when in came Roche (fresh from his bridal tour through Colorado) with a thunder-gust of tedious experiences. The Dock bore the infliction with Christian fortitude and thanked God when Roche left. In a moment or two thereafter, however, a Kansas ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the writing-table and wrote out a short agreement which he copied, and we both signed it—a rather curiously worded agreement by which I was to serve him for three years, and during that time our interests were "to be mutual." That last phrase caused me to wonder but I scribbled my name and refrained from comment, for the payment was already double that which I was ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... unaffected manner, sometimes with Madame Reynier and Mr. Chamberlain also for audience, sometimes to her alone. And since they lived keenly and loved, all books spoke to them of their life or their love. A line, a phrase, a thought, would ring out of the record, and each would be glad that the other had heard that thought; sometime they would talk it all over. They learned to laugh at their own whimsical prejudices, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... were full of the trial; no other subject, could, at the time, either interest or amuse. I doubt whether any affair of the kind was ever, to use the phrase of the trade, so well and perfectly reported. The speeches appeared word for word the same in the columns of newspapers of different politics. For four-fifths of the contents of the paper it would have been the same to you whether you were reading ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... A pet phrase among his critics is that he is a diplomatist and not a statesman. Like so many antitheses, this is misleading. It may be just to say that his methods are, in general, those of a diplomatist rather than of a statesman; but certain it is that in various debates of my time he ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... "if you had lain awake all night trying to say something that would particularly please me, you couldn't have done better. That was a quaint little phrase and a true little phrase, and I know a little spot that it will fit exactly. What am I doing today? Well, several things, Katy. First, anything you need about the house. Next, I am going to empty the billiard room and sell some of the excess furniture of the library, and with ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the "irrepressible conflict"—for we accept Mr. Seward's much-denounced phrase in all the breadth of meaning he ever meant to give it—is to take place in the South itself; because the Slave System is one of those fearful blunders in political economy which are sure, sooner or later, to ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... intimacy was a fact,—one of those odd facts which life persists in producing. They had shared an apartment (that is a nice compliment, that phrase, applied to their sitting-room, bedroom and bath) for almost a year, continuing in a state of amiability possible only between two people so widely separated in ideals and hopes that there could never be a clash. There ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... mistaken," said Henri, interrupting, "they speak in this phrase of love, obstinacy, and of my brother, ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... Englishman—to use the French phrase, L'ANGLAIS EMPETRE—is certainly a somewhat disagreeable person to meet at first. He looks as if he had swallowed a poker. He is shy himself, and the cause of shyness in others. He is stiff, not because he is proud, but because ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... Spenser; and King Charles, who had neglected him during life, pronounced his panegyric after death, declaring that 'Mr Cowley had not left behind him a better man in England.' It was in keeping with the character of Charles to make up for his deficiency in action, by his felicity of phrase. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... result from inevitable arrests of offensive action, than they can be avoided on land. The defensive, then, has to be considered; but before we are in a position to do so with profit, we have to proceed with our analysis of the phrase, "Command of the Sea," and ascertain exactly what it is we ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... excitable temper and weak nerves, his thoughts about himself, as distinguished from his pursuits, did not take positive shape in his mind until he had expressed them in words. Amongst the Latin races the phrase, 'he cannot think without speaking,' has more truth as applied to some individuals than ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... signifies 'in the august shadow of.' There is a ghostly beauty in the original phrase that neither a free nor yet a precise ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... mosquitoes! You're not aware, sister-in-law, that I actually dread uttering a word to any of the girls outside the few servant-girls and matrons in my own immediate service; for they invariably spin out, what could be condensed in a single phrase, into a long interminable yarn, and they munch and chew their words; and sticking to a peculiar drawl, they groan and moan; so much so, that they exasperate me till I fly into a regular rage. Yet how are they to know that our P'ing Erh too was once ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... tell me, also, whether there is such a phrase, expressive of the place where four roads met, as a "four warnt way," and whence its ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... know I have no ear," William would sternly say, in recompense for one of Henry's best solos. Yet was William enraged at Henry's answer, when, after taking him to hear him preach, he asked him, "how he liked his sermon," and Henry modestly replied (in the technical phrase of his profession), "You know, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... judicial, in more minds than those of the jury; and having thus prepared his witness for an examination at other and less careful hands, he testified his satisfaction at her replies, and turned her over to the prosecution, with the time-worn phrase: ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... fable, the fox has been the principal hero. The most ancient fables on record, those of Lokman, the Arabian, from whom AEsop took most of his, gives him a very conspicuous place among the crafty courtiers of the lion. The chief phrase of which the wily flatterer makes use, as he bows with affected humility to his sovereign, is, "Oh, Father of Beauty," by which indirect compliment he generally gains his wishes. The early German writers have also chosen him as the ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... recollections that in the colder periods the feelings and visions of the poets continue to be appreciated and felt. It was said of Thomson the poet by Samuel Johnson, that he could not look at two candles burning other than poetically. The phrase was employed in conversation by old Johnson; but it must have been the experience of young Johnson, derived from a time long gone by, that suggested it. It is characteristic of the poetic age, that objects which in later life become commonplace in the mind, are then surrounded as if by ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to slip from beneath her—which appears very strange to a landsman—and this is what is called riding, in sea phrase. Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with it as it rose—up—up—as if into the sky. I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... generally gave his signature to a writing was by covering the palm of his hand with ink, and then laying it on the paper. Balbi, who states this, adds that the Russian language still retains an evidence of the practice in its phrase for signing a document, which is roukou prilojite, signifying, literally, to put the hand to it. It may be remarked, however, that this is a form of expression even in our own country; although there is certainly no trace of the singular custom in question having ever prevailed ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... compressed within the forlorn squirrel-trimmed gray suit. The dragging movement, the hint of dropping on the seat not from fatigue but from desperation, completed the picture his imagination had already painted of some world-worn, knocked-about creature who had come to the point at which, in his own phrase, she was "all in." ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... career. And before I return to Gheria from a little journey I am about to make, you may have joined the majority of those who have tempted fate in this insalubrious clime. Horae momento cita mors yen it—you remember the phrase?" ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... awnings; armour-plated cruisers, in the First Class Steam Reserve, ready to be commissioned at a moment's notice; and ships in various degrees of construction, on the building slips and in dry dock—was a vessel which seemed to be undergoing the operation of "padding her hull," if the phrase be admissible as explaining what I noticed about her, the planking, from which the copper sheathing had been previously stripped, being doubled, apparently, and protected in weak places by additional ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... the weather much—I'd sizzle and I'd stew, And do the very best I could the heat to struggle through, If I could find some way, you know, the feller to eschew, Who greets you with the chestnut phrase— "IS ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... "natural" rate of wages fixed at the bare subsistence-point which was first clearly formulated in the writings of Quesnay and the so-called "physiocratic" school was little more than a rough generalisation of the facts of labour in France. But these facts, summed up in the phrase, "Il ne gagne que sa vie," and elevated to the position of a natural law, implied the general belief that a higher rate of wage would not result in a correspondent increase of the product of labour, that ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... ever ready to act when those on the stage cease that occupation, gave a splendid imitation of the historic last scene at the Tower of Babel. Having accomplished this to its evident satisfaction, the audience proceeded, like the closing phrase of the "Goetterdaemmerung" Dead March, to ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... had again been attached to her chain, and as he looked down upon her he saw that the cheap brooch was again on her breast. It would have