"Proverbial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A Tale of Two Cities is not wrongly named. It is his most typical contact with the civic ideals of Europe. All his other tales have been tales of one city. He was in spirit a Cockney; though that title has been quite unreasonably twisted to mean a cad. By the old sound and proverbial test a Cockney was a man born within the sound of Bow bells. That is, he was a man born within the immediate appeal of high civilisation and of eternal religion. Shakespeare, in the heart of his fantastic forest, turns with a splendid suddenness ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... colony; tobacco and cotton were to be its staples, but the latter had not at this epoch been attempted. Order and propriety among the colonists were assured by penalties on gaming, drunkenness, and sloth; and the better to guard against the proverbial wiles of Satan, a university was sketched out, and direction was given that such children of the heathen as showed indications of latent talent should be caught, tamed and instructed, and employed as missionaries among their tribes. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... positions in the shadow, one to either side, almost afraid to breathe, I cursing because the rifle quivered in my two hands like the proverbial aspen leaf. The prospect of shooting a white man—even such a thorough-paced blackguard white as Schillingschen—made me as nervous as a school-girl ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... disgruntled men on a ship can shoot morale to hell, and on a ship this size the Exec is the morale officer. But I was torn between two desires. I wanted Allyn to go on, but I didn't want to hear what Allyn had to say. I was like the proverbial hungry mule standing halfway between two haystacks of equal size and attractiveness. And like the mule I would stand there turning my head one way and the other ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... to Aristophanes, though I cannot find it there. It is observable that this proverbial kind of expression, for freedom of words and sentiments, has been adopted into almost every language, though the image conveying it is different. Thus the Greeks call a fig a fig, etc. We say, an honest man calls a spade a ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... on Poppy's part—this little lurking gleam of disappointment—were as the proverbial last straw to poor Jasmine. Her fortitude gave way, and she burst into the bitterest tears she ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... very frequently, impaired their constitutions by study, or careless inattention to their health, and the violence of their passions bearing a proportion to the vigour of their intellects, the sword's destroying the scabbard has become almost proverbial, and superficial observers have inferred from thence, that men of genius have commonly weak, or to use a more fashionable phrase, delicate constitutions. Yet the contrary, I believe, will appear to be the fact; for, on diligent inquiry, I find ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... this warning, consider the Vitagraph release, "A Wasted Sacrifice," referred to in the previous chapter.[28] The big "punch" in this story, as already pointed out, was where the young squaw steps on the concealed rattlesnake. Women in the audience screamed; men felt the proverbial "cold chill" run down their spines. Then came the climax, in which the young Westerner, hoping to save the life of the papoose, takes it away from the dead mother and hurries back to meet the doctor-sheriff who is pursuing him with the posse. The doctor ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... Dutch courage is proverbial, although a libel upon one of the bravest of nations. Vanslyperken now felt it, and again he commenced with the corporal. "What ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the other what I may call the poetico-devout—finding 'sermons in stones, books in the running brooks,' and hints of the spiritual world in all the phenomena of the natural. So, just as in spite of meteorological science, there has passed into common speech the proverbial simile 'as free as the wind,' so Jesus Christ says here, 'The wind bloweth where it listeth, ... so is every one that is born of the Spirit.' He passes by the intermediate link, the Spirit that is the parent of the life, and deals ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... most practical advice. The baron did not even think of attempting to do so. He had known Madame d'Argeles for years; he had seen so many proofs of her invincible energy and determination. She possessed the distinguishing characteristic of her family in a remarkable degree—that proverbial Chalusse obstinacy which Madame Vantrasson had alluded to in her conversation with ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... owner. Relief and assistance were rendered so frequently and so abundantly to distressed emigrants, and aid and succor were so often sent over the Sierra to feeble or disabled trains, that Sutter's charity and generosity became proverbial. In the sunny hillslopes and smiling valleys, amidst the graceful groves and pleasant vineyards of this Golden State, it would be difficult to find localities where pioneers have not taught their ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... Marquise was more than a mere leader of wit and fashion. If she set the mode in the shape of a petticoat, or devised the sumptuous splendours of a garden fete, her talent was not merely devoted to things frivolous and trivial. She had the proverbial 'esprit des Mortemart'. Armed with beauty and sarcasm, she won a leading place for herself at Court, and held it in the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... considerable bustle and excitement. The activity of the Breed is not proverbial; they are at best a lazy lot, but now men and women came and went bristling with energy to their finger tips. Preparations were nearing completion. The chief item of importance was the whisky supply, and this the treasurer, Baptiste, ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... meant what Macaulay took him to mean, it would be superfluous to argue the question gravely. The reasoning is only fit, like the reasoning of all Macaulay's antagonists, for the proverbial schoolboy. Mill, according to Macaulay, proposes to discover what governments are good; and, finding that experience gives no clear answer, throws experience aside and appeals to absolute laws of human nature. One such 'law' asserts ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... society. Lord Chesterfield denounced the practice of quoting proverbs as a palpable violation of all polite refinement in conversation. Notwithstanding all this, we acknowledge having much pleasure in recalling our national proverbial expressions. They are full of character, and we find amongst them important truths, expressed forcibly, wisely, and gracefully. The expression of Bacon has often been quoted—"The genius, wit, and wisdom of a nation, are ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... spread with the proverbial rapidity of evil news. At the doors of all the public houses, in every open shop, on every private stoop, and at the street-corners, people were soon discussing the event, with such additions and comments as their imaginations ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... I were recruiting for schoolmarms, I should come here. I like it thoroughly, and mean to be here earlier next year. The scenery is enchanting, and I quite enjoy being with 'Proverbial Philosophy' people." ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... privies, but Englishmen? Not to mention their original treachery to the Britons, that hired by them to defend them they turned upon them in spite of their oaths and engagements, they are to this day given to treachery and murder.' The lying Saxon was, according to this authority, a proverbial expression. ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... father into the boat, where was waiting a negro as black as the proverbial black hat, a local fisherman who had taken up sponge growing, and who, while shrewd enough for a business ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... E BRATHAIR, If it be not Bran, it is Bran's brother,' was the proverbial reply of Maccombich. [Bran, the well-known dog of Fingal, is often the theme of Highland ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... on seeing this, at once concluded that he had unknowingly entered a gulf, and had left the main Lake, for the only place he had ever seen scum before was at the extremity of a creek near home, where the water was partly stagnant on a marshy level. The water of the Lake was proverbial ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... Christianity, biblical texts were substituted for the runes, and the art of composing the former was studied with as much care as had been devoted to the heathen charms.[136:1] The term rune became a synonym for knowledge and wisdom; an oracular, proverbial expression.[136:2] The traditional belief of the Anglo-Saxons in the efficacy of healing runes persisted in the fourteenth century. When foreign medical practitioners settled in England at that period, the cures wrought ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... their numerous and obscure allusions. The best extant specimen is the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius; the most characteristic is the Alexandra or Cassandra of Lycophron, the obscurity of which is almost proverbial. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... an equivalent Arabic name, a pungent odor, and a very small seed. Inasmuch as the mustard which is systematically planted for fodder by Old World farmers grows with the greatest luxuriance in Palestine, and the comparison between the size of its seed and the plant's great height was already proverbial in the East when Jesus used it, evidence strongly favors this wayside weed. Indeed, the late Dr. Royle, who endeavored to prove that it was the shrub that was referred to, finally found that it ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... the previous winter still remained a baffling mystery. Locally it had proved, as such occurrences usually do, merely a proverbial nine days wonder. Long since, in the stress and interest of current events, it had faded more or less from the minds of all men, excepting the Mounted Police, who, though saying little concerning it, still kept keenly on the alert for any ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... seconds," said the doctor. "Our temper is getting brittle. We are cross as the proverbial fever patient. If you don't come at once we will imagine you don't want to, and refuse to ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... the village, Frobisher took Ling with him and went off to see that the carts were properly loaded, and the mule-drivers at their stations; and to his astonishment found that, in spite of the proverbial slackness of the Korean, everything was in readiness, and only his word was necessary to enable the caravan to start. During his previous visit to the shore he had done a little exploration, and had quite made up his mind which road to take in order to avoid the troops coming from ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... already on record of the refined knavery displayed by Chinese merchants in their dealings with Europeans, or the tricks that they play off in their transactions with one another. They are well known to most nations, and are proverbial in their own. A merchant with them is considered as the lowest character in the country, as a man that will cheat if he can, and whose trade it is to create and then supply artificial wants. To this general character, which public opinion has most probably made to be what it is, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... savant, blue, bookish, scholastic, solid, profound, deep-read, book- learned; accomplished &c (skillful) 698; omniscient; self-taught. known &c v.; ascertained, well-known, recognized, received, notorious, noted; proverbial; familiar, familiar as household words, familiar to every schoolboy; hackneyed, trite, trivial, commonplace. cognoscible^, cognizable. Adv. to one's knowledge, to the best of one's knowledge. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... when supported by a powerful king, nobly descended, and legally invested with the crown. A natural sympathy, too, had been awakened for the emperor, as numbed with cold he besought the pity of the Pontiff; and, with proverbial fickleness, men, in ascribing humility to the king, imputed arrogance to the Pope. Owing to these causes, it was not long before Henry found himself stronger than ever. Inflamed with new ardor, he loudly ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... Shaykh held by the hand a youth cast in beauty's mould, all elegance and perfect grace; so fair that his comeliness deserved to be proverbial; for he was as a green bough or the tender young of the roe, ravishing every heart with his loveliness and subduing every soul with his coquetry and amorous ways.[FN265] It was of him the poet spake when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... nonsense to prate so. Why it is hard enough to gape and gasp and catch a mouthful of sanded breath, without that added worry. There is nothing for it, but to grin and bear it and get through with the swallowing of that proverbial peck of dust in a life-time, as quickly ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... at once removed from his office, on the charge of having left the city contrary to precedent, by the populace convened by his colleague Publius Titius; and in this way he was condemned. When Titius not long after died, the proverbial fate that had been observed from of old was once more in evidence. No one up to that time who had expelled a colleague had lived the year out: but first Brutus after the expulsion of Collatinus died in his turn, then Gracchus was stabbed after ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... Render, who had been long enough in England to forget German, but not long enough to learn English. This worthy, in spite of his deficiencies, was a voluminous translator of his native literature, and it became a proverbial saying among his intimates respecting a bad translation that it ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... Poets are proverbial for uncongenial marriages, and to this Poe can scarcely be classed as an exception. From the time when as a youth of nineteen he became a tutor to his sweet and gentle little cousin of six years old, he loved her with the protective tenderness of an elder brother. As years ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... racing was to keep a slack rein and to ride a waiting race, not calling on his horse till near the end. His son Samuel, who followed him, observed the same plan; from its frequent success the term "Chiffney rush" became proverbial. In his ride through the desert (p. 169) Kinglake speaks of his "native bells—the innocent bells of Marlen, that never before sent forth their music beyond the Blaygon hills." Marlen bells is the local name for the fine peal of St. Mary Magdalen, Taunton. ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... out of place; and no other was possible. Even Hay's relation was a false one, while Adams's ceased of itself. History's truths are little valuable now; but human nature retains a few of its archaic, proverbial laws, and the wisest courtier that ever lived — Lucius Seneca himself — must have remained in some shade of doubt what advantage he should get from the power of his friend and pupil Nero Claudius, until, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... indulged him, though he was the elder, and his mother's favourite. Tom began to dress early. His open admiration was Dr. Courtenay, his confessed hope to wear five-pound ruffles and gold sword knots. He clung to Will Fotheringay with a tenacity that became proverbial among us boys, and his boasts at King William's School were his father's growing wealth and intimacy with the great ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... straight-from-the-shoulder thinking but all the way out to the scene of the festivities she pondered quietly. The episode of the mares was growing in importance. So far she had been able to do nothing of importance on the ranch; if this scheme fell through also it would be the proverbial last straw. ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... has become proverbial, has a very obscure authority, probably not known to many of your readers. It is from Gualtier de Lille, as has been remarked by Galeottus Martius and Paquier in their researches. This Gualtier flourished in the thirteenth century. The verse is ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... Colonel had to undergo in order that his assertions might in some way be shaken by the prosecution, but with military precision and frigid calm he repeated his important statements amidst a general silence, through which you could have heard the proverbial pin. ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... It is interesting to the etymologist for the important share it has taken in naturalising useful foreign words into our speech. It includes (as we shall have occasion to observe) a respectable quantum of wisdom fit to become proverbial, and several passages of admirable literary quality. In point of date (1763-65) it is fortunate, for the writer just escaped being one of a crowd. On the whole, I maintain that it is more than equal in interest to the Journey to the Hebrides, and that it deserves ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... [34] A proverbial saying, which means that all are alike, 'there is no one barrel better than another, the whole cargo ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... I went over to Vicky Van's first. I had been on the proverbial pins and needles to get there ever since I woke to consciousness by reason of the sisterly pounding that brought me from the land ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... connection being made to aid and correspond mutually on both sides. Cicero says in his oration for Murena: "They who have not a genius for playing on the lyre, may become expert at playing on the flute (a proverbial saying among the Greeks to specify the man who can not make himself master of the superior sciences): so among us they who can not become orators, turn to the study of the law." In another passage of the same oration, the connected comparison is conceived in a sort of poetical spirit. ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... composition to local and topical uses might well be considered prejudicial to its chances of obtaining a permanent place in literature. Yet Munchausen has undoubtedly achieved such a place. The Baron's notoriety is universal, his character proverbial, and his name as familiar as that of Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, or Robinson Crusoe, mariner, of York. Condemned by the learned, like some other masterpieces, as worthless, Munchausen's travels have obtained ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... a busy place, was soon rivaling the proverbial beehive. Mrs. Reist, to whom sentiment was ever a vital, holy thing, to be treasured and clung to throughout the years, had long ago, in Amanda's childhood, begun the preparation for the time of ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... cannon-balls; hence such disgraceful proceedings as the betrayal of the Libyan troops by their general Himilco in 358, which was followed by a dangerous insurrection of the Libyans, and hence that proverbial cry of "Punic faith," which did the Carthaginians no small injury. Carthage experienced in full measure all the evils which armies of fellahs and mercenaries could bring upon a state, and more than once she found her paid serfs more dangerous than ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... which, at that time, were as essential a concomitant of a roystering party as, in later centuries, cards became. Nor were these the least attraction of the feasts of Sergius; for though the excellence of his viands and wines was proverbial, the ease with which he could be despoiled at the gambling table was not less so. Already he was known to have seriously crippled his heritage by continued reverses, springing from united ill luck and want of skill; but it was as well understood ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... by us; of the person with whom life flowers and bears fruit. If this were so, the chances of our meeting that person would be small indeed; our intuition would often fail; the blindness of love would then be fatal as it is proverbial. No, love works differently, and in its blindness lies its strength. Man and woman, each strongly desires to be loved, each opens to the other that heart of ideal aspirations which they have often hid till then; each, thus knowing the ideal of the other, tries ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the interior of the edifice, who has overthrown that colossus of Saint Christopher, proverbial for magnitude among statues, as the grand hall of the Palais de Justice was among halls, as the spire of Strasbourg among spires? And those myriads of statues, which peopled all the spaces between the columns of the nave and the choir, kneeling, standing, equestrian, men, women, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... to be little use. At the present time my mind is so full of heterogeneous matter that I almost despair of ever being able to put it in order. Whenever I enter the region that was the kingdom of my mind I feel like the proverbial bull in the china shop. A thousand odds and ends of knowledge come crashing about my head like hailstones, and when I try to escape them, theme-goblins and college nixies of all sorts pursue me, until I wish—oh, may I be forgiven ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... manner," the Prince began, with a pretence of hesitation, "a charm of manner, I might say, which is proverbial. It is, we know, attractive to women. Every woman acknowledges it. But your Majesty is sometimes too gracious. He permits himself to condescend to many women, to any woman, to women of ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... get it. A proletariat organized for revolutionary ends has no difficulty in securing reforms; it does not need to ask for them, for an awakened and apprehensive bourgeoisie will shower reforms upon them like the proverbial manna. If, indeed, workers want only reforms, why ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... when a travelling Bollscaire, or newsman from the west, related the events which enabled him to return to his native province. "Farewell sickle," he exclaimed, casting it from him —"now for the sword." Hence "Cathal's farewell to the rye" was long a proverbial expression for any sudden change of purpose or of condition. Fortune seems to have favoured him in most of his undertakings. In a storm upon Lough Ree, when a whole fleet foundered and its warrior crew perished, he was one of seven who were saved. Though in some of his early battles ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... proverbial sayings among country people concerning the state of the weather, which, having been derived from long observation, have become axioms, and were designated by Bacon "the philosophy of the people." These prognostics are ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... called Corcereis owing to the beauty and wonder of her enchanted garden. Corcyra was the abode of King Alcinous, of whose court, parks and orchards a famous description is to be found in the seventh Odyssey. Martial (xiii, 37), speaks of 'Corcyraei horti', a proverbial phrase. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... the audience," began Joe, smilingly addressing the house, "often wonder how we actors and professional people eat. It is proverbial, you know, that actors are always hungry. Now I am going to show you that it is easier for us to get food than it ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... temptations of power, and from that impatience which one is apt to restrain among his equals and to indulge among his inferiors. The irritability of an Abolitionist may lead him to outrages as great as those which spring from the selfishness of a mere soldier. It is becoming almost proverbial, in colored regiments, that radical anti-slavery men make the best and the worst officers: the best, because of their higher motives and more elevated standard; the worst, because they are often ungoverned, insubordinate, impatient, and will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... delivered down to us under the title of proverbs. It were to be wished that, instead of filling their pages with the fabulous theology of the pagans, our modern poets would think it worth their while to enrich their works with the proverbial sayings of their ancestors. Mr Dryden ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... such as drunkenness and debauchery, by illustrated lectures upon the physiological effects of violations of nature's laws. They would teach men that the laws of health are found in the laws of temperance and purity. The Hebrew sages had this vision of Wisdom. Their proverbial sayings abound with graphic pen-pictures of the folly of vice. No illustration of the physical consequences of debauchery could be more impressive than the vivid sketch of the foolish young man, going after the strange woman as an "ox goeth to the ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... had measured her for his victim verified, if ever man did, the proverbial expression of the iron hand under the velvet glove. Under all his gentle suavities there was a fixed, inflexible will, a calm self-restraint, and a composed philosophical measurement of others, that fitted him to bear despotic rule over an impulsive, unguarded nature. The position, at once ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of mourning for him. It was an open secret that they had quarreled like the proverbial cat and dog. Charles Holland and his wife had naturally sided with Benjamin, and Naomi fought her battles single-handed. After her husband's death, she managed to farm alone, and made it pay. When the mysterious malady which ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Biscay fulfilled all its proverbial roughness: the whole sea was dells and knolls. It was terrible to see the pilot jump aboard while his boat was alternately tossed above our deck; he was caught by the sailors in their arms.... The custom-house officers have detained the ship so long that ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Hans Nilsen Hauge (1771-1824), a peasant lay-preacher, of whom a biographer has said: "Since the Reformation no single man has had so profound an influence on ecclesiastical and Christian life in Norway." The "Haugian revival" of the emotional religious life is proverbial. Its value was great in every way; directly and also by his widely distributed writings it fostered intellectual enlightenment. The peasant political movement started soon after 1830 among his followers. This explains ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... as a nation to the men in arms who for eight years met the force of Great Britain with counter force, and thus cleared the field for the statesmanship that can make the proverbial two blades of grass grow. The man with the gun opened the way for the man with the hoe. We who are here, and the race we represent, owe our deliverance from chattel slavery to the men in arms who conquered the slaveholders' Rebellion. It is a sad thought, but nevertheless one too ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... the Salii was on the first of March, in commemoration of the time when the sacred shield was believed to have fallen from heaven, in the reign of Numa. After their procession, they had a splendid entertainment, the luxury of which was proverbial.] ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... My answer is plain. Lest in naught, and unwittingly, I should betray your hospitality; lest, in the caprice of will which in our world is proverbial among the other sex, and from which even a Gy is not free, your adorable daughter should deign to regard me, though a Tish, as if I were a civilised An, and—and—and—-" "Court you as her spouse," put in Aph-Lin, gravely, and without any visible ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... merciful, glad and ready to forgive, sweetly patient of mood, and distinguished throughout by such prominent virtues, that, while always sure of the affections of followers and comrades, he was not less secure in the unforced confidence of his enemies, among whom his integrity and mercy were proverbial. By their fruits, indeed, shall we know this community, the history of which furnishes as fine a commentary upon the benefit of good social training for the young—example and precept happily keeping concert with the ordinary necessities and performances of life, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... deal of mirth at the Cardinal's expence, for his complexion was of the darkest Italian olive, and West's was even of more than the usual degree of English fairness. For some time after, if it be not still in use, the expression of "as fair as the Cardinal" acquired proverbial currency in the Roman conversations, applied to persons who had any inordinate conceit of their ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... gladly accepted. She was a little old Quaker lady, in Quaker garb, neat as the proverbial pin, and with the appearance of having just stepped from ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... a nest for herself where she might lay her young; but this is the first time we ever knew of the conference of such honors on the Felis domestica. It could not have been anything mercenary that took the old cat into the pulpit, for "poor as a church mouse" has become proverbial. Nothing but lofty aspirations could have taken her there, and a desire that her young should have advantages of high birth. If in the "Historical Society" there are mummied cats two thousand years old, much more will post-mortem honors ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... humanity, which never deserted him; and resolutions as to conduct, to which he adhered with a constancy never surpassed. What shall we say are the qualifications for a great and good man?—Honesty. In spite of his infamy, Robespierre's honesty has become proverbial. Moral conduct—the life he led even during the zenith of his power, and at a time when licentiousness was general, and morality ridiculous, was characterized by the simplicity of the early Quakers. Industry—without payment from the State, beyond that which he received as a member of the Convention, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... See Isaiah xxxii. 2. The following proverbial saying in India may serve to show how natural such comparisons are in the mouths of the inhabitants of hot climates: "Ah, that benevolent man, he has long been my shelter from the wind; he is a river to the dry country." See Roberts' Oriental Illustrations of Scripture, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... A creature of proverbial good-nature and exhaustless vitality, his extraordinary popularity was due to the equally extraordinary extravagance with which he supported that latest Gallic fad, "le Sport." The Parisian Rugby ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Nan, who was observant, took with the proverbial pinch of salt. The expression of his countenance was kindly, but his character was firm and he spoke at times with a decision that made the servants, for instance, hurry to obey him. He was, indeed, a very forceful man; but Nan Sherwood liked ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... Jane stared a long while at the coffee-pot, and then called the two squaws who assisted her in her household duties, to clear away the things while she went up to her own room to make her bed. Here she was confronted with a possible prospect of that proverbial bed she might be making in her willfulness, and on which she must lie, in the photograph of a somewhat serious young man of refined features—Reuben Waters—stuck in her window-frame. Salomy Jane smiled over her last witticism regarding him and enjoyed, it, like your true humorist, ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... been neat even when it was forlorn there was now the stamp of desolation. The beds which had been seeded or planted a month before, and which should now have been weeded, trimmed, and hoed, were growing with an untended recklessness that had all the proverbial resemblance to moral breakdown. In the cucumber-house the vines had become rusty and limp, sagging from the twines on which they climbed in debauched indifference to sightliness. The roof of the hothouse that had contained the flowers had a deep ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... of Southern women for having the gift of fascination is perhaps due not to prettiness of feature more than to the brilliancy or sweetness of their ready smile. That Southern women are charming and "feminine" and lovable is proverbial. How many have noticed that Southern women always bow with the grace of a flower bending in the breeze and a smile like sudden sunshine? The unlovely woman bows as though her head were on a hinge and her ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... proverbial in Bordeaux, had remained in Paul's mind as a memory of his childhood. Thus the pecuniary conditions were known to him from the start, without necessitating those discussions and inquiries which ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... of the richness of the Roscoff fauna? This has become proverbial among zoologists, as can be attested by the 265 of them who have worked at the laboratory. The very numerous and remarkable memoirs that have been prepared here are to be found recorded in the fourteen volumes of the Archives de Zoologie Experimentale ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... taking the City sword in his hand, stood on the south side of Temple Bar. As soon as the Queen's carriage arrived within the gateway it stopped, and then, unfortunately, it began to rain." The Queen's weather, which has become proverbial, of which we are given to boast, did not attend her on this occasion. Perhaps it would have been too much to expect of the clouds when the date was the 9th of November. Regardless of the weather, "the Lord Mayor delivered ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... and similar pleadings had about as much effect upon the Ministerial steam-roller as the proverbial water on a duck's back. With a rush the Natives' Land Bill was dispatched from the Lower House to the Senate, adopted hurriedly by the Senate, returned to the Lower House, and went at the same pace to Government House, and there receiving ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... was the winning side. It is quite likely that the more pronounced enmity he showed towards Hamilton during the second session of Congress was due in some measure to his knowledge of this feeling towards himself among Federalists. He seemed, at any rate, to be animated by something more than the proverbial zeal of the new convert. If it was not always shown in debate, it lurked in his letters. Anything that came from the secretary, or anything that favored the secretary's measures, was sure to be opposed by him. He was not, of course, always in the wrong, and sometimes he was very ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... that that Agatha Warburton creature has written threatening to cut off our dear Lisbeth with the proverbial shilling unless she complies with her wish and marries Mr. Selwyn within the year. Did you ever know of anything ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... time they arrived at the smithy. Deacon Winslow lived close to his shop. He was a big man, with the proverbial muscles of the blacksmith; and for many years he had been looked upon as a pillar in ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... presented themselves, one sees in Rome some wise and honest monarchs (Augustus, Vespasian, Titus). But few men had a head strong enough to resist vertigo when they saw themselves so elevated above other men. The majority of the emperors profited by their tremendous power only to make their names proverbial: Tiberius, Nero, Domitian by their cruelty, Vitellius by his gluttony, Claudius by his imbecility. One of them, Caligula, was a veritable fool; he had his horse made consul and himself worshipped as a god. The emperors persecuted ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... land of delight and plenty, which is proverbial to this day! By the Celts it was called 'Dunna feadhuigh,' a fairy land, &c. But all these notions have earlier foundations, since the English Druids put their paradise in a remote island in the west, called {344} 'Flath-Innis,' the flat island", &c.—American ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... peace-loving people, genial and courtly; but whether law-abiding is another matter. We know nothing about their laws, but we know {37} that the law-courts were busy, and that legal officials were numerous; and we know, further, that their duplicity and lack of straightforwardness were proverbial among the Greeks and Romans, and persists ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... could be resumed at need. Conversation, gay and loud, interspersed at times with snatches of song, was heard amongst the soldiery; and in the nobler group that rode with Villena, there was even less of the proverbial gravity of Spaniards. ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... said to have replied, "You do well to put me in the way of making a MAN of him;" and ordered him a pension of 500 pounds. This story, however current, seems to have been made after the event. The King's answer implies a greater acquaintance with our proverbial and familiar diction than King William ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... of many others. Basile wrote independently of Straparola, though a few tales are common to both. He was very careful not to alter the tale as he took it down from the people. He told his stories with allusions to manners and customs, to old stories and mythology. He abounds in picturesque, proverbial expressions, with turns and many similes, and displays a delightful exuberance of fancy. A valuable translation, with notes, was written by Felix Liebrecht, in 1842, and an English one by John Edward ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... her death being followed within a month by that of his sister Margaret. Before another month was out, his father, as we have already said, had married again, and whether the new wife had proved the proverbial injusta noverca or not, his home must have been sufficiently altered by the double, if we may not say triple, calamity, to account for his leaving the dull monotony of his native village for the more stirring career of a soldier. ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... Brougham has become almost proverbial. His public labors extended over a period of upward of sixty years, during which he ranged over many fields—of law, literature, politics, and science—and achieved distinction in them all. How he contrived it, has been to many ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... to destroy all the male children. This order does not seem to have been long in force but was a terrible blow to a people like the Hebrews whose passion for children, and especially for male children, has always been proverbial. ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... could call his very own. But when the mid-watch had been mustered, the lookouts stationed, and the rest of them had settled themselves down for sleep between the guns, out of the way of passing feet, the forecastle of the Congress offered a very decent promenade, magnificent compared to that proverbial of the poops of small vessels—"two steps and overboard." Then began the steady pace to and fro, which to me was natural and inherited, easily maintained and consistent with thought—indeed, productive of it. Not every officer has this habit, but most acquire it. I have been told that, however ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... the most cruel wretch of any woman with whom I was ever acquainted—yet she was nothing more than a slaveholder. She would deplore slavery as much as I did, and often told me she was much of an abolitionist as I was. She was constant in the declaration that her kind treatment to her slaves was proverbial. Thought I, then the Lord have mercy on the rest. She has often told me of the cruel treatment of the slaves on a plantation adjoining her father's in the low country of South Carolina. She says she ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of some half dozen editions—some of them very beautiful in typography and pictorial illustrations—of The Proverbial Philosophy of Mr. MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, reminds us of the observation of Dana, that something "resembling poetry" is oftentimes borne into instant and turbulent popularity, while a work of genuine character may be ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... discussion. The original application of the name is not agreed upon. Thompson says, "The term Saturnius seems to have possessed two distinct applications. In both of these, however, it simply meant 'as old as the days of Saturn,' and, like the Greek Ogugios, was a kind of proverbial expression for something antiquated. Hence (1) the rude rhythmical effusions, which contained the early Roman story, might be called Saturnian, not with reference to their metrical law, but to their antiquity; and (2) the term Saturnius ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... and embracing the Appalachian system of mountains. This section contains a population of nearly 3,000,000 souls. They belong for the most part to the most thrifty element of our complex population—an element whose toughness of moral and mental fiber is proverbial. The Scotch-Irish are famed the world over for their manly and moral vigor. And yet this people have sunken to the lowest depth of poverty and degradation—a depth from which, without the assistance of outside help, they can be lifted nevermore.[17] Is this condition of depravity ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... contemptuous appellation for Scottish Highland clansmen and native Irish, with reference to their naked hirsute limbs, and "As lively as a Red-Shank" is still a proverbial saying:—"And we came into Ireland, where they would have landed in the north parts. But I would not, because there the inhabitants were all Red-shanks."—Sir Walter ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... there was no conclusive evidence of any criminal act. The patient might be a confirmed opium-eater, and the symptoms heightened by deliberate deception. The cunning of these unfortunates is proverbial and is only equalled by their secretiveness and mendacity. It would be quite possible for this man to feign profound stupor so long as he was watched, and then, when left alone for a few minutes, to nip out of bed and help himself from some ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... at the mocking sign and the proverbial allusion to the gaping of the people of Beauce. He started up in wrath, and striking his fist on the table, "Monsieur Varin!" cried he, "do not cross your thumbs at me, or I will cut them off! Let me tell you the gentlemen of Beauce do not breakfast on gaping, but have plenty of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... bowling." The obviously accidental substitution of the word "batting" for "bowling" here, caused "the Nottingham Giant" to be credited with a novel cricketing performance, to which even he would hardly be equal. The proverbial Irish gun that could "shoot round a corner," would not be "in it" with a GUNN who could "bat against batting!" As a Correspondent (in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... and, in particular, the musicians with whom Christophe was most in touch, unprotestingly put up with the effrontery of the scaramouches of the Press, who laid down the law for them? There were absolute idiots among them, whose ignorance in omni re scibili was proverbial, though they were none the less invested with a sovereign authority in omni re scibili. They did not even take the trouble to write their articles and books: they had secretaries, poor starving creatures, who would have sold their souls, if they had had such things, ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... what is noblest in ourselves. When we are merely studying an eccentricity, the method of our study is but a series of allowances. To begin to understand is to begin to sympathise; for comprehension comes only when we have stated another's faults and virtues in terms of our own. Hence the proverbial toleration of artists for their own evil creations. Hence, too, it came about that Dick Naseby, a high-minded creature, and as scrupulous and brave a gentleman as you would want to meet, held in a sort of affection the various human creeping ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her in a town in North Italy, almost without means. She was thinking of going on the stage, when chance provided her with another resource, which enabled her to reassert her position in society. She became a secret police agent, and soon was one of their most valuable members. In addition to the proverbial charm and wit of a Polish woman, she also possessed high linguistic attainments, and spoke Polish, Russian, French, German, English, and Italian, with almost equal fluency and correctness. Then she had that encyclopedic polish which impresses people much more than ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... each other. It was evident that their thoughts were similar, and that one could have known them without the expenditure of the proverbial penny. ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... centuries in tongue license and unmanly Billingsgate. This had been promoted by the example hourly ringing in their ears of vernile scurrility. Verna—that is, the slave born in the family—had each from the other one universal and proverbial character of foul-mouthed eloquence, which heard from infancy, could not but furnish a model almost unconsciously to those who had occasion publicly to practise vituperative rhetoric. What they remembered ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Returning in hot haste to the caucus, he burst into the room, exclaiming, "It's all right, my lords; the Archbishop says he will be d——d to hell if he doesn't throw the Bill out." The Duke of Wellington's "Twopenny d——n" has become proverbial; and Sydney Smith neatly rebuked a similar propensity in Lord Melbourne by saying, "Let us assume everybody and everything to be d—- d, and come to the point." The Miss Berrys, who had been the correspondents of Horace Walpole, and who carried down to the 'fifties the most refined ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... suddenly observed Sir William listening to our conversation behind the hinges of the door. Being an enormous man, he had screwed himself into a cramped posture and I was curious to see how long he would stick it out. It was indique that I should bring home the proverbial platitude that "listeners never hear any good ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... chiefest interest to himself, but, at the same time, he was looked upon as one of the best and staunchest Protestants of the day. His loyalty and devotedness to the throne of England were not only unquestionable, but proverbial throughout the country; but, at the same time, he regarded no clergyman, either of his own or any other creed, as a man whose intimacy was worth preserving, unless he was able to take off his three or four bottles of claret ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... who, with my paper (not Mr. Gladstone's version of my arguments) in hand, consult the original authorities, that they will find full justification for every statement I have made. But in order to dispose those who cannot, or will not, take that trouble, to believe that the proverbial blindness of one that judges his own cause plays no part in inducing me to speak thus decidedly, I beg their attention to the following examination, which shall be as brief as I can make it, of the seven propositions in which Mr. Gladstone professes to give a faithful ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... consists rather of a series of gulps than of articulate or intelligible statements. But then mark the singular courage and audacity of the whole proceeding. There are traditions still in the House of Commons of the marvellously stimulating effect upon followers of leaders, who were proverbial for their oratorical impotence. Everybody remembers the scornful description of Castlereagh which Byron gave to the world; and yet it has been said in some memoirs that the moment Castlereagh stood up and adjusted ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... cup to Diana and set it on a stool beside her. "Ahmed flatters himself I come to see him, Madame. I do not. I come to drink Gaston's coffee. It has become proverbial, the coffee of Gaston. I propitiate him every time I come with a new apparatus for making it. The last is a marvel of ingenuity. Excuse me, I go to drink it with the reverence it inspires. It is a rite, Madame, not a ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... visitors to the Chesapeake bay painted rosy pictures of its marine life, stressing the abundance, variety and tastiness of the fish and shellfish. Exploration and communication were chiefly by water: it was natural that emphasis be laid on water resources. Though it is proverbial that fish stories partake of fiction, in the case of John Smith and his successors, it is doubtful whether they were greatly exaggerated. This was a world where nature, especially in ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... the prisoner bad-tempered. She did not need to prove anything of the sort concerning John Borg. They all knew his terrible fits of anger; they all knew that his temper was proverbial in the community; that it had prevented him having friends and had made him many enemies. Was it not very probable, therefore, that the masked men were two such enemies? As to what particular motive actuated these two ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... fule can see what's flapped in his face,' with which bit of proverbial philosophy he suddenly left me. But Geordie thenceforth contented himself, in Mr. Craig's presence at least, with ominous head-shakings, equally ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... "The proverbial fate of listeners," he said easily; "but I don't blame you at all. No, 'he' isn't going to live here," he went on, grasping each brother's hand in turn, as Billy murmured faint introductions; "and what is more, he hereby asks everybody's pardon for the annoyance his little joke has caused. He might ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... at Pergamus, the rival school to Alexandria. He died at Cyprus, whither he probably withdrew on the death of Philometor. He was chiefly known for his critical writings, in which his opinions of poetry were thought so just that few dared to disagree with them; and his name soon became proverbial for a critic. Aristarchus had also the good fortune to be listened to in his lecture-room by one whose name is far more known than those of his two royal pupils. Moschus of Syracuse, the pastoral poet, was one of his hearers; but his fame must not be claimed for Alexandria; he can hardly have ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... not see, even in this tragedy so recent, how fast the terror and ruin of the massacre are already burning into glory around the victim? Far happier this fate than to have lived to be wished away; to have watched the decay of his own faculties; to have seen—perhaps even be—the proverbial ingratitude of statesmen; to have seen mean men preferred. Had he not lived long enough to keep the greatest promise that ever man made to his fellow men,—the practicable abolition of slavery? He had seen Tennessee, Missouri, and Maryland emancipate their slaves. He had seen Savannah, ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... incomprehensible to you how they can suppose you to be happy. At the same time, you are not without a certain exultation: you cheat yourself from day to day with the thought that there are better things to come. Quite the contrary turns out to be the case. Your prospects, like the proverbial sacrifice of Mandrobulus, dwindle and contract from day to day. Gradually you get some faint glimmerings of the truth. It begins to dawn upon you at last, that those golden hopes were neither more nor less than gilded ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... were starred with brilliant detail reorganizations. The shipping department, first; the correspondence division next; the accounting department third, and he literally swept through the office like the proverbial new broom, caught up all the loose ends, and established a routine like clockwork. So successful was his work that the directors hastened to add ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... her experiments on the frock, the bonnet, and the hoop petticoat bought for her in London and sent like the proverbial pig in a poke, had taken to watching the Yankee peddling sloop, which, having lain for an hour at Patterson's on the Virginia shore, was now heading for the Browne place. It was pretty to see the sloop heel over under a beam wind ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... "Proverbial Fool-osophy," observed Henderson, contemptuously, as Burton handed him the book. "Shall I be a silly sheep like the rest of you, and leap over the bridge because your leader has? I suppose I must, though it's ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... little devil in France. And now, mademoiselle du Barry, having nothing further to add, I pray God to take you to His powerful and holy keeping." After this pleasantry the king, delighted at the gay termination of a somewhat serious scene, went, or rather vanished; for to use a proverbial expression, he ran like a thief. As soon as I was alone with my sister-in-law, I told her all that had passed. "I see," said she, "that the king is fearful of offending the duc de Choiseul, and giving annoyance to his daughters. But a step ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... is quite too severe for such a long stretch, strewn as it is with no less than twenty-four obstacles, and some of them pretty serious. The weather, too, is nearly always bad at Auteuil, even at the summer meetings, and the ill-luck of the Steeple-chase Society in this respect has become as proverbial as the good-fortune and favoring skies that smile upon the Societe d'Encouragement, its neighbor at Longchamps. It is not to be wondered at, then, that the English do not feel at home upon this dangerous track. They have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... make my appearance in London with merely the proverbial half-crown in my pocket, nor was I breathlessly expectant to find the streets paved with gold. Thanks chiefly to my savings in Dublin, my balance at my bankers' was sufficient to keep me for at least a year, and as soon as the editors returned from their summer holidays I was fortunate ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... of Seville is proverbial. "Who has not seen Seville, has not seen a wonder of loveliness," say the Spaniards. They are proud indeed of Seville, as they are of everything else belonging to them, and of themselves especially, often with less reason. We must carry the reader back about three hundred years, to ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... steadiness, they knew incessant change—the variety of a daisy's existence was proverbial. Nor was the surprise of being walked upon too alarming—it did not come to all—for they knew a way of bending beneath enormous pressure so that nothing broke, while sometimes it brought a queer, delicious pleasure, as when the bare feet of ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... number of men are employed to take care of, load and unload these animals when in camp. When on the march, these men perform duty as drivers, and otherwise look after their charge. Notwithstanding their proverbial obstinacy, these pack mules quickly learn the labor which they have to perform. After finishing their usual day's work, they often exhibit impatience to be relieved of their burdens. In the morning they are correspondingly reluctant about being loaded, and by their hostile demonstrations, they ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... for the worst of every man's character is already well known to the rest; but be his conduct what it will, the heart is commonly right enough—il luon cuor Lombardo is famed throughout all Italy, and nothing can become proverbial without an excellent reason. Little opportunity is therefore given to writers who carry the dark lanthorn of life into its deepest recesses—unwind the hidden wickedness of a Maskwell or a Monkton, develope the folds of vice, and spy ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... New Testaments which a clever boy would be certain to acquire either in the schoolroom or at church on Sundays. Shakespeare quotes or adapts biblical phrases with far greater frequency than he makes allusion to episodes in biblical history. But many such phrases enjoyed proverbial currency, and others, which were more recondite, were borrowed from Holinshed's 'Chronicles' and secular works whence he drew his plots. As a rule his use of scriptural phraseology, as of scriptural history, suggests youthful reminiscence and the assimilative tendency of the mind in a stage of ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... of the army; Murat, whose courage had become proverbial; Murat, who might well have been taken by a sculptor as a model for the god of war; Murat, on one occasion, when he must have slept ill or breakfasted badly, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Well, Moses smiting the rock, Joseph's servants finding the cup in Benjamin's sack. There would be a center table, with books of a tranquil sort on it: The Whole Duty of Man, Baxter's Saints' Rest, Fox's Martyrs, Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, bound copies of The Missionary Herald and of Father Damon's Seaman's Friend. A melodeon; a music stand, with 'Willie, We have Missed You', 'Star of the Evening', 'Roll on Silver Moon', 'Are We Most There', 'I Would not Live Alway', ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... term. Thus, they often go to church on Sundays, and do not follow their avocation on Sunday nights. On New Year's Eve, their practice is to attend the Watch Night services, where, doubtless, poor people, they make those good resolutions that form the proverbial pavement of the road to Hell. Nearly all of them drink more or less, as they say that they could not live their life without stimulant. Moreover, their profession necessitates their walking ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... Fil's spelling was proverbial in the form, and was often of a purely phonetic character. Miss Strong had periodical crusades to improve it, but generally gave them up as a bad job, and recommended constant use ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil |
