"Mean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Christ." He said: "Thou must serve our gods, or die." She answered mildly: "Be it so; the sooner shall I stand in the presence of Him whom I most desire to behold." Then the governor asked her: "Whom meanest thou?" She replied: "I mean the Son of God, Christ, mine espoused! his dwelling is paradise; by his side are joys eternal; and in his garden grow celestial fruits and roses that never fade." Then Sapritius, overcome by her eloquence and beauty, ordered her to be ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... of good manners. Watts says: "To be angry about trifles is mean and childish; to rage and be furious is brutish, and to maintain perpetual wrath is akin to the practice and temper of fiends; but to prevent and suppress rising resentment is wise and glorious, is manly ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... that you have friends among these turbulent people. I hope you don't intend going to Lisnagola on that day; by the way it must mean this day, for this is Tuesday, and the note or notice, or whatever you call it, is dated on Sunday, I perceive. I trust you don't intend to to-day, sir, and ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... washing my hands, paring my nails, and looking in the glass. The insignificancy of my manners to the rest of the world makes the laughers call me a quidnunc, a phrase I shall never inquire what they mean by it. The last of me each night is at St. James's Coffee-house, where I converse, yet never fall into a dispute on any occasion, but leave the understanding I have, passive of all that goes through it, without entering into the business of life. And ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... his fellow- men to remain long content with rigid formulae of conduct. Iron- bound, impersonal ethics, the procrustean bed of rules, he soon saw at their true value as the deification of averages. 'As to Miss (I declare I forget her name) being bad,' I find him writing, 'people only mean that she has broken the Decalogue - which is not at all the same thing. People who have kept in the high-road of Life really have less opportunity for taking a comprehensive view of it than those who have leaped over the hedges and strayed up the hills; not but ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wish to become better acquainted with her? You mean with a view to marriage—of course ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... this confession was accidentally overheard by Bob Lumsden. He longed to hear more, but Bob had been taught somehow that eavesdropping is a mean and dishonourable thing. With manly determination, therefore, he left the spot, but immediately sought and found his little friend Pat Stiver, intent ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... like that travel alone. I wonder—" He walked down the corridor again, but this time he looked into each compartment. He saw three Englishmen and an American playing whist, Germans eating, and French people sleeping, and at last he came upon his rose. A small man, mean-featured and scrubby-haired, was seated opposite to her, and his shining eyes were fixed upon her face. She had taken off her hat and was holding it on her lap, and Jean saw that she was clutching at it nervously, and that ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... prejudices of another age as still to misunderstand the spirit of agricultural populations. Where, indeed, is to be found more patriotism than in the country, greater devotion to the public welfare, more intelligence, in a word? And, gentlemen, I do not mean that superficial intelligence, vain ornament of idle minds, but rather that profound and balanced intelligence that applies itself above all else to useful objects, thus contributing to the good of all, to the common amelioration and to the support of the state, born of ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... what you mean by your Finis, Seignior; but I am come to offer my self this Gentlewoman's Servant, her Lover, her Husband, her Dog in a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... America, and the Americans were told they must not cross it. America said, "What is this?" Germany said, "This is our line, beyond which you must not go," and America said, "The place for that line is not the Atlantic, but on the Rhine—and we mean to help you roll ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... hardly be called a student of Anglo-Saxon, though he was perhaps able to read the language. His remarks on the subject may, however, mean simply that he was familiar with early Middle English.[97] In his essay on Romance he referred to Sharon Turner's account of the story of Beowulf, but called the poem Caedmon, and made no correction when he added the later footnote in regard to Conybeare's fuller ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... TRUEBRIDGE. I do not mean to liken him to CHARSLEY, for no more unselfish and kind-hearted being than JOHNNIE ever breathed. But was there ever a stone that rolled more constantly and gathered less moss? Yet no stroke could subdue his inconquerable cheerfulness. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... combination, to be sure that my box of matches was safely in place. We were cautioned always to carry them where they could be quickly got at in case of a forced landing in enemy country. An airman must destroy his machine in such an event. But my Spad did not mean to end its career so ingloriously. The motor ran beautifully, hitting on every cylinder. We climbed from two hundred and fifty metres to three hundred and fifty, four hundred and fifty, and on steadily upward. In the vicinity of the balloon, machine-gun ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... 20 provinces (khett, singular and plural) and 3 municipalities* (krong, singular and plural); Banteay Mean Cheay, Batdambang, Kampong Cham, Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Spoe, Kampong Thum, Kampot, Kandal, Kaoh Kong, Keb*, Krachen, Mondol Kiri, Otdar Mean Cheay, Phnum Penh*, Pouthisat, Preah Seihanu* (Sihanoukville), Preah Vihear, Prey Veng, Rotanah Kiri, Siem Reab, Stoeng Treng, Svay Rieng, Takev note: ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was a pretty pickle for a sworn servant of the law to aid in making! A wrong move might mean murder done by these imaginative youths, and I no less than accessory, to boot; for, surely, I had given them aid and violent counsel in this drama which we all were playing so naturally, if not so nobly. I hastened over to Lafitte and called loudly to L'Olonnois, and commanded Partial to ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... me so carefully while I was sick on board, that it would seem ungrateful in me if I did not ask him to come with us. Besides, he is so excellent a fellow—so brave, and daring, and generous. I do not mean to say in the matter of money, because he has none of that, for he was only a few years ago placed on the quarter-deck, but I mean in his behaviour. He never takes offence, and never thinks ill of anybody, and he will never allow any of the younger fellows ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... that works of criticism are unfit for children, and teach them rather to remember what others say of authors, than to judge of the books themselves impartially: but, when we object to works of criticism, we do not mean to object to criticism; we think it an excellent exercise for the judgment, and we have ourselves been so well corrected, and so kindly assisted by the observations of young critics, that we cannot doubt their capacity. This book has been read to a jury of young critics, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... man without any doubt, advised her, told her that some other widder would lose one of hern, and give hers to the meetin' house, jest the mate to hern. That is the way I look at it," sez he "and I mean to mention that view of mine on this subject the very next time they take up a subscription in the meetin' ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... the war against the Nine Bow Barbarians, to which I was summoned like other men, I married her. As for her name, let it be, I will not think of it even to myself. We had one child, a little girl which died within two years of her birth, and then I learned what sorrow can mean to man. At first my wife was sad, but her grief departed with time and she smiled again as she used to do. Only she said that she would bear no more children for the gods to take. Having little to do she began to go about the city and make friends whom I did not know, for of these, being a ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... intelligent fathers and mothers: an inhumanity so common that it may almost be said to be universal; so common that, while we are obliged to look on and see our dearest friends guilty of it, we find it next to impossible to make them understand what we mean when we make outcry over some of ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... retreat or disaster. Italy is gnawing into the Trentino day by day, and particularly around by her right wing. At no time I shall be surprised to see a sudden lunge forward on that front, and hear a tale of guns and prisoners. This will not mean that she has made a sudden attack, but that some system of Austrian positions has collapsed ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... "You mean Jesus," said Virginie. "Ah, I know it; and I say the offices to him daily, but my heart is very wild and starts away from my words. I say, 'My God, I give myself to you!'—and after all, I don't give myself, and I don't feel comforted. Dear Mary, you must have suffered, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... have to part company before I have learnt it," said Belle; "in the mean time, if I wish to say anything to you in private, somebody being by, shall I speak in the language of ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... side of the Acropolis, where only there was no precipice; and there were other splendid buildings—a new open theatre, for the acting of those unrivalled tragedies of the three Athenian poets, and of others which have been lost; a Museum, which did not then mean a collection of curiosities, but a place where the youth might study all the arts sacred to the Muses; a Lyceum for their exercises, and schools for the philosophers. These schools were generally colonnades of pillars supporting roofs to give shelter from the sun, and ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... either side. The burly form of Dave Herriot opposed the new enemy and as the two giants squared off, sword ringing on sword, more than one wounded sailor raised himself to a better position, grinning with the Anglo-Saxon's unquenchable love of a fair fight. Herriot was no mean swordsman of the rough and ready seaman's type and had a great physique as well, but his previous labors—he had been the first man on board and had already accounted for a fair share of the defenders—had rendered him slow and arm-weary. The ready parrying, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... "Oh, I mean to remain," was the cool reply. "Nestor is wanted at Manila for disobeying orders, and I'll take him along with me when I go. There's a steamer out here ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... no more. Yet still the duke persisted in hoping that the gentle Cesario would in time be able to persuade her to show some pity, and therefore he bade him he should go to her again the next day. In the mean time, to pass away the tedious interval, he commanded a song which he loved to be sung; ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... connexion or correspondence carried on between the mutineers and any private person or any society on shore, and they think they may with the greatest safety pronounce that no such connexion or correspondence ever did exist. They do not however mean to say that wicked and designing men have not been among the mutineers; on the contrary they have proof sufficient to found a belief upon that several whose mischievous dispositions would lead them to the farthest corner of the kingdom ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... said in a low voice: "let us not excite attention. An Englishman never knows when not to complain: an American accepts his fate more quietly. These people mean to sack the train. We had better get away ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... year I will go, or I will send some one, to explore the country inland to the lake of Manala [i.e., Malanao], around which there are more than seventy houses, I mean villages, containing many people. They are not supplied with firearms, although the Moros are well provided with long arrows and other missile weapons. I hope in God to carry on that enterprise as promptly and easily as this other one; and even to bring down from his lofty stronghold the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... 1583, he took the field at the head of seventy-five thousand men, and marched into Ise to attack Kazumasu, whom he besieged in his castle at Kuwana. The castle fell, but Kazumasu managed to effect his escape, and in the mean while Katsuiye entered Omi in command of a great body of troops, said to number sixty-five thousand. At the last moment, however, he had failed to secure the co-operation of Maeda Toshiiye, an important ally, and his campaign therefore assumed ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... would manage in such a way that her poor people should lack nothing. "Of course they lack a great deal, but what I mean is, they'll lack nothing they've been in the habit of receiving from me," and, speaking of their unfailing patience in adversity, she said: "and ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... progress, mechanisms become perfected, and as light increases, the sheet of water will be employed to purify the sheet of air; that is to say, to wash the sewer. The reader knows, that by "washing the sewer" we mean: the restitution of the filth to the earth; the return to the soil of dung and of manure to the fields. Through this simple act, the entire social community will experience a diminution of misery and an augmentation of health. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... dozen rich men if she had wished, but she chose the poorest of them all, a dear, good, splendid man, who has been persistently unsuccessful all the way through. Everything—financially speaking, I mean,—has been against him. They have had continual anxiety and curtailment, until at last they have had to let their pretty house and go into dingy lodgings. My father is very down on Jack. He is a successful ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... I could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers. I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, 'Come and find out.' This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... born in the "Banner State," and by "Banner State" I mean Missouri. Osteopathy was born in the same State, and both of us are getting along reasonably well. At a time during my younger days my attention was attracted to a picture of a house which bore the inscription, "Christ Disputing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in marriage would mean a severance from this other woman eternally, and I ached as I thought of it. But though these thoughts floated through my system and gave me harsh wrenches of pain, I did not thrust my puny likings before the command of the council of the Priests. I ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... men, well furnished presumably with firelocks, bullets, and powder-horns, went into this hinterland. At intervals there followed other hardy folk. Quakers, subject to persecution in old Virginia, fled into these wilds. The name Carolina grew to mean backwoods, frontiersman's land. Here were forest and stream, Indian and bear and wolf, blue waters of sound and sea, long outward lying reefs and shoals and islets, fertile soil and a clime neither hot nor cold. ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... had not observed him in a house or a street where you had met him. Whilst he suffered at being seen where he was, he consoled himself with the delicious thought of the inconceivable number of places where he was not. All he wished of his tailor was to provide that sober mean of colour and cut which would never detain the eye for a moment.... He had a remorse, running to despair, of his social GAUCHERIES, and walked miles and miles to get the twitchings out of his face, and the starts and shrugs out of his arms and shoulders. 'God may forgive sins,' ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... was not to be put off by talk of that sort. "You know rightly what I mean," he said. "You never get no rest at all, and here's me still ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... me not be misunderstood here. By a Seminole's industry I do not mean the persistent and rapid labor of the white man of a northern community. The Indian is not capable of this, nor is he compelled to imitate it. I mean only that, in describing him, it is but just for me to say that he is a ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... condition, so far as the health and strength of the free colored people were concerned, was good. Their mean age was the greatest of any element of our population, and their increase was about normal, or 1.50 per cent. annually. In the twenty years from 1840 to 1860 it had kept up this rate with hardly the slightest variation, while the increase of the free colored ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... from gas," said Tommy, "than as your filthy Ragged Men would kill her. And you know I mean it." He switched to the language of the cities to go on coldly: "If one woman is harmed, Rahn dies. We will shoot down every ship that rises from her stages. We will spray burning thermit through her streets. We will cover her towers with gas until her people starve ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... cry to thee; Lord God, hear thou my crying; Thy gracious ear oh turn to me, Open it to thy sighing. For if thou mean'st to look upon The wrong and evil that is done, Who, Lord, ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... determine the meaning of the word [Greek: anothen] in the phrase [Greek: gennaethae anothen] of John iii. 3 on which the extent of the parallelism to some degree turns. Does it mean 'be born over again,' like Justin's [Greek: anagennaethaete]? Or does it mean 'be born from above,' i.e. by a heavenly, divine, regeneration? To express an opinion in favour of the first of these views would naturally be to incur the charge of ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... "You mean you don't like it for other folks," replied Sam. "You took your medicine yourself very well, if I am a good judge, especially when you so lovingly displayed your osculatory skill on the sweet lips ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... His disciples walked over the hills into Galilee some of them fell behind wondering among themselves what He could mean when He spoke of being killed and of rising again. Perhaps they thought it only a sadness that would pass away, and so full of faith in His power were they that they could not believe that One who could raise the dead ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... does the Spectator mean when he says that Sir Roger is "something of a Humourist"? Define Sir Roger's peculiar humor, and contrast it with that of some other character in the ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that they almost made me forget who I was—so persuasively did they speak; and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth. But of the many falsehoods told by them, there was one which quite amazed me;—I mean when they said that you should be upon your guard and not allow yourselves to be deceived by the force of my eloquence. To say this, when they were certain to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and proved myself to be anything but a great speaker, did indeed appear ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... turning to her, "you have a treasure worth far, far more than my ring. I mean your precious soul, which will live for ever and ever and ever somewhere; your undying self, Betty. Only your body will go in the grave; you yourself will be living for ever. Dear friends," she said, speaking to all of us, ...
— Poppy's Presents • Mrs O. F. Walton
... read this last line it does not convey much of a compliment, but I mean all that it implies. She certainly is very pretty. We made our excuses to her, and went to the club cafe, and I have not seen her since. She has gone to the city with her mother on a shopping tour and will not be back ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... and degrees do not mean real superiority or inferiority in the eye of God. From the highest point of view nothing is great or small, there is no higher or lower. The only measure is quality, the only gauge is motive. 'Small service is true service while it ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... I usually stayed were the Barbers, who lived at Grey Park, a few miles from Sunny Slope. I mean Mr. Hilton Barber, now of Halesowen, near Cradock, and his brothers Guy and Graham. The latter, one of the truest friends I ever had, is, alas! long since dead. He fell a victim to pneumonia at Johannesburg in the early days. Related to or connected with the Barbers ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... do nothing, and they cannot and even will not do anything voluntarily; and in this alone they are lacking in natural loyalty and fidelity to their king. Second: They go—poor, despised, disgraced, sick, and needy—to serve masters who are often mean, and persons who, although just to others, sometimes give these men no compensation. With such hardships, sorrows, and famine, and but few delicacies or provisions for their illnesses, many of them die, and that in great wretchedness. Third: They ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... rather mis-directed leniency, compared with others of enormous severity for trifling offences; all which tend to induce the London thieves to entertain a contempt for that tribunal. An opinion prevails throughout the whole body, that justice is not done there. I do not mean to say they complain of the sentences being too severe generally; that would be natural enough on their parts, and not worth notice. They believe everything done at that court a matter of chance; that in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... clouds scudding across the blood-stained west. Mingled with the wailing of the blast, there was a deep sobbing sound that struck me in successive waves, like the ululations of great multitudes of far-off mourners. And while I was wondering what this might mean and felt a prickling of horror along my spine, the first of the portents swept across the sky. I say "portents," for I do not know by what other term to describe the apparitions; high in the heavens, certainly at an altitude of many miles, the flaming thing swept ...
— Flight Through Tomorrow • Stanton Arthur Coblentz
... to which the money cost of production correspond? The attempt has often been made to relate money costs to such things as the effort of working and the sacrifice of waiting. The existence of such costs is beyond dispute. Much saving does mean a sacrifice of immediate enjoyment to the man who saves. Most labor is irksome and disagreeable in itself, and involves strain and wear and tear; while all labor means a deprivation of the utility of leisure. Workpeople, moreover, do not grow on gooseberry ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... "I mean I am so glad to see you. They told us you would be coming to join us. And now they are gone. What a pity! They will ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... don't mean to say that I've told stories? Be off with you! And, I say, as you pass round the corner, just tell Tom ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... to sign a warrant whereby the sentence of the court-martial may be carried into execution; for I cannot help thinking, that however criminal admiral Byng may be, his life is not forfeited by that sentence. I do not mean to find fault with other men's opinions; all I endeavour at is, to give reasons for my own; and all I desire or wish is, that I may not be misunderstood; I do not pretend to judge admiral Byng's deserts, nor to give any opinion on the propriety of the act. "Signed, 6th Feb. 1757, at ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... writing. All day a terrific snow storm had been raging, at nightfall it continued with increased severity. I could hear the fierce gale shriek as it lashed the tree tops furiously. I shuddered when I thought what danger such a gale might mean to the good steamer, bearing my father homeward bound across the rough, icy waters of that far off wintry sea; that yawning, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... Senora Agapida, recovering her voice at the sound of the Spanish tongue, "for Christ's sake, what does this mean? ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... resolution on the part of our generals, and a better system of carrying on the war on the part of the authorities at Washington. So, my son, the people's impatience was at length heeded, and when spring came (I mean the spring of 1864), and the people were weary of the war, and demanded a change in the policy of conducting it, so that an end be put to it as speedily as possible, the government began to wake up to its duty. We had fought battles for two years and ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... nearly one-half of the population are unable to fly. How my mind flew back to our own life as I was learning of these sad conditions. There is a sort of a life on wings in our world, although the wings are invisible. But on account of the low, mean lives so many are living, they never rise above the miasmic contagion of the sin and self level. These unseen wings are ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... its highest state of bliss until it be re-united to the body; but the soul of a believer in Christ (by which we mean one of His faithful people, who loves, serves, and trusts in Him and His atonement alone) will enter into a happy and sinless rest. He has made "an everlasting covenant with them," not with those who deny Him. Any mercy shown to such would be uncovenanted. See ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... 'Jara is said to mean waste, and Karu implies huge. This Rishi's body had been huge, and he gradually reduced it by severe ascetic penances. For the same reason, O Brahmanas, the sister of Vasuki was ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... will do this by what he calls "sensiation." It might be well to say here that if you select for puncheons wood with a straight grain and wood that will split easily you will simplify your task, but even mean, stubborn wood may be flattened by scoring and hewing. Quoting from Horace Kephart's excellent book on woodcraft, an experienced man can tell a straight-grained log "by merely scanning the bark"; if the ridges and furrows of the bark run ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... so to have a son! Now I have found one. I want no other. When I think that for a moment I had an idea of killing myself! Nonsense! it would make Madame What-d'ye-call-her, yonder, too happy. On the contrary, I mean to live—to live with my Frantz, and for him, and ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... New York to promote German opera. Operas by Germans—"Fidelio" for instance—had been heard together with operas by Italians, and others, but now Wagner came above the horizon, and German opera began to mean Wagner. So we find a "Tannhaeuser" and "Lohengrin" in New York in 1859,—quite inadequate performances according to the opinion handed down to posterity,—but yet, performances. They were followed in 1862 by "Der Fliegende Hollaender," all worthy but inadequate efforts. Maretzek and Strakosch ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... knees of Paul. A splotch like a red cabbage leaf was on the cheek of Solomon. By the signs shall the saints be known. 'Preacher Club Foot, come forward to tell about Moriah,' the Big Man will say. Mean scamps, remember Essec Pugh, for I shall remember ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... enjoyment. It is a propensity which may, in a remarkable manner, engross the whole character, acquiring strength by continuance, and it is then generally accompanied by a contracted selfishness, which considers nothing as mean or unworthy that can be made to contribute to the ruling passion. This may be the case even when the propensity is regulated by the rules of justice;—if it break through this restraint, it leads to fraud, extortion, deceit, and injustice,—and, under another form, to ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... in front of her. "I don't know what's in your mind; I don't know what you mean to do; but I do know that M'sieu' Racine is making trouble here, and out of it you'll come more ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... consideration does you great credit," said a voice from the darkness, "and shall be properly presented to our manager; but at the same time we wish it understood that we do not hesitate to take any risks in strict attention to our business and our clients. In the mean time you will expedite matters, and give your passengers a chance to get an early tea at Three Pines, by handing down that treasure-box and mail-pouch. Be careful in handling that blunderbuss you keep beside it; the last ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... of his playmates, of events long ago forgotten danced before his eyes. He was not sure he could draw his finger out of the hole even if he wished to do so, it felt so strangely numb. What did it mean that knives seemed to be cutting, and pins pricking him from head to foot? What would happen if no one ever found him—no one ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to load them into waggons, as well as to guard them and the trains. These soon began to arrive in large numbers, and as each came up the sides of the railway waggons were opened, and their heterogeneous contents chucked out anyhow into a huge mass. In the mean time R.E. construction trains also arrived, and the quiet little siding was soon a scene of wild bustle and excitement. The R.E. went to work on the broken bridge, and made a most excellent job of it in a surprisingly short ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... "I mean. I've just come away from seeing her." She hesitated. "I only heard by accident. So I came over with father. He had to come to a meeting of the Guardians here, or something. They've quarrelled, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... permission to enter the gates of the town we amused ourselves by examining the houses outside, which were low and whitewashed. The windows were few, small and high, and some of these mean, wretched-looking hovels were surrounded by a mud and sand wall. We saw only Moors and a few Arabs. The country higher up appeared green and fresh, although much rock and sand abounded. The harbour, or rather bay, is small, and its depth of water from ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... said to his particular chum, 'I have just drawn out all the money owing to me, and I mean you fellows to have a good, hot supper to-night at the canteen, and I foot the bill!' and as he spoke he pulled out a handful of silver from his pocket and showed it with a laugh ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... "I mean kill her!" he said with an oath. "Nothin' else is goin' to do. You can do it without leavin' a track. Willis Morgan or that Chinaman never'll see you around. Nobody else but the agent ever stops at the Greek Letter Ranch. ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... the Conference proposes the adoption of a universal day for all purposes for which it may be found convenient, and which shall not interfere with the use of local time where desirable. This universal day is to be a mean solar day; is to begin for all the world at the moment of midnight of the initial meridian coinciding with the beginning of the civil day and date of that meridian, and is to be counted from zero up ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... found reasons why it was easier for a Russian than for the rest of us to reach this conclusion; the Russian peasants have a proverb which says: "Labor is the house that love lives in," by which they mean that no two people nor group of people can come into affectionate relations with each other unless they carry on together a mutual task, and when the Russian peasant talks of labor he means labor on the soil, or, to use the phrase of the great peasant, Bondereff, "bread ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... the ministry, as well as his study of the lives of the apostles, convinced him that success in his profession—by which I mean the successful winning of souls to God—was not to be won by preaching controversial or dry doctrinal sermons. He must seize upon some vital truth, admitted by all parties, and bring that home to men's minds. He must preach to them of their daily, hourly trials and temptations, joys and ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... ship was attended with a terrible amount of risk. For only four men at most could get fair hold of a cask, and when she took it into her silly old hull to start rolling, just as we had got one half-way across the deck, with nothing to grip your feet, and the knowledge that one stumbling man would mean a sudden slide of the ton and a half weight, and a little heap of mangled corpses somewhere in the lee scuppers—well one always wanted to be very thankful when the ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... Court took too much of the nation's money, and spent it ill; but now, when it could be trusted to spend well, it does not take enough of the nation's money. There are arguments for not having a Court, and there are arguments for having a splendid Court; but there are no arguments for having a mean Court. It is better to spend a million in dazzling when you wish to dazzle, than three-quarters of a million in trying to dazzle and yet not dazzling." There may be something in this theory; it may be that the Court of England is not quite as gorgeous ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... muses, he was cast for the role of Seyton, the old officer who attends on Macbeth, and was, no doubt, charmed with the assignment. To wait upon Macbeth, in however humble a capacity, was in itself no mean honour, and when the aforesaid Macbeth would be Betterton himself, the importance of ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... back to fetch the bullock, and, in the mean time, I occupied myself in examining our packs, in order to dispense with such things as were least necessary; for, with an additional weight of 130 pounds of dried meat and hide, our pack bullocks were overloaded, and it was now imperative upon me to travel as lightly as possible. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... he quietly added, "Ay, ay, minister; an' if ony are speirs for me, the servants maun be sure to say, Oh, the Doctor's in the stable, or the Doctor's in the kitchen, or the Doctor's in the garden or the field." "What do you mean, Dauvid?" exclaimed his astonished master; "what can you have to do with Doctor?" "Weel, ye see, sir," said David, looking very knowing, "when ye got your degree, I thought that as I had saved a little money, I ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... This does not mean that Froude is free from minor inaccuracies, or that he is innocent of graver faults which flowed from his abundant quality of imagination. He constantly quotes a sentence inaccurately in his text, while it is accurately transcribed in a footnote. He is careless in matters ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... mechanical science being allowed, for example. Did the Junior mean the colonists wouldn't allow it? Must mean that. What else could prevent it? But when an E, a real E, took charge in an experimental colony, the colonists had nothing further to say about the matter. True, when the five-year experimental period ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... saw that her reply was open to more than a single construction. It might, of course, mean that she did not love Kulan Tith; and so, by inference, be taken to mean that ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "What does he mean? Trajan's column?" asked Preciozi. "It must be," said Laura. "I have a brother who's a barbarian. Weren't ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... formed, but the artillery was yet on the road, advancing with infinite labor at the rate of merely a league a day, for heavy rains had converted the streams of the valleys into raging torrents and completely broken up the roads. In the mean time, King Ferdinand ordered an assault on the suburbs of the city. They were carried after a sanguinary conflict of six hours, in which many Christian cavaliers were killed and wounded, and among the latter Don Alvaro of Portugal, son of the duke of Braganza. The ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... mean old Savary, who was always gassing about his descent from NAPOLEON'S General? I think he went back to Paris some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... might impute to themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. [641] A knight, whose life had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris, that he might relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom of the noble captives. In the mean while, the count of Nevers, with the princes and barons of France, were dragged along in the marches of the Turkish camp, exposed as a grateful trophy to the Moslems of Europe and Asia, and strictly confined at Boursa, as often as Bajazet resided in his capital. The sultan was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... assented Hope, "I suppose you mean by that that you talked with some man all through dinner. Well, I think there is a ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... more. Taking yet another turn they found themselves in an open square or garden that was surrounded by many mean houses. In this square great pest-fires burned, lighting it luridly. By the flare of them they saw that hundreds of people were gathered there listening to a mad-eyed friar who was preaching to them from the top of a ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Poems he would decide by his own feelings genuinely, and not by reflection upon what will probably be the judgement of others. How common is it to hear a person say, I myself do not object to this style of composition, or this or that expression, but, to such and such classes of people it will appear mean or ludicrous! This mode of criticism, so destructive of all sound unadulterated judgement, is almost universal: let the Reader then abide, independently, by his own feelings, and, if he finds himself affected, let him not suffer such conjectures to ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... wrecked on the coast of Ireland, when you and your young friend exerted yourselves to save the vessel from plunder. After the shipwreck, the moment I found myself on land, I hastened to the neighbouring town to obtain protection and assistance. In the mean time, your exertions had saved a great deal of our property, which was lodged in safety in the neighbourhood. I had procured a horse in the town to which I had gone, and had ridden back to the shore ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... to future communication with Lord Melbourne, the Queen said she did not mean that a change should exclude her from Lord Melbourne's society, and when Lord Melbourne said that in society Her Majesty could not procure Lord Melbourne's opinion upon any subject, and suggested that that should be obtained through ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... was so superlatively dull as to believe a thing, or merely so permissibly dull as to consider that he ought to pretend to believe it. Perhaps he had come himself not to know the difference between the two attitudes; certain ecclesiastics would furnish an illustration of what I mean. Princess Heinrich's was quite another complexion of mind. She assumed a belief with as much conscious art as a bonnet or a mantle; just as you knew that the natural woman beneath was different from the garment which ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... ought to be prime," chuckled the owner of the camp. "It was cut from the quarters of a buck which my nephew here, Royal Sinclair," pointing out the tallest of three lads, "shot four days ago. He was a regular crackerjack—that buck! I mean, he was as fine a deer as ever I saw; weighed over two hundred pounds, had seven prongs to his horns on one side and six on the other. Royal is going to take the antlers home with him to Philadelphia. We were ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... next election, of pulls and deals, of bosses and heelers, grew up between the civic step-brothers, and joined them is a common interest. The German-American said he was bookkeeper in some glass-works which had been closed by our tariff, and he confessed that he did not mean to return to us, though he spoke of German affairs with the impartiality of an outsider. He said that the Socialist party was increasing faster than any other, and that this tacitly meant the suppression of rank and the abolition of monarchy. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Philistines, and everybody would flee from him as precipitately as they are now following in his wake. He who would regard this artful if not sagacious moderation and this mediocre valour as an Aristotelian virtue, would certainly be wrong; for the valour in question is not the golden mean between two faults, but between a virtue and a fault—and in this mean, between virtue and fault, all Philistine qualities are to ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... "I mean to have a radio set," repeated Jessie quite seriously. "It says in this magazine article that one can erect the aerials and all, oneself. And place the instrument. I am going ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... became flurried and excited and made apologies. In the mean time Frohman, who took in the situation with his usual quickness, looked solemn and dignified and then passed in like ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... "Barf!" or emit some similar expression of disgust. "I showed him my latest hack and he barfed" means only that he complained about it, not that he literally vomited. 3. vi. To fail to work because of unacceptable input. May mean to give an error message. Examples: "The division operation barfs if you try to divide by 0." (That is, the division operation checks for an attempt to divide by zero, and if one is encountered it causes the operation to fail in some unspecified, but generally obvious, manner.) "The text editor ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... service to me. When I come upon the idea for a new song 'tis less often a bit of verse or a comic idea I think of first—mair like it's some odd bit of humanity, some man a wee bit different from others. He'll be a bit saft, perhaps, or mean, or generous—I'm not carin', so long ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... kindled a large amount of kindly feeling. And if any imagine that this proceeds from a sense of weakness, so that there shall be secured a friend, by whom a man may obtain that which he wants, they leave to friendship a mean and, indeed, if I may so speak, anything but respectable origin, when they make her to be born of indigence and want; were this the case, then in proportion as a man judged that there were the least resources in himself, precisely in that degree would he be best qualified for friendship, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... have adopted Nilakantha's explanation. The Burdwan Pundits take it as referring to "weapons" instead of "hearers." The passage, however, may mean that the bird screams so frightfully as if it vomits blood. The only thing that militates against this interpretation is that cchardayan is a causal verb. In the Mahabharata, however, causal forms are frequently ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "Who d'you mean?" said Simonne, taking no notice of him and laughing into the mirror in order to see ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... He watched with the natural instinct of his profession and a strong impulse to write to the lad's parents and have him taken away. But Montjoie had no parents. He had attained his majority, and was supposed by the law capable of taking care of himself. What did that woman mean to do with the boy? She had some designs upon him. But there was nobody to whom Mr. Derwentwater could confide his suspicions, or whom he could ask what the Contessa meant. MTutor had not on the whole a pleasant visit. He was disappointed in that which had been his chief object—his favourite ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... answered Poeas' mighty-hearted son; "Friend, I forgive thee freely, and all beside Whoso against me haply hath trangressed. I know how good men's minds sometimes be warped: Nor meet it is that one be obdurate Ever, and nurse mean rancours: sternest wrath Must yield anon unto the melting mood. Now pass we to our rest; for better is sleep Than feasting late, for him ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... thereabouts." Had not a clever man his opportunity when the Russian war broke out, and he alone of educated Britons knew the Crimea? That clever man had a queer temper, as we all know, and so lost his opportunity; but, if he gets it, Cartoner will take his chance coolly and steadily enough. In the mean time he is, if one may again borrow his own terse expression, "by no means nowhere," for in the Foreign Office those who know Spain are a small handful; and those who, like Cartoner, can cross the Pyrenees and submerge themselves unheeded in ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... man himself), and Mr. Vernon, and the General, and all the party. I asked them all. Sir James has heard of the potteries, and of my system, and of the reformation I have effected, and there being no strikes, and no nothing deleterious—undesirable I mean—and the mechanics having an interest, he wants to see for himself—to inspect personally—that he may name it in Parliament in illustration of a scheme he is about to propose. So Mr. Vernon will bring him over ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Ruts" seem so safe, so delightful—at the beginning. We rush into them as we would rush into Heaven—and Heaven surely will be a terrible "rut" unless people have described it wrongly! But, although "ruts" may often mean a comfortable existence, they are the end of all progress. We dig ourselves in, and make for ourselves a dug-out. But people in dug-outs are only safe; they've got to come out of them some time and go "over the top" if they want to win ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... "I mean it, senor. Maria and I are quite agreed that we don't want any larger house than we have got; and I know that if we did want a big one, there would be all sorts of questions as to where I had ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... left, I received a Bulgarian medal for courage. This was presented to me by the adjutant of the Minister of War, together with the latter's picture. I am now going to the Austrian headquarters, from where I mean to see the east front. I don't know yet how ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... hard to you," she said. "There is no cause for it in anything I have ever done. You may be sure it was not to please you at all, but to gratify something in myself that demanded satisfaction. Now, please explain to me what you mean by your extraordinary summary of things we know too well, and how I have offended you when I am really your friend—yours, and "—She stopped, a smile flitted over her face and was gone; it revealed for the unnamed person a gentleness and an affection that ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... doctrine, "I am holier than thou, for I am in the Church." "Ah! I have given dear, good friends great pain because of my obstinacy. They would have me believe as they do, which is utterly impossible." By Church, Landor did not mean religion, nor did he pass judgment on those who in sincerity embraced any particular faith, but claimed for himself perfect freedom of opinion, and gave as much to others. In his paper on "Popery, British and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... place in a fortnight at farthest,—the more 's the pity,—and, consequently, the risk of blunders will be considerably increased. I should like if the panelling of the wainscot could admit of a press on each side of the sideboard. I don't mean a formal press with a high door, but some crypt, or, to speak vulgarly, cupboard, to put away bottles of wine, etc. You know I am my own butler, and such accommodation is very convenient. We begin roofing to-morrow. Wilkie admires the whole as a composition, and that ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... breeze. In his hand he held a little stick, which he turned over from time to time, and would take up and then lay it down, as if preparing for something wonderful. The curiosity of the Brooklet was aroused to know what he could mean, when presently she saw him sit upon the rock, and from the stick drop down upon her face a worm, which when the fishes saw they darted out ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... in the space of three days the retardation will occasionally not amount to an hour. I observed, however, that, as the days of full and change, or of the moon’s quarter approached, the irregularity was corrected, and the time rectified, by some tide of extraordinary duration. The mean rise and fall was ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... at all. People can be disgusting anywhere. Greece is no better than Turkey. It has a wonderfully delicate, pure atmosphere; but that doesn't influence the morals of the population. Fine Greek art is the purest art in the world; but that doesn't mean that the men who created it had only pure thoughts or lived only pure lives. I never read morals into art, although I'm English, and it's the old hopeless English way to do that. The man who made Echo"—she turned her large eyes towards the statuette—"may have been ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... nine although in addition it was reported that there were forty- six altars where the people heard Mass in the open air; in Raphoe one "old Mass-house," one recently erected, "one cabin, and two sheds;" in Derry there were nine Mass-houses, all "mean, inconsiderable buildings," but Mass was said in most parts of the diocese in open fields, or under some shed set up occasionally for shelter; in Dromore there were two Mass-houses, and "two old forts were Masses ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... information of such of my Guernsey readers who are not ornithologists, and therefore not well acquainted with the fact, the peculiar state of plumage in which the female Cuckoo occasionally returns northward in her second summer; I mean the dull reddish plumage barred with brown, extremely like that of the female Kestrel: in this plumage she occasionally returns in her second year and breeds; but when this is changed for the more general plumage I am unable to state for certain, but probably after the second autumnal moult. ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... sometimes acquire the habit of reading single sentences at a time, then of writing them down, thinking that by making an exact copy of the book, they are playing safe. This is a pernicious practice; it spoils continuity of thought and application. Furthermore, isolated sentences mean little, and fail grossly to represent the real thought of the author. A better way is to read through an entire paragraph or section, then close the book and reproduce in your own words what you have read. Next, take your summary and compare with the original text to see ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... has opened the parcel addressed to herself and now stands transfixed with joy and wonder. "See what the girls have given me! The very necklace I've been longing for at Planets', and denying myself for the last fortnight! Well, never will I say your sisters are mean again." ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells |
