"Improve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that it cost him a great effort to remain deaf to the call of his people, but that if matters did not improve, he should feel it his duty to come forward and ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 40, August 12, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... A person healed by Christian Science is not only healed of his disease, but he is advanced morally and spiritually. The mortal body being but the objective state of the mortal mind, this mind must be renovated to improve the body. ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... away still protesting that he really couldn't think of it for an instant. But he thought a good deal of it during the next week and his temper did not improve. "Pettifer has rubbed off the finer edges of his nature," he said to himself. "It is a pity—a great pity. But thirty years of life in a lawyer's office must no doubt have that effect. I regret very much that Pettifer should have imagined that I would condescend ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... this element of familiar matrimony and the duplication of his resources for trotting. He had not yet asked his cousin to marry him; but he meant to do so as soon as he had taken his degree. Lizzie was serenely conscious of his intention, and she had made up her mind that he would improve. Her brother, who was very fond of this light, quick, competent little Lizzie, saw on his side no reason to interpose. It seemed to him a graceful social law that Clifford and his sister should become engaged; ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... cardinal point of financial policy. Mr. Jefferson, October 11, 1809, wrote from Monticello, "I consider the fortunes of our republic as depending in an eminent degree on the extinction of the public debt before we engage in any war; because, that done, we shall have revenue enough to improve our country in peace and defend it in war, without incurring either new taxes or new loans." And urging Gallatin to retain his post, he closed with the striking words, "I hope, then, you will abandon entirely the idea you expressed to me, and that you will consider the eight ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... almost friendly neutrality continued. Roger spent the hours in striding about his acres, planning how to improve them and curtail expenses here and there. The farm to be sure was neglected; but here and there he noted improvements, and caught himself wondering if the credit of them belonged to the old man. He left the household to his stepmother, and returned to find his meals ready and his ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... somewhat pallid face of the life-long teetotaller, and eyes that have the mingled expression of wrath and pity common among the leaders of forlorn hopes and new crusades. Mr. Wilson, the member for Middlesbrough, is restless, and moves about a good deal. He has resolved to bring in a Bill to improve the wretched condition of "Poor Jack," in whose company he spent many years of his own hard life; and there is a gleam of triumph as an Irish member, in accordance with a previous arrangement, gives notice of a Bill for that purpose when the hazard ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... discussing the remaining thirty-one. Similarly the first reason why a Hindu cannot be Europeanized is quite sufficient, and does not call for any additional ones. This reason is that by doing so a Hindu would not improve his position. Were he such an adept of science as to rival Tyndall, were he such a clever politician as to eclipse the genius of Disraeli and Bismarck, as soon as he actually had given up his caste and kinsmen, he would indubitably find himself in the position ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... possession of Mr. E.G. Squier. By him it was first published, but in a partial and incomplete manner, much of the original text and many of the mnemonic symbols being omitted, and no effort being made to improve ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... parts of England—viz., in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Somersetshire—the briony is called mandrake, and a small portion of the root is frequently given to horses among their food to make them sleek and improve their condition, and it is still also sold 'for medicinal and other purposes.' Yet in other places it is called 'Devil's Food,' because Satan is supposed to be perpetually watching over it and to jealously guard its magical properties. It is partly on this account, and partly because of its ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... matter," said she, "Irma can wait. But if we do not improve our victory, they will be back again with a whole army of men before we ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... tend to him. Nancy let me hold him purty soon. Folks often ask me if Abe was a good lookin' baby. Well, now, he looked just like any other baby, at fust—like red cherry pulp squeezed dry. An' he didn't improve none as he growed older. Abe never was much fur looks. I ricollect how Tom joked about Abe's long legs when he was toddlin' round the cabin. He growed out o' his clothes ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... quite ready to take up the challenge, but only on condition that Brock would blow the bellows for him. Loki now began to feel uneasy, for he had hoped the dwarf would decline to compete when he heard what were the gifts he had to improve upon. But Sindri only wagged his long beard at them contemptuously, and Loki's head began to tremble for the result of ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... would say to her, "Ah, if we all wore as well as you do, my dear! You've hardly changed at all since we remember you in short petticoats." So far as she did change the change was for the better. (It is to be hoped we do improve a little as we get older!) She was still liberal and economical. She still planned and hoped indefatigably. She was still tender-hearted in the sense ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... approval of every "State Socialist." Anything that can be done to elevate the health of the nation, and to increase its industrial efficiency by the teaching of trades, will pay the nation, considered as a going concern, a business undertaking of all its capitalists. It might not improve the opportunity of the wage earners to rise to better-paid positions, because it would augment competition among skilled laborers; while it would probably improve wages somewhat, it might not advance them proportionately ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... the indictments, being thirteen in number. The next morning the children came with their father to the lodgings of Sir Matthew Hale, very well, and quite restored to their usual health. Mr. Pacey, being asked at what time their health began to improve, replied, that they were quite well in half an hour after ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... an old one. It was made when we were both poor, and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... obliging the magistrates not to publish any letters they received till he had diminished the credit of them, by spreading disadvantageous reports. 19. One or two accidents, also, helped to widen the separation; namely, the death of Julia,[5] Pompey's wife, who had not a little contributed to improve the harmony that subsisted between them; and the destruction of Crassus, who had conducted the war against the Parthians with so little prudence, that he suffered them to get the advantage of him in almost every skirmish; ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... also very necessary to improve a Genius. It not only shines the more, by exerting it self, but, like the Limbs of an Humane Body, gathers Strength by frequent and vigorous Use, and becomes more pliable and ready for Action. There must indeed sometimes be a Relaxation. Our Minds will not at present bear to be continually ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... great, but I resolved to act without passion. I saw the advantage the Pretender and his council, who disposed of things better for me than I should have done for myself, had given me; but I saw likewise that I must improve this advantage with ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... got us the hand-grenades—Schenk has just started making them—and he was one of those who pitched them into the middle of the Germans. Ha! Ha! Schenk will know that they were his own grenades when he hears about it. I guess it will not improve his temper." ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... administration of stimulants. When she came down stairs, outwardly calm but looking as if she had seen a ghost, everybody, who was in the secret of past days, knew, and respected her silence. Even Mr. Douglas, who had thought to improve his distant cousinship, read there the vanity of all his hopes, and bestowed a double share of attention upon Miss Graves, charming in her genuine sorrow over her considerate employer. Nobody cared to go to church, but the good Squire pointed out that few could be of any service ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... that are in the state they come over in, not such as have been put into fresh pickle, mixed with red paint,[280-*] which some add to improve the complexion of the fish; it has been said, that others have a trick of putting anchovy liquor on pickled sprats;[280-] you will easily discover this by washing one of them, and tasting the flesh ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... efforts to promote and improve economic education in the schools are of special appeal to those who are concerned ... both with education and the progress of the free enterprise system. The Business-Education program and the numerous College-Community Research Centers it has sponsored, together with the use of CED publications ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... young Mr. Hopkins so agreeable a friend. His poetry is better than some which I see printed in the village papers, and seems generally unexceptionable in its subjects and tone. I do not believe he is a dangerous companion, though the habit of writing verse does not always improve the character. I think I have seen it make more than one of my acquaintances idle, conceited, sentimental, and frivolous,—perhaps it found them so already. Don't make too much of his talent, and particularly don't ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... persuaded himself that the time had arrived when he might resume his authority. He unexpectedly entered the council, and in a tone of dignity reproached the members with their affected delays and their breach of trust. They had been established to reform the State, improve the revenue, and discharge his debts; but they had neglected these objects, and had labored only to enrich themselves and to perpetuate their own power. He should, therefore, no longer consider them as his council, but employ such other remedies as he thought proper. He immediately ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... in God and yet to seek to improve upon His ways! what a strange and incredible contradiction! And yet what made the position a more bewildering one still was the certainty that these very inner impulses to amend, to improve, came from God as clearly as the very evils that He permitted and indeed originated. What was ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... real objection—the main objection—to the colonel's system was that it kept a large number of officers, most of whom were educated gentlemen, hammering all day long at an endless routine of trivial duties, allowing actually no time in which they could read, study, or improve their minds; but, as ill luck would have it, the three young gentlemen who decided to present to the colonel this view of the case had been devoting what spare time they could find to a lively game of poker down at "the store," and their petition for "more time to themselves" brought down ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... quarter, then, Darry," sighed Midshipman Wolgast. "Farl, help me out. Tell me some way in which I can improve my fitness for the post of honor that has been thrust upon me. I assure ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... "Dukkerin," said I, "is fortune—a man or woman's destiny; don't you like the word?" "Word! d'ye ca' that a word? a bonnie word," said he. "Perhaps you'll tell us what it is in Scotch," said I, "in order that we may improve our language by a Scotch word; a pal of mine has told me that we have taken a great many words from foreign lingos." "Why, then, if that be the case, fellow, I will tell you; it is e'en 'spaeing,'" said he very seriously. "Well, then," said I, "I'll keep my own word, which ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... same strategy was followed: first the establishment of propaganda centers to which Nazis and Nazi sympathizers could gravitate—under the cloak of bodies seeking to improve relations between the Sudeten Germans and the Czech Government; then the utilization of propaganda headquarters and branches as centers for espionage. Shortly before the Munich Pact, Standarte II again came into being, creating disorders which, when Czech police tried to ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... being under an obligation to you. It will improve my position, too, for then I shall not feel that I am ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... were, and very loudly. I don't wonder at your not liking that man: I don't. Perhaps he'll improve though. We will not judge him yet. So you're coming all ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... monopolised, so to speak, the historical genius and the historical learning of a whole generation, and left little, indeed, of either for his contemporaries. He remains the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern research has neither set aside nor threatened to set aside. We may correct and improve from the stores which have been opened since Gibbon's time; we may write again large parts of his story from other and often truer and more wholesome points of view, but the work of Gibbon as a whole, as ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... fair Josephine, anticipating my hopes with all the unembarrassed straightforwardness imaginable, "I shall be delighted to improve ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... reflected, considering the scarcity, a boy—this boy, in fact, cleaned up—Pattie Batch was all the time running the mottled infant over with sharply appraising eyes—yes, the child had possibilities, unquestionably so, which soap and water might astonishingly improve—and, in ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... Hamilton, and most of the founders of the Constitution, as also by all the great minds of history, by Aristotle, Cicero, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and Leibnitz. Wasson however did not look to the past, but wished to improve in a rational manner on what we already have. He considered woman suffrage as a political monstrosity, and considered it even more dangerous ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... was very quiet. M. le Duc de Berry appeared dispirited, embarrassed, and vexed. Even after we had partaken of a splendid and delicate dinner, to which an immense number of other guests sat down, he did not improve. We were conducted to the Porte Saint- Honore with the same pomp as that in the midst, of which we had entered Paris. During the rest of the journey to Versailles M. le Duc de Berry ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... mouths that ever smiled upon enraptured mankind. Nature had given her just a little more chin than a Greek sculptor would have allowed her; but, by way of make-weight, the same careless Nature had bestowed upon her a throat which Phidias himself might have sought in vain to improve upon. And Nature had planted this young lady's head upon her shoulders with a grace so rare that it must needs be a happy accident in the workmanship of that immortal artist. Indeed it seemed as if Charlotte Halliday owed her charms to a series of happy accidents. The black eyebrows which ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... he interrupted. "She's going to improve the place—paint it, and put in a cellar and a furnace, and build a porch, and lay a ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... at present be said on this branch of the question is that the evils of the recruiting system which has been so far adopted are abundantly clear, that the Portuguese Government is endeavouring to improve that system, but that it would as yet be premature to pronounce any opinion on the results which are likely to ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... hermit plac'd Where never human footstep trac'd, Less fit to play the part; The lucky moment to improve, And just to stop, and just to move, With self-respecting art: But, ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys, Which I too keenly taste, The solitary can despise, Can want, and yet be blest! He needs not, he heeds not, Or human love or hate, Whilst I here, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... began to perceive that they were on a wild-goose chase, and getting into a country perfectly barren to the trapper. They now came to a halt, and be-thought themselves how to make up for lost time, and improve the remainder of the season. It was thought best to divide their forces and try different trapping grounds. While Dripps went in one direction, Vanderburgh, with about fifty men, proceeded in another. The latter, in his headlong march had got into the very heart of the Blackfoot country, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... thing I wanted from you is your considered opinion as to my job on the organization as a whole. And don't pull your punches. Are we in good shape or not? What can I do to improve ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse, and Pindaric odes, choruses, anapaests and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... iv shoes ye made. Th' fellow at th' shoe store puts th' money in a bank owned be ye'er boss. Ye'er boss sees ye're dhrinkin' a good deal an' be th' look iv things th' distillery business ought to improve. So he lends th' money to a distiller. Wan day th' banker obsarves that ye've taken th' pledge, an' havin' fears f'r th' distilling business, he gets his money back. I owe th' distiller money an' he comes to me. I have paid out me ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... work, is it, Joseph, me boy? Joseph wore a coat o' many colours, ye know, but he was the same old Joe all the time. You'll niver improve, I'm thinkin'." ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... advantageous to sow more or less of some other kind or kinds of grass or clover along with it. When grown for hay it is usually preferable to sow the seed without admixture. But there may be instances in which medium red or alsike clover may improve the crop the first year or two that it is mown for hay. But where red clover grows much more vigorously than alfalfa the first season, it should not be thus sown in any considerable quantities, ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... painful suspense and anxiety passed. Clara did not improve in the least. Mrs. Mears called to see her every few days, but dared not venture to tell her that her husband had written to Fisher. She was afraid to fill her mind with this hope, lest it should fail, and the shock prove too severe. ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... expression of your idea, but the advice I have given is as pertinent to any one who uses his mind as it is to the architect. To what, specifically, should the architectural student devote his attention in order to improve the quality of his work? My own answer would be that he should devote himself to the study of music, of the human figure, and to the study of Nature—"first, last, midst, and ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... Signior, believe me (upon my relation) for what I tell you, the world shall not improve. I have been in the Indies, (where this herb grows) where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but tobacco only. Therefore it cannot be but 'tis most divine. ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... interest of his master his continual regard. We are given to understand, also, by the ballads of the London 'Prentice, Whittingham the Mayor, &c. that hang behind him, that he lays out his pence on things that may improve his mind, and enlighten his understanding. On the contrary, his fellow-'prentice, with worn-out coat and uncombed hair, overpowered with beer, indicated by the half-gallon pot before him, is fallen asleep; and from the ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... was most depressing—and then there was much confusion prevailing around Rossville; and, this condition of things doubtless increasing my gloomy reflections, it did not seem to me that the outlook for the next day was at all auspicious, unless the enemy was slow to improve his present advantage. Exhaustion soon quieted all forebodings, though, and I fell into a sound sleep, from which I was not ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... verbal criticism and interpretation, are often least competent to carry out their own precepts. Grammarians are not poets by profession, but may be so per accidens. I do not at this moment remember two emendations on Homer, calculated to substantially improve the poetry of a passage, although a mass of remarks, from Herodotus down to Loewe, have given us the history of a thousand minute points, without which our Greek knowledge would be ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... demonstrably unpoetical. The famous senior wrangler who returned a borrowed volume of Paradise Lost with the remark that he did not see what it proved, was right—so far as he went. And conversely (as he would have said) no sensible man would think to improve Newton's Principia and Darwin's Origin of Species by casting them into blank verse; or Euclid's Elements by writing them out in ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tormented with troubled reflections, and when at last I did fall into an uneasy slumber of short duration, it was disturbed by horrid dreams. In this condition I determined to take a trip to Europe, but in spite of all the attentions of physicians and change of scene and climate, I did not improve, and so returned home with no earthly hope of ever again being able to leave ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... never write a cosmology. I shall never be able to evolve a new system of ethics. I cannot improve on Plato's ideal state. I know I am a very ignorant man, with only a few ideas worth uttering, with a hand that is very heavy, with a mind that works to little purpose save when it deals with politics and war. In short"—and Drusus's voice grew really pathetic—"all ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... who poisoned her two brothers and her own father? She was captured scarcely three weeks ago; and that very monster in human form could almost die of hunger and thirst for the sake of her rascally son, who is a common soldier in the imperial army; at last she took to concocting poisons, not to improve her own wretched condition, but to send the shameless wretch means for a fresh debauch. I have known a thousand similar cases, but I will only mention that of one of the wildest and blood-thirstiest of robbers, who had evaded the vigilance ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the souls of your neighbours if they will let you; and for that reason you must cultivate, not a spirit of criticism, but the talents that attract people to the hearing of the Word. You have got a fine voice, and it will improve with judicious use. Your father is now on the outlook for a teacher of elocution to instruct you how to make the best of it, and speak with ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... to be of better quality when artificially removed from the tree, which may be effected without injury to the tree itself. After the tree has attained twenty-five years it may be barked, and the operation is afterward repeated once in every seven years. The quality of the cork seems to improve with the increasing age of the tree, which is said to live over one hundred and fifty years. The bark is taken off during ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... and the result is that institutions become wiser and knowledge as such increases; but the young man, although more cultivated, is just as presumptuous, and not less fallible to-day than he ever was. So that absolutely there is progress, and relatively there is none. Circumstances improve, but merit remains the same. The whole is better, perhaps, but man is not positively better—he is only different. His defects and his virtues change their form, but the total balance does not show him to be the richer. A thousand things advance, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which fit into the defective portions. The bottom of the cell particularly comes in for after-touches. As the natural curve of the larger pieces is not enough to provide a cup without cracks in it, the Bee does not fail to improve the work with two or three small oval pieces ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... doubt it could not have been very pleasant to him to see a young handsome fellow paying court to his widow before his own face as it were. After I once got into the house on the transubstantiation dispute, I found a dozen more occasions to improve my intimacy, and was scarcely ever out of her Ladyship's doors. The world talked and blustered; but what cared I? The men cried fie upon the shameless Irish adventurer; but I have told my way of silencing such envious people: and my sword had by this time got such ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The country began to improve; the savage heaths were left behind, and we saw hills and dales, cork trees, and azinheiras, on the last of which trees grows that kind of sweet acorn called bolotas, which is pleasant as a chestnut, and which ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... insect was alive. Thus, in this strangely fortunate way, we may know and study the insects which, millions of years ago, fed on the flowers or bored into the bark of trees. We have found no way to improve on Nature in this respect, for to-day when we desire to mount a specimen permanently for microscopical work, we imbed it ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... cities, frame laws, bind together, beautify, exalt the elements of this world, by creeds that habitually subject them to a reference to another. The ant and the bee and the beaver congregate and construct; but they do not improve. Man improves because the future impels onward that which is not found in the ant, the bee, and the beaver,—that which was gone from the ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... some Scotch failures led to a Change-Alley panic, and the downfall of Alexander Fordyce, who, for years, had been the most thriving jobber in London. He was a hosier in Aberdeen, but came to London to improve his fortunes. The money game was in his favour. He was soon able to purchase a large estate. He built a church at his private cost, and spent thousands in trying to obtain a seat in Parliament. Marrying a lady of title, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... barrels in ox-wagons to the shore to be filled, then they boil the water for twenty-four hours, in fact till it is all boiled away. They use this salt, when they have no other, for their butter, which it does not at all improve; but the butter brought to us is generally unsalted. They never make salt unless driven to it because the process involves the burning of so much wood. They also make a black-looking soap, but very rarely, as it takes days and nights to make, and requires not only much ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... domestic institution is broken up by the active social circulation of the upper classes in their own orbit, or its stagnant isolation made impossible by the overcrowding of the working classes, manners improve enormously. In the middle classes themselves the revolt of a single clever daughter (nobody has yet done justice to the modern clever Englishwoman's loathing of the very word 'home'), and her insistence ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... the other direction. But there was Neefit still confronting him. "Only stick to her, Captain, and we'll pull through. I'll put her through her facings to-night. She's thinking of that orkard lout of a fellow just because he's standing to be a Parl'ament gent." This did not improve matters, and Ralph absolutely ran away,—ran away, and escaped to his hotel. He would try again in the morning, would still make her his wife if she would have him! And then swore a solemn oath that in such case he would never ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... ASQUITH wishes to be a success in the House he must improve his powers of repartee. At present his back-answers are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... that this is not the prime intent and grand business, to torment you, as it were, before the time. There is some other more beautiful and satisfying structure to be raised out of this foundation. I would have you improve it thus, to commend the necessity, the absolute necessity, of a Redeemer, and to make him beautiful in your eyes. Do not dwell upon that, as if it were the ultimate or last work, but know that you are called in this rational way, to come out of yourselves into this glorious liberty of the sons ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Sir, pray excuse the wretched stuff I write; perhaps I may improve by being in this town, and then my letters will be less unworthy your reading. Meantime, I am, Your dutiful ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... to the Commons' amendments to the Lords' amendments to the Government of Ireland Bill were agreed to. Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS thought to improve the occasion by a neat little speech expressing goodwill to Ireland, and, much to his surprise, found himself in collision with the SPEAKER, who observed that this was not the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... teacher of penmanship. All boys and girls should take pride in having the pages of their journals as neat and handsome as possible. Compare one day's writing with that of the one before, and try to improve every day. Keeping a journal cultivates habits of observation, correct and concise expression, and gives capital practice in composition, spelling, punctuation, and all the little things which go ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... she's one of those people who improve on acquaintance," continued Enid. "I couldn't bear her at one time, and now I believe I'm going to like her immensely. You can't think how jolly she can make herself. I'll never be naughty in her class again, or let anybody else be, if I can help it. On my ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the mother was kept in a suspense that served to protract the boy's illness, but, at the end of this time, largely owing to Mrs Gowler's advice, he began to improve. The day that his disquieting symptoms disappeared, which was also the day on which he recovered his appetite, was signalised by the arrival of Perigal's reply to Mavis's letter from Durley Road, announcing the birth of their son. In this, he congratulated her on ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... writing the marriage invitation and other business, which the Brahman is willing to do for a consideration, so long as he does not have to enter their houses. Some of the impure castes eat beef, while others have abandoned it in order to improve their social position. At the other end of the scale are many well-educated Hindu gentlemen who have no objection to eat beef and may often have done so in England, though in India they may abstain out of deference to the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... Frank and his sister were alone for a few moments she said, "I am going to do you a good turn to-day, Sir Mahomet, and have a headache," and, laughing a little, "if you are wise you will improve your opportunities and persuade your 'Sweet Alice' to go after pond lilies and leave me here. I noticed a most charming spot for a tete-a-tete on one side of that pond the other day, and I guess you can find it if you try. It's a mossy bank under a big tree, and out of sight ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... refinements, is always the creature that he is 'collecting' in them. In his wildest glades, this is still the species that he is busied with. He has brought him there to experiment on him, and that we may see the better what he is. He has brought him there to improve his arts, to reduce his conventional savageness, to re-refine his coarse refinements, not to make a wild-man of him. This is the Poet of the Woods; but he is a woodman, he carries an axe on his shoulder. ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... no merit in conquering them: they must also sound forth their ignorance, or there would have been none in improving them. If the Britons were that wretched people they are represented by the Romans, they could not be worth conquering: no man subdues a people to improve them, but to profit by them. Though the Romans at that time were in their meridian of splendor, they pursued Britain a whole century before they reduced it; which indicates that they considered it as a valuable prize. Though ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... it suffice to remark that from Lisburn as a centre the linen trade in all its branches—flax growing, scutching, spinning, weaving and bleaching—spread over the whole of the Hertfort estate, giving profitable employment to the tenants, circulating money, enabling them to build and improve and work the estate into the rich and beautiful garden described by Mrs. Hall;—all this work of improvement has been carried on, all or nearly all the costly investments on the land have been made, without leases and in dependence on tenant-right. We have seen what ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... better than that by-and-by, Mellor," said the youth addressed as Murrell. "Your education was neglected as a Gargoyle. You'll improve as you go along. But, I say, Wyndham, what are you going to do with the specimen you've got? You can't stick it in the museum, you know. So turn it over to us again. We won't hurt it. We'll only give it a run to the sand-pit, and a roll down. It will do it good. Eating ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... pretty well in health, and catches a few insects; but he is very untidy, as you may imagine by his clothes being all torn to pieces by the time we arrived here. He will no doubt improve and will soon ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... police had now become so scandalously frequent that in November a Proclamation was issued suppressing Sinn Fein and kindred organisations. It did nothing to improve the state of the country, which grew worse than ever in the last few weeks of the year. On the 19th of December a carefully planned attempt on the life of the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord French, proved how complete was the impunity relied upon by the organised assassins who, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... and agriculture, were almost wholly unknown among them. They had felt the invasions of the Danes and the other northern tribes; but these inroads, which had spread barbarism in other parts of Europe, tended rather to improve the Irish; and the only towns which were to be found in the island had been planted along the coast by the freebooters of Norway and Denmark. The other inhabitants exercised pasturage in the open country; sought protection from any ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Leicester's pride and ambition, and did not tend to improve his relations with the States. An English governor would in any case have had a difficult task, and Leicester had neither tact nor capacity as a statesman, and no pretensions as a military leader. He possessed no knowledge of the institutions of the country or the character of the people, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... my old waterproof, I sallied out and ran the gauntlet of some snipers from the German lines, then dived into my ditch, floundered up it in mud for about a quarter of a mile, perhaps more, secured some Engineers I have at last got hold of to improve the place, went on, saw Major Wright and Capt. Tee, both as deaf as possible from cold, etc. The water was steadily rising in their trenches, and had already flooded their dug-out; another one had fallen in, whilst their third was leaking badly; so, on the whole, they were not in a good way. Then ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... in a good and liberal supply of fresh water—greedy monopolists charging what they choose, and giving us the precious fluid clean or unclean, when or how they like. The Government might do much to improve this state of things by constructing aqueducts after the ancient ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... a very friendly clock; For this truth to all I tell, Life is short, improve it well; Tick-tock-tick-tock: " That is what ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... he, "my strength would become sternness. Nature gave me a despotic disposition. I have had, and have still, many times the greatest difficulty to control it; but with God's help I shall succeed! My Elise, we will improve ever. On the children's account, in order to make them happy, we will endeavour to ennoble ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... before me, and I wish to adopt the one most likely to procure me independence. I shall be in Edinburgh next week. I long to see you: your image is omnipresent to me; nay, I am convinced I would soon idolatrise it most seriously; so much do absence and memory improve the medium through which one sees the much-loved object. To-night, at the sacred hour of eight, I expect to meet you—at the Throne of Grace. I hope, as I go home tonight, to find a letter from you at the post office ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... suthin' out of their native country? Wot for? Did they ever improve? Got a lot of yaller-skinned diggers, not so sensible as niggers to look arter stock, and they a sittin' home and smokin'. With their gold and silver candlesticks, and missions, and crucifixens, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... utilizing, and creating. Austria, as I take it, is succumbing to monetary difficulties, not because she has been extravagant, but because she has been slow at progress; because it has been the work of her rulers to repress rather than encourage the energies of her people; because she does not improve, utilize, and create. England has mastered her monetary difficulties because the genius of her government and her people has been exactly opposite to the genius of Austria. And the States of America will master their money difficulties, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... with another deliverance, probably nearer to the heart of most of its constituency, saying: "The Negro is not a fit subject for Northern missionary effort. Northern money is not wanted to build him schools, and Northern teachers and preachers are not wanted to improve his mind nor to save his soul. He should be let alone. He is out in the water: let him swim. He should be left alone to work out his own salvation." The editor who says we must save him is an ex-Confederate officer who has always lived in the South. The editor who says he should be left alone ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... do, dear child," her father responded in tender tones. "I know my little girl wants to improve, and I shall do all I can ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... cultivated a great taste for painting, told me one evening that father had given him L150 and his blessing, and that he was going to London to improve himself in his art. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... people, whom he was one day to consider as his own. He pointed out the country which he designed for them; he caused it to be possessed by another laborious nation, who applied themselves to cultivate and adorn it; and to improve the future inheritance of the Israelites. He then fixed, in that country, the like number of families, as were to be settled in it, when the sons of Israel should, at the appointed time, take possession of it; and ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... offices in our possessions abroad, I wish to impress strongly on their minds that the only just or lawful way of governing a people—the only sure way, indeed, of maintaining authority over them—is to improve, to the utmost of our power, their religious, their moral and physical condition. Of course there may be prejudices to be overcome, and bad spirits to be dealt with; but let a people, however savage their natures, once understand ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... Kit. "Many of our best family names are from a humbler origin than that. But we must improve this chance to hunt that old chap: may not get another. And it won't do, nohow, to come clean up here to Hudson Bay and not go ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... have a word, too, about this tap-root question. From what has been said it is pretty clear that there is quite a difference of opinion. We sometimes think we can improve on nature in her ways by harsh methods and, while I know it is customary in the nurseries of the South to cut the tap-roots back pretty severely, I wonder, sometimes, whether that is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... in those first days we made a beginning toward that object which was afterwards stated in our charter: "To provide a center for higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate and improve the conditions in ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... improve the head station—and to think of Myra, a girl whom he had once met in Sydney, and who sent him newspapers, and, once or twice, at long intervals, had written him letters. He had answered these letters ...
— In The Far North - 1901 • Louis Becke
... optimism that leads to reform. Let me explain by using once more the parallel of patriotism. The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the man who loves it with a reason. The man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without a reason. If a man loves some feature of Pimlico (which seems unlikely), he may find himself defending that feature against Pimlico itself. But if he simply loves Pimlico itself, he may lay ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... as it concerns those transactions in which he once bore a part. In his endeavours to recall past conversations and intercourse with deceased friends, in particular, the powers of remembrance greatly improve by exercise. One revived idea produces another, till the mind is most agreeably and usefully occupied with ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... in the same manner as a particular person, may frequently not have capital sufficient both to improve and cultivate all its lands, to manufacture and prepare their whole rude produce for immediate use and consumption, and to transport the surplus part either of the rude or manufactured produce to those distant markets, where it can be exchanged for something for which ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... never attempted any of those lewder and more lascivious methods, of which you have had such delicious experience. Altogether, I cannot but say I am disappointed. My husband is loving, and very anxious that I should improve my mind in every way. You know I was rather more proficient than usual at school in Italian. My husband speaks it fluently, and as we mean to spend a winter at Rome, was anxious that I should have further instruction. He asked me if my school teacher was a good one, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... oration he had att his inauguration, and tho the Scots wer soouner preserved in France than any other strangers, yet it behooved to be extraordinary merits that adjudged the divinity chair to him befor so many candidats and rivals of their own nation. Bot being desirous to improve the talents heaven had bestowed on him in his oun countrey, he returned home, and about the year 1608 married that vertuous Gentlewoman, Mary Frazer, daughter to the Laird of Dores, and wes by Sr. Alexr. Arbuthnot of ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... open-tent style in front of a big rock. The rock reflects the fire, but now it is going out because of the rain. I think I shall let it go and close the tent till rain is over, thus keeping out wind and saving wood. To-night or to-morrow perhaps the weather will improve, so I can build fire, eat the rest of my moccasins and have some more bone broth. Then I can boil my belt and oil-tanned moccasins and a pair of cowhide mittens. They ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... adopted to improve the civil service of the Government have been adhered to as closely as has been practicable with the opposition with which they meet. The effect, I believe, has been beneficial on the whole, and has tended ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... and loved. However that may be at all events," he pursued, "I don't think, you know, that he's really playing, as you call it, any game. I believe he really wants to go back and take up a career. He's capable of one, you know, that will improve and enlarge him still more. He won't then," little Bilham continued to remark, "be my pleasant well-rubbed old-fashioned volume at all. But of course I'm beastly immoral. I'm afraid it would be a funny world altogether—a world with things the way I like them. I ought, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... are splendid people, hard working, thrifty and industrious, and make most excellent citizens. Although but few have had the opportunity to attend school, they are most intelligent farmers, ready and willing to adopt methods that will financially improve their business. The majority are, however, limited in land area and many times are obliged to crop their small farms to excess, for strawberries are the main cash crop, and very few who have more recently come here have the ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... to improve in spirits. It was the recreation from one's labor which every man needs. I surprised one or two of my former friends by throwing them a smile and a cheery word as I passed them on the streets. Several times I ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... what to me is one of the most important events of my life. Up to this time I had been a hopeless invalid. The doctors could not cure me. Under the care of some, my health would improve for a short time; but others would not undertake to do anything for me. After inquiring into my condition, they would say that it would be as easy to make a world as to restore me to health. I remember especially that this remark was made by the doctor who was attending me shortly before ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... proposed to Miss Mann to go to Helena, and act the part of the Good Samaritan to the colored people who had congregated there; to establish a hospital for the sick among them; to supply them with clothing and other necessaries, and in all possible ways to improve their condition. The offer was readily accepted by her, and in the month of January she arrived at Helena, with an ample supply of sanitary goods and clothing, and with letters commending her to the protection and aid of the commanding general, and to the chaplain of the post, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... left the room, grumbling to herself; for Nancy at Verner's Pride did not improve ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... as from a very long dream, and understood that I was better from seeing my father and mother smiling, and hearing Silvia singing softly. Oh, what a sad dream it was! Then I began to improve every day. The little mason came and made me laugh once more for the first time, with his hare's face; and how well he does it, now that his face is somewhat elongated through illness, poor fellow! And Coretti came; ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... But I can make the way down much easier. The steps are a simple matter, and I have often thought a charge of gunpowder would improve that bit where the rock hangs over. If I hadn't wanted to keep the place to myself I should have done it long ago. It certainly is dangerous now to anyone who ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... Icelander who had worked his passage down to Copenhagen and had found his stint as a wood-carver in a shipyard where it was his duty to carve out wonderful figureheads, after designs made by others. Gottschalk Thorwaldsen never thought to improve on a model, or change it in any way, or to model a figurehead himself. The cold of the North had chilled any ambition that was in his veins. Goodsooth! Such work as designing figureheads was only ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... he?" remarked the mate, coming to Leslie's side as Potter and Miss Trevor vanished down the companion-way, "This is my first voyage with him, and, between you and me and the lamp-post, it'll be the last, if things don't greatly improve between now and our getting back to London. I reckon you'll be all the better for a snooze, too, so come below with me. You can use my cabin for the present, until the 'old man' ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... continues to improve, does she not? I too am better, after cramps in my stomach that made me blue, and continued with a horrible persistence. Physical suffering is a good lesson when it leaves one freedom of spirit. One learns to endure it and to ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... who on earth could have been thus trying to improve the value of real estate in Partoowye, we made inquiries; and learned that some years previous the block had been thrown up by a veritable Yankee (one might have known that), a house-carpenter by trade, and a bold, enterprising ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... at the bottom were shining like stars. It is a noteworthy specimen of the mode in which the imagination works when invention is dissociated from observation and faith. But the sort of way in which some would improve the world now, if they might, is not so very far in advance of this would-be glorification of Nature. The barest heath and sky have lovelinesses infinitely beyond the most gorgeous of such phantasmagoric idealization of her beauties; and the most wretched condition of ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... said Roche. After a moment he added: "To refer again to selling the estate you would get very little for it. It can't depreciate much more, and there is always the chance it may improve. Some of the people are quite ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... have seen whole tribes of most respectable aborigines that never bathed. And they seemed to be quite happy. It saves a lot of time. But that's another queer thing. The more time we need, the more we waste it on matters that are really unimportant. Like most of our attempts to improve on nature, it costs more than ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... laugh, but one glance into the earnest eyes of Phil Forrest told him that the boy's interest was wholly in wishing to improve the act—not for the sake ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... true—I'm not in the habit of catching house thieves," he said, drawling a little, "and I doubt if many of them are quite such accomplished liars as you appear to be; but my stroke will improve, I've no doubt, as we go on. Would you mind getting up and 'coming along with me' as they call ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... came ability to improve the systems of public schools. Throughout the South separate schools are maintained for white and for negro children; and great progress has ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... the little colony had not improved during the absence of the governing and inspiring spirit. From the force of circumstances, it did not at once improve upon Champlain's return. These first settlers of Quebec, whose food and living were easily got, and with no ambition to work or trade, idled their time away. Gambling and drinking were their common diversions, the more reckless spirits taking ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... whole evidence, most minutely and accurately, correcting himself every now and then to substitute a better word, or to improve his style. When he had ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... improve him in that respect," said Lucy dryly, and rejoined the gentlemen in time to hear Random mention the name ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... of a manager," she said. "But we still trust she will improve in time, if she always has her attention drawn to her forgetfulness—at least Robby does; I'm afraid I have rather [P.165] given her up. But Robby's patience is angelic." And Laura was of the same opinion, since the couple had been married for more ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... well in the oven, to be more light and spongy, and also whiter than bread in the common way. It will likewise have an excellent taste, and will keep well. The use of magnesia in bread making is well worthy of attention, for if it improves musty flour, and renders it palatable, it would much more improve bread in general, and be the interest of families to adopt it. The use of magnesia in bread, independent of its improving qualities, is as much superior to that of alum as one substance ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... household work? If they would take the matter in hand in a practical way, and familiarise the public mind with the notion of limited domestic labour, they would, we believe, do much to promote the comfort of home life in Victoria, and to improve the position ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... Dick. "I know a man what went into Tiffany's and took up a watch to look at, and carried it off, forgettin' to pay for it. That's what he told the judge the next day, and the judge sent him to the island for a few months to improve his memory. The air over to the island is very good ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of all races, and what is more discouraging they don't know how to improve their condition. This year the Christmas freeze spoiled almost all their vegetables, and they lost all their melon crop last year, and the cold two or three weeks ago froze what garden things were started; what ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 49, No. 5, May 1895 • Various
... rose and the horizon cleared still further off, there, some five miles astern, and going quite as fast as themselves, if not faster, was the stranger; and now when she could be clearly made out, she did not improve on acquaintance. ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was one, at the time this gentleman floated in the dug-out, and charmed his ears with the music of the tom-tom, had said: "That dug-out is the best boat that ever can be built by man; the pattern of that came from on high, from the great god of storm and flood, and any man who says that he can improve it by putting a mast in it, with a sail upon it, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the stake;" what, in your judgment—honor bright—would have been the effect upon ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... Korea or Japan, he ought to be at the head of a great mission in London for converting the English to Taoism or Buddhism. There his passion for the moral beauties of paganism would have free and natural play; his style would improve; his mind would begin slowly to clear; and he would be free from all sorts of little irritating scrupulosities which must hamper even the most Conservative Christian in his full praise of sweating ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... man sprawling on the road with a bruised chin, or supine on the ice with a bashed occiput, becomes a bicyclist and a skater. The process is not continuous, as it would be if mere practice had anything to do with it; for though you may improve at each bicycling lesson during the lesson, when you begin your next lesson you do not begin at the point at which you left off: you relapse apparently to the beginning. Finally, you succeed quite suddenly, and do not relapse again. More miraculous still, you at once exercise the ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... to work, good people, and improve the world, instead of finding fault with it?" said Mr. Wyllys, who was preparing for another game of chess ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... reward than this, I cannot confess that I was guilty of exaggeration when I hinted, that to him who had the gift of distinguishing between prominent events and important events, the origin of a combined effort on the part of mankind to improve natural knowledge might have loomed larger than the Plague and have outshone the glare of the Fire; as a something fraught with a wealth of beneficence to mankind, in comparison with which the damage done by those ghastly evils ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... owed by the villains has been explained on the supposition that the serfs who had survived the pestilence took advantage of the opportunity afforded by their reduction in numbers to free themselves from servile labor and thus improve their social status. The connection between the Black Death and the changes in manorial management which are usually attributed to it could be more convincingly established had not several decades elapsed after the Black Death before these changes became marked. A ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... improve my appearance considerably," he added, "but then bruises hurt and are apt to turn awkward; I think I might safely spare myself the pain; but I might, at all events, break my whip-stock and carry the end of it back;" and having settled these points to his own satisfaction, he ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... automatic bets while the dice went around the table, he thought about the power. Funny, after all the years of work we still don't know much about psi. They can train people a bit, and improve skills ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... in my power to improve our architecture as much as they, I am e'en resolved to do like Renault of Montauban: I'll wait on the masons, set on the pot for the masons, cook for the stone-cutters; and since it was not my good luck to be cut out for one of them, I will live and die the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... engines invented to confine men to the PUBLIC road, and walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau
... however, obliged to submit; for Maria dreaded the effects of this warlike propensity, and kept the government in the hands of her ministers. He had continual contentions with the Empress, and urged her to improve her finances by conquest or aggression; but all the power he could obtain was the command of the troops, which he augmented to two hundred thousand men, and organized them under the counsel of his field marshal, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... about business," said she, "and I think I'll improve my opportunity by learning something. And, first, aren't men sometimes losers by the dishonesty of those who act for them—agents, they are called, ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... printing the New Testament in Manchu; but he found, what was of even greater importance to him, that the old man knew no European language but Russian. Thus the frequent conversations and explanations all tended to improve Borrow's knowledge of the language of the people among ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins |
