"Nine times" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Moltke, and during his active participation in the management of German military affairs he had seen but slight changes in their policy: Mass—overwhelming mass; sudden momentous onslaught, and, above all, an attack so quick that your adversary could not regain his feet. It worked nine times out of ten, and when it didn't it was usually better than taking the defensive. General von Helmuth having an approved system was to that extent relieved of anxiety, for all he had to do was to work out details. In this his highly efficient organization was almost automatic. He himself ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... science, philosophy. The idea is that it never matters what happens to you provided you don't mind it. The weak point in the argument is that nine times out of ten ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... investigated and tested by the higher spirit or self. We should 'appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.' And if a man will be honest with himself, and tell himself why he is in such a pucker of terror, or why he is in such a rapture of joy, nine times out of ten the attempt to tell the reasons will be the condemnation of the mood which they are supposed to justify. If men would only bring the causes or occasions of the tempers and feelings which they allow to direct them, to the bar of common ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and in particular of the Genus Brassica. If two sorts of turnips or cabbages are suffered to grow and bloom together, the pollen of each kind will be sufficiently mixed to impregnate each alternately, and a hybrid kind will be the produce, and in ninety-nine times out of a hundred a worse variety than either. Although this is generally the result of an indiscriminate mixture, yet by properly adapting two different kinds to grow together, new and superior varieties are sometimes produced. One gentleman having profited by this philosophy, ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... memorandums, because I don't know her people or yet how much she'd had to do with them. It was the way it come out that impressed me. First place, she didn't go into trance. That's a fake to impress dopes, nine times out of ten. If you ever git anything real from me, you'll git it out of half trance. Then she didn't feel around an' fish, an' neither did she hit the bull's eye every time. She'd get the truth all tangled up. John would say a true ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... Unrest and weariness, the fever of passion and the chill of despair, soul-solitude and heart-trouble, are the very things that He comes to cure. He begins His great discourse with a series of beatitudes. "Blessed" is the word. "Happy" is the meaning. Nine times He rings the changes on that word, like a silver bell sounding from His fair temple on the mountain-side, calling all who long for happiness to come to Him and find rest for ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... Now rings the bell, nine times reverberating, And the white daybreak, stealing up the sky, Sees in two cottages two maidens waiting, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... lore (information about things of no importance, or none to us) conveyed in dreary monographs and hand-books, all of them perform a necessary function nowadays, that of bringing our idle and alien minds into some sort of relation of business with the works of art which we should otherwise, nine times out of ten, fail ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... is yet that which thou wilt not get. Honey that is nine times sweeter than the honey of the virgin swarm, without scum and bees, do I require to make bragget for ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... more up in the clouds—more of what you may call a dreamer. Irene's wide-awake every minute; and I declare, any one to see these two together when there's anything to be done, or any lead to be taken, would say Irene was the oldest, nine times out of ten. It's only when they get to talking that you can see Pen's got ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... each other as strangers, and the difficulty of approaching her only made the task more alluring. In the second week he reckoned up that he had seen her nine times. It was a satisfactory total, but at the same time he could not shut his eyes to the fact that five times out of that number he had seen Dr. Murchison as well, and neither of them appeared to ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... consists of thirty-six holes, eighteen holes gone twice over give the required number; so will nine holes gone over four times, or six holes six times, or four holes nine times, or three holes twelve times. So you see that if your ground is limited you need have but three, four, six or nine holes, and the fewer the holes the fairer becomes the game for strangers, because in going over them so often they learn the ground, and that puts ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... their eyes in the most inviting way. Some of our boys have jumped into the carriages and had a most pleasant and interesting drive with these ladies. That's risky, men; don't do it. It may come off ninety-nine times out of a hundred, but on the hundredth occasion it may end in a knife and a bullet. And quite right too. We have no right to interfere with the preserves of an Egyptian Pasha. Now I think that is all I have to say to you just ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... you are and will ever be welcome. All this is admirable; but if a Mussulman finds the means of appearing as hospitable as laws and customs require, without sacrificing an obolus, or even while gaining a large sum of money, fie upon virtue, and long live hypocrisy! And such is the case ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Your host overwhelms you while you sojourn beneath his roof; but if at your departure you do not pay him twenty times the value of what he has given you, he will wait until you have crossed his threshold, and consequently doffed your ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... marieth his mother, he dieth, Winchester destroied by the Danes, they plaied the trucebreakers and did much mischiefe in Kent, Ethelbright dieth; Ethelred king of the Westsaxons, his commendable qualities, his regiment was full of trouble, he fought against the Danes nine times in one yere with happie successe, the kings of Mercia fall from their fealtie and allegiance to Ethelred; Hungar & Vbba two Danish capteines with their power lie in Eastangle, Osbright and Ella kings of Northumberland slaine of the Danes in battell, they set ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... an open question. Lorimer is weak; but I am not sure how strong she is, nor how patient. If she could steady him and forgive him ninety-nine times, it is possible that, on the hundredth, she would have nothing to forgive. But that is asking too much of a woman, that she should sacrifice her pride and her hope to her ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... I studied there for a couple of years, and I know why some of the women have a choice between the river and even fouler waters. But let me tell you what I think of this matter. The desperate effort you made to save yourself may not have been very good judgment. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred such an endeavor would be worse than jumping from the frying-pan into the fire. But at least it argues something strong and genuine in you. You came because you felt that you could not give up the fight without one last supreme trial. Such ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... fertile corn and wheat belt of our country. He knows that this section produces, annually, such a quantity of corn as would require for transportation a procession of teams that would encircle the earth nine times, at the equator, and he interprets all this as sea. The word leads him, also, through the mazes and mysteries of meteorology, revealing to him the origin of the rain, the snow, the dew, and the frost, with all the wonders ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... pictures to convey an idea. Once she was telling Polly about God's punishment of sinners, and Polly said, "Lawdy, Lil Missus, I feel dem blazes creepen' all over me dis minit." She had a great deal to contend with, almost as much as Mrs. Marsden had, in getting the older negroes to come in to prayers. Nine times out of ten, when she rang the bell for them Sunday morning, Squire would put his head in ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... eminences, particularly one near the head of the lake, by the skirts of which many are still afraid to pass after sunset. It is believed that if, on Hallow-eve, any person, alone, goes round one of these hills nine times, towards the left hand (sinistrorsum) a door shall open, by which he will be admitted into their subterraneous abodes. Many, it is said, of mortal race have been entertained in their secret recesses. There they have been received into the most splendid ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... them from England, and their presentments published for several weeks in all the newspapers. The printer was seized, and forced to give great bail: after this trial the jury brought him in not guilty, although they had been culled with the greatest industry. The Chief Justice sent them back nine times, and kept them eleven hours, until, being tired out, they were forced to leave the matter to the mercy of the judge, by what they call a special verdict. During the trial, the Chief Justice, among other singularities, laid his hand on his breast, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... charmingly flippant. He never deigns even to agree with his own depositions. He gives the lie to his own witnesses. He seems to be jesting, and says, with the coolness of a great lord of the Regency, that if, as they charge him, he was ever shut up with her, "it could only have happened nine times." ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... He began by procuring him a triumph for his late victories, and when writing to him to return in order to enjoy those honours which the senate had decreed; adding, that he had reaped enough of glory in a country to which he had been sent nine times, and been each time victorious; concluding, that so great a number of triumphs was sufficient; and the most signal vengeance which could be inflicted on this turbulent people was to permit them to continue their intestine divisions. 10. German'icus was met on ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... condition. Iron-clad against iron-clad, we manoeuvred about the bay here, and went at each other with mutual fairness. I consider that both ships were well fought. We were struck twenty-two times—pilot-house twice, turret nine times, deck three times, sides eight times. The only vulnerable point was the pilot-house. One of your great logs (nine by twelve inches thick) is broken in two. The shot struck just outside of where the captain had ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... the men were straining their eyes to get a view of the battle and chafing at their inability to take a hand. And yet there was hardly a man aboard the transports who did not realize that in an encounter with a submarine, a troop ship nine times out of ten would come ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... via Behring's Straits there are several grave objections. The distance from New York to London by a route crossing the three continents of America, Asia, and Europe, is about eighteen thousand miles, or more than nine times as great as that from Newfoundland to Ireland. Of course, the mere cost of constructing a continuous telegraph three-quarters of the distance around the globe, and of maintaining the hundreds of stations that would be necessary over such a length of land-lines, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... own wise sayings was this: "Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but, nine times out of ten, the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard, and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance, I never knew a man to be drowned who was worth saving." No ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... eagerly). If thou liest, rascal, I'll hang thee up alive in irons at the weathercock of the Lorenzo tower, where the wind shall whirl thee nine times round with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to a country life: O, did you hear what Master Walter says! Nine times in ten the town's a hollow thing, Where what things are is nought to what they show; Where merit's name laughs merit's self to scorn! Where friendship and esteem that ought to be The tenants of men's hearts, lodge in their looks And tongues alone. Where ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... James Gregory in 1663[306] described in detail a mode of embodying that principle in a practical shape; and Newton, adopting an original system of construction, actually produced in 1668 a tiny speculum, one inch across, by means of which the apparent distance of objects was reduced thirty-nine times. Nevertheless, the exorbitantly long tubeless refractors, introduced by Huygens, maintained their reputation until Hadley exhibited to the Royal Society, January 12, 1721,[307] a reflector of six inches aperture, and sixty-two in focal length, which rivalled in performance, and of course indefinitely ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... of the ellipse, whence the minor axis may be found and the curve described. For instance, in Figure 255 the velocity ratio being nine to one at the maximum, the major axis is divided into two parts, of which one is nine times as long as the other; in Figure 256 the ratio is as one to three, so that the major axis being divided into four parts, the distance A C between the foci is equal to two of them, and the distance of either focus from the nearest extremity of the ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... age at last, sole foe Unvanquished, found him throned in Gylfi's land: Summoning his race around him thus he spake: "My sons, I scorn that age should cumber youth! Ye have your lesson—see ye keep it well! I taught you how to conquer; how to live; Now learn to die!" His dagger high he raised; Nine times he plunged it through his bleeding breast, Then sheathed it in his heart. Ere from his lips The kingly smile ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... there were five elements, since the uneven and perfect number had everywhere the predominance. And to the heavenly gods he gives the uneven shares. For Nestor nine times to Poseidon sacrificed nine bulls; and Tiresias bids Odysseus sacrifice (O. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... always agree with Dr. Johnson in wishing that the difficulties had been impossibilities, with all their falsettos and tortures of affectation to which they put themselves. How I hate them, and all the aimings at true Italian pronunciation and true Italian manner, which after all is, nine times out of ten, quite erroneous, and such as the Italians themselves would laugh at, or most probably no more comprehend than I did De Leuze repeating the "Botanic Garden": I was just going to ask what language it was, when my mother, ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... As once she used, the foremost of the train. Her looks were flushed, and sullen was her mien, That sure the virgin goddess (had she been Aught but a virgin) must the guilt have seen. 'Tis said the nymphs saw all, and guessed aright: And now the moon had nine times lost her light, When Dian, fainting in the mid-day beams, Found a cool covert, and refreshing streams 80 That in soft murmurs through the forest flow'd, And a smooth bed of shining gravel show'd. A covert so obscure, and streams so clear, The goddess ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... the fifteen for the Rendlesham match posted on Wakefield's door, on the school-board, and at Forder's. He solaced himself by writing in bold characters the word "beast" against each of the names which belonged to a Classic boy, and discovered, when his task was done, that he had inscribed the word nine times out of fifteen on each notice. Whereupon he made off at a run ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... look round to see them. He then, after speaking certain mysterious and cabalistic words, washed his hands again, and then making a frightful noise by striking brass basins together, he shouted out nine times, "Ghosts of this house begone!" This was supposed effectually to drive the specters away—an opinion which was always abundantly confirmed by the fact; for on looking round after this vociferated adjuration, the man always found that ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... remedy. It is old and, as said, rather vulgar, but it has the merit of efficiency: it very often works. Let the wife adopt similar tactics, let her also flirt, let her go out and come back at uncertain hours, let her keep the husband guessing as to where and with whom she is. And nine times out of ten this, under the circumstances, fully justifiable conduct on the part of the wife will effect a quick and radical change in the conduct of the husband. He will be only too glad to cry quits. Some people are utterly devoid of imagination. They lack ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud, With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. Nine times the space that measures day and night To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew, Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, Confounded, though immortal. But his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... and masquerades; the trades of Samarcand passed in review; and every trade was emulous to execute some quaint device, some marvellous pageant, with the materials of their peculiar art. After the marriage contracts had been ratified by the cadhies, nine times, according to the Asiatic fashion, were the bridegrooms and their brides dressed and undressed; and at each change of apparel, pearls and rubies were showered on their heads, and contemptuously abandoned to ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... gayety, upon finding that the candor of his explanations had depressed his fair companion, "the saying of an old Swedish [Footnote: It was the Swedish General Kniphausen, a favorite of Gustavus, to whom this maxim is ascribed.] enemy of mine is worth remembering in such cases,—that, nine times out of ten, a drachm of good luck is worth an ounce of good contrivance,—and were it not, dearest Paulina, that you are with us, I would think the risk not heavy. Perhaps, by to-morrow's sunset, we shall all look back from our pleasant seats in the warm refectories ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the Rajah occupies. The reason of this is said to be the following:—"One of the rulers of this palace once asked a Brahmin what would become of the soul of any one who died in the palace. The Brahmin answered that it would go to heaven. The Rajah repeated the same question ninety-nine times, and always received the same answer. But on asking the hundredth time, the Brahmin lost patience, and answered that it would go into a donkey." Since that time every one, from the prince to the meanest servant, leaves the palace as soon as they feel themselves unwell. None of them are desirous ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... it was almost impossible to ride through the district, and it is in situations such as these that attacking the elephant is attended with most danger. During the night they will feed in open plains and thinly-wooded districts, but as day dawns they retire to the densest covers within reach, which nine times in ten are composed of the impracticable wait-a-bit thorns, and here they remain drawn up in a compact herd during the heat of the day. In remote districts, however, and in cool weather, I have known herds to continue pasturing throughout the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... consists of rats, mice, frogs, or toads, beetles, and other insects; the pythons and larger serpents feed upon such animals as hares, birds, and the young of either antelopes, deer, pigs, &c. Although a snake if trodden upon might by a spasmodic impulse inflict a bite, it would nine times out of ten endeavour to escape. The idea of any snake wilfully and maliciously premeditating an attack upon a man is quite out of the question, unless it has been either teased or excited by a dog when hunting. The same principle ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... things, and he carried off La Colbrand from her cher ami, the Neapolitan director of San Carlo, and married her. It was a regular elopement, as if of a young miss from her papa. Do not look so shocked. Rossini could not help his changeability. You women always throw away a real gem, and receive, nine times out of ten, a mock one in return. But the fault lies not with us, but with you; you almost invariably select the wrong person. Now such men as Montresor and I knew how to return a real gem for Adelaide's heart-gift; but such men as Rossini have no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... announcement of the Redeemer's advent ("But of the Spotless Lamb"), in which we have for the first time a genuine Wagnerian leit motif, which runs through the music of the oratorio whenever allusion is made to the divine atonement. This typical melody is heard nine times,—three times in the prologue, twice in the scene of the crucifixion, once in our Saviour's promise to the thieves on the cross, once in his appearance to the holy women, and twice in the ascension. It is first given out as a violin solo, and at the close of the tenor recitative is repeated ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... proves what I contend. If I go over that ground one hundred times, and don't find anything, what does it prove? Merely that I am ninety-nine times stupider than I should be. I should get the answer ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... and hugged her stomach. So the story progressed, and the little girl got through her toilet without crying, owing to the wonder-working voice and its marvellous adaptation of climaxes to emergencies. Nine times out of ten, it was the story of The Three Bears she demanded when, with the appearance of brush and comb, the voice asked, "Which story shall ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... neutrality? I know it may be argued, that the land war which she would superadd to her sea war, by provoking us to join her enemies, should rationally hold her to her good behavior with us. But since the accession of the present monarch, has it not been passion, and not reason which, nine times out of ten, has dictated her measures? Has there been a better rule of prognosticating what he would do, than to examine what he ought not to do? When I review his dispositions, and review his conduct, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... cleared her throat, folded her arms and began: "If nine persons use a barrel of flour in nine weeks, in one week they would use nine times nine, which is eighty-one." ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... formed a lane so that there should be no impediment to a quick removal of anything that was portable. The fire was first discovered about five o'clock in the morning by the watchman on duty in the street. They were dull old fellows, those watchmen, and of but little use, for in calling the hour nine times out of ten they made a mistake. The thieves laughed them to scorn. When the watchman saw smoke issuing from the windows he gave the alarm without delay. The fire soon showed itself, when it had once got ahead. When ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... reckoned in his thousands, as the corresponding type in woman may, needs—not tyrannically, because unconsciously—a mate who far excels him in all that makes nobility; and, nine times out of ten, obtains her. "Mrs. James Lee" (how quaintly difficult it is to realise that sequence!) is, on the contrary, of the type that one might almost say inevitably fails to find the "true" mate. Perhaps she has none. Perhaps, to be long loved, ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... same. Their object is to enforce the right, and maintain impartial justice between man and man. In hearing a case, a judge of good common sense will generally find out the justice of the matter. Let him decide right, and do substantial justice, and he will, ninety-nine times out of one hundred, decide according to law, whether he knows anything about the law or not. And such a judge is always best for a new country, or, in truth, for any country. The appointment was secured, and George Matthews ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... forest of Breceliande, and found a bush that was fair and high, of white hawthorn, full of flowers, and there they sat in the shadow. And Merlin fell on sleep; and when she felt that he was on sleep she arose softly, and began her enchantments, such as Merlin had taught her, and made the ring nine times, and nine times ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... to the unavoidable antagonisms of nature. "If," continues this writer, "a pen drops from our fingers, or a penny rolls from our grasp, the former, of course, falls on our new white dress, while the latter, nine times out of ten, goes directly to the nearest grating, crack ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... upon Merlin, more like death, so deep. Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose, And from her brown-lock'd head the wimple throws, And takes it in her hand, and waves it over The blossom'd thorn-tree and her sleeping lover. Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple round, And made a little plot of magic ground. And in that daised circle, as men say, Is Merlin prisoner till the judgment-day; But she herself whither she will can rove— For she was ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... said St. Leonard, "is with ourselves. We assume every boy to have the soul of a professor, and every girl a genius for music. We pack off our sons to cram themselves with Greek and Latin, and put our daughters down to strum at the piano. Nine times out of ten it is sheer waste of time. They sent me to Cambridge, and said I was lazy. I was not lazy. I was not intended by nature for a Senior Wrangler. I did not see the good of being a Senior Wrangler. Who wants a world ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... has interpreted Dr. John Bull's favourite composition nine times every morning. As this has been going on for three months, and as the line I mentioned has two special rehearsals to itself before coming out right, you can easily work out how many send-him-victoriouses Johnny and I have ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... was calm—all except his gloved hands. A man's hands will, nine times out of ten, betray him in spite of himself. Burke's fingers were twitching, and folding and ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... on an average of years, an increase of nine times the seed sown; barley and oats, twelve or thirteen; maize, thirty-eight to forty; and ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... not take the elementary precaution of having a full case to support the story. In nine times out of ten you would have got away with ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... he may make some place where he has a clear view right across to low trees, tiny from their distance, similarly half swamped upon a further shore, and behind them a low escarpment of bare earth. That is the Mississippi nine times out of ten, and to an Englishman who had expected to find from his early reading or his maps a larger Thames it seems for all the world like a stretch of East Anglian flood, save that it is so ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... stove-polish, that's four times; an' I can't 'member, but the nex' time will be seven. I don't keer how much I git killed, till it's eight times, then I'm goin' to be good all the time, 'cause when you are dead nine times they put you in a hole an' throw ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... of natural education consists in ignoring the faults of children nine times out of ten, in avoiding immediate interference, which is usually a mistake, and devoting one's whole vigilance to the control of the environment in which the child is growing up, to watching the ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... running to neck too much in their construction. Now an ostrich is the same way, all neck with not a lick of sense. And the same applies to the human family. You take one of these long-necked cowmen and what does he know outside of cattle. Nine times out of ten, I can tell a sensible girl by merely looking at her neck. Now snicker, you dratted young fools, just as if I wasn't talking horse sense to you. Some of you boys haven't got much more sabe ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... the greater Part of the measures which arise in the course of public business are related to, or dependent on, some great leading general principles in Government, a man must be peculiarly unfortunate in the choice of his political company if he does not agree with them at least nine times in ten. If he does not concur in these general principles upon which the party is founded, and which necessarily draw on a concurrence in their application, he ought from the beginning to have chosen some other, more conformable to his opinions. When the question ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... formula thrice nine times, to touch the earth, to spit and be sure that you do it all ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... which is a hole 1-1/2 feet in diameter. There are other stones standing or lying around it. It is known to the peasants as the Crickstone, for it was said to cure sufferers from rickets or crick in the back if they passed nine times through the hole in a direction against the sun. The Isle of Man possesses a fine sepulchral monument on Meayll Hill. It consist of six T-shaped chamber-tombs arranged in a circle with entrances to the north and south. There is also a corridor-tomb, known as King Orry's Grave, at Laxey, ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... place from such a system; for this change has made a great revolution in Scottish social life. The charm and the romance long attached in the minds of some of our countrymen to the whole system and concerns of hard drinking was indeed most lamentable and absurd. At tavern suppers, where, nine times out often, it was the express object of those who went to get drunk, such stuff as "regal purple stream," "rosy wine," "quaffing the goblet," "bright sparkling nectar," "chasing the rosy hours," and so on, tended to keep up the delusion, and ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... also of other matters, and some of their phrases had a bawdy meaning; and the worthy shepherd, who was neither a fool nor a blockhead, swore to them that he was prepared to undertake to do the job eight or nine times in one night. ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... expected in largest proportion from the stronger acid, whereas the reverse is the fact. This consideration, with others, also leads me to conclude that muriatic acid is more easily decomposed by the electric current than water; since, even when diluted with eight or nine times its quantity of the latter fluid, it alone gives ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... enlarged to three times the size while retaining the same form, would have twenty-seven times the capacity, nine times the sectional area, and nine times the power. The length of such a vessel would be 434 feet; her breadth 63 feet 4-1/2 inches; her draught of water 16-1/2 feet; her area of immersed section 729 ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... remarked that if the author of the poorest collection of minor verse would accurately relate in his quavering numbers what his personal observations and adventures have been, his book would not be entirely without value. But ninety-nine times out of a hundred, this is precisely what he cannot do. His rhymes carry him whither he would not, and he is lost in a fog of imitated phrases and spurious sensations. The very odd and very rare set of three ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... very few people who do not live in quotation marks most of their lives. They would die in them and go to heaven in them, if they could. Nine times out of ten it is some one else's heaven they want to go to. The number of people who would know what to do or how to act in this world or the next, without their quotation marks on, is getting more limited ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Place again he made his way with alacrity to the 'Parlour.' For it was dinner time; he had a free half-hour, and nine times out of ten he ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hands nine times, because there were to be nine members of the delegation. And Nikky picked up a brass inkwell from the desk and held it ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... perambulator! A thing his experience told him out of which excitement in some form or another could generally be obtained. You worried it and took your chance. Either it howled, in which case you had to run for your life, followed—and, unfortunately, overtaken nine times out of ten—by a whirlwind of vengeance; or it gurgled: in which case the heavens smiled and halos descended on your head. In either event you escaped the deadly ennui that is the result of continuous ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... be blotted off the book of life—and it is always painful to have to proceed to such extremities. It is frequent, very—and ninety-nine times in the hundred, we run up against the woman for whom a great magistrate advised the search whenever a ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... danced across the churchyard; and when they reached the church door the women first paid their homage, turning six times round widderschinnes, and, following them, the men performed the same ceremony nine times. The devil, it was seriously asserted, took his place in the pulpit, around which old-like men, holding black candles in their hands, stood. Satan appeared as a black man, with a beard like that of a goat and a nose resembling a hawk's beak, and having on a black gown, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... supposed the spots to be masses of cloud in the atmosphere—an opinion still accepted. Many of them were very permanent. Cassini's great spot vanished and reappeared nine times between 1665 and 1713. It was close to the northern margin of the southern belt. Herschel supposed the belts to be the body of the planet, and the lighter parts to be clouds confined ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... be no possibility of failure; and at the end of several weeks he had become so expert with his six-shooter that at a distance of 25 feet, which was the greatest length of the Manager's room, he could pick the inside out of a halfpenny nine times out of a dozen, and leave a ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... than nine times the size of the US; second-largest of the world's four oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, but larger than Indian Ocean or ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... little on the march men converse with one another. On they stolidly tramp or ride hour after hour, side by side, and often exchange never a word. On they go, thinking, thinking, thinking. It is not hard to guess each other's thoughts, because we know our own. They are of home, home, home, nine times out of ten. At dark we reached our camp, and from the water-cart, for which we all, as usual, rushed, we filled our pannikins and bottles with water, thick, soapy-looking water, but to ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... stretching down under you, instead of straight before you. Perhaps in this way you may gain an idea of the depth of the ocean; but just consider the height of the air—which, I'm told, is a sort of envelope about the earth—more than nine times the depth of the ocean! Yet, what a wee bit of a way toward the moon would those thirty-six miles take us! And from the earth to the moon is only a very little step on the long way ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... new to me. My child was afraid, my wife uncomfortable, and I, a gaping observer, forgetful of my own situation. My boy pulled my coat, and said, 'Come, father;' my wife jogged my elbow, and reminded me of a lodging; but my old reply, 'Stop a little,' was my ninety and nine times repeated answer. Frequently the landlord made a long neck over the table, gauging the contents of our tardily emptied pint; and, as the watchman was calling 'Past eleven,' finally took it away, and bade us 'bundle off.' Now I arose, feeling at once the pride of my spirit and the poorness ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... Hall, the High Confession Mass, in order to ford the souls of departed relatives across the abyss of suffering, and afterwards to transmute the spirit (of Mrs. Ch'in); that, in addition, an altar should be erected in the Tower of Heavenly Fragrance, where nine times nine virtuous Taoist priests should, for nineteen days, offer up prayers for absolution from punishment, and purification from retribution. That after these services, the tablet should be moved into the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Swerga renounce?" It is! it is! Yamen, thine hour is nigh: Like as an eagle claws an asp, Veeshnoo has caught him in his mighty grasp, And hurl'd him, in spite of his shrieks and his squalls, Whizzing aloft, like the Temple fountain, Three times as high as Meru mountain, Which is Ninety-nine times as ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... the diadem of authority. He breaks his back trying to carry burdens no human shoulders are broad enough to bear. He is so bowed down by them that he sees only his mincing footsteps and has no conception of the general direction in which he is going. Nine times out of ten he travels wearily around in a little circle, which grows smaller and smaller as his over-taxed strength grows less ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... should be laughed out of court. It is folly to cross a bridge until you come to it, or to bid the Devil good-morning until you meet him—perfect folly. All is well until the stroke falls, and even then nine times out of ten it is not so bad as anticipated. A wise man ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... the husband, or return the wife!' He sung, and hell consented To hear the poet's prayer: Stern Proserpine relented, And gave him back the fair. Thus song could prevail O'er death and o'er hell, A conquest how hard and how glorious! Though fate had fast bound her With Styx nine times round her, Yet ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... the house, saw the same figures no less than nine times, and so distinctly that he was able to give a detailed description of both ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... of the Rectory, whereas in earlier days it would have been useless to pursue such a course in respect of anything but candles, or soap, or treacle, or perhaps a penny child's picture-book, and nine times out of ten it'd be something more in the nature of a bottle of whisky you'd be requiring; leastways—On the whole Humphreys thought he would be prepared with ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... the boat, the captain presented a pistol to his breast, which snapped. Instantly the enraged and wronged individual seized Capt. Crosly by the throat, and brought him to the ground, when he drew a dirk and stabbed him eight or nine times in the breast, each blow driving the weapon into his body up to the hilt. The passenger was arrested, carried to Natchez, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... angler, in a moralizing tone, as he slid his rod into its canvas case. "If a man knew what it was to fish all one's life in a stream that has only one perch, to catch that one perch nine times in all, and nine times to see it fall back into the water, plump,—if a man knew what it was, why, then "—here the angler looked over his shoulder full at Leonard—"why then, young sir, he would know what human life is to vain ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... chemical affinity!" This is very fine; but it should be observed that no astronomer would have made such remark, especially to any journal of Science; for the earth, in the sense intended, is not only thirteen, but forty-nine times larger than the moon. A similar objection applies to the whole of the concluding pages, where, by way of introduction to some discoveries in Saturn, the philosophical correspondent enters into a minute schoolboy account of that planet—this ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... say too many, or to mix their order, would be disrespect to the spirit of the dead, and a reflection on the mourner. Nine times the "ke," fourteen "a's," fifteen "e's," eighteen "i's" and fifteen ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... "cranks," but indisputably they had the heroic spirit, the will to endure obloquy for their opinions. "I suppose," he reflected, "the reason why one feels so angry with such people is partly that nine times out of ten they're in the right, and partly that ten times out of ten they've got the pluck we haven't got!" And he remembered that Witterton, a journalist whom he had met at the office of the Morning Record, had ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... without walls,—that they might dwell there together in peace, and address each other only as Brother and Sister. When he had told her, he fell asleep with his head in her lap, and she wove a spell nine times around his head, and the tower became the strongest in the world. Some of the many legends place this tower in the forest of Broceliande; while others transport it afar to a magic island, where Merlin dwells with his nine bards, and where Vivian alone can come or ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... spent entirely with the countess, was very sad; we must have died of grief if we had not taken refuge in the transports of love. Never was night better spent. Tears of grief and tears of love followed one another in rapid succession, and nine times did I offer up sacrifice on the altar of the god, who gave me fresh strength to replace that which was exhausted. The sanctuary was full of blood and tears, but the desires of the priest and victim still cried for more. We had at last to make an effort and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... that there was a more weighty kind of evidence than that adduced by Mr. A.; and to this he doubted not they would all defer. He could prove by a tabulated statement that the words "to" and "from" occurred on an average from seven to nine times in every play of Chapman; whereas in the play under consideration the word "to" occurred exactly twelve times and the word "from" precisely ten. He was therefore of opinion that the authorship should in all probability be assigned ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... at one mouthful as much as a dozen English farmers could eat at a meal, which to me was for some time a very nauseous sight. She would craunch the wing of a lark, bones and all, between her teeth, although it were nine times as large as that of a full-grown turkey; and put a bit of bread in her mouth as big as two twelve-penny loaves. She drank out of a golden cup, above a hogshead at a draught. Her knives were twice as long as a scythe, set straight upon the handle. The spoons, forks, and ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... mention as the most singular of these accidental digit relations which I have yet noticed, that in the first 110 digits of the square root of 2, the number 7 occurs more than twice as often as either 5 or 9, which each occur eight times, 1 and 2 occurring each nine times, and 7 occurring no less ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... about every eleven days; with a substantially corresponding number issued. The height of this inventive activity was attained about 1882, in which year no fewer than 141 patents were applied for, and seventy-five granted to him, or nearly nine times as many as in 1876, when invention as a profession may be said to have been adopted by this prolific genius. It will be understood, of course, that even these figures do not represent the full measure of actual invention, as in every process and at every step there were ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... was still carelessly bearing the burden of conversation, the clock struck nine times; and in another incredibly brief interval, ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... ten years later. Carol had seen nine Christmas trees lighted on her birthdays, one after another; nine times she had assisted in the holiday festivities of the household, though in her babyhood her share of ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... rivalries: that for the heroine, between the penniless artist-hero and a pound-full other; and that in the breast of the p.a.h., between the flesh-pots of commerce and the world-well-lost-for-Chelsea. It is typical of Mr. OHLSON'S care that, though one would in such a situation nine times out of ten be safe in backing Art for the double event, he makes so even a match of it between Hubert and Ralph that he leaves the heroine ringing the door-bell of the one immediately after kissing the other. You observe that I was perhaps really more interested in the contest than my opening ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... It is more than balanced by the right the players have of doubling, till they gain, and by the maturity of the chances: I will explain this to the ladies. You see experience proves that neither red nor black can come up more than nine times running. When, therefore, either color has come up four times, you can put a moderate stake on the other color, and double on it till it must come, by the laws of nature. Say red has turned four times. You put a napoleon on black; red gains. You lose a napoleon. You don't ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... canals, till they invested the royal residence of Hamcheu, or Quinsay, in the country of silk, the most delicious climate of China. The emperor, a defenceless youth, surrendered his person and sceptre; and before he was sent in exile into Tartary, he struck nine times the ground with his forehead, to adore in prayer or thanksgiving the mercy of the great khan. Yet the war (it was now styled a rebellion) was still maintained in the southern provinces from Hamcheu to Canton; and the obstinate remnant of independence and hostility was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking tea there twice! How much I shall have ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... because it has the earmarks of truth,—having been told in an offhand way merely as an explanation of the private's insanity,—but because it is typical of the kind of incident which in the telling is, nine times out of ten, twisted into ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... them from him, these birds change their positions, no matter how quietly he walks. Let him be as cunning as he will, and think to cut off corners and cross the land-rail's retreat, the bird baffles him nine times in ten. That it is advised of the direction the pursuer takes by the vibration of the surface is at least probable. Other birds sit, and hope to escape by remaining still, till they detect the tremor coming direct ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... is fair to see, Nine times folded in mystery: Though baffled seers cannot impart The secret of its laboring heart, Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, And all is clear from east to west. Spirit that lurks each form within Beckons to spirit of its kin; Self-kindled every atom glows, ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... necktie was in as jaunty a bow as ever, and the linen was beautiful and white, and his gray mustache was curled carefully at the ends. And then Stuffy made a noise that sounded like peas bubbling in a pot. Speech was intended; and as the Old Gentleman had heard the sounds nine times before, he rightly construed them into ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... dignitatem and hence intolerable. Out of' that notion arise many lamentable phenomena. On the one hand, we have the spectacle of a great number of healthy and well-fed women engage in public activities that, nine times out of ten, are meaningless, mischievous and a nuisance, and on the other hand we behold such a decay in the domestic arts that, at the first onslaught of the late war, the national government had to import a foreign expert to teach the housewives of the country the ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... none of them knew. They had turned many corners, and their conversation had covered a wide field—always, however, turning upon some military subject—when a church clock tolled out nine times. ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... the smaller. The same is true of large and small rooms. In Fig. 7 it is apparent that the light that falls on the first square is spread, at twice the distance, over the second square, which is four times as large, and at three times the distance over nine times the surface. The varying amount of light received by each planet is also shown in fractions above each world, the amount received by ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... appropriate title for a love-story!—Dante tells of this first sight of the beloved somewhat thus: "Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light returned to the selfsame point almost, as concerns its own revolution, when first the glorious lady of my mind was made manifest to my eyes, even she who was called Beatrice by many who knew not wherefore. She had ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... said my Uncle Peter; "solitude is a thing which a man hardly ever enjoys by himself. He may practise it from a sense of duty. Or he may take refuge in it from other things that are less tolerable. But nine times out of ten he will find that he can't get a really good day to himself unless he shares it with some one else; if he takes it alone, it will be a heavy day, a chain-and-ball ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... up her work presently, studied her spelling, and went over "nine times." She could say the ten and eleven perfectly, but that very day she had missed on "nine times," and Mrs. Webb told her she had better study it ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas |
