|
|
|
More "Improve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that Cesare "publicly declared that he had killed the duke" is to say a very daring thing, and is dangerously to improve upon Capello. If it is true that Cesare made this public declaration how does it happen that no one but Capello heard him? for in all other documents there is no more than offered us a rumour of how Alfonso died. Surely it is to be supposed that, had Cesare ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... America, about which Peter Drew was all the time talking. Perhaps there was really more to the country than Wall Street speculators and grafting politicians, policemen with clubs and militiamen with bayonets to stick into the bodies of working-men who tried to improve ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... was the development of the property as a heavy carrier of anthracite coal. On the financial side during this period the credit of the House of Morgan, intelligent administration, and modern methods did much to improve the reputation of the Erie and enable it to ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... as the men do. In due course of time, as Dr. Campbell suggests, "we may expect the monogamous instinct in man to be as powerful as in some of the lower animals; and feminine jealousy will help to bring about this result; for if women were indifferent on this point men would never improve." ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... acquainted with Nature, but then he knew, and pointed out, the several paths that lead to it. He had despised in his younger years the thing called philosophy in the Universities, and did all that lay in his power to prevent those societies of men instituted to improve human reason from depraving it by their quiddities, their horrors of the vacuum, their substantial forms, and all those impertinent terms which not only ignorance had rendered venerable, but which had been made sacred by their being ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... Parliament had the law-courts, the army, and 'society' at their backs, the Committee of Public Safety began to be a force in the country, and really represented the producing classes. It began to improve immensely in the days which followed on the acquittal of its members. Its old members had little administrative capacity, though with the exception of a few self-seekers and traitors, they were honest, courageous men, and many of them were endowed with considerable ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... it must be admitted that their profession of Christianity did not greatly improve their conduct; but this was very much to be ascribed to the circumstance that the duties of the station had devolved upon one who ought not to have been selected for the task. Upon his removal, and ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... latest fashion promulgated by "Vogue"; she instructed her in the refined art of manicuring according to the method of the best shop in Indianapolis; and it was amazing how wonderfully Marian could improve a hat by the slightest readjustments of ribbon and feather. She tested the world's resources like a spoiled princess with an indulgent chancellor to pay her bills. She gave a party and ordered the refreshments ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Indian conjuror dreaming of a new trick? "Ghee and khana" (clarified butter and food) form the subject of the majority of his dreams. When he does play with anything it is to caress lovingly the "paisa" or pieces of money that he last earned, not to improve his dexterity but because they will give him a good meal, a cup of arak, (or intoxicating liquor) and ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... many things for which one is wholly incapacitated; for which he has no talent, and, as a rule, time spent in this direction is time lost. Goethe justly says: "We should guard against a talent which we can not hope to practice in perfection. Improve it as we may, we shall always, in the end, when the merit of the master has become apparent to us, painfully lament the loss of time and strength devoted to such botching." Sidney Smith condemns what he calls the "foppery of universality—of knowing all sciences and excelling in ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... encountered now. Clearly AEsop had spoken the truth when he had talked of his daily practice and his steady advance towards perfection. But, and Lagardere smiled as he remembered this, AEsop had forgotten or overlooked the possibility that Lagardere's own sword-play would improve with time—that Lagardere's own sword-play was little likely to rust for ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... continued, "that Elvira does not seem to be capable of friendship. You only act right in telling her what you consider wrong, Mea. If you show your attachment to her and try not to be hurt by little differences of opinion, your friendship might gradually improve." ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... history has been thus so astonishingly preserved. The English farmer may tear down the barrow which is unfortunate enough to be situated within his bounds. Neither he nor his neighbours know or can tell anything about its ancient history; the removed earth will help to make his cattle fatter and improve his crops, the stones will be useful to pave his roads and build his fences, and the savant can enjoy the rest; but the Irish farmer and landlord should not do ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... day or two Jane Merrick seemed to improve in health. Indeed, Martha Phibbs declared her mistress was better than she had been for weeks. Then, one night, the old attendant was awakened by a scream, and rushed to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... did Cardinal Franchi apply to the tribunals. The properties of the great universal institution, as well as those of the Chapters, were sold at public auction, and the confiscation, although not immediate, was in course of being accomplished. The state of things did not improve on the advent to power of Messrs. Nicotera and Depretis, the former a radical of the most extreme views, and the latter, very little, if at all, better. These revolutionists having gained the object of their ambition, might have ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... agent her scapegoat for the sins of the owner. The Squire's responsibility was carefully masked. But Aubrey Mannering perfectly understood what she would be at. She was a clever woman who wanted things improved. Well, let her improve them. It did not matter ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with its pro-bouleutic senate, had no jealousy of the senate of Areopagus, and indeed, even enlarged its powers, we may infer that his grand object was, not to weaken the oligarchy generally, but to improve the administration and to repress the misconduct and irregularities of the individual archons; and that, too, not by diminishing their powers, but by making some degree of popularity the condition ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... development, in Florence. It had against it the jealousy of the Ottimati, who felt themselves overshadowed by the Gonfalonier; the hatred of the Palleschi, who yearned for the Medici; the discontent of the working classes, who thought the presence of a Court in Florence would improve trade; last, but not least, the disaffection of the Compagnacci, who felt they could not flourish to their heart's content in a free commonwealth. Moreover, though the name of liberty was on every lip, though the Florentines talked, wrote, and speculated ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... she breathed, "isn't it sad that human beings have to live in such wretchedness and poverty? And you—how noble it is of you to think of them, to give your time and money to improve ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... time was further filled with rumor that ever grew more dire. Gradually business was suspended entirely. Those who could not or would not go away stood about talking matters over, and, as is always the case, matters did not improve in the telling. The only activity in the city was that bent on seeking out the abiding-place ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... if we would improve the intellect, first of all, we must ascend; we cannot gain real knowledge on a level; we must generalise, we must reduce to method, we must have a grasp of principles, and group and shape our acquisitions ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... best war-eagle that could be made, and began to take lessons in military maps, bird's-eye views, and explosives. He was almost happy. He would improve on the poet's dream-ideal, "Were I a little bird, I'd fly ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... observed since offerings were first made to the god Frey for a fruitful year. In olden times one of the favorite gifts received from tenants was an orange stuck with cloves which the master was to hang in his wine vessels to improve the flavor of the ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... the Postmaster-General some very gratifying results are exhibited and many betterments of the service suggested. A perusal of the report gives abundant evidence that the supervision and direction of the postal system have been characterized by an intelligent and conscientious desire to improve the service. The revenues of the Department show an increase of over $5,000,000, with a deficiency for the year 1892 of less than $4,000,000, while the estimate for the year 1893 shows a surplus of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... comforts of this life, my friends (as well as the anxieties which must come to those who have a family, or property, even if he do not meet with losses and afflictions), ought to help to improve a man's temper, to call out in him right feelings, to teach him more and more of the ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... cried Marjorie. "That will be lovely. Mother is always worrying about my handwriting. I shall try my best to improve." ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... [George IV.] was born this morning; the prospect of your old neighbour [the Pretender] at Rome does not improve; the House of Hanover will have numbers in its own family sufficient to defend their crown—unless they marry a Princess of Anhalt Zerbst. What a shocking tragedy that has proved already! There is a manifesto arrived to-day that makes ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... they gave to the illustrious travelers. The inhabitants of Antwerp presented the First Consul with six magnificent bay horses. Everywhere also, the First Consul left valuable souvenirs of his journey; and by his orders, works were immediately commenced to deepen and improve the port of Amiens. He visited in that city, and in all the others where he stopped, the exposition of the products of industry, encouraging manufacturers by his advice, and favoring them in his decrees. At Liege, he ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... in health, and catches a few insects; but he is very untidy, as you may imagine by his clothes being all torn to pieces by the time we arrived here. He will no doubt improve and will soon ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... staggering... The 7th of June cost us dear, and, owing to the success of the enemy attack, the price we paid was very heavy. Here, too, it was many days before the front was again secure. The British army did not press its advantage; apparently it only intended to improve its position for the launching of the great Flanders offensive. It thereupon resumed operations between the old Arras battlefield and also between La Bassee and Lens. The object of the enemy was to wear us down and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the 8th of December, 1749, and sailed on the 29th of January, 1750, in an East India Company's ship, where they were allowed a free passage, and were treated with respect and friendliness. The voyage lasted long enough to improve them in English, for they did not cast anchor at Tranquebar ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to breakfast long after the others had finished. The next morning there was a letter waiting for him which had been readdressed on from Melchester. He was still in a sulk, and the contents of the epistle did not seem to improve his temper. He devoured his food in silence, and then went off by himself to smoke at ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... to occur to the mind that their present condition furnished the most satisfactory answer to that objection to the general emancipation of slaves founded on their alleged unfitness to value and improve the benefits of liberty. . . . As they would not suffer, so they do not require, the attendance of one acting in the capacity of a driver with the instrument of punishment in his hand. As far as I had an opportunity of ascertaining from what fell under my own observation, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... violent nudges and aside-looks. What did she mean? Was she "chaffing" them? This was unlike the opening of any lesson! It certainly could not be the first question on the lesson-paper; nor did it sound like certain well-meant admonitions to "try to improve the opportunity" and "learn all that they could." With each of these commencements they were entirely familiar; but this ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... chaste and beautiful writings of Washington Irvin? What has become of our well written and instructive histories and biographies? Why is it that a filthy negro novel is found in every body's hand? Uncle Tom's Cabin! What is it? What can be expected from it? Will it improve the manners, the morals, or the literary tastes of our country-men, and fair country-women? No! Never! Its very touch is contaminating. Filth, pollution, and mental degradation, follow in the train of this class of writers. In what consists the merit of Uncle Tom's Cabin? It is hard to tell. ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... gratifying than I feel them to be. In reply, I thank you, and hope that the amicable feelings which have hitherto existed between the several countries you represent and my own, may never be impaired. For my part I shall lose no opportunity to improve and strengthen ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV
... engrossed the attention of the ministry, nor allowed them time to think of Louisiana. What was then thought most advisable, was to make a grant of it to some rich person; who, finding it his interest to improve that country, would, at the same time that he promoted his own interest, promote that of the state. Louisiana was thus ceded to M. Crozat. And it is to be presumed, had M. d'Hiberville lived longer, the colony would ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... destinated to the service of Man in the production of Vegetables, is composed of various sorts of Soils for different Seeds to grow therein. And since Providence has been pleased to allow Man this great privilege for the imployment of his skill and labour to improve the same to his advantage; it certainly behoves us to acquaint ourselves with its several natures, and how to adapt an agreeable Grain and Manure to their natural Soil, as being the very foundation of enjoying good and bad Malts. This is obvious by parallel Deductions ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... clam fritters and coffee for supper. The spirits of the crew appeared to improve the longer we remained below; the time was spent in catching clams, singing, trying to waltz, playing cards, and writing letters ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... in England, who know India, and have a single eye to its welfare. It behoves you to do your utmost to improve this most critical time, and may God in his mercy overrule all the efforts of man for its good! What abominations, villanies, and idiotcies there still are in our system! Is there no hope, no possibility, of infusing a little fresh blood from some ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... now he felt a tremor of pleasure, an indescribable something, as he shortened his steps to keep time with the little boots with which Miss Minorkey trod down the prairie grass, and he who had laughed at awkward boys for seeking the aid of dancing-masters to improve their gait, wished himself less awkward, and actually blushed with pleasure when this self-possessed young lady praised his conversation. He walked with her to the hotel, though he took the precaution to take his hat off his head and hang it on his ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... Capt. Merwin and his men remained in the vicinity to intercept any band of Indians that might be passing westward. Merwin, although often away upon scouting expeditions, found ample time to improve his acquaintance with his rescued charge, in whom he was fast becoming deeply interested. It was the evening before their departure for Boston. The air was soft and laden with the fragrance of flowers; ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... the visitation of the Supreme Power by which all are ruled; and none need despond who possess energy of character and the capacity to appreciate the many blessings bestowed upon them. What nation in Europe possesses a future at all, much less such a future as that which lies before us? Russia may improve and prosper to a certain extent; beyond that, no human eye can discern the glimmerings of a higher and more enlarged civilization. England has reached her culminating point. The States of Germany—what future have they? Alas! the past and the present must answer. France—where ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... all promotions in the Navy above the rank of captain be by selection instead of by seniority. This course will secure in the higher grades greater efficiency and hold out an incentive to young officers to improve themselves in the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... received, and took our leave. He sent us away with every honour he could heap upon us; as a band of music before us, guides to show us the way, etc....The Soobah is to pay us a visit in a little time, which I hope to improve for the great end of settling ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... boy I have desired to be an architect," he told her, "and while my father lived I had every advantage which I chose to improve; but after his death misfortune obliged me to give up school and to go to work. I chose the carpenter's trade—my father was a contractor and builder—for I reasoned that a practical knowledge of the construction of buildings would ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... this novel order was a happy one, as it served to dispel the gloom of a long winter in the forests of La Cadie, as well as to improve the quality and variety of their diet. The noblesse, or gentlemen of the party, were fifteen, who served in turn and for a single day as caterer or steward, the turn of each recurring once in fifteen days. It was their ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... passed along the line he was annoyed by the iterated requests of his uncle to be informed when they should come to the company of the Laird of Kelton. And the good Abbot, being like all deaf men apt to speak a little loud, did not improve matters by constantly making remarks behind his hand, upon the appearance or character (as known to him) of the various dependents of the Douglas House who had come out to show their loyalty and exhibit ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... that we improve him, could we obtain the box," said the mother, speaking for the first time that day. Her voice was so deep and full that it was almost masculine, but her modulations were refined ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... coast of Brazil, when all hands went down. Of John and the rest of the men I have never heard. The Marblehead boy, Sam, turned out badly; and, although he had influential friends, never allowed them to improve his condition. The old carpenter, the Fin, of whom the cook stood in such awe (ante, p. 47), had fallen sick and died in Santa Barbara, and was buried ashore. Jim Hall, from the Kennebec, who sailed with us before ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... a lesson in gentleness to dumb animals which they never afterwards forgot, and which some of my boy readers would do well to remember. With a laudable effort to improve the occasion, Mrs McTougall carefully printed in huge letters, and elaborately illuminated the sentence, "Be kind to Doggie," and hung it up in the nursery. Thereupon cardboard, pencils, paints, ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... replied Sponge; 'but I like to improve my mind.' He then opened the valuable work, taking a dip into the Omnibus Guide—'Brentford, 7 from Hyde Park Corner—European Coffee House, near the Bank, daily,' and so worked his way on through the 'Brighton Railway Station, Brixton, Bromley both in Kent and Middlesex, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... and Du herstes Wunder! while the Frankfurters are sizzling. Her trills, her chromatic scales, and her messa di voce will come right in the kitchen; she will equalize her scale and learn to breathe correctly bending over the oven. It is even likely that she will improve her knowledge of portamento while she is washing dishes. When she can prepare a succulent roast suckling pig she will be able to sing Ocean, thou mighty monster! and she will understand Abscheulicher when ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... other ways, failed to establish permanent towns like those of the Pueblos and the Haidas. Their advancement not only in architecture but in many of the most important elements of civilization was for this reason greatly delayed. There was little to stimulate them to improve the land to which they were attached, for they knew that soon they would ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... the process of selection may be carried a step further:—As before, they must be constant and valiant, good-looking, and of noble manners, but now they must also have natural ability which education will improve; that is to say, they must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil, retentive, solid, diligent natures, who combine intellectual with moral virtues; not lame and one-sided, diligent in bodily exercise and indolent in mind, or ...
— The Republic • Plato
... to express my joy at the sight of day once more. I got on the land as soon as possible after my dismission from the cavern, and, kneeling on the ground, returned hearty thanks to God for my deliverance, begging, at the same time, grace to improve His mercies, and that I might continue under His protection, whatever should hereafter befall me, and at last die ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... my using such large words; but here we meet a great many "people of culture," as they are called, and they are all very busy "improving their minds"; and you know Solomon says, "Never do till to-morrow what you can put off to-day," so I am trying to improve mine too, while I am under ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... may try and catch, if I find the space, in the proposed article. Will o' the Mill I sent, red hot, to Stephen in a fit of haste, and have not yet had an answer. I am quite prepared for a refusal. But I begin to have more hope in the story line, and that should improve my income anyway. I am glad you liked Villon; some of it was not as good as it ought to be, but on the whole it seems pretty vivid, and the features strongly marked. Vividness and not style is now my line; style is all very well, but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... strength. Though as yet he could not sit upright at rest for half an hour together without a disposition to giddiness, dimness of sight, and deliquium, he was able to sit upright under the motion of a post-chaise during a journey of from 40 to 70 miles daily, and his appetite began to improve. Still his cough continued, and his hectic flushings, though the chills were much ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Mrs. Frothingham arrived at Pinner, and Harvey's anxieties were lightened. The good, capable woman never showed to such advantage as in a sick-room; scarcely had she entered the house when Alma's state began to improve. They remarked that Alma showed no great concern on Sibyl's account, but was seemingly preoccupied with thought of Carnaby himself. This being the case, it was with solicitude that Harvey and Mrs. Frothingham awaited ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... intelligibly. Marry, the letters are not all of the same size or tallness; but that only shows your proficiency in the hands—text, german-hand, court-hand, sometimes law-hand, and affords variety. You pen better than you did a twelvemonth ago; and if you continue to improve, you bid fair to win the golden pen which is the prize at your ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... subject till the Boston conference of 1879, when a whole session was devoted to schools, libraries, and fiction (L. j. 4:319), the general expression of opinion being similar to the formula expressed in the paper by Miss Mary A. Bean, "Lessen the quantity and improve the quality." In 1881, Mr. J. N. Larned, of the Buffalo Young Men's Library, issued his pamphlet, "Books for young readers." The report on "Boys' and girls' reading" which I had the honor of making at the ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... discretion in the expenditure of the interest of this capital sum, and from time to time their income has been augmented from annually voted moneys. They were restricted only to measures calculated permanently to improve the condition of the people, as distinct from ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps the most they can do is, to leave him free to develop himself and improve his individual condition. But in all times men have been prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct. Hence the value of legislation ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... would! Mr. Young has told me how anxious you are to learn and to improve your condition.... Isn't ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... JAMES did not improve as was hoped. Month after month passed away, and brought no pros- pect of returning health. He could not walk far from the house for want of strength; but he loved to sit with Aunt Abby in her quiet room, talking of unseen ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... They really did improve as they went on. They were able to get better instruments and were stimulated by rival fanfares in the neighbourhood. They were very anxious to come and play at the chateau, and we promised they should whenever a fitting occasion should ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... which we have already referred. Among further birds which are in some way or other connected with plants is the eagle, which plucks the wild lettuce, with the juice of which it smears its eyes to improve its vision; while the hawk was supposed, for the same purpose, to ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... Spicer fetched from the cupboard his concertina, and after the usual apology for what he called his 'imperfect mastery of the instrument,' sat down to play 'Home, Sweet Home.' He had played it for years, and evidently would never improve in his execution. After 'Home, Sweet Home' came 'The Bluebells of Scotland,' after that 'Annie Laurie'; and Mr. Spicer's repertory was at an end. He talked of learning new pieces, but there was not the ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... the middle course, namely, that some individuals are provided for specially, and others not. The nearer a person is to the Active Intellect, the more he receives divine providence and care. Those people who do not improve their capabilities, which they possess as members of the species, are provided for only as members of the species. The matter may be put in another way also. God knows all ideas. Man is potentially capable of receiving them in a certain manner. God, who is actual, ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... there was no smoke from its chimney, or voices to be heard, or persons to be seen, or other signs of life, in its precincts. The grass grew high and green all around the hillock, and there was no road, not even a foot-path, visible on its side. Nevertheless, I dismounted, left my horse to improve the opportunity of snatching a light repast on the abundant herbage, and forced my way up to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... cured by a purge of hellebore, which an Anticyrian administered unto him. They that were sound commonly took it to quicken their wits, (as Ennis of old, [4223]Qui non nisi potus ad arma—prosiluit dicenda, and as our poets drink sack to improve their inventions (I find it so registered by Agellius lib. 17. cap. 15.) Cameades the academic, when he was to write against Zeno the stoic, purged himself with hellebore first, which [4224]Petronius ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... years older than her brother. Born April 11, 1492, in the city of Angouleme, she enjoyed, in common with Francis, all the opportunities of liberal culture afforded by her exalted station. These opportunities her keener intellect enabled her to improve far better than the future king. While Francis was indulging his passion for the chase, in company with Robert de la Marck, "the Boar of the Ardennes," Margaret was patiently applying herself to ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... you cannot do this for me," he said; but he issued the order. Merrifield and Sylvane themselves carried it to the offending superintendent. Matthews was furious; but he moved the cattle at dawn. The whole affair did not serve to improve the relations between the groups which the killing of Riley Luffsey ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... child and a hot lady, who told them that never, never before had she sweated so profusely. "Foreigners are a filthy nation," said Harriet. "I don't care if there are tunnels; open the windows." He obeyed, and she got another smut in her eye. Nor did Florence improve matters. Eating, walking, even a cross word would bathe them both in boiling water. Philip, who was slighter of build, and less conscientious, suffered less. But Harriet had never been to Florence, and between the hours of eight and eleven she crawled like a wounded ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... He was much pleased with an unsuspicious testimony furnished by Dampier (vol. ii. part 2, page 89): "I have particularly observed," writes this famous old navigator, "there and in other places, that such as had been well-bred were generally most careful to improve their time, and would be very industrious and frugal where there was any probability of considerable gain; but on the contrary, such as had been bred up in ignorance and hard labour, when they came to have plenty would extravagantly squander away their time and money in drinking ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... their shipping as a factor in national defense and as one of the surest and speediest means of obtaining for their producers a share in foreign markets. Like vigilance and effort on our part cannot fail to improve our situation, which is regarded with humiliation at home and with surprise abroad. Even the seeming sacrifices, which at the beginning may be involved, will be offset later by more than ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... do not write me as often as you ought. In your next you must assign some reason for this neglect. Possibly I have not received all your letters. Nothing will improve you so much in epistolary writing as practice. Take great pains with your letters. Avoid vulgar phrases. Study to have your ideas pertinent and correct and clothe them in an easy and grammatical dress. Pay attention to ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... late fall of an unusual year on the Bentley farms. Everywhere the crops had been heavy. That spring, Jesse had bought part of a long strip of black swamp land that lay in the valley of Wine Creek. He got the land at a low price but had spent a large sum of money to improve it. Great ditches had to be dug and thousands of tile laid. Neighboring farmers shook their heads over the expense. Some of them laughed and hoped that Jesse would lose heavily by the venture, but the old man went silently on with the ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... from place to place. This was finally checked in Indian Territory by the individual allotment of lands in 1904. He has thus been compelled by the force of circumstances, to change his mode of life. He has gradually discovered he can settle down on his own farm, improve it by the erection of good buildings, and either buy or make the implements he needs for cultivating ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... the report of the commissioners appointed under the act of 28th of June last and the supplementary act of July following to test the usefulness of inventions to improve and render safe the boilers of steam ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... they would improve you very much," said Lady Jane, aggressively. "What is your idea ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... be imagined, did not improve Omar's temper. Immediately after it, he issued some stringent decrees in reference to the slaves, and ordered the execution of six chief men of the State, whose presence in the city had been a source of danger to the consolidation of his power. ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... not a quarter finished. I am always a most slow and laborious writer (that Preface was written three times over throughout, and many parts of it five or six), and of course my ill health does not improve my powers of composition. This wet summer and autumn have been terribly against me. I am lamer even than when Mr. Ticknor saw me, and sometimes cannot even dip the pen in the ink without holding it in my left hand. ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... the land they had been led to expect in latitude 83 deg., which indeed was proved to be non-existent. At the end of June they started using the kayaks, which needed many repairs after their rough passage, to cross the open leads. They waited long in camp, that the travelling conditions might improve, and all the time Nansen saw a white spot he thought was cloud. At last, on July 24, land was in sight, which proved to be that white spot. Fourteen days later they reached it to find that it consisted of a series of islands. ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... end she came:—not alone! They led her in, you understand. She didn't look especially pretty. Her eyes were ridiculously red. Her voice was very husky; but she had got her part well, and she spoke it to me. Her expression might have been better; but she'll improve with practice.—There may be other fools in the world, you know, who haven't realized what a crime it is not to ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Apennines; to the E. lies the old town with its historic Via di Roma and narrow crowded thoroughfares; the newer portion on the W. is more spaciously laid out, and much has been done in recent years over the whole city to improve the sanitation and water supply; the national museum, rich in Pompeii relics, the university (4150 students), the national library (275,000 vols.), the archiepiscopal cathedral, and the four mediaeval gateways are the chief architectural features; large quantities of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... present Interstate Committee on the Potomac River Basin—INCOPOT—during the quarter century of its existence. Minimally financed and staffed, granted only advisory powers, toward the cure of a vast and growing sickness, it has managed in many ways to hold the line and even to improve things on the Potomac in a time when conditions on many American rivers were growing drastically worse and worse. Much credit accrues to some of the Basin States as well, but without the continuing focus and hard work of the INCOPOT people, dedicated to Basin thinking, it is doubtful that ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... but it is sure that Emma has engaged in no more egregious types of prevarications and in no more false accusations. Competent observers think the case is fairly promising in its general moral aspects if environmental conditions continue to improve. ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... pulley, you can understand how the builders exulted, and how the Volscians of the Birmingham district were fluttered. Then, and not till then, would the English maker condescend to believe that it was possible to improve upon the wretched things which he had foisted upon his customers, and he at once commenced to copy the American pulley. He has not yet succeeded in producing such a beautiful casting, but I venture to say that he has improved ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... that are every day hawked about. My fortune has placed me above the little regard of scribbling for a few pence, which I neither value nor want; therefore, let no wise man too hastily condemn this essay, intended for a good design, to cultivate and improve an ancient art long in disgrace, by having fallen into mean and unskilful hands. A little time will determine whether I have deceived others or myself; and I think it is no very unreasonable request that men would please to suspend their judgments till then. I was ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... desk in the office and your very delightful suite of rooms at your uncle's. Tell him you are sorry you let your feelings get the best of you; then, when you have entirely quieted down, you and I will put our heads together and see what can be done to improve matters. And that, let me tell you, my dear boy, is going to be rather a difficult thing, for you see you are rather particular as to what you should and should not do to earn your living." Peter's wrinkles had now crept up his cheeks and were playing hide and seek with ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... circuits, but, unfortunately, decisions in certain recent cases had offended the sensibilities of Virginia and Kentucky, and there was a renewal of the old Jeffersonian efforts to limit the authority of the Supreme Court. Instead of being able to improve, he was obliged to defend the court, and this he did successfully, defeating all attempts to curtail its power by alterations of the act of 1789. These duties and that of investigating the charges brought by Ninian Edwards against Mr. Crawford, ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... without fellowship, as solitary as similar," as Ruskin calls them. These modern erections have no more relation to their surroundings than would a Pullman-car or a newly painted piece of machinery. Age cannot improve the appearance of such things. But age only mellows and improves our ancient houses. Solidly built of good materials, the golden stain of time only adds to their beauties. The vines have clothed their walls and the green lawns about them have grown smoother and thicker, and the passing ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... state of the class struggle as well as their own surroundings cause Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence they habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class; nay, by preference to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... needs beget sloth, and sloth decay. If the tragic actor declaim not daily, the resonance of his voice is dulled and its channels grow hoarse. Wherefore he purges his huskiness by loud and repeated recitation. However, it is vain toil and useless labour[59] for a man to attempt to improve the natural quality of the human voice. There are many sounds that surpass it. The trumpet's blare is louder, the music of the lyre more varied, the plaint of the flute more pleasing, the murmurs of the pipe sweeter, the message of the bugle further heard. I forbear ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... the noble lords and honourable gentlemen to be learned by heart like a school-boy's task. And yet, from their construction, style, and general tone,—from the platitudes which they contain as well as from the general safety and good sense of the remarks,—from the absence of any attempt to improve a great occasion by the fire of oratory, one cannot but be convinced that a very absolute control is exercised. The gorgeously apparelled speakers, who seem to have great latitude allowed them in the matter of clothing, have certainly ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... he saw many things which other boys before him had not seen. He saw that the printing art had wonderful possibilities in it; he studied and worked hard to improve the business, and today all of the printers call him the father of the art of printing. He saw that he ought to know other languages besides English, and so he became a master of French, Italian and Latin—and luck' hadn't a thing to do with it! He saw on every hand many chances ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... be denied that the girl remained persistently silent and reserved. In other respects the report was highly favourable. She was obedient to the rules of the house; she was always ready with any little services that she could render to her companions; and she was so eager to improve herself, by means of her reading-lessons and writing-lessons, that it was not easy to induce her to lay aside her book and her slate. When the teacher offered her some small reward for her good conduct, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... some which I see printed in the village papers, and seems generally unexceptionable in its subjects and tone. I do not believe he is a dangerous companion, though the habit of writing verse does not always improve the character. I think I have seen it make more than one of my acquaintances idle, conceited, sentimental, and frivolous,—perhaps it found them so already. Don't make too much of his talent, and particularly don't let ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... cayenne pepper, one cup of sugar, one cup of good cider vinegar, one-half cup butter. Boil the above mixture, and add one pint of thick sweet cream when the mixture is almost cold. Two small cucumbers sliced will greatly improve this salad. ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... recover from the panic, their plans will improve and their energies will revive. The wider streets are already reducing the fire within more certain limits, and they speak of a favourable change of wind. It is thought five hundred buildings have already been consumed, in scarcely half ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... diphtheria was followed by partial paralysis. The doctor assured us that the danger was past; he would gradually regain the use of his limbs; but his recovery would be slow. The sister encouraged us too—she had seen such cases before; and he certainly did improve a shade each day. Meriton and I had taken turns with the sister in nursing him, but after the paralysis had set in there wasn't much to do, and there was nothing to prevent Meriton's leaving us for a day or two. He had received word from some place on the coast of Asia Minor that a remarkable ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... nearly half of the period during which, according to the Horatian maxim, a work of art ought to lie ripening (a maxim, the truth of which may, by the way, be questioned altogether), Mr. Pen had not buried his novel for this time, in order that the work might improve, but because he did not know where else to bestow it, or had no particular desire to see it. A man who thinks of putting away a composition for ten years before he shall give it to the world, or exercise his own ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... declamation on the merits of HOMER, because a translator's praises of his author are liable to a suspicion of dotage, and because it were impossible to improve on those which this author has received already. He has been the wonder of all countries that his works have ever reached, even deified by the greatest names of antiquity, and in some places actually worshipped. And to say truth, were it possible that ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... higher levels than that occupied by the family of Jacques d'Arc. But the children at their mother's knee learned the Credo, they learned the simple universal prayers which are common to the wisest and simplest, which no great savant or poet could improve, and no child fail to understand: "Our Father, which art in Heaven," and that "Hail, Mary, full of grace," which the world in that day put next. These were the alphabet of life to the little Champagnards in their rough ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... a Benton bullionist; if you talked of credit, you were called a Whig banker, plotting to devour the poor; and the calmest phrases of science were turned into the shibboleths of an internecine warfare. A better hour has come, and let us improve it to our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... his mind's eye, he conceives another idea, namely, that of a new method of teaching in the elementary, secondary and high schools, upon which it will be unnecessary to improve for the next hundred years. He sets the faithful M. Hinzpeter to work, and compels him to toil night and day to prepare a complete programme in all haste—whereupon behold the Emperor holding forth to the collegians just as he ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... of their successes. She praises their good points; tells them they are doing well in this, that, and the other particular; and finally exhorts them, on the strength of having done so many things well, to improve in what is yet lacking. Mrs. Easy's husband feels that he is always a hero in her eyes, and her children feel that they are dear good children, notwithstanding Mrs. Easy sometimes has her little tiffs of displeasure, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Barnstaple, a pleasant town in the north part of Devonshire, well fortified, with a good garrison in it, under the command of Sir Allen Apsley.' The King sent orders to the Prince, who at this time was little more than fifteen years old, 'by the advice of his council, to manage and improve the business of the West, and provide reinforcements for the army.' The Prince's council had no easy task, for they were harassed by several causes. Lord Goring's jealousy and selfishness were a great hindrance; in consequence of a petition regarding the violence ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... stewardship. Their integrity has never been impugned by their bitterest enemies—the charges that have been brought forward reflect only upon their judgment. They are accused of lavishing untold sums upon idle pageantry and luxurious entertainments, while they have neglected to improve the great thoroughfares, to cleanse the river, and generally to embellish the metropolis and ameliorate the sanitary condition of its inhabitants. It is worth while to consider how much of truth ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... regrets. I got teachers for her in England,—the English are not anything like so disagreeable at home as they are in traveling, and we stayed there two years,—and I did in France, and I did in Germany. And now, Italian. Here we are in Italy, and I think we ought to improve the time. Florida knows a good deal of Italian already, for her music teacher in France was an Italian, and he taught her the language as well as music. What she wants now, I should say, is to perfect her accent and get facility. I think she ought to have some one ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... and poetical, its realization upon canvas, or upon paper, or in the living picture, tends to improve the mind, assimilates the real with the ideal, conforms taste to the noblest standard, overflows the heart with pure and holy thoughts, and adorns the exterior form with graces surpassing those of the Muses. The producing and forming of tableaux vivants have been the author's study for ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... that was in fullest bloom in the eighteenth century, presented a piebald map of the most different social conditions and legislative codes. While in the minority of the States efforts were made to improve the economic situation by promoting new industries, by making settlement easier and by changing the marriage laws in the direction of facilitating wedlock, the majority of the States and statelets remained true to their backward ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... generation be fit for what might be called long-range farming. He needs crops that turn his money over quickly. With that in sight, he works hard and faithfully. The Yankee, as a rule, welcomes him. He has the sagacity to see that his coming will improve economic conditions, now none too good. As shrewd traders, the two are well matched. The public school brings the children together on equal terms, levelling out any ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... than half a mark. One farthing was all that could be demanded for a mass for the dead, and the priest was bound to give change for a half-penny when requested or forego his fee.(645) Steps were taken at the same time to improve the morality of the city by ridding the streets of lewd women and licentious men. On the occasion of a first offence, culprits of either sex were subjected to the ignominy of having their hair cropt for future identification, and then conducted with rough music through ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... have amounted to a passion with others. Conjectural Criticism was evidently practised largely: and almost with as little felicity as when Bentley held the pen. Lastly, there can be no question that there was a certain school of Critics who considered themselves competent to improve the style of the Holy Ghost throughout. [And before the members of the Church had gained a familiar acquaintance with the words of the New Testament, blunders continually crept into the text of more or less heinous importance.] All this, which was chiefly done during the second ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... the water. It was a close shave, but once more we were safe; and the doctor, in the exuberance of his gratitude, said that night: "If William wants a glass eye I'll send to New York to get him one." But when William learned that the glass eye was a mere matter of looks and would in no wise improve his vision, he lost interest in it. Looks do not count for much amongst ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... that he cleared his inheritance from the free companies, so that Poitou and Limousin enjoyed far more prosperity and tranquillity than in the days of French ascendency. Such new taxation as Gascon custom allowed was only levied after grants from the three estates. Great pains were taken to improve the administration, the judicial system, and the coinage. Edward saw that his best policy was to rely upon the people of Gascony, and to look with suspicion on the great lords. But he did not understand how limited was the authority which tradition gave to the ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... improve my temper, so I went on, colder and calmer and deadlier than ever, just as if mother had ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the Parliament from assembling, and, after having said a word or two, he rose and went out, without listening to any address." [Memoires de Montglat, t. ii.] The sovereign courts had learned to improve upon the old maxim of Matthew Mole: "I am going to court; I shall tell the truth; after which the king must be obeyed." Not a tongue wagged, and obedience at length was rendered to Cardinal Mazarin as it had but ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... returned home, morning or evening, or on any other occasion which might happen to him, which he always did with concern and anxiety of heart. He always rejoiced at the proofs of God's [care] over him, and was sorry that he could not improve them, hoping and believing that God would yet give him what he still wanted and hungered after. I asked Illetie, who first told me all this, why they did not take him to some place where he could learn the language, and some handiwork, with reading and writing and the ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... by the use of machine tools specially designed to execute with the most unerring precision all the details of muskets and rifles, they were enabled to dispense with mere manual dexterity, and to produce arms to any amount. It was finally determined to improve the musketry and rifle systems of the English army. The Government resolved to introduce the American system, by which Arms might be produced much more perfectly, and at a great diminution of cost. It was ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... the hard lot, and improve the condition of the Fishermen, physically and mentally, by all practicable means, and meet many urgent needs for which, heretofore, there has been no provision, especially in supplying medicine and simple surgical appliances, books, mufflers, ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... the time till the prodigal came back—and he was almost certain to come back, for where could he go in Barbie?—he would pass the time by trying to improve the appearance of the house. He had spent money on his house till the last, and even now had the instinct to embellish it. Not that it mattered to him now; still he could carry out a small improvement ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... and, as the author aptly remarks, no modern tanner can to-day dissociate himself from the use of synthetic tannins for the production of leather in the true sense of this word. There is no branch of leather-making where synthetic tannins cannot help and improve processes already established. ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... which we passed this evening now in blume. there is much appearance of beaver and otter along these creeks. saw two deer at a distance; also observed many sandhill crains Curloos and other fowls common to the plains. the soil appears to improve as we advance on this road. our hunters killed a duck only. the three young men of the Wollahwollah nation continued with us. in the course of the day I observed them eat the inner part of the young and succulent stem of a large coarse plant with a ternate leaf, the leafets of which ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... encourage such ideas," remonstrated lady Feng, "how can this illness ever get all right? What you absolutely need is to cast away all these notions, and then you'll improve. I hear moreover that the doctor asserts that if no cure be effected, the fear is of a change for the worse in spring, and not till then. Did you and I moreover belong to a family that hadn't the means to afford any ginseng, it would be difficult to say how we could manage to get it; but were ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... taught the common branches of an English education; they have minds and those minds, ought to be improved. So precious a talent as intellect, never was given to be wrapt in a napkin and buried in the earth. It is the duty of all, as far as they can, to improve their own mental faculties, because we are commanded to love God with all our minds, as well as with all our hearts, and we commit a great sin, if we forbid or prevent that cultivation of the mind in others, which would enable them to perform ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... you to claim that man can improve the works of God as they appear in nature. Only the Creator can create. Man only imitates, destroys or ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... breed, with red legs and red spotted faces. Their coarse wool serves to make the ordinary cloth of the country, but is inapplicable to any of a finer texture. To remedy this deficiency, and, if possible, improve the local manufactures, some large flocks of Merino sheep were imported at the time when the French occupied Spain; and they are said to thrive. But it is only of late years that any attempts, have been made of the kind.—The Norman farmer, however careful about the breed of his horses, has altogether ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... Schank, who was looked upon as such an excellent First-Lieutenant, that even his best friends declared that it would be a pity to have him promoted. The Admiralty, however, sent him to look after a young lord in delicate health and indolent disposition, who required a cruise to improve the first, and a man who would do all his work for him, in order that he might indulge in ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... everything,' she said, with a sort of suppressed pride in her voice. 'Sometimes it is history, and oftener summing; he will have it that a man cannot have too much learning, and that he wants to improve himself; he is always fretting because he never had a chance when he was young, all along of his having to work when his poor father died, and so he is all for making up for lost time; sometimes Dr. Hamilton comes in and helps him with the Latin ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... first to last the art makes little progress. There seems to have been an arrest of development.[863] The early steps are taken, but at a certain point stagnation sets in; there is no further attempt to improve or advance; the artists are content to repeat themselves, and reproduce the patterns of the past. Perhaps there was no demand for ceramic art of a higher order. At any rate, progress ceases, and while Greece was rising ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... into the City as I proposed?" said Dalrymple, who felt that he might at any rate improve the position of circumstances by ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... and disgust. There was nothing commanding in his carriage, such as women love, and his manners were too reserved, too shy, to fascinate her sex apart from the halo of his fame. A return to health and vigour might improve him vastly, but nothing could ever make him a dashing romantic figure; and although sometimes a light came into his face that revealed the poet, commonly he betrayed not an inkling of his gifts. But even so he might be more worth while than any man she had met so far, ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... were we to proceed? We knew very well that a deliberately planned attempt to "read something" to Snarley was sure to fail. He would suspect that we were "interested in him" in the way he always resented, or that we wanted to improve his mind, which was also a thing he could not bear. Still, we might practice a little artful deception. We might meet him together by accident in the quarry, as we had done before; and Mrs. Abel, after due preliminaries and a little leading-on about ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... He had something to do which could only be done there. The doctors had owned that their skill could do nothing more for him. His cure, if he were to be cured, must be left to time. He would never improve in the dreary dullness of the place, and there were many reasons why he should be determined to go—reasons which would affect other folk as well as himself; go he must, and the sooner the better. He said ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... fraud, guilt, negligence, or want of respect from their dependants, look in here;—where they will see honesty, virtue, and reverence attend the execution of every command.—Flowers must be planted before they can take root.—Few, very few endeavour to improve an uncultivated soil, notwithstanding how great the advantage is to ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... he is a coarse brute who thinks he can break me in like one of the jades of Varenne. But he makes a great mistake; I will die rather than ever be his, unless he becomes civilized enough to marry me. But one might as well expect a miracle. I try to improve him, without daring to hope. However, whether he forces me to kill myself or to turn nun, whether he remains as he is or becomes worse, it will be none the less true that I love him. My dear abbe, you know that it must be costing me something to make this confession; and, when my affection ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... to the level of ranting. Many of these faults may, however, have been due to Miss Anderson's evident nervousness, and to the whirlwind of excitement in which she hurried through her task; and we shall be quite prepared to find her performance improve ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... my part. I have always considered that there was nothing so expensive as a vicious population. I hope I had other objects in view in what I have done than a pecuniary compensation. They say we all have our hobbies; and it was ever mine to improve the condition of my workpeople, to see what good tenements and good schools and just wages paid in a fair manner, and the encouragement of civilizing pursuits, would do to elevate their character. I should find an ample reward in the moral tone and material happiness of ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... general and upon the wisdom therein contained set him down for a profound scholar, and no small statesman. However, this I will say, and pledge my reputation on the truth of it, that if he be no scholar, but simply an unmitigated mixture of Jew and simpleton, it will rather improve than damage his prospects for the best foreign mission in the gift of the government. Do not mistake me, sir; for I would not say a damaging word of our excellent President, whose too great goodness of heart ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... is psychologically bad to approach Americanization work through a super-organized and much-trumpeted movement, because such a policy warns the foreigner in advance that a crowd of superior persons have set out to improve him. That is generally resented. The fact is that hardly a thing has been proposed as desirable in an Americanization program that is not the duty or function of some existing institution of our ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... Secondly, in throwing the cohorts on the enemy's rear. Thirdly, in ordering the second legion, when all the rest were disordered by the eagerness of their pursuit, to advance at a full pace to the gate of the camp, in compact and regular order under their standards. He delayed not to improve his victory; but having sounded a retreat, and brought back his men laden with spoil, he allowed them a few hours of the night for rest; and then led them out to ravage the country. They spread their depredations the wider, as the enemy were dispersed in their flight; and this circumstance, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... her neighbors came together and tore them in pieces before her eyes. She bore it meekly, and only prayed for them. She expected fresh insults because of our visit, but prayed that nothing might separate her from the love of Christ. Long before day, she again sought to improve every moment for Christian conversation. We tried to comfort her: and her eyes filled with tears of gratitude. She received a copy of the Gospels with joy. When we left, she followed us, lonely and sad, to the river side. I opened her ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... own. Their name of Normandy still clings to the new home; but all else that was Norse disappeared as the conquerors intermarried with the native Franks and accepted French ideals and spoke the French language. So rapidly did they adopt and improve the Roman civilization of the natives that, from a rude tribe of heathen Vikings, they had developed within a single century into the most polished and intellectual people in all Europe. The union of Norse and French (i.e. Roman-Gallic) blood had here produced a race having the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... crying bitterly. These tears did the poor child good, relieving the pressure on her brain, and enabling her to think calmly and coherently. While this tempest of grief, however, effected these good results, it certainly did not improve her powers of observation; the fast-flowing tears blinded her eyes, and she stumbled along, completely forgetting the dangerous and uneven character of the ground over which ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... judged of importance enough to afford a reasonable chance of selling again; and by supplying reviews and occasional original articles to the periodicals, the Monthly, the New Monthly, Metropolitan, etc. My health continued to improve, probably in consequence of my indulging in higher living, and taking much more exercise than I had done for two or three years; as I had no need of buying books, having the use of at least five hundred thousand volumes in the Museum. I was at last fortunate enough to obtain ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... one of the short night bombardments of the south coast by German destroyers, some German star shell, unexploded, reached the shore. Directions were at once given to copy these shell and not to waste time by trying to improve upon them, a procedure dear to technical minds but fatal when time is of the first importance. Success was soon attained, and star shell were issued during 1917 to all our ships, the vessels of the Dover and Harwich patrol force ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... exactions, ran away with her two children and Lantier, whose mother was dead. The lovers took refuge in Paris. Antoine, overwhelmed, vented his rage against his daughter by expressing the hope that she might die in hospital like most of her kind. This abuse did not, however, improve the situation, which was decidedly becoming bad. Jean soon followed his sister's example. He waited for pay-day to come round, and then contrived to receive the money himself. As he was leaving he told one of his ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... all the great surrounding space that once was thick forest, fair orchards, gardens, fields, and pastoral rivulet. The Neperan or Saw Mill River flows, sluggish and scummy, under streets and houses. A visit to the manor-house, now, would spoil rather than improve one's impression of what the place looked like in the old days. Yet the house itself remains well preserved, for which all honor to the town of Yonkers. There is in our spacious America so much room for the present and the future, that a little ought ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the possession of Mr. E.G. Squier. By him it was first published, but in a partial and incomplete manner, much of the original text and many of the mnemonic symbols being omitted, and no effort being made to improve Rafinesque's translation.[16] ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... signifies gloomy surroundings will be cleared away by your energetic overthrow of poverty. For a woman, this dream denotes an increase in her possessions, unless she loses or throws them away, then it might imply a disregard of opportunities to improve her condition. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... this opportunity to survey other sections of the boat. I followed him eagerly up the ladder, and ten minutes later was busily employed with scrubbing brush, and a bucket of water, in an endeavor to improve the outward appearance of the paint of the upper deck. Nothing occurred about me for some time, the passengers being at dinner in the main cabin. I could hear the rattle of dishes, together with a murmur of conversation, and even found a partially opened skylight ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... clay country in autumn or early winter you will find some of the fields dotted with white heaps of chalk or lime, and you will be told that these things "improve" the soil. We will make a few experiments to find out what lime does to clay. Put some clay on to a perforated tin disk in a funnel just as you did on p. 14, press it down so that no water can pass through. ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... natural degrees, that he found himself by and by, not a little to his satisfaction, in the relation to her of a pupil to a teacher. Hester in truth gave herself a good deal of trouble with him, in the endeavor, by no means an unsuccessful one, to improve the quality of his singing—his style, his expression, and even his way of modeling his tones. The relation between them became therefore one which, had it then lasted, might have soon led to something like genuine intimacy—at least to some truer notion on the part of each of the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... horses. A man makes himself feared, or loved, or respected. Now that is what I wanted to whisper in your ear—Good-morning, gentlemen," he said to Mignonnet and Carpentier, who came up at the moment; "I am taking my uncle for a walk, as you see, and trying to improve him; for we are in an age when children are obliged to educate ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... instances of their mismanagement, that Mrs Betsey Prig was a fair specimen of a Hospital Nurse; and that the Hospitals, with their means and funds, should have left it to private humanity and enterprise, to enter on an attempt to improve that class of persons—since, greatly improved through the agency of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the black outline of the forest was undistinguishable. As nothing could be seen, the sentry gave over his pacing, and, leaning against the foremast, devoted himself to listening. He even closed his eyes to improve his hearing, and so stood halt musing, half dreaming of his distant English home, until, suddenly from out of the blackness, there rang a shout of warning. It was instantly followed by another, and a confused tumult on the water ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... hour, is certain to reach a point at which it is unprofitable to go farther. However greatly he may need more goods, he will not need them as much as he needs rest and change. It may be that he has worked twelve hours, and that, by working longer, he can improve his wardrobe, his food, or his furnishings; but if he has a tolerable supply of such things, he will hardly choose to add to it by staying in the shop when his strength has been exhausted and he is eager ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... her so big and him so puny! She'd ought to lift him off the earth with one arm and lam him with a baste or two with the other, and he'd improve." ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... there by a stableman at unfashionable hours. So he proposed a compromise. If I would only consent to mount him, he engaged to treat me with forbearance, and pointed out that he could give me, as he expressed it, various 'tips' which would improve my seat. I was not blind to the advantages of such an arrangement. It is not every one who secures a riding-master in the person of his own horse; the horse is essentially a generous animal, and I felt that I might trust to Brutus's honour. ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... then the whole annual produce of Scotland. Other furnaces were shortly after erected on improved plans, and the production steadily increased. Dr. Roebuck was indefatigable in his endeavours to improve the manufacture, and he was one of the first, as we have said, to revive the use of pit-coal in refining the ore, as appears from his patent of 1762. He there describes his new process as follows:—"I melt pig or any kind of cast-iron in a hearth heated with pit-coal by the ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... when the Duke of Choiseul had been forced to sign that humiliating peace, he had never relaxed in his efforts to improve the French navy. In the course of ministerial alternations, frequently unfortunate for the work in hand, it had nevertheless been continued by his successors. A numerous fleet was preparing at Brest; it left the port on the 3d of July, under the orders of Count d'Orvilliers. It numbered ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... curiosities of the study how to improve the condition of women, that the most eccentric plans have originated with their own sex. The deportation of girls from England to Australia and other colonies, where the majority of settlers are single men, is patronized and presided over by ladies. It ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... saddened me; but the information I have received is not the less precious on that account. It is long, long ago, Mr. Bygrave, since I have heard myself addressed in the language of science. My dear husband made me his companion—my dear husband improved my mind as you have been trying to improve it. Nobody has taken pains with my intellect since. Many thanks, sir. Your kind consideration for me is not ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... oftenest prescribed, to the glory of her sex, who by patience, humanity and observation have invented without the help of Galen and Hippocrates an infinity of reliefs for the sick which their adherents can neither improve nor disapprove. She makes her final point on the question of moral superiority. It is sometimes stated "that some women have been more flagitious than any men, but that in nowise redounds to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... was direct and simple. Trudschen had gone out with the Corporal Fritz for a short walk, and had asked him to "keep house" during their absence. He had no books, no papers, nothing to read in the barracks, and no chance to improve his mind. He thought the Herr Consul would not object to his looking at his books. The consul was touched; it was really a trivial indiscretion and as much Trudschen's fault as Karl's! And if the poor fellow had any mind to ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... toxins produced spread through the blood and cause headache and fever, even before any experience of sore throat is felt. The temperature rises very high, the child begins to vomit, and the pulse becomes weak, and after about seven days a large percentage of these throat cases begin to improve. The membrane breaks off, the fever declines, and the child begins to recover. If the localized attack is in the larynx, a harsh cough is one of the symptoms, and this is soon followed by ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... very true," said Mr. Barlow; "but as that is the case, it is necessary to improve ourselves in every manner, that we may be able ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... you have, Kathleen, for a winter day. It strikes me you should take a dose of your own medicine." Inspecting her keenly. "Late hours do not improve your ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... to thee my voice I raise, To thee my youngest hours belong; I would begin my life with praise, Till growing years improve the song. ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts
... service as I used to do in old days. Do not suppose that I claim to have made any grand political invention, but I think that I have at least labelled my own thoughts. I suppose what we all desire is to improve the condition of the people by whom we are employed, and to advance our country, or at any rate to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... conquerors, sire," said Herzberg, smiling, "who drain the mental swamps, and improve the waste mental ground. Such are those who increase the schools and instruct the people. I have caused the school authorities to report to me, according to your majesty's command. A happy progress has been ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... effect to this agreement. The utmost exertions were used to improve the manufactures of the country; and the fair sex, laying aside the late fashionable ornaments of England, exulted, with patriotic pride, in appearing dressed in the produce of their own looms. Committees chosen by the people superintended ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... determined to try the experiment of wintering Southern cattle in the Montana country in order to harden them and improve the quality of ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... were in office or in the service of the governors. He formed large engineering plans, a plan to drain the Pontine marches and the Fucine lake, a plan to form a new channel for the Tiber, another to improve the roads, another to cut the Isthmus of Corinth. These were his employments during the few months of life which were left to him after the close of the war. His health was growing visibly weaker, but his superhuman energy remained unimpaired. He was even meditating ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... tend a garden or a field, sowing, planting, eradicating, and the growths of flower or fruit improve in proportion to your care; but leave it to itself and the weeds choke it, and the very fruit degenerates; your rose becomes a dog-rose—it reverts, as men say, to ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... we needn't talk any longer. I don't believe your story, and there's an end of it. The fact of your borrowing was utterly disgraceful; it shows me that the poor boy had fallen in a trap, instead of meeting with a friend who was likely to guide and improve him. You confess yourself a gambler, and I go away with the conviction that you are ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... the very spot where Sophia unhappily dropt the pocket-book, and where the fellow had as happily found it. Here Jones offered to take leave of his guide, and to improve his pace; but the fellow, in whom that violent surprize and joy which the first receipt of the guinea had occasioned was now considerably abated, and who had now had sufficient time to recollect himself, put on a discontented look, and, scratching his head, said, "He hoped his worship ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... world. And equally remarkable was the fact that when all danger was over all of the mothers and the children of the catastrophe were reported to have withstood the untoward conditions and continued to improve and grow strong as if the conditions which surrounded them had been normal. This, undoubtedly, was in great part due to the care and kindness of the physicians and surgeons in the camps whose efforts were untiring and self-sacrificing for all who had been so suddenly ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... sphere, and Mr. Randolph moreover, she knew, would back him; so Mrs. Randolph held her peace, though displeased. Nay, she entered into a little conversation with the doctor on other subjects, as lively as the day would admit, before she departed. Preston, stayed behind, partly to improve his knowledge ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... of Colline's produced a reaction in favor of Carolus. The philosopher wished to improve the effect of his ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... contented with his lot. He knows his life is uncertain, and although he has no real faith or well grounded hope beyond the present state of existence, yet the thought gives him neither anxiety nor concern. His only object is to do good; to enjoy life while it lasts, to cultivate and improve human nature for the benefit of posterity; to bear the evils and misfortunes of life with fortitude, and to be unfeignedly thankful for all the happiness of which he is made susceptible. Therefore whether ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... anointing his front door with pitch to keep out the ghosts. Very wisely he left the Anthesteria and the kindred festival "in the fields" where and as they were. But for his own purposes he wanted to do honour to Dionysos, and also above all things to enlarge and improve the rites done in the god's honour, so, leaving the old sanctuary to its fate, he built a new temple on the south side of the Acropolis where the present theatre now stands, and consecrated to the god a new and ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... might be able to cover the distance to the coast before our provisions gave out; for if we were doing well under almost the worst conditions that could possibly befall us, what might we not do when those conditions improved? And they certainly did improve as the afternoon wore on, for the wind eventually dropped sufficiently to permit us to shake out our reefs and sail the boat under whole canvas, while with the moderating of the wind the sea also went down and ceased to break, although the swell still ran very high. But it was only the ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... produced abundant harvests. When Catalogne visited Longueuil in 1712 he noted that the habitants were living in comfortable circumstances, by reason of the large expenditures which the seigneur had made to improve the land and the means of communication. Whatever Charles Le Moyne could gather together was not spent in riotous living, as was the case with so many of his contemporaries, but was invested in productive improvements. That is the way in which he became ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... understand myself," said Dan simply. "I only know it is true. So don't get low, Darsie, and don't be discouraged. You're in a class by yourself, and all the honours in the world couldn't improve you. And now that's over, and ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the same reason that a certain attention to dress is expected of every gentleman.' After all, what are the chief differentiae between man and the brute creation but that he clothes himself, that he cooks his food, that he uses articulate speech? Let us cherish and improve all these distinctions. ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... offerings were first made to the god Frey for a fruitful year. In olden times one of the favorite gifts received from tenants was an orange stuck with cloves which the master was to hang in his wine vessels to improve the flavor of the wine and ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... are alike indiscriminately mixed up in their ranks, and it is no uncommon sight to see a Malay sergeant in command of a European guard. Their uniform did not tend to improve their personal appearance, consisting as it did of a thick blue cloth-tunic, with long skirts, a French kepi, blue trousers, and bare feet. Considering this absurd dress, it is not to be wondered at that sunstroke is frequent among the European privates, ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... the hope of his getting better. If he don't improve in a day or two he can be left in some other town, for it's certain his life isn't safe in this place. Those fellows hit to kill last night, and on a second attempt ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... wept; she also lifted up her petticoat and showed me a scratch on her knee that an English baby would not have cried for. Sometimes women would come and ask me for medicine to make them young again, others wished me to improve their complexions, and many wanted me to make them like Sarai of old. I gently reminded them of their ages, and said that I thought that at such a time of life no medicines or doctors could avail. "My age!" screamed ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... is the direct route to the Gironde; where, from Mortagne, another steam-boat, in communication with the Charente, conveys passengers to Bordeaux. Since the establishment of these boats a great change has been operated in Saintes, and probably its condition will now improve. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... slightest resistance nor utter a word. Of course it wouldn't do for him to make any noise about it, and I dare say he was glad to get off so easily.' With affected nonchalance: 'I'm pretty badly rumpled, I see. He fell against me, and a scuffle like that doesn't improve one's appearance.' ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... ears the hateful clank of their chains, they would, in time, learn to think of Vesey and to turn, perhaps, to him for leadership and deliverance. Brooding over their lot as Vesey had revealed it to them, they might move of themselves to improve or end it altogether, by adopting some such bold plan as Vesey's. Meantime he would continue to wait and prepare for that moment, while they would be training in habits of deceit, of deep dissimulation, ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... depths; as for icebergs, well, you may see green, brown, and even deep-grey ice, whilst the whitest have pinnacles and crags that must break the light like prisms into all the colours of the spectrum, and all these hues, again, do not fail to tint the snow. Nor will the white bear improve the situation, for, to judge by the specimen in our London Zoological Gardens, white bears are dirty yellow, just as black bears are ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... be a banishment," she said. "A prince's duty could be set him, and in such an absence he would improve his knowledge both of Ireland and of men. Further," she continued with downcast eyes, "when you remember the reason that brought me here you will see that his presence would be an embarrassment to us both, and my presence would be unpleasant to him ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... come, and fine weather, yet Micheline's health did not improve. She did not suffer, but a sort of languor had come over her. For days she never quitted her reclining-chair. She was very affectionate toward her mother, and seemed to be making up for the lack of affection shown during the first ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... do, I think," said Juliet at length, with a long breath. "The green for the living-room and for the bit of a hall—No, no, Tony; I've just thought! You must take away that little partition and let the stairs go up out of the living-room. That will improve the apparent size of ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... urged.—I think it is not meet, Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar, Should outlive Caesar: we shall find of him A shrewd contriver; and you know his means, If he improve them, may well stretch so far As to annoy us all: which to prevent, Let Antony and ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... I hope it's not what Fred Jenkins would call a 'squall brewin' up,' for that wouldn't improve the crops." ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... influence of the old feudal Conservative party, which frowned on the slightest change. On the other, were the Socialists, who aimed at the destruction of every existing institution—in whose estimation property even was not sacred, nor life itself. It was necessary, meanwhile, to improve the condition of the people, and, in doing so, to guard against anarchy. By wise and well-considered reforms only could the growth and advance of revolution be discouraged and stayed, whilst a political system, almost entirely new, came to be firmly established. For this purpose, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... I dare say if you try again you will improve upon your first attempt. All people should learn to draw, that they may be able to describe a form in a very few lines, making things intelligible at sight which could not be described in any other way. A little knowledge of drawing will lead ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... effort in the fashion in which others and yourselves run for the corruptible, your whole lives would be changed. Why! if Christian people in general really took half—half? ay! a tenth part of—the honest, persistent pains to improve their Christian character, and become more like Jesus Christ, which a violinist will take to master his instrument, there would be a new life for most of our Christian communities. Hours and hours of patient practice are not too much for the one; how many moments ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... allied to "sporting branches," or bud-variations. Again, we have the case of young fruit-trees changing their character as they grow old; seedling pears, for instance, lose with age their spines and improve in the flavour of their fruit. Weeping birch-trees, when grafted on the common variety, do not acquire a perfect pendulous habit until they grow old: on the other hand, I shall hereafter give the case of some weeping ashes which slowly and gradually ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... in the past over which we would willingly draw the veil, but at the present moment I firmly believe that the planters of Behar—and I speak as an observant student of what has been going on in India—have done more to elevate the peasantry, to rouse them into vitality, and to improve them in every way, than all the other agencies that have been at work with the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the Councillors, made a speech,—such as the king of Prussia intrenched himself in on a similar occasion, only much better and shorter,—implying that he meant only to improve, not to reform, and should keep things in statu quo, safe locked with the keys of St. Peter. This little speech was made, no doubt, more to reassure czars, emperors, and kings, than from the promptings of the spirit. But the fact of its necessity, as well as the inferior freedom and ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to be more active and energetic in all efforts to improve the condition of his work-people, to raise the fallen, to reclaim the sinful, to set a better example and raise a higher standard of moral excellence, that the human temples over whom he had influence might be ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... the days of transportation of criminals. He was permitted to try as an experiment a "system of marks," whereby a prisoner, by his good conduct and industry, could materially lessen the duration of his punishment, and, to a certain extent improve his dietary. The experiment, though only tried with prisoners under sixteen, proved very successful, and at one time hopes were entertained that the system would become general in all the gaols of the kingdom. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... chattel, but possessed far less intelligence than the generality of passengers. He was not too old, however, to improve. The fact that he had spirit enough to resent the harsh treatment of one Albert Lewis, a small farmer, who claimed to own him, showed that he was by no means a hopeless case. With all his apparent ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... going began by degrees to right themselves; it looked as if things would improve in proportion to our distance from land. Finally, both became perfect; the sun shone from a cloudless sky, and the sledges ran on the fine, even surface with all the ease and speed that could be desired. Bjaaland, who had occupied the position of forerunner all the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... and down dale; although little Scops would gladly go somewhere else if he could, and takes no notice of Cocky's uncivil bawlings further than to lift his near wing apprehensively at each outburst. He and I have not been able to improve our acquaintance greatly, partly because he is out of reach, and partly because Cocky's conversation occupies ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... peculiar regard for that people, whom he was one day to consider as his own. He pointed out the country which he designed for them; he caused it to be possessed by another laborious nation, who applied themselves to cultivate and adorn it; and to improve the future inheritance of the Israelites. He then fixed, in that country, the like number of families, as were to be settled in it, when the sons of Israel should, at the appointed time, take possession of it; and did not suffer any of the nations, which were not subject ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... around them. As you know, sir, we carry a binnacle, and the lamp in it was alight and gave out just enough haze for us to see each other in. We all lay in a lump together for warmth, and a fine show we made, I dare say; for a cork jacket, even when a man stands upright, isn't calculated to improve his figure, and as we all of us had cork jackets on and oil-skins, and many of us sea boots, you may guess what a raffle of legs and arms we showed, and what a rum heap of odds and ends we looked, as we sprawled in the bottom of the boat upon one another. Sometimes it would be Johnny Goldsmith—for ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... her bed for two or three days, and then seemed to have completely recovered but for a slight internal disturbance, brought on by the concussion, and which did not improve. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... added moral instructions, and training in industries and in habits of industry. Only by such rudimentary and industrial training can the mass of the negro race in the United States be expected to improve in character and position. A top-dressing of culture on a field with no depth of soil may for a moment stimulate the promise of vegetation, but no fruit will be produced. It is a gigantic task, and generations may elapse before it can in any degree ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... black-eyed beauty, of great intelligence, who earned a little money, to support the family, by means of her needle. She was a great comfort to her mother, seldom going out, and felt much annoyed by the strange character of her brother, whom she often endeavoured to improve, with a view to his following some trade. He was twenty years of age, and if he did not "tak' himself up" now, she said, "he would be a vagrant a' his days." Geordie, on the other hand, quietly heard his sister, but he never saw—at least, he pretended not ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... day nor the next. It remained, indeed, a sight to make a good housekeeper weep, and closets, cupboards, clothes-presses, and the celebrated servants' parlor remained untidy conglomerations of rubbish; but the general appearance of the place continued to improve. Kate's gratitude for the regular receipt of her wages was continual and practical. A chance visitor now could enter any room in the front of the house at any hour, and there was much comment among the people upon ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... in disguise. Cecilia? Which one is that? Oh, the one her sisters call Sissy! She needs disciplining sadly, Mr. Madigan, sadly. Much as he loves me, my father, the Prince, would not care to have me know her—as she is now. But she will improve, if you will be very, very strict with her. Good-by! Good-by, all! No, I shall not forget you. Be good and obey your ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... thy care bounds these, so thy rich love Doth broach the earth; and lesser brooks lets forth, Which run from hills to valleys, and improve Their ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... activity. It exacts a study of the wants, comforts, and even the whims of the people, and recognizes the efficacy of high quality and low prices to win their favor. The quest for trade is an incentive to men of business to devise, invent, improve and economize in the cost of production. Business life, whether among ourselves, or with other peoples, is ever a sharp struggle for success. It will be none the less in ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... my learned allusion?) Hail to its belly, If it had e'er A such loveliest oasis-belly As this is: though however I doubt about it, —With this come I out of Old-Europe, That doubt'th more eagerly than doth any Elderly married woman. May the Lord improve it! Amen! ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... he was by his wife, and even by his youngest children, he, found himself beginning to improve. In the mornings and evenings he cultivated his garden and his rood of potato-ground. He also collected with a wheelbarrow, which he borrowed, from an acquaintance, compost from the neighboring road; scoured an old drain before ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... clash of steel was about it, and the rain descended in torrents upon the level prairies. At about three o'clock in the morning the storm seemed to lull a little. My companion crept out from underneath the cart; I followed. The plug, who had managed to improve the occasion by stuffing himself with grass, was soon in the shafts again, and just as dawn began to streak the dense low-lying clouds towards the east we were once more in motion. Still for a couple of hours more the rain came ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... invitation and other business, which the Brahman is willing to do for a consideration, so long as he does not have to enter their houses. Some of the impure castes eat beef, while others have abandoned it in order to improve their social position. At the other end of the scale are many well-educated Hindu gentlemen who have no objection to eat beef and may often have done so in England, though in India they may abstain out of deference to the prejudices of their relatives, especially the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... that the lassies, who had been at Nanse Banks's school, were always well spoken of, both for their civility, and the trigness of their houses when they were afterwards married. In short, I do not know, that in all the long epoch of my ministry, any individual body did more to improve the ways of the parishioners, in their domestic concerns, than did that worthy and innocent creature, Nanse Banks, the schoolmistress; and she was a great loss when she was removed, as it is to be hoped, to a better world; but anent this ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... that of which we all are thinking in these days is war between civilized men. One civilized man cannot improve another civilized man by killing him, although it is not inconceivable that a civilized man may do humanity a service by destroying human savages, for with the savages he must ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... efficient. On the other hand, the home worker will work for a smaller wage per hour. Where large quantities of nuts are available, commercial cracking by machine methods will be increasingly used in the future, especially if economic conditions so far improve that people will no longer work for starvation wages. Point is given to this observation by the fact that local buyers paid from 8 to 15c for country-produced kernels last season, while my bare cost, without overhead or profit, was 20c ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... desire to descend into this pit, but dared not venture for fear of the foul and deadly air that might have to be encountered below. Such things as matches, of course, we had not, nor any fire whatever. I therefore delayed the experiment for several days, with the expectation that the air would improve considerably in that time. Then, by bracing my hands and feet against the sides, I descended slowly, and found the air good enough to breathe freely, which emboldened me to go to the bottom. There was just light ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... would not laugh. She had become so much interested in Wonota by this time that she wished her to improve her opportunities and learn the ways—the better ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... there appeared the adorable Venus, Who said, "To be sure there's no likeness between us; Yet to show a celestial to kindness so prone is, Your looks shall soon rival the handsome Adonis." Liston woke in a fright, and cried, "Heaven preserve me! If my face you improve, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... considerations applied. As we were already well down the forward slopes of the ridge on his front, it was for the time being inadvisable to make any serious advance. Pending developments elsewhere all that was necessary or indeed desirable was to carry on local operations to improve our positions and to keep ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... and it is, if you kept your two questions properly tabulated. You see I am straining for mental stuff. I want to improve the old condition of forgetfulness. That was what knocked friend Virgil, or was it Cicero? I loved the stories and forgot the period. But I am finished for this evening, dear, and you know we have some initiation ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... the shape of a beau: That grandson of Atlas came down from above To bless all the regions of pleasure and love; To lead the fair nymph thro' the various maze, Bright beauty to marshal, his glory and praise; To govern, improve, and adorn the gay scene, By the Graces instructed, and Cyprian queen: As when in a garden delightful and gay, Where Flora is wont all her charms to display, The sweet hyacinthus with pleasure we view, Contend with narcissus in delicate hue; The gard'ner, industrious, trims ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the puny race of mankind that was destined to follow them. I am a tall man and gifted with a considerable length of understanding but the strides I was obliged to take—sometimes almost bounds—if calculated to improve my muscles, were certainly very trying to my wind. However all things have an end, and so had that long flight of steps, and at the summit I had leisure to recover my breath and enjoy the magnificent ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... with a sense of security and for ensuring them in the enjoyment of what they possess, and always do what is agreeable to them. The king, O Bharata, should always act in such a way towards the Vaisyas that their productive powers may be enhanced. The Vaisyas increase the strength of a kingdom, improve its agriculture, and develop its trade. A wise king, therefore, should always gratify them. Acting with heedfulness and leniency, he should levy mild imposts upon them. It is always easy to behave with goodness towards the Vaisyas. There is nothing productive ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... established themselves in 1868. They did not go there merely as ascetics fleeing from the world, but also as philanthropists, prepared to sacrifice their lives for the good of humanity. Their mission was to drain and to cultivate this most unhealthy part of the Double, and to improve the condition of the peasants who eked out a miserable existence there. With what success the monks have applied themselves to their task of changing the climate by drainage, and assisting the peasants in their struggle, is proved ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the only safe mode of spending their time on earth was reading such blessed works as that which he had just published, and going daily to prayer-meetings. When, however, a Sunday or two before, he had the assurance to preach a funeral sermon, to "improve the death"—such being his impressive phrase—of a Miss Snooks, (who had kept a circulating library in the neighborhood, but had not been a member of his congregation;) and who, having been to the theatre on the Thursday ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... on Grand River above Moab. Photograph by R. G. Leonard. His experience on this river ran through a period of some 20 years from about 1892. He died in the autumn of 1913. Every year he built one or more boats trying to improve on each. The Stone model (see cut, page 129) was the final outcome. The usual high-water mark at Bright Angel Trail is 45 feet higher than the usual low-water mark. Stanton measured the greatest declivity in Cataract Canyon and found ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... that the exercise of hunting in moderation was very good for the Emperor's health; for I never saw him in better condition than during the very time the English journals took pleasure in describing him as ill, and perhaps by these false statements were contributing to still further improve his health. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... subject, let us add (and our young readers will come to know it if they are spared to see many years) that civilization alone will never improve the heart. Let history speak, and it will tell you that deeds of darkest hue have been perpetrated in so-called civilized though pagan lands. Civilization is like the polish that beautifies inferior furniture, which water will wash off ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is attended in another by a correspondent evil, that often exceeds the advantage gained. That we have made vast improvements in art and science, and in every department of human affairs, no one will deny; consequently, it is assumed we must correspondingly improve in a bee-hive; forgetting that nature has fixed limits to the instinct of the bee, beyond which ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... 1. Said when the correct response is too complicated to enunciate, or the speaker has not thought it out. Often prefaces a longer answer, or indicates a general reluctance to get into a long discussion. "Don't you think that we could improve LISP performance by using a hybrid reference-count transaction garbage collector, if the cache is big enough and there are some extra cache bits for the microcode to use?" "Well, mumble ... I'll have to think about it." 2. [MIT] ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... social and juridical discriminations contained in our codes will not be eliminated in a radical manner and the condition of woman will not improve while man alone legislates and controls all the spheres of public life, dictating to woman what she must do and what she must not do; and woman will be incompetent to take care of her own interests and shape ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... 1877) a resolution, which put on record my opinions, and stated that the House regretted the failure of the policy of the Government either to improve the position of Christian subjects of the Porte or to avert war. It also regretted their unwillingness to co-operate with any other ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... once badly overgrazed can be restored to their former value but slowly or not at all. The obvious and certain remedy is for the Government to hold and control the public range until it can pass into the hands of settlers who will make their homes upon it. As methods of agriculture improve and new dry-land crops are introduced, vast areas once considered unavailable for cultivation are being made into prosperous homes; and this-movement has ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... spurn Hymen's gentle powers, We, who improve his golden hours, By sweet experience know That marriage, rightly understood, Gives to the tender and the good ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... such private persons as should emigrate at their own expense, they were allowed as much land as they could properly improve, upon ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... we travelled for some leagues on the sea-shore, crossing occasionally a narrow inlet or firth. The country at last began to improve, and in the neighbourhood of Santillana was both beautiful and fertile. About a league before we reached the country of Gil Blas, we passed through an extensive wood, in which were rocks and precipices; ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... always by individualistic principles, and not to serve the good of all, but by each person for his own, or her own, ends. How can order come out of such a way of life? Do you think you are going to improve things in the old selfish ways. I tell you the result can be nothing but a further failure of vision. The mountain heights become obscured by the mists going up from the damp valleys, and the ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... point of view of one who has been blind from early infancy, whose fingers are his eyes, and whose mental vision enables him to see many things not revealed by physical sight. A blind man once said, when asked if he would not be glad to have his eyesight, "to improve the organs I have, would be as good as to give me that which is wanting in me." This sentence sums up the whole aim of blind education. Dr. Eichholtz, a noted educator of the blind, says: "Education of the blind absolutely fails in its object, in so far as it fails to develop the ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... solid slate which it is difficult to split into laminae, and it is not until a depth of at least fifteen feet is reached that we find a material that is fit to be exploited. All the best beds of slate, in fact, improve in quality in proportion as they lie deeper under the surface, near to which they have little value. Without entering into details as to the exploitation of this product, let us say that the blocks have to be divided in the quarry, since, in the open air, they rapidly lose the property of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... sportsman is always a cheerful loser, a quiet winner, with a very frank appreciation of the admirable traits in others, which he seeks to emulate, and his own shortcomings, which he tries to improve. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... public enterprises (a thing to be hereafter studied), we, the ungracious offspring of her youth, come from our North and West and censure and criticise and carp. I have seldom conversed with any fellow-visitor in Rome who could not improve her in some phase or other, who could not usefully advise her, who, at the best, did not patronize her. I offer myself as almost the sole example of a stranger who was contented with her as she is, or as she ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... been influenced by that of governments, and that some, once the most cultivated, have sunk into barbarism, while others, formerly the rudest, have attained the highest point of civilisation, we shall see no reason to doubt that if we pursue steadily the proper measures, we shall in time so far improve the character of our Indian subjects as to enable them to govern ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... there on Main Street! They got the feed store all fixed up, and a new sign on it, black and gold. That'll improve the appearance of ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... men commenced to improve in looks and health. Uncle Kit had them to exercise some every day, and in a short time we were on the road for the Pacific Coast. We had no trouble until we crossed the Main Divide of the Rocky Mountains. It was on a stream called the "Blue," ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... studied it enough; let me turn to my communion with God; to the calm, dear recollections of my family and my true friends. I will read my Bible oftener than I have done, I will again write down my thoughts, will try to raise and improve them, and taste the pleasure of a sorrow at least innocent; a thousand fold to be preferred to vulgar and ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... shall indeed owe you much if you can remove that reluctance on the part of my betrothed bride, which alone clouds my happiness, and which would at once put an end to my suit, did I not ascribe it to an imperfect knowledge of myself, which I shall devote my life to improve into confidence ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but I think no division or brigade. The determination seems to be to hold Richmond as long as possible. I have a force sufficient to leave enough to hold our lines (all that is necessary of them), and move out with plenty to whip his whole army. But the roads are entirely impassable. Until they improve, I shall content myself with watching Lee, and be prepared to pitch into him if he attempts to evacuate the place. I may bring Sheridan over—think I will —and break up the Danville and Southside Railroads. These are the last avenues ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... embarked in. The extent of his natural endowments might have served, with a less eager character, as an excuse for long periods of indolence, broken only by fits of casual exertion: with him it was but a new incitement to improve and develop them. The Ideal Man that lay within him, the image of himself as he should be, was formed upon a strict and curious standard; and to reach this constantly approached and constantly receding emblem of perfection, was the unwearied effort of his life. This crowning ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... connected the western part of the State with the Tidewater. The proceeds of bond issues floated to promote internal improvements in the State had not been used to effect commercial ties between the two sections of the State, nor had any considerable portion thereof been used to improve the western districts. On the other hand, the interest of the people at the foot hills of the Piedmont had become more definitely aligned with those of the other eastern sections of the State. The chief grievance ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... elderly professors to improve their skill in the peace and war of love. But they drove ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... they must also sound forth their ignorance, or there would have been none in improving them. If the Britons were that wretched people they are represented by the Romans, they could not be worth conquering: no man subdues a people to improve them, but to profit by them. Though the Romans at that time were in their meridian of splendor, they pursued Britain a whole century before they reduced it; which indicates that they considered it as a valuable prize. Though the Britons were not masters of science, like the Romans; ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... redness of the nose, and pimples in various places, is the common result of too much rich food, not to speak of alcoholic drink, which is always most injurious to the face skin. The use of corsets is another fertile source of this trouble, and many in their desire to improve their figure ruin their faces. Plain, easily digested food is to be taken. Tea must only be used at most twice in the day, and should be exceedingly weak. Half-a-teacupful of hot water should be taken before every meal, and everything possible done to promote digestion. ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... Juan bade his valet pack his things According to direction, then received A lecture and some money: for four springs He was to travel; and though Inez grieved (As every kind of parting has its stings), She hoped he would improve—perhaps believed: A letter, too, she gave (he never read it) Of good advice—and two ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... shooting in Sweden, became painful; the treatment adopted by the doctor, bleeding and iodine, seems to have made him worse. At the beginning of July, 1860, he returned on leave to Berlin; there he was laid up for ten days; his wife was summoned and under her care he began to improve. August he spent at Wiesbaden and Nauheim, taking the waters, the greater part of the autumn in Berlin; in October he had to go Warsaw officially to receive and accompany the Czar, who came to Breslau for an interview with ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... good," I said, smiling; "but there are exceptions which prove the rule, and I hope you will find that even I will improve upon acquaintance." ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... He will have them labour. He will make them try their strength, and use their strength, and improve their strength of soul and body. By making them labour, Christ teaches His people industry, order, self-command, self-denial, patience, courage, endurance, foresight, thoughtfulness, earnestness. ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... as a profession; personality is everything. You must be perfect or peculiar. The latter alternative is the greater help. If Arlt would grow a head of hair, or wear a dinner napkin instead of a necktie, it would improve his chances wonderfully." ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Bible." He might say, "Study yourself!" The preacher says, "Look to Jesus." He might say, "Look within!" The preacher says, "Repent and pray." I would say, "After an inventory of your inner possessions, clean up the house and go to work to improve it in ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... the dullness of Dilke's paper; but when the Athenaeum was enlarged in 1835 from sixteen to twenty-four pages Dilke's triumph was evident. The Literary Gazette was compelled to reduce its price to fourpence in its effort to regain the lost subscriptions. Dilke labored earnestly to improve his paper and when, in 1846, he felt that it was established on a firm basis, he made Thomas Kibble Hervey editor and devoted his own time to furthering his journalistic enterprises. However, he continued to contribute ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... every evening should write down what they had seen and heard, and done and thought and felt during the day, at least as much as they could remember, that was of any consequence. He said, that by doing this carefully, they would improve the memory, and also learn to express their thoughts well, either ...
— Charley's Museum - A Story for Young People • Unknown
... do all that you wished me; I would try hard to improve myself; I would work so hard and work so well that no one would even guess, ever so faintly, that I belonged to a different class. I would be the most devoted of daughters to you; I would live ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... grass, and under foot slimy sticks and roots spread over a black swamp. For a few steps one would balance one's self, and then down one would go, knee deep in the mire. Always hoping that the road would improve, we persevered for nearly half a mile. But it only got worse, and reluctantly we had to turn back to our starting-point. Then Shabahgeezhik took a run further up the hill to look for another road. In a few minutes he shouted for us to follow, and the track ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... Bunkum, when he opens Oxford to Jew and Gentile, and offers to make Rothschild Chancellor instead of Lord Derby, and tells them old dons, the heads of colleges, as polite as a stage-driver, that he does it out of pure regard to them, and only to improve the University, don't expect them to believe it; for he gives them a sly wink when he says so, as much as to say, how are you off for Hebrew, my old septuagenarians? Droll boy is Rothey, for though he comes from the land of Ham, he don't eat pork. But it pleases the sarcumsised Jew, and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... which had begun to improve with the advent of their prosperity, now enabled her to sit up nearly the whole day, and to render much aid in the household affairs, and especially in the manufacturing of the candy. The good fortune that ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... everything to others,—and to reserve nothing for myself, but the inward conscience that I had omitted no pains to discover, to animate, to discipline, to direct the abilities of the country for its service, and to place them in the best light to improve their age, or to adorn it. This conscience I have. I have never suppressed any man, never checked him for a moment in his course, by any jealousy, or by any policy. I was always ready, to the height of my means, (and they wore always infinitely ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of Dan, and a glance forward revealed to him the desperate situation of his party. The slave-master, nearly exhausted by the shock of the collision, and his exertions in hauling himself up to the deck of the Isabel, had failed to improve the first moment that ushered him into the presence of his astonished chattels; and the loss of that opportunity was the ruin of his expectations. Dan instantly raised his rifle; but the old feeling of awe and reverence ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... Colline's produced a reaction in favor of Carolus. The philosopher wished to improve the effect of his ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... how he feels; what he loves; what he hopes for; what he is trying to do; what he means to be;—these are quite as essential elements in his well-being as what he has to eat and wear. True benevolence therefore must include these things in its efforts. Benevolence must aim to improve the man together with his condition or its gifts ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... delighted with this letter. They had been living in continual fear of dispossession since the first attack on the Breckenridge farm in '69. Now they felt that they would be free to follow the peaceful pursuits of their calling and began to improve their possessions, believing that, after all, the right would prevail. None were more pleased at this turn of affairs than the widow Harding and Enoch. Bryce, it must be confessed, felt a little disappointed that he had seen no active service; ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... to induce early ripening is supposed to have been invented by Col. BUCHATT, of Metz, in 1745. He claimed for it that it would also greatly improve the quality of the fruit, as well as hasten maturity. That it accomplishes the latter, cannot be denied; it also seems to increase the size of the berries, but I hardly think the fruit can compare in flavor with a well developed bunch, ripened in the natural way. As it ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... Quixote, "that it has been the constant practice of knights-errant in former ages to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they conquered. Now I am not only resolved to keep up that laudable custom, but even to improve it, and outdo my predecessors in generosity; for whereas sometimes, or rather most commonly, other knights delayed rewarding their squires till they were grown old, and worn out with services, bad days, worse ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... development of the property as a heavy carrier of anthracite coal. On the financial side during this period the credit of the House of Morgan, intelligent administration, and modern methods did much to improve the reputation of the Erie and enable it to ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... the new road to Antrim, and found them to the summits to consist of exceeding good loam, and such as would improve into good meadow. It is all thrown to the little adjoining farms, with very little or any rent paid for it. They make no other use of it than turning their cows on. Pity they do not improve; a work more profitable than any they could undertake. All the way to Antrim lands ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... Jenkins, "make you navigate. Make you navigate under orders and under fear of punishment. You're the worst-hammered man in this crowd; but hammering doesn't improve you. You'll be keelhauled, or triced up by the thumbs, or spread-eagled over a boiler—but you'll navigate. ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... the undertaker, Henry, but I fancy a doctor could improve you. What do you reckon is ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... tell us in his preface what moved him to that act. "Colonel Money," he says, in the quiet third person of a self-respecting Norfolk gentleman, "does not mean to assign any other reason for serving the armies of France than that he loves his profession and went there merely to improve himself in it." ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... said that the Studebaker was a rotten old car. Its steering-gear was pretty dicky, and the bad surface and continual hairpin bends of the road didn't improve it. Soon we came into snow lying fairly deep, frozen hard and rutted by the big transport-wagons. We bumped and bounced horribly, and were shaken about like peas in a bladder. I began to be acutely anxious about the old boneshaker, ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... Lord; the rights of the Church remaining intact, and saving the pension to St. Peter and the most Holy Roman Church of one penny a-year for each house. And, shouldst thou be so fortunate as to accomplish what thou hast planned, strive to improve the Irish nation, by good morals; and act in such a manner by thyself, as well as by those whom thou shalt employ, and whom thou shalt first have proved to be trustworthy by reason of their fidelity, their opinions and ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... the line were now busy constructing new battery positions, while fresh O.P.'s were also erected, and it was thought that these preparations were preparatory to making an attack to enable us to improve our position by the capture of Pilkem Ridge, but, although the work was ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... his surplus to improve and extend his original farm. But farms were now practically unsalable, and Hampden and Arabella were glad to let their cousin Ed—Ed Warfield—stay on, rent free, because with him there they were certain that the place would be well kept up. Hampden, poor ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... to improve the site worthy of the seat of gigantic legislation have hitherto failed. The sword and the malaria have attacked it. Every year sees the President driven from his Mansion by pestilential vapors, and the sanitary condition of the city is extraordinarily ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Clarendon, and other authors of celebrity, he read with attention. The knowledge which he thus picked up during his leisure hours gave him a great advantage over the other clerks, and caused his employers to respect him far more than any other in their establishment. So eager was he to improve the time that he determined to see how much he could read during the unemployed time of night and morning, and his success was ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... Quixote "thou needest have no fear; I shall only be complying with an ancient and honorable custom of knights-errant, and, indeed, I purpose to improve on their practice, for, instead of waiting, as they often did, until thou art worn out in my service, I shall seek the first occasion to bestow on thee this gift; and it may be that before a week has passed thou wilt be crowned king of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... evenings under Rodney's instruction he devoted an hour and sometimes two to the task of making up the deficiencies in his early education. These were extensive, but Mike was naturally a smart boy, and after a while began to improve rapidly. ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... can! I can see it now as it would be if you had your way—spick and span in odious, glaring freshness, insulting the gray old ocean. The only respectable buildings in America are those which the owner is too poor to improve." ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... uninteresting, ignoble, relentlessly domineering, is not to be expressed. Their best weapons in such cases, if they knew it, are gentleness, patience, persuasion, and the skilful use of every means to improve and uplift their unequal companions to their own level. The Persian poet expressed a rich truth when he wrote, "Gentleness is the sail on the table of morals." It is a tragedy that the good wife of a bad husband is so identified with him, that the penalties of his offences fall on her head, often ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... but he made no remark, while Bigot said something in his ear which did not improve his humour, for he replied curtly, and turned to his secretary. "We must have two gentlemen more," ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... antagonists's fire in this fashion, he blushed—for he could blush distinctly now—and his mother looked upon him with pleasure, thought the reference to Midas and roosters was of course jargon to her. "Did you ever see anybody improve the way that child has!" she exclaimed. "I declare, Bibbs, sometimes lately you look ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... celestial, or medico, magnetico, musico, electrical bed, which I have, with so much study and at so vast an expense, constructed, not alone to insure the removal of barrenness, when conception is at all in the nature of things possible, but likewise to improve, exalt, and invigorate the bodily, and through them, the mental faculties of the human species. This bed, whose seemingly magical influences are now celebrated from pole to pole and from the rising to the setting sun! is indeed an unique in science! and unquestionably the first and the ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... tired with travel, and the long night watches did not improve tempers already overstrained with the expectation of a crisis too long dragged out. Rain fell during the night, and continued gently in a misty drizzle after day broke. It was a situation and an atmosphere ripe for tragedy, ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... opportunity to give as my opinion that the most practical measure England could take to benefit Ireland would be to drain the large bogs and so improve fuel. In some places the bogs are likely to be exhausted, but in others there is plenty of turf (turf, O Saxon, is not the grass on which you play cricket or croquet, but is the Hibernian for peat). Indeed, there is ample for all the needs of Ireland for ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... contemplation of what they will term our crudities, and which we now call progress. Science is ever on the march and what is new to-day will be old to-morrow. We cannot go back, we must go forward, and although we can never reach finality in aught, we can improve on the past to enrich the future. If this volume creates an interest and arouses an enthusiasm in the ordinary men and women into whose hands it may come, and stimulates them to a study of the great events making for ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... our bantering very good-naturedly, and managed in the course of the day to bring down a couple of birds. "You see, I improve by practice," he observed; "and one of these days I ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... before the authorities of this den. Half a dozen coarse and filthy uniformed men, and some of them evidently sufferers in the tumult of the night, for their heads were bound up and their arms bandaged—a matter which, if it did not improve their appearance, gave me every reason to expect increased brutishness in their tempers—formed the tribunal. The hall in which they had established their court had once been the kitchen of the convent; and, though all signs of hospitality had vanished, its rude and wild ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... tell you, for I would not have you believe that we wantonly intruded upon your slumbers." And thereupon William related that he was a citizen of Bensonville who had met a former visitor there and they had come here to talk over mutual acquaintances and improve their minds by discreet discourse. "But, sir," he said, in concluding, "pardon my natural curiosity concerning yourself. Who are you and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... had certainly been so placed that those who were behind it found great difficulty in getting out; there was but a narrow gangway, which one person could stop. This was a bad arrangement, and one which Bertie thought it might be well to improve. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... had been partially alleviated when it was shared with her brother, and she had come to regard her over-anxious parent with a hardness which Goethe describes as having something dreadful (fuerchterliches) in it. The arrival of Goethe could not improve the existing relations in the household. As in the time before his going to Leipzig, Cornelia drew to him as the only member of the family who sympathetically understood her, and she remained as obdurate as ever in her sullen attitude towards her father. Between Goethe himself and his father ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... in their next conversation I know not. One would be tempted to think by the issue, that Mr. Lovelace was ungenerous enough to seek the occasion given,* and to improve it. Yet he thought fit to put the question too:—But, she says, it was not till, by some means or other (she knew not how) he had wrought her up to such a pitch of displeasure with him, that it was impossible for her to recover herself at the instant. Nevertheless he re-urged his question, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... crossed the Alleghanies, it never occurred to question the competence of the Federal Government to meet all their wants. That the Government at Washington should construct and maintain highways, improve and facilitate the navigation of inland waterways, seemed a most reasonable expectation. What else was government for? But these proposed activities did not seem so obviously legitimate to Presidents of the Virginia Dynasty; not so readily could ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... source of energy and to have the capacity of doing work, the first thing to do, from the engineer's point of view, is to analyse the generator with a view to discovering how best to conserve it, to improve it, and bring it to the level of maximum productivity. Human beings are very complicated energy-producing batteries differing widely in quality and magnitude of productive power. Experience has shown that these batteries are, first of all, chemical batteries producing a mysterious ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... when Frank and his sister were alone for a few moments she said, "I am going to do you a good turn to-day, Sir Mahomet, and have a headache," and, laughing a little, "if you are wise you will improve your opportunities and persuade your 'Sweet Alice' to go after pond lilies and leave me here. I noticed a most charming spot for a tete-a-tete on one side of that pond the other day, and I guess you can find it if you try. It's a mossy bank under a big tree, and out of sight of ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... terrible. But even that sentence, which was a good deal more cheerful than what he actually felt, didn't do anything to improve his mood. All of the evidence, after all, had been practically living on the tip of his nose for nearly twenty-four hours, and not only had he done nothing about it, but he hadn't ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Republic, I deeply regret to say, do not seem to promise even the foundations of such a peace. We have waited many months, months full of peril and anxiety, for the conditions there to improve, and they have not improved. They have grown worse, rather. The territory in some sort controlled by the provisional authorities at Mexico City has grown smaller, not larger. The prospect of the pacification of the country, even by arms, has seemed to grow more and more remote; and its ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... full of that childlike fun which is characteristic of the author. I have marked the errors in these exercises, and have given them back to the children to rewrite. Sometimes the second papers show careful correction-and sometimes the mistakes are partially neglected. Very often the child wishes to improve on the first composition, and so adds new blunders as ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... this situation that the Dominion Government organised and despatched the North West Mounted Police to Western Canada. Immediately upon the advent of this famous corps matters began to improve. The open ravages of the whiskey runners ceased and these daring outlaws were forced to carry on their fiendish business by midnight marches and through the secret trails and coulees of the foothills. The profits of the trade, however, were still great enough to ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... and Henry was in French. Rollo had studied French a great deal by the help of books when he was at home, and he had taken so much pains to improve by practice since he had been in France and Switzerland that he could now get along in a short ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... Governor of Sarawak, 24th September 1841, he set himself actively to work to reform abuses, to improve the cultivation of the country, and to secure peace and happiness to the people. Having arranged the internal affairs of his government, he went back to Singapore for the purpose of asking the aid of some ship-of-war to put down ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... and baked, far exceeds sculpture in permanence. It may be said that if a mistake is made it is not easy to remedy it; it is but a poor argument to try to prove that a work be the nobler because oversights are irremediable; I should rather say that it will be more difficult to improve the mind of the master who makes such mistakes than to repair ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... that institution, and he was occupied in making certain regulations which should relieve them of the more sordid cares of life; the condition of the aged teachers and educators of the young had also attracted his observation, and he had endeavored to improve it. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... impressed by his lively wit as by the loftiness of his thought. It would be possible, too, to extract, for young persons, without modification, admirable passages of incomparable force. But those who have brought out expurgated editions of him, or who have thought to improve him by trying to rewrite him in modern French, have been fools for their pains, and their insulting attempts have had, and always will have, the success ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... were, however, in his book some excellent flashes of fancy and youth; besides, the public then had grown tired of interminable adventures and novels in fifty volumes. So Henry Murger's first work, "La Vie de Boheme," was very popular; but it did not swell his purse or improve his wardrobe. He was introduced to me, and I shall never forget the low bow he made me. I was afraid for one moment that his bald head would fall between his legs. This precocious baldness gave to his delicate and sad face ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... shapely white neck, and he had never lived among celebrated reformers. She wanted, just now, to have a cell in a settlement-house, like a nun without the bother of a black robe, and be kind, and read Bernard Shaw, and enormously improve a horde of ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... report showed the King to be progressive in his tendencies; as the result of several trips to Europe, he has introduced railways, telegraph and modern business appliances, and is making a great effort to beautify the city and to improve sanitary conditions, having employed French engineers ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... of the centuries—we are not sure which—the Raturan savages made some advances into their swampy grounds and began to improve them. This region lay very remote from the Mountain-men's villages, but, as it approached the mountain base in a round-about manner, and as the mountain-tops could be distinctly seen from the region, ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... will improve you so much as playing with good players; never refuse, therefore, when any one offers you odds, to accept them: you cannot expect a proficient to feel much interest in playing with you upon even ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... future life he unfortunately thinks little, and of Christ, the world's Redeemer, he seldom or never hears. The Roman Catholic chaplain mumbles a few Latin prayers to them at times, but as the knowledge of these resos does not seem to improve the priest's life, the men prefer to ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... nature does not introduce into vegetables, the natural food of all animal life,—directly of herbivorous, indirectly of carnivorous animals,—are to be regarded with suspicion. Arsenic-eating may seem to improve the condition of horses for a time,—and even of human beings, if Tschudi's stories can be trusted,—but it soon appears that its alien qualities are at war with the animal organization. So of copper, antimony, and other non-alimentary simple ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Things are so far advanced, that we must proceed; and I hope you will lay it to Heart, that it will be becoming in me to appear still your Lover, but not in you to be still my Mistress. Gaiety in the Matrimonial Life is graceful in one Sex, but exceptionable in the other. As you improve these little Hints, you will ascertain the Happiness or Uneasiness of, Madam, Your most obedient, Most humble ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... The properties of the great universal institution, as well as those of the Chapters, were sold at public auction, and the confiscation, although not immediate, was in course of being accomplished. The state of things did not improve on the advent to power of Messrs. Nicotera and Depretis, the former a radical of the most extreme views, and the latter, very little, if at all, better. These revolutionists having gained the object of their ambition, might have been inclined to halt in their mad career; but, their party driving ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... young woman with such effrontery that the blush of shame again mounted to her forehead, the Roman drew from the casket a rich necklace of chased gold. He went closer to the lamp-light in order to improve its glitter in the eyes of the woman whom he wished to tempt. Then, simulating an ironical reverence, he stooped and placed the necklace at the feet of the Gaul. Rising, he questioned ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... to injure the deserved repute of the almost father of Hebrew literature in this country. He will not surely, regret that a spirit which has done so much to promote, should develop itself in new and felicitous attempts to improve the field that he so arduously ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... for salvation. These are mostly compiled by women, our thoughtful mothers, wives and sweethearts who have saved the twin Basic Rabbits for us. If it weren't for these Fanny Farmers, the making of a real aboriginal Welsh Rabbit would be a lost art—lost in sporting male attempts to improve upon the original. ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... to writing. The proficiency of their pupils was estimated principally by the number of technical verses which they retained in their memory: a circumstance that shows this discipline rather calculated to preserve with accuracy a few plain maxims of traditionary science than to improve and extend it. And this is not the sole circumstance which leads us to believe that among them learning had advanced no further ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and its perfection in the beginning, render cultivation and improvement not only unnecessary, but impossible. As it is with the individual, so it is with the race. One generation of the irrational tribes does not improve upon the preceding or educate its successor. The web which you watched the spider weaving in your open window last summer, carefully measuring off each radius of her wheel and each circular mesh by one of her legs, was just such a web as the spider wove of old when she was pronounced ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... "You are improve," she continued politely. "The American mens no grow old like the Spanish—or like the women that have ten children and get so stout and have ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... woman demeaned by dropping her ballot into the box? Does the act injure her? "Oh, no; it is not the act—it is the scenes that she would have to meet. Go to the polls, and see what voting means." Yes; go and see what bachelor voting means. It is exactly the thing that we want to improve. Did you ever see a crowd of men, the rudest in the world, who, when a lady walked among them, did not open spontaneously and let her pass through as if she was an angel? It is asked sometimes, "Would ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and, to tell you my mind, He has not left a better or wiser behind. His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland; Still born to improve us in every part— His pencil oar faces, his manners our heart. To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing; When they talked of their Raphaels, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... the habit of drinking. In his dark eyes there was the old fire still, but dimmed and polluted. His hair and beard, formerly so luxuriant, and black as the raven's wing, hung down grey and disordered over his face and chin, and the proud smile which used so to improve his features had given way to an expression of contemptuous ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... reduced greatly the hereditary occupation of pilotage, and emigration goes on; the only town is Hugh Town (with two hotels, banks, pier, &c.), on St. Mary's; there are some interesting ecclesiastical ruins, &c.; since 1834 much has been done to improve the condition of the islanders by the then proprietor Mr. A. J. Smith, and his nephew, T. A. Darien ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... display of superiority. 'Of course, anyone leading a useful life, such as yours,' I overheard her saying to him this morning, 'don't naturally get much time for reading. I've nothing else to do, you see, 'cept to improve myself.' ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... all, in preference to the combined and established wit of the world. I say established; for it is with literature as with law or empire—an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession. Besides, one might suppose that books, like their authors, improve by travel—their having crossed the sea is, with us, so great a distinction. Our antiquaries abandon time for distance; our very fops glance from the binding to the bottom of the title-page, where the mystic characters which spell London, Paris, or Genoa, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... woman. But I feel assured that Etheridge will make all right. I shall take the advice of the old gentleman, and walk about the grounds, perhaps, as he says, I may fall in with Lady Etheridge and improve my acquaintance. [Exit. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... obstacles, meanwhile, were not disadvantageous to the rebels. Their superior knowledge of the section, with its numerous minor swamp-roads, forest-paths and approaches necessarily unknown to the Union forces, gave them immense advantages, such as they had not been slow to improve, in corresponding circumstances, during the whole of the preceding campaign. Aware of these facts, a night attack on Monday might have been expected by the Federal officers, and the men had slept on their arms in anticipation of ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... or diseased, while she must not even show disrespect to a husband who is diseased, addicted to evil passions, or a drunkard. If she does she shall be deserted for three months and deprived of her ornaments and furniture.[268] Even British rule has not been able to improve the condition of woman, for the British Government is bound by treaties not to interfere with social and religious customs; hence many pathetic cases are witnessed in the courts of unwilling girls handed over, in accordance with national custom, to the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... effective. Smith's command was nearly double that of Forrest, but not equal, man to man, for the lack of a successful experience such as Forrest's men had had. The fact is, troops who have fought a few battles and won, and followed up their victories, improve upon what they were before to an extent that can hardly be counted by percentage. The difference in result is often decisive victory instead of inglorious defeat. This same difference, too, is often ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... abandoned ground, and while Wiley with his Forty-first was striking in front and flank to clear himself of the surrounding foes, Hazen's batteries were pouring shells at short range into the well-ordered supporting troops which the enemy was hurrying forward to improve the success he had gained. Bragg had actually crossed the Rossville road and cut the Army of the Cumberland in two, with nothing in the gap but one regiment of three hundred men. But the enfilading artillery smote asunder the solid ranks which were to follow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... XIV. was classical in its spirit. The ancient Greek and Roman writers were admired and imitated. The Renaissance was now to run its course. The French Academy, founded by Richelieu, undertook to regulate and improve the French language. Measure, finish, elegance, were demanded by the reigning taste, in all literary productions. Corneille (1606-1684), the father of French tragedy, was the most virile of the French dramatists. Racine (1639-1699), ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... and win! You have my blessing,—and when Patty revives from her first shock of surprise, she'll bless you, too. It was Patty's work, getting Azalea here,—and Patty has tried every way in the world to help and improve her—" ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... it is. If they can patiently suffer on without losing heart until France shall have extricated herself from the toils of her treacherous misrulers, they may then resume their rights almost without a blow. And whenever a new 1848 shall dawn upon them, they will have learned to improve its opportunities and avoid its weaknesses and blunders. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... unlike the women, are not picturesque in appearance. The officials are well paid, so is everyone else, yet they never think of spending money to improve the looks of the village or even their own. Most of them are ragged. A few exhibit an inadequate elegance, dressed in white suits, derby hats, and very high collars. But in spite of the seeming poverty, there is not a seringueiro who could not at a moment's notice ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... Menippus to hell by the directions of that Chaldean Mithrobarzanes, but after long fasting, and such like idle preparation. Which the Jesuits right well perceiving of what force this fasting and solitary meditation is, to alter men's minds, when they would make a man mad, ravish him, improve him beyond himself, to undertake some great business of moment, to kill a king, or the like, [6477]they bring him into a melancholy dark chamber, where he shall see no light for many days together, no company, little meat, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... over there on Main Street! They got the feed store all fixed up, and a new sign on it, black and gold. That'll improve the appearance of ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... with this letter. They had been living in continual fear of dispossession since the first attack on the Breckenridge farm in '69. Now they felt that they would be free to follow the peaceful pursuits of their calling and began to improve their possessions, believing that, after all, the right would prevail. None were more pleased at this turn of affairs than the widow Harding and Enoch. Bryce, it must be confessed, felt a little ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... of the library to improve the taste in reading among the pupils of the schools by compiling lists of the best books upon the shelves, and distributing these lists to the pupils. Such lists may be classified as suitable to different ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... hundred pages each. But I don't think they are to come out till the prose work, and that is not a quarter finished. I am always a most slow and laborious writer (that Preface was written three times over throughout, and many parts of it five or six), and of course my ill health does not improve my powers of composition. This wet summer and autumn have been terribly against me. I am lamer even than when Mr. Ticknor saw me, and sometimes cannot even dip the pen in the ink without holding it in my ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... wife of a medical man, who has charge of a lady suffering from acute melancholia, with a strong fear of death, for herself, her husband and children, reported verbally to him the day before receiving my letter as follows, "I think Mrs. —— will soon improve, for her hair is getting smooth; and I always notice that our patients get better whenever their hair ceases to be ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... know better than to make me those little compliments. But for all that, it is a fine trade. Looking after the land is the best of trades. Everything must have begun with it, and it will go on for ever. And the pleasure of thinking one can improve, and hand it over richer and better for the expenditure of a little brains upon it, as well as other condiments—" she said, with a laugh. "Guano, you will say, is of more use perhaps than ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... car, and house painter can materially improve his painting where his needs lie by first oiling the wood with raw oil, then smoothing the surface down with lump pumicestone, washing it with a mixture of japan drier or, better yet, gold sizing and turpentine, wiping dry, and following it up with a coat ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... a satirical paper at this time, called The Age, which, being of a strongly libellous character, was continually feeling the weight of the law. It did not improve in character as it grew older, and its editor, Tommy Holt, was proved upon a trial to have received bribes to suppress a slander that he had threatened should appear in his paper. This same Tommy Holt was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... export is higher in volatile matter than the British and German export coal. This quality will in some degree be a limiting factor in exportation. On the other hand, it may result in wider introduction of briquetting, coking, and other processes, which will tend to improve the local industry and be conservational ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... disposition or a blind obedience than from the light of Christian truth, charity consists merely in supplying the natural wants of the neighbor by making him more comfortable in his external condition; and this is well, for there is little, if any, use in trying to improve the inner man while the outer is bowed down with want or squalid with impurity. This is the basis of the higher planes of charity, the first in time, though lowest in degree. There are those who think lightly of this form of charity, because it is lowest in degree, ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... the delight of Christy Passford. He had expended a great deal of his pocket-money upon the arrangement and furnishing of the cabin of his yacht, not only because he spent a considerable portion of his vacation hours in it, but because it had been a perpetual study with him to enlarge and improve it. ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... capacity, patience, perseverance, fortitude, hardihood, health, temperance, and, in short, every good quality that we desire to see developed, if we understand cerebral science; and if we understand only its general-outlines we can at least improve the character by giving a predominance to the superior regions ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... there grew up a store of poems upon them and other little ones, especially the children of Dr. George Moberly, then headmaster of Winchester College (later bishop of Salisbury). These Mr. Keble thought of putting together for publication, being chiefly impelled to do so by the desire to improve Hursley Church, the eighteenth century arrangement of which really prevented the general inculcation of the more reverent observances which teach and ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... doubts as to my ability to do the duties required of me. While at East London I had worked every day at a copy-book, striving to improve my handwriting, but my fingers were more at home with the trigger and the pick than with the pen. Moreover, my spelling was phonetic and wonderful. Although I knew most of Shakespeare's sonnets by heart, I did not know a single rule of English grammar. This ignorance has remained with me ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... Ladies' stockings were also knitted of all grades from stout and thick to gossamer or open-work, etc. Homespun dresses were proudly worn, and it became a matter of constant experiment and great pride to improve the quality and vary colors. Warp and woof were finely spun, and beautiful combinations of colors ventured upon, although older heads eschewed them, and in consequence complacently wore their clean, smoothly-ironed gray, "pepper-and-salt," or brown homespuns ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... in the short biography she wrote of her brother: "My father often railed at mankind, whom he accused of unceasingly contributing to their own misfortune. He could never meet an ill-formed fellow-creature without fulminating against parents and governments, who were less careful to improve the human race than ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... Baha the aims of the sect became much more practical and ethical, and the wilder pantheistic tendencies and metaphysical hair-splittings of the early Babis almost disappeared. The intelligence, integrity and morality of the Babis are high, but their efforts to improve the social position of woman have been much exaggerated. They were in no way concerned (as was at the time falsely alleged) in the assassination of Nasiru'd-Din Shah in May 1896. Of recent persecutions of the sect the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... come to his resolution to prosecute the war with the Sungs any too soon, for Uriangkadai was beginning to find his isolated position not free from danger. Large as the army of that general was, and skillfully as he had endeavored to improve his position by strengthening the fortresses and recruiting from the warlike tribes of Yunnan, Uriangkadai found himself threatened by the collected armies of the Sungs, who occupied Szchuen with a large garrison and menaced the daring ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... been, Doctor, to some extent." At hearing this the Doctor made very evident signs of discontent. "You cannot alter the ways of the world suddenly, though by example and precept you may help to improve them slowly. In our present imperfect condition of moral culture, it is perhaps well that the company of the guilty should ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... which Webster made in this field was in his edition of the Bible. He was a Revision Committee of one, and went to work with his customary self-confidence not to retranslate the Bible, but to correct and improve its English, "with amendments of the language," the title-page declares. His reasons for undertaking the work and his principles of revision are given in the preface to his edition, which was published at New ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... only by the comma. But, according to Rule 2d, "The period is often employed between two sentences which have a general connexion, expressed by a personal pronoun, a conjunction, or a conjunctive adverb." It would improve the passage, to omit the first comma, change the second to a period, and write the pronoun it with a capital. Judgment also might be bettered with an e, and another is properly ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... this morning before breakfast, to read my Journal, which he has done all along. He often before said, 'I take great delight in reading it.' To-day he said, 'You improve: it grows better and better.' I observed, there was a danger of my getting a habit of writing in a slovenly manner. 'Sir,' said he, 'it is not written in a slovenly manner. It might be printed, were the subject fit for printing[625].' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Confessionem et legisse et probare. Haec ita acta esse, Principes et alii honesti et docti viri adhuc superstites meminerint." (9, 1052.) As early as May 15 Luther returned the Confession with the remark: "I have read Master Philip's Apology. I am well pleased with it, and know nothing to improve or to change in it; neither would this be proper, since I cannot step so gently and softly. Christ, our Lord, grant that it may produce much and great fruit which, indeed, we hope and pray for. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... absolutely the type that reads only a half-penny daily and a sporting sheet and puts in the rest of its leisure at gossip or cards, and as I am interested in people's taste in literature, I determined to improve his acquaintance and discover something as to his favourite authors; and again, as I made this resolve, I realised how foolish it is ever to expect the outside of a man to be any index of his mind. One never can tell, and one is always ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... not desirable; both your ends and your methods are equally inhuman and equally unsuitable for the world we have to live in. True religion is surely something far more sensible than this; true religion should not strain and strive after the impossible, should not seek to improve human nature by a process of mutilation. You have excellent aims in some respects and excellent methods in others, but in supreme demands you go beyond the mark altogether. We Pagans neither agree with your morality nor admire those whom you claim as your successes. If you were less holy and ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... did not immediately improve industrial conditions in America. The first to feel its effects were the industries directly engaged in the making of munitions. The International Association of Machinists, the organization of the now all-important munition workers, actually had its membership somewhat decreased ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... instead of being universal, they are consequent on imperfect love, and only aggravate, never correct errors. Sexual storms never improve, whereas love obviates faults by praising the opposite virtues. Every view of them, practical and philosophical, condemns them as being to love what poison is to health, both before and after marriage. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... not know what to do with him after that. They liked Ford when he was sober, and so they hated to shoot him, though that seemed the only way in which they might dampen his enthusiasm for blood. Tom said that, if he failed to improve in temper by the next day, he would try and land him in jail, though it did seem rigorous treatment for so common a fault as getting drunk. Meanwhile they kept out of his way as well as they could, and dodged missiles and ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... with ourselves, it would be a comfort. But not to know what became of her—whether she was drowned or kidnapped—that was what crushed their hearts. I must say that since I grew up, we're improvin'; an' I hope, God willin', now that my father laves the management of the farm to myself, we'll still improve more an' more. I hope it for their sakes, but—more, if possible, for yours. I don't know what I wouldn't do to make you happy, Ellen. If my life could do it, I think I could lay it down to show the love I bear you. I could take to the highway and rob for ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... classes into comradeship with them. The ideal labor should set before itself is not a transitory improvement in its wage, because a wage war never truly or permanently improves the position of labor. This section or that may, relatively to its own past or the position of other workers, improve itself; but capital is like a ship which, however the tide rises or falls, floats upon it, and is not sunken more deeply in the water at high tide than at low tide. Whenever any burden is placed upon capital it ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... attention. Mrs. Tarrant asked the young men from the Law School about their studies, and whether they meant to follow them up seriously; said she thought some of the laws were very unjust, and she hoped they meant to try and improve them. She had suffered by the laws herself, at the time her father died; she hadn't got half the prop'ty she should have got if they had been different. She thought they should be for public matters, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... the first year of my residence there I had frequently heard rumors of the existence of wonderful phenomena in the region where the Yellowstone, Wind, Snake and other large rivers take their rise, and as often had determined to improve the first opportunity to visit and explore it, but had been deterred by the presence of unusual and insurmountable dangers. It was at that time inhabited only by wild beasts and roving bands of hostile Indians. An occasional trapper ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... many things belonging to us particularly, and I hope to get something considerably by him before the year be over. He gives me good advice of circumspection in my place, which I am now in great mind to improve; for I think our office stands on very ticklish terms, the Parliament likely to sit shortly and likely to be asked more money, and we able to give a very bad account of the expence of what we have done with what they did give before. Besides, the turning out the prize officers ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... Mrs. Levy, in a low tone to Bertha, "to keep Miss Heartwell standing talking all the evening about your supposed present from Asher Bernhardt! I shall not allow you company again until you improve in politeness, and I will destroy that cherished book. Do you hear me? Go at once and see that Miss ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... week or so he did not seem to improve. Richard came often, sat by his bedside, and talked with him; but the moment he grew angry, called him names, or abused his party, would rise without a word, mount his mare, and ride home—to return the next morning as ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... the crime," observed the ambassador, "or that it is primarily political. You proposed to improve a technical process in a society which considers itself beyond improvement. If you'd succeeded, the idea of change would have spread, people now poor would have gotten rich, people now rich would have gotten poor, and you'd have done what all governments are established to prevent. So you'll never ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... are both on the Navy team, and that you made good in the first game," wrote the West Point cadet. "I hope you'll both stay in to the finish, and improve with every game. Greg and I are plugging hard at the game in the little time that the West Point routine allows us for practice. From what I have heard of your game, I think it likely that you and good, but impish old ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... wonderful organizer. The majority of termites—including warriors and workers—were sexless; that was perhaps why they were such good workers, as they had nothing to distract them. The males and females whose duty was merely to propagate and improve the race were provided temporarily with wings, so that they could fly away from the colony and disseminate their love among other winged termites of other colonies. The relation between different colonies was friendly. When their task ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... artists in the principal roles, with lesser known ones in smaller parts. With these I worked personally, teaching them how to act, thus preparing them for further career in the field of opera. I like to work with the younger and less experienced ones, for it gives me real pleasure to watch how they improve, ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... is to say, three or four times too long. It has a curious resemblance to No. 1, but is less dusky. The contrasts of light and shade which gave life to No. 3 have disappeared, and the face looks as if a second application of soap would improve it. A few trials of this kind will teach the eye to recognize the appearances of under- and over-exposure, so that, if the first negative proves to have been too long or too short a time in the camera, the proper period of exposure for the next may ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... It had against it the jealousy of the Ottimati, who felt themselves overshadowed by the Gonfalonier; the hatred of the Palleschi, who yearned for the Medici; the discontent of the working classes, who thought the presence of a Court in Florence would improve trade; last, but not least, the disaffection of the Compagnacci, who felt they could not flourish to their heart's content in a free commonwealth. Moreover, though the name of liberty was on every lip, though the Florentines talked, wrote, and speculated more about ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... As if anything could be concealed from the idle curiosity of country gossips; from the slanderous and ever-watchful enemies who are incessantly on the lookout for some new bit of tittle-tattle, good or bad, which they improve upon, and ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... noticeable that her cheeks were much paler than they had been when she started with her chum in the canoe. Because she had a naturally pale complexion, Lily was forever "touching it up"—as though even the most experienced "complexion artist" could improve upon Nature, or could do her work so well that a careful observer could not tell the painted ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... must have sufficient interest in it and in all its activities to improve it in every respect, rather than to allow it to deteriorate by getting out of it everything possible, and then leaving it, like a squeezed orange, to repeat the operation elsewhere. A farm, in order to yield its best and to increase in production and value, must be managed with care, foresight, ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... demand a high degree of proficiency. If I am not proficient enough, yet knowing the rudiments I can easily improve. I learn most things readily," Andre-Louis commended himself. "For the rest: I possess the other qualifications. I am young, as you observe: and I leave you to judge whether I am wrong in assuming that my address is good. I am by profession a man ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... people after he had deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by his Lex Julia, to counteract the custom which then prevailed, of abstaining from legal marriage and substituting concubinage instead, by which the free population declined; but this attempt to improve the morals of the people met with such opposition from the tribes and centuries that the next emperor abolished popular assemblies altogether, which Augustus had feared to do. The senate in the time of the emperors, composed chiefly of lawyers and magistrates, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... came out all right. Dick was sulky and ugly for a few days, though I made him stick to his prayers every morning and night. But bye and bye, when the whiskey got out of him, he begun to improve. One day he laughed, but was so scared by it that he didn't speak till night. Soon after that he told me he felt a good deal better, which the same I replied was because he was getting over the long drunk he had been on for a ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... very height of his powers, has to practise moderation to the point of abstinence if he wants to remain on top. Does anybody suppose that a loose life is compatible with those startlingly bold feats that an acrobat does every day and tries to improve upon every day? Damn it! It's something to make your ordinary mortal marvel at. Why, to do any one of the many things we do, we have to practise asceticism and chastity, and patiently peg away day after day at hard, dangerous work. Your plain business man, who never omits his glass ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... perseverance which have enabled them to triumph over obstacles altogether unexampled, and of the gallantry which they have exhibited on every occasion which a subtle and skulking foe would allow them to improve is so familiar as not to require repetition at my hands. But justice to the officers and men now in Florida demands that their privations, sufferings, and dauntless exertions during a summer's campaign in such a climate, which for the first time was witnessed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... and regrafted on various stocks,[896] were considered by Andrew Knight[897] as closely allied to "sporting branches," or bud-variations. Again, we have the case of young fruit-trees changing their character as they grow old; seedling pears, for instance, lose with age their spines and improve in the flavour of their fruit. Weeping birch-trees, when grafted on the common variety, do not acquire a perfect pendulous habit until they grow old: on the other hand, I shall hereafter give the case of some weeping ashes which slowly and gradually assumed an upright habit of growth. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... disputed point whether the system of breeding in-and-in or the opposite one of frequent crossing has the greater tendency to maintain or improve the character of stock. The advocates of both systems are earnest and confident of being in the right. The truth probably is, as in some other similar disputes, that both are right and both wrong—to a certain ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... places, and got the few drugs he needed at a well-known pharmacy in the city. He had an idea that matters would improve when people returned from the country or the seashore. But these people did not take long vacations. He had had but one case, the wife of a Swedish janitor in a flat-building, and he had reason to believe that his services had not pleased. Every morning, as Alves hurried ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and the southern point of view on Educated Suffrage. Mrs. Gilman, who spoke on whether it would serve the best interests of the laboring classes, was alone in objecting to it. "Will exclusion from the suffrage educate and improve the illiterate masses more quickly than the use of it?" she asked. "We shall educate them sooner if we dread their votes and this is our work in common." A great deal of sentiment was developed in favor of an educational requirement for the suffrage and an informal rising ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... do not know what to make of her actions. She is never rough with me, but a little while ago, when I went in her cage, she growled and struck at me. I had to hit her—which I seldom do—and that did not improve her temper. I do not know what to make of her. I have to put her through her paces in the cage this afternoon, and I do not want any ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... the Scots who had fled from the country were content to provide for their subsistence in a foreign land and improve their own culture. But there was one among them who did not reconcile himself for one moment to this fate. John Knox was the first who formed a Protestant congregation in the besieged fortress of S. Andrew's; when ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... respectable as that of any in my uncle's circle, and, for my condition, my resources, though small, were improving daily, and I had already attained such a place among my professional brethren, as to leave it no longer doubtful that it must continue to improve. My income, with economy—such economy as two simple, single-minded creatures, like Julia and myself, were willing to employ—would already yield us a decent support. In short, the idea of my uncle's opposition to the match never once entered my head. Yet ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... older, she will probably become strikingly beautiful. You must have remarked the change which a few years have already made in her. Her beauty will improve more and more; she is now only sixteen years of age. At fifteen I was, myself, very thin; but even as she is at present, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the clergy. I do not doubt but, if he will be so good to continue steadfast in his principles and practices, he may at proper junctures contribute very much to the honour and interests of that reverend body, as well as employ and improve the wit of many young gentlemen in the city, the university, and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... photograph prints from the negative only while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking to see how it is getting on he simply stops the getting on. Whatever of wise supervision the soul may need, it is certain it can never be over-exposed, or that, being exposed, anything else in the world can improve the result or quicken it. The creation of a new heart, the renewing of a right spirit, is an omnipotent work of God. Leave it to the Creator. "He which hath begun a good work in you will perfect ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... hour, Improve each moment as it flies; Life a short summer—man a flower; He dies, alas! how soon ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... "Whenever we improve, it is right to leave room for a further improvement. It is right to consider, to look about us, to examine the effect of what we have done. Then we can proceed with confidence, because we can proceed with intelligence. Whereas, in hot reformations, is what men more zealous than considerate, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... taxes. They are overtaxed, and no one cares. The army must be kept up and a huge Civil Service, and no one cares what happens to the peasants. Some day the peasants must turn, but not yet. It is a question for all Russian land-owners to face, and nobody faces it. If any one tries to improve the condition of his peasants—they were happier a thousand times as serfs—the bureaucrats of Petersburg mark him down and he is forced to leave the country. The whole fabric of this Government is rotten, but every-one, except the peasants, ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... said, in a tone of satisfaction. "It don't improve my beauty, but then I ain't vain. I care more for my liberty. If it hadn't been for that cussed boy there wouldn't have been any ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... potatoes, and kept in hot byres or close strawyards, and look to them to pay a rent, you will find that they will soon make a poor man of you. This mode of feeding is unnatural. Before the animals begin to improve, three months will have passed. If half-fat cattle are bought, which have been kept close in byres or strawyards, and put to grass in April or the first two weeks of May, and cold stormy weather sets in, with no covering ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... your by-time for His service. But ye should give Him the best of your time and strength, and your hearts—all should be employed in his service. Do not say that you do the best that you can; for I am persuaded that there is none of you but may do more for Him than ye do. Do not say that ye improve the talent that He hath given you to trade with, for ye but misimprove it; and the best of you, we fear, come short of improving it. If ye improve it, ye should find it increase upon your hand, and you would appear like his children. But because people do not improve their time and abilities to ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... worst he can be loved, though he may be astonished at being loved; it is in love that it is possible to meet; it is love that brings beauty within your reach, or down, to your level. It is beauty that you love in your friend, not his right to improve you. He is what you want to be; and the comfort of being loved is the comfort of feeling that there is some touch of the same beauty in yourself. It is so easy to feel dreary, stupid, commonplace—and then someone appears, and you see in his glance and talk that there is, after ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Stephen Takacs for a change in size. DON'T DO IT! The size and shape are O. K., and to make it the awkward size of most magazines (including two of the Science Fiction magazines that I am now a confirmed reader of), would not improve ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... and financial services are a small but growing component of the economy. One of the world's largest petroleum refineries is at Saint Croix. The islands are subject to substantial damage from storms. The government is working to improve fiscal discipline, support construction projects in the private sector, expand tourist facilities, ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... said the captain; "might as well improve the time by getting a little rest. We shall be all ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... translating foreign correspondence. His knowledge of Latin and smattering of Greek enabled him to be employed in copying into a book some of the inestimable letters of Erasmus which arrived from time to time, and Sir Thomas promoted his desire to improve himself, and had requested Mr Clements, the tutor of the children of the house, to give him weekly lessons in ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... invented to confine men to the public road, and walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... majority in Parliament secured, it was introduced into the House of Commons. The supporters said it would rescue the nation out of the hands of extortioners; lower interest; raise the value of land; revive public credit; extend circulation; improve commerce; facilitate the annual supplies; and connect the people more closely with Government. The project was violently opposed by a strong party, who affirmed that it would become a monopoly, and engross the whole of the kingdom; that it might be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... description of capacity but that which is alone useful and which springs from a knowledge of men's natures. It chanced that one of Sewall's early moves played into his hands, and he was swift to seize and to improve the advantage. The neutral territory and the tripartite municipality of Apia were eyesores to the German consulate and Brandeis. By landing Tamasese's two or three hundred warriors at Mulinuu, as Becker himself owns, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the supper-station, the train suddenly stopped in the midst of the desert. Something about the engine had become disarranged, which it would take some time to put right. Glad to improve an opportunity to stretch their legs, many of the passengers left the cars and were strolling about, curiously examining the sagebrush and the alkali, and admiring the ghostly plain as it spread, bare, level, and white as an icebound polar ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... Haw. Why, I should be a traitor to the whole village if I were to encourage such a scheme. The hill is the one thing which gives Tamfield the slightest individuality. It would be the height of selfishness to sacrifice it in order to improve the ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... made several attempts to be fine; but some unforeseen disaster demolished each as soon as projected. I endeavoured to take the advantage of every disappointment, to improve their good sense in proportion as they were frustrated in ambition. 'You see, my children,' cried I, 'how little is to be got by attempts to impose upon the world, in coping with our betters. Such as are poor and will associate ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... exceedingly over Idaho, I also rejoice exceedingly over the grand work done in California, and over the 110,000 votes given for woman suffrage in that State. It was vastly more than was ever done in any other amendment campaign. Study then the methods of California and Idaho and improve on them as much as you ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... lucky hits: steam, electricity, representative government, printing—how long he groped for them before he found them! There is always and everywhere the Darwinian tendency to variation, to seek new forms, to improve upon the past; and man is under this law, the same as is the rest of nature. One generation of men, like one generation of leaves, becomes the fertilizer of the next; failures only enrich the soil or make smoother ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... she is; I need n't remind you of that. She was much younger then, and she has greatly developed and improved in these two or three years. But she will always be young and innocent—I don't want her to improve too much. She came back to America with her mother the winter after we met her at Baden, but I never saw her again till three months ago. Then I saw her with new eyes, and I wondered I could have been so blind. But I was n't ready for her till then, and what makes me so happy ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... bitterly any attempt to improve the divorce-laws of England. Much has been done in this line, even in spite of his earnest opposition, but we now owe it to Mr. Gladstone that there is on England's law-books a statute providing that if a wife leaves her husband he can invoke a magistrate, whose duty it will then be ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... indefensible heights. The army was short of shoes. In the newspapers, as winter came on, were to be found touching descriptions of Lee's soldiers standing barefoot in the snow. A flippant comment of Benjamin's, that the shoes had probably been traded for whiskey, did not tend to improve matters. Even though short of supplies themselves, the people as a whole eagerly subscribed to buy shoes for ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... ladies—a servitude which George was only too willing to undergo for his friend's sake, and for that of a society which he found daily more delightful. Warrington was a good German scholar and was willing to give Miss Laura lessons in the language, who was very glad to improve herself, though Pen, for his part, was too weak or lazy now to resume his German studies. Warrington acted as courier and interpreter; Warrington saw the baggage in and out of ships, inns, and carriages, managed ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the monk were greatly scandalized thereat. Totally without that toleration which comes with experience, they could conceive of no religion as a good religion which did not meet the rigid requirements of their own belief; and they planned at once a Spanish crusade which was intended to improve the general deplorable condition of public morals and at the same time to modify, in a most radical way, the liturgy of the Spanish Church, which was far too lax in points of discipline. Their conduct ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... is better not to disturb the amiable delusions of our fellow-men, unless we are certain that we can improve them. To break the spring of happiness in a virtuous bore is a serious responsibility. It is better, perhaps, both in matters of work and in matters of social life, to encourage our friends to believe in themselves. ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to see me," he said to Ned. "You're sitting up. I don't think I ever before saw a boy improve so much in twenty-four hours. I'll just feel your pulse. It will be one of my duties as senior partner to practice medicine for a little while. Yes, it's a strong pulse, a good pulse. You're quite clear of fever. You need nothing now but your strength back again, ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to the Commons' amendments to the Lords' amendments to the Government of Ireland Bill were agreed to. Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS thought to improve the occasion by a neat little speech expressing goodwill to Ireland, and, much to his surprise, found himself in collision with the SPEAKER, who observed that this was not the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... jury; (5) a representative legislature; (6) annual meetings; (7) the origination of laws; (8) the exclusive right of taxation and appropriation; and (9) the responsibility of Ministers; and with the exercise of these powers they could obtain in future whatever might be further necessary to improve and preserve their constitution. They thought otherwise,' continued Jefferson; 'and events have proved their lamentable error; for after thirty years of war, foreign and domestic, the loss of millions of lives, the prostration ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the inhabitants earn a scanty subsistence by fishing and tillage, or by seeking employment in England and Scotland during the harvesting. The Congested Districts Board, however, have made efforts to improve the Condition of the people, and a branch of the Midland Great Western railway to Achill Sound, together with a swivel bridge across the sound, improved communications and make for prosperity. Dugort, the principal village, contains ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Benedictine; "I did not mean to say the Memoirs were written in the sixteenth century, but only, that they were compiled from authentic materials of that period, but written in the taste and language of the present day. My uncle commenced this book; and I, partly to improve my habit of English composition, partly to divert melancholy thoughts, amused my leisure hours with continuing and concluding it. You will see the period of the story where my uncle leaves off his narrative, and I commence ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... mean," said Clement hotly, "to ruin people's taste, and encourage idle painters in showy trickery, and make them believe they can improve upon ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was of the chance kind—but education anyway depends upon yourself—colleges only supply a few opportunities, and it lies with the student whether he will improve ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... Mr. Spicer fetched from the cupboard his concertina, and after the usual apology for what he called his 'imperfect mastery of the instrument,' sat down to play 'Home, Sweet Home.' He had played it for years, and evidently would never improve in his execution. After 'Home, Sweet Home' came 'The Bluebells of Scotland,' after that 'Annie Laurie'; and Mr. Spicer's repertory was at an end. He talked of learning new pieces, but there was not the slightest hope ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... cried Gurta; "you'll improve in time, though you make wry faces, now that you're young. Well, and have you brought me any news from the capitol? Is any one getting a rise in the world, or a downfall? How blows the wind? Are there changes in the camp? This Decius, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... which we would willingly draw the veil, but at the present moment I firmly believe that the planters of Behar—and I speak as an observant student of what has been going on in India—have done more to elevate the peasantry, to rouse them into vitality, and to improve them in every way, than all the other agencies that have been at work with ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the beginning of May, with the help of some of my acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever more honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined, I trust, to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... and delicacy in domestic life, which French women almost despise, are the graceful pillars of modesty; but, far from despising them, if the pure flame of patriotism have reached their bosoms, they should labour to improve the morals of their fellow-citizens, by teaching men, not only to respect modesty in women, but to acquire it themselves, as the only ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... an angry start, and the smile changed to a savage frown, which did not improve a pair of terribly black eyes and a cut and ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... his outward reactions indicated that he was quite depressed. On April 25th, about four and a half months after admission, when asked how long he had been in the Hospital, he replied three days. From that time on he began to improve. Consciousness became clearer. In June, he talked and acted quite rationally. He had a total amnesia of what had transpired during his stuporous and agitated states and a retrograde amnesia for several days prior to, and including the commission ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... were visibly right, while even those with which I could not concur showed me the weak spot in my work that had occasioned them. They have helped me to improve the book—I ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... longer if things don't improve." The moment the words were out Tom regretted them. He didn't know how he had come to speak them. He hadn't meant to give this fact away. Certainly there had been nothing particularly sympathetic in the tone of Perkins's choppy questions. But the other man's next words ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... Unfortunately, to get the water, Crowl had to go to the kitchen; and as he was usually such a temperate man, this desire for drink in the middle of the day attracted the attention of the lady in possession. Crowl had to explain the situation. Mrs. Crowl ran into the shop to improve it. Mr. Crowl followed in dismay, leaving a trail of spilled water ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... abused not edified. He tells me if I have not work enough I shall have more. I confess the answering of this piece is no great work; and the truth is, I am ashamed I have so little to make answer unto; yet I shall do my best to improve even this work to edification. When other work comes I wish it be work indeed, and not words. Res cum re, ratio cum ratione concertet, as the father said: Arguments, Sir, arguments, arguments, if there be any: you have affirmed great things, and new things, which you have not proved. ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... whole private: for every man's attention being employed on his own particular concerns, will prevent mutual complaints against each other; nay, by this means industry will be increased, as each person will labour to improve his own private property; and it will then be, that from a principle of virtue they will mutually perform good offices to each other, according to the proverb, "All things are common amongst friends;" and ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... employed to interpret nature, and to improve and perfect common sense and experience, is, for the most part, a building without a foundation. The criticism exercised by reason, then, on common sense may be as severe as it pleases, but it must be as patient as it is severe. Hasty, dogmatical, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... anchored in her strength by the control of Western seas, was vulnerable in India, and there alone. These considerations returned with overpowering allurement to his imagination, and four millions of francs were appropriated to improve the harbor and restore somewhat the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Will some other metallic vapor do? What about temperature variations in making the polyester? How long a cure time? How much ultraviolet? Will the fibers be better if you draw them more? Can you get those tacky fiber ends in any other way? Can you improve them? What about the sheet-making conditions? Does ...
— The Professional Approach • Charles Leonard Harness
... arguments about a horse with a docked tail being stronger-backed, like a short-tailed sheep, but I don't believe a word of it. The horse was made strong enough to do the work he's got to do, and man can't improve on him. Docking is a cruel, wicked thing. Now, there's a ghost of an argument in favor of check-reins, on certain occasions. A fiery, young horse can't run away, with an overdrawn check, and in speeding horses a tight check-rein will ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... them—and let them go away without inquiring their names! Arn't you a simple young fellow? If it had been me now, I should have done my best to improve such a golden opportunity. Gratitude you know begets love, and I'll be sworn that the pretty young woman has a good fortune, by the anxiety the old ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... of the Potomac was not "the finest on the planet," as in an order of the day he boastfully proclaimed it, it possessed many elements of strength. Hooker was a strict disciplinarian with a talent for organisation. He had not only done much to improve the efficiency of his troops, but his vigorous measures had gone far to restore their confidence. When he succeeded Burnside a large proportion of the soldiers had lost heart and hope. The generals who had hitherto ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... his Memoirs, for we then find ourselves brought into close contact with a very intelligent and vigorous mind, keen to take part in the scientific experiments of the day, while his upright moral character and earnest and well-directed efforts to improve his Irish property win our admiration; and when we remember that he married in succession four wives, and preserved harmony among the numerous members of his household, our admiration becomes wonder, ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... own, he would find out the way of it for himself: his own sense, the light of nature, would be his guide. I had no inclination to do anything with books myself: books were lessons, therefore repellent, and that any one should read a book for pleasure was inconceivable. The only attempt to improve our minds at this period came, oddly enough, from my masterful brother who despised our babyish intellects—especially mine. However, one day he announced that he had a grand scheme to put before us. He had heard or read of a family of boys living just like us in some wild isolated land ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... dear mother, of things which to speak of in detail would only pain your kind heart. As to the men that teach us, I can say that they improve upon acquaintance. Each of them, the captain and lieutenant, has his own way of teaching. In the lieutenant a coolness of statement that seems to imply a calm unshakableness, as of one who has measured all risks and sees ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... callous, pachydermatous, hardened against this offensive mud-slinging. Of course politics did not elevate the man, nor the man politics, while things went on thus. A general demoralization and lowering of the tone of public opinion naturally resulted, which did not improve till the stirring events of the summer of 1887 brought men to their senses again. The number of members sent to Parliament was something so enormous, that it seems as if the people must have had a perfect mania for being represented. Nowadays we get ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... ledgers, they entered Cyrus's private room, and sat down in two plain pine chairs under the coloured lithograph of an engine which ornamented the largest space on the wall. The room was bare of the most ordinary comforts, as though its owner begrudged the few dollars he must spend to improve his surroundings. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... say, but his cast was serious. He expected to draw Number One, not to sell, but to improve, to put sheep on, and alfalfa, and build a long barn with his name on the roof so that it could be read from the railroad as the trains ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... to have our measure taken for a new one every fall and spring, as we do for our clothes. If this revision is a good thing, why won't another one be better? The woods are full of preachers who think they could go to work and improve the Bible, and if we don't shut down on this thing, they will take a hand in it. If a man hauls down the American flag, we shoot him on the spot; and now we suggest that if any man mutilates the Bible, we run an umbrella into him and ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... Henri? The truth is, you mistake his character. I do not wish to make you think ill of your friend; but Adolphe is one of those men whom adversity will improve. You and our father have rather spoilt him between you; he is too proud, too apt to think that everything should bend to his wishes: he has yet to learn that in this world he must endure to have his dearest wishes thwarted; and till adversity has taught ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... young virtue overpower; And in thy converse I shall find relief, When the dark shades of melancholy lower; For solitude has many a dreary hour, Even when exempt from grief, remorse, and pain: Come often then; for haply, in my bower, Amusement, knowledge, wisdom thou mayst gain: If I one soul improve, I have not ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... you to look into the Texel, and see a foe which dreaded coming out to meet us. My pride is now humbled indeed! our cup has overflowed, and made us wanton—the All-wise Providence has given us this check as a warning, and I hope we shall improve by it. On Him, then, let us trust, where our only security is to be found. I find there are many good men among us: for my own part, I have had full confidence of all in this ship; and once more I beg to express ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... spent on it by the band of enthusiasts, and it was truly a little triumph of humanism. Further editions were reprinted during the sixteenth century at Basic and at Frankfort-on-Main, but they did not improve in any way upon the first; and the next epoch in the study of Saxo was made by the edition and notes of Stephanus Johansen Stephanius, published at Copenhagen in the middle of the seventeenth century (1644). Stephanius, the first commentator on Saxo, still remains ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... thrown a lover again at Katharine's feet. Not that there was anything unusual in that. She might not regard it in a providential light, however; but he, at least did so, and he had intended to improve the shining hours of what would be a long cruise, in the close association permitted by the confined limits of the ship, to make a final desperate effort to win the heart which had hitherto so entirely eluded him that he could not flatter himself ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... that Gard could in Deutschland improve his German which, notwithstanding his affection for his preceptor, was indifferent. Its gutturalness grated on his nerves, antagonized him. But he criticized himself for this, not the language. Had not his old mentor always sung of the superiorities ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... didn't keep well, and father made three trips to town to sell them. She had big jars of lard she wouldn't need before butchering time came again, and she sold dried apples, peaches, and raspberries from last year. She got lots of money for barrels of feathers she'd saved to improve her feather beds and pillows; she said she would see to that later. Father was so tickled to get the money to help him out that he said he'd get her a pair of those wonderful new blue geese like Pryors had, that every one stopped to look at. When there was not ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... attempted any of those lewder and more lascivious methods, of which you have had such delicious experience. Altogether, I cannot but say I am disappointed. My husband is loving, and very anxious that I should improve my mind in every way. You know I was rather more proficient than usual at school in Italian. My husband speaks it fluently, and as we mean to spend a winter at Rome, was anxious that I should have further instruction. He asked ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... by actual experience. There were, however, in his book some excellent flashes of fancy and youth; besides, the public then had grown tired of interminable adventures and novels in fifty volumes. So Henry Murger's first work, "La Vie de Boheme," was very popular; but it did not swell his purse or improve his wardrobe. He was introduced to me, and I shall never forget the low bow he made me. I was afraid for one moment that his bald head would fall between his legs. This precocious baldness gave to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... used to appear. The skating club of the Lutherstrasse was under the patronage of the Crown Prince and was one of the very few meeting places of Berlin society. The women were taught to waltz by male instructors and the men by several young women—blonde skaters from East Prussia. I tried to improve my skating and spent many hours making painful "Bogens" or circles under the efficient eyes of a little East Prussia instructress. Afternoon tea was served during the interval of skating and one afternoon a week was specially ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... Kings bewail their consorts dead, 465 And loathe the thoughts of a deserted bed; And though each monarch studies to improve The tender mem'ry of his former love, Their state requires a second nuptial tie. Hence the pale ruler with a love-sick eye 470 Surveys th' attendants of his former wife, And offers one of them a royal life. These, when their martial ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... sister, and for a moment regarded her lovingly. After a pause, he said, "Well, Sis, if you do know him, you know one of the best and most promising of my early acquaintances, and from what I have heard of him since my return, I feel that I want to improve my own acquaintance with him, and shall not be sorry to know that he has become your friend ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... which are not new; but also as a shrewd suspicion (though we hide it from ourselves) that this one also will have to grow old in its turn. And we have not yet found out how to treat any of our possessions, including our own selves, in such a way that they shall, if anything, improve. Despite our complicated civilization, so called, or perhaps on account of it, we are all of us a mere set of barbarians, who find it less trouble to provide a new, cheap, and shoddy thing than to get the full use and full pleasure of a finely-made and carefully-chosen ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... true that there was no mutinous talk to be heard; the fate of the deserters had taught the grumblers a lesson that would not soon be forgotten, but much was said that did not tend to improve the discipline. ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... of their own, these unfortunates, who otherwise had remained few in number, increased and multiplied greatly. Nor did successive generations improve in symmetry upon ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the beloved of my bosom, were near, Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear, 10 And who felt how the best charms of nature improve, When we see them reflected from ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... hypocrisy improve any mortal woman? Say she learns to smile after a blow, do you suppose in this matter alone she will be a hypocrite? Poor Lady Clara! I fancy a better lot for you than that to which fate handed you over. I fancy there need have been no deceit in your fond ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... abundance; and they had acquired the skill of watering their lands from distant rivers, in time of drought. It may likewise be observed, that although the Otaheitans possess the shrub which produces cotton, they neither improve it by culture, nor have the knowledge of converting its wool into cloth, but content themselves with a far meaner production as a substitute. Our islanders had not only the skill of making excellent cloth ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... dialecticians now deliver and teach, originally discovered and established by them? And although they were very much elaborated by Chrysippus, still they were much less practised by Zeno than by the ancients. And there were several things in which he did not improve on the ancients; and some which he never touched at all. And as there are two arts by which reason and oratory are brought to complete perfection, one that of discovering, the other that of arguing,—both the Stoics and Peripatetics have handed ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... than fraternal relation was seen in the friendship of Mr. Motley and Mr. Joseph Lewis Stackpole. Mr. William Amory, who knew them both well, has kindly furnished me with some recollections, which I cannot improve ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
