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More "Outdo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... existed, but a mile in length, and which the Commander of the Force to which the Brigade formed part, could readily have ascertained upon inquiry, would have saved a great amount of grumbling, many hard oaths, for Uncle Toby's army that "swore so terribly in Flanders," could not outdo in that respect our Grand Army of the Potomac,—and no trifling amount of shoe-leather for Uncle Sam. The night was terribly cold, and the wind in gusts swept over the mountain-top with violence sufficient to put the toil-worn man, unsteady under his ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... third son, "ought to be preferred to you both; for I outdo both in sloth. While I lay upon my bed, water dropped from above upon my eyes; and though, from the nature of the water, I was in danger of becoming blind, I neither could nor would turn my head ever so little to the right hand or to the left." The emperor, hearing this, ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... respect to the slaughter which took place, it was very probably ten times greater. The horror of these scenes proved to be too much even for the populace, fierce and merciless as it was, which they were intended to amuse. Caesar, in his eagerness to outdo all former exhibitions and shows, went beyond the limits within which the seeing of men butchered in bloody combats and dying in agony and despair would serve for a pleasure and a pastime. The people were shocked; and condemnations of Caesar's cruelty were added to the other suppressed reproaches ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... knocked on the head. I join the ladies and go with them to the Arcade. It is revoltingly dull to listen to women shopping, haggling and trying to outdo the sharp shopman. I felt ashamed when Sasha, after turning over masses of material and knocking down the prices to a minimum, walked out of the shop without buying anything, or else told the shopman to cut her ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... In spite of all the bravado that was being thrown into these preparations, there was noticeable a deep undercurrent of regret. Jack was going from us. Every one wanted him to go, still these dissolving ties moved the simple men to acts of boyish kindness. Each tried to outdo the others, in the matter of a parting present to Jack. He could have robbed us then. It was as bad as a funeral. Once before we felt similarly when one of the boys died at camp. It was like an only sister ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... Advantage. For their Monarch being a very good Judge of Mens Deserts, does not often let Money or Interest make Men of Parts give Place to others of less Worth. This breeds an Honourable Emulation amongst them, to outdo one another, even in Fatigues, and Dangers; whereby they gain a good Correspondence with the Indians, and acquaint themselves with their Speech and Customs; and so make considerable Discoveries in a short time. Witness, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... something about “Arab hospitality”; but the deuce of it is, that the poor fellows with whom I have happened to pitch my tent were scarcely ever in a condition to exercise that magnanimous virtue with much éclat. Indeed, Mysseri’s canteen generally enabled me to outdo my hosts in the matter of entertainment. They were always courteous, however, and were never backward in offering me the youart, a kind of whey, which is the principal delicacy to be found amongst ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... me the most presumptuous of the arts. They are an effort of man to outdo God in creation. He never made a perfect form or ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the stockmen's hut Works with them, toils with them, side by side; As to his past — well, his lips are shut. 'Gentleman once,' say his mates with pride; And the wildest Cornstalk can ne'er outdo In feats of recklessness, ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... each person present was required to say what reward he would demand of the King if he could change places with the Paladin and do the wonders the Paladin was going to do. The answers were given in fun, and each of us tried to outdo his predecessors in the extravagance of the reward he would claim; but when it came to Joan's turn, and they rallied her out of her dreams and asked her to testify, they had to explain to her what the question was, for her thought had been absent, and she had heard none of this latter ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his temper in your declared love of Miss Goodwill. I see, child, you know your man; and never fear but you'll hold him, if you can go on thus to act, and outdo your sex. But I should think you might as well not insist upon having her with you; you'd better see her now and then at the dairy-house, or at school, than have her with you. But this I leave to ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... heart," says Barrow, "will disdain to subsist, like a drone, upon others' labours; like a vermin to filch its food out of the public granary; or, like a shark, to prey upon the lesser fry; but it will rather outdo his private obligations to other men's care and toil, by considerable service and beneficence to the public; for there is no calling of any sort, from the sceptre to the spade, the management whereof, with any good success, any credit, any satisfaction, doth not demand ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... intellectual influence; but the boy's effect on Oscar was of character and induced imitation. Lord Alfred Douglas' boldness gave Oscar outrecuidance, an insolent arrogance: artist-like he tried to outdo his model in aristocratic disdain. Without knowing the cause the change in Oscar astonished me again and again, and in the course of this narrative I shall have to notice ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Babbiano. The voice was the voice that had acclaimed his cousin Francesco Duke. That it was through that a fierce jealousy had fired him. This man had robbed him at once of the love of his people and of Valentina, and thereby had set in his heart the burning desire to outdo him and to prove wrong in their preference both his people and Valentina. He was like a gamer who risks all on a single throw, and his stake was to be the dowry of his bride, the game a tilt with the forces of the Borgia. If he won he came out covered ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... of Extravaganza, so impressed the public with his fine talents as an artist upon theatrical canvas, that gorgeous scenes became quite the rage, and how, year after year, Mr. Beverley's powers were taxed to the utmost to outdo his former triumphs, and how the most costly materials and complicated machinery were annually put into requisition until the managers ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... of the old year a bell is heard to toll, at which signal everybody rushes into the streets, armed with squibs, crackers, Catherine wheels, and other blatant pyrotechnical compositions; and as each tries to outdo his neighbour in the din he creates, the noise accompanying their discharge is the most satisfactory possible. The temples and pagodas are brilliantly lighted with colored lamps and colored candles, whilst similar candles and "joss-sticks," and gold ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... the Church, and I have been making a sketch of Marlowe's Tamburlaine Driving the Conquered Kings in his Chariot. I am not so ecclesiastical as Naumann, and I sometimes twit him with his excess of meaning. But this time I mean to outdo him in breadth of intention. I take Tamburlaine in his chariot for the tremendous course of the world's physical history lashing on the harnessed dynasties. In my opinion, that is a good mythical interpretation." Will ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... earliest associations had Tom Linton and Jerry Quirk found themselves in such absolute accord, in such complete harmony of understanding, as during the days that immediately followed their reconciliation. Each man undertook to outdo the other in politeness; each man forced himself to be considerate, and strove at whatever expense to himself to lighten the other's burdens; all of their relations were characterized by an elaborate, an almost mid-Victorian courtesy. A friendly ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... circulation; Journalism will descend to mountebanks' tricks worthy of Bobeche; Journalism would serve up its father with the Attic salt of its own wit sooner than fail to interest or amuse the public; Journalism will outdo the actor who put his son's ashes into the urn to draw real tears from his eyes, or the mistress who ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... injury, which she neglected to provide against by medical treatment, concealing it even from her husband. Indeed, she sang on the same evening, and her prodigious facility in tours de force was the subject of special comment, for she seemed spurred to outdo herself from consciousness of physical weakness. When she returned to England again in the following September, her failing health was painfully apparent to all. Yet her unconquerable energy struggled against her sufferings, and she would permit herself no relaxation. In vain ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... been illustrated by the ruthless massacre of the Hereros; whose attitude towards ancient but disorganised civilisations has been illustrated by the history of Kiao-chau and by the celebrated allocution of the Kaiser to his soldiers on the eve of the Boxer expedition, when he bade them outdo the ferocity of Attila and his Huns; whose attitude towards kindred civilisations on the same level as their own has been illustrated before the war in the treatment of Danes, Poles, and Alsatians, and during the ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... now, if I can go through with it, to outdo this mad Celadon in all his tricks, and get both his mistresses from him; then I shall revenge myself upon all three, and save my own stake into the bargain; for I find I do love the rogue, in spite ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... weakness and decrepitude had compelled to throw down the bow and the spear, and the eagle-eyed boy, who was fast gaining upon the ripened period when he should take them up, did each his part in celebrating the feats which the one had equalled, and the other hoped to outdo. The wife, with a proud mien, came forward to meet the embraces of her renowned husband; the timid maiden, with a downcast eye, to steal a look at her valiant lover. Those who had lost friends came eagerly ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... behaviour, and shall award full marks to those who conduct themselves properly, even if they fail to learn a single letter of their alphabet: whereas to those in whom I may perceive a tendency to jocularity I shall award nothing, even though they should outdo Solon himself." For the same reason he had no great love of the author Krylov, in that the latter says in one of his Fables: "In my opinion, the more one sings, the better one works;" and often the pedagogue ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... who seemed to have made up his mind to outdo Brummell in extravagance. "I used to get my sulphur-coloured gloves from the Palais Royal. When the war broke out in '93 I was cut off from them for nine years. Had it not been for a lugger which I specially hired to smuggle them, I might have ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... consequence. Cassius, after he had succeeded in clearing Syria of the invaders, was made by Aurelius a sort of generalissimo; and being thus free to act as he chose, determined to carry the war into the enemy's country, and to try if he could not rival, or outdo, the exploits of Trajan fifty years previously. Though we have no continuous narrative of his expedition, we may trace its course with tolerable accuracy in the various fragmentary writings which bear upon the history of the time—from Zeugma, when he crossed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... was decided, 'n' Mrs. Brown's good cookin' heart come out strong 'n' she pledged three pies right then n' there. I put myself down f'r a pan o' biscuit, 'n' Mr. Kimball said he believed 's the Aliens would outdo every one 'n' give a whole cow, without no urgin' neither. Mrs. Allen laughed a little, 'n' then Mrs. Macy come up so out o' breath 't it was all o' five minutes afore she could get out a word. Seemed when she did speak, 't she wasn't tryin' to give nothin'—she ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... more within doors than others on account of the cold? Have you ever seen me battling with any one for shade on account of the heat? Do you not know that even a weakling by nature may, by dint of exercise and practice, come to outdo a giant who neglects his body? He will beat him in the particular point of training, and bear the strain more easily. But you apparently will not have it that I, who am for ever training myself to endure this, that, ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... merry-making, each one contributing what he could to the entertainment: one jumps, another tumbles, another does magic; there is story-telling, singing, whistling, playing from notes; they play on the harp, the rote, the fiddle, the violin, the flute, and pipe. The maidens sing and dance, and outdo each other in the merry-making. At the wedding that day everything was done which can give joy and incline man's heart to gladness. Drums are beaten, large and small, and there is playing of pipes, fifes, horns, trumpets, and bagpipes. What more shall I say? There ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... blackest night that the river had ever known. A furious gale drove down from the west and the very stars were shut in behind a gloomy sky. Little Jacky Moran trimmed his lantern, filled it with oil, whistled for Grey, and set forth as the black night was falling. The oncoming darkness seemed to outdo itself. Before he was half way up the river, night fell, and he found that he could see but a very few feet before him, although it was not yet half-past five o'clock. At six the men would leave the mill over ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... ground—a letter that had dropped out of M. de Poissy's pocket—a letter from his wife, full of tender words of endearment and pretty babblings of love. This was read aloud, with coarse ribald comments on every sentence, each trying to outdo the previous speaker. When they came to some pretty words about a sweet Maurice, their little child away with its mother on some visit, they laughed at M. de la Tourelle, and told him that he would be hearing such woman's drivelling some day. Up to that moment, I think, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... a place where everybody gets nervous prostration trying to outdo everybody else in originality and extravagance, it wouldn't be like Mrs. Ess Kay ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... humorist-caricaturist looking across at me with twinkling eyes. "A terrible hissing! I showed Mr. Gladstone on the sheet. Immediately it burst forth like a suddenly alarmed steam-engine. The audience rose in indignation—they tried to outdo it with frantic applause, but in spite of their lusty efforts it continued for ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... was mistaken in expecting kinder treatment of Regan than he had experienced from her sister Goneril. As if willing to outdo her sister in unequal behaviour, she declared that she thought fifty knights too many to wait upon him: that five-and-twenty were enough. Then Lear, nigh heart-broken, turned to Goneril and said that he would go back with her, for her fifty ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of travel, humorous, pathetic, and graphic; swirling eddies of word-painting, of moral and ethical and historical reflection; withal, an immense, amiable, innocent, sprawling temperament. And as was her book, so was Grace herself; indeed, if any one could outdo the book in personal conversation, Grace was that happy individual. What she accomplished when she embarked, full-sailed, upon the topic of The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables may be pictured to themselves ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... store. Then each would write down the things that he had seen. The boy soon became so expert that one glance at a show window would enable him to write down the names of forty different objects. The boy could easily outdo ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... naught but quantity counts. In proportion to its increase, however, principles, ideals, justice, and uprightness are completely swamped by the array of numbers. In the struggle for supremacy the various political parties outdo each other in trickery, deceit, cunning, and shady machinations, confident that the one who succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority as the victor. That is the only god,—Success. As to what expense, what terrible cost to character, is of no moment. We have not ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... streets of the old town, which were still lit and uneasy—for the fleet of airships overhead had kept the cafes open and people abroad—over the great new bridge, and so by straggling outskirts to the country. And all through his capital the king who hoped to outdo Caesar, sat back and was very still, and no one spoke. And as they got out into the dark country they became aware of the searchlights wandering over the country-side like the uneasy ghosts of giants. The king sat forward and looked at ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... who comes into the gates is startled by the sight of a gaunt black man wrapped in a sheet and wearing coiled around his head enough clothing to make a good wash. But of all the incomprehensible varieties of headwear about the grounds from foreign lands, it remained for our own American Indian to outdo them all. When the great No Neck, of the Sioux nation, walks through the grounds with his war bonnet of eagle feathers trailing on the ground, the East Indians concede their defeat. No Neck's bonnet ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... really guileful craftsmanship. The conduct of both actors is (in the cant phrase) psychologically correct, and the emotion aptly graduated up to the surprising climax. I am awake now, and I know this trade; and yet I cannot better it. I am awake, and I live by this business; and yet I could not outdo - could not perhaps equal - that crafty artifice (as of some old, experienced carpenter of plays, some Dennery or Sardou) by which the same situation is twice presented and the two actors twice brought ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of a very large amount of the world's intellectual endeavor. The financier does not think merely for money, nor the scientist for truth, nor the theologian to save souls. Their intellectual efforts are aimed in great measure to outdo the other man, to subdue nature, to conquer assent. The maternal instinct in its turn is the chief source of woman's superiorities in the moral life. The virtues in which she excels are not so much due to either any general moral superiority or any set of special moral ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... here see'st put, It was for gentle Shakspeare cut, Wherein the graver had a strife With nature to outdo the life. Oh! could he have but drawn his wit As well in brass, as he hath hit ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... serious quarrel of a rather ridiculous character ensued. Keeping myself entirely neutral, I soon found that I derived the greatest advantage from their animosity to each other, as each tried to outdo the other in readiness to serve me. To-day, Charley, who was usually the last to rise in the morning, roused even me, and brought the horses before our breakfast was ready. Brown's fondness for spinning a yarn will soon, however, induce him to put an end to this feud with his companion and countryman. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... the sick were one of the methods of earning heaven prescribed by her new creed. She was ashamed of her own laziness by the side of Honoria's simple benevolence; and, sad though it may be to have to say it, she longed to outdo her by some signal act of self-sacrifice. She had looked to this nunnery, too, as an escape, once and for all, from her own luxury, just as people who have not strength to be temperate take refuge in teetotalism; ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... off home de best dey could, an' laid 'roun' in sun an' shade fer ter let der cuts an' gashes git good an' well. When dey got so dey could segashuate, an' pay der party calls, dey 'gree fer ter insemble some'rs, an' hit on some plan fer ter outdo Brer Rabbit. Well, dey had der insembly, an' dey jower'd an' jower'd des like yo' pa do when he aint feelin' right well; but, bimeby, dey 'greed 'pon a plan dat look like it mought work. Dey 'gree fer ter make out dat dey gwine ter have ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... the manager laughed; and it was quite evident, even to the aspirant for circus honors, that all present intended to amuse themselves at his expense. But Noddy felt able to outdo most of the circus people at their own profession, and he confidently expected to turn the laugh upon them before ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... beyond all dwellers 'neath the sun; Great was he, yet so fair of face and limb That all folk wondered much, beholding him, How such a man could be; no fear he knew, And all in manly deeds he could outdo; Fleet-foot, a swimmer strong, an archer good, Keen-eyed to know the dark waves' changing mood; Sure on the crag, and with the sword so skilled, That when he played therewith the air seemed filled With light of gleaming ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... comrades to witness for the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the names of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor feel a pride in striving to outdo them. For myself, I conclude the Bumppos could shoot, for I have a natural turn with a rifle, which must have been handed down from generation to generation, as, our holy commandments tell us, all good and evil gifts are bestowed; though I should be loath to answer for other ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... pine it is of little use for lumber, for the limbs, young and old, have filled its trunk with knots. Where our present day trees have seeded in thickly and uniformly over considerable space it is different. Then as the trees grow old they grow taller, each struggling to outdo its neighbors and get more light and air. Lower limbs decay in time and in the progress of forty or fifty years we get a "second growth" pine which is fairly limbless for a height of forty or fifty feet. Give the trees another ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... conclude Mr. Planche's extravaganzas at the Lyceum Theatre, when under the management of Madame Vestris. Mr. Planche has himself described how the scene-painter came by degrees to take the dramatist's place in the theatre. "Year after year Mr. Beverley's powers were taxed to outdo his former outdoings. The last scene became the first in the estimation of the management. The most complicated machinery, the most costly materials were annually put into requisition, until their bacon was so buttered it was impossible to save it. As to me, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... chatting idly in little groups, thronged the doors of managers' offices and dramatic agencies, promenaded up and down with self-conscious strut. If some were seedy, all looked sanguine and happy. Actors and actresses both, they laughed and joked and patted one another on the back, as they strove to outdo each other in narrating wonderful experiences on the road. Right and left one heard the younger players exclaim exuberantly: "Great notices!—made the hit of my life!—am to be starred next season!—manager ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... week, indeed, the weather had seemed to be trying to outdo itself. I remember in particular the day before Christmas. I rose long before daylight, crossed the Mystic River marshes as the dawn was beginning to break, and shortly after sunrise was on my way ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... brethren of the South, will as one man resist such invasion of the soil of the South, at all hazards, and to the last extremity!" The Committee on Federal Relations, to which was referred the communications addressed to Governor Magoffin, exerted itself to outdo the resolutions given above, and reported resolutions of which the substance was, that as Kentucky had been invaded by the Confederate forces, and the commanders of said forces had "insolently prescribed the conditions ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... they took turns, week about, in keeping their room in order, each trying to outdo his mate in the thoroughness with which he attended to all ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... girl who could not decide between them, she liked both of them so immensely, especially as she herself was the champion basket-ball player among the girls at her seminary. Each of the Twins resolved that he would not only outdo all the rest of the players upon the gymnasium floor, but also his bitter rival, ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... had been touched, and for two weeks they had worked like demons to outdo the boss. At night when the amount of work done was calculated, they laughed at Ed. Then they heard that the piece-work plan was to be installed in the factory, and were afraid they would be paid by a scale calculated on the amount ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... so, too," said Darquelnoy. "But there it is. At the moment, they've divided themselves into two camps—generally speaking, that is—and the two sides are trying like mad to outdo each other in everything. As a part of it, they're shooting all sorts of rubbish into space and crowing every time a piece of the ...
— They Also Serve • Donald E. Westlake
... whole life up to now had been devoted to dodging honest labor—whose motto had been: The world owes me a living, and it's up to me to collect it. Also, he was surprised to discover that he liked to work, that he took keen pride in striving to outdo the men who worked with him, and this spirit, despite the suspicion which the captain entertained of Billy since the episode of the forecastle, went far to making his life more endurable on board the ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the Latin language; and induced them to imitate the Roman modes of dress and living. 19. Thus, by degrees, this barbarous people began to assume the luxurious manners of their conquerors, and even to outdo them in all the refinements of sensual pleasure. 20. Upon account of the successes in Britain, Titus was saluted Impera'tor[28] for the fifteenth time; but he did not long survive this honour, being seized with a violent fever at a little distance ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... hustled each other in a cloud of dust. The brazen clash of military music was drowned in the hurrahs and acclamations of "Long live the Duc d'Angouleme! Long live the King! Long live the Bourbons!" The ball was an outburst of pent-up enthusiasm, where each man endeavored to outdo the rest in his fierce haste to worship the rising sun,—an exhibition of partisan greed which left me unmoved, or rather, it disgusted me and drove me back ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... son, you'll do the wise thing still; how—an—ever let me alone now; if you expect me to do anything, you mustn't drive me as your mother does. To-night we'll make up a plan that'll outdo Bodagh Buie. Before you come home, Connor, throw a stone or two in that gap, to prevent the cows from gettin' into the hay; it won't cost you much throuble. But, Connor, did you ever see sich a gut as Bartle has? He'll ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of the white race toward Negro education. This prejudice seems to be in all sections of the country, but it is the southerner who is heard from the most, possibly because he is more in contact with the real problem and then because it seems to be a policy of southern politicians to attempt to outdo each other in their speeches along the line of race prejudice. According to Weatherford prejudice has arisen out of the fear that education will lead to the dominance of the Negro in politics and to promiscuous mingling in social life. "The southern white ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Egypt, came to do homage to him, and to bring him gifts, i.e. to pay tribute. Their gifts consisted of gold, lapis-lazuli, turquoise, and costly woods from the land of the god,[1] and each chief tried to outdo his neighbour in the magnificence of his gifts. Among these tributary chiefs was the Prince of Bekhten, who, in addition to his usual gift, presented to the king his eldest daughter, and he spake words of praise to the king, and prayed for his life. His daughter was beautiful, and the king ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... distinguished, a tooth-weaponed murderer, The well-beloved henchman's body all swallowed. Not the earlier off empty of hand did The bloody-toothed murderer, mindful of evils, 50 Wish to escape from the gold-giver's palace, But sturdy of strength he strove to outdo me, Hand-ready grappled. A glove was suspended Spacious and wondrous, in art-fetters fastened, Which was fashioned entirely by touch of the craftman 55 From the dragon's skin by the devil's devices: He down in ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... who was obliged to receive us whether he liked it or not, it being sufficient that a Turk orders it. But in truth, I believe the old Patriarch was very proud of the honor for no hospitality could outdo his: the fatted calf was killed and we feasted sumptuously. Fingers were now called into requisition as knives and forks are no part of the necessaries of these Oriental nations. Such tearing of fowls and tucking up of sleeves! After dinner the water, and then the Alpha ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... crises. Hence, we see the treacherous smile of the wily; the patronizing smile of the pompous; the obsequious smile of the flatterer; the cynical smile of the satirist. Very few of these have heard of Delsarte; but they outdo him on his own grounds. Their smile is four-fifths of their social stock in trade. All such smiles are hideous. The gloomiest, blankest look which a human face can wear is welcomer than a trained smile or a smile which, if it is not actually and ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... believed the transformation scene through which he seemed to pass on landing. Freed from the glare of the waterfront of Hamilton and on the road to Fairyland Bay, he seemed to have entered a new world. It was a Paradise of Flowers, even the Golden State could not outdo it. Hedges of scarlet hibiscus flamed ten feet high, clusters of purple bougainvillea poured down from cottage-porches, while oleander in radiant bloom formed a hedge twenty feet high for as much as half a mile at a stretch. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... not well have afforded more, but because he was all unaccustomed to giving. He had been known to be the unhappy man's friend, and because he headed the list with his fifty pounds it was said that no one liked to outdo that donation. Sir Francis Forcus, in order to avoid hurting those sensitive feelings with which Mr. Boult was accredited, had the happy thought to put his own name down for fifty pounds, and those of his wife and his young brother, each for the ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... ones had been laid in their last sleep. Each tomb was a shelter, a roof, and a tomb, and upon each the builder had lavished his highest skill in ornament. They were all vivid with paint and carving and lattice work. Each builder seemed trying to outdo his neighbor in making a cheerful habitation for ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... all your own, if I may make so free as to tell you so. Sir Hyacinth O'Brien," said he, "as capital an electioneerer as you are, I'll engage I'll find one that shall outdo you here. Send me and Stafford back again this minute to Rosanna, and we'll bring you the three votes as dead as crows in an hour's time, or my name ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... crown of glory; his true greatness can not be identified with it. We are acquainted with animals that can eat more, and seem to do it with a greater relish. Others can run faster, jump higher, overcome greater weight and outdo him in all manner of physical labor. They are in possession of greater courage and fight with greater ferocity. So we must search for man's greatness outside of all these elements of character. Can we find no brighter, higher principles in the human character? To do so we must lay aside ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... Ranulph went on, stroking the feathers of the little dun pigeon Rien-du-Tout, "for a bird to outdo a man. Perhaps some day we shall even sail the air as now we sail the seas. Picture to yourself a winged galleon with yourself at the helm—about to discover a world beyond the sunset. It is all in having faith, I tell you. Unbelief is the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... read with resignation "this plausible derivation," as it is styled. Cooper, however, not content with the simple glory of originating it, actually uses throughout the whole work chiente instead of "shanty." This rivals, if it does not outdo, the linguistic excesses of the sixteenth and ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... once, you know— Hates me so she'll scarcely speak. Oh, yes! Grace Church, Brown, and that— Pa won't mind expense at last I'll be off his hands for good; Cost a fortune two years past. My trousseau shall outdo Maud's, I've carte blanche from Pa, you know— Mean to have my dress from Worth! Won't she be just ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... barns, mills, haystacks, etc., within a certain area. Merritt was provoked. He pointed to the west and one could have made a chart of Custer's trail by the columns of black smoke which marked it. The general was manifestly fretting lest Custer should appear to outdo him in zeal in obeying orders, and blamed me as his responsible subordinate, for the delay. I told him, with an appearance of humility that I am sure was unfeigned, that those mills would never grind ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... the foul fruit falls down; and so it is with Halleck's western military combinations. All the army of Grant running dispersed on centrifugal radii, Burnside sent in a direction opposite to Rosecrans. Bravo, Halleck! You outdo McClellan! ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... (among others one of the Fancy), afterwards bared his arm to convince us of his muscular strength, and Mrs. Sarratt going out of the room with another lady said, 'Do you know, Madam, the Doctor is a great jumper!' Moliere could not outdo this. Never shall I forget his pulling off his coat to eat beef-steaks on equal terms with Martin Burney. Life is short, but full of mirth and pastime, did we not so soon forget what we have laughed at, perhaps that we may not remember what we have cried ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... arises, in a measure, from want of means to pay for the article among the general population, since they are only half clothed in wretched rags, being mostly bareheaded and barefooted also. The lower class of Mexico could give the lazzaroni of Naples "points," and then outdo them vastly in squalor and nakedness. The idle, indolent, and thriftless outnumber all other classes in the republic, one reason for which is found in the fact common to all tropical countries, that the climate is such that the poor can safely sleep ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... against the peace which had been made with France, and which he had opposed for political considerations alone, but that, so far as the marriage with Margaret was concerned, he approved it. So he prepared to outdo, if possible, all the rest of the nobility in the magnificence of the welcome which he was to give her on her arrival in London. He possessed a palace at Greenwich, on the Thames, a short distance below London, ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... needless austerity excluded from what he called the Snakery and doomed to companionship with their own kind, though to soften the rigors of their lot he had permitted them out of his great wealth to outdo the reptiles in the gorgeousness of their surroundings and to shine ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... proposed to himself the same thing which was aimed at by the German divines, Arndt, Calixtus, and Spener, when they rose up against the grinding oppression which Lutheran dogmatism had raised on its Symbolical Books,[56] and which had come to outdo the worst extravagances of scholasticism. This seems to have been his object—a fair and legitimate one. But in arguing against investing the Thirty-nine Articles with an authority which did not belong to them, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... the posse gave himself to a job of scientific profanity. He was spurred on to outdo himself because he had heard a titter or two behind him. When he had finished, he formed a procession. He, with Elliot hand-cuffed beside him, was at the head of it. It marched to ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... sleep, my Soul is so unfurnish'd Of all that Sweetness which allow'd it rest. —'Tis flown, 'tis flown, for ever from my breast, And in its room eternal discords dwell, Such as outdo the black intrigues of Hell— ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... closer, and looked at me, while I stared back as unwinkingly. His face was a mask, but I thought—as I have thought before and since when at the council fire—that there was amusement in the very blankness of his gaze, and that my effort to outdo him at his own mummery somewhat taxed his gravity. When he spoke at last he ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... quite a different light, Hubert," she said; "and while I am slightly incensed at your not telling me about this affair, I can readily understand the kindly impulse which prompted you to protect this young girl. But I can not allow you to outdo me; Jessie must consider me quite as much her friend as you. She shall find a home here with us, and it will be pleasant, after all, to see a bright, girlish face in these dull old rooms, and hear the sound ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... planning to outdo us in glory," Cleo reflected. "Well, we had better be busy, True Treds, and get ready to ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... "You know Sis' Littlejohn, she been married goin' on five times. Dis-here'll make fo' gentlemans she done buriet an' dey ain't nobody can manage a fun'el like she kin; 'pears like hit jes' come natchel to her. She sho' is done a good part by eb'ry single husban' too, an' she's figgerin' to outdo all the yuthers wid Brudder Littlejohn's co'pse." Sarah Jane almost forgot her little audience in her intense absorption of her subject. "She say to me dis mornin', she say, 'Marri'ge am a lott'ry, Sis Beddinfiel', but I sho' is drawed some ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... place where he had fallen in, they all began looking about for him, and while they were doing this, he came up just in front of the bone shoeing on the nose of one of the kayaks which lay quite away from the rest. When they spied him, each tried to outdo ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... tower still do overlook The woody knaps an' winden brook, An' leaene's wi' here an' there a hatch, An' house wi' elem-sheaeded thatch, An' vields where chaps do vur outdo The Zunday sky, wi' cwoats o' blue; An' maidens' frocks do vur surpass The ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... bring him in a sou! He has invited me, but I shall tell him that I also have some people coming. The others will laugh on the wrong side of their mouths to-morrow. And let everything be of the best. Have everything sent from the Hotel de Provence. We must outdo the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... vital law; it is only the direction of it that requires alteration. When the cessation of working for one's livelihood takes place, human energy and love of production will not cease with it, but will persist, and must find their channels. But competition to outdo each in the service of all is free from collisions, and its range is limitless. Not to support life, but to make life more lovely, will be the effort; and not to make it more lovely for one's self, but for ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... of unconscious selection, as far as pigeons are concerned, depends on a universal principle in human nature, namely, on our rivalry, and desire to outdo our neighbours. We see this in every fleeting fashion, even in our dress, and it leads the fancier to endeavour to exaggerate every peculiarity in his breeds. A great authority on pigeons[359] says, "Fanciers do not and will not admire a medium standard, that is, half ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... who considered this conversation as his cherished own, and saw it being torn from him, determined to outdo the favoured Morris as a squire ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... foreman gave vent to a fit of laughter. "Young fellow," said he, "I never allow no man to outdo me in politeness. If you bought these cattle on my old man's word, I want you to be safe in receiving them. We'll class them sixteen hundred twos, and fifteen hundred threes, and any overplus falls to the red-headed ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... blunts the edge of grief and lightens pain. "No man was ever in a passion with a pipe in his mouth." There are more female lunatics chiefly because the fumigatory education of the fair sex has been neglected. Yet it is important to notice that these same advocates almost outdo its opponents in admitting its liability to misuse, and the perilous consequences. "The injurious effects of excessive smoking,"—"there is no more pitiable object than the inveterate smoker,"—"sedentary life ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... weld, hammer; belabor, maul, buffet, smite, flagellate, whack, pelt, strike; See whip; overcome, vanquish, surpass, conquer, eclipse, subdue, checkmate, rout, excel, outdo; cheat, swindle, defraud; throb, pulsate; pulverize, comminute, bruise, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... scholars. Quintilian, Pliny, and Statius, the three foremost authors of the Flavian dynasty, have common qualities of great learning and sober judgment which give them a certain mutual affinity, and divide them sharply from their immediate predecessors. The effort to outdo the Augustan writers had exhausted itself; the new school rather aimed at reproducing their manner. In the hands of inferior writers this attempt only issued in tame imitations; but with those of really original ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... [modelling herself on Ecrasia, and trying to outdo her intellectually] Clearly because they ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... 25s., and even 30s. per quarter. At once he saw his opportunity and left for Scotland by the next mail. He knew, of course, that the mail carried the startling war news to Edinburgh, but he trusted to his wit to outdo it by reaching the northern capital first. As the coach passed the farm of Skateraw, some distance east of Dunbar, it was met by the farmer, old Harry Lee, on horseback. Rennie, who was an outside passenger, no sooner recognised Lee than he sprang from his seat on the coach ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... characteristic manner: "Miss Shaw said she only went to California to hold Miss Anthony's bonnet, but, when we left, everybody thought that I had come to hold her bonnet. It is my delight to see these girls develop and outdo their elders. There is another little woman that I want to come up here to the platform, Mrs. Chapman Catt. While she is blushing and getting ready, there is a delegation here from the Woman's National Press Association." Mesdames Lockwood, Gates, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... when the animals in question came leaping on the track of the deer, striving with noble ardour to outdo each other. One was an aged dog, whose strength seemed to be sustained purely by generous emulation, and the other a pup, that gambolled even while he pressed most warmly on the chase. They both ran, however, with clean and powerful leaps, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... festoons of puffy popcorn. Near it sat an old man playing the violin; and his whole wiry self seemed to quiver with joy to the tune of his merry "Money Musk." In the center of the room two gray-haired men were dancing an old-time jig, bobbing, bowing, and twisting about in a gleeful attempt to outdo each other. Watching them were three old women and another old man, eating ice cream and contentedly munching peppermints. And here, there, and everywhere was the mistress of the house, Lydia Ann herself, cheeks flushed and cap-strings flying, but plainly ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... in 1866, was partially educated in England and is very popular with all classes of people—particularly with those who profit by his extravagance. The revenues of the state are about $20,000,000 a year, and the people are very much overtaxed. The nizam's taste for splendor and his desire to outdo all the other native princes in display have caused the government of India considerable anxiety, and the British resident at his capital, whose duty is to keep him straight, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... loose under your left arm," ordered Captain Nan, and the girls quickly obeyed like true cadets. The broad red-white-and-blue bunting was very pretty over the girls' white dresses, and indeed the "cadets" looked as if they would outdo the "regulars" unless the boys ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... others, hunger and fatigue made any fare and shelter welcome. Blaise, in particular, found the wine acceptable. Conscious of the glances of Jeannotte, now flashing, now demure, he strove to outdo himself in one of his happiest accomplishments, that of drinking. The two boys, Hugo and Pierre, emulated his achievements, and only the presence of mademoiselle deterred our party ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... same took place a second time. The third time, just as he was going to rush at her, she laid the cross upon him. He fell down and died. She looked into the coffin; there lay ever so much money. The father-in-law wanted to take it away with him, or, at all events, that only some one who could outdo him in ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... house look like a boy in his Saturday hat and Sunday breeches. So in went a large new window; and now these changes have mysteriously offended Mrs. Walter, who says the town is laughing at me for trying to outdo the Cobbs. The highest animal is the only one who is divinely gifted with such noble discernment. But I am not sorry to have my place look its best. When they see it, they will perhaps understand why I was not to be driven out by a golden cracker on ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... seemed resolved to outdo every other in kindness. In a shop where we endeavored to explain that we wanted to get a flat cap which should be both Basque and red, a lady who was buying herself a hat asked in English if she could ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... and feel able to surpass them; for since those early days in which I made the medals of Pope Clement, I have learned so much that I can now produce far better pieces of the kind. I think I can also outdo the coins I struck for Duke Alessandro, which are still held in high esteem; in like manner I could make for you large pieces of gold and silver plate, as I did so often for that noble monarch, King Francis of France, thanks to the great conveniences he allowed me, without ever losing time for ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... attracted by the lovely lights, which will be brighter than anything you have ever seen, by the jewels, which will be more dazzling than anything you have ever dreamed of, to say nothing about the gorgeous costumes that will rival anything displayed upon the Field of the Cloth of Gold, outdo the splendours of any court, and put the pageant of the grandest pantomime ever witnessed to shame. Follow me," commanded the Lion, "and you will see what you will see only once in your lives, and it all begins with ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... Battalion, but there was another Battalion in our Brigade with whom we did not pull at all, and there was always a certain amount of jealousy between us, which was a good thing as we were always trying to outdo the other. Their Commanding Officer thought that they were the best battalion that ever left Canada, and Hilliam, the bulldog that he was, would not stand for that; so there was always a certain ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... above surprise and beyond disdain. He was a huge, toil- hardened, sun-reddened, hard-drinking soldier of the railroad, a loquacious Irishman whose fixed grin denied him any gravity, a foreman of his gang. His chief delight was to outdo his bosom comrade, McDermott. He did not realize that he represented an unconquerable and unquenchable spirit. Neither did his comrade know. But under Casey's grin shone something simple, radiant, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... responsibility which had devolved upon them; besides, there was not so much work after all for two healthy men. And the removal of the cruel whiphand, or in other words the bulldozing half-breed, had brought with it a joyous reaction. At first, each strove to outdo the other, and they performed petty tasks with an unction which would have opened the eyes of their comrades who were now wearing out bodies and souls on the ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... democracy and world freedom; "Tosh," they say to our dead in the trenches, "you died for a mistake"; they jeer at this idea of a League of Nations making an end to war, an idea that has inspired countless brave lads to face death and such pains and hardships as outdo even death itself; they perplex and irritate our Allies by propounding schemes for some precious economic league of the British Empire—that is to treat all "foreigners" with a common base selfishness ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... one did him a kindness or an injury, he showed himself anxious to go beyond him in those respects; and some used to mention a wish of his, that "he desired to live long enough to outdo both those who had done him good, and those who had done him ill, in the requital that he should make." 12. Accordingly to him alone of the men of our days were so great a number of people desirous of committing the disposal of their property, ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... of politeness; tell me not of generosity; tell me not of compassion—Is she not a match for me? More than a match? Does she not outdo me at every fair weapon? Has she not made me doubt her love? Has she not taken officious pains to declare that she was not averse to Solmes for any respect she had to me? and her sorrow for putting herself out of his reach, that is ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... area. Merritt was provoked. He pointed to the west and one could have made a chart of Custer's trail by the columns of black smoke which marked it. The general was manifestly fretting lest Custer should appear to outdo him in zeal in obeying orders, and blamed me as his responsible subordinate, for the delay. I told him, with an appearance of humility that I am sure was unfeigned, that those mills would never grind again, ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... and more to Polly's taste, when this annual affair, postponed while Tom's mother and Tom were away, took place. For days before, the preparations had been making, the stewards up to their eyes in responsibility to carry out the plans of the little old earl, who meant on this occasion to outdo all his former efforts, and show his American friends how an Englishman treats ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... and the lesson. What did this Galilean, who owned nothing but the clothes He wore, know about money or the best way of administering wealth? Our Lord's reply to their words of derision was a further condemnation. They knew all the tricks of the business-world, and could outdo the unrighteous steward in crafty manipulation; and yet so successfully could they justify themselves before men as to be outwardly honest and straightforward; furthermore, they made ostentatious display of a certain ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... the living. His reasoning is like this: 'The dead are free from the limitations of our life, therefore they should manifest themselves to us as befits their wider knowledge of the laws of the universe, and especially is it their business to outdo the most skilful conjurer! Hence each man insists on locked slates and sealed letters. These the poor psychics are forced to grant. To be just to them, I must say that I have found most mediums fairly willing to meet ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... gentlemans she done buriet an' dey ain't nobody can manage a fun'el like she kin; 'pears like hit jes' come natchel to her. She sho' is done a good part by eb'ry single husban' too, an' she's figgerin' to outdo all the yuthers wid Brudder Littlejohn's co'pse." Sarah Jane almost forgot her little audience in her intense absorption of her subject. "She say to me dis mornin', she say, 'Marri'ge am a lott'ry, Sis Beddinfiel', but I sho' ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... an inferior, do not fail to return the courtesy in kind, remembering Henry Clay, who, when asked why he lifted his hat to an old colored man who had paid him the same deference, replied, "I never allow a negro to outdo me ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... at a cafe-concert in Montmartre, which, like many of its kind, had an ephemeral existence—the nearest, incidentally, to the real Paris to which Andrew Lackaday had attained. It tried to appeal to a catholicity of tastes; to outdo its rivals inscabrousness—did not Farandol and Lizette Blandy make their names there?—and at the same time to offer to the purer-minded an innocent entertainment. To the latter both Lackaday, with his imitations, and Horatio Bakkus, with his sentimental ballads, contributed. ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... When one has faced up to an ultimate self-denial, giving becomes a habit. One becomes eager to be allowed to give all—to keep none of life's small change. The fury of an ideal enfevers us. We become fanatical to outdo our own best record in self-surrender. Many of us, if we are alive when peace is declared, will feel an uneasy reproach that perhaps we ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... unconscious selection, as far as pigeons are concerned, depends on a universal principle in human nature, namely, on our rivalry, and desire to outdo our neighbours. We see this in every fleeting fashion, even in our dress, and it leads the fancier to endeavour to exaggerate every peculiarity in his breeds. A great authority on pigeons[359] says, "Fanciers do not and will not admire a medium standard, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... hunters and have adventures; so we must get lost, and find our way by the sun and the stars," answered Tommy, who had read so many Boys' Books his little head was a jumble of Texan Rangers, African Explorers, and Buffalo Bills; and he burned to outdo ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... and daring pirates in the history of the world; they were head-hunters, they practised slavery, and they were cruel and blood-thirsty on land and sea. Out of such elements this boy king built his kingdom. How he did it would furnish tales that would outdo Verne, ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... the reports at last, he said: "Amazing! They've held off the Karna at every point! They've beaten them back! They've managed to cope with and outdo the finest team of negotiators ...
— In Case of Fire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... friend and neighbour; we will get a pair of scales, then you Robin Mutton shall be put into one of them, and Tup Robin into the other. Now I will hold you a peck of Busch oysters that in weight, value, and price he shall outdo you, and you shall be found light in the very numerical manner as when you shall be hanged ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... these men, ye devils, and see how they outdo ye. No, Pope; thou didst it when thy lips kissed the feet of my ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... had heard of the sale of my property and came to help me. I have no complaint to make of life, Mathias. I am truly loved,—as much as any man ever could be here below; beloved by two women who outdo each other in devotion; they are even jealous of each other; the daughter blames the mother for loving me too much, and the mother reproaches the daughter for what she calls her dissipations. I may say that this great affection has been my ruin. How could I fail to satisfy even the slightest caprice ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... the little, arched, iron-studded door through which the former owner had come and gone unobserved. The use of an open door is hardly trespass under the law of any land; and dawn is an excellent time for the impecunious who take thought of the lily how it grows in order to outdo Solomon. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... in expecting kinder treatment of Regan than he had experienced from her sister Goneril. As if willing to outdo her sister in unequal behaviour, she declared that she thought fifty knights too many to wait upon him: that five-and-twenty were enough. Then Lear, nigh heart-broken, turned to Goneril and said that he would ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... playing at frightening one another. Lily, for instance, in India: two eyes glaring at her in the dark, gee! And, in New York, a fall into a mirror; all over blood; half dead. She grew excited, in her desire to outdo Laurence and Crack-o'-Whip: the steel-buckled belt, the kicks in the ribs! Stories of brutal treatment picked up on every side—from the Gilson girl, from Ave Maria, from all the boys and all the girls and all the monkeys who had been through ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... being brought up a Catholic or even baptized in a Catholic Church. The child was now a week old and Rean was fairly distracted, for neither his own mother nor his mother-in-law would give way; each was trying to outdo the other. Mrs. Rean watched Mrs. Egan, and Mrs. Egan watched Mrs. Rean, and the poor mother lay all day with the baby at her breast, listening to the two of ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... Velasquez could paint, and the artist's handsome face, stalwart frame and fearless riding did the rest. The young King was considered the best horseman in Madrid: Velasquez and Olivarez took pains never to outdo ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... prevailed, and each tribe tried to outdo the other in generous acts. The example set by the Professor was, indeed, a lesson to these ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... beast you were bringing into the prairies for a decoy! I know you to be a man who seldom troubles truth, when any thing worse may answer, but I never knew you to outdo yourself so thoroughly before. The newspapers of Kentuck have called you a dealer in black flesh a hundred times, but little did they reckon that you drove the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... prey at that moment of shame and despair, they would have secured it, but their vanity or their self-esteem made them wish to wash off the mire they had cast, or to conceal it by such magnificence at the wedding as should outdo Fifth Avenue. The English heiress must have a wedding-dress that would figure in the papers, and, even in the States, be fabulously splendid. It must come from Paris, and it must be waited for. All the ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to farming. I've two brothers and two sons, all young and strong, who believe in the game. We have land without end, thousands of acres; engines to pull stumps, to plough, to plant, to reap. The nigger go hang! A white boy with an engine can outdo a dozen of 'em. Cotton and corn for staple crops; peaches, figs, scuppernongs, vegetables, melons for incidental crops; God's good air in North Carolina; good roads, too—why, man, Moore County has authorized the laying out of a strip of land along all highways to be ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... with great taste with light blue hangings, gilded panels and cornice, armchairs, and a sofa. Some of the others have rich silk ornaments, some are painted in fresco, and each proprietor seems to have tried to outdo the rest in comfort and magnificence. The scenery is beautiful. The dome and the fronts of the boxes are painted in the most superb classical designs, and the sofa seats are exceedingly commodious. Will this splendid ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... his Court for a successor. "And what woman in the world," thought she, "could vie with Angelique des Meloises if she chose to enter the arena to supplant La Pompadour? Nay, more! If the prize of the King were her lot, she would outdo La Maintenon herself, and end by sitting on ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... has. Perceiving that no man did any more oppose my design, I took the pen, and wrote, before I had done, six sorts of hands used among the Arabians, and each specimen containing an extemporary distich or quatram in praise of the sultan. My writings did not only outdo that of the merchants, but I dare say they had not before seen any such fair writing in that country. When I had done, the officers took the roll, and carried ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... back at the inn, Mattie at once proceeding to show Alfaretta that she could do some fine cooking herself; and between them they made Mrs. Roderick's larder suffer, so eager was each to outdo the other and to suggest some further delicacy ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... cannot forbear mentioning one, whereby this poor kingdom hath received such a fatal blow in the only article of trade allowed us of any importance that nothing but the success of Wood's project, could outdo it. During the late plague in France, the Spaniards, who buy their linen cloths in that kingdom, not daring to venture thither for fear of infection; a very great demand was made here for that commodity, and exported to Spain: ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... is— A sort of soup, or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo: Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace: All these you eat at Terre's tavern In that one dish ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Infants Smiles: No prey so small but dies. Alas, the hard-mouth'd Blood-hound, Zeal, bites through; Religion hunts, and hungry Jaws pursue. To what strange Rage is Superstition driven, That Man can outdo Hell to fight for Heav'n! So Rebel Geshur fought: so drown'd in gore, Even Mother Earth blusht at the Sons she bore; And still asham'd of her old staining Brand, Her Head shrinks down and Quagmires half their Land. Yet not this blow Baals Empire could enlarge For Israel still ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... not accustomed to great bodily fatigues, he endured those of the campaign with surprising strength, refusing all the alleviations that his superiors tried to offer him; for he would allow no one to outdo him in the trouble that he took for the good of the country. On the march he invariably shared: anything that he possessed fraternally with his comrades, helping those who were weaker than himself to carry their burdens, and, at once priest and soldier, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... were subtle and alert, but the coyotes could far outdo any man. With Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta flanking her flight, Kaydessa would be well guarded. She would probably never see her guards or know that they were ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... came to Kolchis. Then they sent some one to ask Aietes to give them the golden fleece, but he would not, and they would never have found the fleece again, if the wise maiden, Medeia, had not shown Iason how he might outdo the bidding of King Aietes. But when Iason had won the prize and they had sailed back again to their own land, the fleece was not given to Athamas and Ino. The other people took it, for they said, "It is quite right that we should have ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... remember the evenings when he read to us gravely out of his old Shakespeare, dwelling tenderly upon passages he loved. And he instructed me in other things,—in honor and manliness, in woodcraft, and many a pretty thing at arms, until no lad in the settlements around could outdo me in rough border sport. I loved to hear him, of a boisterous winter night,—he spoke of such matters but seldom,—tell about his army life, the men he had fought beside and loved, the daring deeds born of his younger blood. In that way he had sometimes mentioned this Roger Matherson; and it ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... little groups, thronged the doors of managers' offices and dramatic agencies, promenaded up and down with self-conscious strut. If some were seedy, all looked sanguine and happy. Actors and actresses both, they laughed and joked and patted one another on the back, as they strove to outdo each other in narrating wonderful experiences on the road. Right and left one heard the younger players exclaim exuberantly: "Great notices!—made the hit of my life!—am to be starred next season!—manager crazy for me ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... woman can outdo the Duchess of Sutherland. She will find an egg daintier than the plover's, and not stir from her own door; for awhile since, some one, fumbling among the secrets of Nature, discovered, not that stones were sermons, but that snow was eggs, and straight made a cook-book to tell it, as we will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... vainqueur des vainqueurs de la terre"; and having conquered all the world is in his turn conquered by Love. To write thus was supposed to be following the noble impulse given by the Renaissance, to be Roman, to outdo Seneca.[321] ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... what causes all the confusion. Why cannot you return? Because you can't. You can no more make water run up hill than can you cause the tide of economic evolution to flow back in its channel along the way it came. Joshua made the sun stand still upon Gibeon, but you would outdo Joshua. You would make the sun go backward in the sky. You would have time retrace its ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... speaks of 'fellow-women.' The question of woman's duty to man has been amply discussed since the days of Menes the Thinite—but no one ever heard of a woman's duty to her fellow-women; unless, indeed, her duty is to try and outdo them by fair means or foul. Then why talk of man and his fellow-men? I can put the wisest rule of life ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... hatred and suspicions run high. Therefore, of course, such feelings could not be submerged on an occasion of this kind. Perhaps the war has intensified them; perhaps they are always there; perhaps this is the chronic atmosphere of Peking, where each power is trying to outdo the other, to overreach the other, in their dealings with China. Anyway, E—— and I were intensely aware of it in this "scrambling together" ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... party was decided, 'n' Mrs. Brown's good cookin' heart come out strong 'n' she pledged three pies right then n' there. I put myself down f'r a pan o' biscuit, 'n' Mr. Kimball said he believed 's the Aliens would outdo every one 'n' give a whole cow, without no urgin' neither. Mrs. Allen laughed a little, 'n' then Mrs. Macy come up so out o' breath 't it was all o' five minutes afore she could get out a word. Seemed when she did speak, 't she wasn't tryin' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... that the playwright does not know his business, or, at any rate, does not know his audience. It is his business to play upon the collective mind of his audience as upon a keyboard—to arouse just the right order and measure of anticipation, and fulfil it, or outdo it, in just the right way at just the right time. The skill of the dramatist, as distinct from his genius or inspiration, lies in the correctness of his insight into the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the resolution. She threw her scruples into the waste-basket, accepted Pet's invitation, went with her and her crowd to one of the most reckless dances in Greenwich Village, where men and women strove to outdo the saturnalia of Montmartre, vied with one another in exposure, and costumed themselves as closely according to the fig-leaf era as the grinning policemen dared ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... for him to give—not because he could not well have afforded more, but because he was all unaccustomed to giving. He had been known to be the unhappy man's friend, and because he headed the list with his fifty pounds it was said that no one liked to outdo that donation. Sir Francis Forcus, in order to avoid hurting those sensitive feelings with which Mr. Boult was accredited, had the happy thought to put his own name down for fifty pounds, and those of his wife and his young brother, each for ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... it in fair mansions would outdo That island which Tiberius held so dear; And trees that in Hesperian gardens grew Would yield to what this beauteous place should bear; — So rare its race of beasts — no fairer shew Herded or housed erewhile by Circe were; Venus with Loves and Graces ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Universal was not the tops in every field. Not by a long shot. As Las Vegas resorts went, as a matter of fact, almost any of them could outdo the Great Universal in one respect or another. The Golden Palace, for instance, had much gaudier gaming rooms. The Moonbeam had a louder orchestra. The Barbary Coast and the Ringing Welkin both had more slot machines, and it was undeniable that the Flower of the West had fatter ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... been fruitful and happy for German science. For it owes its splendid pre-eminence over that of other countries precisely to the many centres of culture which were offered by those numerous petty capitals of the minor German States which strove to outdo each other in eager emulation. It is to be hoped that this happy decentralisation of science in our politically united fatherland may ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... soldier carried with him his gun, knapsack, haversack, containing five days' provisions, and forty rounds of cartridges. The men had kept up wonderfully during this trying campaign, but the great march of all, in which this magnificent corps was to outdo all that was ever recorded of wonderful marches, was yet in store ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... mastercraft in this kind. A wealth of subtleties and sympathies, gorgeously wrought, full of macabre effects (as many of the poems are) and brilliantly worked out. The things of splendor she has made she will hardly outdo in their kind." — Josephine Preston Peabody, ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... learn to know the sound of his voice, especially when perhaps he and five hundred of his family are, with their heads half out of the water, amusing themselves in the performance of a concert, each striving to outdo his neighbour in the loudness of his tones. He is a first-rate swimmer; and when driven out of the hole in which he passes the warm hours of the day, he plunges into the water, and skims along the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... given in houses famous for their traditions and their magnitude, such as Devonshire House, Bridgwater House, Stafford House, and so forth; but already things were in this respect changing. Newly established families, or families in the act of establishing themselves, had begun to outdo the "great houses" in their lavish expenditure on this kind of entertainment. The center of social gravity was in this respect being shifted. As an illustration of this fact I remember some curt observations ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... her! I don't blame you. Meehaul—I blame nobody but him for it all. Now a word of advice before you go in; don't let on to Ellen that you know of her meetin' him this night;—an' reason good,—if she thinks you're watchin' her, she'll be on her guard—'ay, an' outdo you in spite of your teeth. She's a woman—she's a woman. Good night, an' mark him ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... it is next to impossible that the odds of two hundred to one should lose the bet; except the Church of Rome, which hath been so long barren of miracles, should now, in her declining age, be brought to bed of one that would outdo the best she can brag of in ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... laws in their own favour, as if they were the first principles of the entire republic. But my pen is running away with me, and I must return to Lucy. A crisis is at hand; and we are about to see the laws triumphant, or acts of aggression that will far outdo all that has hitherto rested on the American name, as connected with a want of faith ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... the celebration was to outdo itself. Because of the centennial feature, no less a person than the President of the United States, who had spent a year of his boyhood at a local school, was pledged to attend. In itself this meant a record crowd. Crops had been good locally and the toil-worn agriculturist ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was the intelligence and moral degradation of this remarkable race, that every one of them recognized these courtesies for what they were; they must of necessity have been hollow mockeries. They took pleasure in forcing one another to go through with them, each trying to outdo the other in cynical, sardonic thrusts, clothed in the most meticulously ceremonious courtesy. As a matter of fact, my captor, by this crude reference to the origin of his ruler, was merely proving himself a crude fellow, guilty of a vulgarity ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... huge joke—a joke that would shake the sides of these venerable Boston deities, Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, and the rest of that venerated group. Clemens had been a favorite at the Atlantic lunches and dinners—a speech by him always an event. This time he decided to outdo himself. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... patriarchs themselves never used to scorn the dowries of their women. Jacob loved Rachel and courted her seven years, but he also liked the fat rams and sheep that he earned in her father's service. That, I think, was not to his discredit, and to outdo him in anything would be to put him to the blush. I should have liked very much to see your daughter bring a couple of hundred thalers with her; and that was quite natural, because she herself would thereby be so ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... fellows, though I say it myself. I was no chicken, I tell you. From that day, Mark Forrester wrote himself down 'man' And well he might, 'squire, and no small one neither. Six feet in stocking-foot, sound in wind and limb—could outrun, outjump, outwrestle, outfight, and outdo anyhow, any lad of my inches in the whole district. There was Tom Foster, that for five long years counted himself cock of the walk, and crowed like a chicken whenever he came out upon the ground. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the theaters—gaining doubtful introductions to expensive mistresses. Mere upstarts set the fashion in dress, in extravagance, and all who would be elegant, followed, leading the way to barbaric vices. The old-established inhabitants were many of them weak or silly enough to try to outdo the newcomers, and degraded the quiet dignity of their patriarchal manner of life by speculations on the Stock Exchange. The intelligent middle classes, whose eyes and ears were filled with this bluster of the gold-orgy, found that their former way of living had now grown uncomfortable, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... avail in all sorts of crises. Hence, we see the treacherous smile of the wily; the patronizing smile of the pompous; the obsequious smile of the flatterer; the cynical smile of the satirist. Very few of these have heard of Delsarte; but they outdo him on his own grounds. Their smile is four-fifths of their social stock in trade. All such smiles are hideous. The gloomiest, blankest look which a human face can wear is welcomer than a trained smile or a smile which, ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... their best energies of head and heart to the same great work; yet the slave-power in this country is as strong as ever—nay, stronger. Its car rolls on in triumph, and priests and politicians outdo each other in zeal to draw it along, over its prostrate victims. But, lo! from under its crushing wheels, up rises the bleeding spectre of Uncle Tom, and all the world turns to look at him! Verily, the slave-power is strong; but God ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... waves have not yet tired of their unceasing sports; they still chase each other in mad glee from far over the sea, each striving to outdo his fellows, as they come tumbling in with deep-toned voices. The beaming beacon still keeps vigil over Nantucket's peaceful slumberers, while her little ones, in their gladsome dreams of childhood, wander up and down those shores, intent upon their search for the most delicate sea-mosses, ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... laid 'roun' in sun an' shade fer ter let der cuts an' gashes git good an' well. When dey got so dey could segashuate, an' pay der party calls, dey 'gree fer ter insemble some'rs, an' hit on some plan fer ter outdo Brer Rabbit. Well, dey had der insembly, an' dey jower'd an' jower'd des like yo' pa do when he aint feelin' right well; but, bimeby, dey 'greed 'pon a plan dat look like it mought work. Dey 'gree ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... grimace so much like his own, that it brought on a contest in which the yarn winding was laid aside for a time, while they stood before a mirror, each trying to outdo the other in making ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... trial, and the pamphlet obtained a tremendous circulation. Although the jury acquitted the printer, Chief Justice Whitshed, who had, as Swift puts it, "so quick an understanding, that he resolved, if possible, to outdo his orders," sent the jury back nine times to reconsider their verdict. He even declared solemnly that the author's design was to bring in the Pretender. This cry of bringing in the Pretender was raised on any and every occasion, and has been well ridiculed by Swift in his "Examination of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... His confidence in his beloved and stately master never once faltered. He knew he would never suffer Felix Grundy to outdo him in the simple matter of a ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... queen that the opposition which he had made to King Henry's measures was directed only against the peace which had been made with France, and which he had opposed for political considerations alone, but that, so far as the marriage with Margaret was concerned, he approved it. So he prepared to outdo, if possible, all the rest of the nobility in the magnificence of the welcome which he was to give her on her arrival in London. He possessed a palace at Greenwich, on the Thames, a short distance below London, and he sent an invitation to Margaret ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... West has long intellectually outgrown—the fancies of an unforgiving God and an everlasting hell—is surely to be regretted. More than hundred and sixty years ago Kaempfer wrote of the Japanese 'In the practice of virtue, in purity of life and outward devotion they far outdo the Christians.' And except where native morals have suffered by foreign contamination, as in the open ports, these words are true of the Japanese to-day. My own conviction, and that of many impartial and more experienced ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... now had the artist a picture begun, 'Twas over the Virgin's church door; She stood on the dragon embracing her son, Many devils already the artist had done, But this must outdo all before. ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... money to build it. Kieft gave a small amount, as did other colonists, but there was not enough. Fortunately, just at this time, a daughter of Bogardus, the minister, was married. At the wedding, when the guests were in good humor, a subscription-list was handed out. The guests tried to outdo one another in subscribing money for the new church. Next day some of the subscribers were sorry they had agreed to give so much, but the Governor accepted no excuses and insisted on the money. It was collected, and the church was built. Close upon this time Kieft ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... is true that Esperance is not yet seventeen, but her intelligence has always been ahead of her years. At twelve she could outdo me by the logic of her reasoning on the mysteries of religion. We both adore, my dear Jean, a very extraordinary little person. I will get out of your way gracefully, if you succeed; but I have a presentiment that neither you nor I will be the lucky ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... strangers. On many occasions I have seen the Britisher and American argue and even quarrel over the merits of their countries but when serious trouble arose, all jealousies would be cast aside, and each one would endeavor to outdo ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... and the spear, and the eagle-eyed boy, who was fast gaining upon the ripened period when he should take them up, did each his part in celebrating the feats which the one had equalled, and the other hoped to outdo. The wife, with a proud mien, came forward to meet the embraces of her renowned husband; the timid maiden, with a downcast eye, to steal a look at her valiant lover. Those who had lost friends came eagerly ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... devoted to some public purpose. We may be certain that there would be animated discussions, because a real solidarity of feeling would have arisen and a pride in the work of the community engendered, and they would like to be able to outdo the good work done by the ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... the priest contemptuously: "you are come to this, that you will sacrifice your revenge to satisfy your greed, O White Man with a noble heart! Now I will outdo you, for I, who am not noble, will sacrifice my life to disappoint you of your desires. What! shall the ancient holy treasure of the People of the Mist be stolen by two white thieves and their black ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... say'st thou nothing but Cuckoo? The robin and the wren can thee outdo. They to us play through their little throats, Taking not one, but sundry pretty taking notes. But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do Little but suck our eggs, and sing Cuckoo. Thy notes do not first welcome in our spring, Nor dost thou its first tokens to us bring. Birds less than ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Man'!" shouted Doctor Bliven, who was in the midst of the gaieties, while his wife too, plunged in as if to outdo him. ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... done by two hands, he was always ready; but to hold hands still and work silently in the inner forces was to him a species of undertaking that seemed against his very nature; but then he would do it—he would not disgrace himself before Mr. Sewell, and let a girl younger than himself outdo him. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... spurred! For I said, "Shall dogs outdo us in love and devotion?" Only in a condition of total submission, self-forgetfulness, self-abnegation, can the soul either receive or deliver her message. In this way she is justified of the joys of her election. The dog, faithful in all ways to his master, receives ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... the enemies of Galileo were compelled to confess to the truth of the discovery, and the next step was to outdo him. Scheiner counted five, Rheiter nine, and others went as high as twelve. Some of these were imaginary, some were fixed stars, and four satellites only are known to ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... already made the acquaintance of the three boys. They had shown him below in front of the house how one of them could best throw down the others, and had demonstrated all sorts of useful tricks. But as each tried to outdo the others in showing off his knowledge, a struggle ensued and the tricks were immediately applied; one threw another over the third, Sami was knocked and thrown around by ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... there for some time I watched him. He had not the slightest repose of manner; the most ill-bred tramp in the English sparrow family was in that respect his superior, and the most nervous and excitable of wrens could not outdo him in posturing, jerking himself up, flirting his tail, and hopping from twig to twig. When musically inclined, he perched on the inner side of the bushes against the front fence, a foot or two above the ground, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... As it is, their vanity is fostered by the court that is paid to them. In ordinary men, who have no pretence to education, this conduct, no doubt, is less to be blamed. But that men who call themselves philosophers should actually outdo the rest in degradation,—this, indeed, is the climax. Imagine my feelings, when I see a brother philosopher, an old man, perhaps, mingling in the herd of sycophants; dancing attendance on some great man; adapting himself to the conversational ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... the third son, "ought to be preferred to you both; for I outdo both in sloth. While I lay upon my bed, water dropped from above upon my eyes; and though, from the nature of the water, I was in danger of becoming blind, I neither could nor would turn my head ever so little to the right hand or to the ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... we seek our nightly pillows, Rebukes our easy peccadilloes: 'Twas not so tuneful, so composing; 'Twas louder and less often dozing; At Ombre, Basset, Loo, Quadrille, You heard it resonant and shrill; You heard it rising, rising yet Beyond SELINDA'S parroquet; You heard it rival and outdo The chair-men and the link-boy too; In short, wherever lungs perform, Like MARLBOROUGH, it ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... appeared to be really dead, at last they openly praised the winner and abused the loser and proposed that everything in the world which they could devise be given to Caesar. In the course of it all there was a great rivalry among practically all of the foremost men who were eager to outdo one another in fawning upon him and voting pleasing measures. By their shouts and by their gestures all of them as if Caesar were present and looking on showed the very greatest zeal and deemed that in return for it they would get immediately,—as if they were doing it to please him at ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... his child's heart had grown case-hardened and steely; asking nothing, doing his tasks for his own satisfaction, and finally taking a sad pleasure in that silence which was so frequently imposed upon him. Then he had grown up, and the sullen determination to outdo his brother in everything had got possession of his strong nature. He remembered how, coming home from school, he had presented his mother with the report which spoke of his final examinations as brilliant compared with Alexander's; how his mother had said ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... after by the Athenians, to come and practice at home with him, being ambitious of having people inquire after his house and frequent his company. When he came to the Olympic games, and was so splendid in his equipage and entertainments, in his rich tents and furniture, that he strove to outdo Cimon, he displeased the Greeks, who thought that such magnificence might be allowed in one who was a young man and of a great family but was a great piece of insolence in one as yet undistinguished, and without title or means for making any such display. In a dramatic ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... such a realm of exquisite flowers so exquisitely displayed, and the effect at every turn throughout the land was colour, colour, colour, to as far outdo the finest autumn tints of New England as the Colorado Canyon outdoes the Hoosac Gorge. What Nature can do only in October, elsewhere, she does here all season through, as though when she set out to paint the world she began on the Barrens with a full palette and ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the whining part be out of doors in town, 'tis still in force with the country ladies: and let me tell you, Frank, the fool in that passion shall-outdo the knave ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... custom much in use among the knights-errant of old to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they conquered, and I am determined that so laudable a custom, shall not be lost through my neglect; on the contrary, I resolve to outdo them in it: for they sometimes, and perhaps most times, waited till their squires were grown old; and when they were worn out in their service, and had endured many bad days and worse nights, they conferred on them ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... once begun in the cities, those who followed carried the revolutionary spirit further and further, and determined to outdo the report of all who had preceded them by the ingenuity of their enterprises and the atrocity of their revenges. The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... encouraging from the Erskine point of view, and the gloom deepened. Foster declared that it was so thick during the last half of the contest that he couldn't see the backs. Neil saw the game from the bench, and Paul, once more at left-half, played an excellent game; but, try as he might, could not outdo Gillam. When it was over Neil declared the honors even, but Paul took a less optimistic view and would not ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
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