"Worst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Halse was upon me, as I sat on the side of our bed, and there was an unseemly scuffle. Halse was the larger, and I think that I would have gotten the worst of the squabble, but at this juncture, Addison, hearing the racket, rushed in from his ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... sun, subsisted upon it until the lion had supplied him with another. He lived many days in this frightful solitude, the lion catering for him with great assiduity. Being tired at length with this savage society, he was resolved to deliver himself up into his master's hands, and suffer the worst effects of his displeasure, rather than be thus driven out from mankind. His master, as was customary for the proconsuls of Africa, was at that time getting together a present of all the largest lions that could be found in the country, in order ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... books; but his knowledge, instead of rooting out, had rather been engrafted on his prejudices. He was one of that class (and I say it with a private reverence, though a public regret), who, with the best intentions, have made the worst citizens, and who think it a duty to perpetuate whatever is pernicious by having learnt to consider it as sacred. He was a great country gentleman, a great sportsman, and a great Tory; perhaps the three worst enemies which a country can have. Though beneficent ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... craftily instilled into the civilized world,—a belief in the natural inferiority of the Negro race. It was the glory and the warrantable boast of Toussaint that he had been the instrument of demonstrating that, even with the worst odds against them, this race is entirely capable of achieving liberty and of self-government. He did more: by abolishing caste he proved the artificial nature of such distinctions, and further demonstrated that even slavery cannot unfit men for the full exercise of all the functions which ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... iconoclasm flitting before his mind—not a dream, but a reality, that will surely arise by letting his estate go to the hammer—Colonel Armstrong accepts Darke's offer to deliver everything over in a lump, and for a lamp sum. The conditions have been some time settled; and Armstrong now knows the worst. Some half-score slaves he reserves; the better terms secured to his creditor by private bargain enabling him to ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... cases colicky pains are as violent as in the worst forms of indigestion and spasms of the bowels. The animal frequently shifts from one hind foot to the other, stamps, kicks at the belly, frequently looks anxiously at its flank, moans plaintively, lies down and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... for some other purpose than to end discrimination in its worst form—segregation? General Bradley's statement, subsequent to the President's orders, would seem to indicate that the President either did not mean what he said or his orders were not being obeyed. We should like to point out that General Bradley's reported observation ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... choice. But I haven't time to tell the whole story. It's the same thing from first to last. The only sure way of having a thing done well is to do it yourself; the next best is to tell some one else precisely how to do it and then watch them till it's done. The worst of these little blunders is, that they won't improve with age. They stare at you every time you see them, and they'll rise up before your great-great-grandchildren, monuments ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... still in spite of all this we carried on until 6.35. Camped in a howling blizzard. I found my left foot badly frost-bitten. Now after this march we came into our banquet—one cup of tea and half a biscuit. Turned in at 9 o'clock. Situation does not look very cheerful. This is really the worst surface I have ever come across in ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... buttressed-up by props (of parentheses and dashes), and ever with this or the other tagrag hanging from them; a few even sprawl-out helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and dismembered. Nevertheless, in almost his very worst moods, there lies in him a singular attraction. A wild tone pervades the whole utterance of the man, like its keynote and regulator; now screwing itself aloft as into the Song of Spirits, or else the shrill mockery of Fiends; now sinking in cadences, not without melodious heartiness, though ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the name of common humanity, do not trifle with my feelings. If you would seek to lull me with false hopes, you are wrong. I am prepared to hear and bear the worst at present; but to be undeceived again ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... watching for him at the Gare du Nord, with a mind to follow and wait for his prey to make some incriminating move, this chance-contrived change of vehicles and destination would throw the detective off the scent and gain the adventurer, at worst, several hours' leeway. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... conditions in this very year which is now closing. Disaster to great business enterprises can never have its effects limited to the men at the top. It spreads through-out, and while it is bad for everybody, it is worst for those farthest down. The capitalist may be shorn of his luxuries; but the wage-worker may be ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... the Colonies were directed. Several cruisers were fitted out to rid the seas of these pests, but we hear little of their success. But the name of one officer sent against the pirates has become notorious as that of the worst villain ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... voice in the choice or payment of officials. Men of the worst private character might be placed with complete authority over valuable interests. The total official salaries had risen in 1899 to a sum sufficient to pay 40l. per head to ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of suffering has been trod alone; } No following friend, no consort, hast thou known, } To double all thy sorrows with their own: } No artful foe has doom'd thy humble name To public enmity, or public shame; And last, and worst of all, the pangs of woe Hell can inflict, or vengeful Heaven bestow, Relentless Conscience has not shed on thee Her poison'd darts,—her stings of misery! Thy virtue shone thro' the dim vale of earth, And toils and dangers proved ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... to eat was a hard proposition. I was "turned down" at a dozen houses. Sometimes I received insulting remarks and was informed of the barred domicile that should be mine if I had my just deserts. The worst of it was that such assertions were only too true. That was why I was pulling west that night. John Law was abroad in the town, seeking eagerly for the hungry and homeless, for by such was ...
— The Road • Jack London
... called Bhava, Carva, the trident-holder, the Lord ([I]c[a]na), Cankara, the Great God, etc., generally appears at his best where the epic is at its worst, the interpolations being more flagrant than in the case of Vishnuite eulogies. The most devout worshipper of Vishnu is represented as an adherent of Civa, as invoking him for help after fighting with him. He is "invincible before the three worlds." He is the sun; his ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... The worst thing, however, that Gordon had to fear was treachery on the part of his own officers and men. Burgevine knew most of them well, and had managed very skilfully to associate his own dismissal from the command of the Ever-Victorious Army with the fact that he was striving for the interests of ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... did not seem possible that Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, that sensible, practical woman, could be the guilty party. At the very worst, her friends felt, she might have told the names of the people in the village, and some foolish mischief-maker—there were all kinds of folks in the States—had done the rest. But as each valentine was revealed it grew plainer that ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... him, but without result, and have had prolonged fights with him in nearly every gulch, and on the worst pali of all he refused for some time to breast a step, scrambled round and round in a most dangerous place, and slipped his hind legs quite over the edge before ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... hard time with these boys," the man at the desk said kindly. "The worst luck I ever knew in the many years I've been here. But they're all right now. They've had everything on the list except water on the brain and elephantiasis, and ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... I'm very glad I'm not your brother. Shall I tell you Why? Miss Hungerford," the fisherman continued, after a pause, "do you know I've always heard that auburn-haired people come, by right, into possession of the worst tempers. Your hair is brown—dark brown, and mine is red, almost—don't you think so?—and yet my mind is all peace within, and ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... between two proprietors. That part known as the McCarthy O'Leary property is mainly composed of filthy hovels of the worst Irish type—is, in fact, rather a gigantic piggery than a dwelling-place for human beings. The houses are not so small as the mountain cabins of Mayo or the seaside dens of Connemara, but they are small enough, crowded with inhabitants, and filthy beyond the belief of those who know not ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... grown up between Great Britain and France is a source of profound satisfaction to every serious and thinking man. The first duty of a nation is to make friends with its nearest neighbour. Six years ago France was agitated in the throes of the Dreyfus case, and Great Britain was plunged in the worst and most painful period of the South African war; and both nations—conscious as we are of one another's infirmities—were inclined to express their opinion about the conduct of the other in unmeasured terms, and keen antagonism resulted. What ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... will cake the insufficient earth and parch the delicate roots; the storms will batter and tear the frail creepers. No doubt. But at this present moment all is fair and fragrant. And when the storms have done their wicked worst, and the sun and the frosts—nay, when that roof on which we perch is pulled to pieces, tiles and bricks, and the whole block goes—may there not be, for those caring enough, the chance of growing ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... the good-humoured, easy-going old Baron snores away existence. 'Tis very well for those elderly folks, you see, my sister, and for Madelon—for hers is an elderly mind in a youthful body; but for a young man full of hope and gaiety and activity—bah! It would be of all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the hope of escaping—an underground passage, burrowed out with one's finger-nails in the dead of the night—a work lasting twenty years or so, but with a feeble star of ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... 'for which I am to have a pound a page, and more when it becomes established. But promises, though they produce a good seedtime, generally turn out a bad harvest. Yet be it as it will, I am prepared for the worst. I have long felt a dislike to these things, but necessity leaves no choice.' Considering what Clare got for his other writings, the 'pound a page' from the 'Spirit of the Age' was no bad pay. But the poet's ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... gang no power to take him, and that he was therefore justified in defending himself, was well known to every sailor in the kingdom. No jury thereafter ever found him guilty of a capital felony if by chance he killed a gangsman in self-defence. The worst he had to fear was a verdict of manslaughter—a circumstance that proved highly inspiriting to him in his frequent ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... painting into my—my thick head. But he had to quit it after I reached the daubing stage. I don't think he guesses I'll ever win prizes at it," she went on, moving up toward the pine. "Still, I might sell some of my daubs among the worst drinking cases in ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... "This mood has also been improperly used in the following places."—Murray's Gram., i, 184. "He [Milton] seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know what it was that nature had bestowed upon him."—Johnson's Life of Milton. "Of which I already gave one instance, the worst, indeed, that occurs in all the poem."—Blair's Rhet., p. 395. "It is strange he never commanded you to have done it."—Anon. "History painters would have found it difficult, to have invented such a species of beings."—ADDISON: see Lowth's Gram., p. 87. "Universal Grammar cannot be taught ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... too. "It is rather funny," she said in her good-natured way, "and the worst of it is that Joanna made me promise to give her system a fair trial, and as I never broke my word to any of my children yet, I am giving it a fair trial. And that is why, my dear, I am so glad of your ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... forgotten all about his theories that a man under arrest is always safer than a man that is free. Had his brain been quite normal, and not obsessed, as it always was now by thoughts of the Dauphin's escape from prison, no doubt he would have been more suspicious of Armand, but all his worst suspicions were directed against de Batz. Armand seemed to him just a fool, an actor quoi? and so obviously ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... things are proceeding?" he said. "Do your investigations point to my mother having died a natural death—or—or must we prepare ourselves for the worst?" ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... Let the worst happen that can happen, I will bow my head in submission. What matters the few years' sadness of an obscure being? Nothing in the universe stands affected by my grief. Can I not bear what is mine own? Still, even Jesus prayed that the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... she had always loved him—always—ever since he had been so good to her—a great big boy to a little bit of a girl—at school, and that she did not know why she had been so mean to him; for when she had treated him worst she had loved him most; that she had gone down the path that night when they had met, for the purpose of meeting him and of letting him know she loved him; but something had made her treat him as she did, and all the time she could have let him kill her for ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... angry Malaki who had slain the Bia and the eight young men went looking for more people to kill; and when he had shed the blood of many, he became a buso with only one eye in his forehead, for the buso with one eye are the worst buso of all. Everybody that he ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... "confused some circumstances with respect to Mr. Dickens looking over some drawings and sketches," the substance of his information as to who it was that originated Oliver Twist, and all its characters, had been derived from Mr. Cruikshank himself. The worst part of the foregoing fable, therefore, has not Dr. Mackenzie for its author; and Mr. Cruikshank is to be congratulated on the prudence of his rigid silence respecting it as long as Mr. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... light had yielded to early afternoon. It still was grey and lurid, with a leaden mist hanging over the distance and moisture rising up from the rain-sodden ground. The worst of the storm had passed from over the city, but the thunder still rolled dully at intervals above the Campania and great gusts of wind drove the heavy rain into Taurus ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... I was a boy, you know, an' had to stop last week because Doc said it would kill me if I didn't," remarked the jailer, leading the way. "Sometimes I'm that yearning for a smoke I'm nearly crazy, an' I dunno which is worst, dyin' one way or another. This is Gates' cell—the best ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured by straining after things too high for mortal reach: and we know that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity, that they had their anchorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominics and their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances are taken ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... But the island underwent severe periods of suffering after its capture and reconquest from the Florentines (1595) and the Venetians (1694-1695), which greatly reduced the number of the Latins. Worst of all were the massacres of 1822, which followed upon an attack by some Greek insurgents executed against the will of the natives. In 1881 Chios was visited by a very severe earthquake in which over 5600 persons lost their lives and more than half the villages were seriously damaged. The ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... liken a thing to something already known is a vivid way of explaining. Moreover in many cases it is easier than the method of repetition or that of details. By this method Macaulay explains his proposition that "it is the character of such revolutions that we always see the worst of them first." ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... hear it only I felt I wanted to know the worst and cope with it as a surgeon probes to the quick in order ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... bulls of Bashan. It is because I should like to rescue goodness, which is the best thing in the world, next to love, from these growing influences, that I have written as I have done; but there is no lurking cynicism in my books at all, and the worst thing I can accuse myself of is a sense of humour, perhaps whimsical and childish, which seems to me to make a pleasant and refreshing companion, as one passes on pilgrimage in search of what I believe to be very high and heavenly ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... all the soft places,' he returns proudly, this bould sprig. And with a whoop we drove through a big felly that almost swamped us. Thin, as far as I cud judge, the worst was over. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... was looked upon as the most flourishing in the island, and, as might have been expected, we somewhat excited the jealousy of several of the native merchants. Our father, however, cared nothing for this, and dared the Spaniards to do their worst. ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... execution the city was full of consternation, for both victors and vanquished were alike in fear; but the worst effects arose from the apprehensions of those possessing the management of affairs; for every accident, however trivial, caused them to commit fresh outrages, either by condemnations, admonitions, or banishment of citizens; to which must be added, as scarcely ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... took place. He always had the gout, and his ancestors have had the gout for a couple of centuries; and all prime ministers have the gout. I dare say you will not escape, darling, but I hope it will never make you look as if you had just lost paradise, or, what would be worst, become the last man." ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... pleased to call religion nowadays is, for the most part, Hellenised Judaism; and, not unfrequently, the Hellenic element carries with it a mighty remnant of old-world paganism and a great infusion of the worst and weakest products of Greek scientific speculation; while fragments of Persian and Babylonian, or rather Accadian, mythology burden the Judaic ...
— The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature - Essay #4 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... career? Petulant, passionate, self-willed, impatient of all external direction, the slave and victim of the moment's impulse, yet full of the energies and visions of genius, this arrogant stripling passes by quick leaps from boyhood into the vices of age, and, after a short experience of the worst side of life, comes out a scoffer and a misanthrope, fills the world with his gospel of desperation and despair, and, after preaching disgust of existence and contempt of mankind as the wisdom gleaned from his excesses, he dies, worn out and old, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... had set his heart upon getting up the piece, was at his wits' end, and had bent his footsteps towards the main guard, to advise with me as to what should be done in this untoward emergency. I endeavoured to console him as well as I could, and suggested, that if the worst came to the worst, the part might be read. But, lugubriously shaking his caput, Fred declared that would never do; so, after discussing half-a-dozen Trichinopoly cheroots, with a proportionate quantum of brandy pani, he departed for his quarters. "disgusted," as he said, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... read into him—how he protested against it!—he was straightway adopted into our flabby culture. Compare Hauptmann and Brieux, the one a great artist, the other no more than a raucous journalist. Brieux's elaborate proofs that two and two are four have been hailed as epoch-making; one of his worst plays, indeed, has been presented with all the solemn hocus-pocus of a religious rite. But Hauptmann remains almost unknown; even the Nobel Prize did not give him a vogue. Run the roll: Maeterlinck and his languishing supernaturalism, Tagore and his ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... work, either at school or at home, she goes to the factory, to the workshop, or to the store, crude, incompetent, and, worst of all, with an instinctive antagonism toward her task. She cannot work, and she does not work. She is simply "worked." And there is all the difference in the world between "working" and "being worked." To work is a privilege and a boon to either man ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... this the worst. In Italy, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Church thought it necessary to deal with questions of this sort by rack and fagot. In 1316 Peter of Abano, famous as a physician, having promulgated ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of her uncle's command, she was never alone. Sometimes Mrs. Thorpe, at others Peggy Neville, and quite often John Landless went with her. The squalor and misery all about them was shocking to every sense; hideous at its worst; but the sharp, sweet, bitter-sweet memories of those winter afternoons will linger in Phyllis's mind as long as she lives. Sad memories and joyous ones! And one more lovely than ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... above all, the collection of Peter's pence, being the sum of one penny due from every household, was always scandalously in arrears, nay, often no attempt was made to collect it at all. She did many wrong things, but it may shrewdly be suspected that this was one of the very worst ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... it, if for no other reason, yet for the safety of both of us, to prevent our being questioned about her death. Remain you here, and if I do not return before day, you may be sure the watch has seized me; and for fear of the worst, I will by writing give this house and furniture for ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... money! And the worst of it is, I hate work; I was not brought up to it, and you will admit that I am too old to begin life anew. Yet I object on principle to so-called charity, being intelligent enough to know that there is only one kind of charity, and Justice is its name. But what is justice? I suppose ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... "that's enough for one lesson. Do you know, little goose, your blunders have made me laugh myself into one of the worst headaches I have had ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... had a severe cold and felt really poorly. Being little used even to the lightest ailments, and thinking that it would be rather nice to be petted and cossetted by Yram, I certainly did not make myself out to be any better than I was; in fact, I remember that I made the worst of things, and took it into my head to consider myself upon the sick list. When Yram brought me my breakfast I complained somewhat dolefully of my indisposition, expecting the sympathy and humouring which I should have received from my mother and sisters at home. Not a ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Fight like your first sire, each Roman! Alaric was a gentle foeman, Matched with Bourbon's black banditti. Rouse thee, thou eternal city! Rouse thee! Rather give the torch With thine own hand to thy porch, Than behold such hosts pollute Your worst dwelling with ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... uttered appalling cries, to which the damned responded from the lowest circle, the deepest in the immensity of suffering, to the more peaceful zone near the surface on which we were standing. This worst torment of all had appealed to all the rest. The turmoil was swelled by the roar of a sea of fire which formed a bass to the terrific harmony of ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... States, than to us, you are secretly plotting murderous inroads into our peaceful country and endeavoring to incite our slaves to cut the throats of our wives and children. Can you believe that this state of things can last? We now look upon you as our worst enemies and are ready to separate from you. Measures are in progress as far as practicable to establish non-intercourse with you and to proscribe all articles of northern manufacture or origin, including New England teachers. We can live without ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... year was bad for the Dauphin Charles, for the French and Scottish horsemen of his party met with the worst possible treatment at Verneuil. This year the Damoiseau of Commercy turned Burgundian and was none the better or the worse for it.[245] Captain La Hire was still fighting in Bar, but now it was against the young son of ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... in from all over the Colony," and two days later Lord Milner telegraphed to warn the Secretary of State that the war was now aggravated by rebellion. On Saturday, December 16th, the day after Colenso, he wrote: "This has been a week of disasters, to-day being the worst of all. News was received this morning that Buller had been severely defeated yesterday in attempting to force the ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... received valuable suggestions, a keener insight into the motives of men, a broader, more humane view-point, and withal a firmness to set himself, in part, where the law of the land should have been set wholly, as a barrier against the worst of these ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... historical documents dealing with England's relations with foreign powers, born at Northallerton; was a Cambridge man and a barrister; turned to literature and wrote much both in prose and poetry, but to no great purpose; was Historiographer-royal; Macaulay in characteristic fashion calls him "the worst critic that ever lived"; but his "Foedera" is an enduring monument to his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the sword would fall. My children, should Heaven send any to me, might grow up, and then, in the height of some social or political struggle, when man often repeats against his fellow man all that he knows of the vilest and the worst, there might be thrown into their faces the fact that they were descended from a felon. It must not be; a broken heart is hard to bear—injured honor ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... pizzicato, or his double thirds, were executed with such stupendous technique that they held connoisseurs and amateurs spellbound. His individuality, in fact, was so abnormal that it rendered him unfit to play with others in quartets or other chamber music. As a man he had all the worst faults of a genius. The vast sums of money which he accumulated were gambled away. His whole life was disgraced by unbridled sensuality coupled with sordid avarice. This explains in a measure Paganini's inferior rank as a composer. Famous are his variations on the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... this character from the dialogue (in recitative) between him and Haruspex. He told him that he must understand that the whole thing was based upon priestcraft and superstition. Pontifex must make it clear that he does not fear his antagonist at the head of the Roman army, because, should the worst come to the worst, he has his machines ready, which, if necessary, will miraculously rekindle the dead fire of Vesta. In this way, even though Julia should escape the sacrifice, the power of the priesthood would still ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... lot, fastened them in, and went at them one by one with a shingle. A child living next door to the Penningtons had brought the news of Piggy's disgrace to the neighborhood, and by supper-time Mrs. Pennington knew the worst. While the son and heir of the house was bringing in his wood and doing his chores about the barn, he felt something in the air about the kitchen which warned him that new ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... of England's worst kings. Henry, the Duke of Richmond, made war upon him and defeated him in ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... parson stirred from home, that this journey to a town more than twenty miles off was regarded as a most daring adventure, both at the Hall and at the Parsonage. Mrs. Dale could not sleep the whole previous night with thinking of it; and though she had naturally one of her worst nervous headaches on the eventful morn, she yet suffered no hands less thoughtful than her own to pack up the saddle-bags which the parson had borrowed along with the pad. Nay, so distrustful was she of the possibility of the good man's exerting the slightest common-sense ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... among the Quakers a rationalistic party and a party of mysticism. The rationalistic party prevailed in Pennsylvania all through the colonial period. In the midst of the worst horrors of the French and Indian wars, however, the conscientious objectors roused themselves and began preaching and exhorting what has been called the mystical side of the faith. Many extreme Quaker members of ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... inspiration and happiness in reading the novels of Grace Livingston Hill. In her charming romances there is a sympathetic buoyant spirit that conquers discouragement, which teaches that true love and happiness will come out of the worst trial. ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... long as the game goes in his favour the cloven hoof may not show itself. But give him a good steady spell of leather-hunting, and you will know him for what he is, a mere dilettante, a dabbler, in a word, a worm, who ought never to be allowed to play at all. The worst of this species will sometimes take advantage of the fact that the game in which they happen to be playing is only a scratch game, upon the result of which no very great issues hang, to pollute the air they breathe with verbal, and the ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... herself. On this occasion there was no time. She must kiss—and she kissed the page. She did not mind it much; for she had no shyness in her composition; and she knew, besides, that she could not help it. So she only laughed, like a musical box. The poor page fared the worst. For the princess, trying to correct the unfortunate tendency of the kiss, put out her hands to keep her off the page; so that, along with the kiss, he received, on the other cheek, a slap with the huge black toad, which she poked ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... of Marius had hitherto been a glorious one, and it would have been fortunate for him if he had died on the day of his triumph. The remainder of his life is full of horrors, and brings out into prominent relief the worst features of his character. As the time for the consular elections approached, Marius became again a candidate for the Consulship. He wished to be first in peace as well as in war, and to rule the state as well ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... passersby by the barons having castles on the Rhine and other navigable rivers; the crews of wrecked ships were plundered on every coast of Europe, our own included, not so very long ago; and in the days of Elizabeth, Drake and Hawkins were regarded by the Spaniards as pirates of the worst class, and I fear that there was a good deal of justice in the accusation. But the Malays are people with a history; they believe themselves that they were the original inhabitants of the island of Sumatra; however, it ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... which—carefully rehearsed— Will land the User safely in a First, Second, or Third, or Gulf: and after all There's nothing lower than a Plough at worst. ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... unpleasantly, intimating that Frank's lack of betting on his horse was proof positive that the worst tales told were true. "That settles it. The bookies are right. Th' mare's no chance with a new jockey, an' you ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... backed him up to the tree, buckled him to it, and returned to my quarters. This proved to be the last straw which broke the unfortunate camel's back. It was a high-handed outrage upon the person of a volunteer soldier; the last and worst of the many arbitrary and severe acts of which I had been guilty. The regiment seemed to arise en masse, and led on by a few reckless men who had long disliked me, advanced with threats and fearful oaths toward my tent. The bitter hatred which the men entertained for me had now culminated. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... stormy, in which case we should be sorry Miss Ferrier should risk getting cold. To-day is clearing up after a week's dismal weather, which may entitle us to expect some pleasant October days, not the worst of our climate. The road is by Middleton and Bankhouse; we are ten miles from the last stage, and thirty from Edinburgh, hilly road. There is a ford beneath Ashestiel generally very passable, but we will have the boat in readiness in case ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... force, and are unaffected by Police Commissions and reorganization schemes. Some people think that the character of the police will be raised by the employment as officers of young Indians of good family. I am sorry to say that I found these young men to be the worst offenders. They are more daring in their misdeeds than the ordinary policeman, and ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to her gossips. The stories of horror and crime, the fore-doomed babies, the murders, the mysterious whispered communications faded from my untroubled brain. Nurse Bundle's tales were of the young masters and misses she had known. Her worst domestic tragedy was about the boy who broke his leg over the chair he had failed to put away after breakfast. Her romances were the good old Nursery Legends of Dick Whittington, the Babes in the ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... as William Hogarth belongs entirely to the people, and shares profoundly both their best and worst qualities, so the artist we are now considering belongs no less definitely to the aristocratic class—is a member of a Suffolk family which dated its English origin to the Conquest, which had gained its knighthood from Queen Elizabeth, and its baronetcy ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... endangering the very property it is supposed to protect. A moderate property qualification might be adopted, in connexion with that of intelligence. The present scheme in France unites, in my view of the case, precisely the two worst features of admission to the suffrage that could be devised. The qualification of an elector is a given amount of direct contribution. This qualification is so high as to amount to representation, and France is already so taxed ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of paying almost undivided attention to your host, hostess, and family, which must materially advance your interests. Neither be in too great haste to quit the houses of those to whom you desire to recommend yourself. Parties, even the worst, cost both money and trouble; and whilst the givers of them feel it no compliment to be run away from, as if a pestilence raged in their habitations, it is positively insulting to inform them that another soiree, from which you hope better things, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... was very busy last week, and hadn't time, and it was rather cold for me to go out. But for that matter the wind blew in through door and window so dreadfully—and it's but a clay floor, and firing is dear—that I caught a cold, and a cold is the worst thing for me—that is for this poor rickety body of mine. And this cold is ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... worst of all, the youngest one was puny, So odd, and still, and slight, That father, mother, and the other brothers, Thought ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... provide for the crisis. In 1775 and 1776 he was one of the most active and useful members of the Provincial Congress and the Committee of Safety. "Nothing from the other side of the water," he wrote to a friend in November, 1775, "but a fearful looking for of wrath. But let us be prepared for the worst. Who can prize life without liberty? It is a bauble only fit to be thrown away." He served through the present campaign, and then continued in the public service as Secretary of the State of New York and afterwards member of the ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... being meaner than ever, still mightier engines for bracing against each other, we will turn to all together and make in the next four years a machine together that will express our better natures as well as our present one does our worst ones. ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... opportunity. Its eyes, full of dread and dreadful, peeped out from beneath a brush of matted hair; a tough, ropy foam hung from its mouth. If you put as much of that foam as would go on the point of a pin in an open cut, you would have an end that your worst enemy would shudder at. For this was the most horrifying of dangerous animals—a mad dog. Poor brute! As he came shambling down the road, he was the ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... people had served as factors, intermediaries, and carriers,—would any reasonable interpretation of international law consider such conduct to be impartial neutrality? But illustration does not strengthen the argument. The naked statement of England's position is its worst condemnation. Her course, while ingeniously avoiding public responsibility, gave unceasing help to the Confederacy —as effective as if the intention had been proclaimed. The whole procedure was in disregard of international obligation and was the outgrowth of what M. Prevost-Paradol ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... help smiling. "I repeat, marriage often works marvels of resurrection. And in the worst case—the matter need not ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... was against the men who sat on his side of the house, and who had voted with him on the 6th of April. As for the ministerial phalanx, he observed, he held them in the greatest contempt. They were slaves of the worst kind, because they had sold themselves to work mischief. Yet, base as they were, they had some virtues to pride themselves on. They were faithful to their leader, consistent in their conduct, and had not added to their other demerits the absurdity and treachery of one day resolving an opinion ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Mambava behind us, telephoning from one village to another with their drums. But I couldn't hope to make you feel it, ma'am, even what I took in myself when I wasn't out of my head. It was just bad. Of course, the worst of it was that Mr. ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... of the period, however, which we have above named—namely, two years—public opinion had, we must observe, undergone a considerable modification in Mr Mowbray's favour. He had been gradually acquitted of his various crimes; and the worst that was now believed of him was, that he was a gentleman whom troubles, of some kind or other, had driven from ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... appearance of the Rebels, (three hours before the attack commenced) an express was sent to Tullamore where the principal part of the 7th Dragoons lay—General Dunne forwarded a Troop about eighty in number—the want of a sufficient force was of the worst consequence, as the Rebels attacked our party in the mountains, and obliged the Fencibles to retreat back to the town—Meantime the Loyalists cleared the streets which were now full of Rebels without the loss of a man—the Cavalry pursued—Sergeant Price alone killed fourteen Pikemen. On ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... many years, a pocket borough of the worst type. George Spencer, writing to Algernon Sidney after the Bramber election in 1679, says:—"You would have laughed to see how pleased I seemed to be in kissing of old women; and drinking wine with handfuls of sugar, and great ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... told you that I was feeling the weather.... I am going to-morrow for change of air, to a place about 300 miles from Calcutta, on the railway. It is not cooler, but drier, and the doctor strongly recommends the change. This is our worst season, and I suppose we may expect six weeks more of it. If this change is not enough, I may perhaps try and get a steamer, and go over to Burmah. But there is some ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... surrounded by hostile blacks. Sturt had now a terrible task before him. His men were weakened and on half rations; there was every probability that the fickle natives might be troublesome on their homeward route, and worst of all they would have to fight the steady current of the river the whole way; nor would their spirits be cheered by any hope of novelty or discovery. Under these gloomy auspices Sturt re-entered the Murray on his return on the ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... opposite Taiwan, and in Shanghai, where foreign investment has helped spur output of both domestic and export goods. The leadership, however, often has experienced - as a result of its hybrid system - the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy and lassitude) and of capitalism (growing income disparities and rising unemployment). China thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls at intervals. The ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... slavery had introduced into the heart of American democracy, a permanent cause of debasement and corruption. In this respect, also, it was leading the Confederation to its death by the most direct and speedy way. I wish to show how it developed the worst sides of the democratic system. I hope to be impartial towards this system; although persuaded that the government of which England offers us the model is better suited to guaranty public liberties and to second true progress ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... And thy mother was Dishonor. "While in infancy who fed thee While thy mother could not nurse thee? Surely thou wert fed by adders, Nursed by foul and slimy serpents; North-winds rocked thee into slumber, Cradled thee in roughest weather, In the worst of willow-marshes, In the springs forever flowing, Evil-born and evil-nurtured, Grew to be an evil genius, Evil was thy mind and spirit, And the infant still was nameless, Till the name of Frost was given To the progeny of evil. "Then the young lad lived in hedges, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... stimulate, by proper exercise, the growing organs that they shall grow faster and further than they ever could without our aid. We are not to always hasten it. This is one thing we must bear in mind: precocity is the worst foe of a sound education. It is the boy and the girl who mature slowly but mature surely that in the end possess the earth. We must not hasten the process, but when we find the organ is ready to grow and develop, then we must give it adequate stimulus. In other words, the stimulus must ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... of the P. C. & W. thieves playin' into that scoundrel Swinnerton's hands, where do we get off? We send for a hundred men, an' it saves Swinnerton the trouble an' expense of a wire. By now every man jack of them is makin' fences an' buildin' houses for him, or I'm the worst-fooled man in the country." And he swung off into a string of curses which would not have been ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... of the blanket over our faces if they get too bad. By nine or ten o'clock they'll be gone—until sunup; then they're the worst. If we had camped up on the rim it would ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... population depends on subsistence agriculture for its livelihood. Namibia normally imports about 50% of its cereal requirements; in drought years food shortages are a major problem in rural areas. A high per capita GDP, relative to the region, hides the world's worst inequality of income distribution. The Namibian economy is closely linked to South Africa with the Namibian dollar pegged one-to-one to the South African rand. Privatization of several enterprises in coming years may stimulate long-run foreign investment. ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... fared with the Spaniards in Florida? The good-will of the Indians had vanished. The French had been obtrusive and vexatious guests; but their worst trespasses had been mercy and tenderness, to the daily outrage of the new-comers. Friendship had changed to aversion, aversion to hatred, hatred to open war. The forest-paths were beset; stragglers were cut off; and woe to the Spaniard who should venture after nightfall beyond call of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... his father and the other men in a significant way as he reached for the paper, and then, glancing at the headlines, realized the worst. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... day forward Eric felt that he was marked and suspected, and the feeling worked on him with the worst effects. He grew more careless in work, and more trifling and indifferent in manner. Several boys now got above him in form whom he had easily surpassed before, and his energies were for a time entirely directed to keeping ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... . WE thought you might be stopped somewhere, and not to go at all would be the worst "go" that could be. All Sunday we kept speaking about it, with a sort of feeling as if we were guilty of something; so that I felt it necessary to calm the family distress by setting up a new and original view ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... could secure them for retailing. He paid ungraciously enough. If there was one man more than another in the camp he begrudged anything to it was Buck. Besides, it made him utterly furious to think that he never came up against this man on any debatable matter but what he managed to come off worst. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... a genius for choosing chaperons, and so she has, but fate is too strong for men and gods, not to mention saintly and secluded old ladies. I had scarcely more than entered the drawing-room, and taken my bearings, as cousin would say, when the worst Vandal of the lot is marched up to me, and I—green little girl—thought I must be polite to him and every one else. When I think of it all, I see that my chaperon was like a distressed hen with a duckling that would ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead: You must wear your 'elmet for all that is said: If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead, An' you'll die like a fool ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... still more artful, gay and fond of intrigue. The society, which she drew round her, was less elegant and more vicious, than that of the Countess Lacleur: but, as she had address enough to throw a veil, though but a slight one, over the worst part of her character, she was still visited by many persons of what is called distinction. Valancourt was introduced to her parties by two of his brother officers, whose late ridicule he had now forgiven so far, that he could sometimes join in the laugh, which a mention of ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... who, before things came to the worst, saw that China's misfortunes were due to folly, not fate. Ignorant conservatism had made her weak; vigorous reform might make her strong. But another war was required to turn the feeling of the few into a conviction of the many. This change was [Page 182] accomplished by a ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... several days. We asked the official if they would not be arrested, and he said, "No, not if they keep within the law and do not make any trouble among the people." This morning when we got the paper it was full of nothing else. The worst thing is that the University has been turned into a prison with military tents all around it and a notice on the outside that this is a prison for students who disturb the peace by making speeches. As ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... generally known, by those who don't purchase, what large sums are squandered in Italy upon heaps of rubbish, palmed off and sold under the imposing names, roba antica, roba dei scavi, and the like; and how little seems it known by those who do, that of all markets for such acquisitions, the worst that an uninitiated dilettante can have to do with is the Italian! First, because it abounds more than any other in trash; and secondly, because when any thing really good comes into it, the dealers take care to put ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Wolf, and expressing the desire to ride Bob, whom she declared she was more in love with than ever. At this last Daylight demurred. Bob was full of dangerous tricks, and he wouldn't trust any one on him except his worst enemy. ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... the chances of war," answered Tom. "I was only speaking of those in our favour. We must not think of the others; if the worst comes to the worst, we can but go to the bottom with our colours flying, as many pretty men have had ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... under them, and sweeping the curving quays and tossing the feathery foliage of the tamarisk-shaded promenade. The distinct advantage of our lofty perch was the splendid sight of the tempest, held from doing its worst by the mighty headlands standing out to sea on the right and left. But our rooms were cold with the stony cold of the south when it is cooling off from its summer, and we shivered ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells |
