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More "Worthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heart any longer. I love you—dear and good and noble one. If you could only love me a little, in return, I could make you so happy. I know I could, Christine, and as for me—why my life, if you refuse me your love, is worthless and wasted and dead. Oh, Christine, you are the very treasure of my heart, whether you will or no. Be my wife. You can make my happiness, as surely as I, if you will ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... greedy woman, as hard as nails, and as tough as leather—but handsome, oh, very handsome, as a girl, and clever, I assure you. I have often been almost glad that my brother did not live long enough to see her in her real colors. She married, very soon after Sylvia herself, a worthless Englishman—discharged from the army, I believe, who had probably been her lover for some time. Cary gave her a check for a hundred thousand to get rid of her the day after his wedding to Sylvia, and the pair ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... our Chinese cook, is doing splendidly. At first there was trouble, and I had some difficulty in convincing him that I was mistress of my own house and not at all afraid of him. Cagey has gone back to Holly Springs. He had become utterly worthless during the summer camp, where he had ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... extended throughout Europe, and she visited the prisons of many countries in her efforts to improve the conditions of penal servitude. The friendship of Mrs. Fry with the De Morgans began in 1837. Her scheme for a female benefit society proved worthless from the actuarial standpoint, and would have been disastrous to all concerned if it had been carried out, and it was therefore fortunate that De Morgan was consulted in time. Mrs. De Morgan speaks of the consultation in these words: "My husband, who was very sensitive on such points, was charmed ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... hundred and sixty-five advisers, and with them he took counsel as to what was to be done to Mordecai. (155) Pointing to a representation of his treasure chamber, which he wore on his bosom, (156) he said: "And all this is worthless in my sight when I look upon Mordecai, the Jew. What I eat and drink loses its savor, if I but ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... was wandering distracted, when I was found by some one in the interests of Monsieur de Culemberg. I understand he was sent on purpose; I believe, in order to reach the interior of the prison, he had set his hand to nameless barbarities; such was the price paid for my worthless, whimpering little life! He gave me his hand; it was wet, and mine was reddened; he led me unresisting. I remember but the one circumstance of my flight—it was my last view of my last 'pretty mamma.' Shall I describe it to you?" I asked the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... well as long as Baranof was on the ground. Sea-otter were obtained for worthless trinkets. Sentries paraded the gateway; so Baranof sailed back to Kadiak. The Kolosh or Sitkan tribes had only bided their time. That sleepy summer day of June, 1802, when the slouchy Siberian convicts were off guard and Baranof ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... at it," said his mother, "is this: whatever you are, Cynthy made you. You was a lazy, disobedient, worthless boy, and it was her carin' for you from the first that put any spirit and any principle into you. It was her that helped you at school when you was little things together; and she helped you at the academy, and she's helped you at college. I'll bet she could take ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... woman whose chief attraction had, for me, consisted not so much in her surpassing loveliness of person, though doubtless that had had its effect upon me, as in that angelic purity and fascinating simplicity and truthfulness of character which I now discovered to be a mere worthless sham. It was evident enough that Merlani had been her lover—most probably her accepted lover—when I appeared upon the scene; and that, dazzled by my appearance of superior wealth, she had in the most heartless and ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... and of mine, I have you now in my arms, and no mortal shall come between me and my love! Night and day I will watch and tend you, till the assiduities of my affection weary out the effects of your cruel disease brought on you—O God!—by your grief for me, your worthless Espras." ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... filled the measure of a man and the promise of a boy. A useful tree was therefore the best tree. He had no use for white or gray birches, for they were neither timber nor vendible firewood. He often ridiculed them, and if there was a worthless fellow in town, he was, in his comparison, a gray birch, good for nothing but to hoop the cider barrels, of which the fellow was too fond; if a too gay girl, she was a white birch, dressed in satin, frizzled and beribboned, dress over dress of the ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... religion. And though superstition is often injurious, degrading, demoralizing, it is so, not as a form of corruption or degradation, but as a form of non-development. The crab is harsh, and for itself worthless. But it is the germinal form of innumerable finer fruits: not apples only the most exquisite, and pears; the peach and the nectarine are said to have radiated from this austere stock when cultured, developed, and transferred to all varieties of climate. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... presented them with tobacco, knives, calico, and looking-glasses, in proportion to what he thought might be their reasonable grief at the loss of such a worthless vagabond, and they departed. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... but a few shillings, Larry having hidden the wages of his treachery to his confederates in the folds of his neck-cloth. To pluck this from his throat, many a fierce wrench was made by the woman, when her attempts on the pockets proved worthless; but the handkerchief was knotted so tightly that she could not disengage it. The approach of some passengers along the quay alarmed the assailants of Larry, who, ere the iron grip released him, heard a deep curse in his ear growled by a voice ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... and months into years, slowly so far as concerned the progress of the war, but swiftly with regard to the growth of the country. Notwithstanding Continental money was becoming almost worthless, bountiful crops were raised and the greater part of the population were engaged ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... Monsieur Cagliostro says, scornfully, "You may look forward to fifty years of life, after most of these are laid in the grave. You shall be a king, but not die one; and shall leave the crown only; not the worthless head that shall wear it. Thrice shall you go into exile; you shall fly from the people, first, who would have no more of you and your race; and you shall return home over half a million of human corpses, that have been made for the sake of you, and of a tyrant as great ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... reasons which have led to this work being published at all, the author would observe that he has been led to engage in it rather from a sense of duty, and at the instance of many of his friends, than from any wish of his own. The greater portion of the country he explored was of so sterile and worthless a description, and the circumstances which an attempt to cross such a desert region led to, were of so distressing a character, that he would not willingly have revived associations, so unsatisfactory ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... hated all this money, coming from nowhere, pouring in golden streams nowhere. He was not a revolutionist,—not even a socialist,—but there were times when he could have taken the neck of the Prince between his strong fingers and choked out his worthless life. These attacks of envy were short-lived—he could not ascribe them to the reading of the little hornet-like anarchist sheet, Pere Peinard, which the other waiters lent him; rather was it an excess of bile provoked by the coveted ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... when Shakespeare is said to have poached in the deer park of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlescote, there were any deer or park at the place referred to. The subject is worthy of some scant attention, if only to show how worthless is the attempt to construct out of rumor the story of a great life which, fortunately perhaps, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... I have practically discarded," said Boise. "Right through here," and he put a broad forefinger on the map, "is a large stretch of worthless ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... "Knowest thou not, without it, worthless are All gentle bearing and all martial might? As there is nothing, howsoever fair, That can be seen without the aid of light. Easily mightest thou a maid ensnare, Lord as thou was, and idol in her sight. Her with thy honied words thou might'st have won, To deem that cold and darksome ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... with respect to us; for, in their general intercourse with one another, I had reason to be of opinion, that thefts do not happen more frequently (perhaps less so) than in other countries, the dishonest practices of whose worthless individuals are not supposed to authorise any indiscriminate censure on the whole body of the people. Great allowances should be made for the foibles of these poor natives of the Pacific Ocean, whose minds were overpowered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... fishing named W. Gilbert, "Gent." This gent produced a small work called the "Angler's Delight," and if the angler was delighted, he must have been very easily pleased. The book now sells for large sums, apparently because it is scarce, for it is eminently worthless. The gentle writer, instead of giving directions about fly-dressing, calmly tells his readers to go and buy his flies at a little shop "near Powle's." To the "Angler's Delight" this same W. Gilbert added a tract on "The Hackney River, and the best ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... no orders concerning anyone like him. He's only some worthless character hired for the job. He didn't have any hand in the bigger job of collecting and selling harbor defense plans, you may ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... Isle and other places were, with few exceptions, in a very sad plight, mentally and physically, having for months been exposed to all the changes of the weather, with no other protection than a very insufficient supply of worthless tents, and with an allowance of food scarcely sufficient to prevent starvation, even if of wholesome quality; but as it was made of coarsely-ground corn, including the husks, and probably at times the cobs, if it did not kill by starvation, it was sure to do it by the disease it created. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... shrieks rent the air. The crowd gave a long-drawn groan, and mothers turned their eyes away and shivered. Nobody followed Marm Lisa up that flaming path of death and duty: it was no use flinging a good life after a worthless one. ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... this policy would make the army "a machine," and it would be difficult to conceive of a more utterly worthless machine than it would have then been. It is highly probable that, under certain conditions, the Southern boys can be disciplined. If a few of them were caught up at a time, and were penned up in barracks for five or six years, so that a fair chance could be had at them, they might ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... his childhood Martin had shown himself of a worthless and cross-grained nature. His character at school was, that he was one of the cleverest and at the same time the most quarrelsome among the boys, and since then he had done nothing but fall foul of everything and everybody he came in contact with. Martin did most ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... and nearly all things, the nation wants—and they ask the nation's recognition and its assistance to make good this committal. Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in fact, say to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we will neither help you nor be helped by you. To the blacks we say: This cup of liberty which these, your old masters, held to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... to hunt beauty and goodness, if you take good aim and are perseverin'—if you jest track 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin' till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game, such as meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o' cattle—why, at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You will be ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... are utterly powerless and worthless. The great body of the nation is adverse to all control, and in no degree submissive to the authority of those ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... hearers, who complained that they were almost driven out by this utterly cold, threadbare songlet (cantilena), being extremely chagrined that the ears of the Emperor should be molested with such a lengthy array of worthless things masquerading under the name of Catholic doctrines." (St. L. 21a, 1539.) August 4 Brenz wrote to Isemann: "The Emperor maintains neutrality; for he slept both when the Augustana and when the Confutation was read. Imperator neutralem sese gerit; nam cum nostra confessio legeretur ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... and nothing can refill it, for it is broken. I am out of the fray; I have no weapons left. Having thus utterly abandoned myself, what am I?—the leavings of a feast. I had but one name bestowed on me, Honorine, as I had but one heart. My husband had the young girl, a worthless lover had the woman—there is nothing left!—Then let myself be loved! that is the great idea you mean to utter to me. Oh! but I still am something, and I rebel at the idea of being a prostitute! ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... her father's wealth. Mr. Ludolph fortunately discovered the state of affairs in time to prevent gossip. Under his remorseless logic, bitter satire, and ridicule her young dream was torn to shreds. The man whom she had surrounded with a halo of romance was shown to be worthless and commonplace. Her idol had chiefly been a creature of the imagination, and when the bald, repulsive truth concerning him had been proved to her in such a way that she could not escape conviction, she was equally disgusted ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... And now the bosom bleeds, and now it burns; Pity with weeping eye surveys her bowl, Her anger swells, her terror chills the soul; She makes the vile to virtue yield applause, And own her sceptre while they break her laws; For vice in others is abhorr'd of all, And villains triumph when the worthless fall. Not thus her sister COMEDY prevails, Who shoots at Folly, for her arrow fails; Folly, by Dulness arm'd, eludes the wound, And harmless sees the feather'd shafts rebound; Unhurt she stands, applauds the archer's skill, Laughs at her malice, and is Folly still. Yet well the Muse portrays, ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
... livelihood above ground in the broad light of day; but, owing to some change in its surroundings, it was forced to burrow beneath the surface of the earth; consequently its organs of sight have degenerated, and are now practically worthless as far as vision is concerned. All moles, however, can tell darkness from light, consequently, are not wholly blind—a certain amount of sight remains. This is due to the fact that, although the optic nerve, on examination, is invariably found to be atrophied or wasted, there yet remain in the ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... council did not immediately acquiesce in his view, and thus for a time flattered the hope of the ada-wehi that they were resting in suspension on the details of this choice argument. There was an illogical inversion of values in the experience of the tribe, and while they could not now accept the worthless figments of long ago, it was not vouchsafed to them to enjoy the substantial merits of the new order of things. Reason, powder, diplomacy, had brought the Cherokee nation to a point of humiliation to which superstition, ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Burns? Why did I not spend these sweet days of liberty with her? Had I forgotten her? or was I so worthless as to have grown tired of her pure society? Surely the Mary Ann Wilson I have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... most capricious thing in the world, the feeling most pre-eminently fickle, the thing which is worthless without its own spontaneous inspiration, which takes all its charm from the suddenness of its desires, which owes its attractions to the genuineness of its outbursts—this thing we call love, subjugated to a monastic rule, to that law of geometry ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... with distensible warts and horns, changing in colour as he walked, by an ingenious arrangement of versatile chromatophores. And no doubt, if Elizabeth's affection had not been already engaged by the worthless Denton, and if her tastes had not had that odd bias for old-fashioned ways, this extremely chic conception would have ravished her. Bindon had consulted Elizabeth's father before presenting himself in this garb—he was one of those men who always invite criticism of their ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... suffering and introduce a Golden Age. The Chinese peasantry, exploited by the gentry, came to the support of these monks whose Messianism gave the poor a hope in this world. The nomad tribes also, abandoned by their nobles in the capital and wandering in poverty with their now worthless herds, joined these monks. We know of many revolts of Hun and Toba tribes in this period, revolts that had a religious appearance but in reality were simply the result of the extreme impoverishment ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... foothills of the Bear Paws, to the north line of the Flying U, the chain of newly-filed claims remained unbroken. It had taken some careful work upon the part of the Happy Family to do this and still choose land not absolutely worthless except from a scenic viewpoint. But they had managed it, with some bickering and a good deal of maneuvering. Also they had hauled loads of lumber from Dry Lake, wherewith to build their monotonously modest ten-by-twelve ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... coursing among the affrighted herd, and launching their arrows with unerring aim. In the midst of the apparent confusion, they selected their victims with perfect judgment, generally aiming at the fattest of the cows, the flesh of the bull being nearly worthless, at this season of the year. In a few minutes, each of the hunters had crippled three or four cows. A single shot was sufficient for the purpose, and the animal, once maimed, was left to be completely dispatched at the end of the chase. Frequently, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... coward than a dead hero. As for the men above them, a Chinese officer admitted to a friend of mine that at the outbreak of the war with Japan, the army contractors bought a lot of old rifles in Germany, which had long before been discarded as worthless by the German army, paying two ounces of silver for each gun, and thriftily charging the Government nine ounces. Then they bought a cargo of cartridges that did not fit the guns and that had been lying in damp cellars for twenty ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... linen because greater strength is obtained with the same thickness. Always dry a line every time it is used, or it will soon rot and be worthless. The back of a chair is excellent for this purpose. Never tie a knot in a line that you expect to use with rod and reel. The knot will always catch in one of the guides just at the time when you are landing your ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... wife is a voluntary compact in which the one who proves weak is guilty only of perfidy; but when the wife is a mother her duty is a higher one, since nature has intrusted her with a race. If she fails then she is cowardly, worthless, infamous. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... creating "manliness." It was found during the American war that the soldiers who had been most accustomed to beating and to being beaten were by far the greatest cowards, and that "Billy Wilson's" regiment of pugilists was so absolutely worthless as to be unqualified for the field at any time. One thing is very certain, that I have found that boys who attend schools where there is no whipping, and little or no fighting, are freest from that coarseness which is so invariably ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... dreams that he is free in act; Naught is he but the powerless worthless plaything Of the blind force that in his will itself Works out for ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... her—Connor Mitchell for one. And he's a honest, steady fellow with a good home to offer her. If King had left her alone, she'd have taken Connor. She used to like him well enough. But that's all over. She's infatuated with King, the worthless scamp. She'll marry him and be sorry for it to her last day. He's bad clear through and always will be. Why, look you, Teacher, most men pull up a bit when they're courting a girl, no matter how wild they've been and will be ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... looked like a junk heap. "Well, it's in good shape, compared to the rest of the ship. The power deck has the rocket motors where the master panel should be and the panel is ready to go into what's left of the reactant chamber. The jet boat is nothing but a worthless ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer(14) of our own time, whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell's "Life of Johnson," some sheets of which our readers have doubtless seen round ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... extraordinary man, but he's a fool, really.... He doesn't know how to put two words together. He's simply an ignoramus. Though, indeed, I don't blame him much... he might suppose I was a giddy, mad, worthless girl. I hardly ever talked to him.... He did excite my curiosity, certainly, but I imagined that a man who was worthy of ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Vinager instead of Spirit of Wine, wherewith he prepares it: For you would scarce Beleeve (what I have lately Observ'd) that of that acid Spirit, the Salt of Tartar, from which it is Distill'd, will by mortifying and retaining the acid Salt turn into worthless Phlegm neere twenty times its weight, before it be so fully Impregnated as to rob no more Distill'd Vinager of its Salt. And though Spirit of Wine Exquisitely rectify'd seem of all Liquors to be the most free from Water, it being so Igneous ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... tease him into acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations. Thus the indignation excited by his claims and the scorn excited by his concessions went on growing together. By his fondness for worthless minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive. His cowardice, his childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person, his provincial accent, made him an object of derision. Even ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... friends, mostly ladies, were all eager, you see, to watch the dashing society man in so terrible a position. There was universal sympathy for Lady Arthur, who was in a very precarious state of health. Her worship of her worthless husband was well known; small wonder that his final and awful misdeed had practically broken her heart. The latest bulletin issued just after his arrest stated that her ladyship was not expected to live. ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... tested in an indirect way. "Is your father a bad man?" or "Are your neighbours worthless people? Do they treat you with due respect? Has any one a spite against you? Are you fond of your parents? Are you aware that your brother (or mother) is seriously ill?" Questions concerning relatives and friends are of special interest, ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... up raging from the confessional, clenched her hand, and screamed out in the still church, so that all the people shuddered with horror—"Ye are all my witnesses that this worthless priest has denied me absolution, because, forsooth, he says I killed the convent porter. Ha! ha! ha! Where is it said in your Scriptures that one man can pray another to death? But the licentiousness of the vile priest has turned his brain, and he wallows in all most ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... himself; Belvile, Wroughton; Blunt, Jack Bannister; Stephano, Suett; Hellena, Mrs. Jordan; Angelica, Mrs. Ward; Florinda, Mrs. Powell; Valeria, Mrs. Kemble; Lucetta, Miss Tidswell. It is not entirely worthless from a purely technical point of view, but yet very modest and mediocre. As might well be surmised, the raciness and spirit of The Rover entirely evaporate in the insipidity of emasculation. This is the last recorded performance of Mrs. Behn's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... saw the last of her wares disappearing; she admitted she forgot the proprieties and "cursed a little," but, curiously enough, she pronounced her malediction, not against the rain nor the conductor, nor yet against the worthless husband who had been set up to the city prison, but, true to the Chicago spirit of the moment, went to the root of the matter and roundly ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... know that it was German salt, which the Austrians bought in that country and on which they made an adequate profit. When the Yugoslavs wanted to get their supplies direct from Germany the Austrians introduced a transit tax of 1000 crowns—not the nearly worthless Austrian but Yugoslav crowns—per waggon. Later on when the Danube was thrown open and this tax could not be levied, salt was considerably cheaper in Yugoslavia than in Austria. So with plums—in 1919 Austria bought nearly the whole of the exports from Yugoslavia ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... requesting you to forward him at once a letter of mine which has come into your possession though I am at a loss to understand how. I have told Mr. Thompson that after all this time the letter is perfectly worthless, but he does not seem to be of that opinion. Accordingly I am troubling you by this request. Mr. Thompson will be at the Munroe Hotel, Cincinnati, from the twelfth to the fifteenth, and for the week following at the Hollenden ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... "William" had been a worthless, drunken man of the "down and out" sort. He had been converted at some mission and been radically changed. He had gotten employment at one of the freight-handling stations of this railroad system. It was rough, hard work, but he had gone at it earnestly ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... more fortunately," said the host. "Three hundred hams, one hundred casks of beer, butter, ammunition, and the most worthless of all spies into the bargain; always ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Madame Hochon of what had happened, rushed to Issoudun, and was received by her brother, who gave her Philippe's former room. The poor mother's tenderness for the worthless son revived in all its maternal strength; a few happy days were hers at last, as she listened to the praises which the whole town bestowed upon ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... unscrupulous man. What words could sufficiently paint the baseness of the conduct of the accused! Was it not clear that he had endeavored to escape scot-free, at the sacrifice of this poor girl's good name? She, forsooth, was to proclaim herself thief, to save his worthless self! It was not for Mr. Smoothbore—Heaven forbid!—to exaggerate such wickedness, but was it possible that the phrase, "Young in years, but old in vice," had ever had a more appropriate application than in the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... cut the traitors off with the proverbial shilling. Beset with the notion that this was an ideal way to show his contempt for his offspring, he went to the safety deposit vault and took there from the worthless document known as his last will and testament and in the presence of witnesses destroyed the thing, thereby disinheriting the erstwhile wife and her children as effectually as if he had really possessed the estate ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... are only valuable when subject to the free control of those to whom they appertain, and utterly worthless if to be determined by the sword ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... I chose to rust out, and here I am, a miserable, worthless thing, whom no one can use or care for. Lift the ruffle, and behold a sad contrast to the faithful, honest, happy Granny, who has told us such a ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the ravages of the preceding night in cabbages of all ages and conditions, from the tender sprout to the full-grown head, piteously rooted from their quiet beds like worthless weeds, and left to wither in the sunshine. In vain Wolfert's wife remonstrated; in vain his darling daughter wept over the destruction of some favorite marigold. "Thou shalt have gold of another-guess[1] sort," he would cry, chucking her under the chin; "thou shalt have a string of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... by means of an adjustable thumb screw. The instrument is provided with a tracing and a marking point, and a screw or point which is forced into the drawing board to hold the instrument in position. A good pantograph will cost about two dollars; those of a cheaper grade are entirely worthless for practical use, while a good one will last a life time. A little experience will enable any one to learn ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt
... livelihood and separate them from their flocks. Such an act of mercy would vindicate the royal prerogative. Whether the King "thought it would do them no good," in other words, that he was giving a worthless concession, or that he thought the delay "no prejudice to the Church," or, as was more likely, that it would rid him of painful importunity, the desired promise was given. That it proceeded from any inclination to the Roman Catholic ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... up the United States mail train. Our readers are well aware of all the exciting episodes of that first garrison life, including the life and death fight that Hal Overton had with thieves while he was on sentry duty in officers' row, and of the efforts of one worthless character in the battalion to discredit and disgrace the service of both ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... exhortation to philosophy, and is called "Hortensius." But this book altered my affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself O Lord; and made me have other purposes and desires. Every vain hope at once became worthless to me; and I longed with an incredibly burning desire for an immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise, that I might return to Thee. For not to sharpen my tongue (which thing I seemed to be purchasing with my mother's allowances, in that ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... Mr. Aylwin; the age is grovelling and gross. No wonder, then, that Art in our time has nothing but technical excellence; that it despises conscience, despises aspiration, despises soul, despises even ideas—that it is worthless, all worthless.' ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... General, looking about at the little audience. (It was in the smoking-room, and those present were smokers only.) "Well, now, take my case. I have some pretty valuable grounds down there where I live. When I got them, they were worthless. I could build as good a mansion as this or any of your ante-bellum Alabama houses for what I can get out of that little tract. What is that value? Merely the expression in terms of money of the power of excluding ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... her haughty ear, and coloured her pale cheek. Such accidents increased her early-formed asperity of thought; chilled the gushing flood of her young affections; and sharpened, with a relentless edge, her bitter and caustic hatred to a society she deemed at once insolent and worthless. To a taste intuitively fine and noble the essential vulgarities—the fierceness to-day, the cringing to-morrow; the veneration for power; the indifference to virtue, which characterised the framers and rulers of "society"—could not but bring contempt as well as anger; and amidst the brilliant ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He turned sideways in the saddle, looking about him for a sign of remaining life. 'It grew in the night; somehow it has pinched out; the bottom has dropped out of it. Nate Kemble of Quigley bought up two or three claims; I've a notion the rest were worthless. Anyway, like many another of its kind, Sanchia's Town was born, has lived and ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... that, if he effects any good, he must effect it by compromise; that he must relinquish many favourite schemes; that he must bear with many abuses. On the other hand, power turns the very vices of the most worthless adventurer, his selfish ambition, his sordid cupidity, his vanity, his cowardice, into a sort of public spirit. The most greedy and cruel wrecker that ever put up false lights to lure mariners to their destruction will do his best to preserve a ship from going ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... murmured: "How little do we know, when we set out in life, of the many disappointments before us! How little can we deem that the heart which then is ours will change with the fleeting sunshine! It is fearful to have the love of a life-time thrown back as a worthless thing!" ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... heresy of the "Alombrados" (Illuminati), which appeared in the sixteenth century, and was ruthlessly crushed by the Inquisition, belonged to the familiar type of degenerate Mysticism. Its adherents taught that the prayers of the Church were worthless, the only true prayer being a kind of ecstasy, without words or mental images. The "illuminated" need no sacraments, and can commit no sins. The mystical union once achieved is an abiding possession. There was another outbreak of the same errors in 1623, and a ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... She was looking at the carved, oaken stool, overthrown. She was wondering whether she could have acted with better judgment, spoken more wisely. Her heart was sore. Such noble natures ever blame themselves for the wrong-doing of the worthless. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... to Unyanyembe. A sultana called Ungugu governs this district. She is the first and only female that we have seen in this position, though she succeeded to it after the custom of the country. I imagine she must have had a worthless husband, since every sultan can have as many wives as he pleases, and the whole could never have been barren. I rallied the porters for pulling up after so short a march, but could not induce them to go on. They declared that ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... search killed that idea. There were no tools aboard capable of cutting through the hard shielding. He couldn't use it to shield the engine on the lifeboat. And the shielding that been on the other five engines had melted and run; it was worthless. ...
— The Measure of a Man • Randall Garrett
... become a man in the sordid sense of the word. He had taken his father-in-law sternly in hand, presented the case firmly, and showed him the extent of the sacrifice his worthless life had made necessary. He paid from that day the normal income to the Misses Ellwell's bankers, but he gave the stock-broker to understand that was the end. Any further protection for him was not to be found in ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... and lack of nourishment, and for these reasons have failed to throw off the yolk necessary to feed the wool. As a result it becomes matted or felted together, and is hard and brittle and almost worthless. ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... north coast (now Alaska). Before the invention of steam cars and the construction of railroads, the Pacific coast region had been thought of little value. The popular idea was expressed by Webster when he said: "What do we want of this vast, worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs?" But now the United States was waking up, and things looked different. Of Oregon the Americans were determined to have at least a portion. California, ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... scurried through the streets in jinrikisha toward the Uyeno railway station. We had been a little behindhand in starting, but by extra exertions on the part of the runners we succeeded in reaching the station just in time to be shut out by the gatekeeper. Time having been the one thing worthless in old Japan, it was truly sarcastic of fate that we should reach our first goal too late. As if to point chagrin, the train still stood in waiting. Remonstrances with the wicket man about the imported ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... sums for charities. On the other hand we have the archimandrate Radi['c], who ruled several monasteries in succession; he never drove with less than four horses in his carriage and he drove so recklessly that between eight and sixteen horses were rendered worthless every year. The Radical party desired, after paying fixed salaries to the archimandrates and monks, to give two-thirds of the rest to clerical funds and one-third to schools. But the Austro-Hungarian Government had an understanding with the clerical party and prevented the public ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... The Quakers had little reason to complain. But the indulgence vouchsafed to the Presbyterians, who constituted the great body of the Scottish people, was clogged by conditions which made it almost worthless. For the old test, which excluded Catholics and Presbyterians alike from office, was substituted a new test, which admitted the Catholics, but excluded most of the Presbyterians. The Catholics were allowed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... two different ways: first, by the high price of goods, which, in the case of a free trade, they could buy much cheaper; and, secondly, by their total exclusion from a branch of business which it might be both convenient and profitable for many of them to carry on. It is for the most worthless of all purposes, too, that they are taxed in this manner. It is merely to enable the company to support the negligence, profusion, and malversation of their own servants, whose disorderly conduct seldom allows the dividend ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... "Extracting what you know would be less than the play of a child," he said. "No, Terran. We can know what you know in the turn of a dial. What we need is that which you do not know. Laugh? Or is that a sneer? No matter. What you know is worthless. Your problems and your ambitions, both racial and personal, are minor. We know them already. The pattern is repetitive, only some of the ...
— Instinct • George Oliver Smith
... persons in the nation.—Is it, then, better that the lives of one hundred and forty thousand aged persons be rendered comfortable, or that a million a year of public money be expended on any one individual, and him often of the most worthless or insignificant character? Let reason and justice, let honour and humanity, let even hypocrisy, sycophancy and Mr. Burke, let George, let Louis, Leopold, Frederic, Catherine, Cornwallis, or Tippoo Saib, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... handled these Scriptures, quoted from them, found inspired teaching in them; but the Scriptures which they chiefly handled, from which they generally quoted, in which they found their inspired teaching, contained, as we know, worthless matter. It is not to be assumed that they did not know this matter to be worthless; and if they knew this, it is not to be asserted that they intended to place upon the whole of it the stamp of ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... secret, if I were you," she said earnestly. "Poor lassie! it's always a handicap to a girl to be received for what she has, rather than what she is. And there are two or three idle, worthless young men hanging about, who might be only too glad to pick up a rich wife. I should simply announce that I was expecting a niece from the United States of America, to pay me a visit of some months' duration, and offer no enlightenment as to her circumstances. You ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sometimes it was like stringing sharp beads on a red-hot wire. I suppose that sounds foolish? But when his mother disinherited him, I knew I would have to go on—stringing beads. Because it would have been mean, then, to leave him. You see that, David? Besides, I was a spoiled thing, a worthless thing. If staying with him would make up for the harm I had done him,—Mrs. Maitland told me I had injured him; why of course, there was nothing else to do. I knew you would understand. So I stayed. 'Unkind to me?'" She bent forward a little ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... governor was dependent on any more legislation to carry this into effect so as to enable him to fill his office. If he were, it would then become necessary to legislate about every other article, and so the constitution would be worthless, everything being required to be done over by the legislature before the constitution could have ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... pamphlet, pasquinade, and parody, until at last Lord Bute withdrew from the contest in disgust, and suspended the organ over which the author of Roderick Random presided. The satirical effusions of this epoch are almost entirely worthless, the only redeeming feature being the fact that Goldsmith was at that very moment engaged in throwing off those delicious morceaux of social satire contained in The Citizen of the World. Johnson, a few years before, had set the fashion ...
— English Satires • Various
... did I say? Sir, do you know what that—first—kiss was to me? Had I possessed all the crowns of all the earth I would have given them to you as willingly. Now you know the value I placed on it, however worthless it was to you. Yet I was a cheerful giver of that great gift, was I not? And can you find it in your heart to make of it a shame to me—that of which ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... now I left her here, Guarded by you, oh Ino, while I climbed Up yonder steep for this most worthless rose:— Know you not where she is? Did you forget Ceres' behest, and thus forsake ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... curled slightly. "Oh, I know the sort of thing," he said. "I've heard of it before. Very inferior stones, quite small and worthless, produced at immense cost, and even then not worth looking at. I'm an old bird, you know, Cordery; not to be caught with chaff. Tell ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... little parcels of letters, each carefully labeled with the name of the writer; fragments of old newspapers; and a little heap of shabby, dilapidated books, each of which tumbled into as many pieces as a pack of cards in Robert's incautious hand. But among all the mass of worthless litter, each scrap of which had once had its separate purpose, Robert Audley looked in vain for that which he sought—the packet of letters written to the missing man by his dead wife Helen Talboys. He had heard George allude more ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... more than I do any differences between old friends; but my duty is to look solely to the consistency and integrity of the 'Review,' without which criticism is worthless; and this consideration ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... means worthless, Alice; not if I see you take that place in the world which I hope to see you fill. Do you think women nowadays have no bearing upon the politics of the times? Almost as much as men have." In answer to which Alice shook her head; but, nevertheless, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... any considerable degree, are simply exhaustive. This is another blunder of the "big-muscle" men. They seem to think you can determine every man's constitution and health by the tape-line; and that all exercises whose results are not determinable by measurement are worthless. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the body of the lynx and the poor little carcass of the hare. The former none of our adventurers cared to eat, although it is often eaten both by the trappers and Indians—and the latter was so torn and chawed as to render it worthless. So, since no other game—not even a squirrel—could be found about the place, all four—Lucien, Basil, Francois, and Marengo, went to sleep—for the first time since the commencement ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... interest in the chunk of gold in his hand, he listened intently and he heard the breathing of the thing behind him. His eyes searched the ground in front of him for a weapon, but they saw only the uprooted gold, worthless to him now in his extremity. There was his pick, a handy weapon on occasion; but this was not such an occasion. The man realized his predicament. He was in a narrow hole that was seven feet deep. His head did not come to the surface of the ground. He ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... where the shadows lie all day long, other and darker shadows may fall; and such a shade now touched Glory's shoulder as she pictured in words the charm of that blessed asylum to which the captain and she would one day repair. He had always fixed the time to be "when he got too old and worthless to earn his living." But that morning she had swiftly reasoned that since he had grown cross—a new thing in her experience—he must also have suddenly become aged and that the day of their departure might be ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... smooth nights we sail, And constant Jove supplied the gentle gale. The seventh, the fraudful wretch (no cause descried), Touch'd by Diana's vengeful arrow, died. Down dropp'd the caitiff-corse, a worthless load, Down to the deep; there roll'd, the future food Of fierce sea-wolves, and monsters of the flood. An helpless infant I remain'd behind; Thence borne to Ithaca by wave and wind; Sold to Laertes by divine command, And now adopted to a ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... can well believe that thirty dollars of good American chink one day in the Soviet part of Russia bought an American newspaper man one million paper roubles of the Lenine-Trotsky issue, and that before night, spending his money at the famine prices in the worthless paper, ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... knife does good. Yes, I know I've been worthless. But I'm not as bad as that. Don't you see how horrible the idea is to me? I must pay you back the money—and of course not come on you for any more. You've done too much for me already. It sometimes ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... bearing early in November, and continued to bear a good crop until the first of May. After that time, no matter what the crop may be, the mushrooms become so infested with maggots as to be perfectly worthless, and they are cleared out. It is on account of the large body of manure in the bed, and the low, genial, and equable temperature of the cellar that the beds in this house always continue so long ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... morning of taking the earring, that she was the guilty one. Understand me, she didn't mean to steal. She didn't look upon it as theft. She only took a fancy to the bauble, and appropriated it without really thinking it wrong. As a child would take a worthless little ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... circumstances? how Ivanhoe, my chosen companion in all quests of knightly enterprise? how—to come to modern times—Jack Harkaway, mere schoolboy though he might be? Would not one and all have welcomed such incident with a joyous shout, and in a trice have scattered to the winds the worthless herd? ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... moment the bond is severed. On the one side is devotion to the country, and a firm, secure currency, which at any moment will bring its full value in gold; on the other, secession, with the inevitable attendant of a circulation, not depreciated, but utterly worthless, and that, too, with no other to fill its place, since the operation of the law must soon drive out of existence every dollar of the present local bank circulation: patriotism and prosperity arrayed against rebellion and ruin. The business men all see ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... into it, the medicine is worthless," he explained. "The words are the chiefest strength of it. Behold, it ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... you put it down! You could not be more careful were it a case of relics. Is it that you are afraid of tearing a hole in your rags? Worthless vagabond! in the streets at this hour! Who are you? Answer! But no. I forbid you to answer. There! You are cold. Warm yourself as quick as you can," and he shoved him by the shoulders in ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... my mind, and conscience, and body. You bid me pray. O, I do pray inwardly to be able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of God to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my own contempt, and of none to merit a moment's peace, can make a part of a Christian's creed; so far I am ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... and says, "the Italian artists counterfeit my works in the churches and wherever else they can find them, and yet they blame them, and declare that as they are not in accordance with ancient art they are worthless."[223-[]] But though subjected to the slights of the unworthy, Duerer gratefully records the nobler acts of nobler men, and notes that Giovanni Bellini publicly praised him before many gentlemen, "so that I am full of affection for him." This noble ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... type of war. Almost universally we have the wrong men in our places of responsibility and the right men in no place at all, almost universally we have poorly qualified, hesitating, and resentful subordinates, because our criticism is worthless and, so habitually as to be now almost unconsciously, dishonest. Germany is beating England in every matter upon which competition is possible, because she attended sedulously to her collective mind for sixty pregnant years, because in spite ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... the rebel party. He called to the minds of Ferdinand and Isabella his own eager desire to return to San Domingo sooner, and ascribed the difficulties which had arisen, in large measure, to his long delay. He said he should send home the more worthless men by every ship. ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... Summerbee's enforced spinsterhood move one to so personal a concern. From the moment when Norah and Tom enter their little house after the short honeymoon to that in which the tormented young wife finally leaves her worthless husband for the protection (word rightly used) of his long-suffering friend one is made to feel that exactly thus and thus the affair happened, and is happening to like persons every day. As for Letty, with her restraint, her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... sudden sadness passing over her fine features, and her eyes filling with tears, "I ought the rather to hold sympathy with thy kind heart, that my own poor father is uncertain of my fate, and they say lies sick and sorrowful for my worthless sake! But I will soon cheer him—the news of my happiness and advancement will make him young again. And that I may cheer him the sooner"—she wiped her eyes as she spoke—"I must be cheerful myself. My lord must not find me insensible to his kindness, or ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Anglicanism. Maryland under William and Mary. English Church Established. Not Oppressive. Fate of Virginia after the Restoration. Virginia's Spirit, Numbers, Resources. Causes of Bacon's Rebellion. Evil of the Navigation Acts. Worthless Officials. Course of the Rebellion. Result. Dulness of the Subsequent History. William and Mary College. Governor Spotswood. Blackbeard. Carolina. Its Constitution. Conflict ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... adventurous spirits who were by common consent held to be its legitimate victims, but carried off also old and infirm men, chronic invalids, and, stranger still, such shiftless, incompetent and altogether worthless cumberers of the ground as this Doctor Hanchett; thus proving itself to be, like most other contagions, a not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... some hours, he had sustained a frightful shock, and he had lost considerable blood. I am sure that in the hands of any physician less skilled and determined than Westmoreland he must have gone out. But Westmoreland, with his jaw set, followed his code and fenced with death for this apparently worthless and forfeited life, using all his skill and finesse to outwit the great Enemy; in spite of which, so attenuated was the man's chance that we were astonished when he turned the corner—very, very feebly—and we didn't have to place another ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... dream? You dreamed perhaps that I forgot both wisdom and affection, when, for the sake of this worthless beast, Briareus, I drew you into ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... opinion, your time being worthless and it being of little moment where you spend it. I have ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... while this flesh her breath expires, My spirit shall suck celestial fires By deep-fetched sighs and pure devotion. Thus waxen hot with holy motion, At once I'll break forth in a flame; Above this world and worthless fame I'll take my flight, careless that men Know not how, ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... a gang—Shtromberg's in ut, an' a Frinch cruiser named Lebolt, an' a boot-leggin' tree-spotter named Creed, that lives in Hilarity, an' a couple av worthless divils av sawyers that's too lazy fer honest wor-rk, but camps t'rough th' winter, trappin' an sawin' bird's-eye an calico ash ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... bent on securing any money that he could obtain without work, proposed to Arturo that he should buy a certain watch-chain owned by himself. Manuel, who knew that the showy thing was worthless, tried to picture how a fine-looking boy like Arturo would appear with so gorgeous an ornament. The younger boys listened enviously, and Arturo's Spanish love of display began to glow. Yet he was cautious enough to put off Manuel till the next day. ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... of potatoes, but it is at a terrible discount, and the day is fast coming when it will be regarded as of no more value than so many pieces of brown paper; and its depreciation, and the prospect of its soon becoming utterly worthless, are among the chief consequences of the triumphs of our arms. Men see that there will be no power to make payment, and they will not part with their property for rags so rotten. They may wish success to the Confederate cause, but "they must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... any other way readily grow under artificial heat from single-eyes. Well-grown vines so propagated are as good as those grown by any other method, but the great disadvantage is that unless much care and skill are used, vines from these cuttings are poor and quite worthless. It is also a more expensive method than growing from long ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... continents for twelve years. For twelve years he had taken no part in the existence of the cities he had passed, as often as possible without stopping, and of the villages gathered invitingly under their canopies of trees. He was—yes, he must be—forty-six. Life was passing away; well, let it ... worthless. ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... slave-trader is the true Union man [cheers and laughter], I tell you that the slave-trading of Virginia is more immoral, more unchristian in every possible point of view, than that African slave-trade which goes to Africa and brings a heathen and worthless man here, christianizes him, and sends him and his posterity down the stream of time to enjoy the blessings of civilization.... It has been my fortune to go into that noble old State to buy a few darkies, and I have had to pay from $1000 to $2000 a head, when I could go to Africa ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... persons among them who spat upon the Flag that protected their worthless lives, and cut it down; sworn servants of the State who openly proclaimed their sympathy with the State's enemies; carefully protected, highly privileged subjects of the Crown, who impishly slashed at England's robes, to show her ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... will make the circumstances clear. The controversy was entirely about the account of a particular action in the war of 1812, and a work containing over fifty chapters was absolutely condemned as partisan and worthless for what was found on a ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... is novel in this wonderland that it is hard to keep cool and look at all sides. In 1870 all vegetables and grain were imported. Mr. Webster declared long ago in Congress that California was absolutely worthless except for mining and grazing. The rancheros thought the land only fit for sheep to roam over. Now great train-loads of vegetables and grain leave daily for the East; all the earliest fruit of ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... enormous bag of small change. She was quite upset at my refusal to part with the note; and we haggled for a quarter of an hour about whether she would give me, roughly, sixteen shillingsworth of Turkish silver for a piece of worthless paper, or whether she would accept five piastres Egyptian in exchange for a hatful ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... hatreds—of bad passions—of vile interests and desires. I say that I have nothing left to do among the creatures whom God created my fellow mortals; I have no more tears, no more blood in my heart; no more thoughts—they are dead. I am a worthless offering, for in renouncing the world I sacrifice nothing, neither desires nor hopes; but such as I am I offer myself to my God, and he will accept me—he who has made me suffer so much, and yet kept me ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... not know which way to turn. Pay? We can not pay a farthing of all the millions of obligation. Well, Christ comes in and says: "Here is My name; you can use My name. Your name would be worthless, but My red handwriting on the back of this obligation will get you through anywhere." Now suppose the soul says: "I know I am in debt; I can't meet these obligations either in time or eternity; but, oh, Christ, I want not Thy help; I ask not Thy rescue. Go away from me." You would say: "That man, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... as it was, more easy to him. If anyone had told me, then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was worthless to him, and next minute thrown away—I say, if anyone had told me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it my indignation would have found a vent! Probably only in an increase, had that been possible, of the romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship with which ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Catherine half aloud. "That is infinitely better. I wish I dared throw half of these papers away. I know they're perfectly worthless." She took a step toward the big wire basket, as though to ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... bait like a trout in the Bonaparte, and made a deposit of five thousand dollars. Shortly afterwards the company went into liquidation, and his six thousand dollars sailed away with the worthless liquid into ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... the nomination of the officers of his army, has asserted, "that the necessity of the reservation arose from a too well known defect in the Nabob's character: if this check be withdrawn, and the choice left absolutely to the Nabob, the first commands in his army will be filled with the most worthless and abandoned of his subjects: his late commander-in-chief is a signal and ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... disobedience. Partial obedience is complete disobedience. Saul and his men obeyed as far as suited them; that is to say, they did not obey God at all, but their own inclinations, both in sparing the good and in destroying the worthless. What was not worth carrying off they destroyed,—not because of the command, but to save trouble. This one fault seems but a small thing to entail the loss of a kingdom. But is it so? It was obviously not an isolated act on Saul's part, but indicated ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... my duty," he answered, quietly. "And yet I thank you truly. You also may see the time when you will thank me more than when I interposed my worthless person between ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... the mud all day, as harmless as a pigeon; I hunt no man, yet every time a man sees me, he throws stones at me, and pokes me with sharp sticks, and jeers at me. Men are a worthless lot. Let the Tiger ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... mothers, sisters, wives, and children, or ourselves, into hopeless servitude, there to weary out a miserable life, a relief from which, death would be hailed with joy. Heaven and earth—God and Humanity!—are not these sufficient to arouse the most worthless among mankind, of whatever descent, to a sense of their true position? These laws apply to us—shall ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... as Jew-haters by profession are concerned, it is running a risk to recommend the study of Jewish history to them, without adding a word of caution. Its effect upon them might be disastrous. They might find themselves cured of their modern disease, and in the possession of ideas that would render worthless their whole stock in trade. Verily, he must have fallen to the zero-point of anti-Semitic callousness who is not thrilled through and through by the lofty fortitude, the saint-like humility, the trustful resignation to the will of God, the stoic firmness, laid bare by the study of Jewish ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... so carefully thought out and so clearly expressed that they may still be looked on as models. He is entirely free from that circumlocution and involved style which makes so much diplomatic correspondence almost worthless. His arguments are always clear, complete, concise. He used to work long into the night, and then, when in the early morning the post to Berlin had gone, he would mount his horse and ride out into the country. It was in these years that he formed ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... money was returned, and the bank left without a dollar in its vaults, if, indeed, it had a vault about its premises. The result was, that banks were started all over the Western States, and the country flooded with worthless paper. These were known as the "Wild Cat Banks." Silver coin being very scarce, and the banks not being allowed to issue notes for a smaller amount than one dollar, several persons put out notes from 6 to 75 cents in value; these were ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... the one to thwart me most; and I did not forgive. I left her to pine for the luxuries to which she was accustomed from her birth, and could not then procure. She was delicate. I let her wear her heart out waiting for a worthless pardon. And what a heart it was! Then I would not forgive; now—now I crave forgiveness. Oh, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... meagre, rust-stained, weather-worried face, Where care-filled creatures tug and delve to keep a worthless race; And glean, begrudgedly, by all their unremitting toil, Sour, scanty bread and fevered water from the ungrateful soil; Made harder by their gloom than flints that gash their harried hands, And harder in the things they call their hearts than wolfish bands, Perpetuating faults, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... partridges down. They knew him of old, and he was coming now to know them well. That great copper-ruffed cock was becoming famous up and down the valley. During the Gunner Moon many a one had tried to end his splendid life, just as a worthless wretch of old sought fame by burning the Ephesian wonder of the world. But Redruff was deep in woodcraft. He knew just where to hide, and when to rise on silent wing, and when to squat till overstepped, then rise on thunder ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... wrinkles of old age. Let him, in a word, be a Merry Andrew,—the patron and promoter of frolicsomeness. To be only this is nothing to his discredit; and to esteem him for being only this is not to pay respect to a worthless mountebank. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... civilization will be during the coming years. There are mighty forces operating in the world today. If they succeed in bringing humanity to a saner, more normal state of mind, to a clearer realization of what is worth while and what is worthless, then all art will become purer and more wholesome, more helpful and necessary, and music speaking a language common to all will be supreme among ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... to a field in which thought has ever found language inadequate, and are for the present, so far as may be judged from the reviews of Truth and Error, largely misunderstood. Admitting myself to be of those who fail to understand much of his philosophy, I do not therefore condemn it as worthless, for in other fields of his thought events have proved that he was not visionary, but merely ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... that couldn't steal ten dollars a day had no business working underground. They took out chunks of native silver as big as your head, and it all ran a thousand ounces to the ton, but even at that them worthless mule-skinners was throwing pure silver at their teams. They had mounted guards to ride along with the wagons and keep them from stealing the ore, but you can pick up chunks yet where them teamsters threw them off and never ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... believed that nothing would more quickly or more surely kill the effectiveness of the school than the application of cut-and-dried theories and formulas to the handling of the students and their problems. He never lost sight of the fact that the most perfect educational machine becomes worthless if the soul goes ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... a cable twenty-five miles in length was laid from Dover to Calais, only to prove worthless from faulty insulation and the lack of armour against dragging anchors and fretting rocks. In 1851 the experiment was repeated with success. The conductor now was not a single wire of copper, but four wires, wound spirally, so as to combine strength with flexibility; ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... and 1841 fading between its leaves; two papers containing locks of hair, half of a broken ring, and other insignificant mementos which had their meaning, doubtless, to her,—such a collection as is often priceless to one human heart, and passed by as worthless in the auctioneer's inventory. She took the papers out mechanically, and laid them on the table. Among them was an oblong packet, sealed with what appeared to be the office seal of Messrs. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... I had no hand in putting it where I found it, and I only obeyed orders in bringing it off." For I really felt it to be very unjust to be blamed for the act of nature, and especially as three lives had been endangered to procure a few buckets of worthless earth. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... dead, sure enough, at peace at last, and the special cause for the ending was of little importance. Sommers proceeded to make an examination, however; he would have to sign a certificate for the health officers. As he bent over the inert form, he had a feeling of commiseration rather than of relief. Worthless clay that the man was, it seemed petty now to have been so disturbed over his living on, for such satisfactions as his poor fragment of life gave him. Like the insignificant insect which preyed on its ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... did,' said John. 'It was she, but her mother says she is better now. Father,' he added impetuously, 'Bob is a worthless blockhead! If there had been any good in him he would have been ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... either side of them they saw canoes and boats going in the same direction. Flashes of fire came from the land, where the French and Indians, raging up and down, sought to destroy those who had captured most of their fleet. But the darkness made their aim uncertain, almost worthless, and only two or three of the invaders were struck, none mortally. Twenty canoes and boats were captured, and the venture was a brilliant success. Areskoui had not worked his miracles in vain, and a triumphant shout, very bitter for the enemy, burst from rangers and Mohawks. Willet, ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of wonder can that worthless man want with me?" whispered Mrs. Gray, when she thought she had given the domestic time to get out of hearing. "He has never been in this house ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... (the original GFR actually moved files to tape). Often generalized to pieces of data below file level. "I used to have his phone number, but I guess I {GFR}ed it." See also {prowler}, {reaper}. Compare {GC}, which discards only provably worthless stuff. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... But her name is best left blank; it was indeed writ in water. These recollections are to me like the wealth of a departed friend, a mournful treasure. But the public has heard enough of them; to it they are worthless: they are a coin which only circulates at its true value between the different periods of an individual's existence, and good for nothing but to keep up a commerce between boyhood and manhood. I have ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... to acquire it, he abandoned father, mother, and all that he had. No person ever sought after riches with so much avidity, and no one ever guarded his treasure with so much care. He never wore, until his death, anything but a worthless tunic, and he refused himself everything but what was absolutely necessary. He would yield to no one in poverty, although he considered himself the most abject of all. If he saw any one worse dressed than he was, he considered it as a reproach to himself. One ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... that which they were to do. That which the Lord gave to them, they consecrated to Baal, instead of to Him, to whom alone these embodied thanks were due. And, not satisfied in withdrawing from the true God the honour and thanks which were due to Him, they transferred them to His enemy and worthless rival,—a proceeding which bears witness to the deep corruption of human nature, and which, up to the present day, is continually repeated, and must be so, because the corruption remains the same. It is substantially the same thing that ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... like Joe Springett, the under keeper, to breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never a sob or a painful breath? Did they never murmur while thinking how brightly the blade might have flashed, how deftly have been wielded, if the worthless scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-day, the word was given, "Draw swords?" Some felt this, doubtless; but the most part, I imagine, were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their short life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so, to a certain ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... picture can hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of Romans, and only in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea; more miserable than either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood over revenge as a solace ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... especially between this place and Goa. This tree very much resembles that which produces dates, and no tree in the world is more profitable or more useful to man; no part of it but serves for some useful purpose, neither is any part of it so worthless as to be burnt. Of its timber they build ships, and with the leaves they make sails. Its fruit, or nuts, produce wine, and from the wine they make sugar and placetto[128]. This wine is gathered in the spring of the year from the middle ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... said, was one of those nights on which I could not sleep. It was the summer after the winter-story of the kelpie, I believe; but the past is confused, and its chronology worthless, to the continuous now of childhood. The night was hot; my little brothers were sleeping loud, as wee Davie called snoring; and a great moth had got within my curtains somewhere, and kept on fluttering and ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... shaking her head. "This comes of adopting other people's brats. Had he been a worthless, spoilt imp of my own, I should have been more successful. I stayed in Vienna all the winter. I advertised him in the papers. I had placards, offering a large reward for his discovery, pasted on the walls of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... heaven, thy dwelling-place, Hear the praises of our race, And, while hearing, let thy grace Dews of sweet forgiveness pour; While we know, benignant King, That the praises which we bring Are a worthless offering Till thy ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... your Ellen Berstouns. If she's played this trick on me, that's enough of her. But I tell you plainly I'm not going to let you rob me to keep a pack of worthless painters and people out of the gutter, without taking some steps. I ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... contradiction and moral effort in an absurdity; for while the constant aim of practice is perfection and that of labour ease, and both are without meaning or standard unless directed to the attainment of these ends, yet such attainment, if it were actual, would be worthless, so that what alone justifies effort would lack justification and would in fact be incapable of existence. The good musician must strive to play perfectly, but, alas, we are told, if he succeeded he would have become an automaton. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... few fine lines, at random drawn, Like the shell-pattern wrought in lawn To hasty glance will seem. My trivial faults base slander's slime Distorted into foulest crime, And men me worthless deem. ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks we say: This cup of Liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... you imagine such a thing? Base and worthless as you have made me, I am too much in your power, I fear—I love you still too much; and, though like a poison or a firebrand you have clung to my bosom, I could not have felt for you a single thought of resentment. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... to be large ciphers in a state, Pleased with an empty swelling to be counted great, Make their minds travel o'er infinity of space, Rapt through the wide expanse of thought, And oft in contradiction's vortex caught, To keep that worthless clod, the body, in one place; Errors like this did old astronomers misguide, Led blindly on by gross philosophy and pride, Who, like hard masters, taught the sun Through many a heedless sphere to run, Many an eccentric ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... druidesses who rejoiced in human sacrifices, and unrolled the pages of the Future by studying the records of the Past. At length she raised her noble and majestic head again. 'You are all inclined,' she said, 'to bestow more sympathy on a few worthless victims than on the tears and sufferings of a whole generation! And you forget that religious liberty, political freedom, a nation's tranquillity, science itself, are benefits which Destiny never vouchsafes to man without being ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... most rebellious place, filled with wretched inhabitants, a wavering race, neither Jews nor Christians." "But I am not from thence," replied the youth, "but from Khorassan." "That is a most impure country," said Hyjauje, "whose religion is worthless, for the inhabitants are of all barbarians the most savage. Plunderers of flocks, they know not mercy, their poor are greedy, and their rich men misers." "I am not of them," cried the youth, "but of Moussul." "Then," exclaimed Hyjauje, "thou art of an unnatural and adulterous ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... his presence, to prepare a stake. "Alas!" said Buddir ad Deen, "what do you mean to do with a stake?" "Why, to impale you," replied Shumse ad Deen, "and then to have you carried through all the quarters of the town, that the people may have the spectacle of a worthless pastry-cook, who makes cream-tarts without pepper." This said, Buddir ad Deen cried out so ludicrously, that Shumse ad Deen could hardly keep his countenance: "Alas!" said he, "must I suffer a death as cruel as it is ignominious, for not ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... the news, and came riding furiously across the St. Charles and past the city to the scene of danger. He rode, as those who saw him tell, with a fixed look, and uttering not a word. The vigilance of months was rendered worthless by that amazing night escalade. When he reached the slopes Montcalm saw before him the silent red wall of British infantry, the Highlanders with waving tartans and wind-blown plumes—all in battle array. It was not a detachment, ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... from the moment the bond is severed. On the one side is devotion to the country, and a firm, secure currency, which at any moment will bring its full value in gold; on the other, secession, with the inevitable attendant of a circulation, not depreciated, but utterly worthless, and that, too, with no other to fill its place, since the operation of the law must soon drive out of existence every dollar of the present local bank circulation: patriotism and prosperity arrayed against rebellion and ruin. The ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... worthless and oftentimes actually injurious remedies that are being advertised and recommended for the cure of these affections, and the bogus doctors and worthless firms that infest every large city, we have ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... studio, college, or professional man's chambers, engaged in a useful pursuit which might have made one proud to own you. But you were so precocious and headstrong; and this is what you have come to: you promise to be worthless!' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... health, I tell thee, herald, I thought upon one pair of English legs Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God, That I do brag thus! This your air of France Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent. Go therefore, tell thy master here I am: My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk; My army but a weak and sickly guard; Yet, God before, tell him we will come on, Though France himself and such another neighbour Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy. Go bid thy master well advise himself: If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered, We shall your ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... similar English conquest of France. But the chances of fate are many. Both Henry and his insane father-in-law died in the same year, and while Henry left only a tiny babe to succeed to his claims, the French King left a full-grown though rather worthless son. This young man, Charles VII, continued to deny the English authority, from a safe distance in Southern France. He made, however, no effort to assert himself or retrieve his fortunes; and the English captains in the name of their baby King took ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... pain—such as human nature shrinks from—such as makes poor mortal flesh cry out in its agony to its Maker, as if, for the time being, life itself were worthless at such a price. I know now what it must have been; I know now what he ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the books they like, as well as by the company they keep; so one should be careful, for this is a pretty good test. Another is, be sure that whatever will not bear reading aloud is not fit to read to one's self. Many young girls ignorantly or curiously take up books quite worthless, and really harmful, because under the fine writing and brilliant color lurks immorality or the false sentiment which gives wrong ideas of life and things which should be sacred. They think, perhaps, that no one knows this taste of theirs; but they ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Delf are detected from time to time by the new workings, especially in those places where the surface is most uneven. Thus its outcrop at Lydney is very imperfectly defined, and at Oakwood Mill the vein is rendered worthless by a fault, whilst on each side of the Lydbrook valley there is a contortion, by which it is thrown down in one instance seventy yards, and in two others ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... quasi-widow that she married her daughter very badly, and was forced to give up all hope of an alliance between Eugenie Grandet and her son. Adolphe joined his father in Paris and became, it was said, a worthless fellow. The ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... treasure, which after all was what he had come to seek. If only he had it safe in England, he would be a rich man and his troubles ended. But how could he get it to England? Here it was worthless as mud. ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... was well that Lucrezia could offer him solace, for unwittingly she had once brought him his direst distress. When he was recovered and well, a better post was offered him, and things ran smoothly till, twenty-five years later, Lucrezia died, leaving him broken-hearted with only one worthless son to embitter the last fourteen years of his widowed life. His most poignantly impressive motets seem to have been written under the anguish of Lucrezia's death. The finest of them is his setting of ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... speeches of our statesmen, no less than the dealings of our speculators,—seem, I confess, to me to constitute a very diseased and very general symptom of the times. I hold that the greatest friend to man is labour; that knowledge without toil, if possible, were worthless; that toil in pursuit of knowledge is the best knowledge we can attain; that the continuous effort for fame is nobler than fame itself; that it is not wealth suddenly acquired which is deserving of homage, but the virtues which a man exercises in the slow ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is said to be, and in many instances, worthless and unprincipled it is, still there are bright examples to the contrary; examples that even in the eyes of superior beings, must shed a lustre on ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... remonstrate with her. He had no right to speak, no reasons to advance against Gerard, beyond an unreasoning antipathy. In his heart of hearts he believed that Gerard, now an agent in the town, was a worthless fellow, but such unproven beliefs are useless. He could only look on hopelessly, and trust that time ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... ceased, and she was alone in the dusky silence; alone in all the shame and agony and grief of unrequited love and worthless fame. Alone to writhe and groan in despair while the roseate flush of eventide passed into the ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... kindness. I am a worthless creature," said Maximov, with tears in his voice. "You would do better to spend your kindness on people ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of you, Miss Bullsom," he said, doubtfully; "but I never drew a straight line in my life, and I know nothing whatever about perspective. My opinion would be worse than worthless." ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... against the sky, but as if not far above land, oftenest upon the coast of Durham. They were mistaken for beacons by sailors. Wreck after wreck occurred. The fishermen were accused of displaying false lights and profiting by wreckage. The fishermen answered that mostly only old vessels, worthless except for ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... cannot and do not deny that women have souls, but their brutal treatment of women has naturally led to this view. The Caliph Omar said that "women are worthless creatures and soil men's reputations." In ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... all comes out, and the letter the false Katherine had written him is brought out from a little secret drawer, bound round with the orthodox blue ribbon, and smelling sadly of dust, as though to remind one of all things, of warmest sweetest love, of truest trust, and indeed of that fair but worthless body from whose hand it came, now lying mouldering and ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... ill, O lord, that an earthworm and a support of the throne, as I am, show delight in a manner so unusual. But I am doubly pleased at thy coming; first, because such a super-terrestrial honor has come to me; second, because in my dull and worthless heart I thought that thou, O lord, wert the author of my misfortune. It seemed to me that among the sticks which fell on my shoulders I felt thine, which struck, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... in the same holocaust with the accused. Thus was Isabella de Susan, known as la Hermosa Fembra, avenged by falseness upon the worthless lover who made her by falseness the instrument of her ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... nature where it holds communion with the Divine. In the Church, as in society, we often find that that which shows itself uppermost is but the froth, a sign, it may be, of life beneath, but in itself worthless. When the man arises with a servant's heart and a ruler's brain, then is the summer of the Church's content. But whether the men who wrote the following songs moved in some shining orbit of rank, or only knelt in some dim chapel, and walked in some ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... I know I am," he cried out as soon as he saw me. "There's a greater, though, and he put me up to it. I would have let you be punished to save my own worthless carcase, and, oh! now I'm suffering greater pain than ever the cat could give me. I stole all the things—I've been telling Mr Nips. Then we persuaded those two silly lads that it was you, and when they saw me go and put them into your bag, they had no doubt about it, and ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... aid you to substitute for the society that pained you the society that would please; I leave you, struggling, bewildered, maddened, in the midst of chaos within and without you'? Shall a fellow-being do this, and vanish with a mocking cry: 'Tool! I have had enough of thee; I cast thee aside as worthless lumber'? Ah! let him beware! The tool is of iron, and can be shaped to edge and point." The passion with which this rough eloquence was uttered, and the fierce sinister expression that had come over a countenance habitually open and manly, even when grave and stern, alarmed ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rare eccentricities of form and colour beside which any other flower would have looked vulgar; butterfly flowers and pitcher-shaped flowers, that had cost as much money as prize pigeons, and seemed as worthless, save to the connoisseur in the article. The Vawdrey racing-plate, won by Roderick's grandfather, was nowhere by comparison with those marvellous tropical blossoms, that fairy forest of fern. Everybody talked about the orchids, confessed his or her comparative ignorance ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... Crops. Lime is taken out of land by plants, and the loss is a considerable item, but our interest is in the form of lime that can correct soil acidity, and we know that compounds of lime that are worthless for this purpose may be the chief source of the lime in our crops. A determination of the lime in the ash of a crop does not give data of much ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... matters and lead rivalry into hatred young Joel Creech, a great horseman, but worthless in the eyes of all save his father, had been heard to say that some day he would force a race between the King and Blue Roan. And that threat had been taken in various ways. It alienated Bostil beyond all hope of reconciliation. It made Lucy Bostil laugh and look sweetly ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... seducing; you do not know the marvelous resources which such a man finds in his natural attractions; you do not know the irresistible influence of a word, a gesture, a smile, a look! This poor Blue Beard does not know either; to judge from what they say of her three husbands. They were three worthless fellows, three vagabonds; she rid herself of them, rightly. Why has she rid herself of them? Because she sought an ideal, an unknown being, the dream of her dreams. Now, my brave friend, always be it said without offense, you cannot deceive yourself to such a degree ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... of the generally gracious macedoine of serious and comic loves, and jokes, and adventures, should we have thrust in the entirely unnecessary, however historical, crime whereby Valentinian the Third lost his worthless life and his decaying Empire? It has, however, been remarked, perhaps often enough, by those who have busied themselves with the history of the novel, how curious it is that the historical variety, though it never succeeded ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... it's not you, it must be a worthless being called Trumeau, who, with the unerring instinct of jealousy, has run the truth to earth. But he knows only half: I have never been either so much in love or so stupid as to allow myself to be trapped. I have given you my promise to be discreet and not to misuse my power, and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... no admirer of the monks that swarm in Madeira—he represents them as a very worthless, and a very ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... you idle, worthless v-vagabond?" said Nestie to Speug. "Come along and give a hand to Moossy," who was so pleased to get some help in the lonely place that he forgot the revealing of his little secret. With Speug in the shafts, who had the strength of a man in his compact little body, and ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... what it feeds on, and never ceases to be active. It assumes, indeed, different directions, in part determining, and in part determined by, condition, profession, or employment. Even in the most idle and frivolous, it is strong, often intense, though its objects be worthless. Such persons frequently are as sedulous in collecting the paltry gossip of society as the naturalist in acquiring the knowledge of new species of plants or insects, and as ingenious in their inferences from what they see and hear as the philosopher in ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... to the sanctuary of Earth. Interplanetary was ended ... ended forever, for on every world, including Earth, material energy engines were humming. The people had power to burn, to throw away, power so cheap that it was practically worthless as a commodity, but invaluable as a way to a new life, a greater life, a fuller life ... a broader destiny for ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... five hundredth time a patient stood forward to have his repulsivenesses stroked; again those words were being droned out: "they shall lay their hands on the sick"—when outside there rang clear as a clarion a note that enchanted my soul and tumbled thirteen worthless centuries about my ears: "Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano!—latest irruption—only two cents —all about the big miracle in the Valley of Holiness!" One greater than kings had arrived—the newsboy. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the world one collects a number of those trifles of all sorts, usually named "curiosities," many of them worthless if it were not for the memories they recall. The other day I was clearing out a bureau before going abroad, and in one of the drawers I came across a hedgehog's foot, set in silver, and hung upon a tarnished silver chain. I picked it up in the ...
— Halima And The Scorpions - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... a report of the harbor of San Diego, as I think it is, but I would not care to pay much money for it. Hyde is a bright man, and if he knows how worthless the harbor of San Diego is for an extensive deep sea commerce, I would like a report from him." (No. 335. N. Y., ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore
... conveniently disposed of, we have briefly to notice several other drying kilns with regard to all of which, however, it must be remarked, that they can only be employed with profit, by the use of waste heat, or, as at Staltach, of fuel that is comparatively worthless for ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... ever do that. With my arms around him, I once saved his worthless life. Let me but get him in my embrace again, and he'll have a hug that'll squeeze the last breath out of ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... other, reassuming his intellectual air. "One party is as worthless as the other from my point ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... there is in it much less of actual melodrama than here, and rarely, I should say never, that sort of brutality, that useless insufferable violence to the feelings, which is the last distinction between melodrama and true tragedy. Now, in NOTRE DAME, the whole story of Esmeralda's passion for the worthless archer is unpleasant enough; but when she betrays herself in her last hiding-place, herself and her wretched mother, by calling out to this sordid hero who has long since forgotten her - well, that is just one of those things that readers will not forgive; they do not like it, and they are quite ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... surrounded by an armed retinue in leather suits and big sombreros, with carbines at the bows of their saddles. She was a woman of most distinguished family, proud, rich, and kind-hearted. Her second son, Jaime, had just gone off on the Staff of Barrios. The eldest, a worthless fellow of a moody disposition, filled Sulaco with the noise of his dissipations, and gambled heavily at the club. The two youngest boys, with yellow Ribierist cockades in their caps, sat on the front seat. She, too, affected not to see the Senor Decoud ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... my room was a very nice, good girl, but one who could not have been understood in England. I found that she gathered up and treasured many utterly worthless trifling bits of pen-drawing which I threw away. She explained that where she came from on Coal River, anything like a picture was a great curiosity; also that her friends believed that all the pictures in books, newspapers, &c., ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... perfectly worthless; for the Bible charges you to 'forgive and love your enemies,' and here you are trying to fan your hate ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... you have run away from society to pine alone for a worthless creature—a woman who has used you, as she has used and ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... continuous or well-paid work, leaving them dependent on relatives, often in poor circumstances also. The picture of patients, already lacking many real necessities, still further denying themselves for weeks or months to purchase a worthless powder, ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... sir; I want a dog for my daughter, sir, to keep off a worthless, good-for-nothing dude who comes pestering around here after her because he knows that her father has a lot of money, and thinks that if he marries his daughter he can ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... detective had lost sight of the apparent insignificance of the object of their search; now that he for the first time saw it before him, his curiosity was once more aroused. Surely there must be something of vast interest about this apparently worthless bit of ivory, to make its theft the reason for a brutal murder, its recovery a matter of such extreme importance that Monsieur Lefevre should consider the honor of his ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim, that I have ever cherished, would they recognize as laudable; no success of mine—if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success—would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. "What is he?" murmurs one gray shadow of my forefathers to the other. "A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life—what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation—may ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... conception the other way, either; they are confused and generally pliable; and so, when the challenging idea is introduced, if he is quick and clear with the vital points, he can tear the surface off the many nostrums of the hour and prove them mean, worthless, and degrading; and, doing so, he will be forming the minds about him. He must be ready; that is the great need. Understand how a conversation is often turned by a chance word, and how governed by ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... all of us, in time of plenty we lay something aside for the time of need. As housewives this truth comes home to us, especially in the summer when we have an abundance of fruit which, without care, would soon become worthless. By reason of which fact we have developed methods of canning, preserving, etc., which at the present time have become so advanced that we can retain a very large share of the original color, flavor and shape of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... which we could not possibly use, and which would inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy when we left, I suggested that it would be good policy to use them for fire-wood, especially as many of them were decayed and worthless. He would not, however, consent to this. Perhaps he thought fuel at six hundred dollars a cord was rather dear. The result was that they were finally all turned over to the Confederacy, with the other public ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... to become the rallying point of all the disaffected and the worthless of the United States, and to be the pivot on which all the intrigues and the conspiracies which foreign governments may wish to disturb us with, are to turn. If he is convicted of the misdemeanor, the Judge must in decency give us respite by some short confinement of him; but we must expect ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... how deceitful it is oftentimes, and dishonest! For which cause the tragical poet deservedly exclaimeth: "O glory, glory, thou hast raised to honour and dignity myriads of worthless mortals!"[128] For many have often been much spoken of through the false opinions of the common people. Than which what can be imagined more vile? For those who are falsely commended must needs blush at their own praises. Which glory though it be gotten ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... way a girl who is called by the name of one of the twenty-seven stars, or by the name of a tree, or of a river, is considered worthless, as also a girl whose name ends in "r" or "l." But some authors say that prosperity is gained only by marrying that girl to whom one becomes attached, and that therefore no other girl but the one who is loved ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... deck we ascended to the poop, and went below into the now darkening cabin, which we found was gutted of everything of value, except the captain's and officers' bedding, which had been tossed aside by Hayes and his crew, and which even the natives of Ujilon had regarded as too worthless to take away, though many a poor sailor man, shivering in northern seas, would have clutched at them as eagerly as a Jew pawnbroker would clutch at a necklace of pearls or a diamond-set tiara. The panelling of the main cabin was painted ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... indeed, nearly all the toil of man's life is directed thereto, according to Eccles. 6:7, "All the labor of man is for his mouth." Yet gluttony seems to be about pleasures of food rather than about food itself; wherefore, as Augustine says (De Vera Relig. liii), "with such food as is good for the worthless body, men desire to be fed," wherein namely the pleasure consists, "rather than to be filled: since the whole end of that desire is this—not to thirst and not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... thy aid—I depended on thy integrity, on our alliance in blood, on a friendship formed in our boy-hood, on a thousand instances of kindness which I have shown thee.—Thou stolest from me a pearl, rich as an empire, threwest at me the worthless shell, and then badest thy plundered brother be grateful for thy mercy. Mine, Walter, is not the voice of a raving mendicant, it sounds not in thine ears as the ingratitude of an eleemosynary pensioner, but as the ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... single combats, into which he recklessly plunged as though he had been a simple knight-errant. Accordingly his progress was so slow that Saladin had destroyed the town before his arrival and rendered its capture worthless to the Christians. Again negotiations were begun, but in January, 1192, Richard suddenly advanced upon Jerusalem, and by forced marches quickly reached Baitnuba, a village only a few miles distant from the Holy City. But there the Sultan had thrown ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... book of Wilson's must, under all conditions, and in any contingency, be regarded as worthless. Be the story of the Conquest true or false, this contains no relation of it, this contains no refutation of it. Not content with vilifying his authorities, with impugning their faith, denying their existence, and mangling their names, he has disfigured their statements, corrupted their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... of the love of Christ, and care nothing about it because they do not love Him themselves. Such people either neglect the duties of religion altogether, or perform them as an idle schoolboy does his task, unwillingly, grudgingly. There is no love in their service, and therefore it is worthless. There are many, I trust, who hear me now who have learned something of the love of Christ; others who would willingly learn. To them I say, come into Christ's school to-day. A willing scholar can always learn, if you want to love Jesus you have begun ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... of nearly all improved fruit to revert to wild types, more or less, when grown from the seed. The chances are, then, that nine-tenths or more of the seedlings which you grew for fruiting might be worthless. A few might be as good as the fruit from which you took the pits; possibly one might he better. For these reasons the growing of fruit trees from pits and seeds is only used for the purpose of getting a root from ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... beyond remedying the defect in their first or even their second year. You don't grudge giving what is but a fraction of your life, after all, to thorough as opposed to superficial learning, do you, dear? Remember, the one is worthy and the other worthless—a mere pretentious waste." ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... poetic purposes, metre resembles (if the aptness of the simile may excuse its meanness) yeast, worthless or disagreeable by itself, but giving vivacity and spirit to the liquor with which ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the Vatican," said my cousin, "and since the Pope in his wisdom and goodness judged worthless the witnesses whose signatures it bears, his holiness thought well to issue the brief upon which your excellency has acted in summoning Agostino d'Anguissola before ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... narrative at its best. It is a good story, well told, with the unities well preserved. The plot is one that is known to the heroic Sagas—the growth of mischief and ill-will between two honourable gentlemen, out of the villainy of a worthless beast who gets them into his quarrels. Haflidi has an ill-conditioned nephew whom, for his brother's sake, he is loth to cast off. Thorgils takes up one of many cases in which this nephew is concerned, and so is brought into disagreement ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... poet, throwing out conclusions which are highly suggestive, on the face of them convincing, but which on examination prove untenable, or at best must be set down as unproven or needing qualification. But these were just the slag from the great furnace of his mind, slag not always worthless. Brilliant and far-reaching as were his conclusions, he did not execute a well-ordered plan. Rather he grew with his work, and his work and its problems grew with him. He took a mountain-top view of things, kept his eyes always ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... conditions; or if evolution is simply a process of accommodation to varying conditions; the argument against the hypothesis of evolution based on the unchanged character of the Egyptian fauna is worthless. For the monuments which are coeval with the mummies testify as strongly to the absence of change in the physical geography and the general conditions of the land of Egypt, for the time in question, as the mummies do to the unvarying characters ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... is reported to have fastened on the park gates of Charlecote, does not, as Rowe acknowledged, survive. No authenticity can be allowed the worthless lines beginning, "A parliament member, a justice of peace," which were represented to be Shakespeare's on the authority of an old man who lived near Stratford and died in 1703. But such an incident as the tradition reveals has left a distinct impress on Shakespearean drama. ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... to dust, nothingness to nothingness. Sin is not Mind; it is but the supposition that there is more than one Mind. It issues a false claim; and the claim, being worthless, is in reality no claim whatever. Matter is not Mind, to claim aught; but Mind is God, and evil finds no place in good. When we get near enough to God to see this, the springtide of Truth in Christian Science will burst upon us in the similitude of the Apocalyptic pictures. No night ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... the washing of hands or the paring of nails. The modern prophetical almanac is the legitimate descendant and the sufficient representative of the ancient Chaldee Ephemeris, which was just as silly, just as pretentious, and just as worthless. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... actually executed is now worthless. And the other codicil remains unsigned until the lawyer can produce Miss Silvester. He has left the house to apply to Geoffrey at Fulham, as the only means at our disposal of finding the lady. Some hours have passed—and ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... to me that maybe you, with all you're good sense an' all your good-heartedness, could think of somethin', some way, that would bring that gal back to what she ort to be before she goes an' does what her mother done—marry some worthless fool before she's old enough to marry at all, an' then be helpless and downcast all the ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... of ascertaining the freshness of eggs is to hold them before a lighted candle or to the light, and if the egg looks clear, it will be tolerably good; if thick, it is stale; and if there is a black spot attached to the shell, it is worthless. No egg should be used for culinary purposes with the slightest taint in it, as it will render perfectly useless those with which it has been mixed. Eggs may be preserved, however, for a considerable time without any further special ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... nearly worthless. The turning of the tide of revenge, from Tamora against Andronicus, and then from Andronicus against Tamora, is the theme. It is a simple theme. Man cannot have simplicity without hard thought, and hard thought is never worthless, though it ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... wrote, "I cannot run away with you. I have not the strength to do it. I cannot leave this life; I see the poison has gone too deeply into me. Oh, my dear one, think me a weak, worthless woman, despise, but don't abandon me, don't abandon your Irina.... To leave this life I have not the courage, but live it without you I cannot either. Come soon to me. I shall not have an instant's peace until I ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sale! He had forgotten the dreadful promissory note given to her father in the rash presumption of his wealth! How could it ever be paid? And more than that, it had been given in a fraud. He had no money when he gave it, and no prospect of any but what he was to get from those worthless shares. Would anybody believe him that it was only a stupid blunder of his own? Yes, his partners might believe him; but, horrible thought, he had already implicated THEM in his fraud! Even now, while he was standing there hesitatingly in the road, they were entering upon the new claim he ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... disposition was rather of a melancholy hue. My uncle says he is a man of uncommon parts, and unquestioned probity: that his fortune, which was originally small, has been greatly hurt by a romantic spirit of generosity, which he has often displayed, even at the expence of his discretion, in favour of worthless individuals — That he had rescued Paunceford from the lowest distress, when he was bankrupt, both in means and reputation — That he had espoused his interests with a degree of enthusiasm, broke with several friends, and even drawn his sword against my uncle, who had particular reasons for questioning ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... On the voyage his crew mutinied. Armed with cutlasses, they told Phips that he must turn pirate or perish; but he attacked the leader with his fists and triumphed by sheer strength of body and will. A second mutiny he also quelled, and then took his ship to Jamaica where he got rid of its worthless crew. His enterprise had apparently failed; but the second Duke of Albemarle and other powerful men believed in him and helped him to make another trial. This time he succeeded in finding the wreck on the coast of Hispaniola, and took possession of its cargo of precious metals and ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... last hands shipped, and though a man of some education, he always seemed to me utterly worthless. He was a friend of the three brothers, who went by the names of Washington, Crampton, ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... yourself. You have made the choice that might have been expected in most people situated as you are, but which I did not expect in you. For that, perhaps, I should blame my own judgment more than you. There is wealth and favour worth having, on one side; and there is the worthless friendship of an abandoned, struggling fellow, on the other. You were free to make your election, and you made it; and the choice was not difficult. But those who have not the courage to resist such temptations, should have the courage to avow what they ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... works. But since Raffles was in Java immense advances have been made, not only in our general knowledge of oriental languages, but especially in the interpretation of literature by means of antiquarian remains. It is not that his account is rendered worthless by these recent researches. On the contrary, in this latest work, Vreede's "Catalogue," we find frequent quotations from Raffles' appendices. At the same time, when we see how much he achieved with his ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... is manifest in the holders of all the better offices and convents. They are chosen from the friars of his province of Mexico, and from those who have assumed the habit here—unlearned, dissipated, and worthless boys. At the same time he has put out of office those whom he has oppressed, solely because they have come, being sent out by your Majesty from the provinces of Espana. The hatred and division among ourselves arising from his party cannot be remedied unless you Majesty take prompt measures ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... in due honour by the world? 'Tinsel,' the French 'etincelle,' meant once anything that sparkled or glistened; thus, 'cloth of tinsel' would be cloth inwrought with silver and gold; but the sad experience that 'all is not gold that glitters, that much showing fair to the eye is worthless in reality, has caused that by 'tinsel,' literal or figurative, we ever mean now that which has no realities of sterling worth underlying the specious shows which it makes. 'Specious' itself, let me note, meant beautiful at one time, and not, as now, presenting ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... higher clergy. "But now, for many years," wrote Major, "we have been shepherds whose only care it is to find pasture for themselves, men neglectful of the duties of religion. By open flattery do the worthless sons of our nobility get the governance of convents in commendam, and they covet these ample revenues, not for the good help that they thence might render to their brethren, but solely for the high position that these places offer." To the same effect Ninian Winzet wrote after the judgment ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Superior Grand Combination Mining Company. For some months afterwards, I felt like a rich man. I carefully put away my certificate of stock, looking upon it as the beginning of a competence. But at the end of six months the bubble burst—the stock proved to be utterly worthless,—Squire Conant lost five thousand dollars. I lost seven hundred, five hundred being borrowed money. The Squire's loss was much larger, but mine was the more serious, since I lost everything and was plunged into debt, while he had at least ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... demanded her attentions. There were intervals in which she could sit perfectly still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light. The red fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires, the straining after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving her contempt. Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... in the back was given to our troops by a battalion of men from Baden who, being notorious cowards, had been left in the town during the battle to split logs for the fires of the bakery. These worthless Badeners, sheltered by the walls of the big bakery, fired from its windows on our soldiers, of whom they ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... which bears his name, to have been want of control in speculation. Doubtless the speculative tendency furnished a powerful incentive to work, but it outran the legitimate deductions from observation, and led him into the production of volumes of worthless chemistry without experimental basis, as well as into spending much time in fruitless meteorological predictions." (Encyc. ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... leper raised not the gold from the dust: "Better to me the poor man's crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives nothing but worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives but a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all and doth all unite,— The ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the rocks proved that the Filipino gunner had told the truth. The powder was there, in big cans bearing the old Spanish stamp. Some was marked 1876, and was so old as to be practically worthless. ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... qualities—artistic sensibility and a turn for clear thinking. Without sensibility a man can have no aesthetic experience, and, obviously, theories not based on broad and deep aesthetic experience are worthless. Only those for whom art is a constant source of passionate emotion can possess the data from which profitable theories may be deduced; but to deduce profitable theories even from accurate data involves a certain amount of brain-work, and, unfortunately, robust intellects and delicate ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... refused consent, And but thy voice decreed my banishment? Hope that no care could turn, no love could stay The lightning stroke that falls on me to-day? That sins committed in the life that's fled Have brought this evil on my guilty head? Think not I value now my widowed life, Worthless to her who once was Rama's wife. I only live because I hope to see The dear dear babe that will resemble thee. And then my task of penance shall be done, With eyes uplifted to the scorching sun; So shall the ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... were not ashamed to worship the like of these. Others assigned worship to beasts, creeping and four-footed things, proving themselves more beastly than the things that they worshipped. Others made them images of vile and worthless men, and named them gods, some of whom they called males, and some females, and they themselves set them forth as adulterers, murderers, victims of anger, jealousy, wrath, slayers of fathers, slayers of brothers, thieves and robbers, lame and maim, sorcerers ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... considers that the salesman cannot possibly have lost more than the cyclist actually stole. The latter rode away with a bicycle which cost the salesman eleven pounds, and the ten pounds "change;" he thus made off with twenty-one pounds, in exchange for a worthless bit of paper. This is the exact amount of the salesman's loss, and the other operations of changing the cheque and borrowing from a friend do not affect the question in the slightest. The loss of prospective profit on the sale ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... return. Firstly, G- had not registered any pre-emptive right, and, secondly, if he had it would have been worthless, because his hut was situated on my run and not on his own. I was sure that he had not bought the freehold; I was also certain that he meant to buy it. So, well knowing there was not a moment to lose, I went towards Christ Church the same afternoon, and supped at a shepherd's hut ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... recognize him for what he was part of the time—a seller of hair tonic—I will explain a little further. He made me pose in his cart, before the crowds, as one whose hair had been restored and made long by his worthless stuff. Oh, it was shameful! That is why I ran ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... and having got them, succeeded in bringing him to. As soon as he came to his senses, he began to lay the blame of his failure to his wife, saying to his guest, "Nemesho, it is this woman relation of yours—she is the cause of my not succeeding. She has rendered me a worthless fellow. Before I took her I could also get raccoons." The Woodpecker said nothing, but flying on the tree, drew out several fine raccoons. "Here," said he, "this is the way we do," and left him with ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... that novels with scamp-heroes are so much more interesting than the conventional kind? Bellamy (METHUEN) is a case in point, for the central character, who gives his name to it, is about as worthless an object, rightly-considered, as one need wish to meet. He steals and lies and poses; he betrays most of his friends; and throughout a varied life he only really cares for one person—himself. Yet Miss ELINOR MORDAUNT ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... it. That is what meeting a philosopher means. Not so, you think; this is only a flying visit; while we are hiring the ship, we can see Epictetus too! Let us see what he has to say. Then on leaving you cry, "Out on Epictetus for a worthless fellow, provincial and barbarous of speech!" What else indeed did you come ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... the minds which were really in the forefront of all were the poetical minds, the interpreters, the prophets, who saw, not in minute detail, and in small definite sections, but with a wide and large view, whither all this discovery, this investigation, was tending. The investigation, worthless and minute enough in itself, as it seemed to be when examined at a single point, had at least this value, that some principle, some inspiration for life could be extracted from it, something which would permeate slowly the thought of the world, set pulses ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... dark dangers and distresses lie. The things that at certain times filled all one's mind, kindled hope and aim, seemed so infinitely desirable, so necessary to happiness, have faded, many of them, into the lightest and most worthless of husks and phantoms, like the withered flowers that we find sometimes shut in the pages of our old books, and cannot even remember of what glowing and emotional ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "My princely master's orders are to assist the states of Lu and Wei" (i.e. not to attack your person). Meanwhile the disguised charioteer ordered the disguised king to fetch a drink of water, and the king thus escaped even the humiliation of a favour from his generous victor. When in 548 a worthless Ts'i ruler was assassinated, the philosopher Yen-tsz said: "When the ruler dies or is exiled for the gods of the land and its harvests, one dies or is exiled with him; but if he dies or is exiled for private reasons, then ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... back in the past, had eyes, and gained its livelihood above ground in the broad light of day; but, owing to some change in its surroundings, it was forced to burrow beneath the surface of the earth; consequently its organs of sight have degenerated, and are now practically worthless as far as vision is concerned. All moles, however, can tell darkness from light, consequently, are not wholly blind—a certain amount of sight remains. This is due to the fact that, although the optic nerve, on examination, is invariably found to be atrophied or wasted, there yet remain in the ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... great deal which I had not expected from him. I was not surprised, of course, that he had proved to be a poor, even a downright worthless military man and soldier; but what I had not expected was, that he had displayed no special bravery; that in battle he wore a dejected and languid aspect, as though he were partly bored, partly daunted. All discipline oppressed him, inspired him with sadness; ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... clergy, the wardens, and the sextons have failed to see these things; but they have, presumedly, more pressing matters to attend to, and it seems to be nobody's business to attend to such ownerless and worthless objects. ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... regarded the future, the small value he set on life. He truly felt as utterly indifferent toward fate as his words signified. Deeply conscious of a life long ago irretrievably wrecked, everything behind a chaos, everything before worthless,—for years he had been actually seeking death; a hundred times he had gladly marked its apparent approach, a smile of welcome upon his lips. Yet it had never quite succeeded in reaching him, and nothing had been ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... the same subject poems may be written of all degrees of merit and demerit; or when a perfect poem may be composed on a subject so slight as a pet sparrow, and, if Macaulay may be trusted, a nearly worthless poem on a subject so stupendous as the omnipresence of the Deity? The "formalist" is here perfectly right. Nor is he insisting on something unimportant. He is fighting against our tendency to take the work of art as a mere copy or reminder of something already in ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... have simply done my duty," he answered, quietly. "And yet I thank you truly. You also may see the time when you will thank me more than when I interposed my worthless person between you ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... aspect, the country of the raftsman lies remote and uncommended. The scented sandalwood is there, dwarfed, attenuated, worthless. The most fragrant of the Pandanus palms is plentiful, the fruit forming the chief part of the vegetable diet of the lean and stunted inhabitants, who find difficulty in fashioning weapons with which to obtain fish and turtle, the land failing to supply straight sticks of the length needed ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... England resolve to join their ranks. It is better to be poor and noble, than rich and worthless—to be the daughter of a lighthouse-keeper, and fill the life with good deeds of diligence and faithfulness, than to be the daughter of an Earl, and of no real good to anybody. But the life of consecration to God and ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... unquestionably Shakspeare's, but in my opinion they deserve to be classed among his best and maturest works. Steevens at last admits, in some degree, that they, as well as the rest, except Lochrine, are Shakspeare's, but he speaks of all of them with great contempt, as worthless productions. His condemnatory sentence is not, however, in the slightest degree convincing, nor is it supported by much critical acumen. I should like to see how such a critic would, of his own natural suggestion, have decided on Shakspeare's acknowledged master-pieces, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the public in breeches—Macheath and Don Giovanni to wit. 'Mr. B.,' the gentleman under whose protection she is living, or rather was living, is a gentleman of large West India possessions, who some time ago immortalized himself in a duel about a worthless woman, with Lord C—If—d, in which duel he had the honour of sending his lordship to his account with all his 'imperfections on his head.' The third party, 'Lord P.,' is a nobleman, whose chief points are a queer-shaped hat, long shirt sleeves, exquisitely ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... scourer; so low that even this rakehell duke must become his enemy for his own credit's sake. He attempts mock-marriages with ladies of quality; and he attempts murder by stabbing through the back a gentleman who has spared his worthless life. Not even the president of the Hell Fire Club can countenance these things, strong stomach though he have for villainy. It is something to have contrived to come so low that even his Grace of Wharton must turn upon him, and swear ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... up under the trees, and which she held up to the astonished gaze of her mistress. On investigating further, they found the garden littered with articles of clothing, valuable documents, and title-deeds, which the thief had thrown aside as worthless, ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... toys of canvas and stone if compared to the joy and peace of artless domestic life?' And the answer is—truly, in themselves, none. But as expressions of the highest state of the human spirit, their worth is infinite. As results they may be worthless, but, as signs, they are above price. For it is an assured truth that, whenever the faculties of men are at their fulness, they must express themselves by art; and to say that a state is without such expression, is to say that it is sunk from its proper level ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... made. It was only a question of acquiring some fifty or a hundred acres of worthless land with the old pit workings, and the ridding of those workings from water. They had galleries in their own mine that he knew nearly reached those of the old, and to drive from one to the other was the ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... good time, sir; I have many things in reserve, among which I propose to give a few remarks, I dare say they will be very worthless ones, on the impropriety of a rational being's ever kneeling. To my notion, gentlemen and ladies, God never intended an American ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... theorem, it seemed so ridiculously self-evident that he wondered why anybody should bother his brain about it. There were other boys who could figure out the demonstrations in advance without looking at the book. Keith tried it once or twice, but failed miserably and gave it up as a worthless and thankless job. Apparently his brain did not work in that way. It had to touch real life to be at its best. History and geography were his favourite subjects, and in those he led the class. This was openly ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... Worthless waste and worn-out wool, Flung together—a specious sham! With just enough of the 'fleece' to pull Over the eyes of poor 'Uncle Sam.' Cunningly twisted through web and woof, Not 'shirt of Nessus' such power to kill. Look! how the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Peter here the day after the papers published the story of your little stunt. Well, he was so tickled about it that we shook hands and had a 'touching reconciliation,' quite like what you see in the plays. We talked about 'those worthless kids' of ours and it ended up with his coming home to dinner with me. So you see you did more than save a professor's life; you brought about a renewal of an old friendship. After dinner we got to talking it over and decided the least we could do was to replace that ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the noble dame who preferred to her handsome husband the palefrenier laid, ord et infame of Queen Margaret of Navarre (Heptameron No. xx.). We have all known women who sacrificed everything despite themselves, as it were, for the most worthless of men. The world stares and scoffs and blames and understands nothing. There is for every woman one man and one only in whose slavery she is "ready to sweep the floor." Fate is mostly opposed to her meeting ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... other day of an English gentlemen being taken in by one of these scoundrels, and giving a lot of money for land which on examination proved to be worthless. Luckily for him, there was some flaw in his agreement, and his purchase was cancelled. Men who intend buying land should be in no great hurry about their investments; the banks give a fair percentage on deposits, and it is always so much more satisfactory ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... think I shall try that again. Now that I have a cell to myself, I can do it. And I sleep in dear Mother Alianora's cell, where I am sure the blessed Lord has been wont to come. Oh, I hope He will not tarry away because I am come into it—I, who am so worthless, and so weak, and need His gracious aid so ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... was not a man like his father. He was more like his grandfather Henry the Third, caring for pretty colours and pretty things, rich clothes, rich feasts, rich jewels, and surrounding himself with worthless favourites. Robert Bruce said he was more afraid of the dead bones of Edward the First than of the living body of Edward of Caernarvon, and that it was easier to win a kingdom from his son than a foot of land from the father. ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... owned by three individuals. All of it was worthless—except to a man of vision—so, treading lightly, Scattergood went about acquiring what he needed. His method was not direct approach. He went to the owners of that land with proffers to sell, not to buy. To Landers, who owned the marsh on both shores of the river, he tried ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... must be used to make up a well-poised phrase, or to avoid a still greater misfortune—that of stabbing an author. Thus, for instance, a poet brings you some verses. You must say that they are admirable, for if you said less it would be tantamount to describing them as worthless, and to inflicting a grievous insult upon a man who intended to ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... commonly worthless; but as Montucla and others have referred to the verses at the end, and as the tract is of the rarest, I ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
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