"Let alone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would sometimes answer precisely as I was desired to answer; sometimes I would evade the queries, and write about other things; sometimes I would turn upon the tormentor, and urge that my tender youth might be let alone. It little mattered what form of weakness I put forth by way of baffling my Father's direct, firm, unflinching strength. To an appeal against the bondage of a correspondence of such unbroken solemnity I would receive—with ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... Russians, Swedes, much more the Reich and such like, would all have drawn bridle; and Austria itself have condescended to make Peace with a Neighbor of such quality, and consent to his really modest desire of being let alone! Possible, all this,—think Retzow and others. [See RETZOW, i. 100-108; &c. ] But the King had not waited till to-morrow; no persuasion could make him wait: and it is idle speculating on the small turns which here, as everywhere, can produce such ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... He was aware that he had already asked them to do the impossible, and they had done it. And they deserved to be let alone. But Major Connel wasn't himself unless he had given every ounce of energy he had left, or the energy left in those around him. He patted Roger on the shoulder and ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... a stone there, whoever kisses, Oh! he never misses to grow eloquent; 'Tis he may clamber to a lady's chamber, Or become a Member of Parliament. A clever spouter, he'll sure turn out, or An "out—an'—outer" to be let alone; Don't hope to hinder him, or to bewilder him, Sure, he's a pilgrim ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... went to board there. Mis Maddox was all out o' husbands jest then,—she 'd jest disposed of her fourth, somehow or 'nother; she always hed a plenty 'n' to spare, though there's lots o' likely women folks round here that never hed one chance, let alone four. Her daughter Fidelity was a chip o' the old block. Her father hed named her Fidelity after his mother, when she wa'n't nothin' but a two-days-old baby, 'n' he didn't know how she was goin' to turn out; if he 'd 'a' waited two months, I believe I could 'a' told him. Infidelity ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... from others, everything from himself. Justice, law, the world—on all sides he was let alone; nothing was asked of him; that which was owed was paid; but he by a sickly aberration was going to awake the dead who slept in their tomb, from which no one thought of taking them, and to make spectres of them which he alone saw ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to stop an army? We have enough to keep our own. Gilbert, let alone the villain Ivo of Spalding, can send a hundred men down on us ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... ale," said he, "if the 'Angel' was full of devils let alone petticoats. An', as between friends, y'r 'onour, win or lose, dunna tell my missus you've 'ad better ale ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... other Americans." Lines 6 and 7 of the printed copy read as follows in the MS. (but only make doubtful sense): "These with a number of horses designed for the settlement of Kantuck &c. Jan. 30th, on which Col. Clark," etc. Lines 10 and 11 of the printed copy read in the MS.: "was let alone till spring that he with his Indians would undoubtedly cut us all off." Lines 13 and 14, of the printed copy read in the MS. "Jan. 31st, sent an express to Cahokia for volunteers. Nothing extraordinary this day."]; but ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... came to the Atlantic coast in 1862 to escape revolutionary infection, but the Americans innocently took it as a gesture of solidarity in the Civil War. The Communist party had repeated with the monotony of a popular hymntune at a revival that the Soviet Union asked only to be let alone, that it had no belligerent designs, that it was, as Lincoln said of the modest farmer, desirous only of the land that "jines mine." At no point were the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... resumed. "I spoke a word of reproof to Rachel, and she burst into a violent flood of tears, and ran away from me. It surprised me much. What I said was not sufficient to call forth one tear, let alone a ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and if we were to let them out, would soon be at him. No, no, John, sit still and put down your rifle; we can't afford to hurt wolves; their skins won't fetch a half-dollar, and their flesh is not fit for a clog, let alone a Christian. Let the vermin howl till he is tired; he'll be off to the woods again ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... had best stand up to them, having started off so recklessly, and tried to lash myself into bravery by remembering how full I was of the blood of all the Cholmondeleys, let alone those relations of yours alleged to have fought alongside the Black Prince; so though I wished there were several of me rather than only one, I said with courage ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... to go away herself. That was what, so tired, she had done this April; and having got here, having got close up to the details of life at San Salvatore, it appeared that here, too, she was not to be let alone. ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... truth. We hear men of enlarged thought and lofty views derided as old fogies because beyond unassisted appreciation, until we are half-tempted to believe the generation to be multiplied Ephraims given to their idols, who had best be let alone. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... good men; and the French ought to be more civil to them, let alone their being half ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw
... began, and then stopped. He shook his head. "Look, Charley, let me tell this my way. Something like this happened before. A long while back—before the Cold War started, let alone ended." ...
— Charley de Milo • Laurence Mark Janifer AKA Larry M. Harris
... now? An' what'll the master be sayin' if he's wantin' you betimes? Isn't it bad enough to keep him content without Amy, let alone yerself? No, no; go up by. It's warmer in the paintin' room, an' sure a body's still as you can't bother ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... story, she had ceased to take stock of the story-teller. Now that he had ended, she looked him over from head to foot. An obstinate stupidity was the mark of the man to her eye. How dare he sit in judgment upon the meanest of his fellows, let alone Harry Feversham? she asked, and in the same moment recollected that she herself had endorsed his judgment. Shame tingled through all her blood; she sat with her lips set, keeping Willoughby under watch from the corners of her eyes, and waiting to pounce savagely the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... Foulkes thought very little of the pain she might suffer, and very much of the needed warning which had not been given. And then, suddenly, the words flashed across her, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven." Then the warning was better let alone, if it were God's will. She rose with a calmer face, and followed Mistress Clere to the next room to ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... "It's just as I thought," he explained. "Everyone around the outfit's dead to the world. Bein' up all night dancin', an' most of the next day trailin' home, you couldn't get 'em up for a poker game—let alone ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... for a gun fight right now," went on Riley Sinclair slowly. "You're all shaking, Quade, and you couldn't hit the side of the mountain, let alone me. Wait a minute. Take your time. Get all settled down and wait ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... you must throw something at Curry, throw a brick, not a boomerang.... And somehow I don't believe it's hop. Fairfax was probably a good horse all the time, but Jimmy Miles didn't know it; and, as for training, Jimmy couldn't train a goat for a butting contest, let alone a thoroughbred for a race! Curry is a wise horseman—I'll give the old scoundrel that much—and he's got this bird edged up. Take it from me, he's a cracking good selling plater. I'd like to have ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... he is when with light, careless irony he says of his lady friend: 'She has read Spencer!' And they all listen to him, and no one cares to understand that this charlatan has not the right to kiss the sole of Spencer's foot, let alone speaking about him in that tone! Sapping the foundations of civilisation, of authority, of other people's altars, spattering them with filth, winking jocosely at them only to justify and conceal one's own rottenness and moral poverty is only possible for a very vain, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... The ground was still shaking and gaping open in places. Women and children knelt on the cold asphalt and prayed God would be merciful to them. At last we got on the boat. Not a woman in that crowd had enough clothing to keep her warm, let alone the money for fare. I took off my hat, put a little money in it, and we got enough money right there to pay all ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... you do it, how could you do it, Christie, without shame either for yourself or for me, let alone your parents?" ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... morning. As I sat there under the tree I fell asleep, and was dreaming of home, and warm biscuit, with honey, and a feather bed, when I was rudely awakened by a corporal who told me to mount. I asked him what for, and told him that I didn t want to ride any more that night. What I wanted was to be let alone, to sleep. He said to get on the horse too quick, and I found there was no use arguing with a common corporal, so the boys hoisted me on to the horse, and about nine of us started off through the woods in the moonlight, looking for a main road. The corporal was kind enough to say that as soon ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... day and night for a living, and never able to give any time to their children or to bring them up properly. It was pretty, for it had a snow-white face, and pink and white ears; and, with these, no one, let alone a kite, could help being pretty. But though the kite was pretty, it was not good, and it did not prosper; it came to a bad end, oh! a terrible end indeed. It stuck itself on a roof one day, a common red roof with a broken ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... down beside her he leant over sideways and picked her up bodily, clear from the ground into his arms; no mean feat with a toilet jug full of water, let alone with a ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Sure who'd give fifty cints for those bits o' crayturs? I wouldn't give fifty cints for a tousand of 'em, let alone a ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... other to knock him on the head with a handspike, but he avoided their blows, now leaping on one side, now on the other, and with the greatest fury tearing at the legs of the men who had hold of me, though the others, it seemed to me, he let alone. The moment, however, that one of them touched me, Solon made his teeth meet in the calves of his legs. I struggled as hard as I could to free myself, but what could I do, a mere boy, in the hands of powerful and desperate men. Knowing that I must be aware ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... What I meant to say is that this is nothing else but a love story, and to knock on the head a valuable old-established connection for it..Don't bite your lip, Mr. Kemp. I mean no disrespect to your feelings. Perkins would start up to break things—let alone his heart. I am sure the captain and Mrs. Williams think ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... I am tired enough with trying to understand a little. I'll let alone what I can. You'll know what a frigate is when you have been on board ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... throughout the course of this cruel drama he had seen nothing, literally nothing, though he had heard so convincingly much. A shiver ran down his spine and he broke into a sweat, for he knew beyond question or doubt not so much as a shadow,—let alone anything material—had breasted the sea-wall, passed over the smooth level turf, or ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... indicated mathematically (by formulae based on conjecture), but never actually solved—for the very good reason that it is impossible to reproduce spacial conditions in earthly laboratories. Know how an explosive force would react in space? We don't even know positively what space is, let alone how our chemicals and ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... the lamp of learning for six idle children, no other cause for dimness need be sought. No, I was well and wicked in the height of the pain, and long after it wore out—for wear out it did—and I am glad he is too wise to set it going again. I don't like emotions. I only want to be let alone. Besides, he has got into such a region of goodness, that his wife ought to be super-excellent. I know no one good enough for him ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... friends parted, deeply moved, and Herr Winckler told his wife that he had never seen any man, let alone the solemn Melchior, so bubbling over and beaming with happiness, and if one could judge by the radiance of his glance, and the fire of his youthful enthusiasm, his friend had many more good ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that Homeric slaughter! The words blood and bloody punctuate the largest poem of G.K.C. to the virtual obliteration in our memory of the fine imagery, the occasional tendernesses, and the blustering aggressiveness of some of the metaphors and similes. Not many men would have the nerve, let alone the skill, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... Thus once, when harassed by an Admiralty order purposely issued to annoy him, he wrote back: "The biggest fool can see that to obey would defeat all my plans. I shall not do it. It may suit folk who love loafing about shore, but to an honest man such talk is disgusting, let alone that the thing can't be done." He was at that time twenty-six years old, and in charge of the whole North Sea fleet. ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... that book. If he did, he has shown that he does not care for its authority on a matter of fact of no small importance; and that does not permit us to conceive that he believed the first gospel to be the work of an authority to whom he ought to defer, let alone that of an ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... kind of rampart, as of everything about him—having only one son thirteen years of age, he had mounted guard before his youth and brought him up to do the same; strange that a man should bring a son into the world to fight against the future! Perhaps the boy, if let alone, would have found out life by instinct, but in the father's shut-up house, a sort of jail, he was his father's prey. They had few friends, few books, few, or rather one, newspaper whose petrified principles corresponded ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... barely two pounds annually per head, the children learned the language and enjoyed the air of forest and mountain into the bargain. Life, for all that, was a severe problem to them, and the difficulty of making both ends come in sight of each other, let alone meeting, was an ever-present one. That they jogged along so well was due more than the others realised to the untiring and selfless zeal of the Irish mother, a plucky, practical woman, and a noble one if ever such existed on this earth. The way ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... an exception...' He was visibly confused. 'But my life has so shaped itself that I not only see no necessity to renounce my rules, but I could not live here, let alone live as happily as I am doing, were I to live as you do. Therefore I look for something quite different from ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... does it matter to us hwat your opinions are? You know that your father's bought his farm, just the same as Mat here n Barney's mill. All we ask now is to be let alone. You've ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... "It would have been all right if Harry would have lent a hand now and then," she said, "but he won't even clean his own boots, let alone any one else's; while as for bringing in a scuttle of coal, or going an errand, or putting a spade near the garden, he'd think himself disgraced for ever if he did either. Disgraced! He!" with a bitter ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... slavery question forever and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... not be; they forced the war upon us—they endeavoured to destroy us. For this, and for this alone, we burn their ships and destroy their commerce. We have no feeling of enmity against them, and all we ask is to be let alone—to be allowed to tread the path we have chosen for ourselves."—"Cruise of the Sumter," from ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... work falls on our women. God bless them, how heroic they've been! The life here is rough for a man, let alone a woman. But it is a man's game. We need girls, girls who will bear strong men. Yet I am always saddened when I see one come ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... a condition of suspended animation in which something is so {wedged} or {hung} that it makes no response. If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the computer doesn't even echo the letters back to the screen as you type, let alone do what you're asking it to do, then the computer is suffering from catatonia (possibly because it has crashed). "There I was in the middle of a winning game of {nethack} and it went catatonic on ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... she screamed. "I don't want nothin' but to be let alone! See? Scoot! Or I'll bang hell out'n ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... she linger'd still— Said she—"My master, if he'd had his will, Would have kept back our little ones from school This dreadful morning; and I'm such a fool, Since they've been gone, I've wish'd them back. But then It won't do in such things to humour men— Our Ambrose specially. If let alone He'd spoil those wenches. But it's coming on, That storm he said was brewing, sure enough— Well! what of that?—To think what idle stuff Will come into one's head! and here with you I stop, as if I'd nothing else to do— And they'll come home drown'd rats. I must be gone To get dry ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... he don't. He says it's nothin', and he'll be all right if he's only let alone. I did hear him once or twice muttering some-think about his wife and child; you know, sir, he's got a young wife, and she had a baby about two months 'fore we came away, but I can't think that's got much to do with it, for I've got a wife myself, sir, and six children, ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... very soul, and all life seemed black or red in my eyes. But I do not recall any day of panic or suggested surrender. On one day of revolt, when I told myself that this slum life in London was too horrible for a self-respecting dingo, let alone a man, I buttoned up my coat and walked with angry haste all the way to Epping Forest. In that noble breathing-place I raged to and fro under trees and through scrub, delighting in the prickly caress of brambles, and pausing in breathless ecstasy to watch rabbits at ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... though he 'd jest cum down, so he cal'lated to hook him in, but Hosy woodn't take none o his sarse for all he hed much as 20 Rooster's tales stuck onto his hat and eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down on his shoulders and figureed onto his coat and trousis, let alone wut nater hed sot in his featers, to make a 6 pounder ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... full, full to trembling—with the bigness of his news. There must have been rumours already as to the shaky position of the de Barral's concerns; but only amongst those in the very inmost know. No rumour or echo of rumour had reached the profane in the West-End—let alone in the guileless marine suburb of Hove. The Fynes had no suspicion; the governess, playing with cold, distinguished exclusiveness the part of mother to the fabulously wealthy Miss de Barral, had no suspicion; ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... least I was beginning to "let alone", in that I was writing Bettie Hamlyn letters which grew shorter and shorter.... Her mother had fallen ill, not long after I left college; and she and Bettie were now a great way off, in Colorado, where the old lady was dying, with the most selfish sort of ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... solemnly, "and that's a serious question, my lad. They get worse every year, and syne we'll have no tatties for the winter, let alone other vegetables. A deer came into Andrew Crumpet's garden one night last week and left not a green sprout in it by the morning. The creatures must live that idle gentlemen may shoot them for pleasure, even though they eat our food and leave ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... dear boy, the temptation is so frightful—when I get back home. Remember that I have never known what it was to sit and talk through the evening with ordinary friends, let alone—It's too much for me just yet. And, you know, I don't venture to work on Sundays. That will come; all in good time. I must grant myself half a year of luxury after such a life as mine ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... she! Yes, I'm a busy B to-day, Mistress Mapp. Sermon all morning: choir practice at three, a baptism at six. No time for a walk to-day, let alone a bit ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... do your dirty work. Look at this!"—he had straightened out the crumpled sheet now: "Look at it! That's your work!—ain't a dog would a-done it, let alone a man. Do you know what's happened? That girl's mother went crazy when she saw that picture! You sent that catamount, Miss Parker, to do it, and she done it fine, and filled it full o' lies and dirt! Ye didn't care who ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Then look here, young fellow, don't you eat anything till you get there either; for I won't give you anything, and just let me see you climb that fence in a hurry.' So he went off cursing. Ain't that kind of thing enough to make us rough on tramps?—let alone that they steal the chickens; and if you look as you go down the road you'll see feathers by every place they camp." That was true enough, and south of the Umpqua I used to find goose feathers every few hundred ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... over," said Worry. "I kicked against havin' the game, but 'em fat-head directors would have it. Now we'll be let alone. There won't be no students comin' out to the field, and I'm ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... raise free men from slave women. We want to be free, only to be free, to be let alone a little, to be treated as human beings with souls, just as men do. We have hands to work with, and brains to think with, and hearts to feel with. Why not join hands with us in theory as you do in fact? Do you tell ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... even lift for me who had. It couldn't, it was fixed there. One wondered what she was doing in this galere. It seemed impossible that she should interest herself in the restoration of the Bourbons—they were all very well, but they weren't even English, let alone a county family. I figured it out that she must have set her own village so much in order that there remained nothing but the setting in order of the rest of the world. Her bored eyes wandered sleepily over the assemblage. They seemed to have no preferences ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... Hints on the Care of the Ear. This very delicate and complicated organ is often neglected when skilled treatment is urgently needed, and it is often ignorantly and carelessly tampered with when it should be let alone. ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... with that matter of disfranchisement," said he. "There are but few of these persons here, so the prohibition will practically not amount to any thing. As we are to accomplish a great object, to establish universal suffrage, we should let alone all propositions excluding a few men here. Disfranchisement will create more feeling ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... to the family. The family of Rackrents is, I am proud to say, one of the most ancient in the kingdom.' And then he gives the history of the Rackrents, beginning with Sir Patrick, who could sit out the best man in Ireland, let alone the three kingdoms itself, and who fitted up the chicken-house to accommodate his friends when they honoured him unexpectedly with their company. There was 'such a fine whillaluh at Sir Patrick's funeral, you might have heard it to the farthest end of the ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... younger admitted, reluctantly; for there was humiliation to her vanity in the admission. "Not that Arthur'd care for that type of girl, particularly, or that he'd be disloyal to me—if he were let alone. But you can see for yourself, mother—is she the kind that will let men alone? At dinner she made eyes even at the footman. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to an hotel in Surrey Street, close to the Embankment, and corrected himself as to the driving, because "You see, gents, it was like this here: the fog was that thick, if you sat on the box you couldn't see the 'oss's tail, let alone his ears, and you had to lead him all ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... "things has been queerer than ever. I don't like it, I tell you, when at midnight you see a great dark thing come flying off the roof with a gleaming eye on it and a buzzing voice like a big fly. I leave it to you if that ain't enough to scare any Christian, let alone an old man watching a factory in this lonesome part ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... government. And, therefore, in that view I am not for the reconstruction of the Union as it was. I have spent treasure and blood enough upon it, in conjunction with my fellow-citizens, to make it a little better, and I think we can have a better Union. It was good enough if it had been let alone. The old house was good enough for me, but the South pulled it down, and I propose, when we build it up, to build it up with all ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... ask to be let alone," she said. "Can't you understand that you remind me of things I want to forget. I am ashamed, ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... used to be angry with Master Walter; 'tain't no use being angry with Miss Huntingdon, 'cos she'd look the fiercest man as ever lived into a good temper—the mere sight of her face is enough for that, let alone her words. So master's just showing his anger to you, Master Amos. But it won't last; it can't last. So you just stick to your work, and I'll back you up all in my power, and I'll keep my tongue inside my teeth for the future, if I ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... over the stock-train. Larry was too clever for us again, and that brings me to the point which should be quite plain. The homestead-boys have lost their heads and will cut their own throats if they are let alone. They are ripe for ranch-burning and firing on the cavalry, and once they start the State will have to step in and whip ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... this way," he remarked, prodding the earth with his cane. "This crust will scarcely sustain the weight of an old Tithonus like myself, let alone a vigorous young Ajax ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Rickett. "There's some folks as thinks young Robin is the plague of the neighbourhood, but there ain't no harm in the lad if he's let alone. It's when them little varmints of village boys, sets on to him and teases him as he ain't safe. But let him be, and he's as quiet as a lamb. O' course if they great hulking fools on the shore goes and takes him into The Three Tuns, you can't expect him to behave respectable. But as I always ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... presided there a quiet glance equivalent to a beckon, and, as that person came near, communicated two or three items of intelligence or instruction concerning office details, by which that invaluable diviner of business meanings understood that he wished to be let alone for an hour. Then M. Grandissime passed on into his private office, and, shutting the door behind him, walked briskly to his ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... that, there's just one thing I wish you to understand about me. If you want to keep Joe, keep him. I don't want him—I never did. I've laughed at you again and again for what you thought I was trying to do. All I want is to be let alone to go on with Joe as I always have. What I mean by that you won't understand, because you don't understand my life. A woman like me in this city needs one man who'll be her friend—the big brother idea—to help and advise her, carry her through when she's down a ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... head about money," said Peter, kindly. "I know young ladies about your size ain't in the habit of travelling with their pockets full of rocks——let alone doughnuts." ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... the blame upon myself; he cannot more than kill me. It is a good time—he has left orders to be let alone. The priest can come and go before he knows it," and she darted out ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... Fyles were looking out for the leader, the man of all whom they desired to capture. But the darkness, which had favored the ambuscade, now defeated their object. In the mob of struggling humanity it was difficult enough to distinguish friend from foe, let alone to discover any one person. The ranks of the "deputies" had closed right in and a desperate hand-to-hand ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... domain was not worth conquering, and again its conquest could not be accomplished by any nation without making others uneasy and jealous. They became, like Switzerland, and unlike Poland and Hungary, a neutral region, which it was for the interest of Europe at large to let alone. None cared to meddle with them; and, on the other hand, they had native virtue and force enough to resist being absorbed into other peoples; the character of the Dutch is as distinct to-day as ever it had been. Their language, their literature, their art, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... naked breast against the point of a knife. This thing has been given to me like a deadly disease. If men discover it I am dead, and you, too, senor, since you would come with me. There is enough silver to make a whole province rich, let alone a seaboard pueblo inhabited by thieves and vagabonds. Senor, they would think that heaven itself sent these riches into their hands, and would cut our throats without hesitation. I would trust no fair words from the best man around ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... that both Marriages should take effect: only he was slow; and the more you hurried him, perhaps the slower. He would have perfected the Treaty "next year," say the Authorities; meant to do so, if well let alone: but Townshend whispered withal, "Better not urge him." Surly George was always a man of his word; no treachery intended by him, towards Friedrich Wilhelm or any man. It is very clear, moreover, that Friedrich Wilhelm, in this Autumn 1725, was, and was like ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... etc., want me to undertake what you call a 'great work'? an Epic Poem, I suppose or some such pyramid. I'll try no such thing; I hate tasks. And then 'seven or eight years'! God send us all well this day three months, let alone years. If one's years can't be better employed than in sweating poesy, a man had better be a ditcher. And works, too!—is Childe Harold nothing? You have so many 'divine' poems, is it nothing to have written a human one? without any of your worn-out machinery. Why, man, I could have ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... thirteen shillings a week from Master H., and a shilling on Sundays, and I hev got five children and a wife to keep out of that—that's two shillings a week for each on us, that's just threepence halfpenny a day, look 'ee, sir. And what victuals be I to buy wi' that, let alone beer? and a man can't do no work wi'out a quart a day, and that's fourpence, and there's my share, look 'ee, gone at onst. Wur be I to get any victuals, and wur be I to get any clothes an' boots, I should like for to know? And Jack he gets big and ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... flame at last. Nino, with his determination to be loved, had put his statue into a very fiery furnace, and in the young innocence of his heart had prepared such a surprise for his lady as might have turned the head of a hardened woman of the world, let alone an imaginative German girl, with a taste for romance—or without; it matters little. All Germans are full of imagination, and that is the reason they know so much. For they not only know all that is known by other people, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... this new start of inquiring within upon everything), since you call on me for a conscientious answer, I say that it stands to reason that I love you more than you love me, because there is so much more of you to love, let alone fit for loving. ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... in a dry, machine-made manner; "Senator, the people in our district are growing restive over the reform business. They want to be let alone. We have too many laws now, laws that interfere with our personal liberty." (The judge grew eloquent.) "Laws that attempt to dictate to us what we shall eat and drink and where to go, and I for one say for my district that these continual efforts to legislate on personal matters will not only ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... was very particular in bidding me wake him if he were asleep, and you or Mr. Roger was to call. Mr. Roger said he'd be coming again this morning—but he'll likely sleep an hour or more, if he's let alone.' ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun." The individualism which is implied in these facts was the most prominent characteristic of this remarkable person. Holding that "a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone," he found that a small part of his time, devoted to making lead-pencils, carpentering, and surveying, gave him enough for his simple needs, and left him free for the rest of the year to observe nature, to think, and ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... no inspection days, No standards then were known, Children could freely make dirt pies, And learning let alone! ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... girth her, Miss," he complained, "she got very big entirely on the grass; the surcingle's six inches too short for her, let alone the way she have ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... he replied, "for thou shalt have good lands on the other side of the hill; and thou wilt count thyself blest when thou seest what shall happen to some of these slow beasts here, who care neither for France nor the Church so long as they be let alone to sleep ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... faith of our fathers. "Law" made us outcasts—scourged us, trampled us, plundered us—do you marvel that, amongst the Irish people, law has been held in "disesteem?" Do you think this feeling arises from "sympathy with assassination or murder?" Yet, if we had been let alone, I doubt not that time would have fused the conquerors and the conquered, here in Ireland, as elsewhere. Even while the millions of the people were kept outside the constitution, the spirit of nationality began to appear; and under its blessed influence toleration ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... he never realised Charles Darwin's utter lack of sympathetic understanding of the work of his French precursors, let alone his own grandfather, Erasmus. Yet this practical ignorance, which to Butler was so strange as to transcend belief, was altogether genuine, and easy to realise when we recall the position of Natural Science in the early thirties in Darwin's student days at Cambridge, and for ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... seen any women's gear, that's all! Whose'omeever they was, I hain't no idea, nor how they got there; but they was women's gear. Dandy's Steve is he couldn't ha' had any use for sech a shawl's that, let alone sayin' what he'd wanted o' ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... be after using two or three hundred yoursel' every day as you live, Sylvie; and yet I must use a great many as you never think on about t' shop; and t' folks in t' fields want their set, let alone the high English that parsons and ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... am out of the game, and why should not I look upon its chances? I am quite alone; and why should I not watch for others? Every situation has its privileges and its obligations.—What is it to be alone, and to be let alone, as I am? It is to be put into a post of observation on others: but the knowledge so gained is anything but a good if it stops at mere knowledge,—if it does not make me feel and act. Women who have what ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... never got another, for I am getting too old to milk, and there never seemed to come along another boy like the old Harry, who would take all the barn-yard responsibility on his shoulders. Besides, mother is crippled with rheumatism, and can hardly get around to do her housework, let alone to make butter. We are not any too well off since the Union Bank failed; for, besides losing all my stock, I have had to help pay the depositors' claims. But we have enough to keep us comfortable, and much to be thankful for, most of all that our famous son is coming ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... impure one, hater of Osiris. Get thee back, for Thoth has cut off thy head. Let alone the ass, that I may have clear skies when I cross to the underworld in the Neshmet boat. I am guiltless before the gods, and have wronged none. So avaunt! thou sun-beclouding one, and let me have a ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... great age, and the Squire's not young, and taking the liberty to name us together, my deary, in all reason it would be a blessing to him and me to see you happy with a lady as fit to take your dear mother's place as Miss Mary is. For let alone everything else, my dear, servants is not what they used to be, and when I'm dead you'll be cheated out of house and home, without any one as knows what goes to the keeping of a family, ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... so I was. Well, she and the young Squire was for all the world like a deer with her fawn—all tenderness and timidity, so long as he was let alone; but when this 'ere woman came, as she considered his enemy, she was as bold as a red stag—nay, as one of our wild-cattle. It was through her, I say, that the bride got the sack at last; and when that was done the old lady seemed to have done her work, and was content ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... horses fared better than the men for, while they were only eight to a car, we were forty or more; and in the same kind of cars, too. They look like our ordinary cattle cars but are only about one-half as big. Forty men, with full equipment, have some difficulty to crowd into one, let alone to sit or lie down. And, of course, everything we had was soaked through. When I come to think of it, the strangest thing about the whole business was that there were no genuine complaints. The usual "grousing," of course, ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... threw a coveting eye on sweet Miss Kathleen and had his own idea of mending a stitch of the breach in a quite domestic way. If so, the Holy Father would have a word to say, let alone Kathleen. The maids of his Church do not espouse her foes. For the men it is another matter: that is as the case may be. Temporarily we are in cordial intercourse, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mule was the slowest creature in Arizona, I firmly believed. It was as much as he could do to walk, let alone gallop. ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... of warning, and again reminded him of his duties to his people. But Ephraim begged to be let alone; yet soon after he touched ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... builded wholesomely and wisely for herself. Instinct had led her truly and well as far as that tangled moment in her life. Instinct still would lead her safely if she were let alone,—instinct and the intelligence she herself had developed. For the ethical view of the question remained only as a vague memory of precepts mechanical and meaningless to a healthy child. She had lost her mother too early to have understood the casual morals so gently ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... like beasts in a forest! As she grows up, so she dies! Never sees anything; never hears anything. A peasant,—he may learn something at the pub, or maybe in prison, or in the army,—as I did. But a woman? Let alone about God, she doesn't even know rightly what Friday it is! Friday! Friday! But ask her what's Friday? She don't know! They're like blind puppies, creeping about and poking their noses into the dung-heap.... All they know are their silly songs. ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... seemed to me to be of the boat-turned-bottom-upwards order of architecture, and were adorned with placards, announcing "Apartments to Let." Everything seemed to let, except, perhaps, the church, which, however (on second thoughts), appeared to be let alone. But if the houses were not, in themselves, particularly inviting, their names were pleasing enough, although, truth to tell, a trifle misleading. For instance, there was a "Marine Lodge," which seemed a very considerable distance from the ocean, and a "Swiss chalet," that but faintly suggested ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... they put it into rams skinnes, which they reserue for the same purpose. Neither doe they salte their butter: and yet by reason of the long seething, it putrifieth not: and they keepe it in store for winter. The churnmilke which remaineth of the butter, they let alone till it be as sowre as possibly it may be, then they boile it and in boiling, it is turned all into curdes, which curds they drie in the sun, making them as hard as the drosse of iron: and this kind of food also they store vp in sachels against winter. In the winter season when milke faileth ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... is it?" she cried, with a hearty Irish laugh; "oh, what a hand ye be after joking; why I haven't a penny, let alone ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... puzzled. This was something new. It looked like game, but she feared to take any chances. She circled all around without showing herself, then decided that, whatever it might be, it was better let alone. As she passed on, a fault whiff of smoke caught her attention. She followed cautiously, and under a butte far from the Hen she found Jake's camp. His bed was there, his Horse was picketed, and on the remains of the fire was a pot which gave out a smell which she well knew about men's camps—the ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... presence of mind, and she thought very rapidly. The breeze was wafting the boat farther from her, but nearer to the opposite shore; if let alone it would arrive there in the course of time, and Enna she perceived did not know how to propel ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... beds until the mushrooms are harvested. Can you, therefore, afford to spend this time, and undergo the care and trouble and expense, and court a failure by using old spawn? We have risks enough with new spawn, let alone old spawn. I do not use any more old spawn, but I have used it often and long enough to be convinced of its general worthlessness, unless preserved with ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... do worry one, Maggie! Go to bed, and try to stop talking; I want to think, and to be let alone. I'll come to ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... body and damning to hell the soul of this young girl who had never done him any harm; and such a prize as that, to a man like the Bishop of Beauvais, was worth the burning and damning of fifty harmless girls, let alone one. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... hard, usually, to tell how Miss Kitty Cat felt about anything. She was a great one for keeping her opinions to herself. It seemed as if she wanted to be let alone by every ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Gryce, utterly ignoring the wildness of these statements, "that the girl may come back herself if let alone?" ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... clever, and have been a sort of slave all my life, and have been scolded and blamed for what I could not help at all, until I have felt as if I must be a criminal. How happy she must have been to be let alone!" ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... must fix our faces like flint. Peace we must have. The Union can only be preserved by peace. The South asks no more than the North will concede, if the people of the North can express their sentiments. The South only asks for equal rights, and to be let alone. For thirty years she has asked no more. The South will soon present its cause in an authoritative shape. Their conventions will soon declare their propositions. Let the North be prepared to consider them in conventions representing their people fairly. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... the Deacon's scalp. Rebecca ventured to chide him for his threats, but offered to bind up his head for him, which she did with her own kerchief. Uncle Rawson then bade him go home and get to bed, and in future let alone strong drink, which had been the cause of his beating. This he would not do, but went off into the woods, muttering as far ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the loan would be, but I think the sums generally mentioned vary from L250,000,000 up to L500,000,000. The idea that any Government in the world, or all of the Governments in the world in combination, let alone bankrupt Germany, could at the present time raise this amount of new money (that is to say, for other purposes than the funding or redemption of existing obligations) from investors in the ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... still, it is a joke, and resentment should be left behind in the dregs of the bowl. I have no patience with your long memories; this nursing of grievances, this raking up of last night's squabbles, is unworthy of a king, let alone a king of Gods. Once take away from our feasts the little elegancies of quip and crank and wile, and what is left? Muzziness; repletion; silence;—cheerful accompaniments these to the wine-bowl! For my part, I never supposed that Zeus would give ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... only waited to dig china clay out of Penbeacon and wash it in the Ewe till they could purchase a slice of the hill pertaining to the Vale Leston estate. Major Harewood had replied that his fellow-trustee was too ill to attend to business, and that the matter had better be let alone till the heir attained ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... taken simultaneously, had the effect of rendering him completely dumb when he saw Mike. He felt that he did not know what to say to him. And as Mike, for his part, simply wanted to be let alone, and not compelled to talk, conversation was at something of a standstill in the ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... sedulously making himself agreeable and entertaining, and thereby placing on her slender wit a burden it is unable to bear. An Englishman would let her alone, accepting boredom and indifference of their common lot; and the poor lady wants to be either let alone or let prattle about ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... communication trenches existed only in the fertile brain of those who were never called upon to use them; but that time has passed long since. Time was when the thin, tired breaking line of men who fought the Prussian Guard at Ypres in 1914—and beat them—had hard work to find the fire-trenches, let alone the communication ones; when a daily supervision was a nerve-shattering nightly crawl, and dug-outs were shell-holes covered with a leaking mackintosh. It was then that men stood for three weeks on end in an icy composition of water and slime, ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... the road at the heels of McGregor. "Don't tell," he plead trembling. "Don't tell about me in the town. They will laugh and call names after me. I want to be let alone." ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... somewhat of its terrors, but few of them realize the harmlessness of the Skunk when let alone. In remote places I find men who still think that this creature goes about shooting as wildly and wantonly as ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... become the regular morning programme. Now, too, she went on to extend her acquaintance by entering the cage of another neighbor, a scarlet tanager, a shy, unobtrusive fellow, who asked nothing but to be let alone. This bird also did not reciprocate her neighborly sentiments; he met her with open beak, but finding that did not awe her, nor prevent her calmly walking in, he hastily left the cage himself. During the time that her persecutor was sulking, and not likely to bother, she had ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... "you may unharness Pier and turn him out in the pasture for the night! And I'll wager I shall be back with a full milk-pail before you've even so much as fed the pig, let alone the other chores—men are so slow!" She waved her hand gayly and disappeared behind the pasture bars, ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Jewdwine is the man to deal so lightly with two hundred pounds, let alone the thousand! Really, that's the quaintest thing you've done yet. May I ask if this is the ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... let alone with paper and crayons they will quickly learn to use these toys quite as effectively as they ...
— A Catalogue of Play Equipment • Jean Lee Hunt
... minutes alone with God?—and yet "being silent to God"—alone with Him—is, humanly speaking, the only condition on which He can "mould us."[5] I am so afraid that the lawful pleasures and even the commanded duties of life, let alone its excitements and cravings, will eat out your possibilities of spirituality and saintliness: it is so easy to float on the stream of life with others—so terribly hard to come, you yourself, alone into a desert place to listen to those words out of the mouth of God, by which only your ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... He asks me why not! Gods, what a brain it is! Hark ye, Badger, it's all very well to be King of the Cracksmen, as you call it; but however respectable he may have the misfortune to be, one's friend is one's friend, and as such must be severely let alone. What! shall there be no more honour among thieves than there is honesty among politicians? Why, man, if under heaven there were but one poor lock unpicked, and that the lock of one whose claret you've drunk, ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... successor took over the relation: it was a question of equilibrium. In this, however, the order of precedence was often broken, but never in the matter of the horses. Gustav's horses were the poorest, and no power in the world would have induced the head man or Erik to drive them, let alone the farmer himself. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Secretary Daniels smiled. "It has been three weeks or more since your first warning and nothing has happened. I guess we can safely depend upon being let alone a few ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... to face a worse one. Shefford's nerve was sorely tried when he saw steep slants everywhere, all apparently leading down into chasms, and no place a man, let alone a horse, could put a foot with safety. Nevertheless the imperturbable Indian never slacked his pace. Always he appeared to find a way, and he never had to turn back. His winding course, however, did not now cover much distance ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... familiar with the geography and the general resources of Kentucky. We had parties all over the State raising regiments and companies; but it was manifest that the young men were generally inclined to the cause of the South, while the older men of property wanted to be let alone—i.e., to remain neutral. As to a forward movement that fall, it was simply impracticable; for we were forced to use divergent lines, leading our columns farther and farther apart; and all I could attempt ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... little man angrily, "except that I want to be let alone. You hoodwinked the general, all right, but you can't hoodwink me. Now go on ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... clothes. When he should receive his uniform, his civilian outfit ought to be put in safe keeping for his return. This was customary in time of peace, but who could tell?—he might never even get a uniform, let alone hoping to see the ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... all that had made his life worth living. He threatened to kill himself, with so many picturesque details and so much grim emphasis, that there were moments when he could almost have deceived himself, let alone poor simple Phoebe. His feeling for her had been of the most animal even at its strongest, but he had to the full the primitive instinct for possession; he had made her his woman, and, though he might have felt a mere ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... however, was only local. The swallow was also considered to have a drop of the deil's blood in its veins; but, unlike the yellow hammer, instead of being persecuted, it was feared, and therefore let alone. If a swallow built its nest in a window-corner, it was regarded as a lucky omen, and the annoyance and filth arising therefrom was patiently borne with under the belief that such a presence brought luck and prosperity to the house. To tear down a swallow's nest ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... was unable to move French Janin from his stupor; in reply to his questions the blind man only muttered, begged to be let alone. Life was at such a low ebb in him that his breathing was imperceptible. Harry Baggs was afraid that he would die without a sound—leave him. He gave up his questioning and sang. He was swept to ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... memories of former odours made me implore him to desist. "But he'll ate all the pork!" the old fellow remonstrated, much aggrieved at being deprived of so fine an opportunity of displaying his prowess. I assured him that, if let alone, the "beautiful skunk" would go quietly away when he had enjoyed a good meal; but, if disturbed, he would use his natural weapon of defence, and destroy ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... gainer and take a bit of supper," said my master, after a dogged stare. "Be sure you put it on strong, Sandy. I don't say as I'll charge any more, though I'd make a man pay for showin' he'd a spite agin me, let alone a dumb critter." And taking his hat from a peg, he walked off, leaving me, with the sparks flying from the forge, busy at the shoe, and the stranger, with one arm across the neck of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... lost sleep, he lost appetite; some great and secret fear seemed preying upon him. What was it? His family noticed it, and inquired about his health. He rebuffed them impatiently; he was quite well—he wanted to be let alone—why the unmentionable-to-ears-polite need they badger him with questions? They held their peace and let him alone. That it in any way concerned commercial failure they never dreamed; to them the wealth of the husband and father was something illimitable—a golden ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... and do it?" asked John. "Because, if you could, it would be worth while doing the ploughing just to see you round, let alone the wool." ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... racial factor; but they do not seem to have been decisive with Durham. At the last moment he gave way to a dread of predominant French influence in Lower Canada, similar at bottom to his dread of the unchecked influence of the British minority. While he feared that the latter, if let alone, would inaugurate a reign of terror, he added also: "Never again will the present generation of French-Canadians yield a loyal submission to a British Government." The argument is inconsistent with the ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... in Ireland, separate and exclusive, but subject to certain restrictions and interferences which it will be the first business of the Irish representatives, in Dublin or Westminster, to get rid of. Long before Scotland or Wales, let alone England, get any consideration of their demand for Home Rule, if demand there be, the last traces of any quasi-federal element the Bill may contain will have ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... and neglect! It was a sight that burnt into my mind, once for all, what is meant by a landlord's responsibility. I tried, of course, to move her, but neither she nor her parents—elderly folk—had energy enough for a change. They only prayed to be let alone. I came over the last evening of her life to give her the communion. "Ah, sir!" said the mother to me—not bitterly—that is the strange thing, they have so little bitterness—"if Mister 'Enslowe would jest 'a mended that bit 'o roof of ours last winter, Bessie needn't have laid in the wet ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Poinders, I do not know what you call sackless, but let alone all de oils and de soot dat you say he has, and I will tell you I was dis night robbed of fifty pounds by your oil and sooty friend, Edies Ochiltree; and he is no more in your barn even now dan I ever shall be in de kingdom ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... it. You are certainly in no personal danger; and there is hardly a possibility, let alone a probability, protected as I shall be, of my encountering serious danger on my ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... his comrade with an ominous quiet. "Doughty," he said, "if you value your neck you keep your reading and writing to what a common man can understand—you and your brother. A man can't always prophesy for himself, let alone other folk." ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... which Dionysius stopped and replied, "I thank you, Diogenes, for your condolence." "Condole with you!" replied Diogenes; "do you not suppose that, on the contrary, I am indignant that such a slave as you, who, if you had your due, should have been let alone to grow old, and die in the state of tyranny, as your father did before you, should now enjoy the ease of private persons, and be here to sport and frolic it in our society?" So that when I compare those sad stories of Philistus, touching the daughters ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... That kind of thing is liable to happen anywhere if the river is neglected. So that our schemes for Lower Mesopotamia might be spoilt by the indolence of those in possession higher up the river: let alone the security of the trade-routes which would be at the mercy of wild Arabs if ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... way," said the girl, dropping her voice still lower, "you are going to find that this work here won't be—it won't go—not just as you expect it to; it—it won't be just plain sailing as it ought to be and would be if you were let alone. There are things," she put a forceful accent on the last word, "that will interfere—oh, sometimes dreadfully, maybe, and I felt that I must tell ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... toward her, voice raised almost to a shout. "Help! Help! Help!" she mocked. "I don't want help! I want to be let alone!—And I can't waste any more time. You'll have to excuse me!" She faced about abruptly and disappeared into her own ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... realms not granted to her by her lawgivers. The modern aspiration of the "new woman" of the West does not appeal to her. She asks only to be let alone in her narrow ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... than impatient. "I wish I could be let alone for five whole minutes some time in my life! Don't you think I've stood enough for one day? I can't bear to be questioned, questioned, questioned! What do you do it for? Don't you see I can't stand anything more? If you can't ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... into Crown lands, in which landlords should have no power of control," Gordon concluded, "I must say, from all accounts and my own observations, that the state of our fellow-countrymen in the parts I have named is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe. I believe that these people are made as we are, that they are patient beyond belief, loyal, but at the same time broken-spirited and desperate, living on the verge of starvation, in places ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various |