been pretty, could an observer have been there, to see the skill with which they both steered clear of any word or phrase which could be disagreeable to him. One might have thought that it would have been impossible to avoid all touch of a rebuke. The very fact that he was forgiven would seem to imply some fault that required ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... somewhat bandy legs one over the other, made the tips of his fingers meet with unctuous accuracy, and intoned the opening sentences of his proposition. Jane, sharpening pencils and sorting nibs, apparently only caught the drift of what he was saying, for when he had chanted the phrase, "Not alone from selfish motives, my dear Miss Champion; but for the good of my parish; for the welfare of my flock, for the advancement of the work of the church in our midst," Jane opened a despatch-box and drew out ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... p'ints about that frog that's better than any other frog," became a catch phrase among the mining partners; and, "I 'ain't got no frog, but if I had a ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... is remarkable for the fineness of its diction and for its clear presentation of the subject, relieved here and there by a quaintly humorous turn of phrase that is altogether delightful."—Colin C. Stewart, Ph. D., ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... circumstance gave a new turn to my thoughts; how I suddenly remembered that when I was a child I had believed what that book taught, and that since, I had never once thought whether I did believe it or not. I knew I was going to die; and there was a certain phrase in that book which seemed very plain to me at that moment, 'It is appointed to all men once to die, and after that the judgment.' I don't know how it happened that I recollected it so well, for it was years since I had read it; but somehow I did; and again I thought that my brain would ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... then there's more simpathie: you loue sacke, and so do I: would you desire better simpathie? Let it suffice thee (Mistris Page) at the least if the Loue of Souldier can suffice, that I loue thee: I will not say pitty mee, 'tis not a Souldier-like phrase; but I say, loue me: By me, thine owne true Knight, by day or night: Or any kinde of light, with all his might, For thee to fight. Iohn Falstaffe. What a Herod of Iurie is this? O wicked, wicked world: One that is well-nye worne to peeces with age To show himselfe a yong Gallant? What an vnwaied ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... as though the repetition of the phrase might bring her courage. And then she went back among ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... Schuyler, put a stop to all this. After their proceedings became public, and still more certainly after the crash of 1857, if railways did not earn a dividend, they had to say so. This led to investigations, and stockholders became "posted," as the phrase is. Chiefly by the exertions of one newspaper, the "Boston Railway Times," railway companies were shamed into giving their reports in such form as to distinguish the expenses per mile run, for fuel, oil, repairs of road, machines, etc., etc. This gave a common standard of comparison; and, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... that something done in Boston lately was done with the "usual Boston intensity." I believe the remark was not intended to be a compliment, but we shall take it as one, and are quite willing to accept the phrase. I think it is true in the past, I hope it will be true in the future, that we go at the things which we have to do with a certain intensity, which I suppose we owe to these Puritan Fathers whom to-night we are celebrating. Certainly we have gone at this business of emigration ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... evidence that the main division is twofold, not threefold, lies chiefly in the nature of the several representations, the minute formulae by which the transitions of the narrative are effected, point in the same direction. The parable of the lost sheep is introduced by the phrase, "And he spake this parable," ([Greek: eipe de ten parabolen]), and that of the prodigal by the corresponding, "And he said," ([Greek: eipe de]). These two are thus balanced over against each other; but the only link between the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... usefulness of SCHLAG and ZUG. Armed just with these two, and the word ALSO, what cannot the foreigner on German soil accomplish? The German word ALSO is the equivalent of the English phrase "You know," and does not mean anything at all—in TALK, though it sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his mouth an ALSO falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... usually agreed that the difference is not one of doctrine. The Easterns prefer the phrase "receiving from the Son": the Westerns prefer to assert afresh the equality of the Father and the Son, by using the phrase, "proceeding from the Father and the Son." It may be {177} doubted whether ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... perfectly well aware that certain rules of order are to be observed in the management of the house, or else you will have either starvation or the sheriff inside of it in a little time. But what means that formidable, big-sounding phrase, Political Economy, more than national housekeeping? Can you manage the immense, overgrown family of Uncle Sam with less calculation, less regard to justice, prudence, thrift, than you use in your own little affairs? Can you sail that tremendous vessel, the Ship ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... When you see a dish of fruit at dessert, you sometimes set your affections upon one particular peach or nectarine, watch it with some anxiety as it comes round the table, and feel quite a sensible disappointment when it is taken by some one else. I have used the phrase "high passion." Well, I should say this was about as high a passion as generally leads to marriage. One husband hears after marriage that some poor fellow is dying of his wife's love. "What a pity!" he exclaims; "you know I could so easily have got another!" And yet that is a very happy union. ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for a word that escaped him, and the weeks that he devoted to rounding off one of his periods. He would never write these down until he had said them to himself, or, as he put it himself, until "they had gone through his jaw." He would not allow two complements in the same phrase, and we are told that he was ill after reading in one of his own books the following words: "Une couronne de ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... rare, these halcyon days, When earth's a paradise rose-petalled, For you to chill us with a phrase: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... chalkmark, his arms extended, his eyes set on his bonds. His hands had fallen perhaps four inches apart, and in the space between his wrists a little chain was stretched taut. In the mounting tumult that filled his brain there sprang before Mr. Trimm's consciousness a phrase he had heard or read somewhere, the title of a story or, perhaps, it was a headline—The Grips of the Law. The Grips of the Law were upon Mr. Trimm—he felt them now for the first time in these shiny wristlets and this bit of chain that bound his wrists ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... here translated "eye" may also be rendered "understanding." The exact meaning of the phrase (one of frequent recurrence ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... the phrase of the day, to have beat the rounds, overset a constable, and conquered a watchman, whose staff and lantern he has brought into the room, as trophies of his prowess. In this situation he is robbed of his watch by the girl ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... progresses, it prolongs the agony which is the most dreadful moment and the sharpest peak of human pain and horror, for the witnesses, at least; for, often, the sensibility of him who, in Bossuet's phrase, is "at bay with death," is already greatly blunted and perceives no more than the distant murmur of the sufferings which he seems to be enduring. All the doctors consider it their first duty to ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... of her husband, and implored his mercy in humble and submissive terms. The Duke, with calm and almost incredible irony, reassured the Countess by the information that, on the morrow, her husband was certainly to be released. With this ambiguous phrase, worthy the paltering oracles of antiquity, the wretched woman was obliged to withdraw. Too soon afterward the horrible truth of the words was revealed to her—words of doom, which she had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was nothing compared with whole months of hard exposure which he had endured in the northland. It had not the edge. If it were not for the wind it was scarcely a threat to life. Moreover, the singing sounded no more. It had been hardly more than a phrase of music, and it must have been a deceptive murmur of ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... for this requirement lies in the fact that an argument can occur only when men have conflicting opinions about a certain thought, and try to prove the truth or falsity of this definite idea. Since a term—a word, phrase, or other combination of words not a complete sentence—suggests many ideas, but never stands for one particular idea, it is absurd as a subject to be argued. A debatable subject is always a proposition, a statement in which something is affirmed or denied. ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... is shortly this. In a translation of the charter of the Infirmary from Latin into English, made under the authority of the managers, the same phrase in the original is in one place rendered Physician, but when applied to Dr. Memis is rendered Doctor of Medicine. Dr. Memis complained of this before the translation was printed, but was not indulged with having it altered; and he has brought ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... it as is stored away in ricks and barns during harvest, and remains there to be used in any of these ways months or years afterwards, is customarily and rightly termed capital. Surely, the meaning of the clumsy phrase that capital is "wealth in the [174] course of exchange" must be that it is "wealth capable of being exchanged" against labour or anything else. That, in fact, is the equivalent of the second definition, that ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the prandial gloom Of union forced that fatal custom Decrees to wither "youth and bloom," (The phrase is from Sohrab and Rustum) I've suffered boredom to the full; Professors dull—of Hindostani! Dull wits, dull statesmen, dandies dull— He ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... missionaries might then endeavour to tell us something of the Fine Arts in the East, and yet more of the spirit which animates their artists. They would be able to show us that "art for art's sake" with them is no empty phrase. It would doubtless surprise many Westerners to know that a Chinese painter would not think of selling his pictures for money, but paints them for his own pleasure, and gives his work as presents to his friends, and would no more dream of selling a picture ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... these years we have detailed accounts from an eye-witness a writer competent, above all other men of his time, to set down in courtly and happy phrase the wonders that delighted his eyes. In 1361, John Froissart, an adventurous young clerk from Valenciennes, sought out a career for himself in the household of his countrywoman, Queen Philippa, bearing with ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... the sexes are searching for a new form, the old one is falling to pieces.' Among the manuscript 'remains' of Ibsen, that profound student of human nature, the following noteworthy passage occurs: '"Free-born men" is a phrase of rhetoric. They do not exist, for marriage, the relation between man and wife, has corrupted the race and impressed the mark of slavery upon all.' Not long ago, too, our greatest living novelist, George Meredith, created an immense sensation ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... corrupt gifts the circumstances of which we have recited, had, in prejudice of the lawful issue of the Nabob, been raised to the musnud; but as bastard slips, it is said in King Richard, (an abuse of a Scripture phrase,) do not take deep root, this bastard slip, Nujim ul Dowlah, shortly died, and the legitimate son, Syef ul Dowlah, succeeded him. After him another legitimate son, Mobarek ul Dowlah, succeeded in a minority. When I say succeeded, I wish your Lordships to understand that there is no regular ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of its sweetness for bearing, strongly and unmistakably, the ".accents of the mountain tongue." Though more in tone than phrase, for Mrs. Flora Rothesay spoke with all the ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... New York is the finest summer resort in the world." You have heard that phrase before. But that is what I ...
— Options • O. Henry
... pitched variety, whatever that may mean. But it is a phrase used to describe the most intense and desperate battles of history, and surely this was one of them. Dolly Fayre had no idea that gentle little Flossy had so much fight in her small white body, ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... fascination. Our Florida men were wild with delight; and when we rounded the point below the city, and saw from afar its long streets, its brick warehouses, its white cottages, and its overshadowing trees,—all peaceful and undisturbed by flames,—it seemed, in the men's favorite phrase, "too much good," and all discipline was merged, for the moment, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... a thing done has an end. You have won back your wife in open fight. I fancy, by the way, that you have rather laid up future trouble for yourself in doing so, but I honor the skill you have shown. Colonel Musgrave, it is to you that, as the vulgar phrase it, I ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... furnished. But I don't think either husband or wife felt much for me. They recommended me, at parting, to apply to my father's other relatives, living in England. I may be doing them an injustice, but I fancy they were eager to get me (as the common phrase ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... the "Log" Of the MAY-FLOWER, the author is able to repeat the assurance given as to the brief Journal of the SPEEDWELL, and is able to say, in the happy phrase of Griffis, "I have tried to state only recorded facts, or to give expression to ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... memory and retaining there, put their laws into a kind of rhymed verse, of which they may have been the inventors. By this device, aided by the isolated geographical position of Ireland, the sanctity of age, and the apprehension that any change of word or phrase might change the law itself, these archaic laws, when subsequently committed to writing, were largely preserved from the progressive changes to which all spoken languages are subject, with the result that we have today, embedded in the Gaelic text and commentaries ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... friends, he goes on: "For these reasons, I am determined to make these pages my confidant. I will sketch every character that any way strikes me, to the best of my power, with unshrinking justice. I will insert anecdotes and take down remarks, in the old law phrase, without feud or favour.... I think a lock and key a security at least equal to the bosom of any friend whatever. My own private story likewise, my love adventures, my rambles; the frowns and smiles of fortune on my bardship my poems and fragments, that must never see the light, shall be occasionally ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... "Plenty of people wish well to any good cause, but very few care to exert themselves to help it, and still fewer will risk anything in its support. 'Someone ought to do it, but why should I?' is the ever reechoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability. 'Someone ought to do it, so why not I?' is the cry of some earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilous duty. Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... that salvation could be meted out to the short-lived hopes of Henry Wharton. Not that the kind-hearted matron was so ignorant of the doctrines of the religion which she professed, as to depend, theoretically, on mortal aid for protection; but she had, to use her own phrase, "sat so long under the preaching of good Mr.——," that she had unconsciously imbibed a practical reliance on his assistance, for that which her faith should have taught her could come from the Deity alone. With her, the consideration ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... girlish picture of Fanny, in clothes already absurdly out of mode. She had a pure hovering smile; the aspect of innocence time had been powerless to change was accentuated; and her hands managed to convey an impression of appeal. He had been, in the phrase now current, crazy about her; he was still, he told himself strictly. Well, he was ... yet he had kissed Anette; not for the first time, either; but, he recognized, for the last. He was free of that! A space, a phase, of his life was definitely behind him. A pervading ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... pine trees framing as it were the brightness, with every little branch defined against it, without thinking of that silence of intense, almost awe-struck joy in which Harold went home by my side, only at long intervals uttering some brief phrase, such as "This is blessedness," or "Thank God, who gives ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cemeteries whose dead came to their ends, shod in accordance with the grim phrase of their times, there remains one just outside the town of Tombstone to the north. Here straggling mesquite bushes grow on the summit of the ridge; cacti and ocatilla sprawl over the sun-baked earth hiding between their thorny stems the headboards and the ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... two months ago, when our Divisional Artillery arrived. Unversed in local etiquette, they commenced operations by "sending up"—to employ a vulgar but convenient catch-phrase—a strongly fortified farmhouse in the enemy's support line. The Boche, by way of gentle reproof, deposited four or five small "whizz-bangs" in our front-line trenches. The tenants thereof promptly telephoned to "Mother," and Mother came to the assistance ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... difficulty or impropriety in proceeding, if it should afterwards be rendered necessary by her coming to England, against "our gracious Queen Caroline," than against "the Princess of Wales," prayed for the preceding Sunday. As to the phrase of "gracious," it is a mere title of honour attached to the station, and far less objectionable than "most religious," which Charles II. was the first sovereign who assumed, and which produces little sensation even when used as an epithet to some of his successors. Still, if ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... wide word, including all well-being. Ease-loving Orientals, especially when living in warlike times, naturally used the phrase as a shorthand expression for all good. Busy Westerns, torn by the distractions and rapid movement of modern life, echo the sigh for repose which breathes in the word. 'There is no joy but calm,' and the sure way to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... part of the trip, and as I read it over now I note one persistently recurring phrase, namely, "Living fine." We did live fine. We even disdained to use coffee boiled in water. We made our coffee out of milk, calling the wonderful beverage, if I remember rightly, ...
— The Road • Jack London
... he said. It was the first time in his life that he had used the phrase to any woman, and the words came out ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... collar, rode over to me and shook hands and asked if I had come over with the Canadians. I told him I had. Then he said, "I am so glad you have all come into my Army." I did not know who he was or what army we were in, or in fact what the phrase meant, but I thought it was wise to say nice things to a general, so I told him we were all very glad too. He seemed gratified and rode off in all the pomp and circumstance of war. I heard afterwards that he was General Haig, who at that time ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... Duke's face are very judiciously generalised, or idealised (as is the phrase among artists) to that degree which raises the mental character of the head, and while it retains all those peculiarities which are essential to portraiture, renders an individual countenance more fit for the purpose of the sculptor, and perhaps impresses a likeness ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... rooms were well filled, and Cairy, who still served as her monitor, told Isabelle that most of the women were merely fashionable. The men—and there was a good sprinkling of them—counted; they all had tickets of one sort or another, and he told them off with a keen phrase for each. When the music began, Isabelle found herself in a recess of the farther room with several people whom she did not know. Cairy had disappeared, and Isabelle settled back to enjoy the music and study the company. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Captain Andrew! Poet of renown! Whether the chairmen of Edina's town You curious draw, and make 'em justly speak, To use a vulgar phrase, as clean's a leek; Or smart Epistles, Fables, Songs you write, All put together handsome trim and tight; Or when your sweetly plaintive muse does sigh, And elegiac strains you happy try; Or when in ode sublime your genius soars, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... before thee bend the suppliant knee, And kiss thy garment while they woo thy hand, Spurn not the peasant boy who dared to stand Before thee, in the rapture of his heart, And woo thee as thine equal. Courtly art May find more fitting phrase to charm thine ear, But, dearest, mayst thou find them as sincere! And, oh! by every past and hallowed hour! By the lone tree that formed our trysting bower! By the fair moon, and all the stars of night, That ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... are no doubt exceptions. Memoranda is preferable when used collectively, but the English plural is better in such a phrase as 'two different memorandums'. Automata, too, is sometimes collective; and lacuna always carries the suggestion of its classical meaning, which makes half the meaning of the word. So again, when the classical form is a scientific term, it is convenient and ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... the polite phrase literally. "More like you'll want to knock his head off. Old Timer," he leaned over the saddle horn, "seein' as you're from Missoury, I'll tell you private that you'd better keep on travelin'. Company ain't wanted at the Scissor Outfit, and they'd high-tone it over ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... the third of three critical utterances of which each is summarised, as it were, in a single luminous phrase. To the Cape Dutch he spoke at Graaf Reinet, after their own manner: "Of course you are loyal!" To England, on the Uitlander's behalf, he wrote: "The case for intervention is overwhelming." And now he gathered the whole long lesson of the war into ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... enthusiastically. Finally, David had to make the boy a kite. When made it took two hours for the paste to dry; and as every ten minutes spent in waiting seemed an hour to one of Mr. Reginald's kidney, as the English classics phrase it, he was almost in a state of frenzy at last, and flew his new kite with yells. But after a bit he missed a familiar incident; "It doesn't tumble down; my other ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... accustomed to versify while they walk, and to bite their nails in apparent agonies, their steps are measured and slow, and they look as if they were reflecting on something of consequence, although they are only thinking, as the phrase runs, of nothing!" I have only transcribed the above description of our jocular scholar, with an intention of describing those exterior marks of that fine enthusiasm, of which the poet is peculiarly susceptible, and which have exposed many an elevated ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... it seemed as if his soul were looking out of door and windows at once—but a puzzled soul that understood nothing of what it saw. Yet plainly, either the sounds, or the thought-matter vaguely operative beyond the line where intelligence begins, or, it may be, the sparkle of individual word or phrase islanded in a chaos of rhythmic motion, wrought somehow upon him, for his attention was fixed as by a spell. When Donal ceased, he remained open-mouthed and motionless for a time; then, drawing himself slidingly over the grass to Donal's feet, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... friendly reputation, which was widespread, would protect them; so he parted from his wife and children with little apprehension as to their safety. In reply to Meek's question, I stated that I had not seen Spencer's family, when he remarked, "Well, I fear that they are gone up," a phrase used in that country in early days to mean that they had been killed. I questioned him closely, to elicit further information, but no more could be obtained; for Meek, either through ignorance or the usual taciturnity of his class, did not explain more fully, and when the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... assurance in my name, that if he will yet, before his trial, confess cheerily unto the commissioners his guiltiness of this fact, I will not only perform what I promised by my last messenger both towards him and his wife, but I will enlarge it, according to the phrase of the civil law, &c. I mean not, that he shall confess if he be innocent, but ye know how evil likely that is; and of yourself ye may dispute with him what should mean his confidence now to endure a trial, when, as he remembers, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various |
