"Harmless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saints. But they do not conceive it is much matter what they do in relation to others, as if it were lawful to murder a Gentile more than a Christian. That is a bloody imagination, opposite to that innocent Christian, Paul, who says (Philip. ii. 15.), we should be "blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation," among whom we should shine "as lights." And truly it is humanity elevated by Christianity, or reason purified by religion, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Kappel's face, into Kappel's clear story and the Warkotsch handwriting, needed only a few questions; and the fit orders, as to Warkotsch and Company, were soon given: dangerous engineers now fallen harmless, blown up by their own petard. One of the King's first questions was: 'But how have I offended Warkotsch?' Kappel does not know; Master is of strict wilful turn;—Master would grumble and growl sometimes about the peasant people, and how a nobleman has now no power over them, in comparison. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of that kind, Robert, so you can reassure yourself. I doubt not that the nostrums he sells are perfectly harmless, and that though they may not cure they will ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... the days of bicycles the old man had driven a lively trade; but with the long-reaching cars, his business dribbled away, and he had slipped back from whiskey to potatoes. He was a little disgruntled at events, and would talk socialism by the hour to anyone who would listen. But he was a harmless old soul. The service man glanced at the sun. It had dipped suddenly, and the plain grew dusky black. The distant figures hoeing against the plain were lost to sight. "Hallo!" said the service man quickly, "we must get on—" He looked ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... the mouth. Every ingredient of this Balsamic dentifrice has a beneficial effect on the Teeth and Gums. Impure Breath, caused by neglected teeth, catarrh, tobacco, or spirits, is not only neutralized, but rendered fragrant, by the daily use of SOZODONT. It is as harmless as water, and has been indorsed by the most scientific men of ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... untrained, woman's way, you try to set up standards for me; try to judge me, and dictate to me. Some old puritanical streak in you is cropping out, some blue-law atavism, some I know not what, that rebels against my taking a drink—like every other man. That cries out against my letting slip a harmless oath—again, like every other man that lives and breathes. Every man, that is, who is a man, a real man, not a dummy! If you've been mistaken in me, how much more have I, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... pleased to apply that sublime appellation to my poor capacities for wielding the most familiar and harmless weapon of my sex—is no respecter of persons, as you see. You are an early visitor to-day, M. de Bois. Of course, you are on your ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... recollection, that, in fact, she had been one morning much frightened by meeting a crazy young woman near her father's house at an early hour, and that, as she appeared to be harmless, her apprehension had been changed into pity, and she had relieved the unhappy wanderer with some food, which she devoured with the haste of a famished person. The incident, trifling in itself, was at present of great importance, if it should be found to have made a favourable and permanent ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... takes everything in its simple literal sense. And it is easy to discover whether children in such play, in the activity of free joyousness, incline to the side of mischief by their showing a desire of satisfying their selfish interest. Then they must be checked, for in that case the cheerfulness of harmless joking gives ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... and laid her fingers on his neck. "I can't tell whether it's grease or perspiration," she said, laughing a little. "What are you squinting up your nose for? Surely to goodness you don't mind that little, harmless raveling? If you wouldn't go on breathing, it wouldn't wiggle around so much!" Nevertheless, she plucked the tormenting thread and threw it on ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... was frivolous and flirtatious with such an example, said society, and its frowns grew blacker when the White Sisters, the Fairy Sisters—the "Sylphites," came in view. But frowns and fulminations both fell harmless from the armor of Mrs. Frank's gay insouciance. Nita winced at first, but soon rallied and bore the slights of the permanent and semi-permanent residents as laughingly as did her more experienced sister. Nita, it was explained, ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... of the above; called by her father "the young person." She is a harmless, inoffensive girl, "always trying to hide her elbows." Georgiana adores Mrs. Lammle, and when Mr. Lammle tries to marry the girl to Mr. Fledgeby, Mrs. Lammle induces Mr. Twemlow to speak to the father and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the better to cozen his amphitryon, the parasite adopts more or less the same shape and colouring; he turns himself, in appearance, into a harmless neighbour, a worker belonging to the same guild. Instance the Psithyrus, who lives at the expense of the Bumble-bee. But in what, if you please, does Parnopes carnea resemble the Bembex into whose home she penetrates in her presence? In what does the Melecta resemble ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... but that it would stay the progress of civilization throughout the world. Future generations would hold the governing power in both countries guilty of a crime if war should ever be permitted except upon the failure of every other arbitrament. The harmless laugh of one political party at the expense of the other forty years ago, the somewhat awkward receding from pretensions which could not be maintained by the Executive of the nation, have passed into oblivion. But ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... a blend of mystery regarding my business, breezy chat on non-committal topics, and an occasional oddity of conduct, such as might have been caused by a guilty conscience or a harmless strain of eccentricity (and I left them to make ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... THE MUSHROOM.—Locality has evidently a considerable influence on the nature of the juices of the mushroom; for it has been discovered, after fatal experience, that some species, which are perfectly harmless when raised in open meadows and pasturelands, become virulently poisonous when they happen to grow in contact with stagnant water or putrescent animal and vegetable substances. What the precise nature of the poison in fungi may be, has not been ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... is certainly the explanation. And now, Mr. Annot, let me assure you that this disease is harmless. It ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... editor of the National Enquirer (Indianapolis), and former Governor of Indiana says: "Nor will the people be deceived by the fallacious contention that beer is a safe and harmless drink. Every laboratory in America refutes it. Every sociologist knows better. Every scientist of reputation condemns it. The management of every great industrial interest, compelled by economic necessity, seeks its ...
— Government By The Brewers? • Adolph Keitel
... The flowers mentioned are equally dangerous to a number of other singers; the most injurious flower of all is found to be the violet. The rose is seldom mentioned, and artificial perfumes are comparatively harmless, though some singers consider it desirable to be cautious ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... stranger stopped at Gobseck's door and rapped; there was that in the knock which suggested a man transported with rage. Gobseck reconnoitred him through the grating; then he opened the door, and in came a man of thirty-five or so, judged harmless apparently in spite of his anger. The newcomer, who was quite plainly dressed, bore a strong resemblance to the late Duc de Richelieu. You must often have met him, he was the Countess' husband, a man with the aristocratic figure (permit the expression ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... apparently harmless word suggests one simlar in sound and meaning which gave some trouble in its day. Says Mohammed in the Koran (ii. 98) "O ye who believe! say not (to the Apostle) Ra'ina (look at us) but Unzurna (regard us)." "Ra'ina" as pronounced in Hebrew ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... dim Atlantic line, The only hostile smoke Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine, From some ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... the Reader also to take notice, that in writing of it I have made myself a recreation of a recreation; and that it might prove so to him, and not read dull and tediously, I have in several places mixed, not any scurrility, but some innocent, harmless mirth, of which, if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge; for divines say, there are offences given, and offences ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... time it livened the theatrical world with escapades that were harmless enough, if sensational. Then, after a time, newspaper row began to whisper that young Clark was in love with the girl. The Broadway Beauties broke up, after a wild farewell dinner. The audiences ceased to expect a row of a dozen ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... you unfilial thing and..." Madame Hsing shouted. "People lay down their lives for their fathers; and you are prompted by a few harmless remarks to murmur against heaven and grumble against earth! Won't you behave in a proper manner? He's in high dudgeon these last few days, so mind he doesn't give you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... an iguana," said the hermit as he piled a number of heavy stones on the carcase to preserve it from other animals. "It is very good to eat—as good as chicken. This is not a very big one; they are sometimes five feet long, but almost quite harmless,—not venomous at all; and the only means he has to defend himself is the tail, which is very powerful, and gives a tremendously hard blow; but, as you see, if you catch him quick, he can ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Greeks and the Latins have alike adjudged me a heretic; that nothing saves me from the lions of the Cynegion, except my being a woman—a woman forever offending by going when and where I wist with my face bare, and therefore harmless except to myself. If he knew this, would he send me his blessing? He little imagined—he who kept his opinion to himself because he could see no good possible from its proclamation—that I, the prison-bred girl he so loved, and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Minstrelsy draws attention to his handiwork. Lockhart seems not only to have been ignorant of it, but to have been totally unconscious of the risk of such a thing, since he always speaks of its author as a respectable local antiquary, useful to Scott as a harmless drudge. Perhaps Surtees was afraid of what he had done, like that teller in the House of Commons who is said by tradition to have attempted to make a bad joke in the division on the Habeas Corpus Act by counting a fat man as ten, and, seeing that ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... mere mode of conveyance is a very harmless affair. What is it to the Pontifical Government whether the peasant of the Alban hills, or the citizen of Bologna, or the merchant of Ancona, visit Rome on foot, or in his waggon, or by rail? Is he not the same man? Will his ride ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... gesture, I made my report to Molly and Jack. "It will end," I said, "in my traversing the world, and eventually arriving in Japan, still searching the rara avis. By that time I shall have become a harmless lunatic, and people will treat my babblings with indulgent forbearance, when I go from house to house begging to be supplied with a pack-mule or ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... and recognized in the victim his brother-in-law, M. Colin, aged 68, who had been struck in the stomach by a bullet. The Germans alleged that this old man fired upon them. M. Riklin denied this statement. Colin, we are told, was a harmless person, absolutely incapable of an aggressive act, and completely ignorant of the means ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... he said. "Henceforth we are as harmless as a snake that has had its poison-bag out. Think kindly of me, Bawn. I am going a long journey. I have had a scene with my father. He swears that not a penny of his money shall come to me. What matter? I shall do without ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... David to himself, "or smugglers. They're certainly up to some mischief, or why should they object to the presence of a perfectly harmless stranger?" ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... and the poets of the Muse Almanach might have thanked God if the like had occurred to them. Love was not the burden of the song; neither hearts, griefs, nor bliss, but satire, lashing right and left with graceful dexterity, and dealing a harmless thrust to every one. All were forced to laugh; the happy faces animated and inspired every thing. The brilliant satirical verses rushed like rockets from the lips of the reader—a real illumination of wit and humor, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... such an interpretation may be unreasonable. At least it is a fable thoroughly characteristic of the negro; and it needs no scientific investigation to show why he selects as his hero the weakest and most harmless of all animals, and brings him out victorious in contests with the bear, the wolf, and the fox. It is not virtue that triumphs, but helplessness; it is not malice, but mischievousness. It would be presumptuous in me to offer an opinion as to the origin of these curious myth-stories; ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... she heard the porcupines scratching against the canvas, or the squirrels dropping fir-cones in the early morning with a sound of miniature thunder upon the roof of her tent. But on this island there was not even a squirrel or a mouse. I think two toads and a small and harmless snake were the only living creatures that had been discovered during the whole of the first fortnight. And these two toads in all probability were not two toads, ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... politician and false friend, bawling rabble and undiscriminating soldiery, the host of indifferent or approving faces of the public behind them—they seem strangely familiar to us. They have been, they are still, alive by turns in us. The harmless spark of electricity that greets the touch of one's hand on a metal knob on a winter's day is one with the bolt of lightning that wrecks a giant oak. The selfish impulse, the narrow prejudice, the ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... put it on, as if in defiance of Mr. Walsingham, and followed Mrs. Beaumont, who led him off in triumph. Before he reached the carriage-door, however, his anger had spent its harmless force; and stopping to shake hands with him, Mr. Palmer said, "My good Mr. Walsingham, I am obliged to you. I am sure you wish me well, and I thank you for speaking so freely; I love honest friends—but as to my being a hypochondriac, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... to live. To think of mercy at the hands of these bloodthirsty brutes, after they had just killed one of their number before their eyes, was absurd. It was true he had been shot in self-defence; but what count would savages take of that, or of the fact that they were but harmless travellers? White people were not very popular with the Matabele just then, as they knew well; also, their murder in this remote place, with not another of their race within a couple of hundred miles, would never even be reported, ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... and dirty thing:— Look at the grass, the sky, the trees, the flowers, These are Joves treasures & they are not gold:— [64] Now they are mine, I am no longer cursed.— The hapless river hates its golden sands, As it rolls over them, having my gift;— Poor harmless shores! they now are dirty gold. How I detest it! Do not the Gods hate gold? Nature displays the treasures that she loves, She hides gold deep in the earth & piles above Mountains & rocks to keep the ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... for general emancipation, and he muttered something which was intended to imply assent. Soon afterwards she took two or three turns with a stout middle-aged gentleman, a Count somebody, who was connected with the German embassy. Nothing on earth could have been more harmless or apparently uninteresting. Then she signified to him that she had done her duty to Lady Brabazon and was quite ready to go home. "I'm not particularly bored," he said; "don't mind me." "But I am," she whispered, laughing, "and as I know you don't care about it, you might ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... his anger; but, when he withdrew from the immediate vicinity, he undoubtedly made a raid on some farmer's live-stock, and had devoured a calf, pig, or sheep. He had eaten his fill, and thereupon became so docile as to be comparatively harmless, provided he was treated ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... by the couch, Jane began to consider what could be procured among their limited resources that would be nourishing, and yet harmless. Cooking utensils they had none. Their whole stock of vessels consisted of the shells of wild gourds that grew abundantly in the forest. Necessity often compels a resort to recipes in cooking not laid down in ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... they do not always object to being hit with it, and even hit hard, so long as it is done with the flat of the sword; but they very quickly resent a touch with its edge, and more a thrust with its point. They admire sheet lightning, which is beautiful, as it is harmless; but forked lightning is something to be dreaded and avoided. For instance, a man may preach most eloquently and acceptably on the three "R's" if he does not apply the subject too pointedly, by telling the people, both in the pulpit and out of it, that they are now ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... following pages I'm not going to bother to write would repeat the same message. That the medical profession has little understanding of the real causes or cures of disease; that the world is full of unnecessary suffering; that there are simple, painless, effective, harmless approaches to eliminating most of the ailments of mankind except the ultimate ailment, old age, the thing that takes us all eventually; that essentially all the diseases resolve from ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... have talked to me of the attentions of M. de Guiche to Madame, nothing more; perfectly harmless, I repeat, and more than that, allowable. But do not be unjust, monseigneur, and do not attach any undue importance to it. It does not ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... low laugh. How often he had played this harmless little part. But there was a cool self-possession about him that she had never seen before. She had come home, prepared to be very nice to him, and ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... count as none; as if, at the merest mention of the ugly word debt, this rabid author flew out, and made all the ultra virtuous persons whose history is here told fly out, like turkeys, after a bit of red cloth which is a very harmless scrap of ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... number who will do things that the nation to which they belong would be ashamed of. I am not depending on these tales. It is enough for me to have the story which Germans themselves avow, admit, defend and proclaim—the burning and massacring, the shooting down of harmless people. Why? Because, according to the Germans, these people fired on German soldiers. What business had German soldiers there at all? ["Hear, hear!" and applause.] Belgium was acting in pursuance of the most sacred right, the right ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... Atkins, Mrs. Hicks, Mr. Piper and wife, Joseph Fuller and wife, Tho. Fuller and wife, Dame Durrant, myself and wife, and Mr. French's family. After supper our behaviour was far from that of serious, harmless mirth; it was downright obstreperious, mixed with a great deal of folly and stupidity. Our diversion was dancing or jumping about, without a violin or any musick, singing of foolish healths, and drinking all the time as fast as it ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... shaking of a sago-palm provides a large family with rations for three months, but the physical energies of Boeroe have ebbed to a point where "desire fails," and the unsatisfactory conditions of life meet for the most part with apathetic acceptance. The marshy coast abounds with harmless snakes, but these gruesome inmates of the tropical morass seldom leave their hiding-places before sunset. The presence of the steamer awakens a faint simulacrum of life and interest in sleepy Boeroe, and a native woman, in the rusty black calico wherewith Dutch ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... Quiet harmless Country Pleasure, Shall at home engross my Leisure; Farewel London, I'll repair, To my Native Country Air: I leave all thy Pleasures behind me, But at home my Wife will find me; Oh the Gods! 'tis ten times worse, London ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... lest such a measure as is requisite for this purpose might prove too dangerous and fatal, I was advised with for an antidote, and prescribed this infallible receipt of taking a wife, a creature so harmless and silly, and yet so useful and convenient, as might mollify and make pliable the stiffness and morose humor of man. Now that which made Plato doubt under what genus to rank woman, whether among brutes or rational creatures, was only meant to denote the extreme stupidness and Folly of ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... solution. From that single one, if the solution were kept at a fair temperature in a warm summer's day, there would be generated, in the course of a week, enough torulae to form a scum at the top and to form lees at the bottom, and to change the perfectly tasteless and entirely harmless fluid, syrup, into a solution impregnated with the poisonous gas carbonic acid, impregnated with the poisonous substance alcohol; and that, in virtue of the changes worked upon the sugar by the vital activity of these ...
— Yeast • Thomas H. Huxley
... of the young man looked with hers, and found the reason for the sudden scene. A serpent, some feet in length—one of the mottled, harmless species sometimes locally called the blow-snake—obviously had come out into the morning sun to warm himself, and his yellow body, lying loose and uncoiled, had been invisible to horse and rider until they were almost upon it. Then, naturally, ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... Ignorance is harmless; error only is pernicious. Men do not go astray on account of the things of which they are ignorant, but of those which they think they know. The time which we spend in learning what others have thought is lost for learning to think ourselves; we ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... than a harmless coffee-mill to contend with, I imagine!" said May, quietly, while she shaped her rolls, and placed them ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... leaned towards La Corriveau, supporting her chin on the palms of her hands as she bent eagerly over the table, drinking in every word as the hot sand of the desert drinks in the water poured upon it. "What is that?" said she, pointing to a vial as white as milk and seemingly as harmless. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... who was a well-known artist and magazine illustrator, came to Chestercote because his wife's father, Nathan Whittaker, was ill, Jane Lavinia's heart had bounded with a shy hope. She indulged in some harmless manoeuvring which, with the aid of good-natured Mrs. Whittaker, was crowned with success. One day, when Mr. Whittaker was getting better, Mr. Stephens had asked her to show him some of her work. Jane Lavinia, wearing the despised sailor hat, had gone over to the Whittaker place with ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... with which William the Silent, in Goethe's play, endeavors to persuade Egmont not to remain in the power of Philip the Second. Then Ormond himself fled to France. He lived there for thirty years after. He led a pleasant, easy, harmless life, and was completely forgotten in England for years and years before his death. More than twenty years after his flight he is described by vivacious Mary Wortley Montagu as "one who seems to have ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... with no false modesty, I'm no slouch in my field of biochemistry. I took a harmless poppy rust from our California flowers here, and treated its genes with certain chemicals. It was a matter of six months, and well over eighty tries, but finally I came up with a virus that killed the opium poppy like smallpox wiped out the Sioux. No; more than that. ...
— Revenge • Arthur Porges
... life endowed, take life away? Torture not the poor ant, which drags the grain Along the dust; it has a life, and life Is sweet and precious. Did the innocent ant Offend thee ever? Cruel must he be Who would destroy a living thing so harmless! And wilt thou, reckless, shed thy brother's blood, And agonize the feelings of a father? Pause, and avoid ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... interested in better schools, in public health, in the reformation of criminals, in good highways and streets, in safe buildings, in well-lighted cities and villages, in the maintenance of charitable institutions, in the establishment of sources of harmless amusement, and in the preservation of ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... she was alone, she regretted that she had not just nodded kindly to him, and nothing more, when she had said good-night. She knew perfectly well that he expected something of the sort, and that it would have been natural, and quite harmless, without any possibility of consequence. She consoled herself by repeating that she had done quite right, as the vision of Lady Fan rose distinctly before her in a flood of memory's moonlight. Then it struck her, as the vision faded, ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... sacrificing herself. I clearly understood that Mr. Alcott was admirable, but he sometimes brought manuscript poetry with him, the dear child of his own Muse. There was one particularly long poem which he had read aloud to my mother and father; a seemingly harmless thing, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... merged and incorporated with the common language of the country—from all the ordinary forms of legal proceedings. It lingers still, however, as it were, on the threshold, in this call to order; and as it is harmless there, the spirit of conservatism will, perhaps, preserve for it this last place of refuge for a thousand years to come, and "O yes" will be the phrase for ordaining silence by many generations of officers, who will, perhaps, never have heard ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... a cruel and heartless doctrine which excludes from heaven so many harmless babes that have never committed any actual fault? To this I reply: Has not God declared that Baptism is necessary for all? And is not God the supreme Wisdom and Justice and Mercy? I am sure, then, that there can be nothing cruel or unjust in God's decrees. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... Petereeine conveyed a couple of billets safely from the basket to the grate. The next essay, however, was a failure—the third log fell—and if the fall were not great, as it dropped on the fender, it certainly was very noisy. The accident was harmless—for, according to honest admeasurement, it evaded my father's foot by a full yard—but, under nervous alarm, he swore, and, as troopers will swear, that it had descended direct upon his afflicted member, and, consequently that he was ruined ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... the "Times" about anything; look at the trouble that comes upon a harmless man for two ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... subjects of the designer's care.] but in casual references to what has been quickly seen, it is impossible to guard wholly against error, without losing much valuable observation, true in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and harmless even ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... say, however. It seemed he was going to New York, and might be gone for a month. "I've no family," he said, "and enough money to keep me. If I find my relaxation in hunting down criminals, it's a harmless and cheap amusement, ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... display of the gayest hilarity: it is a joyous- winged and gay-plumed creation. I cannot concur with the old critic in thinking that we have in this work a universal and undisguised satire on the corruptions of the Athenian state, and of all human society. It seems rather a harmless display of merry pranks, which hit alike at gods and men without any particular object in view. Whatever was remarkable about birds in natural history, in mythology, in the doctrine of divination, in the fables of Aesop, or even in proverbial expressions, has been ingeniously ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... servitude nor any foreign seaman on domestic voyages. Another evil tending to degrade and enslave the sailor was the allowance made by law of three months' advance wages on beginning a voyage. This apparently harmless and, to the credulous and inexperienced legislator, beneficial provision gave a chance to the sailors' boarding-house keeper and runner, or "crimp,'' as he or she is called, to "shanghai'' seamen and put them aboard drunk or drugged, with little or no clothing but what they ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... chief characteristics, which applied equally to her figure, her face, and her extremities, and, not unfrequently, to her speech too. Her health was really infirm, but she never could attain the object of many an invalid's harmless ambition—looking interesting. Illness made her cheeks look pasty, but not pale; it could not fine down the coarsely moulded features, or purify their ignoble outline. Her voice was against her, certainly; perhaps this was the reason why, when she bemoaned herself, so many irreverent and hard-hearted ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... gentleman's daughter in a thousand has been brought to read or understand her own natural tongue". Addison laughs at women equally; but, with the gentleness and politeness of his nature, smiles at them and watches them, as if they were harmless, halfwitted, amusing, pretty creatures, only made to be men's playthings. It was Steele who first began to pay a manly homage to their goodness and understanding, as well as to their tenderness and beauty.(102) In his comedies, the heroes do not rant and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lucky stars it's a decent day!" said Gwen, gazing up at a sky which, if not blue all over, held only clouds of an apparently harmless character. "I don't believe it intends to rain at all, and I expect everybody will come, and the audience be 'large and appreciative', as the newspapers say. If I don't clear a good sum of gate money, ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... who, felled by foes, Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows: He to captivity was sold, But him no prison-bars would hold: Though they sealed him in a rock, Mountain chains he can unlock: Thrown to lions for their meat, The crouching lion kissed his feet; Bound to the stake, no flames appalled, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... entering the principal thoroughfare. As it passed me, I could judge of the prowess of the redoubtable captain, who, according to Pompey, will hang the President "so high de crows won't scent him." He was a harmless-looking young man, with long, spindle legs, admirably adapted to running. Though not formidable in other respects, there was a certain martial air about an enormous sabre which hung at his side, and occasionally got entangled ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... here, to settle that plain question for me, plainly and finally. My life is a grubby torment of cravings because it isn't settled. If sexual activity IS a part of the balance of life, if it IS a necessity, well let's set about making it accessible and harmless and have done with it. Swedish exercises. That sort of thing. If it isn't, if it can be reduced and done without, then let us set about teaching people HOW to control themselves and reduce and get rid of this ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... valid marriage. On the other hand the Roman government allowed, at least to the Sicilian towns which they had not to fear, a certain federative organization, and probably even general Siceliot diets with a harmless right of petition and complaint.(6) In monetary arrangements it was not indeed practicable at once to declare the Roman currency to be the only valid tender in the islands; but it seems from the first to have obtained legal circulation, and in like manner, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... that digitalin is a cumulative poison, and that the same dose, harmless if taken once, yet frequently repeated becomes deadly; this peculiarity is shared by all poisons ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... seeking homes in the West. Some months ago, Mr. GREELEY purchased a small, select library, which contains, among other choice works, the sweet pastoral productions of SYLVANUS COBB, Jr.; the quaint and exhilarating narratives of EUGENE SUE; the wholesome and harmless fictions of NED BUNTLINE, together with the complete poetical works of MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, and it was from the perusal of these comforting and pellucid contributions to American literature that Mr. GREELEY caught ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... concealed between the tea-tree bark of the hut. A small packet contained red ochre to colour their bodies, and larger packets contained soaked Cycas seeds, which seemed to be undergoing fermentation. They were of a mealy substance, and harmless; but had a musty taste and smell, resembling that of the common German cheese. There was also a very large stone tomahawk made of greenstone; and some ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... an elephant, (The only harmless great thing,) the giant Of beasts, who thought none had to make him wise, But to be just and thankful, both to offend, (Yet Nature hath given him no knees to bend,) Himself he up-props, on himself relies, And, foe to none, suspects no enemies, Still sleeping stood; ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... striking force of considerable numbers. If the enemy attacks us, or if we wish to overcome him, we will act as our brothers did a hundred years ago; the eagle thus provoked will soar in his flight, will seize the enemy in his steel claws and render him harmless. We will then remember that the provinces of the ancient German Empire, the County of Burgundy and a large part of Lorraine, are still in the hands of the French; that thousands of brother Germans in the Baltic provinces ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... leaf. Grape-growers commonly call these insects "thrips," a name, however, which really belongs to a very different class of insects. The injury done by this pest varies greatly with the season and the locality, in some regions it being comparatively harmless and in others exceedingly destructive in seasons when it occurs in abundance. There is great variation also in individual vineyards, those near favorable hibernating places and early spring food plants often being injured seriously season after season in succession. These leaf-hoppers ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... harmless, even if she is jealous," said Cora. "I do believe that's all that ails ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... as vindictive—that he knows no other weapon but superstition; and that, accustomed to combat in the mysterious arena of confession, he is a nullity in every other battle-field. The thunders of Rome will fall harmless on the bucklers of liberty. The foes to your regeneration will never grow weary; no, they will never grow weary of crimes, so long as you leave them the means! You must overcome them, or be overcome by them; and whosoever sees not ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... him something, and then appeal to him, if he didn't think that was so? Peter generally thought it was. Some one did not drop her little touch of coquetry, for that was ingrain, as it is in most pretty girls. But it was the most harmless kind of coquetry imaginable. Someone was not thinking at all of winning men's hearts. That might come later. At present all she wanted was that they should think her pretty, and delightful, so that—that they should want ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... pursuits; big Monsieur's little notes are still cited. At a minuet or sillabub, poor Antoinette was unrivaled; and Charles, on the tightrope, was so graceful and so gentil that Madame Saqui might envy him. The time only was out of joint. Oh, curst spite, that ever such harmless creatures as these were bidden ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... tugged at its master's belt. They shuffled into the narrow passage beyond. But there remained the sense of things about them in the dark, things which Thrala continued to insist were harmless and yet ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... the Parliament is up: but I will take MD in my way, and not go to Laracor like an unmannerly spraenekich ferrow.(4) Have you seen my Letter to Lord Treasurer? There are two answers come out to it already;(5) though it is no politics, but a harmless proposal about the improvement of the English Tongue. I believe if I writ an essay upon a straw some fool would answer it. About ten days hence I expect a letter from MD; N.30.—You are now writing it, near the end, as I guess.—I have not received DD's money; ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... but sometimes prints. You will find it in the following description of a steamboat dinner which she ate in company with a lot of aristocratic planters; wealthy, well-born, ignorant swells they were, tinselled with the usual harmless military and judicial titles of that old day of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... because no one stands near with parchment and blacklead to note thy jargon, it therefore dies and is harmless? Nothing dies, nothing can die. No idlest word thou speakest but is a seed cast into Time, and grows through all Eternity! The Recording Angel, consider it well, is no fable, but the truest of truths: the paper tablets thou canst burn; of the "iron leaf" ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... met with appeared friendly and harmless; they are entirely destitute of clothing, and I think ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... mark!) And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth Was parmaceti for an inward bruise; And that it was a great pity, so it was, This villainous saltpetre should be digged Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed So cowardly; and, but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a soldier. This bald, unjointed chat of his, my lord, I answered indirectly, as I said; And, I beseech you, let not this report Come current for ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... mile and a half to view it. He warned us that we might see a man belonging to the neighbourhood who was partly insane, and who, roaming amongst the castle ruins, usually ran straight towards any strangers as if to do them injury; but if we met him we must not be afraid, as he was perfectly harmless. We had no desire to meet a madman, and luckily, although we kept a sharp look-out, we did not see him. We found the ruined castle resting on a rock overlooking the sea with the rolling waves dashing ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Reddish hair and long side whiskers, gray clothes. Pretends to represent summer hotel syndicate. Allen at Asquith unknown and harmless. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and passed on down the shaded avenue on foot. Mary Louise gave an odd little shiver as they walked out into the shadow, past the circle of the lamp on the railing. Uncle Buzz—Mr. Mosby—had seemed always just a piece of background, a harmless bit of scenery, a catalogue of amenities, a husk, a shell—she wondered how many other things. And now he was cropping out with a personality, had desires, problems, secret plottings, all behind ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... consideration. The detectives had done all that men could do; they had made every inquiry possible, they had set on foot dozens of schemes; but all in vain. Voltaire, who had been closely watched, was apparently living a quiet, harmless life, and was not, so far as could be seen, in communication with him. I had done all that I could do myself. I had followed in England every possible clue, all of which had ended ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... odor of egoism. Even now, that she is walking up and down with a little triumphant flutter of her girlish heart at the sense that she is loved by the person of chief consequence in her small world, you may see in her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny benignity, in which the momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity are quite lost; and if she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is because the thought of him mingles readily with all the gentle affections and good-natured offices with which she fills her peaceful ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... portion of their people, he is far from being a fit emblem of the principles of the great republic. So thought the wise Franklin. There are many other animals, peculiar to the territory of the United States, far more deserving of the distinction. There is the bold but harmless buffalo, the stately elk, and the industrious beaver; or if a bird must needs be upon the banner, where could one be found better suited to that end than the wild-turkey, possessing as he does a combination of good qualities— grace, beauty, courage, and usefulness? Thus reasoned ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... the Antipodes, there was an excuse for vesting the regency either in the harmless hands of Frederick-Leopold, or in those of Prince Albert, whose ideas on the subject of government are to a great extent in keeping with those of the kaiser. That was one of the reasons why Henry was sent off to China, and any doubt upon the subject will be removed by remembering ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... men every few days to go hog hunting when the supply of meat began to get short. Some of the Morros were trusted by the soldiers and were allowed frequently to go out with the soldiers on a hog hunt, as these trusted ones were thought to be harmless. One day the captain sent out five men early in the morning to hunt hogs. They hunted until tired in the evening, when four of them sat down to rest and play a few games of cards, while the fifth went to the beach near by and bathed ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... not believe that you would do no harm," he explained. "I can see that you are quite harmless. But they have not the ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... so confident and noisy, yet undisturbed, the usually cautious wildcat seemed to think there could be no danger near. Had Mrs. Gammit stirred a muscle, he would have marked her; but in her movelessness her head and hand passed for some harmless natural phenomenon. The wildcat crept softly up, and as he drew near, the porcupines raised their quills threateningly, till nothing could be seen of their bodies but their blunt snouts still busy on the herring-tub. At a distance of about six ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... invention bring all that back again? Could his own harmless-looking Converter plunge millions back into that kind of misery? It seemed hardly possible, but Sam couldn't banish the specter of the Great ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a German, had dwelt with him eighteen years in humble happiness and the district of Putney, where her husband worked in the finer kinds of leather. He was a harmless, busy little man with the gift for turning his hand to anything which is bred into the peasants of the Black Forest, who on their upland farms make all the necessaries of daily life—their coarse linen from home-grown flax, their leather gear ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... to gathering scarabs. Fenton, over there, has the finest collection of circus posters in the world. Bellerding's house is a museum of obsolete musical instruments. De Gay collects venomous insects from all over the world; no harmless ones need apply. Terriberry has a mania for old railroad tickets. Some are really very curious. I've often wished I had the time to be a ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... you will stop all this, and will save us from this sad fate. You have already made a law that no one shall kill a harmless song-bird or destroy our nests or our eggs. Will you please to make another that no one shall wear our feathers, so that no one will kill us to get them? We want them all ourselves. Your pretty girls are pretty enough without them. We are told that it is as easy for you ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... ONLY KNOWN, harmless, pleasant and absolutely *SURE* and infallible cure. It positively and effectively removes ALL, clean and completely IN A FEW DAYS ONLY, leaving the skin clear and unblemished always, and clearing it of all muddiness and coarseness. It is a true remedy to cure and NOT a paint or powder to cover up ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... earnestly. "I would much prefer that matters be left to adjust themselves; any interference would only serve to intensify the antagonism against me; and I am sure when the girls come to know me better, they will at least realize that I am—harmless," and there was a gleam of genuine amusement in her eyes ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... gladly accomplish his destruction, and he has only escaped until now in consequence of the many cowards in our ranks! It has been stated that Solowjew's attempt in April last has disturbed the rest and peace of mind of many harmless and respectable citizens. Some of the Liberal papers even go so far as to say that it will have the effect of producing a reaction in favor of the government. Why, what idle and stupid talk! These good newspaper proprietors, who love their ease ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various
... thought was to send a letter to my general at Lille, which if he was there would inform him of my vicinity, and if not, might perhaps find its way to his destination. At all events, I resolved only to write what would be harmless should it fall even into the hands of the enemy. I directed those few lines to M. le Chevalier d'Arblay, officier suprieur du garde du corps de sa majest Louis XVIII. But when I would have sent them to the post, I was informed there was no ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... language, and when, after a considerable sojourn on the coast, they had raised for themselves a name, and were regarded with superstitious fear; in a word, if they walked this land of peril untouched and unscathed, it was not that they were considered as harmless and inoffensive people, which, indeed, would not have protected them, and which assuredly they were not; it was not that they were mistaken for wandering Moors and Bedouins, from whom they differed in feature and complexion, but because, wherever they ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... high over Syrtis Major, toward the setting sun, became an every other day custom, harmless in itself. A carefully kept nuclear-battery motor didn't conk; the vehicle could almost fly without guidance. It was good to look down at the blue-green shagginess, below... Familiarity bred, not contempt, but a decline of dread to the point where it became a pleasant ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... Causeless Melancholy"; or to its partner, an excessive and not always tasteful mirth. I spent hours upon hours, with little profit, in libraries, flitting aimlessly from book to book. With something between terror and hunger I contemplated the opposite sex. In short, I was discreditable and harmless and unlovely as the young Yahoo can be. It fills me with amazement to think that my preceptors must have seen, in that ill-conditioned creature, some shadow of human semblance, or how could they have been ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... not talking to you against acts which the jailor and the hangman punish; nor against those moral offences which all men condemn; but against indulgences, which, by men in general, are deemed not only harmless, but meritorious; but which the observation of my whole life has taught me to regard as destructive to human happiness, and against which all ought to be cautioned even in their boyish days. I have been a great observer, and ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, of the race of Prometheus, found refuge he a just man, and she a faithful worshipper of the gods. Jupiter, when he saw none left alive but this pair, and remembered their harmless lives and pious demeanor, ordered the north winds to drive away the clouds, and disclose the skies to earth, and earth to the skies. Neptune also directed Triton to blow on his shell, and sound a retreat ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... tastes corrupted. There is a ban on the drinking-saloon. Society warns young men not to enter its tempting doors. It is called the way of death and hell. What makes it accursed and our home saloon harmless? It is all wrong, Mr. Birtwell—all wrong, wrong, wrong! and to-day we are tasting some of the fruit, the bitterness of which, I fear, will be in our mouths so long as we ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... one hair, rub the tip nine times over the pustule. As this has a very cabalistic look, and is moreover frequently attended with sundry severe scratches, a gold ring is found to be a much more harmless substitute; and as it is said to be equally beneficial with the former, it is now more commonly used. This superstition is alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... of the newspapers. Dancing being tabooed as immoral and contaminating, the young people had recourse to particularly energetic kissing games, which more than made up for their deprivation on the other score. It was all very harmless and very funny, and the winter wore away pleasantly enough in spite of hard luck and hard work ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... why I, who am, as a rule, a quiet, harmless little dove, should indulge in such sinful feelings, but you will cease doing so when ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... to defeat the tax-collector. The police swaggered and yelled and ordered everybody this and that way; and nobody took the slightest notice; and the policemen did not dare do anything about it because the crowd was too unanimously bent on having its own way, and therefore dangerous to bully but harmless if not hit. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... the country, but the slates have taken some beauty with time, having dips and dimples, and grass upon their edges. The walls are all thickly whitewashed, which is a pleasure to see. How willingly would one swish the harmless whitewash over more than half the colour—over all the chocolate and all the blue—with which the buildings of the world are stained! You could not wish for a better, simpler, or fresher harmony than whitewash makes with the slight sunshine and ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell |
