"Merit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hundred thousand convicts in this country annually—gagged and helpless, to whom we give the name of convicts, but who, whatever their crimes, are still our own flesh and blood, brothers of ours, our own very selves but for special circumstances for which we can claim no merit; but for their souls and lives we are responsible, and to strive to redeem and succor them our own intelligent self-interest should prompt us to spend and labor lavishly. Instead of that, our habitual attitude toward ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... a showdown, if it should become necessary for us to land a ship to rescue those colonists, in spite of the Junior's demand that we stay clear of the planet, we will not be overriding the decision of an E, but of a boy who has not yet proved his capacity to merit ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... modern British letterers is Mr. Walter Crane. Characteristic examples of his work are shown in 86, 87, 88 and 89. Although sometimes apparently careless and too often rough, his lettering has the merit and charm of invariably disclosing the instrument and the material employed. Mr. Crane is especially fond of an Uncial pen form, which he varies with masterful freedom. It may be mentioned in passing that he is perhaps the only designer who has been able to make the wrongly accented ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... merit is delayed, and always has been; but it is sure to follow. The very streets through [25] which Garrison was dragged were draped in honor of the dead hero who did the hard work, the immortal work, of loosing the fetters of one form of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... world were not composed of a race of ungrateful scoundrels, who share your prosperity while it lasts, and, even when gorged with your venison and Burgundy, abuse the generous giver of the feast, I am sure I merit a good name and a high reputation: in Ireland, at least, where my generosity was unbounded, and the splendour of my mansion and entertainments unequalled by any other nobleman of my time. As long as my magnificence lasted, all the country was free to partake of it; I had ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... himself for his indefatigable zeal. He was obliged to spend the whole of the day in dressing our wounds; and during the two days we were in the brig, he bestowed on us all the aid of his art, with an attention and gentleness which merit ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... in which there is certainly some ingenuity, and I dare say it would succeed, if Miss de Bourgh were out of the way. But, my dearest Jane, you cannot seriously imagine that because Miss Bingley tells you her brother greatly admires Miss Darcy, he is in the smallest degree less sensible of your merit than when he took leave of you on Tuesday, or that it will be in her power to persuade him that, instead of being in love with you, he is very much ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... forge, and supply a constant and very regular blast. The hammer, forceps, and anvil, are all very simple, and the workmanship (particularly in the formation of knives and spears) is not destitute of merit. The iron, indeed, is hard and brittle, and requires much labour before it can be made to ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... accomplished his task, and obeyed his glorious mission. The sublime resignation of Christians was then seen in all its glory. He depicted martyrs at the burning stake, and almost stripped them of their merit by stripping them of their sufferings. He showed their inner angel as dwelling in the heavens, while the outer man was tortured by the executioner's sword. He described angels dwelling among men, and gave tokens by which ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... votes hardly went further than the selection of this or that oligarch. Pompey no doubt felt the expediency of maintaining the old order of things, in the midst of which he had been born to high rank, and had achieved the topmost place either by fortune or by merit. For any heartfelt conviction as to what might be best for his country or his countrymen, in what way he might most surely use his power for the good of the citizens generally, we must, I think, look in vain to that Pompey whom history has handed down to us. But, of all ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... is the best expression of his peculiar genius. In some of these shorter poems Byron rises to his highest level, and by these will his popularity be permanently maintained. They are certainly of very unequal merit; yet when Byron is condemned for artificiality and glaring colour, we may point to the poem beginning 'And thou art dead, as young and fair,' where form and feeling are in harmony throughout eight long stanzas, without a single line that is ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... of old story with the natural of modern novels" is an early symptom of this revulsion to the past; and it exercised a charm on Scott as well as on Mrs. Radcliffe and her school. The Castle of Otranto is significant, not because of its intrinsic merit, but because of its power in shaping the destiny ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... Bradwyn, Randall Hatchett, the youngest member of the Executive, lounged against a pillar. Proud of a distinction which he dared not comprehend (for a commercial shrewdness made him suspect that he owed his position less to merit than to the subtle promises conveyed by a weak chin), this distinguished person tried to look the secrets which his colleagues had never permitted him to learn. In moody weariness he would sometimes ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... of thy merit, Kindly unassuming spirit! Careless of thy neighbourhood, Thou dost show thy pleasant face On the moor, and in the wood, In the lane—there's not a place, Howsoever mean it be, But 'tis ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... the cross, despising the shame. Yes: but there are too many on earth who endure shame with brazen faces, just because they do not feel it. If He had not felt the shame, what merit in despising it? It was His glory that He felt the shame; and yet conquered the shame, and crushed it down by the might of His love for ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... specious robe, so when there appeared this work of a "miserable Indian," who dared to portray them and the conditions that their control produced exactly as they were—for the indefinable touch by which the author gives an air of unimpeachable veracity to his story is perhaps its greatest artistic merit—the effect upon the mercurial Spanish temperament was, to say the least, electric. The very audacity of the thing left ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... one of the famous "Letters to His Son" he writes: "Moral virtues are the foundation of society in general, and of friendship in particular; but attentions, manners, and graces, both adorn and strengthen them." Again he says: "Great merit, or great failings, will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or reflected, will make you either liked or disliked, in the general run of the world." For all the wisdom and brilliancy ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... turning to Lana, "I believe the poor young gentleman thinks he does merit the title. Did you ever hear of such insufferable conceit? And merely because he offers me a bit ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Meredith, "intend at all events to take the profits very seriously. When they begin to come in, J. Meredith will be at the above address, and trusts by a careful attention to business to merit a continuance of your ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... with but few exceptions, the operation of the law forbidding the reenlistment of men after ten years' service has not proved its wisdom, and while the arguments that led to its adoption were not without merit the experience of the year constrains me to join in the recommendation for ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... modest old man, can create such a being as that; and I have heard visitors to this village, leisured and cultured folk, whose own creative abilities amount to no more than the arranging of some decorative art in strata of merit, talk down to the old fellow who can think out a vessel like that after