"Commoner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to be born to a romantic history. The humdrum always think that you are lying. In real truth romance is common in life, commoner, perhaps, than the commonplace. But the commonplace ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... in Howard's inner council of war. "Howard," says Thomas Fuller, "was no deep-seaman, but he had skill enough to know those who had more skill than himself and to follow their instructions." As far as as possible for a commoner, Drake ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... a few deductions. She must have come to the Count's room by appointment. This is quite obviously the woman Edouard mentioned to Lady Duncan—the woman, the 'she' that the Scots noblewoman could not compare with. It is almost certain she is a commoner; otherwise she would not be wearing a robe from the Count's collection. She must have changed right there in the bedroom. Then she and the Count quarreled—about what, we do not know. The Count had previously taken Lady Duncan's pistol away from her and had evidently carelessly let it ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... but as 'ill-usage was apprehended' the appointment was declined.[207] He was at a boarding-house, and the life of the boys on the foundation was probably rougher. In June 1760 his father took him to Oxford, and entered him as a commoner at Queen's College. He came into residence in the following October, when only twelve years old. Oxford was not more congenial than Westminster. He had to sign the Thirty-nine Articles in spite of scruples suppressed by authority. The ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... a two-year-old ewe. Wright gives theave or theeve as the commoner forms, and in the Paston letters it is theyve, which perhaps confirms thaive, rhymed here with 'rave'. Certainly it is most advisable to avoid thieves, the plural of thief, although O.E.D. allows this pronunciation and indeed puts it ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... that you are tempted to do this, think it over. If you do, you will not say, "Pish,—the Commoner!" But you ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... eyes on the man as he replied in those terms. "Look here!" she broke out. "I like to see my way before me. You're a stranger, young Mister; and it's as likely as not you've given me a false name and address. That don't matter. False names are commoner than true ones, in my line of life. But mind this! I don't stir a step farther till I've got half the money in my hand, and my ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... to each. 'You clean your teeth.' Excusable cleanliness. 'You look into mirrors.' Philosophers should. 'You write verse.' 'Tis permitted. 'You examine fish.' Following Aristotle. 'You worship a piece of wood.' So Plato. 'You marry a wife.' Obeying law. 'She is older than you.' Nothing commoner. 'You married for money.' Take the marriage-settlement, remember the deed of gift, ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... expected, in one of its proposed ingredients. Of the old English Peers there had come in only Visconnt Falconbridge and Lord Eure; Warwick, Manchester, Say and Sele, Wharton, even Mulgrave, were absent. More ominous still was the absence of the Anti-Oliverian commoner Sir Arthur Hasilrig, He had not yet come to town, and there was much speculation what course he would take if he did come. Would he regard himself as still member for Leicester in the Commons House, though he had been excluded thence ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... happy, mamma. What nice rooms! What pretty chintz! What a—oh, what a—comfortable sofa!" and she falls down on the sofa, which, truth to say, was the Rev. Charles Honeyman's luxurious sofa from Oxford, presented to him by young Cibber Wright of Christchurch, when that gentleman-commoner was eliminated from ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... They could never have known each other in the world; they had to withdraw themselves apart. He looked at her afresh, lying on the pillow by his side, her hair twining carelessly about the white arm. She was infinitely greater than he,—so undivided and complete a soul! She had left him for the commoner uses of life. And all the stains of their experience had been removed, washed out by the pure accomplishment of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... in the scene when Mr. Irwine got up to speak, and all the faces in the room were turned towards him. The superior refinement of his face was much more striking than that of Arthur's when seen in comparison with the people round them. Arthur's was a much commoner British face, and the splendour of his new-fashioned clothes was more akin to the young farmer's taste in costume than Mr. Irwine's powder and the well-brushed but well-worn black, which seemed to be his chosen suit for great occasions; for he had the mysterious ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Crawley (named after the great Commoner) was the son of Walpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office in the reign of George II., when he was impeached for peculation, as were a great number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and Walpole Crawley was, as need scarcely ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would not have been stronger and more brilliant by cutting," said Bart, with vehemence. "All I contend for is, that genius, as I have supposed, can make the most and best of things, often doing with them what other and commoner minds cannot do ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... to that of ordinary waking. In the perfectest instances of double consciousness, there is nothing in the bearing or behaviour of the entranced person which would lead a stranger to suppose her (for it is an affection far commoner in young women than in boys or men) to be other than ordinarily awaked. But her friends observe that she does every thing with more spirit and better—sings better, plays better, has more readiness, moves even more gracefully, than in her natural state. She has an innocent boldness and disregard ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... either of idolatry or of religion. No picture of Leonardo's or Raphael's, no statue of Michael Angelo's, has ever been worshipped, except by accident. Carelessly regarded, and by ignorant persons, there is less to attract in them than in commoner works. Carefully regarded, and by intelligent persons, they instantly divert the mind from their subject to their art, so that admiration takes the place of devotion. I do not say that the Madonna di S. Sisto, the Madonna ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... Sweden, that "the Norwegian colors had displaced the Swedish," while in the House of Nobles a member declared that Norway ought to be "an accessory" to Sweden; that "young, inexperienced" Norway's demand of equality with Sweden was like a commoner's importunity for equality with a nobleman. He went on to say that the Swedish nation must crave again its (pure) flag: "For in our ancient blue-yellow Swedish flag, that waved over Ltzen's blood-drenched battlefield, are our honor, our memories, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... meets people who have not changed much, because they started on so high a plane—it is commoner to find this among women than among men; they have begun life tender, loyal, unselfish; it has always been a greater happiness to see that people round them are pleased than to find their own satisfaction. Such people are often what the world calls ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... went down. Men who had been estranged and angered for many months, met, and with friendly smiles greeted each other again. The ladies in the gallery above rose up as if by a common impulse, to look down, with smiles, upon the great commoner. One whose silvered hair, parted smoothly and modestly upon her aged forehead, fell in two massy folds behind her ears, clasped her hands, and audibly uttered: "God ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... commoner thing than you imagine for a man to be unable to marry as his heart would dictate. But he is not for that to remain single all his life, is he?" ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... few of the commoner examples, for I wish to make this no tedious catalogue of the flavours of the green people. I am not a scientist, nor would wish to be taken for one. Only last winter I had my pretensions sadly shocked when I tasted twigs cut from various ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... the coincidence of their being also natives of India, whence they have been described; but there has been no recent attempt on the part of colonial or European botanists even to throw into a useful form the already published descriptions of the commoner plants of the island. Such a work would be the first step to a Singhalese Flora. The preparation of such a compendium would seem, to belong to the duties of the colonial botanist, and as such it was an object ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... add life unto the letter: And why should not That, which authority Prescribes, esteemed be Advantage got ? If th' prayer be good, the commoner the better, Prayer in the Church's words, as well As sense, of all prayers bears ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... sort. It was God's will that he should be born into the world, even to show unto our age a sample of ancient virtue." The descendant of an ancient Norman race, and allied to many of the proudest nobles in England, Sidney himself was but a commoner, a private individual, a soldier of fortune. He was now in his thirty second year, and should have been foremost among the states men of Elizabeth, had it not been, according to Lord Bacon, a maxim of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... place near Hyderabad, India, noted for its diamonds. CRYPTOGRAPHS: from two Greek words meaning hidden and write. The commoner term ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... see the title was his right name," said Father Payne; "he was only masquerading as a commoner, you must remember. Why I should value an ancient peerage is because I think ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... were of an illicit kind, and poor as he was, Pitt refused to accept one farthing beyond his salary. His pride never appeared in loftier and nobler form than in his attitude towards the people at large. No leader had ever a wider popularity than "the great commoner," as Pitt was styled, but his air was always that of a man who commands popularity, not that of one who seeks it. He never bent to flatter popular prejudice. When mobs were roaring themselves hoarse for "Wilkes and liberty," he denounced Wilkes as a worthless profligate; and when ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... parties was entitled to place there, and, if so, of impounding them. Was this right appurtenant to the manor, or was it also appendant to a frank tenement in a particular vill? In one case where the lord had depastured an excess of beasts, the court decided against him, and in favour of a commoner whom he accused of "tortiously" taking his cattle. But, notwithstanding this judgment, there is some uncertainty on the point, as appears from the report of an action tried in ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... the parish temple. Imagine a Japanese scholar of to-day who, after leaving the university, instead of busying himself with the fashionable studies of the time, should go out into the remoter districts or islands of Japan, and devote his life to studying the existence of the commoner people there, and making poems about it. This was exactly what the Greek idylists did,—that is, the best of them. They were great scholars and became friends of kings, but they wrote poetry chiefly about peasant life, and they gave all their genius to the work. The result ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... by C. W. Gedney, pp. 8, 9.) The special month for grayling fishing is August, and onward through the winter. The rudd, found in the Witham, is not unlike the roach, but a thicker fish, with sides and back almost of a green tinge. It has been taken up to 2½lb., but from 1 to 1½lb. is a commoner weight. It acquires its name from its red (ruddy-coloured) eyes. The blick is like the dace, but smaller and lighter in colour; very quick in taking the fly. Its average size is four to five inches. The stickleback, or “blue-eyed sailor,” is found almost everywhere—in pond and ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... wrong my Lord: If I were so, He might haue bought me at a common price. Do not beleeue him. O behold this Ring, Whose high respect and rich validitie Did lacke a Paralell: yet for all that He gaue it to a Commoner a'th ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Rooms" and to the first of a series of circular galleries, lighted from the lantern of the dome, which also lights the ground-floor. Hundreds, even thousands, of volumes are displayed on the shelves running round their walls. As we mount higher and higher, we find commoner books in shabbier bindings; but there is still the same order preserved, each book being numbered according to a printed catalogue. . . . The formation of such an establishment as this assumes a remarkable power of organization, as well as ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... never require more than two coats and the commoner class of goods only one. I would not advise the tradesman in a small way of business to go to the expense of a trough, etc., as it calls for much more room than is ordinarily available, but if he has the necessary plant for bicycle work he can, of course, ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... says Dr. Fuller (i), " a Gentleman- Commoner in Oxford; where, being but fourteen Years old, and yet three Years standing, he was call'd out to dispute ex tempore, before the Earls of Leicester and Warwick, with the matchless Sir ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... fortune to bring him to justice. Shall I go to court, and demand justice of the king? or shall I accuse him of the murder, and make him stand a public trial? If I treat him as a baron of the realm, he must be tried by his peers; if as a commoner, he must be tried at the county assize; but we must shew reason why he should be degraded from his title. Have you any thing ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... the walk together through the streets, the young man's uncompromising manner of treating him as an equal had become unpleasing to him. In his workshop he saw in Pollux only the artist, and delighted in his original and dashing powers; but out of it, and among men of a commoner stamp, from whom he was accustomed to meet with deference, the young man's speech and demeanor seemed unbecoming, bold, and hard to be endured. In the eating-house the huge eater and drinker, who laughingly pressed him to do his part, so as not to make a present to the landlord, had filled ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for while he chided him for his want of steady application, he resolved on making so great an effort as to send him to the University; and, accompanying him thither, placed him, on the 31st of October, 1728, a commoner at Pembroke College, Oxford. Some assistance was, indeed, promised him from other quarters, but this assistance was never given; nor was his industry quickened by his necessities. He was sometimes to be seen lingering about the gates of his college; ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... An empty bottle: so called at the university of Cambridge, where fellow commoners are not in general considered as over full of learning. At Oxford an empty bottle is called a gentleman commoner for the same reason. They pay at Cambridge 250 l. a year for the privilege of wearing a gold or silver tassel to their caps. The younger branches of the nobility have the privilege of wearing a hat, and from thence are ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... imp up for a holiday, and willing to try virtue as a diversion. I don't know that he had any spiritual nature. He was very superstitious. He carried about with him a hideous little porcelain god, which he was in the habit of alternately reviling and propitiating. He was too intelligent for the commoner Chinese vices of stealing or gratuitous lying. Whatever discipline he practised ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... colouring of the wings on two sides has been found to correspond to an internal co-existence of the male and female sex-organs. It seems probable that this interesting phenomenon of abnormal hermaphroditism is of much commoner occurrence than the cases that have been recorded (Evolution of Sex, ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... ad eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles drop a bow or curtsey as I pass, wisely mistaking ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... uttered by a continuous effort, a certain resemblance to the murmur of running water is produced. The longer waved line in the diagram I therefore took to represent "m"; and it at once followed that the shorter meant "n," for no two letters of the commoner European alphabets differ only in length (as distinct from shape) except "m" and "n", and "w" and "v"; indeed, just as the French call "w" "double-ve," so very properly might "m" be called "double-en." But, in this case, the longer not being ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... profundity, and the most morbid tension of the intellectual powers united to clear and well-defined hopes. How has the author succeeded in making Mordecai so human and so true to nature? By mixing the gold with an alloy of commoner metal, and by giving the angelic likeness features which are ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... short time the long white tables were set beneath the trees with a musical tinkling of cups; there was a table for the Sons themselves and their friends, a table for the commoner folk and, farther up the shore, here and there, little groups of friends gathered by themselves. There was Madame seated on the ground away off at the edge of the beech grove, like the queen of the fairies holding court. The fairies were all there, too, seated in a wide ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... mountain-barrier which, refreshed by the Pacific, bears the noble forests of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges, and among them trees which are the wonder of the world. As I stood in their shade, in the groves of Mariposa and Calaveras, and again under the canopy of the commoner redwood, raised on columns of such majestic height and ample girth, it occurred to me that I could not do better than to share with you, upon this occasion, some of the thoughts which possessed my mind. In their development they may, perhaps, ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... all who surrounded him: "What could I do? I couldn't subscribe to both. They don't expect that of a lord, and I'm a commoner. If these fellows quarrel and split, are we to suffer for it? They can't agree, and want us to pay double fines. This is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lodgings, and she rushed out of the theater and up the street in an agony of terror. She got us out of the house all right, took us to the theater, and went on with the next act as if nothing had happened. Such fortitude is commoner in our profession, I think, than in any other. We "go on with the next act" whatever happens, and if we know our business, no one in the audience will ever guess that anything is wrong—that since the curtain ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... through. The commissioner of excise recorded, not without a touch of proper pride, that, quite apart from all illicit wines and spirits, no less than sixty thousand gallons of good Jamaica rum were drunk in honour of the fall of Louisbourg. In higher circles, where wine was commoner than spirits, the toasts were honoured just as often. Governor Lawrence, fresh from Louisbourg himself, opened the new Government House with a grand ball; and Wolfe, whom all now thought the coming man, drank healths, sang songs, and danced ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... Sir Robert Peel at their head, came in, elected as Protectionists, gaunt Famine took its stand by the Royal Mace, like a Banquo. Sir Robert driving along Fleet Street might see those whom this new unwelcome commoner represented grimly gazing of "Punch,"—that of the Premier turning his back on a starving man with half-naked wife and child, and buttoning up his coat with the words, "I'm very sorry, my good man, but I can do nothing for you,—nothing!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... fancy I saw floating upon the stream, as though after the dreary stripping of the decorations used in some Watteau festival, moss-roses in loosened garlands. Elsewhere a corner seemed to be reserved for the commoner kinds of lily; of a neat pink or white like rocket-flowers, washed clean like porcelain, with housewifely care; while, a little farther again, were others, pressed close together in a floating garden-bed, as though pansies had flown out of a garden like butterflies ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... with which it fingered a golden sword-hilt, as if fearing contamination, symbolised the aloofness of her spirit. The solitary enjoyment of a great impression of art made her den a sanctuary, absolving her from commoner or shared pleasures. And in a manner the Saint was the type of the ultra-virginal quality she had retained through much contact with books and life. For her to sell the St. Michael, Dennis felt, would be a sort of vending of her soul, to give it away ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... no man anything but courtesy. The glow deepened, as she thought of it. It was strange, too, that, with the deep, slow-moving nature of this girl, she should have striven so eagerly to throw this light over the future. Commoner natures have done more and hoped less. It was a poor gift, you think, this of the labor of a life for so plain a duty; hardly heroic. She knew it. Yet, if there lay in this coming labor any pain, any wearing effort, she clung to it desperately, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... the wit, wisdom, poetry and eloquence" of the versatile hero; and a life of General Weaver is soon to be issued by the State Historical Society of Iowa. William J. Bryan's "The First Battle" (1896) and numerous biographies of "the Commoner" treat of his connection with the Populists and the campaign of 1896. Herbert Croly's "Marcus A. Hanna" (1912) should also ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... fellow, I only repeat what I have heard. As for me, I don't know any more. I have kept out of the way for more than three months. And besides, it matters little to me whether Micheline be a commoner or a princess, the wife of Delarue or of Panine. I shall be none the richer or the poorer, shall I? Therefore I need not care. The dear child will certainly have millions enough to marry easily. And her adopted sister, the stately Mademoiselle Jeanne, what ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... from his diocese in order to enlist the sympathy of a wider audience. But this connexion dropped out of sight for many years and seems to have had little influence on Patteson's life at Oxford, where he spent four years at Balliol. He went up in 1845 as a commoner, and this fact caused him some disquietude. He felt that he ought to have won a scholarship, and, conscious of his failure, he took to more steady reading. He was also practising self-discipline, giving up his cricket ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... and indifference to admonitions now felt and expressed by many living sons of dead mothers will, in time, be felt and expressed by the living sons of living mothers," says Richard L. Metcalfe, in the "Commoner." "The boys of to-day who do not understand the value of the mother's companionship will yet sing—with those who already know—this song of ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... of the insect eggs devoured by us in winter, when most of your pretty insect-eating birds have flown to where the insect is commoner, fatter, and fuller-flavoured? It is we stay-at-home British birds that really keep the insects down. I know that insect eggs do not appear in our poor dissected gizzards. How should they? How would you recognize their remains, ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... Admiral Byng was executed, and the Seven Years' War, of which Frederic of Prussia was the hero, fairly commenced. In 1757, Pitt and his colleague were again dismissed. But never was popular resentment more fierce and terrible. Again was the king obliged to bend to the "great commoner." An arrangement was made, and a coalition formed. Pitt became secretary of state, and virtual premier, but the Duke of Newcastle came in as first lord of the treasury. But Pitt selected the cabinet. His brother-in-law, Lord Temple, was made ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... outbreak of whimsical enthusiasm in it, meant especially for Maclise, is followed by some capital description. "I address you, my friend," he wrote, "with something of the lofty spirit of an exile, a banished commoner, a sort of Anglo-Pole. I don't exactly know what I have done for my country in coming away from it, but I feel it is something; something great; something virtuous and heroic. Lofty emotions rise within me, when I see the sun set on the blue Mediterranean. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), this distinguished statesman and orator. He became very popular as a statesman and was known as "The Great Commoner."] ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... are regular: why not all? Let us say 'comed' and 'goed,' 'seed' and 'bringed' and 'teached.'" Miss Loane probably exaggerates with her "nearly all." For instance, as regards the uneducated form of the past tense of "to come," surely "come" is a commoner form than "comed." Similarly the illiterate for "I did" is "I done," not "I doed," which would be the regular simplification. But the natural tendency is certainly there, ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... Terror of glabrous commoner, His flowing locks in royal guise, Like mane of lion, or sinister King's hair, fall heavy ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... all there was Hypocrisy. In spite of these sins, crying to Heaven, there was seldom any lack of religiosity or the outward forms of religion. Religion was divorced from morality, and ritual was substituted for righteousness. There is no commoner or weightier burden in the prophets than this. It is on this subject that Isaiah lets loose the whole force of his prophetic soul in his very first chapter, where there is a truly appalling picture of the combination of religious rites ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... with the native religions of the Pacific islands. We have adopted the word and use it in its true meaning of forbidden. If an article were dedicated to a god, or used in his worship, or had been touched by him, or claimed by a chief or a priest, no commoner dared lay finger on it, for it was as sacred as the ark of the covenant. Some canny planters kept boys out of their orchards and palm groves by offering the fruit to certain gods until it was ripe, for a sign ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... have discovered the motives for this curious survival of barbarism in your character. I can only hope humbly that these papers, armed with their avowed literary import, will not share the fate of the commoner envoys passing through your hands, but will be treated as noble ambassadors rather than as hapless petitioners, not merely escaping the flames of oblivion, but receiving safe conduct, courteous audience, and ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... question of command. It has been represented to this court, by certain officers who have been active in investigating the candidate animal, that it would be as degrading to ask a human officer to take orders from an animal as it would be to ask him to take orders from a commoner of the Unorganized Reserve, if not more so. And, I must admit, there is, on the surface of it, some basis for ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... conquered, converted, enslaved, and tortured them; but the Mexican religion was full of such horrors as I could hardly even name to you. It was based entirely on cannibalism, as yours is on Mammon. Human sacrifices were common—commoner even than in modern England, I fancy. New-born babies were killed by the priests when the corn was sown; children when it had sprouted; men when it was full grown; and very old people when it ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... an inventor has any prospect of making a living. But once when I was at Washington I went into the Patent Office, where the models of the inventions are deposited; the building is about as large as the Ducal Palace, and it is full of them. The people there told me nothing was commoner than for the same invention to be repeated over and over again by different inventors. Some few succeed, and then they have lawsuits with the infringers of their patents; some sell out their inventions for a trifle to companies that have capital, and that grow rich upon them; ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... of Griffith's upcurving eyebrows, Lord James smiled resignedly and explained: "Quite true—as to His Grace, y'know. But I assure you that even in England I am legally only a commoner. It's only by courtesy—custom, you know—that I'm given my ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... plantations of the Downs it is wonderful what a number come in the course of a year. Besides the shed just visited, there would be certain to be another more or less ornamented near the keeper's cottage, and probably others scattered about, where the commoner vermin could be nailed without the trouble of carrying them far away. Only the owls and hawks, magpies, and such more striking evidences of slaughter were collected here, and almost ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... it was not strange that he forgot certain restrictions which a Royal man, in conversing with a commoner, is not supposed to forget. In fact, he forgot that he was Royal, or that she was not, and his voice grew unsteady, his tone eager, as if he had been some poor subaltern with the girl of his ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... honorary, and every way expensive), and put himself into a port and course of living agreeably thereunto, and having also removed my brother from Thame school to Merton College in Oxford, and entered him there in the highest and most chargeable condition of a Fellow Commoner, he found it needful to retrench his expenses elsewhere, the hurt of which fell upon me. For he thereupon took me from school, to save the charge of maintaining me there; which was somewhat like plucking green fruit from the tree, and laying it by before ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... nothing like roughing it, Mr. Stafford, sir," he said. "I can tell in a minute when a man's 'hard' right through, and been doing square and honest work. It seems strange to us commoner people that you gentle folks should be so fond of going through all sorts of hardships and perils just for the fun of it; but, after all, it's not to be wondered at, for that's the kind of spirit that has helped Englishmen to make England what it is. But you're looking a little pale and worn to-night, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... a native of Shansi, the old rule that a man might not act as magistrate in his own province having been repealed. He was not as his predecessor, carried in a sedan chair, but walked, or rode in a cart as a commoner. He wore cotton clothes in place of the gorgeous silk and satin embroidered gowns, and when he sent to invite us to dine with his wives, his card was foreign except for the characters ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... add that on the table in his hall there was one of Lucia's commoner kinds of note, merely a half sheet folded together in her own manner. Georgie felt that it was scarcely more necessary to read it, for he felt quite sure that it contained some excuse for not coming to his house at six in order to call on Mr and Mrs Bracely. But ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... you, said that we should now see what stuff there is in the new President by watching whether you would stop lynchings. They forever quote Bryce on the badness of our municipal government. They pretend to think that the impeachment of governors is common and ought to be commoner. One delicious M.P. asked me: "Now, since the Governor of New York is impeached, who becomes Vice-President[23]?" Ignorance, unfathomable ignorance, is at the bottom of much of it; if the Town Treasurer of Yuba Dam gets a $100 "rake off" on a paving ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... interest to the development of this romance. Its sudden termination astonished and mortified her. Had Lashmar turned away to make some brilliant alliance, her pique would have endured only for a moment; Lord Dymchurch's approach would have more than compensated the commoner's retirement. But that she should merely have amused his idle moments, whilst his serious thoughts were fixed on Constance Bride, was an injury not easy to pardon. For she disliked Miss Bride, and she knew the ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... opinion. "He has better knowledge of foreign affairs than we have; but in English business it is no dishonour to him to be told his relation to us, the nature of it, and what is fit for him to do."—An Honest Commoner's Speech.] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... raging in London. There he remained, after Standsfield's death in 1627, till 1630, when he was sent to the free school at Southover near Lewes and kept there until he went up to Balliol College, Oxford, as a fellow-commoner in 1637, being then 16 years of age. It was his father's intention to have placed him at Eton 'but I was so terrefied at the report of the severe discipline there that I was sent back to Lewes, which perverseness of mine I have since a thousand times deplored.' ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... poignant sorrow were these when Bedient realized he was not of the West; that he irrevocably missed the great inner content of India, and would continue to hunger for it, until he returned, or coarsened his sensibilities to the Western vibration. This last was as far from him as the commoner treason to a friend. There were moments when he feared Captain Carreras almost understood. That dear old seaman through his solitudes, his natural cleanness and kindness, his real love, and more than all, through those vague ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... sad idle dog; but with a devil of a spirit, and sharp as a needle. I wish you could see him ride. Well, to return to Arthur. Don't trouble yourself about his education—that shall be my care. He shall go to Christ Church—a gentleman-commoner, of course—and when he is of age we'll get him into parliament. Now for yourself, Bob. I shall sell the town-house in Berkeley Square, and whatever it brings you shall have. Besides that, I'll add L1500. a year to your L1000.—so ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... through the eddy-chafed arches and starlings of old London Bridge; then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom House, to be brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not averse to doing this, as it served to make me and my boat a commoner incident among the water-side people there. From this slight occasion sprang two meetings that I have now to ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... suggested "To bakcho." Pryme says that among the undergraduates, of whom he was one, tobacco had no favour, and "an attempt of Mr. Ginkell, son of Lord Athlone ... to introduce smoking at his own wine-parties failed, although he had the prestige of being a hat-fellow-commoner." ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... unconscious blank verse, which has made it feasible to transcribe about one-half of Dickens's otherwise so admirable Barnaby Rudge in blank-verse lines, a tendency (outdoing our old friend M. Jourdain) commoner than Mr. Saintsbury admits, such lines being frequent in his favourite Dryden; yet, on the other hand, it might be maintained, and would be maintained by its French critics, that our English poetry has been too apt to dispense with those prose qualities, ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... on't. Give me some music; look that it be sad: I'll sooth my melancholy, 'till I swell, And burst myself with sighing— [Soft music. 'Tis somewhat to my humour: Stay, I fancy I'm now turned wild, a commoner of nature; Of all forsaken, and forsaking all; Live in a shady forest's sylvan scene, Stretched at my length beneath some blasted oak, I lean my head upon the mossy bark, And look just of a piece, as I grew from it: My uncombed locks, matted like misletoe, Hang o'er my hoary face; a murmuring ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... result of the divergent development on the two sides of the Atlantic from a common ancestry, their political habits had become mutually incomprehensible. To the Englishman, the rule of the nobility was normal—the ideal political system. He was content, if a commoner, with the place assigned to him. To the colonist, on the other hand, government in which the majority of adult male inhabitants possessed the chief power was the only valid form,—all others were vicious. Patriotism meant two contradictory things. The Englishman's patriotism was sturdy but ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... out in his article upon seals in the Discovery Report[62] that the Weddell and the crab-eater seal, which are the two commoner of the Antarctic seals, have agreed to differ both in habit and in diet, and therefore they share the field successfully. He shows that "the two penguins which share the same area have differentiated in a somewhat ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the owners, and the rent of the whole has to be calculated from the data for the part, often not more than a third or two-fifths of the whole, cultivated by tenants at will. The calculation is complicated by the fact that kind rents consisting of a share of the crop are in most places commoner than cash rents and are increasing in favour. The determination of the cash value of the rent where the crop is shared is a very difficult task. There is a large margin for error, but there can be no doubt ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... of the case for the prosecution there was that in the leading counsel's manner—a gravity, a kindness, an inclination to neglect the commoner methods of scoring—that suggested, with the sudden chill of unexpectedly bad news, a foregone conclusion. The reality of his feeling reference to the painful position of the defendant's father, the sincerity of his regret on behalf of the bank, for the deplorable exigency under which ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the assertion that Parliament had no right to tax America. Pitt was of the same opinion. Following closely the argument in Dulaney's pamphlet, which he held up as a masterly performance, the Great Commoner declared that "taxation is no part of the governing or legislating power." He was told that America had resisted. "I rejoice that America has resisted," he cried in words that sounded a trumpet call throughout the colonies. ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... fruit, which is scarcely two inches long, resembling an oblong cocoa-nut, with an insipid tenacious kernel, called, by the natives, neeoogoola, or red cocoa-nut, as it assumes a reddish cast when ripe. The third sort is called ongo ongo, and much commoner, being generally found planted about their fiatookas. It seldom grows higher than five feet, though sometimes to eight, and has a vast number of oval compressed nuts, as large as a pippin, sticking immediately to the trunk, amongst the leaves, which are not eat. There is plenty of excellent ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... not said half the nice things she had intended to say, her little speech had good effect. It reminded the girls of some of the high ideals with which they had started the term, and which, like many high and beautiful things, were in danger of getting crowded out of the way by commoner interests. Everybody suddenly remembered the exhibition and sale which was to come off before Christmas, and made a spurt to send some adequate contribution. The juniors, flattered at having a special branch ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... debate that had ever been recorded in the annals of the Preposterous Society, an institution that had lately celebrated its fifth anniversary. Hadria, fired by opposition, declared that the success of great people was due not simply to their greatness, but to some smaller and commoner quality which brought them in touch with the majority, and so ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... candle. Rogers lit the candle, and told me to sit down and make myself at home. He said he hoped I was thirsty, because he would surprise my palate with an article of champagne that seldom got into a commoner's system; or would I prefer sherry, or port? Said he had port in bottles that were swathed in stratified cobwebs, every stratum representing a generation. And as for his cigars—well, I should judge of them myself. Then he put his head out at ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... easily bettered. It was frank and gay—with just that tinge of old-fashioned reserve which might be thought natural in a girl of gentle breeding, brought up alone by a fastidious father. With all her impetuosity, indeed, there was about her something markedly virginal and remote, which is commoner, perhaps, in Irish than English women. Mrs. Colwood watched the effect of it on Captain Roughsedge. After her third day of acquaintance with him, she said to herself: "He will fall in love with her!" But she said it ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... too. Nothing is commoner than the talent and beauty of American girls. But they'd ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... who wast wont of commoner clay to build Some rough Achilles or some Ajax tall; Thou whose free brush too oft was wont to gild Some single ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... and married her for her lands. This, too, was a plain case of abducting an heiress, not indeed by violence, but with consummate art. Setting aside the rare attractions of the lady, in Moodie's estimation the prize was immense. L'Isle, with all his lofty airs, was but a commoner, with perhaps no fortune but his sword, a mere adventurer, and Lord Strathern's broad acres were an irresistible temptation; though, in truth, this coveted domain counted thousands of acres of sheep-walk to the hundreds of ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... girl," is what Kimika says of Kimiko. To win any renown in her profession, a geisha must be pretty or very clever; and the famous ones are usually both,—having been selected at a very early age by their trainers according to the promise of such qualities Even the commoner class of singing-girls must have some charm in their best years,—if only that beaute du diable which inspired the Japanese proverb that even a devil is pretty at eighteen(1). But Kimiko was much more than pretty. She was ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... he went to Oxford, and was entered as a commoner at Balliol. Here his special career very soon commenced. He utterly eschewed the society of fast men, gave no wine-parties, kept no horses, rowed no boats, joined no rows, and was the pride of his college tutor. Such at least was his career till he had taken ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... at Oxford, or as Anthony Wood with more than his usual quaint-ness expresses it, ' tumbled out of his mother's womb into the lap of the Oxonian muses in 1560.' He was a ' bateler or commoner of St Mary's hall.' He ' took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1579, and in the latter end of that year did compleat it by determination in Schoolstreet.' Nothing of his boyhood, or of his family, except a few hints in his will, ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... and shaking his fist in the direction whence he had come, as if against the enemy who had caused his benefactress so much distress, he pronounced a formal and emphatic curse upon their whole race, "from the head-chief to the commoner, from the whisky-soaking warrior down to the pan-licking squall-a-baby," all of whom he anathematised with as much originality as fervour of expression; after which, he proceeded, with more sedateness, to resume his post at the head of the travellers, and ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... on no account to pay more than 6.5d. for the prime pieces, 4.75d. for soup meat; and that the very best of London butter is to be had for 8.5d.; of course, for pudns and the kitchin you'll employ a commoner sort. My trunks were sadly packed by Mrs. Titmarsh, and the hasp of the portmantyou-lock has gone through my yellow satn. I have darned it, and woar it already twice, at two ellygant (though quiat) evening-parties given by my hospatable host; and my pegreen velvet on Saturday ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... me life!" declared M. Gaston, gratefully. "The commoner establishments, for the convenience of sailors and others of that class, at Dieppe, Calais,"—he shrugged his shoulders, comprehensively—"are impossible as resorts. In catering for the true devotees—for those who, unlike De Quincey, plunge and do not dabble—for those who seek ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them. Sec. 29. By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary to any one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common, children or servants could not cut the meat, which their father or master had provided for them in common, without assigning to every one his peculiar part. Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... times of peace. Peace requires even as great a mass of power as war, but against another kind of foe. Every ennobling of this earthly existence, everything which exalts the mind to a more intellectual life, is a battery directed against the commoner nature in man, and is a service done to ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer |
