"Common" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have it that the ancient world had a civilization much higher than the modern and was more advanced in knowledge. It is claimed that steam engines and electricity were common in Egypt thousands of years ago and that literature, science, art, and architecture flourished as never since. Certain it is that the Pyramids were for a long time the most solid "Skyscrapers" in ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... named Argus grayi, and which inhabits Borneo, but the type of a new genus of the family Phasianid. This Gallinacean, in fact, which Mr. Maingonnat has given up to the Museum of Natural History, has not, like the common Argus of Borneo, excessively elongated secondaries; and its tail is not formed of normal rectrices, from the middle of which spring two very long feathers, a little curved and arranged like a roof; but it consists of twelve wide plane feathers, regularly tapering, and ornamented with ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... Earthling a raving maniac, and Nrana made a very common error, an error more civilized beings than he have often made. He thought the paranoia was an improvement over the wider madness. He talked on, hoping the Earthling would talk too, and he did not recognize the danger of ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown
... drawing-room they found the Baron and his two guests chatting amicably. Gerfaut had his forehead tied up with a black silk band which gave him a slight resemblance to Cupid with his bandage just off his eyes. His sparkling glance showed that blindness was not what there was in common between him and the charming little god. After the first greetings, Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who was always strict as to etiquette, and who thought that Titania had been a rather unceremonious master of ceremonies ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... must have a Mouse; with a Mole, a heavy mass, the work of removal would perhaps present too much difficulty. To obtain the Mouse I place my friends and neighbours under requisition; they laugh at my whim but none the less proffer their traps. Yet, the moment a Mouse is needed, that very common animal becomes rare. Braving decorum in his speech, which follows the Latin of his ancestors, the Provencal says, but even more crudely than in my translation: "If you look for dung, the ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... majesty's government was bound to protest against this violation of a treaty to which Germany was a party in common with England and must request an assurance that the demand made upon Belgium by Germany be not proceeded with and that Belgium's neutrality be respected by Germany and we have asked for ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... instructions on the subject from his Majesty's government; but, considering it to be the intention to maintain the terms of amity with Sweden so long as it can be done consistently, and prevent the country from falling a prey to the common enemy, I trust to be right in using my efforts for that purpose; and I hope to receive the sanction of ministers on the measure I am adopting. I shall proceed for the Baltic the moment it lies in my power; but the late prevailing calms and adverse winds have prevented the arrival of the ships on ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... was, in his curiously warped mind, far above all others. Besides, was there not at the end to be a satisfaction of all the savage instincts in him? He knew the Bell River neches, whom he hated so cordially in common with all others of his race, were to be outwitted, defeated. And his share in that outwitting was to be a large one, and would only go to prove further what a contemptible thing the ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... gold. Miss Sanger's nephew, Mr. Norman Sanger, is more conservative in his tastes, and is creditably represented by his lines on "The Ol' Fishin' Hole." This piece contains many of the rhythmical defects common to juvenile composition, but is pervaded by a naturalness and pastoral simplicity which promise well for its young author. Wider reading and closer rhetorical study will supply all that Mr. Sanger now lacks. At present we should advise him to seek metrical ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... refuge in sarcasm] When you've quite done being funny, perhaps you'll tell me why you've behaved like a common street flapper. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to start in the fur business for himself in 1786 in a small store on Water street. It is not unreasonable to suppose that at this time he, in common with all the fur dealers of the time, participated in the current methods of defrauding the Indians. It is certain that he contrived to get their most valuable furs for a jug of rum or for a few toys or notions. Returning from these strokes of trade, he would ship large quantities of ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... permit other additions. This addition of new States has served to strengthen rather than to weaken the Union. New interests have sprung up, which require the united power of all, through the action of the common Government, to protect and defend upon the high seas and in foreign parts. Each State commits with perfect security to that common Government those great interests growing out of our relations with other nations of the world, and which equally ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... cattle he calls here behemoth, though in Ezekiel, first chapter, those four animals are called by the common name, hachayoth, a word by which we commonly designate not so much animals as beasts, subsisting not on hay or anything else growing out of the earth, but flesh; as lion, bear, wolf and fox. Behemoth are cattle or brutes which ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... Mission life allowed (and they were rare) to endeavor to awake a response in her heart. But she held herself aloof from all. Proud of the Spanish blood in her veins, though that blood was but that of a common soldier, she counted herself to be of the gente de razon, far above the level of the mere Indians, her mother's people. And, indeed, in her finer features, quick glance, and more spirited bearing, the ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... contrary to general belief, are of very common occurrence. Throughout the length of the drive there were probably three or four hang-ups a day. Each of these had to be broken, and in the breaking was danger. The smallest misstep, the least slowness in reading the signs ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... court, and addressing the jury,—"your other charges have all the same weight. Our letter to Miss Dionysia—why do you refer to that? Because, you say, it proves our premeditation. Ah! there I hold you. Are we really so stupid and bereft of common sense? That is not our reputation. What! we premeditate a crime, and we do not say to ourselves that we shall certainly be convicted unless we prepare an alibi! What! we leave home with the fixed purpose of killing a man, ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... window, hung upon hinges, were long deal shutters, which were lifted up at night, and fastened with "cotters." There were two or three well-worn steps to the entrance. The door was divided half-way up: the upper portion stood open during business hours, and the lower was fastened by a common thumb latch. To the ledge of the door inside, a bell was attached by a strip of iron hooping, which vibrated when the door was opened, and set the bell ringing to attract attention. The interior fittings were of the most simple ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... of weapons did say when I came here that I should have the best of drink (though it becomes me not to complain before the common people). Eager God of the war-helmet! I am made to raise the bucket; wine has not moistened my beard, rather do I kneel ...
— Eirik the Red's Saga • Anonymous
... of opinion that in a free land like this all men should be equally free, Redskin and Paleface alike? No, Gid, I ain't figuring to appeal to the law. If I need any protection against a man such as Broken Feather, I'll do the business on my own, and a gun, a fleet horse, and my own common sense are good enough for me, without ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... even then it is too slight to be remarkable. When there is any swell, nothing can be seen at all; but when it is calm, as it often is, there appear certain strange, undecipherable marks—sea-runes, as we may name them—on the glassy surface of the bay. The like is common in a thousand places on the coast; and many a boy must have amused himself as I did, seeking to read in them some reference to himself or those he loved. It was to these marks that my uncle now directed my attention, struggling, as he did ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this a man surrenders his imagined individual rights, of whatever sort. That takes away one keen sting which is common to ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... rounded than in the four individuals of the second group, and there were present on the head three large tufts of bristly black hair which gave the mice a very comical appearance. The animals of the second group resembled more closely in appearance the common albino mouse. They possessed the same pointed snout and long body, and only the presence of black spots on the head and hips rendered them visibly different from the ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... that even the very perfection of educational systems and methods may be used so as to be a curse to the country which has adopted them. Published statistics show that juvenile crime, often of the most revolting kind, is rampant, and has been increasing in Germany, that suicides have become common even amongst the very young. The highly efficient mental drill provided by German education, even the devotion to knowledge shown by the German people, whatever benefits it may once have conferred, applied as it now is, must ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... deal, perhaps, which other people keep to themselves. Our common life has not been without its complications. We have had to be parted from each other for months at a time. I have had to rehearse in private with other singers than Philine, and (with an air of superiority) other men than Prince Sigismund must have ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... Madrid will bear, for a time. I have therefore called in the greatest part of my people, and content myself with the sale of twelve or fourteen a week, for I am afraid to over-stock the market, and to bring the book into contempt by making it too common. The greatest part of those which still remain (about one thousand) I reserve for Seville, Granada, and some of the other inland cities of Andalusia, specially Jaen, the bishop of which is very favourable to us and our cause. I have likewise my eye on Ceuta, its garrison, its convicts, and singular ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... of the soldiers in this city were not settled yet, the apprehension was not over, that some would be put to us; and so one of our neighbors thought, who in time of peace was one of the Common Council men; but at the same time he assured Bro. Shewkirk that as far as he knew, none of the creditable and sensible men of the town, wished it out of spite, &c. Bro. Shewkirk's character was well-known, but the house was large, and there was ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... ideal spot for picnicking, furnishing as it did both shade from the sun and a fine open space with firm footing for the contestants in the games. High over a noble maple in the centre of the grassy meadow floated the Red Ensign of the Empire, which, with the Canadian coat of arms on the fly, by common usage had become the national flag of Canada. From the great trees the swings were hung, and under their noble spreading boughs were placed the tables, and the platform for the speech making and the dancing, while at the base of the encircling hills surrounding the grassy meadow, ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... affection. But love soon becomes the master. It is a tyrant which suffers no rival; it must reign alone. Every other emotion must subserve and obey its dictates. A high attachment fills the heart more completely than a common and equal one. Small things are carried away in the great capacity ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... his pipe ont of his month, and laying it on the table, he went into business at once, He spoke to them as if he were one of themselves, adopting a simplicity of language and manner that he knew would appeal to their common sense and judgment far more than an elaborately ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... bud. "O Caunus! that an alter'd name might join "Us closely; that thy sire a sire-in-law "To me might be: O, Caunus, how I'd joy "Wert thou not son, but son-in-law to mine. "Would that the gods had all in common given, "Save parents only. Thou in lofty birth "I would should me excel. O beauteous youth! "A mother whom thou'lt make I know not; I "Ne'er can thee know but with a sister's love: "Parents the same as thine ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Stealing from the very men who helped you—the men to whom you owe nothing but gratitude and—and friendship! Have you no manhood whatever? Besides being weak and shiftless, are you a criminal as well? How can you be so utterly lacking in—in common decency, even?" She eyed him as she would look at some strange monster in a museum about ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... laboured for his half of the property as much as he had ever done for the common good. He kept his herds himself, having an eye on everything, but in spite of all his care he had ill ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... mound of different form and is worshipped as the former. The writer states that at times these mounds are built in conjunction. He states this worship is similar to that of Baal of Chaldea, etc., and that probably all have a common origin. It appears to be a fundamental part of the Chinese religion and the symbolism of the Chinese pagoda expresses the same idea. He says that Kheen or Shang-te, the Chinese deities of sex, are also worshipped ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... that a Norwegian barque bound out with a cargo of pitch-pine had been given up as missing about that time, and it was just the sort of craft that would capsize in a squall and float bottom up for months—a kind of maritime ghoul on the prowl to kill ships in the dark. Such wandering corpses are common enough in the North Atlantic, which is haunted by all the terrors of the sea,—fogs, icebergs, dead ships bent upon mischief, and long sinister gales that fasten upon one like a vampire till all the strength and the spirit and even hope are gone, and one feels like the empty shell of a ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... but their thoughts were in common, and as soon as the hot mash had cooled a little, the cook turned to ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... destructive forces of nature. Thus, the Furies were the embodiment of an aroused and accusing conscience; the Gorgons were tempests, which lash the sea into a fury that paralyzes the affrighted sailor; Scylla and Charybdis were dangerous whirlpools off the coast of Sicily. To the common people at least, however, they were real creatures, with all the parts and habits given ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... responsibility. If he goes to nature, he and nature form a partnership, she supplying the material and he the experience. In editing the material thus supplied, the artist discovers how great is the disparity between art and nature, and what a disproof nature herself is to the common notion that art is mirrored nature, and that any part of her drawn or painted ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... the course most in accordance with the spirit of the constitution, with former practice, with common-sense. Deeds which violate the letter of the law can be dealt with by the law. But actions or courses of action which, even if they may be thought to overstep the law, transgress it so narrowly as to elude conviction, can only be reached by enactments which ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... now fully inaugurated—Civil War—a stupendous War between two great Sections of one common Country; those of our People, on the one side, fighting for the dissolution of the Union—and incidentally for Free Trade, and for Slavery; those on the other side, fighting for the preservation of the Union—and incidentally for Protection to our Free Industries, and for the Freedom ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... the front door, and to see them as they were made to be seen first, as far as man's mind and hand intended and wrought. Railway travelling, as yet, takes everything at a disadvantage; it does not front on nature, or art, or the common conditions and industries of men in town or country. If it does not actually of itself turn, it presents everything the wrong side outward. In cities, it reveals the ragged and smutty companionship of tumble-down out-houses, and mysteries of cellar and back-kitchen life which were ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... from among dark clouds the last light of his genius shone on the path of those who were endeavouring to make the daily bread of intellectual life—good books—common to all. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... she asked. She spoke coldly, and this time she succeeded in withdrawing her hand. "I dare say you think the Army very common, Mr. Lindsay, but to me it is marching on a great and holy crusade, and I march with it. You would not ask me to ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the dominical letter. Let L denote the number of the dominical letter of any given year of the era. Then, since every year which is not a leap year ends with the same day as that with which it began, the dominical letter of the following year must be L - 1, retrograding one letter every common year. After x years, therefore, the number of the letter will be L - x. But as L can never exceed 7, the number x will always exceed L after the first seven years of the era. In order, therefore, to render the subtraction possible, L must be increased by some ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... that's lucky. Our first step then must be to take her advice upon our conduct, so as to keep our fathers in the dark till we can hit off some measure that will wind them about till our ain purpose, and the common ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... weeping, the vizier entered, and demanded the reason of their sorrow. The lady told him the shame Agib had undergone at school, which did so much afflict the vizier, that he joined his tears with theirs; and judging that the misfortune that had happened to his daughter was the common discourse of the town, he was quite out of patience. In this state he went to the sultan's palace, and, falling at his feet, humbly prayed him to give him leave to make a journey into the provinces of the Levant, and particularly to Balsora, in search of his nephew Bedreddin, as ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... seen any man scourged like this one. It is more than the customary scourging; the executioners must have gotten an extra fee. As she had seen men crucified in Tiberias and Caesarea, he asked her if it were common for the crucified to live after being lifted from the cross. Those that haven't been on the cross more than two days are brought back frequently, but the third day ends them, so great are the pains ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... somewhar. Aunt Debby'll fix ye up ez a country gal, while I'm gittin' yer mar saddled an' bridled with some common harness, instid o' the fancy fixin's ye hed when ye rode out heah. Ef ye're stopt, ez ye likely will be, say that ye've been ter town fur the doctor, an' some medicine fur yer sick mammy, an' are tryin' ter ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... although many turtle were seen in the water, and we watched the beaches at night, not one was caught. There are no kangaroos upon the Percy Isles; nor did we see any useful birds. The large bats or vampyres, common to this country, and called flying-foxes at Port Jackson, were often found hanging by the claws, with their heads downward, under the shady tops of the palm trees; and one solitary eel of a good size, was caught on clearing out the hole ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... life which from his boyhood he had chosen, now appeared but as a passing dream, and as he knelt before the venerable bishop, his feelings became almost overpowering. Tears rose in his eyes, and he drooped his head upon his hands to conceal them. He felt this was no common life on which he entered, no mere profession, in which he would be at liberty to think and act as he pleased. Herbert felt that he had vowed himself to do the work of God; that in it was comprised the good of his fellow-creatures. The stern conquest of his own rebellious will; that his actions, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... compiled by Mr. Clifford, who took the greatest pains to collect words and sentences in common use; and though, from the shortness of our stay, this part of the work is necessarily incomplete, it is hoped that a future voyager will derive considerable assistance from it, in his intercourse ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... Behold our position in this country. Just tolerated. No place open to us except that of cleaning the sewers. Every soul of us compelled to fight, as Birmingham did the other day, for a career, and to fight against men like Livingstone, who should be our friends. And in the hearts of the common people a hatred for us, a disgust, even a horror, not inspired by the leprous Chinese. We have earned all this hatred and scorn and opposition from England, because in fighting with her we have observed the laws of ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Voltaire, directed against pretentious pedants of science in the person of Maupertuis, the President of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, which so excited the anger of Frederick the Great, the patron of the Academy, that he ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman, after 30,000 copies of it had been sold ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... low voice. She had gone through just such an experience herself. It might have been herself, and not Durrance, who was speaking. She looked up at him, and for the first time began to understand that after all she and he might have much in common. She repeated over to herself with an even firmer determination, "Two lives shall not be ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... divine law by mere reason. For if this reason of ours draws the conclusion that a visible community must have a visible overlord or cease to exist, it also must draw the further conclusion, that as a visible community does not exist without wives, therefore the whole Church[19] must have a visible, common wife, in order not to perish. What a valiant woman that would needs be! Again, a visible community does not exist without a common visible city, house and country; therefore the Church[19] must have a common city, house and country. ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... the contemplation of the brother—a love that is stronger than death,—glad and proud and satisfied? But if love stop there, what will be the result? Ruin to itself; loss of the brotherhood. He who loves not his brother for deeper reasons than those of a common parentage will cease to love him at all. The love that enlarges not its borders, that is not ever spreading and including, and deepening, will contract, shrivel, decay, die. I have had the sons of my mother that ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... your own trail," he sternly said, and as he opened the door for the girl, she seemed to pass at once into the sunlit spring-time world of common life. ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... have described it,' said I, 'of very common occurrence, especially amongst children, who are, indeed, the only beings likely ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... first thing to be employed with them, methinks is entirely peculiar. Many of our common people call it an easy language, which is soon learned, but I am of a contrary opinion. For those who can understand their words to some extent and repeat them, fail greatly in the pronunciation, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... commingled new-gold and old-gold gorse—and a lovely lake. One must put in the pause, there, to fetch the reader up with a slight jolt, and keep him from gliding by without noticing the lake. One must notice it; for a lovely lake is not as common a thing along the railways of Australia as are the dry places. Ninety-two in the shade again, but balmy and comfortable, fresh and bracing. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... an Englishman, a native of Ilfracomb, in Devonshire. His father was skipper of a small coaster from Bristol, and, dying, left him, when quite young, to the care of his mother, by whose exertions he received a common-school education, passing his winters at school and his summers in the coasting trade until his seventeenth year, when he left home to go upon foreign voyages. Of this mother he spoke with the greatest ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Scottish nation was at stake. More than Mary or Bothwell were known to be implicated in the deed; and—as Buchanan puts it in the opening of his "De Jure Regni"—"The fault of some few was charged upon all; and the common hatred of a particular person did redound to the whole nation; so that even such as were remote from any suspicion were inflamed by the infamy of ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... were before invisible. These animals are of a great variety of shapes and sizes, and in such prodigious numbers, that, in a short time, the whole surface of the rock appears to be alive and in motion. The most common worm is in the form of a star, with arms from four to six inches long, which are moved about with a rapid motion in all directions, probably to catch food. Others are so sluggish, that they may be mistaken for pieces of the rock, ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... such sentiments as these was common to my father all through his life, and to show that it was all children and not his own little folk alone that charmed and fascinated him, I quote from a letter ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... of whose discovery has just been detailed, have certain characters of structure and of distribution in common. Thus they all have the same number of teeth as man—possessing four incisors, two canines, four false molars, and six true molars in each jaw, or 32 teeth in all, in the adult condition; while the milk dentition consists of 20 teeth—or four incisors, two canines, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... again, the fort is as much wanting in accommodation as it is in strength. There are no bomb-proof barracks, nor any hole or arch under which men might find protection from shells; indeed, so deficient is it in common lodging-rooms, that a great part of the garrison slept in tents. To reduce this place, therefore, occupied but a short time. The troops having assembled on the 8th, drove the enemy within their lines on the ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... gentle and friendly to those beneath her, but dignified and firm with those of her own station of life, with a fund of good practical common sense, and was not easily dissuaded from doing any thing when she had once made up her mind that it was her duty so to do. She loved her uncle well and was ever ready to minister to his slightest wishes. She used ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... conception of tribal organization, a condition no doubt due to the absence of communications. A cabecilla, or head man, would receive two meters, his wife one, and others smaller measures. This sort of thing was carefully studied out, so far as rank was concerned, for it would never do to give a common person even approximately as much as a cabecilla. One rancheria would take all red beads, another white, another blue, and so on. Not once did I see a trace of greediness or even eagerness, though interest was marked. The whole thing was conducted ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss? ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Lord Byron have in being the poet of a party in politics?... In politics, he cannot be what he appears, or rather what Messrs. Hobhouse and Leigh Hunt wish to make him appear. A man of his birth, a man of his taste, a man of his talents, a man of his habits, can have nothing in common with such miserable creatures as we now call Radicals, of whom I know not that I can better express the illiterate and blind ignorance and vulgarity than by saying that the best informed of them have probably never heard ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... relieve our common nature from the load of the imputation, that, in its normal state, it is capable of such inconceivable wickedness, by giving to these wretched persons the benefit of the supposition that they were more or less deranged. This ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Garden, with the hope of the New World still in their faces; and now and then a gaunt mountaineer stalking awkwardly in the rear of the march toward civilization. Gradually it had dawned upon him that this last, silent figure, traced through Virginia, was closely linked by blood and speech with the common people of England, and, moulded perhaps by the influences of feudalism, was still strikingly unchanged; that now it was the most distinctively national remnant on American soil, and symbolized the development of the continent, and that with it must go the last ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... lustreless— With less of radiance than the burnished tress, Crumpled on Beauty's forehead: cloddish, cold, Kneaded together with the common mold! Worn by sharp contact with the fretted edges Of ancient drifts, or prisoned in deep ledges; Hidden within some mountain's rugged breast From man's desire and quest— Would thou could'st speak and tell the mystery ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... Hutton says: "It is common at 5,500 feet at Mussoorie, and in the Dehra Doon; it is also found in some of the deep warm glens of the outer hills. It is also common at Almorah, where the larva feeds almost exclusively upon the 'Kilmorah' bush or Berberis asiatica; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... that the quality and quantity of the output is kept up. The mistake which is usually made when a change in system is decided upon is that the manager and his principal assistants undertake to make all of the improvements themselves during their spare time, with the common result that weeks, months, and years go by without anything great being accomplished. The respective duties of the manager and the man in charge of improvement, and the limits of the authority of the latter should be clearly defined and agreed upon, always bearing in mind that responsibility ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... fallacies which linger among us, and new ones are constantly springing up. But they are not of the kind to which ancient logic can be usefully applied. The weapons of common sense, not the analytics of Aristotle, are needed for their overthrow. Nor is the use of the Aristotelian logic any longer natural to us. We no longer put arguments into the form of syllogisms like the schoolmen; the simple use ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... in the palatial, but somewhat faded and gloomy apartment of an eminent member of the aesthetic body. It was no more formal an occasion than one of those weekly receptions, common among the foreign residents of Rome, at which pleasant people—or disagreeable ones, as the case may be—encounter one ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Common Nouns stand for kinds containing many sorts, or for sorts containing many individuals under them; as, Ahwaseeh, animal; eneneh, ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... class of passages in the epistles of Paul would naturally cause the common reader to conclude that he imagined that the unregenerate those unfit for the presence of God were to be annihilated when Christ, after his second coming, should return to heaven with his saints. "Those who ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... different notwithstanding they are Situated within Six miles of each other, Those at the great falls Call themselves E-nee-shur and are understood on the river above. Those at the Great Narrows Call themselves Eche-lute and is understood below, maney words of those people are the Same, and Common to all the flat head Bands which we have passed on the river, all have the clucking tone anexed which is prodomonate above. all the Bands flatten the heads of the female Children, and maney of the male children also. Those two Chief leave us this evening and returned to their bands, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... out of his throat), he had to consider himself very lucky if he could escape from half-a-dozen inches of the bowie-knife, by way of recompense; moreover, every visit cost him his pocket-handkerchief or his 'bacco-box, if he had any. I have to remark here, that kerchief-taking is a most common joke in Texas, and I wonder very much at it, as no individual of the male species, in that promised land, will ever apply that commodity to its right use, employing for that purpose the pair of snuffers which natural instinct ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... and other stringed instruments, to recite verses, sing many of the songs she had herself learned from the minstrels in her father's halls, and, what was of still more importance, she was about to teach him to read, which was not a common accomplishment in those days, for there were no printed books in England till some time afterwards. Printing was then a new invention, and only practised in Germany at one or two of the principal ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... and fronts. This is a brilliant specimen of the helps to memory which the grinder affords, as splendid in its arrangement as the topographical methods of calling to mind the course of the large arteries, which define the abdominal aorta as Cheapside, its two common iliac branches, as Newgate-street and St. Paul's Churchyard, and the medio sacralis given off between them, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... she said, 'thou knowest these great folks reward greatly—and these things pass between folks very great. If I tell thee no names it is because thou canst see more through a stone wall than common folk.' ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... three miles, he at length reached a hamlet. Conscious that the common people were in general unfavourable to the cause he had espoused, yet desirous, if possible, to procure a horse and guide to Penrith, where he hoped to find the rear, if not the main body, of the Chevalier's army, he approached the alehouse of the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... typical American white-tailed sea eagles, ravens, ducks, geese, curlews, herons, and cranes. Here and there they found the shore "completely covered with sea wolves"—seals, of course, probably the common seal and the grey seal. Of these they captured as many as they wanted, for the seals, like most of the birds, were quite ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... a common rope, rather slender, and about a yard and a half in length. It was made into a running noose that had been drawn tightly round the neck of ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... cities where men dwelt then took to themselves living personalities; and Dante, who in love and hate was Italian of the Italians, was left indifferent by none of these. How strange to modern ears this thrill of recognition, when one exile, even among the dead, meets another, of their common citizenship of "no mean city!" Of this classic "patriotism" the world requires a Renaissance, that we may be saved from the shallowness of artificial commercial Empires. The new "inter-nationalism" is the sinister product of a generation that has grown "deracinated," ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... support the family ef I give my mind to it;" and Mrs. Wilkins turned a flapjack with an emphasis that caused her lord to bolt a hot triangle with dangerous rapidity; for well he knew very little of his money went into the common purse. She never reproached him, but the fact nettled him now; and something in the tone of her voice made that sweet ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... militia, were annihilated by the flashes of the cannon. Courage became more a moral than a physical quality. The victory was delivered to the brain of the general. Printing has established, as indestructible, all knowledge, and disseminated, as the common property of everyone, all thought; while paper has made the work of printing cheap. Such reflections as these, however, are trite and must occur to every mind. It is far more to the purpose to repeat that not the inventions, but the intelligence that used them, the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... for carrying out the recommendation of a Select Committee in 1908 that there should be a common gallery for men and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... innocent cause of yet another one; this time it is a large, powerful work-dog, who becomes excited upon meeting me along the road, and upsets things in the most lively manner. Small carts pulled by dogs are common vehicles here and this one is met coming up an incline, the man considerately giving the animal a lift. A life of drudgery breaks the spirit of these work-dogs and makes them cowardly and cringing. At my approach ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... minute particulars help us to do this; nay, the very formal enumeration of titles, and the specification of towns and districts in their legal style, help to realize the time to us, if it be only from their very particularity. Every common history records the substance of the treaty of Troyes, May 1420, by which the succession to the crown of France was given to Henry V. But the treaty in itself, or the English version of it which Henry sent over to England ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... all, the common abuse of you is absurd. I have heard grave and industrious persons declare emphatically that any one who allows himself to fall under your sway debars himself utterly from every chance of success. Fiddlesticks! I snap my fingers at such folly. What do these gentlemen say ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... concerns itself with common words that have more than one meaning. Make your procedure as follows. First, look up the word itself. Under it you will find a number of defining words. Then look up each of these in turn, until you have the requisite number and kind of synonyms. (The word ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... not only to emphasize his impartial hatred of all government, but because of the inherent feebleness of that form of government, its inability to protect itself against any kind of aggression by any considerable number of its people having a common malevolent purpose. In a republic the crust that confined the fires of violence and sedition ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... place, that I have contracted my sphere of observations and knowledge, and have frequently had no means for the study even of problems which often presented themselves in describing the life of the people (for the life of the common people is the every-day problem of intellectual activity). I was conscious of my ignorance, and was obliged to obtain instruction, to ask about things which are known by every man not engaged in special labor. In the second place, the result ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... but—different men different daemons—his held self-slaughter justified when life became intolerable; with him therefore it would be no crime. Wilson suggests too that the boy who had read theology, orthodox and the reverse, held to the common eighteenth century view that death was annihilation; and this may well have been the case. One thing at any rate is certain, that Chatterton on the 14th of April 1770 left on his desk a number of pieces of paper filled with a jumble of satiric verse, mocking prose, and directions ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... was the cashier of the association; and she administered the common capital with such skillful and such scrupulous economy, that Maxence soon succeeded in paying ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... down to the end of time. By selecting this strong spirit as the subject of these trials, the Lord provided, in his intense feelings and vivid realizations, a normal type—a glaring instance of those experiences which, in their fainter modifications, are common to most Christians; and, through his graphic pen, secured a guidebook for Zion's pilgrims in ages yet to come. In the temptations we are now called to record, there is something so peculiar, that we do not know if Christian biography supplies any exact counterpart; but the time and manner ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... you are. Very superior to what you think is my feeling of superiority, comparing my—isolation with your 'heart of humanity'. Soon we will speak of the beauty of common experiences, of the—Oh, I could say it all ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... Though he makes no conspicuous effort to please or to talk to people, he has the art of attracting and keeping customers, who find it particularly pleasant to sit at his bar under the placid and genial, though alert eye, of the phlegmatic host. He has a great deal of common sense; he thoroughly understands the landowner's conditions of life, the peasant's, and the tradesman's. He could give sensible advice on difficult points, but, like a cautious man and an egoist, prefers ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... perfectly right, Mr. Blake. When smoking is a habit a man must have no common constitution who can leave it off suddenly without some temporary damage to his nervous system. Your sleepless nights are accounted for, to my mind. My next question refers to Mr. Candy. Do you remember having entered into anything like a dispute with him—at the birthday dinner, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... complex mixture of English common law, Roman-Dutch, Muslim, and customary law; has not accepted compulsory ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... power. They did not seem to realize that my swollen face was prominent in the scheme of education, nor that bumblebees and yellow-jackets may be a means of grace. They wanted me to be solving problems in common (sometimes called vulgar) fractions. I don't fight bumblebees any more, which proves that my knowledge generated power. The emotions of my boyhood presented a scene of grand disorder, and those bumblebees helped to organize ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... position and what not, for a quo of the various services that may be conveniently epitomized in the phrase de mensa et thoro. The other, the only possible existence for two beings whose passionate, mutual attraction demands the perfect fusion of their two existences into a common life. Now to this passionate attraction I have never become, and, having no temperament (thank Heaven!), shall never become, a party. Before the turbulence therein involved I stand affrighted as I do before London or the deep sea. I once read an epitaph in a German churchyard: "I will awake, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... preparing mademoiselle's breakfast and dinner, she felt as if she should die in her kitchen, one of the wretched little kitchens common in great cities, which are the cause of so much pulmonary trouble in women. The embers that she kindled, and from which a thread of suffocating smoke slowly arose, began to stir her stomach to revolt; soon the charcoal that she bought from the charcoal dealer next door, strong Paris charcoal, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... Though, in common with all the rest, deeply interested in the new home, Max was not sorry when his father and Violet decided that it was time to return to Ion; for he was eager to show his pony to grandma Elsie, Zoe, and Rosie, who had ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... fortitude with which he faced his fate. Not a murmur of complaint passed his lips. Racked with pain and conscious that but a few hours of life remained to him, he talked as placidly about his wound, his condition and his coming dissolution, as though conversing about something of common, everyday concern. He was more solicitous about others than about himself, and passed away literally like one "who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams." He died about three o'clock in the morning and I could almost ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... periods. They will write indifferently 4 or four and frequently their capital a's c's, m's, and n's cannot be distinguished from the small letters. They will commence a story telling that the "Captain" did so and so, and lo, on the next page the "captain" sinks into a common noun; and so with "Father," "mother," "Aunt," "uncle," etc. Just see what the story would look like if set according ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... is safe enough, but the next storm that comes will certainly smash up the wreck altogether, and the boxes may be swept into the deep water between her and the shore. Now at the present moment we may consider that gold to be common property. If a Spanish ship ever comes here she will, of course, capture it; if, on the other hand, an English or a Chilian vessel arrives, I shall hand it over to them as their lawful prize. If neither of ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... the just causes are here concurrent. The first condition is fulfilled in that these Zambales impede the general traffic by sea and land of those who go to Pangasin and Ylocos and Cagayan. And, albeit the traffic works damage neither to them nor to their lands, but uses a common highway, yet they sally out upon the highways and kill and rob passengers, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... Robert scornfully, "that such treason is only uttered by priests and in the Latin tongue. My subjects, whether priests or common people, know full well that there is no power which can hurl me from my throne." Saying these words he yawned and leaned back in his throne, and soon, lulled by the monotonous chanting, he fell ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... instances in which not the parents, but the children, are to be blamed. An earnest Sunday-school teacher may do much to lead the children of godly parents to their father's God. Blessed is the home where the golden chain of common faith binds hearts together, and family love is elevated and hallowed by common ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... necessary display. My uncle, thinking to retrieve the fallen fortunes of the title, amassed enormous wealth as a company promoter, while I, on whom the title has descended, am perfectly contented with its fallen fortunes. I have scarcely a thought or taste in common with my aunt. In fact, I must bore her exceedingly. Yet she hides her boredom beneath a radiant countenance and leads me to understand that my society gives her inexpressible joy. I ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... vain, egotistic, arrogant human speculation. As there is no power so relentless as a theological or spiritual despotism, so there is no tendency of the mind more easy, subtle, or strong, than a tendency toward it. To say these men erred, is to say that they were men. But if they partook of the common liability to error of this nature, let us not forget that but for them, fallible and inconsistent as they were, the seeds of liberty, wafted from a thousand shores, and gathered through thousands of ages, might not have been transplanted to this continent, nor this mighty banyan ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... But Dundee's native common sense quickly routed his gloom. Captain Strawn was too direct in his methods, too afraid of antagonizing the rich and influential, to have permitted even a "special investigator" from the district attorney's office to ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... can declare: Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We—the American people—we are the solution. Our founders understood that well and gave us a democracy strong enough to endure for centuries, flexible enough to face our common challenges and advance our common dreams ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... was developed in the people at large the most complete unification and subjection. Individualism gave place almost entirely to the common weal, and the spectacle was presented of a nation with no political questions. Maccaulay maintains that human nature is such that aggregations of men will always show the two principles of radicalism and conservatism, and that two parties will exist in consequence, one composed of those ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... 1995, the government restored the legal system to one based on English common law and customary law; accepts ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... they had gone through school, were possessed of various knowledge and a certain degree of culture. In a large, rich city, there are many modes of gaining a livelihood. These eked out a living by copying for the lawyers, and by advancing the children of the lower order more than is usual in common schools. With grown-up children, who were about to be confirmed, they went through the religious courses; then, again, they assisted factors and merchants in some way, and were thus enabled to enjoy themselves frugally in the evenings, and particularly ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... disapprobation. I do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land, is morally a worse man than any one else, who gathers his profit where he finds it, in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. It is not the individual I attack; it is the system. It is not the man who is bad; it is the law which is bad. It is not the man who is blameworthy for doing what the law allows and what other men do; it is the State which would be blameworthy, were it not to endeavour to reform the law ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... this church is composed of the better and wealthier orders—the chiefs and their retainers; in short, the rank and fashion of the island. This class is infinitely superior in personal beauty and general healthfulness to the "marenhoar," or common people; the latter having been more exposed to the worst and most debasing evils of foreign intercourse. On Sundays, the former are invariably arrayed in their finery; and thus appear to the best advantage. Nor are they driven to the chapel, as some ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... to those who are never subject to that unhappy irregularity of temper and spirit, so visible to all foreigners in the character of the English people, and which never fails to secure esteem, and to interest the affections, while superior worth, less happily gifted for the common purposes and intercourse of life, may be regarded with no warmer feeling than that of distant respect; the loyaute and frankness once so closely associated with the history and character of the French people; the manliness which taught them at once to admit and to repair the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... see you again, laddie," he murmured heartily; "and more than glad to see that those yellow-skinned pirates have not deprived you of any of your limbs. That is quite a common trick ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... intending to stand there, back to the wall, a plan sometimes adopted by those who may wish to slip out quietly before a speech is finished. Harley, the trained observer, saw that Hobart, without their knowledge, was shepherding them as the shepherd gently makes his sheep converge upon a common spot. ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... favoring the abolition of slavery in the District by the apprehension, that Virginia and Maryland, if not, indeed, the nation at large, might suffer injurious consequences from the measure, overlook the fact, that there is a third party in the case. It is common to regard the nation as constituting one of the parties—Virginia and Maryland another, and the only other. But in point of fact, there is a third party. Of what does it consist? Of horses, oxen, and other brutes? Then we need not be greatly concerned about it—since ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... will be much the same whichever of these translations be adopted. But the common rendering appears to me to harmonise best with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... death, as the sad fact it seemed to fetch back so plainly, that from my youth up here were two people, neither of them unkindly or ill natured, who were all through life as completely apart as if no tie of a common blood had ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... desert places, where, little as she yet knew about God, she felt life impossible. The strongest bonds were thus in process of binding them; and Barbara's feeling toward Richard might very naturally develop into one or other of the million forms to which we give the common name ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... unworthy shafts of jealousy—for that no doubt they were—which had come to me with John Crondall's references to Constance. I was admitted cordially into the confidences of these people from whom, on my record, I scarcely deserved common courtesy. It was with a distinctly chastened mind that I gave them both some outline of the thoughts and resolutions which had come to me during my evening beside Barebarrow, overlooking sleepy little ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... Baalbec, I passed the day in the shop of one of the petty merchants of Zahle, and afterwards supped with him. The sales of the merchants are for the greater part upon credit; even those to the Arabs for the most trifling sums. The common interest of ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt |
