"Vying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commence in the first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and tutor are vying with one another about the improvement of the child as soon as ever he is able to understand what is being said to him: he cannot say or do anything without their setting forth to him that this is just ...
— Protagoras • Plato
... corrupt politician, is now heard in all parts of our land. In many of our cities, he has already been relegated to the junk heap, by the adoption of the commission form of government. Two of the states, Kansas and Oklahoma, are now vying with each other, to see which shall be first to adopt the same system in the management of the public affairs of the state, and thus dispense with a ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... the schools of art that have grown up in England and elsewhere and flourished side by side, vying with one another to express the protean graces of man, of architecture and domestic interior, of earth and sky and sea. Where is the Swiss school? Where, in any public gallery, will you find a masterpiece which triumphantly vindicates the charm of Swiss scenery? ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... at daybreak the ships got up their anchors and sailed up the channel, each commander vying with the rest in his eagerness to be first in the fray. They were soon hotly engaged with the enemy; the fort, men of war, and galleys opening a heavy fire upon them, to which, anchoring as close as they could get ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... furiously. Miss Ann, ensconced behind the barricade of luggage, gazed out on the rolling meadows of Buck Hill and thought bitterly of the old days when devoted cavaliers accompanied her coach, eager to escort her on her journey and vying with one another for a smile from the careless ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... Majesty will pass some law by which our city dames may be prevented from vying in expense with those of the court—to forbid stuffs of gold, or Genoa velvet, to be worn by them—and all ornaments of too high price—which are not suitable to our condition as simple artisans, and very ruinous to ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... character of this war. For it could have had no other mainspring than a resolve to paralyse the arm of the Entente, which, if allowed to wax stronger, might smite in lieu of being smitten. For the moment, however, Germany was neither attacked nor menaced. Far from that, her rivals were vying with each other in their strivings to maintain peace. Her condition was prosperous, her industries thriving, her colonial possessions had recently been greatly increased, her influence on the affairs of the world was unquestioned, her citizens were materially well-to-do, her workmen were ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... vying with one another, coquetting with their patrons, smiling gayly with sharp retorts; their eyes bright, their trays laden with foaming ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... stay in London we go on to Paris—by train to Dover, across the Channel at its narrowest part in a swift turbine steamer, and again by rail from Calais to Paris, through one of the most fruitful districts of France, vying with the valleys of the Rhone and Garonne in fertility. In a little over seven hours after leaving London we arrive at the great city (Plate XXIV.) where the Seine, crossed by thirty bridges, describes a bend, afterwards ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... stately, and the entertainment superb. Carpets glowing with the gorgeous coloring of the Orient, pictures that had caught their delicate tinge in sacred Rome, furniture carved from the solid heart of rose-wood, plate vying in richness with the state service of a scion of nobility, abounded. Fluttering in the light of many tinted lamps, rare flowers breathed daintiest odors; and floating through the high arches, soft music whispered plaintive ecstasy. In the center of a throng of recently arrived guests, and positively ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... now quite abreast, vying with each other to reach the summit as if with the one thought only. Already the sting and smart of acrid fumes were in their eyes and nostrils; when they at last stood on level ground again, it was hidden by a thin film of grayish blue haze ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... wrong in his assertion, that all America will be a Catholic country. I myself never prophesy; but, I cannot help remarking, that even in the most anti-Catholic persuasions in America there is a strong Papistical feeling; that is, there is a vying with each other, not only to obtain the best preachers, but to have the best organs and the best singers. It is the system of excitement which, without their being aware of it, they carry into their devotion. It proves that, to them there is a weariness in the church service, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... remained in the residence of the governor, surrounded by its female inhabitants, and the women of the highest rank residing in the place,—all vying with one another to dazzle the fair Jewess by showing her the riches and splendor of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... following day the Spanish crew of the Cristobal Colon were released and sent on shore; and, this done, all tension between the Spaniards and the English was immediately relaxed, the Spaniards, with their high-flown ideas of chivalry, vying with each other in showing the utmost cordiality and attention to their whilom enemies; so that, on the whole, George and his officers, to say nothing of the men, were given a fairly pleasant time during their sojourn at Panama, in return for which they, among other things, assisted materially to ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... stirred drowsily and arose, throwing back her heavy hair from her face. The flush of sleep still dyed her cheek a rich crimson, which came and went slowly in the light of the young sun, vying in depth now with the silk of her gown, now with the still deeper tones of a mountain red-bird which splattered into rainbow tints the waters of the brook. She caught the sound of the stream, and went to it. The red-bird retreated circumspectly, silently. ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... college discipline, even if it extend not beyond college duties, is a perpetual remembrancer of the high moral end for which the student is placed within its precincts. His only allurement to extravagance is the desire of vying with those who make a greater display than himself, or else it arises from, if possible, a less defensible motive, namely, that of becoming himself an object of emulation to others. It is not the duty of the college authorities ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... be difficult to assign any reason why it has so happened that no literary author of any general celebrity, with the exception of Franklin, has yet arisen in America. That men of learning and extensive reading, capable of vying with the same description of persons in Europe, are to be found in the United States, particularly in Philadelphia, is not to be denied; but of that class, whose talents tend to augment the stock of intellectual enjoyment in the ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... this state of demoralization, each, from the abbot downwards, vying with the other in the number and enormity of their sins, there came a pious-minded youth from a neighbouring village, who begged that he might be permitted to join the order. He had been attracted, he said, by the fame of their sanctity. He was received amongst them, and ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... years a certain section of the Republicans in the far Southern States have tried to free themselves of the reputation of being "nigger lovers" by vying with their Democratic rivals in seeking to deprive Negroes of civic and political rights. Republicans of this particular stripe are known colloquially as the "Lily Whites." In this connection the ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... it had accompanied the bridal chair on many another journey. The box with the mitre was brought forth and the crown was placed on her head, already too richly adorned with artificial flowers. And now the wailing broke forth beyond all bounds, the young bride and her mother vying with each other in making the greatest possible noise; at times beating their heads against the wall, the bed, or the table in their self-imposed ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... the bright-leaved noni, the dark-leaved koa, the mahogany of the Pacific; the great glossy-leaved Eugenia—a forest tree as large as our largest elms; the small-leaved ohia, its rose-crimson flowers making a glory in the forests, and its young shoots of carmine red vying with the colouring of the New England fall; and the strange lauhala hung its stiff drooping plumes, which creak in the faintest breeze; and the superb breadfruit hung its untempting fruit, and from spreading guavas we shook the ripe yellow treasures, scooping out ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... but—mercy, what creaks those steps had in them! They seemed to be vying with each other, the heartless brutes, as to which could shriek the loudest under a girl's light foot. Probably they had never seen a girl before, or if they had, it was so long ago they had forgotten. Fancy Grandma a girl! No wonder, if the steps remembered her, that they yelled——But ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... base; the continuous chain of neat farm-houses (we speak principally of Detroit and its opposite shores); the luxuriant and bending orchards, teeming with fruits of every kind and of every colour; the ripe and yellow corn vying in hue with the soft atmosphere, which reflects and gives full effect to its abundance and its richness,—these, with the intervening waters unruffled, save by the lazy skiff, or the light bark ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... improvements. Behold the despicable creature, raised all at once from dirt to opulence; from the lowest obscurity to the highest honors. Have not some of these upstarts built private houses and seats, vying with the most sumptuous of our public palaces? And how have their fortunes and their power increased, but as the commonwealth has been ruined ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... youthful princes adorned with ear-rings, vying with one another and each regarding himself accomplished in arms and gifted with might, stood up brandishing their weapons. And intoxicated with pride of beauty, prowess, lineage, knowledge, wealth, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... one month he baptized, with his own hand, ten thousand idolaters; and that, frequently, in one day, he baptized a well peopled village." He says also, "that it was to him a most pleasing object, to behold, that so soon as those infidels had received baptism, they ran, vying with each other to demolish the temples of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... Lincoln at Springfield on the day of his nomination, Mr. Volk says. "The afternoon was lovely—bright and sunny, neither too warm nor too cool; the grass, trees, and the hosts of blooming roses, so profuse in Springfield, appeared to be vying with the ringing bells and waving flags. I went straight to Mr. Lincoln's unpretentious little two-story house. He saw me from his door or window coming down the street, and as I entered the gate he was on the platform in front of the door, and quite alone. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... in the mind of a female more enchanting, nor one which adds more dignity and grace to her person, than constancy. Whatever share of beauty she may be possessed of, whether she may have the tinge of Hebe on her cheeks, vying in colour with the damask rose, and breath as fragrant—and the graceful and elegant gait of an Ariel—still, unless she is endowed with this characteristic of a virtuous and ingenuous mind, all her personal charms will fade away, through ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... under a burning tropical sun. These caboceers were dressed in robes of leopard skin, hung round with tassels and chains, and in a short time afterwards about twenty of them, in all their dirt and debasement, stretched at full length before the king, stripped to the waist, and vying with each other, which should have the most dust, and kiss the ground with the greatest fervour. When any one speaks to the king, it must be addressed to him through the eunuch, who is prostrated by the side of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... uneasy as to what it announced, she slipped on a cloak and ran to the window, where Mary Seyton joined her directly. A rather numerous band of horsemen had halted on the side of the lake, displaying the Douglas pennon, and three boats were rowing together and vying with each other ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he saw something which for the moment interested him very much. Elizabeth, with Nancy Foster who was now more companion than maid, was walking slowly toward her tent. Both were looking at the gorgeous sunset. Its brilliancy, vying with that of the deadly fireworks, offered a contrast all the more striking in its restfulness and happy promise. The two women had grown somewhat accustomed to the cannonade, and as they went on they seemed to be talking without noticing ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... appointed) with usury; enriched with annotations, tripling their value. I have had experience. Many are these precious MSS. of his—(in matter oftentimes, and almost in quantity not unfrequently, vying with the originals)—in no very clerkly hand—legible in my Daniel; in old Burton; in Sir Thomas Browne; and those abstruser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas! wandering in Pagan lands.—I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... appearance, with bright, round, beady eyes continually roving in search of information from beneath the straggling fringe of a crumpled Pompadour transformation, for those horrors had recently become fashionable, and the whole world of women were vying with one another in the simulation of the criminal type of skull, with ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... us not! as friends, with rivalry Of swiftly-vying wings, we came together Unto this rock and thee! With our sea-sire we pleaded hard, until We won him to our will, And swift the wafting breezes bore us hither. The heavy hammer's steely blow Thrilled to our ocean-cavern from afar, Banished ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... Japan that Christianity had gained no footing. An increased activity in the operations of the missionaries is discernible about this time. The Dominicans in Satsuma, the Franciscans in Yedo (Tokio), and the Jesuits in the capital and southern provinces, seem to have been vying with each other which should gain most converts; and the circuit made by Cerqueyra, in which he visited all the Jesuit establishments throughout the country, was probably not without effect in exciting fresh enthusiasm among the converts everywhere, which, again, would naturally draw attention ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... was solicited for all the most fashionable routs, and at assemblies he sat always in the shade of some titled turban. In fact, Mr. Coates was a great success. There was an air of most romantic mystery that endeared his presence to all the damsels fluttering fans in the Pump Room. It set them vying for his conduct through the mazes of the Quadrille or of the Triumph, and blushing at the sound of his name. Alas! their tremulous rivalry lasted not long. Soon they saw that Emma, sole daughter of Sir James Tylney Long, that wealthy baronet, had cast a magic net about ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... to see whether Maria had been frightened, and finding her happily asleep, followed the rest of the world down-stairs, where the servants seemed to be vying with each other in the magnitude of the losses they announced, while Mervyn was shouting himself hoarse with passionate orders that everything should be left alone—doors, windows, plate-chests, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... carried on with great vigor, the young people making up in activity what was lacking in gracefulness of motion. Game after game was made out, the ladies vying with each other to see who should laugh the most, while those who were left chatted gayly together in groups, or tried their powers of fascination upon some ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... the great cathedral, filled with as motley a crowd of youths and men as any scene in France could show. Little groups of French and Norman and Breton nobles chattered together in their bright silks and fur-tipped mantles, with slender swords dangling from embroidered belts, vying with each other in the length and crookedness of their turned-up shoes. Anglo-Saxons looked on, in long fur-lined cloaks, tight breeches, and leathern hose swathed with bands of many colored cloth. ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... been taking place throughout Europe in the matter of armaments. Artillery knowledge has been advancing "by leaps and bounds;" and all the chief nations are vying with each other in the perfection of their materiel of war. As a readiness to fight is the best insurance for peace, it behooves us to see from time to time how we stand, and the present moment is a peculiarly suitable one for taking stock of our powers and capabilities. I propose, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... self-flagellation, or wearing horsehair shirts. Not that these ministers set their flocks any example of self-mortification. The greater number of preachers show excellent "condition," the poorest farmers' wives vying with each other in purveying "creature comforts" for these spiritual comforters. Preparing hot dinners, it seems, is not working on the Lord's Day when it is for the preacher; though to save a field of corn, which is in danger of being spoiled if left out, as in some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... red-cloaked girls and saucy pugs for months past, the chicken-pie with infinite crimping and stars and knobs, decorating its snowy face. The mothers and daughters are placed over against the puddings and pies, which have exercised their ambition for weeks—vying with rival housekeepers in the number and variety of sorts—and which, after the faint impression made on them to-day, shall be found for a month, filling the shelves of spare-closets and lending a delicious though slightly musty ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... hurts, if the case were not fatal, the student took to flight in the direction the beautiful girl had chosen. He well knew that this was a grave matter, and that he trod on burning ground. At twenty paces farther, he remembered his cloak, but on the bridge were now clustered several shadows vying with Baboushka in picking up the coin before raising the unfortunate ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... bonfire and the consuming weeds great volumes of smoke poured up and floated away, the air was full of pungent odors, and the robins called vociferously back and forth through the garden, their alarmed and excited cries vying with the children's shouts. In half an hour only a faint haze of smoke to the eastward indicated the brief conflagration; the family had gone to the house for their one-o'clock dinner, and the birds were content with the normal aspect of the old ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... one of the numerous and powerful tribes of the prairies, vying in warlike might and prowess with the Sioux, the Pawnees, the Sauks, the Konsas, and the Iatans. Their wars with the Sioux, however, had thinned their ranks, and the small-pox in 1802 had swept off two thirds ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... and is yet one of the most noble in Italy, vying in picturesqueness with those marble piles that line the Grand Canal at Venice. We know that Giovanni Sanzio contributed by his advice and skill to the wealth of beauty in the palace, and we know that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... character, as it appears, by no means reputable, his great opulence rendered him an object of ambition among the mothers of Ravenna, who, according to the too frequent maternal practice, were seen vying with each other in attracting so rich a purchaser for their daughters, and the young Teresa Gamba, then only eighteen, and just emancipated from a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... yet delighted With the reeking hide, Body smeared with ashes. Skulls in necklace tied? Thou to love this monster? Thou to plead his part! Know the moon and Ganga Share that faithless heart Vainly art thou vying With thy rivals' charms. Are not coils of serpents Softer than thine arms?" Words like these from Daksha Daksha's daughter heard: Then a sudden passion All her bosom stirred. Eyes with fury flashing. Speechless in her ire, Headlong did she hurl her 'Mid ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... There were many grand banquets; there were visits of ceremony, with new and elaborate toilettes for each visit; there were numberless beautiful presents, the families represented and their many connections vying with each other in the richness and fineness of their gifts. Diamonds and jewels in settings of quaint design were among them, and besides all these there were the ancestral jewels of Julie de la Riviere, the mother of Lafayette, to be received by the new bride, and by her ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... don't know much about the great world. Mrs. Fletcher, whose late husband was once a Representative in Washington, says that life is not nearly so simple there as it used to be, and that rich men in the Government, vying with rich men who have built fine houses and who live there permanently without any Government position, have introduced an element of expense and display that interferes very much with the natural selection of which Mr. Morgan ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... principal entrance must, originally, have been very grand; but is so much injured that little but its form remains. The most remarkable part of the building is the enormous tower, which rises to a gigantic height above all the edifices of the town on the side next the river, vying with that of St. Eutrope in the opposite quarter. This tower is supported by flying buttresses, of great strength and beauty: the Calvinists had resolved on its destruction, and had already begun its demolition, when it was represented to Admiral Coligny that the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... lights everywhere glimmering through the scarcely moving trees; the full-bodied concert bursting on the stillness of the night; the natural concert of the birds, in the more retired part of the grove, vying with that which was formed by art; the company gaily-dressed looking satisfaction, and the tables spread with various delicacies, all conspired to fill my imagination with the visionary happiness of the Arabian lawgiver, and ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... each one of the little group vying with the other in providing interest and amusement for the weary, restless, fevered girl. Often, at the first, the old impatience would break out, mostly in her talk with Charrington, at rare times to her hostess, too, but at such times followed ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... of the two showers. Scarcely did the flashing lightning—almost instantly followed by the cannon-like crash of the thunder—blaze and peal on one side of the brig, before the flaming bolt and the startling roar were taken up on the other side, as though the two tempests on either hand were vying with each other for the mastery of ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... giving forth a curious staccato whistling crack as it plunged through or beside the tormented machine, leaving in its wake a thin curling line of blue smoke. I was in the middle of a relentless storm of burning tracer bullets, vying one with the other for the honour of passing through the petrol tank, thereby converting my machine into a seething furnace. Having no observer to defend my tail I turned steeply to meet my new adversary. However, before completing the manoeuvre I received another deadly burst of fire, which, ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... decreed that there should be no vying of rival cheering sections with one another—a rather foolish decree, some thought—finding it hard to imagine a football contest devoid of the familiar and on-spurring "Rah, rahs." But this was an idea that the faculty had ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... with open hand and shut fist. He is blind-folded, and then struck by one and another with derisive demands that He use His prophetic skill to tell who had been hitting Him. And this goes on for possibly a couple of hours before dawn permits the next step, soldiers vying with senators ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... place on the 9th of November, in the middle of the Bidassoa, with a host of petty and futile observances which excite mirth rather than admiration; but at the same time with a magnificence surpassing all that had ever previously been exhibited on such an occasion; the two Courts of France and Spain vying with each other in splendour and profusion. De Luynes, to whom such a mission appeared peculiarly adapted, presented to the Infanta the letters of welcome with which he had been entrusted by Louis XIII and his mother, and which were received by the Princess with an ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the pursuit. Thus spake The King:—"Seigneurs, the time is come to give Vent to just hatred, and your anguished hearts Assuage. This very morn I saw your eyes Streaming with tears." They cry:—"Our vengeance now!" And vying with each other in exploits, They deal their mighty blows. But few ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... thousand, has become the first and most important shipping outlet of Spain. Nor have the southern ports of Huelva and Seville been much behind it in their rapid progress; while on the Mediterranean coast are Malaga, Almeria, Aguilas, Cartagena, Valencia, and Tarragona—all vying with the older, and once singular, centre of commercial and industrial activity, Barcelona. The northwest seaboard has been hitherto somewhat behind the movement, owing to a less complete railway communication ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... together at this place, intending to transfer the body secretly to S. Croce. They only brought a single pall of velvet, embroidered with gold, and a crucifix, to place upon the bier. When night fell, the elder men lighted torches, while the younger crowded together, vying one with another for the privilege of carrying the coffin. Meantime the Florentines, suspecting that something unusual was going forward at S. Pietro, gathered round, and soon the news spread through the city that Michelangelo was being borne to S. Croce. A vast concourse ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... stirred with an ambition to take part in the drama of events going on upon the greater stage, across the Channel. The old dream of French conquest returned. Francis I. and Charles V. of Germany had commenced their struggle for supremacy in Europe. Henry's ambition was fostered by their vying with each other to secure his friendship. He was soon launched in a deep game of diplomacy, in which three intriguing Sovereigns were striving ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... day of which I write we spent the early morning on the Koenigsee, in Bavaria, the loveliest sheet of water in Germany, vying in grandeur with any Swiss or Italian lake. Its color is that of the pheasant's breast, and the green mountain-sides, almost perpendicular in places, rise till their peaks are in the clouds and their snows are perpetual. Stalwart, bronzed peasant girls, in the short skirts of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... after 771 B.C. The isolation of half-Roman Britain for several centuries after the first Roman conquest, and the departure of the last Roman legions, may be fitly compared with the position of the half-Chinese states. Ts'u, Wu, and Yueeh all had pedigrees, more or less genuine, vying in antiquity with the pedigree of the imperial Chou family; and therefore they did not see why they also should not aspire to the overlordship when it appeared to be going a-begging. Even orthodox Tsin and Ts'i in the north and north-east were in a sense colonial extensions, ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... all the Way we went, the Company was either praising themselves for their Qualifications, or one another for those Qualifications which they took to be conspicuous in their own Characters, or dispraising others for wanting theirs, or vying in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... INNS, &C.—Of these there are several, of various ranks, some of them vying in splendor and extent of accommodation with the best in the county (see the List). The lodging-houses are of course very numerous, and in every grade, from the humble jessamy or myrtle cottage at 20 or 30 shillings per week, to the lordly mansion at ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... the sounds started up, snapping his fingers, kicking up his legs, and whirling round and round in time to the tune. The Indian, grave as was his exterior, forthwith joined him, out-vying him in his leaps, and adding the wildest shrieks and shouts. I could not long resist their example, and in a few minutes even Uncle Mark was dancing away as vigorously as any of us; Mike all the time kicking ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... less absurd than the Russian revolution of the other day, though fortunately less disastrous;[331] of bureaucracy of the corrupt and shabby character which seemed to cling to the whole regime; and of remarkable vying between two distinguished men of letters, Guizot and Thiers, as to which should do most to confirm the saying of the wicked that men of letters had much better have nothing to do with politics.[332] Abroad (with the exception of the acquisition of Algeria, which ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... loaded with food in heaps, chiefly dried fish, the entrails of animals, and gingerbread. All the public-houses were crammed, and frenzied jolly drunkards, men and women, lunged along the pavements everywhere, their shouts vying with the trumpets, horns, and drums of the booths, and the shrieking, rattling toys that ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... a volume for me to tell of all the kindness I received from these people, the brother and sister vying with each other in their endeavours to make me feel comfortable and at ease with them in my ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... thousands of wildfowl which covered the Point of Marsh struck faintly on our ears. "Ah!" thought I—But I need not say what I thought. I grasped my powder-flask and shook it; it was full— crammed full! I felt my shot-belt; it was fat, very fat, bursting with shot! Our two guns lay side by side, vying in brightness; their flints quite new and sharp, and standing up in a lively wide-awake sort of way, as much as to say, "If you do not let me go, I'll go bang off by myself!" Happiness is sometimes too strong ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... his own exile; subjects which might well occupy a considerable space. On the other hand, the eulogy of St. Francis, already referred to, which St. Thomas Aquinas delivers, and that of St. Dominic, with which St. Bonaventura, "vying with the courtesy of so mighty a paladin," responds to it, fine as they are, do not appear indispensable in the scheme of the poem. But the whole plan of the Paradise is, so far as can be seen, arranged with much less of obvious symmetry ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... opposite Goujet, looked at him with an affectionate smile. Mon Dieu! What fools men are! Here these two men were, pounding on their bolts to pay court to her. She understood it. They were battling with hammer blows, like two big red roosters vying for the favors of a little white hen. Sometimes the human heart has fantastic ways of expressing itself. This thundering of Dedele and Fifine upon the anvil was for her, this forge roaring and overflowing was for her. They were forging ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... The trees are considered the finest in Europe. I have never seen orange trees that will bear comparison with them in any part of the world, except on some of the Dutch farms in the Cape colony, where they are still more magnificent; vying in size with the European oaks, planted, probably at the same time, by the German settlers from the Black Forest, the disbanded soldiers of the States of Holland, to whom many of the African Boers owe their origin. Such orange groves, when ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... an hour the visitors commenced to come on foot and in carriages. Among the arrivals were several pretty and well-dressed girls, and numerous smart young men all vying with each other in their eagerness to pay court to the two cousins. There were twenty of us in all. We sat round a large table, and began to play a game called bankruptcy. After amusing myself for a couple of hours in losing ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... sylvan deities, you may listen to a far more rare and artistic performance. Your first impression will be that that cluster of azalea, or that clump of swamp-huckleberry, conceals three of four different songsters, each vying with the the others to lead the chorus. Such a medley of notes, snatched from half the songsters of the field and forest, and uttered with the utmost clearness and rapidity, I am sure you cannot hear short of the haunts of the genuine mockingbird. If not ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... with openings here and there, through which boars, tigers, and other wild animals, made their way to quench their thirst. When the shades of night shut in the forest, so silent by day, it resounds with the cries of birds and the howling or roaring of beasts of prey, vying with each other as to which shall make ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Montricheux. It was the day when the pretty lakeside town celebrated the Fete des Narcisses, and from the smallest street urchin, grabbing a bunch of narcissi in his grubby little hand and trying to induce the good-natured foreigner to purchase his wares, to the usually stolid hoteliers, vying with each other as to which of their caravanserais should blaze out into the most arresting scheme of decoration on the great occasion, the whole population was aquiver with an almost child-like sense of anticipation and delight. There was to be a procession ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... report of a signaling gun followed, and the troops, who were already spread out on different sides of Moscow, moved into the city through Tver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov gates. Faster and faster, vying with one another, they moved at the double or at a trot, vanishing amid the clouds of dust they raised and making the air ring with a deafening roar ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... shambles, and the very kennels ran with blood. The Royalist defeat was by now complete, and Cromwell's fanatic butchers overran the town, vying to outdo one another in savage cruelty and murder. Houses were being broken into and plundered, and their inmates—resisting or unresisting; armed or unarmed; men, women and children alike were pitilessly being put to the sword. Charged was the air of Worcester with the din of that fierce ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... tour from city to city, with the leaders of fashion everywhere vying with each other in entertaining them—or, at least, her. It would, of course, be necessary for Allison to play occasionally in the evening and they would miss a great deal on that account, but her days would be free, and she could cancel all her ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... predecessors; whilst he who can "suck melancholy from a song," will find melody in its storms and music in its wind. What are more beautiful than the fretwork frostings of rime and hoar spread on the hedges, glistening in the broad sun-beam, and in brilliancy and variety of colours vying with the richest display of oriental splendour—with here and there berries clustering on evergreens, or pendent in solitary beauty, like the "rich jewel in the Aethiop's ear." The winter stillness of animal life is a sublime subject for our meditation. Insects ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... destruction. She thought nothing of this talk with the reporter, never mentioning it to any one, and was unaware of the wide publicity accorded to her remarks. She spent Christmas on board the steamer. Again every one was kind to her, the officers and stewards vying with each other in showing her attention. All along the coast she was well known, and invitations came from officials at Government headquarters, but these she modestly declined. She was interested in all things that ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... did you bear the mark of slavery, therefore you have always dressed like a free man. Again, you are a chief among your own people; therefore, as I say, I should dress well but quietly. Nero has many freedmen about him, and though some of these provoke derision by vying with the wealthiest, this I know would never be done by you, even did you bask in the favour of Nero. A white tunic and a paenula of fine white cloth or a lacerna, both being long and ample so as to fall in becoming folds, would be the best. As I shall ride into Rome with you, ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... minutes later you might have seen the four men amicably gathered and vying in clever speeches to pretty Mrs. Callender and her yet fairer ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... ever thus—morn, noon and eve, And in the still midnight, undying Choirs of creation's minstrels weave Sweet symphony of incense, vying In wrapt intricacy of endless songs. Ever, oh ever thus they sing, But to our soul's dull ear belongs Seldom the trancing sense To list the universal worshiping, Thrill with the glorious theme, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... of these five people—Barbara engaging Josiah, and the two men vying with each other to please Theodora—was gall and wormwood to Mildred. Freddy Wensleydown had always been one of her most valued friends, and for Hector she had often felt she ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... two years to thoroughly break him so that she could always be sure that his nails were trimmed and his clothes in perfect style. He had long since ceased to struggle and had found much happiness of late years in vying with her in the perfection of his personal appearance until he had come to fit into the great establishments, which he had built at her suggestion, as though to the ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... to be admitted to this ball, it was necessary to have at least the rank of commandant. It is, impossible to give an idea of the scene presented by this multitude of uniforms, each vying in brilliancy with the other. The fifty or sixty generals who gave the ball had ordered from Paris magnificently embroidered uniforms, and the group they formed around his Majesty as he entered glittered with gold and diamonds. The Emperor remained an hour at this fete, and danced the Boulanyere ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... delegations are vying with one another in devising new definitions of contraband, there would seem to be little likelihood that the British proposal for its total abandonment will be seriously entertained. Such a step could be justified, if at all, from the point of view of national interest, only on the ground that ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... brought him at last into the Canareggio, to the door of a wonderful palazzo, which you will admire when you see Venice, for no traveler ever fails to stop in front of those windows, each of a different design, vying with each other in fantastic ornament, with balconies like lace-work; to study the corners finishing in tall and slender twisted columns, the string-courses wrought by so inventive a chisel that no two shapes are alike in ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... It will be that by God's blessing, and so far as in us lies, Civil and Religious liberty shall prevail among all the tribes of South Africa, to the end that they may become civilized nations, vying with us in the exercise of the gifts that God ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... stretched a lofty chain of mountains, flat-topped and so regular in their outline that they appeared rather the work of art than of nature. Between this range and the nearest one lay a large rich valley vying with the most fertile I have ever seen in an extra-tropical country. In front of us lay another valley which drained a portion of the large one, and in both rose gently swelling hills and picturesque peaks, wooded in the most romantic manner. Whilst I stood and looked on this scene, my ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... given to understand that no one in the village was poor enough to need public help, but that the school fees of twelve children were paid by the community. This is a system peculiar to Nagano, which is a progressive prefecture vying with other prefectures to increase the percentage of school attendance. One of the signs of the well-off character of the village which appears when one is able to investigate a little is that the place is a favourite haunt of beggars, who, I am told—every calling ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... parts of Kerry may be found townlands vying in wretchedness with Coshleen and Champolard, with Derryinver, Cleggan, and Omey Island while others give abundant evidence of improvement and enlightened management. On the north side of Dingle Bay lies the estate of Lord Ventry, ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... their delicious fragrance. In the front row of seats, which was composed of luxurious arm-chairs, were to be seen the beautiful Yolande de Foix, the Duchesse de Montalban, the Baronne d'Hagemeau, the Marquise de Bruyres, and many other titled dames, resplendent in gorgeous array, and vying with each other in magnificence and beauty. Rich velvets, brilliant satins, cloth of silver and gold, misty laces, gay ribbons, white feathers, tiaras of diamonds, strings of pearls, superb jewels, glittering in delicate shell-like ears, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the bottom, was to try and climb up to the summit, which is of considerable height. The sides are steep, and present a surface of soft green grass. We saw one fat old lady, evidently ambitious of vying with her younger companions, making an attempt to reach the top with the aid of a boatman and one of the gentlemen of the party. Up she went some distance, when she stopped, though not for long, and panted for breath; then on again she proceeded, though not ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... of being a clergyman's wife, should resolve to be as good as himself; to set an example to all her sex in the parish, and shew how much his doctrines had weight with her; should be humble, circumspect, gentle in her temper and manners, frugal, not proud, nor vying in dress with the ladies of the laity; should resolve to sweeten his labour, and to be obliging in her deportment to poor as well as rich, that her husband get no discredit through her means, which would weaken his influence upon his auditors; and that she must ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the rest of her companions, to display her present, in hopes that the applause of others would restore her own self- complacency; in vain she saw the Flora pass in due pomp from hand to hand, each vying with the other in extolling the beauty of the gift and the generosity of the giver. Cecilia was still displeased with herself, with them, and even with their praise. From Louisa's gratitude, however, she yet ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... vengeance upon the Cross Way House. Sir Richard was striving to soothe the agitation of the timid Dowsabel, and hearing of the absence of the mistress of the house; whilst servants hurried to and fro, setting the table for supper, and vying with each other to provide comforts for the weary travellers, who had been through so much peril and ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... twenty were nailed up, all of them overflowing with the highest panegyrics. Afterwards, when I once more shut it off from view, everyone brought sonnets, with Latin and Greek verses: for the University of Pisa was then in vacation, and all the doctors and scholars kept vying with each other who could produce ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... would take care not to disgrace his magnificent pair with such a scarecrow or drive to the county seat with such a monstrosity on the box. Haying—that's what they would put him to—cleaning out the dung from the stables. And Marcsa, the beautiful Marcsa whom all the men were vying for, would she be the wife of ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... realize that the scene has not always been what it is. The underlying ground has surely been there longest, its age vying only with that of the bounding ocean that beats upon the shore and works the sand into fantastic stretches. The forest has been there long and so has the stream; the road perhaps ranks next in age; then come the orchard trees, and most recent of all ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... entered the glass and gold enclosure, she was at first quite dazzled by the crowd of gorgeously arrayed courtiers who stood in two compact groups on either side of her. Young and old alike, all these men of the sword and cloak seemed vying one with another for precedence in magnificence and foppery. The rarest silks of every hue peeped forth through slashed velvets and satins whose rustling masses bedecked men of every age and figure. Painted faces and ringed ears everywhere topped snowy ruffles deep and wide, while ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... caused all eyes to turn to him. There were many pairs of mustachios present, those of Professor Schnurr, a very corpulent martyr, just escaped from Spandau, and of Maximilien Tranchard, French exile and apostle of liberty, were the only whiskers in the room capable of vying in interest with Colonel Newcome's. Polish chieftains were at this time so common in London, that nobody (except one noble Member for Marylebone, once a year, the Lord Mayor) took any interest in them. The general opinion ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... saw the ape, he rose in the air to Li Dsing and said: "I was vying with the ape in changing shape. Suddenly I could no longer find him. Take a look in the mirror!" Li Dsing took a look in the magic spirit mirror and then he laughed and said: "The ape has turned himself into your ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... thunder shook the trembling earth. The artillery of Heaven had not long been opened before the musketry commenced, and down poured a shower of hail, which came near demolishing our tents, and brought suffering and sorrow upon all unsheltered heads. Mules brayed horribly, vying with the hoarse, muttering thunder, making the camp most hideous and lonely. The wind and cold increased with every passing hour, the hail fell faster and more heavily, and night came suddenly down to hide, though not to prevent, the ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... rejoiced at this and the damsels ran, vying with each other in their haste, [615] and opened the palace-door [616] to Alaeddin, their lord; whereupon he entered and [617] going up to his wife's pavilion, [618] found her sitting at the table and the Maugrabin before her, as one slain. So he went up ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... a low voice. "What has happened to you? Why didn't you answer my letters. I've been nearly mad with anxiety." He leaned forward toward her, the words falling in a torrent. But she only examined him curiously, a puzzled wrinkle at her brows vying with the set smile ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... her. "Dear wife! the day to march is named at last. Your aged sire and our dear monarch leads The war, and Bukka, as a Hindu true, Joins us to fight against the Moslem horde, And doubly glad I am that in this war, With Bukka vying in the field with me, And in the very presence of our king, Who well rewards the val'rous and the brave, The place of honour I will there attain For courage true, and prove once more before The world I am a worthy husband of A noble wife; so let me now depart." She ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... here like so many wrecks upon the sea, here the ribs of a thousand pound, here the relicks of so many manors, a doublet without buttons; and 'tis a spectacle of more pity than executions are. The company one with the other is but a vying of complaints, and the causes they have to rail on fortune and fool themselves, and there is a great deal of good fellowship in this. They are commonly, next their creditors, most bitter against the lawyers, as men that have had a great ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... stood below, were startled; and in a body they pressed forward, vying with each other as to who ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... then by the Rue des Orfevres to the Grand Rue, to the Rue Basse, and after having gone through the whole of the lower town, it returned by the Rue Magloire and the Place du Cloitre, to reappear again at the great front entrance of the Church. And the dwellers on all these streets, vying with each other in their zeal, decorated their windows, hung upon their walls their richest possessions in silks, satins, velvets, or tapestry, and strewed the pavements with flowers, particularly with the leaves of ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... 22: "During the fifteenth century the love of part-singing seems to have taken hold of all phases of society in the Netherlands; princes and people, corporate bodies, both lay and clerical, vying with each other in the formation of choral societies." Naumann, "History of Music," Vol. ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... There will be a half a dozen speeches, each vying with the other in abusing me. My friends will see the uselessness of trying to defend me, when the terrorists are three to one against them. If my friend slipped out, as is probable, directly your brother rose, I can calculate on a good hour. Actually, the club have no power ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... him where the devil had appointed an appointment with him. Now wit you well that the Friar Francis did follow close upon his heels, for though his legs were not so long he was a mighty runner and he was right sound of wind. Therefore was it a pleasant sight to see these holy men vying with one another to do battle with the devil, and much it repenteth me that there be some ribald heretics that maintain full enviously that these two saintly friars did so run not for the devil that they might belabor him, but for the booke ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... glasses, wine and food on the table—"A cold collation—but we'll have hot coffee to finish. We could have dined in Cairo, but it would have been a bore! Marchese, we'll stop here, suspended in mid-air, and the stars shall be our festal lamps, vying with our own!" and she turned on a switch which illumined the whole interior of the air-ship with a soft bright radiance—"Whereabouts are we? Still over the ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... more agreeable recollection of Eastern France than this pleasant country home and its occupants in the Jura, father, mother, young son and daughter, all vying with each other in making my visit pleasant and profitable. It is touching to be so welcomed, so taken leave of in the midst of a remote foreign place, all the more so when there was no Protestantism and Republicanism, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Raymond? What exercise of patience have you here? What find you in my crown to be contemned; Or in my person loathed? Have I, a queen, Past by my fellow-rulers of the world, Whose vying crowns lay glittering in my way, As if the world were paved with diadems? Have I refused their blood, to mix with yours, And raise new kings from so obscure a race, Fate scarce knew where to find them, when I called? Have I heaped on my person, crown, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden |
