"Badness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said the Idiot, with a smile, "it has been my experience that cod-liver oil is steadier than cider. The cod-liver oils I have had the pleasure of absorbing have been evenly vile, while the ciders that I have drank have been of a variety of goodness, badness, and indifferentness which has brought me to the point where I never touch it. But to return to inventions, since you desire to limit our discussion to a single subject, I think it is about the most interesting ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... is according to the method in use at the best farm-houses in Pennsylvania, and if exactly followed will be found very good. The badness of butter is generally owing to carelessness or mismanagement; to keeping the cream too long without churning; to want of cleanliness in the utensils; to not taking the trouble to work it sufficiently; or to the practice of salting it so profusely as to render it ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... the two best wine-tasters that have been known in La Mancha for many a long year, and to prove it I'll tell you now a thing that happened them. They gave the two of them some wine out of a cask, to try, asking their opinion as to the condition, quality, goodness or badness of the wine. One of them tried it with the tip of his tongue, the other did no more than bring it to his nose. The first said the wine had a flavour of iron, the second said it had a stronger flavour of cordovan. The owner said the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Alexina they all looked appalling, abandoned, the last cry in "badness." She was not afraid. The street was too brilliant and the great juggernauts of trolley cars lumbered by every few moments. Moreover, she could make herself look as cold and remote as the stars above the fog, and she had drawn herself up to her full five feet seven, ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... the house of an elderly maiden lady in the country, who wanted more of his company than he was willing to give. Proposing one day to take a stroll with him, he excused himself on account of the badness of the weather. Shortly afterwards she met him sneaking out alone. "So, Mr. Sheridan," said she, "it has cleared up."—"Just a little, ma'am—enough for one, but ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... the man to whom she had spoken repeated what she had said, and it was agreed to make the attempt. At the first cottage they came to they made further inquiries, and found that the lord of the soil was very unpopular; for, in spite of the badness of the times, he insisted on receiving his rents without abatement, and where money was not forthcoming, had seized cattle and horses, assessing them at a price far below what they would have fetched ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... father, in one of his unpublished letters written more than forty years ago, when the political and social state of the country was gloomy and troubled, and there were riots in many places, goes on, after strongly insisting on the badness and foolishness of the government, and on the harm and dangerousness of our feudal and aristocratical constitution of society, and ends thus: "As for rioting, the old Roman way of dealing with that is always the ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... the railway; that was the stark truth borne in upon Marguerite Whitland. She recognised, with a sense of dismay, the extraordinary badness of the bargain which Bones had made. Bones, with a real locomotive to play with—he had given the aged engine-driver a week's holiday—saw nothing but the wonderful possibilities of pulling levers and making a mass of rusting machinery jerk asthmatically forward at the touch ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... being neither too hot nor too cold. We spent our time till the 10th in refitting our ships, taking wood on board, and laying in a stock of water, that which we brought from England, St Vincents, and Isla Grande, being spoilt by the badness of our casks. We also boiled up and refined eighty gallons of oil of sea-lions, which we used in lamps to save candles, and might have prepared several tons, if we had been provided with vessels. The sailors sometimes used this oil to fry their fish, for want of butter, and found ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... be, Let us not fall to badness; Make us from all sinning free, And help us die in gladness. 'Gainst the devil well us ware, And keep our faith from failing, Our hope in thee from quailing. Our hearts upon thee staying, Make us wholly ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... presented a letter from Pius V., prophesying the wrath of Heaven, Salviati perceived that his exhortations made some impression. The King and Queen whispered to him that they hoped to make the peace yield such fruit that the end would more than countervail the badness of the beginning; and the King added, in strict confidence, that his plan was one which, once told, could never be executed.[37] This might have been said to delude the Nuncio; but he was inclined on the whole to believe that it was sincerely meant. The impression was confirmed by the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... requirements on early extempore breakfasts and late suppers; and so reporting myself a man of irregular habits and bad hours, whose movements could not in the least be depended upon, I had to decline the hospitality which would fain have adopted me as its guest, notwithstanding the badness of the character that, in common honesty, I had to certify as my own. Next morning I breakfasted at the manse, and was introduced by Mr. Learmonth to two gentlemen of the place, who had been kindly invited to meet with me, and who, from their acquaintance with the geology of the district enabled ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... it's so much badness in Tag, as it is that he's just a plain, simple savage, with the instincts and the passions of the savage," Dick reflected. "I wonder if Tag ever did really have a chance to be decent? Poor fellow! If he must be caught and returned to jail, and by and by pay the ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... economist, in saying that his science takes no account of the qualities of pictures, merely signifies that he cannot conceive of any quality of essential badness or goodness existing in pictures; and that he is incapable of investigating the laws of wealth in such articles. Which is the fact. But, being incapable of defining intrinsic value in pictures, it follows that he must be equally ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... that are its consequences. This is, I say, a taking of the indication for the thing indicated. An act is bad in itself and by itself, as being a violation of the rational nature of the doer (c. vi., s. i.), and being bad, it breeds bad consequences. But the badness of the act is moral; the badness of the consequences, physical. There is an evident intrinsic irrationality, and thereby moral evil, in such sins as intemperance, peevishness, and vanity. But let us take an instance of an act, apparently harmless in itself, and evil solely because of the consequences. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... remarkable defect, and one may say that she is devoid of goodness, just as she is devoid of badness. When coming among us, she contrived to bring with her Molina, the daughter of her nurse, a sort of comedy confidante, who soon gave herself Court airs, and who managed to form a regular little Court of her own. Without her sanction nothing can be obtained of the Queen. My lady Molina is ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... expeditions, especially before an amour is accomplished, he took post, and set out in the night, animated by the most tender and flattering wishes, so that, in less than no time almost, in comparison with the distance and the badness of the roads, he had travelled a hundred and fifty tedious miles at the last stage he prudently dismissed the post-boy. It was not yet daylight, and therefore, for fear of the rocks and precipices mentioned in her letter, he proceeded with tolerable discretion, considering ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... they have left me, and think that they may do as they like, and the "Manyuema are bad" is the song. Their badness consists in being dreadfully afraid of guns, and the Arabs can do just as they like with them and their goods. If spears alone were used the Manyuema would be considered brave, for they fear no one, though he has many spears. They tell us ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... far wrong. Almost before dawn the very next morning Marlborough was marching, with twelve thousand men, largely cavalry, towards the Queich valley, across a bit of country that for badness could hardly be matched even in the wilds of Connemara. On man and horse tramped, till the ancient city of Treves was reached. The Duke prepared for a siege, but he was saved the trouble. The garrison was far too weak to hold the place, and the place fell into his hands almost ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... Verses have not escaped the condemnation of scholars. Whose have? The true mode of critical approach to copies of Latin verse is by the question—How bad are they? Croker took the opinion of the Marquess Wellesley as to the degree of badness of Johnson's Latin Exercises. Lord Wellesley, as became so distinguished an Etonian, felt the solemnity of the occasion, and, after bargaining for secrecy, gave it as his opinion that they were all very bad, but that some perhaps were worse than others. ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... that," she said. "I began to believe that I was not his lawful wife, or he would not behave to me as he did. But I daren't ask, I was so afraid of him. And I felt as if I could not leave him, even if I was not his wife. That's where the badness of me came out, you see, Miss Lettice. I would have stayed with him to the end of my days, wife or no wife, if he had wanted me. But he tired of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... critic tries to face him immediately; his obviousness seems to hide everything else. But if one passes him by, following the track of the novelist's art elsewhere, and then returns to him with certain definite conclusions, his aspect is remarkable in quite a new way. His badness is perhaps as obvious as before; there is nothing fresh to discover about that. His greatness, however, wears a different look; it is no longer the plain and open surface that it was. It has depths and recesses ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... sick and you're unreasonable. There, now, please don't cry, Philly," she added, going around and stroking her sister's hair. "You're too good for any man that ever lived, and that's a great misfortune. If they could have split the difference between your goodness and my badness, they might have made two fair average women. There, now, if you don't eat something I'll blame myself all day. I'm going to toast ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... this child have held him? I ask it of your common sense. I ask of your heart whether a creature that God has made so fair, so beautiful, so innocent, could do such terrible work. The woman who could do such things would bear the sign of her badness in her face, and the fear of what she had done in her soul. She would tremble, she would have tried to escape, she would hesitate in her story, she would contradict herself, break down, attempt to shed false tears, act as only a woman who has committed a first great crime could act. And this child ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... a blanket over the head of a horse in a burning stable, and so getting it out by coaxing, and forcing, and hiding the danger, is not to be thought of here. Sin is never smoothed over by God, nor its results, their badness and their certainty. ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... making their appearance, having been delayed by various accidents and by the badness of the roads. At length they entered the hamlet. When Waverley joined the clan Mac-Ivor, arm-in-arm with their Chieftain, all the resentment they had entertained against him seemed blown off at once. Evan Dhu received him with a grin of congratulation; and even Callum, who was running ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... impossibility that would frequently prevent the exchange altogether, and thus subject the parties to mutual inconvenience and distress, the rude system of barter would appear preferable to so vile a common standard of value as the existing currency. Its badness, indeed, has been the means of introducing the system of barter as far as it was practicable; but as the entire introduction of this system would be hardly compatible with the first imperfect elements of society, the civilization of the colonists has imposed a limit to ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... character of a government or set of political institutions can not be sufficiently estimated while we confine our attention to the legitimate sphere of governmental functions; for, though the goodness of a government is necessarily circumscribed within that sphere, its badness unhappily is not. Every kind and degree of evil of which mankind are susceptible may be inflicted on them by their government, and none of the good which social existence is capable of can be any further realized than as the constitution of the government is compatible with, ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... have, or hard drinking, like the Scythians and Thracians, or moderate potations like the Persians? 'Give us arms, and we send all these nations flying before us.' My good friend, be modest; victories and defeats often arise from unknown causes, and afford no proof of the goodness or badness of institutions. The stronger overcomes the weaker, as the Athenians have overcome the Ceans, or the Syracusans the Locrians, who are, perhaps, the best governed state in that part of the world. People are apt to praise or censure practices without enquiring into the nature ...
— Laws • Plato
... that he was much the better man. The better man was naturally the man who had pledged himself to support a charming wife. We were neither of us good, as the event proved, but he had a finer sort of badness. The Blackport Beacon had two London correspondents—one a supposed haunter of political circles, the other a votary of questions sketchily classified as literary. They were both expected to be lively, and what was held out to each was that it was honourably ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... not more than twenty years since whiskey was first offered for sale in the seaport towns in large quantities; and then, owing to its badness, at a very low price. Since that period it has been gaining ground yearly, and at this time, it is the second great article of commerce, in the states of ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... bit of any other could I offer you. Things are all at sixes and sevens already. They are chaos; they are purgatory. That's our word out yonder, Lionel, to express the ultimatum of badness. Matiss comes and bothers; the tenants, one and another, come and bother; Roy comes and bothers. What with it all, I'm fit to bar the outer doors. Roy, you know, thought I should put him into power again! No, no, Mr. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... much fatigue, and who seemed at present more particularly distressed from having emptied his snuff-box, began to be very importunate with us to return home. It was some time before the old corporal consented, alleging, that we were at a great distance from the harbour, and that, on account of the badness of the way, the night would probably overtake us before we reached the end of our journey. At length, however, he yielded to Ivaskin's entreaties, and conducted us along the side of a number of small lakes, with which the flat part of this country seems much to abound. These lakes are ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... And white-robed Charity walks by thy side,— If thou tellest the truth without oath to bind, Doing thy duty to all mankind,— Raising the lowly, cheering the sad, Finding some goodness e'en in the bad, And owning with sadness if badness there be, There might have been badness in thine and in thee, If Conscience the warder that keeps thee whole Had uttered no voice to thy slumbering soul,— All God's angels will say, "Well done!" Whenever thy mortal race is run. White and forgiven, Thou'lt enter heaven, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... solitude is morbid. If you knew more of the world, Miss Thurwell, you would understand something of its cramping influence upon all independent thought. I am not a pessimist—at least, I try not to be. I do not wish to say that there is more badness than goodness in the world, but there is certainly more littleness than greatness. To live in any manner of society without imbibing a certain form of selfishness is difficult; to do so and to taste the full sweetness of the life that never ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... number and beauty of her fountains. It is a city of gloomy aspect, says Valery, who possibly entered it in a pensive frame of mind, for its sadness did not impress us. We had just come from Modena, where the badness of our hotel enveloped the city in an atmosphere of profound melancholy. In fact, it will not do to trust to travellers in any thing. I, for example, have just now spoken of the many beautiful fountains in Parma ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... puzzle to know what he's at; I could pity him, if it were madness: I never yet knew him to play a tune through, And it gives me more anger than sadness To hear his horn stutter and stammer to utter Its various abortions of badness. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... committed, the one to the town prison at Norwich, the other to the county prison there, for obstinate papistry; and seven more gentlemen of worship were committed to several houses in Norwich as prisoners....for badness of belief. This Rookwood is a papist of kind, newly crept out of his late wardship. Her majesty, by some means I know not, was lodged at his house, Euston, far unmeet for her highness, but fitter for the black guard; ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... "goodness" had done as much harm in the world as men's badness. The one was merely the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... English government, weakened by the opposition, and by the badness of their cause, agreed to abolish all duties except that on tea, which was now bought cheaper in Boston than in London; and to withdraw two at least of the regiments. But Boston was contending for a principle, not for a few hundred pounds, and refused to accept the tea as a compromise. Much more ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... evil—evil that good may exist, and good that evil may exist. This deduction, however, is obviously at variance with the theory that God is all goodness, since if nothing can exist save by contrast, goodness must of necessity presuppose badness, and we are thus led to the conclusion that God is at the same time both good and bad, a conclusion which is undoubtedly a reductio ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... in blushes bright, Or in eyelids dropping down, Like a violet from the light; Badness in a ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... in their articles might be just and reasonable, the gospel, he said, had nothing to do with their demands, and by their conduct they showed that they had forgotten the law of Christ. For by the Divine law it was forbidden to extort anything from the authorities by force: the badness of the latter was no excuse for violence and rebellion. Respecting the substance of their demands, their first article, claiming to elect their own pastor, if the civil authority refused to provide one, was right enough ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... uncertain, whose home is uncomfortable, whose nerves are rasped by some kind friend who daily repeats and enlarges upon everything disagreeable for him to hear,—it is he who thinks hardly of the character and prospects of humankind, and who believes in the essential and unimprovable badness of the race. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... are greatly modified by the state of civilization and that of society. Where the laboring classes are despised and paid in a manner unworthy of human beings, the badness of their work will be in keeping with the estimation in which it is held. The reverse of this, also, is usually true under different circumstances. ( 173.) Thus, it has been noticed in France, that native workmen, provided with as substantial food ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... goodness of God"? The infinite goodness of God to whom? To the animal whose special finger enables him to catch the insect? Then what about the insect? Where does he come in? Does not the long finger of the animal show the infinite badness of God ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... among them gave a fresh impulse to their mirth and enjoyment. His manners were highly agreeable, and his spirits buoyant almost to levity. Notwithstanding the badness of his character in the opinion of the sober, steady, and respectable inhabitants of the parish, yet he was a favorite with the desolate and thoughtless, and with many who had not an opportunity of seeing him except in his most favorable aspect. Whether he entertained ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... to Mr Lauder, by badness of character he means lack of reverence for chastity. It is a curious point of view that involves the banishment from the stage of all questions concerning right and wrong in the traffic between man and woman, which condemns ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... silence made a land which should be utterly his own. He brought together every element of dread and terror,—barrenness, brokenness, dreariness, fearful cold, blinding fog, crushing ice, sudden savage change. And when it was completed, he rejoiced in his heart and said, "This is perfect in badness, it cannot be redeemed, it is wholly and forever mine, it is mine!" Then Ormuzd, lord of light, heard the voice of that accursed joy, and, looking, beheld the evil work. And he saw that it could not be redeemed, that it was fixed forever in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... you must draw from the heading of this letter is that dad and I have taken all the degree of badness and are now winding up our career by taking the last degree, before passing in our chips and committing suicide. Do you know what this place is, old man? Monaco is a principality, about six miles square, ruled by a prince, and the whole business of the country, for it is a "country" the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... for instance, the treasurer of the county holds back his accounts.—Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 406.] [Footnote d: Thus, if a private individual breaks down or is wounded in consequence of the badness of a road, he can sue the township or the county for damages at the sessions.—Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the most opposite in effect were seen to be the result of the same natural law. The fire did not burn the house down if the owners of it were careful, but remained on the hearth and boiled the pot; nor did it seem more inclined to burn a bad man's house down than a good man's, provided the badness did not take the form of negligence. The phenomena of nature were found for the most part to proceed in an orderly, regular way, and their variations to be such as could be counted upon. From observing the order of things, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... once threw a thought that way. He neither loved reading nor writing; and at last, the only time he had leisure, was not well enough. He used to say, "that but few men should ever be ministers, for it let them see too much of the badness of mankind." Your story, I imagine, was inoculated ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... generally infested with robbers, we used our best endeavours to reach the town before the night should have entirely closed in. We did not succeed, however, and before we had proceeded half the distance, pitchy darkness overtook us. Throughout the journey we had been considerably delayed by the badness of our horses, especially that of my attendant, which appeared to pay no regard to whip or spur; his rider also was no horseman, it being thirty years, as he at length confessed to me, since he last mounted in a saddle. Horses soon become aware of the powers of their riders, and the brute in question ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... an old mission at the outskirts of the town of Skull, established many years before there were any other buildings in the vicinity. The Spanish fathers had built it for the Indians, and it remained a sanctuary, in spite of the roughness and badness of ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... more, child. Go to bed, and forget all about it. You hear bad things enough in the street, and it 'ud only put badness into your head to hear talk of ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... who had been assigned to us we sauntered back to the hotel. The man abounded in compassion for me. He said it was the worst case he had ever heard of—to rob a man so manifestly good and amiable of so great a sum. Alas! the badness of some people. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... work neatly in leather; they weave a few coarse barracans, and make iron-work in a solid, though clumsy manner. One or two work in gold and silver with much skill, considering the badness of their tools, and every man is capable of acting as a carpenter or mason; the wood being that of the date tree, and the houses being built of mud, very little elegance or skill is necessary. Much deference is paid to the artists in leather or metals, who are called, par excellence, sta, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... and a burning indignation at everything brutal or tyrannical, faithless or dishonorable in conduct and character, while making the broadest distinction between "mala in se" and mere "mala prohibita"—between acts giving evidence of intrinsic badness in feeling and character, and those which are only violations of conventions either good or bad, violations which whether in themselves right or wrong are capable of being committed by persons in every other respect ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... it is sacred and dear—from the box-room, where on wet days we played at robbers, to the toolshed, where on fine days we played at everything under the sun. To this day if I chance on a badly-cooked potato it almost brings tears to my eyes, not because of its badness, but because it recalls the potatoes that three small children used to cook with gladness and eat with silent awe, in the ashes of a bonfire, in an old garden, long, long ago—whilst the smell of a bonfire itself makes me feel seven ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... about her father, and would find herself praying for him, careless of what she had been taught. She could not blind herself to what she knew. He had not been a bad man, as men count badness, but could she in common sense think him a glorified saint, shining in white robes? The polite, kind old man! her own father!—could she, on the other hand, believe him in flames forever? If so, what a religion was that which required her to believe ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... the goodness of God to his people is diversely expressed in his word: sometimes by the word grace; sometimes by the word love; and sometimes by the word mercy; even as our badness against him is called iniquity, transgression, and sin. When it is expressed by that word 'grace,' then it is to show that what he doth is of his princely will, his royal bounty, and sovereign pleasure. When it is expressed by that word 'love,' then it is to show us that his affection ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... consent that when contractualism came in its turn to be discarded, it was discovered that Locke suffered far more than Hobbes by the change so made. For Hobbes cared nothing for the contract so long as strong government could be shown to be implicit in the natural badness of men, while Locke assumed their goodness and made his contract essential to their opportunity for moral expression. Nor did he, like Rousseau, seize upon the organic nature of the State. To him the State was always a mere aggregate, and the convenient simplicity of majority-rule ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... years of age, I had got the following maxim by heart: "Whenever J. is particularly quiet, look out for squalls." He was sure to be in some mischief. And I must say there was a novelty, an unexpectedness, an ingenuity, in his badness that constantly astonished me. The crimes he committed could be arranged alphabetically. He never repeated himself. His evil resources were inexhaustible. He never did the thing I expected he would. He never failed to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... they liked everything, but especially everything silly. "Next to authentic goodness in a book," they said—"next to authentic goodness in a book (and that, alas! we never find) we desire a rich badness." Thus it happened that their praise (as indicating the presence of a rich badness) was not universally sought after, and authors became a little disquieted when they found the eye of the Hammock School fixed ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... correction of the male children is peculiarly designed to the fathers, and to the mothers of the girls; the punishment being to hang them by the heels in the smoke: where they circumcise the women: where they eat all sorts of herbs, without other scruple than of the badness of the smell: where all things are open the finest houses, furnished in the richest manner, without doors, windows, trunks, or chests to lock, a thief being there punished double what they are in other places: where they ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... considerably increase the danger of our being deceived."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 293. "His beauties can never be mentioned without their suggesting his blemishes also."— Blair's Rhet., p. 442. "No example has ever been adduced of a man's conscientiously approving of an action, because of its badness."—Gurney's Evidences, p. 90. "The last episode of the angel's shewing Adam the fate of his posterity, is happily imagined."—Blair's Rhet., p. 452. "And the news came to my son, of his and the bride being in Dublin."—Castle ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... wouldn't give us any unless we said what for; and of course we could not do that because of the honour of the family. And Oswald was anxious to get the sixpence to give to the telegraph people because he feared that the badness of that sixpence might have been found out, and that the police might come for Alice at any moment. I don't think I ever had such an unhappy day. Of course we could have written to Albert's uncle, but it would have taken a long ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... mental and spiritual growth, that the regulation of elementary or any other grade of education by a uniform syllabus is to be deprecated. It is also because a uniform syllabus is, in the nature of things, a bad syllabus, and because the degree of its badness varies directly with the area of the sphere of educational activity that comes under its control. It is easy for us of the Twentieth Century to laugh at the syllabuses which the Department issued, without misgiving, year after year, in the latter half of the Nineteenth. ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... spiritual attitude toward positive badness, social and individual wrongdoing, cruelty and oppression, is far more difficult of solution than the problem of our attitude toward worth really existent but concealed. The thorny question, how we are to deal with wicked persons, whether we are to observe the ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... to Rugby, whither they travelled across country by Wallingford and Oxford. The second day took them to Lichfield. Lord Maulevrier was out of health and feeble, and grumbled a good deal about the fatigue of the journey, the badness of the weather, which was dull and cold, east winds all day, and a light frost morning and night. As they progressed northward the sky looked grayer, the air became more biting. His lordship insisted upon the stages being shortened. He lay in bed at his hotel till noon, and was ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... moved to go to his court, but I have met full a score knights one after other, of whom I asked concerning him, and one told me the same tale as another, for each told me that the court of King Arthur is the vilest in the world, and that all the knights of the Table Round have renounced it for the badness thereof." ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... you think," he said, "that you temperance and humane people lay too much stress upon the education of our youth in all lofty and noble sentiments? The human heart will always be wicked. Your Bible tells you that, doesn't it? You can't educate all the badness out ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... render virtue impossible, and exclude it entirely from the world. On the other hand, if we shift our position, and contend that no act is to be judged according to its own nature, but according to the goodness or badness of its origin or cause, he will also reduce this position, diametrically opposite though it be to the former, to precisely the same absurdity; namely, that it excludes all virtue out of the world, and banishes it from the universality ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... badness, n. depravity, improbity, unscrupulousness, iniquity, immorality, turpitude, knavishness, villainy, peccancy, baseness, profligacy, venality, licentiousness, obliquity, pravity, degeneracy, viciousness, wantonness, criminality, libertinism, malevolence, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... vacant upon Account of the badness of the Tobacco, which gives Room for Dissenters, especially Quakers, as in Nansemond County; but this might be remedied, either by making the Payments of equal Value in the other Commodities produced there, or else by a standing Order, ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... The doctrine of our Church is that although man has a perfectly free will to choose good or evil, yet we prefer the animal life to the spiritual life, and, through the badness of our perverse will, shall continue to prefer it until prevented by the ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... see; and in the sporting season he always rose from her before it was light. Thus was she perfect mistress of her time, and had besides a coach and four usually at her command; though unhappily, indeed, the badness of the neighbourhood, and of the roads, made this of little use; for none who had set much value on their necks would have passed through the one, or who had set any value on their hours, would have visited the other. Now to deal honestly with ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... dancing sickness when in the presence of the august Emperor, and being in consequence suspected of treachery, shall, to prove the truth of his denials, be submitted to the tests of boiling tar, red-hot swords, and of being dropped from a great height on to the Sacred Stone of Goodness and Badness, in each of which he shall fail to convince his judges or to establish his innocence, to the ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... "He aggravated me by his insolence." To aggravate is to augment the disagreeableness of something already disagreeable, or the badness of something bad. But a person cannot be aggravated, even if disagreeable or bad. Women are singularly prone to ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... meat lean, tough, taken from old, often diseased, cattle, or such as have died a natural death, and not fresh even then, often half decayed. The sellers are usually small hucksters who buy up inferior goods, and can sell them cheaply by reason of their badness. The poorest workers are forced to use still another device to get together the things they need with their few pence. As nothing can be sold on Sunday, and all shops must be closed at twelve o'clock on Saturday night, such things ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... trumpery men and women can be being wholly undesirable. It is too late to take it out, especially as Mr. Bedford has drawn a very charming picture for it, but I hope it will remain only as an object-lesson. Possibly its badness may incite someone to write a better, and that would be my justification. One interesting thing about it is the light it throws on the change ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... is much difference between me and this Dante. He fled from country because he had one bad tongue which he shook at his betters. I fly because benefice gone, and head going; not on account of the badness of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... business relations with the elder Bentham, and the younger Bentham was to some extent his collaborator in a pamphlet[223] which defended the conduct of ministers to the American colonies. Bentham observes that he was prejudiced against the Americans by the badness of their arguments, and thought from the first, as he continued to think, that the Declaration of Independence was a hodge-podge of confusion and absurdity, in which the thing to be proved is all along taken for granted.[224] Two other friendships were formed by Bentham about this time: ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... others do not.—MOZLEY, Essays, i. 308. All satirists, of course, work in the direction of Christian doctrine, by the support they give to the doctrine of original sin, making a sort of meanness and badness a law of society.—MOZLEY, Letters, 333. Les critiques, meme malveillants, sont plus pres de la verite derniere que les admirateurs.—NISARE, Lit. fr., Conclusion. Les hommes superieurs doivent necessairement passer pour mechants. Ou les autres ne voient ni un defaut, ni un ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... hence his party proceeded to a high and remarkable hill called BROOKS'S BLUFF: following the strait to the northward, they passed the remains of many Esquimaux habitations; and, though their short journey had been unsatisfactory on account of the badness of the weather, there was still sufficient to cause the most lively interest, and give strong hopes of the existence of some passage to the northeast of the small inlet they ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... you dirt. You pass that over. You could have fired him, but you let him stay and keep his job. That's goodness. And badness is resultin' from it, straight. Badness right ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... himself. A bad, even an inferior, picture he would not have—for his taste was exquisite—unless, indeed, it had some strange history about it, adapting it to his wayward fancies, and then he would adopt the badness as a peculiar recommendation, and point it out with some pungent and appropriate remark to his friends. But though, with these peculiar exceptions, his works of art were faultless, no dealer could ever calculate on his buying a picture, however high in artistic merit ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... and with one of those strange sinkings of the heart which had come over her several times this day. It was not that Ascott showed any unkindness—that there was any actual badness in his bright and handsome young face. Still there was a want there—want of earnestness, steadfastness, truthfulness, a something more discoverable as the lack of something else than as aught in itself tangibly and perceptibly wrong. It made her ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... of the German. We do not expect or desire that other peoples shall resemble us. The world is wide; and the world-drama is enriched by multiplicity and diversity of character. We like bad men, if there is salt and spirit in their badness. We even admire a brute, if he is a whole-hearted brute. I have often thought that if the Germans had been true to their principles and their programme—if, after proclaiming that they meant to win by sheer strength and that they recognized no ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... is debility of mind, and even badness of heart concealed under a splendid exterior! The fairest of the species, and of the sex, often want sincerity; and without sincerity every other qualification is rather a blemish, than a virtue, or excellence. Sincerity operates ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... the matter with Dumps," said Diddie; "she's gettin' ter be so sinful; an' ef she don't stop it, I sha'n't sleep with her. She'll be er breakin' out with the measles or sump'n some uv these days, jes fur er judgment on her; an' I don't want ter be catchin' no judgments just on account of her badness." ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... now busily engaged in making the best of their way to the village, though the badness of the roads frequently compelled them to check the impatience of their animals, which often carried them over places that would not admit of any gait ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... opportunity. But Sophy was heartlessly cruel in her indifference. In her younger days she had had her bad things, and now,—with George Whitstable by her side,—she meant to have good things, the goodness of which was infinitely enhanced by the badness of her sister's things. She had been so greatly despised that the charm of despising again was irresistible. And she was able to reconcile her cruelty to her conscience by telling herself that duty required ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... boats that belong to one of our ships. Commissioner Pett at last came to our lodging, and caused the boats to go off; so some in one boat and some in another we all bid adieu to the shore. But through badness of weather we were in great danger, and a great while before we could get to the ship, so that of all the company not one but myself that was not sick. I keeping myself in the open air, though I was soundly wet for it. This ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... know him, and without the least compunction of gratitude for his former favors, intended not to receive him, till a thought immediately suggested itself to me how I might convert him to my advantage, I pretended to recollect him; and, blaming the shortness of my memory and badness of my eyes, I sprung forward and ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... breathing, and only about one-tenth for smelling; so that by far the greater part of the nose is built on breathing lines. But the smelling part of it, though small, is very important, because it now has to decide, not merely upon the goodness or badness of the food, but also upon the purity or foulness of the air we breathe. The nostrils lie, as you can see, side by side, separated from each other by a thin, straight plate of gristle and bone known as the septum. This should be perfectly straight and flat; but very often when the ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... in her wrath, as she took the hair-brush from Patsey. "What time have I to be thinkin' of stories and you that full of badness. My heart is bruck ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... general, who was compelled, owing to the want of boats, to seek his way through the valleys of Shachen and Muotta, across the almost impassable rocks, to Schwyz. The heavy rains rendered the undertaking still more arduous; the Russians, owing to the badness of the road, speedily became barefoot; the provisions were also exhausted. In this wretched state they reached Muotta on the 29th of September and learned the discouraging news of Korsakow's defeat. ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... that all these six forms of government are pernicious—the three good kinds, from their brief duration the three bad, from their inherent badness. Wise legislators therefore, knowing these defects, and avoiding each of these forms in its simplicity, have made choice of a form which shares in the qualities of all the first three, and which they judge to be more ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... throne, chiefly among the class of serving-men. A good deal of meaning is lurking in the expression—'There is no art of feeding mankind worthy the name.' There is a similar depth in the remark,—'The wonder about states is not that they are short-lived, but that they last so long in spite of the badness ...
— Statesman • Plato
... than I, and what must she be now? It would frighten me to think of that, only she never knew she was good, and had such a way of not seeing the badness in me. ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... half to the Ladrone Islands, which is generally made in two; yet it was a vulgar opinion amongst our people that we had sailed so far as to pass by all the land in the world! Length of time and badness of the weather rendered both our ships leaky; this, joined to our mortality, the scurvy raging amongst us as much as ever, obliged us to destroy the Gloucester, which ship was ready to founder, and receive the men on board, who were ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... the "Agamemnon." But of criticism as criticism—of what has been called tracing of literary cause and effect, of any coherent and co-ordinated theory of the good and bad in verse and prose, and the reasons of their goodness or badness, it must be said of this, as of Wilson's other critical work, that it is to be found nusquam nullibi nullimodis. He can preach (though with too great volubility, and with occasional faults of taste) delightful sermons about what he likes at the moment—for ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... pretend that I rule my life by absolute ideals; I admit that everything is relative. There is no such thing as goodness or badness, in the absolute sense, of course. Perhaps I am absurdly inconsistent when—though knowing my work can't be first rate—I strive to make it as good as possible. I don't say this in irony, Amy; I ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... of the island are subject to those monstrous wens from the throat which have been observed of the Vallaisans and the inhabitants of other mountainous districts in Europe. It has been usual to attribute this affection to the badness, thawed state, mineral quality, or other peculiarity of the waters; many skilful men having applied themselves to the investigation of the subject. My experience enables me to pronounce without hesitation that the disorder, for such it is though ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... was talking of the two Bruffins, and every newspaper, in direct ratio to the badness of its paper and print, was scavenging for paragraphs, true or false, concerning the "palatial home" in Park Lane, neither Caldegard nor Randal Bellamy ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... there is a rush of wings; and lo! they are flown. And here we speak of understanding men, such as the Sydneys and the Drydens. Of the great body of critics you observe rightly, that they are better than might be expected of their badness, only the fact of their influence is no less undeniable than the reason why they should not be influential. The brazen kettles will be taken for oracles all the world over. But the influence is for to-day, for this hour—not for to-morrow and the day ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... what they will thrive here, and will be a great addition to the fruits they already have. Upon our first arrival we sowed of all sorts of English garden seeds and grain, but not a single thing came up except mustard sallad; but this I know was not owing either to the Soil or Climate, but to the badness of the seeds, which were spoil'd by the length ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... hope to live in a beautiful world, where a man may speak to a pretty girl on the street. Badness is its own punishment, let ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... exhibited in the square where the large station of the London and North-Western Railway now stands. Sir Humphrey Davy took great interest in it, and, in writing to a friend, said: "I shall hope soon to see English roads the haunts of Captain Trevethick's dragons." The badness of roads, however, prevented its ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... a world that suffers sorrow, Here are bitterness and pain, And the joy we plan to-morrow May be ruined by the rain. Here are hate and greed and badness, Here are love and friendship, too, But the most of it is gladness When at last we've run it through. Could we only understand it As we shall some distant day We should see that He who planned it Knew ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... We should still endure. Not, indeed, in flesh and blood: but in some state or other; each of us the same as now, our characters, our feelings, our goodness or our badness; our immortal spirits and very selves, unchanged, ready to receive, and certain to receive, the reward of the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil. Yes, we should still endure, and God and ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... apple, the color of a rose, the hardness of iron, the harmony of sounds, the smell or scent of things which possess that quality. As these agree or disagree with their comfort, they will call them good or bad, and speak of the qualities of goodness and badness, as if ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... that it was only a two hours' run from Charleston to Grangerville, but he had reckoned without taking into consideration the badness of some of the roads, and the intricacies of the way, for it was after one o'clock when they reached the little town beyond which, a mile to the West, ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... it, yet, for want of iron, it not only wore out the sooner, but made my work the harder, and performed it much worse. However, this I bore with, and was content to work it out with patience, and bear with the badness of the performance. When the corn was sown, I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself, and drag a great heavy bough of a tree over it, to scratch it, as it may be called, rather than rake or harrow it. When it was growing and grown, I have ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... of them, brought any nearer to death. Nothing which was not destroyed from within ever perished by external affection of evil. The body, which is one thing, cannot be destroyed by food, which is another, unless the badness of the food is communicated to the body. Neither can the soul, which is one thing, be corrupted by the body, which is another, unless she herself is infected. And as no bodily evil can infect the soul, neither can any bodily evil, whether ...
— The Republic • Plato
... The Convent of Grey Penitents, one of the crops which rewarded Miss Wilkinson for tilling the lands of her imagination with the spade of her style, is very nearly consummate—in badness. It is a fair example of the worst imitations of Mrs. Radcliffe and Mat Lewis conjointly, though without the latter's looseness. The Marquis di Zoretti was an Italian nobleman—"one of those characters in whose bosom resides an unquenchable ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... intraceable and interminable network; intraceable to the human eye, but what a sight it must be to the eye that sees all! All these people, so many hundreds of thousands, acting and reacting upon one another's happiness, prosperity, goodness, and badness. Now at such a place as Seaforth people are left a good deal to their individuality, and are comparatively independent of one another; but here I feel what a pressure and bondage men's lives draw round each other. It makes me catch my breath. ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... Japanese town of 36,000 people, the capital of Akita ken. A fine mountain, called Taiheisan, rises above its fertile valley, and the Omono falls into the Sea of Japan close to it. It has a number of kurumas, but, owing to heavy sand and the badness of the roads, they can only go three miles in any direction. It is a town of activity and brisk trade, and manufactures a silk fabric in stripes of blue and black, and yellow and black, much used for making hakama and kimonos, a species of white silk crepe with a raised woof, which ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... a thousand other evils, are clear and manifest to you and all other thinking men, though hidden from the vulgar: these indeed complain of hard times, the dearth of corn, the want of money, the badness of seasons; that their goods bear no price, and the poor cannot find work; but their weak reasonings never carry them to the hatred, and contempt, borne us by our neighbours, and brethren, without the least grounds of provocation, who rejoice at our sufferings, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... social morality it would be almost impossible to define the position of the proletariate, tillers of the soil, and artisans, at this epoch. These classes vary in their goodness and their badness, in their drawbacks and advantages, from age to age far less than those who mold the character of marked historical periods by culture. They enjoy indeed a greater or a smaller immunity from pressing miseries. They ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... to get victualls, & I told him I would meet him by the way to goe along with him. Having dispatcht my business at the fort of the Island, I went away betimes to bee at Mr. Bridgar's house before him, to hinder him from abusing his men. The badness of the weather made me goe into the House before hee came. As Soon as I was enter'd, the men beseech'd me to have compassion on them. I blam'd them for what they had don, & for the future advised them to bee more obedient unto ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... large number of ideas. By specific is meant a word that denotes or specifies a single idea. "Man," "move," "bad," are general and denote a large number of ideas; while "Whittier," "glide," "thieving," are specific, denoting but one man, one movement, one kind of badness. "Man" denotes the whole human race, while it implies a feeling, thinking, speaking, willing animal. "Whittier" denotes but a single person, but beside all the common qualities implied by the, word "man," "Whittier" suggests, among other things, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... (1715-1759) who fell at the battle of Kunersdorf. His temperament and the circumstances of his early life disposed him to melancholy; so that he readily came under the spell of Haller, Thomson, and the other poets who extolled nature and the simple life as a refuge from the badness of civilization. His best known production is the fragment called Spring (1749), in which fine passages of personal feeling are interwoven with detailed descriptions that are sometimes a little tedious. The text follows Muncker's edition ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... useful to themselves, and to account those things the best of all which have the most beneficial effect on mankind. Further, they were bound to form abstract notions for the explanation of the nature of things, such as goodness, badness, order, confusion, warmth, cold, beauty, deformity, and so on; and from the belief that they are free agents arose the further notions of praise and blame, sin ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... Manchester; Leeds; Sheffield Birmingham Liverpool Watering-places; Cheltenham; Brighton; Buxton; Tunbridge Wells Bath London The City Fashionable Part of the Capital Lighting of London Police of London Whitefriars; The Court The Coffee Houses Difficulty of Travelling Badness of the Roads Stage Coaches Highwaymen Inns Post Office Newspapers News-letters The Observator Scarcity of Books in Country Places; Female Education Literary Attainments of Gentlemen Influence of French Literature Immorality of the Polite Literature of England State of Science in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... abundance of one year from compensating the scarcity of another, to raise the price in the home market. The scarcity which prevailed in England, from 1693 to 1699, both inclusive, though no doubt principally owing to the badness of the seasons, and, therefore, extending through a considerable part of Europe, must have been somewhat enhanced by the bounty. In 1699, accordingly, the further exportation of corn ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Here two other lesser gibbets had been erected during the night, one on either hand of the loftier instrument of justice, and the carpenters were yet employed in finishing their work, having been delayed by the badness of the weather. Half drowned by the torrents that fell upon them, the poor fellows were protected from interference with their disagreeable occupation by half a dozen well-mounted and well-armed troopers, and by as ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that literature was a formidable engine of political warfare, and that the great Whig leaders had strengthened their party, and raised their character, by extending a liberal and judicious patronage to good writers. He was mortified, and not without reason, by the exceeding badness of the poems which appeared in honor of the battle of Blenheim. One of those poems has been rescued from oblivion by the exquisite ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... affection, found it impossible to live with her. Rousseau was tormented by such a host of ungovernable passions, that he became a burden to himself and to every one around him. Lord Byron suffered a badness of temper to corrode him in the flower of his days. Contrasted with this unpleasing part of the perspective, let us quote the names of a few wise and good men, who have been proverbial for the goodness of their tempers; as Shakspeare, Francis ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... by an impartial trial, a discovery is made of the badness of our condition, should we not be alarmed to look about us, and to labour by all means for an outgate? Considering, (1.) How doleful and lamentable this condition is. (2.) How sad and dreadful the consequences of ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... the same may be truly predicated as of these their productions. But the encouragement with which these lucubrations are read may seem most strange and more difficult to be accounted for. And here I cannot agree with my bookseller that their eminent badness recommends them. The true reason is, I believe, the same which I once heard an economist assign for the content and satisfaction with which his family drank water-cider—viz., because they could procure no better liquor. Indeed, I make no doubt but that the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... old Laxart sat up there and droned out the most tedious and empty tale one ever heard, and neither he nor Papa D'Arc ever gave a thought to the badness of the etiquette of it, or ever suspected that that foolish tale was anything but dignified and valuable history. There was not an atom of value in it; and whilst they thought it distressing and pathetic, it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... savage, and want to kick myself," was Hugh's not very self-complimentary soliloquy, as he went up the stairs. "What did I want to twit Ad for? Confound my badness!" and having by this time reached his own door, Hugh ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... there are such passages in his works. Shakspeare must not suffer from the badness of our memories.' Johnson, diverted by this enthusiastick jealousy, went on with greater ardour: 'No, Sir; Congreve has nature;' (smiling on the tragick eagerness of Garrick;) but composing himself, he added, 'Sir, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... do men sometimes run into the other extreme that some of them become our bitterest enemies, not merely after receiving benefits from us, but because they have received them. I cannot deny that some do this out of sheer badness of nature; but more do so because lapse of time destroys their remembrance, for time gradually effaces what they felt vividly at the moment. I remember having had an argument with you about this class of persons, whom you wished to call forgetful rather than ungrateful, as if that which caused ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... from the sting of an adder. But it is equally true that men flee from the embrace of a great optimist as from the embrace of a bear. Nothing brings down more curses than a real benediction. For the goodness of good things, like the badness of bad things, is a prodigy past speech; it is to be pictured rather than spoken. We shall have gone deeper than the deeps of heaven and grown older than the oldest angels before we feel, even in its first faint vibrations, the everlasting violence of that double passion ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... had not occurred to her as a possibility. She took his approval for granted. Never, as long as she could remember, had he been anything but kind to her. And the only possible objections to marriage from a grandfather's point of view—badness of character, insufficient means, or inferiority of social position—were in ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... fell upon Schomberg's army. The marshy land on which they were encamped, the wet and drizzly weather, the scarcity and badness of the food, caused a raging sickness to break out. Great numbers were swept away by disease. Among the officers who died were Sir Edward Deering, of Kent; Colonel Wharton, son of Lord Wharton; Sir Thomas ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... although its contents, as far as the unworthy conduct of the party is productive of vexation to you, I as sincerely lament. I am sorry that it should be at your expense; but as it tends to expose the badness of the cause and the iniquity of its supporters, the friends of liberty and virtue can hardly regret that they should have thus displayed ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... repenting, were distinct and separate[1216]: and when we consider his almost unexampled attention to truth, his inflexible integrity, his constant piety, who will dare to 'cast a stone at him[1217]?' Besides, let it never be forgotten, that he cannot be charged with any offence indicating badness of heart, any thing dishonest, base, or malignant; but that, on the contrary, he was charitable in an extraordinary degree: so that even in one of his own rigid judgements of himself, (Easter-eve, 1781,) while he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... no longer believe that goodness and badness were wholly matters of free will. From the time he put on the king's uniform in a spirit of idealistic service down to the day he met Doris Cleveland on the steamer, his experience had been a succession of devastating incidents. What had happened ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... 4 P.M., and had a most tedious march for about four miles only, with incessant checks, owing to the badness of the ground, so that we arrived long after dark at the camping-ground in indifferent humour. We had followed a narrow valley in a northerly direction. Most of the transport waggons, including our own, stuck in a drift some ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... to a major. I had hardly time to make myself comfortable in my new abode, when I was staked and lost again. In short, your highness, in that campaign I was the property of between forty and fifty Russian officers, and what with the fatigue of marching, the badness of provisions, and my constant unsettled state of mind and body, I lost much of my good looks—so much, indeed, that I found out that instead of being taken as a stake of one thousand sequins, I was not valued at more than two hundred. I can assure your highness that it is no ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... when no challenge follows the exchange of insults, even in the House of Commons, and when the perpetration of the most cowardly outrage in Ireland has to be induced by preliminary potations of whisky. Of course, those old times were bad times, but the badness was at least above board and the warfare pretty stoutly waged. There is some sense in fighting your foe hand to hand, but to-day when a battle is contested by armies which never see one another, and are decimated by silent bullets, the courage needed is of a different character, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... your fellow-citizens we appoint you, for this Indiction, Defensor of such and such a city. Take care that there be nothing venal in your conduct. Fix the prices for the citizens according to the goodness or badness of the seasons, and remember to pay yourself what you have prescribed to others. A good Defensor allows his citizens neither to be oppressed by the laws nor harassed by the ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... badness of his fare that has put him out of humour," said the Countess Isabelle. "Cheer up, Seignior Quentin, and should we ever visit my ancient Castle of Bracquemont together, if I myself should stand your cup bearer, and hand it to you, you shall have ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Aldobrandino's ill fortune. Then, having learned that the lady was alive and well and it being now night, he returned, full of various thoughts, to the inn and having supped with his servant, was put to sleep well nigh at the top of the house. There, what with the many thoughts that stirred him and the badness of the bed and peradventure also by reason of the supper, which had been meagre, half the night passed whilst he had not yet been able to fall asleep; wherefore, being awake, himseemed about midnight he heard folk come ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... with admirable and truly laudable conduct achieved the first step, began to discourse on the badness of the world, and particularly to blame the severity of creditors, who seldom or never attended to any unfortunate circumstances, but without mercy inflicted confinement on the debtor, whose body the law, with very unjustifiable ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... was obliged to dwell very plainly on the irregularity and the too frequent vanity and meanness of his relations to women. Hence, in the eyes of many, my study was a step towards the demonstration of Burns's radical badness. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... would be down to meet Warwick Sahib as soon as they heard the shouts of his beaters—but Little Shikara had been waiting almost an hour. Likely, if they had known about it, they would have commented on his badness, because he was notoriously bad, if indeed—as the villagers told each other—he was not actually ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... oh dear," said Sibyl, "I don't want everyone to tell me that I am to be a good girl. If it was father; but—don't please, Lord Grayleigh; I'll do a badness if you talk to me any more about ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... must tell you," said he, "because it is about the Macdonalds; and I want to show you that we had not all the badness of those times. It was Donald Gorm Mor; and his nephew Hugh Macdonald, who was the heir to the chieftainship, he got a number of men to join him in a conspiracy to have his uncle murdered. The chief found it out, and forgave ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... this bad Book of Machiavel's, years ago, had been struck, as all honest souls, especially governors or apprentices to governing, must be, if they thought of reading such a thing, with its badness, its falsity, detestability; and came by degrees, obliquely fishing out Voltaire's opinion as he went along, on the notion of refuting Machiavel; and did refute him, the best he could. Set down, namely, his own earnest contradiction ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... compulsively, but as a friendly and amicable donation. They never admitted, nor did the Nabob ever contend, that he had any right at all to take this money from them. At that time it was not Mr. Hastings's opinion that the badness of the system would justify any violence as a consequence of it; and when the advancement of the money was agreed to between the parties, as a family and amicable compact, he was as ready as anybody to propose and sanction a regular ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
