"Worthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... convincing, but which on examination prove untenable, or at best must be set down as unproven or needing qualification. But these were just the slag from the great furnace of his mind, slag not always worthless. Brilliant and far-reaching as were his conclusions, he did not execute a well-ordered plan. Rather he grew with his work, and his work and its problems grew with him. He took a mountain-top view of things, kept his eyes always on the ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... all, but spoke Disparagingly of a mind The Fates had faultily designed: Too indolent for modern times— Too fanciful, and full of whims— For, talking to himself in rhymes, And scrawling never-heard-of hymns, The idle life to which he clung Was worthless as the songs he sung! I saw him, in my vision, filled With rapture o'er a spray of bloom The wind threw in his lonely room; And of the sweet perfume it spilled He drank to drunkenness, and flung His long hair back, and laughed and sung And clapped his hands ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... a glowing cheek, and an eye sparkling with an enthusiastic trust in her lover's faith; "No, father," said she, "by the light of heaven above us, he will never vote for Vanston—unless Vanston becomes the friend of our religion. I have only one worthless life, but if I had a thousand, and that every one of them was worth a queen's, I'd stake them all on Bryan M'Mahon's truth. If he ever turns traitor—let me die before I hear it, I pray ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... journeys, I had spared no toil nor exertion, to make my examination as complete and as useful as possible, though my labours were not rewarded by commensurate success. The great mass of the peninsula is barren, arid, and worthless; and although Port Lincoln possesses a beautiful, secure, and capacious harbour, with a convenient and pretty site for a town, and immediately contiguous to which there exists some extent of fine and fertile soil, with several good grassy patches ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... hangs his head in shame.) Man, if man you be in heart, forbear that wicked cant. Will you decide what men shall live, and what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of Heaven you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... Collection" (1725) is distinguishable from her true fiction only by the larger proportion of events between set scenes of burning passion which formed the chief constituent of Eliza's romances. As history it is worthless, and its significance as fiction lies merely in its attempt to incorporate imaginative love scenes with historical fact. It was apparently compiled hastily to compete with a rival volume, "The History of the Life and ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... country as to resort to such an expedient would inevitably meet with final overthrow in the fact that the moment the paper ceased to be convertible into specie or otherwise promptly redeemed it would become worthless, and would in the end dishonor the Government, involve the people in ruin and such political party in hopeless disgrace. At the same time, such a view involves the utter impossibility of furnishing any currency other than that of the precious metals; for if the Government ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... any time pluck blue lupine by the armful. It thrives mightily on these gravelled shores, and so do the bignonia vine, the poison ivy, and the Virginia creeper. The hills are steeper, now, especially in Indiana; many of them, although stony, worked-out, and almost worthless, are still, in patches, cultivated to the very top; but for the most part they are clothed in restful green. Overhead, in the summer haze, turkey-buzzards wheel gracefully, occasionally chased by audacious hawks; and in the woods, we hear the warble of song-birds. ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... has been in this hospital for the past eight months. We do not believe him sick, or that he has been sick, but completely worthless. He is obese and a malingerer to such an extent that he is almost an imbecile—worthlessness, obesity, and imbecility and laziness. He is totally unfit for the Invalid Corps or for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... a worthless wife and a bad son have about finished up what he had. With good money after bad all the time there is nothing left but that little ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... of these north-eastern cities of modern France are full of most curious and valuable materials for a really instructive history of the French people. The most cursory acquaintance with them suffices to show how much worse than worthless are the huge political pamphlets which during the last hundred years have passed current with the world as histories of the French Revolution, and how important to the future, not of France alone but of civilisation, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... later period he was attracted by the genius and success of Mr. Pitt; but finally he connected himself in the closest manner with George Grenville. Early in the session Of 1764, when the illegal and impolitic persecution of that worthless demagogue Wilkes had strongly excited the public mind, the town was amused by an anecdote, which we have seen in some unpublished memoirs of Horace Walpole. Old Mr. Richard Clive, who, since his son's ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... display of mere manual dexterity or curious manufacture, or if in any other mode it show itself as having its origin in vanity,—Cast it out. It matters not what powers of mind may have been concerned or corrupted in it, all have lost their savor, it is worse than worthless;—perilous—Cast ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... in general. This is, naturally, greatly exaggerated, often deliberately so. In the first place, confessions of 'sinfulness' in a pre-conversion state, when made by youths of both sexes, may be dismissed as quite worthless. They are merely using the language placed in their mouths by professional evangelists, and the similarity of the confessions carry their own condemnation. Leading a sinful, or even a vicious life, usually means no more than visiting a theatre, or a music hall, or playing cards, or non-attendance ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... Jack, "and because the rogue has tricked us once, would you have us sit by and let Pen throw herself away upon a worthless, fortune-hunting fop—" ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... has something of this satiric note. It is a blow against a worthless pretender of the art of verse, who courts popularity with strains not worthy of the sacred Muse. Palamas, acting with greater wisdom than Pope, does not give the name of ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... journey faded away, and but for the thought that Philip needed her, she would have been content to listen for ever to that golden voice. Everything else in the world faded away and grew to seem worthless and unmeaning. Only the soft golden voice remained and the grey hard voice that said, 'You've got to look after Philip, you know!' And the two voices together made a harmony more beautiful than you will find ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... study the museum collections, visit the private collections, consult recognized experts. If he is serious, he will gradually acquire the intuition of knowing the genuine from the false, the worth-while from the worthless, and once he has that knowledge, instinct, call it what you will, he can never be satisfied ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... the ballot-box and electoral winnowing-machine they have at St. Edmundsbury: a mind fixed on the Thrice Holy, an appeal to God on high to witness their meditation: by far the best, and indeed the only good electoral winnowing-machine,—if men have souls in them. Totally worthless, it is true, and even hideous and poisonous, if men have no souls. But without soul, alas, what winnowing-machine in human elections can be of avail? We cannot get along without soul; we stick fast, the mournfulest spectacle; ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... to which the terrified city listened all that dreadful Friday night, meant much to those whose ears were deafened by them. A million dollars' worth of property, noble residences and worthless shacks alike, were blown to drifting dust, but that destruction broke the fire and sent the raging flames back over their own charred path. The whole east side of Van Ness Avenue, from the Golden Gate to Greenwich, a distance of twenty-two blocks, or a mile and a half, ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... The officers called "Referendars" (or mediators) found it difficult to present the requests of petitioners to the Emperor, and still more difficult to bring before the council in the usual manner the answer proper to be made to each of them; but, gathering together from all quarters worthless and false testimony, they deceived Justinian, who was naturally a fit subject for deception, by fallacious reports and misleading statements. Then, immediately going out to the contending parties, without acquainting them with the conversation that had taken place, they extorted from them as much ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... think that either out of sheer love of mischief, or from some subtler motive, he is capable of anything. Every one in the place, except one poor woman, seems to look upon him as a sort of supernatural being. He gives money away to worthless people with both hands. Yet I share your opinion of him. I believe that he is a creature without conscience or morals. I have sat at his table and shivered ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... waste known only to the Indians and a few trappers. There were neither roads nor well-marked trails, and the only timber to be found—which generally grew only along the streams—was so scraggy and worthless as hardly to deserve the name. Nor was water by any means plentiful, even though the section is traversed by important streams, the Republican, the Smoky Hill, the Arkansas, the Cimarron, and the Canadian ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... something that he "must carry to catch the women"; and forthwith he either forgets it or refuses to give the editor of his woman's page even a reasonable allowance to spend on her material. The result is, of course, inevitable: pages of worthless material. There is, in fact, no part of the Sunday newspaper of to-day upon which so much good and now expensive white paper is wasted as upon the pages marked for the home, for women, and ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... police. He must face the other side of the dilemma, and be Robert Skill in earnest. What would Robert Skill have done? How does a gentleman dispose of a dead body, honestly come by? He remembered the inimitable story of the hunchback; reviewed its course, and dismissed it for a worthless guide. It was impossible to prop a corpse on the corner of Tottenham Court Road without arousing fatal curiosity in the bosoms of the passers-by; as for lowering it down a London chimney, the physical obstacles were insurmountable. To get it on board a train and drop ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... satisfaction of the latter, never spoke to each other; but with Bull—much as he inwardly loathed him—he was professedly and apparently on good terms. His silly love of universal popularity made him accept and tolerate the society even of this worthless boy. ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... and fitness of the newly- appointed incumbents. Yet nothing has surprised me more than the exceeding rareness of evidence damaging to the reputation of the new men. That these men were less educated than their predecessors we know; but that they were mere worthless hypocrites there is nothing to show, and much to disprove. Nay! the strong impression which has been left upon my mind, and which gathers strength as I study the subject, is that the parochial clergy ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... representations that were made to him, and reserved his opinion. It was clear that he was not a man who would readily be taken in, though there were not wanting men at Deer Creek who were ready to palm off upon him poor or worthless mines. About the only mine owners who did not seek him were the owners of the Blazing Star, both of whom were on the ground. The mine was looking up. The most recent developments were the most favorable, and the prospects were excellent. They might, ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... ladies, several wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length, the taste for wearing them became general; and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... embezzler, or his twin-brother. It's been five years since I saw him, but that is he. And that", said I, with proper severity, "is a sample of the sort of associate you prefer to your humble servant! Ah, Signorina, Signorina, I am a tolerably worthless chap, I admit, but at least I never forged and embezzled and then skipped my bail! So you had much better marry me, my dear, and say good-bye to your peculating friends. But, deuce take it! I forgot—I ought to notify the ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... her own currency. She mints her spiritual coinage and stamps it with the image of some beloved face. With it she pays her debts, with it she reckons, saying, "This man has worth, this man is worthless." And in time she forgets its origin; it seems to her to be a thing unalterable, divine. But the soul can also have ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... regret more than I do any differences between old friends; but my duty is to look solely to the consistency and integrity of the 'Review,' without which criticism is worthless; and this consideration leaves me ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... Worthless as he was individually, Gaston was destined throughout his whole career to serve as a rallying-point for the ambition of all the princes and nobles who sought to aggrandize themselves and their families; while, as presumptive heir to the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... in every other business he has attempted. These men acquire a few geological and mining phrases, and by more or less skilfully interlarding these with statements of large lodes and big returns they supply reports seductive enough to float the most worthless properties and cause the waste of thousands of pounds. But the trouble ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... men talk who hope for honest agreement, not for war, until we found that the treaty torn to pieces at Liege was but the symbol of a policy that made agreements worthless against a purpose that ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... continually meaning to do things which she never did, continually surprised at the lateness of the hour, continually occupied with the most foolish trifles. And here she was at over forty writhing about on the bare floor because a boy of twenty-five (who MUST be a worthless idiot) had abandoned her after a scene of ridiculous shoutings and stampings. She was dependent on the caprices of a young scamp, the last donkey to turn from her with loathing! Sophia thought: "Goodness! If I had been in her place I shouldn't have been like that. I should have been ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... be considered surprising. The wool of commerce was still inconsiderable; although the flocks of both colonies amounted to 200,000. Before the merino was first introduced, the fleece was considered worthless. The operation of shearing was often delayed until the sheep were injured: it was a deduction from the profit. The wool was burned, or thrown into ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... poetry, but such an unconscious tribute to the power and beauty of poetry as unfolds itself almost inevitably from youthful love, as naturally as the blossoms unfold from the apple trees in May. If you pick them they are worthless. They charm only in ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... profession of poetry, song, and music; but although those arts were highly honoured, and the individual professors, when they attained to eminence, were often richly rewarded, and treated with distinction, the order of minstrels, as such, was held in low esteem, being composed chiefly of worthless and dissolute strollers, by whom the art was assumed, in order to escape from the necessity of labour, and to have the means of pursuing a wandering and dissipated course of life. Such, in all times, has ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... almost everywhere. In a moment of disinterestedness or absent-minded dejection England had concluded treaties with the Boers in 1852 and 1854, by which they were guaranteed in the undisturbed possession of certain wild and apparently worthless tracts of territory. ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... were driving their spurs into the partition till the splinters flew about, and some of the boys fell off, and some still hung on and sat looking like fools. 'Ah, well,' said the Governor, 'it is easy to see who has been here; but what a worthless set of fellows you must be to sit here and let the Master Thief steal the horses from under you!' And they all got a beating for not having ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... freshness of eggs is to hold them before a lighted candle or to the light, and if the egg looks clear, it will be tolerably good; if thick, it is stale; and if there is a black spot attached to the shell, it is worthless. No egg should be used for culinary purposes with the slightest taint in it, as it will render perfectly useless those with which it has been mixed. Eggs may be preserved, however, for a considerable time without any further special precaution than that of keeping them in a cool ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... depravity! All that is abhorrent to our moral sense, or dangerous to our quietude, or villanous in human nature, we benevolently disgorge upon Africa for her temporal and eternal welfare! We propose to build upon her shores, for her glory and defence, colonies framed of materials which we discard as worthless for our own use, and which possess no fitness or durability! Admirable consistency! surprising wisdom! unexampled benevolence! As rationally might we think of exhausting the ocean by multiplying the number of its tributaries, or extinguishing a fire by piling ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... I offer you this. Many times I have come bearing flowers such as my garden grew; but now I offer you this poor, brown, homely growth, you may cast it away as worthless. And yet—and yet—it is something better than flowers; it is a SEED-CAPSULE. Many a gardener will cut you a bouquet of his choicest blossoms for small fee, but he does not love to let the seeds of his rarest varieties go out ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... offend the most fastidious taste in her speech, appearance, or manners. She was convent-bred, accomplished, refined, gentle, worthless and wicked. The good Sisters of the Society of the Broken Heart had polished the exterior of the Eurasian orphan very highly—but the polish was a thin veneer on very ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... that was contained in it was and should remain null and of no effect." We may not have unlimited belief in the scrupulosity of modern diplomats; but assuredly they would consider such a policy so fundamentally worthless that they would be ashamed to practise it. We may not hold sheer force in honor; but open force is better than mendacious weakness, and less debasing for a government as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... falter in the great emprise— Who, turning off upon some poor pretence, Some worthless guerdon or ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... longer love you, my darling child!" cried Buvat, falling on his knees, and kissing her hand, "I love you no longer! My God! it will be you who will not love me now, and you will be right, for I am worthless; I ought to have known that that young man loved you, and ought to have risked all, suffered all, rather than—. But you told me nothing, you had no confidence in me, and I—with the best intentions in the world—made nothing ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... said unto Draupadi, 'Thou art our slave, having been won by us at dice. Without being confined to thy husbands, cast aside thy chastity. Be thou a bearer of robes to the king, my eldest brother. Thy husbands are all dead. They are as worthless as grains of sesamum without kernel.' Having said these words then, why, O Duhsasana, dost thou fly from battle now? Having thyself provoked such fierce hostilities with the Panchalas and the Pandavas, why art thou afraid in battle in the presence of Satyaki alone? Taking ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... wary bird. It may very likely be that the fellow is coming to Paris only to try to draw my secret service men into the worst kind of a wild-goose chase leading only to clues that are worse than worthless. Gortchky, in other words, may be on his way to Paris only to draw our attention away from vital moves about to be made elsewhere by other members of his rascally band. Of course, on due complaint, we could have him arrested ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... to throw his life away as a worthless thing. He is to lose it as the seed is lost in the sowing, as the money in the investing; to sacrifice it as the tool is sacrificed to that which it is carving. He who would be of real service to the world must cultivate the best in himself. If living is seed sowing, then the seed must ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... to sing of so much renown, The tumult of fire, of thunder, and tempest, The glorious gallantry of the knight of conflict. {167a} The ruddy reapers of war are thy desire, {167b} Thou man of toil, {167c} but the worthless thou beheadest; {167d} The whole length of the land shall hear of thee in battle; With thy shield upon thy shoulder, thou dost incessantly cleave With thy blade, {167e} until blood flows {167f} like bright wine out of glass vessels; {167g} As the contribution {168a} for mead thou ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... going from bad to worse every day, and lead an indescribably worthless life. Of real enjoyment of life I know nothing; to me "enjoyment of life, of love," is a matter of imagination, not of experience. In this manner my heart has to go to my brain, and my life becomes an artificial one; ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... is usually an excrescence on a good book, and a vain apology for a worthless one; but, in the present instance, a few explanatory words ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... that the majority of common soldiers, in almost any regular army, is composed of dissolute worthless men. There are but few persons but the lost and the reckless who will enlist to spend their days in shouldering a musket. A young man of good character can do better than convert himself into a part of such a military machine. The garrison at New Amsterdam was composed of the off-scouring of ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... rigorous a business training for that. He knew how easy it was to make money with money—and how difficult, how very nearly impossible it was for the penniless man to secure more than a living by his utmost exertion. If this timber holding should turn out to be worthless, if it should prove unsalable at any price, it would be a question of a job for him, before so very long. With the handicap of his face! With that universal inclination of people to avoid him because they disliked to look on the direct result of settling international difficulties with bayonets ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... is cleverer than any of us. We had better not deceive ourselves, Contini. Del Ferice sold our house for us, and unless we keep with him we shall not sell another so easily. His bank has a lot of half-finished houses on its hands secured by mortgages which are worthless until the houses are habitable. Del Ferice wants us to finish those houses for him, in order to recover their value. If we do it, we shall make a profit. If we attempt anything on our own account we shall fail. Am I ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... mustaches. When consumptives are away from home, the matter coughed up should be received in a pocket flask made for this purpose. If cloths must be used, they should be immediately burned on returning home. If handkerchiefs be used (worthless cloths, which can be at once burned, are far better), they should be boiled at least half an hour in water by themselves before being washed. When coughing or sneezing small particles of spittle containing germs are expelled, so that consumptives should ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... what's to prevent you," she flung back, as it were in a kind of careless scorn. "Your fondness for your worthless hide. If they find me shot to death, they will know who did it. You couldn't hide deep enough in Chihuahua to escape them. My father would never rest till he had made ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... narrows, in astringing, the intellect; that a prejudice once conceived, a passion once cherished, would resist all rational argument for relinquishment. When men of this mould do relinquish prejudice or passion, it is by their own impulse, their own sure conviction that what they hold is worthless: then they do not yield it graciously; they fling it from them in scorn, but not a scorn that consoles. That which they thus wrench away had "grown a living part of themselves;" their own flesh bleeds; the wound seldom or never heals. Such men ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... life on earth be worthless, so is immortality. The real question, after all, is not as to the quantity of life, but its quality—its depth, its purity, its fortitude, its fineness of spirit and gesture of soul. Hence the insistent ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... in every tree the beauty of my mistress, and the despair of my loves. What is it in the woods cannot witness my woes? and who is it would not pity my plaints? only Phoebe. And why? Because I am Montanus, and she Phoebe: I a worthless swain, and she the most excellent of all fairies. Beautiful Phoebe! oh might I say pitiful, then happy were I though I tasted but one minute of that good hap. Measure Montanus, not by his fortunes, but by his loves, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... wanted to know what they said about it," explained Esther quickly; "one hears so many worthless opinions." ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... there to be studied and explored, and no means of understanding her point of view will be neglected. But her value is another matter; as to that Flaubert never has an instant's illusion, he always knows her to be worthless. ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... "I've lost my self-respect. I've lost heart. I'm a good-for-nothing worthless person. How am I to get ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... a girl who is called by the name of one of the twenty-seven stars, or by the name of a tree, or of a river, is considered worthless, as also a girl whose name ends in "r" or "l." But some authors say that prosperity is gained only by marrying that girl to whom one becomes attached, and that therefore no other girl but the one who is loved should be ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... surprised at this display of affection so unusual for Margaret, "I am not half so lovely as you. When I see you at home here with all the things to worry you and the children to care for, I think you are just splendid and I feel myself cheap and worthless." ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... the streets, down to an old pier she knew of, where boats had ceased to ply, and where no policeman would be near to hinder her, or any one about to rescue her; and then she would fling herself, worthless and wretched as she was, into the rapid river, which had borne so many worthless wretches like her upon its strong current into the land of darkness and death, of which she did not dare to think. That was what she would do, saying nothing to any one; and if she could ask anything of God, ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... is an industrious prowler in unlikely regions, and is entitled to some reward for his diligence and his skill. Moreover, it is the essence of that very skill to find value in those things which, in the eye of the ordinary possessor, are really worthless. From estimating them at little value, and paying little for them, the steps are rather too short to estimating them at nothing, and paying nothing for them. What matters it, a few dirty black-letter leaves picked out of that volume of miscellaneous trash—leaves ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... I would give the world to see you smile. Do you know that I have been watching for a smile ever since I first saw your face, and have not surprised one yet? Be sure your brother is taking life pleasantly enough in some quarter of the globe. We worthless young fellows always contrive to ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... of throat stiffness among present-day singers is due primarily to the idea of mechanical vocal management as the basis of instruction in singing. Not only are modern methods intrinsically worthless, in that a correct use of the voice cannot be attained by the application of mechanical rules. Worse than this, the means used for training the voice are such as to defeat their own purpose. At every instant of instruction the student's attention is expressly ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... well as long as Baranof was on the ground. Sea-otter were obtained for worthless trinkets. Sentries paraded the gateway; so Baranof sailed back to Kadiak. The Kolosh or Sitkan tribes had only bided their time. That sleepy summer day of June, 1802, when the slouchy Siberian convicts were ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... health, and drove him to ask for a leave of absence, that he might recover his strength. When he went away, he carried with him in his heart a new regret, sweetened, or perhaps embittered, by a tinge of new hope. But he could not know that he had reached the end of the worthless pages of his life, and that the new leaf was to be inscribed with a story of happiness, which was by no means untroubled, but yet was constructive happiness, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... runs away from home and goes to sea it is as often his fault as his father's. Sometimes it is six of one and half a dozen of the other; sometimes the father is a brute, but more often the son is a scamp, a worthless fellow, who will settle down to nothing, and brings discredit on his family. So you are quite right, Will, not to form any hard judgment on your grandfather till you know how ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... you seemed nobler far in form and feature; In wisdom, too, I deemed you now divine, And, though I felt myself a worthless creature, I swore to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... hour's search killed that idea. There were no tools aboard capable of cutting through the hard shielding. He couldn't use it to shield the engine on the lifeboat. And the shielding that been on the other five engines had melted and run; it was worthless. ...
— The Measure of a Man • Randall Garrett
... prodigal of those which they possess? a plain proof that this love exceeds the love of the world. Have there not been, and are there not still, instances of men who for such a woman, account life itself as worthless, and desire to die rather than be disappointed in their wishes, as is evidenced by the many fatal combats between rival lovers on such occasions? a plain proof that this love exceeds the love of life. Lastly, have there not been, and are there not still, instances ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... here. As an intimate friend of the Burtons, I beg to say that everything said about the life of the Burtons at this place in the 'true' life has been written by dictation, and, furthermore, that I could name the authoress's informant, which makes the book worthless for those who know the source from which the authoress has gathered her information—the same source which has made Lady Burton's life hideous from the day of her husband's death to the time she left this place. As ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... to all but the men who practised them, the law tottered—the Monroe Doctrine, as it were, did not hold good. Therefore no painter would offer an opinion of a book without warning you at any rate that his opinion was worthless. No one is a better judge of literature than Rothenstein; but it wouldn't have done to tell him so in those days; and I knew that I must form an unaided judgment ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... certain to expand upon the hard skin of elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotami, buffaloes, &c.; in which case it will lose all power of penetration. When a hollow bullet strikes a large bone, it absolutely disappears into minute particles of lead,—and of course it becomes worthless. ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... forming over his mind that hard crust, that skepticism of the spiritual and exalted, which men of the world delight to call practical sense; he had been suddenly arrested and humbled by the revelation of a nature so much nobler than his own that he seemed worthless in his own eyes. He had asked for love; but when such love unveiled itself, he felt like the disciple of old in the view of a diviner tenderness,—"Depart from me, for I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... it. This was done by Mrs. Lucy Ann Hood, wife of Edward P. Hood, and daughter of Ezra Goddard. It is now given to the public without addition or alteration, and with but a slight abridgment. A strange and startling story it certainly is. Perhaps the reader will cast it aside at once as a worthless fiction,—the idle vagary of an excited brain. The compiler, of course, cannot vouch for its truth, but would respectfully invite the attention of the reader to the following testimonials presented by those who have known the narrator. The first is ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... England seemed balanced by a similar English conquest of France. But the chances of fate are many. Both Henry and his insane father-in-law died in the same year, and while Henry left only a tiny babe to succeed to his claims, the French King left a full-grown though rather worthless son. This young man, Charles VII, continued to deny the English authority, from a safe distance in Southern France. He made, however, no effort to assert himself or retrieve his fortunes; and the English captains ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... expostulated Brodey. "Do ye know what your doin'! Got any idee ye'll come back alive! I've been in some tough places before now, but shoot my worthless carcass if I want to go to Swanson's. He's killed a man, torn out his heart and eaten ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... long on the highway Rushes an eager band, With straining eyes for a worthless prize That slips from the grasp like sand. And men leave blood where their feet have stood And bow them down unto brass and wood— Idols fashioned by their own hand— Blind in the dust ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... to be established, the interests of the living wealth ought to be preferred; who had declared that the social happiness of the millions should be the first object of a statesman, and that if that were not achieved, thrones and dominions, the pomp and power of courts and empires, were alike worthless. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... the canopy of state. For the five hundredth time a patient stood forward to have his repulsivenesses stroked; again those words were being droned out: "they shall lay their hands on the sick"—when outside there rang clear as a clarion a note that enchanted my soul and tumbled thirteen worthless centuries about my ears: "Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano!—latest irruption—only two cents —all about the big miracle in the Valley of Holiness!" One greater than kings had arrived—the newsboy. But I was the only person in all that throng who knew the meaning of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sent a chill through Terry; it contained a breathless horror from which there was no appeal. In the eye of Jack Baldwin, fair-minded man though he was, Black Jack's son was judged and condemned as worthless before ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... him. What a handsome, good-natured, worthless dog he was. A few days later, he told me the rest of his history. After a great many wanderings, he happened home one day just as his master's yacht was going to sail, and they chained him up ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... which public office had brought her? Was it for this that she had bartered her independence—for this and the musty office, the stupid examination papers, and the interminable visiting of schools, knowing that such supervision as she could give was practically worthless? Jim had said to her that he had never heard of such a thing as a good county superintendent of schools, and she had thought him queer. And now, here was she, called upon to pass on the competency of the man who had always been ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... worth looking into," mused the rug dealer. "Of course, these stocks may be all right. But it looks rather fishy to me. Years ago I bought some stocks like that and they proved to be utterly worthless. It certainly won't do any harm to tell old Mr. Fordham what you know about this ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... anger swells, her terror chills the soul; She makes the vile to virtue yield applause, And own her sceptre while they break her laws; For vice in others is abhorr'd of all, And villains triumph when the worthless fall. Not thus her sister COMEDY prevails, Who shoots at Folly, for her arrow fails; Folly, by Dulness arm'd, eludes the wound, And harmless sees the feather'd shafts rebound; Unhurt she stands, applauds the archer's skill, Laughs at her malice, and ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
... and unquestioned probity: that his fortune, which was originally small, has been greatly hurt by a romantic spirit of generosity, which he has often displayed, even at the expence of his discretion, in favour of worthless individuals — That he had rescued Paunceford from the lowest distress, when he was bankrupt, both in means and reputation — That he had espoused his interests with a degree of enthusiasm, broke with several friends, and even drawn his sword against my uncle, who had particular ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Mr. Keene, unwitting and bewildered. "Of course she doesn't know all I suffered, what with taking up one worthless claim after another month in and out—if you mean that! Why, I actually thought one time of giving up prospecting and settling down to day's work! Yes'm! It was sure enough that grub-stake you gave me last Fourth of ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... later I found myself at the door of an old castle near the sea, before which a tall slave was pacing to and fro. The gift of one or two worthless jewels loosened his tongue, and he informed me that he was in the service of the son of the Bassa of the Sea, at that time making war in distant countries. The youth, he told me, had been destined from his boyhood to marry the daughter ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... were like to starve, a lot of these worthless dogs could be killed for them to eat," said Donovan. "It wouldn't hurt my feelings to slaughter the ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... of last month, cherishing this design in secret, he came to me, and began, in a friendly and insidious manner, to ask of me a gun which was in my chamber, and offered me for it, with the miserliness peculiar to him, many worthless objects, such as a brown sow and two sacks of oats. Divining at that time his criminal intentions, I endeavoured in every way to dissuade him from it: but the said rascal and scoundrel, Ivan Pererepenko, son of Ivan, abused me like a muzhik, and since that ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... of the Mahdi's troops with modern arms of precision, for those of them who carried guns had those long-barrelled, short-stocked weapons, which are familiar to us in pictures, and which are so admirable from an artistic, and so worthless from the Wimbledonian, point of view. But the majority carried spears instead of guns, and they were all armed with swords ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... officer's power to carry out this object; he has never time, seldom the necessary knowledge and experience, and far too often no inclination. The majority of the observations are in most cases left to personal native or other servants, and the laborious results I have examined are too frequently worthless.] has neither the time nor the opportunity to give even the minimum of required attention to the subject of meteorology. This defect has been in a measure remedied by Dr. Chapman, who kept a twelve-months' register in 1837, with instruments carefully compared with Calcutta ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... he ought to be ashamed of himself going around working off his worthless, old, green watermelons on trusting purchasers who had to rely on him. How could they tell from the outside whither the melons were good or not? That was his business. Arid if he didn't reform, I told him I'd see that he didn't get any more of my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Europeans, five thousand infantry, five hundred horsemen, and four guns. These five thousand men were, however, a mere ragged mob, of whom very few had firearms, and the rest were armed with bows and arrows. His horsemen were equally worthless, and Forde could only rely upon the troops he had brought with him from Calcutta, and the troop of ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... her that hundred dollars, he had heard nothing from Mercedes. The Bowdoins did not tell him how her husband had sunk to be a slave-catcher; for they knew how miserly old Jamie had become, and supposed that his salary all went to her. While Jamie could take care of her, it mattered little what the worthless husband did, save the pain of Jamie's knowing it. And of course they did not know that Jamie could no longer take ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... There are lots of fine ones. But there are cruel and bad ones, too. And then—I can't tell you what life is like for the under dog! And cheating goes on that we all see and have to share in—sales of worthless things advertised to attract women. We get a premium for working off 'dead stock.' Each department must be made to pay, separately and on its own account, you see, whatever happens! And that's why each one is its ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... a successful life; but he was too much of a man to marry a belle as such and be content. He must love her as a woman also, and he had loved what he imagined Stella Wildmere to be. Now he felt, however, like a lapidary who, while gloating over a precious stone, is suddenly shown that it is worthless paste. He may have valued it highly an hour before; now he throws it away in angry disgust. But this simile only in part explains Graydon's feelings. He not only recognized Miss Wildmere's mercenary character and selfish spirit, ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... sneered. "As it is, he has gone even lower than that abandoned scourer; so low that even this rakehell duke must become his enemy for his own credit's sake. He attempts mock-marriages with ladies of quality; and he attempts murder by stabbing through the back a gentleman who has spared his worthless life. Not even the president of the Hell Fire Club can countenance these things, strong stomach though he have for villainy. It is something to have contrived to come so low that even his Grace of Wharton must turn upon him, and swear his ruin. And ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... of stone, on the surface of which the traces of characters giving, in a connected form, the various incidents of its fate, could be clearly deciphered, K'ung K'ung examined them from first to last. They, in fact, explained how that this block of worthless stone had originally been devoid of the properties essential for the repairs to the heavens, how it would be transmuted into human form and introduced by Mang Mang the High Lord, and Miao Miao, the Divine, into the world of mortals, and how it would ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... with me to the field and was never so happy as when riding on old Jule.—Dear little sister, I fear I neglected you at times, turning away from your sweet face and pleading smile to lose myself in some worthless book. I am comforted to remember that I did sometimes lift you to the back of a real horse and permit you to ride "a round," chattering like a sparrow as we plodded back and ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... in my view, for which he must be accountable, for which he knows he must be accountable, if he has sworn that which he knows to be false, and which he cannot have done without being one of the most worthless men in the world. Gentlemen, what has he said? and I beg your particular attention to it, because the evidence of the brokers will not tally with the statement at all; he has sworn that he breakfasted with his uncle, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, in Cumberland place, ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... the last hands shipped, and though a man of some education, he always seemed to me utterly worthless. He was a friend of the three brothers, who went by the names of Washington, ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... homage to Philippe. He was only fifteen days absent from England, and duly swore fealty to Philippe; the one robed in blue velvet and golden lilies, the other in crimson velvet worked with the English lions; but the pageant was a worthless ceremony, and the journey was chiefly important as bringing him to a full sense of the esteem in which his mother was held at home and abroad. Edward was nearly nineteen, and was resolved that he and his country should be held in unworthy bondage no longer. He confided his plans to Sir William ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... limits. You might have laughed still more if you had beheld the kings and governors of earth begging in Hades, selling salt fish for a living, it might be, or giving elementary lessons, insulted by any one who met them, and cuffed like the most worthless of slaves. When I saw Philip of Macedon,[120] I could not contain myself; some one showed him to me cobbling old shoes for money in a corner. Many others were to be seen begging—people ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... 1973 that left the world gasping with admiration, General O'Reilly spread lasting balm on many sores in the Middle East. The Golden Judge settled—in favor of Pakistan—her friction with Afghanistan over the long-disputed Pathan territory. Saudi Arabia won from Britain two small and completely worthless oases on the undefined border between Saudi Arabia and Trucial Oman. These oases had, over the years, produced many hot and vain notes, and desultory shooting, but the Lord of Saudi Arabia was subsequently ...
— The Golden Judge • Nathaniel Gordon
... don't know; you fancy that I am not in love—" and the poor fellow began pouring out these commonplaces, which one has heard too often to take the trouble of repeating, and yet which are real enough, and pathetic too; for in every man, however frivolous, or even worthless, love calls up to the surface the real heroism, the real depth of character—all the more deep because common to poet and philosopher, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... got them, succeeded in bringing him to. As soon as he came to his senses, he began to lay the blame of his failure to his wife, saying to his guest, "Nemesho, it is this woman relation of yours—she is the cause of my not succeeding. She has rendered me a worthless fellow. Before I took her I could also get raccoons." The Woodpecker said nothing, but flying on the tree, drew out several fine raccoons. "Here," said he, "this is the way we do," and ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... characters so much more definite and satisfactory. As geologists, we can not be too grateful to those who, instead of despairing when so difficult a task was presented to them, or being discouraged when men of the highest scientific attainments treated the fossil leaves as worthless, entered with full faith and enthusiasm into this new and unexplored field. That they should frequently have fallen into errors was unavoidable, but it is remarkable, especially if we inquire into the history of Professor Heer's researches, how often early ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... indifference. Each one, of course, has his own weapons—these are mine. Years ago, when I was young and timid, I dreaded to leave the little rut down which I wandered. Now experience has given me the knowledge that Life is very little after all, and that it is for the most part worthless where there is no happiness, no forgetfulness of pain, no inner peace. The opinion of other people, beyond the few who love me, leaves me cold. The praise or approbation of the world—what is it worth at best, while it is boring ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... afterwards reached. Innes was a clergyman, but a disgrace to his cloth. As soon as he fixed his eye on our Formosan, he hit on a project; it was nothing less than to make Psalmanazar the ladder of his own ambition, and the stepping-place for him to climb up to a good living! Innes was a worthless character; as afterwards appeared, when by an audacious imposition Innes practised on the Bishop of London, he avowed himself to be the author of an anonymous work, entitled "A Modest Inquiry after ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... who has rightly perceived that the law as stated by philosophers is worthless, nevertheless continues to suppose that it is used ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... the thing I love, * I abandon my love and live lorn of love. My beloved is worthless if aught she will, * Save that which her lover doth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... of moral qualities has undergone a change, and soon, the conclusions drawn from our knowledge of physiognomy are equally different. How many portraits of celebrated men inspire us only with respect or admiration because we know their characters; portraits which we should have pronounced worthless and unattractive had they represented the ordinary race of mortals. And thus it is, if we reason vice versa. I once laughed, I remember, at a lady, who on beholding a likeness of Catiline mistook it for that of Collatinus, and ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... some fear. No, curs! ye have no teeth to bait this bear.[220] I will not bid mine ensign-bearer wave My tattered colours in this worthless air, Which your vile breaths vilely contaminate. Bearer,[221] thou'st been my ancient-bearer long, And borne up Leicester's bear in foreign lands; Yet now resign these colours to my hands, For I am full of grief and full of rage. John, look upon me: thus did Richard take The ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... agency of an insurance company or two and earned a few dollars during the spring. In June things brightened up a little. The money for a note of a thousand dollars fell due-a note he had considered virtually worthless, but the debtor, having had a "streak o' luck," sent seven hundred and fifty dollars. Sanford at once called a meeting of his creditors, and paid them, pro rata, a thousand dollars. The meeting took place in his wife's store, and in making the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... had lavished all the love of an impulsive and emotional nature. When Anne, the elder, was thirty-two and Lucy was nineteen, a young man had come to the town. He was going east, after spending the summer at a celebrated ranch in Wyoming—one of those places where wealthy men send worthless and dissipated sons, for a season of temperance, fresh air and hunting. The sisters, of course, knew nothing of this, and the young man's ardor rather carried them away. In a word, seven years before, Lucy Haswell ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to enjoy better things under John "the Good," one of the worst sovereigns with whom she has been cursed. He took as his model and example the chivalric John of Bohemia, who had been one of the most extravagant and worthless of the princes of his time, and had perished in his old age at Crecy. The first act of the new King was to take from his kinsman, Charles "the Bad" of Navarre, Champagne and other lands; and Charles ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... files to tape). Often generalized to pieces of data below file level. "I used to have his phone number, but I guess I {GFR}ed it." See also {prowler}, {reaper}. Compare {GC}, which discards only provably worthless stuff. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... since 'tis shown me at another's cost, Forego the joust, and to your reasons yield. Warmly I pray your leave against that host, To join with your good arms this helm and shield; And hope, if suffered of your band to be, No worthless comrade shall you ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... had made up that name in the office a few years ago, not knowing that a previous Juglans mandshurica existed and had been named by Maxim. So that traces the rodent to its hole. The name Juglans mandshurica by Maxim is the proper name for the worthless butternut-like nut from China. De Candolle named the valuable walnut that has been sent out by the Yokohama Nursery Company Juglans regia sinensis. So both of these nuts have been previously ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Baskerville, while the italic of Baskerville was unquestionably the most beautiful type that had ever been seen in England; and the ridiculous criticism passed on it that its very fineness was injurious to the eyesight, was shown to be utterly worthless by Franklin's letter to the printer, which is printed in Reed's Old English Letter Foundries. But there are also other features of excellence about these books of Baskerville's. They are simplicity itself. There is not a single ornament or tail-piece introduced into them to divide ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... "If your life is worthless; make it worth something!" he exclaimed. "I offer you the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... would be to destroy all the work we have put into him. His circuits would tend to exceed optimum randomity, and that would mean, in human terms, that he would be insane—and therefore worthless. As a machine, Snookums is worth eighteen billion dollars. The information we have given him, plus the deductions and computations he has made from that information, is worth...." He shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? How can a ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the borrowed money was returned, and the bank left without a dollar in its vaults, if, indeed, it had a vault about its premises. The result was, that banks were started all over the Western States, and the country flooded with worthless paper. These were known as the "Wild Cat Banks." Silver coin being very scarce, and the banks not being allowed to issue notes for a smaller amount than one dollar, several persons put out notes from 6 to 75 cents in value; these ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... fly-by-night outfit into canoes or a York boat, and passes on to lay waste another section, leaving the poor Indians to face the rigours of the coming winter with ruined credit, cheap, inadequate clothing, cheap food, and worthless trinkets, and their hunting ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... their torture, accepted her own dull conception of facts; of strength and youth gone; of her useless old age; of her last servitude; of being thrown away by her chief, by her nearest, to use up the last and worthless remnant of flickering life between those two incomprehensible and sombre outcasts: a shrivelled, an unmoved, a passive companion of ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... established on his throne ... than he set himself to restore the old absolutism with its worst abuses. The nobles recovered their privileges ... the Inquisition resumed its activity; and the Jesuits returned to Spain.... A camarilla of worthless courtiers and priests conducted the government, and urged the king to fresh acts of revolutionary violence. For six years Spain groaned under a royalist 'reign of terror.'"—Encycl. Brit., art. "Spain," vol. 22, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Sovereign of this country allowed to a Corneille, a Racine, a Boileau, a Voltaire, a De Crebillon, a D' Alembert, a Marmontel, and other heroes of our literature and honours to our nation. This liberality is often carried too far, and thrown away upon worthless subjects, whose very flattery displays absence of taste and genius, as well as of modesty and shame. To a fellow of the name of Dagee, who sang the coronation of Napoleon the First in two hundred of the most disgusting ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... if a man contemns the good things he has received from God, this, far from being a proof of humility, shows him to be ungrateful: and from such like contempt results sloth, because we sorrow for things that we reckon evil and worthless. Accordingly we ought to think much of the goods of others, in such a way as not to disparage those we have received ourselves, because if we did they ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... McLeod, stepping up to the man, "you've been at your bloody work again, you scoundrel. Hah! you not only bring the enmity of the whole Indian race down on your own worthless head, and on the heads of your innocent companions, but you have the effrontery to bring the evidence of your guilt into this fort along ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... containing worthless furs of martens and beavers, with other articles of thy colony trade, should discover the character of my correspondents, I stand exonerated of all breach ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... impunity, 400 British led by their own officers. He also forgets that the whole consists of the sum of the parts. He accounts for the victories of the Americans by stating (p. 280) that they were lucky enough to meet with frigates and brigs who had unskilful gunners or worthless crews; he also carefully shows that the Macedonian was incompetently handled, the Peacock commanded by a mere martinet, the Avon's crew unpractised weak and unskilful, the Java's exceedingly poor, and more to ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... think right about that affair," replied Corey. "I don't know who the woman was, though I believe she was Miss Dewey's mother; but I couldn't see that Colonel Lapham showed anything but a natural resentment of her coming to him in that way. I should have said she was some rather worthless person whom he'd been befriending, and that she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... know you had; and very likely that's the reason you were struck. Nothin's more likely to attract lightnin' than worthless rods." ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... straight with them. This is the one thing that will always get good will. Now, in my line, for example, new styles are constantly cropping out and a merchant must depend upon his hat man to start him right on new blocks. A man in my business can load a customer with a lot of worthless plunder so that his stock will not be worth twenty-five cents on the dollar in a season or two. On the other hand, he can, if he will, select the new styles and keep him from buying too many of them, thereby keeping ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... laddie," he replied, "but your streength will na let you bear my lumpy karkus. I'm a meesereeble sinner, ye ken, and it's na richt as a brave lad lik' you should lose his ain life for a worthless loon ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... fulfil or grossly abuses his trust. This is proper, because society contributes to the life of the child, and has a right as well as an interest in him. Society, again, must suffer if the child is allowed to grow up a worthless vagabond or a criminal; and has a right to intervene, both in behalf of itself and of the child, in case his parents neglect to train him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, or are training him up to be a liar, a thief, a drunkard, a murderer, a pest ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... respect to negroes, the Indian trade, and the navigation of the Mississippi, means had been found to protect the commercial interests of the North. With the same breath, however, he denounced the commercial articles of the treaty as utterly worthless, and adroitly charged the senate, by insinuation, with ignorance respecting the East Indian trade, falsely assuming that because the treaty did not, by express provisions, secure the East Indian coasting trade, and the direct ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... which is composed of lime and sulphuric acid, was made with the happiest results. It was found that an apple dusted with ground plaster at its first formation remained free from mildew and came to maturity, while apples growing by it, but not so treated, became scabby and worthless. It was also ascertained that a thorough application of plaster destroyed the mildew after it had formed, and that such fruit came to maturity. On the potato mildew, so far as the writer's experience extends, plaster, if applied ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... the history of the world. This plan philosophy strives to comprehend; for only that which has been developed as the result of it possesses bona fide reality. That which does not accord with it is negative, worthless existence. Before the pure light of this divine Idea—which is no mere Ideal—the phantom of a world whose events are an incoherent concourse of fortuitous circumstances, utterly vanishes. Philosophy wishes to discover the substantial purport, the real side of the divine idea, and to justify ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... expected to find masses of silver lying all about the ground." And he adds that he slipped away from the cabin to find a claim on his own account, and tells how he came staggering back under a load of golden specimens; also how his specimens proved to be only worthless mica; and how he learned that in mining nothing that glitters is gold. His account in 'Roughing It' of the Humboldt mining experience is sufficiently good history to make detail here unnecessary. Tillou instructed them ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... inclined to pinch, bite, or otherwise maltreat the speaker, so very worthless did her offer of optional disbelief seem, and, indeed, so very offensive. But her inclination only went the length of wondering how she could get at a vulnerable point ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... her. She is without affection. Her thoughts are covered with a veil of deceit impenetrable. She would sacrifice the whole world to her vanity. I fear, Amelie, she will sacrifice Le Gardeur as ruthlessly as the most worthless of her admirers." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... rock-cover to pine-clad hillside he was driven in his attempts to break the narrowing circle of grim hunters that hemmed him. And with each failure, with every passing hour, the terror in him mounted. He would have welcomed life imprisonment, would have sold the last vestige of manhood to save the worthless life that would soon be snuffed out unless he could evade his hunters till night and in the ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... is utterly worthless for itself, but it has its value in that it shows there was a time when the California Indians did not practice cremation, which is also established by other traditions. It hints at the additional fact that the Nishinams to this day set great store by the moon, consider ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... "Worthless!" exclaimed Jane, indignantly. "He's nothing of the kind. He was the best rider I ever had. There's not a reason why I shouldn't champion him and every reason why I should. It's no little shame to me, Elder Tull, that ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... they love Precede them but a stage upon the road Which they shall tread to-morrow. Yet am I Young, and thou too, my Gycia; we should walk The path of life together many years, But that some strange foreboding troubles me. For oh, my dear! now that the sun of love Beams on our days again, my worthless life Grows precious, and I tremble like a coward At dangers I despised. Tell me, my Gycia, Though I am true in love, wouldst thou forgive me If I were false or seemed false to thy State? Hast thou no word for me? May I not tell thee My secret, which so soon ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... and deep thinking, may naturally enough look upon the fortune he will possess for a few years before it passes on to others, as his reward. But the truth is that it is a very transient and perishable and worthless thing compared to the new powers that were unconsciously evolved in getting it—powers that will be retained by the man and be brought into use in ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... Husband of the widow, thou Father of the fatherless, O how fully, how manifestly hast thou fulfilled these relations to thy worthless servant. Thou, in my early widowhood, didst call me to leave my fatherless children on thee, annexing the promise that thou wouldst ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... Hodges; "but I feel so much interest in all that relates to Mr. Bloundel, that I am induced to depart from my rule on the present occasion. It is evident you have lost your heart," he added, to Amabel, whose blushes told him he was right; "but not, I hope, to one of those worthless court-gallants, who, as I learn from common report, are in the habit of toasting you daily. If it is so, you must subdue your passion; for it cannot lead to good. Be not dazzled by a brilliant exterior, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... deal of Nondescript stuff. Once, when the res angusta domi had become angustissima, a child of Israel was, in my sore estate, summoned to inspect the dear, shabby colony, and to make his sordid aureat or argent bid therefor. Well do I remember how his nose, which he could not, if his worthless life had depended upon it, render retrousse, grew sublimely curvilinear in its contempt, as his hawk-eyes estimated my pitiful family. I will not name the sum which he offered, the ghoul, the vampire, the anthropophagous jackal, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... us go home. I can bear this place no longer. Let us go home to-morrow. Twice this past week I have been made to suffer more than you can imagine. The man is apparently worthless—but ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... have nothing to fear from Russia, provided we overlook her doings in Turkey, and look away while she absorbs the little that remains of Poland. England is too far away to be interested in the matter, and Frederick knows by dear-bought experience that her alliance, in case of war, is perfectly worthless. Besides, George has quite enough on his hands with his troubles in North America. Who, then, is to prevent us from marching to Bavaria and taking peaceable possession of our ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... that all his ventures were sound, and that if he were not forced to sacrifice his possessions, their future value would attest his sagacity. But at present the securities of speculative enterprises were practically worthless as procurers of ready money. The extreme circumstances had come upon him with startling rapidity, so that he found himself in the unpleasant predicament of having used for temporary relief some of the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... when conquered crouds confess thy sway, When ev'n proud wealth and prouder wit obey, My fair, be mindful of the mighty trust, Alas! 'tis hard for beauty to be just. Those sovereign charms with strictest care employ; Nor give the generous pain, the worthless joy: With his own form acquaint the forward fool, Shewn in the faithful glass of ridicule; Teach mimick censure her own faults to find, ) No more let coquettes to themselves be blind, ) So shall ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by the new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... superposition, apart from mineral characters and organic remains; for, unless strata can be continuously traced, mineral characters and organic remains afford the only means of classing them as such or such. As to the test of mineral characters, we have seen that it is almost worthless; and no modern geologist would dare to say it should be relied on. If the Old Red Sandstone series in mid-England, differs wholly in lithological aspect from the equivalent series in South Devon, it is clear that similarities of texture and composition ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... was indisputable, the young engineer found himself rich and famous. To increase the feeders of the main bore, he drove another short gallery through a mining claim acquired for a few dollars,—a claim deemed worthless owing to a geological fault that traversed its whole length. That was Fate's opportunity. Doubtless she smiled mischievously when she gave him a vein of rich quartz through which to quarry his way. The mere delving of the rock had produced two ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... being here, our will would do thee service; Bethink thee, is there then no other gift Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes? ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron |
