"Merely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... must leave the affair, merely noting that the Anglo-French agreement of March 1899 peaceably ended the dispute and placed the whole of the Egyptian Sudan, together with the Bahr-el-Ghazal district and the greater part of the Libyan Desert, west of Egypt, under the Anglo-Egyptian ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... them belonged to these PSAs merely for the sake of the loaves and fishes. Every now and then they were awarded prizes—Self-help by Smiles, and other books suitable for perusal by persons suffering from almost complete obliteration of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... visit. On the following day we dined, by invitation, with the superintendent of the Wesleyan mission, in company with several missionaries. Freedom in Antigua was the engrossing and delightful topic. They rejoiced in the change, not merely from sympathy with the disinthralled negroes, but because it had emancipated them from a disheartening surveillance, and opened new fields of usefulness. They hailed the star of freedom "with exceeding great joy," because it heralded the speedy dawning of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... The doctor told him that the little body of his son had been born still. After that it was rather a stupor of despair than courage that carried him through the vain struggle for life of the worn-out housewife who became only almost a mother. It seemed merely the logical completion of the world's cruelty when the doctor laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and walked out of the door, without leaving any prescription to fill. Rudd stood like a wooden Indian, too ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... God was so good to her; there were fine bright days and nights; a few showers had fallen, but merely passing ones; the air was so cool and so balmy that it served her almost as food; and she seldom found people so unkind that they refused for her single little sou to give her a crust of bread and let ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... approve of that. She's quite well, and her respect for you amounts to a superstition, her immense anticipations of you amount to a superstition. She does not say a word about what happened on Sunday, and is convinced that you will overcome everything yourself by merely making your appearance. Upon my word! She fancies you can do anything. You're an enigmatic and romantic figure now, more than ever you were—extremely advantageous position. It is incredible how eager every one is to see you. They were pretty hot when I went away, but now it is ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... this she wanted someone to leave her money to; she was not going to leave it to people about whom she knew very little, merely because they happened to be sons and daughters of brothers and sisters whom she had never liked. She knew the power and value of money exceedingly well, and how many lovable people suffer and die yearly for the want of it; she was little ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... had been taken aback for a moment, merely sent his quid from one cheek to the other, without saying a word. The whole thing was over. And, indeed, that was not the only unforeseen incident during our voyage. We spent one whole night aground in the St. Clair Lake. Nothing I can say will give any idea of the recklessness ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... and Berlin, I saw men with hands hopelessly burned and distorted as the result of merely taking photographic plates with the X-ray. Then came in lead-glass screens—screens of glass ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... whistled. It was the first symptom of astonishment that he had manifested, and I glanced quickly at him and saw a look of indescribable intelligence and almost undeniable cunning cross his face. But it went as swiftly as it came, and he merely nodded, as ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... will smuggle a suspicious brown paper parcel into his study at an hour when his wife is out, or the effrontery with which he will declare when caught, that the books have been sent unbeknown to him, and he supposes merely for his examination. For, like drink, this fearsome disease eats into the very fibre of character, so that its victim will practise tricks to obtain books in advance of a rival collector, and will tell the most mendacious stories about what he ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... are in earnest, Mr. McNeil; you would not wreck another's life for merely an unfortunate resemblance! No! I cannot think it of you; but it is wicked to ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... fence-picket. For the first time in his experience in raiding these particular premises, his pigship had met with a foe worthy of his attention. Four girls, an old lady, and an ancient colored retainer, in giving chase heretofore, merely lent spice ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... but then the price was certainly the very best. Young Stantiloup was only eleven, and as there were boys at Bowick as old as seventeen,—for the school had not altogether maintained its old character as being merely preparatory,—Mrs. Stantiloup had thought that her boy should be admitted at a lower fee. The correspondence which had ensued had been unpleasant. Then young Stantiloup had had the influenza, and Mrs. Stantiloup had sent her own doctor. Champagne had been ordered, ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... to believe the best evidence except they are predisposed in the direction of that evidence. If it be said, "they should have thought for themselves," I answer—To think with their head was no bad sign that they did think for themselves. A great deal of what is called freedom of thought is merely the self-assertion which would persuade itself of a freedom it would possess but cannot without an effort too painful for ignorance and self-indulgence. The man would feel free without being free. To assert one's individuality ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... for the first time she learned to use her needle. Pen, needles, pen-knife and scissors had been carefully kept out of her hands for fear of possible injury to her fingers and yet she learned to sew quite well in a very few lessons. It was merely a mechanical operation and it came to her in a flash. She astonished the good sisters with her feats of embroidery and fine sewing and they could not understand how such an one could learn so quickly. The manual ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... had believed, and the honourableness of the mournful history with which his thoughts of himself had been so closely associated, were swept from him utterly. Nor was this all even yet: in losing these he had had, as it were, to let go his hold, not of his clan merely, but of his race: every link of kin that bound him to humanity had melted away from his grasp. Suddenly he would become aware that his heart was sinking within him, and questioning it why, would learn anew that he was alone in the world, a being without parents, without sister or brother, with ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... in treacle, and that her husband was Lord Wantage's nephew. As a matter of fact, no one who came to the house cared in the slightest degree about either of these circumstances (even if they knew them) but merely wished candidly to enjoy themselves in a large, jolly, hospitable house, owned by a very attractive man with a large number of amusing friends and, apparently, a harmless and good-natured little wife. Mary detested ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... disembowelled martyrs and skinless S. Bartholomews, are among the most nauseous products of a masculine nature blessed with robust health. Were they delirious or hysterical, they would be less disgusting. But no; they are merely vigorous and faithful representations of what anybody might have witnessed, when a traitor like Ravaillac or a Lombard untore was being put to death in agony. His firm mental grip on cruelty, and the somber gloom with which he invested these ghastly transcripts ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... enforced, and the Underground Railroad was working nightly that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written and published. You all know the story of poor old Tom, of funny, naughty Topsy and all the other interesting people of the book. We look upon it now as merely a story-book. But it was much more than that. It was a great sermon and did more to make people hate slavery than any other ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... method. The early clockmakers came over here from England and Holland precisely as did other adventurous craftsmen. Often they were by trade gold or silversmiths who combined with other arts that of making clocks. As a result, while some of them were skilled horologers others merely turned out clocks as a ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... him. My recruiting work came to an end, and I was pitchforked into the active work of the Army. As I have said, I knew practically nothing about soldiering, and the little I had learnt was wellnigh useless, because, being merely an officer in the old Volunteers, my knowledge was largely out of date. Still, there it was. New schemes for obtaining soldiers were on foot, and as a commission had been given to me, and there being no need for me at the University, I became a soldier, ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... who was hopelessly unfashionable as far as conventions that were merely polite went, announced serenely that she was going to her sewing circle and that if the girls chose they might go calling. ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... pecuniary imprudence, and that something more than a knowledge of the received principles of physiology is necessary to bring others into a course of perfect sobriety and general obedience to the laws of health. Further, Papaverius had an extraordinary insight into practical human life; not merely in the abstract, but in the concrete; not merely as a philosopher of human nature, but as one who saw into those who passed him in the walk of life with the kind of intuition attributed to expert detectives—a ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... in the wrong. She had not argued at all. She had merely stuck to her idea like a mule! How difficult and painful would be the next meeting with Constance, after this ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... insignificant fact that a young gentleman of a ne'er-do-well disposition, who seemed likely to come to a bad end in England, and who was accordingly shipped off to India by his irritated relations, altered and exalted the destinies not merely of a wealthy trading company, but of the British Crown. In the market town of Drayton-in-Hales, better known as Market-Drayton, in Shropshire, there lived, in the reign of George the First, a Mr. Richard Clive—a man whose comparatively meagre abilities were ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... impelled by any but an upright motive, or endeavored to attain an object by any but worthy means. Such are some of the high qualities which have justly earned for General Washington the admiration even of the country he opposed, and not merely the admiration but the gratitude and affection of his own. Such was the pure and upright spirit to which, when its toils were over and its earthly course had been run, was offered the unanimous homage of the assembled ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... they would have run no slight risk in so doing. But Francis had no desire to be caught, and perhaps imprisoned for a considerable time, until he was able to convince the council that his share of the night's work had been merely the result of a boyish freak. With two strokes of his oar, therefore, he swept the boat's head round, thereby throwing their pursuers directly astern of them; then he and Giuseppi threw their whole weight into the stroke, ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... Geminus wrote a history which is mentioned by Suetonius (Caesar, 9). Cato's opinion on this occasion was merely dictated by party hostility and personal hatred. His proposal was unjust and absurd. Caesar had good reason ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... with a wide-cleft mouth above a square chin. "I had thought," he said deliberately, "that you were employed in the counting house, but Schwar tells me that it has been a week since you were seen there." He raised a broad hand to silence Howat's reply. "While I can afford to keep you merely at hunting, the result to the table is so meagre that I'm not justified. There is no St. James here, in Pennsylvania, no gentlemen supported by the Crown for the purpose of amusement. You will have to sail for England if you expect ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... thing, would read to us the history of Abel, of Noah, of Moses, of Gideon, or some other of the exquisite narratives of the Old Testament. I do not say that they were made the medium of conveying spiritual instruction; they were unaccompanied by note or comment, written or oral, and merely read as histories, the fact being carefully impressed on our minds that God was the author, and that it would be highly criminal to doubt the truth of any word in that book. * * * The consequences of this early instruction, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... girl than princess, and would have preferred to remain merely girl and let events take the course they were going, for she liked it. But there was the other part of her which was princess, and which kept saying: "Remember who you are," so she was plainly at a loss between natural and artificial ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... electric, and will attract a pithball (fig. 2). Moreover, if we substitute the handkerchief for the rod it will also attract the ball (fig. 3). Clearly, then, the handkerchief which rubbed the rod as well as the rod itself is electrified. At first we might suppose that the handkerchief had merely rubbed off some of the electricity from the rod, but a little investigation will soon show that is not the case. If we allow the pithball to touch the glass rod it will steal some of the electricity on the rod, and we shall now find the ball REPELLED by the rod, as illustrated in ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... important to tell her. It was that the police had been seeking for Jorg, and had found him without much delay; for he had not taken precautions to conceal himself, being sure that no one had seen him on the evening when he visited his native village. He had, therefore, merely gone to the city, and was spending his time in the taverns. When they took him into custody, and accused him, he denied every thing; but when he heard that Colonel Ritter had accusations to make against him, he was intimidated, thinking ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... alone, she gazed round the crowded cafe, at the scores of interesting faces—thrillingly interesting to her after her long sojourn among countenances merely expressing crude elemental appetites if anything at all beyond toil, anxiety, privation, and bad health. These were the faces of the triumphant class—of those who had wealth or were getting it, fame or were striving for it, of those born to or acquiring position of some ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the greater number of phrases and passages found in the Hebrew Book, and consequently in our English Versions, but absent from the Greek. Some, it is true, are merely formal—additions to a personal name of the title king or prophet or of the names of a father and grandfather, or the more frequent use of the divine title of Hosts with the personal Name of the Deity or of the phrase Rede of the Lord.(9) Also ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... in his single experience the extremes of detraction and flattery—to have the sunshine of applause and the hail-storm of calumny mingled on his living head; while over his dead body, as over the body of Patroclus, there has raged a critical controversy, involving not merely his character as a man, but his claims as a poet. For this, unquestionably, there are some subordinate reasons. Pope's religious creed, his political connexions, his easy circumstances, his popularity with the upper classes, as well as his testy temper and malicious disposition, all ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... following dialogue prove it. I leave open the question whether or not I have reported the real terms of our conversation, merely reminding you that two men together, removed from the frivolity of women, tend, even in the street and when the thermometer is below freezing-point, to a high seriousness rare when the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... interrupting their brief conversation in an attempt to compel the girl to translate it to him, for he feared that they were concocting some plan to thwart him, and to quiet and appease him, she told him that the Englishman was merely bidding her farewell and wishing her good luck. Suddenly she turned to the black. "Will you do something for me?" she asked. "If I go ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ten thousand pounds in cash of the purchase-money in advance. A week afterwards I discovered that, though the concession had been granted by the Minister of Public Works at the Sublime Porte, it had been sold to the Eckmann Group in Vienna, and that the papers I held were merely copies with forged signatures and stamps. I applied to the police, this man was arrested in Hamburg, and brought back to London, where he was tried, and, a previous conviction having been proved against him, sent to penal servitude for seven years. In the dock at the Old Bailey he swore to be ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... sticks to the waxed nail. Blow on your hand and make magic passes, and cry "Dime, begone!" Open your hand so quickly that no one will see the dime stuck to the back of your nail, and show your empty hand. To make the dime reappear, you merely close you hand again and rub the dime into ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... better turn: he is high in favor with the King and can find you a very pretty place at court, and he takes it upon him in time to reconcile the Pope. Between you and me, the old Pope has no special spite in the world against you: he merely wants your lands for his son, and as long as you prowl round and lay claim to them, why, you must stay excommunicated; but just clear the coast and leave them peaceably and he will put you back into the True Church, and my father will charge himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... not absolutely the same—I put something instead of "angel"; and in the sequel my epithet seemed the more apt, for when eventually we heard from Corvick it was merely, it was thoroughly to be tantalised. He was magnificent in his triumph, he described his discovery as stupendous; but his ecstasy only obscured it—there were to be no particulars till he should have submitted ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... about and bear it. As to Sir Francis Trevellyan, he merely shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say: "What management! What couplings! We should not get this sort of thing ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... is everything, and requires more practice than either you or your friend have apparently been able to devote to it, I have much pleasure in coming to the rescue. In dealing with members of the medical profession it is never wise to beat about the bush; superfluous subtlety merely irritates them. I have therefore endeavoured to make the poem just the artless outpouring of the innocent passion of such a girl as I imagine your friend Mary Smith to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... active and the passive. Now we are conscious of a great command over our destiny; anon we are lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and dashed we know not how into the future. Now we are pleased by our conduct, anon merely pleased by our surroundings. It would be hard to say which of these modes of satisfaction is the more effective, but the latter is surely the more constant. Conduct is three parts of life, they say; but I think ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... weeks Mrs. Carroll had thought of this conversation with von Rittenheim, and the statement that she had just made always had figured as the climax of her argument in the Doctor's behalf. Now she felt no pleasure in it. The man before her was too crushed for her to exult over. He made no comment, merely said, reflectively,— ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... and shrewdly, and had well earned a commission, especially as you have a knowledge of the language. You simply told me that you had been able to render some service to the Burman who travelled down with you, but such service might have been merely that you assisted him when he was in want, bound up a wound, ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... state that these expressions, both for and against "twilight sleep," are not merely representative of our own experience and attitude; but that they also represent, as far as we are able to judge at the time of this writing, the consensus of opinion on the part of the most reliable and experienced observers and practitioners ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... agreement between two parties. The substance of the covenant evidently precedes the outward conclusion of the covenant, and forms the foundation of it. The conclusion of the covenant does not first form the relation, but is merely a solemn acknowledgment of the relation already existing. Thus it is ever in human relations; the contract, as a rule, only fixes and settles outwardly, a relation already existing. And that is still more the case in the relation ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... their original objects of pain or pleasure. But to get happiness or to avoid the pain of failure he has to act in a way agreeable to others. In other cases, he really shares or participates in the common activity. In this case, his original impulse is modified. He not merely acts in a way agreeing with the actions of others, but, in so acting, the same ideas and emotions are aroused in him that animate the others. A tribe, let us say, is warlike. The successes for which it strives, the achievements upon ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... in the unswerving execution of his duty. Not only as a soldier, but as a man, he rejoiced in a strict sense of duty, which, in sober earnest, is one of the best gifts that a man may possess. He had not inherited it from father or mother. He had not acquired it at St. Cyr. He had merely received it at second-hand from Mademoiselle Brun, at third-hand from that fat old General Lange who fell at Solferino. For the schoolgirl in the Rue du Cherche-Midi was quite right when she had pounced upon Mademoiselle Brun's secret, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... disappointed in the number of pelicans we had seen. I knew that Florida was one of the homes of the pelican, and I had not expected to see these birds merely in small detachments. But our boatman assured me that on our return trip he would give me a chance of seeing and shooting as many pelicans as I could desire. We would touch at Pelican Island, which was inhabited ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... wealth consisted not merely of goods, as many claim, but of a large amount of coin. Hiram Miller, of the relief parties, is authority for the statement that Mr. Donner owned a quarter section of land within the present city limits of Chicago. This land was sold for ten thousand dollars, shortly before Mr. Donner started ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... bottle with the stone inside it we could now, by subtracting the last weight from the first, find out how much the water, that was displaced, weighed. This is precisely the thing to do. The weight of the stone being known we now have merely to divide the weight of the stone by the weight of the displaced water, and we have the specific gravity number. Reference to a table of specific gravities of precious stones will enable us to name our stone. Such a table ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... interested in their toe nails, because I soon found that our own civilized "imprisoned" toe nails were very much better developed. In fact, a large number of the free and untramelled savages have hardly any toe nails at all! Whether this upsets a theory, nullifies a sentimental protest, or merely stands as an exception, I should not dare guess. But the fact ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... interested himself to induce the government to send out twelve thousand men to America. La Fayette also, through his friendship with Vergennes, exerted himself toward the same end, the proposition being not unfavorably received by the government, which merely demurred as to the number of troops required. Before leaving France, however, La Fayette had secured full consent to the expedition, and on him devolved the grateful task of bearing to Congress and Washington the news of the co-operation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... there, lad!" shouted Paul of Merely. "We wouldst not harm thee—come, we but ask the way to the castle of ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... when Mrs. Howland, worn down by her long vigil, fell asleep, and an hour after the sun had risen, before her troubled slumber was broken. Then starting up, she eagerly inquired of her husband, who had already arisen, and was walking about the room, if Andrew had yet returned. Mr. Howland merely ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... with the good service of two clumsy old Spanish four-pounders, enabled us not only in a short time to destroy the league, but also to crush and annihilate for ever some of our treacherous neighbours. As it would be tedious to a stranger to follow the movements of the whole campaign, I will merely mention that part of it in which ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... "That is merely an idea of civilization, Frank. In countries where women are dependent upon men, leaving to them the work of providing for the family and home, while they employ themselves in domestic duties and in brightening the lives of the men, they are treated with respect. ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... your own good faith. At the slightest suspicion—a mere suspicion perhaps—that you have played us false, at a hint that you have led us into an ambush, or that the whole of this expedition has been but a trick on your part to effect your own escape, or if merely our hope of finding Capet at the end of our journey is frustrated, the lives of our two hostages belong to us, and your friend and your wife will be ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... me with cold politeness when I mounted to the veranda, and the governor dispensed glasses of "Dr. Funk," a drink known to all the South Seas. Its secret is merely the mixing of a stiff drink of absinthe with lemonade or limeade. The learned man who added this death-dealing potion to the pleasures of the thirsty was Stevenson's friend, and attended him in his last illness. I do not know whether Dr. Funk ever mixed ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the embodiment of all goodness in His life, and in the new motive which He supplies for keeping the commandment. Wrenched away from Him, Christian morality has no being. He is the sacrifice for the world, the salvation of which flows from what He does, and not merely from what He taught or was. His personality is the foundation of His work, and the gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation is all contained in the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... merely an idea, but a revelation. At the sight of that skull, I seemed to see all of a sudden, lighted up as a vast plain under a flaming sky, the problem of the nature of the criminal—an atavistic being who reproduces in his person the ferocious instincts of primitive humanity and the inferior ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... along the water-course. I had only gone three yards or so, and turned a bend, when I came suddenly upon two wounded men. Both quite young—one merely a boy. He had a bad shrapnel wound through his boot, crushing the toes of his right foot. The other lay groaning upon his back—with a very bad shrapnel wound in his left ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... unable to restrain that somewhat unamiable exclamation, which was a cry from the heart itself. At first he had certainly thought of her; then, as the days went by for nearly a couple of months without sign of life from her, she had become for him merely a fleeting, regretted vision, a charming silhouette which had melted away in space, and would never ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... merely to say, that I should like, of course, to retain my employment of teaching. You will teach still, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... "Loose me and takes yourselves off quickly, lest I grow angry and break some dozen of these wooden heads." They took me at my word and vanished like ghosts. Then the landlord came bleating, but I merely told him that I wanted to go to my chamber, and if anybody inquired for me I wished him conducted ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... principles of the law—that law, once noble and beneficent, now degraded and debased; once designed for the protection of the individual, now used by society as the instrument for the individual's extermination. So in his second year Franklin fared somewhat beyond principles merely, and got into notes and bills, torts, contracts, and remedies. He learned with a shiver how a promise might legally be broken, how a gift should be regarded with suspicion, how a sacred legacy might be set aside. He read ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... seems big and clumsy beside my Humming-Bird," mused Tom as he slid along through the air, now flying high and now low, merely for practice. "This machine can go, but wait until I have my new one in the air! Then I'll show 'em ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... these colonies, established a board of commissioners with unconstitutional powers, and extended the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty, not only for collecting the said duties, but for the trial of causes merely arising within ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... narratives are legends, they grew up and found acceptance in fifty years. A pretty fair miracle in itself, when we take into consideration the inherent incredulity of the human mind! As Dean Farrar says: 'Who would have invented, who would have merely imagined, things so unlike the thoughts of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... however, merely a method of amplifying service air power. It has a vast potential value of its own. Communications shape human destinies. The evolution of our civilization bears strongly the marks of the systems which at various stages have made the intercourse of men and ideas possible. ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... title of "The Senate of Lilliput," and with feigned names or simple initials to denote the speakers. The best known reports of this kind were those contributed by Samuel Johnson to the Gentleman's Magazine. Obtained by stealth and often merely recalled by memory, such reports were naturally inaccurate; and their inaccuracy was eagerly seized on as a pretext for enforcing the rules which guarded the secrecy of proceedings in Parliament. In 1771 the Commons issued a proclamation forbidding the publication of debates; and ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... make himself conspicuous when he entered Philadelphia, and his flying his kite and fooling away his time in all sorts of such ways when he ought to have been foraging for soap-fat, or constructing candles. I merely desired to do away with somewhat of the prevalent calamitous idea among heads of families that Franklin acquired his great genius by working for nothing, studying by moonlight, and getting up in the night instead of waiting till morning like a Christian; and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in the night might portend merely the delirium of some other occupant of the catacombs; but ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... New England, in which part of the country he was 'raised.' When I say that he constantly walked in and out of the room with his hat on; and stopped to converse in the same free-and- easy state; and lay down on our sofa, and pulled his newspaper out of his pocket, and read it at his ease; I merely mention these traits as characteristic of the country: not at all as being matter of complaint, or as having been disagreeable to me. I should undoubtedly be offended by such proceedings at home, because there they are not the custom, and where they are not, they would be impertinencies; ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... government which sooner or later must have an end: and a serious mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and positive conviction that what he calls "the present constitution" is merely temporary. As parents, we can have no joy knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to insure anything which we may bequeath to posterity; and by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... right of their mothers and sisters to an equal voice with themselves in the government of the city, State and nation. Nevertheless, I avail myself of your kindly request, and urge all to study the intricate problem of bettering the world; not merely the individual sufferings in it, but the general conditions. Such study will show the great need of a new balance of power in the body politic; and the conscientious student must arrive at the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... should learn the exact succession of the seasons, as warnings for their husbandmen; or the position of the stars, as guides to their rude navigators? But what has grown out of this search for natural knowledge of so merely useful a character? You all know the reply. Astronomy,—which of all sciences has filled men's minds with general ideas of a character most foreign to their daily experience, and has, more than any other, rendered ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... thousand people on such a day, and quailed. What a man of affairs it must take to do that! Sixteen thousand people, into each of whose breasts God had put different emotions and convictions. He had never even imagined such a crowd as this assembles merely to listen to a political debate. But then he remembered, as they dodged from in front of the horses, what it was not merely a political debate: The pulse of nation was here, a great nation stricken with approaching fever. It was not now a case of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... all his hardness, and recklessness, and selfishness, a capacity for affection after his own fashion, and an odd sensitiveness to the praise and blame of those women whom he cared for and respected which did not originate merely in vanity and love of applause. He had been fond of his mother, though he had ignored her wishes and abused her generosity; and he had hated his sister Therese, because he imagined that she had come between ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... rest and comfort were concerned, and at such perpetual cost to her energy. Mrs. Falchion, I knew, was selfish, and would not, or could not, see that she was hard upon the girl, by such exactions as midnight reading and loss of sleep. She demanded not merely physical but mental energy—a complete submission of both; and when this occurred with a sensitive, high-strung girl, she was literally feeding on another's life- blood. If she had been told this, she, no doubt, would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pulled out my stethoscope, he gave way, feebly protesting that it was not worth my trouble. The examination merely assured me of that which I knew already—that this young man's days were numbered, and the numbers growing small. I need not say ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Mozart of his country. After all has been admitted and regretted—that he gave too little attention to musical science; that he often neglected to infuse into his work the depth and passion of which it was easily capable; that he placed too high a value on merely brilliant effects ad captandum vulgus—there remains the fact that his operas embody a mass of imperishable music, which will live with the art itself. Musicians of every country now admit his wondrous grace, his fertility and freshness of invention, his matchless ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... prevent misconstructions and consequent objections, I would observe that I have spoken of the bourgeoisie as a class, and that all such facts as refer to individuals serve merely as evidence of the way of thinking and acting of a class. Hence I have not entered upon the distinctions between the divers sections, subdivisions and parties of the bourgeoisie, which have a mere historical and theoretical significance. And I can, for the same ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... the matter thus: "Surely what difference does it make, since he had no business to be born at all?"—a very Milesian-like reply. Houssaye is too sensible a man to waste words with the spiritually obese, and so merely answered in the language of Terence, "I am a man and nothing that is human is ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... with the charms of the painted goddess, from whom he can scarcely tear himself away even on paper, and he concludes with the remark that, 'after contemplating this life-like representation of nature, the spectator is disposed to touch the canvas to convince himself that what he beholds is merely a painted shadow of ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... their lord and master delighted to honor. Each of the fair and grateful women, in reward for his great deed, gave him a saucer-full of golden coins, which were so many, and heaped so high, that the slave who followed him grew rich by merely picking up the pieces ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Wide reading may be good from an educational point of view, but unless we are able to assimilate what we read better a thousand times to restrict our reading. Gibbon's advice is bad, for it indicates merely the system he employed in compiling his monumental work. 'We ought not,' he remarks, 'to attend to the order of our books so much as (to the order) of our thoughts.' So, in the midst of Homer he would skip to Longinus; a passage in Longinus would send ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... said he, assuming an oracular tone of voice, "throwing a wine-glass, with or without wine, in a man's face is merely, as you may observe, a mark of denial and displeasure at some observation he may have made,—not in any wise intended to injure him, further than in the wound to his honor at being so insulted, for which, of course, he must subsequently call you out. Whereas, Charley, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... often repeated that our duty towards our great Dependency requires us to do something more than merely rule justly. We may impart high education, we may make good laws, we may administer impartial justice, we may make roads, lay down railroads and telegraphs, stimulate trade, accomplish amazing engineering feats—like that lately achieved at Periyar—increase the wealth ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... you have played us false, at a hint that you have led us into an ambush, or if merely our hopes of finding Capet at the end of the journey are frustrated, the lives of your wife and of your friend are forfeit to us, and they will both ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... merely personal to myself, I could not allow them to prevail against a public duty so clear to my own mind, and so imperative. If what was possible had been certain, if I had been fully advised when I removed Mr. Stanton that in thus defending the trust committed to my hands my own removal ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... hatred, which diffuses in its perpetual mutterings the irritable venom of the heart; servile duplicity, which fulsomely praises to the face, and blackens behind the back; shameless levity, which sacrifices the peace and reputation of the absent, merely to give barbarous stings to a jocular conversation: all together forming an aggregate the most desolating on earth, and nearest in character ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... people of a certain spiritual complexion. The same is true of company-keeping, street-walking, familiarity and loose conversation. Nor can anything different be said of such liberties, consented to or merely tolerated, as embracing and kissing, amorous effusions and all perilous amusements of this nature. When experience shows these things to be fraught with danger, then they become sinful in themselves, and can be indulged in only in contempt ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... war. In such cases there always is a main question; but in this case that question is a perplexing compound—Union and slavery. It thus becomes a question not of two sides merely, but of at least four sides, even among those who are for the Union, saying nothing of those who are against it. Thus, those who are for the Union with, but not without, slavery; those for it without, but not with; those for it with or without, but ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... while, Mr. Buller passed merely for a man of wit, and certainly his beautiful natural gaiety of character, which by no means meant levity, was commonly thought to mean it, and did for many years, hinder the recognition of his intrinsic higher qualities. Slowly it began to be discovered that, under ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... details which once were present in conjunction with the object at this moment affecting Sense. These details are inferred to be still in conjunction with the object, although not revealed to Sense. Thus when an apple is perceived by me, who merely see it, all that Sense reports is of a certain coloured surface: the roundness, the firmness, the fragrance, and the taste of the apple are not present to Sense, but are made present to Consciousness by the act of Perception. The eye sees a certain coloured surface; ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... was of no great moment. Hooker does not appear to have entirely turned over the command to Couch, his superior corps-commander, but to have merely used him as his mouthpiece, retaining the general ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... neck and clung closely to him. "Oh, do not speak of an eternity of separation, as you bid me farewell, or my arms will hold you to draw you by force from the dangers that threaten you; my lips will betray you by calling for help and accusing you of a conspiracy, merely to save you—compel you to renounce ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... going to sit down—no! At the gate he encountered a momentary obstruction, in the shape of the usher who looked after the orchestra tickets; but he swept him away as a spring freshet might carry away a bundle of obstructing sedge, by a majestic wave of the hand and the information that he was merely going down there ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... extremities consisted of perfect shoulder joints, but only 1/4 of each humerus was present. Both sides showed evidences of amputation, the cicatrix on the right side being 1 inch long and on the left 1/4 inch long. The right lower limb was merely a fleshy corpuscle 3/4 inch wide and 1/4 inch long; to the posterior edge was attached a body resembling the little toe of a newly-born infant. On the left side the limb was represented by a fleshy corpuscle 1 inch long and 1/4 inch in circumference, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... my mind was clearly made up—when I felt the certainty that it Was not merely a transitory temptation, but that it was something that I would neither have the power nor the desire to dismiss from my mind—then ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... seemed pleased with the new system, the emperor persevered. He refused to withdraw his reforms; he declined to make what children call "an Indian gift" to his people: but the effect of the divided counsels by which he was embarrassed was that these reforms were accepted by the public merely as experiments, to be tried during good behavior, and not as the basis of a ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... of fact," replied Tom, "Koku will merely hold to the fellow until we get there. But my giant's strength is enormous, and he does not always know the strength of his grasp. He might hurt the fellow. Come on," and Tom leaped from the doorway ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... and the day when an unexpected large fee from a client of Mr. Emery (not yet Judge) enabled them to hang their Protestant walls with engravings of pagan gods and Roman Catholic saints. For their problem had never been the simple one of merely discovering the right thing. There had always been added to it the complication of securing the right thing out of an income by no means limitless. The head of the household had enjoyed the success that might have been predicted from his ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... of ancient Chaldea, in common with many primitive peoples of later times, cherished the belief that all diseases were caused by demons. Medicine was merely a branch of Magic, and the chief healing agents were exorcisms, incantations, and enchanted beverages. There were, properly speaking, no physicians. Sometimes, wrote Francois Lenormant, in "Chaldean Magic," disease was regarded as an effect of the wickedness of different demons, and ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... wrote to a friend. The fact of his birth in Boston he regarded as merely an unfortunate accident, or perhaps the work of that malevolent "Imp of the Perverse" which apparently dominated his life. That it constituted any tie between him and the "Hub of the Universe," unless it might be the inverted tie of opposition, ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... was made for the registration of loans and the audit of the accounts. The last chest to be founded—this was in the latter half of the sixteenth century—placed at the disposal of the University a sum raising the total amount to not less than two thousand marks; and the capital, not merely the interest, was available for the relief of embarrassed scholars. The pledges were valued by the sworn stationer of the University, and that they were expected to exceed in value the amount of the loan is shown ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... prisons. This mistrust of us, raised our indignation to the highest pitch; but when we expostulated with them, and told them, in the strongest terms, what a horror and aversion the Europeans entertained for suicide, they merely laughed, and appealed to their laws, which enjoined on them the necessity of keeping from their prisoners every thing with which they could hurt either themselves or others. For this reason they would never trust ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... whom I offer this little volume as a possible slight addition even to his stock of facts and hypotheses) to understand that in speaking, for instance, of Empathy as involving a thought of certain activities, I mean merely that whatever happens has the same result as if we thought; and that the processes, whatever they may be (also in the case of measuring, comparing and co-ordinating), translate themselves, when they are detected, into thoughts; but that I do not in the least pre-judge the ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... person Noble," said Mr. Dilworthy, in a little speech at a dinner party given him by some of his admirers, "merely desired to sacrifice me.—I would willingly offer up my political life on the altar of my dear State's weal, I would be glad and grateful to do it; but when he makes of me but a cloak to hide his deeper designs, when he proposes ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... few near him understood his words. The majority thought he was merely showing a vigorous protest against the threatened loss of his shirt-tab, and they had no sympathy with anything of that kind, for they had suffered the same humiliation, and were naturally determined ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... during its work, by the humiliation of the way in which his countrymen were treated. Of Mr. Abdur Rahim I have already spoken. The Hon. Mr. M.B. Chaubal signed the Report, but dissented from some of its most important recommendations. The whole Report was written "before the flood," and it is now merely an antiquarian curiosity. ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... that passed within him, lest it should by the slightest sign betray him; to regulate and veil every look and every word he spoke to her; never for a second to forget that these other persons were actual and dangerous, not merely the insignificant and grotesque shadows that they seemed. It would be perhaps for ever a part of his love for her to seem not to love her. He did not dare dream of fulfilment. He was to be her friend, and try to bring ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... obstreperous old chiefs; one with his legs thrust into the armholes of a scarlet vest, another with a pair of spurs on his heels, and a third in a cocked hat and feather. In addition to these articles, they merely wore the ordinary costume of their race—a slip of native cloth about the loins. Indecorous as their behaviour was, these worthies turned out to be a deputation from the reverend the clergy of the island; and the object of their visit was to put ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Mr. Gillet merely tossed some flour from a bag out upon a plate, added a pinch of salt and some water; then he shaped it into a cake of dough, and laid it on the ashes of the fire, covering it all over ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... that there is death in the house is perhaps the most awful moment of youth. When we are young, we think that not only ourselves, but that all about us, are immortal. Until the arrow has struck a victim round our own hearth, death is merely an unmeaning word; until then, its casual mention has stamped no idea upon our brain. There are few, even among those least susceptible of thought and emotion, in whose hearts and minds the first death ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Mexico than the discovery of the gunpowder plot in England. Its sum and substance is the proposal of a constitutional Monarchy in Mexico, with a foreign prince (not named) at its head, as the only remedy for the evils by which it is afflicted. The pamphlet is written merely in a speculative form, inculcating no sanguinary measures, or sudden revolution; but the consequences are likely to be most disastrous to the fearless and public-spirited author. Even those who most question his prudence in taking this step, agree that ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... with a heavier force, for upon presenting myself on the last occasion at the place of exchange frequented by those who hitherto have carried out your spoken promise with obliging exactitude, and at certain stated intervals freely granted to this person a sufficiency of pieces of gold, merely requiring in return an inscribed and signet-bearing record of the fact, I was received with no diminution of sympathetic urbanity, indeed, but with hands quite devoid of ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... his purpose indifferently, or the public did not approve of it; for the White Lady of Avenel was far from being popular. He does not now make the present statement, in the view of arguing readers into a more favourable opinion on the subject, but merely with the purpose of exculpating himself from the charge of having wantonly intruded into the narrative a being of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... her own hand suddenly clasped, and pressed to his lips, and then, as if ashamed, he turned his face away; nor would she betray her pleasure in it, but merely said, 'Shall I go on with ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Wool. Place the fabric or threads containing animal fibers in cold, concentrated hydrochloric acid. If silk is present it will dissolve, while wool merely swells. ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... a remedy, showing how the sin might be expiated, and the gods appeased (by prayers, and purifications, and atoning rites).... So many and yet more great effects could I tell you of the phrensy which comes from the gods."[967] Some have discerned in all this merely the food for a feeble ridicule. They regard these sentiments as simply an evidence of the power and prevalence of superstition clouding the loftiest intellects in ancient times. By the more thoughtful ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the detective, dryly, "since he will not have to do so. In my profession, Mr. Coe, we hold it a mean trick to kick a man when he is down.—This way, Sir, if you please." For, at the sound of Solomon's voice, Richard was up and out in a moment. "It is merely a form that you have to go through before we go before ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... internal taxation laid by England on America. A word is necessary as to the meaning of the phrase in those days. An external tax, perhaps merely an export duty, was levied and paid in England; its effect was seen in higher prices in the colonies. Internal taxation would include all taxes actually paid in America on goods coming from England. The provisions of the ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... gave orders to his female slaves to prick Smaragdine's flesh with pins, and then to tie her up in the corner of the kitchen, but on no account to give her a morsel to eat. But even this last blow had no effect on Smaragdine, who merely exclaimed as she had been ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various |
