"Merit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Providence, what matters the name? Those who quarrel over the word, admit the fact. Such are not those who, speaking of Napoleon or Caesar, say: "He was a man of Providence." They apparently believe that heroes merit the attention which Heaven shows them and that the color of purple attracts gods ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... cup of tea and innumerable small cakes, enjoyed a foxtrot to phonograph music with the rug rolled up out of the way, conversed amicably with the Ancient History Prof himself, who wasn't such a bad sort as Profs go and had the merit of being one of the few instructors who had not flunked Ted Holiday in his course the ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... was an easy matter where would be the merit? I should not then have chosen you to ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... holes, and bits of ribbon on the shoulders are unnecessary; they throw an apple of discord between the young creatures, who have sense enough to see that these things are frequently given away with a wonderous lack of discrimination, and sometimes to please parents more than reward merit. A carraway comfit put into the mouth of an infant will do more good than all the badges of distinction that I have mentioned, as a reward; but with respect to punishment, more will be said on it in my larger work, when we come to treat of National Education. ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... average New York young man in business is successful. Of course, this is measured entirely from the standpoint of income. It is true that a young man may not, in every case, receive the salary his services merit, but, as a general rule, his income is a pretty accurate indication ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok
... you aggravating vagabond,' said the angry Sampson, 'that I'd stake my life upon his honesty. Am I never to hear the last of this? Am I always to be baited, and beset, by your mean suspicions? Have you no regard for true merit, you malignant fellow? If you come to that, I'd sooner suspect your honesty ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... soon as he had adjusted the dispute which was the business of his journey, he returned to Wittemberg, and was created doctor of divinity, at the expense of Frederic, elector of Saxony; who had often heard him preach, was perfectly acquainted with his merit, and reverenced him highly. He continued in the university of Wittemberg, where, as professor of divinity, he employed himself in the business of his calling. Here then he began in the most earnest manner to read lectures upon the sacred books: ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... cultivating Dr. Campbell's good opinion; admitted that Henry was strangely prejudiced in favour of his rough friend Forester; but observed that Mr. Forester, after all, though singular, was a young man of merit, and at the head of a very considerable estate. "Archibald," said she, "we must make allowances, and conciliate matters—unless you make this young gentleman your friend, you can never hope to be on an eligible footing with his guardian. His guardian, you see, is glad to get him back again, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: The less they deserve, the more merit is in your ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... was originally published in THE PICTORIAL DRAWING ROOM COMPANION, and is but a specimen of the many deeply entertaining Tales, and the gems of literary merit, which grace the columns of that elegant and highly popular journal. THE COMPANION embodies a corps of contributors of rare literary excellence, and is regarded as the ne plus ultra, by its ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... kings; but we have no remains of marble statues or metal castings or ivory carvings, not even of potteries, which at that time in other countries were common and beautiful. The gems and signet rings which the Persians engraved possessed much merit, and on them were wrought with great skill the figures of men and animals; but the nearest approach to sculpture were the figures of colossal bulls set to guard the portals of palaces, and these were ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... story of Polly is nothing. The merit of the song is its air, the novelty and ingenuity of its chorus, and the praises of Polly which the chorus embodies. The celebration of charming women is never out of date. Some are sung about in the Mediterranean, some in Boston, and some all the world ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... for the impanneling of the jury, upon a writ issued to the sheriff for that purpose. The trial in a case of misdemeanour in the Queen's Bench is had at nisi prius, unless it be of such consequence as to merit a trial at bar, which is invariably had when the prisoner is tried for any capital offence in that court. But before the ordinary courts of assize, the sheriff, by virtue of a general precept directed to him beforehand, returns to the court a panel of not less than forty-eight nor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Walter Huntingdon; but it was some stray spark from Emily that kindled Anne. As for Charlotte, her genius must have quickened in her when her nerves thrilled to the shock of Wuthering Heights. This, I know, is only another theory; but it has at least the merit of its modesty. It is not offered as in the least accounting for, or explaining, Charlotte's genius. It merely suggests with all possible humility a likely cause of its release. Anyhow, it is a theory that does Charlotte's genius no wrong, on which account ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... is in the best style of the typographic art. In utility, it is all that the best agricultural science and practical knowledge of the South can furnish. A weekly visitor to the homes of Southern Planters and Farmers, it will be more useful and acceptable to them than any monthly journal of equal merit. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... affection's eye, Obscurely wise and coarsely kind; Nor, lettered arrogance, deny Thy praise to merit unrefined. ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... who may staunch my bleeding. That may I do, said the knight, if I will, and so will I if thou wilt succour and aid me, that I may be christened and believe on God, and thereof I require thee of thy manhood, and it shall be great merit for thy soul. I grant, said Gawaine, so God help me, to accomplish all thy desire, but first tell me what thou soughtest here thus alone, and of what land and liegiance thou art of. Sir, he said, my name ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... then, when she came to Bath, had established himself there as a teacher of music, as organist of the Octagon Chapel, and, as we have said before, was a composer and director of more than ordinary merit. This was all a side issue, however. It was but a means to an end. His music was the goose that laid the golden egg, which, once in his possession, he turned over to the mistress ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... of this kingdom, for near a century, was filled by foreigners. They were nominated by the Popes, who were in that age just or politic enough to appoint persons of a merit in some degree adequate to that important charge. Through this series of foreign and learned prelates, continual accessions were made to the originally slender stock of English literature. The greatest and most valuable of these accessions ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... gentleman, and for all he's made so much of, he was so diffident, I could not get him to call and thank you for the present you made him, though, when he went his last airing, I almost knelt to him to do it. But, with all his merit, he wants as much encouragement as a lady, for I can tell you it is not a ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... to quit his native land for the sake of Abraham and take up his abode in strange parts, and his impulse to do it before even the Divine call visited Abraham himself—this the Lord accounted a great merit unto Terah, and he was permitted to see his son Abraham rule as king over the whole world. For when the miracle happened, and Isaac was born unto his aged parents, the whole world repaired to Abraham and Sarah, and demanded to ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... showing the pressure in the vessel, water level indicator, safety valve, cocks for testing solutions, etc., are of course added to the apparatus, but are not indicated in the drawing. The arrangement appears to us to possess considerable merit, and we shall refer to it again on another occasion, after experiments have been made to test ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." They drink the cup of Christ and are baptized in the purification of persecution who discern his true merit,—the unseen glory of suffering for others. Physical torture affords but a slight illustration of the pangs which come to one upon whom the world of sense falls with its leaden weight in the endeavor to crush out of a career ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... work yet. Still, these old men go to pieces all at once sometimes. Then there was the owner-engineer close at hand to be impressed by his zeal and steadiness. Sterne never for a moment doubted the obvious nature of his own merits (he was really an excellent officer); only, nowadays, professional merit alone does not take a man along fast enough. A chap must have some push in him, and must keep his wits at work too to help him forward. He made up his mind to inherit the charge of this steamer if it was to be done at all; not indeed estimating ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... enough to do so I asked Sir John Kendall's permission to disguise myself. He gave me every assistance, and I shared their lot for a fortnight. There was no very great hardship in that—certainly nothing to merit the praise that Sir John Kendall has been kind enough to bestow on me. Nevertheless, I am very glad to have gained your good opinion and very grateful to him and to you for drinking ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... raising her eyebrows with a pleasant air of careless consideration, 'perhaps not. But I don't know that there's any great merit in that. I - I don't want him to be so very true. I never asked him. If he expects that I - But, dear Grace, why need we talk of him at ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... old "line-backs" of the hills or scrawny, beefless Alderneys or milkless Durhams, have one merit with a boy. It is not that they enjoy fine weather, a good pasture and a green landscape—have thoughts, notice the sprouting beanfields as they come up to milking, and the new flag-staff on the green: it is that they are good at fighting. In every herd there is a queen who can ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... victories over himself must have cost him; but the oftener he gained them the more her heart turned to him. His merit with regard to Nazarius was less, however, than she supposed. Vinicius might be indignant for a moment, but he could not be jealous of him. In fact the son of Miriam did not, in his eyes, mean much more than a dog; besides, he was a child yet, who, if he loved Lygia, loved her unconsciously and ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... sympathy with all that lives and suffers more highly than love for the Fatherland.... During a war a noble man desires such an issue as may be most beneficial to the whole world.... With all our readiness to recognise the merit of patriotic self-denial, we, the admirers of Schopenhauer, have to warn our compatriots, especially during a war, of the danger of patriotism degenerating into injustice, or even hatred and malicious ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... enough his merit brings, He needs no alien praise In whose train, Glory, like a king's, ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... women and children of our tribe, greet you. The man of the woods also likes to render homage to merit: he loves to see in his chiefs those precious qualities ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... well. "Quaw-taw-pee-ah" presented to the elite of the locality a type of the aboriginal American, which at least possessed the merit of originality. If the audience expected to be astonished they were not disappointed; for such an Indian as they then beheld no living eye had ever ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... necessary and unalterable,—the beauty of landscapes or of great works of art. I was not curious, I did not thirst to know anything save what I believed to be more genuine than myself, what had for me the supreme merit of shewing me a fragment of the mind of a great genius, or of the force or the grace of nature as she appeared when left entirely to herself, without human interference. Just as the lovely sound of her voice, reproduced, all by itself, upon the phonograph, could never console ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... lady, as I said, Decked out in costly jewels rare, A visit to a Grecian made— A lady of great worth, and fair To look upon, of great domestic merit Which from a noble race ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... was pretty well satisfied about that, he inquired how his soul might be saved? The answer being made, "By the applying of Christ's merit by faith:" he was pleased with the answer, and was ready to give any one that should desire it ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... is the splendid pile commenced by Charles V, intended, it is said, to eclipse the residence of the Moslem kings. With all its grandeur and architectural merit, it appeared to us like an arrogant intrusion, and passing by it we entered a simple, unostentatious portal, opening into the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... commonplace? Are we made so as to excite derision? Have we no charms, no power of pleasing, no complexion, no good eyes, no dignity and bearing, by which we may win hearts? Do me the favour, sister, to speak to me frankly. Am I, in your opinion, so fashioned that my merit is below hers? And do you think that she surpasses ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... man who has rendered such distinguished services to his country as to merit the gratitude and reverence of every loyal American; a man who has spent the best years of his life in fighting his country's battles and in studying and obeying her laws, was insulted and degraded by men who, so far as true moral worth ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... in its victims. It is unfavorable to the growth of taste because its decorations and furniture are and must be ugly; they descend to the artistic standard of the vulgarest people in it, and have not even the merit of being the expression of any individuality at all. It is enervating because it favors the creation of a race that can do absolutely nothing for itself. It is unhealthy because it is sometimes less clean than it seems, and because often it forces its victims to eat in ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... with the deepest sense of gratitude your very kind and obliging letter of the 8th. inst: favors of great men ought to give pride to those that have at least the merit of setting the value that is due upon them. This is my case with you, sir; the reading of your valuable works has not only inspired me with the strongest admiration for your genius and amiable parts, but gave me the highest idea of your person and the strongest ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... Swaziland's monetary policy to South Africa. Customs duties from the Southern African Customs Union, which may equal as much as 70% of government revenue this year, and worker remittances from South Africa substantially supplement domestically earned income. Swaziland is not poor enough to merit an IMF program; however, the country is struggling to reduce the size of the civil service and control costs at public enterprises. The government is trying to improve the atmosphere for foreign investment. With an estimated 40% unemployment rate, Swaziland's ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... lack of water prevented it. Colonel Manchester and the officers and men of the Marine Artillery have earned a still higher reputation for their gallantry and indomitable perseverance on this expedition. They are a valuable arm of the service, and merit better treatment than they have received from the authorities. It seems about time to recognize them as a corps, now that they are performing all duties contemplated in their organization. Justice ought to be ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... one of the essential requisites of an officer, and the reports on his proficiency ought to go direct through the proper superior from the bottom to the top, particularly if selection by merit is to receive a greater application for the future. If for his military proficiency and moral discipline, an officer is to be responsible to his Military chief, but for his mental acquirements to a Civil department, the unity of the system ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... affair for those whose money was embarked in the Crisis. Sandal-wood and sea-otter skins brought particularly high prices; while teas, and the manufactures of the country, happened to be low. I had no merit in this; not a particle; and yet I reaped the advantage, so far as advantage was connected with the mere reputation of the voyage; success being of nearly as great account in commerce, as in war. It is true, I worked like a dog; for I worked under an entirely novel sense ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... its origin or its work. Still it has advanced so far and improved so much in outward appearance, at any rate, and developed so greatly that, as we know it to-day, we may almost call it a modern institution, so modern indeed and so different from all others as to merit the name ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... succession-question theory has the merit of meeting the very difficulty that besets us when we study the history of Henry's reign, and it is justified by many things that belong to English history for a period of more than two centuries,—that is to say, from the deposition of Richard II., in 1399, to the death ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... dealt with adequately only in a separate volume the writing of which I look forward to with joyful anticipation. What I should like to do - and I should be very glad if I could succeed - is to bring the public a little closer to the artist's point of view through the discussion of the merit of certain notable works of art. It is my conviction that it is the manifestations of an artists artistic conscience which make exhibitions good, and not the question whether the public likes certain pictures or not. Only by constant study, a ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... and Theron were victorious over Amilcas the Carthaginian on the very same day when the Hellenes were victorious at Salamis over the Persian. And this Amilcas, who was a Carthaginian on the father's side but on the mother's Syracusan, and who had become king of the Carthaginians by merit, when the engagement took place and he was being worsted in the battle, disappeared, as I am informed; for neither alive nor dead did he appear again anywhere upon the earth, though Gelon used all diligence ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... she, "And must this poor man be whipped—and for a mere look? And you so fierce withal! I fear there be many men do merit whipping if this ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... integrator was really only an independent version of Boys' instrument, but in many respects a great improvement. The real merit will ultimately belong to the scientific instrument maker who constructs an instrument reasonably cheap and capable of efficient practical service. Abdank-Abakanowicz's integrator however certainly went further ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... journey across the Channel under the escort of the English Ambassador, and was given by him into the charge of Buckingham's political rival, Lord Arlington. "The Duke of Buckingham thus," to quote Bishop Burnet, "lost all merit he might have pretended to, and brought over a mistress whom his strange conduct threw into the ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... man the merit of whose work was just beginning to be noticed in the art world. For years he had laboured unacknowledged and with increasing bitterness—for he knew his own worth. But now, though, still only in his early thirties, his ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... loophole, we have had glimpses into the internal world of Teufelsdrockh; his strange mystic, almost magic Diagram of the Universe, and how it was gradually drawn, is not henceforth altogether dark to us. Those mysterious ideas on TIME, which merit consideration, and are not wholly unintelligible with such, may by and by prove significant. Still more may his somewhat peculiar view of Nature, the decisive Oneness he ascribes to Nature. How all Nature and Life are ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... His two great works were his treatise De Re Rustica (or De Agri Cultura), the earliest extant work in Latin prose, and his Origines, or accounts of the rise and growth of the Italian nation, the earliest history in Latin prose. 'It was Cato's great merit that he asserted the rights of his native language for literary ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... signs of cowardice before those who appreciate true merit and bravery, according to his way of thinking, and pride comes to his aid. A man will meet death like a Roman under such circumstances, who would be weak as a woman if ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... prominent citizen, Edinburgh has been in possession, for some autumn weeks, of a gallery of paintings of singular merit and interest. They were exposed in the apartments of the Scotch Academy; and filled those who are accustomed to visit the annual spring exhibition, with astonishment and a sense of incongruity. Instead of the too common purple sunsets, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... perceive from the following specimen, that the accounts of the Battles are not arranged in chronological order; neither do they boast of any great pretensions to literary merit; but they will be found to have a recommendation more valuable than either—AUTHENTICITY. The Editor was less solicitous about the style of the work, than the truth of it, and where, upon investigation, the matter conveyed to him proved correct, he has given it in ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... send thee to thy father! Comfort him! Let no sad penance, Weak delay, or thought of merit, Hold thee in the desert fast Wander on through ev'ry nation, Roam abroad throughout all ages, And proclaim to e'en the meanest, That great Brama ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... the appetite still remains, that this is asked for, and that declined with thanks; so did I, with gesture and with speech, to learn from her, what was the web whereof she did not draw the shuttle to the head.[1] "Perfect life and high merit in-heaven a lady higher up," she said to me, "according to whose rule, in your world below, there are who vest and veil themselves, so that till death they may wake and sleep with that Spouse who accepts every vow which love conforms unto His pleasure. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... it may be, reasonably believe, that God reserves to himself, by some extraordinary interposition of his providence, that Reformation which we are assur'd, will some time be effected. But yet if all Persons, eminent by their Quality, who merit not to be rank'd among the Vicious and Ignorant, would give the Example, much would thereby be done towards the introducing of a general amendment: Since these could make a greater care of Education in the above-mention'd Respects, become, in some ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... with merit badges; from the end of his scout staff waved the flaunting emblem of the Raven Patrol; his stalking camera was swung over his shoulder like a knapsack; his nickel-plated scout whistle jangled against the saucepan and in his trousers pockets were a magnifying glass, ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... have now said, I believe you will have already suspected of what nature are those particulars in my conduct, which I set out with an intention of confessing. Whatever may be my merit or demerit in this instance, I will not hide from you that the marquis of San Severino was the original cause of what I have done. You are already sufficiently acquainted with the freedom of his sentiments upon this subject. He is a professed devotee of the sex, and he suffers this ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... child Lady Jane lavished all her care, but did not squander the wealth of her affection. Perhaps her capacity for loving had died with her husband. She had been proud and fond of him, but she was not proud of the little boy in velvet knickerbockers, whose good looks were his only merit, and who was continually being guilty of some new piece of mischief; laming ponies, smashing orchids, glass, china, and generally disturbing the perfect order which was ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... been said, "All that a man hath will he give for his life;" and while all contribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, then, is ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the older judges, might be given, were they not too well known. We may therefore close this chapter with the following epigram by a Scottish writer, which is decidedly pointed and clever, and has the additional merit of ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... administration, was nevertheless humane, beneficent, generous. He possessed dignity without pride, affability free from meanness, and courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to him, and no man of merit was ever denied that privilege, respected and loved him. Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects as a monarch, and, admiring him as the most accomplished and amiable gentleman in his dominions, they hardly murmured at acts of maladministration, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... in, of doing those exterior acts of charity I had done before, served this person with a pretext to publish that it was owing to him I had formerly done them. Willing to ascribe to himself the merit of what God alone, by His grace, had made me do, he went so far as to preach against me publicly, as one who had been a bright pattern to the town, but was now become a scandal to it. Several times he preached ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... hesitated concerning Norfolk's execution; whether that she was really moved by friendship and compassion towards a peer of that rank and merit, or that, affecting the praise of clemency, she only put on the appearance of these sentiments. Twice she signed a warrant for his execution, and twice revoked the fatal sentence;[***] and though her ministers and counsellors pushed her to rigor, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... These philosophers are a bad-mannered body. Either in opposition, or in the support of them, I maintain simply that the blinking sentimentalist helps to make civilization what it is, and civilization has a great deal of merit. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... therefore, to improve upon the able productions of such eminent writers as Juan de le Concepcion, Martinez Zuniga, Tomas de Comyn and others, nor do I aspire, through this brief composition, to detract from the merit of Jagor's work, which, in its day, commended itself as a valuable book of reference. But since then, and within the last twenty years, this Colony has made great strides on the path of social and material progress; its political and commercial importance is rapidly increasing, and ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... animating his men and resisting the repeated charges of the enemy until about one o'clock, when he obliged them to retire from their position with great slaughter. It is impossible for me to do justice to the merit of that officer; you will, I doubt not, favourably report his conduct to His Majesty, and at the same time that of Captain James of the 46th Regiment, and Captain Archibald Campbell, who commanded the grenadiers of ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... political and the literary class was at this time closer than it had ever been. The alliance between them marks, in fact, a most conspicuous characteristic of the time. It was the one period, as authors repeat with a fond regret, in which literary merit was recognised by the distributors of state patronage. This gratifying phenomenon has, I think, been often a little misinterpreted, and I must consider briefly what it really meant. And first let us note how exclusively the literary society of the time was confined to London. The ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... God'—if we had learned that, and laid it to heart, and applied it to our own worship and our lives, mountains of misconception would be lifted away from many hearts. In our service we do not need to bring any merit of our own. This great principle destroys not only the gross externalities of heathen sacrifice, and the notion that worship is a duty, but it destroys the other notion of our having to bring anything to deserve God's gifts. And so it is an encouragement ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... before, dates three years earlier; and between this time and the closing of the theatres Davenant had ten plays acted and printed coincidently with the best work of Massinger, Shirley, and Ford. Nor, though his fame is far below theirs, is the actual merit of these pieces (the two above mentioned, The Wits, News from Plymouth, The Fair Favourite, The Unfortunate Lovers, etc.), so much inferior as the fame. The chief point in which Davenant fails is in the failing grasp of verse above noted. This is curious ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... unassuming manners, added to her diligence in study, soon caused her to become a general favorite with her teachers. In schools, as well as other places, we often meet with those who are inclined to be jealous of merit superior to their own, and the seminary at Rockford was no exception in this matter. Her teachers were guilty of no unjust partiality; true, they oftener commended her than some other members of her class, but not oftener than her ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... people went. At length, and by little and little, omitting something in this place, and adding something in that, Miss Snevellicci pledged herself to a bill of fare which was comprehensive enough, if it had no other merit (it included among other trifles, four pieces, divers songs, a few combats, and several dances); and they returned home, pretty well exhausted with ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... in the complete edition of 1817; and the biographers give a long list of publications, besides those above-mentioned, romantic, ethical, and spiritual, in verse and in prose. But he wrote mainly for his own pleasure, he never sought fame, and consequently his reputation never equalled his merit. His name, however, still smells sweet, passing sweet, amid the corruption and the frantic fury of his day, and the memory of the witty, genial, and virtuous litterateur still blossoms ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... with timidity. After a long struggle, he succeeded in reaching the tribune, and urged the assembly to judge his brother with less severity. He protested that he had no design against their liberty; and recalled his services. But several voices immediately exclaimed: "He has lost all their merit; down with the dictator! down with the tyrants!" The tumult now became more violent than ever; and all demanded the outlawry of general Bonaparte. "What," said Lucien, "do you wish me to pronounce the outlawry of my brother?" "Yes! yes! outlawry! it is the reward of tyrants!" In the midst ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... majority was created by accident and it is rapidly dissolving. "The Liberals succeeded to power through no merit of their own, but merely through the errors of their opponents. Liberalism is shedding its supporters at both ends, and is rapidly on the way to becoming a mere caput mortuum."[652] It is true that "at the general ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... it. Simplicity and strength are happily combined in its pages, and no one can begin it without desiring to read it through. All the works of Mrs. Ann S. Stephens are books that everybody should read, for in point of real merit, wonderful ingenuity and absorbing interest they loom far above the majority of the books of the day. She has a thorough knowledge of human nature, and so vividly drawn and natural are her characters that they seem instinct with life. Her plots are models of construction, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... with Lorenzo. The boy had begged a piece of refuse marble, and carved a grinning mask, which he was polishing when the Medici passed by. The great man stopped to examine the work, and recognised its merit. At the same time he observed with characteristic geniality: "Oh, you have made this Faun quite old, and yet have left him all his teeth! Do you not know that men of that great age are always wanting in one or two?" Michelangelo ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... but as I went by the Ning mansion, I unexpectedly came across the ghosts of the two dukes of Jung and Ning, who addressed me in this wise: 'Our family has, since the dynasty established itself on the Throne, enjoyed merit and fame, which pervaded many ages, and riches and honours transmitted from generation to generation. One hundred years have already elapsed, but this good fortune has now waned, and this propitious luck is exhausted; so much so that they could not be retrieved! Our ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... it necessary to premise that the list appended, although the result of infinite labour and research, is less satisfactory than could have been wished. "It is offered," he says, "with diffidence, not pretending to the merit of completeness as a shell-fauna of the island, but rather as a form, which the zeal of other collectors may ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... have specified), that Dr. Wheelock may be accommodated with a suitable farm, at or near the college; apprehending that his past labors and expenses, and his present connection with said institution, justly merit such consideration. ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... play, if more than a success as a performance, added nothing to the popularity of the quartier-general. It, however, created far more comment than its literary merit warranted—if this may be said, without detracting from the credit of the author, who himself, looking back upon it later in his career, said that it read as though it had been "written ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... work, and for these only the simplest materials are required. The studies are carried to those connecting principles which permit the organization of knowledge. The book is illustrated with a number of excellent photographs and over 200 drawings of more than usual merit. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... were ambitious to enforce the imperial decrees upon this occasion, and looked upon the murder of a christian as a merit to themselves. The martyrs, upon this occasion, were innumerable; but the principal we ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... others. Confucius said, indeed, in his own enigmatical way, that the single sentence, 'Thought without depravity,' covered the whole 300 pieces[1]; and it may very well be allowed that they were collected and preserved for the promotion of good government and virtuous manners. The merit attaching to them is that they give us faithful pictures of what was good and what was bad in the political state of the country, and in the social, moral, and ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... from the manner in which the appointment is made. The unanimous suffrage of the elective body in your favor is peculiarly expressive of the gratitude, confidence, and affection of the citizens of America, and is the highest testimonial at once of your merit and their esteem. We are sensible, sir, that nothing but the voice of your fellow-citizens could have called you from a retreat chosen with the fondest predilection, endeared by habit, and consecrated to the repose ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... a place among all these fair and noble women," she asked, with sad humility—"I whose ancestors have done nothing to deserve merit or praise? Why, Norman, in the long years to come, when some Lord Arleigh brings home his wife, as you have brought me, and they stand together before my picture as I stand before these, the young wife will ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... in a madhouse cell, as Browning first believed; but might logically be the reflections of a nineteenth century Presbyterian clergyman, seated in his comfortable library. It is the ecstatic mystical joy of one who realises, that through no merit of his own, he is numbered among the elect. Sir Thomas Browne quaintly pictured to himself the surprise of the noble, upright men of antiquity, when they wake up in hell simply because they did not believe on One of whom they had never heard; so Johannes speculates on the ironical ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... trapped and decorated in Indian graving, and having its whole surface covered with an involved and rich ornamental design. Its eyes were, or seemed to be rubies, and saddle and bridle and housing were studded with small gems. There was little merit in the art of it beyond the engraving, but Cosmo saw the eyes of the lady fixed upon it, with ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... has been shot through with three great arrows. Blood gushes from her wounds. Her hind legs are paralyzed and drag helplessly behind her. Yet she still moves forward on her fore- feet and howls with rage and agony. Praise of this admirable figure can hardly be too strong. This and others, of equal merit redeem ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... he may vilify him by them. And they, bold fools as they are, will not spare to spit in his face. They will rail at his person, and deny the very being of it; they will rail at his blood, and deny the merit and worth of it. They will deny the very end why he accomplished the law, and by jiggs, and tricks, and quirks, which he helpeth them to, they set up fond names and images in his place, and give the glory of a Saviour to them. Thus Satan worketh under the name of Christ; and his ministers ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... him to inform them, that he was determined not to be the regent, nor ever to engage in a scheme which, he knew, would be exposed to such insuperable difficulties: that no man could have a juster or deeper sense of the princess's merit than he was impressed with; but he would rather remain a private person, than enjoy a crown which must depend on the will or life of another: and that they must therefore make account, if they were inclined to either of these two plans of settlement, that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... this remarkable piece of news. Bidding the captain and his wife good-bye, she walked slowly down the road toward the store. Surely there had been some mistake, she reasoned. Why should anything have been left to her? What had she done to merit it? She wished that David had not done such a thing. It would mean a great responsibility, and she did not feel ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... Borrow, however, I am not in a position to supplement one transcendent biography, as in the case of Charlotte Bronte and Mrs. Gaskell. I have before me no less than four biographies of Borrow, every one of them of distinctive merit. ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... breath and life speaketh the word: the blessing of the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and the Holy Dove, be upon thee, and make the days of thy pilgrimage good and many. This he saith to every of them; and that done, if there be any of his sons of eminent merit and virtue, (so they be not above two,) he calleth for them again; and saith, laying his arm over their shoulders, they standing; Sons, it is well ye are born, give God the praise, and persevere to the end. And withall delivereth to either of them a jewel, made in the figure ...
— The New Atlantis • Francis Bacon
... town-building; it 'knows how the thing is done;' it 'has been there,' and sees in our 'bribe for patriotism' the most deadly blow ever struck at Southern Aristocracy. Consequently those men who abuse Emancipation in its every form, violently oppose our proposal to give the army such reward as their services merit, and such as their residence in the South renders peculiarly fit. It is 'a bribe;' it is extravagant; it—yes—it is Abolition! The army is respectfully requested not to think of settling in the South, but to hobble back to alms-houses in order that Democracy may carry its elections and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... my most sovereign liege, And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth: A dearer merit, not so deep a maim As to be cast forth in the common air, Have I deserved at your highness' hands. The language I have learn'd these forty years, My native English, now I must forgo; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... was to be "given his head" at this meeting was not a new friend of Catholic days but a very old one. A friendly critic of my manuscript asks whether he, even more than Belloc or Chesterton, does not merit the title of the Father of Distributism. At least he brings into the movement something none other could bring. He bases his social philosophy closely on the gospels—of which his knowledge is almost unique—and his articles bear such titles as ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... purifies the heart, sanctify my lips, that I may tell of all Thy wondrous love.—I visited Mrs. B. a second time; she is encouraged to believe the Lord will save her, for Christ's sake-without any merit of her own. Her husband was more cordial than I expected from the account I had heard of him; the tears started in his eyes while I conversed with him. I feel I am employed as I ought to be, when in ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... Scarce list'ning to their idle chat; Further than sometimes by a frown, When they grew pert, to pull them down. At last she spitefully was bent To try their wisdom's full extent; And said, she valued nothing less Than titles, figure, shape, and dress; That merit should be chiefly placed In judgment, knowledge, wit, and taste; And these, she offered to dispute, Alone distinguished man from brute: That present times have no pretence To virtue, in the noble sense By Greeks and Romans understood, To perish for our country's good. She named ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... tickled; I should answer, I should tell you, Henry's verse is very charming; And for names—there's Hiawatha, Who's the hero of the poem; Mudjeekeewis, that's the West Wind, Hiawatha's graceless father; There's Nokomis, there's Wenonah— Ladies both, of various merit; Puggawangum, that's a war-club; Pau-puk-keewis, he's a dandy, "Barr'd with streaks of red and yellow; And the women and the maidens Love the handsome Pau-puk-keewis," Tracing in him PUNCH'S likeness. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... churches and chapels, and their almsgiving and moral conduct, that they stared when I spoke of the love of Jesus, which brought Him down from heaven to suffer for man, and of the utter inability of man to save himself; they apparently believing that they themselves were doing the work which was to merit salvation, making the sacrifice of Christ of no effect. This, it appears to me, is the belief of a large number of nominal Christians, while a still larger number live on from day to day without giving a thought to the future, or caring whether they are ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... beauty, not the blot on the landscape that such buildings often prove. Fortunately I have the offer of a splendid site, so the plans need not be hampered by lack of space. I think we shall be able to show that the twentieth century can produce work of merit on its own lines, without slavishly copying either the classical or the ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... not one of those designed to affect the reader mainly through a scrupulous conscience, or indeed distinctively through conscience at all. It appeals to the imagination preeminently, and through that to the will. It is the greatest merit of the book, that it is designed for the culture and development of the imagination in children,—a faculty almost entirely neglected, or, what is worse, oftentimes despotically crushed and thwarted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... instinct. To a singular extent it can be said of him that he was a spontaneous clear man. Very gentle, too, though full of fire; simple, brave, graceful. What he did, and what he said, came from him as light from a luminous body, and had thus always in it a high and rare merit, which any of the more discerning could ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... But it is not a waste of time after all, for, you see, I have to do many a day's work for which I get not a farthing of payment, nor even any recognition, so that I do not complain if I occasionally find myself receiving more payment than my actual services merit. And as to you, I take it that you have acquired a good deal of valuable knowledge on the subject of suicide, and knowledge, as the late Lord Bacon remarked with more truth than originality, ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... that the minority is of sufficient importance to merit attention, and that I ought not to have ignored it so completely as I did do. The whole difficulty of the hard-working minority was put in a single colloquial sentence by one of my correspondents. He wrote: "I am just as keen ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... everybody with courtesy, and was, as Matthew Arnold said, "The friend of those who live in the spirit of high, generous standards." We see in his example what deep, real courtesy is. Courtesy, to him, was sincerity, and fairness, and good-will, all round. He welcomed shy merit, encouraged clumsyyouth, and smiled on good intentions, however poorly expressed. He did all this day after day at the cost of time and patience and strength. As a scholar, he might have secluded himself and simply written great books; but the power he is, ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... popularity by trying to close the public granaries before the practice had passed into a system. He seemed as if made of a block of hard Roman oak, gnarled and knotted, but sound in all its fibres. His professional merit continued to recommend him. At the age of forty he became praetor, and was sent to Spain, where he left a mark again by the successful severity by which he cleared the province of banditti. He was a man neither given himself to talking ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... effect produced on me by the sonnets, the 'Monody at Matlock' and the 'Hope' of Mr. Bowles; for it is peculiar to original genius to become less and less striking, in proportion to its success in improving the taste and judgment of its contemporaries. The poems of West, indeed, had the merit of chaste and manly diction, but they were cold, and, if I may so express it, only dead-coloured; while in the best of Warton's, there is a stiffness which too often gives them the appearance of imitations from the Greek. Whatever relation, therefore, of cause or impulse, Percy's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Jennie's courage and presence of mind. When they returned to France, the Frenchmen brought the occurrence to the notice of President Carnot, and the result was the sending of the medal of this famous French society, the purpose of which is the honoring of bravery and merit, wherever they ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... of the sixteenth century I have been more careful to explain the scattered relics of an earlier time than during the years when Rouen was filled with exquisite examples of the builder's art. After that century there is so little of distinction, and so much of average merit, that my story languishes beneath a ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... the Tamar, and called York Town. In describing the site, the difficulty of obtaining water is noticed by Flinders; but by Dr. Bass, the adjacent land was represented as adapted for both agriculture and pasture: he added, "If it should be ever proposed to make a settlement, this part seems to merit particular attention." From this spot the greater part of the new establishment was removed (1806) to the country above the North and South Esk; where the colonists were delighted to discover extensive plains equally suitable for tillage and pasture, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... thought, "if what I have heard of such places be true, and that merit of every kind is certain there to meet its reward, and be properly appreciated, I shall stand a better chance than my neighbours." With this reflection, he shuffled on a little quicker; and the reader, who has been thus allowed a private view of his motives, ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes. The first of my poetic offspring that saw light was a burlesque lamentation of a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists; both of them were dramatis personae in my Holy Fair. I had a notion myself, that the piece had some merit; but to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend who was fond of such things, and told him that I could not guess who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever. With a certain description ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... Langdon's foeman in the struggle for the district attorneyship. Little could be said for or against him. A lawyer of good reputation who had made his way upward by merit and push, he had done nothing big. He was ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... ancestry, I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine, And think thee worthy of an empress' love. Know then, I here forget all former griefs, Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again, Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit, To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine, Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd; Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... bubble, so that no wonder if every horse is endued with all the privileges of Pegasus, save and except our sorrel. Malicious carpers, insensible or invidious of England's glory, deny her in this beautiful practice the merit of invention, assigning it to the Chinese in their tea-cups and saucers; but if not absolutely new and ours, it must be acknowledged that we have greatly improved and extended ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... him, in sea-fight strong, A mark of gold for my ship-song. Merit in any way He generously ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... now, as though a trifle ashamed of too much seriousness, and justifiably afraid of talking like one of his own editorials, he took a lighter tone. "I had been taken on the paper through a friend and not through merit, and by the same undeserved, kindly influence, after a month or so I was set to writing short political editorials, and was at it nearly two years. When the paper changed hands the new proprietor indicated that he would be willing to have me stay and write the other way. I refused; and ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... lyric of merit. The words were non-sense, as befitted the play, but the music was worthy of something better. Delmars struck into it in a rich tenor that owned a quality that shamed the ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... to put my hands upon it again once more, I learned that you had already changed your opinion: now this cannot be because the Moors have destroyed the best part of us, but on account of {103} my sins, which merit the failure of accomplishing this undertaking in the way that I had desired. And, inasmuch as my will and determination is, so long as I am Governor of India, neither to fight nor to hazard men on land, except in those parts wherein I shall ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... remains: Is not the present Divorce Law "one law for the rich and another for the poor"? Beyond all question. This is its sole merit, if merit it can have. It does, at least, partially protect the poor from sin-made-easy—a condition which money has bought for the rich. If the State abrogated the Sixth {116} Commandment for the rich, and made it lawful for a ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... bewitched a field of corn. One of the Bury witches, in the narrative which tells of parson Lowes, "confessed that She usually bewitcht standing corne, whereby there came great loss to the owners thereof." The resemblance is hardly close enough to merit notice in itself. When taken, however, in connection with the other resemblances it gives cumulative force to the supposition that the writer of the Huntingdon pamphlet had gone to the narratives of the ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... charm with meretricious air, As though all France and Manchester were there! But this were luxury, were bliss refin'd, To view the alter'd region of the mind; Where whim and mystery, like wizards, rule, And conjure wisdom from the seeming fool; Where learned heads, like old cremonas, boast Their merit soundest that are cracked the most; While Genius' self, infected with the joke, His person decks with ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... I hope, when you will leave me no more. Before long, comte, the monarchy will be established in such a manner as to enable me to offer a worthy hospitality to men of your merit." ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... small, indeed, seem individual distinctions when we look back on these overwhelming numbers of human beings panting and straining under the pressure of that vital want! And how inessential in the eyes of God must be the small surplus of the individual's merit, swamped as it is in the vast ocean of the common merit of mankind, dumbly and undauntedly doing the fundamental duty, and living the heroic life! We grow humble and reverent as we ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... decided successes there. The Czar wished for the command, and his zeal might have enabled him to do something; but the entire absence of military talent from the list of his accomplishments would have greatly endangered the Allies' cause. Schwartzenberg's merit consisted in this, that he had sufficient influence and tact to "keep things straight" in the councils of a jarring confederacy, until others had gained such victories as placed the final defeat of Napoleon beyond all doubt. His first battle was Dresden, and there Napoleon gave him a drubbing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... in the eyes of fools. If talent is to be measured by youthful shyness, by that indefinable modesty which men born to glory lose in the practice of their art, as a pretty woman loses hers among the artifices of coquetry, then this unknown young man might claim to be possessed of genuine merit. The habit of success lessens doubt; and modesty, perhaps, ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... very much to my taste, provided there is no tragedy of children to smear the joke with misery. And if he or she neither taints nor tempts the children, who are our care, a childless weakling we may freely let our pity and mercy go out to. To go childless is in them a virtue for which they merit our thanks. ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... others that I have written, which has given me the most delight (though not unmixed with melancholy) in producing, and in which my mind for the time has been the most completely absorbed. But the ardour of composition is often disproportioned to the merit of the work; and the public sometimes, nor unjustly, avenges itself for that forgetfulness of its existence which makes the chief charm of an author's solitude,—and the happiest, if not the wisest, inspiration of ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Gauttier, whose nature was as ample as the glorious chin of an abbot. When the good man entered Tours the Ah! Ah! of the crowd woke him up, and he came with great pomp with his suite to the Church of Notre-Dame de l'Egrignolles, formerly called la greigneur, as if you said that which has the most merit. Blanche went into the chapel where children are asked to God and of the Virgin, and went there alone, as was the custom, always however in the presence of the seneschal, of his varlets and the loiterers who remained outside the grill. When the countess saw the priest come ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... grammar and exercise book, and, several others joining him, they made a little class, which though it met irregularly, learned much. Pennington was a wonder among the horses. When the veterinarians were at a loss they sent for him and he rarely failed of a cure. He modestly ascribed his merit to his father who taught him everything about horses on the great plains, where a man's horse was so often the sole barrier between ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... I bring you, sweet? Was ever trifle yet so held amiss As not to fill love's waiting heart with bliss, And merit dalliance at ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... characteristics, or determined by the casual taste or arbitrary will of authors: they exist in nature; they are dependent upon those fixed laws of intellectual being, of spiritual affection, and moral choice, which constitute the rationality of man. And the actual, positive merit of a poetical production—that real merit, which consists in native vitality, in inherent capacity to live—does not lie in the glitter or costliness of the decorations with which it is invested—nor in the force with which it is made to spring from the mind of its creator ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... Ali was given the order of merit for his brave action, and is now a Native officer in ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... remark!"'exclaimed the captain.—"Mr. Dodge has great merit as a writer, for he loses no occasion to illustrate his opinions by the most unanswerable facts. He has acquired a taste for Zip Coon and Long Tail Blue, and it is no wonder he feels a ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... part of this reredos. They are high up and very dirty, but seem to have considerable merit, especially one of 'Pentecost' which is signed 'Velascus.' The 'Pentecost' still has for its frame some pieces of beautiful early renaissance moulding not unlike what may still be seen on the reredos at Funchal, and it is just the size of a panel for a large reredos. Of course ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson |
