"Lief" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 103: That is, the page is to greet the lady as many times as there are knots in nets for the hair (kell), or merchants going to dear (leeve, lief) London, or thoughts of the heart, or schoolmasters in all schoolhouses. These multiplied and comparative greetings are common in folk-lore, particularly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... up his fists and edged up to Mr. Hardhand, fully determined to execute his threat if he repeated the offensive expression, or any other of a similar import. He was roused to the highest pitch of anger, and felt as though he had just as lief die as live in defence of ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... "Sure you just as lief? Well, I don't s'pose you would be afraid now, after I've been there with ye to show you there wasn't nothin' nor nobody there, an' I 'low I'd ought to be back soon's I can," responded ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... give us any more science!" cried Sam. "We get enough of science from, Uncle Randolph, with his scientific farming, fowl-raising, and the like. I would just as lief fly an ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... stehn, Rslein auf der Heiden, War so jung und morgenschn, Lief er schnell, es nah zu sehn, Sah's mit vielen Freuden. 5 Rslein, Rslein, Rslein rot, Rslein auf ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... she said proudly, "I would rather it was told than go in terror of the Dawsons. I had as lief trust the world as ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... (and he had a free hand) at their charges? Was he not befriended by our minister at Madrid, Mr. Villiers, subsequently Earl of Clarendon in the peerage of England? It must be true: and yet at this moment I would as lief read a chapter of the 'Bible in Spain' as I would 'Gil Bias'; nay, I positively would give the preference to Senor Giorgio. Nobody can sit down to read Borrow's books without as completely forgetting himself as if he were a boy in the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the exclamation. She resented his future ownership of her shop. She thought he was come to play the landlord, and she determined to let him see that her mood was independent and free, that she would as lief give up the business as keep it. In particular she meant to accuse him of having deliberately deceived her as to his intentions on ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... counting them over, and putting aside the sum he meditated devoting to Warner's relief. "But how," he muttered, "how to get him to take the gold. I know, by myself, what a gentleman and a knight's son must feel at the proffer of alms—pardie! I would as lief Alwyn had struck me as offered me his gipsire,—the ill-mannered, affectionate fellow! I must ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to make a cast correctly: the fly went over the fish's nose; he rose; I hooked him, and he was a great silly brute of a grayling. The grayling is the deadest-hearted and the foolishest-headed fish that swims. I would as lief catch a perch or an eel as a grayling. This is the worst of it—this ambition of the duffer's, this desire for perfection, as if the golfing imbecile should match himself against Mr. Horace Hutchinson, or as the sow of the Greek proverb challenged ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... drive At random, and not steer by rule. Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain 15 Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive, We rush by coasts where we had lief remain; Man cannot, though he would, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... I don't want any doctor. I had as lief die as not, I'm so miserable; beside, if I hadn't, Dr. Coachey would kill me, poking and preaching over me. Oh, if George was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Children accept all statements so implicitly, and, with their quick-working wits, they reason so straight-forwardly, that the application when voiced comes at times with a bang sufficient to take one's breath away. Given this and that, however, an application is unavoidable. As lief set fire behind powder in a gun and expect there will be no report. A mite of five, thus, will on occasion utter a syllogism that would not discredit a professor of logic, or will put a question to which a whole college of theologians might not venture an answer. A little lady of my acquaintance ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... offspring of Scyld in the parts of the Scede-lands. Such wise shall a youngling with wealth be a-working 20 With goodly fee-gifts toward the friends of his father, That after in eld-days shall ever bide with him, Fair fellows well-willing when wendeth the war-tide, Their lief lord a-serving. By praise-deeds it shall be That in each and all kindreds a man shall have thriving. Then went his ways Scyld when the shapen while was, All hardy to wend him to the lord and his warding: Out then did they bear him ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... off 'cross the fields from mornin' to night—an' nobody to need her there nor here, nor anywhere. No wonder she looks peaked. Sometimes when I see her set and stare off, so sort o' dull and hopeless, I'm so sorry for her I could cry! Good land! I'd as lief hire somebody to chew my vittles for me and give me the dry cud to live off of, as do the way those kind of ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... clinging fast to her mother's hand. "Poh! if I was afraid of a cow I'd be a cow—ard. I'd as lief he'd see me as not, if you'll shake your parasol ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... such pow'r and such a world my own, I would not take it from a woman's hand. Fame is my mistress, madam, and my sword The only friend I ever wooed her with. I hate all honours smelling of the distaff, And, by this light, would as lief wear a spindle Hung round my neck, as thank a lady's hand For any ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... before him, his head on his breast. "Benoni," I continued, "has made up his mind to succeed. He has probably taken this fancy into his head out of pure wickedness. Perhaps he is bored, and really wants a wife. But I believe he is a man who delights in cruelty, and would as lief break the contessina's heart by getting rid of you as by marrying her." I saw that he was ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... this sort of praise, And he longed to be back with his out-o'-door days, With his feet in the grass and his back to a tree, Rhyming and tinkering, fameless and free. He said so one day to the Mayor of Quog, And declared he'd as lief live the life ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... then, good-bye, Betsy Jane, my beauty; dear you are to me as the child of a man's age; may y'ur old timbers find a soft and easy restin' place in their last berth? And if it warn't for the old 'oman and the lasses ashore there, I'd as lief go down with thee as ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... laughed with cheerful resignation. She would as lief report that reply of his as another. Even more than a man whom she could entangle in his speech she liked a man who could slip through the toils with unfailing ease. Her talk with such a man was the last consolation which remained to her from a ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... as lief;" and Gypsy looked a little, a very little, as if she hadn't just as lief at all. "You see, 'in the first place and commencing,' as Winnie says, Joy wanted to take him. Now, she doesn't know anything about that child, not a thing, and if she'd taken him to places as much as I have, and had to ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Luzon. His band had as lief appear in one province where it was least expected as make a descent upon another that was preparing to resist it. It burned a sugar-mill in Batangas and destroyed the crops, on the following day it murdered the Justice of the Peace of Tiani, and on the ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... noble knight: For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again [6] As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, [7] Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, How curiously and strangely chased, he ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... are frank and truthful and animated by spontaneous passion and pervaded by the quality of beauty. I hate the vulgar sexual intriguer, man or woman, and the smart and shallow atmosphere of unloving lust and vanity about the type as I hate few kinds of human life; I would as lief have a polecat in my home as this sort of person; and every sort of prostitute except the victim of utter necessity I despise, even though marriage be the fee. But honest lovers should be I think a charge ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... detest a man who fancies himself a head and shoulders above the rest of his kind," said that young lady vehemently; "you'll generally find out he don't amount to a row of pins. My! ain't I glad I'm not going to live with him. I would as lief go to Bible-class every day of the week. I'll bet my bottom dollar Bella'll see the mistake she's made before she's many weeks older. There's a chip of the old block about that young woman, for all her baby ways and her ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... I told you, Mr. Randolph, I would as lief not have a child as not have her mind me. She shall do what I bid her, if ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... warned Holt sharply. "Better throw your hands up. You reach for the stars, too, Holway. No monkey business, do you hear? I'd as lief blow a hole through you ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... These "bush-lancers" were of three kinds: There were some who sought by running away with their cattle to escape commando duty, others who hoped by retaining their cattle to obtain a large profit on them after the War was over, while others were so attached to their cattle that they would as lief have lost their own lives as have suffered their cattle to be taken. All three classes of "bush-lancers" contrived to supply us with adequate stores of food. Often, however, it was a difficult task to get ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... say!" half shrieked Peters. "I'm starving! I'd as lief die one way as another; but before I die you'll pay ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... the discretion of spirittes, and so reull yow in all your actlonis and interprisis that in yow GOD may be glorified, His church edified, and ye your self as a livelie member of the sam[e] may be an exempill and mirroure of vertew and of godlie Lief till others. ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... has the very hardest heart on earth; I had as lief turn to the Friar's school And knock for entrance, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... that youre the awkardest green 'un that ever straddled a boats thwart. Them that likes you for a shipmate, may sail with you and no thanks; but dam'me if I even walk on the lake shore in your company. For why? youd as lief drown a man as one of them there fish; not to throw a Christian creature so much as a ropes end when he was adrift, and no life-buoy in sight! Natty Bumppo, give us your fist. Theres them that says youre an Indian, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... than it was this afternoon," she said. "If this is spring, I'd just as lief have winter. I tell you what it is, Delia, it won't take me long to tumble into bed. I'm frozen stiff already. I hope you locked up before you came out, so all we'll have to do will be to go upstairs. I hate to ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... yarn would have sounded decently well in the circumstances for which it was intended, but in the searching gaze of the eyes now confronting and clearly recognizing him, it sounded so grotesque that de Spain would fully as lief have been sitting between his horse's legs as ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... all that sort of thing, I'd as lief have let it alone, if it was to cost a bullet through me, Muster Merry," he answered. "But I'd have been main glad if the mounseers had just shot me instead of you. It wouldn't have done me no harm ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... never want to ride any horse that any of you cowboys give me, for you're all bad, and you haven't any consideration for a woman and you'd as lief see a woman throwed off and ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... slight difference in his mind between her and a bona fide intelligent child was proved by that fact that he would just as lief that Philip had not interrupted them just then: though the interruption was done with all Philip's ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... grave for two,' he shouted. 'You try me too far—your infernal officiousness—go! It is useless to oppose my wishes here.' Which was obvious. The foresters, lithe and strong as panthers, waited only the orders of their master. They needed but a word, and would as lief have buried two dead men as one in the grave under the torn pines. You may find the same type in the mountains of Austria, where a poaching affray means a vendetta, and the game laws are framed ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... were to stay at several of their friends' and relatives' houses on the way; a week or more would have been taken up on the journey. I cannot say that I regret having missed this ordeal; I would as lief have walked among red-hot plough-shares; but I do regret one great treat, which I shall now miss. Next Wednesday is the anniversary dinner of the Royal Literary Fund Society, held in Freemasons' Hall. Octavian Blewitt, the secretary, offered me a ticket for the ladies' gallery. I should have seen ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... on the Sokee river. They could never make much out of the place, I know; for what it had good in it was pretty much cleaned out of it when I was there, and I know it can't get better, seeing that gold is not like trees, to grow out every year. Well, as I say, George Dexter, who would just as lief do wrong as right, and a great deal rather, got tired, as well as all his boys, of working for the fun of the thing only; and so, hearing as I say of our good luck, what did they do but last night come quietly down upon our trace, and when Jones, the old man we kept there as ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... up now with my high shoes, and don't mind buttoning in bits of flesh as you did last time. I'd just as lief be left out. See here, Mury, I want everything put back in its place after I'm gone! I hate to find a muss when I get back, and that blue muslin has got to be pressed out for to-night, and those bits of lace washed, and ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... kindly, sir, but I'd as lief stand on my own bottom. I dunnot stomach the notion of having favour curried for me, by one as doesn't know the ins and outs of the quarrel. Meddling 'twixt master and man is liker meddling 'twixt husband and wife than aught else: it takes a deal o' wisdom for to do ony good. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... envied that other men should more achieve in middle-earth of fame under heaven than he himself. — "Art thou that Beowulf, Breca's rival, who emulous swam on the open sea, when for pride the pair of you proved the floods, and wantonly dared in waters deep to risk your lives? No living man, or lief or loath, from your labor dire could you dissuade, from swimming the main. Ocean-tides with your arms ye covered, with strenuous hands the sea-streets measured, swam o'er the waters. Winter's storm rolled the rough waves. In realm ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... pouts Milly. "Stupid humdrum business! Do but think, to wed a man that dwelleth the next door, which thou hast known all thy life! Why, I would as lief not be wed at ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... diminish energy after favorable judgment on a project has been passed. It does not imply indifference or any lack of devotion; it merely favors the subordination of enthusiasm to insight, and delays expression of the former till the latter has given lief. The result is likely to be greater and better sustained effort than otherwise, because the tested excellence of the cause must be a source of inspiration and will help to carry one through discouraging intervals. Washington and Lincoln were both distinguished for freedom from blind prejudices ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... "you clever hussy! It's well our plans are altered. If Rich not only offered thee an engagement but made love into the bargain then the fat would be in the fire. He hath a termagant of a wife. She'd as lief scratch your face as look at you. But thank the Lord ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... Suppose I loved you yet! Suppose I hated my fate! What can I do? I am broken by the war. I have lost everything almost. I had as lief be dead and ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the empty shelvin', and a-rubbin' his hands and smilin' as confident-like as old Hoyle hisse'f,—"Yes, indeed, I'd be glad to give the gentleman" (meanin' Wes) "a' idy er two about Checkers—ef he'd jest as lief,—'cause I reckon ef there're any one thing 'at I do know more about 'an another, it's Checkers," says he; "and there're no game 'at delights me more—pervidin', o' course, I find a competiter 'at kin ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... of our degree Not to be cursed with such invidious insight, Remember that you stand, you and your fancy, Now in his house; and since we are together, See for yourself and tell me what you see. Tell me the best you see. Make a slight noise Of recognition when you find a book That you would not as lief read upside down As otherwise, for example. If there you fail, Observe the walls and lead me to the place, Where you are led. If there you meet a picture That holds you near it for a longer time Than you are sorry, you may call it yours, And hang it in the dark of ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... merchant dumb for some moments. He would quite as lief have been confronted with a robber, ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... "I'd just as lief," said Eunice, going to the bow, and putting her fingers in her ears, and burying her head in ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... as lief be a farmer as anything else," said Mr. Haye, "if I had happened to be born in that line. It's as good a way of life ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... that I did not do my part toward effecting a reform that I think the community requires, because I did not see that the whole world was going with me. I do not wait for that. I am frequently in minorities. I would as lief be there as anywhere else, provided I see that I am right; and I do not wait for the majority to go with me when I think a proposition is right. Therefore I shall vote for this amendment if nobody else votes for it, trusting that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... ready with a bolt, Readily and anon, He set the Monk tofore the breast To the ground that he can gone. Of fifty-two wight young yeomen There abode not one; Save a little page and a groom To lead the somers with Little JOHN. They brought the Monk to the lodge door, Whether he were loth or lief, For to speak with ROBIN HOOD, Maugre in their teeth. ROBIN did adown his hood, The Monk when that he see, The Monk who was not so courteous His hood then let he be. "He is a churl, Master! by dear-worthy ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... soul. It shook her. Never the same woman from that hour, I do b'lieve. Though I'd as lief you didn't mention it, friends, if I may say so; for ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... surmise Of sympathy for others' woe, And made his every fibre flow In fairer curves. On brow and chin And tinted cheek, drawn clean and thin, She sculptured records rich, great Grief! She made him loving, made him lief. ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... truth was declaring itself, and the conspiracy was formed. I am inclined to think that Shakspeare has been right in his conception of the plot. "I do fear the people choose Caesar for their king," says Brutus. "I had as lief not be, as live to be in awe of such a thing as I myself," says Cassius.[171] It had come home to them at length that Caesar was to be ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... 'I'd as lief that it hadn't been,' said Jim Clarke. 'If the pa'son should see him a trespassing here in his tower, 'twould be none the better for we, seeing how 'a do hate chapel-members. He'd never buy a tub of us again, and he's as good a customer as we have ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... proud of our big white team as it came prancing down the hill, and the gleaming patent leather trimmings, and the brass side lamps shining in the sun. Father sat very straight, driving rather fast, as if he would as lief get it over with, and instead of riding on the back seat, where mother always sat, the teacher was in front beside him, and she seemed to be talking constantly. We looked at each other and groaned when father stopped at the hitching post and got out. If we had tried ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... of living. It's been a great strain and labour for me. I think I'd as lief be with God as with men. And you see, I were fond on him ever sin' he were a little lad, and told me what hard times he had at school, he did, just as if I were his brother! I loved him next to Molly Greaves. ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... adjectival surnames which are not immediately recognizable. Bolt, when not local (Chapter XIII) is for bold, Leaf is imitative for lief, i.e. dear. Dear itself is of course hopelessly mixed up with Deer... The timorous-looking Fear is Fr. le fier, the proud or fierce. Skey is an old form of shy; Bligh is for Blyth; Hendy and Henty ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... mean it was of Frank to try to get him out of the club; how hypocritical he was, to treat him as a friend when he meant to injure him. It did not occur to him that Tim had told a falsehood, though it was generally believed that he had as lief tell a lie as ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... nice bits would the old man git wasn't it for you and Miss Eulie. Then I watch the good people goin' to church. 'Mazin' few out wet Sundays. But no doubt they've all got the 'sperit' to go. They would jist as lief be sawn in two pieces 'in sperit' as not, if they can only sleep late in the mornin' and have a good dinner and save their Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes from gettin' wet. It must be so, for the Lord gets mighty little worship out of the ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... you like, dad,' says Marilla, who couldn't keep her feet on the floor from joy. 'Of course you know what to select. I'd just as lief it was a piano or ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... me to make it up with Carlisle. I have refused every body else, but I can't deny her any thing;—so I must e'en do it, though I had as lief 'drink up Eisel—eat a crocodile.' Let me see—Ward, the Hollands, the Lambs, Rogers, &c. &c.—every body, more or less, have been trying for the last two years to accommodate this couplet quarrel to no purpose. I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Conrad has got a lot of notions that nobody can understand. You ought to see the church he goes to when he does go. I'd about as lief go to a Catholic church myself; I don't see a bit o' difference. He's the greatest crony with one of their preachers; he dresses just like a priest, and he says he is a priest." She laughed for enjoyment of the fact, and her brother ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... roads in spring, snow-drifts in winter, heats in summer; could not get the horses out of a walk. But we found out that the air and earth were full of electricity; and it was always going our way,—just the way we wanted to send. Would he take a message? Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; would carry it in no time. Only one doubt occurred, one staggering objection,—he had no carpet-bag, no visible pockets, no hands, not so much as a mouth, to carry a letter. But, after ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... repeating that, they were encouraged to ask from God whatever they wanted, and were never reproved, however strange or incongruous their supplications might be. Saunders simply told them that if what they asked was not for their good they would not get it—a fact which, he said, "they had as lief learn sune as syne." ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... to quiet down. Jee-rusalem! but she wer goin' to have the cap'en up on court-martial, an' the steward tarred and feathered, an' the Lord knows what! Then, too, ther wer that b'y of hern, squalling like a frog in a fit, the durned young imp, I'd lief have skinned him! If it hadn't been for your gal, they'd have raised thunder aboard, they would: you oughter be kinder proud, mister, to hev sich a sensible young woman fur yer darter! She warn't a bit skeart ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... to me to sing. I'd just as lief do it as not; only it seems foolish for me to sing when there are so many older people with better ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... vainly endeavored to discover, and in search of which, yearly, the merchants of Bristol sent expeditions, even before Columbus sailed. In his northern journey, too, some vague and formless traditions may have reached his ear of the voyages of Biorn and Lief, and of the pleasant coasts of Helleland, Markland, and Vinland that lay toward the setting sun. All were hints and rumors to bid the bold mariner sail westward, and this he at length determined to do. There is also some vague and unreliable ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... as lief Maria were to dance the tarantella Upon the quay at noonday, as to see her Gazed at ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... "I would as lief go there as anywhere else, my lady. Indeed, men say that it is a fine city, and as I have never seen a bigger town than Southampton, I doubt not that I shall find plenty to interest me at times when you may ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... neighbors' business, I know," added Mrs. Green, a little tartly; "but I can't look on and see such meanness without speaking of it. It don't make no difference who I say it to, neither; I had just as lief say it to Captain Littleton, as say it to you and your mother. That is just what I think, and I may just as well ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... began. She is half a soldier already, I tell her, and is making herself only fit to be a soldier's wife. She might have had the pick of all the young Quakers in Philadelphia; but you should have seen her turn up her pretty nose at them. "'A Quaker indeed!' quoth the little puss; 'I'd as lief marry a broomstick with a turnip for a head! Give me a man who is a man, not a puling woman ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that has been heaped upon him, as a renegade and traitor, is probably undeserved. It does not appear that he ever made any pretence of love for the Puritan commonwealth, and there were many like him who had as lief be ruled by king as by clergy. But it cannot be denied that his suppleness and sagacity went along with a moral nature that was weak and vulgar. Joseph Dudley was essentially a self-seeking politician and courtier, like his famous kinsman of the previous century, ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... had such a proclivity toward any one who would listen to his harangues; and I must say, just inter nos (the only bit of Latin I know, Lenox, I got it from the English 'Don Giovanni'), that I have quite a talent for listening well. But I'd as lief encounter a West India hurricane or a simoom. I used to feel him coming an hour beforehand. Then I would read a little in Blair, take a peep at Sir Charles Grandison, swallow half a page of Cowper's 'Task,' and look over the Grecian and Roman heroes; then I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... enough that I am not to travel with my young lady on her journey," she said; "but, so far as her way lies toward London, I am going. My sister wants me there, and I do just as lief be in a tomb as stay at Oakhurst when Lady Clara is away. So, as she is willing, I shall just leave her at the junction, and go up to London. That I can do in spite of the crabbed old thing at Houghton, who wants her at ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... if you've counted on more.' A flush ran up into his face and his eyes were inscrutable. He was conscious of being in the absurd mood to note trifles; John had come with his memoranda, John had meant to ask him for the money. 'I'd just as lief pay twenty-five hundred extra now as at any time.' And with lowered head and sputtering pen he ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... the events of that terrible night are confused in my head, and I don't know where to begin—nor what is true and what fancy, so I'd as lief say nothing about it." ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... then," said Diana suddenly. "I'll manage so as no blame shall fall on you—no one shall hear anything about you. And for myself I don't care. I'd almost as lief be in ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... hope not, for your sake, and the young lady's; but as far as we are concerned, we would as lief go round the world as anything else, though she is not a very big craft for ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... no difference," he said, as he rolled a cigarette and lighted it; "we have done all that we could. As for me, I would as lief be drowned here as outside. But I don't think that there will be much choice; we shall have no warning when she goes; ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... Mickey. "I'd just as lief be a poet-man as not! I'd write a big one all about a little yellow-haired girl named Lily Peaches, and I'd put it on the front page of the Herald! Honest I would! I'd ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... observed, 'and a woman might as well be dead at once, or mad, or a man, as have cropped hair during all the days of her youth.' I had a fellow-feeling, you see! I have magnificent hair myself, child, as Clayton well knows, for it is her chief trouble on earth, and I would almost as lief die ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... notes about it—to the damnedest pirates that ever blew up a ship. Anybody who knows the Germans knows, of course, that they are simply playing for time, that they are not going to "come down," that Von Tirpitz is on deck, that they'd just as lief have war with us as not—perhaps had rather—because they don't want any large nation left fresh when the war ends. They'd like to have the whole world bankrupt. There is a fast growing feeling here, therefore, that the American Government is pusillanimous—dallies with 'em, is affected ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... vicissitude of international war, he hoped for affirmation of a new world dictum in acknowledgment of his human qualities and worth. He did not, like Toussaint, long for the high honors of the continental emperor. He sought democratic equality, and he would as lief think of bringing the Kaiser to his level as exalting himself to the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... mistake, old man, in calling savage blood human blood, at all. I think no more of a red-skin's scalp than I do of a pair of wolf's ears; and would just as lief finger money for the one as for the other. With white people 't is different, for they've a nat'ral avarsion to being scalped; whereas your Indian shaves his head in readiness for the knife, and leaves a lock of hair by way of braggadocio, that one can lay hold ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Green-land. So glowing was his description that soon a party of men and women, with household goods and cattle, started forth in twenty-five ships to colonise the new land. Still the passion for discovery continued, and Erik's son Lief fitted out a vessel to carry thirty-five men in quest of land ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... worse now. It would look as if oi hadn't no spirit in the world, to stand being put upon and not join the others. T' other chaps scarce speak to me, and the gals turn their backs as oi pass them. Oi be willing vor to be guided by you as far as oi can; but it bain't in nature to stand this. Oi'd as lief go and hang myself. Oi would go and list tomorrow, only oi don't know what regiment you ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... that some one committed a murder in that room we can't get in, then locked it up and went away, and had the house all boarded up so it wouldn't be discovered. I've lain awake nights thinking of it. And I'd just as lief not get into ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... determined to make a kind of war upon the doctrine which seemed to underlie it. He said in effect that if he could not be restored to the pristine condition which he felt to be slipping from him he would as lief stop living. ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... word, I'd as lief starve as become a union man, and under such a master. I prize my manhood and independence above all things. I have already refused to join. I never take back what ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... suspenders on this job, boys," Webb told his men. "I'd just as lief lie up here for a few days while Uncle Sam is roundin' up his pets camped out there. Old man Roubideau says we're welcome to stick around. The feed's good. Our cattle are some gaunted with the drive. It won't hurt a mite to let 'em stay right here ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... the individual. The unit of civilization is the family. Prior to December 20, 1620, New-England life had never seen a civilized family or felt its influences. It is true that the Icelandic Chronicles tell us that Lief, the son of Eric the Red, 1001, sailed with a crew of thirty-five men, in a Norwegian vessel, and driven southward in a storm, from Greenland along the coasts of Labrador, wintered in Vineland on the shores of Mount Hope Bay. Longfellow's ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... have me! More especially as I had as lief go without my breakfast as without my newspaper; but, then, I can tell you, that there were things all the time happening there on the frontier, that many a newspaper editor would have given his scissors and easy chair to have got ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... "I would as lief have them in a gayer strain. My fondest memories are of reels I've danced to their playing," I said, and by now we were ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... just as lief tell you what, Norton; only it is something you don't care about, and it would ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... to hear that," said the mountain boy, gravely. "I told you I'd just as lief shake hand as fight.... But just now I've got to ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... You couldn't outrun a steam-roller, but if you won't duck out, I've got to do my best. I'd as lief die of a gunshot-wound as starve to death ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... young genl'man, and I'd lief have a chat we ye," answered the countryman; "my name is John Hodge, and I live in Lowley Bottom; ye knows where that ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... no end pleased. It's been his dream, you know. As far as I'm concerned I'd as lief take to ranching. I'm pretty much in love with that Texas of yours. Look at the brawn it's ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... the team tended toward the lowering of the general spirit. For he began to worry, and almost at once it influenced his playing. He found himself growing watchful of his comrades and fearful of what they might be doing. He caught himself being ashamed of his suspicions. He would as lief have cut off his hand as break his promise to the coach. Perhaps, however, he exaggerated his feeling and sense of duty. He remembered the scene in Dale's room the night he refused to smoke and drink; how Dale had commended his refusal. Nevertheless, he gathered from Dale's ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... bowe. If so be that thei come above, Whan thei ben maistres of here love, And that thei scholden be most glad, With love thei ben most bestad, So fain thei wolde it holden al. Here herte, here yhe is overal, And wenen every man be thief, To stele awey that hem is lief; 440 Thus thurgh here oghne fantasie Thei fallen into Jelousie. Thanne hath the Schip tobroke his cable, With every wynd and is muable. Mi fader, for that ye nou telle, I have herd ofte time telle Of Jelousie, bot ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... conspired, And if it prove so, sentence me to death, Not by thy voice alone, but mine and thine. But O condemn me not, without appeal, On bare suspicion. 'Tis not right to adjudge Bad men at random good, or good men bad. I would as lief a man should cast away The thing he counts most precious, his own life, As spurn a true friend. Thou wilt learn in time The truth, for time alone reveals the just; A villain ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... of that base, dishonourable Presbyterian fellow, Bridgenorth," said Sir Geoffrey; "and I would as lief think of a toad:—they say he has turned Independent, to accomplish the full degree of rascality.—I tell you, Gill, I turned off the cow-boy, for gathering nuts in his woods—I would hang a dog that would so much as kill a hare ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... and bone, from flesh and from skin.[13] [14]"Go not, Ferbaeth, till thou seest the find I have made." "Throw it then," cried Ferbaeth.[14] And Cuchulain threw the holly-spit over his shoulder after Ferbaeth, and he would as lief that it reached him or that it reached him not. The spit struck Ferbaeth in the nape of the neck,[b] so that it passed out through his [W.2192.] mouth [1]in front[1] and fell to the ground, and thus Ferbaeth ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... Greville to Drury Lane to-night, and perhaps he will eat his dinner here. He has a perfect mania for playhouses, and cannot keep out of them, and I would as lief spend my evening in hearing pretty music as ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... by which the man would as lief be known," Deborah answered grimly, "but I remember he called ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... from the distressing monetary injustice during the Revolution, with the consequent increase of debts, to a rigid enforcement of debtors' claims afterward. At this period men were imprisoned for debt, and all prisons were frightful holes, which one would as lief die as enter. Meetings were held to air the popular griefs, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... expect to find many roses in this big city," answered Ernst; "but yet I would lief get more learning than I ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... lief," says I, "I'll speak to Cousin E. E. about it; under present circumstances, a young girl like me can't be too particular. I'm told that a good many married men have got a habit of travelling toward Washington in what seems like a single state, and it's wonderful how many of ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... a certain woman whom no man that saw her could forbear to love: of her it told that erewhile she dwelt lonely in the wildwood (though how she came there was not said) and how a king's son found her there and brought her to his father's kingdom and wedded her, whether others were lief or loth: and in a little while, when the fame of her had spread, he was put out of his kingdom and his father's house for the love of her, because other kings and lords hankered after her; whereof befel long and grievous war which she abode not to the end, but sought to her old place in the wildwood; ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... Jenny, when at last the hay cart disappeared from view, and the noise and dust had somewhat subsided. Then as she saw the tears in Mary's eyes, she added, "Oh, I wouldn't care if they did teaze me about Billy Bender. I'd as lief be teazed ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... ore blew awl thyme new ate lief cell dew sell won praise high prays hie be inn ail road rowed by blue tier so all two time knew ate leaf one due sew tear buy lone hare night clime sight tolled site knights maid cede beech waste bred piece sum plum ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... is just one of those quiet, conservative, old Carolina towns where, loyal to the customs and traditions of their fathers, they would as lief white-wash what they firmly believe to be the true and natural character of General William Tecumseh Sherman as they would their own front fences. Occasionally somebody will give a backyard henhouse a needed coat or two; but a front fence? Never! It isn't the thing. ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... like a noble knight: For surer sign had followed, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing I bade thee, watch, and ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... "I would as lief fight with a troop of wild cats," exclaimed Osgod—who, as soon as he saw that there was no movement down on the plain, had run up with half his little garrison to join in the defence of the wall,—as he tried to staunch a deep wound that extended from his ear to his chin. ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... Mr. Grasper, it is all the same to me," replied Layton, indifferently. "I had as lief have your note ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... buried in the kraal,' he said one day. 'My sister Greta never had any love for me, and I had just as lief not disturb her. Put me on top of the hill there; I was always one for ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... circumlocutory antics in the human stomach, and the other in the government Bureaux at Washington. The worm that feeds on the cold meat of humanity, although the most insignificant of reptiles, has one attribute of Diety. It is no respecter of persons, and would as lief pick a bone in a royal vault as in POTTER'S Field. All flesh is the same to it—unless saturated with carbolic acid. It is said that all living things are propagated—that the process of creation ceased ages ago; ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... my bones crushed, just for the sake of giving you the job of mending them," said the old lady. "I'd as lief shake paws with a grizzly bear. You are getting to look rather like one, my poor James. I've always told you that if you would only shave, you might have a better chance—but never mind about that now. You were wanting to know where ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... folks in town, and I ought to know them all pretty well by this time. Except on Sundays, I expect they're all pretty much so. It wouldn't do to tell round, but there are some of the world's people, that I'd full as lief do business with, as with most of the professors. ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... have still extant an historical manuscript, written at all events before the year 1395, that is to say, one hundred years prior to Columbus' voyage, which contains a minute account of how a certain person named Lief, while sailing over to Greenland, was driven out of his course by contrary winds, until he found himself off an extensive and unknown coast, which increased in beauty and fertility as he descended south, and how, in consequence of the representation Lief made on his return, successive expeditions ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... accustomed task. To their remonstrances he would reply, "You see this work is promised; and if I am rich, I must keep my word. And then the habits of a lifetime are not to be given up in a day. And, to be honest with you, friends, I am in no haste to make the change. I love my work, and would as lief be sitting on this stool as ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... to that, I'd just as lief hear so many pots and pans rattled together; one noise is just as well ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... the manner in which she embraced me on my arrival, and received our guest, Captain Fagan. The poor soul looked a little anxious and flushed, and every now and then gazed very hard in the Captain's face; but she said not a word about the quarrel, for she had a noble spirit, and would as lief have seen anyone of her kindred hanged as shirking from the field of honour. What has become of those gallant feelings nowadays? Sixty years ago a man was a MAN, in old Ireland, and the sword that was worn by his side was at the service of any gentleman's ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... clothed with I don't know what bags and pouches, with long scrolls in their clutches, made us sit down upon a cricket (such as criminals sit on when tried in France). Quoth Panurge to 'em, Good my lords, I'm very well as I am; I'd as lief stand, an't please you. Besides, this same stool is somewhat of the lowest for a man that has new breeches and a short doublet. Sit you down, said Gripe-men-all again, and look that you don't make the court bid you twice. Now, continued he, the earth ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... River which in its appearance when divested of its folage, much resembles the white ash; the appearance of the wood and bark is also that of the ash. it's Stem is Simple branching and diffuse. the lief is petiolate, plane, scattered palmate lobate, divided by four deep Sinusus; the lobes are repand or terminate in from 3 to 5 accute angular points, while their margins are indented with irregular and Somewhat Circular incissures. the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... as lief take you in dead as alive. You cayn't hide behind a girl's skirts this time," continued Healy. "You've got to stand on your own legs and take what's coming. You're a bad outfit. We know you for a rustler, and that's enough. But ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... I'd as lief be before Mrs. Ericson as behind her. She does beat all! Nearly seventy, and never lets another soul touch that car. Puts it into commission herself every morning, and keeps it tuned up by the hitch-bar all ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... When have Englishmen submitted to oppression? Neither king, lords, nor commons can take away the rights of the people. It is past a doubt, too, that his Majesty, at the levee last night, laughed when he said he would just as lief fight the Bostonians as the French. I heard this speech was received with a dead silence, and that great offence was ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... your Lordship's behalfe that the Countesse is a sharpe and bitter shrewe, and therefore licke enough to shorten your lief, if shee should kepe yow company, Indeede, my good Lord, I have heard some say so; but if shrewdnesse or sharpnesse may be a juste cause of separation between a man and wiefe, I thinck fewe men in Englande would keepe their wives longe; for it is a common jeste, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was real good to write me a letter. I had just as lief kiss you as not if you wasn't my father; and aunt Madge says she'll answer it, 'cause you couldn't read my writing; but I hain't got any pig! He was a pinky winky little thing, but grandpa kept a keepin' him ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... might know that I should never give my consent to that. I should almost as lief bury you. And how can you want to leave your good home, and all your friends, to live in a ship, exposed to storms and ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... man that loved to stick round home as much as any cat you ever see in your life. He used to say he'd as lief have a tooth pulled as go away anywheres. Always got sick, he said, when he went away, and never sick when he didn't. Pretty nigh killed himself goin' about lecterin' two or three winters,—talkin' in cold country lyceums,—as he used ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... as lief say 'Miss,' but she's a mill girl, same as my own sister. I didn't go to ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... too lightly adopted by thoughtless or conscienceless physicians. This practice is much on the increase. I once heard a known obstetrician of the old school say: 'I would as lief kill, if necessary, an unborn child as a rat.' So much for the estimate he put on the value of human life! O tempora! ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... lief go to destruction as not, I do believe!" said she, looking carefully after the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... could not write so well on the Conservative side just now, because they are 'in,' and it is more blessed to abuse than to be abused, and ever so much easier. But as far as any prejudice on the subject is concerned, I have none. I had as lief defend a party that robs India 'for her own good,' as support those who would rob her with a more cynical frankness and unblushingly transfer the proceeds to their own pockets. I do not care a rush whether they rob Peter ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... like to see a play of Calderon," as if it had nothing to do with any wish of his that could still be fulfilled. "Upon this hint I acted," and in due time it was found in Washington, that the gentleman who had been offered the Spanish mission would as lief go to Austria, and Lowell was sent ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to make it up with Carlisle. I have refused every body else, but I can't deny her any thing;—so I must e'en do it, though I had as lief 'drink up Eisel—eat a crocodile.' Let me see—Ward, the Hollands, the Lambs, Rogers, &c. &c.—every body, more or less, have been trying for the last two years to accommodate this couplet quarrel to no purpose. I shall laugh if ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... stones, forming two right angles, I place my skillet, kindle under it a fire, pour into it a little sweet oil, and fry the few eggs I purchased in the village. I abominate the idea of frying eggs in water as the Americans do.[1] I had as lief fry them in vinegar or syrup, where neither olive oil nor goat-butter is obtainable. But to fry eggs in water? O the barbarity of it! Why not, my friend, take them boiled and drink a little hot water after them? This savours of originality, at least, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... this relation, after his long absence, with that coldness of civility which was peculiar to him; told him he was glad to see him, and desired him to sit down. "Thank ye, thank ye, sir, I had as lief stand," said my uncle; "for my own part, I desire nothing of you; but, if you have any conscience at all, do something for this poor boy, who has been used at a very unchristian rate. Unchristian do I call it? I am sure the Moors in Barbary have more ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... just as lief be a poet-man as not! I'd write a big one all about a little yellow-haired girl named Lily Peaches, and I'd put it on the front page of the Herald! Honest I would! I'd ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter |
