"Precious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into a fluster. At the kitchens he had lost his head, and when his turn came—he had had to wait—he had yielded his place to those behind, saying that he didn't matter. And he had wasted more precious time buying bananas, though he knew that the Pembrokes were not partial to fruit. Amid much tardy and chaotic hospitality the meal got under way. All the spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs. Aberdeen's virtues were not practical. The fish seemed never to have been alive, the meat had no kick, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... who hid him in a place with her, and he abode, eating and drinking and cricketing, night and day. Her father heard of this and would have killed her; but she took the alarm and disguising herself in a [male] slave's habit, loaded a mule with gold and jewels and precious stuffs past count; then, taking horse with the ape, fled to Cairo, where she took up her abode in one of the houses ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... saw all around him on the ship huge masses of the material most precious to him in the world, it was as if an American in Yucatan saw in a native hut heaps of gold and diamonds not valued by the savage. Suppose the savage left the American alone with ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... world, in a manner to show that she had no occasion for that weapon to conquer all who saw her. The antiquated crown received new graces from her head; and the old tattered robe of St. Stephen became her as well as her own rich habit, if diamonds, pearls and all sorts of precious ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... looked their sweetest. And didn't we cheer them! Well, I should say so. We stood up in the wagons, and swung our caps, and just whooped and hurrahed as long as those girls were in sight. We always treasured this incident as a bright, precious link in the chain of memory, for it was the last public manifestation, of this nature, of good-will and patriotism from girls and women that was given the regiment until we struck the soil of the State of Indiana, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... no safety but across the sea, and they are the most precious cargo that I shall ever have carried. Already Arngeir and the men are at work on the ship, getting the rollers under her keel, that she may take the water with the next tide. I shall sail with the tide that comes with the darkness again, saying ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... the sprig of evergreen tell the whole story of an Odd-Fellow. No, the very fact that we bury our departed brother teaches us that the grave is not the end of all. Though our brother dies he shall live in our hearts, in the flowers that we cast, in the precious memories that forever cluster around the links, the heart and the hand, the altar and the hour glass. When the supreme moment comes and the brother gathers his arrows into his quiver and fades from sight into the grave, we know that he has ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... blame me. One day, when I was almost melancholy, and I could not talk to anybody, I was seized with an unconquerable home-sick feeling. I yearned for mother, and felt how much I loved her. I took the pearls out and looked at this precious heirloom, which she had given me. I fastened it in my hair,—and immediately I felt better. That was why I wore them ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... ruins that remain Are precious in our eyes; Those ruins shall be built again, And ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... the Nibelungen Lied, the old German epic. Siegfried was a young warrior of peerless strength and beauty, invulnerable except in one spot between his shoulders. He vanquished the Nibelungs, and carried away their immense hoards of gold and precious stones. He wooed and won Kriemhild, the sister of G[:u]nther, king of Burgundy, but was treacherously killed by Hagan while stooping for a draught of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... yet sometimes nonplussed (?) Count! I hope that you rested well, most precious and charming of all Counts! Oh! most beloved and unparalleled Count! ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... from a letter I received this evening that state stores have been contrary to my directions collected there, least they should mix with the Continentals, but my former letters were so positive, and my late precautions are so multiplied that. I hope the precious part of the stores will have been removed to a safer place. I had also some stores removed from Orange Court House. Dispatches from the Governor to me have fallen into the enemies' hands; of which I gave him and the Baron ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... that their table-rapping spooks are precious dull dogs; it would be difficult, in face of the communications recorded, for them to deny it. They explain to us that they have not yet achieved communication with the higher spiritual Intelligences. The more intelligent ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... prospector from Georgetown, El Dorado County, named Knox, discovered a big ledge of quartz in Squaw Valley. It was similar rock to that in which the Comstock silver was found in large quantities. Though the assays of the floating-rock did not yield a large amount of the precious metals, they showed a little—as high as $3.50 per ton. This was enough. There were bound to be higher grade ores deeper down. The finder filed his necessary "locations," and doubtless aided by copious draughts of "red-eye" saw, in swift imagination, his ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... Which, mingling with prolific strife In chaos, kindled into life: So your production was the same, And from contending atoms came. Thy fair indulgent mother crown'd Thy head with sparkling rubies round: Beneath thy decent steps the road Is all with precious jewels strew'd, The bird of Pallas,[4] knows his post, Thee to attend, where'er thou goest. Byzantians boast, that on the clod Where once their Sultan's horse hath trod, Grows neither grass, nor shrub, nor tree: The same thy subjects boast of thee. The greatest lord, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... be square with yourself. You've lost all that precious virtue women gab about. When you've got the name, I say get ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... James Fisk, Jr. By adroit management, these operators held on the first of September, 1869, "calls" for one hundred million dollars of gold, and as there were not more than fifteen millions of the precious metal in New York outside of the Sub-Treasury, they were masters of the situation. The only obstacle in the way of their triumphant success would be the sale of gold from the Sub-Treasury at a moderate price, by direction of General Grant. Corbin ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... had risen. With, all her young enjoyment of wealth and position, she had been bred in a class where to idle is a crime. "Just putting in time—time that ought to be as precious as youth and high spirits and ease and popularity! But what is one to do? I have no talents, and I'd lose caste in my set if I had. I don't wonder the Socialists hate us and want to put us all to work. No doubt we should be much happier. But now—even if you retired ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Westphalia; the endless obstacles which were to be surmounted; the contending interests which it was necessary to reconcile; the concatenation of circumstances which must have co-operated to bring to a favourable termination this tedious, but precious and permanent work of policy; the difficulties which beset the very opening of the negociations, and maintaining them, when opened, during the ever-fluctuating vicissitudes of the war; finally, arranging the conditions of peace, and still more, the carrying them into effect; what ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... return to sanity and ascent towards the heavenly Kingdom. No doubt Man will arrive again SOME day at the grace, composure and leisurely beauty of life which the animals realized long ago, though he seems a precious long time about it; and when all this nightmare of Greed and Vanity and Self-conceit and Cruelty and Lust of oppression and domination, which marks the present period, is past—and it WILL pass—then Humanity will come again ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... delightful thing to have heard a cardinal call the Pope a fool, and name Tamburini as a fit person. I did not lose a moment in noting this pleasant circumstance down: it was too precious a morsel to let slip. But who was Tamburini? I had never heard of him. I asked Winckelmann, who ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... maddened excitement he snatched up his precious boy, and seizing a robe ran out of the lodge followed by his squaw. Overhead the sky was warming but: the canon was blue dark. Every moment brought the shots and roar nearer. Plunging through the snow with his burden, the Fire Eater ran up a rocky draw which ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... the true dignity of man. A tree is an object which, in its station, joins the useful with the agreeable; it merits our approbation when it produces sweet and pleasant fruit; when it affords a favourable shade. All machines are precious, when they are truly useful, when they faithfully perform the functions for which they are designed. Yes, I speak it with courage, reiterate it with pleasure, the honest man, when he has talents, when he possesses virtue, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... the spur of the moment,' and gives sufficient proofs of its truth. He desires, for example, a law to punish receivers of stolen goods, and says that there were excellent laws in existence. Unfortunately one law applied exclusively to the case of pewter-pots, and another exclusively to the precious metals; neither could be used as against receivers of horses or bank notes.[109] So a man indicted under an act against stealing from ships on navigable rivers escaped, because the barge from which he stole happened to be aground. Gangs could ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... an increase of revenue; and a consequent determination to earn some money for himself led to his first real commercial enterprise as "candy butcher" on the Grand Trunk Railroad, already mentioned in a previous chapter. It has also been related how his precious laboratory was transferred to the train; how he and it were subsequently expelled; and how it was re-established in his home, where he continued studies and experiments until the beginning of his career as ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... chronometers, which were instruments of navigation so precious as always to be kept under lock and key, there were no clocks in the navy till some years after I joined it. Time on board ship ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... plundered from the church there by a great general, and given to the Archbishop of Cologne, and he put them in this church. They have been here ever since, and they are prized very highly indeed. They are set round with gold and precious stones, and have the names of the men marked on them ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... commodities: electricity (to India), cardamom, gypsum, timber, handicrafts, cement, fruit, precious ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... sea; (for he was born, it is said, in the island of Ceos[32]). {Accordingly} he embarked in a ship, which a dreadful tempest, together with its own rottenness, caused to founder at sea. Some gathered together their girdles,[33] others their precious effects, {which formed} the support of their existence. One who was over inquisitive, {remarked}: "Are you going to save none of your property, Simonides?" He made reply: "All my {possessions} are ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... sprinklings and benedictions at every clap of thunder or flash of lightning. At length the storm abated, and the party were providentially saved from its effects; which the good lady attributed solely to the precious water. But when the shutters were opened, and the light admitted, the company found, to the destruction of their white gowns and muslin handkerchiefs; their coats, waistcoats, and breeches, that instead of holy water, the pious lady had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... a cigarette from a gold case with her initials in tiny precious stones across it, and handed the case to Mrs Gildea ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... her noise and laughter, did not seem to Maggie to be happy. She introduced her for a moment to the master of the house, a stout red-faced man who looked as though he had lost something very precious, but was too sleepy to search for it. He called Caroline "Sweet," and she treated him with patronage and contempt. Maggie came away distressed, and she was not surprised to hear, a day or two later, from ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... think now of the many narrow escapes from death before I was a child of God, a number of which are not recorded, my heart overflows with gratitude for the kind Providence that spared me till I knew the way of life and had the precious promises of God. An ungodly man may be brave, and face death without a tremor, but only a child of God can face certain death as it comes on apace in the stillness of the sick chamber, and when the body is wasted with disease, in perfect composure ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... all I am to her. A beast of burden! And a whole precious morning squandered on this confounded shopping—when I might have been—ah, well! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... the following day was a most gorgeous one. The king, his two brothers, Henri of Navarre, and Conde were all dressed alike in light yellow satin, embroidered with silver, and enriched with precious stones. Marguerite was in a violet velvet dress, embroidered with fleurs de lis, and she wore on her head a crown glittering with gems. The queen and the queen mother were dressed in ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... emptied and cleaned before fresh material is put into them. Is not the same precaution more essential with the receptacles for digestion and egestion? They constitute our chief physiological economy; they are precious household and laboratory utensils; exceedingly precious, as we can purchase no other set when these are worn and wasted beyond repair. What marvelous possessions, and how reckless most of us are with them! Neither love nor money will ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... showing itself, in which effective cooling arrested the growth and saved the sufferer. When a growth of this kind has gone a certain length, there is severe pain. The cooling removes this, and secures the patient unspeakably precious rest without narcotics. But this is not all: it puts an effectual stop to the swelling. If the case has not gone very far, the swelling falls, and may disappear; but even when it has gone too far for this, the disease ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... more instructive than their grand manners. When they are off guard, they frequently show to better advantage than when they are on parade. I get more pleasure out of Boswell's Johnson than I do out of Rasselas or The Rambler. The Little Flowers of St. Francis appear to me far more precious than the most learned German and French analyses of his character. There is a passage in Jonathan Edwards' Personal Narrative, about a certain walk that he took in the fields near his father's house, and the ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... that we are concerned in, the inheritance he left to succeeding generations,—the perpetuated ideas of the Reformation, which he worked out in anguish and in study, and which we will not let die, but will cherish in our memories and our hearts, as among the most precious of the heirlooms of genius, susceptible of boundless application. And it is destined to grow brighter and richer, in spite of counter-reformation and Jesuitism, of Pagan levities and Pagan lies, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... two favorites. The only thing that caused anxiety or solicitude during their journey was a fear lest the good old gentleman, in his wild abandonment of joy, should forget himself, and eat so many oranges as to endanger his precious existence. But, happily, their fears proved imaginary. No such catastrophe occurred to mar their felicity, and the little party safely reached the hospitable mansion of Parson Grey, and were received ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the man of science, "do not detain me. Time is precious just now. You have placed yourself under my orders for the day, and, being a seaman, must understand the value of prompt obedience. ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... of being useful. Rather death than weariness. I cannot be satiated with serving. I do not weary of giving help. No amount of work is sufficient to weary me. This is a carnival motto: "Sine lassitudine." Hands in which ducats and precious stones abound like snow never grow weary of serving, but such a service is for its utility only and not for our profit. ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... St. Andrew on the day on which the Lord hung on the cross for sinners.... Armed knights on their horses, coursing around the altars, dragged away with impious hands some who fled for refuge thither, the gold and silver and other precious things being with violence carried off thence. Many royal charters, too, and other muniments, in the Prior's Chapel, and necessary to the church of Rochester, were destroyed and torn up. The oratories, cloisters, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... dwellings of the wold and fell, till evil times my tribe befel, when I came to the outskirts of this town, with my family and whatso goods I own: and, as I went along one of the paths leading to its gardens, orchards and garths, with my she-camels highly esteemed and by me most precious deemed, and midst them a stallion of noble blood and shape right good, a plenteous getter of brood, by whom the females abundantly bore and who walked among them as though a kingly crown he wore, one of the she-camels broke away; and, running to the garden of these young ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... forefend I should be such a coxcomb as to fancy every woman who speaks to me has designs upon my precious heart, or on my more precious estate!" As he walked from his hotel to Lady Dashfort's house, ingeniously wrong, he came to this conclusion, just as he ascended the stairs, and just as her ladyship had settled her ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... degeneracy of the age, the women paid him no more attention than the age did, but just sent for the doctor. He came, and bled the patient. This gave him a momentary relief; but when, in the natural progress of the disease, sweating and weakness came on, the loss of the precious vital fluid was fatal, and the patient's pulse became scarce perceptible. There he lay, with wet hair, and gleaming eyes, and haggard face, at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... shoulder and went phlegmatically to sleep, secure in her assurance that there was nothing whatever to be afraid of. Small creature though he was, her arms ached from holding him, yet she would not let him go, he was too precious for that; and each minute that passed, so she told herself, brought the ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... not a moment for hesitation, and ere Judith had ceased speaking her paddle was in the water. The distance to the point, in a direct line, was not great, and the impulses under which the girls worked were too exciting to allow them to waste the precious moments in useless precautions. They paddled incautiously for them, but the same excitement kept others from noting their movements. Presently a glare of light caught the eye of Judith through an opening in the bushes, and steering by it, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... over and could sleep in peace," groaned out Steve. "No, I don't," he hastened to add; "it would be so precious selfish. But I'm not well, Johannes; I'm chilly. Got ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... is her Pyramid of precious stones?[22.H.] Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones Of merchant-dukes?[443] the momentary dews Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, Whose names are Mausoleums of the Muse, Are ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... two hours, I will come back again; for your sake, time is precious. Even while we speak he may be arrested. At eleven, I ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... however, the king suddenly became valuable and precious to them, for he, as well as his horse, was made mostly of lead and he could be melted down and run into bullets. Lead was dear and scarce, and bullets were needed in the army. The king's troops now "will probably have melted majesty fired at them," some one wrote ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... entered this Church. Thus life is ever crumbling away under us. What should we say to a man, who was placed on some precipitous ground, which was ever crumbling under his feet, and affording less and less secure footing, yet was careless about it? Or what should we say to one who suffered some precious liquor to run from its receptacle into the thoroughfare of men, without a thought to stop it? who carelessly looked on and saw the waste of it, becoming greater and greater every minute? But what treasure can equal time? ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... Weir's voice, eager and determined now. Like an undammed current his orders rang out above the uproar, and in a moment the gallant troopers of N and D, some on foot, some in saddle, were rushing up the face of the bluff, their officers leading, the precious ammunition packs at the centre, all alike scrambling for the summit, in spite of the crackling of Indian rifles from every side. Foot by foot they fought their way forward, sliding and stumbling, until the little blue wave burst out against the sky-line and sent an exultant cheer back ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... span, the irreducible maximum, not to be stretched by any contrivance beyond about thirty hours. Something could be done, but not much. As I thought of the strict and narrow limits, it seemed that these were some precious golden hours, and never to recur again; the opportunity must be seized, or lost for ever! As I walked the sunshiny streets, images rose of the bright streets abroad, their quaint old towers, and town-halls, and marketplaces, and ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... him. He took a long lingering look at her as he passed out of the room, and when the door was closed between them, the sensation he experienced was as if some sudden cloud had swept across the face of the sun, dimming to a vast extent its precious lustre. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... from the table, cautiously possessed herself of a bunch of keys which were placed in a small pocket over Amabel's head, and proceeded to unlock a large chest that stood near the foot of the bed. She found it filled with valuables—with chains of gold, necklaces of precious stones, loops of pearl, diamond crosses, and other ornaments. Besides these, there were shawls and stuffs of the richest description. While contemplating these treasures, and considering how she should carry them off without ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... consisted of gold signets, and jade rings, or sceptres, implying: "may you have your wishes accomplished in everything," or "may you enjoy peace and health from year to year;" that the various articles were strung with pearls or inlaid with precious stones, worked in jade or mounted in gold; and that they were in all ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... range in northern New Mexico. It is a land of rich pastures and teeming flocks and herds, a land of rolling mesas and precious running waters that at length unite in the Currumpaw River, from which the whole region is named. And the king whose despotic power was felt over its entire extent was an ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Bah! You vas not at all von vonder-child; you vas von foolish! Good-night, mine young friend, good-night." And Herr Schlugst went into the galvanised iron hut where for the time being he lived, watching over his precious machine. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... handed Germaine the precious pot of ointment to put with their other purchases into the big cupboard, and they thought ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... aflame with Protestant indignation against popery; the Church of England being likely to rekindle the fires of 1780, by way of vindicating the right of private judgment. I, who hold perfect freedom of thought and of conscience the most precious of all possessions, have of course my own hatred to these things. Cardinal Wiseman has taken advantage of the attack to put forth one of the most brilliant appeals that has appeared in my time; of course you ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... is not the same for the two types of men. He who must overcome temptation before he can subject his lower nature to his reason is rewarded in the next world in a manner bearing resemblance to the goods and pleasures of this world, and described as precious stones and tables of gold laden with good things to eat. On the other hand, the reward of the naturally perfect who is free from temptation is purely spiritual, and bears no earthly traces. These men are represented as "sitting under the Throne of Glory with their crowns on their heads ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... Quintana and his precious crew, blood-crazy, baffled, probably already distrusting one another, yet running wild through the night like starving wolves galloping at ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... possessed. Erasmus has given a very exact and humorous description of the superstitions practised there in his time. See his Account of the VIRGO PARATHALASSIA, in his Colloquy entitled, 'PEREGRINATIO RELIGIONIS ERGO.' He tells us the rich offerings in silver, gold, and precious stones, that were there shown him, were incredible: there being scarce a person of any note in England, but what some time or other paid a visit, or sent a present, to our LADY OF WALSINGHAM. At the dissolution of the monasteries, in 1538, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... Karna became famous on earth for the valour of his arms. When, for thy good, the Lord of the celestials begged of him his (natural) coat of mail and ear-rings, stupefied by celestial illusion, he gave away those precious possessions. Deprived of his car-rings and divested of his natural armour, he was slain by Arjuna in Vasudeva's presence. In consequence of a Brahmana's curse, as also of the curse of the illustrious Rama, of the boon granted to Kunti and the illusion ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... great fun. We went sailing about right down to the mouth of the York River. I did not calculate that it would take me more than twice as long to get back as to get down; but as the wind blew right down the river it was precious slow work, and we had to row all the way. However, it has been a jolly trip, and I feel ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... mistake. Why should he have to be married to this old lady? Never in his life had he wanted to marry old ladies; and he thought it very hard that at an age when he most appreciated bright youth he should be forced to spend his precious years, his crowning years when his mind had attained wisdom while his heart retained freshness, stranded with an old lady of costly habits and inordinate bulk just because years ago he had fallen in love with ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... ever they can get, they will not let it out of their sight, but store it in the vessel on which they sail themselves, and off they go across the seas again. [40] Whenever they stand in need of money, they will not discharge their precious cargo, [41] at least not in haphazard fashion, wherever they may chance to be; but first they find out where corn is at the highest value, and where the inhabitants will set the greatest store by it, and there they take and ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... strange little fish are rolled into a mass by the two parents. By curling their long, slimy bodies around the eggs, a closely-packed ball is the result. This precious ball of eggs is then taken care of, and guarded by the two fish. In this nursery both the father and mother fish take their share ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... the proffered hand as though it were a bar of red-hot iron he had been commanded to hold, or a phial of his precious elixir he was carrying, and he felt by no means flattered at the reference to their equality, just as if he, too, had discovered ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... this it is, which the patriot and the philanthropist, who would fain unite the love of peace with the faith in the progressive amelioration of mankind, cannot estimate at too high a price. 'It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls; for the price of wisdom is above rubies.'—The clergyman is with his parishioners and among them; he is neither in the cloistered cell, nor in the wilderness, but a neighbour and family man, whose education and rank admit ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... flung off and stood hand in hand before Banion had rescued the precious lead line and brought ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... present, did not sign this precious paper, which, in a letter to Hamilton, he called "the gratifying termination of his labours;" but he had in his hand the orders of his immediate superior, and temporary commander-in-chief, to notify ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... all hardy men, the blood was rich, the eye keen, the wrist sure; but they could not break down the Chevalier's guard. They knew that in time they must wear him out, but time was very precious to the vicomte. The Chevalier's point laid open the rascal's cheek, it ripped open Fremin's forehead, it slid along Pauquet's hand. A cold smile grew upon the Chevalier's lips and remained there. They could not reach him. There was no room for four blades, ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... with them, neither did I. Time is precious only as we make it so. To do the wholesome, satisfying thing, without direct or indirect injury to others, is the privilege of every man. To the charge of neglecting my profession I pleaded not guilty, for ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... criticism, which is so often only a cry of pain or prejudice, but patiently working on at enlightening and strengthening the hands of other mothers in her own rank of life, what vital work would be done:—work so precious in its very nature, so far-reaching in its consequences, that all the travail and anguish I have endured, all the brokenness of body and soul I have incurred, would not so much as come into mind for joy ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... his head sagely. "Nobody shall know," said he. "No filter could contain such news as this." He took the precious document from the King's hand, folded it, and put ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... passage, wondering what chance of escape might yet present itself. Just at this instant, the hand by which I had guided myself along the wall, touched the handle of a door—I turned it—it opened—I drew in my precious bundle, and closing the door noiselessly, sat down, breathless and ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... so surprised by what Bert said that she stood still in the street and looked at her brother. Then she looked at the precious package he was carrying. ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... found the velvet tasselled thing and brought it and hung it up with the care due to a thing so precious as a fifteen cap. The school bell had clanged while he was down on the field, and he was late and had lines. That didn't matter. The thing that had emerged was, Urquhart knew he ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... great handful of twigs not more than a couple of inches in length and placed them in a sheltered position in the lee of the tree. Then he added dry boughs of larger size and made ready to use the precious match. ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... that follows selfish sacrifice of others is so sure of stroke that there needs no future world of punishment to adjust the balance. The time came when Milton would have given worlds that his daughters had learned the tongues. He was blind, and could only get at his precious book—could only give expression to his precious verses—through the eyes and hands of others. Whose hands and whose eyes so proper for this as his daughters? He proceeded to train them to read to him, parrot-like, in five or six languages, which he (the schoolmaster) could at one time have easily ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... rebelled against the idea of letting her undertake the task, and it was only after much persuasion that she drew from him a reluctant consent. After all, it would be a great safeguard to Haeberlein, and Haeberlein was his dearest friend. For no one else could he have risked what was so precious to him. There was very little time for discussion. The instant his permission was given, Erica ran upstairs to Tom's private den, lighted his gas stove, and made a cup of chocolate, at the same time blackening a cork very carefully. In a few minutes she returned ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Attorney-General will stop here, which will make a very agreeable change for a few days. To pursue my studies with indefatigable industry, and ardent zeal, will be my set purpose, so that I may never have to mourn the loss of my precious time. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Princesses, and Chieftains with their followings; I think there were thirteen different tribes represented, and there were twenty times thirteen different costumes. We were presented first to the Chiefs; they were in the most magnificent, shimmering brown silk robes of state, all over gold and precious stones, and had pointed seven-roofed pagoda crowns of gold. There were three Princesses, willowy figures, one in an emerald-green tight-fitting jacket of silk and clinging skirt, and a spray of jewels and flowers in her black hair; she was pretty, by Jove she was, and at ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... sweet, very precious to your mother's heart!" Elsie said with an earnest, tender kiss; then turned quickly away to hide the tell-tale moisture ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... This is 'the confidence wherein I trust.' This is why I have no fears now. We may have great trials—how can we expect to be exempt from them? But we must help each other to bear them and then they will seem more precious than joys. You see, don't you? You understand, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... A precious one from us is gone, A voice we loved is stilled. A place is vacant in our home That never can ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... know that they're goin' to send away this galleon, hopin' that by keepin' well to the south'ard she'll escape capture. You know, too, that her cargo's to be a rich one, and that, over and above her cargo she's to ship an astonishin' quantity of gold and precious stones, brought down to the coast from Peru; and of course you know that Cap'n Bowen and his lads 'ud lay wait for her, and maybe get her, if you was to tell 'em about her. And if they was to get her, only think what a blow the loss of her 'd be to the Spaniards! Why, it 'ud be so tremendous ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... mounted in gold; the most exquisitely delicate china; daggers, swords and guns of splendid workmanship and sparkling with jewels; Chinese work and carving; golden dishes, cups and vases, and silver pitchers thickly encrusted with precious stones; horse trappings and velvet hangings worked stiff with pearls, gold and silver thread, bits of coral, and jewels; three emeralds as large as small hen's eggs, forming the handle of a dirk; and in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... something about a petticoat—half of which was made of gold-woven velvet, and half of gray homespun cloth. But the one who owned the petticoat adorned the homespun cloth with such a lot of pearls and precious stones that it looked richer and more ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... may seem a lie— Instantly from my proper person torn, A solitary stag, I felt me borne In winged terrors the dark forest through, As still of my own dogs the rushing storm I flew My song! I never was that cloud of gold Which once descended in such precious rain, Easing awhile with bliss Jove's amorous pain; I was a flame, kindled by one bright eye, I was the bird which gladly soar'd on high, Exalting her whose praise in song I wake; Nor, for new fancies, knew I to forsake ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... virtuous and benignant priest like the Bishop in Victor Hugo's Miserables, than to hold those good opinions of Chaumette as he held them, with a rancorous intolerance, a reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of others, and a shallow forgetfulness of all that great and precious part of our natures that lies out of the immediate domain of the logical understanding. One can understand how an honest man would abhor the darkness and tyranny of the Church. But then to borrow the same absolutism in the interests of new light, was inevitably to ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... is a precious scoundrel, and deserves worse than I gave him, and if I ever meet him again I won't do a thing ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... good luck to profit much, or indeed any, by attending lectures, so that I think the ticket had better be bestowed on somebody who can listen to Mr. ——— more worthily. My evenings are very precious to me, and some of them are unavoidably thrown away in paying or receiving visits, or in writing letters of business, and therefore I prize the rest as if the sands of the hour-glass were ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... purpose, my dear, as you shall hear. That poor old Diogenes was lying on his couch, looking across with such a dull, pathetic face, and I felt so sorry that the poor dear had nothing more exciting to amuse him. He must be precious dull when he takes so much interest in girls like us, and I felt grieved to think how little fun we had given him, sitting sewing day after day like so many machines. I says to myself, says I, 'It is in your power, Margaret Rendell, to infuse some brightness into the lot of this poor ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... without diminishing, in the least degree, the privilege of every heir to enjoy the same. This makes it unspeakably satisfactory. But what yet adds to it in its power to satisfy, is that, the sacrifice which was required to bring this will and testament into force was the precious blood of Christ. The great purpose of God in this judicial sacrifice was that the sins of the world might be forgiven, that we might thus become the sons of God and heirs of this inheritance. But, my dear brother and sister, our Saviour had also another purpose in view in this stupendous ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... fifty books of drawings, and three thousand five hundred and sixteen manuscripts, besides a multitude of prints. The museum comprehended an infinite number of medals, coins, urns, utensils, seals, cameos, intaglios, precious stones, vessels of agate and jasper, crystals, spars, fossils, metals, minerals, ore, earths, sands, salts, bitumens, sulphurs, ambergrise, talcs, mirre, testacea, corals, sponges, echini, echenites, asteri, trochi, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of wisdom and knowledge, which all men covet from the impulse of nature, infinitely surpasses all the riches of the world; in comparison with which, precious stones are vile, silver is clay, and purified gold grains of sand; in the splendor of which, the sun and moon grow dim to the sight; in the admirable sweetness of which, honey and manna are bitter to the taste. The value of wisdom ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... is fairest of the fair. Mistress she of broad demesnes Came unto our mountain land And among the hills hath she Borne a new princess of Spain 25 That we give to her again, Even a rose imperial As the most high Isabel, An image of Gabriel For the repose of Portugal, 30 Its precious ward and canopy. So ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... one can't know oneself. It never entered my head to be on my guard against his warmth and his terrible obviousness. You and he were the only two, infinitely different, people, who didn't approach me as if I had been a precious object in a collection, an ivory carving or a piece of Chinese porcelain. That's why I have kept you in my memory so well. Oh! you were not obvious! As to him—I soon learned to regret I was not some object, some beautiful, carved object of bone or bronze; a ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... of universal reverence. It is a piece of ivory or bone two inches long, and is kept in six cases, the largest of which, of solid silver, is five feet high. The other cases are inlaid with rubies and precious stones.[95] Besides this, Ceylon possesses the "left collar-bone relic," contained in a bell-shaped tope, fifty feet high, and the thorax bone, which was placed in a tope built by a Hindoo Raja, B.C. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... well known. Correspondences in the vegetable kingdom are all things that grow and abound in gardens, forests, fields, and meadows; these, too, need not be named, because they are well known. Correspondences in the mineral kingdom are metals more and less noble, stones precious and not precious, earths of various kinds, and also the waters. Besides these the things prepared from them by human activity for use are correspondences, as foods of every kind, clothing, dwellings and other buildings, ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... impressed by the local history plea, and spend precious money on rare volumes or old ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... darling! Do you think you were quite kind to me last night?—let's put it that way. I looked a precious fool, you know, standing on those steps, while you were keeping old Mother Parham and ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... means," I returned; "and be quick about it. I would go myself, but you will know better than I where to find the axe; and even moments are precious just now." ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... (as you know) she has her Claims...." "Friend," quoth his Uncle then, "I doubt This scurvy Craft that you're about Will lead your philosophic Feet Either to Bedlam or the Fleet. Still, as I would not have you lack, Go get some Broadcloth to your Back, And—if it please this precious Muse— 'Twere well to purchase decent Shoes. Though harkye, Sir...." The Youth was gone, Before the good Man could ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... homesteads know how much this meant to these lonely men and their isolated families. Fighting prairie fires, when the mad battalions of flame wheeled with the gale and charged at the humble dwelling or the precious hay or wheat-stacks of the settler, was the willingly assumed duty of many a rider of the plains. One recalls the case of Constable Conradi, who, while on patrol one fall day when the dry grass was as inflammable as tinder, asked a settler ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... a scheme concocted by my scapegrace cousins to have me declared insane, and thus secure control of my fortune, they being my only living relatives. But for Sir Lockesley's presence and influence their precious plot might ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... S. C., - Take it not amiss if this is a wretched letter. I am eaten up with business. Every day this week I have had some business impediment - I am even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the road - and my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge of a FAIPULE - parliament man - come begging. All the time DAVID BALFOUR is skelping along. I began it the 13th of last month; I have now 12 chapters, 79 pages ready for press, or within an ace, and, by the time the month is out, one-half should ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a beautiful piece of workmanship. There was an enormous sphere of thin crystal to represent the sky. Precious gems showed the stars, affixed to the dome. The whole was nearly eight feet in diameter. Inside the crystal, Hanson could see a model of the world on jeweled-bearing supports. The planets and the sun were set on tracks around the outside, with a clockwork drive mechanism ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... mornings to be spent in inspecting the churches scattered throughout the narrow streets of the old town,—harlequins in coloured marble and painted stucco though they be, they are yet treasure-houses containing some of the most precious monuments of Gothic and Renaissance art that all Italy can display. There are afternoon hours that can be passed pleasantly amidst the endless halls and galleries of the great Museo Nazionale, where the antiquities of Pompeii and Herculaneum may be studied in advance, for the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... known as "Indigofera Tinctoria" is sown in March in soil carefully prepared, grows to about 5 feet, is cut down early in July, is fermented in vats, and the liquor is beaten till it precipitates the precious blue dye, which is boiled, drained, cut in small cakes, and dried. From first to last the growth and the manufacture are even more precarious than most tropical crops. An even rainfall, rigorous weeding, the most careful superintendence of the chemical processes, and conscientious packing, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... service of a rich zemindar, whose estate lay in the Country of the Five Rivers. He was a usurer as well as a landowner, as had been his fathers before him for many generations. So in his castle was an accumulation of great stores of wealth—gold and silver and precious stones, cloth of gold, silks, brocades, and muslins, ivory and amber, camphor, spices, dye stuffs, and ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... subsequently from France. The powder that was at first produced was very weak and bad, and the manufacturers worked day and night till they found means of improving it. The rules introduced into the battalions, in order to economize this precious commodity, were singular enough. The soldiers were forbidden to load their muskets till the very moment of commencing an action; and then were only to fire when the enemy was very near and fully exposed. Even the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... of the year, when he was a boy, to save his teacher's fee; his mother who walked almost barefoot in the cruel snow to carry him on her shoulders to school when she had no shoes for him; his mother who made it her pious pride to raise up a learned son, that most precious offering in the eyes of the great God, from the hand of a poor struggling woman. If my mother had seen it, it would have grieved her no less—my mother who was given to him, with her youth and good name and her dowry, in exchange for his learning and piety; my mother who was taken from ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... the precious things to say," she exclaimed. "Phyllis, I can't speak for the rest, but as far as I am concerned your nose is completely out ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... Larches; but a woman is not a vase;—more beautiful even than this, certainly more precious, perhaps almost as fragile, but still not a vase; and she shows as little taste in making herself look like a vase as some potters do in making vases that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... commodities: electrical machinery and appliances, textiles, apparel, footwear, watches and clocks, toys, plastics, precious stones ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... ideals. Students of university rank can be led to seek knowledge for knowledge's sake, truth for truth's sake. They can be taught to see farther ahead than the close of the term, and something more precious than an extra three-tenths of a credit. But this thought has already been sufficiently treated earlier in the article. (2) It leads to faulty methods of study and unsatisfactory final results. In ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... so rare as this one flower of—' you know I've forgotten what it was—Civilisation or Truth or something. Anyway, whatever it was, it had like a giant engine rolled the car of Civilisation out from the maze of antiquity, where she now waits to be freighted with the precious fruits of ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... called cheerily. "Here, Bab, you undertake the Welsh rarebit and get out the pickles and crackers. Mollie, get Hugh to help you open these cans of soup. Grace, you and Ralph, set the table and talk to Aunt Sallie, while I fry my precious bacon." ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... citizen. Meantime he, contemplating their pious beauty with earthly eyes, was drinking long draughts of intoxicating passion. And when after the service they each took an arm of Dr. Aubertin, and he with the air of an admiral convoying two ships choke-full of specie, conducted his precious charge away home, our young citizen felt jealous, and all but hated ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... have from time to time been laid bare, and from tentative explorations which have been just made, still more floors remain to be uncovered which may be of a most interesting and instructive character. What a pity it is that the inhabitants of Lincoln have not made an effort to preserve these precious relics of the grandeur of the Roman occupation, an occupation to which England owes so much. From the Romans the people of this country inherit the sturdy self-reliance and perseverance in action which have helped ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... rest fro their labours.' An again, 'Suffer us not at our last hour, for onny pains o' death, to fa' fro thee.' Oh Ruchot, dear! fo' the love theaw hadst fo' thy poor chilt, who is now delivert fro' the burthen o' th' flesh, an' dwellin' i' joy an felicity wi' God an his angels, dunna endanger thy precious sowl. Pray that theaw may'st depart hence i' th' Lord, wi' whom are the sowls of the faithful, an Meary's, ey trust, among the number. Pray that thy ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with barbed wire. The dikes had been opened and part of the country flooded. Farther on we passed the Antwerp forts, then comely suburbs where houses had been torn down and acres of trees and shrubs— precious, as may be imagined, to a people who line their country roads with elms and lindens like avenues in parks, and build monuments to benevolent-looking old horticulturists—chopped down and burned. And go, presently, into the old city itself, dull-flaming with the scarlet, gold, and ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... in your competition with foreigners. Remember that loyalty and filial piety are our most precious national treasures and do nothing to ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery |
