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More "Superfluous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the acclivity, up which they are carried as high as the soil extends.[1] Each terrace is furnished with a low ledge in front, behind which the requisite depth of water is retained during the germination of the seed, and what is superfluous is permitted to trickle down to the one below it. In order to carry on this peculiar cultivation the streams are led along the level of the hills, often from a distance of many miles, with a skill and perseverance for which the natives of these mountains ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... be straitened, to have already much difficulty in keeping up the house and the estate. But clearly things had fallen by now to a much lower depth. Miss Helbeck's dress, talk, lodgings, all spoke of poverty, great poverty. He himself had never known what it was to have a superfluous ten pounds; but the feverish strain that belongs to such a situation as the Helbecks' awoke in him a new and sharp pity. He was very sorry for the little, harassed creature; that physical privation should touch a woman had always ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all life worse is, For abating superfluous pride, Than having to scribble on verses With the editor waiting outside; I am hearing a lecture on Shelley, Where I ought to be able to dream, But my brain is as vapid as jelly. And I cannot ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... of the day, and could not have well admitted of repetition. In the apostolic age, when the Spirit was poured out in such rich effusion on the Church, the gift, as well as the grace, of prayer was imparted abundantly, so that a liturgy would have been deemed superfluous, if not directly calculated to freeze the genial ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... as he waited "for his ship to come home," he sang only to amuse his wife, as they say the nightingale does; and to ease himself of superfluous energy, and to charm the servants, and le Pere et la Mere Francois, and the five followers of Napoleon, and all and everybody who cared to listen, and last ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... disputed articles of their creed, is an object of their sincere desire. On this ground I trust some preliminary reflections upon the duty of proving all things, with a view of holding the more fast {3} and sure what is good, may be considered as neither superfluous nor out of place. ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... in C sharp minor, op. 66, was published by Fontana in 1855, and is one of the few posthumous works of Chopin worthy of consideration. It was composed about 1834. A true Impromptu, but the title of Fantaisie given by Fontana is superfluous. The piece presents difficulties, chiefly rhythmical. Its involuted first phrases suggest the Bellini-an fioriture so dear to Chopin, but the D flat part is without nobility. Here is the same kind ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... days alike were full of toil, of ordered, unremitting work. And until it began Jan had never done an hour's work in his life. (In England, outside the sheep-dog fraternity and a few of the sporting breeds, all dogs spend their lives in unordered play, uncontrolled loafing, and largely superfluous sleeping.) ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... following Note here: "Donatus tells us, that in some old copies this whole Scene was wanting. Guyetus therefore entirely rejects it. I have not ventured to take that liberty; but must confess that it appears to me, if not supposititious, at least cold and superfluous, and the substance of it had better been supposed to have passed between Hegio and ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... translated sixteen years ago; some four or five years before any part of the present HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH got to paper. The intercalated bits of Commentary were, as is evident, all or mostly written at the same time:—these also, though they are now become, in parts, SUPERFLUOUS to a reader that has been diligent, I have not thought of changing, where not compelled. Here and there, especially in the Introductory Part, some slight additions have crept in;—which the above kind of reader will possibly enough ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... nothing more to say," Thorpe declared, and seated himself again with superfluous energy. He scowled for a little at the disorder of his desk, and then flung forth an angry explanation. "If you evade fair questions like that, how can you expect that I will go out of ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... satisfactorily performed, and crowned with a douche bath from the engine-pump. Then, away again to the rabbit-hole of a locker, the smoky second-class carriage, and the stuffy first-class; incarcerated in which black-hole, the plump Miss Bouncer, notwithstanding that she has removed her bonnet and all superfluous coverings, gets hotter than ever in the afternoon sun, and is seen, ever and anon, to pass over her glowing face a handkerchief cooled with the waters of Cologne. And, when the man with the grease-pot comes round to look at the tires of the wheels, the sight of it increases ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... over Norman's secrets, and went about smiling over Decius, and comparing her brother with such a one as poor Meta was afflicted with; wasting some superfluous pity and contempt on the weary weight that was inflicted on ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... for a moment, and she thought he was going to speak. But he was wise in the ways of the world. He had lost. He understood it. Speech was superfluous. He was a quaint combination of ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... words, to falsehood dressed up in ornamented language. I have been very brief in relation to Germany, as that country is in our neighbourhood, and is therefore well known to many, on which account it would have been both superfluous and tiresome to have given a minute description ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... came up to town for the first day. I think there is every reason to hope that we shall not stand in need of this sort of canvass, either for the House of Commons or the House of Lords; but you will certainly agree with me, that no pains are superfluous when such points are ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... point-blank beam of glorious tenderness and gratitude as made him thrill with passion as well as triumph. He felt her whole heart was his, and from that hour his poverty would never be allowed to weigh with her. He cleared up, and left off acting, because it was superfluous; he had now only to bask in sunshine. Zoe, always tender, but coy till this moment, made love to him like a young goddess. Even Fanny yielded to the solid proof of sincerity he had ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... discovered Treatise on Christian Doctrine—the tendency of which was anti-Trinitarian—but it began with a general defense of poetry against "those who are accustomed to speak of poetry as light reading." This would now seem a somewhat superfluous introduction to an article in any American review. But it shows the nature of the milieu through which the liberal movement in Boston had to make its way. To re-assert the dignity and usefulness of the beautiful arts was, perhaps, the chief service which ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the future, so far as the individual is concerned, mainly to the defraying of funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself. Nevertheless this points to an important distinction between ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... a little wave of the hand, as dismissing something superfluous, and said, 'I hope she has ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whole, much worse off than we are without our astonishing gift for illusion. At the age of twelve or so, having given up dolls and broken our steam engines, France, but much more probably Italy, and India almost for a certainty, draws the superfluous imagination. One's aunts have been to Rome; and every one has an uncle who was last heard of—poor man—in Rangoon. He will never come back any more. But it is the governesses who start the Greek myth. Look at that for ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... condemned the plots of George Eliot's novels for their want of unity. They tell us that the flow of events is often not orderly, while improbable scenes are introduced, superfluous incidents are common, the number of characters is too great, and the analysis of character impedes the unity of events. These objections are not always vital, and sometimes they are mere objections rather than genuine criticisms. Instances of failure to follow the best methods may be cited ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... haue empire aboue realmes and nations? He will neuer, I say, approue it, because it is a thing most repugnant to his perfect ordinance, as after shalbe declared, and as the former scriptures haue plainlie geuen testimonie. To the whiche, to adde any thing were superfluous, were it not that the worlde is almost nowe comen to that blindnes, that what soeuer pleaseth not the princes and the multitude, the same is reiected as doctrine newelie forged, and is condemned, for heresie. I haue therfore thoght good to recite the mindes of some auncient writers ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... some labor "spurt" and hence more women than men lived to be old. Hence, again, there were far more grandmothers than grandfathers in the family in all mediaeval life. This led to many cruelties to old women who were deemed "superfluous." While, however, the actual experience of common people made conditions so hard for grandmothers, the idealism within the religious field was favorable to the mother of any age. The same church fathers who shunned marriage as a cowardly concession to the ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... doubtless be very amusing, as well as edifying.—When we behold the fat duchess of ——, with a face like Cynthia in all her glory, boldly approach the promenade in Kensington Gardens, in open defiance of public decorum, and, unzoned and divested of superfluous drapery, prepare for the race, in opposition to a slim vestal from ———, how shall we be able to restrain our risibility? The running ladies will, however, labour under one great disadvantage. Their muscular exertions must affect the lungs, and, in a great degree, suspend the exercise ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... they said, but every word came through the open door with curious distinctness. Halsey had evidently gone over to the bed and I suppose he kissed her. There was silence for a moment, as if words were superfluous things. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cost us some of our bravest sergeant-majors and sergeants—Cookson, Arnott, Marvin, Mundy, Balfe, Webster. Sergeant Lindsay lost his leg. Of them and of all the men of the 42nd Division, who gave their lives in this action, any praise is superfluous. ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... sheeting and twisted chimney-cans. The shell which had aroused the indignation of the Mess waiter by entering the dining-room window, had in reality hit the ground directly beneath it. Six feet higher, and the Brigadier's order to clear the house would have been entirely superfluous. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... water. Discovering no traces of Indians, he directed the march toward the grounds where Major Dade and his party were massacred. The boats having arrived at Fort Brooke with the sick and disabled and all superfluous baggage, the army moved in the direction of a deserted Indian village, passing the ruins of many fine plantations, and struck the military road near ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... a new invention; and yet the improvements upon the old plan, which was itself an improvement upon the former coffee-house, is sufficiently interesting, and sufficiently unknown to the people in general, to render some account of their advantages not superfluous. The modern club is a tavern and newsroom, where the members are both guests and landlord. The capital is derived from a sum paid by each member on entrance, and the general annual expenses, such as house-rent, servants, &c. are defrayed by an annual subscription. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... of all ugliness in their sensitive eyes, came striding, shapeless, through the unfriendly sea, seized them if they were very young, ducked them, and returned them to the chilly machine, generally in the futile and superfluous saltness of tears. "Too much of water had ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... growth of side shoots, and after this there must be no more stopping until there is a show of fruit. The growth should be pegged out to cover the bed in the most regular manner possible, and wherever superfluous shoots appear they must be removed. Any crowding will have to be paid for, because crowded shoots are not fruitful. If a great show of fruit appears suddenly, remove a large portion of it, as over-cropping makes a troublesome glut for a short time, and then there is an end of the business; ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... Savanne and other woody parts of the sea coast, tended powerfully to throw this lucrative branch of internal commerce more into the hands of the landholders at Vacouas, and to clear the district of its superfluous woods. ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... sense and reflection. I conjured him to remember what he owed to his father's house, to his own reputation, and to his family, including even this unreasonable woman herself, who was driving on blindly to her own destruction. I advised him to form a plan for retrenching superfluous expence, and try to convince the aunt of the necessity for such a reformation, that she might gradually prepare her niece for its execution; and I exhorted him to turn that disagreeable piece of formality out of the house, if he should find ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... bread, sugar, flour, and perhaps meat, for poor castaways, and probably money—from kindly lady-passengers, this last, for the ship was obviously a liner. The wretched Moussa Isa's carcase was now superfluous—nay dangerous, and must be disposed of at once, for Europeans are most kittle cattle. They will exterminate your tribe with machine-guns, gin, small-pox, and still nastier things, but they are fearfully shocked ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... thing; for then they would not be general terms, but proper names, so, on the other side, it is as evident they do not signify a plurality; for MAN and MEN would then signify the same; and the distinction of numbers (as the grammarians call them) would be superfluous and useless. That then which general words signify is a SORT of things; and each of them does that, by being a sign of an abstract idea in the mind; to which idea, as things existing are found to agree, so they come to be ranked under that name, or, which is all one, be of that ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... very dull for a week. We saw no more of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and we missed him dreadfully. Aunt Olivia was inscrutable, and worked with fierceness at superfluous tasks. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his patrons, as to be worthy of exhibition. Any ape, any boy, any man, can learn to smoke and drink. It may be taken for granted that any woman can do likewise, but the actual demonstration is worse than superfluous. ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... rare, the union of the hunter and the artist is rarer still. It demands not only the close familiarity, the loving observation, and the sympathy, but also the faculty of creation—the eye which selects what is constructive and beautiful, and passes over what is superfluous and inharmonious, and the hand skilful to carry out what the imagination conceives. In the man whose work I am about to consider, these qualities are developed in a remarkable degree, though it was not until he was a man grown, and had fought with distinction through the civil war, ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... preparations which he had commanded were fully carried out, took Mian by the hand and led her into the chief apartment of the house, where were assembled all the followers and attendants, even down to the illiterate and superfluous Wang. In the centre of the room upon a table of the finest ebony stood a vessel of burning incense, some dishes of the most highly-esteemed fruit, and an abundance of old and very sweet wine. Before these emblems Ling and Mian placed themselves in an attitude of deep humiliation, and formally ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... of an instant, but he somehow managed to make it plain that the information was superfluous. He turned without a word and marched majestically up the aisle before her to the fourth pew from the front on the right. There he faced about and laid a protesting hand on the carved walnut, as though absolving himself in the sight of his God and his fellow-citizens. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... It would be superfluous to repeat the arguments by which Caron endeavoured to set forth that the English troops, sent to the Netherlands according to a special compact, for a special service, and for a special consideration and equivalent, could not honestly be employed, contrary to the wishes of the States-General, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... its name is Eve. That is all right, I have no objections. Says it is to call it by when I want it to come. I said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a large, good word, and will bear repetition. It says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me; what she is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... those whom he is addressing, this will only serve to make him the more importunate. There is a difference between such truths as are merely of a speculative nature and such as are allied with practice and moral feeling. With the former all repetition may be often superfluous; with the latter it may just be by earnest repetition, that their influence comes to be thoroughly established over the mind of ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... bragging Dogmatics, after having given the practical arguments. Now most 63 of our number were accustomed to compare all the irrational animals together with man, but because the Dogmatics playing upon words say that the comparison is unequal, we carry our ridicule farther, although it is most superfluous to do so, and fix the discussion on one animal, as the dog, if it suits you, which seems to be the most contemptible animal; for we shall even then find that animals, about which we are speaking, are not inferior to us in respect to the trustworthiness of their perceptions. ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... of my thoughts does not matter, since the events that followed make them superfluous to the story. I will merely record, therefore, that towards dawn a great horror took hold of me. I did not know of what I was afraid, but I was much afraid of something. Nothing was passing in either Heda's or our room, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... to get them to the office." A gentleman arrived from Hamilton, saying that sixty applications had been sent in for boys, directly it was known that Miss Macpherson was coming out. So there is no need of anticipating anything like repugnance on the part of the Canadians to the reception of our superfluous Arabs. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... the various ways in which the earth itself needs treatment, either as being too moist for sowing, or too salt [11] for planting, these and the processes of cure are known to all men: how in one case the superfluous water is drawn off by trenches, and in the other the salt corrected by being mixed with various non-salt bodies, moist or dry. Yet here again, in spite of knowledge, some are careful ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... by her side, speculating a little anxiously on the coming introduction. Was I being conducted to the lair of one of the savants attached to the establishment? and would he add a superfluous third to our little party of two, so complete and companionable, solus cum sola, in this populated wilderness? Above all, would he turn out to be a comely young man, and bring my aerial castles tumbling about my ears? The shy look and the blush ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... no one stirred—nothing stirred in all that frozen world. Then, feeling the cold begin to creep in upon him in the stillness, Kane had to lift his thick-gloved hands to chafe his ears. He did it cautiously, but the caution was superfluous. The great wolf apparently had no objection to his moving as much as he liked. Once, indeed, those green, lambent eyes flamed over him, but casually, in making a swift circuit of the shores of the lake and the black fringe of the firs; but for all the interest ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... return on the warrant. When he wrote it, he added, after the word "dead,"—"and buried her on the spot." On its occurring to him that the burying of the body was not mentioned in the warrant, he drew his pen through the words; as is seen in the photograph. This superfluous clause, thus partially obliterated, is the only positive evidence we have of the disposal of the bodies at the time. They were undoubtedly all thrown into pits dug among the rocks, on the spot, and hastily covered by the officers having in charge the details of the executions. There were ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... no revelation to reveal them, or in the Egyptian darkness of the allegorieo-metaphysico-mystico-logico-transendental, 'formulae' of the most obscure and contentious philosophy ever devised by man; and lastly, that all this superfluous trouble is to give us, after all, only the mysteries of a most enigmatical philosophy: For of Hegel, in particular, we think it may with truth be said that the reader is seldom fortunate enough to know that ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... series of antitheses. (1) The New Testament, or group of "apostolic" writings formed by selection, preserved from destruction one part, and undoubtedly the most valuable one, of primitive Church literature; but it caused all the rest of these writings, as being intrusive, or spurious, or superfluous, to be more and more neglected, so that they ultimately perished.[121] (2) The New Testament, though not all at once, put an end to the composition of works which claimed an authority binding on Christendom (inspiration); but it first made possible ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... day George Melville and Herbert were resting from a country trip, sitting on a rude wooden settee which our hero had made of some superfluous boards, and placed directly in front of the house, when a figure was seen approaching with long strides from the shadow of the neighboring woods. It was not until he was close at hand ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... consideration, but to which I do not intend, on this occasion, to offer any answer. I will, however, just observe, that I apprehend what is generally meant by dissevering the union of the church and state is, that there should be no established religion. To that proposition, I trust it is superfluous for me to say that I am a most decided opponent. It is, however, a subject which I cannot now pretend to discuss. It is my opinion, that to leave religion to rest upon the voluntary efforts of the people, is a notion which we are not at present in a situation competent to entertain. It ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... reader who has merely an elementary knowledge of Greek annals, such information, for instance, as may be gained through a good secondary school history of ancient times. This naturally has led to comments and descriptions which more advanced students may find superfluous. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... it is midsummer! the windows are open, and the superfluous heat escapes, and the fresh air mingles with and tempers the warmth of the room, so that it is nice and comfortable; it is so much better and more wholesome than the damp, dark basement. There is a slight tinge upon ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... his brain, denying himself every superfluous thought. He drew dark curtains across every window in his consciousness, save one—the machine. After half an hour's work he would go back to bed and rest—just close his eyes, and rest. This too was discipline. Again ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... is translated by Theodore Martin, Esq., whose well-known position as a writer, and whose special acquaintance with German literature make any recommendation superfluous. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the simple text of Shakspeare, if attentively followed, gives every necessary indication of his intention with regard to the attitudes and movements of the persons on the stage in this scene; and the highly commended stage-directions of the folio are here, therefore, perfectly superfluous. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... I might be, mother, I could in that way earn only as much as my own support would cost," said Leonora, shaking her head. "I can be of no use to you, I am superfluous; I will go therefore to another place, where I can render myself useful ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... bumblebee ever sees its own father, and no father bumblebee ever sees his own children. In the honey bee the male, which has been fortunate enough to fertilize the queen, pays for his honor by death within the hour. Superfluous bachelors, among the honey bees, when the bridal season has passed, are driven from the hive ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... past her in the doorway without speaking; the smoke told its own urgent tale and made words superfluous. She turned and followed him, choking over ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... nay, the more shall every particular industrious Person thrive in such a Place; tho indeed Drones and Idlers will not find their Account, who wou'd fain support their own and their Families superfluous Expences at their Neighbour's Cost; who make one or two Day's Labour provide for four Days Extravagancies. And this is the common Calamity of most of our Corporation Towns, whose Inhabitants do all they can to discourage Plenty, Industry and Population; and will ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... This was superfluous, for DeCastros not only had donned his rig; he had managed to recall to memory a few dozen vile, degrading swear words gleaned from the sin-pits of Marronn, to hurl ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... sir. She has gone through trouble. She believes very strongly in the will:—If I will this, if I will that, and it is the right will, not wickedness, it is done—as good as done; and force is quite superfluous. In her sermons, she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... go on quietly with your square till you have covered it all in. When you get to the bottom, the color will lodge there in a great wave. Have ready a piece of blotting-paper; dry your brush on it, and with the dry brush take up the superfluous color as you would with a sponge, till ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... the sweetness and [1] beauty in and of this temple that praise Him, are earth's accents, and must not be mistaken for the oracles of God. Art must not prevail over Science. Christianity is not superfluous. Its redemptive power is seen in sore trials, [5] self-denials, and crucifixions of the flesh. But these come to the rescue of mortals, to admonish them, and plant the feet steadfastly in Christ. As we rise above the seem- ing mists of sense, we behold more clearly that all the heart's homage belongs ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... something more than a star to worship? If wealth comes, we wonder how we drew breath in poverty; yet we lived, and should have lived on. Let the gods be thanked, whom it pleases to clothe the soul with joy which is superfluous to bare existence Might she not now hallow herself to be a true priestess of beauty? Would not life be vivid with new powers and possibilities? Even as that heaven was robing itself in glory of sunrise, with warmth and hue which ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... last decade there were some who had a clear grasp of the situation, and the fact remains that, in order to spare the Emperor and themselves, they had not the courage to be harsh with him and tell him the truth to his face. These are not reproaches, but reminiscences which should not be superfluous at a time when the Emperor is to be made the scapegoat of the whole world. Certainly, the Emperor, being such as he is, the experiment would not have passed off without there being opposition to encounter ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... work-houses; nor can we blame the sympathy of those benevolent persons who contribute their mite to relieve the cries of distress with which they are assailed. But it excites our wonder and grief that statesmen, who have superfluous means for covering the country with barracks, should find themselves unable to establish comfortable asylums for all the poor who are incurably diseased, in which they should be so provided for, that it would be as criminal in them ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... Cast wholly by the ignoble dread of truth! Each of God's laws, if but so late discerned Their faiths upgrew unsuckled in it, fills Their hearts with angry fears, perchance lest God Be dwarfed behind his own decrees, or made Superfluous through his perfectness of deed! But large increase of knowledge in these days Is come about us, fraught with ill for them Whose creeds are cut too straight to hold new growth, Whose faiths are clamped against access of wisdom; Fraught with some sadness, too, for those just souls Who, clothed ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Reason with which both the Jew and the Roman Catholick would excuse their respective Superstitions, it is certain there is something in them very pernicious to Mankind, and destructive to Religion; because the Injunction of superfluous Ceremonies makes such Actions Duties, as were before indifferent, and by that means renders Religion more burdensome and difficult than it is in its own Nature, betrays many into Sins of Omission which they could not otherwise be guilty of, and fixes the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... and reflections, Mrs. Falconer began her new system of operations, by writing that note full of superfluous civility to Mrs. Percy, with which Commissioner Falconer had been charged: the pressing Caroline to play Zara or Marcia, the leaving to her the choice of dresses and characters, the assurance that Miss Georgiana Falconer would take the confidante's part with pleasure, were ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... voice-production) than it was when I was receiving hints, cautions, and advice from my two dramatist friends, Charles Reade and Tom Taylor; and the leading principles to which they attached importance have come to be regarded as old-fashioned and superfluous. This attitude is comparatively harmless in the interpretation of those modern plays in which parts are made to fit the actors and personality is everything. But those who have been led to believe that they can make their own rules find their mistake when they come ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... manner for the most part is that of General Santierra, and that old warrior, I note with satisfaction, is very true to himself all through. Looking now dispassionately at the various ways in which this story could have been presented I can't honestly think the General superfluous. It is he, an old man talking of the days of his youth, who characterizes the whole narrative and gives it an air of actuality which I doubt whether I could have achieved without his help. In the mere writing his existence of course was of no help at all, because the whole thing ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... any one else, what ought to be done, and the right time to do it, so that, when any one bounced round with the sudden intention of telling her to do anything, Old Peg was found to have done it already, or to be in the act of doing it. It is almost superfluous to say that she patched and mended the household garments, washed the most of things washable, sewed the sewable, darned the sock, and, generally, did-up the whole McKay family. When not engaged in definite or specific work, she had ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... imagination is fastidious and select; and hence, though we meet with more exquisite beauties in his writings, we meet with them more rarely: there is comparatively a dearth of ornament. But Mr. Moore's strictest economy is "wasteful and superfluous excess:" he is always liberal, and never at a loss; for sooner than not stimulate and delight the reader, he is willing to be tawdry, or superficial, or common-place. His Muse must be fine at any rate, though she should paint, and wear ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... instincts for wifehood and motherhood—cannot find their normal satisfaction, and the problem thus created is one of the most difficult in the whole of life. It is, of course, nothing less than insulting nonsense to talk about these women as "superfluous women." Behind the very phrase there lurks the old delusion that women are only needed in the world as wives and mothers. As a matter of fact a great deal of the work that is most needed in our civilization—work in education, art, literature, nursing, social ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... excellent," cried La Roche, laughing, as he lifted out the goose, into which Bryan thrust the mass of superfluous pudding; after which the hole was tied up and the bird re-consigned ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... Superfluous to say, they are Jessie and Helen Armstrong. And needless to tell why the one is gay, the other grave. Since we last saw them in the hotel of Natchitoches, no change has taken place in their hearts or ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... winter, Cabbage, or Turneps, or Parsley-roots, or Endive, &c. It will be done in two or three hours after the Veal and Mutton are in. Pour out the broth, and boil it a little by it self over a Chafing-dish, in some deep vessel, to scum off the superfluous fat. Then pour it upon tosted bread (by degrees, if you will, stewing it, to gelly it) to serve it in (after it hath stewed a little,) you must remember to season it with salt, Pepper and Cloves, in the due time. You will do ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... as I say, Mr. Morris," said one of the latter, with a superfluous show of energy: "there's no better institution of its kind in the country than Grantley Academy. I send my own boys there; and I've just written about it to my brother-in-law, Foster, the New-York ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... of history. But, alas! we cannot likewise banish into that limbo of the past those two superfluous individuals, the revolutionary Atta Troll and the reactionary Lascaro. Alas! we cannot join the joyful, but inwardly so hopeless, band of those who sing the paean of eternal progress, who pretend to believe ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... one thing, to collect it quite another. Some of the poorer ratepayers protested with tears in their eyes that they could not pay. Superfluous rates (really not necessary ones) were perpetually being inflicted upon them, they urged, and were bringing them, together with a succession of recent bad seasons, to the verge of ruin. They carried their remonstrances to their Vicar, and he in turn ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... It is, however, entirely upon your account that I take the liberty of stating an opinion on a subject of such delicacy. I should wish you to give your excellent {p.227} talents fair play, and to ride this race without carrying any superfluous weight; and I am so well acquainted with my old friend the public, that I could bet a thousand pounds to a shilling, that the preface (if that controversial part of it is not cancelled) ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... perhaps superfluous details so well known may appear after what has been already given, lessons will be found therein for kings who may wish to make themselves respected, and who may wish to respect themselves. What determines me still ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of cunning came into the fat face of the speculator, and his numerous superfluous chins began to be agitated ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... happiness in this life, the first being a good digestion, and the other nine,—money; so at least it is said by our modern philosophers. Yet the author of "A Gentle Life" speaks more truly in saying that the Divine creation includes thousands of superfluous joys which are totally unnecessary to the bare support ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... eyes of the captain of the guard the paper was singular, but explicit; moreover, the request seemed superfluous, considering the laxity prevalent with respect to the coming and going of persons of all nativities and callings. To be sure, trade was not as it used to be, and, thanks to the enterprise and cunning of ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... with herself that it seemed superfluous for anybody else to be indignant with her; and Ethelbertha changed her tone ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... and they count for the use of their ambassadors and explorers, so that with it they may have the means of living. They receive merchants into their States from the different countries of the world, and these buy the superfluous goods of the city. The people of the City of the Sun refuse to take money, but in importing they accept in exchange those things of which they are in need, and sometimes they buy with money; and the young people ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... his ablutions. Had he, however, been able to "see himself as others saw him," in respect of those neglected regions which lay somewhere behind and beneath his ears, he might not, possibly, have thought it superfluous to irrigate them with a little soap and water; but, after all, he knew best; it might have given him cold: and besides, his hair was very thick and long behind, and might perhaps conceal anything that was unsightly. Then Mr. Titmouse drew ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... 700 horses. On our way we remarked a number of handsome houses now unoccupied and falling rapidly into decay, the military force at the station having of late been much reduced. The horses were being exercised, notwithstanding which they carried a good deal of superfluous fat, and vented their spirits by occasionally breaking loose, and dashing pell-mell through rings of their companions, who, grudging them the sweets of liberty, made vigorous efforts to partake of them, and in some instances succeeded. I saw not less than eight at once dashing about in the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... to this nonsense, my turtle-doves," interposed Barbesieur. "I bring you tidings which henceforth render such discussions superfluous. Listen to me, both of you. My father has sent me a bit of news which, coming direct from the Marquis do Villars—that is, from Munich—is positive and authentic. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... other use of it; that lawsuits, intrigues, warfare, and the quarrels of priests, which consume human life, are absurd and horrible things; that man is born only to enjoy himself;" and that among the essential things we must put the "superfluous" in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the suit which Hephzy had laid out for him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been superfluous; he looked ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... feeling for verbal beauty, the recognition of which in the mind of the child is fundamental to the plan of this work. The editors have felt that the inclusion of critical notes in these little books intended for elementary school children would be not only superfluous, but, in the degree in which critical comment drew the child's attention from the text, subversive of the desired result. Nor are there any notes on methods. The best way to teach children to love a poem is to read it inspiringly to them. The French ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... stern, for he understood how to steer. Having been admonished to hold his tongue, he crouched so as, if possible, to diminish his size. He also pursed his lips,—and what a tight rounding and projecting of superfluous flesh that pursing was no tongue can adequately tell. He also glared, and this "talking with the eyes" was a mute sermon ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... Avenue at a corner that represents land value that is computed by the square inch, is the structure of Brown-Smith. In some cases the passer-by will search in vain for any indication of the name—the information being deemed wholly superfluous. It matters not in the least whether the commodity upon which Brown-Smith has reared its history be hats, or groceries, or furs, or jewelry, or silverware, or boots, or men's furnishings. The story of the ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... is almost superfluous to assert of him that intellectual height so generally admitted there is more occasion for drawing attention to a moral elevation that is less recognized partly because his activities in many directions afforded no occasion for exhibiting it, and partly because some of ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... compartments under a strong screw-press, by which operation it is transformed from a loose cylinder to a well squashed parallelogram. It is hard work, and the swarthy descendants of Ham look as if they were in a vapour-bath, and doubtless bedew the leaf with superfluous heat. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... superfluous leysure, my stay must be stolen out of other affaires: but I will attend you ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... trial all of them were calm, but very serious and thoughtful. Their contempt for the judges was so intense that none of them wished to emphasize his daring by even a superfluous smile or by a feigned expression of cheerfulness. Each was simply as calm as was necessary to hedge in his soul, from curious, evil and inimical eyes, the ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... more grace and romance about the Eastern adventurer. There is very little slashing and hewing to be done there, and what there is, is managed as quietly as possible. When a Sultan must be rid of the last superfluous wife, she is quietly done up in a parcel with a few shot, and dropped into the Bosphorus without more ado. The good old-fashioned Rajah of Mudpoor did his killing without scandal, and when the kindly British wish to keep a secret, the man is hanged ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... could not refrain from looking at one piece. It was a very short and very simple Adagio cantabile in the Key of F for a solo pianoforte. It appealed at once to me as a singer, for its quiet, unaffected melody seemed made to be sung rather than to be played. The "cantabile" of its heading was superfluous—it was a Song without Words, evidently one of a new set, for I knew it was none of the old. But the sound of a footstep startled me and I guiltily replaced the sheet. The door opened, and I was warmly greeted in excellent English ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... a sink in the butler's pantry, but it is wholly superfluous. I am told that this adjunct is useful in washing such dishes and glassware as are too precious to be sent to the kitchen. All this sounds very fine, but the practice is to whew the tableware of all kinds into the ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... sagacity has been exaggerated, and in order to satisfy such as are addicted to the laudable practice of SKIPPING (with whom we have at times a strong fellow-feeling), the following particulars may not be superfluous. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... prose. The second defect is a certain matter-of-factness in some of his poems, consisting in a laborious minuteness and fidelity in the representations of objects, and in the insertion of accidental circumstances, such as are superfluous in poetry. Thirdly, there is in certain poems an undue predilection for the dramatic form; and in these cases either the thoughts and diction are different from those of the poet, so that there arises an incongruity of style, or they are the same and indistinguishable, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... times soar, whenever he has manly indignation, or warm-hearted patriotism, or high-minded scorn to express. If Lord Carlisle's object, then, was to elevate Pope to the rank of a classic, it was a superfluous task; if it was to justify the Commissioners in placing him on a level with Chaucer, Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, our remarks will show that we think ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... the General disapproved of my running such a risk, saying he'd call it a d—— piece of nonsense, if I asked what he thought; so we remained. They will certainly starve soon enough without our help; and yet—I feel we should all be together still. That last superfluous word is the refrain of Gibbes's song that is ringing in my ears, and that I am chanting in a kind ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... be superfluous, and, perhaps, a sickening task, to detail at length the mode and manner in which Vargrave coiled his snares round the unfortunate girl whom his destiny had marked out for his prey. He was right in foreseeing that, after ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... myself, more in sorrow than in anger, "you've met your match right here. When a woman knows a fact and states it with such quiet conviction, without the least unnecessary emphasis and not a superfluous word, 'ware that woman. There's only one game to play to let you hang round here a bit longer and find out what's become of the baby. ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... Company was the last combat unit to lose the asterisk, the Army's way of designating a unit black.[17-57] The command was originally committed to an Army contingency plan that would transfer black combat troops found superfluous to the newly integrated units to service units, but this proved unnecessary. All segregated combat troops were eventually ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... calender it on a hot steel plate, or, in lieu, to iron it. This is not, however, a sine qua non. The paper is sensitized by brushing or by floating. To sensitize by floating, it should be left but for a few seconds on the solution and removed by dragging it on a glass rod in order to remove the superfluous liquid. Only the surface of the paper should be impregnated, otherwise the whites would be more or less tinted and the image ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois
... of the main elements of Christianity acceptable without the need of a historical basis or proof. Not only does he present the Christian position as a reasonable view of the problem of life, but as the only solution that can really solve the final problem. He has cleared the decks of all superfluous baggage, and has laid bare a firm basis for a ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... letter of the law.[4] Many persons maintain that they do more harm than good even to the borrower, whom they are designed to protect. In a developed credit economy, where a regular money-market exists, they are superfluous, to say the least, as most loans are made below the legal rate. Such laws, however, have a partial justification. In a small loan market they to some extent protect the weak borrower at the moment of distress from the rapacity of the would-be usurer. There has been great need to check the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... glass with scale is used outside in summer time. Each inch in height on the scale is converted into cubic feet, and then by means of a table is converted into Russian poods, according to the specific gravity at various temperatures. As it would be superfluous to graduate the table for each separate degree of temperature, the columns in the table show the weights for every 8 degrees Reaumur, which is quite sufficient: namely, from 24 deg. to 17 deg., from 16 deg. to 9 deg., and so on, down to -24 deg.; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... that there was a slight stoop to his shoulders as though, when he walked, he feared to collide with the branches of the trees under which he passed. Erect, he must have lacked but a few inches of seven feet and, possessing not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his big bones, his appearance was not impressive. The deerskin hunting shirt, worked in a curious pattern on the breast with red and blue porcupine quills, fitted him tightly, as did his linsey-woolsey breeches; and his thin shanks were covered with ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... offer an equal attraction to, the high and highly celebrated name of Frau Lind. Without raising the slightest objection to this, I must express my common-sense opinion that with this magnet all others would be quite superfluous, which, however, cannot be quite so indifferent to me; for, as Louis XIV. represented the State, so Frau Lind would constitute the Musical Festival proper. This avowal (for which I deserve, at the very least, stoning with the usual ingredients of operations of that kind in our civilized age, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... sound of the lute has drawn in his light, become superfluous, since the road is effectually blocked for the lovers by the musical interloper. He overhears Eva's exclamation, "Beckmesser!" and has an idea. Beckmesser shall be made of use to prevent the lovers as long as possible from moving any ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... picture of a State of Nature, affecting by its singularity, and Old-Roman contempt of the superfluous, we shall quit this part of ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... answered Eustathius, "in case his Majesty should send for him, which is most improbable. If he ever did, poison, praised be the Lord! would be totally unnecessary and entirely superfluous." ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... is superfluous; a fence of electrified wire would have served as good a purpose at about one-thousandth of one per cent. of the cost. And what did the wall cost? Let the prison archives declare. And then, perhaps, it would be interesting to investigate the discrepancy, if any exist, between the ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... cannot contribute toward the support of those above him in life is superfluous," said De ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... down the stairs, keeping a still tremulous hand upon the rail; but she smiled brightly when Alice looked up from below, where the woodwork was again being tormented with superfluous attentions. ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... gladly, and with great respect, if they had aught in public to admonish the state. Thus did Dion Prusaeus, a stranger and a private orator, counsel the Rhodians against a former edict; and I abound with other like examples, which to set here would be superfluous. ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... content with what they accorded him as a poor student and careful teacher. They lived in the quietest way; for the heir of the house, by a former marriage, was a bad subject, and kept them drained of more than the superfluous money about the place. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... slow and toilsome course for several days, against the current of the river. The late signs of roaming war parties caused a vigilant watch to be kept up at night when the crews encamped on shore; nor was this vigilance superfluous; for on the night of the seventh instant, there was a wild and fearful yell, and eleven Sioux warriors, stark naked, with tomahawks in their hands, rushed into the camp. They were instantly surrounded and seized, whereupon their leader called out to his followers to desist from ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... clinical point of view is perhaps the actual description of cases. A number of these—forty-two in all—have survived.[77] They are not only unique as a collection for nearly 2,000 years, but they are still to this day models of what succinct clinical records should be, clear and short, without a superfluous word, yet with all that is most essential, and exhibiting merely a desire to record the most important facts without the least attempt to prejudge the case. They illustrate to the full the Greek genius for seizing on the essential. The writer shows not the least wish to exalt his own skill. He ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... along the slopes of the rocks, and on which the children play and run about like chamois. The few houses here belong to foreigners. Little paths lead up to them, and some have steps, which the Chilians look upon as a superfluous and altogether useless luxury. A staircase of tiled or palm-branch roofs below and above an amphitheatre of gates and gardens present a curious spectacle. At first I kept up with the naturalists, but they presently brought me to a place where I could not ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... despatch of Captain Walton, who, under Admiral Byng, destroyed the entire Spanish fleet off Passaro: "Sir,—We have taken or destroyed all the Spanish ships on this coast; number as per margin.—Respectfully yours, G. Walton, Captain." Says Baden-Powell, "There is no superfluous ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... be joined with it. The first is leaving off superfluous expenses; the last bestowing them to the benefit of others that need. The first without the last begins covetousness; the last without the first begins prodigality. Both together make an excellent temper. Happy the place wherever that ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... pretty, and would be plump if the art of the corsetiere had not abolished plumpness. Her hat conveys a greeting from the Rue Lafayette, her little high-heeled boots show faultless ankles and the latest way of lacing up superfluous fat above them. A hole and two uneven stones maliciously intercept the progress of that little foot. Mamma stumbles, and is promptly and chivalrously replaced in an upright position by the son. "Mon Dieu!" she cries; "what a path!" and through my open window there floats ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... hand and dancing with her in the road? "True, he could not dance without one crutch in his hand, but I promise you he footed it well. Also the girl was to be commanded, for she answered the musick handsomely." In Bunyan's pictures there is never a superfluous detail. Every stroke tells, and helps to the ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... times the inhabitants of the west of France called all the soldiers of the Republic "Blues." This nickname came originally from their blue and red uniforms, the memory of which is still so fresh as to render a description superfluous. A detachment of the Blues was therefore on this occasion escorting a body of recruits, or rather conscripts, all displeased at being taken to Mayenne where military discipline was about to force upon them ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... with slaves, so that agriculture became profitless, the crushing out of free labor by slave labor, and the rise of a wretched class of freemen proletarians, these, and other kindred causes, led to the breaking up of the great estates; the dismissal of superfluous slaves, in many cases, and the partial enfranchisement of others by making them hereditary tenants, paying a fixed share of their product as rent—here we have the embryonic stage of feudalism. It was a revolution, this transformation of ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... marked out a much more cheering route into Italy. He carried out with him from the Biturigians, the Arvernians, the Senonians, the AEduans, the Ambarrians, the Carnutians, and the Aulercians, all that was superfluous in their population. Having set out with an immense force of horse and foot, he arrived in the country of the Tricastinians. Next the Alps were opposed [to their progress], and I am not surprised that they should seem impassable, as they had never been climbed over through any path as yet, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... artists, but because they still needed an outward assurance that what they did was not the petty triviality it seemed. There must always remain the sense of an ulterior, undeveloped meaning; when that is laid bare, Art has become superfluous, and makes haste to withdraw into obscure regions. For it is only as language that the picture or the statue avails anything, and this circumstantiality of expression is tolerable only so long as it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... of this description were becoming frequent, the government had instructed the commissioners to take inventories of the plate and jewels; and where they saw occasion for suspicion, to bring away whatever seemed superfluous, after leaving a supply sufficient for the services of the house and chapel. The misdemeanour of the Abbot of Fountains was not the only justification of these directions. Sometimes the plate was secreted. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... minutes had passed Miss Philura Rice had forgotten that such things as shabby gloves, ill-fitting gowns, unbecoming bonnets and superfluous birthdays existed. In ten minutes more she was leaning forward in breathless attention, the faded eyes aglow, the unbecoming bonnet pushed back from a face more wistful than ever, but flushed with a ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... could not laugh David out of it. This was so, partly because he had no sense of humor, and partly because he had a great-great-grandfather. Among the salesmen on lower Broadway, to possess a great-great-grandfather is unusual, even a great-grandfather is a rarity, and either is considered superfluous. But to David the possession of a great-great-grandfather was a precious and open delight. He had possessed him only for a short time. Undoubtedly he always had existed, but it was not until David's sister Anne married a doctor in Bordentown, New Jersey, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... never seen anything like them," Socola admitted, looking on their stalwart forms with undisguised admiration. Scarcely a man was under six feet in height, with broad, massive shoulders and chests and not an ounce of superfluous flesh. Their resemblance to each other was remarkable. Nature had cast each one in the same heroic mold. The spread of giant unbroken forests spoke in their brawny arms and legs. The look of an eagle soaring over great rivers and fertile ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... accommodation for trunks. We had been persuaded to take four horses, as our luggage seemed too formidable for a single pair. But in effect our concession to apparent necessity turned out to be a mere display of superfluous luxury, for the two white leaders did little more than show their feeble paces, leaving the gray wheelers to do the work. We had the elevating sense of traveling four-in-hand, however—a satisfaction to which I do not believe any human being ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... contracted with artists at Paris, have lately arrived in America. But, not having seen any account published of the devices and inscriptions, I presume it will not be ungrateful to the public to receive some authentic information respecting these memorials of national glory. However superfluous the publication of the correspondence[18] on this subject with the Perpetual Secretary of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres might be deemed, it will not, I conceive, be improper it should be known that this learned society, to whom a reference was made, entered ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... highest wisdom, will produce discontent and danger. I believe it may be sometimes found, that a little learning is, to a poor man, a dangerous thing. But such is the condition of humanity, that we easily see, or quickly feel the wrong, but cannot always distinguish the right. Whatever knowledge is superfluous, in irremediable poverty, is hurtful, but the difficulty is to determine when poverty is irremediable, and at what point superfluity begins. Gross ignorance every man has found equally dangerous with perverted knowledge. Men, left wholly to their appetites ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... you come to nought, but yield yourselves to it. Rejoice in the confidence that He is moulding your character, cheerfully welcome and accept the providences, painful as they may be, by which He prepares you for heaven. The chisel is sharp that strikes off the superfluous pieces of marble, and when the chisel cuts, not into marble, but into a heart, there is a pang. Bear it, bear it! and understand the meaning of the blow of the sculptor's mallet, and see in all life the divine hand working towards the accomplishment of His own loving purpose. Then if we turn to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... an affair could never have gained a foothold among our people under a truly loyal condition of the opposing party. The truthfulness of this assertion is so very forcible to the candid reader, that illustration or argument in support of it would be superfluous. However, occasional incidents will serve better to connect popular leaders with the subject of these sketches, and call to the minds ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... practice and care to do this two-sided marking stitch, so as not to disfigure the stuff by superfluous stitches. ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... one feel a doubt upon the point, as so stated? If so, it will be upon him to show that Psychology, in its methodical pursuit, is a needless and superfluous employment of strength; that the problems of ethics, ontology, &c., can be solved without it—a hard task indeed, so long as they are unsolved in any way. I have no space for indulging in a dissertation on the value of methodical study and arrangement ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... decided that he was a suspicious-looking character, and ought to be shot as an English spy. As a preliminary, they arrested him and locked him up. Then the war was called off while the jury sat on his case. One of the officers thought it would be a superfluous effort to go through the form of trying him, but that they should shoot him without further to do. They began considering his case at eleven in the morning, and kept it up until midnight. He was given pretty clearly to understand that his chances were slim, and ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... the profoundest silence. The Hasseites shrugged their shoulders, and even Gluck's warmest adherents felt undecided what to say of this severe Doric music, which disdained all the coquetries of art, and rejected all superfluous embellishment. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... caught the contagion of the excitement, and he felt that in some way he must do a great thing for John Thornton. Murmurs of 15 admiration at his splendid appearance went up. He was in perfect condition, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, and the one hundred and fifty pounds that he weighed were so many pounds of grit and virility. His furry coat shone with the sheen of silk. Down the neck and across the 20 shoulders, his mane, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... at all times more calculated to provoke mirth than anger, was especially so at that moment, when with one knee upon the ground, Mr Folair twirled his old hat round upon his hand, and affected the extremest agony lest any of the nap should have been knocked off—an ornament which it is almost superfluous to say, it had not boasted for ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... festival days are very well reduced also unto a less number; for whereas (not long since) we had under the pope four score and fifteen, called festival, and thirty profesti, beside the Sundays, they are all brought unto seven and twenty, and, with them, the superfluous numbers of idle wakes, guilds, fraternities, church-ales, help-ales, and soul-ales, called also dirge-ales, with the heathenish rioting at bride-ales, are well diminished and laid aside. And no great matter were it if the feasts of ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... blunt and to the point, asking the direct question: "Are you alive or dead, and if alive, why did you fool me with that lie about your dying of fever in a hospital and keep me waiting all these years?" Anything more would have been superfluous in the captain's judgment—certainly until he received some more definite information as to whether the man was ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of his future. Here he and his sister, "excellent Nell," acquired music, first upon an old harpsichord, obtained by his father in discharge of a debt, and afterwards on a piano, to buy which his loving mother had saved up all superfluous pence. Hence he issued to lake country walks with unhappy Robert Emmet. Hither he came—not less proudly, yet as fondly as ever—when college magnates had given him honor, and the King's Viceroy had received him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... said Of Pope, that "he could only rank with ingenious men," and that his works are superabundant with superfluous and unmeaning verbiage - his translations even replete with tautology, a fault which is to refinement as midnight is to noonday; and, what is truly surprising, that the fourth book of the Dunciad, his last publication, is more full of redundancy and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... you that all such upward rise as you make like that will ever be witnessed with interest and pleasure by me, &c., &c. Give my regards to Dr. and Mrs. Hall. It would be uncomplimentary to your powers of perception as well as superfluous to say that I will now close ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... flourish best in hilly districts and on highlands, where the roots can be kept dry, and where the average temperature does not exceed 70 deg. Fahr. Caracolillo is found in greater quantities on the highest declivities facing east, where the morning sun evaporates the superfluous moisture of the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Vaulting ambition Vein, I am not in the Venice, I stood in Verbosity, thread of his Verge enough Vernal seasons of the year Verse, married to immortal —, wisdom married to immortal Verses, for rhyme the rudder is Veteran, superfluous lags the Vice, when, prevails —is a monster Vices, small —, our pleasant Vienna, looker-on here at Victims, the little, play Victorious o'er all the ills of life View, when will the landscape tire the Village ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... (28.347 to 28.740). Many people imagine that the plates of silver or gold with which the nut of a bow is inlaid are nothing more than mere ornamentation. But their first purpose is distinctly one of utility, which is as it should be in a work of art; superfluous decoration has no beauty for an artist. It is by means of these metal "loadings" at the heel that the weight of the head is counteracted and the exact point of equilibrium determined. The centre of gravity in a violin bow should be at 19 centimetres (7.48 inches) from ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... fifty or sixty casks, covered with mildew, some old pieces of furniture, and a great cube of rotting, curling parchments, showed that this cellar had been more or less loosely used for the occasional storage of superfluous stores and knick-knacks. ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... thyng, hable to be knowen. For the verifying of which Conclusion, I promise to aunswere to the 74. Questions, vnder written, by the way of Numbers. Which Conclusions, I omit here to rehearse: aswell auoidyng superfluous prolixitie: as, bycause Ioannes Picus, workes, are commonly had. But, in any case, I would wish that those Conclusions were red diligently, and perceiued of such, as are earnest Obseruers and Considerers of the constant law of ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... swallow up all courtesy. Many of us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things as we say about strangers behind their backs. There is no place, however, where real politeness is of more value than where we mostly think it would be superfluous. You may say more truth, or rather speak out more plainly, to your associates, but not less courteously than you ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... belittling, so condescending, so nay-saying and deterring, the other times and their masterpieces! They are so unsympathetic, so strange and grand and remote! They seem to say "Thus must it be; this is form; this is beauty; all else is superfluous." Who goes to them for help and understanding is like one who goes to men much older, men of different habits and sympathies, in order to explain himself, and finds himself disconcerted and diminished ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... corresponding quantity of wages must thus also become free. To maintain that human labor can end by wanting employment, it would be necessary to prove that mankind will cease to encounter obstacles. In such a case, labor would be not only impossible, it would be superfluous. We should have nothing to do, because we should be all-powerful, and our fiat alone would satisfy at once ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... not yet become superfluous. Two-thirds of the earth's surface is still covered with water. But if a vessel here and there is swallowed up in the flood, the ark of humanity cannot sink, since God has set his rainbow in the heavens. The ocean is the cradle of heroism, it is the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... greatest number, so much more ingenious are we in tormenting ourselves than in discovering reasons for enjoyment in the things that surround us. We go out of our course to make ourselves uncomfortable; the cup of life is not bitter enough to our palate, and we distil superfluous poison to put into it, or conjure up hideous things to frighten ourselves at, which would never exist if we did not make them. "We suffer," says Addison, ["Spectator," No. 7, March 8th, 1710-11.] "as much from trifling accidents as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a star spoil a night's ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... It seems superfluous to add to this testimony the word of Sleidan, the nearly contemporary historian, who says expressly concerning "Ein' feste Burg" that Luther made for it a tune singularly suited to the words, and adapted ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... from the very circumstance, that the transcendent rank of the sovereign, and the humble, nay, superstitious, devotion to his will make it superfluous to assert this will be acts of violence or rigor. The great mass of the people may have appeared to his eyes as but little removed above the condition of the brute, formed to minister to his pleasures. But, from their very helplessness, he regarded them ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... peradventure, they that first founded a University in that place, allowed of Plato's judgment. For he, being of a very excellent and strong constitution of body, chose out the Academia, an unwholesome place of Attica, for to study in, and so the superfluous rankness of body which might overlay the mind, might be kept under by the dis-temperature of ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... those acts should be observed in the Massachusetts, they had made provision, by a law of the colony, that they should be strictly attended."3 Which provision, by a law of their own, would have been superfluous, if they had admitted the supreme authority of Parliament. In short, by the same history it appears, that those acts of Parliament, as such, were disregarded; and the following reason is given for it: "It seems to have been a general ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... it is almost superfluous to assert of him that intellectual height so generally admitted there is more occasion for drawing attention to a moral elevation that is less recognized partly because his activities in many directions afforded no occasion for exhibiting it, and partly ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... decorated with one brooch, two bracelets, and three or four rings; but when instead of that modest allowance these articles were present by the half-dozen, it was hardly possible to believe that any one lady could accommodate so much splendour. How ever, I could only suppose the superfluous treasures were destined for Stumpy's cousins, masculine and feminine, and occupied the rest of the journey in the harmless amusement of wondering to whose lot I ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... rather feebly asked the officer if he were "quite sure" the letter had not come. "Quite sure," grumbled the official in excellent English, "but to satisfy you I'll let you come and look yourself." X. almost begged him not to take what surely must be superfluous trouble, but, luckily, refrained, and accompanying the officer into the post-office, walked towards a pile of papers stacked in pigeon-holes. "There," exclaimed his guide, "see—see for yourself"; and he did, for on the top lay a blue envelope duly ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... early. We had a charming boy of three and a girl of five. Naturally, we lived in a vine-covered cottage, and were happy. My salary as bookkeeper in the hardware concern kept at a distance those ills attendant upon superfluous wealth. ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... Newell; but he now saw how he had underrated his friend's faculty for using up the waste material of life. She had always struck him as the most extravagant of women, yet it turned out that by a miracle of thrift she had for years kept a superfluous husband on the chance that he might some day be useful to her. The day had come, and Mr. Newell was to be called from his obscurity. Garnett wondered what had become of him in the interval, and in what shape he would respond to the evocation. The fact that his wife feared ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... appeals to attention, they get wakened up by resisting these attractions and find superfluous energy adequate to attend to the subject in hand. This is on the same principle that governs the effects of poisonous stimulants. Taken into the system, the whole bodily activity is aroused in an attempt to expel the poison. Some of this abnormally ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... subject) to discuss what should be done with the money hitherto spent in idle luxury. We know, however, that we have the poor always with us, and that we can always learn the luxury of doing good. In one way or another we ought to see that our superfluous wealth should drain from the high lands into the valleys; not indeed to make the poor luxurious, but to provide them with comfort, to give them health, strength, and enjoyment. I think then that if we ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... pipes; scraps of tin or sheet-iron were fashioned into plates for eating or dishes for cooking; shelves were made by tying long wood splinters together; and many "spittoons," which were soon rendered superfluous, because the two entire rooms were transformed into vast spittoons, were inverted, and made useful as seats which ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... dangerously overdo in some labor "spurt" and hence more women than men lived to be old. Hence, again, there were far more grandmothers than grandfathers in the family in all mediaeval life. This led to many cruelties to old women who were deemed "superfluous." While, however, the actual experience of common people made conditions so hard for grandmothers, the idealism within the religious field was favorable to the mother of any age. The same church fathers ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... receive the melted iron. Occasionally you are startled by the shout of "Mind your eye!" which must be taken in its literal signification, for it comes from a moulder blowing away with a bellows the superfluous grains of fine sand, which, if once in the eye, will give some trouble. The moulds are ready, the furnace is opened, and a stream of bright white metal rolls out into the pots prepared for its reception, and is speedily poured ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... first on his own side and then on ours, called our attention to every visible thing. If he had been appointed on a mission of inquiry, he could not have been more zealous and faithful, and I began to think that our desire for an English cicerone was quite superfluous. ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... next day to receive his instructions, and made in his note-book an outline sketch of each part. While he was so engaged, Mr. Hume, with Compton, were seeing the outfit packed for the steamer, every purchase having been made with great judgment, so that nothing superfluous figured in the list. Their armament consisted of one double express for Mr. Hume, two sporting carbines for the boys, three Mauser revolvers, and one fowling-piece, strong hunting-knives, as well as ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... were not admitted to the higher circles, composed of Polish and Russian nobles. Even the Waiwode, Adam Kisel, in spite of the patronage he bestowed upon the academy, did not seek to introduce them into society, and ordered them to be kept more strictly in supervision. This command was quite superfluous, for neither the rector nor the monkish professors spared rod or whip; and the lictors sometimes, by their orders, lashed their consuls so severely that the latter rubbed their trousers for weeks afterwards. This was to many of them ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... victorious, and a pacificator, great changes in our internal Government and constitution are expected, and will certainly occur. Since the legislative corps has completed the Napoleon code of civil and criminal justice, it is considered by the Emperor not only as useless, but troublesome and superfluous. For the same reasons the tribunate will also be laid aside, and His Majesty will rule the French Empire, with the assistance of his Senate, and with the advice of his Council of State, exclusively. You know that the Senators, as well as the Councillors of State, are nominated ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... opener, in English as in Latin, and go not far from the letter; and if the letter may not be sued in the translating, let the sentence ever be whole and open, for the words owe to serve to the intent and sentence, and else the words be superfluous either false. In translating into English, many resolutions may make the sentence open, as an ablative case absolute may be resolved into these three words, with covenable verb, the while, for, if, as grammarians say; as thus, the master reading, I stand, may be resolved thus, while ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... those Epistles were read by the friends to whom they were addressed it is superfluous to show. He had, in fact, painted them almost as fully as himself; and who might not have been proud to find a place in such a gallery? The tastes and habits of six of those men, in whose intercourse Scott found the greatest pleasure when his fame ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... necessary part of education, and a journey through the East is no longer attended with personal risk, Jerusalem will soon be as familiar a station on the grand tour as Paris or Naples. The task of describing it is already next to superfluous, so thoroughly has the topography of the city been laid down by the surveys of Robinson and the drawings of Roberts. There is little more left for Biblical research. The few places which can be authenticated are now generally accepted, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... base of the hill up which the white men were climbing, the Indians dismounted and started on foot after them. Seeing their tactics, Mr. Coad and his companions took off all their superfluous clothing and threw it away, notwithstanding the severity of the temperature. One of the men, in passing near a ledge of rock, discovered a hiding-place under it, dropped down and crawled in, filling his tracks with dirt as he backed into the cave. The Indians ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... hymenium extracted on the point of a penknife, let it be transferred to the centre of a clean glass slide. A drop of glycerine is let fall upon this nucleus, then the covering glass placed over it. A slight pressure will flatten the object and expel all the superfluous glycerine around the edges of the covering glass. A spring clip holds the cover in position, whilst a camel-hair pencil is used to remove the glycerine which may have been expelled. This done, the edges of the cover may be fixed to the slide by painting ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... character, religious, moral, political, and literary, nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here to attempt a sketch of him. Let my readers then remember that he was a sincere and zealous Christian, of high church of England and monarchical principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... 1 the expression of muteness about the mouth of Zacharias, as he stands by the altar, is wonderfully given; you feel sure he could not speak if he would. The other figures are superfluous to the motive, though adding grandeur to the work as ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... so as to give light and ventilation to the interior of the tree. Cut out the straight and perpendicular shoots, which give little or no fruit; while those which are most nearly horizontal, and somewhat curving, give fruit abundantly and of good quality, and should be sustained. Superfluous and ill-placed buds may be rubbed off at any time; and no buds pushing out after midsummer should be spared. In choosing between shoots to be retained, preserve the lowest placed, and on lateral shoots, those which are nearest the origin. When branches cross each other ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... head of the table sat Master Pothier, with a black earthen mug of Norman cider in one hand and a pipe in the other. His budget of law hung on a peg in the corner, as quite superfluous at ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... without superfluous words, but so clearly that there could be no possibility of a misunderstanding. When he began Thankful's attitude was cold and unbelieving. When he finished she ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Jeremiah nothing of all this passage, not even the prose by which the metre is interrupted. We have seen how natural it was for the rhapsodists of his race to pass from verse to prose and again from prose to verse. Nor are the repetitions superfluous, not even that four-fold into the hand of in the prose section, for at each recurrence of the phrase we feel the grip of their captor closing more fast upon the doomed king and people. Nor are we required to take the pathetic words, the land to which they shall be lifting up ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... in great style, Mr. Stirling," he told Peter. "You know the ropes as well as far older men. You got just the right evidence out of your witnesses, and not a bit of superfluous rubbish. That's the mistake most young men make. They bury their testimony in unessential details, I tell you, those two children were worth all the rest put together. Did you send them to the country on purpose to get ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... they are the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, of the matter in hand? Who is not almost sure beforehand that they will contain a strange mixture of truth and error, and therefore that it will not be worth while to spend life in reasoning over their consequences? In a word, the superfluous energy of mankind has flowed over into philosophy, and has worked into big systems what should have been left as ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... hard task and you couldn't have hired us to do it under any other circumstances. First, Bill planned out on paper just how the house was to be built, and we cut all the pieces to the right size so as not to carry up any superfluous matter. When all was ready the boards and sticks were loaded on the scow, and ferried over to the cliff. Then we carried them on our backs, three or four at a time, up the slanting hillside to the first ledge. ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... exultation, had ceased work and become a regular member of the bar. A week's industrious drinking developed in him that peculiar amiability and humanity which is characteristic of cheap whisky, and as Pet was small, ugly and alone, Broady commenced working off on him his own superfluous energy. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... them, and make incision in their hides, That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, And dout them[13] with superfluous courage, Ha! ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... The question was superfluous. Gopher hunting was a glorious sport, but walking hand in hand with Uncle Steve back to the house, even though bed and a bath were awaiting him, was a delight Marcel had no ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... began family worship, and Livingstone was surprised to hear how well he conducted prayer in his own simple and beautiful style. When he was baptized, after a profession of three years, he sent away his superfluous wives in a kindly and generous way; but all their connections became active and bitter enemies of the gospel, and the conversion of Sechele, instead of increasing the congregation, reduced it so ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... pleasure? "A long poem," remarks A. C. Bradley in his Oxford Lectures on Poetry, [Footnote: London, 1909. The passage cited is from the chapter on "The Long Poem in the Age of Wordsworth."] "requires imaginative powers superfluous in a short one, and it would be easy to show that it admits of strictly poetic effects of the highest value which the mere brevity of a short one excludes." Surely the lyric, like the short story, cannot ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... if it is midsummer! the windows are open, and the superfluous heat escapes, and the fresh air mingles with and tempers the warmth of the room, so that it is nice and comfortable; it is so much better and more wholesome than the damp, dark basement. There is a slight tinge upon baby's cheek already, and Nannie doesn't look quite so pale and sickly ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... them at Athos's residence, said "Let us go then," at the same time taking his cloak, sword, and three pistols, opening uselessly two or three drawers to see if he could not find stray coin. When well assured this search was superfluous, he followed d'Artagnan, wondering to himself how this young Guardsman should know so well who the lady was to whom he had given hospitality, and that he should know better than himself what had ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... if the high cost of shaves should result in a discontinuance of the practice of tipping the operator, and adds that only two of the services have increased in price. He means, of course, to draw attention to the fact that sporting chatter, dislocation of the neck, and the removal of superfluous portions of the ears are still provided free ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... persuasiveness. Greek largely owed its admirable fitness for speech to the natural richness and prolongation of its euphonious words, which allowed the speaker to attain the legitimate utterance of his thought without pauses or superfluous repetition. French, again, while by no means inapt for concentration, as the pensee writers show, most easily lends itself to effects that are meant for speech, as in Bossuet, or that recall speech, as in Mme de Sevigne in one order of literature, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... denying the door to all but Selden, she controlled herself and greeted Rosedale amicably. It was annoying that Selden, when he came, should find that particular visitor in possession, but Lily was mistress of the art of ridding herself of superfluous company, and to her present mood ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... in advertisements and in announcements which are printed in our newspapers. Journalists and telegraph operators, too, are apt to invent languages of their own which do away with all the superfluous vowels and use only such consonants as are necessary to provide a skeleton around which the vowels can be draped when ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... German character of the State, if she does not resist all efforts for the creation of a customs and economic union with Germany, the Pan-German movement will prove fatal for her. To preserve and maintain a state the sole ambition of which was to be a second German State after Germany, would be superfluous not only for the European Powers, but also for the non-German nations of Europe. And if, therefore, a conflict should break out between the German and the non-German world and the definite fate of Austria should be at stake, ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... replied the doctor, "I have been giving much thought lately to food and dress reform in their bearings on the social question, and I have been putting some of my ideas into practice in my own person. I have never felt in better health. All superfluous fat has been got rid of, and my mind feels singularly lucid and clear. I have been going on quite long rounds propagandising, often walking as much as twenty and thirty miles a day, and, thanks to my somewhat more rational dress and ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... then than now, with side-pieces fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender colour, and perfectly neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else. She wore at her side a gentleman's gold watch, if I might judge from its size and make, with an appropriate chain and seals; she had some linen at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... were not properly realized by a large section of the British public, considering that many references have appeared in print attributing that purpose to the undertaking. With three other Antarctic expeditions already in the field, it appeared to many, therefore, that the venture was entirely superfluous. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... nonplussed and at a loss for words. "O well, it would be silly to pretend to be surprised, wouldn't it?" she said rather lamely, and crossed to the tea-table to pour out her own cup of tea. "And it is superfluous to hope you'll be happy and prosperous and all that; so I'll just say, my dear future-in-law, I think you're a devilish lucky man!..." And Diana snapped it out as if an unaccountable sensation demanded an explosive of ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... wooddes, stuffed with many noisome beastes, drouned with meares, and with marshe, vnfitte to be enhabited, waast and vnhandsome in euery condition: by wittie diligence, and labour, ridde it from encombraunce, planed the roughes, digged vp trees by the rootes, dried away the superfluous waters, brought all into leauelle, banished barreinesse, and vncouered the face of the earth, that it might fully be sene, conuerted the champeine to tillage, the plaines to pasture, the valley to meadow, the hilles thei shadowed with wooddes and with Vines, Then thruste thei in cultre and share, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... the science of the pretended magicians had no other design than to deceive others, and ended sometimes in deceiving themselves; and that this magic, now so much vaunted, is only a chimera. Perhaps even it would be giving one's self superfluous trouble to undertake to show that everything related of those nocturnal hypogryphes,[672] of those pretended journeys through the air, of those assemblies and feasts of sorcerers, is only idle and imaginary; ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... of this region, when properly drained and cleared of its superfluous vegetation, are almost beyond computation. It has a rich soil, abundant moisture, and almost tropical climate. Reclaimed land of this character is suitable for raising not only sugar cane and subtropical fruits, but a great variety of other crops. It is estimated that the cost of reclaiming ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... that the acts of law are not suitably assigned as consisting in "command, prohibition, permission, and punishment." For "every law is a general precept," as the Jurist states. But command and precept are the same. Therefore the other three are superfluous. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... they advanced about a hundred yards up the brawling stream, until the little vale through which it flowed, making a very sudden turn to one side, showed them the Red Pool, the superfluous water of which formed ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... than that of her happiest days, only because it was more brilliant than that of nature. Then to soften its fire she powdered her face with pearl white, and finally with a fine handkerchief carefully dusted off the superfluous particles. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... largely triumphed. To suppose, therefore, that Constantine conquered the empire for Christianity, while we admit that the army was already Christian, is very like getting rid of the objection in the way the Irishman proposed to get rid of some superfluous cart-loads of earth. "Let us dig a hole," said he, "and put it in." It is ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the erudite Arabian) is the fortunate conclusion of the tale. The Prince, it is superfluous to mention, forgot none of those who served him in this great exploit; and to this day his authority and influence help them forward in their public career, while his condescending friendship adds a charm to their private life. To collect, continues my author, all the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sumter remained until the 24th July, coaling, refitting, provisioning, and allowing each of her crew in turn a short run on shore, to recruit his spirits and get rid of his superfluous cash. At noon on the 24th she was once more under way, leaving behind her, however, one of her seamen, a worthless fellow of the name of John Orr, who, enticed away, as was suspected, by a Yankee captain and the Yankee keeper of a public-house, took the opportunity to make his escape from the ship. ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... Gonzaga, from the camp before Florence. The siege had begun, but had not yet been prosecuted with the strictest vigor. During the whole time of Charles's residence at Bologna, it must be borne in mind that the siege of Florence was being pressed. Superfluous troops detached from garrison duty in the Lombard towns were drafted across the hills to Tuscany. Whatever else the Emperor might decide for his Italian subjects, this at least was certain: Florence should be restored to the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... it out, for the deeper satisfaction, even to superfluous lucidity. "We're happy, and they're happy. What more does the position admit of? What more ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... modern thought deems these youthful experiences dangerous and superfluous; and so probably they will end, and the joy of this earliest mating season will be bottled up and stored for a later maturity. God is wise and good. Doubtless some new and better thing will take the place of this first moving ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... I could do more than express my thanks for his confidence. It was just as well—any further word of mine would have been superfluous. Even my ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... much as possible while encamped on the Ramsour battleground, and having experienced too much delay in his late march in consequence of the encumbrance of his baggage, Cornwallis destroyed, before moving, all such as could be regarded as superfluous. The baggage at head-quarters was first thrown into the flames, thus converting the greater portion of his army into light troops, with a view of renewing more rapidly the pursuit of Morgan, or of forcing General Greene into an ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... perfection is given in the presence of whitish spots which look exactly like the discolorations produced by lichens on leaves. An old entomologist, Mr. Jenner Weir, confessed that he repeatedly pruned off a caterpillar on a bush in mistake for a superfluous twig, for many brownish caterpillars fasten themselves by their posterior claspers and by an invisible thread of silk from their mouth, and project from the branch at a twig-like angle. An insect may be the very image of a sharp prickle or a piece of soft moss; a spider ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... Run, and had no intention to leave without a serious battle. We lay in camp at Centreville all of the 19th and 20th, and during that night began the movement which resulted in the battle of Bull Run, on July 21st. Of this so much has been written that more would be superfluous; and the reports of the opposing commanders, McDowell and Johnston, are fair and correct. It is now generally admitted that it was one of the best-planned battles of the war, but one of the worst-fought. Our men had been told so often at home that all they had to do was to make a bold appearance, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the sort of girl no man could be desperately in love with," said another. "She is very pretty, and elegant, and accomplished, and all that sort of thing—but she is so overpoweringly well satisfied with herself that it seems superfluous ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... Rossomme, which was not improbable, Napoleon would be thrust from his line of retreat by Genappe, and might possibly lose even that by Nivelles. In this case Prince Frederick with his 18,000 men (who might be accounted superfluous at Mont St.Jean), might have rendered the most essential service."—See Muffling, p. 246 and the QUARTERLY REVIEW, No. 178. It is also worthy of observation that Napoleon actually detached a force of 2,000 cavalry to threaten Hal, though they returned to the main French army during the night of ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... next week after you writ to me last) pleased you. Think it not a compliment, that I desire you to make what alterations you think fit. One thing particularly you will oblige me and the world in, and that is, in paring off some of the superfluous repetitions, which I left in for the sake of illiterate men, and the softer sex, not used to abstract notions and reasonings. But much of this reasoning will be out of doors in a latin translation. I refer all to your judgement, and so am secure it will ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Singapore), forming a natural drainage, the planter has obtained all that he can desire in the ground, and needs only patience and perseverance to secure success. The form of the ground ought to be undulating, to permit the running off of all superfluous water, as there is no one thing more injurious to the plant than water lodging around its roots, although, in order to thrive well, it requires an atmosphere of the most humid sort, and rain almost daily. Besides the form of the ground, situation is highly desirable, particularly as regards ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... absurdly small for him, the breast all spotted and streaked with old stains of soup and gravy. Last of all he drew on his shoes. They were new. Vandover had bought them two days before for a dollar and ninety cents. They were lined so as to make socks superfluous. ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... penetrate secrets of existence, I should inevitably have abandoned the science of the firmament, for that which would have dethroned the other through its prime and unequalled importance; since it would be superfluous for us to evade the fact that the gravest and most interesting of all questions, to ourselves, is that of our continuous personal existence. The existence of God, of the entire universe, touches us far less intimately. If we ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... To commence an establishment that would drain off the superfluous labour, and relieve the oppressed, raising the whole ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one occasion found that a petty larceny committed on the received text of the poet, by taking away a superfluous b, made all clear, perhaps I may be allowed to restore the abstracted letter, which had only been misplaced and read brags, with, I trust, the like success? Be it remembered that Pistol, a braggadocio, is made up of brags and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... in the narratives of my two former voyages, about this country and its inhabitants, Mr Anderson's remarks, as serving either to confirm or to correct our former accounts, may not be superfluous. He had been three times with me to Queen Charlotte's Sound during my last voyage; and, after this fourth visit, what he thought proper to record, may be considered as the result of sufficient observation. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... is not to describe all the many races of animals which have been domesticated by man, and of the plants which have been cultivated by him; even if I possessed the requisite knowledge, so gigantic an undertaking would be here superfluous. It is my intention to give under the head of each species only such facts as I have been able to collect or observe, showing the amount and nature of the changes which animals and plants have undergone whilst under man's dominion, or which bear on the general ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... the whole of his long reign. "He restored the canals which united the Tigris to the Euphrates above Babylon; he rebuilt the bridge which gave a means of communication between the two halves of the city; he repaired the great reservoirs in which the early kings had caught and stored the superfluous waters of the Euphrates during the annual inundation. Upon these works his prisoners of war, Syrians and Egyptians, Jews and Arabs, were employed in vast numbers. The great wall of Babylon was set up anew; so was the temple of ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... back in a few minutes, crying, "Hae!" The minister, too eager to be scrutinising, took a long, deep pinch, and then said, "Whaur did you get it?" "I soupit[41] the poupit," was John's expressive reply. The minister's accumulated superfluous Sabbath snuff now ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... few weeks—perhaps not so long—at one of the theatrical factories to be found in nearly all of the large cities where Juliets are prepared at short notice, Camilles manufactured for immediate use, and actors in every department of the calling are turned out by some superfluous veteran of the stage at so much per lesson, generally in advance, fits the aspirant for a debut on a starring tour. How many enterprises of this character have started out, with thousands of dollars to back them, too, and returned to the city with rudely ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... has a good beak and wings, and pays for them, like an honest bird, out of its legs, just as the ostrich pays for its neck and legs out of its wings. But the stork is abnormally lucky in beak, neck, legs, and wings together, and even then has material left to lay out in superfluous knobs and wens to hang round its neck, which leads to a suspicion that many of its personal fittings belong properly to some other bird. I've a notion that the unlucky kiwi might identify some of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... (and his beard), and, in the capacity of a man who made himself generally useful, presided on this occasion over the exchequer - having also a drum in reserve, on which to expend his leisure moments and superfluous forces. In the extreme sharpness of his look out for base coin, Mr. Kidderminster, as at present situated, never saw anything but money; so Sissy passed him ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... against one of its posts while Bill reposed on the hard seat of a Windsor chair, seeking what comfort he could find in the tremendous heat by abandoning all superfluous outer garments. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... not be superfluous to note that the "a" in "Gabler" should be sounded long and full, like the "a" in "Garden"—NOT like the "a" in "gable" or ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... pathetic little gold mesh bag, and as he made her promise not to borrow, she did not treat her friends to tea or ices at any of the fashionable rendezvous for a month. Then her native French thrift came to her aid and she sold a superfluous gold purse, a wedding present, to an envious friend at a ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Bishop is as great a masterpiece as My Last Duchess; it has not a superfluous word, and in only a few lines gives us the spirit of the Italian Renaissance. Ruskin said that Browning is "unerring in every sentence he writes about the Middle Ages, always vital, right, and profound." He added, "I know no other piece of modern English, prose or poetry, in ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... is getting superannuated. It lags superfluous in the pulpit. Our people are outgrowing the cruelties and absurdities of the ancient Jews. The idea of hell has become shocking and vulgar. Eternal punishment is eternal injustice. It is infinitely infamous. Most ministers are ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... a real one an' not have no tobacco to advertise, but just nothin' to do except jab each other with spears. I reckon a corkin' good one like Ivanhoe himself or the Black Knight got more 'an three a day for it too; but the one best bet is, that the vigilance committee those days didn't take on much superfluous fat. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... register is to be seen in, the Church of St. Antoine, madam," answered Mr. Caryll. "I rescued that document, together with some letters which my mother wrote my father when first he returned to England—and which are superfluous now—from a secret drawer in that ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... Greek volunteers had, in an insane effort, laid siege,—and, sweeping families and combatants together before him, drove them all into the high mountains, where the snow had already begun to fall. In the rapidity of his movements he carried no tents or superfluous baggage, and the poor Egyptians, clad still in the linen of their summer uniforms, perished in hundreds by cold alone, and even the beasts of burden left their bodies in quantities by the way, forage and shelter for man and beast alike failing. The ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... sense of deficiencies in his own performances, and was so unable to content himself with the amount of elaboration sufficient for the occasion and the purpose, that he not only spoilt much of his work for ordinary use by overlabouring it, but spent so much time and exertion in superfluous study and thought, that when his task ought to have been completed, he had generally worked himself into an illness, without having half finished what he undertook. From this mental infirmity (of which ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... those mustered above, and enough has been said to indicate their general characteristics; while an ancient Rhine classic of yet a different kind, The Mouse Tower, given elsewhere, is so familiar owing to Southey's English version that it were superfluous to offer any synopsis or criticism of it here. Then a class of poems of which the great river's early literature is naturally replete are those concerned with the growing of the vine and the making of Rhenish, prominent among these being one consecrated to Bacharach, a town ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... the town is very uneven in its surface, but not in any part flat; on which account the rains and superfluous water, remove all obstructions, and contributes in a considerable degree to the ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... characters or signs; some of them indeed merely signs for expressing shades of pronunciation, which in other languages are denoted by marks and points. Some others are not pronounced at all, and seem, at least according to the present state of the Slavic languages, utterly superfluous. Hence the Russians and Servians have diminished the number of their letters considerably; although the Russian has still some which could be amalgamated with others, or entirely omitted. Whether the Old Slavic ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... The place presented an animated appearance, as traders from all parts of the archipelago assemble there. The buildings they inhabited were not, however, pretentious, being composed of bamboo and reeds; while many of the traders considered clothes somewhat superfluous. On the shore a number of prows were hauled up and being refitted for sea. Caulkers were at work on some; painters on others, who were covering them with a thick white lime plaster, making them look very clean and bright. Sailmakers, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... as placed above in the definition of person, is either first substance, or second substance. If it is the former, the word "individual" is superfluous, because first substance is individual substance; if it stands for second substance, the word "individual" is false, for there is contradiction of terms; since second substances are the genera or species. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... green, this line being nothing less than a compact growth of young turnip plants with weeds more or less thickly interspersed. The operation of hoeing consists in the eliminating of the weeds and the superfluous turnip plants in order that single plants, free from weeds, may be left some eight inches apart in unbroken line, extending the whole length of the drill. The artistic hoer, however, is not content with this. His artistic soul demands not only that single plants should stand ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
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