"Improving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... art editors, in their eagerness to get soft focus work, will buy a photograph because it is fuzzy, without regard to its quality. But the outlook for the pictorial worker in its financial possibilities is steadily improving." ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1921 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... do what I had long desired, and favour me with his explanation of several passages in his works. It happened that just at that juncture was published a ridiculous book against him, full of personal reflections, which furnished him with a lucky opportunity of improving this poem, by giving it the only thing it wanted—a more considerable hero. He was always sensible of its defect in that particular, and owned he had let it pass with the hero it had purely for want ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... the state of matters—two stone blind, three (if not four) stone dead, and two in exile living upon charity; amongst which last was Penultimate Soojah. It is proper to mention, by the way, as an appendix to the adventures of this old friend, that (improving upon his grandpapa's example) he had run off from his elder brother with the crown jewels; but, like Colonel Blood in our Charles II.'s reign, he benefited only by the glory of this distinguished larceny; for soon after, falling amongst thieves, at the head of whom was our late worthy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... that I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon what conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide and solitary thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with street-corner statues of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and a small ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... if it might be, in a time of so great jealosy, I built by my Brother's permission a study, made a fishpond, an island, and some other solitudes and retirements, at Wotton, which gave the first occasion of improving them to those water-works and gardens which afterwards succeeded them, and became at that tyme the most famous of England.' But, willy nilly, he was bound to become dragged into action on the King's behalf. 'July 12th. I sent my black manege ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... also, at first, intended to have been left by me, as an additional present to Van Diemen's Land. But I soon laid aside all thought of this, from a persuasion that the natives, incapable of entering into my views of improving their country, would destroy them. If ever they should meet with the pigs, I have no doubt this will be their fate. But as that race of animals soon becomes wild, and is fond of the thickest cover of the woods, there is great probability of their being preserved. An open place must have ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... returned to his better self, whenever he thought of improving, he remembered Lady Annaly; and he now recollected with shame, that he had never had the grace to answer or to thank her for her letter. He had often thought of writing, but he had put it off from day to day, and now months had passed; he wrote a sad ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... don't say so," said John, who felt the necessity of being instructive, and of improving the occasion to elevate the moral tone of his little elf. "Goodness lasts, my dear, when ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... nation as well. Sir Joshua Jebb's system entered too largely into competition with our workhouses and county jails. The prisoners were never taught suitable trades, they were no doubt supplied with food in abundance, and with some opportunities of learning to be industrious and for improving their minds, but they were completely surrounded by far more powerful counter-influences. Even the higher officials carried on a system of wholesale robbery, and winked at the very large retail business done in the same line by the prisoners ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... women stood highest at the end, but it seems to have been high throughout the whole of the long course of Egyptian history, and continuously improving, while the fact that little regard was paid to prenuptial chastity and that marriage contracts placed no stress on virginity indicate the absence of the conception of women as property. More than three thousand five hundred years ago men ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... know that the nation is watching over their dead with pious care. Hundreds of men have been employed in making the improvements already mentioned, and many others I have not time to notice, and a number are still at work. They are planting trees, making and improving walks, placing sod upon the graves, ...
— A Letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, with 'Statements' of Outrages upon Freedmen in Georgia • Hamilton Wilcox Pierson
... his able adviser, Hakuseki, desired to restore the currency to the system pursued in the Keicho era (1596-1614), but their purpose was thwarted by insufficiency of the precious metals. They were obliged to be content with improving the quality of the coins while decreasing their weight by one half. These new tokens were called kenji-kin, as they bore on the reverse the ideograph ken, signifying "great original." The issue of the new coins took place in the year 1710, and at ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... worth seeing there, unless the spectacle of a woman holding up a rabbit by the hind-legs, while her daughter, a tender-hearted damsel of about sixteen, whacked it behind the ears with a fire-shovel, may be thought improving to the mind. At a shop where we bought some things, Hugh was deeply offended by a woman who insisted that some rather small bathing-drawers were large enough for him, and especially for speaking of him as the petit garcon. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... ordinary conception, the most usual is, to wrap it up in a veil of mysterious and unintelligible language, which flows past with so much solemnity, that it is difficult to believe it conveys nothing of any value. Another device for improving the effect of a cold idea, is, to embody it in a verse of unusual harshness and asperity. Compound words, too, of a portentous sound and conformation, are very useful in giving an air of energy and originality; ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the house-breaker would have simplified matters by removing his chaussures, it had seemed to Clifford that the shortest cut to comfortable relations with people—relations which should make him cease to think that when they spoke to him they meant something improving—was to renounce all ambition toward a nefarious development. And, in fact, Clifford's ambition took the most commendable form. He thought of himself in the future as the well-known and much-liked Mr. Wentworth, of Boston, who should, in the natural course ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... the number of land-owning citizens has also increased. Even the religion preached has been greatly changed with the introduction of industrial training.[37] There is one school fund which is for the purpose of improving rural conditions, that is the Jeanes Fund amounting to $1,000,000, the interest on which is to be used for the rural schools in supplying competent teachers as supervisors to introduce industrial training. The influence of this fund together with the influence of Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... color; the isolation of their comfortable existence in the tasteful yet audacious habitation, the pleasant routine of daily tasks and amusements, all tended to make the enforced quiet and inaction of his convalescence a lazy recreation. He was really improving; more than that, he was conscious of a certain satisfaction in this passive observation of novelty that was healthier and perhaps TRUER than his previous passion for adventure and that febrile desire for change and excitement ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... overcoming weather conditions as has been done successfully in brick and tile making, ditch digging, and building operations; by transferring workers from one department of an establishment to another; by improving the employment departments so as to build up a more stable force, thus reducing the great expense of "hiring and firing" and the loss through training "green hands"; by varying the length of the working ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... removed from a position in a public office would be virtually branded as a convicted criminal. Removal for cause, therefore, if the cause were to be decided by any authority but that of the responsible superior officer, instead of improving, would swiftly and enormously enhance the cost, and ruin the efficiency, of the public service, by destroying subordination, and making every lazy and worthless member of it twice as careless and incompetent as he ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... much, my poor friend," remarked Madaleine sympathisingly. "I'm afraid it will be some time before you will be strong enough to move from this room, although you're improving each day." ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... possibility of getting to the Malade country. Sublette and Jarvie endeavored to force their way across the mountain; but the snows lay so deep as to oblige them to turn back. In the meantime the captain's horses were daily gaining strength, and their hoofs improving, which had been worn and battered by mountain service. The captain, also was increasing his stock of provisions; so that the delay was all in ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... Baley and Wm. H. Dorsey were a committee to report permanent systems for improving the streets and alleys, whether ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... so. For it were strange, indeed, and not very creditable to us white-skins, if a little of our blood mixed with the African's, should, far from improving the latter's quality, have the sad effect of pouring vitriolic acid into black broth; improving the hue, perhaps, but not ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... collection of books, the neighbouring families formed themselves into societies for procuring the popular publications. But in these arrangements for cultivating the powers of the understanding, no provision was made, during the reign of George the Second, for improving the faculties of taste. The works of which the libraries then consisted, treated of useful and practical subjects. It was the policy of the Quakers to make mankind wiser and better; and they thought that, as the passions are the springs of all moral evil when in ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... "You're improving. It's joy, mon ami, at seeing once again a full grown man. I have been bored—oh, so bored! Will you be nice ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... was a spelling reformer, one of the many writers who, from early Elizabethan times onwards, have been critical of traditional English orthography and have made proposals for improving it. Although nothing that could be called a spelling-reform "movement" existed until the nineteenth century, there were earlier periods when the subject was much in the air, when a number of people ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... &c. from other Nations, whereby our Treasure is exhausted, and our Lands fall for want of being improved some other way, besides planting Corn, breeding for Wool, &c. Which are become of so low a price, as scarce to turn to Account: And understanding, that for remedying thereof, the Improving the Manufactory of Linnen is now under Debate, I have taken the boldness to Offer the following PROPOSAL, which if thought fit to be put in practice, will (in my opinion) infallibly conduce to all the good Ends ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... question of improving existing institutions, or the creation of further representative bodies, the method of election is all important. All other departments or human activity show continuous improvement, and the substitution of scientific for rule-of-thumb methods of election is an improvement ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... that is to say, let the parent first take the medicine, which will sufficiently affect the child through the milk: this plan has the double object of benefiting the patient and, at the same time, correcting the state of the mother, and improving the condition of her milk. In the other case, when the child is being fed by hand, then proceed by totally altering the style of aliment given, and substituting farinaceous food, custards, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... wife, made the words [Greek], the violet of Hera. In another masterpiece the genius of Callimachus followed the stolen tress of Queen Berenice to the skies, where the locks became a constellation. A contemporary of Callimachus was Zenodotus, the critic, who was for improving the Iliad and Odyssey by cutting out all the epic commonplaces which seemed to him to be needless repetitions. It is pretty plain that, in literary society, Homer was thought out of date and rococo. The favourite topics of poets were now, not the tales of Troy and Thebes, but the ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... was improving, though. If he just let it alone, most of it would come back, and he could orient himself. Meanwhile, he might as well explore his surroundings a little more. He resolved to keep his hands off anything that ...
— Viewpoint • Gordon Randall Garrett
... plunder had vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed both. Great was the wonder at the cleverness of the criminal, and many were the solutions offered to account for the disappearance. One enterprising weekly paper, improving on the Limerick craze, offered a furnished house and three pounds a week for life to the fortunate person who could solve the mystery. As yet no one had won the prize, but it was early days yet, and at least five thousand amateur detectives tried ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... vocal gymnastics comprises, first the appropriate discipline of the voice for its formation and development, by strengthening it, by extending its compass, and by improving its quality so as to render it full, sonorous, and agreeable; and, secondly, the training of the voice in those modifications which are used in the expressions of thought and feeling, including all that variety ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... conglomerations of more or less (usually less) moral and amusing jokes and antics. The events which some of them depict could occur neither on the earth, in the sky above the earth, nor in the waters underneath the earth. From others it would be impossible to cut out any character or scene without improving the whole. They fill the theater with people and the manager's pocket-book with money, but ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... would have been more improving to the Alexandrian character than a respect for antiquity; but this respect ought to be shown in a noble rivalry, in trying to surpass those who have gone before them, and not as in this manner by copying their faults. Hieroglyphics ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... could not compete with machinery. John Rich of Bristol was in the business; also Levi Lewis, but gave it up in a few years. An Ives family in Bristol were quite conspicuous as clock-makers. They were good mechanics. One of them, Joseph Ives, has done a great deal towards improving the eight day brass clock, which I ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... It is an improving book. If you would put your mind on it when you are reading, Olga, you would enjoy it. And you would learn something, besides. In my opinion," went on the Archduchess, tasting her tea, "you smoke ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the mates to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably increased, besides perhaps improving it ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... long, coarse grass, which concealed from view innumerable gaping fissures that momentarily threatened to bring down my horse. For the first five minutes, I rather lost than gained ground, and, despairing over such a country of ever diminishing the distance, or improving my acquaintance with this ogre in seven-league boots, I dismounted, and the mottled carcase presenting a fair and inviting mark, I had the satisfaction of hearing two balls tell roundly upon his plank-like stern. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... Paul seems improving. Pierre is elated. That shriveled heart pulses with new hope. He even presumes to thank heaven for covenant fealty. With consummate audacity Pierre now hopes there may be found some "extenuating circumstances" ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... East Haverhill was the "Great Pond" the writer's boyhood. In 1859 a movement was made for improving its shores as a public park. At the opening of the park, August 31, 1859, the poem which gave it the name of Kenoza (in Indian ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... you improving the Fernald property, I'd like to know?" Mr. Wharton laughed. "This boathouse has been an eyesore for years. We shall be glad enough to have it fixed up and used ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... check the increase of estates; and Pericles had not only strengthened the public resources by bringing the rich under the control of an assembly in which they were not supreme, but he had employed those resources in improving the condition and the capacity of the masses. The grievance of those who were taxed for the benefit of others was easily borne so long as the tribute of the confederates filled the treasury. But the Peloponnesian war increased the strain ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... from Elizabeth only forty birds had returned. It is usually so. Some were weak and got left behind, some were foolish and strayed. By this simple process of flight selection the pigeon-owners keep improving their stock. Of the ten, five were seen no more, but five returned later that day, not all at once, but straggling in; the last of the loiterers was a big, lubberly Blue Pigeon. The man in the loft at the time called: "Here comes that old sap-headed Blue that Jakey was betting ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Highmarket, nearly six years before. In the tiny parlour he kept a few books and a writing-desk, and on those evenings which he did not spend in playing cards or billiards, he did a little intellectual work in the way of improving his knowledge of French, commercial arithmetic, and business correspondence. And that night, his supper being eaten, and the door closed upon his landlady, he lighted his pipe, sat down to his desk, unlocked one of ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... other things somewhat more life-like, natural, and soft than the Greeks had done, who had taught one another a rough, awkward, and commonplace style for a great number of years, not by means of study but as a matter of custom, without ever dreaming of improving their designs by beauty of colouring or by any ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw A solitary cell; 35 And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint For improving ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... neighborly but unsocialized place, where the individual had little restraint save of his own limitations and his personal love of his neighbors. What social functions the city performed were self-protective and not self-improving in motive. For example, fire might not be carried in the street except in a fire-proof vessel. [Footnote: S. E. Sparling, "Municipal History and Present Organization of the City of Chicago," University of Wisconsin Bulletin, No. 23, 1898.] The ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... elsewhere. I have never met but one man in the present age who can bear comparison with the Sulpicians, that is M. Damiron, and those who knew him, know what the Sulpicians were. A future generation will never be able to realise what treasures to be expended in improving the welfare of mankind, are stored up in these ancient schools ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... "Ha, well done—improving the property for your young guests!" said Mr. Richard, and then quite suddenly he turned moodily away. All at once he looked at my grandfather again. "You had better know," he said, "that the girl will ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... "You have three new friends—three new 'sons of your blood,' as you so poetically call them,—though, truly, I for one am more fit to be your grandfather! And do you consider the time wasted that has been spent in improving ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... lesson taught during the Spanish-American War was the need for improving the sea-going qualities of the torpedo-boat before it can be regarded as a truly effective weapon in naval warfare. It was announced at one stage that if the Spanish torpedo-boat fleet could have been coaled and re-coaled ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... are returned to the Land Fund, the money expended for manuring or improving the land, which has not been ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... "but don't attach any serious importance, dear, to what your father said. My father was not a bit behind yours in that sort of talk. 'Why,' said he, 'does not the emperor, who has devised so many clever and efficient modes of improving the art of war, organize a regiment of lawyers, judges and legal practitioners, sending them in the hottest fire the enemy could maintain, and using them to save better men?' You see, my dear, that ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fellowship with the Christian life of Great Britain. His earnestness deepened, he studied with intensest interest movements like the Salvation Army, then coming into great prominence, and other agencies for improving the religious life of the nation, and he rejoiced in all fellowship with other disciples of the Lord Jesus which had for its aim the strengthening of the ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... their most eminent citizen, Hermocrates. Speaking at a general assembly, immediately after the battle, the great patriot congratulated his countrymen on the courage which they had displayed, and at the same time pointed out the necessity of improving their discipline and military organization. One important reform should be made at once; the number of the generals, which had hitherto been fifteen, should be greatly reduced, and those appointed to the supreme command should be given absolute power, ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... a mulatto) to vote as a citizen, he has always been quite white enough to be taxed as one, and has to pay his proportion, (which, from the extent of his business, is no trifle) of all the rates and assessments considered requisite for the support of the poor, and improving and beautifying that city, of which he is declared not to be ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... emigrants—believing people to write as they think at the time—by remembering that some have come from quiet rural places, and others from populous towns. The first will consider Geelong—its beautiful bay, ships, and steamers, as a hustling, improving, and increasing town, laid out for a future provincial capital; the last will regard it as a dull, detached series of villages, which will some day be a large town. A modification of these causes, allowing for age, temperament, circumstances, and station in life, will explain ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... herselfe by liveing in a Towne" as for the inspection of his children. He "denyeth that he ever Comended the Manner of Education of young persons in monasterys if it be meant in Respect of Religion." Finally, he says that he has spent much money on improving the estate; that the income from the estate is hardly sufficient to maintain his children according to their station in the world since he is "nearly related to many Noble Familys"; and he "veryly believes in his conscience he can better ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... lasted four weeks. During that time my brother got a call to another place, and I was left to finish the meeting alone. In many ways my body was not yet normal, but it was improving surprisingly fast. Soon after my brother left, Mother Bolds came to call on me, and I begged her to stay until the close of the series of meetings. I felt so helpless yet that I could not keep from crying like a child. She encouraged me as best she could, and told me that she would ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... an old man who slipped on a banana skin and broke his leg. It would not have seemed silly to him if someone had put it out of his way. But if she didn't mean such things, what did she mean? Perhaps you think you are improving the neighborhood." Fred glanced mischievously at his companion, who held a piece of chalk and was carelessly making a straggling-white line on everything he passed. Jim dropped his hand impatiently. "I don't think I'll belong," he said. He did not quite mean this. He was really ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... it would be very improving. I'll tell Miss Benson that if she stays in Newport she must improve ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... lead in improving its ways. It was no longer necessary for the fair and young to be carried through the mud upon costly pillions, on the backs of high-stepping Flanders mares. Beauty rolled over the stones in four-wheeled carriages, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... many places just as nature formed them, the hand of man having done but little more than cut the timber out and remove impassable obstructions. We crossed high and rugged mountains, and forded dangerous streams. But in the West the people are waking up to the importance of improving the public roads. The abundant natural wealth of that country, when properly developed by wise industry, will respond in such lavish abundance that there will be no lack of means to build the best of roads, and in every respect to raise the country generally to that state ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... calmly. "Everything is going on pretty well. No new cases of measles—those in hospital improving. The only thing that bothers me is the continual complaint about that Mrs. Van Orley—you remember her, a thin, dark little person. She is melancholy and morose, quarrels all the time, says some one has stolen her children. The people near her in the barracks complain that she ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... up, Miss Warren would not infrequently come to my door, when others were present, and smilingly express her gladness that I was improving daily. Indeed there would often be quite gay repartee between us, and I think that even Adah was so blinded by our manner that her suspicions were allayed. It evidently puzzled her, and Reuben also, that I had apparently ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... hinder-part where my legs had been, and we went on at lightning speed—that substantial part of my body leaving a deep track in the snow. This sort of thing went on time after time. I lost the board I should have sat on, then the whip, then my gloves, then my cap—these losses not improving my temper. Once or twice I ran round in front of the dogs, and tried to force them to turn by lashing at them with the whip. They jumped to both sides and only tore on the faster; the reins got twisted round my ankles, and I was thrown ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... fills twenty-three closely printed octavo pages. At this time the Government was attempting to adopt a middle course between the abolitionists and the planters by passing what were called 'meliorating Acts,' Acts, that is, for improving the treatment of the slaves. The Colonial Assemblies declined to accept the proposals. The Colonial Office remonstrated, obtained reports and wrote despatches, pointing out any abuses discovered: the despatches were laid ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Brothers, with another grave smile, and considerably improving in his ease of speech. "To be sure. In this way. Where your father can pick up so much every day for a good purpose, I may once and again pick up a little for an indifferent purpose. The gentleman for Nowhere must become still better ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... besides the love Of God, the love of sentiment, the loving Of faithful pairs—(I needs must rhyme with dove, That good old steam-boat which keeps verses moving 'Gainst reason—Reason ne'er was hand-and-glove With rhyme, but always leant less to improving The sound than sense)—besides all these pretences To Love, there are those ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... laid his hand gently on his head. "I fear, my boy, you have not been improving lately. You have got into many scrapes, and are letting boys beat you in form who are far your inferiors in ability. That is a very bad sign, Eric; in itself it is a discouraging fact, but I fear it indicates worse evils. You are wasting the ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... grandsons, his wife, and sister. Thus he built the portico and basilica of Lucius and Caius, and the porticos of Livia and Octavia [155], and the theatre of Marcellus [156]. He also often exhorted other persons of rank to embellish the city by new buildings, or repairing and improving the old, according to their means. In consequence of this recommendation, many were raised; such as the temple of Hercules and the Muses, by Marcius Philippus; a temple of Diana by Lucius Cornificius; the Court of Freedom ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... circle is sometimes found to be quite beneficial. If a circle meets night after night with the same membership, but without obtaining any perceptible results, then it may be well to consider the desirability of adding some new elements to the membership in the hope of improving the conditions. Sometimes the addition of a new sitter of the right physical and psychical temperament works a most remarkable improvement, and in many of such cases noteworthy phenomena are then produced ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... Academy of Arts in London, to give it the original title in full, was founded in 1768, "for the purpose of cultivating and improving the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture.'' Many attempts had previously been made in England to form a society which should have for its object the advancement of the fine arts. Sir Jumes Thornbill, his son-in-law Hogarth, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... is not wealthy, but his business is very good, and improving every year; and both he and Kate are too whole-souled and generous to regret giving an asylum to an unfortunate girl like me. They feel that 'it is more blessed to give ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... more transcontinental railroads—east and west, not north and south. Subsidies were poured into the lap of steamship companies to attract them to Canadian ports; and thirty-eight millions in all were spent improving navigation in the St. Lawrence. Wherever Clifford Sifton sent agents to drum up settlers trade agents were sent to drum up markets. Then—as Sir Richard Cartwright acknowledged—the Liberals were traveling in the most ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... her. "That is a good idea, the higher education of men," she said. "I don't know whether they have abandoned hope, or whether they think themselves already perfect, certain it is the idea of improving themselves does not seem to occur to them often. And we want good men in society. If the clergy and priests are good, it is only what is required of them, what everybody expects, and, therefore, their goodness is accepted as a matter of course, and is viewed as indifferently as other matters ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... Northern States of America the British love of cleanliness has become a gospel of life, and the sanitation of the Canal Zone is a model of scientific and successful thoroughness. To India it is also a model of hopeless generosity, nearly three million pounds having been spent in improving the health conditions of this small area. The agreement which reserves the towns of Panama and Colon to the administration of the republic of Panama provides for American interference in matters that may concern general health, and the Canal authorities have taken the fullest advantage ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... of Bourne, these two excellent persons began a holy friendship, increasing daily to so high and mutual affections, that their two wills seemed to be but one and the same; and their designs both for the glory of God, and peace of the Church, still assisting and improving each other's virtues, and the desired comforts of a peaceable piety; which I have willingly mentioned, because it gives a foundation to some things ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... Nettle (No. 2) deserves a passing note. It was the common opinion in his day that plants were affected by the neighbourhood of other plants to such an extent that they imbibed each other's virtues and faults. Thus sweet flowers were planted near fruit trees, with the idea of improving the flavour of the fruit, and evil-smelling trees, like the Elder, were carefully cleared away from fruit trees, lest they should be tainted. But the Strawberry was supposed to be an exception to the rule, and was supposed to thrive in the midst of "evil communications" without being corrupted. ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... up this problem as a present question for statecraft, but it comes unheralded, unadvocated, and sits at every legislative board. Every improvement is provisional except the improvement of the race, and it became more and more doubtful to me if we were improving the race at all! Splendid and beautiful and courageous people must come together and have children, women with their fine senses and glorious devotion must be freed from the net that compels them to be celibate, compels them to be childless ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... there was something done for improving conversation; every one was ambitious of qualifying himself for it by reading ancient and modern books; memory and reflection were much more exercised. But on the introduction of gaming men likewise left of tennis, billiards, and ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Improving upon the principles of liberty professed by the douchobortzi, the molokanes taught that "where the Holy Ghost is, there is liberty"; and as they believed the Holy Ghost to be in themselves they consequently needed neither laws nor government. Had not Christ said that His true followers ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... men can expect by mutual exchange of their wisdom and good will is to do as little evil and as much good as possible, that is to say, to diminish the amount of their physical and psychic ills by improving their mutual conditions of existence, and thus increasing the amount of good. Even this is only possible by limiting the ideas of good and evil almost exclusively to humanity, trampling on the conditions of existence and the development ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... in our Convention, and then copies will be sent by him to those who send to him the money (50 cents fur one copy, twenty dollars for 50 copies, 35 dollars for 100 copies) either before or after or at the Convention. He being a man of property and known as our trusty fellow labourer for improving the condition of mankind, has charge of the business department at our Peace Union, while, I the writer of this book and of this article am bound to devote my precious time to spiritual objects for Harmony and Peace of Nations, requesting to direct letters which do not belong particularly ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... herself, and tried to smile—and hid the sad result from him in a kiss. "I do feel the anxiety and fatigue," she said. "But my mother is really improving; and, if it only continues, the blessed sense of relief will make me strong again." She paused, and roused all her courage, in anticipation of the next words—so trivial and so terrible—that must, sooner or later, be pronounced. "You ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage; But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... either in town; or during the summer I intend making a tour through the Highlands, and to Visit the Hebrides with a party of my friends, whom I have engaged for the purpose. This my old preceptor Drury recommended as the most improving way of employing my Summer Vacation, and I have now an additional reason for following his advice, as I by that means will avoid the society of this woman, whose detestable temper destroys every Idea of domestic comfort. It is a happy thing that she is my mother and not my wife, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... in a home for orphan girls, Mrs. Johnson didn't think it was right for girls to waste their time on dolls. One Christmas some store sent such a beautiful lot and she returned them all. Some of us cried and we had to learn a lot of bible verses about improving your time. Occasionally a girl would get a clothes pin and tie the middle of her handkerchief around the head, and play it was a baby, and lend it out, then they would all get punished. I used to ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... times the doctors had predicted his death, but, confident in her own presentiments, her own unfailing hope, she had the happiness of seeing him come safely through the perils of childhood, with a constitution that was ever improving, in spite of the ...
— The Recruit • Honore de Balzac
... Anthony Street, after a Rutgers, and the Old Brewery Mission was establisht there. Thru Mrs. Pease, a member of the Market Street church, whose husband was the brave projector of the Five Points House of Industry, the church became interested in improving conditions. When Mr. Pease went south, his place was taken by Benjamin R. Barlow, one of the Market ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... you struck it right, Eben!" cried Seth, "because in the old days you seldom did blow your own horn; but I notice that you're improving right along now, and we have hopes of making a champion bugler out of ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... make boys prodigies of information; but it is our wisdom and our duty to cultivate their faculties each in its season, first the memory and imagination, and then the judgment; to furnish them with the means, and to excite the desire of improving themselves, and to wait with confidence God's blessing on ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... incredulity. His book, "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the years 1768-73," did not appear till 1790, seventeen years after his return to Europe. After the publication of his great work, Bruce spent the remainder of his life in improving his Scottish estate. On April 26, 1794, at Kinnaird, when going downstairs to hand a lady guest to her carriage, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong, dying ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... good acrobats before this was accomplished. Later we took to the North West Arm, where cricket and other games were played. We found this most invigorating and splendid pastime. During the winter we formed a society for the purpose of improving ourselves in literature. We had in the regiment John Smith, musketry instructor, and Sergeant George Smith. These were two educated and capable men, and offered to do all in their power for the advancement of this class. These brothers were also good actors, and trained ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... mode of procedure of the employes, copied in his spare time old papers, letters, bills, flowerily-worded petitions, reports, complimentary addresses to his superiors or to the Pharaoh, all of which his patron examined and corrected, noting on the margin letters or words imperfectly written, improving the style, and recasting or completing the incorrect expressions.* As soon as he could put together a certain number of sentences or figures without a mistake, he was allowed to draw up bills, or to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... is improving, isn't it? I often hear him talk of his clients, and you know lawyers charge very high for advice. I don't know where I heard it, but I am of the impression that they will not give the least bit of advice under five dollars. At that rate, you know, ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... and G. Fallopius were pupils of Vesalius. Columbus, as his immediate successor in Padua, and afterwards professor at Rome, distinguished himself by rectifying and improving the anatomy of the bones; by giving correct accounts of the shape and cavities of the heart, of the pulmonary artery and aorta and their valves, and tracing the course of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart; by a good description of the brain and its vessels, and by ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... readiest to resort to what La Fayette calls the most sacred of all duties, that of insurrection. Another era of holy insurrection commenced the 31st of last May. As the first fruits of that insurrection grafted on insurrection, and of that rebellion improving upon rebellion, the sacred, irresponsible character of the members of the Convention was laughed to scorn. They had themselves shown in their proceedings against the late king how little the most fixed principles ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... sustaining the ordinances of public and local religious worship. In 1846, he was elected deacon in the Congregational Church. He accepted the office with some reluctance, being distrustful of himself, but his counsel and service were of great value to the brotherhood. Intent on improving himself in all the qualities of Christian manhood, he was observant of the great movements of society, and deeply interested in the new and enlarged applications of Chistianity. He followed the operations of the American ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... earnest representations of Millais (and after having seen a great number of his drawings) I am going to engage with a new man; retaining, of course, C.C.'s cover aforesaid. K—— has made some more capital portraits, and is always improving. ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... company of strolling players, and from that time he had been a devoted follower of Thespis. He had roughed it patiently in the provinces for years, his only consolation during a long season of poverty and neglect arising from the conviction that he was slowly but surely improving himself in the difficult art he had chosen as his mode of earning his daily bread. When the manager of the Royal Tabard, then on a provincial tour, picked him out from all his brother actors, and offered him a Metropolitan engagement, James Madgin thought himself on the high road ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... in religious thought, and occasionally country ministers, have accused those who maintain that the church should have a vital active interest in improving economic welfare of trying to make hog-cholera experts out of preachers, thus taking them away from their real tasks. It is believed that knowledge of hog cholera and of the agencies that can help the farmer to prevent it will not injure the standing of any rural minister. ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt
... that he would not suffer so handsome an occasion of improving his acquaintance with the beloved object as now offered itself to elapse, when even good breeding alone might have prompted him to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... steam, deserves our sympathy. It is pleasing to find in our friend, the superintendent, a strong fellow-feeling for his men, and a desire to do all in his power to alleviate their condition. He has accomplished much in improving the morale of the town; but deep-seated, inexorable economic conditions, apparently beyond present control, render nugatory any attempts to better the financial ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... was rather a misfortune to Holloway that he was so far advanced in his Latin and Greek studies, for he had the less to do at school; his school business quickly despatched, his time hung upon his hands. He never thought of literature as an amusement for his leisure hours; he had no idea of improving himself further in general science and knowledge. He was told that his education was nearly at an end; he believed it was quite finished, and he was glad of it, and glad it was so well over. In the idle time that hung upon his hands, during this intermediate state at Westminster, he ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... March Hare job? Not, of course, in precisely its present form but along the same general lines. We could make a paying proposition out of that paper, I am sure of it. It would need a good deal of improving," continued the great man in a pompous, patronizing tone, "but there is an idea there that could be developed into something worth while, unless I am very ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... book of biography is that of the brothers William and Robert Chambers, the famous publishers of Edinburgh, who did more to diffuse useful knowledge, and to educate the people, by their manifold cheap issues of improving and entertaining literature, than was ever done by the ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... religion. Philosophy, or rather its object, the divine order of the Universe, is the intellectual guide which the religious sentiment needs; while exploring the real relations of the finite, it obtains a constantly improving and self-correcting measure of the perfect law of the Gospel of Love and Liberty, and a means of carrying into effect the spiritualism of revealed religion. It establishes law, by ascertaining ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... am of Opinion, that so useful and elevated a Contemplation as that of the Souls Immortality cannot be resumed too often. There is not a more improving Exercise to the human Mind, than to be frequently reviewing its own great Privileges and Endowments; nor a more effectual Means to awaken in us an Ambition raised above low Objects and little Pursuits, than to value our ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... (1786) he left the state which had been intrusted to him by his father nearly doubled in size. He had rendered it illustrious by his military glory, and had vastly increased its resources by improving the condition of the people in the older portions of his territory and by establishing German colonies in the desolate regions of West Prussia, which he strove in this way to bind closely to the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... wonderful!" said Mrs. Dashwood; "our little troublesome is becoming quite a well-behaved young person. I feel very grateful to you, Miss Kerr, for I believe it is all owing to your tender care and kind good-nature that the child is improving so much." ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... Still, there's really no reason why one shouldn't happen here as well as elsewhere. And big fires are certain to happen somewhere. The city's improving right along, but ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... for the erection of new churches in London, his efforts for the promotion of parochial and circulating clerical libraries throughout the kingdom, for advancing Christian teaching in grammar schools, for improving prisons, for giving help to French Protestants in London and Eastern Christians in Armenia—Robert Nelson found abundant scope for the beneficent energies of his public life. The undertakings he carried out were but a few of the projects which engaged his thoughts. If we cast our eyes over ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Warde; recorded because it illustrates Warde's methods, and because, ultimately, it came to be regarded by John as the turning-point of his intellectual life. Since he had taken the Lower Remove, John's energies of mind and body had been concentrated upon improving himself at games. Vaguely aware that some of the School-prizes were within his grasp, he had not deemed them worth the winning. To ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... but that kind of black beady tight lady would say 'little boys'. She is like Miss Murdstone in David Copperfield. I should like to tell her so; but she would not understand. I don't suppose she has ever read anything but Markham's History and Mangnall's Questions—improving books like that. ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... the moon when it was full and bright and gave a wondrous light, but now it is only a pale crescent in the sky and its light is failing. Certainly the moon is failing and not like the child improving each day. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... constantly in mind, and have endeavoured to the best of my ability to put him on the right road to success, I have also presented the full fruits of my experience in regard to the fine points of the game, so that what I have written may be of advantage to improving golfers of all degrees of skill. There are some things in golf which cannot be explained in writing, or for the matter of that even by practical demonstration on the links. They come to the golfer only ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... qualifying the oath with 'except for a minute now and then.' He brought a cornet-a-piston to practise on, having had three weeks' instructions on that melodious instrument; and if you could hear the horrid sounds that come I especially at heavy rolls. When I hint he is not improving, there comes a confession: 'I don't feel quite right yet, you see!' But he blows away manfully, and in self-defence I try to roar the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the deal was his, and he had the money to throw away. Some men get their fun making over the earth. When one place is finished, they lose interest and go looking for a chance to put their time and dollars into improving somewhere else. Besides,"—and she took this other woman into her abrupt and rare embrace—"I happen to know he had an offer for his option and refused a good price. Now, come, Marcia and Frederic have ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... happening to be at the right place at the right time, yet he was precision, method, accuracy, energy itself. What seemed luck with him was only good judgment and promptness in seizing opportunities, and the greatest care and zeal in improving ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... keep up its naval and military armaments on a scale far greater than before? How is the burden to be met when every penny that can be raised as revenue will be needed to meet the charge on our gigantic debt and the necessary claims for carrying on Government, to say nothing of improving the conditions of life? We cannot, nor can other nations, go on using up capital and borrowing indefinitely. The choice is between assured peace and certain ruin, even if no war actually occurs. How can peace be assured? It would be well for some of those with the requisite historical knowledge ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... Scudamore, after the assassination of his friend the Duke of Buckingham, devoted his energies to the culture of fruit, and with other public-spirited gentlemen turned that county into 'one entire orchard', besides improving the pastures and woods[299]; though Hartlib laments that gentlemen try so few experiments for the advancement of agriculture, and that both landowners and farmers instead of communicating their knowledge to each other kept it jealously to themselves.[300] ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... faces, but of a manly and forward spirit, and having, by frequent baths, and avoiding the heat and scorching of the sun, with a constant use of all the ointments and washes and dresses that serve to the adorning of the head or smoothing the skin or improving the complexion, in a manner changed them from what they were before, and having taught them farther to counterfeit the very voice and carriage and gait of virgins, so that there could not be the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... be taught, it can certainly be formed and improved. There are several ways of improving your ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... tried no more than a half-dozen pages from one of his best stories. He has the fatal habit of being interesting,—fatal because it robs you who read him of time which you might else have devoted to 'improving' literature, such as history, political economy, or light science. He destroys your peace of mind by compelling your sympathies in behalf of people who never existed. He undermines your will power and makes you his slave. You declare that you will read but one more chapter ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... awoke from his lethargy; began to work once more in the old way; mixed among men again; grew brighter. "Henry Floyd is growing younger, instead of older," someone said of him. "His health has been bad," said a doctor. "He is improving. I thought at one time he was going to die." "He is getting rich," said a broker, who had been a schoolmate of his. "I see he has just invented a new something or other to relieve children with ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... reader the doubt will arise, whether the writer of this work might not have more profitably employed his time, during the last ten years, in creating thoughts than in "improving" land,—in diffusing information than in selling milk. As a poetic, scientific, and practical farmer, he has doubtless silenced all cynic doubts of his capacity to make four or six per cent. on the capital ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... products for her neighbours and other countries. Her mines are annually increasing in productiveness and number, as enterprise is extended and capital invested in them, and as domestic manufactures and improving agriculture increasingly absorb their produce. The treasure-yielding progress of her gold mines is one of the extraordinary events of the age. The existence of gold in Siberia was scarcely suspected till 1829. The first researches of adventuring ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... this talent, told her little story with grace, and could mimic very successfully the peculiarities of the person who was its subject. She had a fine taste for belle-lettre reading.... This quality, by improving her talents for conversation, contributed not inconsiderably to make her a most desirable and agreeable companion. It beguiled many of those winter evenings during which her protracted ill health and her feeble nervous system confined us entirely to each other. I shall never cease to look back ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... but it has, of late, been overdone. The quality of the tea and sugar now sent to Sydney, is far superior to what it used to be; and the coarser sorts of both are going out of use; a clear proof that the population are improving in respectability. Formerly, nothing in the shape of either article was too bad to send out to Australia. Things have changed, however, and several speculators have been serious losers within the last three years, by sending goods that would have suited admirably six years ago. When I first went ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... campaigns. He gained immense renown at William's expense; and yet there was, as respected the objects of the war, little to choose between the two commanders. Luxemburg was repeatedly victorious; but he had not the art of improving a victory. William was repeatedly defeated; but of all generals he was the best ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in foreign debt. Real GDP has risen due to higher oil output and increased government spending. The government's continued efforts to diversify the economy by attracting foreign and domestic investment outside the energy sector, however, has had little success in reducing high unemployment and improving living standards. ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... by the improvements I had made in that little time I lived there, and the increase I should probably have made if I had remained, I might have been worth a hundred thousand moidores - and what business had I to leave a settled fortune, a well-stocked plantation, improving and increasing, to turn supercargo to Guinea to fetch negroes, when patience and time would have so increased our stock at home, that we could have bought them at our own door from those whose business it was to fetch them? and though it had cost us ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... their food value almost entirely to their sugar content. In the dietary, sugar is too frequently regarded as a condiment instead of a nutrient, to be used for imparting palatability rather than for purposes of nutrition. While valuable for improving the taste of foods, the main worth of sugar is as a nutritive substance; used in the preparation of foods it adds to the total heat and energy of the ration. Sugar is sometimes used in excessive amounts and, as is the case with any food or nutrient, when that occurs, nutrition disturbances ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... persevered, and were rewarded. We examined the alley, noted and located a lot of its peculiarities, and little by little we learned how to deliver a ball in such a way that it would travel home and knock down a pin or two. By and by we succeeded in improving our game to a point where we were able to get all of the pins with thirty-five balls—so we made it a thirty-five-ball game. If the player did not succeed with thirty-five, he had lost the game. I suppose that all the balls, taken together, weighed five ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... a better arrangement" of the celestial orbs, and improving the system of the universe generally, we shall leave to those who imagine themselves possessed of that omniscience which comprehends all the facts and relations of the actual universe, and foreknows all the details and relations of all possible universes so accurately ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... them around to Tescheron. My price to him will be three thousand dollars, and I know from the prices Smith is getting that he'll pay. Glad to see you improving. Anything in my line, Mr. Hopkins, would be pleased to hear from ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... everything, ready for the next," explained the mate, grimly. "And he 'ad the cheek to tell me he's improving—improving!" ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... produced, at the present period, more than 130,000 free men of colour. By considering the individual position of each class, by recompensing, by the decreasing scale of privations, intelligence, love of labour and the domestic virtues, the colonial administration will find the best means of improving the condition of the blacks. Philanthropy does not consist in giving a little more salt-fish, and some fewer lashes: the real amelioration of the captive caste ought to extend over the whole moral and physical ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... about thirty degrees with the horizon. The base and sides of these heights were thickly strewn with small fragments of sandstone. The appearance presented was precisely similar to that of a new road, after it had undergone the improving process invented by Mr. McAdam, in whose honour, therefore, we named ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... tales;—now, have you? If you had, you'd have recollected that there was such a word, even if you didn't remember what it was. If you've never read those stories, they would be just the thing to beguile your solitude—vastly improving and moral, and yet quite sufficiently interesting. I'll lend them to you while you're ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... hands have been at work on Charlotte, improving Mrs. Gaskell's masterpiece. A hundred little touches have been added to it. First, it was supposed to be too tragic, too deliberately and impossibly sombre (that sad book of which Charlotte's friend, Mary Taylor, said that it was "not so gloomy as the truth"). So first came Sir Wemyss Reid, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... that shaking the rattles had a strange effect on certain animals. A canary bird sings and a rattler rattles. Perhaps they both think they are improving ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... popular books in the world, their authorship remained unknown; for Scott deemed it beneath the dignity of his title to earn money by business or literature, and sought to give the impression that the enormous sums spent at Abbotsford in improving the estate and in entertaining lavishly were part of the dignity of the position ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... appropriated to advertisements. It was thus advertised in that of May 5th, 1711:—"The Retired Gardener. Vol. i. Being a Translation of Le Jardinier Solitaire; or, Dialogues between a Gentleman and a Gardener: containing the methods of making, ordering, and improving a fruit and kitchen garden; together with the manner of planting and cultivating flowers, plants, and shrubs, necessary for the adorning of gardens, &c. Vol. ii. containing the manner of planting and cultivating all sorts ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... with something of excess or extravagance; but in "Ravenshoe" there is nothing morbid, nothing cynical, nothing querulous, nothing ascetic. The doctrine of the book is a reasonable enjoyment of all that is good in the world, with a firm purpose of improving the world in all possible ways. It is one of the many books which have appeared in England of late years which show the influence of the life and labors of the late Dr. Arnold. It is as inspiriting in its influence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Plantation Trade in America, appears fairly to express the prevalent feeling of the mother-country on the subject before the War of Independence. The most remarkable relaxation of the navigation laws in the eighteenth century was the throwing open the slave trade by the act "for extending and improving the trade to Africa," which, after reciting that "the trade to and from Africa is very advantageous to Great Britain, and necessary for the supplying the plantations and colonies thereunto belonging ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... solid Spanish person, as perfect a reality as Don Quixote or St. Theresa. She was dressed in an extraordinary splendor of laces, brocades, and jewels, her coiffure and complexion were of the finest, and she evidently would answer to her name if you spoke to her. Improving the stateliest title I could think of, I addressed her as Dona Maria of the Holy Office; whereupon she looked round the great dusky, perfumed church, to see whether we were alone, and then she dropped her fringed eyelids ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... of Manetho's sixth dynasty, but no later monarchs rivalled the great works of Khufu and Shafra. The tombs of their successors were monuments of a moderate size, involving no oppression of the people, but perhaps rather improving their condition by causing a rise in the rate of wages. Certainly, the native remains of the period give a cheerful representation of the condition of all classes. The nation for the most part enjoys peace, and applies itself to production. The wealth of the nobles increases, and the position of ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... patriot The Yarranton family Andrew Yarranton's early life A soldier under the Parliament Begins iron works Is seized and imprisoned His plans for improving internal navigation Improvements in agriculture Manufacture of tin plate His journey into Saxony to learn it Travels in Holland His views of trade and industry His various projects His 'England's Improvement by Sea and Land' ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... Southern State we'll say. 'I've been to the chairman of the pork bill committee, and he says it's impossible. The bill simply can't be loaded any further. But I find that you have an item in there for deepening and improving a harbor back in your own district. Why don't you cut that item out—shove it over until next year? You can easily find a satisfactory explanation for your constituents. AND you want to remember this: the improvement of this river means that the—the—well, a certain ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... now been many weeks under the hospitable roof of Mrs. Bird, improving in health and appearance. Indeed, it would have been a wonder if he had not, as the kind mistress of the mansion seemed to do nought else, from day to day, but study plans for his comfort and pleasure. There was one sad drawback upon ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... improving rapidly, the doctor said, adding: "You ought to have seen her delight when ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the monarch elections: none; the monarch is hereditary note: in April 2003, Qatar held nationwide elections for a 29-member Central Municipal Council (CMC), which has consultative powers aimed at improving the provision of municipal services; the first election for the CMC ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... corridor," said Musa to his wife. "It is the gardener, Aguilar, I think. I have brought all the luggage, not excluding that which was lost at Hamburg." He had a glorious air, and was probably more proud of his still improving English and of his ability as a courier than of his triumphs on the fiddle. "Ah!" Mr. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... a daughter and her husband. They passed their time principally in hunting deer, wild turkies, and the prairie hen, which are abundant in that quarter of the territory. For hunting, Black Hawk is said to have displayed no fondness; but chose to spend his time in improving his place of residence, and exercising his ingenuity with mechanic tools. In the spring of 1838, they removed to the frontier, and settled upon the Des Moines river, about eighty or ninety miles from its ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... specimen of a good slave; and she was one of those bright exceptions of the negro race that would have driven Exeter Hall frantic with enthusiasm. Poor old Masara! she had now fallen into the hands of a kind mistress, and as we were improving in Arabic, my wife used to converse with her upon the past and present; future had never been suggested to her simple mind. Masara had a weighty care; her daily bread was provided; money she had none, neither did she require it; husband she could not have had, as a slave has none, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... reached Anaiteum on the 14th of July. This island was occupied by Mr. Inglis and Mr. Greddie, of the Scottish Presbyterian Mission, who had done much towards improving the natives. Small canoes soon began to come off to the vessel, little craft consisting of no more than the trunk of a tree hollowed out, seldom more than a foot broad, and perhaps eighteen inches deep, all with outriggers—namely, a slight ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "You're improving, master Jim," said Charles Hawker. "You'll soon be as good a hand at a yarn as Hamlyn's Dick." At the same time he wrote down a stockwhip, similar to this one, on the tablets of his memory, to be procured on his projected ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... abandon old processes for new, to focus attention on special problems, to encourage specialization, and to transmit to the younger generation a more intelligent standpoint and a more advanced starting-point. Culture is the accumulation of the results of activity, and culture could go on improving for a certain time even if there were a retrogression in intelligence. If all the chemists in class A should stop work tomorrow, the chemists in class B would still make discoveries. These would influence manufacture, and progress would result. If a worker in any specialty ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... these years were good, and constantly improving. For some time he held the post of Secretary to the Sierra Leone Company, with a salary of L500 per annum. He subsequently entered into partnership with a nephew, and the firm did a large business as African merchants under the names ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... effectual care to preserve such an ascendant over him, that we can at any time reduce him to his former degree, should he dare to act in opposition to our wills; for which reason we never suffer any to come near the prince but such as we are assured it is impossible should be capable of engaging or improving his affection; no prime minister, as I apprehend, esteeming himself to be safe while any other shares the ear of his prince, of whom we are as jealous as the fondest husband can be of his wife. Whoever, therefore, can approach him by any other channel than that of ourselves, is, in ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding |
