"Preferable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he came to the conclusion that the French civil law ought to be retained, although he was met by the earnest advice to the contrary of two able lawyers, Chief-Justice Hay and Attorney-General Maseres, who believed a code adopted from English and French principles was preferable. Maseres, who was of Huguenot descent and much prejudiced against Roman Catholics, was also an advocate of a legislative assembly to be exclusively Protestant—in other words, of giving all power practically into the hands of a small British minority. ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... in length, lying between the fall of Rome and the discovery of the New World by Columbus, A.D. 1492. Modern History commences with the close of the mediaeval period and extends to the present time. [Footnote: It is thought preferable by some scholars to let the beginning of the great Teutonic migration (A.D. 375) mark the end of the period of ancient history. Some also prefer to date the beginning of the modern period from the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, A.D. 1453; while still others speak of it in a general way ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... were about to contend with, or the deadliness of the peril to which they were so light-heartedly exposing themselves. Yet not one of them manifested the slightest disposition to shirk the encounter: possibly they all knew that to perish upon the horns of a buffalo would be preferable to the punishment that surely awaited them should they disgrace themselves and their king by showing fear in the presence of a white man. But if the riders scorned to exhibit fear, the horses were animated by no such scruples, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... on the hands; and as it clearly appears that this disease leaves the constitution in a state of perfect security from the infection of the Small-pox, may we not infer that a mode of Inoculation may be introduced preferable to that at present adopted, especially among those families, which, from previous circumstances we may judge to be predisposed to have the disease unfavourably? It is an excess in the number of pustules which we chiefly dread in the Small-pox; ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... to be shown to man without his being able to enjoy it? Was it ceaselessly offered for his desires, like a fruit to which he could not stretch forth his hand without being in danger of death? No! I cannot consent to regard this gift, so universally preferable to all others, without which the others are nothing, as a simple illusion. My heart tells me that liberty is possible, that its rule is easy and more stable than any arbitrary or oligarchic government. You say that Bonaparte has effected the salvation ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... written in his eleventh year. True, he did not perform in public, probably because the instrument here was not to his mind. It is one of Spath's make, and at Bonn he plays upon one by Steiner. But, what was infinitely preferable to me, I heard him extemporize in private; yes, I was even invited to propose a theme for him to vary. The greatness of this amiable, light-hearted man, as a virtuoso, may, in my opinion, be safely estimated from his almost inexhaustible wealth of ideas, the altogether characteristic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... Argyles, Loudons, and others of the pedant species; no inspired Oliver. So these poor Scotch governors have tried getting Charles II. to adopt the Covenant as best he can—have "compelled him to sign it voluntarily." Scotland will either invade us or be invaded by us—which we decide to be preferable. Cromwell must go, since Fairfax will not resign his command in favour of Cromwell; who does go, with the hundred-and-tenth psalm in the head ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... at ornament; row above row of windows in the mud-coloured surface, upwards, upwards, lifeless eyes, murky openings that tell of bareness, disorder, comfortlessness within. One is tempted to say that Shooter's Gardens are a preferable abode. An inner courtyard, asphalted, swept clean—looking up to the sky as from a prison. Acres of these edifices, the tinge of grime declaring the relative dates of their erection; millions of tons of brute brick and ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... an anxious as Norbert to bring this painful scene to a close, for anything was preferable to this hideous state of suspense. The last despairing glance of the Duchess had pierced his heart like a dagger thrust, and when he saw Norbert thrust aside his trembling wife with such brutality, it was all he could ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... looks like, let him issue to the public merely a "vague impression" of himself—a Cubist one for preference. A Cubist portrait can look like anything . . . but to look like anything is infinitely preferable to looking like nothing ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... firm purpose with risk will be better than an infirm one with temporary exemption from disaster. Every race has made its great blunders, to which it has nevertheless adhered, inasmuch as the corresponding modification of other structures and instincts was found preferable to the revolution which would be caused by a radical change of structure, with consequent havoc among a legion of vested interests. Rudimentary organs are, as has been often said, the survivals of these interests—the signs of their peaceful and gradual extinction as living faiths; they are ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... comparatively vacant board, where the pieces can make full use of their mobility. It is the mobility alone which decides the value of a man, and positions often occur in which a Knight is more valuable than a Rook or in which a Pawn might be preferable to a Bishop and so on. The reason is that sometimes the weaker man occupies a commanding square while the stronger man is obstructed somehow or other so that he cannot be made to work. Examples for positions of this kind will be discussed in ...
— Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership • Edward Lasker
... supplications; the eldest son of Araric was accepted as the most valuable hostage; and Constantine endeavored to convince their chiefs, by a liberal distribution of honors and rewards, how far the friendship of the Romans was preferable to their enmity. In the expressions of his gratitude towards the faithful Chersonites, the emperor was still more magnificent. The pride of the nation was gratified by the splendid and almost royal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... preferred. The particular reason for this is, I have no relatives, no children to provide for, and the fancy has come to me for endowing some educational institution in your land, and for such purpose a mansion such as I suggested would, in all ways be preferable. Well, they forwarded me a list of properties. I sent them back unread lest I should covet them all, for they all would cost so little! I repeated to them the description Madame McVeigh had given me of your ancestral home, my dear sir, and told them to secure me a property ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... problem becomes, have we accomplished completely what we set out to do? And, further, is it necessary, or at least preferable, for us to stay on and continue administration of the ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... compulsory. Paupers sold themselves that they might escape starvation. The timid sold themselves that they might escape violence. These voluntary sales, which were frequent, wore usually made to cloisters and ecclesiastical establishments, for the condition of Church-slaves was preferable to that of other serfs. Persons worsted in judicial duels, shipwrecked sailors, vagrants, strangers, criminals unable to pay the money-bote imposed upon them, were all deprived of freedom; but the prolific source of slavery was war. Prisoners were almost ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Prisons," I., 10. "Go and visit," says a contemporary, (at the Conciergerie), "the dungeons called 'the great Caesar,' 'Bombie,' 'St. Vincent.' 'Bel Air,' etc., and say whether death is not preferable to such an abode." Some persons, indeed, the sooner to end the matter, wrote to the public prosecutor, accusing themselves, demanding a king and priests, and are at once guillotined, as they hoped to be.—Cf. the narrative of "La Translation ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the imaginative exercise of investing the dry bones with muscles and nerves. It struck him that the inner necessity was much the same in history as in a work of art. He even went so far as to contend that the fame of the historian was on the whole preferable to that of the poet, and to express the opinion that his own nature was more akin to that of Montesquieu than to that of Sophocles. He felt that he was getting new ideas and expanding his soul at every step. 'Really,' he wrote to Koerner in 1788, 'I find each day ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... hitherto made, as to the influence of the beautiful, we cannot certainly be much encouraged in developing feelings so dangerous to the real culture of man. At the risk of being hard and coarse, it will seem preferable to dispense with this dissolving force of the beautiful rather than see human nature a prey to its enervating influence, notwithstanding all its refining advantages. However, experience is perhaps not the proper tribunal at which to decide such a question; ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... this way rather than by remaining under such cover as may be improvised in a position the exact range of which is obviously known to the enemy. Against effective machine-gun or rifle fire deployment into line, or into "arrowhead" formation with the flanks thrown well back, is preferable to a single line extended at so many paces interval, as it is scarcely more vulnerable and is infinitely ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... foolish Psyche, is it thus you repay my love? After having disobeyed my mother's commands and made you my wife, will you think me a monster and cut off my head? But go; return to your sisters, whose advice you seem to think preferable to mine. I inflict no other punishment on you than to leave you forever. Love cannot dwell with suspicion." So saying he fled away, leaving poor Psyche prostrate on the ground, filling the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... flavour of the vegetables, but unless all the members of the household are alike, it had best not be added before bringing to table. Where soup is to be strained, whole pepper, mace, &c., is much preferable to ground, both as being free from adulteration, and giving all the flavour without the grit. The water in which cauliflower, green peas, &c., have been boiled, should be added to the stock-pot, but as we are now recognising that all vegetables ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... had, and wish it may never trouble me more. I am sick of the cant of sentiment and duties and suchlike, which is the mask men use to cover what will not bear considering. Let me write of it no more. The open wickedness of the world we live in is preferable to hypocrisy and cringing. I will rather laugh with others than be a laughing-stock. I sicken at this complication of folly and falsity. I go to the Bath shortly, and look for change and pleasure there, though Mr Wortley speaks of passing through on his way to Bristol, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... somebody inspired by him, of the Observations, already cited, upon Sanderson's History, that the deputy was for the debt cast into prison, where he died a beggar. On the contrary, slender as is the authority of the historian, as of his critic, it is easier, as well as preferable, to accept Sir William Sanderson's statement, in answer to the Observations, that his father and his family continued to be prosperous, and, having resumed amicable relations with Ralegh, remained kind and faithful kinsfolk to the last. It is pleasant to be ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... nothing in defence of their privileges. It is the nature of man, in so far as he is politically conscious, to fight for the interests of his class so long as classes exist. When the conflict is not pushed to extremes, methods of conciliation and political deception may be preferable to actual physical warfare; but as soon as the proletariat make a really vital attack upon the capitalists, they will be met by guns and bayonets. This being certain and inevitable, it is as well to be prepared for it, and to conduct ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... and detailed analysis of so many labours would throw us into numerous repetitions. A systematic order will be preferable; it will more distinctly fix the eminent place that Herschel will never cease to occupy in the small group of our contemporary men of genius, whilst his name will reecho to the most distant posterity. The ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... over them during the recent wet weather either in following up the retreating enemy or in withdrawing to back areas. Vehicles were often up to the axle in mud, whilst bicycles gave an immense amount of trouble, and this was not the only occasion on which we found it far preferable to foot-slog, even with heavy packs, than to be Signallers with bicycles, which practically had to be carried. Loaded with pack and other paraphernalia, the heavy army pattern bicycle is not a lovable companion, except on a more or less perfect road. A really first-class exhibition of bicycle ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan—but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes—and evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me—but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... garden-party those bidden to the feast were in the habit of wandering sadly through the shrubbery seeking whom they might avoid, and in the course of such a perambulation, with a young man conversant of himself, Dora met Mrs. Agar. Even the mistress of Stagholme was preferable to the young man from London, and besides—there were associations. So Dora drew Mrs. Agar into her promenade, and presently the ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... made, and compared with those of French and English people, showed him that even physically the native was an inferior animal; his observations of ways of life in the wild Bush taught him that organised society, with all its restraints, was preferable to the supposed freedom of savagery; and he deduced the philosophical conclusion that the "state of nature" was in truth a state of subjection to pitiless forces, only endurable by beings who felt not the bondage because they knew of no more ennobled condition.* (* A more distinguished man ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... British India, on the Hugli river, 24 m. above Calcutta, formerly the principal Dutch settlement in Bengal. The Dutch erected a factory here in 1656, on a healthy spot of ground, much preferable to that on which Calcutta is situated. In 1759 a British force under Colonel Forde was attacked by the garrison of Chinsura on its march to Chandernagore, but in less than half an hour the Dutch were entirely routed. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... chronometer makers. Although it would seem as if these proportions should have established themselves earlier among practical men, we shall in these drawings confine ourselves to the graphic plan, considering it preferable. In the practical detail drawing we advise the employment of the scale given, i.e., delineating an escape wheel 10" in diameter. The drawings which accompany the description are one-fourth of this size, for the sake of ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... do—if he is guilty," Miss Holland replied, without changing her expression. "There is no doubt that it will cause his immediate arrest," she added, "but even that is preferable to this suspense with everybody suspecting him and no opportunity to ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... military man he explains the strategic weakness of their position, and the futility of their operations, uttering many sententious phrases: "Self-conceit is the worst adviser"; "Good four-and eight-pound cannon are as effective for field work as pieces of larger caliber, and are in many respects preferable to them"; "It is an axiom of military science that the army which remains behind its intrenchments is beaten: experience and ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... polysynthetic, as too merely quantitative for our purpose. Isolating, affixing, symbolic—this also seemed insufficient for the reason that it laid too much stress on technical externals. Isolating, agglutinative, fusional, and symbolic is a preferable scheme, but still skirts the external. We shall do best, it seems to me, to hold to "inflective" as a valuable suggestion for a broader and more consistently developed scheme, as a hint for a classification based on the nature of ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... the better. As proofs, forged documents, in general, are better than genuine ones, first of all because they have been expressly made to suit the needs of the case, to order and measure, and therefore they are fitting and exact. They are also preferable because they carry the mind into an ideal world and turn it aside from the reality which, alas! in this world is never without some alloy. . . . Nevertheless, I think I should have preferred, Panther, that we had ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... captain, turning again to Watty, with a look of satisfaction, "we'll soon rescue Captain Samson and his crew. I'm sorry I won't be able to take you all back to England, because we are bound for San Francisco, but a trip to California is preferable to life on a coral island. Now, boy, I've talked enough to you. The steward will bring you some dinner. If you feel disposed, you may get up after that. Here are dry clothes for you. We ripped up your own to save time after hauling ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... attended with ankylosis, the disease should be removed by operation, and cure with a useful and movable joint may then be reasonably anticipated within two or three months. When the patient's occupation is such that a strong stiff joint is preferable to a weaker movable one, bony ankylosis at rather less than a right angle ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... I find it preferable to keep the railway track, alongside of which there are occasionally ridable side-paths; while on the wagon roads little or no riding can be done on account of the hills, and the sticky nature of the red, clayey soil. From the railway track near Newcastle is obtained a magnificent view of the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... time. Meanwhile, we might be worse off, and this tea is going to be excellent. Margaret, my child, do you know that tea under these conditions is infinitely preferable to tea in Melgrave Square, under ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... palateable, comparing them to young pullets. They likewise roasted several little cubs of seals, but there was a degree of softness in the meat which made it disgustful. The flesh of young, but full-grown sea-bears, was greatly preferable, and tasted like coarse and bad beef; but that of the old sea-lions and bears was so rank and offensive, that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... individuals in the majority of civilized countries discovered, a hundred years ago, that it was no longer necessary for them to carry weapons in order to insure their right to live and to enjoy protection, so nations may learn at last that peace and security are preferable to the fruits of brigandage and aggression. The colonies of America, after years of jealousy and small differences, followed by a tremendous war, at last learned this lesson. In the same way the states of Europe will have to learn it. The stumbling blocks in the way ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... to analyze her feelings. She only knew that this cabin, lost in the winter forest, would be a bleak and unhappy place to endure alone. The storm and the snow-swept marshes, with Bill beside her, were infinitely preferable to the haunting fear and loneliness of solitude. The change in her attitude toward him had ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... unequivocally correct. In the past the double power of the word dare is ambiguous; still it is, to my mind at least, allowable. We can certainly say I dared him to accept my challenge; and we can, perhaps, say I dared venture on the expedition. In this last sentence, however, durst is the preferable expression. ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... due effect upon the astonished protestants; but God counter-worked all the designs of the catholics by the extent to which they carried the implacable persecution of their prey. Doubtless, the love of life induced Cranmer to sign the above declaration; yet death may be said to have been preferable to life to him who lay under the stings of a goaded conscience and the contempt of every gospel christian; this principle he strongly felt in ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... seems as if the letters-patent of Louis XV. were inspired by some new doctrine of free-trade. And he did cherish the conviction that in the matter of the slave-trade it was preferable to a monopoly; but his motive sprang from the powerful competition of England and Holland, which the Guinea Company faced profitably only while the War of Succession secured to it the asiento. The convention of merchants which Louis XIV. called in Paris, during the year 1701, blamed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... mixed and lowest castes. 'A man of the lowest caste, who, through covetousness, lives by the acts of the highest, let the king strip of all his wealth and banish. His own business, though badly performed, is preferable to that of another, though well performed.'—Manu, x. 96. In the later Hindu system the sacrifice of animals is practised by the priests ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... thought preferable, the sciences might be grouped, and the following subjects be ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... decision in these cases, it seemed on the whole preferable to take the risk of including too much rather than the opposite, and to leave the task of further winnowing ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... knowledgeable man, and up to all the "saycrets o' the airth, and understanding the the-o-ry and the che-mis-thery," overruled Barny's proposition, and determined upon a cargo of scalpeens (which name they gave to pickled mackerel), as a preferable merchandise, quite forgetting that Dublin Bay herrings were a much better and as cheap a commodity, at the command of the Fingalians. But in many similar mistakes the ingenious Mr. Kelly has been paralleled by other speculators. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... the kitten is not so accommodating as a doll would be, and just as Polly does not dare to move for fear of waking her, she makes up her mind that a run after a leaf and a play with any chance caterpillar which may be so unlucky as to cross her path, will be very preferable, and tries to ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... we conceive that even admitting the Flathead river contrary to information to be as navigable as the Columbia river below it's entrance, that the tract by land over the Rocky Mountains usually traveled by the natives from the Entrance of Traveller's-rest Creek to the forks of the Kooskooske is preferable; the same being a distance of 184 Miles. The inferrence therefore deduced from those premices are that the best and most Practicable rout across the Continent is by way of the Missouri to the entrance of Dearborn's river or near that place; from thence to flathead ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... or rather when the Prince de Conti desired it for him, the President de Mesmes, a man of great capacity, but by fear and ambition most slavishly attached to the Court, made an eloquent and pathetic harangue, preferable to anything I ever met with of the kind in all the monuments of antiquity, and, turning about to the Prince de Conti, "Is it possible, monsieur," said he, "that a Prince of the blood of France should propose to let a person deputed from the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... more commodious than others; and that when the better sort became vacant, by the removal of their possessors, those who succeeded in point of seniority had the privilege of occupying the empty tenements preferable to the rest of the inhabitants, howsoever respectable they might otherwise be. That, when the jail was very much crowded, there was but one chamber allotted for two lodgers; but this was not considered as any great hardship on the prisoners; ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... being over-dried, and the dust thus created is prejudicial to the health of these animals. It tends to produce "heaves." This may in part be obviated by sprinkling the hay before it is fed. When clover is properly cured, it is a more nutritious hay than timothy, and is so far preferable for horses, but since timothy transports in much better form, it is always likely to be more popular in the general market than clover. The possibility of feeding clover to horses for successive years without any evils resulting is made very apparent from feeding alfalfa thus in certain ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... that of a man's arm from the elbow to the closed fist{241}. Now he may know this in other ways; but the word itself, so long as he assumes it to be rightly spelt, tells him nothing. Or again, the old spelling, 'diamant', was preferable to the modern 'diamond'. It was preferable, because it told more of the quarter whence the word had reached us. 'Diamant' and 'adamant' are in fact only two different adoptions on the part of the English tongue, of one and the same Greek, which afterwards became a ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... importance. The river is about 800 yards broad opposite the Residency; but above, it is encroached on by a sandbank. Boats are numerous, and opposite Tsegain there is a busy ferry, especially now the king is at Tsegain. This is a much preferable place, and rendered much more pleasing by its superb Tamarind trees, with their most elegant foliage and sculptured trunks. The plants cultivated about Ava are Palmyra, Cocoa (rare). Tamarinds abound; Carica Papaya, Punica Granatum; ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... a wage-earner,' says Nettie. 'And dear Chester is so grateful about that song. It was her favourite song, too, and it seemed to bring them together, just as it opened my own soul to Wilbur. He says she sings the song very charmingly herself, and he thought it preferable that they be wed in Spokane before his father objected. And oh, aunty, I do see how blind I was to my destiny, and how kind you were to me in my blindness—you who had led the fuller life as I shall ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... temper,—endued with a perseverance which was only increased by the obstacles which presented themselves, I encouraged any feeling to be working in my mind in preference to repose, which was hateful. To such excess did it arrive as I grew up, that difficulty and danger, even pain and remorse, were preferable to that calm sunshine of the breast which others consider so enviable. I could exist but by strong sensations: remove them, and I felt as does the habitual drunkard in the morning, until his nerves have been again stimulated by a repetition of his draughts. My pursuits were of the same ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... are to be found blended, in various proportions, in these several treatises, and rendered the task of decision the more embarrassing. The committee were thus unable to select any one, two, or three, as on the whole preferable to the remainder of these four. They therefore awarded the premium, which the benevolent donor has increased to $400, to be divided equally among these four manuscripts;" one of which is here ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... point it is well to note that it may be preferable in some instances where small files are concerned to use only a portion of the classification formula in the filing sequence. In such cases, only those parts of the filing sequence which are necessary should be used along ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... different class from that in which Mr. and Mrs. Jocelyn had their origin, and prejudices die hard, even among people who are intelligent, and, in most respects, admirable. To Mrs. Jocelyn and her daughters work was infinitely preferable to dependence, but it was nevertheless menial and undignified because of its almost involuntary and hereditary association with a race of bond-servants. He is superficial indeed in his estimate of character ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... in the last century, the cabinet-makers were unable to use it, from the defective temper of their tools, until the demand for furniture from the new wood compelled them to improve the quality of their implements. In America, the cheapness of wood long made it the preferable material for almost all purposes to which it could by any possibility be applied. The mechanical cutlery and artisans' tools of the United States are of admirable temper, finish, and convenience, and no wood is too hard, or otherwise too refractory, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... have been taken to discipline and put them in condition for the particular kind of service to be performed. A delay of operations (besides being dictated by the measures which were pursuing toward a pacific termination of the war) has been in itself deemed preferable to immature efforts. A statement from the proper department with regard to the number of troops raised, and some other points which have been suggested, will afford more precise information as a guide to the legislative consultations, and among other ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... there is an intelligent creation, and the desire to communicate, guide and bless, is responded to by man, who loves, obeys, and enjoys. Nothing is gained by attributing to nature vicegerent forces. Is it not preferable to say that she responds to intelligent, loving Omnipotence? Our finiteness is illustrated by our initiation into organized being. Emerging from a rayless atom, too diminutive for the sight, we gradually develop and advance to the maturity of those conscious powers, the exercise of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Lord Hyndford, I was seated beside a charming young lady of one of the best families in Russia, who had been promised in marriage, though only seventeen, to an old invalid minister. Her eyes soon told me she thought me preferable to her intended bridegroom. I understood them, lamented her hard fate, and was surprised to hear her exclaim, "Oh, heavens! that it were possible you could deliver me from my misfortune: I would engage to do whatever ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... exceptions occurring later on will be noticed in their places.—Now neither Sutra 22 nor Sutra 23 contains any word intimating that a new Vedic passage is being taken into consideration, and hence it appears preferable to look upon them, with Ramanuja, as continuing the topic of the preceding adhikara/n/a.—This conclusion receives an additional confirmation from the position of the next adhikara/n/a, which treats of the being 'a span long' mentioned in Ka/th/a Up. II, 4, 12; for the reason of this latter passage ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... the first publication of this work. Pierre Delannoy had been employed as a ward-assistant in one of the large Paris hospitals from 1877 to 1881, when he came to the conclusion that the life of an in-patient was far preferable to the one he was leading. He, therefore, resolved to pass the rest of his days inside different hospitals in the capacity of invalid. He started by feigning locomotor ataxia, and for six years deceived the highest medical experts in Paris, so curiously ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the journey to the village I was sent back to the Keep; that night our company went into the firing trench again. We were all pleased to get there; any place was preferable to the block of buildings in which we had lost so many of our boys. On the night after our departure, two Engineers who were working at the Keep could not find sleeping place in the dug-outs, and they slept on the spot where I made my bed the first night I was there. In the early ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... as to the cause of his melancholy, and learns that it arises from his hopeless passion for a certain cruel nymph. His offer to undertake his friend's cure is met with the declaration, that of the two death were preferable. Similar in simplicity of construction is another poem, the work of Serafino Aquilano, which deals with the corruption of the Church, and was performed at Rome during the carnival of 1490[374]. An advance in dramatization is made by an eclogue of Galeotto ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... In the drawing-room people talked a good deal, laughing as they talked. Being clever, they did not care for animals: one man had never seen a hedgehog. In the other life people talked and laughed separately, or even did neither. On the whole, in spite of the wet and gamekeepers, this life was preferable. He knew where he was. He glanced at the boy, or later at the man, and behaved accordingly. There was no law—the policeman was negligible. Nothing bound him but his own word, and ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... foggy here when it does not rain, and the cooking is very bad. The manager of the hotel is uncivil and the office clerks very rude, so that Beulah, unfortunate place of residence as I consider it, will be much preferable. ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... beak in this description of shuttle serves an important purpose other than that of seizing the upper thread loops, otherwise a very short beak would be preferable. It adds so much to the efficiency of the machine that a little further explanation of it appears essential. In the old fashioned machines the thread required to envelop the shuttle was dragged downward through the cloth, while the needle still remained ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... Havre proved very delightful to me, I do not recommend it to others, especially those to whom time is of importance. There is always danger of detention, and the length of the sea-voyage, especially from London, may be productive of serious inconvenience. For seeing the country, it is certainly preferable to the diligence, and my experience will teach those who come after me to inquire into the character of the steam-boat before ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... of the caravan for Zinder and Kanou every male inhabitant will leave Tintalous, some starting with it and others going for salt, leaving only the women and children behind. This is considered by the Moors as preferable to leaving a few men behind, because these few would occasion quarrels amongst the women, and, besides, excite the ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... your horse may think so too,' said my aunt; 'but at present he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there, as if he thought his stable preferable.' ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... result of the treatment will be beneficial. Undoubtedly, the fall plowing of dry land is somewhat difficult, but the good results more than pay the farmer for his trouble. Late fall plowing, after the fall rains have softened the land, is preferable to spring plowing. If for any reason the farmer feels that he must practice spring plowing, he should do it as early as possible in the spring. Of course, it is inadvisable to plow the soil when it is so wet as to injure its tilth seriously, but as soon ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... pewter plates, which were now lodged under the beech, together with pots and pans, knives and forks, and horn spoons. There was no table light enough to be moved, but a small one of deal, which Ailwin dragged out from under water, with all its legs broken: but enough of it remained entire to make it preferable to the bare ground for preparing their food on, when once it should be dry. There was a stool a-piece—not forgetting one for Roger; and Mildred took care that Geordie should have his own little chair. Not even Ailwin could carry a chest of drawers: ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... lived among us, that a vegetable diet was preferable to animal food, both for preserving the health and for facilitating the study of philosophy; and now, since you have eat flesh, your own experience must convince you that what you then confessed was true. It was not from those who lived on vegetables that robbers or murderers, sycophants ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... frankness: that seems to me a husband's great charm," said Gwendolen, with her little upward movement of her chin, as she turned her eyes away from his, and lifting a prawn before her, looked at the boiled ingenuousness of its eyes as preferable to the lizard's. "But;" she added, having devoured her mortification, "I suppose you don't object to Miss Lapidoth's singing at our party on the fourth? I thought of engaging her. Lady Brackenshaw had her, you know: and the Raymonds, who are very particular ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... is certainly better than a calm, Tom," observed Mr Marline in response to my jubilant remark; "but, it all depends what sort of a wind it is, for, if it blows your vessel the wrong way, the question arises whether the former state of things be not preferable." ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... hill. They call their reaphooks swaphooks, or swophooks, and are of opinion that although the machine answers well and clears the ground quickly when the corn stands up, if it is beaten down the swaphook is preferable. The swaphook is the same as the fagging-hook of other districts. Every hawthorn bush now bears its red berries, or haws; these are called "hog-hazels." In the west they are called "peggles." "Sweel" is an odd Sussex word, ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... and delicately with the perplexities of | | early married life, as connected with the holy duties of | | Maternity, giving information which women must have, either | | in conversation with physicians, or from such a source as | | this—evidently the preferable mode of learning, for a | | delicate and sensitive woman. Plain and intelligible, but | | without offense to the most fastidious taste, the style of | | this book must commend it to careful perusal. It treats of | | the needs, dangers, and alleviations of the time of travail; | | and gives extended ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... were ascribed to me, I should own none. I scout the idea utterly. Whoever, after I have distinctly rejected the charge, urges it upon me, will do an unkind and an ill-bred thing. The most profound obscurity is infinitely preferable to vulgar notoriety; and that notoriety I neither seek nor will have. If then any B—an, or G—an, should presume to bore you on the subject,—to ask you what 'novel' Miss Bronte has been 'publishing,' you can just say, with the distinct firmness of ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... best thing for humanity. But this was out of the question; in that stage of the world's existence contact was war, and the end of war was conquest or destruction, the first of which was at all events preferable to the second. What empire then can we imagine which would have done less harm or more good than the Roman? Greek intellect showed its superiority in speculative politics as in all other departments of speculation, but as a practical politician ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... cannot be interfered with, by the rush of immigration, and affords the means of inducing them to establish homes and learn the arts of agriculture. I regard the Canadian system of allotting reserves to one or more bands together, in the localities in which they have had the habit of living, as far preferable to the American system of placing whole tribes, in large reserves, which eventually become the object of cupidity to the whites, and the breaking up of which, has so often led to Indian wars and great ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... who adored one was not a bad thing to have, especially when his wife was one's own little sister whom one had always dominated. She was tired of New York and at this season of the year the country was much preferable. She could thus contrive to hoard her small income, and save for the next winter, as well as secure a possible entrance finally into her father's good graces again through the forgiveness of David and Marcia. But she had failed. ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... like a galley-slave, constantly occupied, and often passing the night without sleeping. I am wrapped up in a labyrinth of affairs, and worn out with care. I do not value fortune. The love of labor is my highest ambition. You perceive that your situation is a thousand times preferable ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... these, whom, if you want, it were good to be spoiled of all being, to be nothing, if that could be, or never to have been any thing. Men will seek death, and cannot find it. O what a loss and deprivement is the loss of God, which makes death more desirable than life, and not to be at all, infinitely preferable to any being! Now, it is true, that the bringing in of multitudes within the pale of the visible church, is some degree of access and nearness to God, for then they become citizens as to external right, in ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... a name? I trust so, without, however, caring to waste my time in enquiries that can have no interest for the reader. Facts clearly stated are preferable to the dry minutiae of nomenclature. Let me content myself with giving a brief description of the culprit. She is a Dipteron, or Fly, five millimetres long. (.195 inch.—Translator's Note.) Eyes, ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... as she could see, which was not the proper way to go about hunting snake dens, I assure you. But at the top she permitted Tango to walk into the shade of a boulder that radiated heat like a stove but was still preferable to the blistering sunlight, and there she left him while she walked a little nearer the edge of the rimrock that topped the ridge on ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... can no longer be properly considered a punishment, is shown by the possibility of deliberately seeking the operation simply for the sake of convenience, as a preferable and most effective substitute for the adoption of preventive methods in sexual intercourse. I am only at present acquainted with one case in which this course has been adopted. This subject is a medical man (of Puritan New England ancestry) with whose ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... opinion had taken the trip for no other purpose than to rid herself of her burden and avoid disgrace. At the sight of the little object, Frederick did not know whether to be born or never to awaken to life was preferable. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... a former existence of mankind. The question is asked, 'Whether the state of innocence which is described in the myth, or a state like our own which possesses art and science and distinguishes good from evil, is the preferable condition of man.' To this question of the comparative happiness of civilized and primitive life, which was so often discussed in the last century and in our own, no answer is given. The Statesman, though less perfect in style than the ...
— The Republic • Plato
... make coal-gas for lighting purposes, notwithstanding that acetylene may not be able to compete on equal terms with oil—or coal-gas at the place from which the carbide is brought. Likewise where storage accommodation is limited, as in vehicles or in ships or lighthouses, calcium carbide may be preferable to oil or other illuminants as a source of light. Disregarding for the moment intrinsic advantages which the light obtainable from acetylene has over other lights, there are many cases where, owing to saving in cost of carriage, acetylene is the most economical illuminant; and many other ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... heavy that he would have preferred for the time being a complete solitude to the best of company. But any company would have been preferable to the doctor's, at whom he had always looked askance as a sort of beachcomber of superior intelligence partly reclaimed from his abased state. That feeling led ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... corn-shuck, tying the shucks tightly. It would then be placed among the hot embers, and in a short time would come out beautifully browned. This method was something like the Old Virginia way of making "ash cake," but was far preferable, and the bread so made was much sweeter. The trouble of making up bread (without a tray) was very readily gotten over. Every man carried an oil-cloth (as they were issued to all of the Federal cavalry), and wheaten bread was made up on one of these. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... I have great respect for some other forms of worship, I believe the Congregational mode, on the whole, to be preferable ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... head at the slightest cat's-paw that ruffled the surface of the glassy waters! Three successive gales of wind are bad enough; but three gales blowing hard enough to blow the devil's horns off are infinitely preferable to one idle, stagnant, motionless, confounded calm, oppressing you with the blue-devils and maddening you with the fidgets at one ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... was wicked, cruel, and immoral, need we be surprised that occasional crimes of a dark and cruel character should be perpetrated? The truth is, that it is difficult to determine, whether unlettered ignorance itself were not preferable to the kind of education which ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... Bubulcus a third time, and Quintus Aemilius Barbula a second. In the commencement of their office, they complained before the people, that, by the improper choice of members of the senate, that body had been disgraced, several having been passed over who were preferable to the persons chosen in; and they declared, that they would pay no regard to such election, which had been made without distinction of right or wrong, merely to gratify interest or humour: they then immediately called over the list of the senate, in the same order which had existed before ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... of the churches and a meeting of the general court were held to devise defense. To obviate a repeal of their laws, these were in a measure remodeled so as to bring them nearer to what it was supposed the king would require. Almost anything would be preferable to giving up the right to legislate for themselves. It was first affirmed that English laws did not operate in America, and that the Navigation Acts were despotic because there was no colonial representation in the English parliament. And then, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... preferable to his levity; and, as I had warned him of the possible effect of the poem he solicited, I could not be accused of want of consideration in reciting it. Besides, he deserved the lesson, the stern lesson ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself, and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... prejudice of good order and military discipline, he had followed a homesick boy who had deserted, found him and hammered him until nostalgia would have been a welcome relief. All deserters are shot, and the youth having at first decided that death was preferable to a repetition of the thrashing he had received, changed his ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... descended among them, like Moses from the mountain, with transfigured faces and the message of a new revelation. And if the result was sometimes calamitous or pitiable, there were compensating gains; a matter-of-fact prosperity is not altogether preferable to enlistment in the forlorn hope of idealism. Had medieval society been more consistently secular and sceptical, it might have been more prosperous, more stable, the nursery of more balanced natures and the theatre of more orderly careers. But there would have been the less to learn from the ethical ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... readable, stamping with the translator's high authority many a disputed passage. Both set temptingly before English readers the Rome of Horace's day, and promote them to an intimacy with his own mind, character, history. Preferable to both, no doubt, are the "Imitations" of Pope, which do not aim at literal transference, but work, as does his yet more famous Homer, by melting down the original, and pouring the fused mass into an English mould. Their background is Twit'nam and the Mall instead ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... false hypothesis, his arguments in favour of a state of nature are plausible, but unsound. I say unsound; for to assert that a state of nature is preferable to civilization in all its possible perfection, is, in other words, to arraign supreme wisdom; and the paradoxical exclamation, that God has made all things right, and that evil has been introduced by ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... I was afraid. I saw with some concern that Alcides—whose mind, I believe, was not quite right owing to the hardships we had endured of late—was steering us right for the centre of the waterfall. I told him that it would be preferable to land on the edge of the waterfall rather than go over it, as it was a little too high for the canoe to tumble over. I calculated the height of the fall from 40 to 50 ft., and I was not far wrong, for when I took accurate measurements I found the ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... M. Zola likens the Corso to the Rue St. Honore in Paris, but I have thought that an English comparison would be preferable in ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Ridge I understand to be about the following distances from Harper's Ferry, to wit: Vestal's, 5 miles; Gregory's, 13; Snicker's, 18; Ashby's, 28; Manassas, 38; Chester, 45; and Thornton's, 53. I should think it preferable to take the route nearest the enemy, disabling him to make an important move without your knowledge, and compelling him to keep his forces together for dread of you. The gaps would enable you to attack if you should wish. For a great part of the way you would be practically between the enemy ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... it was a delightful drive to Jonah. The two fleet horses drew the light buckboard over the smooth road with a motion that Sarah found far preferable to the cat-like leaps of Comanche; and Blue Bonnet was so proud of being trusted to drive a team that she was ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... In the one, Thetis defends herself against Lyaeus, and the poet assists in vision at their contest. The scene is appropriately laid in the third sphere, the pleasant heaven of Venus. The other, which on the whole appears to me preferable, and which I have therefore chosen for translation, begins and ends with the sound axiom that water and wine ought never to be mixed. It is manifest that the poet reserves the honour of the day for wine, ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... might have been a little more incisive; but on the whole he was satisfied. He was not satisfied in the sense that he thought he had accomplished a great work, but he was so far satisfied that he now felt that he had room to breathe. Wind in one's sails, even if it is a storm, is preferable to a dead calm. What emotions he must have stirred in many a careless soul! How many of his hearers might not now be struggling with the mighty thoughts which he had thrown amongst them? In the mean time he looked out upon the street, and he felt almost inclined to wonder that ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... credence in it. Nevertheless, to keep Napoleon's attention fixed on Italy, he caused him to be informally assured that if the worst came to the worst, Sardinia would go to war with Austria by herself; the situation was already so strained that almost anything would be preferable to its prolongation. Cavour had just induced the Chamber to sanction a new loan for forty million francs, which suggested that, if others were apt to use empty threats, he was not. In June Dr. Conneau, who was travelling "for ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... Carleton with a sigh, "I am sorry I let Jack go, for if he had insisted on staying home your boy would have done the same, though if I was in Otto's place I would consider the woods, with all their dangers and sufferings, preferable to living with a parent who ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... attempt at polychrome decoration of the ordinary kind in the chapel as has been done at Gloucester in the chapel of St. Andrew. Mr. Blunt has thrown out the suggestion as a possible ideal, but the simplicity of the present chapel is far preferable. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... discussion in previous volumes. It is highly probable that many readers will consider that the name scarcely suffices to cover manifestations so numerous and so varied. The term "sexual equivalents" will seem preferable to some. While, however, it may be fully admitted that these perversions are "sexual equivalents"—or at all events equivalents of the normal sexual impulse—that term is merely a descriptive label which tells us nothing of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a few days, and my recollection of it is of a great deal of snow and frequent shopping expeditions in cold little sleighs. I liked the place, and it was infinitely preferable to Petrograd. Mr. Cazalet took us to the theatre one night, and there was rather a good ballet. These poor dancers! They, like others, have lost their nearest and dearest in the war, but they still have ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... in good esteem by the people everywhere. He should be a man of middle age—" Mayence's eyes began to close again, and his lips to tighten—"and if he had some experience in government, that would be all to the good. One already married is preferable to a bachelor, for then no delicate considerations regarding a woman can arise, as, I need not remind your Lordship, have arisen in my own case. A man of common sense should be selected, who would not make rash experiments with the ideals of the German people, ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... a bound. It was only midday, anything might happen between then and nightfall. Of one thing only she was sure, she did not repent of what she had done. Behind her was Ahmed Ben Hassan and before her was possibly death, and death was preferable. She was quite calm again and lay down in the patch of shade once more with a resolute determination to mind. Time to think of them when they came. For the next hour or two she must rest and escape the intense heat. She rolled over on her face with her head in her arms and tried to sleep, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... said the nobleman, dryly, as he paused on the stairs, "our pavements are so well-kept in Paris that a drive there in a tumbril to the scaffold is preferable to a coach in ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... draught animals, and we were compelled to encamp on the edge of a scrub which bounded it, and at a distance of about four miles from the Darling. This was a long way to send our cattle, but the observance of our usual custom seemed preferable upon the whole, even in this extreme case, to passing the night without water. The sun was just setting when oxen and horses were driven towards the west in quest of the Darling, our only and never-failing resource at that time. Magnetic variation ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... to go to Paris and announce from thence his marriage in the papers. He had a sufficiency to live upon, to command luxury as well as comforts, and on the whole he was now satisfied, that a handsome and strongly-attached wife, who brought him no fortune, was preferable to a marriage of mere interest. I may as well here observe, that Adele played her cards so well, that the Colonel was a happy and contented man. She kept her promise, and he found with her management that he had more money than a married man required, and he blessed the day ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... different beauties extremely well. They would hardly come in their chaise, I think, at that season of the year. Indeed, when the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their bringing the barouche-landau; it will be so very much preferable. When people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know, Miss Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much as possible; and Mr. Suckling is extremely fond of exploring. We explored to King's-Weston twice last summer, in that way, most delightfully, just after their ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... has at last determined to rise, to descend the steps of inactivity and sally forth into life? And all will be well, if only she have not tarried so long that her limbs refuse their office. Is it not preferable sometimes to act in opposition to our thoughts than never dare to act in accord with them? Rarely indeed is the active error irremediable; men and things are quickly on the spot, eager to set it right; but they are helpless before the passive error that has shunned contact with the real. ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... nearest he ever came to a laugh: "To have it go ON, sir, is infinitely preferable than to have it go OFF, sir. He-he! And you have, I believe you said, two of these highly valuable ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the pure affection, such as she saw Henry lavish on the shallow Queen, but which she could meet and requite in John. The brutal Boemond, the childish Malcolm, had aroused no feeling in her but dislike or pity, and to them a convent was infinitely preferable; but Bedford—the religious, manly, brave, unselfish Bedford—opened to her the view of all that could content a high-souled woman's heart, backed, moreover, by the wonder of having been the first to touch such ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... emperor. They were less concerned about whose slaves they should be next than about whose yoke they had shaken off, and were impressed with the idea that any chance comer who might present himself would be preferable to their former master. [All the unusual expenditures were rehearsed that had been made, not only by the Roman Treasury but privately for any persons and on the part of any foreign nations as a result of the former sovereign's direction: and thus the overthrow of those charged with ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... before and after him, came to the conclusion that it was highly unreasonable that his neighbour should be mounting the social ladder when he remained at the bottom. He therefore applied himself to the matter, discovered the refugees in the barn, and strongly recommended his barn as far preferable to White's. The fugitives were persuaded to change their hiding-place. This was no sooner done, than another neighbour, named Hollyhead, set his wits also to work, and dulcetly represented that Smart's barn was a much less safe and attractive locality than his house: each of these worthy individuals ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... finish his words, but it seemed as if he were going to say: "And a stranger may, after all, be preferable to a neighbor." But I cannot be sure of this, for he was not a man easy to sound. But what I do know is that he stepped forward, to me with an easy grace, and giving me a welcome as courteous as if I had been the one of all others he desired ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... the maximum, whether of land or money, which any one individual may take by bequest or inheritance, but in other respects leaving the testator quite free, has none of the inconveniences of the French law, and is in every way preferable. But evidently these are not questions of practical politics. Just imagine Lord Hartington[487] going down to Glasgow, and meeting his Scotch Liberals there, and saying to them: "You are ill at ease, and you are calling for change, and very justly. But the cause of your being ill at ease is not what ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... the nobles regard the peasants as dirt under their feet. Here it is more like what I believe it was in England, when you had your troubles, and the tenants followed their lords to battle. At any rate, life here would be very preferable to being in business with my father, in Nantes. I should never have settled down to that; and as my elder brother seems specially made for that sort of life, fortunately I was able to go my own way, to take to the sea in the lugger, and become the carrier of the firm, while ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... purposes it is preferable to retain the circular measure, i radians, as being undistinguishable from sin i and tan i when i is small as in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... retained this during Balzac's life and long afterwards. In the Edition Definitive, as observed above, he had marked it as La Rabouilleuse, after having also thought of Le Bonhomme Rouget. For English use, the better known, though not last or best title, is clearly preferable, as it can be translated, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and judgment of the experienced? When, therefore, those feelings and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher faculties to be preferable in kind, apart from the question of intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from the higher faculties, is susceptible, they are entitled on this subject to ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... and supreme principle of conduct. Observe that it imposes on us two considerations. One is the greatest happiness. Now happiness is defined as consisting positively in the presence of pleasure, negatively in the absence of pain. A greater pleasure is then preferable to a lesser, a pleasure unaccompanied by pain to one involving pain. Conceiving pain as a minus quantity of pleasure, we may say that the principle requires us always to take quantity and pleasure into account, and nothing else. But, secondly, the number of individuals affected ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... Grassini, who looked as beautiful as ever, and sung in the most fascinating style several airs, particularly "Quelle pupille tenere" in the opera of the Orazj e Curiazi. To my taste her style of singing is far preferable to that of Catalani; there is much more pathos and feeling in the singing of Grassini; it is completely and truly the "cantar che nell'anima si sente." Catalani is very powerful, wonderful, if you will, in execution; but she does not touch my ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... could not even say "father" without being reproved by Mrs. General. "Papa is preferable, my dear," the lady would insist, "and, besides, it gives a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prisms are all good words for the lips. You will find it serviceable in the formation of a demeanor, if you say to yourself in company—on entering a room, for instance—'Papa, ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... the Jewish people, the people of morality, does not depend upon its political emancipation, but upon its faith and its morality. The French and German Rabbis of the Middle Ages, simple-minded and uncultured, but pious and sincere, are preferable to the speculative minds of Spain, whose arguing and rhetoric ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... this system of construction has been employed before, the building under consideration is the largest example of this kind of work yet done in the neighborhood of New York City. It was adopted instead of corrugated iron, as it is much more substantial, and it was considered preferable to brick, as the later would have required much ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... who are not wealthy enough to disregard expense. But, here, as elsewhere, the privacy of one's own home is better than the publicity of a boarding-house, and a fuss with Bridget in one's own kitchen preferable to a row with a landlady, who may turn you out of doors at the very moment you are congratulating yourself that you are settled for the season. To persons with families, boarding-house life ought ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... approach to this food in your world would be parched flour mixed with water. It would of course be preferable if the plant itself could ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... "Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (St. Luke xii. 19), was not acceptable to the man who was tired of life, and he at once addressed to his soul a series of remarks, couched in rhythmical language, in which he made it clear that, so far as he was concerned, death would be preferable to life. He begins by saying that his name is more detested than the smell of birds on a summer's day when the heavens are hot, and the smell of a handler of fish newly caught when the heavens are hot, and the smell of ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... extent of her desires. To be at rest, and independent, with her child within her arms, had been all that the woman asked of the gods. For herself it sufficed. For herself she was able to acknowledge that the rest which she had at least obtained was infinitely preferable to the unrest of her past life. But she soon learned,—as she had not expected to learn before she made the experiment,—that that which was to her peace, was to her daughter life within a tomb. "Mother, is it always to be ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope |
