"Improving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... standpoint, philosophy, and indeed all knowledge, is the art of being and doing good, conduct is the only real subject of knowledge, and there is no science but morals. He is the best man, says Xenophon, who is always studying how to improve, and he is the happiest who feels that he is improving. Life is a skill, an art like a handicraft, and true knowledge a form of will. Good moral and physical development are more than analogous; and where intelligence is separated from action the former becomes mystic, abstract, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... King William. Retiring to his family mansion of Whitminster, in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Stroud, he employed himself in making that stream navigable to its junction with the Severn, in improving his buildings, and in ornamenting his grounds, which lay pleasantly in the rich vale of Berkeley. Here his happiness was interrupted by the death of one among his former playmates at Eton, whom he had most distinguished by his affection. This was Captain ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... in his native country. He then accompanied the Duke of Monmouth to the continent, to assist France against Holland. The Prince of Conde and Marshal Turenne, the greatest generals of that time, commanded the French army, so that Churchill had very favorable opportunities of improving his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... and Company, so I will not speak of it. The ship was put to rights, we enjoyed ourselves very much on shore, and were once more at sea. Strong easterly winds drove us again into the Atlantic, and when we had succeeded in beating back to the latitude of Capetown, the weather, instead of improving, looked more threatening than ever. I had heard of the peculiar swell off the Cape, but I had formed no conception of the immense undulations I now beheld. They came rolling on slow and majestically, solid-looking, like mountains of malachite, ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... the insult and understand the motive. England beheld, in our wonderful progress, the ocean's scepter slipping from her grasp, our grain and cotton almost feeding and clothing the world, our augmenting skill and capital, our inventive genius, and ever-improving machinery, our educated, intelligent, untaxed labor, the marvelous increase of our revenue, tonnage, and manufactures, and our stupendous internal communications, natural and artificial, by land and water. The last census exhibited ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... modelled into the character of humanity and love; and which were answered by her with all the sympathy and approbation I could desire. But when I began to consider, that, without further opportunities of improving my success, all the progress I had hitherto made would not much avail, and that such opportunities could not be enjoyed without the mother's permission, I concluded it would be requisite to vanquish her coldness and suspicion by my assiduities and respectful ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... of that is because you're so long-winded. Getting money from you is like drawing your eye-teeth. But, come, come; you're improving, you're getting accustomed to paying punctually. That's a great thing, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... while, we found that we could think, could act for ourselves, as we never expected to do. We found that we were no more children; that we were improving in manly virtues by having to bear our own ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... finally left the city and went to live somewhere in the country, I never knew where! he never wrote me after leaving Boston. This Jim Sawyer may be your uncle. I hope not, but if he is, remember he is my brother, and if he needs any assistance let me know at once. I hope your health is improving. Your mother and sisters are well and send love, as ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... speculation has been favourable to it. The ruinous consequences of such speculation, though dreadful, are comparatively of short duration; whereas it is impossible that speculation should be active and vigorous, with commensurate means, without improving manufactures, and opening new channels for commerce; and these effects must remain. In what manner the measures of Bonaparte on the continent, and our superiority at sea, were favourable to our commerce, it is unnecessary ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... indicated that we were leaving to continue negotiations under conditions which were seemingly improving for us and becoming worse for our enemies. We observed the movement in Austria-Hungary, and there were signs indicating (this was made the basis for statements by representatives of the German Social Democracy in the Reichstag) that Germany was on the eve of similar events. We ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... administered justice with a firm hand and a strict regard to the customs and traditional sentiments of the people; that it has wellnigh extinguished slavery; that it has opened the whole country to trade, and, by thus improving the facilities for sale of the jungle produce, has increased the purchasing power of the people, while bringing within the reach of all of them the products of civilised industry that they most value; and that while it has strictly regulated the sale of those products, such as fire-arms ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... for a jester's mind. The odes seemed to possess a certain quaintness, and among the proverbs there were many that were new to me in framing and in substance. Moreover, I was glad of this means of improving my acquaintance with the tongue of Spain, and I was soon absorbed. So absorbed, indeed, as never to hear the footsteps of the Lord Giovanni, when presently he approached me unattended, nor to guess ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... having for its object the promotion of any branch of agriculture, stock raising or improving, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... conspicuous for his shining bow, and dear to the nine muses, who by his salutary art soothes the wearied limbs of the body; if he, propitious, surveys the Palatine altars—may he prolong the Roman affairs, and the happy state of Italy to another lustrum, and to an improving age. And may Diana, who possesses Mount Aventine and Algidus, regard the prayers of the Quindecemvirs, and lend a gracious ear to the supplications of the youths. We, the choir taught to sing the praises of Phoebus and Diana, bear ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Edinburgh, by an idle fellow whom he plucked in the schools; or (majora movemus) three colleges interchange a mortal vow of opposition to a fourth; or the young working Masters conspire against the Heads. Now, however, we are improving; if we must quarrel, let it be the rivalry of intellect and conscience, rather than of interest or temper; let us contend for things, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... best to begin by physicking the infant through the parent; that is to say, let the parent first take the medicine, which will sufficiently affect the child through the milk: this plan has the double object of benefiting the patient and, at the same time, correcting the state of the mother, and improving the condition of her milk. In the other case, when the child is being fed by hand, then proceed by totally altering the style of aliment given, and substituting farinaceous food, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... After a little delay work was obtained for Nauendorff also; and as his spirits revived his hopes and pretensions revived also. Little by little he told his story to his fellow-workmen, who paid no heed to it at first, but nicknamed him in derision "the French prince." But the tale was improving as it got older, and by-and-by he could number among his followers the syndic of the town, one of the preachers, a magistrate, and a teacher of languages. The syndic, in particular, was an enthusiastic partizan, and himself addressed a letter to the Duchess of Angouleme ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... tempted to suppress the truth? to disparage those moral duties? or to discountenance the cultivation of those gifts and faculties? Rather would not sound philosophy and Christian wisdom jointly enforce the necessity of improving the gifts zealously, of discharging the moral obligation to the full, and of maintaining the doctrine in all its integrity; but guarding withal, to the utmost of our power and watchfulness, against the ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... details of "a language formed for their own amusement by two girls of thirteen or thereabouts, both the children of eminent scientific men, and both unusually active-minded and observant." This dialect "is in the most vivid sense a living language," and the inventors, who keep pruning and improving it, possess a manuscript dictionary of some two hundred words, which, it is to be hoped, will some day be published. An example or two from those given by Colonel Higginson will serve to indicate the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... the goal of men's ambitions. In one school there was a class with forty "backward" children. That's the kinder word, Edge, but the real one is "imbecile." Think of it—forty human destinies that must be lived out to a finish! They tell me that conditions are improving there. I ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... There is a project for improving the water-supply of inundation canals in the west of the district by building a weir across the Chenab below its junction ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... happier," she told herself day after day. Marcus's practice was certainly improving, and he was getting very intimate, too, with Dr. Bevan, and it was already settled between them that he should look after Dr. Bevan's patients while he was away ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... everybody who cares for himself, for his ancestors, for his history, or for his intellectual development, a study of Vedic literature is indispensable; and that, as an element of liberal education, it is far more important and far more improving than the reigns ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... resting-places that it was hunted from pillar to post. A radical operation by Correll—the insertion of an extra spring—became necessary at last. Correll, when not engaged designing electroscopes, improving sledge-meters and perfecting theodolites, was something of a specialist in clocks. His advice on the subject of refractory time-pieces was freely asked and cheerfully given. By perseverance and unlimited patience, the tide-gauge down on the harbour-ice ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the eighteenth century belongs the most famous picture of the ideal Oxford life: "I spent many years, in that illustrious society, in a well-regulated course of useful discipline and studies, and in the agreeable and improving commerce of gentlemen and of scholars; in a society where emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without animosity, incited industry and awakened genius; where a liberal pursuit of knowledge and a genuine freedom ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... debts. He spent his time knocking about Paris and London with his cousin Constantine, by no means an improving companion, if report speaks truly. And your money is to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... week preceding the arrival of the raft, Emily Goodridge had been improving in health, though she was still quite feeble. She sat up part of the day, and spent an hour or two in the forenoon in the open air. As we approached the city, the excitement of being so near home buoyed her up, and seemed to give her ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... heap of building which has fallen into a square, must be the palace of our kings. It is that St James's, where they dwelt till nobler buildings rose with the improving times. See here, Charles—there is less ruin here. This opener space was park and garden; and time has been that I have heard the buzz of men filling all this place, when the sovereigns came to hold their courts in that building. I think that this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... not on account of his wars, however, but his reforms, that the name of Peter the Great is so well known to-day. He was constantly changing and improving the order of things in his country. He went so far as to require that the Russian civilians abandon the Asiatic dress of their forefathers and cut their beards, and he, more than any other man, transformed Russia from an eastern ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... have been sooner and more wisely effected could women have been a positive political power. Upon this point one honorable gentleman asked Mrs. Stanton whether the laws both for men and women were not constantly improving, and whether, therefore, it was not unfair to attribute the character of the laws about women to the fact that men made them. The reply is very evident. If women alone made the laws, legislation for both men and women would undoubtedly be progressive. Does the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... was caring for himself, and placing any "card" in her hands was only the surest means of enlarging his own pack. While she, for whether a woman is good or bad she is ever the slave of her own heart, recognizing the fact of the mutual benefit resulting from their comradeship, and improving, in her character of a woman of the world, every opportunity to profit by him, yet she saw in him the one man who possessed her love. Though the life she had led had worn out all the romantic tendencies of her nature, and had turned the "languishing of her eye" into sharp ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... but it can scarcely be called English, as I have shown in the Introduction to this work, till about the thirteenth century. And for two or three centuries later, it was so different from the modern English, as to be scarcely intelligible at all to the mere English reader; but, gradually improving by means upon which we need not here dilate, it at length became what we now find it,—a language copious, strong, refined, impressive, and capable, if properly used, of a great ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the higher"—how often have we been told his thrilling story? These two boys are no longer young and have surely earned an honourable superannuation. That little incident of Michael Angelo and the block of marble from which he "let the angel out"—even that improving narrative might with advantage be pigeon-holed for a generation or two. The reason why these hardy perennials are seen in the gardens of so many preachers must surely be, that every "Treasury of Illustrations" contains them. We have ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... lives. Money-making in some form is the main occupation of the great majority of men, but it is usually as a means to an end. It is to acquire the means of livelihood, or the means of maintaining or improving a social position, or the means of providing as they think fit for the children who are to succeed them. Sometimes, however, with the very rich and without any ulterior object, money-making for its own sake becomes the absorbing interest. They can pursue ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... wherefore he frequented it daily for his recreation, and, continually practising there, in company with many other youths, who were constantly drawing in that place, he surpassed all the others by very much in dexterity and knowledge. . . . Proceeding thus, and improving from day to day, he had so closely followed the manner of Masaccio, and his works displayed so much similarity to those of the latter, that many affirmed the spirit of Masaccio to have entered the body of Fra ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... herself and in her work. Perhaps the people of Cincinnati are not justified in believing that their kindergartens are the very best in the whole United States, but Miss Julia Bothwell, who directs them, says, modestly enough, that she has visited kindergartens in many cities, adopting their schemes and improving in response to their suggestions, until she is convinced that no other city in the land can show a better kindergarten system than that of Cincinnati. In truth, her plan is ordinarily referred to as ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... you put in a book, or anything heavy, which will press down the cotton, and feel like the hen, they go to sleep directly. My only companions were the mice, which came to pick up the crumbs that had been left in those scraps of paper; still, as everywhere, pensioners on man, and not unwisely improving this elevated tract for their habitation. They nibbled what was for them; I nibbled what was for me. Once or twice in the night, when I looked up, I saw a white cloud drifting through the windows, and filling ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... arrival of the Pope in this country caused among the lower classes of people cannot be expressed, and if expressed, would not be believed. I am sorry, however, to say that, instead of improving their morals or increasing their faith, this journey has shaken both morality and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... devoted himself to the task of improving their household economy, accomplishing the feat so well that, wonderful to relate, the place never smoked once after the fire had been lit in the new receptacle for it, excepting when the wind blew from ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of honestly acquiring, keeping and improving, all good things, material, intellectual and moral, and of dealing with the ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... soul. There is a fine art of passion, but an impassioned fine art is a contradiction in terms, for the infallible effect of the beautiful is emancipation from the passions. The idea of an instructive fine art (didactic art) or improving (moral) art is no less contradictory, for nothing agrees less with the idea of the beautiful than to give a determinate tendency ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... phaeton. The wheels turned under in front. I have it yet. He drove long-tailed horses, harnessed loose in light American harness, so that the whole rig had no possible resemblance to anything that would be seen now. My father always excelled in improving every spare half-hour or three-quarters of an hour, whether for work or enjoyment. Much of his four-in-hand driving was done in the summer afternoons when he would come out on the train from his business in New York. My mother and one ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... her telegram and reported George still improving; his father would meet her steamer in New York. It was very reassuring, it was every thing hopeful; but when she had read it she gave it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... organization the other multifarious tasks of devising new weapons for the war, improving the various types of aircraft, building larger submarines and guns of greater calibre went forward with unimpaired speed. Nothing was too vast or too complicated to be undertaken, no detail was too trivial to be studied. Politics, economics, military strategy and national psychology were ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... happiness and contentment, startled him. He had a momentary twinge, gone almost before he had realised it, a sudden clear conception of his great loneliness. The satisfaction he strove to extract from improving his estate for the benefit of his brother Gustav appeared to him at that moment to bear a singular resemblance, in its thinness, to Frau Dellwig's charitable soup. He got off his horse to speak to her, and rested his ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... said; "he runs errands very well and his writing is better than it was, but his spelling wants improving, yet we think we shall be able to make a man ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... these great changes were at first popular with the court; there was tremendous opposition to almost everything Peter did, but the people gradually realized that he was really working for their benefit and that he was deeply interested in improving their condition. Slowly his popularity grew with the middle and lower classes, until finally they spoke of their "little Czar," as they called him affectionately, almost as though he were really ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... set up in the public line, more to have something to do, than for the sake of gain, about which, indeed, I need not trouble myself much, my poor, dear master, as I said before, having done very handsomely by me at his death. Here I have lived for several years, receiving strangers, and improving my house and grounds. I am tolerably comfortable, but confess I sometimes look back to my former roving life rather wistfully, for there is no life ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... which is neither so heavy with erudition as to weigh us down nor so light with the flying folly of prejudice as to make us distracted with its dust, there is perhaps too little. The thoughtful and improving passage for the unoccupied half hour of him who hurries through these closing years of the century does not abound, but is rather wanting in the intellectual provision ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... riding-gear. These Indians are considered civilised; but what their character may have gained by a lesser degree of ferocity, is almost counterbalanced by their entire immorality. Some of the younger men are, however, improving; they are willing to labour, and a short time since a party went on a sealing-voyage, and behaved very well. They were now enjoying the fruits of their labour, by being dressed in very gay, clean clothes, and by being very idle. The taste they showed in ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... his entrance with loving smiles. Vi was looking very lovely, and he noticed with gratitude that Gracie's eyes were bright and her cheeks faintly tinged with pink. She was improving rapidly in the bracing sea-air and winning all hearts ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... come to pass, that a mind enriched with the knowledge of so many things should not become more quick and sprightly, and that a gross and vulgar understanding should lodge within it, without correcting and improving itself, all the discourses and judgments of the greatest minds the world ever had, I am yet to seek. To admit so many foreign conceptions, so great, and so high fancies, it is necessary (as a young lady, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... seeming almost to fascinate the General, who would often stop speaking to follow them with his eyes until they broke or were lost in the darkness in the corners of the room. This was an old trick of his to divert the attention of his adversary, therein improving on Bismarck who always used his cigar to gain time when ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... worthy man not only may have, but ought to have, an attention to making his way in the world, and improving his situation in it, by every means consistent with probity and honor, and with his ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... at Polvareda, great progress has been made of late years, alfalfa laid down, fences and wells made, and the cattle are improving yearly. Our last sight, before the inspection for the day was finished, was a wonderful rodeo of 3,000 cattle, which we viewed from the vantage point of the banks of a newly made reservoir. It was a striking picture, which will not easily be erased from ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... as Leslie had remarked, the wind was falling light; it had dropped quite perceptibly since sunrise, and the state of the ocean was reflecting this change; the sea was going down; it no longer broke anywhere, and the conditions for swimming were improving every moment. The pair of strange voyagers were making excellent progress, as was evidenced by the rapidity with which they drew away from the raft; within half an hour, indeed, they had left it so far astern that it was ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Anthony being persecuted by Dioclesian, retired into the desert near the lake Moeris; numbers of people soon followed his example, joined themselves to the Therapeutes; St. Anthony being placed at their head, and improving upon their rules, first formed them into regular monasteries, and enjoined them to live in mortification and chastity. About the same time, or soon after, St. Synclitica, resolving not to be behind St. Anthony in her zeal for chastity, is generally believed to have collected ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... home grounds to do this, he will be considered a nuisance. Branches are sometimes broken and the trees disfigured from this cause. Along highways this objection might perhaps be lessened somewhat by planting enough trees so that there would be more nuts than the boy would want, or by improving the manner of the boy. Third, the trees are often attacked by caterpillars. This objection can usually be obviated by spraying or destroying ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... ourselves to one instrument, they could pride themselves on having four excellent lady pianists, one of whom distinguished herself particularly by the wonderful dexterity with which she played the most difficult compositions of Beethoven, Field, Ries, and Dussek. Another good sign of the improving taste was a series of twenty-four matinees given on Sundays from twelve to two during the winter of 1818-1819 by Carl Arnold, and much patronised by the highest nobility. The concert-giver, a clever pianist and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... good out of evil by retaining them? Would it not have been a high moral gratification to those who knew the fact, that temples, appropriated to the worship of idols, had been devoted to the service of the only true God? Would it not have been a matter of joy to these to have reflected upon the improving condition of mankind? And, while they looked up to these beautiful structures of art, might not the sight of them have contributed to the incitement of their virtue? If it be the tendency of the corrupt part of our nature to render innocent things vicious, it is, on the other hand, in the essence ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... glad you have come, doctor," exclaimed Herr Sesemann as the latter entered. "We must really have another talk over this Swiss journey; do you still adhere to your decision, even though Clara is decidedly improving in health?" ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... a good start. The United States should consult closely with the Iraqi government and develop additional milestones in three areas: national reconciliation, security, and improving government services affecting the daily lives of Iraqis. As with the current milestones, these additional milestones should be tied to calendar dates to the fullest ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... several regiments. Those that we visited were of the recent levies, and were improving fast in discipline and drill. They were placed in strong positions to prevent a rebel attack from the west, and to command the city. The stars and stripes floated over houses in all parts of the town. We met ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... blood of beeves mixed with rice and honey,—all these ceased to cry custom for their evening trade in interest at the arrival of the strangers. It was long since such a crowd had descended upon Thorney; trade might be improving. Women, ragged, with more ragged children clinging to their skirts, came from the fisher-huts upon the beach to gaze ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault; but, on the whole, he's a good worker. There's no vice ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... noticeable for the quality which Stevenson refers to as "a kind of mercantile brilliancy." They are nearly as much occupied in allowing others the inestimable pleasure of gazing at them as they are in improving their own minds. They are visitors, pure and simple, and they are characterized by such an air of newness that even the flies avoid them for fear of sticking ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... from obscurity the old popular poetry of Germany. In his "Ideas of a Philosophical History of Mankind," he attempted to display in rich and manifold variety the moral character of every nation and of every age, and, while thus creating and improving the taste for poetry and history, ever, with childlike piety, sought for and revered ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Irish Roman Catholic clergy have in the past exercised undue influence in purely political questions, and, in many other matters, social, educational, and economic, have not, as I see things, been on the side of progress, I hold that their influence is now, more than ever before, essential for improving the condition of the most backward section of the population. Therefore I feel it to be both the duty and the strong interest of my Protestant fellow-countrymen to think much less of the religious differences which divide them from Roman Catholics, and much ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon what conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide and solitary thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with street-corner statues of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Breeding, and Management. By Lewis F. Allen. This Book will be considered indispensable by every breeder of live stock. The large experience of the author in improving the character of American herds adds to the weight of his observations, and has enabled him to produce a work which will at once make good his claims as a standard authority on the subject. New and revised edition. Illustrated. ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... Hakuseki, desired to restore the currency to the system pursued in the Keicho era (1596-1614), but their purpose was thwarted by insufficiency of the precious metals. They were obliged to be content with improving the quality of the coins while decreasing their weight by one half. These new tokens were called kenji-kin, as they bore on the reverse the ideograph ken, signifying "great original." The issue of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... concert stage for nearly a score of years, and ought to know whereof I speak; yet I can say I have not learned it all even now, not by any means. Vocal technic is something on which you are always working, something which is never completed, something which is constantly improving with your mental growth and experience—if you are working along the right lines. People talk of finishing their vocal technic; how can that ever be done? You are always learning how to do better. If you don't make the effect you expected to, in a certain place, ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... presentable authors—would have been proud. Even his wife, who had thought it an excellent joke that her husband should have written a book, had to take him seriously as an author when she found that their social position was steadily improving. With feminine tact she gave him a fountain-pen on his birthday, from which he was meant to conclude that she believed in his mission as ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... hinder Morell Mackenzie in every possible way. They, however, agree to his suggestion to send for the two celebrated Italian specialists, Drs Tracchi and Tomy, and with them perform an operation on the Emperor's sarcophagus. Wheat is 1d. firmer. Hides are dull, bank rate unaltered. Tallow is improving.' ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... to be attended with something of excess or extravagance; but in "Ravenshoe" there is nothing morbid, nothing cynical, nothing querulous, nothing ascetic. The doctrine of the book is a reasonable enjoyment of all that is good in the world, with a firm purpose of improving the world in all possible ways. It is one of the many books which have appeared in England of late years which show the influence of the life and labors of the late Dr. Arnold. It is as inspiriting in its influence as a gallop ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... have gained some wisdom. I see the puzzlement you girls are in who haven't got to earn your own living. You don't know what on earth to do with yourselves. You read Ruskin, and think you should be earnest; but you don't know what to be earnest about. Then you take to improving your mind; and cram your head full of earth-currents, and equinoxes, and eclipses of the moon. But what does it all come to? You can't do anything with it. Even if you could come and tell me that a lime-burner ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... her to reflect how the town was improving under the influence of its summer residents. New roads had been made, and one long since closed had been reopened. Bessie had told of this the summer before, when she had driven over its several miles of woods to the Chebacco lakes. The streets were ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... warned against the pitfalls of temptation and every one may there survey himself in every aspect, subjected to discussion and exhibition under various disguises and under various circumstances; and, if he have courage and the desire, he can decide what he thinks of himself and the possibilities of improving the opinion in the light of full knowledge of ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... steps, heels over head, until he lay sprawling on the manger or mule—trough before the door, where the Ceases are fed under busha's own eye on all estates—for this excellent and most cogent reason, that otherwise the maize or guinea—com, belonging of right to poor mulo, would generally go towards improving the condition, not of the quadruped, but of the biped quashiet who had charge of him—and there he lay in a convulsion ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... establish the Irish peasant, as absolute owner of the land he tills. The Irish tenant is now subject only to rents fixed by law; he can at any time sell the interest in his farm, which he has, therefore, a direct interest in improving; he is also assisted by a great scheme of land-purchase to become owner of his land on paying the price by terminable instalments, which are usually some 20 per cent. less than the amount he formerly paid as rent. Under this scheme about two-thirds of the Irish tenantry have already ...
— Ireland and Poland - A Comparison • Thomas William Rolleston
... Eustacie much better than the stitching, and best of all she liked to be sent with Maitre Isaac to some cottage where solace for soul and body were needed, and the inmate was too ill to be brought to Madame la Duchess. She was learning much and improving too in the orderly household, but her wanderings had made her something of a little gipsy. She now and then was intolerably weary, and felt as if she had been entirely spoilt for her natural post. 'What would become of her,' she said to Maitre Isaac, 'if ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thorough draught of air forward through the alleyway leading to the forecastle; it was difficult to get a good circulation aft, where they also had the warm proximity of the engine. The engineers, of course, had the hottest place, but the ever-inventive Sundbeck devised a means of improving the ventilation of the engine-room, so that even there they were not so badly ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... enlightenment is a fact, but no argument against it. Modesty, austerity, and clean living on the part of parents will counterbalance much negligence in direct guidance or protection. But the former need be in no wise lessened by improving the latter. Of the second, I dare affirm that if the men and women in America should stop whatever they are doing for an evening and read this book, there would be less harmful imagination as a result than from the occupations which its reading would replace. Of all the causes ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... much of her life with her uncle and godmother, that the men they loved to have about them had probably spoilt her taste for the very young men of to-day. Both she and her godmother, had many friendships among men, believing the interchange of thought to be mutually improving. Indeed, in most cases they trusted their faithfulness, their sincerity, more than that of their own sex. And, alas! with good reason, men having a larger share of that greatest of gifts, charity! their knowledge of human nature making them rarely censorious, their education giving them larger, ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... at Malmaison. This beautiful chateau was about ten miles from the metropolis. Josephine had purchased the peaceful, rural retreat at Napoleon's request during his first Italian campaign. Subsequently, large sums had been expended in enlarging and improving the grounds; and it was ever the favorite the grounds; and it was ever the favorite residence of both Josephine and Napoleon. Cambacres called an extraordinary meeting of the Council of State. After ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... that one of the generals who visited Suakim instituted athletic games, thereby vastly improving the health and spirits of the men. And now Miles Milton learned, for the first time, what an immense power ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... gone by, and Laura's situation, instead of improving, grew steadily more precarious. An engagement seemed farther away than ever; it was impossible to secure one of any kind. One disappointment followed another. Either the companies were all full, or ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... dark and furious storm. It appears to be utterly impossible to force it into their heads, that an artist does not leave his color with a sharp edge and an angular form by accident, or that they may have the pleasure of altering it and improving upon it; and equally impossible to persuade them that energy and gloom may in some circumstances be arrived at without any extraordinary expenditure of ink. I am aware of no engraver of the present day whose ideas of a storm-cloud are not comprised ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... anything of the history of the legislation of any State will dispute this for a moment. The question now arises, is such a state of things necessarily connected with a Republican government? To this I answer decidedly, no. The next question is, is there any practical means of improving this state of things? To this ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... 'I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah. 'I am going through Tidd's Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... with them. We have to distinguish between possibility and necessity. Only certain steps in advance are possible at a given time; but it is not inevitable that those potential advances should all be realised. Does anybody suppose that humanity has had the profit of all the inventive and improving capacity born into the world? That Turgot, for example, was the only man that ever lived who might have done more for society than he was allowed to do, and spared society a cataclysm? No,—history is a pis-aller. It has assuredly not moved without ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... Owners will find this work valuable in furnishing fresh and useful suggestions. All who contemplate building or improving homes, or erecting structures of any kind, have before them in this work an almost endless series of the latest and best examples from which to make selections, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... New York. One has an accordion. Like second class. Wait till you see the gratte-ciels, I tell 'em. They say "Oui?" and don't believe. I'll show them. America. The land of the flea and the home of the dag'—short for dago of course. My spirits are constantly improving. Funny Christmas, second day out. Wonder if we'll dock New Year's Day. My God what a list to starboard. They say a waiter broke his arm when it happened, ballast shifted. Don't believe it. Something wrong. I know I ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... about six thousand inhabitants, situate on the river Moy—an excellent salmon stream which debouches into Killala Bay, the most important inlet of the sea between Westport and Sligo. Perhaps Ballina is the principal town in county Mayo; certainly it seems to be the most improving one. It is, however, a considerable distance from the sea. Just now it is the seat of a species of internecine war between landlord and tenant, waged under conditions which lend it extraordinary interest. Exacting "landlordism" and recalcitrant "tenantism" ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... John's only consolation is perpetually to talk about her to Susan, whom he looks upon as a sister to him, and as a mother to his children. Little Jack frequently visits his mother's grave; and has made so good a use of Mr. Glover's generosity, in improving himself, that this excellent gentleman intends placing him in a very desirable situation. John's younger son has likewise a share in his favours; and whenever Mr. Glover's mind is oppressed, a visit to this spot, where such an affecting scene passed, and where he has been enabled ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... Criticism had succeeded to action in sculling and in cricket. They talked over the exploits of the morning; canvassed the merits of the competitors, marked the fellow whose play or whose stroke was improving; glanced at another, whose promise had not been fulfilled; discussed the pretensions, and adjudged the palm. Thus public opinion is formed. Some, too, might be seen with their books and exercises, intent on the inevitable ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... is placed suddenly, with that unalterable luckless notion of his, at the head not of a College but of a Nation, to regulate the most complex deep-reaching interests of men. He thinks they ought to go by the old decent regulations; nay that their salvation will lie in extending and improving these. Like a weak man, he drives with spasmodic vehemence towards his purpose; cramps himself to it, heeding no voice of prudence, no cry of pity: He will have his College-rules obeyed by his Collegians; that first; and till that, nothing. He is an ill-starred Pedant, as I said. He would ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... line of seedling peony production, as follows: "There is a great deal of encouragement in what we have been able to accomplish down there at Faribault along the line of producing something fine in peonies. Sixteen years ago we started out with the idea of improving upon the stock that we already have. We had a little red peony, a very nice peony, originated by Mr. Terry down in Iowa, called Rachel, and starting out with that as a mother plant we have produced some of the finest roots that there are in cultivation. ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... exhaustion; and from increasing weakness (as I said before) I was constantly falling asleep and constantly awaking. Meantime, the master of the house sometimes came in upon us suddenly, and very early; sometimes not till ten o'clock, sometimes not at all. He was in constant fear of bailiffs. Improving on the plan of Cromwell, every night he slept in a different quarter of London; and I observed that he never failed to examine through a private window the appearance of those who knocked at the door before he would allow it to be opened. He breaksfasted alone; indeed, his tea equipage ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... We are continually improving and updating our TRS-80 Microcomputer System. You will be kept informed through our Newsletters (you are on the mailing list), addenda and ...
— Radio Shack TRS-80 Expansion Interface: Operator's Manual - Catalog Numbers: 26-1140, 26-1141, 26-1142 • Anonymous
... highest glee, wishing for no better sport than to try the firmness of my resolutions on this head, though, it must be confessed, I was fully more inclined to follow the precept enjoined upon me by another friend, who, by way of improving ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... equal to the occasion, Captain Wragge called his useful information once more to the rescue. Under the learned auspices of Joyce, he plunged, for the third time, into the ocean of science, and brought up another pearl. He was still haranguing (on Pneumatics this time), still improving Mrs. Lecount's mind with his politest perseverance and his smoothest flow of language—when the walking party stopped at ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... him as a poor man and in debt, he had failed to be as active, industrious, and prudent as he would otherwise have been. We are all apt to require too much of the poor debtor, and to have too little sympathy with him. Let the hope of improving your own condition—which is the mainspring of all your business operations—be taken away, and instead, let there be only the desire to pay off old debts through great labour and self-denial, that must continue for years, and imagine how differently ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... a friend of mine, and by him communicated to me, in which this identical poem was singled out for fervent approbation. What then shall we say? Why, let the poet first consult his own heart, as I have done, and leave the rest to posterity,—to, I hope, an improving posterity. The fact is, the English public are at this moment in the same state of mind with respect to my poems, if small things may be compared with great, as the French are in respect to Shakspeare, and not ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... in which the rent has been raised upon an improving tenant?-Yes. I am not prepared just now to give names, but I think I have met with several ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... our chance of getting clear of the pack early in the spring appeared to depend upon our making a good northing. Soundings at this time gave depths of from 186 to 190 fathoms, with a glacial mud bottom. No land was in sight. The light was improving. A great deal of ice- pressure was heard and observed in all directions during the 25th, much of it close to the port quarter of the ship. On the starboard bow huge blocks of ice, weighing many tons and 5 ft. in thickness, were ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... incidents that occurred in this land of apathy were occasioned by our guide, who generally lost his way, and spent some hours in finding the vans at the halting-place in the evening; this was not improving to the temper, and of course I laid the blame upon Cyprus generally, and abused the island almost to the superlative degree ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... before the outbreak of the plague a few calm and thoughtful students banded themselves together for the purpose, as they phrased it, of "improving natural knowledge." The ends they proposed to attain cannot be stated more clearly than in the words of one of ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... that it was his wish to have you sent home at once." This was a great surprise to me. I had heard from my wife only two days before this. At that time she was quite sick, but was thought to be improving. With a heart filled with sadness I now prepared for my journey home. The warden was absent, and the deputy warden said, "There was no precedent for permitting a prisoner to go home on a visit, as such a thing had never occurred before in the history of the State, but," ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... own good," pursued Captain Hardy; "it is no pleasure to me to punish you. I shall keep an eye on you while you're aboard, and if I see that your conduct is improving you will find that I am not a hard man to get ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... chuckle. "Time sense returns. He's improving. You should ask what day it is, Rick. You've been asleep a long time. Pegasus went up three ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... through the Chatauga woods toward Sacketts Harbor, which have since been repaired and improved by the troops. Of these latter there is no notice in the laws. The extra pay to the soldiers for repairing and improving those roads was advanced in the first instance from the appropriation to the Quartermaster's Department and afterwards provided for by a specific appropriation by Congress. The necessity of keeping those roads open and in good ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... the terms of alliance were well understood, and many of the Cumbrian barons were liegemen to both the English and Scottish kings. Scotland was in a flourishing and fast-improving condition, and there was no mutual enmity or jealousy ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... hurt, and a valuable horse had broken its leg. Jim talked about his troubles at some length while Evelyn tried to look sympathetic, and afterwards stated, with numerous particulars, his projects for improving the estate, although he carefully explained that his losing his money might prevent their being carried out. While he sketched his plans he unconsciously delineated his character, and when he went away ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... In one sense the proposition is little better than a truism; if any character has remained constant during many generations, it will obviously be little likely, the conditions of life remaining the same, to vary during the next generation. So, again, in improving a breed, if care be taken for a length of time to exclude all inferior individuals, the breed will obviously tend to become truer, as it will not have been crossed during many generations by an inferior animal. We have ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... the "mine," as they already began to term it, which they found about a quarter of a mile further on. The outcrop proved, as Henderson had asserted, to be a genuine coal, and of very fair quality, too, with a prospect of its improving as it was worked down into; and, most important and fortunate for the discoverers, it, like the stone, was situate close to the river bank, near enough in fact to permit of its being loaded direct on the deck of the raft by means of a long wooden shoot. The doctor and young Manners ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... sketched a little; indeed, the artistic fever spread to the granary, where the boys spent some hours of each day restoring, not to say improving, the tarnished color of certain face-cards of an imperfect euchre deck, the refuse of the palette being carefully secreted to this end; we never knew at what moment we might sit upon the improvised color-box of some juvenile member ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... The journey had been harder than Zaidos had realized. His leg ached, and it was slow work getting around on crutches. As soon as Jack could get away, he suggested that they should go down to Hazelden, and see for themselves if Tony was improving as ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... dependants; a horrid grin then distorted her features, and her before lifeless eyes glistened with malice and rancorous joy. She had read just enough to make her pedantic, and too little to give her any improving knowledge. Her understanding was naturally small, and her self-conceit great. In her person she was tall and meagre, her hair black, and her complexion of the darkest brown, with an additional sallowness at her ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... Italy, March 6, 1475. In 1488 he was apprenticed to the painter Ghirlandajo. He studied antique marbles in the garden of San Marco, where he was discovered by Lorenzo de' Medici, who in 1489 took him into his palace. There the young student remained until his patron's death (1492), improving the great opportunities presented to him. The Mask of a Faun was sculptured ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... of the colony are every day improving, to the satisfaction of all classes; and the great number of respectable settlers, and their patience and perseverance in establishing themselves, are the surest grounds for the ultimate prosperity of the settlement. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... the town, Horsham is greatly improving: the number of buildings which have been lately erected, and which are still erecting, are of a new and very handsome description: the streets are neatly paved, with the large flat stones procured from the excellent quarries in ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... United States Treasury with its subtreasury system had come in 1846; but still there were many, many wildcat banks, sufficient in number to make the average exchange-counter broker a walking encyclopedia of solvent and insolvent institutions. Still, things were slowly improving, for the telegraph had facilitated stock-market quotations, not only between New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, but between a local broker's office in Philadelphia and his stock exchange. In other words, the short private wire had been ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... far from it. He did justice to her as a good, true-hearted, self-improving American. Taken by herself, he felt for her decided regard; but taken in connection with Aurora he would sometimes have liked delicately to lift her between finger and thumb and drop her ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... working in the mills the other half. Mount Holyoke Seminary broke upon the thoughts of many of them as a vision of hope,—I remember being dazzled by it myself for a while,—and Mary Lyon's name was honored nowhere more than among the Lowell mill-girls. Meanwhile they were improving themselves and preparing for their future in every possible way, by purchasing and reading standard books, by attending lectures, and evening classes of their own getting up, and by meeting each ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... system of recruitment established by the Bureau, under the laws of Congress, if permanently adopted, (with such improvement as experience may suggest,) will be capable of maintaining the numerical strength and improving the character of the army in time of peace, or of promptly and economically rendering available the National forces to any required extent in ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... and scratch from maggots in that dunghill of cacophony. I'm disappointed; not for myself, but for her; disappointed to find that, after living for more than six months in daily contact with myself, she has not been capable of improving her mind even to the point of spontaneously eradicating from it a taste for Victor Masse! More than that, to find that she has not arrived at the stage of understanding that there are evenings on which anyone with the least shade of refinement of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's warning was no less insistent although his patient was steadily improving. I faced the alternative of my compliance or her nervous prostration and I chose the former. My desire to shake ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... two years to the army or the navy to learn war, because they know that if the nation has to fight it can do so only by their fighting for it. Their Government thinks it is its business to be always improving the organisation of its sixty millions for security, for knowledge, for instruction, for agriculture, for industry, for navigation. Thus after forty years of common effort for a common good Germany finds itself the first nation ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... said Grant lightly. "He always is right. How many times must I tell you that if you would only follow my advice you would soon be improving?" ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... Lottery is of great public utility—that of improving SOUTH HADLEY CANAL, in order to make it permanent and beneficial to the public—and the Proprietors, in this arduous undertaking, have to cut through an entire mass of rocks for three miles! Laudable and ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks
... and of bigotry; they too have their antiphilosophists who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendancy of habit over the duty of improving our ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... extra-ordinary; and was never heard of, since the settlement of America. The land is ours, by the gift of the Great Spirit. How can you tax it? We can make such roads as we want, and did so when the land was all ours. We are improving our condition. See these large stocks of cattle, and those fences. We are surrounded by the whites, from whom we can procure cattle, and whatever is necessary for our improvement. Now that we are confined to narrow limits, we can easily make our ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... "Their aim is improving," remarked Mr. De Vere, as he coolly looked at the pursuing tug through the glasses, "but we are ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... the traveller is really up to his neck in the old Italian sketchability. The pride of the place, I believe, is a port of great capacity, and the bequest of the late Duke of Galliera, who left four millions of dollars for the purpose of improving and enlarging it, will doubtless do much toward converting it into one of the great commercial stations of Europe. But as, after leaving my hotel the afternoon I arrived, I wandered for a long time at hazard through the tortuous by-ways of the city, I said to myself, not without an accent ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... to add, "Indeed I do." Then, improving the opening, I hastened: "Is this Mr. Thornton violent? I think this is one of the most quiet institutions I ever saw for so small ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... cultivates the aesthetic taste upon classic lines. An enormous number of jerry built articles are sold, which the public readily buy simply on account of their ornamental appearance. If the ability to distinguish between good and bad work were more universal it would go far towards improving trade morality. ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... myself to riotous conviviality, turbulent pleasures, and unprofitable society. There is often a spirit of defiance in us, having something of nobleness in it, and not utterly condemnable, which withholds strong characters from reforming and improving, notwithstanding all the admonitions of conscience. The more unhappy I felt myself, the more I acted happiness. After my son was born, my wife began to shun me altogether, and would often wilfully misunderstand me. She devoted all her affection and care to her child, lived only for him, and ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... with the Fifeshire heiress there came into the family an unexpected windfall of 60,000l. Among the bride's possessions was an island in Scotland, and the Government of the day being desirous of improving the beacon-light, paid 60,000l, for the island and spent about half that sum in addition in ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... the ocean trade, although the time was by no means yet ripe for effective use of the system, by reason of the shortage of destroyers, sloops and cruisers, which was still most acute, although the situation was improving slowly month by month as new vessels ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... the delightful thing about him, that he was always ready to fall in with a mood, always light of touch and gay. He could be tender and sympathetic, as well as incisive and sensible if it was needed; but he was never either contradictory or severe or improving. He would sometimes pull himself up and say: "Here, we must be business-like," but he was never reproachful or grieved or shocked by what we said to him. He could be decisive, stern, abrupt, if it was really needed. But his most pungent ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... usual, was washing, and Clemens carrying the water. Gillis, seeing the gold "color" improving with every pan, wanted to go on washing and climbing toward the precious pocket, regardless of wet and cold. Clemens, shivering and disgusted, vowed that each pail of water would be his last. His teeth were chattering, and he was wet through. ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... or is crime less rampant? Our arrogant assumption of superiority is sometimes mournfully rebuked. For instance, one of the most eminent and popular scientists of England emphasised his views on the necessity of 'improving natural knowledge,' by ascribing the great plague of 1664, and the great fire of 1666—which in point of population and of houses, nearly swept London from the face of the globe—to ignorance and neglect of sanitary laws, and to the failure to provide suitable organizations for ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the month of June other steps were taken to effect an agreement, but the relations between the officers of the company and the workmen, instead of improving, grew worse. On the 28th the company began to close the different departments, and on the last day of the month work in all of them ceased. On July 1st the striking workmen congregated about the gates, stopped the foremen and employees who came to work, and ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church |
