"Commendable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... communication between the old town and the new, and Prince's street, the thoroughfare of the latter, forms a fine terrace along the northern edge of the ravine, passing midway the Scott monument, a superb spire of Gothic. This latter is perhaps the only commendable feature per se in the city—for the details of Edinburgh are notably poor, its pictorial effect arising solely from the very happy manner in which they are grouped, amphitheatre-like, around ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... One of the commendable habits of the early settlers and old-fashioned folks was that of retiring and rising early. They were ardent believers in the saying of Poor Richard that "early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... freedom. Nothing more wise can be supposed than this view of educating the people for liberty before bestowing on them the precious boon. Their idea of commencing the work of reform by waging war on Austria does not appear to be so commendable. It was not, surely, the part of prudence, when on the eve of a great and arduous undertaking, to stir up enemies on every side. And this was really what they sought to do by provoking Austrian hostility. The government at Vienna was not inclined to be hostile. It had joined with other ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... have a eugenic effect, if the cured syphilitics had a permanently impaired germ-plasm—a proposition which is very doubtful. But the framers of the law apparently were not influenced by that aspect of the case, and in any event such a method of procedure is too round-about to be commendable. Criminals as such, and syphilitics, should certainly be removed from the workings of this law, and dealt with in some other way. However, no operations are reported as having been performed under ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... Captain King is always a pleasure, because he has so complete a mastery of the subjects with which he deals.... Captain King has few rivals in his domain.... The general tone of Captain King's stories is highly commendable. The heroes are simple, frank, and soldierly; the heroines are dignified and maidenly in the most unconventional ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the Queen for dispatch of business, the proposal, although opposed by some of the stricter sort, found favour in the eyes of Elizabeth, who said that such toys occupied, without offence, the minds of many who, lacking them, might find worse subjects of pastime; and that their pastors, however commendable for learning and godliness, were somewhat too sour in preaching against the pastimes of their flocks and so the pageant ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... properest motives I am able to think of; and will instruct him in only one piece of pride, that of being above doing a mean or low action. I will caution him not to behave in a lordly or insolent manner, even to the lowest servants. I will tell him that that superiority is the most commendable, and will be the best maintained, which is owing to humanity and kindness, and grounded on the perfections of the mind, rather than on the accidental advantage of fortune and condition: that if his conduct be such ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... some manure and spread on it in the winter or early spring; or we top-dress it with hen-manure, or guano, or nitrate of soda and superphosphate. I do not say that this is better than to apply the manure at the time of sowing the wheat, but if we neglect to do so, then top-dressing is a commendable practice. ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... representation. The gallery and the groundlings have been catered for not less than the spectators of the boxes and private rooms; yet, upon the whole, the stage, from its earliest period, has always provided entertainment of a reputable and wholesome kind. Even in its least commendable condition—and this, so far as England is concerned, we may judge to have been during the reign of King Charles II.—it yet possessed redeeming elements. It was never wholly bad, though it might now and then come very near to seeming so. And what it was, the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... influences surrounding his birth, youth and manhood, has risen, from a dark and almost absolute obscurity, to the distinguished position which he now occupies, might very well assume the existence of a commendable curiosity, on the part of the public, to know the ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... my friend were received by him and forwarded post haste to Vienna. Do you grasp the simplicity and subtlety of the device? My friend was on the lists of those interned in Holland, no one here knew where he lodged, the address used by me was as probable as any other; what more natural and commendable than that I should write to cheer him up a bit in exile, and that I should send him books and illustrated magazines? If it had been noticed by the postal authorities in Holland that my friend did not live at the address which I used, it would have been supposed that I had ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... disaster, the British generals in Northern Afghanistan formed a decision commendable alike for its boldness and its sagacity. They decided to despatch at once all available troops from Cabul to the relief of the beleaguered garrison at Candahar. General Sir Frederick Roberts had handed over the command at Cabul to Sir Donald Stewart, and was about to operate ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... up and down for a minute, stops in front of her, and speaks with resignation.] All right. I don't blame you in the least, Loretta. And you have been very honest. It is . . . er . . . commendable. But Billy is right, and you are wrong. You must ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... the urgent request to follow up every avenue of information in this direction. Gen. Paine issued an introduction to Col. B.J. Sweet, whom he declared to be a "model man and a model officer in every respect," and in whom all confidence in so commendable a cause might be reposed. How nobly, how wisely and how well that gallant officer discharged his trust, all who have observed his course will concede, and that man whose heroism at the memorable ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... cordiality. He knew that when Christmas came they wanted a great rally, somewhat approaching, at least, the rousing times both spiritual and temporal that they had had back on the old plantation, when Christmas meant a week of pleasurable excitement. Knowing the last so well, it was with commendable foresight that he began early his preparations for a big time on a certain ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... to pour in upon him after our Declaration, many of them from the highest placed men and women in the Kingdom, brought out more vividly than anything else the changed position of his country. Sonnets and verses rained upon the Embassy, most of them pretty bad as poetry, but all of them commendable for their admiring and friendly spirit. Of all these letters those that came from the steadfast friends of America perhaps gave Page the greatest satisfaction. "You will have been pleased at the universal tribute paid to the spirit as well as to the lofty ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... fulness of my heart, agree with those that speak in favor of Messer Simone dei Bardi. It is the native, intimate, and commendable wish of a man to abolish his enemies—I speak here after the fashion of the worldling that I was, for the cell and the cloister have no concern with mortal passions and frailties—and Messer Simone was ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... expedient to make it sell; so, to write a book that deserveth such treatment, is another: And a third, perhaps as effectual as either, is to ply an insipid, worthless tract with grave and learned answers, as Dr. Hickes, Dr. Potter,[3] and Mr. Wotton have done. Design and performances, however commendable, have glanced a reputation upon the piece; which oweth its life to the strength of those hands and weapons, that were raised to destroy it; like flinging a mountain upon a worm, which, instead of being bruised, by the advantage of its ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... is all very pretty and touching. Her action has, in truth, its springs in a most commendable sentiment that I should be the last to underrate. Shady Dell Farm is interesting, too, for once, if one can swallow one's wrath and dudgeon at being taken there against one's will; and one feels that Jane's parents and Jane's early surroundings must be worth a single visit, ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gave an acid little laugh. "According to my calculations," he said, "he has produced two volumes and a half annually, which, allowing for time spent in the cradle and so forth, shows a commendable industry." ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... to the question of the spy," said Mr. Sefton, tenaciously, "have you really no opinion, Captain Prescott? I have heard that you assisted Mr. Talbot when he was detailed to search Miss Grayson's house—a most commendable piece of zeal on your part—and I thought it showed your great interest ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... reduce the work of cleaning have been commendable, because scraping and sand handling are the items of greatest expense in slow sand filter maintenance. Every one has been desirous of minimizing this cost. However, as the writer will endeavor ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... two days previous to his departure for Kyushu, and giving me 600 yen, said that I might begin a business with it, or go ahead with my study, or spend it in any way I liked, but that that would be the last he could spare. It was a commendable act for my brother. What! about only 600 yen! I could get along without it, I thought, but as this unusually simple manner appealed to me, I accepted the offer with thanks. Then he produced 50 yen, requesting me to give it to Kiyo next time I saw ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... non sine dispendio hospitalitatis to the decay of hospitality. Howbeit many times that word is mistaken, and under the name of bounty and hospitality, is shrouded riot and prodigality, and that which is commendable in itself well used, hath been mistaken heretofore, is become by his abuse, the bane and utter ruin of many a noble family. For some men live like the rich glutton, consuming themselves and their substance by continual feasting and invitations, with [696]Axilon in Homer, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... not especially commendable—example of her present state of unselfishness, she stopped for luncheon with her pretty little sister- in-law, and either forgot or calmly ignored the fact that she had promised Percy Wintermill and his sister to ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... proud too speak to a poor man. This was used, not in depreciation of a certain nobleman, whom the Gipsy who gave it to me had often seen, but admiringly, as if such hauteur were a commendable quality. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... had led her safely back to Miss Eliza—ever since that long-past day, Arethusa had made up the most of Timothy's world. They had played together all through childhood and boyhood and girlhood, and quarreled violently and much over their play, and then made up with commendable immediacy; Timothy was the nearest approach to a brother Arethusa had ever known. But Timothy's feeling for Arethusa had ever been, and especially these last few years, more than a brother's love. It was the clean whole-hearted affection which a boy gives to the one girl ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... ceremonial practices, and the other in the formularies of belief. Ceremonies resemble virtuous actions, and formularies are like shadows of the truth and approach, more or less, the true light. All these outward forms would be commendable if those who invented them had rendered them appropriate to maintain and to express that which they imitate—if religious ceremonies, ecclesiastical discipline, the rules of communities, human laws were always like a hedge round the divine law, to withdraw us from any approach ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... alcheringa, fought one another, left spirit children behind, and finally went down into the ground. We were now, so to speak, in the very midst of mungai [i.e. of places associated with the totems], for the old totemic ancestors of the tribe, who showed a most commendable fondness for arising and walking about in the few picturesque spots which their country contained, had apparently selected these rocky gorges as their central home. All around us the water-holes, gorges, and rocky crags were peopled ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... alarmed the neighbourhood. The police entered a minute afterwards. The father, having bolted the wash-house door, had bolted himself. They dragged the lifeless body of the boiled baker from the cauldron, and, with a promptitude commendable in men of their station, they immediately carried it to the station-house. Subsequently, the baker was apprehended while seated on the top of a lamp-post in Parliament Street, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... events of a twelvemonth since. The slaughter of the admiral and of so many other innocent men and women had not only provoked the Divine retribution, but had diminished not a little the reputation and influence of the French with all orders of persons in Germany.[1341] Henry listened with commendable patience to the old elector's denunciations, alleging by way of excuse that the French court had been under the influence of the passions then running high, and readily promised great caution and tolerance in future.[1342] He ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... by some, that the owl is a friend of mankind, and I am perfectly willing to admit that very often he acts very much like an enemy, especially when he kills our young chickens and turkeys. But for all that, he has his good points, and very often behaves in a commendable manner. If you have a barn or a house that is overrun with mice, there is nothing that will be more certain to drive them out than an owl. And he will not be so apt to steal your milk or kill your canary as many of the cats which you ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... any given new thing which is not only allowable but commendable, if we are to preserve the outlines of our identity from the violence of alien intrusion, becomes a sheer waste of energy when it is transmuted into ponderous principles ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... smitten by thy poisonous tongue, about whom you argue, saying; 'If all shut themselves up and live in solitude, who will go to church? who will convert worldlings? who will be able to urge sinners to virtue?' If this holds true, if all are fools with thee, who can be wise? Nor will virginity be commendable, for if all be virgins, and none marry, the human race will perish. Virtue is rare, and is not desired by many." It is therefore evident that this is a foolish alarm; thus might a man fear to draw water ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... behaviour of the troops towards the citizens. I heard soldiers saying to one another, that they did not like being in a town in which they were very naturally detested. To any one who has seen as I have the ravages of the Northern troops in Southern towns, this forbearance seems most commendable and surprising. Yet these Pennsylvanian Dutch[55] don't seem the least thankful, and really appear to be unaware that their own troops have been for two years treating Southern towns with ten times more harshness. They are the most unpatriotic people I ever saw, and openly state that they don't ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... was struck by his foreign appearance. He contemplated his own image with a melancholy and inquisitive gaze, then by sudden inspiration raised the collar of his jacket. This arrangement appeared to him commendable, and he completed it by giving an upward twist to the ends of his black moustache. He was satisfied by the subtle modification of his personal aspect caused by these small changes. "That'll do very well," he thought. "I'll get a ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... of getting football knowledge—of developing the instinct—isn't always left to the boy. Unless I'm grievously mistaken it's more often the fond father who takes the first step. In fact, some fathers I've known have, with a commendable eye to future victories, even dated the preparation of their offspring from the hour when he was first shown them by the nurse: "Let me take a squint at the little rascal," says the beaming father and expertly examines the young hopeful's ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... in all the states, but in some of them this provision has been buttressed, as it were, by a permanent guarantee in the organic law. This regard, while not necessary practically for the continuance of the schools, is none the less commendable,—and indeed is one that should be declared in every state. Such provision concerning the education of the deaf, more direct in some than in others, is found in the constitutions of twenty-seven, or a little over half ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... of our Common wealth, all good causes haue their chiefe increase and maintenance) and there layed open to many great estates and learned men the plot and summe of his deuice. And amongst many honourable minds which fauoured his honest and commendable enterprise, he was specially bound and beholding to the right honourable Ambrose Dudley earle of Warwicke, whose fauourable minde and good disposition hath alwayes bene ready to countenance and aduance all honest actions with the authours and executors of the same: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... my heart on many points, and to reject the logic of my head. My heart said, "Speak the truth; to lie is wrong." But now that it had got rid of a personal God, logic said, "There can be nothing wrong in a lie that hurts no one. There is something commendable in a useful, serviceable lie. To lie to save a person from danger or destruction is a virtue. The feeling which shrinks from such a lie is a blind, irrational prejudice, and should be plucked up and cast out of the soul. Truth may be proper enough in the strong: ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... their most useful tool in 1860, and without his assistance they could not have made one step in the road to rebellion, or ruin. Their purpose is to found a new nation, as they have never hesitated to avow, with a frankness that is as commendable as the cause in which it is evinced is abominable. They would be glad to see a Democrat chosen our next President, because they would expect from him an acknowledgment of their "independence"; but they would no more lay down their arms at his entreaty than they would at the command of a President ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... American eyes, a different seeming. It matters not whether you vault a boundary pillar on the plain, a river, a mountain barrier, or seven thousand miles of sea-water. The process is the same. Nor in any of the cases was the forward movement other than commendable and inevitable. It was the necessary manifestation of the unrestrainable centrifugal impulse ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the Algerines, and other states of Barbary, in a perpetual state of hostility with most other people; so that whatsoever stratagems or deceits they can over-reach them by, are not only allowed by their laws, but considered as commendable and praise-worthy; and, as the Algerines are looked upon as a very honest people by those who are in alliance with them, though they plunder the rest of mankind; and as most other governments have thought that they might very honestly attack ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... Mr. PHILLIPS'S dramas. I flatter myself that the disinterested public will agree with me, that if all the Huguenots were as tedious as Mr. WATTS PHILLIPS'S private Huguenot, the massacre of St. BARTHOLOMEW was a pleasing manifestation of a very natural and commendable indignation on the part of their much-suffering ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... on, Old Virginny," said the soldier, whose kindly sympathy for Tom and his sick father was highly commendable. ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... to let Beatrice know of it." "Certainly," replied Ursula, "it were not good she knew his love, lest she made sport of it." "Why, to say truth," said Hero, "I never yet saw a man, how wise soever, or noble, young, or rarely featured, but she would dispraise him." "Sure sure, such carping is not commendable," said Ursula. "No," replied Hero, "but who dare tell her so? If I should speak, she would mock me into air." "O! you wrong your cousin," said Ursula: "she cannot be so much without true judgment, as to refuse so rare a gentleman as signior Benedick." "He hath an excellent good name," said ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... normal Christian life, thus conditioned, is a life whose mental energies (logixesthe) are fully at work, always gravitating towards purposes and actions true, pure, gracious, virtuous, commendable; "sowing the fruit of righteousness in peace," at the side of "the God of peace." True, the man may have many things to think of which are either perfectly secular in themselves (he may be a servant, he may be a man of business, he may be a physician, he may be ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... its inception. She told me she had even read half a dozen of her uncle's law-books, which bore upon the knotty points Artie had described to her. Instead of arousing his suspicions of mercenary motives, her innocent manner and flowerlike face deceived him into believing that her interest was very commendable. She explained that she had always wanted to study law, but that her father wouldn't let her, so that she always coaxed her friends to describe their law-suits to her, and then she read up on them by herself. Artie thought this ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... authority and influence are thought to have special need of friends: for where is the use of such prosperity if there be taken away the doing of kindnesses of which friends are the most usual and most commendable objects? Or how can it be kept or preserved without friends? because the greater it is so much the more slippery and hazardous: in poverty moreover and all other adversities men think friends ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... With commendable energy and expedition Dinwiddie and Dobbs, acting in concert, initiated steps for keeping the engagements conjointly made by the two colonies with the Cherokees and the Catawbas in the spring and summer of 1756. Enlisting sixty men, "most ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... friendship, or duty, is never commendable. I do not believe God Himself feels complimented when the beings He created as the highest type of His workmanship declare themselves worthless worms, unworthy ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... exemplification of the art of war. It is certainly a good subject for the study of military students, and it is partly for their benefit that I have pointed out some of its prominent defects as I understood them. Its commendable features are sufficiently evident; but in studying the actions that have resulted in victory, we are apt to overlook the errors without which the victory might have been far more complete, or even to mistake those errors for real causes ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... said, Sir; and it is well said, indeede, too: Better accommodated? it is good, yea indeede is it: good phrases are surely, and euery where very commendable. Accommodated, it comes of Accommodo: ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... advanced to a stage of development of which, as in the Elizabethan and Augustan ages, literary jealousy was an indispensable accompaniment. Chaucer is supposed to have attacked Gower in a passage of the "Canterbury Tales," where he incidentally declares his dislike (in itself extremely commendable) of a particular kind of sensational stories, instancing the subject of one of the numerous tales in the "Confessio Amantis." There is, however, no reason whatever for supposing Chaucer to have here intended a reflection ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... history hold that if there had been a proper respect for the commendable desire of the Christian peoples in European Turkey to throw off the Turkish yoke and become self-governing states, there would have been no cause for war, so far as relates to Servia and the situation which precipitated the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... as anything ever has been—by which I mean it's intermediate to the commendable and ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... which must not be criticized or questioned. The necessity of allegiance to morality has been so deeply stamped upon their minds that it has become a loyalty to the particular brand of morality they have grown up in, however flagrantly inadequate or tyrannous it may be. For the latter a commendable impatience with the imperfect is apt to foster a blindness to the value that almost always lies in ancient customs and a lack of regard for the need of stability and common agreement on some plane. These iconoclasts, vociferous in condemnation, are often most empty ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... this migration the rank and file of Negroes, accustomed to being led, showed some initiative by acting of their own accord, and thereby abandoned the old policy of seeking and awaiting the advice of their leaders.[175] While this is true, and is, indeed, a very commendable performance, yet a careful view of the situation will show that it is hardly a phenomenon to be considered a marvelous affair. As we saw in Chapter IV of this dissertation, this movement was largely precipitated and stimulated by the labor agents ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... the maids to do the best they know or the worst they will, according to the degree in which they are supplied with faculty or conscience. Many women boast that their housekeeping takes them perhaps an hour, perhaps half an hour, in the morning, and no more; and they think themselves clever and commendable in proportion to the small amount of time given to their largest family duty. This is all very well where the income is such as to secure first-class servants—professors of certain specialities of knowledge, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... us the honor to introduce any of our countrymen into his fiction, he generally displays a commendable desire to present something typical in the way of names for his adopted characters—to give a dash of local color, as it were, with his nomenclature. His success is seldom commensurate to the desire. He falls into the error ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... property is a fact; that it always has been, and always will be. With that proposition the savant Proudhon [11] commenced his "Treatise on the Right of Usufruct," regarding the origin of property as a useless question. Perhaps I would subscribe to this doctrine, believing it inspired by a commendable love of peace, were all my fellow-citizens in comfortable circumstances; but, no! I will not subscribe ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... life then, The Laird felt a pang of jealousy. While the child could never, by any possibility, be aught to him, nevertheless he felt that in the case of a male child a certain polite deference toward the infant's paternal ancestors was always commendable. At any rate, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... intercourse of the sexes, except what is necessary to the perpetuation of the species, we hold to be sinful and contrary to the order and command of God. Complete virginity or entire cessation of sexual commerce is more commendable ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... as well as his famous paintings, "The Girlhood of Mary Virgin," and his Annunciation picture, "Ecce Ancilla Domini." Of the product of other Pre-Raphaelites of note,—such as Ford Madox Brown, Millais, Morris, Woolner the sculptor, Coventry Patmore, and Holman Hunt,—much that is commendable as well as finely imaginative came from their hands, and justified Ruskin in his gallant advocacy of the movement, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... getting the church together; and when they are so come together, then to pray among them, and to preach unto them. This is also commendable in Christian ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and times of the world wherein we are fallen is so much given to verbal profession, as well of religion as of all commendable royal virtues, but wanting the actions and deeds agreeable to so specious a profession; as it hath bred such an unsatiable curiosity in many men's spirits, and such an itching in the tongues and pens of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... in 1808. Much worse men have done much worse things than he, have less that is brave, honourable, enterprising and original to their credit, and yet are remembered without ignominy. It is said by Hooker: "as oftentimes the vices of wicked men do cause other their commendable virtues to be abhorred, so the honour of great men's virtues is easily a cloak to their errors." Bligh fell short of being a great man, but neither was he a bad man; and the merit of his achievements, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... truth and alms-giving, kind speech and abstention from injury to any creature, are known (measured) by their objective gravity (utility). Truth is (sometimes) more praiseworthy than some acts of charity; some of the latter again are more commendable than true speech. Similarly, O mighty king, and lord of the earth, abstention from doing injury to any creature is seen to be important than good speech and vice-versa. Even so it is, O king, depending on effects. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... different capacities: one understands intuitively; another understands so far as it is explained; and a third understands neither of himself nor by explanation. The first is excellent, the second, commendable, ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... ventured to publish a small volume of them, which was soon followed by a second and enlarged edition. This book of sermons is dedicated to Lord Webb Seymour[17]—"because I know no man who, in spite of the disadvantages of high birth, lives to more honourable and commendable purposes ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... postponed until the arrival of Parker's counsel, O'Connell & Kilpatrick, of Grass Valley, and after they reached Cape Horn not a single word could be extracted from the prisoner. It is said that the inquisition was a mere farce; there being no witnesses present except one lady passenger, who, with commendable spirit, volunteered to lay over one day, to give in her testimony. We also learn that, after the trial, the justice, together with the prisoner and his counsel, were closeted in secret session for more than two hours; at the expiration of which time the judge resumed his seat ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... abundantly supplied with well-engraved woodcuts and lithographic plates; a sort of Encyclopaedia for ready reference.... The whole work has a look of pains-taking completeness highly commendable."—Athenaeum. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various
... other child, a boy of ten, Francisco Mercado, whose Christian name was given partly because he had an uncle of the same name, and partly as a tribute of gratitude to the friendly Friar scholar in Manila. His new surname suggests that the family possessed the commendable trait of taking pride in ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... was certainly the most commendable of the two, and by far the most important in its results. Warburton, with a troop of camels, reached the Oakover River naked and starving, with but two miserable animals left. Forrest, with nothing but ordinary pack-horses, crossed the middle of the continent, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... variety is in a way infinite, yet it is not various in infinite ways, but rather in very finite ones. Everybody who denies its excellence is to be blamed: but nobody is to be blamed for saying that he should like some other excellences as well. The desire is innocent, nay commendable: and it was being satisfied, at practically the same time, by the work of Sir Walter Scott in a kind of novel almost as new (when we regard it in connection with its earlier examples) as Miss Austen's own. This was the Historical ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... weeks, all entered into the new system with a will. Service was the order of the day. Men who seldom or never before labored with their hands devoted themselves to agriculture and the mechanical arts with a zeal which was at least commendable, though not always well directed. Ministers of the gospel guided the plow and called swine to their corn instead of sinners to repentance, and let patience have her perfect work over an unruly yoke of oxen. Merchants exchanged the yardstick for the rake or pitchfork; and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Act was a grievous mistake of Jefferson, though its purpose was commendable. Under the plea of securing our ships against capture, its real object was to deprive England and France of the commodities which could be secured only in the United States. This measure might have been endurable for an agricultural people, but it could not be borne by a commercial and ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... the prompt action of his legal brethren in view of his conduct, render it highly improbable that he will ever return to the scene of his former triumphs and excesses. Besides its brevity, which was commendable, his speech this evening presented no point worthy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... reply.—"What, without an uniform?" rejoined the lieutenant; "oh, get back, get back, impostor; the general would break your bones if he knew you assumed his name." The general on this made his retreat; and the next day, inviting the young officer to breakfast, told him—"He had done his duty with very commendable exactness." ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... to the Bootlair Sahib that the daylight was yet strong and lusty enough to shame and smother any lamp, complied with deliberation and care, polishing the chimney, trimming the wick, pouring in oil and generally making a satisfactory and commendable ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... the distance. What might have been is sternly transformed from a beautiful vision into a revolting peril, and in this new shape is invoked to applaud the actual and vilify what is impossible. This attitude of mind is thought so commendable as to have won for itself in popular speech the name of philosophy—so even with words Clotho works her will. Elsa, then, in this peculiar sense of the term was philosophical about the business. She was balanced ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... so. It was a most interesting journey to headquarters. There was only one track, and on this the men had spent their energies to great advantage, and commendable results followed. ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... Walter Cholmondeliegh, and rolled that portly old gentleman on his back. He fought with a commendable valour, but we got him tight. I had not the remotest notion why. He had a splendid and full-blooded vigour; when he could not box he kicked, and we bound him; when he could not kick he shouted, and we gagged him. Then, by Basil's ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... make the best use of his men unless he is armed with all available research data and can talk the language of the philosopher and modern social scientist is little more than a twentieth century conceit. To seek and use all pertinent information is commendable, but truth comes of seeing all things in their natural proportion. To know more than is necessary blunts one's own weapons. The application of common sense to the problem is more vital than the possession ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... he was speaking of the Ptolemaic cosmogony as known to him through the Arabs, and his vaunt was a humorous proof of his scientific instinct. As a ruler he showed legislative capacity, and a very commendable wish to provide his kingdoms with a code of laws and a consistent judicial system. The Fuero Real was undoubtedly his work, and he began the code called the Slete Partidas, which, however, was only promulgated by his great-grandson. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... I understand why you told your falsehoods, I can't help admiring your chivalry. You saw Miss Lloyd there that evening, you heard her next day at the inquest deny having been in the office in the evening. So, in a way, it was very commendable on your part to avoid contradicting her testimonies, with your own. But you are not clever enough, Louis, to carry out that deceit to the end. And now that you have admitted that you saw Miss Lloyd ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... Mademoiselle might be a great lady in France, I said to myself, but to me she had shown herself only a fickle, capricious, silly maiden. But even as I so spoke to myself my heart revolted. I saw her once more weeping in madame's arms, and I began to think it was only natural and commendable in her that she should be so stirred at the thought of leaving friends who had been so good to her, and that I had been much harder with ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... esteemed the sacrifice, however unendurable, which bought for Perion the chance to serve God and his love for her by valorous and commendable actions to ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... about to take his head when people came up and arrested him. This case illustrates the difficulties to be met in civilizing these people. Legally, under our view, this boy was a murderer; under his own customs and traditions, he had done a commendable thing. When the boys' school was first opened, they used to take their spears and shields into the room with them; this proving not only troublesome, but dangerous, their arms are now taken away from them every morning, and ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... one willow that has been used by the nurserymen to produce a so-called weeping form, which, like most of these monstrosities, is not commendable. The goat willow is a vigorous tree introduced from Europe, having large and rather broad and coarse leaves, dark green above and whitish underneath. It is taken as a "stock," upon which, at a convenient height, the skilled juggler with trees grafts a drooping or pendulous form known ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... no reason for shame, for to them the danger seemed real; and believing it to be real, they had not shrunk, but had faced it with very commendable pluck. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... hotel carried his seventy-odd years and two hundred and sixty pounds quite handily in his shirt-sleeves, moving with commendable celerity from office to bar-room, supplying us in the front room with information and those in ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... to me—to Mrs. Sherman, rather—she described you as her young lady. She has a very warm feeling for you. I think she considers you in the light of personal property, like a child of her own. That's excusable—it's commendable, even, in such a case as this. I believe she said she nursed you till you ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise with men of learning—" "Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you please to go in." My critic complies; he comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath, that the book is commendable, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... certain that all San Pasqual must know her secret—that this was her wedding day. She shuddered lest the telegraph operator had suspected something, despite Bob's commendable caution, and had incited the townspeople to line up at the depot, there to shower her with rice and hurl antiquated footgear after the train that bore her north. Such horrible rites were preserved and enacted with ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... clear on Friday and Saturday, when petitions from the best citizens of twenty-three States were presented in House and Senate, that the leaders of the two political parties vied with each other in doing honor to the grave subject proposed for their consideration. The speaker of the House set a commendable example of courtesy to women by proposing that the petitions be delivered in open House, to which there was no objection. The early advocates of equal rights for women—Hoar, Kelley, Banks, Kasson, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... meaning, either past or present." Baedeker gives like reasons for thinking "the traveler whose expectation is on tiptoe as he enters the ancient capital of the Moors will probably be disappointed in all but the cathedral." Cook's Guide, latest but not least commendable of the authorities, is of a more divided mind and finds the means of trade and industry and their total want of visible employment at ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... democracies the arts are incapable of producing very commendable works, if such be required. This may occasionally be the case, if customers appear who are ready to pay for time and trouble. In this rivalry of every kind of industry—in the midst of this immense competition and these countless experiments, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... looked mainly toward summer use, But I am especially glad to note a recent improvement that shows that the Park Board has the winter use of the parks also definitely in mind. I refer to the new skating rink in Riverside Park. It is a most commendable institution. I very much hope that it will be extensively used, not only by the people living in that part of the city, but by those of all sections. It belongs to all of us. Here is an opportunity for a most delightful winter sport freely offered. If appreciated, ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... not exist at the time the letter—if genuine—was written; as the worm did its work long afterwards, it must be regarded as a fortunate circumstance that in perforating the paper it refrained from destroying the writing, carefully selecting the wider spaces that the poet had, with commendable foresight, left ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... have entitled him to aspire. He gave his son such an education as his own resources and those of the infant colony of Massachusetts afforded, and, by a sort of delusive piety, into whose merits we have no desire to look, he thought he had also furnished a commendable evidence of his own desperate resignation to the will of Providence, in causing him to be publicly christened by the name of Content. His own baptismal appellation was Mark; as indeed had been that of most ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... without further comment. By and by he got up. "Pshaw!" He dropped the wearisome volume on the reading-table, took up a paper-covered novel, and turned to the last fight of the blacksmith in Rodney Stone. Here was something that made the invention of type excusable, even commendable. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... hours late, but we scalded ourselves with a second cup of coffee and tried for the six-o'clock train for Naples, missed it, sent a telegram to Cook to send our letters to the train to meet us, and then went back to the ship to endure with patience and commendable fortitude the jeers of our fellow-passengers. Virtue was its own reward, however, for soon, under the rays of the rising sun, which we did not get up to see, and did not want to see, there steamed into the harbor alongside of us the P. & O. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... can not see who would kill her to prevent her getting money from a prosperous mistress. She was making her a final present on leaving her service. Madame de Santos openly admits she intended to give her a considerable sum of money. She has acted with commendable kindness as to her funeral. All is quiet. The police are baffled." This is ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... thirdly, that if you eat a good deal of it, most probably you must do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, viz., die. These weighty propositions are, all and singular, true; I can not gainsay them; and truth ever was and will be commendable. But in these three theorems I believe we have exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet accumulated by man on the subject of opium. And therefore, worthy doctors, as there seems to be room for further discoveries, stand aside and allow me to come forward and ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... part was variously commented upon by his friends, the general opinion being that it was just like Pontifex, who was sure to do something unusual wherever he went, but that on the whole the idea was commendable. Christina could not restrain herself when on sounding her clerical neighbours she found them inclined to applaud her son for conduct which they idealised into something much more self-denying than it really was. She did not quite like his living in ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... certainly most commendable. There is nothing which needs apology. Under the circumstances you have done all that was possible, and to the best of your ability. No one can do more," ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... was too far removed from him to be an actual reality, and so he just waived her husband and dismissed him with a shrug. Beside that, young married women have a charm all their own; they are wiser than maidens, more companionable; innocence is not wholly commendable—at least, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard |
