"Mean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his arm, furrowed deeply. From Muggy Ladd's initial objection to touching anything that concerned Curley, it could mean only one Curley. He, Jimmie Dale, knew this Curley by sight, and, slightly, by reputation. Curley and his partner, Haines, kept a small wholesale liquor store in one of the most populous, where all were populous, quarters of the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... been consulted on the Wapping docks and the Gravesend tunnel; and who has now in hand two inventions which will render him immortal—the one is, converting saw dust into deal boards, and the other is, a plan of cleaning rooms by a steam engine—and, Farmer, I mean to give prizes for ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... the standard of dress, too, are very like ours, except that a duchess or a countess has more hereditary point lace and diamonds. The general style of dress, perhaps, is not so tasteful, so simply elegant as ours. Upon the whole I think more highly of our own country (I mean from a social point of view alone) than before I came abroad. There is less superiority over us in manners and all the social arts than I could have believed possible in a country where a large and wealthy class have been set apart from time immemorial to create, as it were, ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... not only good to eat—I mean they taste good—but they are healthful for one," said Daddy Blake. "It is not so many years ago that no one ate tomatoes. They feared they were poison, and in some parts of the country they were called Ladies' or Love Apples. But now many, many thousands of cans of tomatoes ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... PERSONS.—Tall persons have high heads, and are aspiring, aim high, and seek conspicuousness, while short ones have flat heads, and seek the lower forms of worldly pleasures. Tall persons are rarely mean, though often grasping; but very penurious persons are ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... to shrink from using that grand word, so plausible a cloak did it become for much that is mean and degrading. For example, when I was riding from Bloemfontein to Kimberley I and my companion descried a farmhouse two miles in front of us near Koodoesrand Drift; when we had come within about a mile of it a little travesty of a Union Jack was run up on a stick, ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... the like of them my friends now, I should hope. They've took it out of me often enough with their ridicule when they had the chance; and now I mean to get a bit of my own back. But if I'm to have fashionable clothes, I'll wait. I should like to have some. Mrs. Pearce says you're going to give me some to wear in bed at night different to what I wear in the daytime; but it do seem a waste of money when you ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... your success, for a cause more honorable to human nature or one that promised more benefit to the world, never called forth the efforts of the patriot or philanthropist." From Major-General Rosecrans came the message: "The cause in which you are engaged is sacred, and would ennoble mean and sanctify common things. You have my best wishes for continued success in your ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... I should think — I shouldn't think, to look at you, that your brother would weigh much more than you — he's broader shouldered, something, but you're the tallest, I'm sure. But you didn't mean that." ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... cost of L80,000. The Grey College was a building of which any city might be proud. The Post Office was quite up to the average of some large provincial town in this country, and several other imposing buildings proved that the capital of the Orange Free State, though small, was 'no mean city.' ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... th' owd craytur up," says Jim. "Shoo surely doesn't think aw mean ther wor a mule i'th' garden? Aw nobbut meant ther wor a bit ov a row i'th' hoil; but aw'll niver be trusted if shoo is'nt lukkin under th' rhubub leaves, as if shoo thowt a mule could get thear, but shoo'll be war mad at ther isn't one nor what shoo wod ha been if ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... Cuthbert said, "that I have some friends inside who will be able to make a diversion in our favour. However sir, it can do no harm if you will wait till then, and may save many lives. At what hour do you mean ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... sum of money to the amount of 1000 pounds, for the equipment of an expedition under Sir Thomas Mitchell, to accomplish this highly interesting object. Some delay was, however, caused by the necessity of communicating with the Secretary of State for the Colonies; and in the mean time it was understood that Captain Sturt was preparing to start from Adelaide to proceed across the Continent. From the experience which I had gained during my two years' journeyings, both in surmounting the difficulties ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... I think it must mean mine, because it says, "the iniquity of us all." I think "all" must take me in, Rosalie; at least I hope so. I have been asking Him to let it take me in, because, you know, if the sin is laid on Him, Rosie darling, I sha'n't have to ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... the intellectual history of a nation we generally mean in reality the intellectual history of the upper classes. With regard to Russia, more perhaps than with regard to any other country, this distinction must always carefully be borne in mind. Peter succeeded in forcing European ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... ago we had an opportunity to pronounce a favorable judgment on it.... Now there is much extension in addition to a thorough revision.... The opening sentences (no mean criterion often) are of a nature to whet the appetite for ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek
... you look at it," replied the lieutenant, with a smile. "It may mean a fight," he added seriously, "but we are prepared for that," tapping the pocket of his ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... I took my first lessons in navigation—I mean in a practical way; as for the scientific part of the business, that was deferred to a more favourable opportunity—and, truly, the lessons were rather rough. The way of it was this:—Our flour at Isle Jeremie had run ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... after me, was an unlearned priest, for he could speak no Latin at all. But when he came forth for his part with my lord's commendation, the wily fox had been so well accustomed in court to the craft of flattery that he went beyond me by far. And then might I see by him what excellence a right mean wit may come to in one craft, if in all his life he studieth and busieth his wit about no more but that one. But I made afterward a solemn vow unto myself that if ever he and I were matched together at that board again, when we should ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... see an astrologer here to-night when the gardens are quiet. Noel believes that the astrologer will advise the king to fling his Grand Constable out of the window and call Messire Noel in at the door, but the comrades of the cockleshell really mean much more mischief. When once we get the king within reach of our fingers, we mean to snap him up and carry him out of Paris, willy nilly, and sell him to the ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... "He don't mean you," explained the barber, reassuringly, emerging at that moment from his shop with a pannikin of water for the parrot's cage, which he lowered very deftly by means of a halliard reeved through a block at the end of the pole. "He means old ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... not think any man ever hated more than I have hated the affectation or the reality of singularity. I know very well that the American people mean to do right, and I believe with all my heart that the men and the party with whom I have acted for fifty years mean to do right. I believe the judgment of both far better than my own. But every man's conscience is given to him as the lamp for his path. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... not know exactly what you mean. Of course I will remember that he is an old man, and not answer him as I would one of my ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... in the kitchen. I want a cook. Artists paint picters; they don't boil potatoes. What do you mean?" ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... (The Zola of "Les Quatres Evangiles," and particularly of "Fecondite," turned meliorist and idealist, and became ludicrous.) Or in the Hauptmann of "Fuhrmann Henschel," or in Hardy, or in Sudermann? (I mean, of course, Sudermann the novelist. Sudermann the dramatist is a mere mechanician.)... The younger men in all countries, in so far as they challenge the current sentimentality at all, seem to move ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... last. "There never could be more'n one name like Dependence Crymble in this world. I ain't a native here and I don't know you from Adam. But is your wife the Widow Delora Crymble—I mean, was she—oh, tunk-rabbit it, I reckon I'm gettin' as crazy as ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... scale of the finer vehicle extends far beyond that of the physical, and that the soul cannot impress on this latter vehicle all that it knows when functioning in the former. By this we do not mean that it is omniscient as soon as it has left the visible body; this opinion, a current one, is contrary to the law of evolution, and ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... what do you mean? Our business is trading, buying; it's our business to buy. That's what we live by, Nikolai ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... goodly list, there will be found ample evidence that we in England have had makers of sufficient merit to entitle us to rank as a distinct school—a school of no mean order. We may therefore assume that the Continental writers who from time to time have published lists of makers of the Violin, and have invariably ignored England, have erred through want of information regarding the capabilities of our makers, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... IN the mean time, the multitude having gathered together in tens of thousands, so that they trod one upon another, he began first to say to his disciples: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. (2)For there is nothing ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... somewhere says, there is a higher art created by nature herself. [Footnote: The passage in Shakspeare here quoted, taken with the context, will not bear the construction of the author. The whole runs thus:— Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock; And make conceive a bark of baser kind ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... with every circumstance that had occurred on an occasion of so much importance; and you may expect orders from their Lordships for your further guidance. You are to remain in Torbay until you receive such orders; and in the mean time, in addition to the directions already in your possession, you are most positively ordered to prevent every person whatever from coming on board the ship you command, except the officers and men who compose her crew; ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... absolutely free to receive the law from one and the other; but it is not in the same relation with one and the other. Inasmuch as it is a natural force it is equally free with regard to nature and with respect to reason; I mean to say it is not forced to pass either on the side of one or of the other: but as far as it is a moral faculty it is not free; I mean that it ought to choose the law of reason. It is not chained to one or the other, but it is obliged towards the law of reason. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... stamping about, and some crossing their arms, and some running for their lives, and the bravest of them stooping over one another. Then as Captain Purvis rushed up in great wrath, shouting: "What the devil do you mean by this?" another great roar arose from across the valley, and he was lying flat, and two other fine fellows were rolling in a furze bush without knowledge of it. But of the general and his horse there ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... from his watch our hero met him at the door of his berth with an agitated face. 'Mr. Anchorstock,' said he, 'can it be that your wife is on board?' 'Wife!' roared the astonished sailor. 'Ye white-faced swab, what d'ye mean?' 'If she's not here in the ship it must be her ghost,' said Cyprian, shaking his head gloomily. 'In the ship! How in thunder could she get into the ship? Why, master, I believe as how you're weak in the upper works, d'ye ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... freedom: he died, but not in battle. He caught a fever of a virulent type, from his exposure, and after very few days expired, on the 19th of April, 1824, amid the mourning of the nation. Of this event, Macaulay—no mean or uncertain critic—could say, in his epigrammatical style: "Two men have died within our recollection, who, at a time of life at which few people have completed their education, had raised themselves, each in his own department, to the height of glory. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... mean self-indulgence of sleeping late has come over me again, though I found, a week or two since, after a firm resolve, the difficulty vanish. This morning I had no time for retirement before breakfast; and, should circumstances ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... time long ago, and lets them rest. Envy is the worst disturber or embitterer of man's declining years; but it does not deserve the name of a passion—and is a disease, not of the poor in spirit—for they are blessed—but of the mean, and then they indeed are cursed. For our own parts, we know Envy but as we have studied it in others—and never felt it except towards the wise and good; and then 'twas a longing desire to be like them—painful only when we thought that might never be, and that all our loftiest aspirations ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... to your boy, believe me," interrupted Iredale, as he noted the heightened colour of face and the angry sparkle that flashed in the good dame's eyes "I simply mean that it is useless to throw good money after bad. Fruit farming is a lottery in which the prizes go to those who take the most tickets. In other words, it is a question of acreage. A small man may lose ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... she says. She sure has it in bad for you. What does she mean? Seeing you and she ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... "You don't mean to say you are squeamish about it?" said Gus, in astonishment. "I could fancy that young friend of your mother's turning up his eyes at it, but a fellow like you wouldn't be so particular, I reckon; ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... Street—otherwise William—overlooks Blue's Point Road, with a vacant wedge-shaped allotment running down from a Scottish church between Bill Street the aforesaid and the road, and a terrace on the other side of the road. A cheap, mean-looking terrace of houses, flush with the pavement, each with two windows upstairs and a large one in the middle downstairs, with a slit on one side of it called a door—looking remarkably skully in ghastly dawns, afterglows, ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... "Of course I mean you as well as myself," Robert Turold replied almost humbly. "I should be sorry to part with you, Thalassa, you must be well aware of that. It is my intention to purchase a portion of the family estate at Great Missenden, which is at present in the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... "You mean you think she did it?" asked Beatrice Egerton. "You don't think it was a coincidence? Frances knew of something like it happening ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... too. Hush your laughing, Tom Dorgan; I mean calling him "daddy" seemed to kind of take the cuss ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... delayed, (by the way, I do not see why it may not,) it may be of but a single person, and that afterwards you should not exceed two or three; for it is enough for one riot, where the very act of Parliament on which you proceed is rather a little hard in its sanctions and its construction: not that I mean to complain of the latter as either new or strained, but it was rigid from ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that it was the future temple-mount at Jerusalem. The words of Genesis also point in the same direction. Abraham, we read, "called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." It is hard to believe that "the mount of the Lord" can mean anything else than that har-el or "mountain of God" whereon Ezekiel places the temple, or that the proverb can refer to a less holy spot than that where the Lord appeared enthroned upon the cherubim above the mercy-seat. It is doubtful, however, whether the reading of the Hebrew text in either ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... hot pursuit of the fugitive. The galley overtook the vessel in which Phanes had taken passage just as it was landing in Asia Minor. The Egyptian officers seized it and made Phanes prisoner. They immediately began to make their preparations for the return voyage, putting Phanes, in the mean time, under the charge of guards, who were instructed to keep him very safely. Phanes, however, cultivated a good understanding with his guards, and presently invited them to drink wine with him. In the end, he got them intoxicated, and while they were in that state he made his escape ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... do very wrong if they don't know, can they? I mean, they can't be very naughty. They can be wrong, like Kathleen or me, when we make mistakes; but not wrong in the dreadful way. I can't express what I mean; but there are two sorts of ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... said, Heav'n did not mean Where I reap thou shouldst but glean, Lay thy sheaf adown and come Share my harvest and ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... worst enemies of the old-fashioned courtesy she makes a passing allusion, while hoping cordially that the ladies will easily conquer it—we mean Positivism. If the women of France, she says, remain true to their vocation, they will eventually combat with success the ever-increasing partiality of their compatriots for the positive, and will prevent each salon from becoming, like the boulevard of the Cafe Tortoni, a petite ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... The opera, I mean!" A voice accosted John Steele, and, turning, he beheld a familiar face with black whiskers, that of Captain Forsythe. "This is somewhat different ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... separate the lower valley of the Indus from Rajputana; and also that I follow the general bases of all invasions of India that have had any success, from Mahmoud of Ghazni, in the year 1000, to Nadir Shah, in 1739. And how many have taken the route I mean to take between the two epochs! Let us count them. After Mahmoud of Ghazni came Mohammed Ghori, in 1184, with one hundred and twenty thousand men; after him, Timur Tang, or Timur the Lame, whom we call Tamerlane, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... of hot water, and pour it upon the currants. Stop the bottle close till the liquor ferments, then give it as much vent as is necessary, keep it warm, and let it ferment for about three days. Taste it in the mean time to try whether it is become pleasant; and as soon as it is so, run it through a strainer, and bottle it off. It will be ready to drink in five or six days.—Boniclapper is another article suited to the state of sickly and weakly persons. Boniclapper ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... a meeting of conservationists and it is for that reason that I am unable to meet and be with your honorable body, for I would like so much to be permitted in a humble capacity to assist in carrying on the work which you gentlemen are doing, as it is going to mean so much to future generations. I am sure that each of you feels as I do in this matter and that is that "He who ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... "It'll mean ten years this time, and a good job, too. You poor fool, do you think you can talk me out of this? You, you sawdust- head? What do you think I came into your hole here for? I came here so's you'd know what I was goin' to do to your ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Versailles, for the prizes taken in the expedition by the Bon-homme Richard, the Alliance, &c. In this business, I have aided him effectually, having obtained a definitive order for paying the money to him, and a considerable proportion being actually paid him. But they could not mean by their resolution of November the 1st, to take from the commissioners, powers which they had given them two days before. If there could remain a doubt that this whole power has resulted to you, it would be cleared up by the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... certainly not suffice to eradicate suspicion. But now he was quite sure,—almost quite sure,—that Phineas was as innocent as himself. To Lord Chiltern, who had heard none of the details, the suspicion was so monstrous as to fill him with wrath. "You don't mean to tell us, Mr. Low, that any one says ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... had been joined on their arrival by Mr. Waldmeier, and together they presented themselves before him, and delivered the letter into his hands. It was twice translated, and at the conclusion of the second reading he asked, in a deliberate manner, "What does honourable treatment mean? Does it mean that the English will help me to subdue my enemies, or does, it mean honourable treatment as a prisoner?" Prideaux replied, that on the first point the Commander-in-Chief had said nothing; that all his wishes were contained in his ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... absolute ground for disbelief if miracles be once admitted: (3) the inferences about the statue are conceded, but reconciled with the text. As the word {HEBREW LETTER AYIN}{HEBREW LETTER LAMED}{HEBREW LETTER FINAL MEM} (iii. 1) does not necessarily mean a statue (see Buxtorf's Lexicon, sub voc.), it is possible to conceive it to apply to an obelisk, the existence of which in Assyria is confirmed by recent excavations. (4) Daniel's honourable mention of himself is not improper when taken in ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... induced him to sing. There is nothing for him to do then but get on with the song. Shanties, however, being labour songs, one is 'up against' the strong psychological connection between the song and its manual acts. Two illustrations will explain what I mean. ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... or Failford, in the parish of Torbolton, was the site of a Monastery founded in 1252, which belonged to the Red Friars. (See the notices in New Stat. Account, Ayrshire, p. 748, &c.) The manner in which Knox speaks of Wallace as "a simple man without learning," may mean, without much pretension to learning, or not having enjoyed a learned education. Yet we find two persons of the same name, Adam Wallace, incorporated at Glasgow in 1536 and 1539.—His trial and execution took place in 1550; yet in the Latin verses by John Johnston of St. Andrews, on ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... 'His exuberant pencil was ready at pouring out gods, goddesses, kings, emperors, and triumphs over those public surfaces on which the eye never rests long enough to criticise, and where one should be sorry to place the works of a better master. I mean ceilings and staircases. The New Testament or the Roman History cost him nothing but ultramarine; that and marble columns and marble ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... "Does that mean you are satisfied to remain here, Dora?" demanded their aunt, insisting upon speaking as though ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... the wriggling and squirming, the begging and the pleading that ever you saw or heard! But I did not want to eat him, nor did I mean to kill him, either. But I did mean to teach old Mister Flier a lesson, showing it was neither wise nor in good taste to torment a fish-fellow that was ever so much larger and stronger ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... "If you mean you've changed your mind and want to get rid of me—" began Tommy, with its chin in ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... defining comfort, evidently does not mean soft beds and generous covering. His couch, as often as not, is the bare floor, without mattrass, or, indeed, aught that might be conceded to a weak impulse; and his covering nil, as a rule, in summer, and a buffalo robe, or some kindred substitute, in winter. He adopts ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... her, do I woo? Because her spirit's vestal grace Provokes me always to pursue, But, spirit-like, eludes embrace; Because her womanhood is such That, as on court-days subjects kiss The Queen's hand, yet so near a touch Affirms no mean familiarness; Nay, rather marks more fair the height Which can with safety so neglect To dread, as lower ladies might, That grace could meet with disrespect; Thus she with happy favor feeds Allegiance from a love so high That thence no false conceit ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... to be familiar with a certain amount of American slang. Yesterday he turned to me, with a quite helpless expression upon his handsome face, exclaiming, "This word 'crazy' that the Americans use so much—I am crazy about this and crazy about that,—now what does that mean, Madame?—fou de ceci, fou de cela? Vraiment il me semble qu'ils sont tous un ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... suppose any man on earth would have stayed away after receiving such a letter? Why did you write it?"—rapidly. "What did you mean?" ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... the many straights, and as I may say, the stress of weather, I mean the cold blasts of hell, with which the poor soul is assaulted, betwixt its receiving of grace, and its sensible closing with Jesus Christ? 26 None, I daresay, but IT and its FELLOWS. "The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy." (Prov 14:10) No sooner ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... are made in no invidious spirit. We do not mean to give any opinions on these questions. In some of them, indeed, we scarcely know whether, in this age of nice discrimination, our impressions deserve to be called opinions. But we merely meant to refer to facts which are a part of the history of the country. They ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... is too bad," cried Lucy, indignantly. "I think it's really mean of your papa; he never ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... that thrill which tells you you are at last in the presence of the real thing. This is a human child, this is genuine. You have seen him a thousand times—you have seen him just as he is here —and you confess, without reserve, that Titian WAS a Master. The doll-faces of other painted babes may mean one thing, they may mean another, but with the "Moses" the case is different. The most famous of all the art-critics has said, "There is no room for doubt, here—plainly this ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of sincerity. We are denied the payment of praise: it has ceased to have any value. People shake me warmly by the hand and tell me that they like my books. It only bores me. Not that I am superior to compliment—nobody is—but because I cannot be sure that they mean it. They would say just the same had they never read a line I had written. If I visit a house and find a book of mine open face downwards on the window-seat, it sends no thrill of pride through my suspicious mind. As likely as not, I tell myself, the following is the conversation ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... strongest auxiliaries he possessed in the whole insurgent section. In war a territory like this is a factor of great importance, and whichever adversary controls it permanently reaps all the advantages of its prosperity. Hence, as I have said, I endorsed Grant's programme, for I do not hold war to mean simply that lines of men shall engage each other in battle, and material interests be ignored. This is but a duel, in which one combatant seeks the other's life; war means much more, and is far worse than this. Those who rest at ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... battle that John Brown begun, he looks from heaven to view, On the army of the Union with its flag, red, white and blue; And the angels shall sing hymns o'er the deeds we mean to do, As ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... thought to Kentuckians) that of all the products of his great commonwealth, nothing equalled such women as this before him. Erect, deep-bosomed, with the warm brown flush of her cheeks, her level gaze, her tender mouth with the deep corners that mean humor—Kate Kildare, from girlhood to old age, would find in eyes that gazed on her the unconscious tribute that many women never know, and for that reason happily do not miss. But the vital quality of her beauty was not a matter of color, or form, or ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... right of saying that they rest on a real principle. It is in order to recognise this right that several physicists—M. Langevin, for example—ask that atoms be promoted from the rank of hypotheses to that of principles. By this they mean that the atomistic ideas forced upon us by an almost obligatory induction based on very exact experiments, enable us to co-ordinate a considerable amount of facts, to construct a very general synthesis, and to foresee ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... it from himself by treating Mansoul alternately as the soul of a single individual from which the Devil may be so expelled as never dangerously to come back, or as the collective souls of the Christian world. But, let him mean which of the two he will, the overpowering fact remains that, from the point of view of his own theology, the great majority of mankind are the Devil's servants through life, and are made over to him everlastingly when their lives are over; while the human race itself ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... victory in disputation, though in point of violence and inflammation he will, to be sure, not be easily surpassed. The part which you say the Catholics are disposed to take is undoubtedly very important; but does this mean only their leaders, who do not lead them, or has this opinion been spread among the parish priests and lower orders? Certainly, if they knew their interest, those descriptions ought to be peculiarly favourable to it, for they will come under the especial protection of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... poignant epigram and repartee; warm-hearted, perhaps too warm-hearted, and ready to lend a helping hand even to the most undeserving, a quality which gathered all Grub Street round her door. At a period when any and every writer, mean or great, of whatsoever merit or party, was continually assailed with vehement satire and acrid lampoons, lacking both truth and decency, Aphra Behn does not come off scot-free, nobody did; and upon occasion her name is amply vilified by her foes. There are some eight ungenerous lines with a side ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... gentility, so in years to come the farmer will denote himself an agriculturist, possibly with the epithet 'scientific.' We no longer talk of villeins and carles; both have become sadly perverted in their meaning, although the dictionary still allows the latter to mean 'a strong man.' But, it hastens to add, vindictively, 'generally an old or a rude-mannered one.' So is our ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... went to Frizinghall," said the Sergeant, cutting him short, "I told you to keep your eyes on Rosanna Spearman, without allowing her to discover that she was being watched. Do you mean to tell me that you have let her give ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... house of Lanhearne, standeth in the next parish, called Mawgan: Ladu is Cornish for a bank, and on a banke the same is seated, what hearne may mean, ignorance bids mee keepe silence. It is appurtenanced with a large scope of land, which (while the owners there liued) was employed to franke hospitality; yet the same wanted wood, in lieu whereof, they burned heath, and generally, ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... America in a war, civil or foreign, provided that it had for its sole end and object the assertion of their right to perpetuate slavery, and to whip and work and torture slaves, unquestioned by any human authority, and unassailed by any human power; who, when they speak of Freedom, mean the Freedom to oppress their kind, and to be savage, merciless, and cruel; and of whom every man on his own ground, in republican America, is a more exacting, and a sterner, and a less responsible despot than the Caliph Haroun Alraschid in his ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... Jeanne's room, the ceaseless scrutiny to which she was exposed. The vulgar slanderer was allowed to escape after this valuable testimony. She comes into history like a will-o'-the-wisp, one of the marsh lights that mean nothing but putrescence and decay, and then flickers out again with her false witness into the wastes of inanity. That she should have been treated so leniently and Jeanne so cruelly! say the historians. Reason good: she was nothing, came of nothing, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... said Nan, "must mean the gold and silver and other things you said, Rhoda, that the Mexican bandit hid on your father's ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... canvassed in the Lower House, and the Bill passed by the Commons, almost unanimously, three or four several times; but it was uniformly rejected by the Lords, and after Mr. Rose's death it got into Chancery, and there it has slept for the last nine years. I do not mean this remark in any manner as a jest; for, literally and truly, the late Lord Chancellor [Lord Eldon] took the whole matter upon his own shoulders, and promised to prepare a measure more suited to the exigencies of the sufferers than any that the collected ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... had no experience in rapid water, well-strewn with sunken boulders. The scenery of the locality is wild, and somewhat impressive. The Ohio bank is steep and rugged, abounding in narrow little terraces of red clay, deeply gullied, and dotted with rough, mean shanties. It all had a forbidding aspect, when viewed in the blinding sun; but before we had passed, an intervening cloud cast a deep shadow over the scene, and, softening the effect, made ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... real handsome woman, and always wuz when she was a neighborin' girl, as you may say, in Chicago, but the high position she's in now has gin nobility to her mean, and the mantilly of dignity she wears sets ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... financial and commercial men—just what a great European war was going to mean, and luxury trades ceased to get orders; women journalists, women writers, women lecturers, and women workers of every type were thrown out of work and ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... O'Mahony had never served anyone for an hour, and was as thin-skinned as a young girl; and, though his daughter had handed him all her money, so that he might draw upon it as he pleased, he told himself, and told her also, that his doing so was mean. "You're welcome to every dollar, father, only it doesn't seem ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... give you the address of Johnny Upright. Let it suffice that he lives in the most respectable street in the East End—a street that would be considered very mean in America, but a veritable oasis in the desert of East London. It is surrounded on every side by close-packed squalor and streets jammed by a young and vile and dirty generation; but its own pavements are comparatively bare of ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... broker. "There are certain contingencies. Give me your fishing-rod and let me apply the bait myself. It requires a skillful hand, my lord: even your well-known experience might fail. Leave me alone for half an hour, and if you have reason to complain of my success I will forfeit my deposit,—I mean my liberty." ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... overseer. Peter Calloway never come back from the war. My folks come from Alabama with Dave Genes and his son John Genes. I was born in Harrison county, Texas. Gus Taylor was a great big man. He was mean to us all. The Yankees camped there. It was near Marshall. I had some good friends among the Yankees. They kept me posted all time the war went on. Nobody never learnt me nothing. I can cipher a little and count money. I took that up. I learned after I was grown a few ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... was the President's poster saying not to be alarmed, that the measures of military preparation were required by circumstances (les evenements) and did not mean war. Then over this bill the maire posted a notice that in case of a real mobilization (une mobilisation serieuse) they would ring the tocsin. At eleven o'clock the tocsin rang, oh, la la, monsieur, what a fracas! All the bells ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... "What do you mean?" she asked sharply. "You needn't think your pretty explanations influence me in the slightest. I'll admit that it wasn't he who bought strychnine at the chemist's shop. What of that? I dare say he soaked fly paper, as I told ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... Henry," he said abruptly. "Is anybody interested in your not putting Black Riot into the field on Derby Day? Anybody with whom you have a personal acquaintance, I mean, for of course I know there are other owners who would be glad enough to see him scratched. But is there anybody who would have a ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of individual fancy or favor instead of one of inheritance. The range of choice was limited; for the son of Prince Kung himself, who seemed to enjoy the prior right to the throne, was a young man of sufficient age to govern for himself; and moreover his promotion would mean the compulsory retirement from public life of Prince Kung, for it was not possible in China for a father to serve under his son, until Prince Chun, the father of the present reigning emperor, established quite ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... dropped, Steve," snorted Toby. "I only wish I was as sure of being retained on the honor roll. That run of mine today was as punk a thing as any greenhorn could have attempted. I saw Joe look at me as if he'd like to eat me, and I felt so small I could have crawled into any old rat- hole. But I mean to surprise him yet, see if I don't. I've got the faith to believe I can play quarterback, and I will, I tell you; I'm thinking of it most of the night ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... which Joseph interpreted, Seven ears of wheat on one stalk, full and good, and after them Seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the East wind; and the Seven thin ears devoured the Seven good ears; and Joseph interpreted these to mean Seven years of plenty succeeded ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... 'Perfectly natural. She hates them! So should I if I'd been bothered and worried out of my life by them in the way she has. I hate them myself—that kind: or, rather, it's wrong to say that of them, poor creatures, for they mean well, they really mean well at bottom, in their blundering, formal, pettifogging way. They think they can take the kingdom of Heaven, not by storm, but by petty compliances, like servile servants who have to deal with a capricious, exacting master. Poor souls, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... same reason that a leaf goes over Niagara. It is because the opposing forces are overpowering. The same high officer of the government to whom I have alluded said to me as we drove upon the Heights of Washington, "Do you mean that I ought not to appoint my subordinates for whom I am responsible?" I answered: "I mean that you do not appoint them now; I mean that if, when we return to the capital, you hear that your chief subordinate is dead, you will not appoint his successor. You ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... be willing; like, love; expect; —— decir mean; yo quisiera I should like; lo que quiera anything; donde quiera wherever; V, 211 quiere ser claims to be; ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... itself—rendered either "red harbour" or "fragrant streams," which you prefer, though neither seems applicable, certainly not the latter if by fragrance is meant what we mean by it—lies on the southern seaboard of China. It became British in 1842, on the conclusion of the first Chinese war. The city of Victoria is situated on its northern side, and stands on a beautiful land-locked harbour, formed by the island on the one hand and the peninsula of Kowloon ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... Lamp.—This method of lighting has become more and more neglected because it is the most troublesome. The mean price of the kilo is 1.6 francs. As the carcel hour consumes 42 grammes, it consequently amounts to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... quickly. "You mean your little girl? I've thought of that; she shall join you whenever you're safe." Then he added in a lower tone—so low that only Dinsmore heard: "Your wife was in Montreal, remember, when you last heard from her, and now that Bergstein's ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... German wives of Russian czars. These still retained enough of their German sympathies to counteract any consideration they might otherwise have felt for the interests of Russia itself, especially as this was further strengthened by their realization that the defeat of Germany would also mean the doom of Russian autocracy, of which they ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... "Does he mean to stay all the summer?" thought I. "Perhaps he never intends going at all. I will ask him, the next time he comes ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... has not opened her lips about you. We have had a quite different subject to talk of; and I hope she will forgive us both: You especially she must; because you have done nothing but by my orders. But I only mean, that the necessary consequence of those orders has been very grievous to my Pamela: And now comes our part to make her ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... Gandish was an excellent master, and regarding all artists save one perhaps a good critic. Clive and his friend J. J. came soon after and commenced their studies under him. The one took his humble seat at the drawing-board, a poor mean-looking lad, with worn clothes, downcast features, and a figure almost deformed; the other adorned by good health, good looks, and the best of tailors; ushered into the studio with his father and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dogged, resolute expression on his plain face, nevertheless, as he turned it northward, which betrayed that he did not mean to give up ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... mean to tell me," screamed Carson, "that there are actually robbers here, and that they have taken possession ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... thought of nothing, beyond what concerned his little trading speculation, his mind being, evidently, what it had been before, with regard to all higher subjects or general ideas, a blank. The dull, mean, practical way of thinking of the Amazonian Indians, and the absence of curiosity and speculative thought which seems to be organic or confirmed in their character, although they are improvable to a certain extent, make them, like commonplace people everywhere, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... such translations the Greeks indulged in sometimes to the prejudice of geography. "But these people, though they live on fish, are few of them fishermen, for their barks are few, and those few very mean and unfit for the service. The fish they obtain they owe to the flux and reflux of the tide, for they extend a net upon the shore, supported by stakes of more than 200 yards in length, within which, at the tide of ebb, the fish are confined, and settle in the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... not seem indignant. His eyes, intelligent and feverishly bright, gazed down at her only in obvious dismay and surprise. "Done what?" he asked, and as, prudence prevailing for once, she did not reply, he spoke for her. "The murder, ye mean? Why, gal, I warn't even thar. I knowed nuthin' 'bout it till later. Ez God is my helper and my hope, I ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... with this general subject of the resumption of specie payments is one of subordinate, but still of grave, importance; I mean the readjustment of our coinage system by the renewal of the silver dollar as an element in our specie currency, endowed by legislation with the quality of legal tender to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... were at Mistassini," began Madame Chapdelaine, "seven years ago, he was only a lad, but very strong and quick and as tall as he is now—I mean as he was when he came here last summer. Always good-natured too. No one could help ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... impulse of 1789, has, notwithstanding our misfortunes, greatly meliorated the situation of the French people. I participate in your wishes and your hopes for the freedom of our country. This hope is well founded, these wishes will be fulfilled. In the mean while I am happy in tendering to you this day the expression of my lively ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette |
