"Worthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that couldn't steal ten dollars a day had no business working underground. They took out chunks of native silver as big as your head, and it all ran a thousand ounces to the ton, but even at that them worthless mule-skinners was throwing pure silver at their teams. They had mounted guards to ride along with the wagons and keep them from stealing the ore, but you can pick up chunks yet where them teamsters threw them off and never ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... believed that nothing would more quickly or more surely kill the effectiveness of the school than the application of cut-and-dried theories and formulas to the handling of the students and their problems. He never lost sight of the fact that the most perfect educational machine becomes worthless if the soul goes ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... a cable twenty-five miles in length was laid from Dover to Calais, only to prove worthless from faulty insulation and the lack of armour against dragging anchors and fretting rocks. In 1851 the experiment was repeated with success. The conductor now was not a single wire of copper, but four wires, wound spirally, so as to combine strength with flexibility; ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... and 1841 fading between its leaves; two papers containing locks of hair, half of a broken ring, and other insignificant mementos which had their meaning, doubtless, to her,—such a collection as is often priceless to one human heart, and passed by as worthless in the auctioneer's inventory. She took the papers out mechanically, and laid them on the table. Among them was an oblong packet, sealed with what appeared to be the office seal of Messrs. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... I had no hand in putting it where I found it, and I only obeyed orders in bringing it off." For I really felt it to be very unjust to be blamed for the act of nature, and especially as three lives had been endangered to procure a few buckets of worthless earth. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... dead, sure enough, at peace at last, and the special cause for the ending was of little importance. Sommers proceeded to make an examination, however; he would have to sign a certificate for the health officers. As he bent over the inert form, he had a feeling of commiseration rather than of relief. Worthless clay that the man was, it seemed petty now to have been so disturbed over his living on, for such satisfactions as his poor fragment of life gave him. Like the insignificant insect which preyed on its ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... did,' said John. 'It was she, but her mother says she is better now. Father,' he added impetuously, 'Bob is a worthless blockhead! If there had been any good in him he would have been ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... either side of them they saw canoes and boats going in the same direction. Flashes of fire came from the land, where the French and Indians, raging up and down, sought to destroy those who had captured most of their fleet. But the darkness made their aim uncertain, almost worthless, and only two or three of the invaders were struck, none mortally. Twenty canoes and boats were captured, and the venture was a brilliant success. Areskoui had not worked his miracles in vain, and a triumphant shout, very bitter for the enemy, burst from rangers and Mohawks. Willet, ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of wonder can that worthless man want with me?" whispered Mrs. Gray, when she thought she had given the domestic time to get out of hearing. "He has never been in this house ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... (the original GFR actually moved files to tape). Often generalized to pieces of data below file level. "I used to have his phone number, but I guess I {GFR}ed it." See also {prowler}, {reaper}. Compare {GC}, which discards only provably worthless stuff. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... But her name is best left blank; it was indeed writ in water. These recollections are to me like the wealth of a departed friend, a mournful treasure. But the public has heard enough of them; to it they are worthless: they are a coin which only circulates at its true value between the different periods of an individual's existence, and good for nothing but to keep up a commerce between boyhood and manhood. I have ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... to acquire it, he abandoned father, mother, and all that he had. No person ever sought after riches with so much avidity, and no one ever guarded his treasure with so much care. He never wore, until his death, anything but a worthless tunic, and he refused himself everything but what was absolutely necessary. He would yield to no one in poverty, although he considered himself the most abject of all. If he saw any one worse dressed than he was, he considered it as a reproach to himself. One ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... that which they were to do. That which the Lord gave to them, they consecrated to Baal, instead of to Him, to whom alone these embodied thanks were due. And, not satisfied in withdrawing from the true God the honour and thanks which were due to Him, they transferred them to His enemy and worthless rival,—a proceeding which bears witness to the deep corruption of human nature, and which, up to the present day, is continually repeated, and must be so, because the corruption remains the same. It is substantially the same thing that ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... like Joe Springett, the under keeper, to breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never a sob or a painful breath? Did they never murmur while thinking how brightly the blade might have flashed, how deftly have been wielded, if the worthless scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-day, the word was given, "Draw swords?" Some felt this, doubtless; but the most part, I imagine, were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their short life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so, to a certain ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... picture can hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of Romans, and only in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea; more miserable than either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood over revenge as a solace ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... especially between this place and Goa. This tree very much resembles that which produces dates, and no tree in the world is more profitable or more useful to man; no part of it but serves for some useful purpose, neither is any part of it so worthless as to be burnt. Of its timber they build ships, and with the leaves they make sails. Its fruit, or nuts, produce wine, and from the wine they make sugar and placetto[128]. This wine is gathered in the spring of the year from the middle ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... said, was one of those nights on which I could not sleep. It was the summer after the winter-story of the kelpie, I believe; but the past is confused, and its chronology worthless, to the continuous now of childhood. The night was hot; my little brothers were sleeping loud, as wee Davie called snoring; and a great moth had got within my curtains somewhere, and kept on fluttering and ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... shaking her head. "This comes of adopting other people's brats. Had he been a worthless, spoilt imp of my own, I should have been more successful. I stayed in Vienna all the winter. I advertised him in the papers. I had placards, offering a large reward for his discovery, pasted on the walls of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... heaven, thy dwelling-place, Hear the praises of our race, And, while hearing, let thy grace Dews of sweet forgiveness pour; While we know, benignant King, That the praises which we bring Are a worthless offering Till thy ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... your Ellen Berstouns. If she's played this trick on me, that's enough of her. But I tell you plainly I'm not going to let you rob me to keep a pack of worthless painters and people out of the gutter, without taking some steps. I ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... contradiction and moral effort in an absurdity; for while the constant aim of practice is perfection and that of labour ease, and both are without meaning or standard unless directed to the attainment of these ends, yet such attainment, if it were actual, would be worthless, so that what alone justifies effort would lack justification and would in fact be incapable of existence. The good musician must strive to play perfectly, but, alas, we are told, if he succeeded he would have become an automaton. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... few fine lines, at random drawn, Like the shell-pattern wrought in lawn To hasty glance will seem. My trivial faults base slander's slime Distorted into foulest crime, And men me worthless deem. ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks we say: This cup of Liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... you imagine such a thing? Base and worthless as you have made me, I am too much in your power, I fear—I love you still too much; and, though like a poison or a firebrand you have clung to my bosom, I could not have felt for you a single thought of resentment. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... to be large ciphers in a state, Pleased with an empty swelling to be counted great, Make their minds travel o'er infinity of space, Rapt through the wide expanse of thought, And oft in contradiction's vortex caught, To keep that worthless clod, the body, in one place; Errors like this did old astronomers misguide, Led blindly on by gross philosophy and pride, Who, like hard masters, taught the sun Through many a heedless sphere to run, Many an eccentric ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... druidesses who rejoiced in human sacrifices, and unrolled the pages of the Future by studying the records of the Past. At length she raised her noble and majestic head again. 'You are all inclined,' she said, 'to bestow more sympathy on a few worthless victims than on the tears and sufferings of a whole generation! And you forget that religious liberty, political freedom, a nation's tranquillity, science itself, are benefits which Destiny never vouchsafes to man without being ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... most rebellious place, filled with wretched inhabitants, a wavering race, neither Jews nor Christians." "But I am not from thence," replied the youth, "but from Khorassan." "That is a most impure country," said Hyjauje, "whose religion is worthless, for the inhabitants are of all barbarians the most savage. Plunderers of flocks, they know not mercy, their poor are greedy, and their rich men misers." "I am not of them," cried the youth, "but of Moussul." "Then," exclaimed Hyjauje, "thou art of an unnatural and adulterous ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... his presence, to prepare a stake. "Alas!" said Buddir ad Deen, "what do you mean to do with a stake?" "Why, to impale you," replied Shumse ad Deen, "and then to have you carried through all the quarters of the town, that the people may have the spectacle of a worthless pastry-cook, who makes cream-tarts without pepper." This said, Buddir ad Deen cried out so ludicrously, that Shumse ad Deen could hardly keep his countenance: "Alas!" said he, "must I suffer a death as cruel as it is ignominious, for not ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... the news, and came riding furiously across the St. Charles and past the city to the scene of danger. He rode, as those who saw him tell, with a fixed look, and uttering not a word. The vigilance of months was rendered worthless by that amazing night escalade. When he reached the slopes Montcalm saw before him the silent red wall of British infantry, the Highlanders with waving tartans and wind-blown plumes—all in battle array. It was not a detachment, ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... from the moment the bond is severed. On the one side is devotion to the country, and a firm, secure currency, which at any moment will bring its full value in gold; on the other, secession, with the inevitable attendant of a circulation, not depreciated, but utterly worthless, and that, too, with no other to fill its place, since the operation of the law must soon drive out of existence every dollar of the present local bank circulation: patriotism and prosperity arrayed against rebellion and ruin. The ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... worthless and oftentimes actually injurious remedies that are being advertised and recommended for the cure of these affections, and the bogus doctors and worthless firms that infest every large city, we have ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... studio, college, or professional man's chambers, engaged in a useful pursuit which might have made one proud to own you. But you were so precocious and headstrong; and this is what you have come to: you promise to be worthless!' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... health, I tell thee, herald, I thought upon one pair of English legs Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God, That I do brag thus! This your air of France Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent. Go therefore, tell thy master here I am: My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk; My army but a weak and sickly guard; Yet, God before, tell him we will come on, Though France himself and such another neighbour Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy. Go bid thy master well advise himself: If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered, We shall your ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... similar English conquest of France. But the chances of fate are many. Both Henry and his insane father-in-law died in the same year, and while Henry left only a tiny babe to succeed to his claims, the French King left a full-grown though rather worthless son. This young man, Charles VII, continued to deny the English authority, from a safe distance in Southern France. He made, however, no effort to assert himself or retrieve his fortunes; and the English captains in the name of their baby King took ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... pain—such as human nature shrinks from—such as makes poor mortal flesh cry out in its agony to its Maker, as if, for the time being, life itself were worthless at such a price. I know now what it must have been; I know now what he ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the books they like, as well as by the company they keep; so one should be careful, for this is a pretty good test. Another is, be sure that whatever will not bear reading aloud is not fit to read to one's self. Many young girls ignorantly or curiously take up books quite worthless, and really harmful, because under the fine writing and brilliant color lurks immorality or the false sentiment which gives wrong ideas of life and things which should be sacred. They think, perhaps, that no one knows this taste of theirs; but they ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Delf are detected from time to time by the new workings, especially in those places where the surface is most uneven. Thus its outcrop at Lydney is very imperfectly defined, and at Oakwood Mill the vein is rendered worthless by a fault, whilst on each side of the Lydbrook valley there is a contortion, by which it is thrown down in one instance seventy yards, and in two others ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... quasi-widow that she married her daughter very badly, and was forced to give up all hope of an alliance between Eugenie Grandet and her son. Adolphe joined his father in Paris and became, it was said, a worthless fellow. The ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... treasure, which after all was what he had come to seek. If only he had it safe in England, he would be a rich man and his troubles ended. But how could he get it to England? Here it was worthless as mud. ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... was well that Lucrezia could offer him solace, for unwittingly she had once brought him his direst distress. When he was recovered and well, a better post was offered him, and things ran smoothly till, twenty-five years later, Lucrezia died, leaving him broken-hearted with only one worthless son to embitter the last fourteen years of his widowed life. His most poignantly impressive motets seem to have been written under the anguish of Lucrezia's death. The finest of them is his setting of ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... speeches of our statesmen, no less than the dealings of our speculators,—seem, I confess, to me to constitute a very diseased and very general symptom of the times. I hold that the greatest friend to man is labour; that knowledge without toil, if possible, were worthless; that toil in pursuit of knowledge is the best knowledge we can attain; that the continuous effort for fame is nobler than fame itself; that it is not wealth suddenly acquired which is deserving of homage, but the virtues which a man exercises in the slow ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is said to be, and in many instances, worthless and unprincipled it is, still there are bright examples to the contrary; examples that even in the eyes of superior beings, must shed a lustre on ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... remonstrate with her. He had no right to speak, no reasons to advance against Gerard, beyond an unreasoning antipathy. In his heart of hearts he believed that Gerard, now an agent in the town, was a worthless fellow, but such unproven beliefs are useless. He could only look on hopelessly, and trust that time ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... ceased, and she was alone in the dusky silence; alone in all the shame and agony and grief of unrequited love and worthless fame. Alone to writhe and groan in despair while the roseate flush of eventide passed into the ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... kindness. I am a worthless creature," said Maximov, with tears in his voice. "You would do better to spend your kindness on people ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of you, Miss Bullsom," he said, doubtfully; "but I never drew a straight line in my life, and I know nothing whatever about perspective. My opinion would be worse than worthless." ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... against the sky, but as if not far above land, oftenest upon the coast of Durham. They were mistaken for beacons by sailors. Wreck after wreck occurred. The fishermen were accused of displaying false lights and profiting by wreckage. The fishermen answered that mostly only old vessels, worthless except for ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... cannot and do not deny that women have souls, but their brutal treatment of women has naturally led to this view. The Caliph Omar said that "women are worthless creatures and soil men's reputations." In ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... all comes out, and the letter the false Katherine had written him is brought out from a little secret drawer, bound round with the orthodox blue ribbon, and smelling sadly of dust, as though to remind one of all things, of warmest sweetest love, of truest trust, and indeed of that fair but worthless body from whose hand it came, now lying mouldering and ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... ill, O lord, that an earthworm and a support of the throne, as I am, show delight in a manner so unusual. But I am doubly pleased at thy coming; first, because such a super-terrestrial honor has come to me; second, because in my dull and worthless heart I thought that thou, O lord, wert the author of my misfortune. It seemed to me that among the sticks which fell on my shoulders I felt thine, which struck, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... in the same holocaust with the accused. Thus was Isabella de Susan, known as la Hermosa Fembra, avenged by falseness upon the worthless lover who made her by falseness the instrument of her ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... nature where it holds communion with the Divine. In the Church, as in society, we often find that that which shows itself uppermost is but the froth, a sign, it may be, of life beneath, but in itself worthless. When the man arises with a servant's heart and a ruler's brain, then is the summer of the Church's content. But whether the men who wrote the following songs moved in some shining orbit of rank, or only knelt in some dim chapel, and walked in some ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... I know I am," he cried out as soon as he saw me. "There's a greater, though, and he put me up to it. I would have let you be punished to save my own worthless carcase, and, oh! now I'm suffering greater pain than ever the cat could give me. I stole all the things—I've been telling Mr Nips. Then we persuaded those two silly lads that it was you, and when they saw me go and put them into your bag, they had no doubt about it, and ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... aid you to substitute for the society that pained you the society that would please; I leave you, struggling, bewildered, maddened, in the midst of chaos within and without you'? Shall a fellow-being do this, and vanish with a mocking cry: 'Tool! I have had enough of thee; I cast thee aside as worthless lumber'? Ah! let him beware! The tool is of iron, and can be shaped to edge and point." The passion with which this rough eloquence was uttered, and the fierce sinister expression that had come over a countenance habitually open and manly, even when grave and stern, alarmed ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rare eccentricities of form and colour beside which any other flower would have looked vulgar; butterfly flowers and pitcher-shaped flowers, that had cost as much money as prize pigeons, and seemed as worthless, save to the connoisseur in the article. The Vawdrey racing-plate, won by Roderick's grandfather, was nowhere by comparison with those marvellous tropical blossoms, that fairy forest of fern. Everybody talked about the orchids, confessed his or her comparative ignorance ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... Crops. Lime is taken out of land by plants, and the loss is a considerable item, but our interest is in the form of lime that can correct soil acidity, and we know that compounds of lime that are worthless for this purpose may be the chief source of the lime in our crops. A determination of the lime in the ash of a crop does not give data of much ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... matters and lead rivalry into hatred young Joel Creech, a great horseman, but worthless in the eyes of all save his father, had been heard to say that some day he would force a race between the King and Blue Roan. And that threat had been taken in various ways. It alienated Bostil beyond all hope of reconciliation. It made Lucy Bostil laugh and look sweetly ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... seducing; you do not know the marvelous resources which such a man finds in his natural attractions; you do not know the irresistible influence of a word, a gesture, a smile, a look! This poor Blue Beard does not know either; to judge from what they say of her three husbands. They were three worthless fellows, three vagabonds; she rid herself of them, rightly. Why has she rid herself of them? Because she sought an ideal, an unknown being, the dream of her dreams. Now, my brave friend, always be it said without offense, you cannot deceive yourself to such a degree ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... of the generally gracious macedoine of serious and comic loves, and jokes, and adventures, should we have thrust in the entirely unnecessary, however historical, crime whereby Valentinian the Third lost his worthless life and his decaying Empire? It has, however, been remarked, perhaps often enough, by those who have busied themselves with the history of the novel, how curious it is that the historical variety, though it never succeeded ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... it's not you, it must be a worthless being called Trumeau, who, with the unerring instinct of jealousy, has run the truth to earth. But he knows only half: I have never been either so much in love or so stupid as to allow myself to be trapped. I have given you my promise to be discreet and not to misuse my power, and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... no admirer of the monks that swarm in Madeira—he represents them as a very worthless, and a very ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... you idle, worthless v-vagabond?" said Nestie to Speug. "Come along and give a hand to Moossy," who was so pleased to get some help in the lonely place that he forgot the revealing of his little secret. With Speug in the shafts, who had the strength of a man in his compact little body, and ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... what it feeds on, and never ceases to be active. It assumes, indeed, different directions, in part determining, and in part determined by, condition, profession, or employment. Even in the most idle and frivolous, it is strong, often intense, though its objects be worthless. Such persons frequently are as sedulous in collecting the paltry gossip of society as the naturalist in acquiring the knowledge of new species of plants or insects, and as ingenious in their inferences from what they see and hear as the philosopher in ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... to the sanctuary of Earth. Interplanetary was ended ... ended forever, for on every world, including Earth, material energy engines were humming. The people had power to burn, to throw away, power so cheap that it was practically worthless as a commodity, but invaluable as a way to a new life, a greater life, a fuller life ... a broader destiny for ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... five hundredth time a patient stood forward to have his repulsivenesses stroked; again those words were being droned out: "they shall lay their hands on the sick"—when outside there rang clear as a clarion a note that enchanted my soul and tumbled thirteen worthless centuries about my ears: "Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano!—latest irruption—only two cents —all about the big miracle in the Valley of Holiness!" One greater than kings had arrived—the newsboy. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the world one collects a number of those trifles of all sorts, usually named "curiosities," many of them worthless if it were not for the memories they recall. The other day I was clearing out a bureau before going abroad, and in one of the drawers I came across a hedgehog's foot, set in silver, and hung upon a tarnished silver chain. I picked it up in the ...
— Halima And The Scorpions - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... a report of the harbor of San Diego, as I think it is, but I would not care to pay much money for it. Hyde is a bright man, and if he knows how worthless the harbor of San Diego is for an extensive deep sea commerce, I would like a report from him." (No. 335. N. Y., ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore
... conveniently disposed of, we have briefly to notice several other drying kilns with regard to all of which, however, it must be remarked, that they can only be employed with profit, by the use of waste heat, or, as at Staltach, of fuel that is comparatively worthless for ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... ever do that. With my arms around him, I once saved his worthless life. Let me but get him in my embrace again, and he'll have a hug that'll squeeze the last breath out of ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... other, reassuming his intellectual air. "One party is as worthless as the other from my point ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... there is in it much less of actual melodrama than here, and rarely, I should say never, that sort of brutality, that useless insufferable violence to the feelings, which is the last distinction between melodrama and true tragedy. Now, in NOTRE DAME, the whole story of Esmeralda's passion for the worthless archer is unpleasant enough; but when she betrays herself in her last hiding-place, herself and her wretched mother, by calling out to this sordid hero who has long since forgotten her - well, that is just one of those things that readers will not forgive; they do not like it, and they are quite ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... surrounded by an armed retinue in leather suits and big sombreros, with carbines at the bows of their saddles. She was a woman of most distinguished family, proud, rich, and kind-hearted. Her second son, Jaime, had just gone off on the Staff of Barrios. The eldest, a worthless fellow of a moody disposition, filled Sulaco with the noise of his dissipations, and gambled heavily at the club. The two youngest boys, with yellow Ribierist cockades in their caps, sat on the front seat. She, too, affected not to see the Senor Decoud ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... my room was a very nice, good girl, but one who could not have been understood in England. I found that she gathered up and treasured many utterly worthless trifling bits of pen-drawing which I threw away. She explained that where she came from on Coal River, anything like a picture was a great curiosity; also that her friends believed that all the pictures in books, newspapers, &c., ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... perfectly worthless; for the Bible charges you to 'forgive and love your enemies,' and here you are trying to fan your hate ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... you have run away from society to pine alone for a worthless creature—a woman who has used you, as she has used and ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... continuous or well-paid work, leaving them dependent on relatives, often in poor circumstances also. The picture of patients, already lacking many real necessities, still further denying themselves for weeks or months to purchase a worthless powder, ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... sir; I want a dog for my daughter, sir, to keep off a worthless, good-for-nothing dude who comes pestering around here after her because he knows that her father has a lot of money, and thinks that if he marries his daughter he can ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... detective had lost sight of the apparent insignificance of the object of their search; now that he for the first time saw it before him, his curiosity was once more aroused. Surely there must be something of vast interest about this apparently worthless bit of ivory, to make its theft the reason for a brutal murder, its recovery a matter of such extreme importance that Monsieur Lefevre should consider the honor of his ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim, that I have ever cherished, would they recognize as laudable; no success of mine—if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success—would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. "What is he?" murmurs one gray shadow of my forefathers to the other. "A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life—what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation—may ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... conception the other way, either; they are confused and generally pliable; and so, when the challenging idea is introduced, if he is quick and clear with the vital points, he can tear the surface off the many nostrums of the hour and prove them mean, worthless, and degrading; and, doing so, he will be forming the minds about him. He must be ready; that is the great need. Understand how a conversation is often turned by a chance word, and how governed by ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... all of us, in time of plenty we lay something aside for the time of need. As housewives this truth comes home to us, especially in the summer when we have an abundance of fruit which, without care, would soon become worthless. By reason of which fact we have developed methods of canning, preserving, etc., which at the present time have become so advanced that we can retain a very large share of the original color, flavor and shape of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... which we could not possibly use, and which would inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy when we left, I suggested that it would be good policy to use them for fire-wood, especially as many of them were decayed and worthless. He would not, however, consent to this. Perhaps he thought fuel at six hundred dollars a cord was rather dear. The result was that they were finally all turned over to the Confederacy, with the other public ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... to become the rallying point of all the disaffected and the worthless of the United States, and to be the pivot on which all the intrigues and the conspiracies which foreign governments may wish to disturb us with, are to turn. If he is convicted of the misdemeanor, the Judge must in decency give us respite by some short confinement of him; but we must expect ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... how deceitful it is oftentimes, and dishonest! For which cause the tragical poet deservedly exclaimeth: "O glory, glory, thou hast raised to honour and dignity myriads of worthless mortals!"[128] For many have often been much spoken of through the false opinions of the common people. Than which what can be imagined more vile? For those who are falsely commended must needs blush at their own praises. Which glory though it be gotten ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... way a girl who is called by the name of one of the twenty-seven stars, or by the name of a tree, or of a river, is considered worthless, as also a girl whose name ends in "r" or "l." But some authors say that prosperity is gained only by marrying that girl to whom one becomes attached, and that therefore no other girl but the one who is loved ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... deck we ascended to the poop, and went below into the now darkening cabin, which we found was gutted of everything of value, except the captain's and officers' bedding, which had been tossed aside by Hayes and his crew, and which even the natives of Ujilon had regarded as too worthless to take away, though many a poor sailor man, shivering in northern seas, would have clutched at them as eagerly as a Jew pawnbroker would clutch at a necklace of pearls or a diamond-set tiara. The panelling of the main cabin was painted ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... indeed, nearly all the toil of man's life is directed thereto, according to Eccles. 6:7, "All the labor of man is for his mouth." Yet gluttony seems to be about pleasures of food rather than about food itself; wherefore, as Augustine says (De Vera Relig. liii), "with such food as is good for the worthless body, men desire to be fed," wherein namely the pleasure consists, "rather than to be filled: since the whole end of that desire is this—not to thirst and not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... thy aid—I depended on thy integrity, on our alliance in blood, on a friendship formed in our boy-hood, on a thousand instances of kindness which I have shown thee.—Thou stolest from me a pearl, rich as an empire, threwest at me the worthless shell, and then badest thy plundered brother be grateful for thy mercy. Mine, Walter, is not the voice of a raving mendicant, it sounds not in thine ears as the ingratitude of an eleemosynary pensioner, but as the ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... single combats, into which he recklessly plunged as though he had been a simple knight-errant. Accordingly his progress was so slow that Saladin had destroyed the town before his arrival and rendered its capture worthless to the Christians. Again negotiations were begun, but in January, 1192, Richard suddenly advanced upon Jerusalem, and by forced marches quickly reached Baitnuba, a village only a few miles distant from the Holy City. But there the Sultan had thrown ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... book of Wilson's must, under all conditions, and in any contingency, be regarded as worthless. Be the story of the Conquest true or false, this contains no relation of it, this contains no refutation of it. Not content with vilifying his authorities, with impugning their faith, denying their existence, and mangling their names, he has disfigured their statements, corrupted their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... of the love of Christ, and care nothing about it because they do not love Him themselves. Such people either neglect the duties of religion altogether, or perform them as an idle schoolboy does his task, unwillingly, grudgingly. There is no love in their service, and therefore it is worthless. There are many, I trust, who hear me now who have learned something of the love of Christ; others who would willingly learn. To them I say, come into Christ's school to-day. A willing scholar can always learn, if you want to love Jesus you have begun ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... of nearly all improved fruit to revert to wild types, more or less, when grown from the seed. The chances are, then, that nine-tenths or more of the seedlings which you grew for fruiting might be worthless. A few might be as good as the fruit from which you took the pits; possibly one might he better. For these reasons the growing of fruit trees from pits and seeds is only used for the purpose of getting a root from ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... beyond remedying the defect in their first or even their second year. You don't grudge giving what is but a fraction of your life, after all, to thorough as opposed to superficial learning, do you, dear? Remember, the one is worthy and the other worthless—a mere pretentious waste." ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... poetic purposes, metre resembles (if the aptness of the simile may excuse its meanness) yeast, worthless or disagreeable by itself, but giving vivacity and spirit to the liquor with which ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the Vatican," said my cousin, "and since the Pope in his wisdom and goodness judged worthless the witnesses whose signatures it bears, his holiness thought well to issue the brief upon which your excellency has acted in summoning Agostino d'Anguissola before ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... narrative at its best. It is a good story, well told, with the unities well preserved. The plot is one that is known to the heroic Sagas—the growth of mischief and ill-will between two honourable gentlemen, out of the villainy of a worthless beast who gets them into his quarrels. Haflidi has an ill-conditioned nephew whom, for his brother's sake, he is loth to cast off. Thorgils takes up one of many cases in which this nephew is concerned, and so is brought into disagreement ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... poet, throwing out conclusions which are highly suggestive, on the face of them convincing, but which on examination prove untenable, or at best must be set down as unproven or needing qualification. But these were just the slag from the great furnace of his mind, slag not always worthless. Brilliant and far-reaching as were his conclusions, he did not execute a well-ordered plan. Rather he grew with his work, and his work and its problems grew with him. He took a mountain-top view of things, kept his eyes always ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... conditions; or if evolution is simply a process of accommodation to varying conditions; the argument against the hypothesis of evolution based on the unchanged character of the Egyptian fauna is worthless. For the monuments which are coeval with the mummies testify as strongly to the absence of change in the physical geography and the general conditions of the land of Egypt, for the time in question, as the mummies do to the unvarying characters ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... is reported to have fastened on the park gates of Charlecote, does not, as Rowe acknowledged, survive. No authenticity can be allowed the worthless lines beginning, "A parliament member, a justice of peace," which were represented to be Shakespeare's on the authority of an old man who lived near Stratford and died in 1703. But such an incident as the tradition reveals has left a distinct impress on Shakespearean drama. ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... to dust, nothingness to nothingness. Sin is not Mind; it is but the supposition that there is more than one Mind. It issues a false claim; and the claim, being worthless, is in reality no claim whatever. Matter is not Mind, to claim aught; but Mind is God, and evil finds no place in good. When we get near enough to God to see this, the springtide of Truth in Christian Science will burst upon us in the similitude of the Apocalyptic pictures. No night ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... the washing of hands or the paring of nails. The modern prophetical almanac is the legitimate descendant and the sufficient representative of the ancient Chaldee Ephemeris, which was just as silly, just as pretentious, and just as worthless. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... actually executed is now worthless. And the other codicil remains unsigned until the lawyer can produce Miss Silvester. He has left the house to apply to Geoffrey at Fulham, as the only means at our disposal of finding the lady. Some hours have passed—and ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... to me that maybe you, with all you're good sense an' all your good-heartedness, could think of somethin', some way, that would bring that gal back to what she ort to be before she goes an' does what her mother done—marry some worthless fool before she's old enough to marry at all, an' then be helpless and downcast all the ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... of ascertaining the freshness of eggs is to hold them before a lighted candle or to the light, and if the egg looks clear, it will be tolerably good; if thick, it is stale; and if there is a black spot attached to the shell, it is worthless. No egg should be used for culinary purposes with the slightest taint in it, as it will render perfectly useless those with which it has been mixed. Eggs may be preserved, however, for a considerable time without any further special ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... nearly worthless. The turning of the tide of revenge, from Tamora against Andronicus, and then from Andronicus against Tamora, is the theme. It is a simple theme. Man cannot have simplicity without hard thought, and hard thought is never worthless, though it ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... wrote, "I cannot run away with you. I have not the strength to do it. I cannot leave this life; I see the poison has gone too deeply into me. Oh, my dear one, think me a weak, worthless woman, despise, but don't abandon me, don't abandon your Irina.... To leave this life I have not the courage, but live it without you I cannot either. Come soon to me. I shall not have an instant's peace until I ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sale! He had forgotten the dreadful promissory note given to her father in the rash presumption of his wealth! How could it ever be paid? And more than that, it had been given in a fraud. He had no money when he gave it, and no prospect of any but what he was to get from those worthless shares. Would anybody believe him that it was only a stupid blunder of his own? Yes, his partners might believe him; but, horrible thought, he had already implicated THEM in his fraud! Even now, while he was standing there hesitatingly in the road, they were entering upon the new claim he ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... disposition was rather of a melancholy hue. My uncle says he is a man of uncommon parts, and unquestioned probity: that his fortune, which was originally small, has been greatly hurt by a romantic spirit of generosity, which he has often displayed, even at the expence of his discretion, in favour of worthless individuals — That he had rescued Paunceford from the lowest distress, when he was bankrupt, both in means and reputation — That he had espoused his interests with a degree of enthusiasm, broke with several friends, and even drawn his sword against my uncle, who had particular reasons for questioning ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... On the voyage his crew mutinied. Armed with cutlasses, they told Phips that he must turn pirate or perish; but he attacked the leader with his fists and triumphed by sheer strength of body and will. A second mutiny he also quelled, and then took his ship to Jamaica where he got rid of its worthless crew. His enterprise had apparently failed; but the second Duke of Albemarle and other powerful men believed in him and helped him to make another trial. This time he succeeded in finding the wreck on the coast of Hispaniola, and took possession of its cargo of precious metals and ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... last hands shipped, and though a man of some education, he always seemed to me utterly worthless. He was a friend of the three brothers, who went by the names of Washington, Crampton, ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... yourself. You have made the choice that might have been expected in most people situated as you are, but which I did not expect in you. For that, perhaps, I should blame my own judgment more than you. There is wealth and favour worth having, on one side; and there is the worthless friendship of an abandoned, struggling fellow, on the other. You were free to make your election, and you made it; and the choice was not difficult. But those who have not the courage to resist such temptations, should have the courage to avow what they ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... works. But since Raffles was in Java immense advances have been made, not only in our general knowledge of oriental languages, but especially in the interpretation of literature by means of antiquarian remains. It is not that his account is rendered worthless by these recent researches. On the contrary, in this latest work, Vreede's "Catalogue," we find frequent quotations from Raffles' appendices. At the same time, when we see how much he achieved with his ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... is manifest in the holders of all the better offices and convents. They are chosen from the friars of his province of Mexico, and from those who have assumed the habit here—unlearned, dissipated, and worthless boys. At the same time he has put out of office those whom he has oppressed, solely because they have come, being sent out by your Majesty from the provinces of Espana. The hatred and division among ourselves arising from his party cannot be remedied unless you Majesty take prompt measures ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... in due honour by the world? 'Tinsel,' the French 'etincelle,' meant once anything that sparkled or glistened; thus, 'cloth of tinsel' would be cloth inwrought with silver and gold; but the sad experience that 'all is not gold that glitters, that much showing fair to the eye is worthless in reality, has caused that by 'tinsel,' literal or figurative, we ever mean now that which has no realities of sterling worth underlying the specious shows which it makes. 'Specious' itself, let me note, meant beautiful at one time, and not, as now, presenting ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... higher clergy. "But now, for many years," wrote Major, "we have been shepherds whose only care it is to find pasture for themselves, men neglectful of the duties of religion. By open flattery do the worthless sons of our nobility get the governance of convents in commendam, and they covet these ample revenues, not for the good help that they thence might render to their brethren, but solely for the high position that these places offer." To the same effect Ninian Winzet wrote after the judgment ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Superior Grand Combination Mining Company. For some months afterwards, I felt like a rich man. I carefully put away my certificate of stock, looking upon it as the beginning of a competence. But at the end of six months the bubble burst—the stock proved to be utterly worthless,—Squire Conant lost five thousand dollars. I lost seven hundred, five hundred being borrowed money. The Squire's loss was much larger, but mine was the more serious, since I lost everything and was plunged into debt, while he had at least ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... demanded her attentions. There were intervals in which she could sit perfectly still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light. The red fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires, the straining after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving her contempt. Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... in the back was given to our troops by a battalion of men from Baden who, being notorious cowards, had been left in the town during the battle to split logs for the fires of the bakery. These worthless Badeners, sheltered by the walls of the big bakery, fired from its windows on our soldiers, of whom they ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... which bears his name, to have been want of control in speculation. Doubtless the speculative tendency furnished a powerful incentive to work, but it outran the legitimate deductions from observation, and led him into the production of volumes of worthless chemistry without experimental basis, as well as into spending much time in fruitless meteorological predictions." (Encyc. ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... leper raised not the gold from the dust: "Better to me the poor man's crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives nothing but worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives but a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all and doth all unite,— The ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the rocks proved that the Filipino gunner had told the truth. The powder was there, in big cans bearing the old Spanish stamp. Some was marked 1876, and was so old as to be practically worthless. ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... qualities—artistic sensibility and a turn for clear thinking. Without sensibility a man can have no aesthetic experience, and, obviously, theories not based on broad and deep aesthetic experience are worthless. Only those for whom art is a constant source of passionate emotion can possess the data from which profitable theories may be deduced; but to deduce profitable theories even from accurate data involves a certain amount of brain-work, and, unfortunately, robust intellects and delicate ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... refused consent, And but thy voice decreed my banishment? Hope that no care could turn, no love could stay The lightning stroke that falls on me to-day? That sins committed in the life that's fled Have brought this evil on my guilty head? Think not I value now my widowed life, Worthless to her who once was Rama's wife. I only live because I hope to see The dear dear babe that will resemble thee. And then my task of penance shall be done, With eyes uplifted to the scorching sun; So shall the ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... were not ashamed to worship the like of these. Others assigned worship to beasts, creeping and four-footed things, proving themselves more beastly than the things that they worshipped. Others made them images of vile and worthless men, and named them gods, some of whom they called males, and some females, and they themselves set them forth as adulterers, murderers, victims of anger, jealousy, wrath, slayers of fathers, slayers of brothers, thieves and robbers, lame and maim, sorcerers ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... considers that the salesman cannot possibly have lost more than the cyclist actually stole. The latter rode away with a bicycle which cost the salesman eleven pounds, and the ten pounds "change;" he thus made off with twenty-one pounds, in exchange for a worthless bit of paper. This is the exact amount of the salesman's loss, and the other operations of changing the cheque and borrowing from a friend do not affect the question in the slightest. The loss of prospective profit on the sale ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... return. Firstly, G- had not registered any pre-emptive right, and, secondly, if he had it would have been worthless, because his hut was situated on my run and not on his own. I was sure that he had not bought the freehold; I was also certain that he meant to buy it. So, well knowing there was not a moment to lose, I went towards Christ Church the same afternoon, and supped at a shepherd's hut ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... recognize him for what he was part of the time—a seller of hair tonic—I will explain a little further. He made me pose in his cart, before the crowds, as one whose hair had been restored and made long by his worthless stuff. Oh, it was shameful! That is why I ran ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... and having got them, succeeded in bringing him to. As soon as he came to his senses, he began to lay the blame of his failure to his wife, saying to his guest, "Nemesho, it is this woman relation of yours—she is the cause of my not succeeding. She has rendered me a worthless fellow. Before I took her I could also get raccoons." The Woodpecker said nothing, but flying on the tree, drew out several fine raccoons. "Here," said he, "this is the way we do," and left him with ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... that novels with scamp-heroes are so much more interesting than the conventional kind? Bellamy (METHUEN) is a case in point, for the central character, who gives his name to it, is about as worthless an object, rightly-considered, as one need wish to meet. He steals and lies and poses; he betrays most of his friends; and throughout a varied life he only really cares for one person—himself. Yet Miss ELINOR MORDAUNT ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... it. That is what meeting a philosopher means. Not so, you think; this is only a flying visit; while we are hiring the ship, we can see Epictetus too! Let us see what he has to say. Then on leaving you cry, "Out on Epictetus for a worthless fellow, provincial and barbarous of speech!" What else indeed did you come ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... the minds which were really in the forefront of all were the poetical minds, the interpreters, the prophets, who saw, not in minute detail, and in small definite sections, but with a wide and large view, whither all this discovery, this investigation, was tending. The investigation, worthless and minute enough in itself, as it seemed to be when examined at a single point, had at least this value, that some principle, some inspiration for life could be extracted from it, something which would permeate slowly the thought of the world, set pulses ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... dark dangers and distresses lie. The things that at certain times filled all one's mind, kindled hope and aim, seemed so infinitely desirable, so necessary to happiness, have faded, many of them, into the lightest and most worthless of husks and phantoms, like the withered flowers that we find sometimes shut in the pages of our old books, and cannot even remember of what glowing and emotional ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "My princely master's orders are to assist the states of Lu and Wei" (i.e. not to attack your person). Meanwhile the disguised charioteer ordered the disguised king to fetch a drink of water, and the king thus escaped even the humiliation of a favour from his generous victor. When in 548 a worthless Ts'i ruler was assassinated, the philosopher Yen-tsz said: "When the ruler dies or is exiled for the gods of the land and its harvests, one dies or is exiled with him; but if he dies or is exiled for private reasons, then ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... back in the past, had eyes, and gained its livelihood above ground in the broad light of day; but, owing to some change in its surroundings, it was forced to burrow beneath the surface of the earth; consequently its organs of sight have degenerated, and are now practically worthless as far as vision is concerned. All moles, however, can tell darkness from light, consequently, are not wholly blind—a certain amount of sight remains. This is due to the fact that, although the optic nerve, on examination, is invariably found to be atrophied or wasted, there yet remain in the ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... great deal which I had not expected from him. I was not surprised, of course, that he had proved to be a poor, even a downright worthless military man and soldier; but what I had not expected was, that he had displayed no special bravery; that in battle he wore a dejected and languid aspect, as though he were partly bored, partly daunted. All discipline oppressed him, inspired him with sadness; ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... clergy, the wardens, and the sextons have failed to see these things; but they have, presumedly, more pressing matters to attend to, and it seems to be nobody's business to attend to such ownerless and worthless objects. ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... regarded the future, the small value he set on life. He truly felt as utterly indifferent toward fate as his words signified. Deeply conscious of a life long ago irretrievably wrecked, everything behind a chaos, everything before worthless,—for years he had been actually seeking death; a hundred times he had gladly marked its apparent approach, a smile of welcome upon his lips. Yet it had never quite succeeded in reaching him, and nothing had been ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... the same subject poems may be written of all degrees of merit and demerit; or when a perfect poem may be composed on a subject so slight as a pet sparrow, and, if Macaulay may be trusted, a nearly worthless poem on a subject so stupendous as the omnipresence of the Deity? The "formalist" is here perfectly right. Nor is he insisting on something unimportant. He is fighting against our tendency to take the work of art as a mere copy or reminder of something already in ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... have simply done my duty," he answered, quietly. "And yet I thank you truly. You also may see the time when you will thank me more than when I interposed my worthless person between you ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... aspect, the country of the raftsman lies remote and uncommended. The scented sandalwood is there, dwarfed, attenuated, worthless. The most fragrant of the Pandanus palms is plentiful, the fruit forming the chief part of the vegetable diet of the lean and stunted inhabitants, who find difficulty in fashioning weapons with which to obtain fish and turtle, the land failing to supply straight sticks of the length needed ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... England resolve to join their ranks. It is better to be poor and noble, than rich and worthless—to be the daughter of a lighthouse-keeper, and fill the life with good deeds of diligence and faithfulness, than to be the daughter of an Earl, and of no real good to anybody. But the life of consecration to God and ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... unquestionably Shakspeare's, but in my opinion they deserve to be classed among his best and maturest works. Steevens at last admits, in some degree, that they, as well as the rest, except Lochrine, are Shakspeare's, but he speaks of all of them with great contempt, as worthless productions. His condemnatory sentence is not, however, in the slightest degree convincing, nor is it supported by much critical acumen. I should like to see how such a critic would, of his own natural suggestion, have decided on Shakspeare's acknowledged master-pieces, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the public in breeches—Macheath and Don Giovanni to wit. 'Mr. B.,' the gentleman under whose protection she is living, or rather was living, is a gentleman of large West India possessions, who some time ago immortalized himself in a duel about a worthless woman, with Lord C—If—d, in which duel he had the honour of sending his lordship to his account with all his 'imperfections on his head.' The third party, 'Lord P.,' is a nobleman, whose chief points are a queer-shaped hat, long shirt sleeves, exquisitely ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... scourer; so low that even this rakehell duke must become his enemy for his own credit's sake. He attempts mock-marriages with ladies of quality; and he attempts murder by stabbing through the back a gentleman who has spared his worthless life. Not even the president of the Hell Fire Club can countenance these things, strong stomach though he have for villainy. It is something to have contrived to come so low that even his Grace of Wharton must turn upon him, and swear ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... up under the trees, and which she held up to the astonished gaze of her mistress. On investigating further, they found the garden littered with articles of clothing, valuable documents, and title-deeds, which the thief had thrown aside as worthless, ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... toys of canvas and stone if compared to the joy and peace of artless domestic life?' And the answer is—truly, in themselves, none. But as expressions of the highest state of the human spirit, their worth is infinite. As results they may be worthless, but, as signs, they are above price. For it is an assured truth that, whenever the faculties of men are at their fulness, they must express themselves by art; and to say that a state is without such expression, is to say that it is sunk from its proper level ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... made. It was only a question of acquiring some fifty or a hundred acres of worthless land with the old pit workings, and the ridding of those workings from water. They had galleries in their own mine that he knew nearly reached those of the old, and to drive from one to the other was the ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... good time, sir; I have many things in reserve, among which I propose to give a few remarks, I dare say they will be very worthless ones, on the impropriety of a rational being's ever kneeling. To my notion, gentlemen and ladies, God never intended an American ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... theorem, it seemed so ridiculously self-evident that he wondered why anybody should bother his brain about it. There were other boys who could figure out the demonstrations in advance without looking at the book. Keith tried it once or twice, but failed miserably and gave it up as a worthless and thankless job. Apparently his brain did not work in that way. It had to touch real life to be at its best. History and geography were his favourite subjects, and in those he led the class. This was openly ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... Worthless waste and worn-out wool, Flung together—a specious sham! With just enough of the 'fleece' to pull Over the eyes of poor 'Uncle Sam.' Cunningly twisted through web and woof, Not 'shirt of Nessus' such power to kill. Look! how the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Peter here the day after the papers published the story of your little stunt. Well, he was so tickled about it that we shook hands and had a 'touching reconciliation,' quite like what you see in the plays. We talked about 'those worthless kids' of ours and it ended up with his coming home to dinner with me. So you see you did more than save a professor's life; you brought about a renewal of an old friendship. After dinner we got to talking it over and decided the least we could do was to replace that ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the noble dame who preferred to her handsome husband the palefrenier laid, ord et infame of Queen Margaret of Navarre (Heptameron No. xx.). We have all known women who sacrificed everything despite themselves, as it were, for the most worthless of men. The world stares and scoffs and blames and understands nothing. There is for every woman one man and one only in whose slavery she is "ready to sweep the floor." Fate is mostly opposed to her meeting ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... other day of an English gentlemen being taken in by one of these scoundrels, and giving a lot of money for land which on examination proved to be worthless. Luckily for him, there was some flaw in his agreement, and his purchase was cancelled. Men who intend buying land should be in no great hurry about their investments; the banks give a fair percentage on deposits, and it is always so much more satisfactory ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... think I shall try that again. Now that I have a cell to myself, I can do it. And I sleep in dear Mother Alianora's cell, where I am sure the blessed Lord has been wont to come. Oh, I hope He will not tarry away because I am come into it—I, who am so worthless, and so weak, and need His gracious aid so ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... was not a man like his father. He was more like his grandfather Henry the Third, caring for pretty colours and pretty things, rich clothes, rich feasts, rich jewels, and surrounding himself with worthless favourites. Robert Bruce said he was more afraid of the dead bones of Edward the First than of the living body of Edward of Caernarvon, and that it was easier to win a kingdom from his son than a foot of land from the father. ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... owned by three individuals. All of it was worthless—except to a man of vision—so, treading lightly, Scattergood went about acquiring what he needed. His method was not direct approach. He went to the owners of that land with proffers to sell, not to buy. To Landers, who owned the marsh on both shores of the river, he tried ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... must be used to make up a well-poised phrase, or to avoid a still greater misfortune—that of stabbing an author. Thus, for instance, a poet brings you some verses. You must say that they are admirable, for if you said less it would be tantamount to describing them as worthless, and to inflicting a grievous insult upon a man who intended to ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... commonly worthless; but as Montucla and others have referred to the verses at the end, and as the tract is of the rarest, I ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan |
