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Thing   /θɪŋ/   Listen
Thing

noun
1.
A special situation.  "It is a remarkable thing"
2.
An action.
3.
A special abstraction.  "Things of the heart"
4.
An artifact.
5.
An event.
6.
A vaguely specified concern.  Synonyms: affair, matter.  "It is none of your affair" , "Things are going well"
7.
A statement regarded as an object.  "How can you say such a thing?"
8.
An entity that is not named specifically.
9.
Any attribute or quality considered as having its own existence.
10.
A special objective.
11.
A persistent illogical feeling of desire or aversion.  "She has a thing about him"
12.
A separate and self-contained entity.



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"Thing" Quotes from Famous Books



... out to us in the sand the recent marks of the feet of three tigers, a mother and two young, which had crossed the open space between the forest and the water. Finding no tree upon the shore, we sank the end of our oars into the sand, in order to form poles for our tents. Every thing remained quiet till eleven at night, when suddenly there arose, in the neighbouring forest, a noise so frightful that it became impossible to shut our eyes. Amidst the voice of so many savage animals, which all roared or cried at once, our Indians could only distinguish ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... capitalist society," says Kautsky, referring to the "State Socialist" reforms of semidemocratic governments like those of Australia and Great Britain. "Neither can we avoid the final outcome of these antagonisms—the overthrow of present society. One thing it can do. It cannot abolish the revolution, but it can avert many premature, hopeless revolutionary attempts and render superfluous many revolutionary uprisings. It creates clearness regarding the relative strength of the different ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... idiot, Potts, was trying to joke me because the horse was sprung in the knees, as if that was not the very thing that made me resolve to have that horse if I ran him up to five hundred dollars! You are a young man with no experience in the world, and I'll tell you why I like such legs: They give the horse more leverage. Do you see? When a horse's leg is straight, the more he bears on it, the ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... other thing that I must again refer to the highly-finished character of my grandfather's work. Nothing merely moderate would do. The work must be of the very best. He took special pride in the sound quality of the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... it? Sure I'd do it for nothin, only me cloes ud disgrace you; and I'd be dhriven to borra money from your friends: a thing that's agin me nacher. But I won't take a penny more than a hundherd a year. [He looks with restless cunning at Broadbent, trying to guess how far ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw

... if she had a doll. "Doll?" snarled Margaret with surprising energy. "A'nt Matildy give me one once't an' I throwed it as far as I could inter the river, so I did! Nasty thing! Its face was all ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... it to his Aunt Ellen's at Northbourne, about five miles from Deal. His aunt told him to carry it to the park, where he'd find other daws and settle down. And that's what he did, but Jackie came back to Deal again that same day; the strangest thing was that mother and father made a great fuss over it and fed it just as if they were glad to have it back. Next day it got into the parlour and broke some more things, and mother scolded him for not getting rid of the bird, and father ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... all times unhappy, and hence I was always restless and discontented. I was continually striving for something that would at least give me contentment, but before I could establish myself in any thing the ever-recurring spell would seize me, and whatever confidence I had succeeded in gaining was swept away. I wrote in sand, and the incoming tide with a single dash annihilated the characters. During one of my uneasy wanderings I went to Hartford City, Indiana. ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... a hunted thing, hard harried, sore distrest; The old grandmother moon crept out from her cloud-quilted nest; The aged mountains mocked at him ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... a very silly thing. "Miss Cullen," I groaned, "I'd give anything if I were only your brother." For the moment I really ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... those with whom the Appointment was made, whatsoever their scribes had after written, {145b} who, in very deed, had altered, both in words and sentences, our Articles, as they were first conceived; and yet if their own writings were diligently examined, the self same thing shall ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... bear on Ossipee Climbed the topmost crag to see The strange thing drifting under; And, through the haze of August, Passaconaway and Paugus Looked ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... on an enormous, labor-saving scale, and abolishes childish, wasteful competition." It is a gigantic object lesson, and it preaches his political economy far more potently than he can preach it. He points to the trust, laughing scornfully in the face of the orthodox economists. "You told me this thing could not be," {12} he thunders. ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... haven't got one too," she repeated, "of course not, Rosy dear. People can't always have everything the same. I never thought of such a thing. And besides it is a pleasure to me even though it's not my necklace. It will be nice to see you wearing it, and I know you'll let me look at it in my hand sometimes, won't you?" touching the beads gently as she spoke. "See, Fixie," she went ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth

... "Here is another important thing," remarked Mr. Harrison; "a letter from this John Woodward stating that Mrs. Agatha Mitts knows of the forgeries. Now, if you can get this woman to testify against the two culprits, I think you will have a ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer

... "The same thing; it would still be a show. You might cut him open under the left breast without hurting him in the least; his internals are of tinned-iron, I am sure. I told him so. He replied, 'I am quite satisfied with ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... Tammy, and asked him whether he'd noticed it, he only remarked that it must have been heat, or else the sun drawing up water. I let it stay at that; for there was nothing to be gained by suggesting that the thing had more ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson

... establish a kingship over Israel, that is, over Ephraim and Manasseh. The predominance, however, which had been naturally accorded to his father in virtue of his personal merits, Abimelech looked upon as a thing seized by force and to be maintained with injustice; and in this way he soon destroyed those fair beginnings out of which even at that time a kingdom might have arisen within the house of Joseph. The one permanent fruit of his activity was that Shechem was destroyed ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been, flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... to humanize and dilute a dark story is strongly opposed to the modern view of art. Modern art has to be what is called "intense." It is not easy to define being intense; but, roughly speaking, it means saying only one thing at a time, and saying it wrong. Modern tragic writers have to write short stories; if they wrote long stories (as the man said of philosophy) cheerfulness would creep in. Such stories are like stings; brief, but purely painful. And doubtless they bore some resemblance to some lives ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... as soon as she thought they were far enough from the others. "You are a good boy, and the maids told me that you said I was a star that had come down from the sky to become a woman. No one says such a thing as that of any one they do not like very much; and I know you like me, for you show me that you do every day by bringing me flowers, when you carry the game that your father gets to the steward. Tell me, will you do me and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... galleries of historic paintings, of the raiment, the boots and the camp-bed of Peter the Great? One wearied of wandering from basilica to basilica, from edifice to edifice and from room to room. Only the globe-trotting American keeping a diary can suffer an intensity of this sort of thing. But then we were taken out one of the afternoons by car to the Sparrow Hills ridge above the Moskva, about three miles outside the city and not far from where one morning in 1812 the Grand Army topped a rise and of a ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... and it blotted out even her lingering regret over the lost home in the Regent's Park. She ran over the rooms with the glee of a child, and only came back to her husband to urge him to take it, giving her this thing and that thing necessary ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... such thing," Felix had answered, almost in anger. "On the contrary I know that I ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... ancestors acted like a spur on his lordship. He understood but dimly, yet enough to enable him to realize that a scene was about to take place in which he was most emphatically not 'on'. A mother's meeting with her long-lost child, this is a sacred thing. This was quite clear to him, so, turning like a flash, he bounded through the doorway, and, as somebody happened to be coming in at the same time, there was a collision, which left him breathing apologies in his familiar attitude of stooping ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... entered. "PARDIEU!" said he, "here is a strange thing! Since when, I wonder, in the Musketeers, did they grant men leave of absence without their asking ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... this book. What is said in it could not be justified if it bore merely a personal character. A book of this kind is bound to proffer views to which any person may attain, and these views must be presented in such a way as to suggest no shade of the personal element, that is, as far as such a thing ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... The previous speaker has referred to a supposedly active exchange of telegrams between "certain parties" and "an high official," which in this case, I must believe, means me. I am mentioning this, in passing, because he said the same thing a few days ago in another speech. Gentlemen, this is a very simple matter. I receive thousands of telegrams; and, being a polite man, I should probably reply also to a telegram from Mr. Richter, if he were to honor me with a friendly despatch. When ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... a great impression in him, that finding how early it was, and that he might yet come back in his masters house before any of the family were stirring, he resolved to go back, and found every thing according to his own wishes and desires, insomuch that when the household were up none could challenge him to have been missing. And thus he continued as before in his first plainness and honesty, well beloved of all save the kitchin drudge; I come now to ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.

... should admit no discourse to your beauty.] i.e., if you really possess these qualities, chastity and beauty, and mean to support the character of both, your honesty should be so chary of your beauty, as not to suffer a thing so fragile to entertain discourse, or to ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... articulate word. Often you might have thought her asleep,—but no! when you least expected it a shining black eye was fixed oh you; an eye which, two hundred years ago, would have convicted its owner of witchcraft. It was the only bright thing about ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... show the white flag, the cravens. And, while the white flag stays blanketing yonder heights, we'll make for Whitehaven, my boy. I promised to drop in there a moment ere quitting the country for good. Israel, lad, I mean to step ashore in person, and have a personal hand in the thing. ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... America, but want of space prevents him. There is one point on which he cannot avoid making a few brief remarks—that is, the inconsistent conduct of its apostles in general. The teetotal apostle says, it is a dreadful thing to be drunk. So it is, teetotaller; but if so, why do you get drunk? I get drunk? Yes, unhappy man, why do you get drunk on smoke and passion? Why are your garments impregnated with the odour of the Indian weed? Why is there a pipe or a cigar always in your ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... the tail piece at the end of this section. The box is first constructed of the shape already given, only having the lid piece [Page 106] nailed firmly in the top of the box. The tall end piece is also done away with. The whole thing thus representing a simple oblong box with one end open. Two slender cleats should be nailed on each side of this opening, on the interior of the box, to form a groove into which a square end board may easily slide ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... pleasant to recall for my own satisfaction the fact that I am really a very remarkable man. I am, or rather I was, very good-looking, five feet eleven, with a lot of curly red hair, and blue eyes. I am left-handed, which is another unusual thing. My hands have often been noticed. I get them from my mother, who was a Fishbourne, and a lady. As for my father, he was rather common. He was a little man, red and round like an apple, but very strong, for ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell

... Cagliostro; yet the "count" was merely a successful swindler and professional pander. He plucked rich dupes, but I find not in his long catalogue of crime that he slandered youthful serving maids—for a consideration. He was advocate for many an unclean thing, but it is not recorded that he ever took a fee from a negro rape-fiend—that he ever defended a lecherous son of Ham who had dared raise his wolfish eyes to the fair face of Japhet's humblest daughter. Even when put on trial for his own worthless life he did not seek to save himself ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... conceit of learning was most hateful to him.' Hence the cry of the class affected by his action that he discouraged learning and learned men. He did nothing of the sort. There never has flourished in India a more generous encourager of the real thing. In this respect the present rulers of India might profit by his example. One of the men whose knowledge of history was the most extensive in that age, and who possessed great talents and a searching mind, was Khan-i-Azam Mirza, son of his favourite nurse. For a long time this man held fast ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson

... animal and worth preservation, even at the cost of what he eats. There is a great difference between keeping the number of otters down by otter-hunting within reasonable limits and utterly exterminating them. Hunting the otter in Somerset is one thing, exterminating them in the Thames another, and I cannot but feel a sense of deep regret when I hear of fresh efforts towards this end. In the home counties, and, indeed, in many other counties, the list of wild creatures is already short enough, ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... vertical direction, and it may thus be conjectured how full of errors are all the ancient Chinese accounts, and how impossible it is to believe anything that professes to be determined a priori. But when we come to compare our ancient traditions as to the origin of a thing in the midst of space and its subsequent development, with what has been ascertained to be the actual shape of the earth, we find that there is not the slightest error, and this result confirms the truth of our ancient traditions. But although accurate discoveries made by the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... nine when his father died; and he's been like a man helping me. There never was a boy had such willing little feet. And he'd set right there on the steps and pat my slipper and say what he'd git me when he got to earning money; and he's got me every last thing, foolish and all, that he said. There's that black satin gown, a sin and a shame for a plain body like me, but he would git it. Cyril's got a beautiful disposition too, jest like his pa's, and he's a handy man about the house, and prompt at his meals. I wonder sometimes if Cyril was to git married ...
— Different Girls • Various

... to possess the charm of a northern summer night, in which the glimmer of twilight gives place only to the gleam of morning. But in the main (though much better than its successor, Olaf Liliekrans) it is the weakest thing that Ibsen admitted into the canon of his works. He wrote it in 1870 as "a study which I now disown"; and had he continued in that frame of mind, the world would scarcely have quarrelled with his judgment. At worst, then, my collaborator and I cannot be accused of marring a masterpiece; ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen

... the woods, and that I should gett it [put] off till the next yeare. But at last I flattered with her and dissembled; besides, my father had the power in his hands. Shee daring not to deny him any thing because shee was not borne in my father's country, but was taken [when] little in the Huronit's Country. Notwithstanding [she was] well beloved of her husband, having lived together more then fourty years, and in that space brought him 9 children, ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... be but little happiness for me in the future, however, if we come out of this affair," said his companion sorrowfully. "Death, I sometimes think, would be the best thing that could befall me. I am a life convict, you remember, found guilty by a jury, and condemned to pass a life at hard, degrading labor in company with ruffians of the lowest, most debased type. It is not a future to look forward ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... would stand such treatment. No; the only thing for us to do in that connection is to see that the supply of oil is ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... it was Emerson—once said, "Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call." It is no small thing, in this grim world, to make people smile, to be absurd for their alleviation, to render all things "sympathetically ridiculous" for a time, to bear in a chalice of mirth the water of Lethe. If one's talent lies that way, why, the call should be clear! The ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... astonished at this information, and the others appeared to be no less so. At length, turning to the steward, "I will tell you," said he, "the first thing to be done, which is to clap Doctor Rezio into a dungeon; for if anybody has a design to kill me, it is he, and that by the most lingering and the worst of ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... in writing, and the other parts of the Torah by word of mouth. Hence the covenant God made with Israel reads: "I gave ye a written and an oral Torah. My covenant with you says that ye shall study the written Torah as a written thing, and the oral as an oral; but in case you confound the one with the other you will not be rewarded. For the Torah's sake alone have I made a covenant with you; had ye not accepted the Torah, I should not ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... in 1607 was like a journey to a star. Veteran rovers though the English were, none of them had any clear idea of what to expect in the new land of Virginia. Only one thing was certain: they would have nothing there but what they took with them or wrought from the ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton

... must not,' he resumed; 'for this is a very good thing for me, and, of course, if no one can be found to take my inferior work, I can't be spared to take the superior. I only wish I had received this letter a day Sooner. Every hour is of consequence, for Greathed says they are threatening a rival line. Do you know, Paul, I almost ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... through one of the principal streets he bent over to me and said, "You must not be alarmed if I show you to-day a strange sight. Some women might perhaps be frightened at what We are going to see; but my poor sister has known already so much of trouble that a light thing like this will not affect her." In spite of his encomiums upon my supposed courage, I felt alarmed and agitated by his words. There was a vagueness in them which frightened me, and bred that indefinite apprehension ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... of those men for whom it is impossible to entertain a profound respect. He was cruel, selfish, and parsimonious. He was prodigal of the blood of his subjects, and ungenerous in his treatment of those who had sacrificed every thing for his sake. He ruled by fear rather than by love. He introduced into every department the precision of a rigid military discipline, and had no faith in any power but that of mechanical agencies. He ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... The question is not what to tell the partner to lead when he gets in, but how to win a single trick. In such a case, a bluff discard, i.e., showing strength where it does not exist, is sometimes effective, although a keen Declarer is not apt to be easily deceived by any ruse so transparent. One thing to remember under such circumstances, however, is not to help the Declarer by showing weakness, so that he will know which way to finesse. In No-trumps or with the Trumps exhausted, never discard a singleton, or too many cards of ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... It thus appears (and we find some evidence of the same fact with O. speciosa), that the same rule holds good with Oxalis as with Lythrum salicaria; namely, that in any two unions, the greater the inequality in length between the pistils and stamens, or, which is the same thing, the greater the distance of the stigma from the anthers, the pollen of which is used for fertilisation, the less fertile is the union,—whether judged by the proportion of flowers which set capsules, or by the ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin

... with her husband had been overheard. She knew that Captain Kitson and his wife were notable gossips, and it was mortifying to know that their secret plans in a few hours would be made public. She replied coldly, "Captain Kitson, you have been misinformed; we may have talked over such a thing in private as a matter of speculation, but nothing at ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... good pair. The former, although not above the medium height, was powerfully built, and few, if any, of his formidable opponents were able to bring him down to mother earth. When he did fall, however, he was never in a hurry to rise, and took matters easy. If one could imagine such a thing as an easy-going football player, it was Anderson, but his failing sometimes came in handy, for he would occasionally make a gallant spurt, and pilot his way through the opposing backs in a way that completely astonished his team and their ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... the part of the last one that was not jerked got putrid during next day and had to be thrown away. Am sorry also that the sausages, after dragging them so far, after all have to be thrown away, being perfectly unfit for use; had they been good they would have been a splendid thing. We find the bacon an excellent standby. Threatens much ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay

... she might have her reason for doing so; besides, she liked staying up late at night; it was a thing she had always had a great fancy for. Did I care about going ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... beginning," laughed Bertric. "As for me, it is no new thing that I should be a winter abroad, and my folk have long ceased to trouble much about me. I am twenty-five, and took to the sea when I was seventeen. Well, if Heidrek has spoilt this voyage, we can afford it. ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... a little man about it," he reported to Ludlow. "She'll do. When a girl can take a blow like that the way she does, she makes you wish that more fellows were girls. When I had my first picture refused, it laid me up. But I'm not going to let this thing rest. I'm going to see if that picture can't be got into the ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... thing of the kind since I have been your steward, Mr. Blinks," said the man, with some spirit. "I have always been as careful of your interests as I would be of my own. Did you ever detect me in a ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... little confidence in their route-surveys: sights are taken from mule-back, and distances are judged by the eye. True, the protractions come out well, but this is all the worse, suggesting the process commonly called "doctoring." For the style of thing, however, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... part of an evening in talking to the boys about getting this crop, "Come," said I, "now let us read the book." Then the book came forth, and to work we went, following very strictly the precepts of the book. I read the thing but once, but the eldest boy read it, perhaps, twenty times over; and explained all about the matter to the others. Why, here was a motive! Then he had to tell the garden labourer what to do to the ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... heavy with giant-powder, canned goods, bottled goods, picks, shovels, bedding, hay, great mining machinery, and house-hold articles. These wagons were hitched entrain. The third wagon, termed a "trailer," was small and loaded merely with provisions for the teamster and the team. The whole thing, from end to end, beat up a ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... packed, and so poorly furnished that the very chest in which they kept their books was the table upon which they ate. Their only food for many days was rice boiled in water without salt, oil, meat, fish, or even an egg, or any other thing; sometimes as a dainty, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... not the way. The few hunt for fun. The great many spend their time in changing one thing for another. They seem to be never satisfied—always changing, changing—every day, and all day. Getting ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... poverty might have been contrasted beautifully with Lord Rufford's wealth, idleness, and devotion to sport. Anything above the 7s. 6d. an acre obtained against the lord would have been a triumph, and he thought that if the thing had been well managed, they might probably have got 15s. And then, in such a case, Lord Rufford could hardly have taxed the costs. It was really suicide for an attorney to throw away business so excellent as this. And now it had gone to Bearside whom Nickem remembered as a junior to himself when ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... chair, one stump bedstead, and praeterea nihil. It has a sort of wild, romantic look; I hear, too, it is wonderfully healthy, and not so bad as it looks. The long corridor is like the entrance to a great stable, or some such thing; earth floors and open to all winds. But you can't imagine it, however I may describe; it is so huge and strange, and ruinous. Finding that the mistress of the house was ill, and nothing ready for our reception, I drove on to the inn. Rain, like a Scotch mist, came on just as we arrived, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... Southerners. There are no Baron Munchausens in the south of France, neither at Nimes nor Marseilles, Toulouse nor Tarascon. The Southerner does not deceive but is self-deceived. He does not always tell the cold-drawn truth, but he believes he does. His falsehood is not any such thing, but a ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... fast night-train would melt from eye and ear, the other trains going their ways more slowly would be heard faintly rattling in the distance like old- fashioned watches running down, the sauce-bottle and cheap music retired from view, even the bedstead went to bed, and there was no such visible thing as the Station to vex the cool wind in its blowing, or perhaps the autumn lightning, as it found ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... lad, hear a dacent word—it will be just the dandy thing for yes entirely; go to it with a will, and make yourself as small as a little cock elven, and thin we'll have our revenge upon them aggravation thaves.' How the puck he done it nobody knows; but by dad there was his little, ragged, red poll, followed by the whole of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various

... is a more serious thing behind. Who were the instruments of his concealment? No other, my Lords, than the Company's public accountant. That very accountant takes the money, knowing it to be the Company's, and that it was only pretended to be advanced by Mr. Hastings ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... wrong: When days are short, and nights are long; When wash-day brings so dull a sky That not a single thing will dry. And when the kitchen chimney smokes, And when there's naught so "queer" as folks! When friends deplore my faded youth, And when the baby cuts a tooth. While John, the baby last but one, Clings round my skirts ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn

... Art" theory—that art is not life but a reflection of it—"that art is not vital to life but that life is vital to it," does not help us. Nor does Thoreau who says not that "life is art," but that "life is an art," which of course is a different thing than the foregoing. Tolstoi is even more helpless to himself and to us. For he eliminates further. From his definition of art we may learn little more than that a kick in the back is a work of art, and Beethoven's 9th Symphony is not. Experiences are passed ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... l'arte magiore, the greater art, is designed to distinguish it from l'arte minore, the lesser art, a term which he applied to the modern arithmetic. His second variant, la regula de la cosa, the rule of the thing or unknown quantity, appears to have been in common use in Italy, and the word cosa was preserved for several centuries in the forms coss or algebra, cossic or algebraic, cossist or algebraist, &c. Other Italian ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... his stout legs, accoutred as they were with the ancient defences, called boot-hose, so as to rest his heels upon the fender. "Upon my life, the fire turns the best flower in the garden at this season of the year—I'll take the freedom to throw on a log.—Is it not a strange thing, by the by, that one never sees a fagot in Scotland? You have much small wood, Mr. Mowbray, I wonder you do not get some fellow from the midland counties, to teach your people how to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... very fine to look upon, was Mr. Meadow Mouse, and not the least attractive thing about him was his beautiful, long, slim tail, of which he was ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... the destination of the boys lay to the westward, it seemed to Jack Carleton that, the wisest thing to do was to enter the canoe, and allow the young Shawanoe to paddle them across; but he held the gifts and skill of the wonderful warrior in such high estimation that he feared a hint of the kind might not be received ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... that hole where we saw the white thing sticking out? Why, it quite filled the hole, and if there's a bird there, and what we saw be its bill, I have only to say that its bill must be as big as its body—else how can it get out and in through so small an aperture? ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... heard, which was the same thing. To the polite request of Grant, Lee sent the polite reply that his means of resistance were not yet exhausted, and the Union leader took another hitch in the steel girdle. The second morning afterward, Lee made a desperate effort to break through at Appomattox Court House, but crushing ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the gold standard which makes dollars harder and harder to get, which is only another way of expressing the fact that wages and produce will go lower year by year under the system of greed that is accompanying the gold standard in all countries. But one thing can help the masses of our people out of the bondage of debt, and that thing is higher prices ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... along the couch, and stark, Like the sea-rejected thing Sea-sucked white, behold their King. Attila, my Attila! Beams that panted black and bright, Scornful lightnings danced their sight: Him they see an oak in bud, Him an oaklog stripped of bark: Him, their lord of day and night, White, and lifting up his blood ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... "There's no such thing as moral or immoral," the schoolboy brought out, unable to restrain himself as soon as ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... was open on his knees. His right hand was groping in it. (Thank Heaven he had not pulled the hood over the lamp!) I saw him pull out something—a limp thing, made of black cloth, not unlike the thing which a dentist places over your mouth when laughing-gas is to be administered. 'Laughing-gas, no laughing matter'—the irrelevant and idiotic embryo of a pun dangled itself for an instant in my brain. What other horrible thing would come out of the bag? ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... with envy by his schoolfellows, was the only home boarder at Hathorn's; for, as a general thing, the master set his face against the introduction of home boarders. They were, he considered, an element of disturbance; they carry tales to and from the school; they cause discontent among the other boys, and their parents are ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... both?" I asked her, caught by a sudden curiosity to see those deep, secret brown eyes once more. The famous Absolom was just what I had supposed he would be, neither more nor less; the most interesting thing I could see in him was this simple, friendly ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... barren, the "New England spirit" prevailed in all its severity; and this spirit seemed to her a veritable cult, a sort of religion, wherein the Old Maid was the priestess, the Spinster the officiating devotee, the thing worshipped the Great Unbeautiful, and the ritual unremitting, ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... had been by some of them seene, they all began to presse me to produce my translation mentioned by M. Spenser that it might be perused among them; or else that I should (as near as I could) deliuer unto them the contents of the same, supposing that my memory would not much faile me in a thing so studied and advisedly set downe in writing as ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales

... all things therein were the general property of mankind from the immediate gift of the Creator. Not that the communion of goods seems ever to have been applicable, even in the earliest ages, to aught but the substance of the thing; nor could be extended to the use of it. For, by the law of nature and reason he who first began to use it acquired therein a kind of transient property that lasted so long as he was using it, and no longer; ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... discovery of this wonderful country. Having taken the small town of St. Joseph, in the Isle of Trinidado, where he found no riches, he left his ship, and sailed up the River Oroonoko in pinnaces, but without meeting any thing to answer his expectations. On his return, he published an account of the country, full of the grossest and most palpable lies that were ever attempted to be imposed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... recovered. What can be known, will be collected by chance, from the recesses of obscure and obsolete papers, perused commonly with some other view. Of this knowledge every man has some, and none has much; but when an authour has engaged the publick attention, those who can add any thing to his illustration, communicate their discoveries, and time produces ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... ignorant of its being an acid sui generis. The Duke de Liancourt, under the name of Mr Boulanger, considerably increased our knowledge of its properties; and Mr Scheele seems to have exhausted the subject. The only thing remaining is to endeavour to discover the nature of the fluoric radical, of which we cannot hitherto form any ideas, as the acid does not appear to have been decomposed in any experiment. It is only by means of compound ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... fight of it. There would be the Duke and the Duchess and that prig Mistletoe, and that idle ass Lord Augustus, and that venomous old woman her mother, all at him. He almost doubted whether a shooting excursion in Central Africa or a visit to the Pampas would not be the best thing for him. But still, though he should resolve to pass five years among the Andes, he must answer the lady's ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... my heart inclines to this cook, and meseems he hath lost a child, so let us enter and gladden his soul by partaking of his hospitality. Perhaps God may requite us our kindness to him by reuniting us with my father." "By Allah!" replied the eunuch, "it were a fine thing for a Vizier's son to eat in a cookshop! Indeed, I keep off the folk with this stick, lest they look too closely on thee, and I dare not let thee enter a shop." When Bedreddin heard these words, he wondered and turned to the eunuch, with the tears running ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... Armande. "Oh, Chesnel, no one but you would think of such a thing!" she added, with a withering look; before such a look from a woman's eyes no mortal can stand. "There is but one crime that a noble can commit—the crime of high treason; and when he is beheaded, the block is covered with a black cloth, as it ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... stay until they chose to give it to us, and take it out of the rent. This letter evidently tickled one of the clerks in the agent's office to such an extent that he called Aubrey up by telephone and said he had done the only thing possible under the circumstances to bring the company to book. This approval pleased Aubrey, and he asked the man's name. ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... management it reached a greater pitch of prosperity and success than it ever enjoyed either before or since—greater, in fact, than any journal had hitherto attained. One of the chief reasons of this success was that he printed the night's debates in his next morning's issue, a thing which had never before been accomplished or even attempted. Another secret of Perry's success was the wonderful tact with which, while continuing to be thoroughly outspoken and independent, he yet contrived—with one exception, hereafter to be noticed—to steer ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... this feeling was the letter of M. Sarot, directed to the editor of the Journal of the National Assembly, and scattered through France. M. Sarot is hardly able to contain himself as he anticipates the prosperity and glory that this issue of paper is to bring to his country. One thing only vexes him, and that is the pamphlet of M. Bergasse against the assignats; therefore it is after a long series of arguments and protestations, in order to give a final proof of his confidence in the paper money and his entire ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White

... comes back to me, my lamb," she sobbed. "He's just the same, only older. Hard and kind and generous and never understanding a thing that mattered to your poor, beautiful mother. Oh! she was glad to go at the end, but for leaving you. Dear lady!—all borne to pay your father's debts, which Mr. Anderton had took up. I can't never forgive him quite—I ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... Duke took on himself to examine into, and, as he could not understand what he saw, and knew not what to look at, nothing was examined into at all. Everyone's mind was, in fact, so much absorbed by the spiritual side of the thing that they could not attend to vulgar commonplaces. Don Quixote, when he set out on his expedition, and forgot money and a change of linen, was not in a state of wilder exaltation than Catholic Europe at ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... strength, dexterity, or speed, To him nor vanity nor joy could bring. His heart, from cruel sport estranged, would bleed To work the woe of any living thing, By trap, or net; by arrow, or by sling: Those he detested; those he scorn'd to wield; He wish'd to be the guardian, not the king, Tyrant far less, or traitor of the field. And sure the sylvan reign unbloody joy ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... Love, and love truly and long,—even for ever; and if you can do other things well, do them; but if not, at least learn to do that, for it is a very gentle thing and sweet in the learning. Some of you laugh at me, and say, Behold, this old-fashioned driveller, who does not even know that love is no longer in the fashion! By Saint Peter, Heaven will soon be out of the fashion too, and Messer Satanas will rake in the just and ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... of 'spiritualism' broke out in the United States (1848-1852) students of classical literature perceived that spiritualism was no new thing, but a recrudescence of practices familiar to the ancient world. Even readers who had confined their attention to the central masterpieces of Greek literature recognised some of the revived 'phenomena'. The 'Trance Medium,' the 'Inspirational Speaker' was a reproduction of the maiden with ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... address," interrupted the diva, hastily. The duke's bristling beard for one thing and the ice in the other man's tones for another, disquieted her. The play had gone far enough, much as she would have liked to continue it. This was going deeper than she cared to go. She gave the address and added: "To-night she sings at the Austrian ambassador's. I give you this information ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... interesting field to the expert in selecting and hybridising. For past achievements we are indebted to the untiring labours of specialists, and to their continued efforts we look for further results. Whether the future may have in store greater changes than have already been witnessed none can tell. One thing only is certain, that finality is unattainable, and the knowledge of this fact adds to the charm of a fascinating pursuit. Happily, innovations are no longer received with the suspicion or hostility they formerly encountered. In gardens conducted with a spirit of enterprise ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... and the King's daughter did not know in the least whither they went; but after a long, long time they came to a gold wood. It was so grand, the gold dropped from every twig, and all the trees, and boughs, and flowers, and leaves, were of pure gold. Here, too, the same thing happened as had happened in the silver wood and copper wood. The Bull told the King's daughter she mustn't touch it for anything, for there was a Troll with nine heads who owned it, and he was much bigger and stouter than both the others put together; and he didn't think he could ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... moral and religious influence Puritanism was of the utmost importance in moulding the English—and American—character and it was, take it all in all, a noble thing. If it has been justly blamed for a certain narrowness in its hostility, or indifference, to art and refinement, it more than compensated for this by the moral earnestness that it impressed on the people. To bring the genius of the Bible into English life and ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... just the same thing in comparing the various dead and living languages that have developed from a common primitive tongue. If we examine our genealogical tree of the Indo-Germanic languages in this light, we see at once that all the older or parent tongues, of which we regard the ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... wrote an old-time colleague, "I shall not have a white-haired woman on the platform with me, and I shall be alone there of all the pioneer workers. Always with the 'old guard' I had perfect confidence that the wise and right thing would be said. What a platform ours then was of self-reliant strong women! I felt sure of you all.... I can not feel quite certain that our younger sisters will be equal to the emergency, yet they are each and all valiant, earnest, and talented, and will soon be left to ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... murdered her who was dearest to me!" He bore the remains of Opuna into the Marai on the Bay of Karekakua, and there remained a long time sunk in the deepest grief. At length he determined to quit the islands, where every thing reminded him of the happiness he had enjoyed with his beloved wife. The people were overwhelmed with sorrow by the communication of his intention; and he endeavoured to console them with the promise that he would one day return on a floating island, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... seen a strange thing," said her bull husband. "The people's medicine is strong. He whom we trampled to death, whom our hoofs cut to pieces and mixed all up with the soil, is alive again. Now you shall go to your home, but before ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell

... The dancing went on with spirit, and after a while even the fellows who took this honorary guard of Nolan ceased to fear any contretemps. Only when some English lady—Lady Hamilton, as I said, perhaps—called for a set of "American dances," an odd thing happened. Everybody then danced contra-dances. The black band, nothing loath, conferred as to what "American dances" were, and started off with "Virginia Reel," which they followed with "Money-Musk," which, in its turn in those days, should have been followed by "The Old Thirteen." But just ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... it, Mr. Carrington," she said, appealingly. "Save him from it, and let me have a little happiness in this weary world, if such a thing ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... artist, and calling to mind a more famous type, we see that Wagner is not at all unlike Demosthenes: in him also we have the terrible earnestness of purpose and that strong prehensile mind which always obtains a complete grasp of a thing; in him, too, we have the hand's quick clutch and the grip as of iron. Like Demosthenes, he conceals his art or compels one to forget it by the peremptory way he calls attention to the subject he treats; and yet, like ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... value, but then that, as we have already said, was in the manners of the time. All people in those days with any pretensions to use their minds, wrote and talked in a superfine ethical manner, and violently translated the dictates of sensibility into formulas of morality. The important thing to remark is not that this semi-didactic strain is present, but that there is much less of it, and that it takes a far more subordinate place, than the subject and the reigning taste would have led us to expect. It is true, also, that Rousseau declared his intention in the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... glaikit thing! It 's a' that Geordie Young; The Laird has no an e'e like him, Nor the minister ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... There was another thing that the young man was very anxious to know, and that was whether her motive was mischief or kind intent when she called on him; and like the straightforward individual that he was, ...
— Three People • Pansy

... merinos was affectionately put on; her single pair of white stockings; shoes, ruffle, cape Ellen saw that all was faultlessly neat, just as her mother used to have it; and the nice blue hood lay upon the bed ready to be put on the last thing, when she heard her aunt's ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... steel, much of our mining, oil, and forest exploitation, all of which, in connection with railways, take on inevitably the form of monopoly, we have the whole buccaneer-group that has done upon our politics the deadly work, which we know so well that its retelling is a thing to avoid ...
— The Conflict between Private Monopoly and Good Citizenship • John Graham Brooks

... dreadful of fates. He was a good swimmer, and those who knew him best asserted that he would swim to the last. For my part, I almost hoped that the poor fellow had been stunned, and would thus have sunk at once, and been saved the agony of despair he must be feeling were he still alive. Of one thing I felt sure, from the course we had steered, that we were close to the spot where he had fallen. Anxiously we waited,—minute after minute passed by,—still no sound was heard; not a speck could be seen to indicate his position. At least half ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... important thing that happened, of historical interest, when Jefferson was Secretary of State, was the origination of the Republican, or Democratic party, as it was afterwards called, in opposition to the Federal party, led by Hamilton, Jay, and Gouverneur Morris, Of this new party Jefferson was the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... that he, Old Rattler, was wide awake, and whoever stepped on him would better look out. Then all the big beasts and little beasts who heard the noise fled away just as fast as ever they could; and to run away was the best thing they could do, for when Old Rattler struck one of them with his fangs all was over with him. So there were many in the canon, beasts and birds and snakes too, who hated Old Rattler, but only a few dared face him. And one of these was Glittershield, whom men call the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... repaired to her. Several of them, without any ceremony, went on board; drew their knives; made signs to the officer and people on deck to keep off; and began to look about them for plunder. The first thing they met with was the rudder of one of the boats, which they threw over-board to those of their party who had remained in the canoes. Before they had time to find another object that pleased their fancy, the crew were alarmed, and began to come ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... now only two case forms of English nouns,—one for the nominative and objective, one for the possessive: consequently the matter of inflection is a very easy thing to handle in learning ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... I am sure too o' that, for the prayers of the minister and my dear mistress could na' have been offered in vain, and though I am but an humble woman, it is the chief thing I ask o' God, and I ken He ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston

... this part according to its proper virtue must be perfect happiness: and that this energy is contemplative has been stated. This also would seem to agree with what was said before, and with the truth: for this energy is the noblest; since the intellect is the noblest thing within us, and of subjects of knowledge, those are noblest with which the intellect ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... in the Grail pilgrim robe, I discern Gurnemanz; his hair is white; he stoops with years; a rude hut is hard by. Presently a groan arrests his attention, moaning as of a human thing in distress. He clears away some brushwood, and beneath it finds, waking from her long trance, the strange figure of Kundry. For how many years she has slept we know not. Why is she now recalled to life? ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis



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