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Better   /bˈɛtər/   Listen
Better

adverb
1.
Comparative of 'well'; in a better or more excellent manner or more advantageously or attractively or to a greater degree etc..  "A deed better left undone" , "Better suited to the job"
2.
From a position of superiority or authority.  Synonym: best.  "I know better."



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"Better" Quotes from Famous Books



... is better nor dried meat," added Henri. "Give him to me; I will put him on my hoss, vich is strongar dan yourn. But ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... whereof I learned as much of the estate of Guiana as I could, or as they knew, for those poore souldiers having been many years without wine, a few draughts made them merrie, in which mood they vaunted of Guiana and the riches thereof,'—much which it had been better for Raleigh had he ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... contained a stand of coarse pottery and a small coarse saucer (XII, 31, 44), the rough handmade vase (XII, 23), fragments of large water-jars of better ware, and two alabaster bowls, one of the sharp-edged type (XI, 33), the other of the common shape, drawn in at the mouth (XI, 44); there were also two mud jar-seals of ...
— El Kab • J.E. Quibell

... permanently in the country. Could the full statistics be furnished, they would excite the surprise of all; the few details which we would be enabled to gather from directories, newspapers, the reports of witnesses, and other sources, could give but a faint idea of the whole, and are consequently better omitted. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... a direct consideration of the charter granted to the province or colony, and the better to elucidate the true sense and meaning of it, we would take a view of the state of the English North American continent at the time, when, and after possession was first taken of any part of it, by the Europeans. It was then possessed by heathen and barbarous people, who had, nevertheless, all ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... afternoon—the road was soft and the track smooth. Much of it led through woodland and along a brawling stream. The horses were of the sort that delight the soul—I doubt if there were six better saddlers in the whole Kingdom of Valeria. I know there were no prettier women, and, I ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... which list the alterations ordered in earlier pictures by the august Motion Picture Commission of the State of New York. Most of them are fussy little disapprovals of language used in the titles. You mustn't say: "I shall kill Lester Crope." Better say: "I shall destroy the false Lester Crope" or something like that. You mustn't say "rou." You mustn't say: "I don't like that rich old rou hanging around you." Better say: "I don't like that rich old sport." And when, in a moment of self-indulgence, a title-writer allowed ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse. Why this is so, and what is good or evil in the emotions, I propose to show in this part of my treatise. But, before I begin, it would be well to make a few prefatory observations on perfection and ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... make E-lizabeth House School go right. That investment will be a dividend payer. And there's Morton Bassett, that I never took much stock in, why, he's settled down to being a decent and useful citizen. There ain't a better newspaper in the country than the 'Courier,' and that first editorial, up at the top of the page every morning, he writes himself, and it's got a smack to it—a kind of pawpaw and persimmon flavor ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... fields of corn were watched, and as fast as the kernels within the husks—now becoming golden-hued—were glazed, the stalks were cut and tied in compact shocks. The sooner maize is cut, after it has sufficiently matured, the better, for the leaves make more nutritious fodder if cured or dried while still full of sap. From some fields the shocks were wholly removed, that the land might be plowed and seeded with grain and grass. Buckwheat, used merely as a green and scavenger ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... pedantic; and when some lyrical experience, such as love, suddenly rejuvenates us, drawing us back into the primal poetic consciousness, then we turn instinctively to these ancients for an interpretation of our hearts,—also because their definition of beauty, which is always the garment Love wears, is better than we can make now. With us "The Beautiful" is often mere cant, or a form of sentimentality, but with them it was a principle, a spirtual faculty that determined all proportions. Thus their very philosophies show a beautiful formality, a Parthenon entrance to life. And from ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... her a practical solution. On her next visit to the hospital she asked to see the doctor. She was taken to him and made her request. "I love my brother," she said; "I have always given him everything. He has lost his eyes and he cannot endure it. Because I love him, I could bear it better. I have been thinking, and I am sure it is possible: I want you to remove my eyes and to put them into his ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... here soon, I suppose. But this is a matter you can manage better at our house; yes, you sit down and wait there till he comes. (coaxingly) You shall have something to drink, too, and after that I'll give you just the nicest sort of ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... me a remembrance of her saying that Sunday morning as we pulled up before the St. Dunstan that she went past the place on the street car every day getting to her work at the Western Cereal Company. Sloppy of me not to have paid better attention; I knew vaguely that Dykeman was in one ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... of the mysteries of the case is that Logan entrusted Bower, who could not read, with all his papers. If one of them was needed, Bower had to employ a person who could read to find it: probably he used, as a rule, the help of his better educated son, Valentine. After Logan's restless night, Bower returned with the two letters, Ruthven's and Clerk's, which Logan 'burned ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang

... Ecelino Balbo. It had just happened that Balbo's son, Ecelino il Monaco, was at that moment disengaged, having been recently divorced from his first wife, the lovely but light Speronella; and Balbo falsely went to the greedy guardian of Cecilia, and offering him better terms than he could hope for from Tiso, secured Cecilia for his son. At this treachery the Camposampieri were furious; but they dissembled their anger till the moment of revenge arrived, when Cecilia's rejected suitor encountering ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... added, with a quick and decided tone, "you are doubtless employed by Mr. Varney on behalf of Madame Dalibard and in search of evidence connected with the loss of an unhappy infant. I am on the same quest, and for the same end. The interests of your client are mine. Two heads are better than one; let us unite our ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the hawser of the kedge was chafed through on the rocky bottom and parted, when the vessel was again adrift. Most fortunately, however, she cast off with her head from the rock, and narrowly cleared it, when she sailed up the Firth of Forth to wait the return of better weather. The artificers were thus left upon the rock with so heavy a sea running that it was ascertained to have risen to a height of eighty feet on the building. Under such perilous circumstances it would be difficult to describe the feelings of those who, at this time, were ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... for an independent and self-governed Ireland could stand upon it. But such a consummation was not to be. There was no arguing away the hostility of Mr Dillon, The Freeman's Journal and those others upon whom they imposed their will. Mr Dillon could give no better proof of statesmanship or generous sentiment than to refer to "Dunraven and his crowd" and to declare that "Conciliation, so far as the landlords are concerned, was ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... continued in every successive birth, through which they reappeared in the world. See the accounts of him, and of his various devices against Buddha, and his own destruction at the last, in M. B., pp. 315-321, 326-330; and still better, in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xx, Vinaya Texts, pp. 233-265. For the particular attempt referred to in the text, see "The Life of the Buddha," p. 107. When he was engulphed, and the flames were around ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... father was a poor minister in Haynichen, with thirteen children; and Gellert, when quite a little fellow, was obliged to be a copying office-clerk: who can tell whether he did n't then contract that physical weakness of his? And now that he 's an old man, things will never go better with him; he has often no wood, and must be pinched with cold. It is with him, perhaps, as with that student of whom your brother has told us, who is as poor as a rat, and yet must read; and so in winter he lies in bed with an empty stomach, until day is far advanced; and he ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach

... thousand troops are massed in Southern Tyrol and the Trentino; many villages near the Italian frontier have been evacuated and many houses destroyed by dynamite, so as to afford better range for ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... get up and go into the house, and after this, remember and do just exactly as I tell you. That's all I want, but that I must have, and you must understand it. I don't want to be cruel to you, and I won't be,—but you must learn to mind, and you had better learn it now than later. Don't you ever do again what I tell you not to do, or I shall have to punish you even ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... play the accompaniment," said Christine, with the decided manner that few resisted, and she went correctly through the difficult and brilliant passage. Dennis followed his part with both eye and ear, and then said, "Perhaps I had better sing my part alone first, and then you ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... It were better if the President would devote his time to calculate the forces and resources needed to quench the fire. Over in Montgomery the slave-drivers proceed with the terrible, unrelenting, fearless earnestness of the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... subsided, there broke out a crash of musketry aboard the second monitor, and sparks of fire sprang up in different parts of her, which quickly brightened into a lurid glare and showed that her people were lighting beacon-fires, the better to see who their attackers might be and ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... see her lips they blush for shame." Carew's compliment is hardly equal to his morals ('Gosse', p. 101): "Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beauty's orient deep These flowers, as in their causes, sleep." Few better things have been written than this, the second stanza of Jonson's 'Drink to me only with thine eyes' ('Gosse', p. 80): "I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon did'st only breathe, And sent'st it ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... that this battle for employments, is to be fought only between the Presbyterians, and those of the church yet established. I shall not enter into the merits of either side, by examining which of the two is the better spiritual economy, or which is most suited to the civil constitution: But the question turns upon this point: When the Presbyterians shall have got their share of employments (which, must be one full half, or else they cannot look upon themselves as fairly dealt with) I ask, whether they ought not ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... am, to be sure; quite true; but if I'm your papa's uncle, I'm your great-uncle, and there isn't such an immense amount of difference; don't you suppose you had better call me ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... he knew it. He mixed but little with the "Boys," but the latter respected him for his manly qualities. He was utterly without fear. Courage is better than gold on the plains of Montana. He took to the life, partly because it was wild and adventurous, partly because he found that he could save money at it. The image of Minnie never grew dim in his heart, and he looked forward to a modest little home in his native village, graced ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous

... much better it were that you too should have been born Bambalio,—if this Bambalio really exists,—than to have taken up such a livelihood, in which it is absolutely inevitable that you should either sell your speech in behalf of the innocent, or else preserve the guilty. Yet you can not do ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... had happened, and better still were going to happen. Sally May had had her hair bobbed, and very chic it looked curling under the rim of her little fur hat. Nancy had a thrilling tale of Christmas presents to tell, and they ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... six dollars (24s. sterling) a day for their attendance. The members of the Executive Council are paid at the rate of 1260l. per annum.] The qualification for the franchise has been placed tolerably high, and no doubt wisely, as, in the absence of a better guarantee for the right use of it, a property qualification, however trifling in amount, has a tendency to elevate the tone of electioneering, and to enhance the value which is attached to a vote. The qualification for electors is a 50l. freehold, or an annual rent of 7l. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... sent for by the chief to come and interpret for a French gentleman who has arrived here on some diplomatic business of importance. I shall be happy to do my best, but you are aware that some of the troops of your countrymen will be here soon, and that then there will be no lack of people better able to interpret for you than I am. You of course know that the English attempted to make a landing, but have been defeated, and it is thought probable that they will make another attempt in this direction." He appeared to say this in a very significant ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... furniture in the next room. Soon it all was still, then the door was gently opened and little Philip tiptoed to his mother's bed and whispered, 'Mama, I have straightened the furniture and tidied up the room; is your headache better?' ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... one is the Inspector himself, the others are ordinary P.C.'s. And now I hope you shall hear some better language. I was obliged to be plain and intelligible in my manifesto, because there was so much matter-of-fact ground for remonstrance, and even chiding; but still, 'i faith, I am proud of my men, who, in point of fact, are ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various

... us. Night's whispers lulled us. The rippling river, the rustling leaves, the hum of insects grew more audible; and these are gentle sounds that prove wide quietude in Nature, and tell man that the burr and buzz in his day-laboring brain have ceased, and he had better be breathing deep in harmony. So we disposed ourselves upon the fragrant couch of spruce-boughs, and sank slowly and deeper into sleep, as divers sink into the thick waters down below, into the dreamy waters far ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... important source to the statesman whom he ranked higher than any man of his time. "He improves upon acquaintance," wrote Mrs. Church to her sister; "I regret that you do not speak French." But her sister's husband spoke French better than any man in America, and after the resignation from the Cabinet, Talleyrand spent most of his time in the little red brick house at 26 Broadway, where Hamilton was working to recover his lost position at the bar. "I have seen the eighth wonder of the world," wrote the Frenchman, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... chances to the winds, but he ruined himself financially and was read out of the party. The motive behind this opposition to Canada's participations in the Imperial wars is, perhaps, three-fold. French Canada has never forgotten that she was conquered. True, she is better off, enjoys greater religious liberty, greater material prosperity, greater political freedom than under the old regime; but she remembers that French prestige fell before English prestige on the Plains of Abraham. The second motive is an unconscious feeling of detachment from ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... lovers spending their time together talking of religion! Have they nothing better to do than to say their catechism! What profit is there in the attempt to degrade what is noble? Yes, no doubt they are saying their catechism in their delightful land of romance; they are perfect in each other's eyes; they love one another, they talk eagerly of all that makes virtue worth having. ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... existence, needs practice and preparation in this life. God will not be discerned by the man who has not been accustomed to look for Him. He will not be seen by the swine, who with head to earth has eaten his fill of sensual pleasures, and has cared for nothing better. He will not be seen by the covetous man and the oppressor, who never identified His image hidden away under the labour-stained dress of the poor. He will not be seen by the man, who never looked up into His face in prayer here below. He will not be seen by ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... you again. Hush, koitza!" the other commanded. "Hush! or I will never listen to you any more. You loathe your own flesh, the very entrails that have given birth to the mot[a]tza! I tell you again, Okoya is good. He is far better than his father! Thus much I know, and know it well." She looked hard at the wife of Zashue, while her lips disdainfully curled. Say cast her eyes to the ground; she did not care to learn about ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... suspicion is, of course, very painful to me," she said; "but under the circumstances I think it is better for the satisfaction of all concerned that I should accept the offer made by my servants, and request you to search their apartments. Miss Duncan, and Miss Jessie Bain, my son's ward, will, just for form's sake, ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey

... last of all, to look back at the beautiful road to Hades, wishing I might be left behind, and then we reascended, through wheels, pulleys, and engines, to the upper day. After this we rowed down the river to the docks, lunched on board a splendid East Indiaman, and came home again. I think it is better for me, however, to look at the trees, and the sun, moon, and stars, than at tunnels and docks; they make me ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... "green hillocks," and other structures of the same nature, are shown in the accompanying diagrams[59] (Plates I.-XVI.), which explain their formation better than any written description. It is enough here to state that they are built of rough stone, without any mortar. "Though the stone walls are very thick," says my authority (p. 62), "they are covered ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie

... satisfaction that Lucille and I have found in the improvements you initiated here. I laugh—mon ami—when I think of all that you did in three days. It seems as if a strong and energetic wind—such as I imagine your English breezes to be—had blown across my old home, leaving it healthier, purer, better; leaving also those within it somewhat breathless and surprised. I suppose that many Englishmen are like you, and suspect that they will some day master the world. We have had visitors, among others Alphonse Giraud, whom I believe you do not yet know. If contrasts are mutually attractive, then you ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... nothing at all of the neat brougham, with its pair of spirited grays; she was accustomed to driving in the better-class of carriage all her life; but Nora turned first pale and then crimson. She got into the carriage, and sat back in a corner; tears were brimming to ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... good! In what way, I'd like to know? I guess it would take more than her to make me better." ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... had not been perpetuated in the later annals of the house, and if Catulus received the support of the official nobility, it was because his tastes and temperament harmonised with theirs, and because it may have seemed impolitic to advance a man of better birth and more pronounced opinions in view of the prevailing temper of the people. Catulus was a man of elegant taste and polished learning, one of the most perfect Hellenists of the day, and distinguished for the grace and purity of the Latin style that was exhibited ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... look of embarrassment crossed his face, he carried off the difficult situation with his characteristic assurance. "The doctor sent you a little stimulant. Perhaps I'd better give you a dose now. It might pick you up." Taking a bottle from his pocket, he poured some whiskey into a glass and added a little water from a pitcher on the table. "There, now," he remarked, with genuine sympathy as he held the glass to her lips. "You'll begin to feel better in a minute. This ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... he had a fainting-fit that kept him lying on the stones of the embrasure for half an hour. Lupin, losing patience, was fastening him to one end of the rope, of which the other end was knotted round the bars and was preparing to let him down like a bale of goods, when Daubrecq woke up, in better condition: ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... on perceiving Ishmael's utter obliviousness of her own kindly presence and his perfect devotion to the thankless Claudia, Bee felt a pang, she went and buried herself with domestic duties, or played with the children in the nursery, or what was better still, if it happened to be little Lu's "sleepy time" she would take her baby-sister up to her own room, sit down and fold her to her breast and rock and sing her to sleep. And certainly the clasp of those baby-arms about her neck, and the nestling of that baby-form ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... to Choongtam, he detailed to me the motives that had led to his obtaining the authority of the Deputy-Governor of Bengal (Lord Dalhousie being absent) for his visiting Sikkim. Foremost, was his earnest desire to cultivate a better understanding with the Rajah and his officers. He had always taken the Rajah's part, from a conviction that he was not to blame for the misunderstandings which the Sikkim officers pretended to exist between their country and Dorjiling; he ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... miner is still hanging around this cabin?" asked Sandy. "Do you think he is the man who gave Bert the clout on the head? If you do think so, we'd better ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... reached, Lashmar asked nothing better. He was befooled and bedazzled. Every trouble seemed of a sudden to be lifted from his mind. Gratitude to Constance, who had proved so much better than her word, romantic devotion to May, who had so bravely declared ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... explaining, "it ain't one o' yer ordinary stars. Lord love ye! it's a 'igh sight better'n that. It's a planet, that's wot it is, like our own world, an' it keeps a-spinnin' 'round the sun like our earth, too." He ended up with a descriptive sweep of his arm, and gazed ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... better off not to marry, if I had a real man who loved me, and who would take me across the sea! What am I saying? The nuns would be shocked. I do not know—oh, I do not know what it is that tears at me! But I want to see the world, and I want ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... to obey her kindly command; and it is to be regretted that the sword swallower had no better manners than to jump on to the platform with one bound and seat himself at the table with the most unseemly haste. The others, and more especially Toby, proceeded in a leisurely and more ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis

... any circumstances from forgetfulness or the fear of being wearisome, he brought them back to my memory. He then asked me what were my projects for the future, and my plans for the rest of my life. 'My intentions are good,' I replied to him, 'but a bad habit, which I cannot conquer, masters my better will, and I resemble a sea beaten by two opposite winds,' 'I can understand that,' he said; 'but I wish to know what is the kind of life that would most decidedly please you?' 'A secluded life,' I replied to him, without ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... was thus by his suicidal fury provoking his temporary subjects to rise in arms against him, he was at the same time hard pressed by the Romans in Asia, both by sea and by land. Lucullus, after the failure of his attempt to lead forth the Egyptian fleet against Mithradates, had with better success repeated his efforts to procure vessels of war in the Syrian maritime towns, and reinforced his nascent fleet in the ports of Cyprus, Pamphylia, and Rhodes till he found himself strong enough to proceed to the attack. He dexterously avoided ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... Swamp came from the hand of the Great Father?" (A pause, and again, "Yes, yes," from many voices.) "And what good has come of it? Here is the Mountain; yonder is the Swamp, as they were from the beginning; and what the better are we that the swamp has been flooded and the mountain drenched with the blood of our fathers? Hatred has been tried from the beginning of time, and has failed. Let us now, my children, try Love, as the Great ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne

... representation of them is made discreetly, it will generally be well taken. But if they are so habitual as not easily to be altered, strike not too often upon the unharmonious string. Rather let them pass unobserved. Such a cheerful compliance will better cement your union; and they may be made easy to yourself, by reflecting on the superior good qualities by which these trifling faults ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... nothing to do. Oh, I tell you that I have some great plans, now that at last we are really started out right. Now, we can outline our plans of work among women less fortunate than we ourselves. We can find places for them, we can lead them on to better things, we can teach them our own doctrine of living for others, our own principle of making other people happy." The young wife had spoken with an ever increasing enthusiasm. Her eyes were sparkling; her voice deepened musically; the color glowed brightly in her cheeks; her ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... of minutes—or was it seconds only?—these two beings with the breath of life in them faced one another. Then Spinrobin made a step cautiously in advance; lowering his candle he moved towards it. This he did, partly to see better, partly to protect his bare legs. The idea of protection, however, seems to have been merely instinct, for at once this notion that it might dash forward to attack him was merged in the unaccountable realization ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... tongue, the daily return of the bright hectic spot, and the tense, hurrying and unvarying beat of the strained pulses, might have told him how certainly and rapidly the work of destruction was going on at the citadel of life, and better prepared him for the agonizing scene which ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... clubs in mufti or neglige, the golf or cycling suits being the favorites. When you are asked to play bowls at a private house, and when there is a dance to follow, or when you are asked to a "bowling party," it is perhaps better form to wear your dinner jacket or Tuxedo, as there will be supper and dancing afterward. The presence of ladies will not deter you from wearing on an occasion like this demitoilet or dinner jacket, as there is a certain informality about all athletic ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain

... allowed him to interfere with her plans for personal advancement and aggrandizement, to make a monopoly of her society, and to run his head so violently into a stone wall. After the first few days, when she realized that she liked to be with him better than with any one she had ever known, she probably thought—or to that effect—"I'll just pretend a little—and have it to remember." But she found herself lying awake at night, wishing that he was rich; and later, not even wishing, just lying awake and suffering. She had made up her mind some ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... van Berk knew better. Had he not informed the twenty-four commissioners that, twelve years before, the Advocate wished to subject the country to Spain, and that Spinola had drawn a bill of exchange for 100,000 ducats as a compensation for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the questions of Pownal, had been absent, at Albany, where they were, on a visit to some relatives, for three weeks, but were daily expected home. She was so sorry they were absent. They were all well, and would be so glad to see him looking so well. She thought she had never seen him looking better. There was nothing like country air to ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... to me is worth you all, Him to content, my soule in all things seekes, Say what you please, exclaiming chide and brall, Ile turne disgrace unto your blushing cheekes. I am your better now by Ring and Hatt, No more playn Rose, ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al

... done, we'll eat one of the horses, if we can't shoot anything. Surely we shall come across settlers some time during the next ten years; and if we don't, I say that if black fellows can live, we who know so much better can, till we reach ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... first to say, however, that the selection of the drawings that were to illustrate the book having been made (the drawings for which my own text was to serve as commentary would be the better expression), the superintendence of their production had been left to Schofield. He, Maschka, and I passed the proofs in consultation. The blocks were almost ready; and the reason for their call that ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... as it does elsewhere. A Christian woman marries an unchristian man with the hope that he will become a Christian; a steady, sensible woman in all other matters marries a man who drinks, with the thought of reforming him; one associates with worldly and sensual companions, expecting to make them better; but, alas, what blasted hopes, what wretched failures in all of these instances, at least in the most of them! You can not reform vice; you may whitewash a sin, but it will be sin, still. To purify a ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... The sooner the better! Unless she abandoned Beechcote, they must learn to meet on the footing of ordinary acquaintances; and it ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... "Better, far better, ma cherie; I have met a man who would be a King!" He hurried out, climbed into a passing omnibus, and descended at the ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... lamps are on has dropped to 1.8 volts per cell a Regular charge is necessary. When the specific gravity of the pilot cell indicates that the battery is discharged, a Regular charge is necessary. It is better to use the specific gravity readings as a guide, as ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... head and let her clear eyes rest on his. "I like you," she said. "I even like—what we did. I like you far better than any man I ever knew. But I do not care for you enough to give up my freedom of mind and of conduct for your asking. I do not care enough for you to subscribe to your religion and your laws. And ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... words imperfectly. Evidence of progress of memory, understanding and articulation in answers given. No word invented by himself; calls his nurse wola, probably from the often-heard "ja wohl." Correct use of single words picked up increases surprisingly (153). Misunderstandings rational; words better understood; reasoning developed (154). Inductive reasoning. Progress in forming sentences. Sentence of five words. Pronouns signify objects or qualities ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... accustomed—and hence it is that political centralization grows so rapidly. Scarcely a session of Parliament now passes without witnessing the creation of a new commission for the management of the poor, the drainage of towns, the regulation of lodging-houses, or other matters that could be better attended to by the local authorities, were it not that the population, is being so rapidly divided into two classes widely remote from each other—the poor labourer and the rich absentee landlord ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... life? If you escaped, Salensus Oll would know that only through my connivance could you have succeeded. Then would he send for me. What would you have me do? Reduce the city and myself to ashes? No, fool, there is a better way—a better way for Solan to keep thy money and ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... nation's hard-won prosperity; helping it to a full consciousness of the genial yet delicate homeliness it loved, for which it had fought so bravely, and was ready at any moment to fight anew, against man or the sea. Thomas de Keyser, who understood better than any one else the kind of quaint new Atticism which had found its way into the world over those waste salt marshes, wondering whether quite its finest type as he understood it could ever actually be seen there, saw it at last, in lively motion, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... rocks. Both Moosetooth and La Biche cautioned me against running the Rapids loaded, but as it would take a week to portage around the Rapids, I took a chance. Moosetooth got through all right, but La Biche—and I reckon he's the better man of the two—at least I had him on the more valuable boat—managed to find a rock and we were in luck to ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler

... attack, arrest, disarm, and disperse people," and generally to conduct himself after the manner of Attila, Genshis Khan, the Emperor Theodore, or any other ferocious magnate of ancient or modern times. The officer holding this destructive commission thought he could do nothing better than imitate the tactics of his French adversary, accordingly we find him taking possession of the other rectangular building known as the Lower Fort Garry, situated some twenty miles north of the one in which the French had taken post, but unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, not finding within ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... Kilburn, however, kept up her childhood friendships, and she and some of the ladies called one another by their Christian names, but they believed that she met people in Washington whom she liked better; the winters she spent there certainly weakened the ties between them, and when it came to those eleven years in Rome, the letters they exchanged grew rarer and rarer, till they stopped altogether. Some of the girls went ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... suffice, and it was desired to do better still by dispensing with the use of high priced illuminating gas. An endeavor was made to obviate the difficulty by manufacturing a special gas for the motive power, as steam is produced for the same object, by distilling coal, carbureting air, producing water gas by the Dowson process, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various

... a touching endeavour to appear better, but too often ability refused to second will; too often the attempt to bear up failed. The effort to eat, to talk, to look cheerful, was unsuccessful. Many an hour passed during which Mrs. Pryor feared that the chords of life ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... day came for the start. Farrow had made a trial by himself the night before, and nothing could be better. Mr. Armstrong came over, and after tea they all three went upstairs into the large garret which had been used as a workshop. The great handle was taken down and fitted into its place, Mr. Armstrong standing at one end and Miriam and her husband at the other. Obedient to the impulse, every planet ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... the chief stress upon the will. Man wills to live; but in a universe like ours where he is pitted against overwhelming forces, he is driven to seek allies, and in his quest for them he wills to believe in a God as good as the best in himself and better. Faith is an adventure; Clement of Alexandria called it "an enterprise of noble daring to take our way to God." We trust that the Supreme Power in the world is akin to the highest within us, to the highest we discover anywhere, and will be our confederate in enabling ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

... anxiety cannot reach—trouble about that which we can neither make nor mend—that oppresses humanity. We can bear our daily burdens very well. We can go through our regular hours of bodily and mental labor, and feel the better rather than the worse for it; but to care for that which our care cannot touch, and to be troubled about that which is entirely beyond our sphere—this is the burden that breaks the back of the world—this is the burden which we bind to our ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... word nursing for want of a better. It has been limited to signify little more than the administration of medicines and the application of poultices. It ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale

... during his long career, it must be borne in mind that he has always aimed at representing the sentiments of the better part of the country—seeing with London's eyes, and judging by London standards. Punch is an Englishman of intense patriotism, but primarily a Citizen of London, and a far truer incarnation of it—for all his chaff of aldermen and turtle—than ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... Better to be governed by magistrates than mobs Burning with bitter revenge for all the favours he had received Death rather than life with a false acknowledgment of guilt Enemy of all compulsion of the human conscience Heidelberg Catechism ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger

... not revolve around any one of us; we make our circuit of the sun along with the other inhabitants of the earth, a planet of inferior magnitude. The thing we strive for is recognition, but when this comes it is apt to turn our heads. I should say, then, that it was better it should not come in a great glare and aloud shout, all at once, but should steal slowly upon us, ray by ray, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... this tale of Rouen was connected with the history of France was when Captain Valdory held the town against Henri IV. And in leaving for a moment more domestic details of the city's story, I can suggest the transition no better than by telling you of another literary claim which Rouen archaeologists will not permit a visitor to forget, the authorship of the famous "Satyre Menippee," which did as much as any political pamphlet could ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... "Ye'd better drop that axe and scoot round getten' this stranger some breakfast and some grub to take with him. He's one of them San Francisco sports out here trout-fishing in the branch. He's got adrift from his party, has lost his rod and ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... daylight, he was very good-looking. He had blue eyes with black lashes and dark-brown hair, and a habit of getting up when any of us did that kept him on his feet most of the time. His limp was rather better—or his ankle. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... lot, was handsome, brave, and rich. But, whether from heedlessness or want of skill, he was an unlucky jouster, and very apt to be thrown, an accident which he bore with perfect good-humor, always ready to mount again and try to mend his fortune, generally with no better success. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... Vienna once—they adored each other. White hair, devilish queer, wasn't it? Suited her, somehow. And then she had been married to a Russian, or something, somewhere in the wilds, and their names were—' But do you know," said Marshfield, interrupting himself, "I think I had better let you find that out for yourselves, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... observations among the pilgrims at Kief I was struck with the fact, not only that a superstitious faith, but that a degraded art blinds the eye to the beauty of nature. It is one of the high services of true art to lead the mind to the contemplation, to the love and the better understanding, of the works of creation. But, on the contrary, it is the penalty of this Byzantine art to close the appointed access between nature and nature's God. An art which ignores and violates truth and beauty cannot do otherwise than lead the mind away from nature. This seemed ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... world. By-and-by the struggle is transferred to higher ground, and we begin to perceive how much we are indebted to the fighting spirit. Strength is the brute form of truth. No conspicuously great man was born of the Romfreys, who were better served by a succession of able sons. They sent undistinguished able men to army and navy—lieutenants given to be critics of their captains, but trustworthy for their work. In the later life of the family, they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... "it matters not who leads us so long as we enter the promised land. At any rate we could have no better nor more trustworthy guide than he who is at ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... have journeyed over this waste for some sixty miles, the land begins to better, and there is grass again, yet no trees, and it rises into bents, which go back on each side, east and west, from the Flood, and the said bents are grass also up to the tops, where they are crested with sheer rocks black of colour. As for the Flood itself, it is now gathered ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... was; but it is in such humors that truth comes out. And when he tells you, from his own knowledge, what every one must presume, from the extreme probability of the thing, whether he told it or not, one such testimony is worth a thousand that contradict that probability, when the parties have a better understanding with each other, and when they have a point to carry that may unite ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... talents and courage have raised him above it. As to his manners, they are those of a soldier; frank and rough, of course, but he seems to me both intelligent and sincere. Manners! It is a little late in the day to talk of them, when most of the Marshals of France and the new nobility have none better. Do you fancy yourself back in the ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... in her voice gave him a sudden suspicion that she imagined his departure due to poverty. Now to be poor as an author is to be unpopular, and he valued his popularity—with the better sort of people. He hastened to explain. "I have to go, because here, you see, here, neither for me nor my little son, is it Life. It's a place of memories, a place of accomplished beauty. My son already breaks away,—a preparatory school at Margate. Healthier, better, for us to break altogether ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... in the same village territory even wanted to force upon the peasants an entirely different origin, in that with the assistance of the Biblical legend they wished to trace him from the accursed Ham (from this the curse and insult Ty chamie, "Thou Ham"), but themselves from Japhet, of better repute in the Bible, while they attributed to the Jews, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... Judge, and saying, "This yer is a lone hand, played alone, and without my pardner," he bowed to the jury and was about to withdraw when the Judge called him back. "If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you had better say it now." For the first time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and his strange advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and, saying, "Euchred, old man!" held out his hand. Tennessee's Partner ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... the matter was, that the covenants were to be made on the following day; and made they were, and devised accordingly. When they were concluded, it was notified to the council that we should go to Babylon (Cairo), because the Turks could better be destroyed in Babylon than in any other land; but to the folk at large it was only told that we were bound to go overseass. We were then in Lent (March 1201), and by St. john's Day, in the following year-which would be twelve hundred and two years after the Incarnation ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin

... two are confronted, as they very often are confronted, it is nearly always with what I may call a rhetorical purpose; the speaker's whole design is to exalt and enthrone one of the two, and he uses the other only as a foil and to enable him the better to give effect to his purpose. Obviously, with us, it is usually Hellenism which is thus reduced to minister to the triumph of Hebraism. There is a sermon on Greece and the Greek spirit by a man never to be mentioned ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... we strike Columbus River—pass me two or throe skeins of thread to stand for the river; the sugar bowl will do for Hawkeye, and the rat trap for Stone's Landing-Napoleon, I mean—and you can see how much better Napoleon is located than Hawkeye. Now here you are with your railroad complete, and showing its continuation to ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... intimate acquaintances on the matter were as follows: Mr. Payne and Mr. Watts-Dunton [676] thought that Lady Burton did quite rightly, considering the circumstances, in destroying the work. Mr. W.F. Kirby thought that, though from her own point of view she was justified in so doing, she would have done better to present it to the College of Surgeons, where it would have been quite harmless and might have ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... to sail the seas and rivers rather than march on the land. They were a hardy and daring people, who liked nothing better than to fight and conquer and rob in other countries. There was not a land in western Europe, even as far south as Sicily, that they did not visit. Wherever they went they plundered and burned and murdered, leaving ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton

... better, Brimberly!" So saying, Mr. Ravenslee took up the clothes and turned toward the door. "Now I'll trouble you to keep an eye on—er—young America here while I get ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... Notwithstanding this difficulty, the priests, who interested themselves much in this revolt, ran with the utmost earnestness from church to church, levelling their sermons against the Emperor and the Catholic religion; and that they might have the better success in putting a stop to all ecclesiastical innovations, they came to a resolution of putting all the missionaries to the sword; and that the viceroy might have no room to hope for a pardon, they obliged him to give the ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... in high-pitched soliloquy. "The nice thing about them is that they don't realise a bit how clever and educational they are. It would be dreadful to have them putting on airs, wouldn't it? And yet I suppose the knowledge of being able to jump through a hoop better than any other wolf would justify a certain ...
— When William Came • Saki

... this, Stone boy went out to scout and see how things looked. At daylight he came hurriedly in saying, "You had better get to the first corral; they are coming." "You haven't built your fence, nephew." Whereupon Stone boy said: "I will build it in time; don't worry, uncle." The dust on the hillsides rose as great clouds of smoke from a forest ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin



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