"Superfluous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the question as a mere bit of rhetorical effect, thought it superfluous to reply, till Lady Assher repeated, 'Could we, now?' as if Tina's sanction were essential to her repose of mind. After a ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... curtain fell amid the profoundest silence. The Hasseites shrugged their shoulders, and even Gluck's warmest adherents felt undecided what to say of this severe Doric music, which disdained all the coquetries of art, and rejected all superfluous embellishment. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... adding, "But I think we shall recover the engine—and some other things—presently." He liked Leckhard well enough, but he wished he would go. There are exigencies in which even the comments of a friend and well-wisher are superfluous. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... be superfluous to describe the plate and china. Nucingen had provided three services of plate—common, medium, and best; and the best—plates, dishes, and all, was of chased silver gilt. The banker, to avoid overloading the table with gold and silver, had completed the array of each service with porcelain of exquisite ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... himself as he did so. But after the last brava had been given and he had put his mother into the brougham, saying, abruptly, that he preferred to walk, his heart and head came to an unexpected encounter. He stood alone, unnoting the passers-by, oblivious of the superfluous praise of Katrine's voice which he heard in the broken talk, looking into the distant sky at the two ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... throw together two or three practical suggestions, which will probably be superfluous to the most experienced mothers, but may be useful to younger and more ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... board his vessel which might at any time be overhauled by the authorities, and he therefore landed at Gardiner's Island on the Long Island coast, and obtained permission from the proprietor to bury some of his superfluous stores upon his estate. This was a straightforward transaction. Mr. Gardiner knew all about the burial of the treasure, and when it was afterwards proved that Kidd was really a pirate the hidden booty was all given up to ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... poles like acrobats! Young Beulah had rung the church bell at midnight, cast its torpedoes to earth in the early morning, flung its fire-crackers under the horses' feet, and felt somewhat relieved of its superfluous patriotism by breakfast time. Then there was a parade of Antiques and Horribles, accompanied by the Beulah Band, which, though not as antique, was fully as horrible as anything in ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... beautiful hat was perhaps superfluous," she suggested. "They are worn so little in church. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... leg, he rose. "Where, on which side, was now the line that had so sharply divided the two armies?" he asked himself and could not answer. "Can something bad have happened to me?" he wondered as he got up: and at that moment he felt that something superfluous was hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if it were not his. He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find blood on it. "Ah, here are people coming," he thought joyfully, seeing some men running toward him. "They ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... same height and in bone structure not greatly unlike. I had figured that daily tramping after game should have taken a few folds of superfluous flesh off my frame, and so, no doubt, it had done. Yet I had pulled the spindle around the face of the dial to a point which recorded for me a total of sixteen pounds and odd ounces more than his penny had ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... secrets he knew as to the special points of infirmity in this old ruinous building. For the present, and until it should certainly appear that there was some use to be derived from this species of knowledge, I forbore to raise superfluous suspicions by availing myself further of his communicative disposition. Taking, however, the precaution of securing his name, together with his particular office and designation in the prison, I parted from him as if ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... poorer classes wear a dress that protects them from the weather. In the rainy season, for instance, a Chinese boatman wears a coat of straw, and a hat of straw and bamboo. Such a dress, of course, renders an Umbrella superfluous, and it matters little to the wearer how hard the rain may pelt. Nevertheless great numbers of Umbrellas are exported from China to India, the Indian Archipelago, and even South America. In the 1851 Exhibition two only were shown. Of them the report says, "They present ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... difficulty is conquered, not so much by the strength of the memory, as by the exercise of judgment: they learn to distinguish, and select the material terms, facts and arguments, from those that are subordinate, and they class them under general heads, to relieve the memory from all superfluous labour. ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... pride of their high-stepping, their curvetting and caracoling, as they jingled in their shining harness around the long ring. Their noble uselessness took the fancy, for I suppose that there is nothing so superbly superfluous as a tandem, outside or inside of the best society. It is something which only the ambition of wealth and unbroken leisure can mount to; and I was glad that the display of tandems was the first event of the Horse Show which I witnessed, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be superfluous, Mr. Burnit. One of the chief advantages of such a consolidation is the economy that comes from condensing the office and managing forces. I regretted very much indeed to dismiss Mr. Johnson and Mr. Applerod, but they are very valuable men and should have ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... carefully matched, were new and glittered in the sun. Trying to seem grave and sedate he pursed up his face and puffed out his cheeks, and he smelt of spirits. Probably he had visited the refreshment bar at every station. And again there was a free-and-easiness about the man—something superfluous and out of place. Then Anisim had lunch and drank tea with the old man, and Varvara turned the new coins over in her hand and inquired about villagers who had gone to live in ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... north also, it might be possible to set a sail, and with less difficulty reach the frigate. Patrick was summoned, and with his father and the fishwife, the boat was launched. She was cleared of all superfluous lumber, while Shane lashed under her thwarts several empty casks, which would assist in giving her buoyancy. It was a simple attempt at a life-boat, yet with all these precautions, the old fishing ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... BE ESPECIALLY REMEMBERED, in connection with frying, that all dishes fried in fat should be placed before the fire on a piece of blotting-paper, or sieve reversed, and there left for a few minutes, so that any superfluous greasy moisture ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... kinds of sea-weeds on to the paper it will be found necessary to cut away, with a sharp, fine-pointed scissors, many superfluous stems and branches, as otherwise the sea-weed when pressed will present a matted appearance, and much of the delicacy ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... said Of Pope, that "he could only rank with ingenious men," and that his works are superabundant with superfluous and unmeaning verbiage - his translations even replete with tautology, a fault which is to refinement as midnight is to noonday; and, what is truly surprising, that the fourth book of the Dunciad, his last publication, is ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... separated from her Husband, the many pleasing Images of Nature which are intermix'd in this part of the Story, with its gradual and regular Progress to the fatal Catastrophe, are so very remarkable that it would be superfluous to point out their ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... sublime his simple sire had taught. In sooth, 'twas almost all the shepherd knew. No subtle nor superfluous lore he sought, Nor ever wished his Edwin to pursue. 'Let man's own sphere (quoth he) confine his view, 'Be man's peculiar work his sole delight.' And much, and oft, he warned him, to eschew Falsehood and guile, and aye maintain the right, By pleasure unseduced, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... she said, when breakfast was over. 'I am going to do the work, washing and all. I must do something to work off my superfluous health, and strength, and muscle. Look at that arm, will you?' and she threw out her bare arm, which for whiteness and roundness and symmetry of proportion, might have been coveted by the most fashionable lady in the land. 'Go back to your rocking-chair and rest your ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Noah's ark was superfluous. Where were his brains, For those beasts and those sons to provide with such pains, When they might to a deluge cry Fiddle di dee, And sprout fins and scales, if they took ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... smooth as velvet, its screen of noble woods, its Chinese fishing-temple, its frigates, its ruins, its cascade, cave, and Druidical temple, its obelisk and bridges, with numberless beauties besides, which it would be superfluous to describe here. This artificial mere covers pretty nearly the same surface of ground as that occupied by the great lake ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... those who have an eye for the main story and nothing else much trouble and more annoyance. But in this, the true chronicle of events in one period of the life of William Adolphus Turnpike, only that which is of importance has been dealt with. This is almost a superfluous explanation, for the reader who has managed to keep awake thus far has long ago become seized of the fact. There lapses between what has gone before and what is here written a period of nearly five years. ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... game to feed the dogs, and denied himself, unasked, that others might have pleasure, as the story will tell. And the name of Esaias, the Indian boy who accompanied us to the base camp, and then returned with the superfluous dogs, must be mentioned, with commendation for fidelity and thanks for service. Acknowledgment is also made to many friends and colleagues at the mission stations in the interior, who knew of the purpose and furthered it greatly and held their tongues so that no premature screaming ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... night for the other side of the island and pick up the three men there. The whalers knew King Haakon Bay, though they never worked on that side of the island. Soon we were clean again. Then we put on delightful new clothes supplied from the station stores and got rid of our superfluous hair. Within an hour or two we had ceased to be savages and had become civilized men again. Then came a splendid meal, while Mr. Sorlle told us of the arrangements he had made and we discussed plans for the rescue of the main party ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... Miss Harz! the real afflatus is there; the bead on the wine; the dew on the rose; the bloom on the grape! Nothing wanting that constitutes the indefinable divine thing called genius! You understand my idea, of course; explanations are superfluous." ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... and uprightness marked his character; his judgment was clear and sound, and was frequently given in comprehensive and pertinent language, free from all superfluous expression. ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... modestly; and, to slightly rebuke any superfluous pride in me, I paraphrased with becoming humility, pointing upward: "but remember, Mildred, there is One greater ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... ordered to be destroyed. If true, our loss therefrom is as great as from the burning of the Alexandrian library by the Caliph Omar. He burnt all the books because he held that they must be either consistent or inconsistent with the Koran, and in the one case they were superfluous, in the other ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... though Don Diego's debut as a corkcutter had brought matters to a head. When a couple of generations back the original Fairbairn had founded the business, Brisport was a little fishing town with no outlet or occupation for her superfluous population. Men were glad to have safe and continuous work upon any terms. All this was altered now, for the town was expanding into the centre of a large district in the west, and the demand for labour and its remuneration had proportionately increased. Again, in the old days, ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the union of power and the people. The president Doppet read (the bonnet rouge on his head) a letter from Petion to the society, on the subject of this new head-dress adopted by the patriots, and on which Petion spoke against this superfluous mark of civisme. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... It would be superfluous to add that the powerlessness of crowds to reason aright prevents them displaying any trace of the critical spirit, prevents them, that is, from being capable of discerning truth from error, or of forming ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... Ypres will be of decisive importance." It should be noted also that the Emperor proceeded in person to Thielt and Courtrai to exalt by his presence the ardor of his troops. Finally, at the close of October, the entire German press incessantly proclaimed the importance of the "Battle of Calais." It is superfluous to add that events in Poland explain in a large measure the passionate resolve of the German General Staff to obtain a decision in the Western theatre of operations at all costs. This decision would ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... see us married we thank you; your desire to dictate to us the consort whom we shall choose we consider somewhat superfluous; the English parliament has not been wont to use such language to their sovereigns, and where private persons in such cases follow their private tastes, sovereigns may reasonably challenge an equal liberty. If you, our ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... your superior and inform him that I say you are superfluous on this assignment. No longer are commissars automatically to be guarded. Only under special circumstances. If ... well, if our people dislike individual commissars sufficiently to wish to assassinate them, ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... to stooping; his hair was white, and tied with a silk string; his countenance lofty, masculine, and contemplative; his eye light gray. He was dressed in the clothes of a citizen, and over these a blue surtout of the finest cloth. His weight must have been two hundred and thirty pounds, with no superfluous flesh; all was bone and sinew; and he walked like a soldier. Whoever has seen, in the patent-office at Washington, the dress he wore when resigning his commission as commander-in-chief, in December, 1783, at once perceives how large and magnificent ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... as the word implies, is divisible into three parts, thus giving a quickness and shortness where wanted. Take away, however, the first caesura, rest only on the second, (and then you have exactly one short measure, that of "Marmion,") and how superfluous the last division of the trimeter appears! as weak and ineffective as the latter part of our long measure, if we read it as wanting the additional foot of the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... denial of matter that I lost the superfluous flesh, for since I was too fleshy to be of symmetrical form, it was ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... listen, Ssha.... It's true that I am her husband and the father of her child, but I am—superfluous! Wait, wait—don't reply.... You think I'm jealous? Not at all! In the first place, I have no right; secondly, I have no cause. Victor Karnin is her old friend and mine too. He ...
— The Live Corpse • Leo Tolstoy
... Messrs. PITMAN'S confidence in entrusting me with the compilation of a Spanish Grammar to form part of the series of "Commercial Grammars," I set to work to produce a book which, while avoiding pedantry and the agglomeration of superfluous and intricate rules which puzzle the student, should equally avoid falling into the extreme of coarseness which debases the subject under study, or the scrappiness resulting in gaps that perplex and discourage him. I have tried to be brief and ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... Page 245: removed superfluous quotation marks from end of two lines (Yass, Jedge, drunk. Always drunk.) (he come so fast he untook the do' off'n de hinges; den ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... we stand? Are the phenomena I have reviewed arguments for Home Rule or against Home Rule? Do they tend to show that Ireland is "fitter" now for Home Rule, or that she manages very well without Home Rule? These are superfluous questions. They are never asked save of countries obviously designed to govern themselves and obstinately denied the right. Who would say now of Canada or Australia that they ought to have solved their economic, agrarian, and ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... imagine that there was rest for the fishermen now. Far from it. The fish had to be "cleaned"—i.e. gutted and the superfluous portions cut off and packed in boxes for the London market. The grey light of a bleak winter morning dawned before the work was finished. During the operation the third hand, Lively Dick, ran a fish-bone deeply into his hand, and laid ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... How much good might be done with it, if judiciously distributed and invested! Father, I shall not live to squander it in frivolous amusements or superfluous luxuries. Are you willing that I should dispose of a portion of it before ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... it, nor if cut in pieces be served by its use? For we are told that when hot, they quenched it in vinegar, to make it brittle and unmalleable, and consequently unfit for any other service. In the next place, he excluded unprofitable and superfluous arts: indeed, if he had not done this, most of them would have fallen of themselves, when the new money took place, as the manufactures could not be disposed of. Their iron coin would not pass in the rest of Greece, but was ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... bell striking the half-hour after eleven. He had noted the time when leaving the "Trusty Man," otherwise he would not have known it so exactly, having left his watch locked up at home in his private desk with other personal trinkets which would have been superfluous and troublesome to him on his self-imposed journey. When the echo of the bell's one stroke had died away it left a great stillness in the air. The heat was increasing as the day veered towards noon, and he decided that it would be as well to get on further down the road and under ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... example, a Maxim gun on her tiny forecastle. She had a siren of unusual power and diabolical tone, she was also fitted with a big motor-horn, both of which appendages were Bones's gift to his flagship. The motor-horn may seem superfluous, but when the matter is properly explained, you will understand the necessity for some less drastic method of self-advertisement ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... other side are they words only remotely similar to one another; for the differences between these last will be self-evident, will so lie on the surface and proclaim themselves to all, that it would be as superfluous an office as holding a candle to the sun to attempt to make this clearer than it already is. It may be desirable to trace and fix the difference between scarlet and crimson, for these might easily be confounded; but who would think of so doing between ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... right, turn!" And with the words she pressed her right knee against the colt, at the same time drawing gently upon the right rein. Shashai turned because he had always done so at the words and the pressure, accepting the bit's superfluous hint like the ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... his way. Artificial meadows can hardly be finer than these desert fields: and it is this which renders the Haouran so favourite an abode of the Bedouins. The peasants of Syria are ignorant of the advantages of feeding their cattle with hay; they suffer the superfluous grass to wither away, and in summer and winter feed them on ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... which the attention of every wise man should be turned. He that by precept or example shall prevail on community to relinquish one superfluous dish, one useless and contemptible trapping, will be the general friend of man. He who labours for riches, to countenance by his practice their abuse, is labouring to secure misery to himself, and perpetuate it in society. Who ought to be esteemed the most rich? He whose faculties are the most ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Peace, also—or peace under the old conditions of industry—is infinitely wasteful of human energy. Not more than one adult worker in ten—so at least it might with confidence be estimated—is employed on necessary things. The other nine perform superfluous services. War turns them from making the glittering superfluities of peace to making its grim engines of destruction. But while the tenth man still labors, the machine, though creaking with its dislocation, can still go on. The economics ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... never thought of that!" said Hawkins all ablaze with joy again. "It's the very thing. What a brain you have got! And will he shed the superfluous arm?" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for my intemperate zeal. Well, Miss Madison, I cannot make a very pleasing spectacle with blackamoor legs, and it's time I put my superfluous energy to some use. Suppose you get in your boat, and I'll try to ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... he held on to his engagement and at the end of the week was taken on permanently. This was most fortunate, for by this time Von Barwig had completely denuded his room of all superfluous articles of value; even the fine old prints that had adorned his bedroom went for a mere trifle. A silver baton that had been given him by the director of the Gewandhaus was the last thing to go. It was quite a wrench to part with it, for it was the last link ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... superfluous correspondence, he studying in a vague distrustfulness the various organs of public opinion which lay around him, doubtful of them all, yet wishing to find one he could rely on. For now they were ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... of the Ministry, and was obliged to work seven hours a day, one or two hours of which were devoted to going wearily through a bundle of probably superfluous papers and documents. The rest of the time was given to other occupations as varied as they were intellectual; such as yawning, filing his nails, talking about his chiefs, groaning over the slowness of promotion, cooking a potato or a sausage in the stove for his luncheon, reading the newspaper ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... fascinating hint is given in the portion illustrated. These first pictures must satisfy the child's love of action and movement, and portray only the most dramatic scenes, the big important facts with all superfluous ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... honorable to conquer those who possessed the gold, than to possess the gold itself. Cato, after reflecting upon these things, used to return, and reviewing his own farm, his servants, and housekeeping, increase his labor, and retrench all superfluous expenses. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... ever be pronounced apart so long as language shall celebrate the triumphs Of science in her sublimest walks. On the great discovery of Neptune, which may be said to have surpassed, by intelligible and legitimate means, the wildest pretensions of clairvoyance, it Would now be quite superfluous for me to dilate. That glorious event and the steps which led to it, and the various lights in which it has been placed, are already familiar to every one having the least tincture of science. I will only add that as there is not, nor henceforth ever can be, the slightest ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... If reports are true, the native Chiefs had, many of them personally, and all of them by reputation, already the advantage of a very intimate acquaintance with all three of these gentlemen, so that an introduction was somewhat superfluous. ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... we can sleep in it, if the walls are but half ready; they are merely bamboo canes tied together. We sleep on the floor boarded and well raised on poles, two feet and more from the ground—beds are superfluous here.' ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rides, shielded from all weather, and in battle from many strokes (for he rolls it about his left arm); and not only dressed, but harnessed and draperied." Here then we find the true "Old Roman contempt of the superfluous," which seems rather to meet the approbation of the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... with our long, damp india-rubber bags, we presented rather a doubtful type of civilization: like rag-and-bone men, the Cigarette imagined. "These gentlemen are pedlars?—Ces messieurs sont des marchands?"—asked the landlady. And then, without waiting for an answer, which I suppose she thought superfluous in so plain a case, recommended us to a butcher who lived hard by the tower, and took ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... walnut, seasoning the mixture with sufficient pepper and salt. Roll these balls in flour, in order to insure the outside being dry, and roll them backwards and forwards on the sieve in order to get rid of the superfluous flour. Make some very fine bread-crumbs from some stale bread; next beat up the yolk of egg with about a dessertspoonful of warm water. Dip the rice-balls into this, and then cover them with the bread-crumbs. Let them stand for an hour or two for the bread-crumbs to get dry, and then ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society, the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society, this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... of symbolism, of Rosicrucianism, of essences, of speaking to the psaltery, of dramatic art; and all the time he has practiced poetry, the interest of the time resulting in now the greater emphasis on one quality in the poetry, and now on another quality. It would be superfluous to do more than point out most of these qualities, but a word on his use of symbols may help to a fuller understanding of his poetry. I am very sure that I read wrong meanings from many of these symbols, as one who has not the password ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... reading of all the manuscripts, and is retained by Poppo, Bornemann, Dindorf, and Kuehner. But Schneider and Weiske read [Greek: eile], "took possession of," on the suggestion of Muretus, Var. Lect. xv. 10, who thought it superfluous for Xenophon to say that Cyrus merely saw the tents. Lion, however, not unreasonably supposes this verb to be intended to mark the distance at which Cyrus passed from the tents, that is, that he passed within sight of them, the Cilicians having retired ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... It would be superfluous to give any detail of his poems, they are in the hands of all who love poetry, and have been as often admired, as read. The performance however, for which he is most distinguished, is his Solomon; a Poem in three Books, the first on Knowledge, the second on Pleasure, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... be anybody but himself," retorted Mr. Jones, irascibly, deeming the question superfluous. "There be but the two left, I say—the earl and him; everybody knows him for the Honourable Percival Elster. The other son, George, died; ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of protests and murmurings, been persuaded to hearken to the advice of his wife and wear a coat. Likewise the older boys had followed Martin's example and donned the hot woolen articles of dress they considered superfluous in the house during ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... the town, therefore, at nightfall of a July day, carrying a little bundle of linen, and the remains of his money, somewhat augmented by the sale of various articles of clothing and convenience, which his change of life rendered superfluous and unsuitable. He directed his course northwards, travelling principally by night—so painfully did he shrink from the gaze even of foot-farers like himself; and sleeping during the day in some hidden nook of wood or thicket, or ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... next day, rowing comfortably after having divested myself of all superfluous apparel. The negroes, on their one- horse plantations, gave a hearty hail as I passed, but I noted here a feature I had remarked when upon my "Voyage of the Paper Canoe," on the eastern coast. It was the silence in which these ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... that it would be almost superfluous on my part to add much to the encomiums passed upon you by such high authorities; and to one so modest, as I know you are, I dare say it would be even painful if I were to enter at any length upon a recital of the claims which I consider you possess upon the gratitude ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... the atmosphere was filled with putrid exhalations, which produced fevers and pestilential disorders among the inhabitants. Touched with compassion for the evils which they endured, I persuaded them to undertake the task of draining the soil and letting off the superfluous waters. This I instructed them to do with such success that, in a short time, an unwholesome desert became covered with the most luxuriant harvests, and was deprived of all its noxious influence. By thus rendering my services ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... opinion of any individual seems superfluous in respect to a work on the merits of which the public both at home and abroad have pronounced so unanimous a verdict. As Motley's path crosses my own historic field, I may be thought to possess some advantage over most critics in my ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... is considered a moderate income for one. (Journ. des Economistes, May, 1854, 279.) It is said that Frederick Hase earned $30,000 in America in ten weeks. (Leipz. Tagebb., 15 Jan., 1871.) Steuart, Principles, II, ch. 30. Adam Smith frequently represents it as a rule, that superfluous goods like gold and silver, are dearest among the richest nations, necessary goods among the poorer, and vice versa. But the supply has much more to do with the permanent price of a commodity than the demand for it has. And the principle above mentioned applies only in so far as the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... youth a facility as painter and draughtsman which his parents, who were Quakers of a devout and sufficiently uncompromising order, discouraged in no uncertain terms. The exercise of his own gift being thus restrained, Thomas MacDowell passed it on to his younger son—a somewhat superfluous endowment, in view of the fact that the latter was to demonstrate so ample a gift for an equally effective medium ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... and a pompous final chorus? "Fidelio" exists by reason of that one tremendous scene: there is nothing else dramatic in it: however fine the music is, one cannot forget that the libretto is fustian and superfluous nonsense. Had Beethoven possessed the slightest genius for opera, had he possessed anything like Mozart's dramatic instinct (and of course his own determination to touch nothing but fitting subjects), he would have felt that no meaner story than the "Flying ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... which marks him as belonging to this particular school. He pins his faith, not so much to its labour-saving devices as to the white spot outside, the white spot of an otherwise aimless life. This tells the world that it is one of THE pipes. Never was an announcement more superfluous. From the moment, shortly after breakfast, when he strikes his first match to the moment, just before bed-time, when he strikes his hundredth, it is obviously THE pipe ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... longer in his seat by the cradle, talking to Mornin, asking her questions and delivering messages laden with advice from little Mrs. Rutherford, which instructions Aunt Mornin plainly regarded as superfluous. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... It may seem almost superfluous to explain that this book does not deal with the whole of Yorkshire, for it would obviously be impossible to get even a passing glimpse of such a great tract of country in a book of this nature. But I have endeavoured to give my own impressions ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... charge of investing matter with a certain embryonic, independent, shadowy soul of its own. Scot's system, compared with that of Thomas, tended toward liberty. Scot held that the excess of power in Thomas's prime motor neutralized the power of his secondary causes, so that these appeared altogether superfluous. This is a point that ought to be left to the Church to decide, but there can be no harm in quoting, on the other hand, the authority of some of Scot's critics within the Church, who have thought that his doctrine tended to deify matter and to keep open the ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... cheerfully did everything t' amuse, When a mischance occurred, picked up the forks, (What gentleman I wonder could refuse) And helped t' unload and pull out all the corks And arranged some ladies' nosegays, cutting off superfluous stalks. ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... I want to know, Stephen, why you've got nothing to say about all this. It must have been staring you in the face ever since I spent my very considerable superfluous energies in wrecking your career. Because you know I wrecked it, Stephen. I knew I was wrecking it and I wrecked it. I knew exactly what I was doing all the time. I had meant to be so fine a thing for you, a mothering friend, to have that dear consecutive kindly mind of ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... masticating the awa root, the process being contemplated with extreme interest by a number of adults. When, by careful chewing, they had reduced the root to a pulpy consistence, they tossed it into a large calabash, and relieved their mouths of superfluous saliva before preparing a fresh mouthful. This went on till a considerable quantity was provided, and then water was added, and the mass was kneaded and stirred with the hands till it looked like soap suds. It was then strained; and after more water had been added it was poured into cocoa-nut calabashes, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... parts and filled their corners of the stage, had their own ideas of the meaning of the play and their own estimate of the importance of the characters. They all fitted into their places in my conception of it, so that not one was superfluous; all were needed, and all worked in unconsciousness to heighten the irony, to point the comedy, and to frame the tragedy in its most effective, most incongruous setting. For in this real life the stage-manager takes no pains to have all things in harmony nor to lead us through gradual and ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... this it is almost superfluous to point out that modern science knows nothing of it and can find no trace of such a cataclysm in human history. On the contrary, it asserts that there has been a gradual and unmistakable rise; the law of evolution governs human affairs just as it does every other ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... he saw no way out of the unfortunate situation. Two days more elapsed and still no sign of a breeze. He made sure that September 23d would find him still drifting and still in possession of one hundred thousand superfluous dollars. ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... if they cannot do that (the magistrate, or the reason of their own occasions hindring them), then by suffering patiently at home, without giving the least publick disturbance. But the dispute concerning the magistrate's power ought to be superfluous; for that it is certainly founded upon his commission from God, and for the most part sufficiently fortified with all humane advantages. There are few soveraign princes so abridged, but that, if they be not contented, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... When people are in great domestic sorrow, self-examination is a superfluous advice. She listened a moment to his departing footsteps, shivering as she stood in the darkness, for a norther had sprung up, and the cold was severe. She only glanced into the pleasant parlor where the table was laid for dinner, and a great fire of cedar logs was throwing red, dancing lights ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... Of these four examples of the picturesque and taking art of Longfellow, I need say no more than that all are printed in their integrity, with the exception of the first. This I leave the lighter by a moral and an application, both of which, superfluous or not, are remote from the general purpose of this book: a confession in which I may include the following number, Mr. Whittier's Barbara Frietchie ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... Christ. Nor is it for Christ's honour, nor for the honour of the law, or of the justice of God, that any but Jesus Christ should be an Advocate for a sinning saint. Besides, to assert the contrary, what doth it but lessen sin, and make the advocateship of Jesus Christ superfluous? It would lessen sin should it be removed by a saint or angel; it would make the advocateship of Jesus Christ superfluous, yea, needless, should it be possible that sin could be removed from us by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... begins to discourse on the British Constitution. We now know as much of Mr. Podsnap as we shall know at the end of the book. But it is a real knowledge conveyed by the method that gives dinner-parties their educational value. We forgive Dickens his superfluous discourse on Podsnappery in general. For his remarks are precisely of the kind which we make when the party is over, and we sit by the fire generalizing and allegorizing the ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... of this obstacle comes simplicity of diction; to present the thought without superfluous words; to avoid the threadbare phrases and to put the idea in a new way and yet in plain speech. How far the verse maker will go in clearness and simplicity depends largely on his natural good taste and discrimination. The better he is able to appreciate the work of others the better his own will ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... pieces are larger, time and material may be saved by using a diamond compass, i.e. an ordinary drawing compass armed with a diamond to cut circles on the glass, and breaking the superfluous glass away by means of a pair of spectacle-maker's shanks (Fig. 44), or what does equally well, a pair of pliers with soft iron jaws. With these instruments glass can be chipped gradually up to any line, whether diamond-cut or not, the jaws of the pincers being worked against ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... discovered Treatise on Christian Doctrine—the tendency of which was anti-Trinitarian—but it began with a general defense of poetry against "those who are accustomed to speak of poetry as light reading." This would now seem a somewhat superfluous introduction to an article in any American review. But it shows the nature of the milieu through which the liberal movement in Boston had to make its way. To re-assert the dignity and usefulness of the beautiful arts was, perhaps, the chief service which the Massachusetts ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... tell me! I know you have. What do you mean by pestering me to come to this dog-kennel of a place?" she continued, turning fiercely upon the partner of her existence and legitimate receptacle of all her superfluous wrath. "What do you mean by bringing me here, to see how you have been swindled? Yes, sir, swindled! He has no more idea of painting than you have. He has cheated you out of your money. If he was starving tomorrow he would be the last man in England ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... the subconsciousness rules these physical organs, and through this that the effects already referred to take place. So much has been written recently regarding the subconsciousness that anything more at this time would be superfluous; suffice it to say that the general conclusions on that subject are accepted as the basis of faith cure. We may, however, go further ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... him in demands for 'papers to be laid,' and certainly none was ever better able to justify his requests for additional information. If these requests were refused, it was never because he wanted what was superfluous, but that which, in his hands, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... Fellowes, "that you do not retain any vestige of your early 'historical' and 'dogmatical' Christianity, why, I retain just as little of it. Indeed, I doubt," he continued, with perhaps superfluous candor, "whether I ever was a Christian"; and he seemed rather anxious to show that his ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... superfluous to mention, To a person who has been here half an hour, That Golf is what engrosses the attention Of the people, with an ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... were fully acquainted with the meanings of all kinds of expressions; those that were conversant with all special rites, those also that were followers of Moksha-Dharma; those again that were well-skilled in establishing propositions; rejecting superfluous causes, and drawing right conclusions. There were those having a knowledge of the science of words (grammar), of prosody, of Nirukta; those again that were conversant with astrology and learned in the properties of matter and the fruits of sacrificial rites, possessing a knowledge of causes and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "vocabulary," phonetic and tactile; he says that the "extraordinary also has a name and place in their language"; that they are able to "communicate to each other news of an event occurring outside the hive"; all of which renders his Spirit of the Hive superfluous. He quotes from a French apiarist who says that the explorer of the dawn,—the early bee,—like the early bird that catches the worm, returns to the hive with the news that "the lime-trees are blooming to-day on the banks of the canal"; ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... hurdling, speed and grace depend primarily upon it. The same principle holds true in the development of the mind. The most serviceable mind is that which accomplishes results in the shortest time and with least waste motion. Take every precaution, therefore, to rid yourself of all superfluous and impeding methods. ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... was quite astonishing how soon the bustle of sitting down to supper, the cheerful faces and the fragrant steam that rose from the plump pullet as Chester thrust his fork into its bosom, seemed to soften down and carry off all their superfluous dignity. Before the little needle-merchant knew it, he found himself quite interested in the old man at his elbow, for after the ladies, Chester had helped the artist first, and on his plate was a choice morsel of the chicken's liver which made ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... which are accompanied by little abrupt, sidewise turns of the head, like a bird. His manner is a curious mixture of deference and self-importance, his voice a soft, sibilant whisper, and as he was born and bred in Alexandria, Virginia, it seems almost superfluous to add that he and the letter "r" ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... measure that should fully set at rest all uneasiness on the subject; while Lord Temple was so impressed with the propriety of adopting such a measure that he drew up the Bill of Renunciation, which, after much superfluous discussion, ultimately ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... delays] It is not always prudent to be too hasty in exclamation; the reading which Dr. Warburton rejects as nonsense, is in my opinion right; if delay be what they sue for, they have it, and the consolation offered becomes superfluous. The meaning is, While we are praying, the thing for which we pray is ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... consider—how is he to know in what dark lane he may chance to meet the curious stranger on his next day's journey? Though to be sure you'll say that, for a man with no more baggage than myself, such caution is somewhat superfluous." ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... the heralds, who, gorgeously equipped in suits of crimson and gold, and attended by trumpeters, advanced to the four corners of the lists to proclaim the challenge. It was couched in the formula of chivalric language, which it would be superfluous here to transcribe. The meaning, however, was, that the Mantenedor and his supporters, Don Manuel Ponce de Leon, the Alcayde de los Donceles, Count Cifuentes, and Don Antonio de Leyva, invited all knights adventurers to break lances, if ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... some matter which we omit, as superfluous—an account of Portuguese settlements in Brazil, decisions of the Junta of Badajoz, and the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... dissertation. Each dialogue of Plato demands an essay by Jowett. How well, then, may each dialogue of Shakespeare demand a separate study! There is distinct gain in looking at a landscape from a window, sitting a little back from the window-sill, the view being thus framed as a picture, and the superfluous horizon cut off; and the relevancies, as I may say, are included and the irrelevancies excluded; for in looking at too much we are losers, not gainers, the eye failing to catch the entirety of meaning. Here is the advantage of the landscape painter, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... L5700.[140] Considering that Robert Sidney, afterwards Earl of Leicester, had only L1OO a year for a tour abroad,[141] and that Sir Robert Dallington declares L200 to be quite enough for a gentleman studying in France or Italy—including pay for a servant—and that any more would be "superfluous and to his hurte,"[142] it will be seen that the Earl of Oxford ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... things are to be avoided or refuted, the division will be both useful and pleasing, causing everything to appear in the order in which it is to be said. But if we defend a single crime by various ways, division will be superfluous, as, "I shall make it clear that the person I defend is not such as to make it seem probable that he could be guilty of murder; it shall also be shown that he had no motives to induce him to do it; and lastly, that he was across the sea when this murder took place." ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... progress of modern discovery in both hemispheres has brought and is still bringing to the knowledge and control of civilized man, not much improvement of great physical conditions is to be looked for. The proportion of forest is indeed to be considerably reduced, superfluous waters to be drawn off, and routes of internal communication to be constructed; but the primitive geographical and climatic features of these countries ought to be, as ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... reside in the family of Mr. Wightman of Mauldsley, a gentleman of respectability, who was married to one of her near relatives. Two sentinels kept guard on the house day and night—a precaution not deemed superfluous when the MacGregors were in question. She was allowed to go out whenever she chose, and to see whomsoever she had a mind, as well as the men of law employed in the civil suit on either side. When she first came to Mr. Wightman's house she seemed broken down with affright ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... must be descended from him who omitted not from the seventh Commandment, and finding a superfluous "not" in his possession, is anxious to find ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... another. This doctor demonstrates that Dostoevsky was a great psychopathologist, and that, with his artistic insight, he anticipated even exact science. And much that he has written will certainly be incorporated in psychological text-books. It is superfluous, after such competent testimony, to insist upon the life-likeness and the truth to nature of his portraits. The effect of his books on a reader is overwhelming, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... when saying this as if she were going to cry, although her eyes were tearless. They did not now feel the irresistible necessity for tears. Weeping had become something superfluous, like many other luxuries of peaceful days. Her eyes had seen so much in so few ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and the right hand grasps resolutely the stone with which the adversary is to be slain." This entirely falsifies the sculptor's motive, misses the meaning of the sling, renders the broad strap behind the back superfluous, and changes into mere plastic symbolism what Michelangelo intended to be a moment ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... permanence of conscience may be referred to. Is the ultimate of life a state in which conscience will pervade every department of a man's being, dominating all his thoughts and activities? or is the ideal condition one in which conscience shall be outgrown and its operation rendered superfluous? A recent writer on Christian ethics[13] makes the remarkable statement that where there is no sense of sin conscience has no function, and he draws the inference that where there is complete normality and perfect moral health conscience will be in abeyance. ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... little golf club, the members of which lived and worked in New York, but played in Jersey. Men of substance, financially as well as physically, they had combined their superfluous cash and with it purchased a strip of land close to the sea. This land had been drained—to the huge discomfort of a colony of mosquitoes which had come to look on the place as their private property—and converted into links, which had become a sort of refuge ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... masters, Baldassarre Peruzzi, in building the Chapel of the King of France, in the transept on the side towards the Campo Santo, changed Bramante's design; and under Paul III Antonio da San Gallo changed it again entirely. Finally, Michelagnolo Buonarroti, sweeping away the countless opinions and superfluous expenses, has brought it to such beauty and perfection as not one of those others ever thought of, which all comes from his judgment and power of design; although he said to me several times that he was only the executor of the design and arrangements of Bramante, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... particularly attracted by the motions of the serpent tribe. They make our hands and feet, the wings of the bird, and the fins of the fish seems very superfluous, as if nature had only indulged her fancy in making them. The black snake will dart into a bush when pursued, and circle round and round with an easy and graceful motion, amid the thin and bare twigs, five or six feet from the ground, as a bird flits from bough to bough, or hang in festoons between ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... with a sniff of contempt. "What the chests contained was, of course, superfluous family plate. As for these documents, that fellow Baxter, in spite of his loose manner of living, was, I remember, a bit inclined to scholarship, and went in for old books and things—a strange mixture altogether. He probably picked up these parchments in some ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... of outline he was not an uninteresting figure as he sat there. His face had not taken on superfluous flesh as his body had acquired weight, and its lines were good to the eye of the artist. His eye was clear, his smile full and not lacking in a certain winning quality which spoke of sympathy and understanding. One who had never before seen ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... yes." Everard brushed aside all personal comment as superfluous. "Come along in and refresh! What particular star have you fallen from? And why in thunder didn't you say ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... eggs before the next season. So it happens that no bumblebee ever sees its own father, and no father bumblebee ever sees his own children. In the honey bee the male, which has been fortunate enough to fertilize the queen, pays for his honor by death within the hour. Superfluous bachelors, among the honey bees, when the bridal season has passed, are driven from the ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker |
