"Serviceable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pocket I had placed a casket containing a dozen exquisite rings. I had long been aware that such trifling presents are often very serviceable. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Monsieur Faucheux's horses were serviceable animals, with thickset knees, and legs that had some difficulty in moving. Like the carriage, they belonged to the earlier part of the century. They were not as fleet as the English horses of M. Fouquet, and consequently took two hours to get to Saint-Mande. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of this principle, criminal anthropologists seek to devise a means of making offenders serviceable to civilisation by carefully analysing their tendencies and psychology, and fitting them into some suitable groove in the social scheme, where they may be useful to themselves and to others. Side by side ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... use to the photographer; but by taking the precaution of fitting up a simple automatic shunt for diverting the stream until the roofs have been thoroughly washed, it becomes possible to insure a good supply of clean and serviceable soft water, even in London. Several forms of shunt have been devised, some of these being so complex as to offer every prospect of speedy disorganization; but a simple and efficient apparatus is figured in Engineering ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... endeavoring to engage Le Borgne in our interests by a present of the swivel, which is no longer serviceable, as it cannot be discharged from our largest pirogue. It was loaded; and the chiefs being formed into a circle round it, Captain Clark addressed them with great ceremony. He said that he had listened with much attention ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... And finally, O words, now cleanse your course Unto Eliza, that most sacred dame, Whom none but saints and angels ought to name, All my fair days remaining I bequeath To wait upon her, till she be return'd. Autumn, I charge thee, when that I am dead, Be prest[143] and serviceable at her beck, Present her with thy goodliest ripen'd fruits; Unclothe no arbours, where she ever sat, Touch not a tree thou think'st she may pass by. And, Winter, with thy writhen, frosty face, Smooth up thy visage, when thou look'st ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... very theatrical and inspiring—to Monsieur Duchemin, too; who, lost in the shuffle of Nant and content to be so, murmured to himself that serviceable and comforting word of the time, "Profiteers!" and contemplated with some satisfaction his personal superiority to such ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... capital, which had never passed out of the hands of the French, but in the very independence of the several provincial movements. Unlike Vienna and Berlin, Madrid might be held by the French without the loss being felt by their adversary; Cadiz, Corunna, Lisbon, were equally serviceable bases for the insurrection. The victory of Marshal Bessieres in the north preserved the communication between France and Madrid, and it did nothing more. It failed to restore the balance of military ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... 1798-1830 is romantic. I prefer to think of Cowper as a naturalist, of Shelley as an idealist, and of Wordsworth as a transcendental realist, and to reserve the name romanticist for writers like Scott, Coleridge, and Keats; and I think the distinction a serviceable one. Again, I have been censured for omitting Blake from my former volume. The omission was deliberate, not accidental, and the grounds for it were given in the preface. Blake was not discovered until rather late in the nineteenth century. He was ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... rest; Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest teemed star Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending: And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... for rambling shall be indulged. You shall be sent to the rear with despatches; and as the army is in advance, probably the lesson may be serviceable." So saying, he pressed spurs to his horse, and was out ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... rest could not be found. We were, however, a little cheered, when, in scraping out the top of the ground to clear out, I may say, thousands of crickets and bugs, we found a hatchet, which was to us peculiarly serviceable. At night the strong north-easterly wind, which prevails there at all seasons, was so cold as to make it equally uncomfortable with the day. Thus day after day, our sufferings and apprehensions multiplying, we were ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... the gasoline can of about the circumference of the pipe. A larger hole in the side of the can sufficed for a door and he squeezed the end of the exhaust pipe into the hole he had made for it, and presto! there was a very serviceable makeshift stove with the exhaust system of the engine converted into a draught ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... darkness," he remarked; and then they pursued their devious way on and on through this strange passage, which wound up and down and in and out, and landed them at last at the foot of a spiral staircase, so narrow and squeezed in by masonry as to be barely serviceable for the purpose for which it was contrived. It led them to a small door, through which they passed, to find themselves in a room of fair size but very low, and without any window, which seemed to occupy ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... wondered by what power the dynamo was driven, and now, hearing a sound of running water, he stepped in that direction. A short distance away he discovered a swift-flowing subterranean stream, in which revolved a water wheel of rude, but serviceable, construction. As nothing seemed wrong with it, he was obliged to look further, and finally found the cause of trouble to be a transmitting belt, the worn-out lacing of which had parted. As portions of the belt itself had been caught in the pulleys and badly ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... competes with, outcopes space and time, meditating even one great idea. Thus, and thus only, does a human being, his spirit, ascend above, and justify, objective Nature, which, probably nothing in itself, is incredibly and divinely serviceable, indispensable, real, here. And as the purport of objective Nature is doubtless folded, hidden, somewhere here—as somewhere here is what this globe and its manifold forms, and the light of day, and night's darkness, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... that chivalrous king who died fighting to the last on the hill at Flodden. The sword-hilt has been enamelled, and still shows traces of gilding which has once been red-wet with the Southron's blood; and the dagger is a strong and serviceable weapon, as no doubt many an English archer and billman that day felt. The heralds also show the plain turquoise ring which tradition says the French queen sent James, begging him to ride a foray in England. Copies of it have been made by the London jewellers. These trophies are heirlooms of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... friend in the buggy was by no means limited to potatoes for his conversation. He was learned in the geography of the valley and told us how once the Cohocton River, now merely a decorative stream among willows, was once a serviceable waterway, how it was once busy with mills, and how men used to raft down ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... later Blount found himself handling the wheel of a very serviceable knockabout car equipped for hard work on country roads. When he was ready to go, he drove down to the railroad yard and hunted ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... habitations, without water, without trees, without mountains, they support merely a few dwarf plants. Why, then, and the case is not peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes taken so firm a hold on my memory? Why have not the still more level, the greener and more fertile Pampas, which are serviceable to mankind, produced an equal impression? I can scarcely analyze these feelings: but it must be partly owing to the free scope given to the imagination. The plains of Patagonia are boundless, for they are scarcely passable, and hence unknown: they bear the stamp of having lasted, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... going to be a birth, a marriage, or a funeral; who was in need of the last sacraments, or how much wine the squire gave for the use of the Lord's Table. This was the title by which he was greeted at the castle, where he religiously presented himself to inform the good folks there where serviceable domestics could be got, or where anything was to be sold, or what were the current prices of corn and poultry. He himself was half the servant of the gentry, and half the servant of the community; nay, he belonged somewhat to the village priest also, and indeed ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... wear gold chains." The city, entirely open along both rivers, was shut on the northern side by a breastwork and palisades, which, though sufficient to keep out the savages, afforded no defence against a military siege. There were scarcely six hundred pounds of serviceable powder in store. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... back by the few Russians who have escaped from slavery in the Caucasus are for the most part greatly exaggerated. Often, on the contrary, they become favorites with their masters, to whom they are serviceable in introducing European improvements. They invariably receive kind treatment at the hands of the females, and are frequently allowed to take wives and have households of their own. Still, as the Circassian carried away into captivity always regrets ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... "A serviceable, faithful, thoughtful friend, Is old Van Ryk, and of a humble nature, And yet with faculties and gifts of sense, Which place him justly on no lowly level— Why should I say a lowlier than my own, Or otherwise than as an equal ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... seen back of the house; sometimes flitting through the grape-arbour, sometimes coming out of the dark cellar, sometimes peering around corners. It was a thing that went on enormous crutches, yet could always catch you if it saw you by daylight out of its right eye, its left being serviceable only at night, when, if you were wise, you kept in the house. Once the Gratcher saw you with its right eye the crutches swung toward you and you were caught: it picked you up and began to look you all over, with the eyes in the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... body, and 'tis very likely he had good reason for it,—that his body was a bad servant, and he had not skill in dealing with the material world, as happens often to men of abstract intellect. But Mr. Thoreau was equipped with a most adapted and serviceable body. He was of short stature, firmly built, of light complexion, with strong, serious blue eyes, and a grave aspect,—his face covered in the late years with a becoming beard. His senses were acute, his frame well-knit ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... across the ocean, and, throwing themselves into the midst of the Grecian hosts, contended heroically for their emancipation. Among these volunteers, was Col. J. P. Miller, of Vermont, who not only gallantly fought in the battles of Greece, but was greatly serviceable in conveying supplies from the United States to ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... its ugliness and feebleness, its slothfulness and perversity. There are times when the soul sighs to think of itself as chained to a sort of brute; it tugs at its chain, it snaps and growls, it tears and rends us; at another time it is content and serviceable; at another it grows spent and faint, and keeps the soul loitering, heart-sick ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... into a table, the student will have to consult the particular substance as treated in Part Third. If this part is perused carefully previous to consulting the tables, these will be found eminently serviceable as a refresher of the memory, and may thus save ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... cat, nothing else, even to thinking that she had jumped cleverly to catch the wheel. He was a true descendant of practical hard-grained fighting Northerners, of gnarled dwarf imaginations, chivalrous though they were, and heroes to have serviceable and valiant gentlemen for issue. Without at all tracing back to its origin his detestable image of the white cat on the dead circle, he kicked at the links between his uncle and Diana Warwick, whatever they had been; particularly at the present revival of them. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... open to question whether either primitive or advanced morality is sufficiently of one piece to allow, as it were, a composite photograph to be framed of either. For our present purposes, however, this expedient is so serviceable as to be worth risking. Let us assume, then, that there are two main stages in the historical evolution of society, as considered from the standpoint of the psychology of conduct. I propose to term them the ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... helped her, and then the plaiting began. In twenty minutes as many feet of rough but serviceable rope ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... his passenger over with interest, from his feet in their serviceable shoes, to his head under his round-crowned, wide-brimmed ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... cruel, without shame, perfidious and much inclined to superstition. But he whose eyes are neither too little nor too big, and inclined to black, do signify a man mild, peaceable, honest, witty, and of a good understanding; and one that, when need requires, will be serviceable ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... alternately playing the part of a Priest and a Soldier; sometimes administering the sacrament to the dying; and, at others, fighting in the most determined manner against the enemies of his country.—He was found so serviceable in inspiring the people with religious sentiments, and in leading them on to danger, that the General has placed him in a situation where both his piety and courage may continue to be as useful as before; and he is now both Captain in the army, and ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... fish, you must go to Exeter. And then you'll get it stinking mayhap." Now Priscilla Stanbury and Mrs. Crocket were great friends, and there had been times of deep want, in which Mrs. Crocket's friendship had been very serviceable to the ladies at the cottage. The three young women had been to the inn one morning to ask after a conveyance from Nuncombe Putney to Princetown, and had found that a four-wheeled open carriage with an old horse and a very young driver could be hired there. "We have never ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... hurried remarks on the names, but her knowledge of the county was naturally not very serviceable. He folded up the paper and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... behind their venerated sages in the manufacture of gods and godlings. Alas, poor Gibbon! must the popular religion of Otaheite, the licentious, the dissolute, the child-murdering, the unnatural Otaheite, be put on a level with the elegant mythology of Homer, and the mild, serviceable superstition of imperial Rome? Why not? Is it fitting that even Otaheite be excluded the benefit of this very impartial historian's humane maxim, which he puts into the mouths of the Lords of the earth; "in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... though only by means of alienating from her family the estate of Sable, that his house was her refuge during the blockade of Paris in 1649, and that she was not unmindful of her obligations to him, when, subsequently, her credit could be serviceable to him at court. In the midst of these pecuniary troubles came a more terrible trial—the loss of her favorite son, the brave and handsome Guy de Laval, who, after a brilliant career in the campaigns of Conde, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... in this fashion. After the pinon harvest the clans foregather on a warm southward slope for the annual adjustment of tribal difficulties and the medicine dance, for marriage and mourning and vengeance, and the exchange of serviceable information; if, for example, the deer have shifted their feeding ground, if the wild sheep have come back to Waban, or certain springs run full or dry. Here the Shoshones winter flockwise, weaving baskets and hunting big ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... being far more serviceable on the railway than his untravelled friend, whose lame arm, heedless head, and aptitude for missing trains and mistaking luggage, made him a charge rather than an assistant. He was always happiest among his patients at home; and the world was ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all be made to read Meredith, and the book at which I would start them should be 'The Shaving of Shagpat.' It is in the nature of a handbook or guide to a young person of genius, it is true, and we can't all be persons of genius; but there is enough human nature in it to make it serviceable to all but the stupid. In the midst of its fantastic phantasmagoria there is a view of life so sane, so lofty, so feminine-tender, so masculine-strong, so piercing, keen and clear, that it is not easy to find an expression for admiration which shall be at once ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... made that observation. There is no harm in an advertisement, if truth, decency and the fear of God are observed, and I believe my own will be scarcely found deficient in any of these three requisites. It is not the use of a serviceable instrument, but its abuse that merits reproof, and I cannot conceive that advertising was abused by me when I informed the people of Madrid that the New Testament was to be purchased at a cheap price in ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... disease appeared, the people who held conacres threw them up, and the potatoes remained undug. Those that were sound continued so up to the late frost; and the people had, by degrees, been taking them up. This engineer expected a considerable quantity, serviceable for food, would be found during the ploughing ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... used as saddle animals, and it is said that they perform good service in this way. This will probably be regarded by our people as a very undignified and singular method of locomotion, but, in the absence of any other means of transportation upon a long journey, a saddle-ox might be found serviceable. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... very serviceable weapon," he said, stretching his legs before him, and clasping his hands behind his head. "I, for one, would gladly be convinced against individualism. I'm afraid it's my natural point of view, and I've been trying ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... of parchment and shook a white powder into it from one of his medicine-jars. The jar was marked with the name of a mineral salt, of a nature to have been serviceable in case of sudden illness in the time of the Borgias. The Doctor folded the parchment carefully and marked the Latin name of the powder ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... garden windows. Considerable as the space was which had been thus obtained, every part of it from floor to ceiling was occupied by objects of beauty proper to the sphere in which they were placed: some, solid and serviceable, where usefulness was demanded; others light and elegant, where ornament alone was necessary—and all won gloriously by Valentine's brush; by the long, loving, unselfish industry of many years. Mrs. Blyth's bed, like everything ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... either a little child with the measles, or a wounded soldier from the wars, Isabeau's modest child—no doubt the mother too—was always ready to help. It must have been a family de bien, in the simple phrase of the country, helpful, serviceable, with charity and aid for all. An honest labourer, who came to speak for Jeanne at the second trial, held long after her death, gave his incontestable evidence to this. "I was then a child," he said, "and it was she who nursed me in my illness." They were all more or less devout in those days, when ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... season I employed myself in making (as well as I could) a great many baskets, both to carry earth, or to carry or lay up any thing, as I had occasion; and though I did not finish them very handsomely, yet I made them sufficiently serviceable for my purpose; and thus afterwards I took care never to be without them; and as my wicker-ware decayed I made more; especially I made strong deep baskets to place my corn in, instead of sacks, when I should come to have ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... coolly proceeded to overhaul the contents of Frank's pockets. Like all boys of his age, our hero was supplied with a variety of articles, which, however serviceable they may be to a youngster of sixteen, no one else could possibly find use for, and the Ranchero's investigations brought to light a fish-line, bait-box, a rooster's spur, of which Frank intended to make a charger for his rifle, a piece of buckskin, half a dozen bullets, a brass cannon, a pocket ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... to secure a discarded army-tent that has never been used, is in good condition, and has been condemned merely for some unimportant blemish. Such tents are very serviceable and can be purchased at Government auctions, or from dealers who themselves have bought them from ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... from the very first, even before the end of his earthly career. When God was about to create man, Elijah said to Him: "Master of the world! If it be pleasing in Thine eyes, I will descend to earth, and make myself serviceable to the sons of men." Then God changed his angel name, and later, under Ahab, He permitted him to abide among men on earth, that he might convert the world to the belief that "the Lord is God." His mission fulfilled, God took ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... of what you wish to happen amongst the labouring population, and you will not easily admit anything in your writings that may injure their moral or their mental character, even if you thought it might hasten some physical benefit for them. That is the way to make your genius most serviceable to mankind. Depend upon it, honest and bold things require to be said to the lower as well as the higher classes; and the former are in these times much less likely to have, such things addressed to ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... colds. Dispensatory: "A stimulant tonic, acting also as a diaphoretic or diuretic, according to the mode of its application; *** also been highly recommended in intermittent fevers, and though itself generally inadequate to the cure often proves serviceable as an adjunct to Peruvian bark or sulphate of quinia." Also used for typhous diseases, in dyspepsia, as a gargle for sore throat, as a mild stimulant in typhoid fevers, and to promote eruptions. The genus derives its scientific name from its ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... they had, in one of the villages through which they passed, supplied themselves each with a fresh stout mule, besides two serviceable animals to carry their provisions ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... agriculturist. Only the cereal barley will grow there, and some of those hardy roots—the natives of an arctic zone. But they are covered with a sward of grass—the 'ycha' grass, the favourite food of the llamas—and this renders them serviceable to man. Herds of half-wild cattle may be seen, tended by their wilder-looking shepherds. Flocks of alpacas, female llamas with their young, and long-tailed Peruvian sheep, stray over them, and to some extent relieve their cheerless aspect. The giant vulture—the condor, wheels above all, or ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... shape of the word "psychotherapy." Mrs. Bassett liked it, and declared that if she read a paper before the Fraserville Woman's Club the next winter—a service to which she was solemnly pledged—psychotherapy should be her subject. Thus Mrs. Bassett found Sylvia serviceable and comforting. And the girl ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Madame du Barry. The Dauphiness replied that the fact justified the favourable opinion she had formed of the worthy woman; that the heart of a mother should hesitate at nothing for the salvation of her son; and that in her place, if she had thought it would be serviceable, she would have thrown herself ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... hailed as the champion of political liberty. Let us try and make up our minds about Luther's views of the secular government from Luther's own words. Dr. Waring, in his Political Theories of Luther, has made a very serviceable collection of statements ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... battle of Fleurus, and you will comprehend the utility of aerostats! Coulee, by order of the government, organized a company of aerostiers. At the siege of Maubeuge, General Jourdan found this new method of observation so serviceable, that twice a day, accompanied by the General himself, Coutelle ascended into the air; the correspondence between the aeronaut and the aerostiers who held the balloon, was carried on by means of little white, red, and yellow ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... ground. Do you remember how you had to run for it, when he caught sight of you laughing at him? and how his having the rheumatism in his knee, so that he could not move fast, was all that saved you from a good thrashing? I do. So here is the story, and hoping it will be very serviceable in helping you to "mend your ways," I am ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... a somewhat amatory character often make sayings acceptable, which for their intrinsic merit would scarcely raise a smile, and Lamb soon seriously deplored the loss of this serviceable assistance. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... sermons were plentifully scattered over the land under the frank of members of Congress and otherwise. The press put forth its whole power on the side of anti-slavery submission and peace, while the Executive and Judicial departments of the Government made haste to abase themselves by their super-serviceable zeal in the enforcement of the new Fugitive Slave law. The tables seemed to be completely turned, and the time-honored rule of our slave-masters impregnably re-established. The anti-slavery commotion which a little while before had rocked the country from one end of the Union to the other ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... distinguished by different markings or by the greater length of certain portions, are met only, to any appreciable extent, in the frugivorous bats in which the sense of sight is well developed." This last remark deserves attention, as bearing on the question whether bright colours are serviceable to male animals from being ornamental. In one genus of sloths, it is now established, as Dr. Gray states, "that the males are ornamented differently from the females—that is to say, that they have a ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... when soaked by pelting rains or immersion in some icy mountain stream. Even the brown campaign hats, uniformly "creased," as the fifty left the ford, would soon be knocked out of all semblance to the prescribed shape, and made at once comfortable and serviceable. Add to these items the well-filled haversack and battered tin quart cup, (for on a forced march of two or three days Captain Ray would have no pack mules,) and the personal equipment of his men was complete. As for the mounts, each sorrel tripped ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... sees to it I get the tendered of criticism—in print. And, moreover, I've a deal put by. I'm a miser, he says, and I suppose I am, because I know what it is to be poor. So when the rainy day comes—as of course it will,—I'll have quite enough to purchase a serviceable umbrella. Meanwhile, I have pretty much everything I want. People talk of course, but it is only on the stage they ever drive you out into a snow-storm. Besides, they ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... open air and eaten by fire-light! True, we had no plates—they had been forgotten—but we never mourned for them. We made a shift to get along with the tops of some emptied tin cans and the cover of a kettle; and from these rude platters, (quite as serviceable as the porcelain of Limoges or Sevres) we consumed our toast, and our boiled potatoes with butter, and our trout prudently brought from Horseshoe Lake, and, ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... foreign architects and painters, sculptors and poets, to his court. Already Bramante of Urbino was the chief architect at the ducal court, and now Lorenzo de' Medici sent a young Florentine master to Milan who played the lute divinely, and whose varied talents might prove serviceable to his friend Lodovico. So Leonardo da Vinci came to the court of the Moro, and found in him so genial and understanding a patron, so generous and kindly a friend, that he settled at Milan, and remained in the duke's service for the next sixteen years. Thus Lodovico Sforza had shown himself ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... of this series is to present, in brief and compact form, a knowledge of the more important facts in the history of this family in a way that will be serviceable to students in colleges, universities, and theological seminaries, to the clergy, ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... packing a missionary barrel for the Rev. Luke Jones. And when it left their hands, there was in it the pretty dress for the minister's wife, the unworn underclothing for the minister's boys, the fresh hair-ribbons for the minister's daughter, and the serviceable coat for the minister himself, to say nothing of uncounted books, games, and household articles of a worth and desirability likely to make a missionary minister's family exclaim with surprise and delight—until they found the generous roll of bills in the minister's coat pocket, ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... a passage is spent in getting a ship ready for sea, and the last part in getting her ready for port. She is, as sailors say, like a lady's watch, always out of repair. The new, strong sails, which we had up off Cape Horn, were to be sent down, and the old set, which were still serviceable in fine weather, to be bent in their place; all the rigging to be set up, fore and aft; the masts stayed; the standing rigging to be tarred down; lower and topmast rigging to be rattled down, fore and aft; the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... employments, and yet through inclination and modesty preferring a life of obscurity and retirement: than to see such a man sincerely refuse the offer made to him, of reigning over a whole nation, and at last consent to undergo the toil of government, from no other motive than that of being serviceable to his fellow-citizens. His first disposition, by which he declares that he is acquainted with the duties, and consequently with the dangers annexed to a sovereign power, shows him to have a soul more ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... held the message a long time. When she arose she was ravenously hungry, but the pain in her heart was a little easier. She went to a restaurant and ate some food, then to a dressmaker where she ordered four dresses: two very plain every-day ones, a serviceable dark gray cloth suit, and a soft light gray silk with touches of lavender and lace. She made a heavy list of purchases at Brownlee's, and the remainder of the day she did business in her direct and spirited way. At night she was so tired she scarcely could ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... he was returned to Parliament, and in 1874 Mr. Disraeli selected him for a place in his Ministry. A year later he was made First Lord of the Admiralty. How serviceable he had been in the former post may be judged by the remark made by Sir Stafford Northcote when he lost Smith's assistance on his promotion to the higher position: "I am troubled to know what to do without my right hand. I don't think he made a slip ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... answered, with a melancholy smile. "I must die, in order that others, who may be serviceable hereafter, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... which all citizens might record "freely" their approval or disapproval of his continuance in power. Though he obtained the huge majority of affirmative votes to be expected in such cases, he found that these pen-and-ink signatures were no more serviceable than his soldiers. Accordingly the dictator of many a day, fallen from his former estate of highness, decided to abandon his serenity also, and in 1854 fled the country—for its good ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... be sustained; accordingly I soon found consolation. I expected shortly to hear news of Madam de Warrens, though I was ignorant of the address, and she knew nothing of my return. As to my desertion of Le Maitre (all things considered) I did not find it so very culpable. I had been serviceable to him at his retreat; it was not in my power to give him any further assistance. Had I remained with him in France it would not have cured his complaint. I could not have saved his music, and should only ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... advantages, these sister cities are mutually jealous; they antagonize and fret each other: what one does the other must do; what the government grants to one, the other insists upon having. At the present moment (in 1874), they are opening to the sea two canals which may not prove serviceable; but that is of no consequence: the government, like an indulgent father, must satisfy both his elder ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... which, as they can be compared to Duerer's, might also be held to rival them; Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Reynolds have done as splendidly, but the material they used and the aims they set themselves were too different to make a comparison serviceable. These men are pre-eminent among those who have produced portraits which, while unsurpassed for technical excellences, present to us individuals whose beauty or the character it expresses are ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... hesitate to make his transitions perfectly clear to his audience. When they add to the merely bridging use the additional value of serving as short summaries of what has gone before and as sign posts of what is to follow, they are trebly serviceable. The attempt to be clear will seldom be waste of time or effort. The obvious statements of the preceding selections, the use of figures, are excellent models for speakers to imitate. With practice will come skill in making transitions of different kinds, in which the same ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... was one of the men in England, or indeed in Europe, most capable of painting a historical picture, and it is a matter of regret that "The Germ" came to an end before he had an opportunity of continuing and completing this serviceable compendium of precepts. He had studied art in continental schools; but I do not think he imported into his article much of what he had been taught,—rather what he had thought out for himself, and ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... him." To which minute he, the said Warren Hastings, did subjoin the following observation in writing, and recorded therewith in the Council books, that is to say: "The Rajah of Benares, from the situation of his country, which is a frontier to the provinces of Oude and Bahar, may be made a serviceable ally to the Company, whenever their affairs shall require it. He has always been considered in this light both by the Company and the successive members of the late Council; but to insure his attachment to the Company, his interest must be connected with it, which cannot be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... room; so I tossed down my bundles, swept combs and hairpins into my bosom (all points up), and ravished a candle from some one. How quickly I got on, then! I saved the most useless of articles with the greatest zeal, and probably left the most serviceable ones. One single dress did my running-bag contain—a white linen cambric with a tiny pink flower—the one I wore when I told Hal good-bye for the last time. The ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... drifting, sullen and suspicious multitude, which is the working body of the country. What we prosperous people, who have nearly all the good things of life and most of the opportunity, have to do now is to justify ourselves. We have to show that we are indeed responsible and serviceable, willing to give ourselves, and to give ourselves generously for what we have and what we have had. We have to meet the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... not pretend, from what I say, that each should so wrap himself up in himself as not to be able to follow example, or to add to his own, useful and serviceable habits, which nature has not given him. Arts and sciences may be proper for the greater part of those who are capable for them. Good manners and politeness are proper for all the world. But, yet acquired qualities should always have a certain ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... note well the friendly way in which the crow follows the plow, ingratiating itself by eating the larvae, field mice, and worms upturned in the furrows, for this is its one serviceable act throughout the year. When the first brood of chickens is hatched, its serious depredations begin. Not only the farmer's young fledglings, ducks, turkeys, and chicks, are snatched up and devoured, but the nests of song birds are made desolate, eggs being crushed and eaten ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... he. All his intellectual capital was thrown open to his pupils. His original material, his unpublished investigations, his most precious specimens, his drawings and illustrations were at their command. This liberality led in itself to a serviceable training, for he taught them to use with respect the valuable, often unique, objects intrusted to their care. Out of the intellectual good-fellowship which he established and encouraged in the laboratory ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... new trade, has lately commenced on Lake Ontario, which will break up some of the hardships of the rafting. Old steamboats of very large size, when no longer serviceable in their vocation, are now cut down, and perhaps lengthened, masted, and rigged as barques or ships, and treated in every respect like the Atlantic timber-vessels. Into these three-masters, these Leviathans of Lake Ontario, the timber, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... fishing rods for this purpose, but these were not serviceable, as they were of extremely light material and, moreover, were hardly long enough for this purpose. The saplings proved to be excellent "feelers" and the work progressed rapidly from ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... made me think of offering up half an hour's amusement to Mr.... when out of place—operates more forcibly at present, as half an hour's amusement will be more serviceable and refreshing after labour and sorrow, than after a ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... "Surely I am not mistaken—Sir John Fenwick, I believe." The stranger pulled off his hat and bowed low. "The same, your grace," he replied: "it is long since we have met, and I am happy that our meeting now has proved, in some degree, serviceable ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... world; for, on taking them off, the transparent crystals turned out to be plates of yellow metal, and, of course, were worthless as spectacles, though valuable as gold. It struck Midas, as rather inconvenient that, with all his wealth, he could never again be rich enough to own a pair of serviceable spectacles. ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... necessary plans for continuing the work after the frigate had gone. I had some knowledge of the art to begin with, so that I knew exactly what information I required. My ambition was to have a fine, serviceable little vessel, and I had every hope of succeeding. I was thoroughly up to ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... traders upon these seas to go so thoroughly armed, Captain Ratlin?" asked the daughter, one day, after she had been shown about the decks, at her own request, where she had marked the heavy calibre of the gun amidship, its well as the neat and serviceable array of small arms within the ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... with, and only an inch and a half too long for me, besides being unbendable; but I seized them with avidity, and the little negro would have been outbid if I had not soon after discovered a pair more seemly, if not more serviceable, which I took without further difficulty. Behold my tender feet cased in crocodile skin, patent-leather tipped, low-quarter boy's shoes, No. 2! "What a fall was there, my country," from my pretty English glove-kid, to sabots made of some animal closely connected with the ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... serviceable knife, with a viciously sharp point. Mrs Merton received it, coughed, and hurried out to the sheep-fold, followed by ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... rations this would be little more than half enough to keep the animals in serviceable condition, for there were a good many dogs to feed. Abel's two teams, together with an extra dog or two to fill the place of any that might be injured, numbered eighteen, while Skipper Ed kept seven. This made a total of twenty-five dogs to be provided for, ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... serviceable, on a narrow side street so near to Park Row that the big table in the rear rattles its dishes when the presses begin their seismic rumblings, in the daily effort to shake the world. Here gather the pick and choice of New York journalism, while still on duty, to ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... by a merchant-ship bound through Torres Strait. Discovery of an addition to the crew. Pass round Breaksea Spit, and steer up the East Coast. Transactions at Percy Island. Enormous sting-rays. Pine-trees serviceable for masts. Joined by a merchant brig. Anchor under Cape Grafton, Hope Islands, and Lizard Island. Natives at Lizard Island. Cape Flinders. Visit the Frederick's wreck. Surprised by natives. Mr. Cunningham's description ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... could not refrain from a few reflections on the apparent hostility of practical men to pure theory, which must after all be the basis of all intelligent action. How much nobler to help to establish principles serviceable to humanity than to make later unconscious use of those same principles to advance one's own selfish interests! Why must there needs be mutual disdain and coolness between those who thought and those who acted? It had been easy for me to perceive at a glance that there was likely ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... before it can become one's own. And as civilization advances, the element of labor involved in the production of goods steadily increases. The universal necessity of human labor to convert the raw materials given us by nature into articles serviceable to life and enjoyment renders work a fundamental branch of human conduct. Regular meals, comfortable homes, knowledge, civilization, all are the fruits of work. And unless we contribute our part to the production of these goods, we have no moral right to be partakers of the fruits. "If ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... Bill and Dick! They are first rate fellows in their way, and have been very serviceable to me; but I don't think it is best to have too many confidants. I must get rid of them in some way, either by fair or foul means. Then I shall feel safe and ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... concierge was hoisting trunks, and into it was being heaped a promiscuous variety of knick-knackery and wearing apparel. A country postilion—who, but for his dirt, would have looked more like a character in a comedy than a real live, serviceable post-boy—was standing in carpet slippers (having divested himself of his boots of office) harnessing three undersized gray Normandy mares ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... at the top of an affidavit. I knew him, some years ago, in the quality of a footman; and I believe he had some times the honour to be a pimp. At last, some of the great folks, to whom he had been serviceable in both capacities, had him made a gauger; in which station he remains, and has the assurance to pretend an acquaintance with men of quality. The impudent dog! with a few shillings in his pocket, he will talk you three times ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... additional wardrobe, I knew enough of the world to believe that a quantity of baggage adds to a person's respectability, especially at the hotels. I walked up Broadway, and purchased a good-sized valise, a strong and serviceable article, which would contain all I should need in my travels. At a clothing store I bought a good every-day suit, for that I wore was a very nice one—too good for comfort in travelling. At a furnishing store I procured a supply of shirts, collars, and handkerchiefs. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... signs, as to whether certain portents had been sent by the gods to show that Cicero ought not to have back his house. Before this was made he had defended Sextius, who as Tribune had been peculiarly serviceable in assisting his return. This was before a bench of judges; and separated from this, though made apparently at the same time, is a violent attack upon Vatinius, one of Caesar's creatures, who was a witness against Sextius. Then there is a seventh, regarding the disposition of the provinces among ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... unceasing. With a long, stiff upward incline, there were the usual sights of broken-down vehicles and of dead animals on all hands; but the organization appeared to be good, if rough and ready, and the transport was serviceable enough. Getting the cars along past the strings of vehicles and animals was no easy job, and it proved a chilly drive. But the weather brightened, and on the way back we got out and proceeded on foot to a hill-top of historic interest known as the ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... horses," he said, with a good-humoured smile that leaped out of his eyes before it parted his lips; "we have horses, and we have ponies, and I am afraid that a pair of the one would be as serviceable in the long run as a pair of the other in drawing it on these roads. Are you getting out carriage-horses from ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... gone to seed. All these charming folk make of looking at old-fashioned pictures a very busy occupation, and also in effect a rather mundane occupation, as though they were alertly considering the possibility of making a selection from among a variety of serviceable kitchen chairs. ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... fensible persones, in ilk division, all such as are vigorous and able men for war are heirby appoynted to be drawin out, and put in Regimentis, as is efter specifit, with there best horses and arms, so many as are serviceable horses, and the rest on foot, with their best armes, twa part musquettis and third part pickis, and all with swords. The horsemen to be armed with pistollis, hulsteris or syidpistollis, and launces," &c., &c.—"Acts of the Parliaments of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... battle. Lobau at one extremity, and Reille at the other, are drawn into the tide. In vain does Napoleon erect walls from what is left to him of his Guard; in vain does he expend in a last effort his last serviceable squadrons. Quiot retreats before Vivian, Kellermann before Vandeleur, Lobau before Bulow, Morand before Pirch, Domon and Subervic before Prince William of Prussia; Guyot, who led the Emperor's squadrons to the charge, falls beneath the feet of the English dragoons. Napoleon ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... because it may be placed by the side of a chair or moved about independent of other furniture. A tall floor lamp often serves for lighting the piano, but small piano lamps may be found which are decorative as well as serviceable in illuminating ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... there's none here, my young friend. All the work here at the East is for foreigners, in order that they may be used at election-time. As for you, an American boy, why don't you go to h— I mean to the West. Go West, young man! Buy a good, stout farming outfit, two or three serviceable horses, or mules, a portable house made in sections, a few cattle, a case of fever medicine—and then go out to the far West upon Government-land. You'd better go to one of the hotels for to-night, and then purchase Mr. GREELEY'S 'What I Know About Farming,' and start as soon ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... his forces had been reinforced to fifteen thousand serviceable troops and five thousand of raw militia, there was reason to fear that the British, with their thirty-five thousand men and strong naval force, would surround and capture the whole American array. At last they did outflank the American forces on Long Island, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... But one of the pieces slid across the floor to Herr Haase's feet. Orderly and serviceable always, Herr Haase bent and picked up the broken pieces and put ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... doubt, that in the fair discharge of our duty, you and I can be mutually serviceable to each other; and as it is equally evident that it is our interest, and what is more, the interest of Lord Cumber, that we should be so, I therefore think it right to observe, that in all transactions between us, each should treat the other with the most perfect confidence. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... ill?" he considerately inquired, and as I assured him to the contrary, though I was feeling far from normal, he put me out on the bank while he rowed up stream for his clothes and returned to take me home. Having encased himself in some serviceable tweeds and a blue guernsey, he rolled me in his coat ere beginning to demolish the homeward mile—an infinitesimal bagatelle to such a magnificent pair of arms. I enjoyed the play of the broad shoulders and ruddy ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... ground by the campfire, Hi, Hippy and Grace having decided that the rifles would be cumbersome to carry, and that their revolvers would be much more serviceable. After Hi Lang had given final instructions as to how they were to operate, the three started out and soon were out of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... nothing but a few herbs, with some crabs and other shell-fish, which they found good eating. It afforded them also good fresh water, which they found in a pit not far from the shore. The pottage or soup, which they made of certain herbs gathered here, proved serviceable to those who were afflicted with the flux. They called this Water Island,[113] because it supplied them with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... single-turreted monitors, none of which are in commission nor at the present time serviceable. The batteries of these ships are obsolete, and they can only be relied upon as auxiliary ships in harbor defense, and then after such an expenditure upon them as ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sanguine courage very seldom permits him to utter. The concluding words, written on his own behalf and on that of Mr Young, are words of gentle protest to the public for their lack of support to "two gentlemen who have hitherto in their several capacities endeavoured to be serviceable to them without deriving any great Emolument to themselves from their Labours." And when he tells us how that 'glory of human Nature, Marcus Aurelius' employed Lucian "in a very considerable Post in the Government," ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... evenly divided into two teams, preferably designated by colors; or the players of one team may each tie a handkerchief on one arm to distinguish them. Polo caps of a colored cheese cloth are a serviceable device. If it be used in the schoolroom, each player may easily keep such a cap in his or her desk. Corresponding colors for the two bean bags ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... ground, and we did very well for our camp fire without the axes. A pemmican can with the end cut off about an inch from the top, with a piece of copper wire that I found in my dunnage bag fashioned into a bale, made a very serviceable tea pail, from which we drank in turn, as our cups were lost. The top of the can answered for a frying pan in which to melt our caribou tallow and pemmican when we wanted our ration hot, and as a plate. Tent pegs were cut with our jackknives ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... finding me tolerably well recovered of the fatigue I had endured by a long and tedious journey, and reflecting that most princes of our religion applied themselves to some art or calling that might be serviceable to them upon occasion, he asked me, if I had learned any whereby I might get a livelihood, and not be burdensome to others? I told him that I understood the laws, both divine and human; that I was a grammarian and poet; and above ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... the water batteries of the town of Manila without drawing the fire of the enemy." This immunity of protected cruisers from the fire of nine-inch Krupp guns with an abundance of ammunition that was, and some that was not serviceable, was due to the terrible prestige of the American Admiral and the consequent power of his word that if fired upon he would destroy the city. Anderson's Americans were, General Merritt ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... congratulate you, Mr. King," he said, "on having command of twenty such serviceable-looking young fellows. As they all can ride, and, as you tell me, can all shoot, they ought to do really good service, and I should be well pleased if all my troop were composed of such good material. From the fact that you can all speak Dutch, and most ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... in ether, such as sulphur, resin, paraffin, and naphthalene. After detailing at length the methods he employs, he concludes with the observation that the knowledge of the use of acetic acid—in which nitro-glycerine dissolves—for the determination of nitro-glycerine may be serviceable. Mr F.W. Smith[A] gives the following indirect method of determining nitro-glycerine in gelatine dynamite, &c. About 15 grms. of the sample are extracted with chloroform in a Soxhlet apparatus, and the loss in weight determined. In a second portion the moisture ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... keep it. The landlady at the inn, Mrs. Rundles, motherly kind of woman; she will be attentive. They don't cook badly, for an English inn, I have heard. Madge here will act as your lady's-maid for the time. You will find her serviceable; she's a bruiser's lass and something above it. Ines informed me, Madge, you were going to friends of yours at the Wells. You will stay at the Royal and wait on this lady, who bears my name. You understand?—A girl ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the form of a sack composed of longitudinal and transverse fibres. The perivisceral cavity, formed perhaps by cutting off and enlarging the lateral pouches of the turbellarian digestive system, serves as a very simple but serviceable circulatory system. But in the annelid and all higher forms a special system of tubes has developed to carry the nutriment, and usually oxygen also, needed to keep up the combustion required to furnish the energy in these active organs. The digestive ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... disobedience and grief. LILLY, our famous astrologer, has described the frequent situation of such a youth, like the cowherd's son who would be a knight. Lilly proposed to his father that he should try his fortune in the metropolis, where he expected that his learning and his talents would prove serviceable to him; the father, quite incapable of discovering the latent genius of his son in his studious disposition, very willingly consented to get rid of him, for, as Lilly proceeds, "I could not work, drive the plough, or endure any country labour; my father oft would say ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... looked on the Ionic race of Athens as aliens. Severe in their oligarchic discipline, they regarded the Athenian Demus as innovators; and, in the valour itself of their allies, they detected a daring and restless energy which, if serviceable now, might easily be rendered dangerous hereafter. They even suspected the Athenians of tampering with the helots—led, it may be, to that distrust by the contrast, which they were likely to misinterpret, between their own severity and the Athenian mildness towards the servile ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Christian, a Protestant, and a Reformed nation, any man should receive such treatment as I have done, even from those very people whose consciences and judgments have stooped to the venerable truth, owned it has been useful, serviceable, and seasonable...." ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... The serviceable-looking guns were already mounted and in position, the range had been found; the reserves, the ponies and the pipers were lying concealed in a depression close at hand when ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... relatives, these three become of service to every person. But the light that is in us hath been dimmed by this act of insult to our wife. How, O Arjuna, can a son born from this insulted wife of ours prove serviceable to us?' ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... reference, as bringing down the account of intellectual inquiry to the present period, and disposing the results in a compendious, connected, and tangible shape; but books of reference are chiefly serviceable for facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, and are constantly liable to be superseded and to grow out of fashion with its progress, as the scaffolding is thrown down as soon as the building is completed. Mr. Bentham is not the first writer (by a great ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the shape of a horseshoe, facing the chairman, before whom sat three clerks. In neither house did I hear any set speech. The voices of the Speaker and of the Clerks of the Houses were heard more frequently than those of the members; and the business seemed to be done in a dull, serviceable, methodical manner, likely to be useful to the country, and very uninteresting to the gentlemen engaged. Indeed at Washington also, in Congress, it seemed to me that there was much less of set speeches ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... denuded of slaves. The process is at once inevitable and irresistible. Whether the able-bodied slaves thus escaping to the loyal States shall or shall not be used in whatever way they may be found most serviceable against the cruel despotism which so long robbed them of their earnings while crushing out their manhood, is purely a question of time. There are thousands who would last year have revolted against ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that satisfied him that the train would be attacked in the neighborhood of Cabin Creek, Cherokee Nation. He communicated this information to Lieutenant-Colonel Dodd, of the 2nd Colorado Infantry, who was in command of the escort, and volunteered to move his regiment in such manner as would be serviceable in case the expected attack should be made. The escort proper to the train consisted of six companies of the 2nd Colorado Infantry, a detachment of three companies of cavalry from the 6th and 9th Kansas, and one section of the 2nd Kansas Battery. This force was joined, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... unendurable idleness. Then he referred again to the money which Dolly owed him, not making any complaint, not indeed asking for immediate payment, but explaining with an air of importance that if a commercial arrangement could be made, it might, at this moment, be very serviceable to him. 'I'm particularly anxious to take up those ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... cocoanut—for which the coral islands form congenial homes—is important, not only commercially, but as contributing to the safety of navigation, the existence of trees rendering the outlying islands and reefs more conspicuous, and are more serviceable than beacons. As an article of food, the cocoanuts would prove invaluable to shipwrecked crews. Those planted on some of the islands are thriving well, especially some 200 young plants on the Lizard Islands. The trees that have been planted recently require protection in some ...
— Report on the Department of Ports and Harbours for the Year 1890-1891 • Department of Ports and Harbours
... serviceable Christmas gift is a sawed-off shotgun. Carried in your limousine, it may aid in saving your jewels when returning ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... 1937 for scheduled refueling stop on the round-the-world flight of Amelia EARHART and Fred NOONAN - they left Lae, New Guinea, for Howland Island, but were never seen again; the airstrip is no longer serviceable (2003 est.) ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... was doing for her sake what ought to be done for its own. He said to him that, as he was no man of business, and must give his best attention to his mother, he found it impossible for the present to acquaint himself with the state of the property, or indeed attend to it in any serviceable manner; and he begged him, as his father's friend and his own, to look into his affairs, and, so far as his other duties would permit, place things on at least a ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... the curiosity shops, and shipped off bronzes and cabinets, and Genoese silks and objets de vertu, enough to have half furnished Fonthill, had fulfilled his mission, and returned to his villa. Before the old gentleman went, he flattered himself that change of air and scene had already been serviceable to his friend; and that time would work a complete cure upon that commonest of all maladies,—an unrequited ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... crow;" and the darkness of her hair and visage was thought not unbecoming to her martial issue, by whom it had been inherited. Daughter of Lord Williams of Tame, who had been keeper of the Tower in the time of Elizabeth's imprisonment, she had been affectionate and serviceable to the Princess in the hour of her distress, and had been rewarded with her favour in the days of her grandeur. We shall often meet this crow-black Norris, and his younger brother Sir Edward—the most daring soldiers of their time, posters of sea and land—wherever ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... type has been superseded, it should go out permanently. We continue to run old three-deckers for fighting battles, or Columbian caravels for freighting purposes. It appears to some to cause a temporary setback to fighting efficiency to send a once serviceable ship to the scrap heap, but it is the best and cheapest in the end. In the North Sea fishery I saw hundreds of sailing craft that had helped to make fortunes, that had kept the markets full, and that still had years of life, laid up, and then sold practically ...
— What the Church Means to Me - A Frank Confession and a Friendly Estimate by an Insider • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... deferential mind accepted it as in some ecclesiastical sense symbolical of the merciless hatred of God for the desperate corruption of humanity. It gave me little pleasure to connect the personality of Keble with the place, patient, sweet-natured, mystical, serviceable as he was. It seems hard to breathe in the austere air of a mind like Keble's, where the wind of the spirit blows chill down the narrow path, fenced in by the high, uncompromising walls of ecclesiastical tradition on the one hand, and stern Puritanism ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the cheapest corset at hand. This they replace with a larger one of the same style from time to time. The result is that an improperly fitting garment is worn continuously; and, in the end, this plan proves almost as expensive as, and far less suitable than, a proper corset, which would remain serviceable throughout pregnancy, or at least until a few weeks ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... into the same scale the entire weight of his character. For instance; if a youth had a natural aptitude for mathematics, and he asked, ought he to give himself to the study, in hope that he might diffuse a serviceable knowledge of it, or possibly even enlarge the boundaries of the science? my friend would have replied, that such a purpose was very proper, if entertained by a worldly man. Let the dead bury their dead; and let the world study the things of the world: they know no better, and they are ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... days, with a skin and a couple of blankets, a cooking-pot and cup; and with my gun in my hand, I took my seat on my friend's sledge. Besides the six dogs which drew it, we were accompanied by two brace of hunting dogs, those in the team being also equally serviceable for running down game. Ickmallick had some walrus flesh and blubber for himself and the dogs, and a dish for our lamp. He was armed with a bow and arrows, a spear, and ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... was sitting with his legs crossed, slowly smoking the old briarwood which he had carried through many a fierce campaign, and seemingly sunk in deep thought. Like his nephew, he was clad in the strong serviceable costume of the Texan cowboy, his broad sombrero resting with a number of blankets on pegs in ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... barbarous states, still what is there to overthrow them? They have a principle of union congenial to the state of their intellect, and they have not the ratiocinative habit to scrutinize and invalidate it. Since they admit of no mental progress, what serves as a bond to-day will be equally serviceable to-morrow; so that apparently their dissolution cannot come from themselves. It is true, a barbarous people, possessed of a beautiful country, may be relaxed in luxury and effeminacy; but such degeneracy has no obvious tendency to weaken their faith in ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... knowledge, but knowledge of good and evil. But good and evil in Hebrew mean primarily nothing more than salutary and hurtful; the application of the words to virtue and sin is a secondary one, these being regarded as serviceable or hurtful in their effects. Good and evil as spoken of in Genesis ii. iii. point to no contrast of some actions with others according to their moral distinctions: the phrase is only a comprehensive one for things generally, according to the contradictory attributes which constitute their interest ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... to-morrow. As they will not wield knife and fork till near six, I cannot of course attend the meeting, [for the establishment of an Infant School] but should it be put off, and you will give me a little longer notice, I will do my best to make my humble talents serviceable in their proportion to a cause in which I take no common interest, which has always my best wishes, and not seldom my prayers. God bless you, and your ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle |
