|
|
|
More "Commendable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Queen for dispatch of business, the proposal, although opposed by some of the stricter sort, found favour in the eyes of Elizabeth, who said that such toys occupied, without offence, the minds of many who, lacking them, might find worse subjects of pastime; and that their pastors, however commendable for learning and godliness, were somewhat too sour in preaching against the pastimes of their flocks and so the pageant ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... properest motives I am able to think of; and will instruct him in only one piece of pride, that of being above doing a mean or low action. I will caution him not to behave in a lordly or insolent manner, even to the lowest servants. I will tell him that that superiority is the most commendable, and will be the best maintained, which is owing to humanity and kindness, and grounded on the perfections of the mind, rather than on the accidental advantage of fortune and condition: that if his conduct be such ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... some manure and spread on it in the winter or early spring; or we top-dress it with hen-manure, or guano, or nitrate of soda and superphosphate. I do not say that this is better than to apply the manure at the time of sowing the wheat, but if we neglect to do so, then top-dressing is a commendable practice. ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... representation. The gallery and the groundlings have been catered for not less than the spectators of the boxes and private rooms; yet, upon the whole, the stage, from its earliest period, has always provided entertainment of a reputable and wholesome kind. Even in its least commendable condition—and this, so far as England is concerned, we may judge to have been during the reign of King Charles II.—it yet possessed redeeming elements. It was never wholly bad, though it might now and then come very near to seeming so. And what it was, the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... influences surrounding his birth, youth and manhood, has risen, from a dark and almost absolute obscurity, to the distinguished position which he now occupies, might very well assume the existence of a commendable curiosity, on the part of the public, to know the ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... my friend were received by him and forwarded post haste to Vienna. Do you grasp the simplicity and subtlety of the device? My friend was on the lists of those interned in Holland, no one here knew where he lodged, the address used by me was as probable as any other; what more natural and commendable than that I should write to cheer him up a bit in exile, and that I should send him books and illustrated magazines? If it had been noticed by the postal authorities in Holland that my friend did not live at the address which I used, it would have been supposed that I had ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... disaster, the British generals in Northern Afghanistan formed a decision commendable alike for its boldness and its sagacity. They decided to despatch at once all available troops from Cabul to the relief of the beleaguered garrison at Candahar. General Sir Frederick Roberts had handed over the command at Cabul to Sir Donald Stewart, and was about to operate ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... up and down for a minute, stops in front of her, and speaks with resignation.] All right. I don't blame you in the least, Loretta. And you have been very honest. It is . . . er . . . commendable. But Billy is right, and you are wrong. You must ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... the urgent request to follow up every avenue of information in this direction. Gen. Paine issued an introduction to Col. B.J. Sweet, whom he declared to be a "model man and a model officer in every respect," and in whom all confidence in so commendable a cause might be reposed. How nobly, how wisely and how well that gallant officer discharged his trust, all who have observed his course will concede, and that man whose heroism at the memorable ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... cordiality. He knew that when Christmas came they wanted a great rally, somewhat approaching, at least, the rousing times both spiritual and temporal that they had had back on the old plantation, when Christmas meant a week of pleasurable excitement. Knowing the last so well, it was with commendable foresight that he began early his preparations for a big time on a certain ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... to pour in upon him after our Declaration, many of them from the highest placed men and women in the Kingdom, brought out more vividly than anything else the changed position of his country. Sonnets and verses rained upon the Embassy, most of them pretty bad as poetry, but all of them commendable for their admiring and friendly spirit. Of all these letters those that came from the steadfast friends of America perhaps gave Page the greatest satisfaction. "You will have been pleased at the universal tribute paid to the spirit as well as to the lofty ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... fulness of my heart, agree with those that speak in favor of Messer Simone dei Bardi. It is the native, intimate, and commendable wish of a man to abolish his enemies—I speak here after the fashion of the worldling that I was, for the cell and the cloister have no concern with mortal passions and frailties—and Messer Simone was ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... expedient to make it sell; so, to write a book that deserveth such treatment, is another: And a third, perhaps as effectual as either, is to ply an insipid, worthless tract with grave and learned answers, as Dr. Hickes, Dr. Potter,[3] and Mr. Wotton have done. Design and performances, however commendable, have glanced a reputation upon the piece; which oweth its life to the strength of those hands and weapons, that were raised to destroy it; like flinging a mountain upon a worm, which, instead of being bruised, by the advantage of its ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... is all very pretty and touching. Her action has, in truth, its springs in a most commendable sentiment that I should be the last to underrate. Shady Dell Farm is interesting, too, for once, if one can swallow one's wrath and dudgeon at being taken there against one's will; and one feels that Jane's parents and Jane's early surroundings must be worth a single visit, ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gave an acid little laugh. "According to my calculations," he said, "he has produced two volumes and a half annually, which, allowing for time spent in the cradle and so forth, shows a commendable industry." ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... to the question of the spy," said Mr. Sefton, tenaciously, "have you really no opinion, Captain Prescott? I have heard that you assisted Mr. Talbot when he was detailed to search Miss Grayson's house—a most commendable piece of zeal on your part—and I thought it showed your great interest ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... reduce the work of cleaning have been commendable, because scraping and sand handling are the items of greatest expense in slow sand filter maintenance. Every one has been desirous of minimizing this cost. However, as the writer will endeavor ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... two days previous to his departure for Kyushu, and giving me 600 yen, said that I might begin a business with it, or go ahead with my study, or spend it in any way I liked, but that that would be the last he could spare. It was a commendable act for my brother. What! about only 600 yen! I could get along without it, I thought, but as this unusually simple manner appealed to me, I accepted the offer with thanks. Then he produced 50 yen, requesting me to give it to Kiyo next time I saw ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... non sine dispendio hospitalitatis to the decay of hospitality. Howbeit many times that word is mistaken, and under the name of bounty and hospitality, is shrouded riot and prodigality, and that which is commendable in itself well used, hath been mistaken heretofore, is become by his abuse, the bane and utter ruin of many a noble family. For some men live like the rich glutton, consuming themselves and their substance by continual feasting and invitations, with [696]Axilon in Homer, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... not especially commendable—example of her present state of unselfishness, she stopped for luncheon with her pretty little sister- in-law, and either forgot or calmly ignored the fact that she had promised Percy Wintermill and his sister to ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... proud too speak to a poor man. This was used, not in depreciation of a certain nobleman, whom the Gipsy who gave it to me had often seen, but admiringly, as if such hauteur were a commendable quality. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... had led her safely back to Miss Eliza—ever since that long-past day, Arethusa had made up the most of Timothy's world. They had played together all through childhood and boyhood and girlhood, and quarreled violently and much over their play, and then made up with commendable immediacy; Timothy was the nearest approach to a brother Arethusa had ever known. But Timothy's feeling for Arethusa had ever been, and especially these last few years, more than a brother's love. It was the clean whole-hearted affection which a boy gives to the one girl ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... ceremonial practices, and the other in the formularies of belief. Ceremonies resemble virtuous actions, and formularies are like shadows of the truth and approach, more or less, the true light. All these outward forms would be commendable if those who invented them had rendered them appropriate to maintain and to express that which they imitate—if religious ceremonies, ecclesiastical discipline, the rules of communities, human laws were always like a hedge round the divine law, to withdraw us from any approach ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... alcheringa, fought one another, left spirit children behind, and finally went down into the ground. We were now, so to speak, in the very midst of mungai [i.e. of places associated with the totems], for the old totemic ancestors of the tribe, who showed a most commendable fondness for arising and walking about in the few picturesque spots which their country contained, had apparently selected these rocky gorges as their central home. All around us the water-holes, gorges, and rocky crags were peopled ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... alarmed the neighbourhood. The police entered a minute afterwards. The father, having bolted the wash-house door, had bolted himself. They dragged the lifeless body of the boiled baker from the cauldron, and, with a promptitude commendable in men of their station, they immediately carried it to the station-house. Subsequently, the baker was apprehended while seated on the top of a lamp-post in Parliament Street, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... events of a twelvemonth since. The slaughter of the admiral and of so many other innocent men and women had not only provoked the Divine retribution, but had diminished not a little the reputation and influence of the French with all orders of persons in Germany.[1341] Henry listened with commendable patience to the old elector's denunciations, alleging by way of excuse that the French court had been under the influence of the passions then running high, and readily promised great caution and tolerance in future.[1342] He ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... by some, that the owl is a friend of mankind, and I am perfectly willing to admit that very often he acts very much like an enemy, especially when he kills our young chickens and turkeys. But for all that, he has his good points, and very often behaves in a commendable manner. If you have a barn or a house that is overrun with mice, there is nothing that will be more certain to drive them out than an owl. And he will not be so apt to steal your milk or kill your canary as many of the cats which you ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... any given new thing which is not only allowable but commendable, if we are to preserve the outlines of our identity from the violence of alien intrusion, becomes a sheer waste of energy when it is transmuted into ponderous principles ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... smitten by thy poisonous tongue, about whom you argue, saying; 'If all shut themselves up and live in solitude, who will go to church? who will convert worldlings? who will be able to urge sinners to virtue?' If this holds true, if all are fools with thee, who can be wise? Nor will virginity be commendable, for if all be virgins, and none marry, the human race will perish. Virtue is rare, and is not desired by many." It is therefore evident that this is a foolish alarm; thus might a man fear to draw water ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... behaviour of the troops towards the citizens. I heard soldiers saying to one another, that they did not like being in a town in which they were very naturally detested. To any one who has seen as I have the ravages of the Northern troops in Southern towns, this forbearance seems most commendable and surprising. Yet these Pennsylvanian Dutch[55] don't seem the least thankful, and really appear to be unaware that their own troops have been for two years treating Southern towns with ten times more harshness. They are the most unpatriotic people I ever saw, and openly state that they don't ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... was struck by his foreign appearance. He contemplated his own image with a melancholy and inquisitive gaze, then by sudden inspiration raised the collar of his jacket. This arrangement appeared to him commendable, and he completed it by giving an upward twist to the ends of his black moustache. He was satisfied by the subtle modification of his personal aspect caused by these small changes. "That'll do very well," he thought. "I'll get a ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... of getting football knowledge—of developing the instinct—isn't always left to the boy. Unless I'm grievously mistaken it's more often the fond father who takes the first step. In fact, some fathers I've known have, with a commendable eye to future victories, even dated the preparation of their offspring from the hour when he was first shown them by the nurse: "Let me take a squint at the little rascal," says the beaming father and expertly examines the young hopeful's ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... in all the states, but in some of them this provision has been buttressed, as it were, by a permanent guarantee in the organic law. This regard, while not necessary practically for the continuance of the schools, is none the less commendable,—and indeed is one that should be declared in every state. Such provision concerning the education of the deaf, more direct in some than in others, is found in the constitutions of twenty-seven, or a little over half ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... of our Common wealth, all good causes haue their chiefe increase and maintenance) and there layed open to many great estates and learned men the plot and summe of his deuice. And amongst many honourable minds which fauoured his honest and commendable enterprise, he was specially bound and beholding to the right honourable Ambrose Dudley earle of Warwicke, whose fauourable minde and good disposition hath alwayes bene ready to countenance and aduance all honest actions with the authours and executors of the same: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... my heart on many points, and to reject the logic of my head. My heart said, "Speak the truth; to lie is wrong." But now that it had got rid of a personal God, logic said, "There can be nothing wrong in a lie that hurts no one. There is something commendable in a useful, serviceable lie. To lie to save a person from danger or destruction is a virtue. The feeling which shrinks from such a lie is a blind, irrational prejudice, and should be plucked up and cast out of the soul. Truth may be proper enough in the strong: ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... their most useful tool in 1860, and without his assistance they could not have made one step in the road to rebellion, or ruin. Their purpose is to found a new nation, as they have never hesitated to avow, with a frankness that is as commendable as the cause in which it is evinced is abominable. They would be glad to see a Democrat chosen our next President, because they would expect from him an acknowledgment of their "independence"; but they would no more lay down their arms at his entreaty than they would at the command of a President ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... American eyes, a different seeming. It matters not whether you vault a boundary pillar on the plain, a river, a mountain barrier, or seven thousand miles of sea-water. The process is the same. Nor in any of the cases was the forward movement other than commendable and inevitable. It was the necessary manifestation of the unrestrainable centrifugal impulse ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the Algerines, and other states of Barbary, in a perpetual state of hostility with most other people; so that whatsoever stratagems or deceits they can over-reach them by, are not only allowed by their laws, but considered as commendable and praise-worthy; and, as the Algerines are looked upon as a very honest people by those who are in alliance with them, though they plunder the rest of mankind; and as most other governments have thought that they might very honestly attack ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... Mr. PHILLIPS'S dramas. I flatter myself that the disinterested public will agree with me, that if all the Huguenots were as tedious as Mr. WATTS PHILLIPS'S private Huguenot, the massacre of St. BARTHOLOMEW was a pleasing manifestation of a very natural and commendable indignation on the part of their much-suffering ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... on, Old Virginny," said the soldier, whose kindly sympathy for Tom and his sick father was highly commendable. ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... to let Beatrice know of it." "Certainly," replied Ursula, "it were not good she knew his love, lest she made sport of it." "Why, to say truth," said Hero, "I never yet saw a man, how wise soever, or noble, young, or rarely featured, but she would dispraise him." "Sure sure, such carping is not commendable," said Ursula. "No," replied Hero, "but who dare tell her so? If I should speak, she would mock me into air." "O! you wrong your cousin," said Ursula: "she cannot be so much without true judgment, as to refuse so rare a gentleman as signior Benedick." "He hath an excellent good name," said ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... normal Christian life, thus conditioned, is a life whose mental energies (logixesthe) are fully at work, always gravitating towards purposes and actions true, pure, gracious, virtuous, commendable; "sowing the fruit of righteousness in peace," at the side of "the God of peace." True, the man may have many things to think of which are either perfectly secular in themselves (he may be a servant, he may be a man of business, he may be a physician, he may be ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... its inception. She told me she had even read half a dozen of her uncle's law-books, which bore upon the knotty points Artie had described to her. Instead of arousing his suspicions of mercenary motives, her innocent manner and flowerlike face deceived him into believing that her interest was very commendable. She explained that she had always wanted to study law, but that her father wouldn't let her, so that she always coaxed her friends to describe their law-suits to her, and then she read up on them by herself. Artie thought this ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... authority and influence are thought to have special need of friends: for where is the use of such prosperity if there be taken away the doing of kindnesses of which friends are the most usual and most commendable objects? Or how can it be kept or preserved without friends? because the greater it is so much the more slippery and hazardous: in poverty moreover and all other adversities men think friends ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... With commendable energy and expedition Dinwiddie and Dobbs, acting in concert, initiated steps for keeping the engagements conjointly made by the two colonies with the Cherokees and the Catawbas in the spring and summer of 1756. Enlisting sixty men, "most ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... friendship, or duty, is never commendable. I do not believe God Himself feels complimented when the beings He created as the highest type of His workmanship declare themselves worthless worms, unworthy ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... exemplification of the art of war. It is certainly a good subject for the study of military students, and it is partly for their benefit that I have pointed out some of its prominent defects as I understood them. Its commendable features are sufficiently evident; but in studying the actions that have resulted in victory, we are apt to overlook the errors without which the victory might have been far more complete, or even to mistake those errors for real causes ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... said, Sir; and it is well said, indeede, too: Better accommodated? it is good, yea indeede is it: good phrases are surely, and euery where very commendable. Accommodated, it comes of Accommodo: ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... advanced to a stage of development of which, as in the Elizabethan and Augustan ages, literary jealousy was an indispensable accompaniment. Chaucer is supposed to have attacked Gower in a passage of the "Canterbury Tales," where he incidentally declares his dislike (in itself extremely commendable) of a particular kind of sensational stories, instancing the subject of one of the numerous tales in the "Confessio Amantis." There is, however, no reason whatever for supposing Chaucer to have here intended a reflection ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... history hold that if there had been a proper respect for the commendable desire of the Christian peoples in European Turkey to throw off the Turkish yoke and become self-governing states, there would have been no cause for war, so far as relates to Servia and the situation which precipitated the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... as anything ever has been—by which I mean it's intermediate to the commendable and ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... which must not be criticized or questioned. The necessity of allegiance to morality has been so deeply stamped upon their minds that it has become a loyalty to the particular brand of morality they have grown up in, however flagrantly inadequate or tyrannous it may be. For the latter a commendable impatience with the imperfect is apt to foster a blindness to the value that almost always lies in ancient customs and a lack of regard for the need of stability and common agreement on some plane. These iconoclasts, vociferous in condemnation, are often most empty ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... this migration the rank and file of Negroes, accustomed to being led, showed some initiative by acting of their own accord, and thereby abandoned the old policy of seeking and awaiting the advice of their leaders.[175] While this is true, and is, indeed, a very commendable performance, yet a careful view of the situation will show that it is hardly a phenomenon to be considered a marvelous affair. As we saw in Chapter IV of this dissertation, this movement was largely precipitated and stimulated by the labor agents ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... the maids to do the best they know or the worst they will, according to the degree in which they are supplied with faculty or conscience. Many women boast that their housekeeping takes them perhaps an hour, perhaps half an hour, in the morning, and no more; and they think themselves clever and commendable in proportion to the small amount of time given to their largest family duty. This is all very well where the income is such as to secure first-class servants—professors of certain specialities of knowledge, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... us the honor to introduce any of our countrymen into his fiction, he generally displays a commendable desire to present something typical in the way of names for his adopted characters—to give a dash of local color, as it were, with his nomenclature. His success is seldom commensurate to the desire. He falls into the error ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... property is a fact; that it always has been, and always will be. With that proposition the savant Proudhon [11] commenced his "Treatise on the Right of Usufruct," regarding the origin of property as a useless question. Perhaps I would subscribe to this doctrine, believing it inspired by a commendable love of peace, were all my fellow-citizens in comfortable circumstances; but, no! I will not subscribe ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... life then, The Laird felt a pang of jealousy. While the child could never, by any possibility, be aught to him, nevertheless he felt that in the case of a male child a certain polite deference toward the infant's paternal ancestors was always commendable. At any rate, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... intercourse of the sexes, except what is necessary to the perpetuation of the species, we hold to be sinful and contrary to the order and command of God. Complete virginity or entire cessation of sexual commerce is more commendable ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... as well as his famous paintings, "The Girlhood of Mary Virgin," and his Annunciation picture, "Ecce Ancilla Domini." Of the product of other Pre-Raphaelites of note,—such as Ford Madox Brown, Millais, Morris, Woolner the sculptor, Coventry Patmore, and Holman Hunt,—much that is commendable as well as finely imaginative came from their hands, and justified Ruskin in his gallant advocacy of the movement, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... getting the church together; and when they are so come together, then to pray among them, and to preach unto them. This is also commendable in Christian ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and times of the world wherein we are fallen is so much given to verbal profession, as well of religion as of all commendable royal virtues, but wanting the actions and deeds agreeable to so specious a profession; as it hath bred such an unsatiable curiosity in many men's spirits, and such an itching in the tongues and pens of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... in 1808. Much worse men have done much worse things than he, have less that is brave, honourable, enterprising and original to their credit, and yet are remembered without ignominy. It is said by Hooker: "as oftentimes the vices of wicked men do cause other their commendable virtues to be abhorred, so the honour of great men's virtues is easily a cloak to their errors." Bligh fell short of being a great man, but neither was he a bad man; and the merit of his achievements, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... truth and alms-giving, kind speech and abstention from injury to any creature, are known (measured) by their objective gravity (utility). Truth is (sometimes) more praiseworthy than some acts of charity; some of the latter again are more commendable than true speech. Similarly, O mighty king, and lord of the earth, abstention from doing injury to any creature is seen to be important than good speech and vice-versa. Even so it is, O king, depending on effects. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... different capacities: one understands intuitively; another understands so far as it is explained; and a third understands neither of himself nor by explanation. The first is excellent, the second, commendable, ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... ventured to publish a small volume of them, which was soon followed by a second and enlarged edition. This book of sermons is dedicated to Lord Webb Seymour[17]—"because I know no man who, in spite of the disadvantages of high birth, lives to more honourable and commendable purposes ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... postponed until the arrival of Parker's counsel, O'Connell & Kilpatrick, of Grass Valley, and after they reached Cape Horn not a single word could be extracted from the prisoner. It is said that the inquisition was a mere farce; there being no witnesses present except one lady passenger, who, with commendable spirit, volunteered to lay over one day, to give in her testimony. We also learn that, after the trial, the justice, together with the prisoner and his counsel, were closeted in secret session for more than two hours; at the expiration of which time the judge resumed his seat ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... abundantly supplied with well-engraved woodcuts and lithographic plates; a sort of Encyclopaedia for ready reference.... The whole work has a look of pains-taking completeness highly commendable."—Athenaeum. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various
... other child, a boy of ten, Francisco Mercado, whose Christian name was given partly because he had an uncle of the same name, and partly as a tribute of gratitude to the friendly Friar scholar in Manila. His new surname suggests that the family possessed the commendable trait of taking pride in ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... was certainly the most commendable of the two, and by far the most important in its results. Warburton, with a troop of camels, reached the Oakover River naked and starving, with but two miserable animals left. Forrest, with nothing but ordinary pack-horses, crossed the middle of the continent, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... variety is in a way infinite, yet it is not various in infinite ways, but rather in very finite ones. Everybody who denies its excellence is to be blamed: but nobody is to be blamed for saying that he should like some other excellences as well. The desire is innocent, nay commendable: and it was being satisfied, at practically the same time, by the work of Sir Walter Scott in a kind of novel almost as new (when we regard it in connection with its earlier examples) as Miss Austen's own. This was the Historical ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... weeks, all entered into the new system with a will. Service was the order of the day. Men who seldom or never before labored with their hands devoted themselves to agriculture and the mechanical arts with a zeal which was at least commendable, though not always well directed. Ministers of the gospel guided the plow and called swine to their corn instead of sinners to repentance, and let patience have her perfect work over an unruly yoke of oxen. Merchants exchanged the yardstick for the rake or pitchfork; and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Act was a grievous mistake of Jefferson, though its purpose was commendable. Under the plea of securing our ships against capture, its real object was to deprive England and France of the commodities which could be secured only in the United States. This measure might have been endurable for an agricultural people, but it could not be borne by a commercial and ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... the prompt action of his legal brethren in view of his conduct, render it highly improbable that he will ever return to the scene of his former triumphs and excesses. Besides its brevity, which was commendable, his speech this evening presented no point worthy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... reply.—"What, without an uniform?" rejoined the lieutenant; "oh, get back, get back, impostor; the general would break your bones if he knew you assumed his name." The general on this made his retreat; and the next day, inviting the young officer to breakfast, told him—"He had done his duty with very commendable exactness." ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... to the Bootlair Sahib that the daylight was yet strong and lusty enough to shame and smother any lamp, complied with deliberation and care, polishing the chimney, trimming the wick, pouring in oil and generally making a satisfactory and commendable ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... the distance. What might have been is sternly transformed from a beautiful vision into a revolting peril, and in this new shape is invoked to applaud the actual and vilify what is impossible. This attitude of mind is thought so commendable as to have won for itself in popular speech the name of philosophy—so even with words Clotho works her will. Elsa, then, in this peculiar sense of the term was philosophical about the business. She was balanced ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... so. It was a most interesting journey to headquarters. There was only one track, and on this the men had spent their energies to great advantage, and commendable results followed. ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... Walter Cholmondeliegh, and rolled that portly old gentleman on his back. He fought with a commendable valour, but we got him tight. I had not the remotest notion why. He had a splendid and full-blooded vigour; when he could not box he kicked, and we bound him; when he could not kick he shouted, and we gagged him. Then, by Basil's ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... make the best use of his men unless he is armed with all available research data and can talk the language of the philosopher and modern social scientist is little more than a twentieth century conceit. To seek and use all pertinent information is commendable, but truth comes of seeing all things in their natural proportion. To know more than is necessary blunts one's own weapons. The application of common sense to the problem is more vital than the possession ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... he was speaking of the Ptolemaic cosmogony as known to him through the Arabs, and his vaunt was a humorous proof of his scientific instinct. As a ruler he showed legislative capacity, and a very commendable wish to provide his kingdoms with a code of laws and a consistent judicial system. The Fuero Real was undoubtedly his work, and he began the code called the Slete Partidas, which, however, was only promulgated by his great-grandson. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... I understand why you told your falsehoods, I can't help admiring your chivalry. You saw Miss Lloyd there that evening, you heard her next day at the inquest deny having been in the office in the evening. So, in a way, it was very commendable on your part to avoid contradicting her testimonies, with your own. But you are not clever enough, Louis, to carry out that deceit to the end. And now that you have admitted that you saw Miss Lloyd ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... Mademoiselle might be a great lady in France, I said to myself, but to me she had shown herself only a fickle, capricious, silly maiden. But even as I so spoke to myself my heart revolted. I saw her once more weeping in madame's arms, and I began to think it was only natural and commendable in her that she should be so stirred at the thought of leaving friends who had been so good to her, and that I had been much harder with ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... esteemed the sacrifice, however unendurable, which bought for Perion the chance to serve God and his love for her by valorous and commendable actions to ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... about to take his head when people came up and arrested him. This case illustrates the difficulties to be met in civilizing these people. Legally, under our view, this boy was a murderer; under his own customs and traditions, he had done a commendable thing. When the boys' school was first opened, they used to take their spears and shields into the room with them; this proving not only troublesome, but dangerous, their arms are now taken away from them every morning, and ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... one willow that has been used by the nurserymen to produce a so-called weeping form, which, like most of these monstrosities, is not commendable. The goat willow is a vigorous tree introduced from Europe, having large and rather broad and coarse leaves, dark green above and whitish underneath. It is taken as a "stock," upon which, at a convenient height, the skilled juggler with trees grafts a drooping or pendulous form known ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... no reason for shame, for to them the danger seemed real; and believing it to be real, they had not shrunk, but had faced it with very commendable pluck. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... hotel carried his seventy-odd years and two hundred and sixty pounds quite handily in his shirt-sleeves, moving with commendable celerity from office to bar-room, supplying us in the front room with information and those in ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... to me—to Mrs. Sherman, rather—she described you as her young lady. She has a very warm feeling for you. I think she considers you in the light of personal property, like a child of her own. That's excusable—it's commendable, even, in such a case as this. I believe she said she nursed you till you ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise with men of learning—" "Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you please to go in." My critic complies; he comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath, that the book is commendable, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... certain that all San Pasqual must know her secret—that this was her wedding day. She shuddered lest the telegraph operator had suspected something, despite Bob's commendable caution, and had incited the townspeople to line up at the depot, there to shower her with rice and hurl antiquated footgear after the train that bore her north. Such horrible rites were preserved and enacted with ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... clear on Friday and Saturday, when petitions from the best citizens of twenty-three States were presented in House and Senate, that the leaders of the two political parties vied with each other in doing honor to the grave subject proposed for their consideration. The speaker of the House set a commendable example of courtesy to women by proposing that the petitions be delivered in open House, to which there was no objection. The early advocates of equal rights for women—Hoar, Kelley, Banks, Kasson, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... meaning, either past or present." Baedeker gives like reasons for thinking "the traveler whose expectation is on tiptoe as he enters the ancient capital of the Moors will probably be disappointed in all but the cathedral." Cook's Guide, latest but not least commendable of the authorities, is of a more divided mind and finds the means of trade and industry and their total want of visible employment at ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... democracies the arts are incapable of producing very commendable works, if such be required. This may occasionally be the case, if customers appear who are ready to pay for time and trouble. In this rivalry of every kind of industry—in the midst of this immense competition and these countless experiments, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... looked mainly toward summer use, But I am especially glad to note a recent improvement that shows that the Park Board has the winter use of the parks also definitely in mind. I refer to the new skating rink in Riverside Park. It is a most commendable institution. I very much hope that it will be extensively used, not only by the people living in that part of the city, but by those of all sections. It belongs to all of us. Here is an opportunity for a most delightful winter sport freely offered. If appreciated, ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... not exist at the time the letter—if genuine—was written; as the worm did its work long afterwards, it must be regarded as a fortunate circumstance that in perforating the paper it refrained from destroying the writing, carefully selecting the wider spaces that the poet had, with commendable foresight, left ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... have entitled him to aspire. He gave his son such an education as his own resources and those of the infant colony of Massachusetts afforded, and, by a sort of delusive piety, into whose merits we have no desire to look, he thought he had also furnished a commendable evidence of his own desperate resignation to the will of Providence, in causing him to be publicly christened by the name of Content. His own baptismal appellation was Mark; as indeed had been that of most ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... without further comment. By and by he got up. "Pshaw!" He dropped the wearisome volume on the reading-table, took up a paper-covered novel, and turned to the last fight of the blacksmith in Rodney Stone. Here was something that made the invention of type excusable, even commendable. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... hours late, but we scalded ourselves with a second cup of coffee and tried for the six-o'clock train for Naples, missed it, sent a telegram to Cook to send our letters to the train to meet us, and then went back to the ship to endure with patience and commendable fortitude the jeers of our fellow-passengers. Virtue was its own reward, however, for soon, under the rays of the rising sun, which we did not get up to see, and did not want to see, there steamed into the harbor alongside of us the P. & O. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... can not see who would kill her to prevent her getting money from a prosperous mistress. She was making her a final present on leaving her service. Madame de Santos openly admits she intended to give her a considerable sum of money. She has acted with commendable kindness as to her funeral. All is quiet. The police are baffled." This is ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... thirdly, that if you eat a good deal of it, most probably you must do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, viz., die. These weighty propositions are, all and singular, true; I can not gainsay them; and truth ever was and will be commendable. But in these three theorems I believe we have exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet accumulated by man on the subject of opium. And therefore, worthy doctors, as there seems to be room for further discoveries, stand aside and allow me to come forward and ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... part was variously commented upon by his friends, the general opinion being that it was just like Pontifex, who was sure to do something unusual wherever he went, but that on the whole the idea was commendable. Christina could not restrain herself when on sounding her clerical neighbours she found them inclined to applaud her son for conduct which they idealised into something much more self-denying than it really was. She did not quite like his living in ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... certainly most commendable. There is nothing which needs apology. Under the circumstances you have done all that was possible, and to the best of your ability. No one can do more," ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... was too far removed from him to be an actual reality, and so he just waived her husband and dismissed him with a shrug. Beside that, young married women have a charm all their own; they are wiser than maidens, more companionable; innocence is not wholly commendable—at least, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... cherished beliefs to open questions, was of the greatest value in dispelling ignorance and prejudice, and in promoting true charity and a more intelligent faith. He delighted to call attention to the fact that our Lord found something commendable and exemplary in the serpent. And so, in dealing with those with whom he most disagreed, he tried to fix attention on that portion of truth which lay behind their opinions, or on those real difficulties, to be slighted only by {27} the superficial, with which they were grappling. ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... term would lead them to abandon their purpose: and he was their most useful tool in 1860, and without his assistance they could not have made one step in the road to rebellion, or ruin. Their purpose is to found a new nation, as they have never hesitated to avow, with a frankness that is as commendable as the cause in which it is evinced is abominable. They would be glad to see a Democrat chosen our next President, because they would expect from him an acknowledgment of their "independence"; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... of my heart, agree with those that speak in favor of Messer Simone dei Bardi. It is the native, intimate, and commendable wish of a man to abolish his enemies—I speak here after the fashion of the worldling that I was, for the cell and the cloister have no concern with mortal passions and frailties—and Messer Simone was in this, as in divers ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... "Most commendable," commented Hardy dryly. "But I should think it would be difficult if he ever came face to face with a situation where his hands were bound." There was the lightest touch of sarcasm in ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... reports, nor would any useful purpose be served by attempting to assess, with a view to penalties, the culpability of individual officers who were responsible for these orders, but whose conduct in other respects may have been free from blame or actually commendable. But His Majesty's Government must express strong disapproval of these orders and punishments and ask me to leave to you the duty of seeing that this disapproval shall be unmistakably marked by censure or other action which seems ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... course of years, for the Bachelor was one of those whose goodness shuns the light, and who have more pleasure in discovering and extolling the good deeds of others, than in trumpeting their own, be they never so commendable. How, for that reason, he seldom told them of his village friends; but how, for all that, his mind had become so full of two among them—a child and an old man, to whom he had been very kind—that, in a letter received ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... book-learning is not only proper, but highly commendable; and portions of it are absolutely necessary in every case of trade or profession. One of these portions is distinct reading, plain and neat writing, and arithmetic. The two former are mere child's work; the latter not ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made no conscientious diagnosis of your case, but answered at random, and usually missed it considerably. You lied to the undertaker, and said your health was failing—a wholly commendable lie, since it cost you nothing and pleased the other man. If a stranger called and interrupted you, you said with your hearty tongue, "I'm glad to see you," and said with your heartier soul, "I wish you were with the cannibals and it was dinner-time." When he went, you said regretfully, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... spoke, slam-bang came the big plank above mentioned, which shot out with startling suddenness, and worked with commendable dexterity, made a clean sweep of the whole first column. The leader and five or six more were hurled bodily into the air, and tumbled upon the heads of their followers, while fifteen or twenty others were pitched down ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... carefully kept every form which he saw, his collection might be of use some day to entomologists at home. A most pleasant gentleman he was; and, I doubt not, none the worse soldier for his butterfly catching. Commendable, also, in my eyes, was another officer—whom I have not the pleasure of knowing— who, on a remote foreign station, used wisely to escape from the temptations of the world into an entirely original and most pleasant hermitage. For finding—so the story went—that many ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... plan of a regular carouse; and at once decided that my Spanish skipper was bound to keep his birthday with commendable merriment and abundant grog. There was to be no delay; one day was as good as another for his festival, while all that we needed, was time enough to obtain the requisite supplies of ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... some time after, in the debate, said, how very commendable it was in him to have made the above speech, which must have made an impression upon the House; but if It was becoming in him to remember that he was the child of the accused, that the House ought to remember too that they are the children of their country. It was a great compliment ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... we reach the foot of the lake, stands a spruce and rather large house of modern aspect, but with several gables and much overgrown with ivy,—a very pretty and comfortable house, built, adorned, and cared for with commendable taste. We inquired whose it was, and the coachman said it was "Mr. Wordsworth's," and that "Mrs. Wordsworth was still residing there." So we were much delighted to have seen his abode, and as we were to stay the night at Grasmere, about two miles farther on, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... neither by fear, frowns, nor flatteries, to forsake the ways of God, or wrong thy conscience? or art thou one of them that slightest those opportunities that Satan and this world did often give thee to return to sin in secret (Heb 11:15). These be the men whose praise is in the gospel, and whose commendable and worthy acts are recorded before the Judge of all the world. Alas, alas, these things are strange things to a carnal and wicked man. Nothing of this hath been done by him in this life, and therefore how can any such be recorded for him in the book of life? wherefore ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... be so odd, and from all fashions, As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable: But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit. Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire, Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly: It were a better death than die with ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... with him, and prayed him to relate how the Princess Jehaun-ara could have the inhumanity to transform into a bird so amiable a prince; and the king of Persia immediately satisfied him. When he had ended, the king, provoked at the proceeding of the princess, could not help blaming her. "It was commendable," said he, "in the princess of Samandal not to be insensible of the king her father's ill treatment; but to carry her vengeance so far, and especially against a prince who was not culpable, was what she could never be able to justify herself for. But let us have done with this subject, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... my office by the foote: the matter of which your castell is builded is so precious, that there is none amongst company but is contented to wear of it within his buttons, the end for which it was builded is very commendable, that they may bee kepte in order with wood, which otherwise would not bee kepte in order, heere is fons latus pedibus tribus, a fountaine to wash three mens legs, that they which have bene aurium tenus, over shoes, heere may be crurum tenus over bootes too, This your Lordshippe's ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... None of them all, however, is better adapted to common libraries than the new edition now publishing in New York. It will be comprised in fifty volumes, to be published in instalments at intervals of six or eight weeks. The mechanical execution is most commendable in every respect: clear, pleasantly tinted paper; typography in the best style of the Riverside Press; binding novel and tasteful. A vignette, designed either by Darley or Gilbert, and engraved upon steel, is prefixed to each volume. We have to congratulate the publishers that they have so successfully ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... it rare sport to lock his men in the ship's hold and then set sulphur afire to ascertain how long they could withstand asphyxiation. Yet his greatest "bravery" was displayed (and herein he developed commendable Spartan fortitude) when he married fourteen times with a fearlessness highly worthy of a better purpose! His wickedness was as great as his fearlessness was unbounded, but wickedness was voted manly in a pirate and assured the esteem and ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... wandering from the subject," Chris said, with commendable steadiness. "We will leave the matter of the ring out of the question. Mr. Merritt, I don't propose to tell you too much, but you can help me a little farther on the way. That cigar-case you saw in Van Sneck's possession passed to Mr. Henson. ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... application that their unanimity was broken up and they split into two camps, the pacifists and the militarists, or the democrats and imperialists, as they have been roughly labeled. Here, too, each member of the assembly worked with commendable single-mindedness, and under a sense of high responsibility, for that solution of the problem which to him seemed the most conducive to the general weal. And they wrestled heroically one with the other for what they held to be right and true relatively to the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... went on solemnly, "Jacob is no more. He was found guilty by his judges and executed with commendable haste and precision. I will say this for your lamented husband: he met his fate like a man and a German—without a quiver. He took his medicine bravely—twelve leaden pills administered by as many skilful surgeons. It is perhaps ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... a grievous mistake of Jefferson, though its purpose was commendable. Under the plea of securing our ships against capture, its real object was to deprive England and France of the commodities which could be secured only in the United States. This measure might have ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... sent out a commission of ten persons, who carefully considered the existing state of things, the laws and forms of administration actually in vogue, and drew up a constitution for the province, embodying as much of these as was possible or at all commendable; as much, in fact, as was compatible with the Roman connection. This constitution, when sanctioned by the Senate, was binding, whatever governor might be appointed by Rome to the province. Such a governor might interpret the law; he ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... many other innocent men and women had not only provoked the Divine retribution, but had diminished not a little the reputation and influence of the French with all orders of persons in Germany.[1341] Henry listened with commendable patience to the old elector's denunciations, alleging by way of excuse that the French court had been under the influence of the passions then running high, and readily promised great caution and tolerance in future.[1342] ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... with much gravity and majesty, as was objected unto him by his adversaries: which nevertheless a man may well doubt of, whether it were so or no, or, which above all the rest, if so be that it were true, a man would well consider of, whether commendable, or dis-commendable. The thing therefore that we must inquire into, is this; what manner of soul Socrates had: whether his disposition was such; as that all that he stood upon, and sought after in this world, was ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... clothed perhaps not in richer or more costly furniture than it went from them, but in handsomeness and fashion more answerable to these times, wherein fashions are so often altered. Let one word suffice for your encouragement herein; namely, that your commendable pains in disrobing him of his antique curiosity, and adorning him with the approved guise of our stateliest English terms (not diminishing, but more augmenting his artificial colours of absolute poesy, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... he found himself alone with her in the street, trying to catch step and wondering whether or not it was proper to take hold of a young lady's elbow. With commendable self-restraint he compromised on street crossings and muddy places. It was not quite dark yet, but it was going to be very soon, and a big pale moon was hiding behind a tall chimney, waiting for a chance to pounce out on unwary young ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... these noble-hearted little fellows have bestowed the money I gave them in such a commendable manner, I mean to give ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... felled, to the proper place, against which to kindle our camp-fire, and we had a pleasant place to sit, with our pipes, in the evening, looking out over the water, listening to the pile-drivers, half a dozen of which were driving their stakes along the reedy shore, with commendable diligence. The sunlight lay so beautifully on the hillsides, and contrasted so admirably with the deep shadows of the valley beneath, the lake was so calm and still, the old woods stood around so moveless and solemn, that one could scarcely persuade himself that he was not ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... came down they silently accepted the plan. They put on their sweaters and boots, as the spring was young and the ground soft. Mrs. Benjamin marvelled at their restraint, but laid it to their commendable desire to appear well before their guest. Two by two they marched dumbly behind the Benjamins and the Bryces. Up hill and down they went. Isabelle felt their eyes like javelins in her back, even while she kept up a lively stream ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... cause and dangers before Fremont, who was in his camp on the American River. Now the Captain did not hesitate in his decision and with a small mounted force began action on the field. Fremont was a man of many commendable qualities, possessed of bright mentality, unwavering and extremely loyal to the American cause, but he had his failings, among them being that on several occasions he took advantage of the tangled state of affairs, to seize upon personal property ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... Clarendon, "was born to a very fair estate, by the parsimony, or frugality, of a wise father and mother: and he thought it so commendable an advantage, that he resolved to improve it with his utmost care, upon which, in his nature, he was too much intent; and, in order to that, he was so much reserved and retired, that he was scarce ever heard of, till, by his address and dexterity, he had gotten a very ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... that which is our greatest comfort and means of defence above all other is, that we have here the true religion and holy ordinances of Almighty God taught among us. Thanks be to God, we have here plenty of preaching and diligent catechizing, with strict and careful exercise and good commendable orders to bring our people into a Christian conversation with whom we have to do withal. And thus we doubt not but God will be with us; and if God be with us, who can be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... the two bread-and-butter English young ladies, one of whom asks the other in the midst of the performance, if she has thought yet to count the pipes,—a thoughtful verification of Murray, which is very commendable in a young woman traveling for the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... would no more have companied with him than with their father's chauffeur. After he grew older and began to go to college some of the girls began to think he was good looking, and to say it was quite commendable in him to try to get an education. Some even unearthed the fact that his had been a fine old family in former days and that there had been wealth and servants once. But the story died down as John Cameron walked his quiet way apart, keeping to his old friends, and not responding to the feeble ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... very long in the company of anyone until a match will be struck. Of one you will say, "that's good; I'm glad to find such a trait in that person," but directly another match will flare up and you will find another trait as disappointing as the other was commendable, and you are at a loss to know what "manner of ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... death and duly executed. Most of the others were transported to the convict settlements of Australia. It is worthy of remark that none of those executed or deported had been persons of note in the political arena before 1837. On the whole, it must be confessed that these sentences showed a commendable moderation. It was thought necessary that a few examples should be made, as Lord Durham's amnesty of the previous year had evidently encouraged some {127} habitants to believe that rebellion was a venial offence. And the execution ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... class, they are in antagonism to the prevailing political sentiment is the legitimate result of the manner of their emancipation and a commendable gratitude and kinship for the party through which they obtained their freedom. But Gibbon, in his "Decline and Fall of Rome," has said that "gratitude is expensive," and so the Negro has found it, and is beginning ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... to suffer certain rules and customs that are not in all points commendable, than to acquire a taste for revolution and to yield to the temptation of confounding all things in chaos.'[155] His own grievance against the Popes, he adds, is that they are innovating and destroying the primitive constitution ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... burned in a place where no beast can get at it, and in the morning the ashes are carefully examined, believing that the footprint of the next person of the family who will die will be seen. This practice of burning the contents of the bed is commendable for sanitary purposes. ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... commendable, Mr. Hopper," Virginia said, stifling a rebellious titter. "But,—but why did ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of the mendicants, which are, like those of the Algerines, and other states of Barbary, in a perpetual state of hostility with most other people; so that whatsoever stratagems or deceits they can over-reach them by, are not only allowed by their laws, but considered as commendable and praise-worthy; and, as the Algerines are looked upon as a very honest people by those who are in alliance with them, though they plunder the rest of mankind; and as most other governments have thought that they might very honestly attack any weak neighbouring state, whenever it was ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... name he had now forgotten. This young fellow was conversing with somebody on his left hand—no other personage than Paula herself. Next to Paula he beheld De Stancy, and De Stancy's sister beyond him. It was one of those gratuitous encounters which only happen to discarded lovers who have shown commendable stoicism under disappointment, as if on purpose to reopen and ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... knowledge of her mother's disapproval of such a proceeding restrained the disclosure which, of a surety, would have cost her the non-fulfilment of a kindly act. A bit of subterfuge which hurts no one is often not only excusable, but commendable. Besides, it saved her mother an annoying controversy; and so, fully satisfied as to her part, Ruth took her way down the street. The question as to whether the doctor had gone beyond the bounds of their brief acquaintance had of course been presented to her mind; but if a slight flush ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... my young days, I myself have tried; Be rul'd by me, and I will make thee rich. You, God be prais'd, are fair, and, as they say, Full of good parts; you have been often tried To be a woman of good carriage, Which, in my mind, is very commendable. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... new dynamic forces and industrial conditions. Hence the almost dramatic appearance of vocational, or technical, economics under such names as "scientific management" and the "economics of engineering." Viewed in this perspective such a development appears to be commendable and valuable in its main purpose. Unfortunately, some, if not all, of the adherents of this new cult of "economy" and "efficiency" fail to appreciate how very restricted and special it is, compared with ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... cruelties; and who, despite the depressing influences surrounding his birth, youth and manhood, has risen, from a dark and almost absolute obscurity, to the distinguished position which he now occupies, might very well assume the existence of a commendable curiosity, on the part of the public, to know the ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... immoral. "He may lie," says Plato, "who knows how to do it." Profane swearing was enjoined by the example of their best writers. Oaths are of common occurrence in the writings of Seneca and Plato. Aristippus taught that adultery and theft were commendable in a wise man, and Cicero plead for the last dreadful tragedy—suicide. Such immoralities are eulogised in the writings of Virgil, Horace and Ovid. When Rome was in her glory and greatness, Trajan had ten thousand men to hew each other to pieces to amuse the Romans. ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... to make at least one more effort against the invader. To this object he addressed himself with earnestness and diligence. The number and quality of the troops collected at Arbela attests at once the zeal and success of his endeavors. His choice and careful preparation of the field of battle are commendable; in his disposition of his forces there is nothing with which to find fault. Every arm of the service had full room to act; all were brought into play; if Alexander conquered, it was because he was a consummate general, while at the same time he commanded the best troops in the world. Arbela was ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... guineas a pound, and Turkey eight; and thirdly, that if you eat a good deal of it, most probably you must do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, viz., die. These weighty propositions are, all and singular, true; I can not gainsay them; and truth ever was and will be commendable. But in these three theorems I believe we have exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet accumulated by man on the subject of opium. And therefore, worthy doctors, as there seems to be room for further discoveries, stand ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... at length began a mock examination of me, in which they seemed to me to be actuated more by a curiosity no way commendable, than a sincere desire to discover the truth, writing down a few of my answers. In this, however, the person behind me took no active part. One of the questions put to me was, "What are the colours of the carpet in ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... central figure as Randy, growing toward womanhood with each book. The sterling good sense and simple naturalness of Randy, and the total absence of slang and viciousness, make these books in the highest degree commendable, while abundant life is supplied by the doings of merry friends, and there is rich humor in the ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... favorite table-grape in California, confused with and possibly the same as Black Prince. Its chief commendable characters are handsome appearance and high quality of fruit and very productive vines. It is not adapted for shipping and does not enter plentifully into commerce. Its season is so late that the ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... the next letter is Mr. Morrison Heady, of Normandy, Kentucky, who lost his sight and hearing when he was a boy. He is the author of some commendable verses. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... Ernest's part was variously commented upon by his friends, the general opinion being that it was just like Pontifex, who was sure to do something unusual wherever he went, but that on the whole the idea was commendable. Christina could not restrain herself when on sounding her clerical neighbours she found them inclined to applaud her son for conduct which they idealised into something much more self-denying than it ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... of age, of unmixed blood, ordinary size, and had a commendable share of courage and intellect. He could recommend no good traits as ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... in the immigrants are liable to abuse. Thrift, for instance, is commendable, but not when it is exercised at the expense of decent living. Economy is an admirable trait, but not when practiced at the expense of manhood and decent conditions. A distinct deterioration of the masses displaced by the cheaper labor has marked the advent of the new immigration. ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... opinion of a majority of the members present that while much of the spirit exhibited by yourself was highly commendable, yet in view of all the facts it would be expedient for the pastoral relation to be severed. The continuance of that relation seemed to promise only added disturbance and increased antagonism in the church. It was the wellnigh unanimous ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... is the smooth side before you attempt your polish; be reconciled to your fate, be it what it may; and never find fault with your condition, unless your complaining will benefit it. Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable in those who have judgment to govern it. I should never had been so successful in my hunting excursions had I waited till the deer, by some magic dream, had been drawn to the muzzle of the gun before I made an attempt to fire at the game that dared my boldness in the wild forest. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and one that I can never sufficiently estimate, to have known him personally through so many years. He was unlike any other author I have met, and there were qualities in his nature so sweet and commendable, that, through all his shy reserve, they sometimes asserted themselves in a marked and conspicuous manner. I have known rude people, who were jostling him in a crowd, give way at the sound of his low and almost irresolute voice, so potent was the gentle spell of ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... thoughtful suggestion, offered by a man frequently alluded to as one of "California's great mining princes," and as one who had "done much to develop the resources of the State," was not to be lightly considered; and so, after a cautious non-consultation with the Company, and a commendable secrecy, the stockholder sold out. Whereat it was speedily spread abroad that the great Capitalist had taken hold of "Blue Mass," and the stock went up, and the other stockholders rejoiced—until the great Capitalist found that it was necessary to ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... commanded the whole hall, he amused himself in looking down upon the attendants who were clearing away the fragments of the feast very lazily, and drinking out of all the bottles and glasses with most commendable perseverance. ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... parallel with the river. With commendable forethought, the first settlers had built their houses and stores some little distance back from the stream along the summit of a wooded ridge perhaps forty feet above the river at its midsummer low-water level. The tremendous, devastating floods that came annually with the breaking up of winter ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... his welfare. He has interested neighbors, amongst whom he lives, and also friends at a distance. Both are trying to solve the problem of his true relation to American institutions and privileges. While both have been co-operating together to a considerable extent and in a very commendable manner for the betterment of his condition, it remains to note however that if one is considered by the other as moving too slowly, or too rapidly, one acts as a gentle spur ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... planters in these southward parts of America. The French being a temperate, industrious people, some of them bringing very little effects, yet by their endeavours and mutual assistance among themselves (which is highly commendable) have outstript our English, who brought with them larger fortunes. We lay all that night at Mons. Eugee's,*1* and the next morning set out further to go the remainder of our voyage by land. At noon we came up with several French plantations, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... has Norwich to the people connected with its literary or artistic fame? Nay, I am not rash and impetuous. I would beg any one of my hearers who thinks that Borrow might well have a memorial in marble or bronze in your city to wait a while. You are busy with a statue to Sir Thomas Browne—a most commendable scheme. To attempt to raise one to Borrow at this moment would probably be to court disaster. Nor do I advocate a memorial by private subscription. Observation has shown me what that means: failure or half ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... to every individual, except on the days appropriated for study, when only artists are admitted; but even then, a stranger, whose stay is limited, may be admitted on producing his passport, a regulation which is highly commendable for its liberality; and at none of these repositories are the attendants permitted to lay any contributions on the visitants. The gallery of the Louvre was built by Henry IV. to join that palace with the Tuilleries, from which it was formerly separated, by the walls which surrounded Paris. ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... goaded by this; for on the matter of size and courage he was specially sore—a wound which his spouse took care to keep open. "Cowards!" and, bristling about, and striking his feet together, he bustled out, and, with commendable energy, soon had the horse in the buggy before the door. Tom sprang in, as the kind-hearted woman passed him a bountiful supply of provisions, saying, as she wiped her eyes with ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... part of the Confederates, more especially the officers, throughout the struggle; but a long time will elapse before the non-chivalrous "Yankees" whom they have despised, will cease to believe that commendable anxiety for personal safety has lain at the bottom ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... externally its noble colonnades go far to redeem its bare attic and the material of its dome. The Palace of the Grand Duke Michael, which reproduces, with improvements, Gabriel's colonnades of the Garde Meuble at Paris on its garden front, is a nobly planned and commendable design, agreeably contrasting with the debased architecture of many of the public buildings of the city. The Admiralty with its Doric pilasters, and the New Museum, by von Klenze of Munich, in a skilfully modified Greek style, with effective loggias, are ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... follies in human life, there is none greater than that of extravagance, or profuseness; it being constant labour, without the least ease or relaxation. It bears, indeed, the colour of that which is commendable, and would fain be thought to take its rise from laudable motives, searching indefatigably after true felicity; now as there can be no true felicity without content, it is this which every man is in constant pursuit of; the learned, for instance, in ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... had his trouble for his pains, to say nothing of the cost of the model. But worst of all the failures, because of the prospective losses its failure entailed, was the Jarley safety lightning razor. Its failure was not due to any lack of merit, for it certainly possessed much that was ingenious and commendable. The affair was not different in principle from a lawn-mower. Six little sharp blades set on a cylinder would revolve rapidly as the pretty machine was pushed up and down the cheek of the person shaving, and leave the face of that person as smooth as a piece ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... required. She then pointed out to her, as her husband had done to Seymour, the improbability, if not impossibility, of any happy result to their intimacy, and explained the honourable motives by which Seymour had been actuated,—the more commendable, as his feelings on the subject were even more acute than her own. The weeping girl felt the truth of her remarks, as far as the justification of Seymour was attempted. Satisfied with the knowledge that he loved her, she paid little attention to the more prudent part of the advice, and ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... not caused by remorse, and that, as long as he lived, he publicly referred to the Panama affair as that in which he took the greatest pride. It is only in the old Sunday-School stories that Providence punishes wrongdoing with such commendable swiftness, and causes the naughty boy who goes skating on Sunday to drown forthwith; in real life the "mills of God grind slowly." Roosevelt always regarded with equal satisfaction the decision by which the Panama Canal ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... storm was raging outside. However, the proprietor was equal to the occasion and told me that he had just come from Liverpool to take charge of the inn and that he hoped to have the patronage of motorists. With commendable enterprise he had fitted up a portion of his barn and had labeled it "Motor Garage" in huge letters. The stable man was also excited over the occasion, and I am sure that our car was the first to occupy the newly created ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... us to land. We were four hours late, but we scalded ourselves with a second cup of coffee and tried for the six-o'clock train for Naples, missed it, sent a telegram to Cook to send our letters to the train to meet us, and then went back to the ship to endure with patience and commendable fortitude the jeers of our fellow-passengers. Virtue was its own reward, however, for soon, under the rays of the rising sun, which we did not get up to see, and did not want to see, there steamed into the harbor alongside of us ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... conversation made it evident that his master was not easy in his mind, why not no one could say, and that he had half determined on flight. The man of the Guides, leaving his friend in charge of a comrade, with commendable acumen hastened to Lumsden and told him the story. That officer at once saw that the moment had come to strike, lest the prey escape. He therefore immediately clapped the Sikh general's retainer into the quarterguard, much to that individual's astonishment, and promptly parading the Guides, hurried ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... the question of the spy," said Mr. Sefton, tenaciously, "have you really no opinion, Captain Prescott? I have heard that you assisted Mr. Talbot when he was detailed to search Miss Grayson's house—a most commendable piece of zeal on your part—and I thought it showed your great interest in ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... I already possess it must be my duty to see that something is done, or if necessary to do it myself. It must be the latter, for this morning I went down to the local police-station and told my story. The inspector entered it all in a large book and bowed me out with commendable gravity, but I heard a burst of laughter before I had got down his garden path. No doubt he was recounting my adventure to ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his hand. "My young friend, you have not only done no wrong—you have shown the most commendable discretion. I will detain you no longer from your duties. Go to Mr. Romayne, and say that I wish to speak ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... said so, he was speaking of the Ptolemaic cosmogony as known to him through the Arabs, and his vaunt was a humorous proof of his scientific instinct. As a ruler he showed legislative capacity, and a very commendable wish to provide his kingdoms with a code of laws and a consistent judicial system. The Fuero Real was undoubtedly his work, and he began the code called the Slete Partidas, which, however, was only promulgated by his great-grandson. Unhappily for himself and for Spain, he wanted ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the first statement must be that she gives abundant evidence of having been admirably trained in the spirit of Gounod's music and the tragedy. Nearly every number in the score which falls to the part of Margherita she sang with commendable intelligence and taste. The most obvious criticism was that the spirit so excellently conceived by her put a severe strain upon the matter in her control. It cost her a manifest effort to do what she well knew how to do, for ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... of Governor R. B. Hayes, printed in this issue, is a very fair and plain statement of the condition of the affairs of the State, and is especially commendable for its ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... were of course fulfilled in the most admirable manner, and save that she sometimes came in contact with the members of some of the volunteer associations of ladies who, in their commendable anxiety to minister to the suffering soldiers, occasionally allowed their zeal to get the better of their discretion, gave satisfaction to all concerned. She did not live in the Hospital, but spent the greater ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... bridge, and the officer lifted his head. He may have expected Baboushka or one of her fraternity, and the tall, slender student, who had flung off his cloak to run more swiftly, gave him a surprise. The agile and intelligent girl took the opportunity with commendable speed, and glided out of the major's relaxing grasp like a wasp from under the spider's claws. She retreated as far as where her father tried to stand erect, and helping him up, led him prudently down the bridge slope so that they might continue their flight. It would have been ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... nothing commendable in making a public confession of one's faith, if it causes a disturbance among unbelievers, without any profit either to the faith or to the faithful. Hence Our Lord said (Matt. 7:6): "Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... was no reason for shame, for to them the danger seemed real; and believing it to be real, they had not shrunk, but had faced it with very commendable pluck. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... really a commendable thing," Aunt Constance complacently announced, "to encourage music of this order, and to furnish such a degree of cultivation for ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... discussing the propriety of evacuating not only Fort Sumter, which was of no strategic importance, but Fort Pickens, which was the key to the Gulf of Mexico, and to abandon which was almost to acknowledge the independence of the Rebel States. Thus far the Free States had waited with commendable patience for some symptom of vitality in the new Administration, something that should distinguish it from the piteous helplessness of its predecessor. But now their pride was too deeply outraged for endurance, indignant remonstrances were heard from all quarters, and the Government ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... home among the fierce people whom he describes to fully assume the tone of a foreigner and amateur. In this latter respect Don Ramon seems to have been influenced by regarding as models the works of European travellers, as well as by a very commendable spirit of modesty; for modest he certainly is when speaking of himself, when we consider the temptations to self-glorification which his adventures would have presented to any of the English adventurers ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Lord Stanley devoted commendable and humane attention to the management of female prisoners. They were comprehended in his scheme of probation. He resolved to establish a penitentiary, on a large scale, within twenty miles of Hobart Town. The women were to be carefully ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... those self-crowned judges will dwindle; they will no longer loom above you because of your race. My child, you are as royal as they by nature. It is the cultivation, the training, the intellect built up through generations, by which they are your superiors today. If your own life is commendable you need not be ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... leaders he is the best—at present! and it is a bitter disappointment to find him a reed that pierces the hand when one leans on it. I fear you will not like me to say, what I say with pain, that only in European affairs do I find him commendable. In regard to our unjust wars he has simply betrayed and deluded the electors who enthusiastically aided him to power.... He has gone wholly wrong towards Ireland, equally as towards Afghanistan, India, and South ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... impressions were entertained with sincerity, and uttered with motives and for purposes which might appear to me commendable, would be the difficulty (until they could be removed by evidence of their being erroneous) of explanation or apology. The disavowal required of me by Colonel Burr, in a general and definite form, was out of my power, if it had really been proper for me to submit to be so questioned; ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... to be a gentleman, and that feeling kept him above it. Vanity's a confounded donkey, very apt to put his head between his legs, and chuck us over; but pride's a fine horse, who will carry us over the ground, and enable us to distance our fellow-travellers. Mr Chucks has pride, and that's always commendable, even in a boatswain. How often have you read of people rising from nothing, and becoming great men? This was from talent, sure enough; but it was talent with pride to force it onward, not talent with vanity ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... to illustrate in detail the situation which would thus arise; for the state, as sole capitalist and sole director of labour, is an institution which imaginably might take various forms; and socialists, in this case exhibiting a commendable prudence, have refrained from committing themselves to any detailed programme. The socialistic state, however, having to perform a double function—namely, that of political governor and universal director of industry—would necessarily be divided into two ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... all that could be done to make the morality she taught commendable and inspiring. In her own direct teachings, and in the development of her characters and her plots, she has done much to make it acceptable. Her strong insistence on the social basis of morality is to be admired, and the truth presented is one of great ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... very commendable enterprise in attempting to push their teas by the overland route, and trying to exploit the new markets which the Nushki-Meshed route has thrown open to them, but their beginning has been made too suddenly and on too large a scale, which I fear will cause a temporary loss to some ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... pastor, "such things as the young people have asked to do have been helpful things. And I'm sure if you would attend one of their meetings you would find their spiritual growth commendable—surely commendable." ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... it was well that I did so, for upon examining him we found that he was possessed of a set of terrible fangs, capable of inflicting dreadful injuries had he been afforded the chance. We stripped off his hide, and left the carcass to the vultures to dispose of, which they did with commendable promptitude, as Jan subsequently informed us when we rejoined him at the next outspan. We also saw in the distance, on that same day, a herd of about thirty elephants; but I did not attempt to interfere with them, as I hoped that before long I should ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... hair— disposed his chain and medal round a beaver hat of the newest block; and with the gay falchion which had reached him in so mysterious a manner, hung by his side in an embroidered belt, his apparel, added to his natural frank mien and handsome figure, formed a most commendable and pleasing specimen of the young gallant of the period. He sought to make his parting reverence to the Queen and her ladies, but old Dryfesdale ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... annals, not so many years since; non sine dispendio hospitalitatis to the decay of hospitality. Howbeit many times that word is mistaken, and under the name of bounty and hospitality, is shrouded riot and prodigality, and that which is commendable in itself well used, hath been mistaken heretofore, is become by his abuse, the bane and utter ruin of many a noble family. For some men live like the rich glutton, consuming themselves and their substance by continual feasting ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... hostilities engendered by, or projected upon the group leader or one or more of its members. We recognize that many people in our culture are pregnant with suppressed hostility or rage, and that the provision of properly controlled opportunities for its release may constitute a commendable service; and since the group members are generally strangers who will not be personally and socially involved later, no entangling complications ...
— Marriage Enrichment Retreats - Story of a Quaker Project • David Mace
... unrolled a sparkling picture of Paris, past and present, now showing him the seething crowds of the lower classes and their customs and doings in good and bad hours, now describing well-known contemporaries with all that was absurd or commendable in them. Stories, scandals, traits of character, encounters she had had, adventures that had befallen her, all flowed from her lips in a gay, babbling, inexhaustible stream, and initiated her hearer into all the intricacies of Parisian life. She was as familiar with the ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... them from the highest placed men and women in the Kingdom, brought out more vividly than anything else the changed position of his country. Sonnets and verses rained upon the Embassy, most of them pretty bad as poetry, but all of them commendable for their admiring and friendly spirit. Of all these letters those that came from the steadfast friends of America perhaps gave Page the greatest satisfaction. "You will have been pleased at the universal tribute paid to the spirit as well as to the lofty ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... misfortune which can depress human nature, must be painful; yet the commands of such a revered friend as James Boswell must be obeyed; and Oh, Sir! if you find any of my actions blamable, impute them to destiny, and if you find any of them commendable, impute them to my good sense. I am about fifty years of age, grief makes me look as if I was fourscore; thirty years ago I was a great deal younger; and about twenty years before that, I was just born; as I find nothing ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... not at all sorry that this accident should have broken up the engagement unexpectedly. At the same time, it's very kind of you to come up and speak to me about it, though I'm really quite ashamed you should have thought there was anything particularly praiseworthy or commendable in my standing out against such an ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... saw every appearance of virtue in the youth through the magnifying end, and viewed all his faults with the glass inverted, so that they became scarce perceptible. And this perhaps the amiable temper of pity may make commendable; but the next step the weakness of human nature alone must excuse; for he no sooner perceived that preference which Mrs Blifil gave to Tom, than that poor youth (however innocent) began to sink in his ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of the world to put women back under eighteenth century conditions. Food is short and expensive because labor is short. And even when the harvest is ripe, the saving of food cannot be set as a separate and commendable goal, and the choice as to where labor shall be expended as negligible. It is a prejudiced devotion to mother and her ways which leads Adam in his food pamphlets to advise that a woman shall sit in her chimney corner and spend time peeling a peach "very thin," when hundreds ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... into my parlors, I was a little worried to see two or three moths flying about the room. They were despatched with commendable quickness. On the morning that followed, the same thing occurred again; and this was repeated, morning after morning. Moreover, in a few days, these insects, so dreaded by housekeepers, showed themselves in the chambers above. Up to this time I had neglected to put away my ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... here behold none of the frivolity which spoils the writings of those who view amateur journalism merely as a passing amusement. The Badger shows evidence of careful and tasteful editorship, combined with a commendable artistic sense in ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... gentler force—so that it was, in such circumstances, a matter of little difficulty to perceive that conciliation would soon be the order of the day. Ned's conduct on these critical occasions was very prudent and commendable: he still gave Nancy her own way; never "jawed back to her;" but took shelter, as it were, under his own patience, until the storm had passed, and the sun of her good humor began to shine out again. Nancy herself, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... the love of God or man would prompt to it. He might be pointed to the fact, that they always tended to corrupt the morals of youth; to blight the hopes of parents; to fill up houses of infamy; to blot out the hopes of heaven; and to sink men to hell. But then he might with commendable coolness add, "This traffic is not condemned in the Bible. If I do not engage in it, others will. It contributes to my livelihood; to the support of the press; to the promotion of business; and I am not responsible for their reading the books, nor for their desire for them. ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... at all impossible that a declaration of the Dealer's long weak suit, especially when the Second Hand has an honor or two of it, may be awkward for the No-trump declarer, and therefore, with the holding which justifies it, the bid of two No-trumps, under these conditions, is distinctly commendable. ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... natives like the heat and wind one whit better than their conquerors)—filled her with an unexpected, probably unjustifiable, determination not to let them see her flinch at any kind of horror. That was the spirit of sahibdom that is not always quite commendable; it is the spirit that takes Anglo-Saxon women to the seething, stenching plains and holds them there high-chinned to stiffen their men-folk by courageous example, but it leads, too, to things not quite so ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... solved the problem. I took the earliest opportunity to visit its schools. When I reached the city I went to the superintendent's office. I asked to be directed to the best school. "Our schools are all 'best,'" the secretary told me with an intonation that denoted commendable pride, and which certainly made me feel extremely humble, for here even the laws of logic and of formal grammar had been transcended. I made bold to apologize, however, and amended my request to make it apparent that I wished to ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... and from scenes where its influence was unfelt. To the Old World let it be restored; to past ages be it consigned. And let us no more hear the abominable doctrine—as irrational as it is detestable—that what would be scandalous in private life may be just and commendable in the management of political affairs. I reaffirm, that religion should purify the currents of thought and control the movements, whether secret or open, that belong to this part of human agency. And if I needed other ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... once well started, it went forward with commendable steadiness and vigour under Foreman Johnston's strict and energetic management. He was admirably suited for his difficult position. His grave, reserved manner rendered impossible that familiarity which is so apt to breed contempt, while his thorough ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... to the agent. We'll go on at once. Excuse me, Mr.—— Ah, what did you say was the name? I'm sorry you feel that way about it; though it's very commendable, very commendable, I'm sure. I'll send to New York at once. Fifth Avenue, did you say? I'll speak a good word for you. Excuse me, the agent is beckoning me. Well, good-bye, and thank you again! Daughter, you better get right into ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... me I'm particularly destitute of men friends just now, either 'suitable' or otherwise. They've been giving me the cold shoulder lately with commendable frequency. So why not the M.F.H. and ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... may credit reports, was something far more inspired and illumined than a mere physical culturist—commendable as is personal cleanliness—and his admonitions were the result of that fine sense of discrimination and enlightenment which comes from cosmic perception even if he had not experienced the deeper, fuller realization of liberation, of which Buddha ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... of the board of health has been most commendable in this case. Beginning with a wager over the telephone that they would break quarantine in twenty-four hours, and ending with the attempt to span a twelve-foot gulf with a board, over which to cross to freedom, these shut-in ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... warlike expedition which Major Denham accompanied; and while his zeal for discovery is commendable, yet he seems to have acted most injudiciously in exposing himself to danger, for the sake of acquiring a cursory and superficial knowledge (all that his opportunities enabled him to do) of certain parts of ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed Greatest talkers, for the most part, do nothing to purpose Greedy humour of new and unknown things Grief provokes itself Gross impostures of religions Guess at our meaning under general and doubtful terms Happen to do anything commendable, I attribute it to fortune Hard to resolve a man's judgment against the common opinions Haste trips up its own heels, fetters, and stops itself Hate all sorts of obligation and restraint Hate remedies that are more troublesome than the disease itself Have ever had a great respect for ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... remembered that he had Vasudeva for his ally. I think that person could have nothing unattainable in the three worlds, who had for his ally Vishnu himself, that great Lord of the universe. Exceedingly fortunate and commendable were those ancestors of mine, since they had Janarddana himself for looking after their temporal and spiritual prosperity. Adored of all the worlds, the holy Narayana is capable of being beheld with the aid of austerities alone. They, however, succeeded in beholding Narayana, adorned with the beautiful ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... fallen branch of the inocarpus, well baked by the sun, and which had long lost every particle of moisture. Breaking it into two pieces, he began to rub them together with great zeal, and apparently with perfect faith in the result: gradually he increased his exertions, manifesting a commendable perseverance, until the bark began to fly, and the perspiration to stream down his face; but still there was no fire, nor any ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... Miss Dodge," he exclaimed, with commendable presence of mind, seeing the heart under his waistcoat had executed an uncomfortable pas ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... the velvet couch under the closed porthole, dozing occasionally and always awakening with a jerk as the roll of the vessel threatened to pitch him on to the floor of the cabin. It was not a comfortable means of resting but he endured it in commendable silence with now and then a grimace which said more ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... "A very commendable delicacy on the part of Major Lyon, but not always manifested in such cases," added the captain. "I heard that one company of Major Lyon's squadron had arrived at Harrison, and that the other was coming by the way of Jamestown. Your company was late, ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... Why, even the self-conceit that makes people indifferent to small things, wrapping them in an atmosphere of self- satisfaction, is welcome in a man compared to that querulousness which makes him an enemy to all around. But most commendable is that easiness of mind which is easy because it is tolerant, because it does not look to have everything its own way, because it expects anything but smooth usage in its course here, because it has resolved to manufacture as few miseries out of ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... were received by him and forwarded post haste to Vienna. Do you grasp the simplicity and subtlety of the device? My friend was on the lists of those interned in Holland, no one here knew where he lodged, the address used by me was as probable as any other; what more natural and commendable than that I should write to cheer him up a bit in exile, and that I should send him books and illustrated magazines? If it had been noticed by the postal authorities in Holland that my friend did not live at the address which I used, it would have been supposed that I had made a mistake, and ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... indifferent to him. "Oh then," said the lady, "you are a general lover. Indeed, you handsome fellows, like handsome women, are very long and difficult in fixing; but yet you shall never persuade me that your heart is so insusceptible of affection; I rather impute what you say to your secrecy, a very commendable quality, and what I am far from being angry with you for. Nothing can be more unworthy in a young man, than to betray any intimacies with the ladies." "Ladies! madam," said Joseph, "I am sure I never had the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... he; "you will but aggravate your distemper. Mistress Lucy Cludde will nurse you—in my letter; and your captain will think it most natural and commendable seeing that you are her guest, and that it may be regarded there is some slight relationship between you. And if you should happily recover, why, she may herself accompany you to port and restore you to your comrades. But that will not be ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... selection shows unnatural or strained antithesis, there is also evident a commendable desire to vary the diction and to avoid the repetition of the same word. To find four different terms for nearly the same idea "difference," "odds," "distinction," and "contrariety," involves considerable painstaking. While it is true that the term "euphuism" has ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... discovery of some defect of ability is SHAME, or the passion that discovereth itself in BLUSHING; and consisteth in the apprehension of some thing dishonourable; and in young men, is a signe of the love of good reputation; and commendable: in old men it is a signe of the same; but because it comes too ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... solitary survey of the enemy's works. Not satisfied with this piece of reconnoitering—which he effected with much tipsy gravity, but probably without deriving any information likely to be of value to the commanding general—he then proceeded to charge in person a distant battery. The deed was not commendable in a military point of view. A fire was opened upon him at long range so soon as he was discovered, and at the same time the sergeant-major of his regiment and an equerry of Prince Maurice started in pursuit, determined to bring him off if possible, before his life had been thus absurdly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... smacks the earth with a hoe till the clods fly and the fields laugh with harvest. Thereon he mops his steaming brow, bedecks him with a bunch of white ribbons, and jogs jovially to church arm in arm with the pretty cause of all this beneficent disturbance. And the spectacle is mighty taking and commendable; but you'll excuse me for holding that it is not Love. It bears about the same relation to Love that Bumble-puppy bears to good whist. Among the eccentricities that make up the Average Man I find none more diverting than his complacent belief that he is, or has ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... rule, it is an undoubted duty to exercise a commendable prudence, by refusing to repose any important trust to the keeping of persons who may be strangers to us, and whose trustworthiness we have never seen tried. But no possible good, but incalculable ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... indelible moral qualities of actions. The extreme Augustinians regarded the positive command of God as the sole cause and ground of right, so that the very things which are forbidden under the severest penalties would become virtuous and commendable, if enjoined by Divine authority. William of Ockham, one of the most illustrious of the English Schoolmen, wrote: "If God commanded his creatures to hate himself, the hatred of God would be ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... to dwell on the subject; it isn't natural, and it isn't good for you. The desire to see justice done is commendable and proper, but the desire for revenge isn't. You must not sacrifice your life to it. There is a law of compensation; those men ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... now, and Ed, clutching the wreck of a sizable crepe-paper creation to the bosom of his white sweater, doubled into a crouching, boy scout attitude, crossed the road, and approached the house. Nothing but his own commendable caution delayed his approach. The small dog's dreams within were untroubled now. There ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... barbarism, many of the vices and weaknesses of polished society. Their horrid treatment of captives taken in war, on whose bodies they feasted, after putting them to death by the most cruel tortures, is so well known, that we may spare the disgusting recital. No commendable qualities relieve this gloomy picture, except fortitude, and perseverance, and zeal for the welfare of their little community; if this last quality, exercised and directed as it was, can be ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... researches. In most questions we can never make a single step farther; and in all questions we must terminate here at last, after our most restless and curious enquiries. But still our curiosity will be pardonable, perhaps commendable, if it carry us on to still farther researches, and make us examine more accurately the nature of this belief, and of the customary conjunction, whence it is derived. By this means we may meet ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... such an extreme as made the government oppressive to subject peoples and a menace to neighboring States. [24] On the other hand, the French have used their schools for national ends (R. 341) in a manner that has been highly commendable. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... imagination created out of things; about the why and wherefore of things he seems never to have troubled; his soul asked no questions, and he was never driven to accept a religious or any other explanation. It is true he went to church with quite commendable regularity, and wished to die on Good Friday and so meet Jesus Christ on the anniversary of the resurrection. But he was nevertheless as completely a pagan as any old Greek; the persons of the Trinity were to him ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... contrary to my usual inclination, I liked to talk of Paris and speak of my life of debauchery as the most commendable thing in the world. "You are nothing but a saint," I would laughingly observe; "you do not understand what I say. There is nothing like those careless ones who make love without believing in it." Was that not the same as saying that I did ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... it is necessary that the royal officials do not pay whomever they wish, but what is most urgent and inevitable for the preservation of these kingdoms. Accordingly, the measures introduced in this regard during the term of Don Juan de Silva were very commendable and necessary. As it was so necessary a thing, persons of great experience advised me of it even before I had taken over the government, and experience shows me that it cannot be dispensed with. [In the margin: "Take it to the fiscal." "The fiscal says that after having considered the reasons ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... letters and packages were delivered to them with commendable rapidity, and that the Commandant was unfailingly obliging when, for important reasons, any officer needed to send off more ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... "Cornwallis," when Keying and his colleagues again attended for the purpose. The act of signing was celebrated by a royal salute of twenty-one guns, and the hoisting of the standards of England and China at the masthead of the man-of-war. The Emperor Taoukwang ratified the treaty with commendable dispatch, and the only incident to mar the cordiality of the last scene in this part of the story of Anglo-Chinese relations was the barbarous and inexcusable injury inflicted by a party of English officers and soldiers on the famous Porcelain Tower, which ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... raging—fifthly, dying—sixthly, there is perishing; but I will not much insist upon the last, though it is certainly better than bursting. You mean to say that you are burning, not bursting, with impatience—it is a natural feeling, it is commendable, it is worthy of a son of your most honourable father—I will faithfully report to him this filial impatience, and how eager I was to remove it. I do not say satisfy it— a person less careful of the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... destitute of the manners of a gentleman, nor a stranger to genteel amusements. He shall attend Theatres, Museums, Balls, and whatever polite diversions the town shall furnish." The reader of the "Anthology" will find for his reward an improving discourse on "Ambition," and a commendable schoolboy's "theme" on "Inebriation." He will learn something which may be for his advantage about the "Anjou Cabbage," and may profit by a "Remedy for Asthma." A controversy respecting the merits of Sir Richard Blackmore may prove too little exciting at the present time, and he can turn for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fast as possible to the weighty matter. You must know, worthy and commendable sir, that I am a man that has seen much, and suffered much, in his Majesty's service. Five bloody and cruel wars have I gone through, besides other adventures and experiences, such as becomes a humble subject to suffer meekly ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... my name is really the only thing commendable about me?" she went on. "My nose isn't really ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... first mentioned you to me—to Mrs. Sherman, rather—she described you as her young lady. She has a very warm feeling for you. I think she considers you in the light of personal property, like a child of her own. That's excusable—it's commendable, even, in such a case as this. I believe she said she nursed you till you were ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... ready to prevent him, but now there is no friend who will be ashamed of him and admonish him, and no enemy will charge him with meanness or flattery; the actions of a lover have a grace which ennobles them; and custom has decided that they are highly commendable and that there no loss of character in them; and, what is strangest of all, he only may swear and forswear himself (so men say), and the gods will forgive his transgression, for there is no such thing as a lover's ...
— Symposium • Plato
... "It's a commendable thing," remarked Mrs. Daniver, "that you, sir, should go to the rescue of even a humble Chinaman. I find this ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... the mulcting of a civil offender against magisterial laws. Because our magistrates levy fines, it does not occur to modern critics to say that they sell pardons and immunity from gaol. It is universally recognized as a wise and commendable measure, serving the two-fold purpose of punishing the offender and benefiting the temporal State against which he has offended. Need it be less commendable in the case of spiritual offences against a spiritual ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... it shall not be amiss, first, to weight this latter sort of poetry by his WORKS, and then by his PARTS; and if in neither of these anatomies he be commendable, I hope we shall receive a more favourable sentence. This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... loue with a very honourable and noble Lady named Gutuere, whom he married and caried with him in that first happy expedition, wherin he accompanied his brethren, the Lords, duke Godfrey and Eustace, persons very commendable in all vertues and of immortall memorie. But he had hard fortune in his iourney, because his foresaid wife, being wearied with a long sicknes finished her life with a happie end neere the citie of Marasia, before the Christian armie came vnto Antioch, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... perceptions never clear and seldom straight, she was yet far in advance of a girl whose training in all things was so infinitely below even her own dwarfed standard. Madame could read with native grace and commendable fluency, making nimble leapfrogs over the heads of the exceptionally hard passages, but Leam had to spell every third word, and then she made a mess of it, Madame did know that eight and seven are fifteen, but Leam could not get beyond five and five ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... chimney-tops have been treated as necessary evils, instead of being made, as they may be, highly ornamental. The unity of the plan, as a work of art, is lost as you ascend above the eaves, all the rest seeming like excrescences growing out of structures otherwise commendable and satisfactory. The superior horizontal lines of the roof will depend somewhat upon the background of the house. When a building is placed upon the crest of a hill, or upon a slope descending from the main point of view, ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... thought it a wholesome and commendable resolution, on general principles, and, of course, the idol would gradually disintegrate. All idols were of clay. But it didn't matter about the idol, so long as the effect was produced. He might count on me any time for good advice. ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... may be transferred or offset by voluntary clearings by groups of members. There is no general clearing system.[319] There is a commendable rule providing that, in case of a "corner," the officials may fix a settlement price for contracts to avoid ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... him. "Oh then," said the lady, "you are a general lover. Indeed, you handsome fellows, like handsome women, are very long and difficult in fixing; but yet you shall never persuade me that your heart is so insusceptible of affection; I rather impute what you say to your secrecy, a very commendable quality, and what I am far from being angry with you for. Nothing can be more unworthy in a young man, than to betray any intimacies with the ladies." "Ladies! madam," said Joseph, "I am sure I never had the impudence to think of any that deserve ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... in it, as he would have done had she been his son and a young doctor. He could not help feeling as if marriage interfered a little with his views for her. He had to recall that Ironside was a very fine young fellow, with a commendable spirit of inquiry in medical matters. He would do credit to his profession, and Annie, especially if she went with him to a new colony, might work in his company, and be ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... toward summer use, But I am especially glad to note a recent improvement that shows that the Park Board has the winter use of the parks also definitely in mind. I refer to the new skating rink in Riverside Park. It is a most commendable institution. I very much hope that it will be extensively used, not only by the people living in that part of the city, but by those of all sections. It belongs to all of us. Here is an opportunity for ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... "Your zeal is commendable, Mr. Prosecutor," said the judge, "but it must not be allowed to obscure the human rights at hazard in this case. Let ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... on by hunger, which the white man's presence prevents him from appeasing, the native should sometimes be tempted to acts of violence or robbery? He is only doing what his habits and ideas have taught him to think commendable. He is doing what men in a more civilized state would have done under the same circumstances, what they daily do under the sanction of the law of nations—a law that provides not for the safety, privileges, and protection ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... neither himself does them any ill office, nor connives at its being donc by others, he is not intolerant: and the forbearance which flows from a conscientious sense of the importance to mankind of the equal freedom of all opinions, is the only tolerance which is commendable, or, to the highest moral order of ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... difficult to labour by the light of the fire, we put off finishing the repairs of the canoe till the next morning. With appetites ravenous from long fasting we sat down round the fire to eat the swan. It had the advantage of being hot, but possessed no other commendable quality, being somewhat tough and of a strong flavour; still it completely satisfied our hunger, and Bouncer, at all events, made no objection to the portion we gave him. He had been much more quiet than usual, ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... opinion, essentially good, but tolerable, and such that one may accidentally be better than another: either a just and wise king, or a selection of the most eminent citizens, or even the populace itself (though this is the least commendable form), may, if there be no interference of crime and cupidity, form a ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... divided between the craft and the image of all the pleasures he would introduce to Meta—Turnbull. It was a lucky circumstance that he had plenty of money, for he realized that she would not marry a poor man. This was not only natural but commendable. Poor men were fools, too weak for success; only the strong ate white bread and had fine women, only the masterful ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Pasteur encouraged the tale-bearer and rewarded the informer with her favor and the assurance of the Divine blessing. Even the good Sister Agnes—now already a kind of shadowy memory—had taught the waif that spying out and reporting to the constituted authorities was commendable ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... was my head— I could do no more than I did, truly. And now I see the people do clean forsake me; They use the seven deadly sins damnable; As pride, covetise, wrath, and lechery, Now in the world be made commendable; And thus they leave of angels the heavenly company. Every man liveth so after his own pleasure, And yet of their life they be not sure. I see the more that I them forbear The worse they are from year to year. All that liveth appaireth fast, Therefore I will in all the haste Have a reckoning ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... slave market and sold for a price. Vales where brave and stalwart youths have been nurtured and taught the dexterous use of arms, being ever educated to look upon the Russians as their natural enemies, and also to believe that any revenge exercised upon their Moscovite neighbors was not only commendable, but holy and just. ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... whose heart had never felt a stronger emotion than love for her brother, knew the moment she read her admirer's first letter that its well-considered words were really inspired by Cupid. More than that, she felt sure that his commendable efforts to become a useful professional man, instead of a badly bored idler, were due to the hope that the effort would find favor in her eyes. In all these surmises it is needless to say her feminine intuition was ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Poor Stand Equal: Claim is made that this is one of the most commendable features of the Institute. It is not so in all institutes. Fine clothes and freedom with money are not the test by which the student secures his standing, but by his earnest, faithful work and gentlemanly or lady-like ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... octavo volume, abundantly supplied with well-engraved woodcuts and lithographic plates; a sort of Encyclopaedia for ready reference.... The whole work has a look of pains-taking completeness highly commendable."—Athenaeum. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various
... protected him, and even if the gaze of suspicion fell upon him he contrived his orgies with so neat a discretion that the Church, which is not wont to expose her malefactors, preserved a timid and an innocent silence. The Abbe disappeared with a commendable constancy, and with that just sense of secrecy which should compel even an archiepiscopal admiration. He was not of those who would drag his cloth through the mire. Not until the darkness he loved so fervently covered the earth would he escape from the dull respectability ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... reasonable degree of comfort and self-respect, with a surplus for the furtherance of human welfare in general, and the relief of misfortune and suffering. Thrift is a virtue; greed is a vice. Reasonable possession is a commendable and necessary object. The unrestrained avarice that today is making cowards of us all is an unmeasured curse, a world-wide ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... better to suffer certain rules and customs that are not in all points commendable, than to acquire a taste for revolution and to yield to the temptation of confounding all things in chaos.'[155] His own grievance against the Popes, he adds, is that they are innovating and destroying ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... returned the lover of nature, good-humouredly recovering his wig, with twinkling eyes and a husky voice. "'Tis rare and commendable. Though I doubt not in the exact order of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... contemporaneous criticism. The battle has been generally accepted as a perfect exemplification of the art of war. It is certainly a good subject for the study of military students, and it is partly for their benefit that I have pointed out some of its prominent defects as I understood them. Its commendable features are sufficiently evident; but in studying the actions that have resulted in victory, we are apt to overlook the errors without which the victory might have been far more complete, or even to mistake those errors for real causes ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... $200,000." Mr. Pelton thought the "proposition too high," and thereupon Mr. Marble and Mr. Woolley each found that an Elector could be secured for $50,000, and so telegraphed Mr. Pelton. Mr. Pelton, with commendable economy, warned them that he did not wish to pay twice for the same article, and with true commercial caution advised the Florida agents that "they could not draw until the vote of the Elector was received." According to Mr. Woolley the power was received ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... coyness. You should cut a few frills and skirmish a little before setting the battle actively in array. And it is just this that I have been striving to do during the last five minutes. But you do not appear to appreciate the commendable style of my preliminaries. You want to engage immediately. There is usually a first-rate underlying reason ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... enumerated in detail in both their reports, nor would any useful purpose be served by attempting to assess, with a view to penalties, the culpability of individual officers who were responsible for these orders, but whose conduct in other respects may have been free from blame or actually commendable. But His Majesty's Government must express strong disapproval of these orders and punishments and ask me to leave to you the duty of seeing that this disapproval shall be unmistakably marked by censure or other action which seems to you necessary upon those who were responsible for them. ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... giving of our worldly goods to help the needy or for the furtherance of the cause of Christ is a work very commendable in the sight of the Lord. "But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... aspect of what was true. He adverted to the recent measures in the province, and cautioned his hearers of weaker parts against calling in question the just severity which God-fearing magistrates had at length been compelled to exercise. He spoke of the danger of pity—in some cases a commendable and Christian virtue, but inapplicable to this pernicious sect. He observed that such was their devilish obstinacy in error that even the little children, the sucking babes, were hardened and desperate heretics. He affirmed that no man without Heaven's especial warrant ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the old farmer said, "I will know," and with most commendable zeal (characteristic of the students of Temple University) he set himself at the study of the whole subject. He began away back at the second day of God's creation when this world was covered thick and deep with that rich vegetation which since has turned to the primitive beds ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... contentation and satisfaction of such worshipfull, honest minded, and well disposed Merchants, as haue a desire to the furtherance of euery good and commendable action, I will first say vnto them, as I haue done before to the Noblemen and Gentlemen, that within the degrees abouesayde, is doubtlesse to bee found the most wholesome and best temperature of ayre, fertilitie ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... that it brought him to Cutty's bedroom door. The door was unlocked. He entered the room. What a lark! They would hide his own clothes; so much the worse for the old beggar's wardrobe. Street clothes. Presently he found a dark suit, commendable not so much for its style as for the fact that it was the nearest fit he could find. He had to ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... and the midshipman's in particular, Mrs. Harold had, with commendable forethought, brought with her a big box of crullers, in nowise disturbed by the thought that it might spoil their appetites for the delayed luncheon. Breakfast is served at seven A.M. in Bancroft Hall, and the interval between that and twelve-thirty ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... savages must ultimately suffer, by engaging in a war against the settlements; while their pacific and christian principles, influenced them to forewarn the whites of impending danger, that it might be avoided, and the effusion of blood be prevented. But pure and commendable as were, no doubt, the motives which governed them, in their intercourse with either party, yet they were so unfortunate as to excite the enmity and incur the resentment of both, and eventually were made to suffer, though in different degrees, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... transferred or offset by voluntary clearings by groups of members. There is no general clearing system.[319] There is a commendable rule providing that, in case of a "corner," the officials may fix a settlement price for contracts to ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... son it is commendable that you should close your ears, but as a discriminating father there is no reason why I should not open my mouth," continued the venerable Chang in a voice from which every sympathetic modulation was withdrawn. "It ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... that Christ was baptized at an unfitting time. For Christ was baptized in order that He might lead others to baptism by His example. But it is commendable that the faithful of Christ should be baptized, not merely before their thirtieth year, but even in infancy. Therefore it seems that Christ should not have been baptized at the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... to our knowledge. His most urgent business as a creator was to make tools for himself, and especially for the purpose of supplying his own pitiful destitution of feathers. From the aprons of fig-leaves, stitched hardly so-so, to the last patent sewing-machine, he has made commendable progress. Without borrowing anything from other animals, he can now, if he chooses, rival in texture, tint, gloss, lightness, and expansiveness, the plumage of peacocks and birds-of-paradise; and it only remains ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... not be subject or liable to any indictment or prosecution for a criminal conspiracy or combination, or to any other proceeding or punishment whatever, or under the common statute law." "Would not," Mr. Huskisson asked, "any person, on reading this sentence, suppose it was something fit and commendable for workmen to conspire together to regulate and control the management of any manufacture?" In conclusion, he said, that under this act, the plotting together for the destruction of machinery, and even threatening life or property were ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... method of cure is carried on at the expense of life Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age Shame for me to serve, being so near the reach of liberty Speak less of one's self than what one really is is folly Taught to consider sleep as a resemblance of death The action is commendable, not the man. The most voluntary death is the finest The vice opposite to curiosity is negligence Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect Thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain Tis evil counsel that will admit no change Torture: rather a ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... realize, of course, that farther south, where hardiness is not so essential a quality, other trees may be just as satisfactory. I might also mention that the size and cracking qualities of the Weschcke variety are also commendable. The quality of the kernel, which is practically 50% of the total weight of the nut, is praised by all who ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... limb of a tree, and while the disgraced and outraged silver-tip swung to and fro, bawling, cursing, snapping, snorting and wildly clawing at the air, Buffalo Jones whaled it with a bean-pole until he was tired. With commendable forethought Mr. Jones had for that occasion provided a moving-picture camera, and this film always produces ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... when the Indians go into camp, care is taken that each lodge shall be placed where it will not interfere with the common good. The internal economy of these habitations is arranged on a social system which, in many respects, is commendable. When one person is poor, generally speaking, the whole tribe is found to be so. The herds of horses and mules belonging to the tribe, are turned loose in one body as if they were the property of one man. If game exists in plenty and danger is not apprehended, happiness holds complete ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... novelist does us the honor to introduce any of our countrymen into his fiction, he generally displays a commendable desire to present something typical in the way of names for his adopted characters—to give a dash of local color, as it were, with his nomenclature. His success is seldom commensurate to the desire. He falls into ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and deaf of ear. He endured without repining the bent back, the sightless eyes, and the creaking joints incident to over-maturity. But when he saw a man perish of senility, who in infancy had called him "Old Hank," Mr. Wolfe thought patience had ceased to be commendable, and he abandoned his post of duty ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... the demand that the goods be returned and exchanged for dirt-brown, when she reached home Nancy Ellen climbed from the wagon and told her father that she was going on to Adam's to have Agatha cut out her dress so that she could begin to sew on it that night. Such commendable industry met his hearty approval, so he told her to go and he would see that Kate did her share of the work. Wise Nancy Ellen came home and sat her down to sew on her gorgeous frock, while the storm she had feared raged in all its fury; but ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... How commendable in a Prince it is to keep his word, and live with integrity, not making use of cunning and subtlety, every one knows well: yet we see by experience in these our dayes, that those Princes have effected great matters, who have made small reckoning of keeping their words, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... which he might carry. It was known at the time that these postages would fall far short of an adequate compensation, as well as of the sum which the same service had previously cost the Government. Mr. Vanderbilt, in a commendable spirit, was willing to rely upon the justice of Congress to make up the deficiency, and I therefore recommend that an appropriation may be ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... finished and he had nothing to do. If she could only do without him, she would send him about his business and be the happiest woman in the world, for she could devote the whole day to music and painting and the improvement of her mind. Of course I assent. That is a very commendable way of thinking about the matter. But, as an amateur philosopher, I warn you never to let yourself get under practical bondage to such notions. I tell you when you betake yourself to music or painting, carpentry or gardening, as ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... reason for haste on the march, for it was known that it would take weeks to assemble shipping enough at the point of our embarkation to carry the army, but General Worth moved his division with a rapidity that would have been commendable had he been going to the relief of a beleaguered garrison. The length of the marches was regulated by the distances between places affording a supply of water for the troops, and these distances were sometimes long and sometimes short. General Worth on one occasion ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... shoals of young men who feel that way about it, Sam," said Mr. Stevens with large and commendable pride. "However, I am glad that you have added yourself to the list," and he gazed after Sam with considerable approbation, as that young man hurried away to display his abjectness to the ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... enclosed and cultivated; and a clump of larches has been planted within the circle, for the purpose of protecting an oak in the centre, the owner of the field having wished to rear one there with a commendable feeling, because that tree was held sacred by the Druids, and therefore, he supposed, might be appropriately placed there. The whole plantation, however, has been so miserably storm-stricken that the poor stunted trees ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... Ripley is talking up a colony of agriculturists and scholars, with whom he threatens to take the field and the book.* One man renounces the use of animal food; and another of coin; and another of domestic hired service; and another of the State; and on the whole we have a commendable ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... stirred up to revenge from the frequent abuses they have received from the Europeans in general, manifest themselves to be a humane, sociable people, whose faculties are as capable of improvement as those of other Men; and that their oeconomy and government is, in many respects, commendable. Hence it appears they might have lived happy, if not disturbed by the Europeans; more especially, if these last had used such endeavours as their christian profession requires, to communicate to the ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... teach a child to be one as the other. Of what benefit is a smattering of foreign language, except to make people ridiculous? and that class is already sufficiently large; far better that they learned to speak and spell their mother tongue with a commendable degree of accuracy, or that they learn to train future families in consonance with the laws of nature, and save to health the time spent in poorly-ventilated rooms, where, under the pressure of the modern school system, everything valuable ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... by the conduct of this regiment," he said. "You have done all that has been asked of you. To do more than is asked of you is not commendable in a soldier, though it may display individual courage. . . . The carbineer, Burgess, 10th troop, Captain Hallam, was foolhardy to attempt the bridge without orders. . . . The lancer, Ormond, 10th troop, Captain Hallam, however, did his full duty—admirably—when he faced ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... again: "Except a man deny himself, and take up his cross daily, he cannot be my disciple." This means repentance. It is commendable in the eye of society of almost every grade to live a decent, orderly, virtuous life; but if this sort of life be led from any motive short of the love of God, what is said of the Pharisees must also be said of this: "Ye make clean the OUTSIDE of the cup and the platter, but the ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... information which she required. She then pointed out to her, as her husband had done to Seymour, the improbability, if not impossibility, of any happy result to their intimacy, and explained the honourable motives by which Seymour had been actuated,—the more commendable, as his feelings on the subject were even more acute than her own. The weeping girl felt the truth of her remarks, as far as the justification of Seymour was attempted. Satisfied with the knowledge that he loved ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... There is, moreover, an indication of the proper spirit in the increased efforts that are made to beautify Sunday-school rooms, and make them interesting, and to have Sunday-school fetes and picnics,—the most harmless and commendable way of celebrating the Fourth of July. Why should saloons and bar-rooms be made attractive by fine paintings, choice music, flowers, and fountains, and Sunday-school rooms be four bare walls? There are churches ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... in all your ends by such noble means must be doubly gratifying—and is doubly commendable ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... and good sense soon led him to put forth his chief efforts and to display especial earnestness and constancy in promoting the well-being of all men. It was an object sufficiently noble, one would think, worthy of the greatest brain and the largest heart, and having certain very commendable traits in the way of practicability and substantial possibilities. His desire was to see the community prosperous, comfortable, happy, advancing in the accumulation of money and of all physical goods, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... Wall Street were not for Harvey. Nevertheless he was cautious enough to help himself to some of the profits that were forthcoming in those days of great amalgamations. With commendable foresight, however much he might have despised the methods then prevalent in the fields of high finance, he acquired enough to make him independent, to follow his own bent, and strangely enough, in the acquiring he came to the conclusion ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... more danger at a certain age from morbid self-consciousness than from acquiring vicious habits. If we recognize that many of the lapses from the paths of truth arise from really worthy motives, we must make sure that these ideals become fixed before we attempt to separate the unworthy act from the commendable purpose. ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... deportment and gentlemanly conduct on and off the field, is one which commends itself even more to the praise of our home people. That they were invited to so many high places and held intercourse with so many of the best people fully shows that their behavior was commendable in the extreme. Considering therefore the brilliant success of the tour and the credit done the American name by these base-ball representatives, it was proper that their reception on their reappearance in our midst should be commensurate with their high salaries, for in every respect ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... a memorable year; the marriage of my daughter Janet with the Rev. Dr. Kittleword of Swappington, a match in every way commendable; and the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on earth she was surely one. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she toiled in the day of penury and affliction with ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... with great perseverance, to gain a living, and have the spirit to spend their money upon the comforts and conveniences of life. They are accused of extravagance in this particular, and perhaps do occasionally exceed; but, generally speaking, their style of living is more commendable than that of the Hindus, who carry their thrift and parsimony to ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... to newcomers who sought to join them, but to those members of their own company who developed independent ways of thinking. The list of motives for emigration ran the whole gamut, from missionary fervor for converting the savages, down through a commendable desire for gain, to the perhaps no less praiseworthy wish to escape a debtor's prison or the pillory. A few of the colonists were rich. Some were beggars or indentured servants. Most of them belonged to the middle class. John Harvard was the ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... nearly finished reading through the whole, for in less than a minute he closed the book, and laying his spectacles down, threw himself back in his chair. "Strange," soliloquised the Dominie; "Yet, verily, is some of his advice important, and I should imagine commendable, yet I do not find my remedy therein. 'Avoid idleness'—yes, that is sage counsel—and employment to one that hath not employed himself may drive away thought; but I have never been idle, and mine hath not been love in idleness; 'Avoid her presence'—that I must do; ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... twelve o'clock, the three ministers are bidden to dinner at the governor's table, where the party is completed by a few Old Charter senators,—men reared at the feet of the Pilgrims, and who remember the days when Cromwell was a nursing-father to New England. Sir William presides with commendable decorum till grace is said, and the cloth removed. Then, as the grape-juice glides warm into the ventricles of his heart, it produces a change, like that of a running stream upon enchanted shapes; and the rude man of the sea and wilderness appears in the very chair where the stately ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... denial of the intrinsic and indelible moral qualities of actions. The extreme Augustinians regarded the positive command of God as the sole cause and ground of right, so that the very things which are forbidden under the severest penalties would become virtuous and commendable, if enjoined by Divine authority. William of Ockham, one of the most illustrious of the English Schoolmen, wrote: "If God commanded his creatures to hate himself, the hatred of God would ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... throw it off the shoulders to shoot. It covers the hands, the rifle-most of the little horses or mules one gets out there. One can sleep in or on it, and it is a most effective garment against heavy winds. One suit of pajamas is enough, considering your tent boy's commendable mania for laundry work. Add handkerchiefs ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Dr. Johnson, Lord Charlemont (Hogarth's friend), Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other members of the literary club, in Gerrard Street, Soho, it being the awful evening when Boswell was to be balloted for. The conversation turned on the new and commendable practice of erecting monuments to great men in St. Paul's. The Doctor observed: "I remember once being with Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey. Whilst we stood at Poet's Corner, I ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... for many years stood forward as the patron of the distressed Irish: this zeal for his countrymen was certainly very commendable in itself; at the same time, however, it was not altogether free from self-interest: for, out of all the estates he had, through his credit, procured the restoration of to their primitive owners, he had always obtained some small compensation for himself; but, as each owner found his advantage ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... compensation that would be awarded him, and on which the landlord would assuredly make a great profit. It may be thought hardly likely that any landlord would be mad enough to disestablish a tenant of eight hundred acres of land who pays his rent with commendable punctuality; but as such things, and things even more foolish, have been done during the present year, it is not agreeable to think of the risks run by an improving tenant in county Cork, and an improving ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... fair to be the largest in the history of the institution," completely upset the composure of some of the aforesaid class, and a good many moist handkerchiefs grew moister, and red eyes redder during the prayer. But on the whole the class of 190- conducted itself with commendable propriety and discretion on this its first official appearance in ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... players at the kyles. The good man Grangousier took great pleasure in their company, and commanded there should be no want nor pinching for anything. Nevertheless he bade his wife eat sparingly, because she was near her time, and that these tripes were no very commendable meat. They would fain, said he, be at the chewing of ordure, that would eat the case wherein it was. Notwithstanding these admonitions, she did eat sixteen quarters, two bushels, three pecks and a pipkin full. O the fair fecality ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... skilled men in many cases were told off to give the necessary instruction. The will to do was in the learner; she soon mastered even complex processes, and at the end of a few weeks was doing even better than men in the light work, and achieving commendable output in the heavy. The suffrage organizations, whenever a new line of skilled work was opened to women, established well-equipped centers to give the necessary teaching. Not until it became apparent ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... out of the same solemn assurance that it had been commendable in him to preserve that ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... to bar to answer for the unprovoked murder of a postal clerk on a transcontinental limited. No time was wasted in hurrying his trial through to its conclusion; it was felt that there was crying need to make an example of this red-handed desperado. Having been convicted with commendable celerity, the Lone-Hand Kid was transferred to Chickaloosa and strongly confined there against the day of Uncle Tobe's ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... appearance of virtue in the youth through the magnifying end, and viewed all his faults with the glass inverted, so that they became scarce perceptible. And this perhaps the amiable temper of pity may make commendable; but the next step the weakness of human nature alone must excuse; for he no sooner perceived that preference which Mrs Blifil gave to Tom, than that poor youth (however innocent) began to sink in his affections as he rose in hers. This, it is true, would of itself alone never have ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... that is, of three or four hundred households; that they cultivate the fields, from which they derive their food for the whole year; and that they maintain peace and friendship with one another." He doubts "if there is another nation under heaven more commendable in this respect" than the Huron "nation of the Bear," among whom he resided. "They have," he declares, "a gentleness and an affability almost incredible for barbarians." They keep up "this perfect goodwill," as he terms it, "by frequent ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... notable by the great German successes in Russia. The fate of Warsaw moved the enemy to put up notice-boards announcing the event, one of which had on one side 'Warschau Gefallen,' and on the other, apparently reversable by a string, 'Gott Strafe England.' With commendable caution, however, they were planted so near their own trench that it required a field glass to read them. A few days later, when the German Fleet met with misfortune in the Gulf of Riga, Sergt. Tester posted a board with details of that reverse just in front of their barbed wire. ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... beautiful lines and shadings in wood, not as an art study, but for actual use, when he may just as well have the perfect original as his own faulty imitation. What conceit, what blindness, what impudence, this reveals! What downright falsehood! Not in the painter,—O, no, skill is commendable even when unworthily employed,—but in him who orders it. You may buy a pine door, which is very well; pine doors are good; you tell every man that comes into your house it's black-walnut or oak or mahogany. If that isn't greeting him with lying lips and a deceitful ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... It was brought on board in upwards of twenty small packets of that detestable thin Chinese paper, and The Other Man, with commendable meekness, withdrew several pleasantries he had unwittingly dropped anent deficiencies in my upbringing. Fifty pounds of this sugar were ordered, and sugar—that dirty, brown sticky stuff—got into everything on board—my fingers are sticky even as ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... evening, standing with his hands folded in front and his checked apron folded down, occasionally glancing round to see if pussy gave proper attention. And, being of a practically benevolent turn of mind, he made several commendable efforts to teach Bose the catechism, in which he succeeded as well as might be expected. In short, without further detail, Master Edward bade fair to ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... after having carried the affair so far with a for him—commendable lightness of touch, he should be at a loss for a delicate word to convey a harsh accusation began to anger him. And once Garnache began to be angered, the rest followed quickly. It was just that flaw in his character that had been the ruin of him, that had blighted what otherwise ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... of weather prevails, a daily brisk walk should be taken, out of doors, on the porch or in a room with open windows. A daily sweat, as well as the daily prayer, is good for the well-being of the expectant mother. All forms of light housework are commendable. Keep out of crowds. Spend more time in the parks than in the department stores. An occasional evening at the concert or theater is diversion and harmless provided the ventilation is good. Such exercises ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... fairly settled in a pleasant home upon the main street. The meeting-house, which you will remember, is near by; and I have, by the blessing of God, a full attendance every Lord's day. They listen to my poor sermons with commendable earnestness; and I trust they may prove to them 'a savor of life unto life.' We also find the people of the town neighborly and kind. Squire Elderkin has proved particularly so, and is a very energetic man in all matters relating to the parish. I fear greatly, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... little while before when she had noticed a change in him; or was it that he was disappointed that they were two and no more—always two, and no more? Was it that which was working in his mind, and making him say hard things about their own two commendable selves? ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... if we may credit reports, was something far more inspired and illumined than a mere physical culturist—commendable as is personal cleanliness—and his admonitions were the result of that fine sense of discrimination and enlightenment which comes from cosmic perception even if he had not experienced the deeper, fuller realization of liberation, of which Buddha is ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... passionate devotion to their homes and families, however commendable a virtue it may be, proved most detrimental to their best interests when the waters of strife were set in commotion. Nothing was so trying to the Boers than to be separated from their families for months and months. Up ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... in the fulness of my heart, agree with those that speak in favor of Messer Simone dei Bardi. It is the native, intimate, and commendable wish of a man to abolish his enemies—I speak here after the fashion of the worldling that I was, for the cell and the cloister have no concern with mortal passions and frailties—and Messer Simone was in this, as in divers other qualities, of a very ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... or later. You put up a good fight for Miss Florence, and now that I understand why you told your falsehoods, I can't help admiring your chivalry. You saw Miss Lloyd there that evening, you heard her next day at the inquest deny having been in the office in the evening. So, in a way, it was very commendable on your part to avoid contradicting her testimonies, with your own. But you are not clever enough, Louis, to carry out that deceit to the end. And now that you have admitted that you saw Miss Lloyd there, you can best help her cause, and best help me to help her cause, by telling ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... gravity and majesty, as was objected unto him by his adversaries: which nevertheless a man may well doubt of, whether it were so or no, or, which above all the rest, if so be that it were true, a man would well consider of, whether commendable, or dis-commendable. The thing therefore that we must inquire into, is this; what manner of soul Socrates had: whether his disposition was such; as that all that he stood upon, and sought after in this world, ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... had a pleasant sense of the press as a fine instrument upon which he had played with increasing mastery, a trumpet upon which, as his mind filled with commendable purposes, he could blow a very pretty tune,—a noble tune with now and then a graceful flourish acceptable to the public ear. Now as he talked he began to be aware of flatness, ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... boy, of five summers, with a commendable thirst for knowledge, and a praiseworthy desire to understand what was ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... pleased by the commendable hunger that he has for the salvation of the infidels, but I am not pleased that he wishes to take the father from his lawful sons, and the shepherd from the sheep gathered in the fold. I think he wants ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... Negroes, they responded heartily to their opportunities. The following quotations are typical of the reports which the superintendents in those counties were able to make in 1874: "In most of the townships a commendable interest is manifested in the support of Negro schools, which I am happy to report, is appreciated by the Negroes[12] themselves. The schools have been well attended with considerable diligence manifested by the pupils." A.A. Neal, Superintendent of Pettis County, reported:[13] "The Negro ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Simon, with commendable moderation, refrained from attempting to secure for himself the title of king. He did, however, issue coins in his own name, although that right was ordinarily the prerogative only of kings. Upon him was conferred by the grateful people the authority that had ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... have been treated as necessary evils, instead of being made, as they may be, highly ornamental. The unity of the plan, as a work of art, is lost as you ascend above the eaves, all the rest seeming like excrescences growing out of structures otherwise commendable and satisfactory. The superior horizontal lines of the roof will depend somewhat upon the background of the house. When a building is placed upon the crest of a hill, or upon a slope descending from the main point of view, so that its outlines are seen against ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... would probably be delivered "around midnight," they arrived shortly before eleven o'clock, and an industrious season of unpacking set in. Determined to finish arranging their effects before four o'clock, they labored at the task with commendable energy and speed, stopping only for luncheon, which was eaten in ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... have been cast into prison, a fourth, named Francois Hebert, commendable for thirty-seven years' faithful service, defended our interests, and for his honesty's sake has been in chains since the month of July. What must he not have suffered during the last eleven years at the hands of the authorities, the tax ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... freely approve the arrangements made by your Lordship at the request of the Municipality, to protect the town as well as Her Majesty's subjects from brigandage. And also your commendable intercession with the Sardinian General on behalf of the individuals compromised for political acts, trusting that there has not been any actual infraction of the neutral position of Her Majesty's ship, or undue interference in the ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... allowances which a writer could expect, he (Horace) goes on to enforce the general instruction of this part, viz. A diligence in writing, by shewing [from l. 366 to 379] that a mediocrity, however tolerable, or even commendable, it might be in other arts, would never be allowed in this."—"This reflection leads him with great advantage [from l. 379 to 391] to the general conclusion in view, viz. that as none but excellent poetry will be allowed, it should be a warning to writers, how they engage in it without ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... treason for a Northern man to talk of peace. What avails it to talk of the blessings of peace and the horrors of war? It is a fearful thing to take the life of a human being; but we can easily conceive of circumstances when homicide is not only justifiable, but highly commendable. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... most of the long and momentous debates which took place in the House of Peers on the question on whom the crown should be conferred, and at first is said to have inclined to a regency; but with a commendable delicacy he absented himself on the night of the decisive vote on the vacancy of the throne. He voted, however, on the 6th of February for the resolution which settled the crown on William and Mary; and he assisted at their coronation, under the title of Earl of Marlborough, to which he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... see about that," he managed to say with commendable gruffness. "Assuming that your story is true, why are you in such a tremendous hurry to reach the United States? Skipping out for ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... well of the violet for its humility, I see no reason why I should quarrel with the aster for loving to make a show. Herein, too, plants are like men. An indisposition toward publicity is amiable in those to whom it is natural; but I am not clear that bashfulness is the only commendable quality. Let plants and men alike carry themselves according to their birthright. Providence has not ordained a diversity of gifts for nothing, and it is only a narrow philosophy that takes offense ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... person in your dreaming with a pure and sweet breath, commendable will be your conduct, and a profitable consummation of business ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... through this desolate land have testified to the fact that the most commendable trait in the Baluch is his practice of hospitality, or "zang," as it is called. As among the Arabs, a guest is held sacred, save by some of the wilder tribes on the Afghan frontier, who, though they ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... branch of the inocarpus, well baked by the sun, and which had long lost every particle of moisture. Breaking it into two pieces, he began to rub them together with great zeal, and apparently with perfect faith in the result: gradually he increased his exertions, manifesting a commendable perseverance, until the bark began to fly, and the perspiration to stream down his face; but still there was no fire, nor ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... one out-rivalling the other in sheer wickedness. Captain Teach considered it rare sport to lock his men in the ship's hold and then set sulphur afire to ascertain how long they could withstand asphyxiation. Yet his greatest "bravery" was displayed (and herein he developed commendable Spartan fortitude) when he married fourteen times with a fearlessness highly worthy of a better purpose! His wickedness was as great as his fearlessness was unbounded, but wickedness was voted manly ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... a thing of good repute. The dog is at the same time associated in our imagination with the chase—a meritorious employment and an expression of the honorable predatory impulse. Standing on this vantage ground, whatever beauty of form and motion and whatever commendable mental traits he may possess are conventionally acknowledged and magnified. And even those varieties of the dog which have been bred into grotesque deformity by the dog-fancier are in good faith accounted beautiful by many. These varieties of dogs—and the like is true of other fancy-bred ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... number of a strikingly meritorious and serious paper published by George S. Schilling. We here behold none of the frivolity which spoils the writings of those who view amateur journalism merely as a passing amusement. The Badger shows evidence of careful and tasteful editorship, combined with a commendable artistic sense in choice of ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the admiral, "there is praise due also to you, for you have known when to subordinate yourself to one younger in years, although older in experience. This virtue is rare, and very commendable; and I doubt not that, had you not so freely given up your own wishes and inclinations to those of your comrade, you might both ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... entirely. Charley looked upon "a dirty day" as upon a villanously-dressed person, while a bright, shining morn—giving him amplitude to make a "grand dash," won from him the same encomiums to the producer that he would bestow on the getter-up of an elegant pair of cassimeres—commendable works of an artist! The genus dandy, whether of savage or civilized life, is a felicitous subject for peculiar, speculative, comparative analogy or analysis; we shall pursue the shadow no farther, but come ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... are a sufficient justification almost for anything. What could be more commendable in the abstract than a girl's determination that "poor papa" should not be worried, and her anxiety that the man of her choice should be kept by any means from every occasion of doing something rash, something ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... board of health has been most commendable in this case. Beginning with a wager over the telephone that they would break quarantine in twenty-four hours, and ending with the attempt to span a twelve-foot gulf with a board, over which to cross to freedom, these shut-in society ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... our duties to our King and Queen were paramount... the foundation of friendly relations with the people of this Archipelago!... The engaging manners and modest demeanour of these native ladies were most commendable. That this embarrassing custom was practised to do us especial ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... land on either side consist of waste, quite recently laid under cultivation; the huge blocks of stone have been wrenched up, heaven knows how, and conspicuously piled up in the midst of the newly- created field, a veritable trophy. How much more commendable than that commemorative of blood-stained victory! The rich red earth amply repays these Herculean labours. With regard to the tenure of land, I should suppose the state of things here must be very much what it was in the age of primitive man. I fancy that any native of these parts, any true ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... made it evident that his master was not easy in his mind, why not no one could say, and that he had half determined on flight. The man of the Guides, leaving his friend in charge of a comrade, with commendable acumen hastened to Lumsden and told him the story. That officer at once saw that the moment had come to strike, lest the prey escape. He therefore immediately clapped the Sikh general's retainer into the quarterguard, much to that individual's astonishment, ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... bishop was taken aback. Realizing, however, that there was nothing else for him to do, he took off his hat and bestowed it with commendable cheerfulness upon ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Lorenz with commendable insight has pointed out[173] that IIII., the goddess of Chance, is the motive power of the Plautine plot, as distinguished from the I1/4I?a?-II- of tragedy. A student of Plautus readily recognizes this point. The entire development of the Rud. and Poen. exemplifies it in the highest degree. ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... in any speculations, poetical or philosophical, with which I might be glad to recompense their patience. Let me tell them, therefore, that the Ensor House is neither better nor worse than other American hotels in Cuba. The rooms are not very bad, the attendance not intolerable, the table almost commendable. The tripe, salt-fish, and plantains were, methought, much as at other places. There were stews of meat, onions, sweet pippins, and ochra, which deserve notice. The early coffee was punctual; the tea, for a wonder, black and hot. True, it was served ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... has been used by the nurserymen to produce a so-called weeping form, which, like most of these monstrosities, is not commendable. The goat willow is a vigorous tree introduced from Europe, having large and rather broad and coarse leaves, dark green above and whitish underneath. It is taken as a "stock," upon which, at a convenient ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
