"Usefulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... returned to the outer room, he found it even colder than the cavern in which he had been working, and realised, as never before, the value of the knowledge that had enabled him to restore the usefulness of that electric heater. After getting it into operation, and making his report to the sick man, who had impatiently awaited him, there was another meal ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... that as he had long taken a labouring oar in the boat, and in this Session, when they had got into a scrape about the Navy, Wood had successfully defended the Government in the House of Commons in a very good speech,—this eminent service, together with a long career of usefulness, gave him a superior claim to promotion. The details of the contest between these various candidates I do not know, but the result was that Labouchere got the place, Howick and Charles Wood both resigned, and Clarendon had a conversation with Melbourne, in which the latter ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... and the sympathy of audience given in an almost appalled humility of intense, rapturous, and yet entirely reasoning and reasonable pleasure; between these two limits of octave, the reader will find he can class, according to its modesty, usefulness and grace, or becomingness, all other musical art. For although purity of purpose and fineness of execution by no means go together, degree to degree (since fine, and indeed all but the finest, work is often spent in the most wanton purpose —as in all our modern ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... and every accident causing stoppage to a single cart would have stopped everything behind it for an indefinite period. It is not too much to say that the removal of this objection, by widening the carriage-ways, has multiplied manifold the practical usefulness of the Bridge. ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... says, "I have known children take it for above six months together with great benefit, and without any inconvenience; and after long and repeated experience I do esteem it a most excellent diet drink, fitted to all seasons and ages." After mentioning its usefulness in febrile complaints, he says: "I have had all this confirmed by my own experience in the late sickly season of the year one thousand seven hundred and forty-one, having had twenty-five fevers in my own family ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... case assistance is near at hand. In the second it is withdrawing. The rear guard in a retreat should therefore be a little larger than in an advance. It must be able to extricate itself from any situation however difficult or it loses its usefulness. Its commander should have a cool, level head. To delay the enemy and thus assist the main body to escape is his mission. For him to remain too long in a good position might endanger not only his safety but that of the main body ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... expeditions, and attended the meetings of charity boards for Mrs. Carr-Boldt. With notes and invitations, account books and cheque books, dinner lists, and interviews with caterers, decorators, and florists, Margaret's time was full, but she loved every moment of her work, and gloried in her increasing usefulness. ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... Gorgias, in which Socrates dilates on the pleasures of itching and scratching. Nor is there any real discrepancy in the manner in which Gorgias and his art are spoken of in the two dialogues. For Socrates is far from implying that the art of rhetoric has a real sphere of practical usefulness: he only means that the refutation of the claims of Gorgias is not necessary for his present purpose. He is saying in effect: 'Admit, if you please, that rhetoric is the greatest and usefullest of sciences:—this does not prove that dialectic is not the purest and most exact.' From the Sophist ...
— Philebus • Plato
... phalanx of implacable foes—foes who howled at everything of which he was afterwards the author; but it gained for him his advancement to the poet-laureateship, and an estimation which caused some people to place him, for usefulness to the cause of true religion, on an equality with the author of "The ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Bastin, looking about him vaguely. "It is true that I can't see any of them, but if they are drowned no doubt it is because their period of usefulness in ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... grace her womanhood, or whether the youngest of the family, her father and mother's last pet, was to summon up courage, tear herself away from familiar and dear surroundings, and carry her gifts and acquirements out into the world, in order to win for them the best distinction of usefulness. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... ordeal, which most frequently ruins its votary, and eventually came out brighter, clearer and more noble for the conscience-polish which he received. He contracted no bad habits, but learned the usefulness and happiness of resisting temptation, and became so well schooled that he was able, by the caution and advice of wisdom founded on experience, to prevent many a promising and skillful hand from grasping ruin in ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... saw he hesitated somewhat. Though he congratulated me sincerely on my prospect of marriage, he uttered an involuntary sigh as he ceased speaking. "I hope, my dear Oliver, that you may enjoy the same happiness yourself," I said. "I am very certain that the usefulness of a clergyman is greatly increased by the assistance of a suitable wife— one who will sympathise with him in his unavoidable trials and disappointments, and who will attend to many of the cases of distress which he may find it difficult to manage." He looked grave, and ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... still somewhat this side of middle age, "I had a position in the office of a man who has a big reputation. Naturally, I felt my responsibility. It was plain to me that the head of the firm had outlived his usefulness, and I used to feel sorry to think what would happen to him if I ever left him. Sheer magnanimity made me overlook ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... struggles of free thought with ancient dying system—with all these events and their meaning is the history of popular art interwoven; with all this, I say, the careful student of decoration as an historical industry must be familiar. When I think of this, and the usefulness of all this knowledge, at a time when history has become so earnest a study amongst us as to have given us, as it were, a new sense: at a time when we so long to know the reality of all that has happened, and are to be put off no longer with the ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... be "taking any." Her mother's idea is that it is "sinking in." Perhaps if we allowed Veronica to lie fallow for awhile, something might show itself. Robina, speaking for herself, held that a period of quiet usefulness, away from the society of other silly girls and sillier boys, would result in her becoming a sensible woman. It is not often that Robina's yearnings take this direction: to thwart them, when they ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... tempore; for in ordinary Latinity, tempestas is used only in the sense of 'storm' or 'tempest.' [99] M. Licinius Crassus had been consul several years before (B.C. 70), together with Cn. Pompey, and enjoyed considerable popularity both on account of his former practical usefulness in the state, and on account of his colossal wealth, which he used ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... that the idea had come to him, he began to work out all sorts of possibilities. He thought of a hundred different things that might happen. He could see, all at once, the usefulness Bray Park might have. Why, the place was like a volcano! It might erupt at any minute, spreading ruin and destruction in all directions. It was a hostile fortress, set down in the midst of a country that, even though ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... years ago, I read a Sunday-school book entitled, if I remember correctly, "Walks of Usefulness." It represented a man going out into the street, and "pitching into" every person he met with, upon the subject of religion, or starting a conversation and immediately giving it a spiritual twist. I thought then that ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... usefulness, Struthers, and it's time to go. Let us part friends, however.' So I bade him ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... forward to Fort Lyon blankets, beads, Indian trinkets, flour, sugar, coffee and such other articles of usefulness as is generally found in settlement stores or commissaries. When Colonel Boone told President Lincoln that he did not care for an army of soldiers for escort, the President seemed astonished, and asked him how he dared go down the Arkansas River ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... of pure food, pure water, fresh air, and exercise. His motives are altruistic even while he is consulting self-interest. None but the censorious will criticize the minister for accepting a larger parish even with a larger salary attached. The larger parish will afford him a wider field for usefulness, and the larger salary will enable him to execute more of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... as possible Warlock would witness the arrival of another team, one slanted this time to the cultivation of an alien friendship and alliance, rather than preparation for Terran colonists. Would they keep him on? He supposed not; the wolverines' usefulness ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... all her faculties, was very active for one of her age, and felt unabated interest in the welfare of kindred and friends. She had by no means outlived her usefulness or grown querulous with age, but was ever the same bright, cheerful, happy Christian that she ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... son, scorning his own safety, plunged into the boiling surf on one of those nights of terror so common to that coast, rescued a half-dead sailor, carried him to his father's house, and brought him back to a life of usefulness that gave the world a record of imperishable value. For the half-drowned sailor was Heinrich Schliemann, the famous explorer of ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... implement. There was just one little part of the attachment missing. Missing that, hard effort was required and poor work was accomplished. It may be that some little thing stands in the way of your blessing, or the lack of some little thing hinders your usefulness. ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... Beppo had heard can never be understood by men till men have developed more of their latent faculties. As he lay in his basket something reached him which he recognized as a summons to a new phase of usefulness. Out of the lethargy of mourning he had jumped with an obedient leap that took him through the obscurity of the house to where a frightened girl had need of a little dog's sympathy. Of that sympathy he had been lavish; and now that there ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... learn from nature that to have perfection I must be attentive at the beginning of growth. Help me to select with care the soil wherein I plant; and to weed and cultivate my life that it may grow to beauty and usefulness. Amen. ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... difficulties in the way, it was equally true that the power to subdue them was fully within the reach of every man. He went on to represent the happy effects of a change from evil to good; a restoration to usefulness, peace, comfort, and respectability, which has happily been seen in many an instance. He concluded by appealing to his hearers as men, to shake off a debasing slavery; as Christians, to flee from a heinous sin; and he entreated them, if they had ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... cases after the acute inflammatory period has passed, lameness is slight, if at all present, and in time no interference with the subject's usefulness is occasioned because of the curb, but the animals often remain blemished—complete resorption of inflammatory products being unusual when much disturbance ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... Many times over, when limbs have been condemned by the medical men, we have seen them saved in this way. We have seen the same treatment save arms and fingers, reducing them from swollen and unsightly sores to perfect shape and complete usefulness. ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... objections to belief in the usefulness of spiritualistic mystery,—in fact, by temperament, perhaps inclining to hope that such phenomena may be tamed and yoked, and made to work for human happiness,—yet there seems to be something about me which these agencies do not find congenial. ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... their youth long only that they might enjoy the sweet blessing of getting drunk every night in their old age. But those men of sense and honour who love truth and the good of mankind in general above all other things will undoubtedly countenance this work. I will not gravely insist upon its usefulness, having said enough of it in the preface (Motteux' Preface to vol. I of Rabelais, ed. 1694.) to the first part. I will only add, that as Homer in his Odyssey makes his hero wander ten years through most parts of the then known world, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... "His political usefulness is at an end," said the leader. "There was nothing tangible to be got from him at our last conference, and I determined ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... received the copy of "Science Breath" promptly and I am very much pleased with it. The simple, clear, logical manner in which it is written will certainly be appreciated and will enhance its usefulness. Please send me another ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... of a few years, Lord BLANK'S party ceases to direct the government of the country, his Assistant Private Secretary follows him into the cold shade of adversity and opposition, and stands by him with exemplary usefulness and fidelity. But, though he is often pressed, he never contests a constituency, feeling, perhaps, that it is impossible to serve both Society and the Caucus. In time his name becomes the common property of all Society journals—his biography ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... fact, it had simply been marched and countermarched along dusty tracks at the whim of a superior officer. Yet under this mild usage the column had arrived back at a base with 25 per cent of its animals useless and an equal proportion whose days of usefulness were numbered. The sole reason for this was the fact that the animals had never been trained to long distances in a trying climate with 20 stone on their backs. The care of the brigadier or the watchfulness of the squadron officers availed nothing ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... ought never to have quitted this sphere of unmolested usefulness; but when, on the death of Parker in 1575, the primacy was offered to him, ambition, or perhaps the hope of rendering his plans more extensively beneficial, unfortunately prompted its acceptance. Thus was he brought once more within ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... possessed some interest for cultivated people; in fact, he had himself urged pretty much the same thing many years ago, when he was a young man, in a sermon he had preached at the Union meeting; but I must recollect that in all probability my sphere of usefulness would lie amongst humble hearers, perhaps in an agricultural village or a small town, and that he did not think people of this sort would understand me if I talked over their heads as I had done the day before. What ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... bed; Addicks, standing beside them, was looking fixedly at me. I caught his eye; doped as I was with opiates I saw the cold, calculating expression of his face, which told me as plainly as words that he felt it was all up with me, that my usefulness to him was at an end, and that without a thought for my interests or a scintilla of regret, he was calculating how to turn my death to his advantage. An amused conviction of the man's heartlessness crept over me, and then I passed out into ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... to preserve intact the family relation for woman's good. To-day a woman's property belongs to herself; her earnings are her own; she has been emancipated beyond the wildest hopes of any reformer of twenty-five years ago. Almost every vocation is open to her. She is proving her usefulness in spheres which the "nature" worshiped by the conservative of the last generation absolutely forbade her to enter. Notwithstanding all these changes the family circle remains unbroken, the man-child gets as well educated as before, and the ameliorating influence ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... these, including Benjamin, lived to the aggregate age of 677 years, an average of about seventy-five years and three months. From the most unpromising beginnings, without education, Hiram Sibley has risen to a postion of usefulness and influence. His youth was passed among his native hills. He was a mechanical genius by nature. Banter with a neighboring shoemaker led to his attempt to make a shoe on the spot, and he was at once ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... encouragement. She can perform heroisms now because she long since contracted the habit of heroisms. And responsibility is most becoming to her now because in the years past she learned how to wear it. She has multiplied her powers and usefulness a hundred-fold by reason of having learned to ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... with a selection of Bunyan's Works in a folio volume, in 1692, about four years after the author's decease; and although it is a treatise exhibiting very deep research and calculated for extensive usefulness, it does not appear ever to have been published as a separate volume. Like all other of his works, it is original; no one before him treated this subject with such profound depth of thought, nor ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... himself carried through the air from East to West and through all the opposite sides of the universe. But why should I enlarge further upon this? What is there that could not be done by such a craftsman? Almost nothing, except to escape death. Hereby I have explained in part the mischief and the usefulness, contained in this art, if it is real; and if it is real why has it not remained among men who desire it so much, having nothing to do with any deity? For I know that there are numberless people ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... usefulness enlarged in the country, since he expected to assist in pitching the tent and striking it again, and had to do his share of the camp work, cooking, &c. The quick changes prevented outsiders from noticing that the ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... the pond a long time, looking at it and admiring it unceasingly, and I breathed in the sweet, mild spring air, and warmed myself in the radiant sunlight so long denied to me. The old plum tree above my head, planted so long ago by one of my ancestors, and now almost at the end of its usefulness, spread its lacy curtain of new leaves to the tender blue of the sky, and the tiny fountain in its shade continued its tuneful melody as if it were a little hurdy-gurdy celebrating ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... was marked with usefulness. Self-denying devotion to the glory of God and the good of others characterized her earlier, as her later career. A deacon of the church on whom the writer called when recently in Norfolk, says she had a strong ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... where Mr. Belloc advocates the annulling of political evils by laughing at them. It is not our business here to analyse these compositions from the point of view of considering the amount of political usefulness they may have achieved. We must consider rather Mr. Belloc's fine, contented industry in his satiric task, the persistence with which he builds up his instrument ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... only stain on my life record... the only one. My life has been an open book but for that. I was only a boy—and I made a slip. Ought that to spoil my whole life, a splendid career of usefulness for the city and the state? Ought I to be branded ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... the most airily beautiful and graceful of all the decorative vines. And it is valuable not only for its own beauty, but for its usefulness in setting off the beauty of other flowers. It is very easily grown if kept on the warm side, and given plenty of root room. Care should be taken to provide green colored strings for the vines to climb up, as ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... Finally, he decided to repair to the house of Adam, who also granted him refuge for one night. When wild animals approached the house under cover of darkness, the dog began to bark, Adam awoke, and with his bow and arrow he drove them away. Recognizing the dog's usefulness, he bade him remain with him always. But as soon as the cat espied the dog in Adam's house, she began to quarrel with him, and reproach him with having broken his oath to her. Adam did his best to pacify the cat. He told her he had himself invited ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... with Driving Clock. This instrument was designed to meet the demand for portable low priced telescope suitable for the study of astronomy in the college, high school or for the amateur astronomer. Every observer and teacher in astronomy will appreciate the great usefulness of a driving mechanism, which will keep the star in the field during observation. After several years of experimenting we have succeeded in constructing a reliable clock which can easily be attached ...
— Astronomical Instruments and Accessories • Wm. Gaertner & Co.
... The first is a really clever sketch, the best thing perhaps in About's novel-work, of the peculiar "naughty-childishness"[425] which belongs to lovely woman, which does not materially affect her charm or even her usefulness in some ways, but makes her as politically impossible in one way as does that "incapacity for taking more than one side of a question" which Lord Halsbury has pointed out, in another.[426] The second is the picture, in the later half of the book, of those Ionian Islands, then still English, the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... note, first, the usefulness of the tribunes' authority in checking the ambitious designs, not only of the nobles against the commons, but also of one section of the nobles against another; and next, that in no city ought things ever to be so ordered ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... still continued above, though with a fresh American air pilot leaving the ground every quarter minute the chances were the Huns would soon conclude that their usefulness was past in this neighborhood, and run for home like a herd of wild ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... the Bengal contingent. You see, they will be entirely new to the country, and it will be a great advantage to them to have a troop like yours, many of whom are well acquainted with the roads and general geography of the country. Your speaking English, too, will add to your usefulness." ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... professional life is due to the same cause. The great aim of the girls' schools in China is, rightly, to furnish such training as shall prepare their students to be worthy wives and mothers, and the large majority of those who attend the schools find their highest subsequent usefulness in the home. But in China, as in other countries, the life of the woman in the home remains, ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... circulated extensively a large number of tracts, of a doctrinal and practical character. They have at the present time assumed a positive condition, gained a strong and permanent hold amongst the Christian sects, and are manifesting new signs of vitality and usefulness. ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... comprehensive glance at all the bearings of good and evil—being of the sort of love which induces the parent to correct the child, that the lesson of present suffering may produce the blessings of future respectability and usefulness. Acting on these principles, he gradually grew more estranged from his species in appearance, a sacrifice that was probably exacted by the severity of his practical reproofs for their growing wickedness, and the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... force to afford the employment of an overseer pure and simple. For the preceding year he had had one charged with the double function of working in person and supervising the slaves' work also; but this man's excess of manual zeal had impaired his managerial usefulness. What he himself did was well done, said Pemberton, "and he would do all and leave the negroes to do virtually nothing; and as they would of course take advantage of this, what he did was more than counterbalanced by what they did not." Furthermore, this employee, "who worked ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... influence upon their rustic neighbours. In the absence of schools, of churches, of most of the refining influences of civilized society, this class of the early settlers of Upper Canada were foremost in usefulness. Their superior education, their well-bred manners, their more refined habits, raised them in the estimation of the rural population, who soon tacitly admitted a superiority which would never have been conceded [had it been] more directly asserted." Most, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... marked in him certain powers and qualities, which were both agreeable to his tastes and promised usefulness. He had not employed his own powers and charms, physical and mental, from his fifteenth year upward, without having learned the actual weight and measure of their potency, as a man knows the weight and size of a thing he can put into scales and measure with a yardstick. He remembered ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you have presided, has shown any improvement? Where are your ships? Where are your munitions of war? Where are your dockyards? Where are the walls that you have repaired? Where are your cavalry? Where in the world is your sphere of usefulness? What pecuniary assistance have you ever given, as a good and generous fellow citizen,[n] either to rich or poor? {312} 'But, my good sir, 'you say, 'if I have done none of these things, I have at least given my loyalty and goodwill.' Where? When? Why, even at a time when ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... and Mr. Emberg wrote out an order on the cashier for two dollars. Poor Hogan shuffled from the room. He was but a type of many who have outlived their usefulness. ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... same time, I do not, I confess, anticipate a rush of young working men to share in these joys and privileges. This part of the Palace will grow and develop by degrees, because it is through the boys and girls that the real work and usefulness of the Palace will be effected, and not by means of the men. Of course, there will be from the outset a small proportion capable of rightly using the place. For all these reasons, it seems as if we may be very well contented that the recreation part of the scheme has ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... satisfied that you will make a useful and intelligent clerk. Until I want you, remain where you are. The discipline of your present office will do you no harm, but will help qualify you for usefulness and success ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... sick lady had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of consumption. She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husband's great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed conscious of her great usefulness. The coat and the cat were the sufferer's only means of warmth, except as her husband held her hands, and her mother her feet." ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... our mission to Russia, who has been my colleague in the public service, and whose friendship I have enjoyed from early youth, during a period of more than forty years, I would here, were it the proper place, pay the tribute of respect which the usefulness of his life, and excellence ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... hemisphere, there is not one. If we reflect a moment upon the discoveries which, in the last four centuries, have been made in the physical constitution of the universe, by the means of these buildings, and of observers stationed in them, shall we doubt of their usefulness to every nation? And while scarcely a year passes over our heads without bringing some new astronomical discovery to light, which we must fain receive at second hand from Europe, are we not cutting ourselves off from the means of returning light for light, while we have ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... Memoirs tell us that a gentleman in Milton gave her a very earnest invitation to go there and take the instruction of three little children in connection with her own. In this occupation she spent six years of great outward comfort and usefulness. There is much in these years, or in the letters of these years, of great interest and moral beauty. Even with young children to leave, she speaks of death as serenely as she would of going to Boston. "I do not feel that I am essential to my children. I do not feel ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... beds," asserted Pessim. "And my skin would make excellent drumheads," retorted the Ork. "Nevertheless, a plucked bird or a skinned Ork would be of no value to himself, so we needn't brag of our usefulness after we are dead. But for the sake of argument, friend Pessim, I'd like to know what good you would be, were ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... grateful to my readers for corrections, and particularly for suggestions leading to the wider usefulness of this annual volume. In particular, I shall welcome the receipt, from authors, editors, and publishers, of stories printed during the period between October, 1920 and September, 1921 inclusive, which have qualities of distinction, and yet are not printed in periodicals falling ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of Mendes, a fish god may also be a corn god, a land animal god and a god of ocean and the sky. The offering of golden mice representing "your mice that mar the land",[43] made by the Philistines, suggests that Dagon was the fertilizing harvest god, among other things, whose usefulness had been impaired, as they believed, by the mistake committed of placing the ark of Israel in the temple at Ashdod. The Philistines came from Crete, and if their Dagon was imported from that island, he may have had some connection with Poseidon, whose worship extended throughout Greece. This god ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... therefore, that the work of education, in any form, is as great as any other work; but I fail to see why it should be greater. Usefulness is usefulness: there is no reason why it should be postponed from generation to generation, or why it is better to rear a serviceable human being than to be one in person. Carry the theory consistently out: if each mother must simply rear ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... comprehended the agency he employed. The systems of Browning and Cunningham, though contemplating the same general objects, were singularly adverse; and in nothing did they differ more pointedly than their estimate of the substrata of convict character, the influence of religious instruction, and the usefulness of the cat. Dr. Browning was subject to much imposition—a liability which meets every aspect of practical benevolence; but that he preserved order and health, discouraged blasphemy, provided for the occupation ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... genial spring came forth in infantile beauty, unbending the streamlets from their icy fetters, and swelling the buds upon the trees, thus making her early preparation for future beauty and usefulness. ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... now, and winning our bread amongst strangers as we can—my sister Anne is near York, my brother in a situation near Halifax, I am here. Emily is the only one left at home, where her usefulness and willingness make her indispensable. Under these circumstances should we repine? I think not—our mutual affection ought to comfort us under all difficulties. If the God on whom we must all depend will but vouchsafe us health and the power to continue in the strict line of ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... evidently do not understand the situation at all. I feel I should be most untrue to my trust if I were to endanger in any way the life-long labor of my predecessor. You must be able to see that for yourself. It would destroy utterly my usefulness here. They'd send me away. I couldn't go on with the work. I have to think what ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... has been developed by years and circumstances. Still the West has also had its part in me. What I have found difficult is to keep up a prejudice in favor of any form, nationality, or individuality whatever. Hence my indifference to my own person, my own usefulness, interest, or opinions of the moment. What does it all matter? Omnis determinatio est negatio. Grief localizes us, love particularizes us, but thought delivers us from personality.... To be a man is a poor thing, to be a man is well; to be the man—man ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of greeting, the joke cemented friendship between them. The proof of the friendship is in the usefulness of it. Lincoln turned to this acquaintance ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... do? Blind and maimed, weak from long privation followed by great suffering, what is to become of them when the hospital has fulfilled its function and they are discharged "cured"? Their occupations, their homes, their usefulness are gone. They have not always even clothing in which to leave the hospital. If it was not destroyed by the shell or shrapnel that mutilated them it was worn beyond belief and redemption. Such ragged uniforms as ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cases with proper care be made safe and permanent for investment. But what I think better of is the good such houses do in elevating and making happier their tenants, and I much rejoice in having had an opportunity to test their usefulness." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... cheerfully maintain the old traditions [as, the three high festivals, the observance of Sunday, and the like] made in the Church for the sake of usefulness and tranquillity, and we interpret them in a more moderate way, to the exclusion of the opinion which holds that they justify. And our enemies falsely accuse us of abolishing good ordinances and churchdiscipline. For we can truly declare that the public form ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... virtue and talent are the only true nobility. This man was found wandering about in Chiswick, full of a plan for educating the Prince of Wales in a manner to enable him to fill the throne with credit and usefulness. As his name could not be learned, the appellation of "Chiswick" was given him, which he had himself adopted, styling himself Mr. "Chiswick" in his mottoes, but always taking care to put the ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... communication, and if you betray me I can render you no further service, for my usefulness will be gone; in fact, I would be put ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... while she lends to England out of her Reserves, taken from her over-taxation, L27,000,000 for War expenses, and this, be it remembered, before the great War Loan. I once said in England: "The condition of India's loyalty is India's freedom." I may now add: "The condition of India's usefulness to the Empire is India's freedom." She will tax herself willingly when her taxes remain in the country and fertilise it, when they educate her people and thus increase their productive power, when they foster her trade and ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... an elevated station more for the glory of filling it, than for the enlarged sphere of usefulness that it must ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... the point of passing from a statement of climatic distribution into one of real geographical regions. The general question of plant distribution long remained at, if it did not recede from, the position where he left it. The usefulness of the manuscript and early printed herbals in the West was for centuries marred by the retention of plant descriptions prepared for the Greek East and Latin South, and these works were saved from complete ineffectiveness only by ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... be settled by those reverend monopolizers of all the arts and sciences, the London Reviewers; who, by the way, and we mention it pro bono publico, would very much increase their stock of knowledge and usefulness, if they would depute a few missionaries, for their own reverend body, to pass and repass the Atlantic in a British transport, containing in its black hole an hundred or two of Yankee prisoners of war: We do wish that the London Quarterly Reviewers ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... appropriation—with such compensation to the existing owners as the community may think fit to give—of the land and industrial concerns. The second method is by taxation. Taxation has its special sphere of usefulness in helping the community to secure some part of its own by diverting into the national purse portions of the rent, interest, and profit which now go to keep an idle class in luxury at the expense of ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... raged in his proud and twisted spirit, which took everything so hard—his nature imperatively commanding him to keep his work and his power for usefulness; his conscience telling him as urgently that if he sought to wield authority, he must ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of usefulness for the ambitious teacher of a rural school. There is a large field for the discipline of the directive power open even for the humblest of ...
— Uncle Robert's Geography (Uncle Robert's Visit, V.3) • Francis W. Parker and Nellie Lathrop Helm
... a point in scholarship and prominence that only a few college Negroes have reached. He is noted as a pulpit orator and platform speaker. He has attained to some prominence as a writer and takes front rank as a preacher in his denomination. For his scholarly attainments and usefulness as a minister of the gospel, Livingstone College conferred upon him, in 1896, the degree of doctor of divinity. Dr. Anderson was one of those heroic liberty-loving souls who went to the battlefield in the Civil War to fight for ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... point might reveal. Their progress was swift, the gigantic strength of Hurry enabling him to play with the light bark as if it had been a feather, while the skill of his companion almost equalized their usefulness, notwithstanding the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... of primary education? Is it not probable that teachers, in pursuing such studies, will be led astray from the acquirement of more important but less attractive knowledge? And, even if they can learn something of science without prejudice to their usefulness, what is the good of their attempting to instil that knowledge into boys whose real business is the acquisition of ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... old friend," the Squire said. "And I had no doubt but that you would decide on this course. I will try not to persuade you to change your decision, for I feel that your power of usefulness is at an end as far as the village is concerned. May I ask what you propose to do? I can hardly suppose that your ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... are some things which injure those who receive them, things which it is not a benefit to give but to withhold; we should therefore consider the usefulness of our gift rather than the wish of the petitioner to receive it; for we often long for hurtful things, and are unable to discern how ruinous they are, because our judgment is biassed by our feelings; when, however, the longing ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... present day. She asked me not to gamble, and I have never gambled, and I cannot tell who is losing in games that are being played. She admonished me, too, against hard drinking, and whatever capacity for endurance I have at present, and whatever usefulness I may have attained in life, I have attributed to having complied with her pious and correct wishes. When I was seven years of age she asked me not to drink, and then I made a resolution of total abstinence; and that I have adhered to it through all time, I ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 10, March 8, 1914 • Various
... left upon the Rouletta, that sidewise plunge having carried the crew away. Once again Sam Kirby's artificial hand had proved its usefulness, and without its aid it is doubtful if either he or his daughter could have withstood the deluge. For a second time he had sunk that sharp steel hook into the solid wood and had managed, by virtue of that advantage, to save himself and his girl. Both of them were half ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... the recital of facts, which prove that I could, with more reason than many others, believe myself a person of great importance, since my humble services seemed to be indispensable to the master of Europe, and many frequenters of the Tuileries would have had more difficulty than I in proving their usefulness. Is there too much vanity in what I have just said? and would not the chamberlains have a right to be vexed by it? I am not concerned with that, so I continue my narrative. The Emperor was tenacious of old habits; he preferred, as we have already seen, being served by me in preference ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... are wooden molds, iron molds, sand molds and plaster of Paris and special molds. Each kind has its field of usefulness, and its advantages over the others. They will be considered briefly in ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette |
