"Exaggerated" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bringing hard times, depressed all property values, those of slaves included. But the return of peace brought prompt inflation in response to exaggerated anticipations of prosperity to follow. Wade Hampton, for example, wrote to his brother from Jacksonborough in the South Carolina lowlands, January 30, 1782: "All attempts to purchase negroes have been fruitless, owing to the flattering state of our affairs in this quarter."[16] The sequel was ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... with pain and reluctance that I print these remarks on Lord Brougham, and several passages in the preceding pages of these Memoirs which are equally severe, and in some respects, I think, exaggerated. But I certainly do not feel myself justified in withholding them. They were all revised and corrected by the author himself with great care; and nothing but a true and full account of the sentiments which Lord Brougham's conduct had excited amongst his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... doubt about the disease having "come out" in the person of the speaker. It had "come out" in her face, which was brilliantly rubicund; in her hands, and ankles and feet, which were a distressful spectacle of "knobs" and "bumps" of an exaggerated phrenological type— perhaps also in her temper, which was fierce and fiery as her complexion, as most of the frequenters of the Baths knew, and the ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... with no exaggerated ceremony, but with a sort of innocent and childlike gravity, while the satin of her gown spread itself like a great blossom over the floor. Her head was bowed until the dark lashes swept her crimson cheeks; then she rose again from the ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... cavalier as he was, he declared that he should have doubted on which side to draw his sword had things thus in England. He had striven to make my mother and Queen Henrietta understand the meaning of what I had been doing, and he said the complaints sent up had evidently been much exaggerated, and envenomed by spite and distrust of me as a foreigner. He could well enter into my grief at the desertion of my poor people, for how was it with those at Walwyn, deprived of the family to whom they had been used ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to effect an entrance, while Mrs. Merrill was engaged at the chimney. He soon received a gash in the cheek which compelled him with a loud yell to relinquish his purpose, and return hastily to Chillicothe, where, from the report of a prisoner, he gave an exaggerated account of the fierceness, strength, and courage ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... to note again how that occasional exaggerated shrillness of the feminine voice when raised in the open air—how it amused the mob. They imitated the falsetto with squeals of delight. Each time she began afresh she was met by the shrill echo of her own ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... regards the element of verity, thrown off as writers of fiction throw off fancies. Sometimes he defended opinions that were in fierce conflict with the ideas of his auditors; but he generally talked to please them, frequently assuming as his own, and in exaggerated form, the hobbies, notions, or desires of his auditors. In the incident just recorded, the doctor probably had not, as a matter of fact, been stating his real opinions, though for the moment he may have imagined that he was an uncompromising "Paper-money man" ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... kissed her, and went to his chamber. He closed the door and began to recite with exaggerated gestures a fragment from Macbeth. The varied emotions of the evening had set every nerve quivering. He was so excited that he was not even despondent over the collapse of Princeton Platinum stock, although this meant to him ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... point a word of explanation in reference to this operation of firing may be appropriate for the satisfaction of any among our readers who may entertain an exaggerated idea of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... bakeshop, which stands next door to our cabin, young Tom Somers lay straightened for the grave (he lived but fifteen minutes after he was wounded), while over his dead body a Spanish woman was weeping and moaning in the most piteous and heartrending manner. The Rich Barians, who had heard a most exaggerated account of the rising of the Spaniards against the Americans, armed with rifles, pistols, clubs, dirks, etc., were rushing down the hill by hundreds. Each one added fuel to his rage by crowding into the little bakery to gaze upon the blood-bathed bosom of the victim, yet warm with the life ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... perpetual song and dance, perpetual games, journeys, and pleasures, make an animated and a smiling picture of the island life. And the Samoans are to-day the gayest and the best entertained inhabitants of our planet. The importance of this can scarcely be exaggerated. In a climate and upon a soil where a livelihood can be had for the stooping, entertainment is a prime necessity. It is otherwise with us, where life presents us with a daily problem, and there is a serious interest, and ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... generally shared in an exaggerated form the feelings of those about him, whether painful or joyous— a man who could have invented hope if necessary—even Paganel was gloomy and taciturn. He was seldom visible; his natural loquacity and French vivacity gave place to silence and ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... in the presentation of the truth may easily be exaggerated into a doctrine of reserve which is more Jesuitical than Christian. Even when guarded and limited, it may seem scarcely in harmony with the commission to preach the gospel to every creature, or with the sublime confidence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... stole into his voice she felt that she hated him, and looked round hoping to escape. Sir Everard was too quick for her. In that instant he had managed to possess himself of her hand, and now he was kissing it with exaggerated homage and deference, yet still with that mocking smile that seemed to say—'Like it, or like it not, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... feast as a memento mori, &c.—in fine, a woman who might be easy of conquest, but whom only a very bold man would think of conquering. This bold man was Thomas Esmond. He had a fancy to my Lord Castlewood's savings, the amount of which rumour had very much exaggerated. Madam Isabel was said to have royal jewels of great value; whereas poor Tom Esmond's last coat but ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and the practical statesmen of the early Republic, this trickster and shallow politician, this visionary adventurer and boaster of ladies' favors, was out of place. He has given to his country nothing except a pernicious example. The full light, which shows us that his vices may have been exaggerated, shows likewise that his talents have surely been overestimated. The contrast which gave fascination to his career is destroyed; and for a partial vindication of his character he will pay the penalty which he would most have dreaded, that of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... made no exaggerated report of Mrs. Ridley's condition. Dr. Hillhouse found that serious complications were rapidly taking place, and that all the symptoms indicated inflammation of the peritoneum. The patient was in great pain, though with less cerebral disturbance than when he had ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... remained without diminution. Yet this watch was not maintained without some trials far more severe and searching than those which it produced upon the body. Her mind, wandering and purposeless, yet spoke to mine, and renewed all its racking doubts, and exaggerated all its nameless fears. Her veins burned with fever. She was fitfully delirious. Words fell from her at spasmodic moments—strange, incoherent words, but all full of meaning in my ears. I sat beside the bed on one hand, while, on one occasion, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... for Saturday, May 8, 1852 (No. 280), occurs the very worst case of exaggerated and incredible mixed silliness and vulgarity connected with the use of assist for help at the dinner-table that I have met with. It occurs in the review of a book entitled 'The Illustrated London Cookery Book,' by Frederick ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... but he never had a pleasant manner, was curt, arrogant, with a very strong sense of his own superiority. From the first moment he came to Paris as ambassador, he put people's backs up. They never liked him, never trusted him; whenever he had an unpleasant communication to make, he exaggerated the unpleasantness, never attenuated, and there is so much in the way things are said. The French were very hard upon him when he got into trouble, and certainly his own Government was ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... out of the subject embraced in the treaty and to satisfy the public interests touching the same, as well as to acquaint our people with the present status of the questions involved, and to give them the exact terms of the proposed adjustment, in place of the exaggerated and imaginative statements ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... sat so motionless and still. It was a wild night, for winter was come again for a moment, after the habit of this region in the early spring. The sky was starless and black, and a strong wind was blowing from the lake. The silence in the room was so deep that all outside sounds seemed exaggerated by contrast with it. These sounds were fitting ones: they harmonised with the situation and the conditions: the boom and thunder of sudden storm-gusts among the roofs and chimneys, then the dying down into moanings and wailings about the eaves ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not immediately produce the pleasing change of countenance which might have been expected. Sir Hyacinth coldly replied, he could not spare Stafford at present, and drove on. The genius of gossiping, according to her usual custom, had exaggerated considerably in her report. Stafford was attached to Rose, but had never yet told her so; and as to Rose, we might perhaps have known all her mind, if Sir Hyacinth's gig had not appeared just as she was seated on her father's knee, and going to tell him her ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... defects of those relatives whose age and position should have enabled them to conquer my esteem; and while I was yet a child, my father married a second wife, in whom (strange to say) the Fanshawe failings were exaggerated to a monstrous and almost laughable degree. Whatever may be said against me, it cannot be denied I was a pattern daughter; but it was in vain that, with the most touching patience, I submitted to my stepmother's demands; and from the hour she entered my father's house, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... strictly follow the common Old Stories or Vulgar Traditions of that kind of people. In Tragedy, nothing was so sure to Surprize and cause Admiration, as the most strange, unexpected, and consequently most unnatural, Events and Incidents; the most exaggerated Thoughts; the most verbose and bombast Expression; the most pompous Rhymes, and thundering Versification. In Comedy, nothing was so sure to please, as mean buffoonry, vile ribaldry, and unmannerly jests of fools and clowns. Yet even in these our Author's Wit buoys up, and is born above ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... similar testimony to the dignified simplicity and almost exaggerated independence of the poet, during this annus mirabilis of his success. "As for Burns, Virgilium vidi tantum, I was a lad of fifteen when he came to Edinburgh, but had sense enough to be interested ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... infinite trouble and shouting in all tongues, the half-dozen span of strong patient oxen were set in motion, dragging the seventy-feet length of timber along the snow towards the lake, Arthur contrived to get near enough to his countryman for audible speech. Murty's exaggerated expectations had suffered a grievous eclipse; still, if he became an expert hewer, he might look forward to earning more than a curate's salary by his axe. And they were well fed: he had more meat in a week now than in a twelvemonth in Ireland. He was one of half-a-dozen Irishmen in this lumberers' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... the east coast of the island; if he had pushed on far enough these cruises might easily have convinced him of the island-nature of the country. Perhaps he was aware of the truth; certainly the lovely descriptions he gave King Philip of the beauties of the new territory are so exaggerated that one may be pardoned for thinking him quite capable of dignifying an island ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... you think so," said the doctor. "But you can easily satisfy yourself from the books that we have in no way exaggerated the possibilities of the old system of property. What was called under that system the right of property meant the unlimited right of anybody who was clever enough to deprive everybody else of any ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... broke in, "that you are both assuming too much. I don't know of anything that calls for the word catastrophe. I'm sure I'm sorry if the Dinkmans' house is swallowed up as Gootes suggests, but it hasnt been and I'm sure the possibility is exaggerated. The authorities will do something or the grass will stop growing. I don't see any point in looking at the blackest side ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... himself up to the eyes in his cloak, so that it was impossible to distinguish his features, appeared to enter into a confidential conversation with her. It seemed to me to last a long time; but my impatience, no doubt, exaggerated its duration. At length it drew to an end, and hastily nodding to the servant, who looked after him, as I thought with much curiosity and astonishment, he dropped down the street at the same flying pace with which he had entered it. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... asked for soap, and nothing seemed to give so much pleasure as when I doled out a small piece. Perhaps in time even the Mongol will look clean. Asiatics as a rule know little about soap; they clean their clothes by pounding, and themselves by rubbing; but sometimes they put an exaggerated value upon it. A Kashmir woman, seeing herself in a mirror side by side with the fair face of an English friend of mine, sighed, "If I had such good soap as yours I ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... with his own vile desires, overruled the slight opposition of his superior; and, once entered on the affair, the latter found himself highly amused in carrying it out. The burlesque proclamations, the exaggerated stories of Indians, the terror of the citizens, their encomiums on his own energetic and valorous conduct—all these were a pleasant relief to the ennui of a barrack life and, during the several days' visit of "los barbaros," the Comandante and his captain were never ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... he could be sentimental and even melodramatic about grisettes and starving genius. I found he had enjoyed the benefit of my correspondence with Pinkerton; adventures of my own were here and there horridly misrepresented, sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated till I blushed to recognise them. I will do Harry Miller justice: he must have had a kind of talent, almost of genius; all attempts to lower his tone proving fruitless, and the Harry-Millerism ineradicable. Nay, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... exaggerated in that assertion. Mr. Swancourt by daylight showed himself to be a man who, in common with the other two people under his roof, had really strong claims to be considered handsome,—handsome, that is, in the sense in which the moon is bright: the ravines and valleys which, on a close ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... could at such times overhear Nikolay's free use of our terminology, he might perhaps imagine that he was a learned man disguised as a soldier. And, by the way, the rumours of the erudition of the University porters are greatly exaggerated. It is true that Nikolay knows more than a hundred Latin words, knows how to put the skeleton together, sometimes prepares the apparatus and amuses the students by some long, learned quotation, but the by no means complicated theory of the circulation ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... virtue of which confusion and distortion of impression disappear, and one is enabled not only to distinguish the decisive outlines of a period, but also to relegate to their true place in the scheme subordinate details which, at the moment of occurrence, had made an exaggerated impression from ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... the damage for myself," he said, getting up as he spoke, "it isn't very bad after all. Your fears have exaggerated ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... repudiation. There was no money in the treasury to pay the ordinary charges of government; there was no revenue and no policy for raising one, or for funding the debt. This picture is darkly drawn, but it is not exaggerated. That high spirit of public honor, which seventy-five years later rose above the ravages of war and the temptings of dishonesty to pay the debt and the interest, dollar for dollar in gold, seemed in 1789 to be wellnigh extinct. But it was not dead. ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... through some of the caverns, sometimes stooping to get through and sometimes standing beneath domes thirty and forty feet high. And always that queer, mystical light, with exaggerated shadows and sometimes black darkness ahead, where could be heard the drip, drip, drip of water in invisible lakes. In time of siege the holders of this cave, with granaries filled and with herds of cattle and lakes of water, could hold ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... rejected. For a month I thought of nothing else. But the peril and difficulty restrained action. I think that it was the report of the British defeat at Stormberg that clinched the matter. All the news we heard in Pretoria was derived from Boer sources, and was hideously exaggerated and distorted. Every day we read in the 'Volksstem'—probably the most astounding tissue of lies ever presented to the public under the name of a newspaper—of Boer victories and of the huge slaughters and shameful flights of the British. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... learned from report the leading events of her virtuous, benevolent and active life, will esteem the humble tribute thus paid to her memory, as proceeding from an estimate of her excellencies by no means exaggerated. As an evidence of the value of her services to the Asylum, the following extract has, by permission, been taken from the Minutes ...
— A Sermon Preached on the Anniversary of the Boston Female Asylum for Destitute Orphans, September 25, 1835 • Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright
... no room in it for the idleness of those lovely ladies, with their long fingers, whom Langland admonished to sew for the poor. Moreover, exaggerated as some of her husband's ideas upon wifely submission appear today, the book leaves a strong impression of good sense and of respect as well as love for her. The Menagier does not want his wife to be on a pedestal, like the troubadour's lady, nor licking his shoes ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... vision has not only been narrowed, but my mind has been poisoned, my judgment has been warped, my decisions and deductions have been biased and my opinions have been so influenced that my alleged facts have not only been exaggerated, but my comments, arguments, inferences and deductions based upon them, can have very little if any value ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... Christ. In putting the personal and historical Christ, and not any doctrine about him, in the centre of the religious life I believe they are right. But this principle is sometimes asserted in an exaggerated and one-sided manner. In the first place they are somewhat contemptuous of Philosophy, and of philosophic argument even for such fundamental truths as the existence of God. I do not see that the subjective impression made by Christ can by itself ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... than when he had gone away. He saw Tautuk, gloomy as usual over the heartlessness of Keok. He was beating a tom-tom that gave out the peculiar sound of bells, and to this Amuk Toolik was dancing the Bear Dance, while Keok clapped her hands in exaggerated admiration. Even in his dreams Alan chuckled. He knew what was happening, and that out of the corners of her laughing eyes Keok was enjoying Tautuk's jealousy. Tautuk was so stupid he would never understand. That was the funny part of it. And he beat his drum savagely, scowling so that he almost ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... divided into groups, and their convictions did not correspond with their personal qualities but with their respective positions. Thus, every student was a revolutionary, every official was bourgeois, every artist a free thinker, and every officer an exaggerated stickler for rank. If, however, it chanced that a student was a Conservative, or an officer an Anarchist, this must be regarded as most extraordinary, and even unpleasant. As for Sanine, according to his ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... Kvaerk. Aasa went before, still leading the young man by the hand. In the twilight which filled the house, the space between the black, smoky rafters opened a vague vista into the region of the fabulous, and every object in the room loomed forth from the dusk with exaggerated form and dimensions. The room appeared at first to be but the haunt of the spirits of the past; no human voice, no human footstep, was heard; and the stranger instinctively pressed the hand he held more tightly; for he was not ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... shaft of the wheel is of gun iron, and its journals are 22 inches in diameter by 3 feet 4 inches long. The shaft is made in three sections and is 30 inches in diameter in the center. At a first glance the great wheel looks like an exaggerated bicycle wheel, and it is constructed much on the same principle, with straining rods that run to centers cast on the outer sections of the shaft. The steel buckets on either side of the gear are each 4 feet 5-1/2 inches long and ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... occasioned by his reported death, and the joyful amazement at finding him alive; and deem it not wonder if I permitted myself, under your protection, to say more than my reflection justified. But then I knew not the worst, and thought the danger exaggerated. Alas I was yesterday fearfully undeceived, when the abbess herself came hither, and with her the Dominican. They showed me the commission, under the broad seal of Scotland, for inquiring into and punishing heresy; they showed me your name and my own in a list of suspected persons; ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... say," said Letitia, "these things have been exaggerated; they always are: still it does seem desirable that your brother should go there, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... paraded every secret of Rust's life. Witnesses who had been forgotten and had sunk from sight, and were supposed to be dead, sprang into life, all having some dark deed to record. Pamphlets, teeming with exaggerated details of the murder, were hawked through the streets; peddled at every corner; hung in every shop window. Rust's own black life had prejudged him, and had turned public opinion into public hate; until every voice ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... things are soon forgotten. We saw little of the rest of the caravan en route, but if we ever see the whole of the camels going with us, and the division of Aghadez, I am quite sure they will never reach the exaggerated number of 10,000! All numbers are ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... rendered them irritable, and the strangeness of their environment had made them both fearful and suspicious. There was no good- fellowship, no consideration on the Chilkoot. This was a race against time, and the stakes went to him who was most ruthless. Phillips had not exaggerated. Until this morning, he had received no faintest word of encouragement, no slightest offer of help. Not once had a hand been outstretched to him, and every inch he had gained had been won at the cost of his own efforts and by reason ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... is, the cost of malting it would amount to 33 per cent. of its price. Then, the diminution in the weight of, and the cost of carting the grain, must be taken into account; and when the whole expense attendant upon the process of malting is ascertained, it will be found that I have not exaggerated in stating that a ton of malt costs as much as a ton and a half ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... joined the rest of the party, and were all soon squattering about on our own account in the elephant bath. It was shocking bad going—like a ploughed field exaggerated by a terrific nightmare. It pretty nearly pulled all the legs off me, and to this hour I cannot tell you if it is best to put your foot into a footmark—a young pond, I mean—about the size of the bottom of a Madeira work arm-chair, or whether you should ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... in proportion, were baptized in Rome, and that the emperor had promised to each convert a white garment and twenty pieces of gold, is at least in accordance with the spirit of that reign, though the fact itself, in all probability, is greatly exaggerated. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... return, and before she and Dory had got quite used to each other again, she fixed on an abode. "Mrs. Dorsey was here this afternoon," said she, with enthusiasm which, to Dory's acute perceptions, seemed slightly exaggerated, in fact, forced, "and offered us her house for a year, just to have somebody in it whom she could trust to look after things. You know she's taking her daughter abroad to finish. It was too good a chance to let pass; so I ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... in distant Keicobad, Accounts of Turandot, so strange, so sad, That I believed them false,—exaggerated. 'Twas said the Prince of Keicobad, ill-fated, Had met his death by Turandot's command; His father, in revenge, assailed this land, But lost his life; my patroness, his daughter, By chance escaped unhurt the gen'ral slaughter, And slave was made to haughty Turandot: ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... their married life was to her weighted with intolerable suspicions; how soon would this young husband, so dear to her, forsake her for another, now that his debts were paid? It preyed upon her mind, distorting it, unbalancing it; each glance, each movement of his she exaggerated into an intrigue. ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... been working in the fields, came home again, the women told them about the tramps' visit, about their threatening questions in the shop where they had bought the beer, and about all their boisterous behavior. The women exaggerated and magnified everything, for they had sat at home and frightened one another the whole afternoon. Their husbands believed that their houses and homes were in danger. They determined to capture the disturbers of the peace, found a stout-hearted man ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... want," he said, "to be too hasty in my judgments. My nephew tells me that Henry Cobb has given you an excellent recommendation, and we place great reliance on Mr. Cobb's opinion. It may be that your offense has been exaggerated, or that you have some explanation which will mitigate it. If you have any excuse to offer I shall be glad ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... here to assure the reader that the account given by Larry O'Neil of his doings was by no means exaggerated. The state of society, and the eccentricities of traffic displayed in San Francisco and other Californian cities during the first years of the gold-fever, beggars all description. Writers on that place and period find difficulty in selecting words and inventing similes ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... to draw in the abdomen and diaphragm, raise the chest and hold the breath in it by the aid of the ribs; in letting out the breath gradually to relax the body and to let the chest fall slowly. To do everything thoroughly I doubtless exaggerated it all. But since for twenty-five years I have breathed in this way almost exclusively, with the utmost care, I have naturally attained great dexterity in it; and my abdominal and chest muscles and my diaphragm, have been strengthened to a remarkable ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... her tragic fate caused an exaggerated estimate to be made of her both as a woman and an artist. The actual cause of her death is unknown. There have been many theories concerning it. It was very generally believed that she was poisoned, although neither the reason for ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... to Mrs. Beattie, and turned away. The letter mystified and exasperated him. The emotion it breathed found no response in his own breast. The phrasing sounded exaggerated and silly. Why on earth should he follow? He understood the veiled reference to Bela. Little need for Jennie ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... as a pretext, however, for a day on the lagoon, especially as you will disembark at Burano and admire the wonderful fisher-folk, whose good looks—and bad manners, I am sorry to say—can scarcely be exaggerated. Burano is celebrated for the beauty of its women and the rapacity of its children, and it is a fact that though some of the ladies are rather bold about it every one of them shows you a handsome face. The children ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... as my knowledge is concerned. At the other mines I have heard that immense pieces have been found, but I consider the rumor as exaggerated." ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... cleansing the deck and removing the traces left by the storm, a little party of three, all well armed, set off to try and trace the serpents and to get a truthful knowledge of their size, the darkness having given rather an exaggerated idea of their dimensions. In addition, if found dead, it was proposed to skin them for specimens, and to this end Smith accompanied them, declaring his willingness to master his fear of the reptiles and ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... forthcoming respecting the remarkable influence of economic facts upon all other manifestations of social activity. It is very probable that the successful investigations in this new field have led, temporarily, to the formation of exaggerated ideas as to the actual value of the ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... could have won his way to the lad's confidence; but the ponderous methods of the city parson showed no fineness of touch. Even the father, as we have seen, could not reach down to any religious convictions of the son; and Reuben keeps him at bay with a banter, and an exaggerated attention to the personal comforts of the old gentleman, that utterly baffle him. Reuben holds too much in dread the old catechismal dogmas and the ultimate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... except in the most perfunctory way. He was always polite, gallant and agreeable, and they made much over him when the opportunity presented itself. They were warm-hearted and demonstrative, sometimes to such an exaggerated degree that he was embarrassed. He was some time in getting accustomed to their effusive friendliness; it dawned on him at last that they were not graceless, flippant creatures, but big-hearted, honest women, in whom tradition had planted the value of virtue. He was not long ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... can't smell it," said Jane, again; "I think he must have exaggerated. He's going off in ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... by heart,—but as hymns possessing supernatural powers and of far higher than human origin. They were raised to the rank of a divinity, they were said to have had to do with the creation of the world, or to have been among the first created beings. The value of the study of them was not to be exaggerated; he who engages in it, we hear, offers a complete sacrifice, obtains for himself the world which does not pass away, and becomes united with Brahma. The class of men who had installed themselves as the ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... had not exaggerated. The residue of carbon and thorium on the blast tube walls was stubborn, dirty, and penetrating. It was caked on in a solid sheet, but when scraped, it broke ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... The Exaggerated Claims of Patent Medicines. The same thing must be said of the habit of dosing yourself every time you feel a pain or an ache, with some sort of medicine, whether obtained at some previous time from a doctor, or bought at a drug store. A large majority ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... light on the condition and character of the rural clergy at this period, and goes far to confirm the statements of Macaulay, which many have supposed exaggerated. Baxter's early religious teachers were more exceptionable than even the maudlin mummer whom Roberts speaks of, one of them being "the excellentest stage- player in all the country, and a good gamester and goodfellow, who, having received Holy Orders, forged the like for a neighbor's son, who ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... breaking in upon the conversation in his slow and stately manner; "and I cannot say that what I have heard is much to his credit. He undoubtedly possesses a certain showy, superficial cleverness, though I think his abilities have been exaggerated; and possibly he is not lacking in physical courage; but his reputation in Paris and Vienna is, I believe, very far from spotless. He appears to be a gentleman of—a—a—many adventures and unknown antecedents. It ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... examine them with her at his leisure. The fourscore slaves were conducted into the palace; and the sultan, telling the princess of their magnificent apparel, ordered them to be brought before her apartment, that she might see through the lattices he had not exaggerated in his ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... to the conclusion in class that these things were right and the enthusiasm and approval of their teacher over the attempts they were making spurred them on. Then they began to make discoveries. They found out what interesting girls there were outside their "set." They found they had exaggerated their own importance. They began to enjoy the good times of the young people in the church societies and to want a real part in them. The change in the spirit and life of that class, even in a year, was wonderful. At the end of the second ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... letters he habitually spoke of Miss Burwell as "Belinda," presumably on account of the fear which he expresses to Page, that the letters might possibly fall into other hands. In some of his letters he spells "Belinda" backward, and with exaggerated caution, in ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... one Coode, with a few abettors, to form, in April, 1689, an "Association in Arms for the Defence of the Protestant Religion, and for Asserting the Right of King William and Queen Mary to the Province of Maryland." The exaggerated representations of these conspirators prevailed in England. The proprietary, retaining his quit rents and export duty, was deprived of his political prerogatives. Maryland became a Crown province, Sir Lionel Copley being the first royal governor, and the Church ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... had an audience. He was, in fact, addressing a homily to Michael on the advantages of Temperance. See, he said—substantially—the reward of self-restraint! He was no mere bigoted doctrinaire, wedded to the absurd and exaggerated theories of the Teatolers. He had not a word to say in favour of Toalabshnensh. It was against Human Naysh. But Manshknewwhairtshtop, like himself, was always on the safe side. He charged Micky to be on his guard against Temptation, who lay in wait for inexperience without his first syllable, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... been my object to describe these persons, not by a caricatured and exaggerated use of the national dialect, but by their habits, manners, and feelings; so as in some distant degree to emulate the admirable Irish portraits drawn by Miss Edgeworth, so different from the 'Teagues' and 'dear joys,' who so long, with the most perfect family resemblance to each other, occupied ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... to the ridiculous we all know the step is but short, especially in the human mind; and to my tender mood succeeds the recollection of an absurd panic we once suffered from, about swaggers. Exaggerated stories had reached us, brought by timid fat men on horseback, with bulky pocket-books, who came to buy our wethers for the Hokitika market, of "sticking up" having broken out on the west land. I fear my expressions ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... by this rebuff that she could only hide her confusion by displaying an exaggerated activity in the capture ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... the contemporary witnesses; they are repeated in many newspapers of the year 1800, and are in themselves clear and consistent. Whether they are on the whole exaggerated or understated, it is now impossible to say. It is certain that a Richmond paper of September 12th (quoted in the "New York Gazette" of September 18th) declares that "the plot has been entirely exploded, which was shallow; and had the attempt been made ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... coffee or a glass of water is overturned at the table. This is, of course, a very serious and unpleasant accident, but there is no necessity in making matters worse by fussing about it and offering several exaggerated apologies. A simple word or two to the hostess will suffice; but it is really quite important that one should be careful not to let an accident of this kind happen too often, otherwise one will soon acquire the reputation of being a ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... importance, and to adopt the modern jargon, almost a question of struggling for existence." He saw before him the woman whom he had already elected to share his new life, and was in haste to consecrate her, so to speak. His genius must not be hidden from her.... Perhaps he had formed a very exaggerated estimate of Sofya Matveyevna, but he had already chosen her. He could not exist without a woman. He saw clearly from her face that she hardly understood him, and could not grasp even the most essential part. "Ce n'est rien, nous attendrons, and meanwhile she can feel it intuitively.... ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... one of us not to be dangerous. But if you want to know I don't mind telling you that I did, with a rapid glance, estimate the distance to the mass of denser blackness in the middle of the grass-plot before the verandah. He exaggerated. I would have landed short by several feet—and that's the only thing of which ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... come to the stage-directions in the folio, to which Mr. Collier gives, I think, a most exaggerated value. He says, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... the wrong sort as well as the right sort exists everywhere, and Mr. Gowles is not a very gross caricature of the ignorant teacher of heathendom. I am convinced that he would have seen nothing but a set of darkened savages in the ancient Greeks. The religious eccentricities of the Hellenes are not exaggerated in "The End of Phaeacia;" nay, Mr. Gowles might have seen odder things in Attica than he discovered, or chose ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... no caps stood with their helmets under their arms, in attitudes of exaggerated gallantry, talking to the women,—who seemed all to have errands abroad. Some of them let the boys carry their baskets. One soldier was giving a delighted little girl ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... reticent. Out with it, man. Every bit of it. A duel! And about a man's wife! Good Lord Macrorie, you'll have to leave the regiment. An affair like this will rouse the whole town. These infernal newspapers will give exaggerated accounts of every thing, you know. And then you'll get it. By Jove, Macrorie, I begin to think your ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... should judge kindly of Aspasia's faults, and remember that they are greatly exaggerated by her enemies," rejoined Eudora; "for she proves that they are fit for something better than mere domestic slaves. Her house is the only one in all Greece where women are allowed to be present at ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... for glitter-because its idea has become as we before observed, confounded with that of magnificence in the abstract—has led us, also, to the exaggerated employment of mirrors. We line our dwellings with great British plates, and then imagine we have done a fine thing. Now the slightest thought will be sufficient to convince any one who has an eye at all, of the ill ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... misconduct in not consulting with the Lord Lieutenant and his Privy Council before granting the patent. His censure, however, is founded on the consideration that this want of attention was injudicious and was the cause of the spread of exaggerated rumours of the patent's evil tendency. He has nothing to say of the rights and liberties of a people which had ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... voyage at sea, as given by an Oriental, is usually the most deplorable of narratives—filled with exaggerated fears, the horrors of sea-sickness, and endless lamentations of the evil fate of the writer, in being exposed to such a complication of miseries. Of the wailing of Mirza Abu-Talib we have already given a specimen: and the Persian princes, even in the luxurious comfort ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... who thinks wisely that Bunyan's biographers have exaggerated his early faults, considers that at worst he was a sort of 'blackguard.' This, too, is a wrong word. Young village blackguards do not dream of archangels flying through the midst of heaven, nor were ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... made by the author in the opening chapter that exaggerated ideas have prevailed concerning the number of Indians who formerly inhabited this country. The natives of Acadia were not a prolific race and the life they led was so full of danger and exposure, particularly in the winter season, as not to be conducive to longevity. An instance of the ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... contrast to me, being small, young, and dressed with elaboration in a flimsy style which, off the stage, I have always scorned. Her wrists were laden with bangles, her fingers with rings, and her golden hair piled high in the most exaggerated of the exaggerated pompadour styles in vogue. Her appetite was indifferent; the expression of her eyes bespoke either ill-health or dissipation, and she was very abstracted, or ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... their contention that it was the prisoner who ordered the black beard from Parkson's. The quarrel which had taken place between prisoner and his stepmother was freely admitted, but both it and his financial embarrassments had been grossly exaggerated. ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... the night, thinking out plausible reasons and excuses for Spencer's behaviour, and trying to convince herself that she had exaggerated everything absurdly. Towards morning she fell asleep and awoke hardly remembering what had happened. Then it rolled ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... up a state paper, my letters might be a great deal wiser, but would not be such letters as I should wish to receive from those whom I loved. Perfect love, we are told, casteth out fear. If I say, as I know I do, a thousand wild and inaccurate things, and employ exaggerated expressions about persons or events in writing to you or to my mother, it is not, I believe, that I want power to systematise my ideas or to measure my expressions, but because I have no objection to letting you see my ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... you cannot do more, but do not speak in such exaggerated phrases. Now let us walk down this avenue. What a beautiful view! How soothing is nature ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... that there was no lack of assuredness in Scott's treatment, and we do indeed find a very pleasant tone of competence which, though liable to error as in the exaggerated praise bestowed upon Smollett, gives much of their effectiveness to the criticisms. The quality appears elsewhere in Scott's critical work, but it is perhaps especially noticeable here. For example, we find this dictum: "There is no book in existence, in which so much of the human character, ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... telescope, however, the scene changes: into this part of space stars are crowded in astonishing profusion; it is impossible to count them, and with every increase in the power of the telescope still more are revealed. Well over a thousand in this small space seems no exaggerated estimate. Now, it is impossible to say how many of these really belong to the group, and how many are seen there accidentally, but observations of the most prominent ones have shown that they are all moving in exactly the same direction at the same pace. It ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... ambassador under these circumstances are hardly exaggerated, perhaps, in Chapman's play, Monsieur D'Olive, where the fictitious statesman bursts into ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... by many. Hood's army was not destroyed, and he retreated from before Nashville with some 20,000 men. Doubtless he lost many cannon; but the Federal accounts of his disaster were probably much exaggerated. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... water, which is as the fragrance of fresh-cut melons. Clouds like huge white brooms swept the sky, and surging suddenly round us was a wave of sheep, charming, reserved, Scottish sheep with ears of a different shape from the English kind, like those of exaggerated rabbits. They looked at us with horizontal eyes of pale brass cut across with narrow slits of jet, and their thick wool, wet with rain, sparkled as if encrusted with diamond dust. With them was a collie, much collie-er than English collies, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... nod between the two men, and passed into the outer office, where they heard him addressing the stenographer in a strain of exaggerated gallantry. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... Sandwich Islands, and had just come upon the coast. Her boat came on board, bringing Captain Wilson; and in half an hour the news was all over the ship that there was a war between the United States and France. Exaggerated accounts reached the forecastle. Battles had been fought, a large French fleet was in the Pacific, etc., etc.; and one of the boat's crew of the Ayacucho said that when they left Callao, a large French frigate and the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Alfred and Jake to endeavor to calm him; at least, prevent him drinking any more. Jake was loath to go. He had no fear of Palmer but brooded over the abuse the man had heaped upon him—Bedford Tom had fully explained and exaggerated all that Palmer had said and that Jake did not comprehend at the time. Jake, after due deliberation, decided in his mind that if Palmer ever abused him again, and Mrs. Palmer was not near, Palmer would feel the weight of his hand. Therefore Jake ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... with his cajoling sweetness, protested against this exaggerated picture. Delarue had arrived during the dog-days—a bad time. And then, it was necessary for the work to be carried on without delay. Besides, a few Moors, more or less—what did it matter? Negroes, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... men, with your eyes of fire, your boiling passions, and your exaggerated expressions! What do we Yankees and other sensible persons ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... an exaggerated compliment to women when we ascribe to them alone this natural sympathy with childhood. It is an individual, not a sexual trait, and is stronger in many men than in many women. It is nowhere better exhibited in literature than where the happy Wilhelm Meister takes his boy by the hand, to ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... what seems somewhat to puzzle the editor, especially in the poem called ‘The End of the First Part,’ written April 18th, 1849, of which he says, “‘Tears for guilt’ is in reference to Christina a very exaggerated phrase”:— ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... deny that I met men in Boston of a somewhat pronounced English type. I will not deny that in certain respects old Kensington reminds me of a street here and there in Boston—such as Mount Vernon Street or Chestnut Street. But I do maintain that the Englishness of Boston has been seriously exaggerated. ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... the day, distorted and exaggerated and jumbled together after the usual manner of dreams, wove themselves into a kind of nightmare and oppression. I was on my way to my old abode: everything that I met or saw was grotesque and impossible, yet had now the strange, vague charm of association and ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... age of the earth are of interest only to Geologists; and all may criticise with impunity the career of Moses—provided that they do not employ the shafts of ridicule too freely. Marlowe's strictures on the New Testament—grossly exaggerated by the creature who penned the charges—were made from the literary point of view. We should blame nobody to-day for saying that the language of Revelations is poor and thin when compared with the language of Isaiah. Again, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... courageous ladies, however, pushed forward and received from the generals in command the most hearty welcome, and all the facilities they required for their mission. They found that the suffering of the loyal refugees had not been exaggerated; that in many cases their misery was beyond description, and that from hunger, cold, nakedness, the want of suitable shelter, and the prevalence of malignant typhoid fever, measles, scarlet fever and the other diseases which usually prevail among the wretched and starving poor, very many had died, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... seized Maui, who was small of stature, and threw him to a great height. In falling Maui assumed the form of a bird, and lightly touched the ground, perfectly unharmed. Maui, now thirsting for revenge, in a moment resumed his natural form, but exaggerated to gigantic proportions, and ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... those who have strength enough rise and come along with us. They shall be carried on litters and horses." There were scarcely sixty cases of plague in the hospital; and all accounts stating a greater number are exaggerated. The perfect silence, complete dejection, and general stupor of the patients announced their approaching end. To carry them away in the state in which they were would evidently have been doing nothing else than ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... There should be no exaggerated precautions, and, on the other hand, no harshness, no punishments. We must love the child, and encourage his playing. To make him realize his weakness and the narrow limits within which it can work, to keep the child dependent only on circumstances, ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... her generosity to the sky. Naturally, her private means, which are considerable, gained in dimensions. I do not know how society came to couple our names; perhaps, our acquaintance, dating from a long time, our intimacy, and the exaggerated news of her wealth gave rise to the rumor. I was at first a little angry on hearing this; but upon maturer reflection, resolved not to give any direct denial, because this puts my attentions towards Aniela beyond ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... agreeable to her, but she did not know it. She was very busy. Besides their one maid there were the waiters sent by the caterer, and Eddy was exceedingly troublesome. He was a nervous boy, and unless directly under his father's eye, almost beyond restraint when impressed, as he was then, with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. His activities took especially the form of indiscriminate and superfluous helping the guests to refreshments, until the waiters waxed fairly murderous, and one of them even appealed to Anna Carroll, intimating ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... James or Luke who quoted these words according to the version of the LXX., this passage is one of the many hundreds which prove that the violent urging and pressing for an improvement in our (German) authorized version of the Scriptures, as it proceeded from von Meier and Stier, is exaggerated. The Saviour and His Apostles adopted, without hesitation, the version current at their time, when its deviations concerned not the thought but the words. If we proceed upon this principle, how will the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... the prudent Skindeep, who had sought refuge in a closet, had lost his nose, which was a pity; because, although this gentleman had never been in Blunderland before, he had passed his whole life in maintaining that the accounts of the disturbances in that country were greatly exaggerated. Popanilla rang the bell, and the waiters, who were remarkably attentive, swept away the dead bodies, and brought him a ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... flame, she saw the face of Fletcher, hairy, bloated, sinister, with the shadow of evil impulses worked into the mouth and eyes. For a moment he wagged at her in silence, and in the flickering radiance she saw each swollen vein, each gloomy furrow, with exaggerated distinctness. He reminded her vaguely of some hideous gargoyle she had seen hanging from an early ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Egyptian garrisons confined in two or three towns, and unable—through fear, as it proved, but on account of formidable enemies, as was alleged—to move outside them. The reports of trouble and hostility were no doubt exaggerated, but still there was a simmering of disturbance below the surface that portended peril in the future; and read by the light of after events, it seems little short of miraculous that General Gordon was able ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger |
