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More "Well-nigh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the camp made sleep well-nigh impossible—a bad preparation for the only long ride of this excursion. Setting off at dark (4.20 a.m., March 18th), we finished the monotonous Wady Kuwayd, which mouths upon the rolling ground falling coastwards. The track then struck to the north-west, across and sometimes down the network ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... hand you a bunch of bills such as I'd like to pass on to an honest man. But I don't guess I'm goin' to do it. Y'see, I just can't afford it. If I can't graze my stock on your grass they got to starve, or I got to get out. An', seein' I doped all my wad into this lay-out, it 'ud well-nigh mean ruin to act ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... desired. The common source of the art and ritual of Osiris is the intense, world-wide desire that the life of Nature which seemed dead should live again. This common emotional factor it is that makes art and ritual in their beginnings well-nigh indistinguishable. Both, to begin with, copy an act, but not at first for the sake of the copy. Only when the emotion dies down and is forgotten does the copy become an end in itself, a ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... than once—to be on the point of rising to challenge us. But these occasions were as skilfully met as they were easily detected; and as the rogues had invariably some stroke in reserve that in a twinkling flung him back into his old state of dazed bewilderment, while it well-nigh killed us with stifled mirth, they only gave ever ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... breathes such an experience of impassioned anguish. He had everything,—health, personal advantages, almost boundless wealth, genius, exquisite taste, culture; he could, in some way, express his whole being. Yet well-nigh he sank beneath the sickness of the wounded heart; and solitude, "country of the unhappy," was all he ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... with the world but with the silly writers of goody-goody stories, who have so emasculated and effeminated the boy who works hard and holds his head high that it is now well-nigh impossible to hear of such an one in real life without instantly setting him down as an intolerable prig. These writers have committed the greatest crime against their creations that authors can commit—they ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... that interested us most were the solitaires, and especially the dippers or water-ousels. We were fortunate enough to hear the solitaires sing not only when perched on trees, but on the wing, soaring over a great canon. The dippers are to my mind well-nigh the most attractive of all our birds. They stay through the winter in the Yellowstone because the waters are in many places open. We heard them singing cheerfully, their ringing melody having a certain suggestion of the winter wren's. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... had known in all their lives. Terrified, half drowned, blown almost from the saddles, the trio finally found shelter in the lee of a shelving cliff just off the road. While they stood there shivering, clutching the bits of their well-nigh frantic horses, the glimmer of lights came down to them from windows farther up the steep. There was no mistaking the three upright oblongs of light; they were tall windows in the house, the occupants of which doubtless ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Olivet. She boasted in being the largest church in all Randolph County—the churches at Ridgetown and Dobbinsville not excepted. When I say that Mount Olivet church flourished, I do not mean that she flourished in spiritual things. Indeed, her candle of vital religion had well-nigh flickered out. Scarcely a member could be found who would testify to a real experience of salvation from sin. There were three things for which the members of this particular church were remarkable, namely, they were great sticklers for ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... again were all things ready for the assault. And then once more the more skilful and prudent of the leaders hindered the matter. It was not well, they said to run into such danger. It might well be that if they should assail the city they would not take it; it was well-nigh certain that even if they should take it, they could not hold it to any good purpose. And so it came to pass that King Richard and the army having once more come to Beitenoble, once more ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... O'Brien, O'Donnell, steps out of a past well-nigh co-eval with the heroisms and tragedies that uplifted Greece and laid Troy in ashes, and swept the Mediterranean with an Odyssey of romance that still gives its name to each chief island, cape, and promontory of the mother ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... him to be both a Jesuit and an Atheist. His books narrowly escaped being burned by the hangman; the fate of Vanini was dangled before his eyes; and the misfortunes of Galileo so alarmed him, that he well-nigh renounced the pursuits by which the world has so greatly benefited, and was driven into subterfuges and evasions which ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... known him well, nor would there have been any quarrel between them, for he had heard tell of this shield at the court of King Arthur. The authority of this story recordeth that the two knights are in hermitage, and that Perceval is well-nigh whole; but Lancelot hath sore pain of his wound and is still ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... sickening results. In his mind there was no doubt that Marlanx had completely overthrown the dynasty and was in full possession of the government. He did not know that the Prince and his court had succeeded in reaching the Castle, whose walls and gates were well-nigh impregnable to assault, even by a great army. If he had known this he might ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... with its steep, narrow streets, numerous convents, and famous university, had been well-nigh ruined by the French, who had pulled down half the convents and nearly all the colleges, and used the stones for the building of forts, which, a few weeks previously, Wellington had ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... more or less forcibly or fraudulently obtained. There were, however, a great number of modest competencies, which were recognized by public opinion as being no more than a fair measure of the service rendered by their possessors to the community. Below these there was the vast mass of well-nigh wholly penniless toilers, the real people. Here there was indeed abundance of ethical title to property, for these were the producers of all; but beyond the shabby clothing they wore, they had little or ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... extinct volcano itself which once caused such devastation, and in which a great commonwealth was well-nigh swallowed up, little is left but slag and cinders. The past was made black and barren with them. Let us disturb them as little ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... being essentially—I might say exclusively—German, can at most be represented in five or six German towns. You know, moreover, that since the Dresden affair OFFICIAL Germany is not favourable to your name. Dresden, Berlin, and Vienna are well-nigh impossible fields for your works for some time to come. If, as is not unlikely, I go to Berlin for a few days this winter, I shall try to interest the King in your genius and your future; perhaps I shall succeed in gaining ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... instantly vanished. His excitement grew well-nigh beyond control. "You're not going. Sit down. You've got to explain." He rapped out his sentences in short, quick jerks. His voice had become harsh and imperative. "You can't have any idea what this ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... his mind occupation in the intervals of his imaginative creation; they were a resource to him like the recreation of a walk; they represent the vacant and idle times of his genius; and for this reason his observations, which are in the main a kind of admirable reporting, afford a well-nigh complete setting for his life, and constitute an external autobiography. He is hardly to be ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... is so quick to take up arms as that of the middle classes. Kildare as a landlord was not popular. Beauty, charm, did not help her with them as it had with their husbands. There was the further barrier, which all aliens in a rural community reach soon or late: the well-nigh impassable barrier of strangeness. They would have none of her. They looked askance at her winning sweetness; they accepted her bounty with ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... before him a profession of their faith, were summarily hanged from the castle windows. One intrepid reformer had been so fortunate as to be admitted to the queen mother's presence, and there, by his ready and cogent reasoning, had well-nigh brought the Cardinal of Lorraine to admit that his view of the Lord's Supper was correct. Catharine's attention having been for a moment withdrawn, when she returned to the discussion the man had disappeared. Actuated by curiosity or by ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... skilled, and economic guidance these wild waters, lassoed, tamed, and set to work, taking the place of clouds where there are none, were soon to cause the gray garden of nature to become goldened by the well-nigh illimitable acres of ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... hard work. I can quite understand that, Mr. Strelinski. It is terribly hard for any foreigner, even with good introductions, to earn a living here, and to one unprovided with such recommendations well-nigh impossible. Please to sit here for a moment. Frank, come into the next room ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... river's bending bed at different angles; their sides were steep, and in places scarped where they fell into the intervening hollows. The valleys conducted many a water to the main drain, and during the wet season they must be well-nigh impassable. At the end of the dries the only green is in the hill-folds and the basin-sinks, where the trees muster strong enough to defend themselves from the destructive annual fires. These bush-burnings ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... she had to adduce with respect to the terrible crime, and Olivier's relations to the victim and his daughter, and his character. Nevertheless the only proof he gave that her words were not falling upon totally deaf ears was a slight and well-nigh mocking smile; and in the same way he heard her protestations and admonitions, which were frequently interrupted by tears, that the judge was not the enemy of the accused, but must also duly give heed to anything that spoke in his favour. When at length Mademoiselle paused, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... integration meets peculiar obstacles in the United States. Divergencies of race, tradition, and social theory, and clashing interests of different sections have been felt from the beginning of the nation's life. There was well-nigh complete solidarity in the single province of New England during a portion of the seventeenth century, and under the leadership of the great Virginians there was sufficient national fusion to make the Revolution successful. But early in the nineteenth century, the opening of the ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... length induced me to wait till the next day. But scarcely had day begun to dawn when I sallied forth, without either arms or guide, except a pocket compass, leaving my fellow-travellers to bring on the waggon as soon as they should arouse from their slumbers. This impatience had, however, well-nigh cost me my life; for having to wade through many miles of deep sand with a vertical sun over my head, I had not accomplished half the journey before my strength began to fail, and an indescribable thirst was induced. ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the acquisition of Corsica by the British was a matter of great importance. It was, however, only one among several factors, which went to make up the general military and political situation in the Mediterranean at the end of the year 1794. Hitherto the exigencies of the well-nigh universal hostilities in which France had been engaged, and the anarchical internal state of that country, had prevented any decisive operations by her on the side of Italy, although she had, since 1792, been formally at war with the Kingdom of Sardinia, of which Piedmont ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... one of the oldest of the connection, had been very much run down. During a ministry there of ten years, he has wrought remarkable improvement. He has increased the communicant list from sixty-three to nearly two hundred, and advanced the church well-nigh to complete self-support. The old church, which was in a Jewish neighborhood, has been sold during the present year, and a handsome brick structure erected in another section of the city. Mr. Bragg, during his residence in Baltimore, has founded a splendid charitable institution, the Maryland ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... colonies the puritan element was strong, and the chief sources of wealth were commerce and farming. The southern colonies had cavalier traditions, and their wealth was chiefly derived from plantations which were cultivated by slave labour. Though puritanism as a religious force was well-nigh extinct in the New England provinces, it affected the temper of the people; they set a high value on speech-making and fine words, and were litigious and obstinate; lawyers were plentiful among them, and had much influence. As a whole the colonies were impatient of control and jealous of interference. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... they were alienating the most intelligent and most easily organized portion of the voters, the socialists lessoned from the experience and turned their energies upon the trade-union movement. To win the trade unions was well-nigh to win the war, and recent events show that they have done far more winning in this direction than have ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... I can read the lie in your face; a girl doesn't take up a knife unless a man well-nigh ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... immediately upon two ugly blows that had well-nigh shaken the lock from its fastenings—the shouting suddenly subsided into a confused hubbub of voices, followed by a clang and rattle of arms upon the cobblestones. This last sound appeared to hush the others into silence. I stood listening, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... brought out from a closet a quaintly shaped box. "It is the legend of Wonderland that a little girl shall break the spell that hangs over us. For it is deemed well-nigh impossible that a mortal child would venture beneath the water to visit us. Therefore, little Mary Louise, if I call all my people together, will you open this box and deliver us from the spell of the ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... bearing on the economic side of church administration, are usually less important; still they contain data that should not be neglected, for very often minor points deserve as much attention as salient ones. Unfortunately the church records of the period prior to 1680 have well-nigh disappeared from New Mexico, but some still exist at El Paso del Norte (Juarez), Chihuahua, that date back to the middle of the seventeenth century. The absence of these records may be somewhat overcome by another class of ecclesiastical documents, much ...
— Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction • Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier
... the straight road beyond, its impetus carried it almost over the edge, but not quite. With a splendid effort, the great black wheeler drew it over to the left. The front wheels kept the track, and although the hind wheels struck the side rail of the bridge with a crash and a jerk that well-nigh hurled Bert out upon the horses' backs, and the big coach leaned far over to the right, it shot back into the road again, and went thundering over ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... side of any question. One leans to wisdom, the other to fun. I am a house divided against itself. The younger longs to dance, to go to the theater and to play cards, all of which the older disapproves. The younger mocks the older, calls her a hypocrite and the like until the older well-nigh believes it herself and almost yields to her pleadings. The older listens sedately to the sermon, while the younger plans her Easter suit or makes fun of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... hands clasped upon her knee, her sombre eyes on the ground, or interrogating the distance with an unseeing stare, she would let hymn and sermon, prayer and the weeping and shouting which always close night meeting, go past her ears well-nigh unheard. Before those darkened, bereaved eyes, turn where they would, Love's ever-renewed idyl of rustic courtship was enacting, since Big Meetin' was the time and occasion of all the year for Corydon to encounter Phyllis, to stroll or sit beneath the trees ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... built for them in Hartford, and in the autumn of 1874 they took up residence in ita happy residence, continued through seventeen years—well-nigh perfect years. Their summers they spent in Elmira, on Quarry Farm—a beautiful hilltop, the home of Mrs. Clemens's sister. It was in Elmira that much of Mark Twain's literary work was done. He had a special study there, some distance from the house, where he loved to work out his fancies ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... compensate for the incredible perversion of public opinion, as any one who is not prejudiced must perceive. Thanks to the daily press, the sense which knows how to sift the true from the false has become blunted, the notions of right and wrong have well-nigh disappeared, evil stalks about in the garb of righteousness, and oppression speaks the language of justice; in brief, the human soul has ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... dispelled by his unfeigned delight in Carmichael's conduct of the "preliminaries." Twice he nodded approval to the reading of the hundredth Psalm, and although he stood with covered face during the prayer, he emerged full of sympathy. As his boy read the fifty-third of Isaiah the old man was moved well-nigh to tears, and on the giving out of the text from the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Rabbi closed his eyes with great expectation, as one about to be fed with the finest ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... come to naught? Body of Satan!—why?" roared the impetuous Ferrabraccio, as with his mighty fist he smote the table a blow that well-nigh shattered it. "Because Gian Maria was not in a marrying mood! The girl we proposed to him was beautiful as an angel; but he would not so much as look. There was a ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... of blood, and he had worked himself into a frenzy of fear. Suddenly the woman he had loved for twenty years had become, to his thinking, a dangerous, threatening witch; she who had lain on his breast, his mistress, the woman who had tended him in illness, the hallowed being he had well-nigh worshipped—offering up his country, his wife, his son, all things at her shrine—now appeared before him as the incarnation of evil to be compelled by ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... have come here with him, father, I would not, indeed. What I have been so unhappy as to do, I have done in mistake. I would not wilfully bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!' said Little Dorrit, her heart well-nigh broken, 'for anything the world could give me, or ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... past seemed like a dream—as an old dream, well-nigh forgotten. The scene was so changed that at times she could hardly believe that all those dark old days were real. Could she, now so busy and happy, be the same woman who sat worn and frightened over the dying fire with poor Captain Saxon? Is she the same woman ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... North there appeared a glaring white line. They had reached the ice. Their days of merry sailing on the surface were well-nigh over. From this time on life would be spent in stuffy, steel-lined, electric-lighted compartments. But for all that, it would not be so bad. Openings in the floes would offer them opportunities to rise for a breath of fresh air, and dangers ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... and evening upon me with a fair linen towel and water in a golden bowl; yet scarce had this Blanchefleur been for four months within my Tower than she betrayed me for another, whom with herself I had in righteous indignation well-nigh slain. So now, my lords, it is for you to pass judgment just ...
— Fleur and Blanchefleur • Mrs. Leighton
... the evening was spent in conversation in which Sylvius Hogg took the leading part. As Dame Hanson found it well-nigh impossible to overcome her habitual reserve, Joel and Hulda were obliged to respond to their genial host's advances, and the sincere liking the professor had taken to them from the very ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... "Aye, dreamed over! Well-nigh prayed over—if it comes to that," continued the old man gravely. "She isn't the sort that was turned out in a factory, you see, along with hundreds of others of her kind. She's an aristocrat and must ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... said, can read the works of John Ruskin without learning that his sources of pleasure are well-nigh infinite. There is not a flower, nor a cloud, nor a tree, nor a mountain, nor a star; not a bird that fans the air, nor a creature that walks the earth; not a glimpse of sea or sky or meadow-greenery; not a work of worthy art in the domains of painting, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... differentiation, dynamical aggregates, molA(C)cules organiques, potentiated sky-mist, undifferentiated "life-stuff," and other hylotheistic and purely hypothetical formulA|, with which the average mind has been well-nigh crazed for the ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... thirsty too, and he must have decided that the quickest way to water would be to let her mount; for finally with lifted head he stood stock still and let her struggle up his side; and at last, well-nigh falling from sheer weariness, she sat astonished that she had accomplished it. She was on his back, and she would never dare to get down again, she thought, until she got somewhere to safety. But now the animal, his courage renewed by the bite he had taken, started snorting off ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... themselves on the moor never find their way out. The mist is too tenacious. It has arms that grip, that embrace so tightly, that one can neither see forward nor backward any more, neither to the left nor to the right, that the cry that wants to escape from a throat that is well-nigh choked with terror is drowned, and that the eye becomes blind to ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... descends in a series of cascades, and there is a mighty roar of waters. For many yards I have for a companion a little wren, that flies from twig to twig through the well-nigh naked hedge along the wayside, now hidden behind a bramble's crimson-spotted leaf, now mingled with a tracery of twigs and thorns. I can almost believe it to be the same wren that kept up with me years ago in English lanes, and since then has travelled with me so many miles ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... the far distance there rose the spires and roofs of Brussels. The chiming of church bells came gaily towards them through the frosty air, and Babette knew that her terrible journey was well-nigh ended. At the entrance of the town ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... figures marvellous enough, as Dick said, to "beat the world." There were crucifixions, painted saints, and weeping virgins by Hernandez and Berruguete, faultlessly modelled, so vivid and beautiful as to be well-nigh startling; and I hoped that Monica might come while we lingered. But she did not, nor did we see her in the Colegio de San Gregorio. There, in the lovely inner court, however, I found a little grey glove on the marble pavement, and so like a certain other glove ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... at no more doors or windows; but if the disappearance of this symptom was a favorable sign, others came to notice which were especially bad,—for instance, wakefulness. At well-nigh any hour of the night, the city guard, which itself dared not patrol singly, would meet him on ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... and sweet, The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him. And once as by the north side of the Chapel They stood together, chained in deep discourse, The earth heaved under them with such a groan, That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened: A fever seized the youth; and he made confession Of all the heretical and lawless talk Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized, And cast into ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... have remembered, if he had chosen to recollect so unimportant a thing, that I once had to explain to him, ten years ago, the fact that I repudiated the doctrine of that letter at the time it was published, and that the Democracy of Mississippi had well-nigh crucified me for the construction which I placed upon it. There were men mean enough to suspect that the construction I gave to the Nicholson letter was prompted by the confidence and affection I felt for General Taylor. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... humility that the reception of "Figures of Earth" by the public was, as I have written in another place, a depressing business. This romance, at that time, through one extraneous reason and another, disappointed well-nigh everybody, for all that it has since become, so near as I can judge, the best liked of my books, especially among women. It seems, indeed, a fact sufficiently edifying that, in appraising the two legendary heroes of Poictesme, the sex of whom Jurgen esteemed himself a connoisseur, ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... so thick with falling snow that he was well-nigh stifled. His eyes were blinded as though they were padded with cottonwool. The flakes brushed against his cheeks like live things. At his sixth step from the entrance he had lost his direction. His feet commenced to slide; ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... of rebuffs and indifference on her husband's part, Ototachibana could not find it in her heart to leave him. But perhaps it would have been better for her if she had done so, for on the way to Idzu, when they came to Owari, her heart was well-nigh broken. ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... we place the gold brick ahead of the gold mine. We mix alloy of duplicity and greed with the virgin metal of our standard of value. By improved mining methods we nearly double our output of gold, and so cheapen it by well-nigh a half. This shrunken gold dollar is small enough; but that is not all. We adulterate and divide it by, say, another half when we falsely double its cost. This we certainly do when we issue counterfeit promises ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... Father's House. (Matt. 21:12; compare Mark 11:15; Luke 19:45.).... For thirty or more years after the death of Christ, the Jews continued the work of adding to and embellishing the temple buildings. The elaborate design conceived and projected by Herod had been practically completed; the temple was well-nigh finished, and, as soon afterward appeared, was ready for destruction. Its fate had been definitely foretold by the Savior Himself."—From the author's House of ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... out o' t' village go round t' moors an' bring her t' wool that had getten scratted off t' yowes' backs for ten mile around. Shoo were a patteren wife, and sooin fowks began to say to one another: 'I've bin reight thrang to-day; I've bin well-nigh as thrang as Throp's wife.' So 'thrang as Throp's wife' gat to be a regular nominy, an' other fowks took to followin' her example; it were fair smittlin'! They bowt theirsens spinnin'-wheels, an' gat agate o' spinnin', while there were all ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... enemy's hands forced them to throw themselves into the sea, they could float on their shields; and after death in battle a soldier was carried to his grave on his buckler. As they stood facing the Saxons they locked their shields together so as to form a barrier well-nigh ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... advantage to it should be stolen. Contracting a highly-born and seemly marriage connection, And securing thus again royal affinity,[551] And leaving his life as a splendid example, He lies a poor monk among bones! O sun, O earth, O final applauses! Well-nigh the whole Roman race laments him, As much of it as is not ignorant of him. But O only living One and transformer of natures, If perchance he did aught that was not fitting for him, Granting him pardon, give him Eden ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... meal, when the manito took up the dish and drank off the broth at a breath. On setting it down he immediately turned his head and commenced coughing with great violence. The old body in which he had disguised himself was well-nigh shaken in pieces, for he had, as Monedowa expected, swallowed a grain of the birch-bud, and this, which relished to himself as being of the bird nature, greatly distressed the old manito, who partook of the character of an ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... aggraded with fine waste form well-nigh level plains over which streams wind from side to side of a direct course in symmetric bends known as meanders, from the name of a winding river of Asia Minor. The giant Mississippi has developed meanders with a radius of one and one half miles, but ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... still untarnished, amidst the roses of love, in the embrace of passion. To bid farewell to the feast at its brightest, before disappointment has come, having lived in this sunshine and celestial air, and well-nigh spent myself in love, not a leaf dropped from my crown, not an illusion perished in my heart, what a dream is there! Think what it would be to bear about a young heart in an aged body, to see only cold, dumb faces around me, where even strangers used to smile; to be a worthy ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... well, and such of them as do not get freedom by my will would doubtless find harder masters in Sabinus and Camerinus. My sisters' husbands are patricians of the old school. As for without,—am I not a man useless in times of action?—well-nigh disgraced?—" ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... could satisfy me now. I doubt if any honest artist lad returning to the place of his birth after three years' absence ever met a grayer welcome. I had left my grandfather unimpaired, and it was well-nigh impossible to figure that harsh and domineering spirit in decay. Abram Pendarves belonged to the ancient hearty, savage race of British sea-captains, now fast waning to extinction. After a youth of wild and black adventure under the rule of just such ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... on the Earl; but they chose to set on the Earl. So they drove beams at the loft-doors and broke them in; then Asmund caught hold of the two who were with the Earl, and cast them down so hard that they were well-nigh slain; but Asgrim ran at the Earl, and bade him render up weregild for his father, since he had been in the plot and the onslaught with Grim the hersir when Ondott Crow was slain. The Earl said he had no money with him there, and prayed for delay of that payment. Then Asgrim set his spear-point ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... term it—depending for its success on the strength of the cloth of the Cuirassier's cloak. It is the same in nature; every species has its bridge of Beresina; it has to fight its way through and struggle with other species; and when well-nigh overpowered, it may be that the smallest chance, something in its colour, perhaps—the minutest circumstance—will turn the scale one way or ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... before the fire, his eyes fixed upon its red depths. His shoulders were still bent, as though they bore a burden well-nigh overwhelming. An odd little spasm went over his face ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... his soldiers along, he left the others to recruit their energies at San Gabriel, but the inactivity of Rivera did not please him, and, as things were not going well at San Gabriel, he soon returned and started northward. It was a weary journey, the rains having made some parts of the road well-nigh impassable, and even the women had to walk. Yet on the tenth of March they all arrived safely and happily at Monterey, where Serra himself came ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... United States was on December 31, 1890, $112,512,613.06. A large part of this debt is now fast approaching maturity, with no adequate provision for its payment. Some policy for dealing with this debt with a view to its ultimate collection should be at once adopted. It is very difficult, well-nigh impossible, for so large a body as the Congress to conduct the necessary negotiations and investigations. I therefore recommend that provision be made for the appointment of a commission to agree upon and report a plan for dealing ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... own dungeon-like home, if so be that she was as unlovely as report had spoken her. They met; and for a moment the proud old dame was struck as by death. The seamed and scarred face, the closed eyes—one perfectly sightless, the other well-nigh so—the burnt and withered hair growing in long, ragged patches only, the awkward gait and downcast look; all were like daggers in Dame Katharine's heart; and 'she rebuked her greatly, seeing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... heat is shot forth into space in every direction, with a prodigality which seems well-nigh inexhaustible. No doubt the earth does intercept a fair supply of sunbeams for conversion to our many needs; but the share of sun-heat that the dwelling-place of mankind is able to capture and employ forms only an infinitesimal fraction of ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... house, in a faint glow that was already paling the stars, the African city, well-nigh a thousand years old, assumed its most mysterious aspect. The high walls on either side of the roads, innocent of casements as of glass, seemed, in the uncertain light, to be tinted with violet amid their dull grey. The silence was complete and weird. Never a cry from ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... tongue," or the Italian in which Petrarch and Boccaccio had written. What he says about grace, however, applies also to conversation: "I say that in everything it is so hard to know the true perfection as to be well-nigh impossible; and this because of the variety of opinions. Thus there are many who will like a man who speaks much, and will call him pleasing; some will prefer modesty; some others an active and restless man; still others one who shows calmness and deliberation in everything; ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... beautiful, Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell, Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot! On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill, Homeward I wind my way; and lo! recalled From bodings that have well-nigh wearied me, I find myself upon the brow, and pause Startled! And after lonely sojourning In such a quiet and surrounded nook, This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main, Dim-tinted, there the mighty majesty Of that huge amphitheatre of rich And elmy fields, seems ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... The day was well-nigh spent; his cave was near, Where he had spent so many weary years, And as he thither turned and upward climbed, The shepherd's little child who watched the flock His love had rescued from the bloody knife, Upon a rock that rose above his path ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... House of Commons and impeached him in Westminster Hall, the adversary who assailed him with a splendid prose, were alike inspired by a longing for justice and a hatred of oppression. But it should be possible now, when more than a century has passed since the indictment of the one and well-nigh half a century since the indictment of the other, to remember {259} that if Hastings cannot be exculpated there is at least a measure of excuse to be offered ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... such conditions. Probably there are few observant persons of rural habits who cannot call to mind one or another still autumn morning, when from a cloudless, though perhaps hazy, sky, they have noted, over a wide area, steady descent of countless spider webs, many of them well-nigh perfect in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... peoples had long been the mainstays of monarchic tradition, military discipline, and the principle of authority. The Teutons, steadily pursuing an ideal which lay at the opposite pole to anarchy, had risked every worldly and well-nigh every spiritual possession to realize it. It was the hegemony of the world. This aspiration transfigured, possessed, fanaticized them. Teutondom became to them what Islam is to Mohammedans of every race, even when they shake off religion. They eschewed ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... I was about starting on my last trip to the Front before sailing for home, official announcement was made that dog biscuits would shortly be advanced in price to a well-nigh prohibitive figure. So I presume that very shortly thereafter the head waiters began offering dog biscuits to American guests. I knew they would do so, just as soon as a dog biscuit cost ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... and bald counterfeit of poetry, which is characterized as below criticism, should for nearly twenty years have well-nigh engrossed criticism, as the main, if not the only, butt of review, magazine, pamphlet, poem, and paragraph; this is indeed matter of wonder. Of yet greater is it, that the contest should still continue as undecided as [19] that between Bacchus and the frogs in Aristophanes; ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Then the elder said, "There, truly, I said it. I knew you would be our death if you did not mind me:" it being in all cases an esteemed solace for every woman and most men to say, "I told you so!" But the younger, being well-nigh frightened to a corpse, in a soft whisper implored the elder to let her hide herself in her roll of hair, [Footnote: That is, the elder should retain the human form, and the younger become a weasel.] which the Voice, mocking ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... may that good advice of Solon be taken with reason. But forsomuch as he is a Philosopher, with whom the favours or disfavours of fortune, and good or ill lucke have no place, and are not regarded by him; and puissances and greatnesses, and accidents of qualitie, are well-nigh indifferent: I deeme it very likely he had a further reach, and meant that the same good fortune of our life, which dependeth of the tranquillitie and contentment of a welborne minde, and of the resolution and assurance of a well ordered soule, should never be ascribed unto man, untill ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... country by means of deliberate instruction. Lies any hope that way? Does it seem to promise a return of the time when the old English names of all our flowers were common on rustic lips—by which, indeed, they were first uttered? The fact that flowers and birds are well-nigh forgotten, together with the songs and the elves, shows how advanced is the process of rural degeneration. Most likely it is foolishness to hope for the revival of any bygone social virtue. The husbandman of the future will be, I daresay, a well-paid ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Price," I said, well-nigh beside myself with suspicion. "Confess that every word of this is false! Confess that Gianetta will not listen to you, and that you are afraid I may succeed where you have failed. As perhaps I shall—as ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... mechanism, or as men soon came to prefer to think of it, the developing growth of the world. And wonderful, beyond all anticipation, was the success which rewarded the pains that were lavishly bestowed upon the inquiry. Small marvel was it that some men's heads were well-nigh turned, and that to many it seemed little less than certain that science had dispensed with the supernatural altogether; and that it only required time, and no great length of time, to secure universal acceptance for the materialistic explanations which ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... Hamlet-like irresolution he poised in mind before the antinomies of the universe, alert to see around a subject, having the modern thinker's inability to be partisan. This way of thought is obviously unhealthy, or at least has in it something of the morbid. It implies the undue introspection which is well-nigh the disease of this century. There is in it the failure to lose one's life in objective incident and action, that one may find it again in regained balance of mind and bodily health. Amiel had the defect of his quality; but ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... guile, to the lust of the flesh, those who had well-nigh escaped, and now they walk in error. This is what these wells and teachers do, so that they who were almost escaped must fall into the snare of wickedness, and for the first time be truly captured. A child that has been baptised, rescued from all sins, snatched from ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... to secure a costly extension of this branch railroad through a sparsely settled and thin-soiled region, in a way that would greatly enrich himself, because of his vast property holdings there. He had well-nigh persuaded a group of capitalists to undertake the extension when, acting cautiously as financiers must, they decided to ask Duncan to study the situation and make a report upon the project. He had already studied the question thoroughly during his stay at ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... in such season that he found the rooms quite empty, and was forced to wait until the bereaved family should assemble. There they sat, he and his wife, a portentous couple in their dead black and anticipatory gloom, until even their patience had well-nigh fled. And then an arriving mourner overheard the deacon, as he bent forward and challenged his wife in ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... jury that your client, who was about to be convicted on circumstantial evidence alone, was really innocent of the crime of which he was charged. Why, sir, the road which psychology opens up to the lawyer is well-nigh boundless. Don't you use the Bertillon system to measure the body? Don't you rely on thumb prints to identify the hand? How do you know that we psychologists are not able to-day to test the individual differences ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... well-nigh exhausted, and we have only now reached the confines of CHINA!—a topic on which we had prepared ourselves for a very full expression of our opinions. We are compelled, however, now to content ourselves ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the Greeks had known that danger was threatening them, and in 480 B. C. they learned that it was well-nigh at their gates. Xerxes, the "Great King," whose heralds when announcing a decree began with the words, "All people and nations and languages," whose resources both of men and of treasures were more than could be estimated, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... such sin would henceforth be multiplied incalculably; she durst not, as she valued her soul, so much as let his name enter her thoughts. And to guard against it, was there not a means offered her? The doubt as to what love meant was well-nigh solved; or at all events she held it proved that the 'love' of the marriage service was something she had never yet felt, something which would follow upon marriage itself. Earthly love had surely led Hubert Eldon to ruin; oh, not that could be demanded of her! What reason had ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... and flew at Mr. Gibney's throat. The sight reminded McGuffey of a terrier worrying a mastiff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gibney was still so unnerved at the discovery of the horrible contents of the box that, despite his gigantic proportions, he was well-nigh helpless. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... two had well-nigh been fatal to me, for the sea having hurried me along as before, landed me, or rather dashed me, against a piece of rock, and that with such force, that it left me senseless, and indeed helpless, as to my own deliverance; for the blow taking my side and breast, beat the ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... to feel very much like a guilty wretch. As he wrote out the notices for the papers, he reiterated assurances that Mr. Brockelsby would turn up before morning, while the partner of the missing barrister continued her heartbroken wailing and the cause of it all was driven well-nigh wild. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... brotherhood, with which to help the sick and poor. And while the Jester searched within a chest for some old garments he was pleased to give, he bade the friar draw up to the hearth and tarry for their evening meal, which then was well-nigh ready. The friar, glad to accept the hospitality, spread out his lean hands to the blaze, and later, when the three sat down together, warmed into such a cheerfulness of speech that ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of our Lake Erie, Don; but—I crave your courtesy—may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now, gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well-nigh as large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly connected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... of his sombre melancholy, he came to feel the need of loving, of finding another mother, another soul for his soul. But, separated from civilization by an iron wall, it was well-nigh impossible to meet with a being who had flowered like himself. Instinctively seeking another self to whom to confide his thoughts and whose life might blend with his life, he ended in sympathizing with his Ocean. The sea became to him a living, thinking being. Always in presence ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... appraised except by, those who are in immediate contact and know the responsibilities. Our tasks would be less difficult if we had only ourselves to consider, but so much of the world was involved, the disordered conditions are so well-nigh universal, even among nations not engaged in actual warfare, that no permanent readjustments can be effected without consideration of our inescapable relationship to world affairs in finance and trade. Indeed, we should be unworthy of our best traditions if we were unmindful ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... He was very young to have such yearnings towards the grave, and well-nigh to wish he lay as near to it as Alfred King, so he might have those loving tender hands near him, those kind voices round him. Paul had gone through a great deal in these few months; and, used to good shelter and regular ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which the Chinese had somewhat unexpectedly displayed on several occasions during the fighting at and around Tientsin. Nevertheless, the position of the defenders at the end of the first four weeks of the siege had grown well-nigh desperate. Mining and incendiarism proved far greater dangers than shot and shell. Suddenly, just when things were looking blackest, on the 17th of July the Chinese ceased firing, and a sort of informal armistice secured a period of respite ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... was worried by the prolonged crisis, the younger sister, Jeneka, was well-nigh distracted, for she could not hope to marry until Kalora had been properly mated and ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... the Water of Life. He lies down and sleeps, from pure exhaustion, in the stern of the little fishing-boat, but He wakes to command the storm, and it is still. He weeps beside the grave, but He flings His voice into its inmost recesses, and the sheeted dead comes forth. He well-nigh faints under the agony in the garden, but an angel from Heaven strengthens Him. He stands a prisoner at a human bar, but He judges and condemns His judges. He dies, and that hour of defeat is His hour of triumph, and the union of shame and glory is most conspicuous in that hour when ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... Inverness The merchant, to secure his treasure The more we live, more brief appear The poplars are fell'd! farewell to the shade The sun is warm, the sky is clear The sun upon the lake is low The twentieth year is well-nigh past The World is too much with us; late and soon The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man There be none of Beauty's daughters There is a flower, the lesser Celandine There is a garden in her face There's not a joy the world can ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... peril was great, and the physical agony they were suffering was well-nigh unbearable. They predicted that neither would diminish. But for the inherent manliness and heroism that have always been a striking characteristic of the British sailor, these men would have been quite justified in asking the skipper of the smack to take them aboard. ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Barlaam. Even before then the king had heard tell of Barlaam's ways and his extreme severity of life; but, when this came to the ears of the king, he was straightway astonied by the dismay that fell on him, and was filled with anger, and his blood well-nigh curdled at the tidings. Immediately he bade call one Araches, who held the second rank after the king, and was the chief in all his private councils: besides which the man was learned in star-lore. When he was come, with much despondency and dejection ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... not fallen down and has not thrown out cracks. The reason is that this edifice is round both without and within and built in the shape of a hollow well, and bound together with the stones in a manner that it is well-nigh impossible that it should fall; and it is assisted, above all, by the foundations, which have an outwork three braccia wide outside the tower, made, as it is seen, after the sinking of the campanile, in order ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... did so, "I'm coming, coming!" In the next instant the wondering woman saw her child running, as only an Indian can run, by the side of a jet-black pony whose coat was flecked with foam, and whose breath was well-nigh spent. As they came nearer into the pathway of light that the pine blaze sent forth from the open door, something that looked like a pennon of gold streamed out, and a clear but rather shaken voice cried, "Lula, Lula, I've kept my promise; ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... Forest were of gentle blood, and their office was well-nigh hereditary. The Birkenholts had held it for many generations, and the reversion passed as a matter of course to the eldest son of the late holder, who had newly been laid in the burial ground of Beaulieu Abbey. John Birkenholt, whose mother ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to find a place for Dionea, and in this neighborhood well-nigh impossible. The people associate her somehow with the death of Father Domenico, which has confirmed her reputation of having the evil eye. She left the convent (being now seventeen) some two months back, and is at present gaining her bread working ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... stage and another, hastening on, he reached that great city in the south, the metropolis of New Orleans; often, as he hoped, on the very steps of his friend, but never overtaking him, with fortune at so low an ebb that there he was well-nigh wasted in strength, hunger-stricken, and tattered in dress; driven to live in hovels till some chance restored him the little means to advance; so mean of person that his dearest friend, his nearest kinsman, even his old playfellow there," pointing to Mr. Tiffany Carrack, ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... seemed veritably to hum with secret and, to judge by the pitch of its rumour, well-nigh panic activity. One divined a scurrying as of rats about to desert a sinking ship. Untoward events had thrown this establishment into a state of excited confusion: their nature Lanyard could not surmise, but their conjunction with his designs was exasperatingly inopportune. To search this place ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... of the war. He spent the winter in Valley Forge, and once, in the darkest time, discovered Washington on his knees in a lonely thicket, praying aloud for his country. This gave him hope, when hope was well-nigh dead, and he followed his commander across the Jerseys, one of the two thousand who wrote in blood, from their shoeless feet, their protest against British rule on the soil ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... it almost over the edge, but not quite. With a splendid effort, the great black wheeler drew it over to the left. The front wheels kept the track, and although the hind wheels struck the side rail of the bridge with a crash and a jerk that well-nigh hurled Bert out upon the horses' backs, and the big coach leaned far over to the right, it shot back into the road again, and went thundering ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... another, a sad mother, unable longer to control her grief, moaned out, "My child will die before I can get to her," this woman was the one who went to her with words of comfort. Ruey's poor perturbed heart envied that calm face. She felt well-nigh distracted, not so much at the fact that she was cold and hungry, but what would Philip think when he returned and found her gone? No one knew where; not even a neighbour had the least intimation of her whereabouts. What a night ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... The foregoing conclusion is well-nigh unassailable, in view of the fact that the early Christians believed in an Intermediate State, which they, like the Jews and ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... thousand and one days increased by a thousand and one battles, adding to that a thousand and one victories, one would have a thousand and a million million things —fine, glorious, delightful, to hear. For, remember, comrades," and the old man well-nigh exploded with his mathematical calculation, and the grandeur of his own recollections, "remember you this: I never ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... and I would know what force or power can so well-nigh destroy this wretched center. Tell me the truth. ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... face beamed with unenvious admiration as he gave Charley a hearty thump on the back that well-nigh drove the breath out of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... grove what man is (that) standing? What sort of word coming is this: the plough of whose meaning has penetrated startlingly the path of hearing? With a hint of union, with its manner of penetrating making one well-nigh mad: My mind is agitated, it cannot be still, streams flow from my eyes: I know not what manner of man it is who utters such words: I see him not, my heart is perturbed, I cannot stay in the house: My soul rests not, it flutters to and fro in hope of seeing him: When she ...
— Chaitanya and the Vaishnava Poets of Bengal • John Beames
... evenly in the balance, that the slightest adverse circumstance might in a moment turn the scale deathward. At length the black horizon that seemed to encompass us so hopelessly, lightened, and afforded the lover-husband a glimpse and hope of his vanished and well-nigh despaired of Eden. The promise was fulfilled. I was in the library with Mr Arbuthnot awaiting the physician's morning report, very anxiously expected at the rectory, when Dr Lindley entered the apartment in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... theoretic insecurity, which was in the air, conspiring with what was of like tendency in himself, made of Lord UFFORD a central type of disillusion. . . . He had been amiable because the general betise of humanity did not in his opinion greatly matter, after all; and in reading these 'SATIRES' it is well-nigh painful to witness the blind and naked forces of nature and circumstance surprising him in the uncontrollable movements of his own so carefully ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the ceaseless clicking of the instrument seemed to say, "Watch the box—watch the box—watch the box." As a particular strain of melody will at times repeat itself in the mind, and obstinately keep time to every movement, till one is well-nigh distracted, so this refrain began to enchain every sense: "Watch the box—watch the box—watch the box." Till now my depressed spirits were due only to the solitude and the storm. No suspicion of evil or ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... were put at first, but the subsequent ones are in drifts or scattered all abroad, in the many snows and the excellence of the sleighing, this winter resembles '78-'79, but there is more snow and the temperature is very much more severe. I suppose there is well-nigh eighteen inches now on the ground, something quite unusual in this latitude. Let us hope it will stay sometime longer yet, and save ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... have been deserted at the instant; and, looking hastily around, we saw several Indians on the crest of the ridge near by, and several others scrambling up the side. We had come upon them so suddenly, that they had been well-nigh surprised in their lodges. A sage fire was burning in the middle; a few baskets made of straw were lying about, with one or two rabbit-skins; and there was a little grass scattered about, on which they ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... of Pharsalia, Though all thy warriors be well-nigh spent, At sight of thee they rise once more; Their strength returns, they conquer their proud foes; So does my love—that equals love of heaven— Become a living presence through my thoughts; Thoughts that my haughty soul had killed with scorn, Love brings again stronger ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... obedience and fidelity to the constituted authorities. But the secret purpose of this vile correspondence was soon discovered, and Bonaparte gave orders that no more of it should be copied. I, however, suffered from it at the time of my disgrace, and was well-nigh falling a victim to it at ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... licence, and throw red colouring-matter on those they meet, without respect of persons; till all seen in the streets, with their besmeared faces and soiled clothes, have a most disreputable appearance. The night is rendered hideous, and sleep well-nigh impossible, by the drumming, fifing, and shouting of the revellers, kept up till break of day. During this period many think themselves at liberty to do what at another time they would deem very culpable. ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... eighty miles from the Gap, and all that the Army used had to be hauled that distance by mule teams over roads that, in their best state were wretched, and which the copious rains and heavy traffic had rendered well-nigh impassable. All the country to our possession had been drained of its stock of whatever would contribute to the support of man or beast. That portion of Powell's Valley extending from the Gap into Virginia was still in the hands ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... She did not pace to and fro in the comfort of physical movement with which the caged beast finds a mocking imitation of liberty: long ago, her physical vigors had been drained under stress of anguish. Now, she was well-nigh incapable of any bodily activity. There came not even so much as the feeblest moan from her lips. The torment was far too racking for such futile fashion of lamentation. She merely sat there in a posture of collapse. To all outward seeming, nerveless, emotionless, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... they were right well furnished for their journey, and were made welcome with much cheer and in all courtesy were received by King Harald. They related the tidings that Earl Hakon was in Denmark, and was lying sick unto death and well-nigh witless; and the further tidings that Harald the Danish King bade Harald Grey-cloak to him to take such fiefs as he and his brothers had held aforetime in Denmark, and to that purpose bade he Harald come to him in Jutland. Harald Grey-cloak laid the matter before ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... drawing-room, thinking over the disappointment and loss, severely felt for his own sake, and far more for the poor young mother, threatened with so grievous a trial at an age when sorrow is usually scarcely known, and when she had well-nigh sunk under the ordinary wear and tear of married life. She had been so utterly cast down and wretched at the sight of the child's suffering, that it was fearful to imagine what it would be when there would be ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... encountered a strong head-wind, which caused him to have to beat "up Swin." A Dutch galliot—type of vessel which has never had the reputation of being a racer—was in company, to leeward of him. Barley managed by dexterous manipulation to keep her there until the flood tide was well-nigh spent; but, alas for human fallibility, and the eccentric fluctuations of the wind, the Dutchman stood towards the north shore, while our hero, who was priding himself on the superior qualities of himself and his brig, stood towards the south, whereupon the Dutchman got a "slant of wind" which ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... an expression of well-nigh ludicrous doubt and amazement. He glanced from one to the other. The giant shifted his own tense look from me to the Irishman. A gleam of approval lighted in his eyes. He loosed me, and gripped O'Keefe's arm. "Staerk!" ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... Great was the panic in Berry, an after-clap of the disturbances in the capital. Madame Sand's position became more unpleasant than ever. She describes herself as "blasee d outrages—threatened perpetually by the coward hatreds and imbecile terrors of country places." But to all this she was well-nigh insensible in her despair over the public calamities oppressing her nation—the end of all long-struggling aspirations in "frightful confusion, complete moral anarchy, a morbid condition, in most which the courageous of us lost ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... fortune; half or a third of that amount the wages of two-thirds the women who earn in working London; nor are there indications that the scale will rise or that better days are in store for one of these toilers, patient, heavy-eyed, well-nigh hopeless of any good to come, and yet saying among ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... The fugitives are well-nigh despairing, for she is almost near enough now. Less than two cables' lengths are between her and the foremost of the canoes, each holding a course straight toward the other. It seems as though they must meet. Forty strokes more, and the boat will be among the ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... fact was that the case was well-nigh prejudged before the professed trial began. All Ravenna, including the police authorities, who had investigated the matter, and the judges who came into court well instructed in all that had been done, and all that could be known upon the subject, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... judge, whom I had the honour of meeting often after, I found one of the most amusing and intelligent companions a man could desire to rumble over a villanous road with, and for a couple of hours we made time light, when our day's journey had well-nigh terminated in an adventure that might have been ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... pruning Among his elms that day. Mamilus saw the slaughter, And tossed his golden crest, And towards the Master of the Knights Through the thick battle pressed. AEbutius smote Mamilius So fiercely on the shield That the great lord of Tusculum Well-nigh rolled on the field. Mamilius smote AEbutius, With a good aim and true, Just where the next and shoulder join, And pierced him through and through; And brave AEbutius Elva Fell swooning to the ground: But a thick wall of bucklers Encompassed him around. His clients ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... self-evident that such portions become continued: legal ordinances, to which obedience must be rendered. For no other relation to these ordinances can be conceived. Hence the legal regulations and the corresponding slavish devotion come to have such immense scope in Catholicism, and well-nigh express its essence. But behind this is found the more general conviction that the empirical Church, as it actually exists, is the authentic, pure, and infallible creation: its doctrine, its regulations, its religious ceremonial are ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... made a popular satire; and though in its completed form it could look for no welcome in many a court or castle,—though Petrarch despised it, and Gerson in the name of the Church recorded a protest against it,—and though a bevy of offended ladies had well-nigh taken the law into their own hands against its author,—yet it commanded a vast public of admirers. And against such a popularity even an offended clergy, though aided by the sneers of the fastidious and the vehemence of the fair, is wont to ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, the work is most curious and valuable. It tells of an ingenuity and faithfulness on the part of the officials of the road which seems well-nigh marvellous. As its pages reveal the methods by which aid was given to the escaping slave, one is compelled to wonder almost as if he were facing a revelation. The secrets of Masonry are not more mysterious than were the ways of these officials who ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... preparations with an air of dogged determination. It seemed to him that all the light had gone out of his life, and hope was dead. He told himself that the proposed trip could not be otherwise than the stiffest kind of an ordeal to a man in his position, an ordeal calling for well-nigh superhuman self-control. How gladly would he have given it up, had he not given ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... hard-fighting race was framed on two sides by a garden that looked as old as the walls which towered above it, and was well-nigh as simple and sober. Dark clipped yews, and smooth green grass, and graceful old-world flowers were its chief and sufficient ingredients. The genius who designed the pagoda had not yet turned his attention to the garden when ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... tall boy, "sometimes I've had the fellows hint to me that I had bats in my belfry; but sure not that many. Why, I reckon there must have been well-nigh a thousand in that gay ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... merely are such demands unpractical, but they exercise a most prejudicial effect, for too accurate and too detailed information gets the Generals into bad habits of command, and the Cavalry itself is well-nigh ruined. Certainly, when circumstances demand it, the men must not be afraid to keep well up to the enemy, and bring back intelligence even out of the zone of his fire; but, generally, reliable observations are only made out of range. The Cavalry must learn principally ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... scandalous the way titles and honours were given to worthless people who shouted for the king. Worse than this was the way Napoleon's old officers were treated. Men who had fought and bled for France for twenty years were now well-nigh starving, driven out of the army to make ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and success in the difficult task of pleasing them are about even. In this particular case, moreover, the Vicomtesse, besides the pride of her position, had all the dignity of her name. Her utter seclusion was the least of the barriers raised between her and the world. For which reasons it was well-nigh impossible that a stranger, however well born, could hope for admittance; and yet, the next morning found M. de Nueil taking his walks abroad in the direction of Courcelles, a dupe of illusions natural at his age. Several times he made the ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... Carmichael drank ale, and talked with the guards, and waited;—and waited, and talked with the guards, and drank ale, until his patience was well-nigh gone. At last, just when the day was breaking, he went to the door of the ante-room to listen, and hearing nothing, he knocked, and receiving no answer, he unlocked the door and peeped in, not wishing ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... on the night of February 8th, his speech, occupying four hours and a half in delivery, showing the marks of careful preparation. He drew an illustration from the mighty struggle that had well-nigh rent the republic asunder, and was then within a few weeks of its close. "We are striving," he said, "to settle forever issues hardly less momentous than those that have rent the neighbouring republic and are now exposing it to all the horrors of civil war. Have ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... across this continent, hidden away in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, there lies a marvelous section of our earth, about one-half as large as the State of Connecticut. On three sides this is guarded by lofty, well-nigh inaccessible mountains, as though the Infinite Himself would not allow mankind to rashly enter its sublime enclosure. In this respect our Government has wisely imitated the Creator. It has proclaimed to all the world the sanctity of this peculiar area. It has received it as a gift ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... were alike well-nigh deserted; here was the staid professor, the corpulent grocer, the irrepressible small boy, the important-looking senior, the shouting, careless junior, the giggling sister, the smiling mother, the patronizing papa, the crimson-bedecked waitress from the boarding house, the—the—band! Yes, ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... last our weary days Are well-nigh wasted here, And we can trace Thy wondrous ways ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... on December 31, 1890, $112,512,613.06. A large part of this debt is now fast approaching maturity, with no adequate provision for its payment. Some policy for dealing with this debt with a view to its ultimate collection should be at once adopted. It is very difficult, well-nigh impossible, for so large a body as the Congress to conduct the necessary negotiations and investigations. I therefore recommend that provision be made for the appointment of a commission to agree upon and report a plan ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... seen him in a brighter mood. He chattered ceaselessly, quaint stories of his schoolboy friends, quainter jokes and whimsies and bits of advice for her edification. In such moods, Allyn was well-nigh irresistible, and it was with genuine regret that Cicely turned her face towards home. Her regret, however, was as nothing in comparison with the consternation that seized her, as she entered the house. Before the fireplace in the hall, there always lay ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... recalls the Angel in Sebastiano's "Holy Family" at Naples. If this be the case, we here have another instance of the pupil finishing his master's work, and this time probably after his death, for, as already pointed out, the "Evander and Aeneas" (at Vienna) must have been left by Giorgione well-nigh complete at an earlier stage than the year ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... instant. How could she tell the eager listeners that long neglect had made poor Sadie's case well-nigh hopeless? Then she answered slowly, "We are giving her every possible chance now, dearies. The Aid Society found her by accident, and got her into the Children's Ward of the City Hospital. She cried ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... have been known and taught thousands of years ago by the Mazdiasnians,—the passage is quoted from one of their oldest writings. And since they propound the very same ideas, the meaning of which has well-nigh been lost even to our most learned Mobeds, they ought to be credited at least with some possession of a knowledge, the key to which has been revealed to them, and lost to us, and which opens the door to the meaning of those hitherto ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... beckoning hand. She could not cry out. Wyn was well-nigh breathless, and Bessie's only hope was in her. The captain of the canoe club had to save ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... short consultation, brought her in guilty, and she received sentence of death, from which, as she had no friends, she could not hope to escape. When she found death was inevitable, she fell into excessive agonies and well-nigh into despair. The reflection on the many people she had injured gave her so great grief and anxiety of mind that she could scarce be persuaded to get down a sufficient quantity of food to preserve her life until the time of her execution. But ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... with Tom Pim. We heard old Rough-and-Ready shouting out for a tackle, and in another minute up came an unfortunate donkey. The poor brute, having fallen into the hold, had given expression to its dissatisfaction by the sounds which had driven the ship's company well-nigh out of ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... natural man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the narrow way, only by the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is impossible to rise from reading Epictetus[185]or Marcus Aurelius without a sense of constraint and melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. Honor to the sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it! Yet, even for the sage, this sense of labor and sorrow in his march towards the goal constitutes a relative ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... me from violating a solemn oath; but I now feel an assurance that I have broken the tempter's chains forever." I am happy to add that from this hour he gained a complete victory over the evil habit which well-nigh had proved his ruin; and in after years, when peace and prosperity again smiled upon them, he often called to mind the evening when his affectionate and devoted wife, by her watchful love, saved him from ruin, and ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... interpretation that we find the chief protection afforded to capital, but rather in the laws which have not been enacted. The mere existence of this power and the certainty that it would be used in defence of the existing social order has well-nigh prevented all attacks on vested rights by making their failure ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... not turn, for there were tears in his eyes which he must hide from his companions, for he had now, for the first time, learned from his wife of her repentance and her grief, and he too was sad at heart and well-nigh hopeless. But the shout was repeated and taken up by ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... Cloomber are just white wi' gulls and kittiewakes. What d'ye think they come ashore for except to escape having all the feathers blown out o' them? I mind a day like this when I was wi' Charlie Napier off Cronstadt. It well-nigh blew us under the guns of the forts, for all ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had even allowed him to kiss her. It was unspeakable bliss, almost distressing in its transcendent quality. He "had such joy of kissing her," he "had small care to sleep or feed. For the joy to kiss between her brows time upon time" he "was well-nigh dead." How could he be deceived by such unequivocal demonstrations of real passion? In any case it was too wonderful to be wrong, and if wrong—what then? The Devil was worth a score ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... shirked and slighted me, an' shifted me about— So they have well-nigh soured me, an' wore my old heart out; But still I've borne up pretty well, an' wasn't much put down, Till Charley went to the poor-master, an' put me on ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... the laws; Aristides, who assessed the tribute of the Confederacy, and whose daughters after his death were dowered by the State—indignant at the contumely threatened to justice and asking: Are you not ashamed? When Arthmios of Zeleia brought Persian gold to Greece and visited Athens, our fathers well-nigh put him to death, though he was our public guest, and proclaimed him expelled from Athens and from all territory that the Athenians rule; while Demosthenes, who has not brought us Persian gold but has taken bribes for himself and has kept ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Mark Twain's humor was the chief cause of his well-nigh universal popularity. The public had never before read a book exactly like his Innocents Abroad. Speaking of an Italian town, he says, "It is well the alleys are not wider, because they hold as much smell ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... black, and no man really white, but they are all gray. In other words, they neither believe in the truth of the attack, nor in the honesty of the man who is attacked; they grow as suspicious of the accusation as of the offense; it becomes well-nigh hopeless to stir them either to wrath against wrong-doing or to enthusiasm for what is right; and such a mental attitude in the public gives hope to every knave, and is the despair ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... information concerning the particular section of mid-London with which Dickens was mostly identified—the parishes of St. Bride's, St. Mary's-le-Strand, St. Dunstan's, St. Clement's-Danes, and St. Giles—would furnish a well-nigh inexhaustible store of old-time lore. For a fact, however, the activities of the nineteenth century alone, to particularize an era, in the "Highway of Letters" and the contiguous streets lying round about, have formed the subject of many a big book quite by itself. When one comes to still further ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... fundamental elementary duty of a citizen—preparation for the defence of hearth and home.... Lucille! Well ... Thank God she could not see him and know his life. If she had any kindness left for him she would suffer to watch him eating well-nigh uneatable food, grooming a horse, sweeping a stable, polishing trestle-legs with blacklead, scrubbing floors, sleeping on damp straw, carrying coals, doing scullion-work for uneducated roughs, being brow-beaten, bullied, and cursed by them in tight-lipped silence—not that these things troubled ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... upon the Cherokees; for, when his restraining influence was removed, likewise the Federal support, political factions, the Pins, or full-bloods, and the Secessionists, mostly half-breeds, had been able to indulge their thirst for vengeance uninterruptedly.[521] Chaos had well-nigh resulted. ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... hungry, starved intellect. Circulating libraries were not as yet; if you wished to read a book, you were obliged to buy it, for which reason novels of the early part of the century were sold in numbers which now seem well-nigh fabulous to us. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... of eyes only discern the bluest and gloomiest objects. But PUNCHINELLO may reasonably expect to see, feel and know, this good time. The coming will yet be to it the time come. Perhaps it will be when it visits two hundred thousand readers weekly, when mothers sigh, children cry, and fathers well-nigh die for it. At all events, somewhen or other—it may be the former period, but possibly the latter—the good time will come. And great will be the coming thereof, with no discount to the biggest ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... it is my horse," he urged without looking at her. His courage well-nigh failed him. Villain as he was, he loved her, and he saw the foundations of her love for him crumbling away before him. In all his criminal adventures he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the chief school of knaves in Rome would support them and not remain quiet. But Dr. Luther is just a little proud, and pays very little attention to the grunting and squealing of the Romanists; and this is well-nigh heartbreaking to them. But that does not bother my Lord Jesus, nor Dr. Luther, for we believe that the Gospel will and must continue. Let a layman ask such Romanists, and let them give answer, why they despoil and mock all of God's ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... his scientific, skilled, and economic guidance these wild waters, lassoed, tamed, and set to work, taking the place of clouds where there are none, were soon to cause the gray garden of nature to become goldened by the well-nigh illimitable acres of grain and other ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... trial be brought against him. Satan, something disconcerted, concluded the evening with a divertissement and a dance after his own manner. The former consisted in disinterring a new-buried corpse, and dividing it in fragments among the company; and the ball was maintained by well-nigh two hundred persons, who danced a ring dance.... Dr. Fian, muffled, led the ring, and was highly honoured, generally acting as clerk or recorder. King James was deeply interested in those mysterious meetings, and took great delight to be present at the examinations of the ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... small country township, all the influences that operate to divide men into sects and parties are keenly and continuously felt. To a dweller there, it is well-nigh impossible to keep out of the arena of strife. Now that there is so much confusion and division in religious matters, strong feeling is more easily stirred on any secular subject that may happen to arise for discussion. If the Wee Frees, for example, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... trap when it is wanted," he said. "The coachman is pretty old now. He has been in the family well-nigh fifty years. He is all right behind the carriage-horses, he says, but he does not like trusting himself in ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... last, by a mighty effort, he mastered himself, and, coming to Mrs. Woffington with a quivering lip, he held out his hand suddenly in a very manly way. "I have been the dupe of my own vanity," said he, "and I thank you for this lesson." Poor Mrs. Woffington's fortitude had well-nigh ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... day was well-nigh spent, and, besides preparing their evening meal, it was essential that their plans for the immediate future should be ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... which there was already a drawing of great promise, but very defective. By erasures here and skillful touches there he had hoped to assist nature in carrying out her evident intentions. The tragedy that well-nigh resulted taught him that human lives are dangerous playthings, and that quackery in attempting spiritual reform involved more peril than ignorant ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... exclamations; in this confusion of doubt and suspicion, Simla became the first object of his anger, and the frenzied disorder of his gestures threatened her with the most fatal consequences; a deadly fear seized upon his faculties, and agitated him well-nigh to insanity, and he sought a clue to the terrible mystery in vain. Accompanied by Simla, he hastened to the dwelling of the artful Tahra, and put to her a thousand questions, to some of which she evasively replied, while in answering others she assumed a threatening and reckless ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... It is well-nigh incredible at first thought that such a light-hearted, rollicking, jovial fellow could have given up everything for such a work ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... whose name was Penelope, remained at home with his son Telemachus. Ulysses was absent for twenty long years, and when he returned home he found fifty suitors who were all courting his beautiful wife Penelope. Do you see, fifty suitors, one for every year of Penelope's age, for she must have been well-nigh fifty years old when Ulysses returned, and yet she was still beautiful, and men were gallanting about her. Why should not the same thing happen to you, as you are scarcely forty-eight? And who knows whether the wife of Ulysses was as beautiful ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... fair to the eye, but tricky of wind and current. La Baye des Puants the French called it, from the odor that came at seasons from the swamps on the shore, and it ran southwest from Lake Illinois. The Pottawatamie Islands that we had just left well-nigh blocked its mouth, and its southern end was the outlet of a shining stream that was known as the River of the Fox. The bay was thirty leagues long by eight broad, and had tides like the ocean. Five tribes dwelt around ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... as one "better skilled in Greek and Latin than half of the professors;" and alluding in one of her essays, to her attachment to foreign literature, she herself observes that in childhood she had well-nigh forgotten her English while ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... to the blackness of very despair. A brother whose conversion, (must I say apparent conversion?) has seemed to be unusually clear; whose walk as a Christian seemed, while he was with us, to be well-nigh perfect; whose spirit was singularly humble, devout and Christly; who was growing rapidly in knowledge of the word, and could already preach the word with power, goes back to his home in China. Sore pressure is brought ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 2, February, 1889 • Various
... Kobodaishi's death it was found that the names written by him on the two gates of the Emperor's palace Bi-fuku-mon, the Gate of Beautiful Fortune; and Ko-ka-mon, the Gate of Excellent Greatness—were well-nigh effaced by time. And the Emperor ordered a Dainagon [1], whose name was Yukinari, to restore the tablets. But Yukinari was afraid to perform the command of the Emperor, by reason of what had befallen other men; and, fearing the divine anger of Kobodaishi, he made ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... to enjoy the privileges, of emancipation. We will not dwell upon the party dissensions which for a series of years militated against the smooth working of the new Constitution, nor upon the known fact that the Prince well-nigh relinquished the reins of power in consequence of the repeated changes of ministry and the unworthy jealousies of those who, having first selected him as a foreigner, subsequently charged this against him as a disqualification. Nor must we examine ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... here. They knew that all sorts of efforts would be made to recapture 'em, and by men who would not be as gentle with 'em as Uncle Sam's soldiers. So I guess they decided to pass up the horses and only take some grub. That isn't so serious, especially as the poor beggars are probably well-nigh starving, having been away from their regular rations so long. Well, it might be worse, I suppose. They will hardly come back to-night, and I guess we can get a little rest when I picket these animals out again. We got off pretty lucky, I take it, for there was sure ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... that be as it might, the girl was to keep her secret till the thing should be settled. Now, in these latter days, it had come to be believed by him, as by nearly everybody else, that the thing was well-nigh settled. The Solicitor-General had thrown up the sponge. So said the bystanders. And now there was beginning to be a rumour that everything was to be set right by a family marriage. The Solicitor-General would not have thrown up the sponge,—so said ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... behold ye! such is the strange allure emanating from the hussy, that the resultant portrait is either that of a martyred Magdalene, or, at the very least, has all the enigmatic piquancy of a Monna Lisa... Not a slut, but what is a hetaera; and not a hetaera, but what is well-nigh Kypris herself! I know of but one depiction in all literature that possesses the splendour of implacable veracity as well as undiminished artistry; where the portrait is that of a prostitute, despite ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... to her illusion, finding comfort therein, wholly blind to those failings in her protector which to the woman who had loved him from her earliest girlhood were as obvious and well-nigh ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... to stone, with always the same dexterity and always the same elasticity busy at work. Thus he worked and created as never did any man before or after him: and as a worker and creator he still, after well-nigh two thousand years, lives in the memory of the nations—the first ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... drove up with eight beautiful horses decked with plumes of feathers and golden harness, and behind rode the prince's servant, the faithful Henry, who had bewailed the misfortune of his dear master so long and bitterly that his heart had well-nigh burst. Then all set out full of joy for the prince's kingdom, where they arrived safely, and lived happily a great ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... to Monsieur Maurice's rooms, and told me as we went along that the King had only given him six hours' notice, and that in order to furnish his Majesty's bed and his Majesty's supper, he had bought up all the poultry and eggs, and borrowed well-nigh all the silver, glass, ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... the Independent Treasury Act, for that was a Democratic measure he had not liked; but he refused to sign a bill to establish a new Bank of the United States. Without either a bank or a treasury, it was well-nigh impossible to carry on the business of the government. But it was carried on in one way or another. Tyler was willing to sign a new tariff act, and one was passed in 1842. This was possible, as the Compromise Tariff (p. 248) came to an end in ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... glamor of city life, which has allured thousands from the country, fascinating them from afar much as the gaudy colors and tinsel before the footlights dazzle the vision of a child; the rapid growth of the saloon, rendered well-nigh impregnable by the wealth of the liquor power; the wonderful labor-saving inventions, which in the hands of greed and avarice, instead of mitigating the burdens of the people, have greatly augmented them, by glutting the market with labor; the opportunities ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... in sight of the Holy City; again were all things ready for the assault. And then once more the more skilful and prudent of the leaders hindered the matter. It was not well, they said to run into such danger. It might well be that if they should assail the city they would not take it; it was well-nigh certain that even if they should take it, they could not hold it to any good purpose. And so it came to pass that King Richard and the army having once more come to Beitenoble, once more ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... we supposed it would amount to ten thousand dollars, and perhaps more. Last week my mother received a letter from him stating that he had satisfied all claims against the estate, and that only seventy-five dollars was left. This leaves us well-nigh penniless." ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... Roman Empire, unless it was in Asia, and were to some degree in use even as late as the ninth century; before and during the employment of vellum in the Caesarean school, and in localities where it was used in imitation of the mode of writing books which was brought well-nigh to perfection in ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... most Was I," reverbed a drum; "The regiments, marchings, throngs, hurrahs! What a host I stirred—even when crape mufflings gagged me well-nigh dumb!" ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... my Lord!" was the answer of the faithful servitor, "there is none such here." "I'fakins!" quoth the Baron, "then will I buckle to and read A Window in Thrums without it, even though I break all my teeth and nigh choke myself, as indeed, I have well-nigh done in my gallant attempt to master the first two chapters." So I, the Baron, being convalescent and having a few hours to spare, lay me down and read, and read, and read, and stumbled over the Scotch words and phrases, until I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... a dense thicket. We visited its eighteen rooms in search of the precious inscription, and at length discovered it on the lintel of an inner doorway in the room situated at the south end of the edifice. The dust of ages was thick upon it and so concealed the characters as to make them well-nigh invisible. With care I washed the slab, then with black crayon darkened its surface until the intaglio letters appeared in white on a dark background. (The photographs of this inscription can be seen at Mr. ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... not particularly in evidence the indulgence in stengahs (Malay for half), or whiskey and sodas, is well-nigh universal among the European population, not always excluding the women and clergy. Since alcohol is said to be particularly dangerous in the tropics it would be interesting to know the total effect of this general indulgence. ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... looked and listened to the beating of that beloved heart girdled with my arm, there grew a something on the western sky that well-nigh turned my own heart to marble. At first, a lightest shadow—a mere breath upon heaven's mirror, no more. Then as I gazed, it deepened, gathering all shadows from around the pole, heaping, massing, wreathing them around one spot in the troubled west—a shape that grew and threatened ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... five in the afternoon I stepped from the cars on to the platform at Putney Station only to hear Mr. Blake making inquiries in regard to a certain stage running between that town and a still smaller village further east, I own I was not only surprised but well-nigh nonplussed. Especially as he seemed greatly disappointed to hear that it only ran once a day, and then for an earlier ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... absurd, of course. He might never meet her again; it was more than probable that by this time some other man had discovered so great a prize; she might be engaged, married. The chances were that, though he had thought of her every day since he had left her, she had well-nigh forgotten him, or, at the best, thought of him as a foolish young man who had sacrificed himself for a mistaken sense of chivalry, the man whom she, a slip of a girl, had saved from suicide. Why, he told himself, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... evening, after his guest had gone, Gray took occasion deliberately to put himself in Mallow's way and to get into conversation with him. This was not a difficult maneuver, for it was nearly midnight and the lobby was well-nigh deserted; moreover, it almost appeared as if the restless Mr. Mallow was seeking ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... persons who escape portraiture through their utter commonness; yet who ought to be sketched, because they are specimens of that second-rate Parisian bourgeoisie which occupies a place above the well-to-do artisan and below the upper middle classes,—a tribe whose virtues are well-nigh vices, whose defects are never kindly, but whose habits and manners, dull and insipid though they be, are not without a certain originality. Something pinched and puny about Elisabeth Saillard was painful to the eye. Her figure, scarcely over four feet ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... bigger flocks than that," Luka said. "Why, all the river, from Minusinsk down to Turukhansk, more than 2000 miles, is well-nigh covered with birds. We shall have no lack ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... was never more cool in his life, but he now began to realize the well-nigh hopeless position in which be found ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... smell, and hearing are marvellously acute. The inodorous elements are painfully odorous to me. I can hear the subtlest processes in nature, and the densest darkness is radiant with mysterious lights. My childhood was a protracted horror, and the noises of a great city in which I lived shattered and well-nigh crazed me. In the dead calms I shuddered at the howling of winds. I fancied that I could detect the gliding revolution of the earth, and hear the march of the ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... I never thought to meet you as a live gorilla; but here I am. After the war was over and the Government discharged so many telegraph operators, it was hard scratching for a while; and after you and I left the Decapolis office, I was well-nigh broke more than once, only a few cents standing between me and beggary. But I kept a stiff upper lip and struggled up to Cincinnati, where I met with Coriander. He was out there with his menagerie and was about to come on to ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... corners of the folks about you. And old Tim, who used to be gardener for Mr. Crowninshield's father and has been in the family 'most half a century, bides here, too. A rare soul, Tim. You'll like him. Everybody does. Simple as a child, he is, and so gentle that it well-nigh breaks his heart to kill a potato bug. You can count on Tim standing your friend no matter what the rest may do, ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... spiritual parallel for this incident or parable of the screw-pencil in innumerable ideas, at which well-nigh everybody in the hurrying stream of life has glanced, yet no one has ever examined, until someone with a poetic spirit of curiosity, or inspired by quaint superstition, pauses, picks one up, looks into it, and finds that It has ingenious use, and ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the prow, sending the ship rolling into the deep. The earth shook with the force of the movement as though with an earthquake, and the Asa folk collided with one another like pine-trees during a storm. The ship, too, with its precious weight, was well-nigh lost. At this Thor was wroth and, seizing his hammer, would have slain the giantess had not the other Asas held him back, bidding him not forget the last duty to the dead god. So Thor hallowed the pyre with ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... obediently dumb, entered into the spirit of the occasion. He was very much surprised—nay, well-nigh dazed—yet withal delighted, as the happy significance of this unexpected welcome came slowly into his mind. With hat in hand, bowing and smiling, arm in arm with Gertrude Gerrish, he slowly passed between the long lines of happy faces, keeping step with the throbbing measure ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... exhibition had well-nigh ended, the excitement of the spectators had cooled, and the sounds of instruments had died out there was heard proceeding from the gate, the slapping of arms, betokening might and strength, and even like unto the roar of the thunder. And, O king, as soon as this ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... ebbed out as suddenly as it had arisen; the draughty corridors and the long chairs of the verandas knew their sight-seeing hurry or their prostrate repose no more; and Captain Whalley, substantial and dignified, left well-nigh alone in the vast hotel by each light-hearted skurry, felt more and more like a stranded tourist with no aim in view, like a forlorn traveler without a home. In the solitude of his room he smoked thoughtfully, gazing at the two ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... every slave-pen within the shadow of the capitol. Our national industries, by an impoverishing policy, were themselves prostrated, and the streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents that the treasury itself was well-nigh empty. The money of the people was the wretched notes of two thousand uncontrolled and irresponsible State banking corporations, which were filling the country with a circulation that poisoned rather than sustained the life of business. The Republican party changed all this. It abolished ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... overwhelming, which rushed upon him, had well-nigh led to an explosion of wrath, and perhaps some terrible scene which might have fulfilled some of old Sophy's predictions. This, however, would never do. Dick's face whitened with his thoughts, but he kept still until ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
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