supper, and go out after breakfast to direct the laying of her keel—talk down to him, kindly enough, of course, and smilingly, as ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... laugh at in that, either. It seems an excellent cake, and, as you say, hot," says Mr. Kelly, prodding it meditatively with his finger,—"a merit in a cake of this sort, I should say; and nicely browned, too, as far as I can see. I can see, too, that it is quite the biggest cake I ever made acquaintance with. Another merit! Did she carry ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... and I shall sink back into my former state. If all who are my friends were like you, it would be an easy thing to glide on with the stream. But I am in the midst of peril—I never knew until to-night that it was hard to speak with a cold rigour to our friends when they merit it. If I were despised, or neglected, I could more easily fix my thoughts on heaven. I dread so to hurt the feelings ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... the ambassador as the confidential counsellor of a sovereign who was the republic's only friend, no longer hesitated. Making a merit to himself of imparting an important secret, he said that the state-council of the commonwealth had resolved to elude at any cost the restoration of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the Romans had been more favoured by fortune than merit, vainly endeavoured to prevent this second hazard. But Annibaldi was greatly chafed, and his high rank rendered it impolitic in Adrian to offend him by peremptory prohibition; the Colonna reluctantly, therefore, yielded ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... this strange fragment, but it is less calculated than any other part to explain what of its nature can never be anything but dream and confusion. I do not know, moreover, whether in striving at a better connection of certain parts, one would not run the risk of detracting from the only merit to which so singular a production can pretend—that of giving a tolerably precise idea of the manner (genre) which it can merely indicate. This unpretending opening, this stir of passion, which first increases, and then gradually subsides, these ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... that for which he should be ejected from office it were judicial mockery to stop short of the largest disqualifications you can impose. It will be a heavy judgment. What is his crime in its moral aspects, to merit such a judgment? Let ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... honest Bryan Tunstall. He was a most expert angler until Death, envious of his merit, threw out his line, and landed him here 21st day of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... rivalry preposterous: a subject does not envy his king, or his generally acknowledged superior. Envy may even give place to respect and deference when the object of it has achieved fame and conceded power. Relatives who begin with jealousy sometimes end as worshippers, but not until extraordinary merit, vast wealth, or overtopping influence are universally conceded. Conceive of Napoleon's brothers envying the great Emperor, or Webster's the great statesman, or Grant's the great general, although the passion may have lurked in the bosoms of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... replying to him on 30th May: "I shall feel great concern if the feelings of my friends betray them into any observations on Mr. Tierney's conduct reproachful or in the smallest degree unfavourable to him, being convinced that he does not merit them." This is the letter of a spirited gentleman. Buckingham evidently sympathized with Thomas Pitt; for he expressed his surprise that the Prime Minister should risk his life against such a man as Tierney. A more jocular tone was taken by the Earl of Mornington, soon to become the Marquis Wellesley. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Science eschews —should be avoided. Anybody and everybody, who [10] will fight the medical faculty, can join this league. It is better to be friendly with cultured and conscientious medical men, who leave Christian Science to rise or fall on its own merit or demerit, than to affiliate with a wrong class of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... us acquainted with so few actions that can be compared to yours,—an offer like this from a stranger and a tailor seems to me so astonishing,—that you must pardon me for thus making your virtue public, and acquainting the English nation with your merit and your name. Let me add, Sir, that you live on the first floor; that your clothes and fit are excellent, and your charges moderate and just; and, as a humble tribute of my admiration, permit me to lay ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... left little to be desired in this line; and these notes are not only accessible to American scholars in their original forms, but have been incorporated, more or less, into all the college editions. If any peculiar merit attaches to this edition, in this department, it will be found in the frequent references to such classic authors as furnish collateral information, and in the illustration of the private life of the Romans, by the help of such recent works as Becker's ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... one and the same time, so that the pain of repentance is everywhere. And the depth of the suffering of the creature is coequal with the height of the suffering of the soul, and the joint suffering of both would seem to be of coequal promise and merit for their after joy and glory; so that it would seem that the more horrible our pain, the quicker is our deliverance and the greater our ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... Tennessee, who early in 1772 decided that they must form some kind of government that would put down wrong-doing and work equity between man and man. Two of their number already towered head and shoulders above the rest in importance and merit especial mention; for they were destined for the next thirty years to play the chief parts in the history of that portion of the Southwest which largely through their own efforts became the State of Tennessee. These two men, neither of them yet thirty years ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... to take measures for the purification of Milan, Firmano, and Spoleto, and has thus replied to the threat of excommunication. The nominee is Hidolph, who is attached to his own chapel, a man of no merit whatever, but devoted to the emperor; and whose principal endeavor it has been to remedy by art the unprepossessing exterior which nature ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... highly respected by Moslems as by other religionists; although their principal if not only merit seems as a rule to have been intense obstinacy and devotion to one idea for which they were ready to sacrifice even life. The Martyrs-category is extensive including those killed by falling walls; victims to the plague, pleurisy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... carefully examined and weeded. Every book was read by competent persons, and the poorest books were put out of the library. This weeding process has gone on year by year; as new books have been added others not representing a high standard of merit have been removed from the shelves. Great care has been taken to examine conscientiously new books before putting them into the library. The result is that the Sunday- school now has an excellent library. It has found the catalogue of the Ladies' Commission of great ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... leg. "Polichinelle, you are a fellow after my own heart. I love a man who can discern my merit. If Pantaloon had half your wit, we should have Burgundy to-night in spite of the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... "Go on, spit it out. What sort of character would you have given me then?" "I'd have called you," said Sir William boldly, "a disreputable drunken loafer who never did an honest day's work in his life." Which had the merit of truth, and, he thought, the demerit ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... some others from a collection made three years ago, by the "Oxford Magazine"; and I hope you admire it as one beyond price. 'He was associated with the distinction of the Order of Merit' means 'he was given the Order of Merit.' If the members of that Order make a society then he was associated with them; but you cannot associate a man with a distinction. The inventor of such fine writing would doubtless have ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... conventional justice the more I am conscious of something in myself that distrusts and revolts from it. The more I incline to the voice of affection the more I fear it, lest I should be guilty of weakness which would merit my own contempt. The struggle is one between convention and instinct, and I know not which side to take. But one thing I do know; it is that I have no certain clue to guide me, no clear determining principle that divides the darkness with a sword of light, ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... have read your comedy, and I think it has infinite merit, but, pray, don't you think ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... of something better' which Hegius and Zinthius brought was seen in the substitution of the Doctrinale of Alexander of Ville-Dieu, near Avranches (fl. 1200), as the school Latin grammar. This also is a metrical composition; and it has the merit of being both shorter and also more correct. It was first printed at Venice by Wendelin of Spires (c. 1470), and after a moderate success in Italy, twenty-three editions in fourteen years, it was taken up in the North and ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... however, be borne in mind, that we are speaking of the atomic density, and not of density by compression; for this cometary dust, which renders luminous the escaping ether of the nucleus, must be far too much diffused to merit the name of an elastic fluid. May not the concentric rings, which were so conspicuous in the comet of 1811, be owing to differences in the gravitating forces of such particles, sifted, as it were, and thus arranged, ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... reality in the raw. His cry of "romantic claptrap" is merely the reaction of the club armchair to the "drums and tramplings" of the street. It is in fact (he will welcome an allusion to Dickens almost as much as one to Aristotle) the higher Podsnappery. "Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr. Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence.... The world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter past, breakfasted at nine, went to the City at ten, came home at half-past ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... Chief of Staff at the War Office, Sir William Robertson, who had served for seven years as a private before he received his commission as an officer, singularly expressing in his career the character of the British system, which leaves open to merit the door at the head of a long stairway which calls for hard climbing. England believes in men and he had earned his way to the direction of the most enormous plant with the largest personnel which the British Empire ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... similar emergencies. But it is time to finish this digression, and to leave the reader to the perusal of the ensuing work, which, with how little art soever it may be executed, will yet, from the importance of the subject, and the utility and excellence of the materials, merit some share ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... days, it seemed to me that I suffered, and yet took pleasure in it. I asked questions; I spoke to Smith of his mother, of his plans and his prospects. I gave him an opportunity to show himself in a favorable light and forced his modesty to reveal his merit. ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... as we admired his tapestry, for he knew that we would not begin a bargain by conceding the smallest merit to the object offered. But he put a brave face on the matter, and began to show us other things: a Giordes carpet, a magnificent piece of old Broussa gold embroidery on pale blue satin, curious embroideries on towels, known as Persian lace,—indeed, every variety of ancient ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... afternoon we had a severe storm of hail, and encamped at sunset on the first New Fork. Within the space of a few miles, the Wind mountains supply a number of tributaries to Green river, which are called the New Forks. Near our camp were two remarkable isolated hills, one of them sufficiently large to merit the name of mountain. They are called the Two Buttes, and will serve to identify the place of our encampment, which the observations of the evening placed in longitude 109 deg. 58' 11", and latitude 42 deg. 42' 46". On the right bank ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... for the peasantry, who had Gallicised O'BRIEN into HAUT BRION, under which name it has been known for the last two centuries. If this is not the veracious history of this celebrated wine, the Baron would like to know what is? How sensible to give an order of merit to the best Claret-grower. Two Barons of the House of ROTHSCHILD are thus distinguished. It was after trying many other Clarets that Baron JAMES turned to Barons ALPHONSE GUSTAVE and EDMOND DE ROTHSCHILD, and uttered the memorable words, "Revenons a nos moutons." It is a fascinating ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... shining steps of the Fairy Palace, and into the Hall of Pearl, where the Queen was seated on her throne dispensing the graceful wreaths, which, woven by her own hand, were the choicest rewards bestowed in Fairy-land. It was easy to adjudge the crowns of merit among the fairies, for their beauty increased, or waned, according as they had done well ...
— How the Fairy Violet Lost and Won Her Wings • Marianne L. B. Ker
... same year (A.D. 660), forty-seven men of Sushen were entertained at Court, and the inference is either that these were among the above "savages"—in which case Japan's treatment of her captured foes in ancient times would merit applause—or that the Sushen had previously established relations with Japan, and that Hirafu's campaign was merely ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... liberal, provide their domestics with more suitable accommodations, and are more indulgent; but there is still a latent spirit of something like contempt for the position. That they treat their servants with so much consideration seems to them a merit entitling them to the most prostrate gratitude; and they are constantly disappointed and shocked at that want of sense of inferiority on the part of these people which leads them to appropriate pleasant rooms, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... boat had been very cunningly chosen for us by Marc'antonio out of the small flotilla which my father had hired at Cape Corso for the assault. She was undecked, measured some eighteen feet over-all, and carried a fair-sized lateen sail; but her great merit for our purpose, lay in her looks. The inhabitants of Cape Corso (as the reader knows) have neither the patriotism nor the prejudices of their fellow-islanders; and this (however her owner had come by her) was a boat of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... The only merit claimed for this libellus is its brevity—no small recommendation in this age of "exhaustive treatment" when, in bibliography especially, it is difficult to see the wood for the trees. It is an inadequate expression of the writer's affection for the College in which ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... Your self this way, and every Science has raised it self under Your Auspicious Bounty. So true a Notion of Merit, and so nice a Discernment of what is Curious, is but rarely found among Persons of an advanced Age; but You my Lord, by an uncommon Felicity of Genius, do even in the Bloom of Youth make Your Entrance in the World with the most refin'd Taste ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym
... Well, I have no religion, that's plain. I might call myself this or that for the sake of seeming respectable, but it all comes to the same thing. I don't mind Bella going to church if she wishes, but I must teach her that there's no merit whatever in doing so. It isn't an ideal marriage, but perhaps as good as this imperfect world allows. If I have children, I can then put my ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... yet another sore affliction to which the tyrant is liable, Sinmonides, which I will name to you. It is this. Tyrants no less than ordinary mortals can distinguish merit. The orderly, (1) the wise, the just and upright, they freely recognise; but instead of admiring them, they are afraid of them—the courageous, lest they should venture something for the sake of freedom; the wise, lest they invent some subtle mischief; (2) the just and upright, lest ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... impossible in a single book of ordinary size to include more than a fractional part of it. An attempt has therefore been made to present an adequate number of representative types chosen with careful regard, first, to their architectural merit, and second, to their historic interest. Exigencies of space are thus the only reason for the omission of numerous excellent houses without historic association and others rich in history but ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... different from either. The Angevinian, which extends northward from Limoges to Normandy and Brittany, and northeasterly nearly to Orleans, is a species difficult to place—it partakes largely of southern influence, but is usually thought to merit a nomenclature of its own, as distinct from the type found at Anjou. Turning now to the northern or Frankish influence, as distinct from the Romance countries; Brittany joins to no slight degree influences of each region; Normandy partakes largely ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... impressed. If scorn, or anger, or incredulity had confronted her, she would have held to her intentions; but this alarm and grief at least had the merit of allowing all importance to the affair, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Gorgasus upon the walls of Ceres, as these had surpassed the art of Pictor himself. Then came courts surrounded by rows of fluted columns, set with fountains that threw light sprays of scented water over the flowers and the garments of the passers; then more passages, with paintings of even greater merit and delicacy of execution, mingled, here and there, with scenes where the delicacy was of the execution alone, and that brought hot blushes to her cheek. Amid all, were scattered richly carved pedestals bearing beautiful statues done ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the kingdom will not be given as a matter of merit, as in our present endless cutting and rivalry, but will be thought of wholly as evidence of the graciousness of the King.[176] And yet more striking, the rewards given will be the privilege of serving, ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... depressing, Frank. Willie makes such a merit of giving me shelter; he means well, I suppose; but it ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Samuel Hibbert, History of the Extinct Volcanoes of the Basin of Neuwied on the Lower Rhine (1832). Dr. Hibbert's work is one of remarkable merit, if we consider the time at which it was written. For not only does it give a clear and detailed account of the volcanic phenomena of the Eifel and the Lower Rhine, but it anticipates the principles upon which modern writers account for the formation of river ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... as it is occupation to read, with how much profit it matters not. Not one woman in four, as usually occurs in insanity, could be induced to dress according to her sex; they figured away in men's coats and hats! The dining-room was hung with portraits of some merit, by one of the lunatics; and we noticed that every face, if indeed all are portraits, had some insanity in it. They have a dance every Sunday evening. What ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... wide-open mouth. Slay Bhishma, without any anxiety. Listen also to these words of mine that are what Vrihaspati of great intelligence had said unto Sakra in days of old. One should slay even an aged person endued with every merit and worthy of reverence if he cometh as a foe, or, indeed any other who approacheth for destroying one's self—O Dhananjaya, this is the eternal duty sanctioned for the Kshatriya, viz., that they should fight, protect ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... my horror to see it filled with a number of dried Imuran heads grinning horribly up at me! I turned away in disgust, when I saw the chief looking at me with a glance of triumph in his eye, just as a civilised person would have been pleased at exhibiting a collection of his orders of merit for gallantry in battle or sagacity in the council. They were trophies, I found, taken by the chief in his wars with neighbouring tribes. Probably it was the possession of these which had raised him to his position ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Mayall. He was by nature strong, courageous and active, always foremost in pursuit of the Indians that lurked about the advanced settlements of the whites. Mayall was young and handsome, and would have been considered a prize for a young lady of merit, who was not looking for a companion that possessed lands and money. He seemed to be a favorite among the young ladies of the Mohawk Valley who dressed in linsey-woolsey—I mean ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... or holy lakes is termed a Pilgrimage, or more commonly a Station. It is sometimes enjoined by the priest, as an act of penance; and sometimes undertaken voluntarily, as a devotional, work of great merit in the sight of God. The crowds in many places amount to from five hundred to a thousand, and often to two, three, four, or ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... has not thought it necessary to notice more particularly. 'The Fall of Robespierre', a joint composition, has been so long in print in the French edition of Coleridge's poems, that, independently of such merit as it may possess, it seemed natural to adopt it upon the present occasion, and to declare the true state ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... upon the book; so I went in among them to take it up, and wrapped it in a towel before them, while they looked at it and me with supreme contempt. Thus I walked away alone to my tent to pass the rest of the day in heat and dirt. What have I done, thought I, to merit all this scorn? Nothing, I trust, but bearing testimony to Jesus. I thought over these things in prayer and found the peace which Christ hath promised. To complete the trials of the day a messenger came from the Vizier in the evening to say that it was ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... only necessary to say that while they contain, along with much that will reward a careful study, not a little that will arouse controversy, they have, like all the author's former productions, the prime merit of being free from the two greatest of literary faults—obscurity and dulness. A work in which two of the driest and hardest of studies, analytic philology and mental philosophy, are made at once lucid and attractive, is an acquisition for which all students of those mysteries have ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... Baumgartner, his house," replied Thrush. "The merit of those quiet little streets is that there are always apartments of sorts, though not always the most admirable sort, to be had in half the houses. There was quite a choice bang opposite Baumgartner's, and I'd taken a front room before you were ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... Sleep came at length, and when she awoke again it was at the sound of Mr. Owen's jolly "Heigho! Everybody up! Everybody up!" This was a way he had of waking the children in good time for breakfast, and it had the merit of always arousing the boarders, too. Beth naturally supposed that the musician she had heard the night before had been a caller, and so made ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... us praise the Lord, With body, soul and spirit, Who doth such wondrous things, Beyond our sense and merit." ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... there are works of great ability brought hither by men who are still rising to fame; and, therefore, we have the satisfaction of feeling that this country will never be wanting in men distinguished in the practice of the fine arts. [Cheers.] One great merit of this Exhibition is that whatever may be the turn of a man's mind, whatever his position in life, he may at least during the period he is within these walls, indulge the most pleasant illusions applicable to the wants his mind at that ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... as by fire, from the dark prison-house, shall stereotype these free, illegal pulses into statutes; and New England, cutting loose from a blood-stained Union, shall glory in being the house of refuge for the oppressed,—till we no longer merely "hide the outcast," or make a merit of standing idly by while he is hunted in our midst; but, consecrating anew the soil of the Pilgrims as an asylum for the oppressed, proclaim our WELCOME to the slave so loudly, that the tones shall reach every hut in the Carolinas, and make the broken-hearted bondman leap up at the ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... you will have ever heard of Britstown. Yet, like so many other obscure South African townships, this war has brought it a history. Nor is the historical record which has been built up for it of extraordinary merit. There will be many in the ranks of a certain favoured corps who will scarcely treasure the memory of that little wayside asylum. We remember when the papers were full of the exploits and valour of this returning corps—then Britstown found no mention. Yet its associations, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... equalization have proved powerless to remedy in any great measure. A sounder plan would be general state assessment, with a permanent expert board of commissioners employing a corps of state assessors under the merit system of appointment. This plan has as yet been applied only to assessment of railroads and some ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... the judicial condemnation of one man might exclude his near relations from the public service—a state of things which was beginning to be repugnant to the public conscience, but which had at least the merit of forming a strong band to restrain the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... right, Madam, in your idea of poor Mylne's poem, which he has addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one great fault—it is, by far, too long. Besides, my success has encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that the very term Scottish Poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr. Carfrae, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... is mute. Let us confess at once that this tale savors strongly of the marvelous, the mysterious, and the vague; elements which Flemish narrators have infused into a story retailed so often to gatherings of workers on winter evenings, that the details vary widely in poetic merit and incongruity of detail. It has been told by every generation, handed down by grandames at the fireside, narrated night and day, and the chronicle has changed its complexion somewhat in every ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... eyes of God is humble weakness than haughty strength; dearer to Him is the repentant sinner than the man who boasts of his virtues. All that is power is His gift, and His gift must needs return to Him again. Strength will turn to dust, merit will become but as an empty sound, God's mercy alone will endure for ever. Heaven is always open to him ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... they were sent to adorn, populate, and bless, and Shakers driving around in square wagons and studiously ugly garments, and Christians who should know better abandoning all the bright and cheerful things of life, and feeling that there is merit in mortification, I cannot but feel that God looks down upon it all with sadness and pity. After doing every thing in His power to make His children happy—after filling the world with good things for their use, and giving them abundant faculties ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... justice of men, by no means desired a Court of Honour. And these words, according so well with his temperament, had also the merit of serving his turn. Whether meant for that purpose or not, they found their way in less than four-and-twenty hours into Lieutenant D'Hubert's bedroom. In consequence, Lieutenant D'Hubert, sitting propped up with pillows, received the overtures made ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... introduced two topics to the Essex Club of which I am to take notice. They concern me personally, but there is an aspect of one of them that may merit public attention. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... an invitation which Mr Thomson—who had very hospitably entertained us on our last visit to Kingston—had given us, so we first disposed at the hotel of an excellent meal, which we called lunch, but which was quite substantial enough to merit the name of dinner, then hastily dashed off letters to the officers who had proposed to receive us on board their ships, thanking them for their very kind offers, which we explained we were gratefully obliged to decline ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... them; but yet he gave ear to Cassius's friends, who were perpetually advising him not to be so blind as to suffer himself to be softened and won upon by Caesar, but to shun the kindness and favors of a tyrant, which they intimated that Caesar showed him, not to express any honor to his merit or virtue, but to unbend his strength, and undermine his vigor ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... all dissent, it was inevitable that the belief of the hierarchic ages, which is besides so peculiarly adapted to this end, had in England as elsewhere sunk deep into men's minds, and in great measure still swayed them. Was what had been always held for heresy no longer to merit this name because it was avowed by the ruling powers? In the northern counties neither the clergy nor the people would hear of the King's supremacy; they continued to pray for the Pope; Cromwell's injunctions were disregarded. It may be that horrible abuses and ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... purple doves, or of Turkish slippers, does not here merit the term vulgaris, though, wherever it occurs, it is too far from a garden to be a stray. Ampfield Wood, Lincoln's Copse, King's Lane, and Crabwood have each ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... of it. For I purpose to submit these and other fruits of my diligence to be tasted by you at your discretion, each in its proper order; hoping that, if my larger undertakings do not excite your interest, my smaller works may at least merit your approbation, conciliate your favour, and call forth my gratitude towards you; who, unmindful of worldly affections, do not partially distribute your bounties to your family and friends, but to letters and merit; you, who, in the midst of such great and unceasing contests between ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... Merit. In the case of a galvanometer, a coefficient expressing its delicacy. It is the reciprocal of the current required to deflect the needle through one degree. By using the reciprocal the smaller the current required the larger is the figure ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... intellectual face, and the remnants of a gentlemanlike appearance, playing on the violin. A very few touches of his bow told Arthur, who knew something of music, that he was in the presence of a performer of no mean merit. Seeing the quality of his two auditors, and that they appreciated his performance, the player changed his music, and from a village jig passed to one of the more difficult opera airs, which ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... myself here to the assertion that I have taken no liberties, have made no alterations, but have strictly adhered to my task of transcription, merely omitting here and there passages which deal with matters too personal to merit the ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... occasion. The two skippers sat in the private bar of the "Old Ship," in High Street, Wapping, solemnly sipping cold gin and smoking cigars, whose sole merit consisted in the fact that they had been smuggled. It is well known all along the waterside that this ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... there a relative "played a favorite," but even with the push and influence behind him "the lucky one," as he was termed, did not seem to make progress, unless he had merit. It was not long before Bok discovered that the possession of sheer merit was the only real factor that actually counted in any of the places where he had been employed or in others which he had watched; that business was so constructed and conducted that ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... comparatively easy to face death in battle. No great courage or merit in that. The soldier is swept along with the mass. Often he cannot shirk if he would. The chances usually are that he will come out alive. He may be ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... likenesses are the various pictures by Francis Cotes, one of the founders of the Royal Academy, a painter of considerable merit, who was born about 1725, and died in 1770. It is said that Hogarth preferred him as a portrait painter to Reynolds. His studio was in Cavendish Square, and at his death was taken by Romney; and it was ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... previously intended curve. You must never, therefore, aim at freedom. It is not required of your drawing that it should be free, but that it should be right: in time you will be able to do right easily, and then your work will be free in the best sense; but there is no merit in ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... flogged him until he had got his money's worth out of him. Treason was punished with death, and common scolds were ducked in a pond until they were glad to hold their tongues. These methods of administering justice were crude, but they had the great merit of being effective. They aimed to do two very necessary things: first, to protect the community against dangerous criminals; secondly, to teach those criminals that "the way of ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... believe, to thank the performers in a new play, for the exertion of their several abilities. But where (as in this instance) their merit has been so striking and uncontroverted, as to call for the warmest and truest applause from a number of judicious audiences, the poet's after-praise comes like the feeble acclamation of a child to close the shouts of a multitude. The conduct, ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... are designed to impress a goodly moral, as well as to amuse the reader—to show that patience and perseverance will conquer all things—and that a poor coat may cover a rich heart. The reader will find also herein, that love raises the humblest; and that true merit, like true genius, tramples upon misfortunes; and that "some falls are means ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... who am I, to speak to them?—it's no merit o' mine, Mr. Mackaye, that the Lord's kept me pure through it all. I should have been just as bad as any of them, if the Lord had not kept me out of temptation in His great mercy, by making me the poor, ill-favoured creature I am. From that time I was burnt when I was ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... not go to buy incense, for I have found some. And, through the favor of heaven, the child has already come to us." Then Ma began to realize that the water-carrier had returned to be born again into the life of earth, and not to exact retribution. He wondered, though, for what merit of his the former water-carrier happened to be re-born into so wealthy a family. So he kept the matter in mind, and from time to time inquired as to the ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... IBSENISM. Mr. Shaw sums up Ibsen's teaching in the phrase, "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." In his eyes this absence of an enduring and positive ideal, this absence of a permanent key to virtue, is the one great Ibsen merit. I am not discussing now with any fullness whether this is so or not. All I venture to point out, with an increased firmness, is that this omission, good or bad, does leave us face to face with the problem of a human ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... many heroic and mighty princes, hath met with that death in the face of battle which is coveted by heroes. Do not grieve, O tiger among men. The legislators of old have declared this to be the eternal merit of the Kshatriyas, viz., their death in battle. O best of the Bharatas, these brothers of thine are all exceedingly cheerless, as also the king, and these thy friends, seeing thee plunged in grief. O giver of honours, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Eatanswill Gazette the following admirable tribute to Mr. Pickwick's merit, from the vigorous pen, as we understand, of its Editor, Mr. Pott:—"Not only in Dulwich, but in Eatanswill, is there mourning, to-day. We have lost Pickwick—Pickwick the true and the Blue. For Blue he was, to the very core and marrow of his bones, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... verses have obviously no merit; but they are curious as showing that Fairfax, who had refused to act as one of Charles I's judges; continued long afterwards to entertain a proper horror for that unfortunate monarch's fate. It has recently been pointed out to me, that the lines ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and, with the kindness that seemed native to her, poured out my tea, sugared and creamed it just to my taste, and handed it to me with sweetness that was quite seducing. I knew not how to return or to merit her favours, and the attempt made me mawkishly sentimental. 'It is delightful', said I, 'when amiable people live together in happy society.' 'It is indeed,' said she, and her ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... balance these pardonable defects, she was kind-hearted; not at all artificial in her manner and conversation, or unduly puffed up with her position, as one might have expected her to be from her appearance; and, to put her chief merit last, she reverenced her husband, and believed that in all things—except, perhaps, in those small matters sacred to femininity, which concerned her personal adornment—"he knew best." She was consequently prepared to extend a warm welcome to her young visitor, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... I performed divine service; and as some irregularities had taken place, that did not merit corporal punishment, being anxious to prevent any ill behaviour, which might render such a step necessary, I read the following orders for the preservation of regularity ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... And silent listened to the speech; while she Knew not, sore marvelling at all that passed, If 'twere a dream or a reality. At length, with modest brow, and eyes down cast, Replied (like one that was all modesty), "And is this wrought for me? and have I merit Worthy ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the English writers of the Platonic school were exempt, are the more extraordinary, as a sister error, judicial astrology, met in More with its most able oppugner. His tract, which has excited much less attention than its merit deserves, (I have not been able to trace a single quotation from it in any author during the last century,) is entitled "Tetractys Anti-astrologica, or a Confutation of Astrology." Lond. 1681, 4to. I may mention while on the subject of More, that the second and most ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... to know that arguments and choice were wholly mine. In the recasting of the plan which followed, my part was even larger; for I designed and cast with my own hand a hot-air grating for the offices, which had the luck or merit to be accepted. The energy and aptitude which I displayed throughout delighted and surprised my father, and I believe, although I say it whose tongue should be tied, that they alone prevented Muskegon capitol from being the eyesore ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... woman, judging by thy own pity and compassion, and the emotion aroused in thy soul by the particular misfortune of a solitary case, not taking into any consideration the constitution of the world. And this is a merit and a beauty in thee, and yet it is altogether wrong. For Babhru suffered as a consequence of acts committed in a former birth, the circumstances of which thou dost not know. And moreover, even so, he was culpable and presumptuous, in taking on himself ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... make me forget what I've to say. Fancy yourselves in pews, for five minutes. There's one point of possible good in the conventual system, which is always attractive to young girls; and the idea is a very dangerous one;—the notion of a merit, or exalting virtue, consisting in a habit of meditation on the 'things above,' or things of the next world. Now it is quite true, that a person of beautiful mind, dwelling on whatever appears to them most ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... are of good literary merit and plot. However, there is one thing that seems to be getting rather pushed into the background and that is the second part of your title, "Super-Science." If this is to be a Science Fiction magazine let us have it so. I am kicking against stories like "Murder Madness" and the like. They ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... "is amiable, though unfortunate. But your merit is too great not to deserve to be informed. Knowledge, my lovely maiden, is always regarded as a desirable acquisition by the prudent and the judicious. To what purpose was a mind so capacious, competent to the greatest ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... of mine which drew this noble woman to me, it has, since her death, assumed an importance in my eyes which it intrinsically does not merit. I might almost say that it has become sacred to me among my fugitive writings: this is why I cannot resist the temptation of making a few extracts from it. It seems to bring the dead poet very close to me. Moreover, it gives me an opportunity ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... much had the public mind been disturbed of late, that the sight, which a month before would have filled the streets with anxious or angry multitudes, now hardly seemed to merit a second glance, and the spectators hurried back to their couches, invoking the aid of the good Consul, who watched so well over the liberties and lives of Rome, or muttering curses on his head, according as they were well or ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... minuteness of detail, occasional playfulness, delicious asides of gossip, and easy vigour of description, are more worthy of his powers, as a whole, than his poetry. The poetic fragments he has left are rarely of such merit as to excite any wish that they had been finished. His genius, although true and exquisite, was limited in its range, and hidebound in its movements. You see his genius, like a child, always casting a look of terror round on its older companion ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... begins to take effect, the advice and aid of "model" farmers should be available in every district. Some recognised diploma might with advantage be given to farmers for outstanding merit and enterprise. No instruction provided from our advisory agricultural councils or colleges can have as much prestige and use in any district as the advice of the leading farmer who had been crowned as a successful expert. It ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... Singh from mouth to mouth. His evident approval had somewhat the effect of subduing the men's resentment, although not much, and when he died that night there was none left, save I, to lend our leader countenance. And I was only his half-friend, without enough merit in my heart truly to be the right-hand man I was by right of seniority. I was willing enough to die at his back, but not to share ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... and remained true to his patrons in the hour of disaster. Everybody asked, what would the Emperor do with him? Would he be imprisoned or banished? Neither; the Emperor sent him a cross of the order of merit! It is, no doubt, grand to have overthrown the brilliant army of Murad Bey in Egypt; to have vanquished Melas, Wurmser, and Davidowich in Italy; Bragation, Kutusoff, and Barclay de Tolly in Russia; Mack in Germany; and thus to have ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... a wry face at the thought, whether she intended to record his actions in a book, giving him marks of merit or demerit according as the whim struck her? In that case she had probably already placed a black mark against him, ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... cannot get him safely shipped for France, he will certainly be both his own ruin and mine.—Yet, withal, he is kind, brave, and generous, and would have kept the faith with me which he now expects from me; and in what consists the merit of our truth, if we observe not our plighted word when we have promised, to our hurt? I will take the liberty, however, to secure myself against farther interruption on ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... which he had collected an immense number. Minos made him no answer, but with great scorn pushed him back. There now advanced a very beautiful spirit indeed. She began to ogle Minos the moment she saw him. She said she hoped there was some merit in refusing a great number of lovers, and dying a maid, though she had had the choice of a hundred. Minos told her she had not refused enow yet, and ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... The great merit of such a method of proceeding is, that, if the evolution succeeds, the ship, when round, will drift right down towards the man; and, although there may be some small risk in lowering the boat in stays, from the ship having at one period ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... colouring is so badly managed that the effect of distance, light, and shade are lost. Thus a man will so insist upon the use of difficult words by George Elliot that a person unacquainted with her writings would think that the whole merit or demerit of that author lay in her vocabulary. A man will so exalt the pathos of Dickens or Thackeray that he will throw their wit and humour into the background. Some person's only remark on seeing Turner's Modern Italy will be that the colours are cracked, or, upon reading Sterne, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... in this world as an offering or as an oblation for a whole year in order to gain merit, the whole of it is not worth a quarter a farthing; reverence shown to ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... superb." There was a great outcry against the confidence with which the composer had spoken of one of his own productions. The Queen defended him warmly; she insisted that he could not be ignorant of the merit of his works; that he well knew they were generally admired, and that no doubt he was afraid lest a modesty, merely dictated by politeness, should look like ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of the small merit of this hack-work. To Laure he confessed: "My novel is finished. I will send it to you on condition of your not lending it or boasting of it as a masterpiece." He could appreciate better achievement, and spoke of Kenilworth as the finest ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... through the senses; please their eyes and their ears, and the work is half done. I have frequently known a man's fortune decided for ever by his first address. If it is pleasing, people are hurried involuntarily into persuasion that he has a merit, which possibly he has not; as, on the other hand, if it is ungraceful, they are immediately prejudiced against him, and unwilling to allow him the merit which it may be he has. Nor is this sentiment so unjust ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Bridge-Construction" would of itself be a sufficient guaranty that a new work from the same source would be entitled to consideration. General Haupt does not often appear before the public as an author: his works are few, but of rare merit. The first which appeared, "The General Theory of Bridge-Construction," was the fruit of many years of experiment, observation, and calculation, and at once established his reputation in Europe and America, as unequalled in the specialty of Bridges. This work was not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... gentlewoman courteous to all, and careful to avoid giving offence, is often copied by those who merely subject themselves to certain rules of etiquette: but very awkward is the copy. Warm professions of regard are bestowed on those who do not expect them, and the esteem which is due to merit appears to be lavished on every one alike. And as true humility, blended with a right appreciation of self-respect, gives a pleasing cast to the countenance, so from a sincere and open disposition springs that artlessness of manner which disarms all prejudice. Feeling, on the contrary, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... an old landmark disappears, who does not feel a pang of regret at parting with something which linked us with the past? Seldom an old house is threatened with demolition but there is some protest, more perhaps from the old associations than from any particular architectural merit the building may have." We have many pangs of regret when we see such wanton destruction. The old house at Weston, where the Throckmortons resided when the poet Cowper lived at the lodge, and when ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... musical mediocrity. It shews a kind of stunted prematurity. The perfection which is attained by a single effort is generally a poor and tame one. This poem of Waller's, like several of his others, has all that merit which arises from the absence of fault, and all that fault which arises from the absence of merit—of high poetic merit, we mean, for in music it is equal to any of his poems. Much has been said about the model which he followed in his versification, the majority of critics tracing ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... with grateful pleasure, as an acknowledgment that the chief part of whatever scientific merit this journal and the other works of the author may possess, has been derived from studying the well-known ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... (It was always "never mind.") "Never mind, it will all come right in the end. Humble merit must be rewarded, and if humble merit isn't, we can only console ourselves with the reasonable reflection that there must be something radically wrong with the state of society. Who knows whether you may not 'get into something,' as Phil says, which may be twenty times better than ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that the public was disappointed. The fun and interest lay in the criticisms, and not in any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather commonplace collection, and I fear I cannot claim for it even that merit. And it will be observed that the animus of the criticism appeared to be the omission rather than the retention ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... never produced his demonstration, and it may well be doubted whether he had found a method which did more than vaguely suggest the law which the observations of Kepler had partially revealed. Newton's great merit lay not so much in conceiving the law of inverse squares as in the demonstration of the law. He was led to this demonstration through considering the orbital motion of the moon. According to the familiar story, which has become one of the classic myths of science, Newton was led to take ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... support. No one ventured to support her. This scene occupied several minutes of terrible silence. But Raoul broke it. He went up to the comte, whose inexpressible emotion made his knees tremble, and taking his hand, "Dear comte," said he, "tell Madame I am too unhappy not to merit my pardon; tell her also that I have loved in the course of my life, and that the horror of the treachery that has been practiced on me renders me inexorable for all other treachery that may be committed around ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the depth and intensity of Mr. Lovecraft's convictions, while the wit, irony, sarcasm and humour to be found in them serve as an indication of his powers as a controversialist. The almost relentless ferocity of his satires is constantly relieved by an attendant broad humour which has the merit of causing the reader to chuckle more than once in the perusal of some attack levelled against the particular person or policy which may ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... inflicted on Him. But the motives of action are too hidden, and the history of every deed is too complicated, to justify us in saying who is the worst of men. It is not at all likely that those whom human opinion would rank highest in merit or saintliness will be assigned the same positions in the rewards of the last day; and it is just as unlikely that human estimates are right when they venture to assign the degrees of final condemnation. Two things it is our duty ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honor Were purchased by the merit of the wearer! Merchant of Venice, Act ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... of Trade appear, indeed, to merit reprehension for disposing of the opium by private contract, as by that means the unerring standard of the public market cannot be applied to it. But they justified themselves by their success; and one of their members informed your Committee that their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... visiting the sick and prisoners, are appointed as the means of deserving a reward in heaven, but the anchorites neglected every one, cut themselves adrift from the chance of performing them, and sought to merit heaven in their own way. Christ declared, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you," but they wilfully lived apart from the sacramental life as surely ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... the difficult situation in the army there, whereas there would be little opportunity to acquire distinction in the army of the Rhine, where all was well. My father was swayed by this specious reasoning, and believing that there was more merit in going to the more dangerous post, he persisted in his intention of going to Italy, in spite of the objections of my mother, who had a secret presentiment which made her wish for my father to go to the Rhine. This presentiment was not false. She ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... Excellent goddess, to a man's, whose worth, Without hyperbole, I thus may praise; One at least studious of deserving well, And, to speak truth, indeed deserving well. Potential merit stands for actual, Where only opportunity doth want, Not will, nor power; both which in him abound, One whom the Muses and Minerva love; For whom should they, than Crites, more esteem, Whom Phoebus, though not Fortune, holdeth dear? And, which convinceth excellence in him, A principal ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... painful to have to single out honesty as a special merit in a missionary work; but the temptation to filch away the good name of a Pagan community is very formidable, and few even among lay travellers have done as faithful justice to the Chinese character as Mr. Doolittle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... first to bring the existence of the manuscript to public notice. In 1744 he published at Dresden The Curiosities of the Royal Library at Dresden, First Collection. As showing what value Goetze attributed to this manuscript, the very first page of the first volume of this work, which is of great merit and still highly useful, begins as follows: '1. A Mexican book with unknown characters and hieroglyphic figures, written on both sides and painted in all sorts of colors, in long octavo, laid orderly in folds of 39 leaves, ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... Drinking thus, I meditate, discourse, resolve, and conclude. After that the epilogue is made, I laugh, I write, I compose, and drink again. Ennius drinking wrote, and writing drank. Aeschylus, if Plutarch in his Symposiacs merit any faith, drank composing, and drinking composed. Homer never wrote fasting, and Cato never wrote till after he had drunk. These passages I have brought before you to the end you may not say that I lived without the example ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... kinds of production. Its advocates are, as far as I have been able to study their pronouncements, decidedly hostile to State Socialism and needlessly rode to some of its most prominent preachers, such as Mr and Mrs Webb, who at least merit the respect due to those who have given lives of work to supporting a cause which they believe to be sound and in the best interests of mankind. But in spite of their chronic and sometimes ill-mannered facetiousness at the expense of State ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... crude, elementary sort which fits men for the coarse delights of business and affairs but confers no capacity of rational enjoyment; by exalting the worth of wealth and making it the test and touchstone of merit; by ignoring art, scorning literature and despising science, except as these might contribute to the glutting of the purse; by setting up and maintaining an artificial standard of morals which condoned all offenses against ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... and of general division. Therefore we may say that Socialism has no scientific basis, unless we choose to call science a collection of fallacies expressed in involved terms so as to deceive the simple. Karl Marx was not a scientist but a professional demagogue and revolutionist, and his merit from the Socialists' point of view consists only in this, that he elaborated a formula of roundabout spoliation and general division, which he took from his Anarchist predecessors, and gave it a much needed, though rather ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker |
