"Second nature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not eagerly, moving towards the window, and slipping into the obscurity of the shrubberies she threw back her scarf and drew long breaths. She was becoming terribly overwrought. It had been, since so long, a second nature to live two lives that any danger of their merging affected her with a dreadful feeling of disintegration. There was the life of comradeship, the secure little compartment where Gerald was at home, so at home that he could tell her she was perfect and touch her scarf with an approving hand, ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... thing made her happy, yet in her deepest happiness there was much gravity. His theories were that certain qualities brought to pass certain results. He forgot that there were no such things as pure temperaments, and that environments made second nature different from what the first might have been. The child puzzled him by her contrariety, yet she was not a ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... dear lad for risking his life to save my child's?' Then it came to me, 'I can teach him telegraphy.' When I offered to do this, he smiled and said, 'I'd like to learn,' and learn he did. I never saw any one pick it up so fast. It was a sort of second nature with him. After the conductor treated him so badly, throwing off his apparatus, boxing his ears and making him hard of hearing, Al seemed to lose his interest in ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... "second nature" to the individual, even if he stands alone in its indulgence. But when it is an almost universal habit, coming down from generation to generation, throwing its creepers and clingers around the social customs and industrial economies of a great nation, it is almost like re-creating a world ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... the sparks flew in myriads. Ashes and burning fragments carried by the wind fell thickly through the forest. The vivid flare penetrated the forest itself and the five men saw their foes crouching in the bushes. They advanced, using all the skill of those to whom the wilderness is second nature and a battle from tree to tree ensued. The five were more than a match for the eight who were now against them. The man who had passed as Fowler was quickly wounded in the shoulder, the harelipped leader himself had ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... is all ready for the planting, and the sweet, moist odour rises when you open the seed papers with fingers almost trembling with eagerness, it seems second nature to be lavish. If a few seeds will produce a few plants, why not the more the merrier? If they come up too thick, they can be thinned out, you argue, and thick sowing is being on the safe side. But is it? ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... possessor for positions of trust and responsibility; it is a pledge that the amount of labour will be forthcoming to render equal to the position. "Practice makes perfect" says the proverb. "Habit becomes second nature" and the facility and aptitude which nature sometimes bestows as a free gift can be acquired at the cost ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous
... remembered; and Jack himself had been drafted out of his cradle into a coble; and there he had continued day and night, from one year's end to another, helping his father to fish—so, you see, it had become second nature to him; and, after he came on board, his liking for his former calling still remained with him, and he never was so happy as when his line was overboard, or when he was snooding a hook in some corner or another. He went by the name of Jack the Fisherman; and a smart, active, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... of England and the continent, all of which gave her so extensive an education superficially that it seemed immense. She received her society with the grace and dignity which are never learned, but which come to certain naturally fine spirits like a second nature; assimilating choice things wherever they are met. If her reputation for virtue was unexplained, it gave at any rate much authority to her actions, her conversation, ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... named the third daughter Miao Shan. She became noted for her modesty and many other good qualities, and scrupulously observed all the tenets of the Buddhist doctrines. Virtuous living seemed, indeed, to be to her a second nature. ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... even listening to her hopes and fears for her project of pleasure, they were excluded by the concentrated attention that Miss Fennimore's system enforced. Time and capacity were so much on the stretch, that the habit of doing what she was doing, and nothing else, had become second nature to the docile and duteous girl; and she had become little sensible to interruptions; so she went on with her German, her Greek, and her algebra, scarcely hearing the repetitions of the lessons, or the counting as Miss ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... like the ordinary accents of a man than are those which he utters in the paroxysms of epilepsy. "Are you—sorry?" the unknown muttered—involuntarily, I think; hoping against hope; not daring to depart from a formula which had become second nature. But I could fancy him clawing, as he ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... no cleverness in it," said my uncle quietly. "When a man spends all his days with a gun in his hand it becomes like second nature to him to hit that at which he aims. Yes, I like the gun. Now, Nat, what do you say—which was ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... of his own matters, as he is well able to do, allow me to observe, that it is curious how habit becomes a second nature, and how the breaking in upon the ways we have been long and long accustomed to, through the days of the years that are past, is as the cutting asunder of the joints and marrow. This I found bitterly, even though I had the prospect ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... likes to round her periods, as the book-people say.) The child is a sad tomboy already, and if you are going to teach her to ride, I won't answer for the consequences in after-life, when the habits of our youth have become the second nature ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... provoke a catastrophe which appears inevitable if I invite it by exposing myself to its too well ascertained cause? The habit of these deadly seizures has become a second nature. The strongest and the ablest men have found it impossible to resist the impression produced by the most insignificant object, by the most harmless sight or sound to which they had a congenital or acquired antipathy. What prospect ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... bewilderment crept into the abstracted gaze she was bending upon the fireless grate. Something extraordinary, unaccountable, was in the manner of her brother. She recalled that, in truth, he was more than half a stranger to her. How could she tell what wild, uncanny second nature had not grown up in him under those outlandish tropical skies? He had just told her that his ruin was absolute—overwhelming—yet there had been a covert smile in the recesses of his glance. Even now, she half ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... may be observed how greatly the character may be strengthened and supported by the cultivation of good habits. Man, it has been said, is a bundle of habits; and habit is second nature. Metastasio entertained so strong an opinion as to the power of repetition in act and thought, that he said, "All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself." Butler, in his "Analogy," impresses the ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... our traveller says: "Nothing struck me so much as the great dignity of carriage at which the Icelandic ladies aim, and which is so apt to degenerate into stiffness when it is not perfectly natural, or has not become a second nature by habit. They incline their head very coolly when you meet them, with less civility than we should use towards an inferior or a stranger. The lady of the house never accompanies her guests beyond the door ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... correct the fault, and indispensable to the physician who wishes to eradicate the results of a bad method. The very first principle of a vocal method should be, to establish so correct a use of the vocal organs that nature in this respect becomes second nature. For correct action of the voice-organs can develop into a habit so perfectly acquired that the singer acts upon it automatically; and the most disastrous result of poor teaching is that a bad habit also becomes second nature and is ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... humanity or of decent behavior, especially towards the weak or those persons who may be at one's mercy, or animals, is entirely in the mores of the group and time. To the Gauchos of Uruguay "inhumanity and love of bloodshed become second nature." Their customs of treating beasts habituate them to bloodshed. "They are callous to the sight of blood and suffering and come to positively enjoy it." They have no affection for their horses and dogs. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... or means to make defense, but with training now become second nature they circled and threw the dusty caravan into the wonted barricade, tongue to tail gate. The oxen could not all be driven within, the loose stock was scattered, the horses were not on picket lines at that time ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... itself, independent of and apart from its object, was distasteful and foreign to her. Never in her life had Lloyd hated any one before. To be kind, to be gentle, to be womanly was her second nature, and kindness, gentleness, and womanliness were qualities that her profession only intensified and deepened. This newcomer in her heart, this fierce, evil visitor, that goaded her and pricked and harried her from day to day and throughout so many waking nights, that roused the ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... struggles with self, from an attempt to follow those impulses of his own nature which he feels to be highest and noblest, from a vivid natural perception (natural, though cherished and strengthened by prayer, natural, though unfolded and diversified by practice, natural, though of that new and second nature which God the Holy Ghost gives), from an innate, though supernatural perception of the great vision of Truth which is external to him (a perception of it, not indeed in its fulness, but in glimpses, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... is true, are very hurried productions, finished in haste for the market with no great amount either of inspiration or artistic confidence about them. But little slovenly work will be found bearing his name, for he was a thoroughly trained writer; a suave and seductive workmanship had become a second nature to him, and there was always a flavour of scholarly, subacid and quasi-ironical modernity about his style. There is little doubt that his quality as a stylist was better adapted to the studies of modern London life, on its seamier ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... of images or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin. But the poet names the thing because he sees it, or comes one step nearer to it than any other. This expression or naming is not art, but a second nature, grown out of the first, as a leaf out of a tree. What we call nature is a certain self-regulated motion or change; and nature does all things by her own hands, and does not leave another to baptize her but baptizes herself; and this through the metamorphosis again. ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... toward his own comrades, then he whirled again to the right, and sprang about as if he were seeking another target. To all appearances, he was, in the darkness and driving rain, a true Shawnee, and the manner and gesture of an Indian were second nature ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... been intensified to an abnormal extent by thirty years of life with a husband whose temper and peculiarities were such as to make silence and reticence the sole conditions of peace and comfort. To so great a degree had this second nature of the good frau been developed, that she herself did not now know that it was a second nature; therefore it stood her in hand as well as if she had been originally born to it, and it would have been hard to find in Lancaster County a more placid and contented wife than she. She ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Crull was taken in training by her. That gentleman, having made the discovery, early in life, that the less a man says, the more he is supposed to know, had acquired a habit of taciturnity which had become a second nature to him. His conversation consisted mainly of grunts and nods; and it was astonishing how much he could express by them. At any rate, they had "made his fortin', and he couldn't ha' done more'n that if he'd talked like a house a-fire"—which explanation, often ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Here they were with this profound highly developed system of education so bred into them that even if they were not teachers by profession they all had a general proficiency in it—it was second nature to them. ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... rhythms, the writers of free verse think to gain spontaneity and something of the amplitude of prose; yet it is doubtful whether they gain as much as they lose. For, in the hands of the skillful poet, the form, having become second nature, ceases to be a bond; and the expression, by taking on regularity of rhythm, acquires a concentration and mnemonic value which free verse cannot achieve. In comparison with free verbal expressions, verse forms are, indeed, artifices; yet they are not artificial, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... requisites of a pure mind. Perhaps, had the libertine presumption to imagine, that there was no difference in heart, nor any but what proceeded from difference of education and custom, between the pure and impure—and yet custom alone, as she observed, if I did so think, would make a second nature, as well in good as ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... with, or interest in, that vast mass of suffering humanity, both bond and free with which the Roman dominion was populated; to disregard misery, except when they found it among the privileged classes, had become second nature to them. We can better realise this if we reflect that even at the present day, in spite of the absence of slavery and the presence of philanthropical societies, the average man of wealth gives hardly more than a passing thought to the discomfort and distress of the crowded population of our ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... was receiving the serious news which deprived me of a valuable leader and several picked men, a shell pitched a few yards from the spot I occupied. The light went out, and I was half covered with dust and rubbish. To move was second nature. Followed by Taylor I 'moved' 100 yards down the road to the rest of my company. My kit and maps were later rescued from the dirt and brought to my new position. Company Headquarters should be mobile, and on occasions ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... the stone flooring of the court yard. Maurice examined his riding furniture; pulled at the saddle, tugged at the rein buckles, lifted the leather flaps and tried the stirrup straps. It was not that he doubted the ability of the groom; it was because this particular care was second nature to him. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... time they rode without speech. Eddie in the lead, Bud following, alert to every little movement in the sage, every little sound of the night. That was what we rather naively call "second nature", habit born of Bud's growing years amongst dangers which every pioneer family knows. Alert he was, yet deeply dreaming; a tenuous dream too sweet to come true, he told himself; a dream which he never dared to dream until the cool stars, and the little ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... of culvert and trestle spoke of sturdy strength, where the trackwalker searched in vain for loose plates or jutting joints; but to Garrity, it was only the fulfilment or the work of a mechanical second nature. December was gliding by in warmth and sunshine. January came, with no more than a hatful of snow, and once more Martin found himself facing ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... was the turn at night under similar conditions. That was the dog's day in winter-time; perhaps also the man's. In spring and summer both lived under the sky, and regarded a house only as a place to sleep in. Habit is second nature. Interests were many, and in some directions ran parallel—sporting instincts, especially, being quite ineradicable. Life for both was thus exceeding happy; and life grew always happier with friendship: that is as it ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... the puzzle from all angles. He might have stayed and had his curiosity satisfied, but it was second nature with Starr to hide any curiosity he might feel; his riding matter-of-factly away, as though the girl were a logical part of the place, was not all bashfulness. Partly it was habit. He wondered who Vic was—man, woman or child? Man, he guessed, since she ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... meer Strength of natural Abilities make a considerable Artist of any kind. Good Rules, and these reduc'd to Practice, are necessary to this End. And Use and Exercise in this, as well as in all other Cases, are a second Nature. And, oftentimes, the second Nature makes a prodigious Improvement of the Force and Vigour ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... war with one another. But after man had won his supremacy and the population of groups came to increase so as to encroach seriously upon food supply, and even on territorial limits of space, then a conflict between human groups, which we call war, broke out and became almost second nature to man. It needs to be emphasized, however, that the most primitive groups are not warlike, but only those that have achieved their supremacy over nature and attained considerable size. In other words, the struggle between groups which we call war was occasioned very ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... incapable, finally, of taking the poet seriously. He makes a significant confession in this regard in a letter to Moser (1823): "Aber es geht mir oft so, ich kann meine eigenen Schmerzen nicht erzaehlen, ohne dass die Sache komisch wird."[206] How thoroughly this mental attitude had become second nature with Heine, may be inferred from a statement which he makes to Friederike Roberts (1825): "Das Ungeheuerste, das Ensetzlichste, das Schaudervollste, wenn es nicht unpoetisch werden soll, kann man auch nur in dem buntscheckigen ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... turn, lifted his cap from his clustering brown curls with that serene and stately court manner which was to him second nature. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the two women had carried on this comforting deceit, and the daily lie they lived, so lovingly, had become a sort of second nature. They had learned to speak, casually, of the difficulty in procuring servants, and to say how much easier it was to do their own small tasks than to watch continually over fine linen and rare china intrusted to incompetent hands. They talked of tapestries, laces, and jewels which had ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... taken the second-floor front of Number Seven, three months before, Ashe Marson had realized that he must forego those morning exercises which had become a second nature to him, or else defy London's unwritten law and brave London's mockery. He had not hesitated long. Physical fitness was his gospel. On the subject of exercise he was confessedly a crank. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... to-morrow if he likes. He hasn't broken any bones this time, and I dare say he won't the next." The young fellow came lounging across the room with his hands in his pockets as he spoke. "I suppose he has gone on preaching till it's his second nature. Talk of the girl in the fairy-tale dropping toads and things from her lips! Why, she was a trifle to old Clifton. I do think he can't open his mouth without letting a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... don't think anything of that," she said; "I had a splendid time, and I caught four rare butterflies. I would not have missed those for anything. As for the going about by myself, that is a second nature. Besides, I do not belong to any one. That has its advantages, and I suppose its disadvantages; but at present I have only discovered the advantages. The disadvantages ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... of walking, of sitting down, of saluting, of picking up a glove, of holding a fork, of tendering any article, in short, a complete set of gestures and facial expressions, which children had to be taught at a very early age in order that habit might become a second nature, and this conventionality formed so important an item in the life of men and women in aristocratic circles that the actors of the present day, with all their study, are scarcely able to give us an ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... literally food to his understanding and a guide to his conduct. He saw the visible finger of God in every incident of life...That which in our day devout men and women feel in their earnest moments of prayer, the devout Puritan felt, as a second nature, in his rising up and in his lying down; in the market-place and in the home; in society and in business; in Parliament, in Council, and on the field of battle. And feeling this, the Puritan had no shame in uttering the very words of the Bible wherein he had learned so ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... more than a passing comment. The scene it represents is enacted every Sunday in the Hospital at Chelsea. Twenty thousand men have ended their days peacefully in the semi-military life which in their long service has become second nature to them, and 500,000 have passed through the ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... do not regret for an instant a time which then seemed so hard to me, and I can truly say that work and the working life have become to me a second nature. For this I ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... the first freedom of her life. The very fact that deception was no longer necessary seemed to sweep her accustomed moorings from beneath her feet. She had lied so long that lying had become at last a second nature to her, and to her surprise she found almost an indecency in the aspect of ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... shook her head. "I think," she said, "that the subdued, pious bearing of the members has become like a second nature to them, and is now, therefore, not hypocritical. Besides, think how excellent is the domestic economy of the settlement; how active and prosperous they are in trade and various industries. They have many practical, temporal, ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... a prescription upon the nearest drug store would be easier to fill. In the first place I should worry all the time if I were idle, for 'hustling' has become my second nature. In the ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... burden!" They must "stoop to conquer." Every miserable detail becomes of moment, until by-and-by the art of intrigue and conspiracy begins to lose proportion in their minds. The detail has ever been so important, conspiracy so much second nature, that they must needs be intriguing and conspiring when the occasion is trifling ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the self-will which is recognisable in all the Tudors. A peculiarity found elsewhere also in gifted women, that they are weary of all which surrounds them at home, and give to what is foreign a sympathy above its worth, had become to her a second nature. She rejected with aversion the idea of marrying Courtenay, for this reason among others that he was an Englishman. She, the Queen of England, had no sympathy for the life, the interests, the struggles of her people: she hated them from her childhood. All her sympathies were ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... I have," said Murdock with sudden emphasis. "I don't know whether you can help me, but it's second nature for me to try you. I'm getting anxious about Barry ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... greatest good of the community, and, if detected, is severely punished. As civilization advances, the code of laws found necessary becomes more and more complex, and, although use has made obedience to such laws almost second nature, it is hardly possible to-day to escape the immediate restraint of such laws for more than a moment at a time throughout any ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... confederate Crassus an opportunity of attaining in Syria through the Parthian war the same position to which Caesar had attained by the Celtic war in Gaul. It was difficult to say whether these new prospects proved more attractive to the ardent thirst for gold which had now become at the age of sixty a second nature and grew only the more intense with every newly-won million, or to the ambition which had been long repressed with difficulty in the old man's breast and now glowed in it with restless fire. He arrived in Syria as early as the beginning ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... petty passions, its grossness, its chimerical notions, that it has become strong and healthy and vigorous. It is the ordeal of it, for to show itself natural, to be always true, without shrinking, it must have all the lovable qualities, and have them without seeking, as a second nature. What we call 'natural,' is indeed really acquired; it is the gift of a physical and moral evolution which it is precisely the object of modesty to keep. Modesty is the feeling of the true, that is to say, of the healthy, in love; it long exists as a vision, not yet ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... second daughter whose name is Hypocrisy; here she keeps her school, and there is no man or woman throughout the whole city who has not been a pupil of hers, and most of them have imbibed their learning remarkably well; so that her lessons are discernible as a second nature intertwined with all their thoughts, words, and deeds from very childhood almost." I had been looking awhile on the falsity of every part of the edifice when a funeral came by with many weeping and sighing, and many men and horses in mourning trappings; ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... hunting. He turned short around and, getting his bearings from his memory of certain stars and from the sun that was peering at him from the top of a bare peak, and from that sense of direction which becomes second nature to a man who had lived long on the range, started for camp with his ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... we have been trained all our lives long, like the whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to stop not a single moment to think when there's an honest thing to ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... transplanted to French soil. The theological school in which Calvin and Beza taught, moulded the destinies of France. The youths who came from the shores of Lake Leman were no neophytes, nor had they to unlearn the casuistry of the schools or to throw off a monastic indolence which habit had made a second nature. They embraced a vocation to which nothing but a stern sense of duty, or the more powerful attraction of Divine love, could prompt. They entered an arena where poverty, fatigue, and almost inevitable death stared them in the face. But they entered it intelligently and ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... we bring against the use of animal food, which are derived from anatomy, physiology, or the laws of health, or even of psychology, are well founded. But they still say, "Man is not what he once was; he is strangely perverted; that custom, or habit, which soon becomes second nature, and often proves stronger to us than first nature, has so changed him that he is more a creature of art than of nature, or at least of first nature. And though animal food was not necessary to him at first—perhaps not in accordance with his best interests—yet ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... Henry Irving had had little training in such matters—I had had a great deal. Judgment about colors, clothes and lighting must be trained. I had learned from Mr. Watts, from Mr. Godwin, and from other artists, until a sense of decorative effect had become second nature ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... could not have achieved more popularity by his performances in that line than I, by this exhibition of feeling; and had the question been my election, I am very sure nobody else would have had a chance of a vote through the island. But wisely is it said, that use is second nature; and the contempt and neglect to which these poor people are used, make the commonest expression of human sympathy appear a boon and gracious condescension. While I am speaking of the negro countenance, there is another beauty which is not at all unfrequent among those I see here—a ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... caprice of those in power, men were taken up and bastinadoed in the open streets until they died from sheer agony, and their relations did not dare to remove the bodies for burial until their tyrants had left the scene. Cruelty became almost the second nature of the people. Theft was checked by the amputation of the first joint of the fore-finger of the right hand for the first offence. For the second, the whole hand was sacrificed, and for the third, the head itself was forfeited. Sometimes, in cases of capital punishment, decapitation ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... were garbed in the familiar khaki of the Boy Scouts, and from their actions it would seem as though long familiarity with outdoor life had made this thing of pitching camp second nature with every one ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... training remote. But yet he knew by calculation what the politician's technic is. He was one of those people who know just how to do a thing, but who can not quite do it themselves. They are often better teachers than the virtuoso to whom the art is so much second nature that he himself does not know how he does it. The statement that those who can, do; those who cannot, teach, is not nearly so much of a reflection on the teacher ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... By discipline we mean the habit of observing all rules and regulations and of obeying promptly all orders. By observing day after day all rules and regulations and obeying promptly all orders, it becomes second nature,—a fixed habit,—to ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... gipsies, an Indian tribe which emigrated only about four centuries ago, show the transition of the Hindoo's complexion to ours. In love, therefore, nature strives to return to dark hair and brown eyes, because they are the original type; still, a white skin has become second nature, although not to such an extent as to make the dark skin of the Hindoo repellent ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... use is second nature; but at present I feel as if the loss would be gain. There is the sun just showing himself above the hill. Shall we halt ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... do it. Get out in the air and run like a school boy. Jump ditches, vault fences, swing the arms! Never fail to get next to nature when responsive to the call. Indeed we may woo this call from within ourselves until it comes to be second nature. And when we rise in the morning let us be determined that we will start the day with a hearty laugh anyhow. Laugh because you are alive, laugh with everything. Let yourself go. That is the secret—the ability ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... which has been especially praised by our countrymen. Moreover, even the advocates of pleasure seek for subterfuges, and are talking of virtue whole days together; and say that pleasure is at first only wished for; that afterwards it, through custom, becomes a second nature, by which men are excited to do many things without at all ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... him, "to the voice of Reason! It is the second nature of all such canines to pursue vermins, nor are they at all capable of comprehending the Why and Wherefore of a shocking flagellation. If it is your wish that this hound should play the part of a Tantalus, ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... of cabbage down as if his life depended on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his three hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a silver knife in his mouth. That's witty, I think. Or no. Silver means born rich. Born with a knife. But then the allusion ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... treasury was suddenly flung open, without the usual warning, and Philip again entered the studio. This time his cheeks wore a less pallid hue than in the morning, and his gait showed no traces of the solemn gravity, which had become a second nature to him,—on the contrary he was gay ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not be seen in the Kharsa until I went there in the Dry-town disguise which had become, years ago, a deep second nature, almost an alternate personality. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... of kindness and of gentle humanity in the gaunt gentlewoman's manner, showing that the heart within was not withered yet. Then Miss Skeat flattened the book before her with the paper-cutter, and began to read. Reading aloud had become to her a second nature, and whether she had liked it or not at first, she had learned to do it with perfect ease and indifference, neither letting her voice drag languidly and hesitatingly when she was tired, nor falling into that nerve-rending ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... every true habit, in a definite act of will, and they are confirmed by the repetition of that act until it becomes a habit. The first stages always involve effort and choice. We have to take a stand and hold it steadily, and after we have done so a certain time, it becomes second nature, and carries us by its ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... at first, and fastened herself on the tender side of the good woman's heart by the sweetness of an unselfish and buoyant nature in illness, Noemi could hardly have endured such an inmate, not even half a Huguenot, full of little Catholic observances like second nature to her; listening indeed to the Bible for the short time, but always, when it was expounded, either asleep, or finding some amusement indispensable for her baby; eager for the least variety, and above all spoilt by Maitre Gardon to a ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... largely by imitation and under direction and control. The result is a growing understanding of what is done, a choice of it for its own sake, a fixity and steadiness of purpose. Right acts and feelings become, through habit, easier and more pleasant, and the doing of them a "second nature." The agent acquires the power of doing them freely, willingly, more ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... hours a week; special services for the scholars are held; and as the schools are open to the public, the scholars are instructed to be loyal to whatever Church they happen to belong. In England such broadness would be regarded as a miracle; to the German Moravians it is second nature. In their boarding-schools they pursue the same broad principle. At present they have nine girls' schools and five boys' boarding-schools; the headmaster is always a Moravian minister; the teachers in the boys' schools are generally candidates for the ministry; and, although in consequence ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... always, his eyes keen for a sight, his ear down to the earth for a sound, of danger. No security relaxed his vigilance, but his vigilance became so habitual, so entered into him, that his mother ceased to notice it and it became a second nature to himself. That it might miss nothing, it was universal; the merest stranger came within its ken. He watched all mankind lest some one among men should be seeking to take his treasure from him. Mr Cholderton's Imp had not used her eyes in vain; but Harry's neighbors, ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... first involuntary, painful, and a self-denial to us, wall when it passes into a habit, become agreeable, because the habit bends our nature to it, chains us down to it, infatuates the will, and thus becomes, as it were, a second nature. If so, it is very plain that our habits are either a blessing or a curse. When good they are a safeguard against evil, give stability to our character, and are the law of perseverance in well-doing. Such habits in the Christian home form, an irresistible bulwark against the intrusions ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... certain impression; when once the impression has been received it is not felt so keenly as in the moment of receiving it. Hence the heat of a hectic fever, though greater, is nevertheless not felt so much as the heat of tertian fever; because the heat of the hectic fever is habitual and like a second nature. For this reason, love is felt more keenly in the absence of the object loved; thus Augustine says (De Trin. x, 12) that "love is felt more keenly when we lack what we love." And for the same reason, the unbecomingness of that which ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... whipcord, spoil the knacker!—it would be a good joke if I was to lose both pashints for want of a little unbeequity, wouldn't it—Lash the lazy vagabin!—Not that I care: what interest have I in their lives? they never pay: but ye see custom's second nature; an d'Ive formed a vile habit; I've got to be a Healer among the killers: an d'a Triton among—the millers. Here we are at last, Hiven be praised." And he hopped into the house faster than most people can run on a good errand. Alfred ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... premises are obscure but whose conclusion is remorseless. Every one of us, in his time, has been subjected to its sway. No one has better reason to know than myself how terrible a struggle is required to free the spirit from this second nature which tends to stifle the first. The history of these struggles is the history of our contradictions. God be thanked, this war—nay, it is more than a war, this convulsion of mankind—will clear away our doubts, put an end to our ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... there being a struggle produced failure. The rector's servants treated the daughter of the house with special awe, and the marchioness herself moved, and spoke, and ate, and drank with a cold magnificence, which I think had become a second nature with her, but which was not on that account the less oppressive. Even the archdeacon, who enjoyed something in that which was so disagreeable to his wife, felt a relief when he was left alone after dinner with his son. He felt relieved as his son got up to open the door ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... direct influence on the body as is shown by the blood that rushes to or recedes from the face at some sudden change of thought. The unconscious mind is the aggregation of past individual and universal conscious thought, and is the character formed, the second nature or instinct. ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... these are redeemed by the spirit of inexhaustible jollity which sets the whole thing rocking with life and gaiety. It is an original in Greek literature, being the first piece of definitely literary criticism. A long experience had made the sense of the stage a second nature to Aristophanes who here criticises two rival schools of poetry as a dramatist possessed of inside professional knowledge. So far his work is of the same class as Cicero's De Oratore and Reynolds' Discourses. ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... dwellers in close and noisy places, and carry their own freshness, deep into their jaded hearts! Men who have lived in crowded, pent-up streets, through lives of toil, and who have never wished for change; men, to whom custom has indeed been second nature, and who have come almost to love each brick and stone that formed the narrow boundaries of their daily walks; even they, with the hand of death upon them, have been known to yearn at last for one short glimpse of Nature's face; and, carried far ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... destined to stir so many minds in the coming generation. Of Maurice, Arthur Hallam had written to Gladstone (June 1830) exhorting him to cultivate his acquaintance. 'I know many,' says Hallam, 'whom Maurice has moulded like a second nature, and these too, men eminent for intellectual power, to whom the presence of a commanding spirit would in all other cases be a signal rather for rivalry than reverential acknowledgment.' 'I knew Maurice well,' says Mr. Gladstone in one of his notes of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... with you—I couldn't say all that was in my heart—it wouldn't have been wise. Don't ever doubt that the tenderness was there. Even though one is only a civilian in khaki, some of the soldier's sternness becomes second nature. ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... not likely to have been interrupted as long as the sails were furled, though had he suddenly awoke he would have run a great risk of toppling down on deck. Habit, however, is second nature, and he, I dare say, recollected, even in ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... accurately into the groove for the footlights between them. He had sung The Messiah and Arminius until they were a weariness to his flesh, and Hiawatha's call to Gitche Manito, the Mighty had become second nature to his tongue. He had moments of acute longing to astound his audience with a German student song, and, upon his off nights, he fell into the vaudeville habit. Not even his Puritanism could enjoy an ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... antagonist of reason, which delights to show its ascendency by bringing her under its control and dominion, has created a second nature in man. It has its joys and its sorrows; its health, its sickness; its wealth, its poverty; it compels reason, in spite of herself, to believe, to doubt, to deny; it suspends the exercise of the senses, and imparts to them again an artificial acuteness; it has ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... caught the glimmer of the camp-fire among the trees, he slackened his pace and drew nigh with the caution that had become a second nature to him. He quickly saw that the Winnebagos had disposed of themselves for the night. The fire was burning as brightly as ever, because of the attention it received from the two warriors who ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... that the blizzard wind leaves behind it when it has passed on its way from arctic zones. To such as have been initiated into the higher mysteries of woodcraft from their earliest years, a due course to any set point of the compass is second nature. But those who are unlearned in the art soon find out their mistake when they put their inexperience into practice. The sun is a pointing finger to the craftsman—a ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... I persisted in repeating that "they would never get my number," until it almost became second nature with me, and the hairbreadth escapes I have had almost convinced me "there is something in it." Be that as it may, hundreds of men all around have "gone West" while I have been permitted to go through three ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... side, coming to the front, turning to the left or right. I was drilled as to how far the arm should come forward, where it should start from, how far go back, and under what circumstances these movements should be made. It was drill, drill, drill, until the motions almost became a second nature. Now I never know what movements I shall make. My gestures are natural, because this drill made them natural to me. The only method of acquiring an effective education is by practice, of not less than an hour a day, ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... last, to avoid the incessant difficulties of costume caused by the anxious lenders, he had assumed a disdain of military trappings, an eccentric fashion of shabby old tunics, which had become like a second nature. But the faction Barrios joined needed to fear no political betrayal. He was too much of a real soldier for the ignoble traffic of buying and selling victories. A member of the foreign diplomatic body in Sta. Marta had once passed a judgment upon ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... him, to my amazement, serious, I was stung by the splendour of the idea I had awakened. Confidence in his skill was second nature to me. I swept straight on to the logic of the thing, the greatness, the completeness of the opportunity, if by a miracle it could be seized and used. Something was going on at Memmert to-day; our men had gone ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... atrocity placards, and propagandist leaflets, they all practised the same deliberate and colossal deceit and kindled hatred against the enemy. And so successful was this diabolical conspiracy that hatred became second nature to vast masses of people. To think evil of the enemy was an article of national faith, and to question this faith, or still more to repudiate it, that was heresy of the most heinous kind. Religion died long ago, but the cult of nationalism that replaced it was ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... that she would have to piece the under-arm sleeve. Simultaneously she wondered if she could do it so skilfully that Mrs. Abram Pantin would not see the piece. Then she frowned in vexation at the realization that it was becoming second nature to wonder what Prissy Pantin would think. Was it possible that there had been a time when she had debated as to whether she wanted to know Mrs. Abram Pantin ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Conference, in which he'll lecture on his own singing. I shall be on the platform to make a sort of introductory speech and Monti, of course, will accompany. He is the only accompanist that counts. But then I suppose he's been accompanying somebody or other ever since he was a little boy, so it's second nature to him. And you must come, and bring your husband. Does he go with you to places? Very nice of him. Nowadays if husbands and wives don't occasionally go to the same parties they have hardly any opportunity of meeting at all; that's what I always say. But then, of course, you're ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... occupations, when they can gain a livelihood at something more respectable, or elevating in character. And the worse part of the whole matter is, that they have become so accustomed to it, it has become so "fashionable," that it seems to have become second nature, and they really become offended, when it ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... too terrible for Glaucon to feel amazed at this confession. To a Hellene swimming was second nature. He thought and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... way among the throng again. It is curious in the most crowded part of a town to meet with living creatures that had their birthplace in some far solitude, but have acquired a second nature in the wilderness of men. Look up, Annie, at that canary-bird hanging out of the window in his cage. Poor little fellow! His golden feathers are all tarnished in this smoky sunshine; he would have glistened twice as brightly among the summer islands, but still he has become ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to the novice at my opening and speak of certain matters which are second nature to the ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... noble testimony, of refusing to partake of the spoils of oppression, lies with the dearly beloved young people of this day. We can look for but little from the aged, who have been accustomed to these things, like second nature. Without justice there can be no virtue. Oh, justice, justice, how art thou abused everywhere! Men make justice, like a nose of wax, to satisfy their desires. If the soul is possessed of love, there ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... busy with details to do much conjecturing. A body of soldiers with transport and prisoners, wounded and sick, need nearly as much herding as a flock of sheep, even after months of campaigning when each man's place and duty should be second nature. Yet oh, it was different now. There was no need now to listen for whisperings of treason! Now we knew who the traitor had been all along—not Ranjoor Singh, who had done his best from first to last, but Gooja Singh, who had let no opportunity go by ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... the by-standers who had the worst of it on these occasions. To the worthy couple themselves the habit had become second nature, and in no way affected the friendly tenor of their domestic relations. They would interfere with each other's conversation, contradicting assertions, and disputing conclusions for a whole evening; and then, when all the world and his wife thought that these ceaseless sparks of bickering must ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to carry out her little program of encouraging talk and action. As she advanced from hesitating compliment to flattery, to admiring glances, to lingering look, she marveled at her facility. "I suppose ages and ages of dreadful necessity have made it second nature to every woman, even the best of us," reflected she. If he weren't a handsome, superior man she might be finding it more difficult; also, no doubt the surroundings, so romantic, so fitting as background for his ruggedness, were helping ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... he was "filled with all unrighteousness," having "from a child" in his "tender years," "but few equals both for cursing, swearing, lying and blaspheming the holy name of God." Sins of this kind he declares became "a second nature to him;" he "delighted in all transgression against the law of God," and as he advanced in his teens he became a "notorious sinbreeder," the "very ringleader," he says, of the village lads "in all manner of vice and ungodliness." ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... and let other folks do the same," had been the family slogan in Lone's home. There had been nothing in Lone's later life to convince him that minding his own business was not a very good habit. It had grown to be second nature,—and it had made him a good man for the Sawtooth Cattle Company to have on its ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... always there, and that is what causes the trouble. Well, if it showed in the glass, why was it not there? You probably have lived long enough in the world to know that there are a great many boys in it, and it seems to be second nature with them to turn everything on an engine that is possible to turn. All glass gauge cocks are fitted with a small hand wheel. The small boy sees this about the first thing and he begins to turn it, and he generally ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard
... romantic thrill from one or the other, is usually on his guard against spurious blandishments and reluctant to admit the claims of new pretenders. Even in poets of the first rank he slurred over a great deal; but what he loved he dwelt on with a kind of rapt inspiration until it became his second nature, its spirit and its language fused intimately with his own. This revolutionist in politics was a jealous aristocrat in the domains of art, and this admission does not impair our earlier assertion of his openness to a greater variety of impressions than any of his contemporaries ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... was not more than twenty feet away. Half the distance, and he stopped suddenly, because his ears had distinctly brought to him a light sound, as if a pebble had fallen. Will was not a son of the wilderness by birth, but he was fast becoming one of its adopted children, making its ways second nature, and, when the light note of the falling pebble was registered upon his ear, he flattened himself upon the ground, thrusting forward a little the muzzle of his rifle. It is doubtful if the keen eyes of a trailing Indian could have seen him there in the ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... keen enjoyment and quite capable of intemperance, but he has no invariable delights and no besetting sin. Such a man will not become an habitual drunkard; he will not become anything "habitual." But with another type of man habit is indeed second nature. Instead of the permanent fluidity of my particular case, such people are continually tending to solidify and harden. Their memories set, their opinions set, their methods of expression set, their delights recur and recur, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... national medium for consuming tobacco, cigarettes being practically unknown, and pipes rare in the streets. My experience of the Dutch cigar is that it is a very harmless luxury and a very persuasive one. After a little while it becomes second nature to drop into a tobacconist's and slip a dozen cigars into one's pocket, at a cost of a few pence; and the cigars being there, it is another case of second nature to smoke them practically continuously. Of these ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... my bad metaphor. But she has been brought up in a kind of life which is second nature to her. Are you prepared to live that life with her? Are you sure—are you quite, quite sure—that she would be willing, after the first romantic outburst, to put up with a totally different life ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... up again into the sky, a dark speck sailed overhead, the slow heavy flight of a vulture. In a few hours he might be picking her bones! Merciful Heavens! Why did such thoughts come into her head? Had she nothing left of the courage that had once been second nature? If she let her nerves get the upper hand she might as well make no further effort, but lie down and die at once. With shaking fingers she took another cigarette; smoking would soothe her. Yet she hesitated before she lit it; there were only a few left and her need might still be greater. But with ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... than ordinary ruthlessness. De Spain, from force of habit, studied every detail of their make-up. Both showed more than traces of drink, and both securing partners joined rudely in the dancing. It had become second nature to de Spain to note even insignificant details concerning men, and he took an interest in and remarked how very low Logan carried his gun in front of his hip. Sandusky's holster was slung higher and farther back on the side. ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... her, and with one of those false theatrical gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a stage-player, clasped her in her arms. At this moment the door opened, and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room. He was thick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large, and somewhat clumsy in movement. He was not so finely bred as his sister. ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... undoubted. It is Pope's announcement to Martha Blount of his father's death. "My poor Father dyed last night," it says. "Believe, since I don't forget you this moment, I never shall. A. Pope." The antithetical touch shows how art had become a second nature with the writer; but his attachment and devotion to his parents is not one of the disputed points ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... chance to put their money out to work for their country. The French wage worker, be he artisan or street cleaner, needed no coaching in the art of employing his funds safely and profitably. Just as saving is instinct with him, so is the putting of these savings out to work in a Government bond second nature. He is the thriftiest and most cautious investor in the world. He has established a close and confidential relation with his banker such as exists in no other nation. Therefore when the French financier offers him Government Bonds or "Loans of Victory" as the war issues are emotionally termed, he ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... and rather finicky care of his wardrobe had been second nature to him—the habits of a soldier systematised the routine—and he was satisfied that his clothes would outlast winter demands, ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... asserted itself. Although Harry had been in charge, Dick had not failed to notice everything about the place where they made their cache that would help to identify it. That was instinct with him by this time, after two years as a scout; it was second nature. And, though it had been light, he had pictured pretty accurately what the place would look like at night. He remembered, for instance, that certain stars would be sure to be in the sky in a particular relation to the cache. And now he ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... the same principle, accustom himself to being stabbed every night till he can quietly endure to be run through with a bayonet? The Russian soldiers possess wonderful powers of passive endurance. Being stabbed or cut to pieces is second nature to them—they have been accustomed to it, in a degree, from early infancy. Who does not remember how they were hewed and hacked down in the Crimean War, and yet came to life again by thousands after they were given up ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... her and not tried to understand. He would have deemed it almost sacrilege to pry into the mysteries of her inner self, of that second nature in her which at times mad her silent, and almost morose, and cast a lurid gloom over her ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Momaya raised her bid; but Bukawai was obdurate. He stuck for the five goats and the sleeping mat for a matter of half an hour, while the hyenas sniffed and growled and laughed hideously. Momaya was determined to give all that Bukawai asked if she could do no better, but haggling is second nature to black barterers, and in the end it partly repaid her, for a compromise finally was reached which included three fat goats, a new sleeping mat, and a piece ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in Mr. Graham's resolution to be only a sober drinker of intoxicating liquors; and the consequence was, that he had less power to resist the strong inclination to drink, that had become almost like a second nature to him. A few weeks only elapsed, before he came home so drunk as to expose himself in the street, and before his children and servants, in a most ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... place, you would not have cared to cumber yourself with diamonds whilst plunging down into the unknown bowels of the earth, in the wild hope of escape from an agonising death. If from the habits of a lifetime, it had not become a sort of second nature with me never to leave anything worth having behind if there was the slightest chance of my being able to carry it away, I am sure that I should not have bothered to fill my pockets ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... duty, not merely a pleasure, to be fine. She is a fine lady of the first order; nothing too professional in her manner—no obvious affectation, for affectation in her was so early wrought into habit as to have become second nature, scarcely ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth |
