"Well-nigh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their eyes a glass of beer is quite right and proper when taken as any self-respecting man should take it; though they know that cleanliness is an expensive virtue which can be required of few; though they realize that saving is well-nigh impossible when but a few cents can be laid by at a time; though their feeling for the church may be something quite elusive of definition and quite apart from daily living: to the visitor they gravely laud temperance ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... in London the horror was well-nigh insupportable. I could not get away from men: their voices came through windows; locked doors were flimsy safeguards. I would go out into the streets to fight with my delusion, and prowling women would ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... it has not fallen down and has not thrown out cracks. The reason is that this edifice is round both without and within and built in the shape of a hollow well, and bound together with the stones in a manner that it is well-nigh impossible that it should fall; and it is assisted, above all, by the foundations, which have an outwork three braccia wide outside the tower, made, as it is seen, after the sinking of the campanile, in order to ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... with, I was a king; king of all Caria, ruler of many Lydians, subduer of islands, conqueror of well-nigh the whole of Ionia, even to the borders of Miletus. Further, I was comely, and of noble stature, and a mighty warrior. Finally, a vast tomb lies over me in Halicarnassus, of such dimensions, of such exquisite beauty as no other shade can boast. Thereon are ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... true character, and Herschel was awarded the honor due to the author of a discovery of such importance. His diligence and pertinacity alone had enabled him to search out from among the multitude of stars thickly strewn over the firmament this unknown and well-nigh invisible planet which, during all the preceding years of the world's history, had eluded human perception. Men had been all unconscious of its existence as it had been slowly completing its circuits around the sun, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... of the camp made sleep well-nigh impossible—a bad preparation for the only long ride of this excursion. Setting off at dark (4.20 a.m., March 18th), we finished the monotonous Wady Kuwayd, which mouths upon the rolling ground falling coastwards. The track then struck to the north-west, across and sometimes down the network ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... hand you a bunch of bills such as I'd like to pass on to an honest man. But I don't guess I'm goin' to do it. Y'see, I just can't afford it. If I can't graze my stock on your grass they got to starve, or I got to get out. An', seein' I doped all my wad into this lay-out, it 'ud well-nigh mean ruin to act ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... desired. The common source of the art and ritual of Osiris is the intense, world-wide desire that the life of Nature which seemed dead should live again. This common emotional factor it is that makes art and ritual in their beginnings well-nigh indistinguishable. Both, to begin with, copy an act, but not at first for the sake of the copy. Only when the emotion dies down and is forgotten does the copy become an end in itself, a ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... than once—to be on the point of rising to challenge us. But these occasions were as skilfully met as they were easily detected; and as the rogues had invariably some stroke in reserve that in a twinkling flung him back into his old state of dazed bewilderment, while it well-nigh killed us with stifled mirth, they only gave ever ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... breathes such an experience of impassioned anguish. He had everything,—health, personal advantages, almost boundless wealth, genius, exquisite taste, culture; he could, in some way, express his whole being. Yet well-nigh he sank beneath the sickness of the wounded heart; and solitude, "country of the unhappy," was all he ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... with the world but with the silly writers of goody-goody stories, who have so emasculated and effeminated the boy who works hard and holds his head high that it is now well-nigh impossible to hear of such an one in real life without instantly setting him down as an intolerable prig. These writers have committed the greatest crime against their creations that authors can commit—they ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... that interested us most were the solitaires, and especially the dippers or water-ousels. We were fortunate enough to hear the solitaires sing not only when perched on trees, but on the wing, soaring over a great canon. The dippers are to my mind well-nigh the most attractive of all our birds. They stay through the winter in the Yellowstone because the waters are in many places open. We heard them singing cheerfully, their ringing melody having a certain suggestion of the winter wren's. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... had known in all their lives. Terrified, half drowned, blown almost from the saddles, the trio finally found shelter in the lee of a shelving cliff just off the road. While they stood there shivering, clutching the bits of their well-nigh frantic horses, the glimmer of lights came down to them from windows farther up the steep. There was no mistaking the three upright oblongs of light; they were tall windows in the house, the occupants of which doubtless ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Olivet. She boasted in being the largest church in all Randolph County—the churches at Ridgetown and Dobbinsville not excepted. When I say that Mount Olivet church flourished, I do not mean that she flourished in spiritual things. Indeed, her candle of vital religion had well-nigh flickered out. Scarcely a member could be found who would testify to a real experience of salvation from sin. There were three things for which the members of this particular church were remarkable, namely, they were great sticklers for ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... again were all things ready for the assault. And then once more the more skilful and prudent of the leaders hindered the matter. It was not well, they said to run into such danger. It might well be that if they should assail the city they would not take it; it was well-nigh certain that even if they should take it, they could not hold it to any good purpose. And so it came to pass that King Richard and the army having once more come to Beitenoble, once more ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... O'Brien, O'Donnell, steps out of a past well-nigh co-eval with the heroisms and tragedies that uplifted Greece and laid Troy in ashes, and swept the Mediterranean with an Odyssey of romance that still gives its name to each chief island, cape, and promontory of the mother ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... him to be both a Jesuit and an Atheist. His books narrowly escaped being burned by the hangman; the fate of Vanini was dangled before his eyes; and the misfortunes of Galileo so alarmed him, that he well-nigh renounced the pursuits by which the world has so greatly benefited, and was driven into subterfuges and evasions which ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... known him well, nor would there have been any quarrel between them, for he had heard tell of this shield at the court of King Arthur. The authority of this story recordeth that the two knights are in hermitage, and that Perceval is well-nigh whole; but Lancelot hath sore pain of his wound and is still ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... sickening results. In his mind there was no doubt that Marlanx had completely overthrown the dynasty and was in full possession of the government. He did not know that the Prince and his court had succeeded in reaching the Castle, whose walls and gates were well-nigh impregnable to assault, even by a great army. If he had known this he might ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... with its steep, narrow streets, numerous convents, and famous university, had been well-nigh ruined by the French, who had pulled down half the convents and nearly all the colleges, and used the stones for the building of forts, which, a few weeks previously, Wellington had ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... more or less forcibly or fraudulently obtained. There were, however, a great number of modest competencies, which were recognized by public opinion as being no more than a fair measure of the service rendered by their possessors to the community. Below these there was the vast mass of well-nigh wholly penniless toilers, the real people. Here there was indeed abundance of ethical title to property, for these were the producers of all; but beyond the shabby clothing they wore, they had little or ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... extinct volcano itself which once caused such devastation, and in which a great commonwealth was well-nigh swallowed up, little is left but slag and cinders. The past was made black and barren with them. Let us disturb them as little ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... being essentially—I might say exclusively—German, can at most be represented in five or six German towns. You know, moreover, that since the Dresden affair OFFICIAL Germany is not favourable to your name. Dresden, Berlin, and Vienna are well-nigh impossible fields for your works for some time to come. If, as is not unlikely, I go to Berlin for a few days this winter, I shall try to interest the King in your genius and your future; perhaps I shall succeed in gaining ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... instantly vanished. His excitement grew well-nigh beyond control. "You're not going. Sit down. You've got to explain." He rapped out his sentences in short, quick jerks. His voice had become harsh and imperative. "You can't have any idea what this ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... his mind occupation in the intervals of his imaginative creation; they were a resource to him like the recreation of a walk; they represent the vacant and idle times of his genius; and for this reason his observations, which are in the main a kind of admirable reporting, afford a well-nigh complete setting for his life, and constitute an external autobiography. He is hardly to be ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... is so quick to take up arms as that of the middle classes. Kildare as a landlord was not popular. Beauty, charm, did not help her with them as it had with their husbands. There was the further barrier, which all aliens in a rural community reach soon or late: the well-nigh impassable barrier of strangeness. They would have none of her. They looked askance at her winning sweetness; they accepted her bounty with ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... before him a profession of their faith, were summarily hanged from the castle windows. One intrepid reformer had been so fortunate as to be admitted to the queen mother's presence, and there, by his ready and cogent reasoning, had well-nigh brought the Cardinal of Lorraine to admit that his view of the Lord's Supper was correct. Catharine's attention having been for a moment withdrawn, when she returned to the discussion the man had disappeared. Actuated by curiosity or by ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... skilled, and economic guidance these wild waters, lassoed, tamed, and set to work, taking the place of clouds where there are none, were soon to cause the gray garden of nature to become goldened by the well-nigh illimitable acres of ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... hard work. I can quite understand that, Mr. Strelinski. It is terribly hard for any foreigner, even with good introductions, to earn a living here, and to one unprovided with such recommendations well-nigh impossible. Please to sit here for a moment. Frank, come into the next room ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... river's bending bed at different angles; their sides were steep, and in places scarped where they fell into the intervening hollows. The valleys conducted many a water to the main drain, and during the wet season they must be well-nigh impassable. At the end of the dries the only green is in the hill-folds and the basin-sinks, where the trees muster strong enough to defend themselves from the destructive annual fires. These bush-burnings ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... she had to adduce with respect to the terrible crime, and Olivier's relations to the victim and his daughter, and his character. Nevertheless the only proof he gave that her words were not falling upon totally deaf ears was a slight and well-nigh mocking smile; and in the same way he heard her protestations and admonitions, which were frequently interrupted by tears, that the judge was not the enemy of the accused, but must also duly give heed to anything that spoke in his favour. When at length Mademoiselle paused, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... integration meets peculiar obstacles in the United States. Divergencies of race, tradition, and social theory, and clashing interests of different sections have been felt from the beginning of the nation's life. There was well-nigh complete solidarity in the single province of New England during a portion of the seventeenth century, and under the leadership of the great Virginians there was sufficient national fusion to make the Revolution successful. But early in the nineteenth century, the opening of the ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... length induced me to wait till the next day. But scarcely had day begun to dawn when I sallied forth, without either arms or guide, except a pocket compass, leaving my fellow-travellers to bring on the waggon as soon as they should arouse from their slumbers. This impatience had, however, well-nigh cost me my life; for having to wade through many miles of deep sand with a vertical sun over my head, I had not accomplished half the journey before my strength began to fail, and an indescribable thirst was induced. ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the acquisition of Corsica by the British was a matter of great importance. It was, however, only one among several factors, which went to make up the general military and political situation in the Mediterranean at the end of the year 1794. Hitherto the exigencies of the well-nigh universal hostilities in which France had been engaged, and the anarchical internal state of that country, had prevented any decisive operations by her on the side of Italy, although she had, since 1792, been formally at war with the Kingdom of Sardinia, of which Piedmont ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... one of the oldest of the connection, had been very much run down. During a ministry there of ten years, he has wrought remarkable improvement. He has increased the communicant list from sixty-three to nearly two hundred, and advanced the church well-nigh to complete self-support. The old church, which was in a Jewish neighborhood, has been sold during the present year, and a handsome brick structure erected in another section of the city. Mr. Bragg, during his residence in Baltimore, has founded a splendid charitable institution, the Maryland ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... colonies the puritan element was strong, and the chief sources of wealth were commerce and farming. The southern colonies had cavalier traditions, and their wealth was chiefly derived from plantations which were cultivated by slave labour. Though puritanism as a religious force was well-nigh extinct in the New England provinces, it affected the temper of the people; they set a high value on speech-making and fine words, and were litigious and obstinate; lawyers were plentiful among them, and had much influence. As a whole the colonies were impatient of control and jealous of interference. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... they were alienating the most intelligent and most easily organized portion of the voters, the socialists lessoned from the experience and turned their energies upon the trade-union movement. To win the trade unions was well-nigh to win the war, and recent events show that they have done far more winning in this direction than have ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... I can read the lie in your face; a girl doesn't take up a knife unless a man well-nigh ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... immediately upon two ugly blows that had well-nigh shaken the lock from its fastenings—the shouting suddenly subsided into a confused hubbub of voices, followed by a clang and rattle of arms upon the cobblestones. This last sound appeared to hush the others into silence. I stood listening, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... brought out from a closet a quaintly shaped box. "It is the legend of Wonderland that a little girl shall break the spell that hangs over us. For it is deemed well-nigh impossible that a mortal child would venture beneath the water to visit us. Therefore, little Mary Louise, if I call all my people together, will you open this box and deliver us from the spell of the ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... bearing on the economic side of church administration, are usually less important; still they contain data that should not be neglected, for very often minor points deserve as much attention as salient ones. Unfortunately the church records of the period prior to 1680 have well-nigh disappeared from New Mexico, but some still exist at El Paso del Norte (Juarez), Chihuahua, that date back to the middle of the seventeenth century. The absence of these records may be somewhat overcome by another class of ecclesiastical documents, much ...
— Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction • Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier
... the straight road beyond, its impetus carried it almost over the edge, but not quite. With a splendid effort, the great black wheeler drew it over to the left. The front wheels kept the track, and although the hind wheels struck the side rail of the bridge with a crash and a jerk that well-nigh hurled Bert out upon the horses' backs, and the big coach leaned far over to the right, it shot back into the road again, and went thundering over ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... side of any question. One leans to wisdom, the other to fun. I am a house divided against itself. The younger longs to dance, to go to the theater and to play cards, all of which the older disapproves. The younger mocks the older, calls her a hypocrite and the like until the older well-nigh believes it herself and almost yields to her pleadings. The older listens sedately to the sermon, while the younger plans her Easter suit or makes fun of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... hands clasped upon her knee, her sombre eyes on the ground, or interrogating the distance with an unseeing stare, she would let hymn and sermon, prayer and the weeping and shouting which always close night meeting, go past her ears well-nigh unheard. Before those darkened, bereaved eyes, turn where they would, Love's ever-renewed idyl of rustic courtship was enacting, since Big Meetin' was the time and occasion of all the year for Corydon to encounter Phyllis, to stroll or sit beneath the trees ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... built for them in Hartford, and in the autumn of 1874 they took up residence in ita happy residence, continued through seventeen years—well-nigh perfect years. Their summers they spent in Elmira, on Quarry Farm—a beautiful hilltop, the home of Mrs. Clemens's sister. It was in Elmira that much of Mark Twain's literary work was done. He had a special study there, some distance from the house, where he loved to work out his fancies ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... compensate for the incredible perversion of public opinion, as any one who is not prejudiced must perceive. Thanks to the daily press, the sense which knows how to sift the true from the false has become blunted, the notions of right and wrong have well-nigh disappeared, evil stalks about in the garb of righteousness, and oppression speaks the language of justice; in brief, the human soul has ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... dispelled by his unfeigned delight in Carmichael's conduct of the "preliminaries." Twice he nodded approval to the reading of the hundredth Psalm, and although he stood with covered face during the prayer, he emerged full of sympathy. As his boy read the fifty-third of Isaiah the old man was moved well-nigh to tears, and on the giving out of the text from the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Rabbi closed his eyes with great expectation, as one about to be fed with the finest ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... come to naught? Body of Satan!—why?" roared the impetuous Ferrabraccio, as with his mighty fist he smote the table a blow that well-nigh shattered it. "Because Gian Maria was not in a marrying mood! The girl we proposed to him was beautiful as an angel; but he would not so much as look. There was a ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... of blood, and he had worked himself into a frenzy of fear. Suddenly the woman he had loved for twenty years had become, to his thinking, a dangerous, threatening witch; she who had lain on his breast, his mistress, the woman who had tended him in illness, the hallowed being he had well-nigh worshipped—offering up his country, his wife, his son, all things at her shrine—now appeared before him as the incarnation of evil to be compelled by ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... have come here with him, father, I would not, indeed. What I have been so unhappy as to do, I have done in mistake. I would not wilfully bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!' said Little Dorrit, her heart well-nigh broken, 'for anything the world could give me, or ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... past seemed like a dream—as an old dream, well-nigh forgotten. The scene was so changed that at times she could hardly believe that all those dark old days were real. Could she, now so busy and happy, be the same woman who sat worn and frightened over the dying fire with poor Captain Saxon? Is she the same woman ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... North there appeared a glaring white line. They had reached the ice. Their days of merry sailing on the surface were well-nigh over. From this time on life would be spent in stuffy, steel-lined, electric-lighted compartments. But for all that, it would not be so bad. Openings in the floes would offer them opportunities to rise for a breath of fresh air, and dangers ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... and evening upon me with a fair linen towel and water in a golden bowl; yet scarce had this Blanchefleur been for four months within my Tower than she betrayed me for another, whom with herself I had in righteous indignation well-nigh slain. So now, my lords, it is for you to pass judgment just ...
— Fleur and Blanchefleur • Mrs. Leighton
... the evening was spent in conversation in which Sylvius Hogg took the leading part. As Dame Hanson found it well-nigh impossible to overcome her habitual reserve, Joel and Hulda were obliged to respond to their genial host's advances, and the sincere liking the professor had taken to them from the very ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... "Aye, dreamed over! Well-nigh prayed over—if it comes to that," continued the old man gravely. "She isn't the sort that was turned out in a factory, you see, along with hundreds of others of her kind. She's an aristocrat and must ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... said, can read the works of John Ruskin without learning that his sources of pleasure are well-nigh infinite. There is not a flower, nor a cloud, nor a tree, nor a mountain, nor a star; not a bird that fans the air, nor a creature that walks the earth; not a glimpse of sea or sky or meadow-greenery; not a work of worthy art in the domains of painting, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... differentiation, dynamical aggregates, molA(C)cules organiques, potentiated sky-mist, undifferentiated "life-stuff," and other hylotheistic and purely hypothetical formulA|, with which the average mind has been well-nigh crazed for the ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... thirsty too, and he must have decided that the quickest way to water would be to let her mount; for finally with lifted head he stood stock still and let her struggle up his side; and at last, well-nigh falling from sheer weariness, she sat astonished that she had accomplished it. She was on his back, and she would never dare to get down again, she thought, until she got somewhere to safety. But now the animal, his courage renewed by the bite he had taken, started snorting off ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... themselves on the moor never find their way out. The mist is too tenacious. It has arms that grip, that embrace so tightly, that one can neither see forward nor backward any more, neither to the left nor to the right, that the cry that wants to escape from a throat that is well-nigh choked with terror is drowned, and that the eye becomes blind to ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... descends in a series of cascades, and there is a mighty roar of waters. For many yards I have for a companion a little wren, that flies from twig to twig through the well-nigh naked hedge along the wayside, now hidden behind a bramble's crimson-spotted leaf, now mingled with a tracery of twigs and thorns. I can almost believe it to be the same wren that kept up with me years ago in English lanes, and since then has travelled with me so many miles ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... the far distance there rose the spires and roofs of Brussels. The chiming of church bells came gaily towards them through the frosty air, and Babette knew that her terrible journey was well-nigh ended. At the entrance of the town ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... figures marvellous enough, as Dick said, to "beat the world." There were crucifixions, painted saints, and weeping virgins by Hernandez and Berruguete, faultlessly modelled, so vivid and beautiful as to be well-nigh startling; and I hoped that Monica might come while we lingered. But she did not, nor did we see her in the Colegio de San Gregorio. There, in the lovely inner court, however, I found a little grey glove on the marble pavement, and so like a certain other glove ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... at no more doors or windows; but if the disappearance of this symptom was a favorable sign, others came to notice which were especially bad,—for instance, wakefulness. At well-nigh any hour of the night, the city guard, which itself dared not patrol singly, would meet him on ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... and sweet, The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him. And once as by the north side of the Chapel They stood together, chained in deep discourse, The earth heaved under them with such a groan, That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened: A fever seized the youth; and he made confession Of all the heretical and lawless talk Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized, And cast into ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... have remembered, if he had chosen to recollect so unimportant a thing, that I once had to explain to him, ten years ago, the fact that I repudiated the doctrine of that letter at the time it was published, and that the Democracy of Mississippi had well-nigh crucified me for the construction which I placed upon it. There were men mean enough to suspect that the construction I gave to the Nicholson letter was prompted by the confidence and affection I felt for General Taylor. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... humility that the reception of "Figures of Earth" by the public was, as I have written in another place, a depressing business. This romance, at that time, through one extraneous reason and another, disappointed well-nigh everybody, for all that it has since become, so near as I can judge, the best liked of my books, especially among women. It seems, indeed, a fact sufficiently edifying that, in appraising the two legendary heroes of Poictesme, the sex of whom Jurgen esteemed himself a connoisseur, ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... so thick with falling snow that he was well-nigh stifled. His eyes were blinded as though they were padded with cottonwool. The flakes brushed against his cheeks like live things. At his sixth step from the entrance he had lost his direction. His feet commenced to slide; ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... of rebuffs and indifference on her husband's part, Ototachibana could not find it in her heart to leave him. But perhaps it would have been better for her if she had done so, for on the way to Idzu, when they came to Owari, her heart was well-nigh broken. ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... we place the gold brick ahead of the gold mine. We mix alloy of duplicity and greed with the virgin metal of our standard of value. By improved mining methods we nearly double our output of gold, and so cheapen it by well-nigh a half. This shrunken gold dollar is small enough; but that is not all. We adulterate and divide it by, say, another half when we falsely double its cost. This we certainly do when we issue counterfeit promises ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... Father's House. (Matt. 21:12; compare Mark 11:15; Luke 19:45.).... For thirty or more years after the death of Christ, the Jews continued the work of adding to and embellishing the temple buildings. The elaborate design conceived and projected by Herod had been practically completed; the temple was well-nigh finished, and, as soon afterward appeared, was ready for destruction. Its fate had been definitely foretold by the Savior Himself."—From the author's House of ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... out o' t' village go round t' moors an' bring her t' wool that had getten scratted off t' yowes' backs for ten mile around. Shoo were a patteren wife, and sooin fowks began to say to one another: 'I've bin reight thrang to-day; I've bin well-nigh as thrang as Throp's wife.' So 'thrang as Throp's wife' gat to be a regular nominy, an' other fowks took to followin' her example; it were fair smittlin'! They bowt theirsens spinnin'-wheels, an' gat agate o' spinnin', while there were all ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... enemy's hands forced them to throw themselves into the sea, they could float on their shields; and after death in battle a soldier was carried to his grave on his buckler. As they stood facing the Saxons they locked their shields together so as to form a barrier well-nigh ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... advantage to it should be stolen. Contracting a highly-born and seemly marriage connection, And securing thus again royal affinity,[551] And leaving his life as a splendid example, He lies a poor monk among bones! O sun, O earth, O final applauses! Well-nigh the whole Roman race laments him, As much of it as is not ignorant of him. But O only living One and transformer of natures, If perchance he did aught that was not fitting for him, Granting him pardon, give him Eden ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... meal, when the manito took up the dish and drank off the broth at a breath. On setting it down he immediately turned his head and commenced coughing with great violence. The old body in which he had disguised himself was well-nigh shaken in pieces, for he had, as Monedowa expected, swallowed a grain of the birch-bud, and this, which relished to himself as being of the bird nature, greatly distressed the old manito, who partook of the character of an ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... aggraded with fine waste form well-nigh level plains over which streams wind from side to side of a direct course in symmetric bends known as meanders, from the name of a winding river of Asia Minor. The giant Mississippi has developed meanders with a radius of one and one half miles, but ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... still untarnished, amidst the roses of love, in the embrace of passion. To bid farewell to the feast at its brightest, before disappointment has come, having lived in this sunshine and celestial air, and well-nigh spent myself in love, not a leaf dropped from my crown, not an illusion perished in my heart, what a dream is there! Think what it would be to bear about a young heart in an aged body, to see only cold, dumb faces around me, where even strangers used to smile; to be a worthy ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... well, and such of them as do not get freedom by my will would doubtless find harder masters in Sabinus and Camerinus. My sisters' husbands are patricians of the old school. As for without,—am I not a man useless in times of action?—well-nigh disgraced?—" ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... could satisfy me now. I doubt if any honest artist lad returning to the place of his birth after three years' absence ever met a grayer welcome. I had left my grandfather unimpaired, and it was well-nigh impossible to figure that harsh and domineering spirit in decay. Abram Pendarves belonged to the ancient hearty, savage race of British sea-captains, now fast waning to extinction. After a youth of wild and black adventure under the rule of just such ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... on the Earl; but they chose to set on the Earl. So they drove beams at the loft-doors and broke them in; then Asmund caught hold of the two who were with the Earl, and cast them down so hard that they were well-nigh slain; but Asgrim ran at the Earl, and bade him render up weregild for his father, since he had been in the plot and the onslaught with Grim the hersir when Ondott Crow was slain. The Earl said he had no money with him there, and prayed for delay of that payment. Then Asgrim set his spear-point ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... term it—depending for its success on the strength of the cloth of the Cuirassier's cloak. It is the same in nature; every species has its bridge of Beresina; it has to fight its way through and struggle with other species; and when well-nigh overpowered, it may be that the smallest chance, something in its colour, perhaps—the minutest circumstance—will turn the scale one way or ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... before the fire, his eyes fixed upon its red depths. His shoulders were still bent, as though they bore a burden well-nigh overwhelming. An odd little spasm went over his face ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... his soldiers along, he left the others to recruit their energies at San Gabriel, but the inactivity of Rivera did not please him, and, as things were not going well at San Gabriel, he soon returned and started northward. It was a weary journey, the rains having made some parts of the road well-nigh impassable, and even the women had to walk. Yet on the tenth of March they all arrived safely and happily at Monterey, where Serra himself came ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... United States was on December 31, 1890, $112,512,613.06. A large part of this debt is now fast approaching maturity, with no adequate provision for its payment. Some policy for dealing with this debt with a view to its ultimate collection should be at once adopted. It is very difficult, well-nigh impossible, for so large a body as the Congress to conduct the necessary negotiations and investigations. I therefore recommend that provision be made for the appointment of a commission to agree upon and report a plan for dealing ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... own dungeon-like home, if so be that she was as unlovely as report had spoken her. They met; and for a moment the proud old dame was struck as by death. The seamed and scarred face, the closed eyes—one perfectly sightless, the other well-nigh so—the burnt and withered hair growing in long, ragged patches only, the awkward gait and downcast look; all were like daggers in Dame Katharine's heart; and 'she rebuked her greatly, seeing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... heat is shot forth into space in every direction, with a prodigality which seems well-nigh inexhaustible. No doubt the earth does intercept a fair supply of sunbeams for conversion to our many needs; but the share of sun-heat that the dwelling-place of mankind is able to capture and employ forms only an infinitesimal fraction of ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... house, in a faint glow that was already paling the stars, the African city, well-nigh a thousand years old, assumed its most mysterious aspect. The high walls on either side of the roads, innocent of casements as of glass, seemed, in the uncertain light, to be tinted with violet amid their dull grey. The silence was complete and weird. Never a cry from ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... tongue," or the Italian in which Petrarch and Boccaccio had written. What he says about grace, however, applies also to conversation: "I say that in everything it is so hard to know the true perfection as to be well-nigh impossible; and this because of the variety of opinions. Thus there are many who will like a man who speaks much, and will call him pleasing; some will prefer modesty; some others an active and restless man; still others one who shows calmness and deliberation in everything; ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... beautiful, Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell, Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot! On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill, Homeward I wind my way; and lo! recalled From bodings that have well-nigh wearied me, I find myself upon the brow, and pause Startled! And after lonely sojourning In such a quiet and surrounded nook, This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main, Dim-tinted, there the mighty majesty Of that huge amphitheatre of rich And elmy fields, seems ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... The day was well-nigh spent; his cave was near, Where he had spent so many weary years, And as he thither turned and upward climbed, The shepherd's little child who watched the flock His love had rescued from the bloody knife, Upon a rock that rose above his path ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... House of Commons and impeached him in Westminster Hall, the adversary who assailed him with a splendid prose, were alike inspired by a longing for justice and a hatred of oppression. But it should be possible now, when more than a century has passed since the indictment of the one and well-nigh half a century since the indictment of the other, to remember {259} that if Hastings cannot be exculpated there is at least a measure of excuse to be offered ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... such conditions. Probably there are few observant persons of rural habits who cannot call to mind one or another still autumn morning, when from a cloudless, though perhaps hazy, sky, they have noted, over a wide area, steady descent of countless spider webs, many of them well-nigh perfect in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... peoples had long been the mainstays of monarchic tradition, military discipline, and the principle of authority. The Teutons, steadily pursuing an ideal which lay at the opposite pole to anarchy, had risked every worldly and well-nigh every spiritual possession to realize it. It was the hegemony of the world. This aspiration transfigured, possessed, fanaticized them. Teutondom became to them what Islam is to Mohammedans of every race, even when they shake off religion. They eschewed ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... I was about starting on my last trip to the Front before sailing for home, official announcement was made that dog biscuits would shortly be advanced in price to a well-nigh prohibitive figure. So I presume that very shortly thereafter the head waiters began offering dog biscuits to American guests. I knew they would do so, just as soon as a dog biscuit cost ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... and bald counterfeit of poetry, which is characterized as below criticism, should for nearly twenty years have well-nigh engrossed criticism, as the main, if not the only, butt of review, magazine, pamphlet, poem, and paragraph; this is indeed matter of wonder. Of yet greater is it, that the contest should still continue as undecided as [19] that between Bacchus and the frogs in Aristophanes; ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Then the elder said, "There, truly, I said it. I knew you would be our death if you did not mind me:" it being in all cases an esteemed solace for every woman and most men to say, "I told you so!" But the younger, being well-nigh frightened to a corpse, in a soft whisper implored the elder to let her hide herself in her roll of hair, [Footnote: That is, the elder should retain the human form, and the younger become a weasel.] which the Voice, mocking ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... may that good advice of Solon be taken with reason. But forsomuch as he is a Philosopher, with whom the favours or disfavours of fortune, and good or ill lucke have no place, and are not regarded by him; and puissances and greatnesses, and accidents of qualitie, are well-nigh indifferent: I deeme it very likely he had a further reach, and meant that the same good fortune of our life, which dependeth of the tranquillitie and contentment of a welborne minde, and of the resolution and assurance of a well ordered soule, should never be ascribed unto man, untill ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... country by means of deliberate instruction. Lies any hope that way? Does it seem to promise a return of the time when the old English names of all our flowers were common on rustic lips—by which, indeed, they were first uttered? The fact that flowers and birds are well-nigh forgotten, together with the songs and the elves, shows how advanced is the process of rural degeneration. Most likely it is foolishness to hope for the revival of any bygone social virtue. The husbandman of the future will be, I daresay, a well-paid ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Price," I said, well-nigh beside myself with suspicion. "Confess that every word of this is false! Confess that Gianetta will not listen to you, and that you are afraid I may succeed where you have failed. As perhaps I shall—as ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... mechanism, or as men soon came to prefer to think of it, the developing growth of the world. And wonderful, beyond all anticipation, was the success which rewarded the pains that were lavishly bestowed upon the inquiry. Small marvel was it that some men's heads were well-nigh turned, and that to many it seemed little less than certain that science had dispensed with the supernatural altogether; and that it only required time, and no great length of time, to secure universal acceptance for the materialistic explanations which ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... Hamlet-like irresolution he poised in mind before the antinomies of the universe, alert to see around a subject, having the modern thinker's inability to be partisan. This way of thought is obviously unhealthy, or at least has in it something of the morbid. It implies the undue introspection which is well-nigh the disease of this century. There is in it the failure to lose one's life in objective incident and action, that one may find it again in regained balance of mind and bodily health. Amiel had the defect of his quality; but ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... guile, to the lust of the flesh, those who had well-nigh escaped, and now they walk in error. This is what these wells and teachers do, so that they who were almost escaped must fall into the snare of wickedness, and for the first time be truly captured. A child that has been baptised, rescued from all sins, snatched from ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... to secure a costly extension of this branch railroad through a sparsely settled and thin-soiled region, in a way that would greatly enrich himself, because of his vast property holdings there. He had well-nigh persuaded a group of capitalists to undertake the extension when, acting cautiously as financiers must, they decided to ask Duncan to study the situation and make a report upon the project. He had already studied the question thoroughly during his stay at ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston |
