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Undertaking   Listen
noun
Undertaking  n.  
1.
The act of one who undertakes, or engages in, any project or business.
2.
That which is undertaken; any business, work, or project which a person engages in, or attempts to perform; an enterprise.
3.
Specifically, the business of an undertaker, or the management of funerals.
4.
A promise or pledge; a guarantee.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Undertaking" Quotes from Famous Books



... doing evil. Before we left we discovered that he was trying to induce some other slave captains and their crews to join with him in cutting out a condemned slaver which lay in the harbour; but it appeared that they considered the risk of the undertaking too great to attempt it. He formed afterwards several other similar projects, and was finally shipped off to the Havannah as too dangerous a character ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... perplexed the executive. The ordinary revenue showed symptoms of declension, and the council passed a bill which declared that new imposts were impracticable, and vested a discretionary power in the government to refuse assistance to any new undertaking (1841). Thus the principle of the church act was subverted, and the grant of money for purposes of religion confided solely to the impartiality ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... upon the student at the outset the importance of some preliminary reading before dissection is undertaken. No one would dream of attempting to explore a deserted city without some previous study of maps and guide-books, but we find again and again students undertaking to explore the complicated anatomy of a vertebrated animal without the slightest, or only the slightest, preparatory reading. This is entirely a mistake. A student should be familiar with the nomenclature of the structures he contemplates ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... were quite delighted at the success of their undertaking, and for the next half hour were busy enough in pouring and passing the coffee. Not only were the men of the station thankful for a good drink, but so were the poor tired and frightened passengers; and the children had all they could do to fill up ...
— The Wreck • Anonymous

... most French antiquaries who have written upon the subject of the celebrated Cathedral of St. Etienne of Sens have enlarged upon its "glorious antiquity." To prove or verify the fact as to whether St. Savinien or St. Potentien was the first to preach Christian religion here would be a laborious undertaking. Evidences and knowledge of Roman works are not wanting, and early Christian edifices of the Romanesque order must naturally have followed. One learns that an early church on this site was entirely ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... their official communications more of the workings and the moods of their minds than did Buller in Natal. His telegrams and despatches always reflected the thoughts of the moment. After the Colenso fight, he candidly referred to it as my "unfortunate undertaking of to-day." Six days before the Vaalkrantz affair he told Lord Roberts that "this time I feel fairly confident of success"; and on the eve of the attack he said that "while I have every hope of success, I am ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... was a drug store sidled in between a bakeshop that six days a week poured forth sweet hot breath, and an undertaking establishment with a white-satin infant's coffin de luxe tilted in the window. The sight of it caught Lilly like a pain. That peculiar power of an obsessed mind to see in everything its own state reflected had set in. Queer that this ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... of Soissons (14th June, 1728—9th November, 1729), as formerly, cannot in the least: Termagaut whispers England;—there is Treaty of Seville (9th November, 1729), France and England undertaking for the Apanage. Congress vanishes; Kaiser is left solitary, with the shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, in the night of things. Pause of an awful nature:—but Fleury does not hasten with the Apanage, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... men to whom this undertaking was entrusted, and who were taking themselves and their work so seriously, could pretend to social distinction, but practically all belonged to the upper ruling class. At the Indian Queen, a tavern on Fourth Street between ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... injures no man by undertaking to heal a desperate malady, whereas the advocate who accepts service in an unjust cause, unjustly injures the party against whom he pleads unjustly. Hence the comparison fails. For though he may seem to deserve praise for showing skill in his art, nevertheless ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... Temple, who seems to be a man of a sober and religious turn of mind, with a benevolent heart, and a serious wish to inculcate the precepts of morality; he is not, however, possessed of any superior abilities, or powers of genius, requisite to so arduous an undertaking; his verses are, in general, weak and languid, and have neither novelty, spirit, or animation, to recommend them; that mediocrity so ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... wondered if Biddy were drunk, she seemed to dance about so at her ironing-table, and wondered if she must dismiss her, and who could supply her place. She tried to put my room in order, for she was expecting me that night by the last train, but gave up the undertaking in ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... friendly. Cambyses did not like to force their inclinations, on account of their recent voluntary submission; and as, without their aid, his navy was manifestly unequal to the proposed service, he felt obliged to desist from the undertaking. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... examples, but for lack of room I have been compelled to let many of them go because my collections was too large. Those that I was able to bring back with me will be found here, and, among others, about twenty individuals of different dimensions, which—a difficult undertaking—I have kept alive with great pains. At all events, they are intact and perfect, and particularly the three largest. These seem to me, of their kind, truly remarkable, and those in which the divinity ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... to Paris, where he found Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul, undertaking his greatest labors of social reorganization after the long period of anarchy through which France had passed following the Revolution. Bonaparte was one of the most admired men at that time. He had come back from ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... for the first time (though she was a widow by a peculiarly sorrowful visitation), with a certain wistful air which Harry had observed in Mr. Crawfurd. It touched him—a fiery, dogged man—extremely, in the one case as in the other. His mother, on the announcement of his loss, had insisted on undertaking various domestic examinations with respect to general retrenchment; he had humoured her, under the impression that it diverted her mind, and broke the force of what was a great calamity to her. ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... fall upon them unexpectedly in the ways, and might thereby compass them round about, and kill them. And when he had joined battle with the enemy, he beat them; and pursuing them as they fled, he destroyed them all. And when that undertaking had succeeded, according as God had foretold, he set upon the cities of the Amalekites; he besieged them, and took them by force, partly by warlike machines, partly by mines dug under ground, and partly by building walls on the outsides. Some they starved out with famine, and ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... one of tremendous importance, therefore his exceeding amount of thought. When he is in the ineffable presence, he is there as an actor in a tragedy, or as a tenor in an opera. He has almost counted his hairs; he certainly counts the winkings of his eyelids! Can any detail be unimportant in an undertaking of such measureless risk? It is no wonder, then, that a young man who is giving as much thought as this to a young, thoughtless girl is not worth much in his business for the time being! In fact, it is a miracle ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... the highest inspirations they never fail us. When we fail to do this we fail in attaining the highest results, whatever the undertaking. ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine

... of an inroad of the Sclavs, and Erik was commissioned to suppress it with eight ships, since Frode as yet seemed inexperienced in war. Erik, loth ever to flinch from any manly undertaking, gladly undertook the business and did it bravely. Learning that the pirates had seven ships, he sailed up to them with only one of his own, ordering the rest to be girt with timber parapets, and covered over with pruned boughs of trees. Then he ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... eighteen months, I am asked to take up the tangled clues, if such may be said to exist. It is a difficult, perhaps an impossible, undertaking. Yet if I have done so much in a day, what may ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... gratification. Then he gave her the exact time again, and anxiously watched her turn the hands slowly till they reached the precise spot without accident or loss of life, and then he looked as happy as a man who had helped a fellow being through a momentous undertaking, and was grateful to know that he had not lived in vain. Laura thanked him once more. The words were music to his ear; but what were they compared to the ravishing smile with which she flooded his whole system? When she bowed her adieu and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... public. If the pamphlet narrative of the witch of Edmonton had been lost, it might be possible to reconstruct from the play of Dekker, Ford, and Rowley some of the outlines of the story. It would be at best a hazardous undertaking. To reconstruct the trials at Lancaster from the plays of Heywood and Brome or from that of Shadwell would be quite impossible. The ballads present a form of evidence much like that of the plays. Like the plays, they happen all to deal with cases about which we are already ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... had accumulated to a very considerable extent) had suddenly ceased, and he was unable to meet his obligations. As he was in destitution, he could make no suggestion for meeting them, and requested us to accept an undertaking from him to discharge them if possible at a future time. Under the circumstances he was informed that he was not to come up again, and his name was struck off the books. I believe that since then a few of his debts have been reduced by ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... had determined to try to save his brig, as by this time a slight breeze had sprung up, and I stayed with some of the others to help in the endeavour. When the rest of the passengers were safe on board the pilot boats, we set about our critical undertaking. Sails were spread, one anchor hoisted, the cable of the other cut, and we stood holding our breath, to see whether wind or water would prove strongest. But the sails drew; the brig slowly fell off before the wind, and ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... was agreed to with enthusiasm, the Queen undertaking to provision the army "out of her own garners"; but the Governor had no sooner "belted the siege about the castle," an expression which renders most graphically the surrounding of the place, than the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... most liberally, done, in addition to direct subscriptions greater in amount than the provinces of either Austria, France or England made to their respective expositions. Withal, it could surprise no one that Pennsylvania and her chief city would have to be the main capitalists of an undertaking located ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... goest! Heaven bless thee in thy walks abroad! whether with that tightly-booted cavalryman in thy Sunday gown and best, or in blue polka-dotted apron and bare head as thou trottest nimbly on mine errands,—errands which Bridget o'Flaherty would scorn to undertake, or, undertaking, would hopelessly blunder in. Heaven bless thee, child, in thy early risings and in thy later sittings, at thy festive board overflowing with Essig and Fett, in the mysteries of thy Kuchen, in the fulness of ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... former, of similar dimensions. The erection of the scaffolding, and subsequent proceedings of the workmen, at so fearful a height from the "haunts of men," excited a very general interest, more particularly so on the recent happy accomplishment of the undertaking, when the in-trepid aeronauts cheered the admiring multitude far beneath, and, seated in the clouds like the deities of Mount Olympus, drank to the prosperity of their friends in ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... early this morning; but, though his wounds were far from threatening any danger, he was so sore with the bruises, that it was impossible for him to think of undertaking a journey yet; Mr Adams, therefore, whose stock was visibly decreased with the expenses of supper and breakfast, and which could not survive that day's scoring, began to consider how it was possible to recruit it. At last he cried, "He had luckily hit on a sure method, and, though it would ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... little and what there is of it is not worth much. In that case, what could it be?—On the other hand, was it conceivable that people so prodigiously clever as Lupin should not have succeeded in adding 'the rest,' which they themselves had evidently suggested? A difficult undertaking, very likely; exceptional, surprising, I dare say; but possible and therefore ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... statements did not annoy me. I found no desire arising in me to deny them and doubtless, though mayhap with a guilty conscience, I should have ditched the undertaking, consigned it to that heap of undone duties, where already lie notes on a comparison of Andalusian mules with the mules of Liane de Pougy, a few scribbled memoranda for a treatise on the love habits of the mole, and ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... of the world, that it is extremely difficult to get a Minister to strike out a new path, unless he has the sympathies and hearty support of the public with him. And certainly the last thing in the imagination of the British public is the undertaking Discoveries in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... been for so long a time at the court of your Highnesses in opposition and contrary to the opinions of so many distinguished personages of your household, who all opposed me, treating my project as a dream, and my undertaking as a chimera. And I hope still, nevertheless, in our Lord, this voyage will bring the greatest honor to Christianity, although it has been ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... others. And he and they were sure of success ultimately,—were sure of success very speedily. Linda could understand nothing of the subject. But she could hope that her lover might prosper in his undertaking, and she could admire and love him for encountering the dangers of such an enterprise. And then, half sportively, half in earnest, she taxed him with that matter which was next her heart. Who had been the young woman with the blue frock and the felt hat who had been with ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... "that you can have cared very much whether I loved you or not. When you married me you knew that I was the promoter of the Charity League; I almost told you. I told you so much that, with your knowledge, you must have been aware of the fact that I was heavily interested in the undertaking which you betrayed. You married me without certain proof of your husband's death, such was your indecent haste to call yourself a princess. And now I find, on your own confession, that you have a clandestine understanding with ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... couches take their places. The great feather tick has been converted into the more healthy mattress, and the straw tick and cords have been replaced by spring bottoms. It used to be quite an arduous undertaking, I remember, to put up one of those old beds. One person took a wrench, kept for that purpose, and drew up the cord with it as tight as he could at every hole, and another followed with a hammer and pin, which was driven into the hole through ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight

... hypocritical, to delude and mislead the people by pretended plans of reform, promised or proposed by the insidious enemies of all reform." The speeches at this meeting dared any administration to assume the reins of government, without undertaking to carry the whole bill. The Duke of Wellington was particularly censured by the speakers: nor did his majesty himself escape censure for yielding to domestic influence, and following the advice of pernicious counsellors. The majority of the house of lords, however, was more ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... "Before undertaking the plans, it will be necessary for us to ascertain just how much we are worth, financially speaking. For this purpose, we must make a complete and carefully classified inventory of our properties, both real and personal. This important task, we will take up tomorrow, working deliberately ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... carrying mysterious bundles, and taking as many precautions to avoid observation and pursuit as if they were really, as they pretended to be with the fine imagination of early boyhood, desperate characters bent upon an undertaking of unparalleled lawlessness and great daring. They crossed the creek and crept along in the shadow of the hill, for the moon, although low down in the sky, was still bright and dangerous to hunted outlaws. Off to the left could be heard the long-drawn respirations of the engines at the Silver ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... neighbouring youths to get at this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous: so the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when these birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... and my son and by the advice of my friends, the Honorable J. C. Bancroft Davis and the Honorable William A. Richardson, I am venturing upon the task of giving a sketch of my experiences in life during three fourths of a century. The wisdom of such an undertaking is not outside the realm of debate. A large part of my manhood has been spent in the politics of my native state, and in the politics of the country. For many years I have had the fortune to be associated with those in whose hands ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... Jennie Weeks' work as a waiter and installed her as his mother's maid, making the least detail all right with his mother, with Jennie, with the manager, she realized that there had been nothing for her to smile about. Jennie was delighted, and began her new undertaking earnestly, with sincere desire to please. Kate helped her all she could, while Mrs. Jardine developed a fund of patience commensurate with the need of it. She would have endured more inconvenience than resulted from Jennie's inexperienced hands because of the realization that her ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... for undertaking the voyage—his instructions and departure—arrives at Jillifree, on the Gambia River—proceeds to Vintain. Some account of the Feloops. Proceeds up the river for Jonkakonda—arrives at Dr. Laidley's. Some account of Pisania, and the British factory established at that place. The Author's ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... you conducted to the centre of the Lodge, and there caused to kneel for the benefit of a prayer? A. Before entering on this, or any other great and important undertaking, it is highly necessary to ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan

... high-handed expert. I think, from his preface, that the author does not quite share my own taste in such matters, since he promises that his Investigator shall keep no secrets and observe nothing withheld from the eye of the reader. So faithful is the author to this undertaking that he practically keeps his expert hanging about with the unenlightened crowd, while another character, in light-hearted amateur enthusiasm, does all the work. But of course, in a tale of this kind, the only thing that really matters is the one question of spotting the criminal, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various

... applied to navigation, and aware of various commercial conditions which must affect the problem, were enabled to estimate calmly and dispassionately the difficulties and drawbacks, as well as the disadvantages, of the undertaking, entertained doubts which clouded the brightness of their hopes, and warned the commercial world against the indulgence of too sanguine anticipation of the immediate and unqualified realization of the project. They counseled caution ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various

... this perilous ascension, absorbed in the difficulties of the undertaking, attentive to himself alone, staggering, with a buzzing sound in his ears, he has not heard a sorrowful, lamentable moaning, not far ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine

... this point as clear as possible; for if taste has no fixed principles, if the imagination is not affected according to some invariable and certain laws, our labor is likely to be employed to very little purpose; as it must be judged an useless, if not an absurd undertaking, to lay down rules for caprice, and to set up for a legislator of whims ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of this; you will probably hear the whole account before this reaches you. I am wholly absorbed in the studies of my profession; it is a slow and arduous undertaking. I never knew till now the difficulties of art, and no one can duly appreciate it unless he has tried it. Difficulties, however, only increase my ardor and make me more determined than ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... disheartened by the difficulties and prospects before him, sought Master Weston, and by an urgent appeal so effectively wrought upon him, that, two hours later, coming to Cushman, he promised "he would not yet give it [the undertaking] up." Cushman's patience and endurance were evidently nearly "at the breaking point," for he says in his letter of Sunday, June 11, when success had begun to crown his last grand effort: "And, indeed, the many discouragements I find here [in London] together with the demurs and retirings ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... necessary arrangements with your brother; or, better still, go at once yourself—a man can always arrange these matters more satisfactorily himself—and I will let you have the money in three days, with Lady Chetwynde's best wishes for the success of your undertaking; and we will see," she added, with a smile, "if we can not get pretty Susan a wedding-dress, and any thing else she may need. Before a week is over you shall be mine host of the Keswick Inn. And now," she concluded, gayly, "go and make your arrangements with ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... for blow, it matters not how righteous may be his cause. Captain Nicholas McDuffy was a man without fear. Two or three years ago, while a member of the police force of Wilmington, it became his duty to arrest some white roughs for disorderly conduct. It was a hazardous undertaking, but McDuffy waded in and landed his men, but it cost him dear. His body was so hacked by knife thrusts that he was compelled to go to the hospital for repairs. Generally policemen are commended and rewarded for such heroic deeds, but this placed the name ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... much obliged for your letter of Oct. 10th from Celebes, received a few days ago: in a laborious undertaking, sympathy is a valuable and real encouragement. By your letter, and even still more by your paper in the Annals,[28] a year or more ago, I can plainly see that we have thought much alike and to a certain extent have come to similar ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... long hobbled by political instability, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and poor macroeconomic management, is undertaking some reforms under a new reform-minded administration. Nigeria's former military rulers failed to diversify the economy away from its overdependence on the capital-intensive oil sector, which provides 20% of GDP, 95% of foreign exchange ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... first," De Grost insisted. "Am I not right in assuming that you have signed a solemn undertaking that, in the event of your succeeding to the throne of your country, you will use the whole of your influence towards concluding a treaty with a certain Power, one of the provisions of which is that that Power shall have free access to any one of your ports ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... matters a perfect exactness is necessary, and wished to see some precedent Observations to direct him: which having obtained, he thereby verified what he had begun, and resolved to carry on his intended Ephemerides, especially being urged by his Friends, and engaged by his former undertaking, that so it might not be thought a meer hazard, that made him hit in the former; as also, that he might try, whether his Method would succeed as well in slower, as in swifter Comets, and in those, that are neer the Sun; as in such as are opposite thereunto, to the end, that men ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... that when we came to set about the task of cutting adrift the wreckage of the foremast, with the idea of hauling it alongside and utilising it in the construction of a raft, it at once became evident that the time for undertaking such a piece of work was already past; for even alongside the schooner, and partially under her lee, the wreckage would be swept so violently by the breaking seas that it would be impossible for men to go over the side and work upon it ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... subject of silent recitation by reciting which every day one may acquire the merit of righteousness in a large measure? What is that Mantra for recitation which bestows success if recited on the occasion of setting out on a journey or in entering a new building, or at the commencement of any undertaking, or on the occasion of sacrifices in honour of the deities or of the Pitris? It behoveth thee to tell me what indeed, what Mantra it is, which propitiates all malevolent influences, or leads to prosperity or growth, or protection from evil, or the destruction ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... farsighted our President then proved himself. What would be our situation now if we had tried to go to war under the volunteer system? This question once solved, our President led us with a breadth of vision, an efficiency, and on a scale commensurate with the size of the undertaking in which we at last had ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... another, confining themselves to nothing and soon growing weary and indolent. For instance, some readily and very zealously engage in a good work, such as praying, reading, fasting, giving, serving, disciplining the body. But after two or three attempts they become indolent and fail to accomplish the undertaking. Their ardor subsides with the gratification of their curiosity. Such people become unstable and weak. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... for a few moments to be sure that no one was approaching, and then crossed the floor of my room swiftly, entered the secret door, and closed the spring lock after me. I was upon the screw-stair in total darkness, the key in my fingers. Thus far the undertaking was successful. ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Lecoq, kindly, "you are not an ass. You merely did wrong in undertaking a task beyond your capacity. Have you progressed one step since you started this affair? No. That shows that, although you are incomparable as a lieutenant, you do not possess the qualities of a general. I am going to present you with ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... to go away and lie down, while the wedding-breakfast went on. In consequence he was spared the many repetitions of hearing how he had saved Miss Evelyn from a watery grave, and Allen made a much longer speech than he would have done for himself when undertaking, on Rob's strenuous refusal, to return thanks for ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... craft plying to Boston. Dissatisfied companies from Barbadoes seeking a less torrid climate next arrived. Thus the region was settled in the first instance at second hand from older colonies. To these came settlers direct from England, such emigrants as the proprietors could persuade to the undertaking, and such as were impelled by the evil state of England in the last days of the Stuarts, or drawn by the promise of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... out of the mud, and once more got afloat towards the middle of February following. This immense undertaking was accomplished by the indefatigable exertion and mechanical skill of her commander, Captain Kuper, C.B., ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... to make some arrangements for me in Yerbury? I shall come on the 18th, with a companion and a maid; and Mr. Hildreth will follow the next morning. Get your plans in shape by that time. I am glad to have met you, Mr. Darcy, and I wish you success in your undertaking." ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... disguise his pride—Dorothy had certainly "been busy" lately, and every undertaking of hers had met with success. A girl, after all, may be something more than a pretty doll, he thought. But the whole thing is to get them to exert their influence in the right direction. See how Dorothy had helped in the liquor ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose

... Christian type of character as embodied in the Founder of Christianity from peculiarities of nation, race, or sex which might have derogated from its perfection as a type of pure humanity. In those days I believed in revelation. But my argument was not from revelation, but from ethics and history. The undertaking of Christianity to convert mankind to a fraternal and purely beneficent type of character and enfold men in a universal brotherhood, baffled and perverted although the effort has been in various ways, appears to have no parallel in ethical history. ...
— No Refuge but in Truth • Goldwin Smith

... destroy all foolish superstition and by this means to become her helper. He could therefore tell her without reserve how terribly he had been cast down the last few days. The weight had been very heavy on his heart before his confession, because he had been so ashamed of the miserable end of the undertaking. He had, moreover, been very much afraid that she would tell him that no ghost of Wildenstein existed, after he himself had seen the incredible apparition. What Loneli had told him had relieved him immensely. ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri

... still warm, it was anything but warm in the mountain fastnesses. True, a passage of the Alps had been forced before now—one by the Carthaginian General Hannibal in the middle ages, and again by Napoleon. But it was still a desperate undertaking. ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes

... black eye," he said laughing, "but I am sure madame your mother would not be pleased to see you so marked; besides, your people would not understand your motive in undertaking so rough an exercise, and you might lose somewhat of their respect. Be content, Count Ernest; you are an excellent swordsman, and although I am improving under M. du Tillet's tuition I shall never be ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... was completed, and in this work, which he accomplished in cooeperation with his Wittenberg friends, he acquired a complete control of the language of the people—a language whose wealth and power he first learned to realize through this work. We know the lofty spirit which he brought to this undertaking. His purpose was to create a book for the people, and for this he studied industriously turns of phrases, proverbs, and special terms which made up the people's current language. Even Humanists had written an awkward, involved German, with clumsy sentences in unfortunate ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... encounter with her dearest relative might be made safe and unsuspected. She bade them adieu blithely; but the thoughts engendered by the invitation stood before her as sorrowful and rayless ghosts which could not be laid. Often at such conjunctures as these, when the futility of her great undertaking was more than usually manifest, did Ethelberta long like a tired child for the conclusion of the whole matter; when her work should be over, and the evening come; when she might draw her boat upon the shore, and in some thymy nook await eternal ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... least. The fact that it would not only be a useless but an extremely dangerous undertaking to make an outcry at that particular time, worked itself through his head, and the intention was accordingly given ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis

... "a mission of much danger, and one which will need all secrecy. At the Court of France dwell certain members of my Order, close to the King, and deep in affairs of State. Before them I will lay our undertaking, that when England shall be without a government and all the land involved in perplexity and beset with controversies, the armies of the Catholic Kings may come among us—the way being prepared ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... much embarrassed to know what to do. After much thought and prayer I was led to leave the comfortable quarters and happy circle in which I was now residing, and to engage a little lodging in the suburbs—a sitting-room and bedroom in one—undertaking to board myself. In this way I was able without difficulty to tithe the whole of my income; and while I felt the change a good deal, it was attended with ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor

... bound to have it so, you shall all go. But don't blame me if the perils are greater than you anticipate, and if the undertaking costs one or ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield

... that would not improve the matter, but simply furnish one more person for the sheriff to hang. Nothing could save the twins but the discovery of a person who did the murder on his sole personal account—an undertaking which had all the aspect of the impossible. Still, the person who made the fingerprints must be sought. The twins might have no case WITH them, but they certainly would have none ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... hard one, nor does it grow a bit more easy as we revolve it in our minds. The entire undertaking of the philosopher obliges him to seek an impartial test. That test, however, must be incarnated in the demand of some actually existent person; and how can he pick out the person save by an act in which his own sympathies and prepossessions ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... impatiently, "I must say something, mustn't I? And if you had all the weight o' this undertaking upon your mind perhaps you'd say the wrong thing too. Prisoner at the bar, surrender, in the name of ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... royal manor at Bromley at present vacant; 'tis of the value of fifty-six pounds a year. This we will hand over to you jointly, upon your undertaking to keep thirty men-at-arms fully equipped and ready for service, each of you; and also that each of you shall maintain, at the spots which may seem to you the most advisable, a galley with oars, in which you can put out ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... indefinitely. Sommers knew what that meant—no appropriation for carrying on the work. At the last meeting the board of managers, who were women for the most part, had disagreed about the advisability of undertaking the work this season, when every one was feeling poor. Some women had been especially violent against supporting the charity in those districts ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... hotels, in private families, in the fields outside the large cities. Above all, the buildings erected at the time, in such great numbers, employed many of them as mechanics and laborers; and whenever some grand undertaking, which looked to the future welfare of the country, demanded a large draft of men, there were they to be seen as they had never been seen before, even in their own country, where all labor was reduced to the individual ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... proper understanding of his responsibility in such a case would have thought of undertaking an operation with a patient in the physical condition that this man was reported to be in. "The long continuance of the severe symptoms" is proof positive that the "severe symptoms" ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.

... embosomed in a spacious tract of woods and thickets, while the hermits who had fixed themselves upon its summits, received their daily bread from the charity of the priest of the neighboring parish of Beauvoir; an ass spontaneously undertaking the office of conveying it to them, till on the road he fell a prey to a wolf, who was then constrained by Providence to devote himself ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... not overlook Gershom, who duly donned his Sunday best in honor of Susie's arrival and who is already undertaking to educate the brooding-eyed young lady from the East. He explained to her that there were eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles of Canada still unexplored, and Susie said: "Then lead me into the most far-away ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... has been subjected to several tests and examinations and the results are most satisfactory so much so that nothing but the completion of the undertaking is required to determine its practical operation, which being once established its utility is undoubted, as it would be a necessary possession of every empire, and it were hardly too much to say, of every individual of competent ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... lured the intruder back to the sitting-room, and shortly after stole softly up the stairs with a small breakfast tray, the contents of which he deposited firmly in our respective rooms, with a few timely words on the folly of "undertaking murders on an empty stomach." Thorndyke and I had meanwhile clothed ourselves with a celerity known only to medical practitioners and quick-change artists, and in a few minutes descended the stairs together, calling in at the laboratory for a few appliances that Thorndyke usually took with ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... travellers. They immediately ordered me to take a detachment of men and set off in pursuit. This is our present errand. You now know all; and if you are a true man, you will at once not only sympathize with our present undertaking, but you will lend us all the aid in your power; you will tell us all you know; you will be as frank with me as I have been with you, and help us to save these unfortunate ladies from a ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... of his speech was to this effect: "I hold out to you a glorious prize, but it is to be won by incessant toil. Great things are achieved only by great exertions, and glory was never the reward of sloth. If I have laboured hard and staked my all on this undertaking, it is for the love of that renown, which is the noblest recompense of man. But, if any among you covet riches more, be but true to me, as I will be true to you and to the occasion, and I will make you masters of such as our countrymen ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... fort, which answered slowly and deliberately from its different batteries. In the midst of the bombardment, General Butler landed his army on the peninsula above the land-face of the work, but upon inspection of its strength he grew hopeless of his undertaking, and on the night of December 26th, having re-embarked his force, the fleet ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... So her mother sent a maidservant to search for the plaything. The girl returned shortly and said that the kitten was certainly not in the house. At this Mrinu howled more loudly than ever, bringing her father on the scene. He pacified the child by undertaking to produce her pet, and told the servants that the finder would be handsomely rewarded. Meanwhile his wife was trying to keep Mrinu's attention engaged by telling her a long story, when she suddenly exclaimed, "What has become of your jasam ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... Sir, his wife, some two months since, fled from his house: her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques-le-Grand: which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony she accomplished; and, there residing, the tenderness of her nature became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last breath; and ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... connect with the Monongahela or Youghiogheny in order to reach the Ohio. At a convention which met in Washington in the fall of 1823, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia were largely represented by delegates enthusiastic over this new highway to the west. Even Baltimore acquiesced in the undertaking after a provision giving the right to tap the canal by a branch to that city, so that her western trade should not be diverted to the ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... mighty dangerous," protested young Jones. "It's a tremendous undertaking, and—what can one girl do in the midst of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... but consider how Alexander the Great, son of King Philip, of whom we spoke just now, compassed his undertaking merely by the interpretation of a name. He had besieged the strong city of Tyre, and for several weeks battered it with all his power; but all in vain. His engines and attempts were still baffled by the Tyrians, which made him finally resolve to raise ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... said Wych Hazel, 'to waste none in preliminaries. I want to buy up your present bad undertakingand the price is for you to name.'And she looked out again into the white darkness, and wondered if this was to be her first night adventure wherein Mr. Rollo did not appear ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... interrupted by the impatient Vinicius, who inquired directly,—"Dost thou know clearly what thou art undertaking?" ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... charges incident on his high situation required considerable expense; finally, it was found that he could not spare to his wife more than three hundred pounds a year, which he proposed to pay to her on an undertaking that she would never trouble him. Otherwise, scandal, separation, Doctors' Commons would ensue. But it was Mr. Wenham's business, Lord Steyne's business, Rawdon's, everybody's—to get her out of the country, and hush ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... head foremost, into the very scent-bottle of the whole commodity, which made him go perfect mad, and he swore like a trooper that he would get an act of parliament to put down the nuisance—the which now ripened in the course of this year into the undertaking of the trust-road. ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... above, a main foundation of the old religion of the Gentiles, but were also the cause of the prosperity of the Roman commonwealth. Accordingly, the Romans gave more heed to these than to any other of their observances; resorting to them in their consular comitia; in undertaking new enterprises; in calling out their armies; in going into battle; and, in short, in every business of importance, whether civil or military. Nor would they ever set forth on any warlike expedition, until they had satisfied their soldiers that the ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... described the matter, that they were underworked and starved by Irishmen. Numbers of Irishmen, it would seem, were beginning to come over to this country, not merely to labor in harvesting in the rural districts, as they had long been accustomed to do, but undertaking work of all kinds at lower wages than English workmen were accustomed to receive. "The cry is, Down with the Irish," Walpole says; and Dr. Sheridan, Swift's correspondent, proclaiming in terms of humorous ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... intention was to swim across, but the current was swift, the water forbiddingly dark and cold. A mist obscured the other bank. I could not, indeed, see the water more than a few yards out. It was a hazardous and horrible undertaking, and I gave it up, following cautiously along the bank in search of the spot where we had moored the boat. True, it was hardly likely that the landing was now unguarded, or, if so, that the boat was still there. Cobb had undoubtedly made for it, having an even more urgent need than I; ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... covered with snow and ice; the path from one cliff to the next is narrow and uncertain, and a fall into some dark and fearful hollow usually means death. But the danger only urged Theodore Roosevelt on, and added zest to the undertaking. ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer

... just in time," exclaimed Gray, feeling the need of speech. A little sob answered him. Elsie was beginning to admit the sheer hopelessness of her undertaking. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... detective work, and acquitted himself with gratifying success; and he had lately seen a private detective, who attested his appreciation of Pinney's skill by offering him a partnership. His wife was not in favor of his undertaking the work, though she could not deny that he had some distinct qualification for it. The air of confidence which he diffused about him unconsciously, and which often served him so well in newspaper life, was in itself the most valuable property that a detective ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... extraordinarily cautious and, I may say, even parsimonious in charitable matters. It is of course easy to understand, if one considers the unlimited confidence which he enjoyed among the subscribers and the great moral responsibility which he could not but feel toward them. So that before undertaking anything he had himself to be fully convinced of the necessity of ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy

... communicate with Fort Larned, the nearest military post. The distance was estimated to be about sixty-five miles. The night herder of Blanchard's train expressed a willingness to go upon this perilous undertaking. While making his preparations at McRea's camp he was asked if he wanted any money, that a little might be found in the train. He replied that money would not 'help' him 'on a trip like this,' but he would be glad to have ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession, by disgust. Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking. From the first hint that wakens the fancy, to the hour of actual execution, all is improvement and progress, triumph and felicity." 11. What is the fourth method of analysis? 12. How are the following sentences analyzed by this ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... is done. But it requires genius to succeed in such an undertaking. Look at Walter Crane's pictures of human ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn

... intonation. The additions to the number of 'episodes' or acts, and the other accessories of which tradition; tells, must be taken as already described; for to discuss them in detail would, doubtless, be a large undertaking. ...
— Poetics • Aristotle

... Tartar Bay. Though all proposals by foreigners have been courteously shelved, they have in reality formed the bases of native enterprise. It is to the credit of Russia that she has determined to depend on the energy and ability of her own sons to carry out this colossal undertaking. ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... Nicolaus removed the only obstacle to Haydn's undertaking a journey to London; consequently, when one morning he found a visitor awaiting him at his house, who announced his business thus: 'My name is Salomon; I have come from London to fetch you; we will settle terms to-morrow,' Haydn regarded the matter ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... The sheep sadly gored the shepherd. Afterwards, when he had nearly killed his pastor, he seceded from his flock, and gave him, under his own hand, a solemn abjuration of the Caterian tenets. How Brandon came to launch out into this expensive and ill-advised undertaking of green-groceries and sawpits, how he afterwards became involved, and how much the preacher had been guilty in deceiving him, I never clearly understood. However, my nurse never, for a long time after, spoke of the reverend gentleman without ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... evening. He had been actuated in his attempted hazing of Alexander by Jase Mallows, who thought her pride should be humbled, yet sought to accomplish that end vicariously in order that the doors of future conquest might not be closed against himself. Lute's undertaking had not been a success and he sought his bed, sodden and bloodshot of eye. He was nursing grudges of varying degrees against Jase Mallows, Alexander, Halloway and finally against ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... channel which appeared to be a separating body of water between two considerable bodies of land. There was a beautiful beach to our right, and we decided to reconnoiter. Casting anchor, we waded ashore to rest up for a day before continuing the outward hazardous undertaking. We built a fire and threw on some sticks of dry driftwood. While my father was walking along the shore, I prepared a tempting repast from ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson

... unlimited utility for the home, the factory, the marketplace, the highway, the hospital or just about any other arena one cares to name. So great is the promise that virtually every electronics company in the country is undertaking "to take the state of the art into fundamentally new areas" and there ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics

... miracles, produced precisely opposite effects on two of the crowd around Him, both of whom seem to have been, in the loose sense of the word, disciples. One was this scribe, whom the prospect of losing the Master from his side, hurried into a too lightly formed and too confidently expressed undertaking. The other presented exactly the opposite fault. That other man in the crowd, at the prospect of losing sight of the Christ, began to think that there were imperative duties at home which would prevent his following the Master, and said, 'Suffer me first to go and bury my father.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... do much for my old friend, Monsieur Charles Crawford, for whom I have long entertained a sincere affection," he told Merritt, after he had read the letter presented to him, and questioned the boys at length, "but it is a most serious undertaking you have in view. I question the wisdom of my encouraging such ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... of good will on the part of the mob to the undertaking; far from it, and they proceeded in the work con amore. They worked together with right good will, and the result was soon seen by the heaps of combustible materials that were collected in a short time from all parts of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... tute the first time, and were wholly malsciis la malfacilecojn kiujn ignorant of the difficulties that oni devas venki, kaj ecx ne had to be overcome, and did not komprenis la demandon kiun ili even understand the question they entreprenis solvi. Sed li sciis were undertaking to solve. But ankaux ke tiela konsidero estas he also knew that to clever men por lertuloj malpli ol nenio. such a consideration is less than Estis malutile argumenti kun nothing. It was no good to argue ili, cxar ili ne sciis ke ili ne with ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... Bodleian Library, as a curiosity to be shown to foreigners. A few years later, a Scotchman, named Fraser, went to Surat, with the view of obtaining from the Parsis, not only their books, but also a knowledge of their contents. He was not very successful in the first undertaking, and utterly ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... to speak of Youth as the period of rebellion or revolt. But to us it seems to be the normal age of conquest. Youth is the world's eternal and undaunted conqueror. No matter what the odds, no matter how slim the chances of success in any undertaking, Youth dares. Experience and wisdom know, fear and hesitate. Youth rushes ...
— Women As Sex Vendors - or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic - Status of Woman) • R. B. Tobias

... for Fort Detroit. The other boat, which generally headed the fleet, was of lighter and more graceful construction than the others, and was reserved for the commander of the expedition. In it also travelled the two ladies, who were thus undertaking an adventurous journey into the far western wilderness. This much information concerning his sister's present surroundings Donald Hester gained at Fort Schlosser, from which place the flotilla had departed six days ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... esteem for you. He honoured me with a conference on the subject yesterday, and has now commissioned me to explain to you the technical objects of this mission, and to offer to you the honour of undertaking it. Should you accept the proposals, you will wait upon his Highness before his ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... confounding some Indian insect with the insect described by Donovan. Godart has also erroneously altered the Fabrician description of P. nysa, and thus added to the multitude of proofs which his laborious work affords, that the continental entomologists have no means of undertaking a complete description of species, without visiting the extensive ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... undertaking their elementary analysis, methods must be carefully sought for which can be followed for the obtainment of the coloring matters of flowers, and that it should be proved whether these substances are to be considered as independent bodies, or whether they proceed ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... soldiers, to labour in carrying it on. As he set a vast number of men to work, he, beyond all men's expectations, brought it to a speedy conclusion. And his neighbours, who at first laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw it brought to perfection than they were struck ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... troubled me little, since no salary was attached to the position. But my father's secretary, whom recent events had deprived of his livelihood, informed me of a plan for the establishment of a bureau of information, copying, and translation. For this undertaking I was to advance the initial cost of equipment, he being prepared to undertake the management. At my request the field of copying was extended so as to include music, and now I was perfectly happy. I advanced the necessary sum, but, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Germans were particularly busy in Brussels. A great many new troops were brought in, amongst them several Austrian regiments and a great many naval officers and men. It was quite plain that some big undertaking was planned. Then one day we saw the famous heavy guns going out of the city along the Antwerp road. I had heard them last at Maubeuge, now I was to hear them again. Night and day reinforcements of soldiers poured into Brussels at the Gare du Nord, and poured ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan

... lady in his assumed character, giving her religious instruction and friendly consolation, at which times he had learned her sad story from her own lips; and now she, looking upon him as a holy man, readily consented to be directed by him in this undertaking. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... aqueduct over five miles long brings a bountiful supply of good water from the neighboring mountains. The lofty, substantial masonry of the aqueduct reminds one of similar works which cross the Campagna at Rome, and those in the environs of Cairo. This work must have been originally a tremendous undertaking, many of the arches, where ravines and natural undulations are crossed, being nearly a hundred feet in height. The cost of the aqueduct is said to have been borne by a single individual, to whose memory the citizens have erected a statue on ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... Those who have contributed to their country's defence are invited to come forward and receive the reward of their patriotism. They are informed that with the permission of a kind Providence who hath hitherto favored the undertaking, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... trust to the Public Trustee, should Winnington decline, and for vesting the guardianship of the daughter in the Court of Chancery, subject to the directions of the will, till she should reach the age of twenty-five, were clear; so also was the provision that unless a specific signed undertaking was given by the daughter on attaining her twenty-fifth birthday, that the moneys of the estate would not be applied to the support of the "militant suffrage" propaganda, the trust was to be made permanent, a life income of L2000 ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... fort so far completed that Gaunt thought he might now safely take in hand the saw-mill upon which he had set his mind; and he and the skipper accordingly devoted themselves henceforward to that undertaking, finishing it within a few days of the date when Henderson reported that all was done at the fort which at that time was deemed necessary. The doctor and his party now took to the woods armed with their axes, and began the important ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... shrewd observer and hard bargain-driver, and a certain financial group which for obvious reasons remained nameless. The object of the compact was the bestowal on the group of concessions in the Banat in return for an undertaking that the Bolshevist Dictator would be left in power and subsequently honored by an invitation to the Conference. The plenipotentiaries' command arresting the march against Kuhn and their conditional promise to summon him to the Conference, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... I presently began to think about the undertaking on which I was now fairly engaged. When I came to consider it, it seemed a queer affair. As I understood it, it amounted to this:—Here was Mr. Gilverthwaite, a man that was a stranger in Berwick, and who appeared ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher

... man, who could not but be conscious of his own unfitness for it, should go to amuse the learned world with such an undertaking! A man ought to value his reputation more than money; and not to hope that those who can read for themselves will be imposed upon, merely by a partially and unseasonably celebrated name.[474] Poetis quidlibei audendi shall be Mr Dryden's ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... he began to busy himself with the revised edition of his works which he had projected in Spain. It was disheartening to find his old publishers dubious about undertaking the republication, and for a time the work went hard. "I am growing a sad laggard in literature," he wrote to his nephew, "and need some one to bolster me up occasionally. I am too ready to do anything else rather than write." For more than a year his time was ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... steadfast and true to their lovers, through all vicissitudes. They have solicited and accompanied men to their rooms, yet still have so contrived and maneuvered, as to have their male companion robbed without indulging in any of the other apparently necessary concomitants to the success of the undertaking. But these women are rare—very rare indeed. The fact of their occasional existence merely proves that the sole object of all women engaged in the nefarious game of panel thieving is robbery—first, last and ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... hot, and in the afternoon fierce sunshine beat upon the long slope. The shadow of the pines looked inviting and Jim felt that half an hour might be occupied profitably by a quiet smoke and review of the undertaking, but resisted the temptation. The argument was false; he was a working boss and must set the pace for his men. His back began to ache, he tore his old blue shirt, and bruised his hands, while as the shadows lengthened he got disturbed. Rolling heavy stones was slow and expensive work. It kept him ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss

... I have done it," the old man cried, his eyes glistening with joy and pride as if he had just accomplished an heroic undertaking. "I am sorry I called you a goose, and as for your lack of brains, well you might have a few more, but, and this I can assure you, you are honest and true and understand your business, and if you will only be as good to me as I have always been to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... I am, therefore, with such a favourable opinion of my associates in this undertaking, it would ill become me to dictate to any of them. But as these institutions have so often failed in other nations, and as it is natural to think with regret how much might have been done, and how little ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... mutual obligations and the vast interests created by the canal, have continued in the usual friendly manner, and we have been glad to make appropriate expression of our attitude of sympathetic interest in the endeavors of our neighbor in undertaking the development of the rich resources of the country. With reference to the internal political affairs of the Republic, our obvious concern is in the maintenance of public peace and constitutional order, and the fostering of the general interests created by the actual relations of the two ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... a manner which dooms him and them to failure. Let us have practice without theory, he says, the superstructure without the foundation, the fruit without the root, works without the {190} faith which produces works: and such being the nature of his undertaking, he fares accordingly, a spectacle of ineffectual goodness, wondering why the world declines to listen to his so reasonable gospel. But the world continues to cling to an ultra-rational Gospel because it is instinctively aware ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... begged that he would stand where he was, with his basket in his hand, while she produced her sketch-book and made a portrait of him. Dermot scarcely understood the process that was going forward, and was somewhat relieved when the breakfast bell sounding, the lady was compelled to abandon her undertaking. ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... not afraid you will lose it?" asked Faith, a little shyly. "You know you always had grave doubts as to the financial results of your father's undertaking." ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon

... He engaged to do somewhat, undertaking upon oath in case of default to divorce his wife by pronouncing the triple formula of divorcement, and she therefore became divorced, by operation of law, on his failure to keep ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... indignities in the payment, pensions from the French Government. It was easy to inflame the minds of persons so situated with false hopes; and Murray is said to have been indefatigable in the prosecution of his scheme. After a delay of three weeks in Paris, he set off on that memorable undertaking to engage the Clans, which ultimately ended in the insurrection ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... power, latent and dormant, and capable of being developed to a greater or less active power, it is but honest to say that in many cases it is a grave question whether the person would be justified in undertaking the hard work, and long time, required to develop himself for the minor success which would attend his efforts. As a writer has said: "Does the prospective result justify the labor involved to bring ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... this town of Argesia, along with the other cloister buildings in the vicinity, for the worship of God and in honour of his sainted mother; which monastery, as it may readily lie imagined from the high wages paid to the workmen engaged in its erection, must have been a very costly undertaking. After a considerable period the foundation and steps began to give way, either through some error of the builders or owing to the damp caused by long-continued rains which loosened the stones. About that time I, Johann Scherban Kantakosino ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... to improve for the spiritual delight of a select congregation, was seized by Mr. Chadband and threatened with being delivered over to the police unless he showed the reverend gentleman where he lived and unless he entered into, and fulfilled, an undertaking to appear in Cook's Court to-morrow night, "to—mor—row—night," Mrs. Snagsby repeats for mere emphasis with another tight smile and another tight shake of her head; and to-morrow night that boy will be here, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... Leopoldowna—"no, no blood shall flow! Not with blood shall our own and our son's rights be secured! Swear this gentlemen, or I will never give my consent to the undertaking." ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach



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