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More "Improving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that have been suggested for ameliorating the condition of Ireland, and improving the moral and social status of her people, I know of few better calculated to produce these beneficial results than that of opening good lines of road through wild and uncultivated districts, and by this means facilitating the intercourse between ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... that the systematic selection which has been employed for the purpose of improving the races of animals or plants useful to man is of comparatively recent origin, though some of the different races are known to have been in existence in very early times. But Mr. Darwin has pointed out, ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Till he ably represented Every gift the people tendered, Till the honors of his era Crowded thick and fast upon him. Early sent away to Congress, He became a rising member; Soon his voice rang forth as Chairman Of the famous Land Committee. He was foremost on committees, For improving territory; For extending roads and railways, All throughout the western nation; For constructing modes of travel, For uprooting mineral treasures, For internal State improvement. Sounded forth his clarion dicta, In wise forms of litigation: The Missouri Bill ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... next night, and they all said he was improving fast; and Mr. Alfredi told 'im in a whisper that he thought he was better at it than Kumbo. "Not that I should mind 'er knowing much," he ses, "seeing that she's took such a ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... when both of these hopes forsook him, and he found himself in what he deemed the ridiculous position of shopman to a bird-stuffer, without an influential friend in the great city, or the slightest prospect of improving his condition, he ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... is the virtuous oath by which simple people, who are improving their habits, cure themselves of a stronger epithet, as men take to flagroot who ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... as Anglo-Indian officials are the first to acknowledge, there is not a department which could be carried on to-day without the loyal and intelligent co-operation of the Indian public servant. There is room for improving the position of Indians, not only, as I have already pointed out, in the Educational Department, but probably in every branch of the "Provincial" service, which corresponds roughly with what was formerly called the "Un-covenanted" service. As far back as 1879 Lord Lytton ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... literature of the convent were improving little tales of conversion, and edifying stories of Catholic girls who decline to enter into mixed marriages, and she thought of the novices reading this artless literature on Sunday afternoons. There were endless volumes of meditations, mostly translations ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... thankful, until some light dawned on the question, that his education was not being wholly neglected, and Mr Rimbolt in particular recognised that under Jeffreys' influence and tuition the boy was improving in ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... process of time, become qualified, not only for a philosopher, but a legislator of the first water; and I had serious thoughts of offering my services, for the purpose of drawing up a code of laws, to the Otaheitans or the Calmucks. If I had gone on improving as I did, I might, perhaps, have carried out to some Backwood settlement or Atlantic island, as pretty a Utopian prescription, under the designation of a constitution, as could well be desired in the most philosophical community. But one of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... addition, if a cake is baked in layers, a filling, which may be either the same as the icing used for the covering or a mixture resembling a custard, is put between the layers to hold them together. These icings and fillings are used for the purpose of improving both the taste and the appearance of the cake, as well as for the purpose of retaining the moisture in it. Some of them are very simple, consisting merely of powdered sugar mixed with a liquid, while others are more elaborate and involve a number of ingredients. They may be spread over the cake, ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... unequivocal gusto; they likewise relished the leaves of many other trees, and even the bark of a few of the more succulent ones. A hint might possibly be taken from this circumstance for improving the regimen of monkeys in menageries, by the occasional admixture of a few fresh leaves and flowers with their solid ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... pay; to be kept till called for,'" added Mark Galloway, improving upon the suggestion. "They'd put it in their fire-proof safe, and it would never ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... slowly forward to the ro[u]ka. Scowling he ran his eye over the crowd, taking in each and every. Then his eyes fell—first on Kogiku, the harlot of the Uedaya; then on the shrinking beauty of O'Some of the Aizawaya. Shu[u]zen was improving in these days. The Ue-Sama (Sho[u]gun) spoke harshly of those retainers who made no provision for issue to support loyally the fortune of his House. Let him who would seek his lord's favour furnish forth such noble and lusty issue as in the Kamakura days, when Ho[u]jo[u] Tokimasa, Wada ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... and memory came slowly back with his improving health. There were some days when his brain clouded. Then Lucie would find him seated at his old prison bench making shoes, and she would coax him away and talk to him until the insanity would ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... commend to her prayerful contemplation the last words of our blessed Saviour to his disciples, "In my Father's house are many mansions." I go to prepare a place for you—just such a mansion—such a place as each ransomed soul, by improving the discipline of God—by holy and self-denying efforts in this life, to do his will, is fitted to fill, ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... keeping carefully aloof from all such damaging connection as the Credit Mobilier, and having its books always thrown open for public inspection, its reputation even to-day is excellent and continually improving in the popular estimation. Holding out no utopian inducements to catch the unwary, and making no wheedling promises to blind the guileless, it states its great objects with all their great advantages, without at ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... all German towns of any consequence I have ever been in, Cologne excepted, is neat and clean. It is also well-built, and evidently improving. You may have heard a good deal of the boulevards and similar places of resort, in the vicinity of French towns, but as a whole, they are tasteless and barren-looking spots. Even the Champs Elysees, at Paris, have little beauty of themselves, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... service," which is probably next in numerical importance, nor clerks; it is a comparatively small class in numbers, this class of skilled mechanical or manufacturing labor, that has brought about this immense mass of legislation of our modern States aimed at improving their own labor conditions; and which therefore, necessarily perhaps, interferes with personal liberty as to the labor contract, or, at least, ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... class of the town and to direct this taste in a familiar and pleasant manner. "The Bloomsbury Christening" cannot possibly do this. It trifles with a sacred ordinance, and the language and style, instead of improving the taste, has a ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... word sa@mskara is used by Pa@nini who probably preceded Buddha in three different senses (1) improving a thing as distinguished from generating a new quality (Sata utkar@sadhana@m sa@mskara@h, Kas'ila on Pa@nini, VI. ii. 16), (2) conglomeration or aggregation, and (3) adornment (Pa@nini, VI. i. 137, 138). In the Pi@takas the word ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... a prisoner. After a time, however, both prisoners were set free, though they were banished from court. They married and went to live at Sherborne where Raleigh busied himself improving his beautiful house and laying out the garden. For though set free Raleigh was still in disgrace. But we may believe that he found some recompense for his Queen's anger ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... a word or two on how these natural defects may, to a certain extent, be remedied artificially. It stands to reason, that if organic matter in a soil renders its absorptive power greater, a simple method of improving a soil defective in this property is by the addition of organic matter. One of the benefits of ploughing-in green crops on sandy soils is undoubtedly due to this fact; the addition of farmyard manure having also a similar effect. ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... Sunday he was better, and continued improving till Monday in the afternoon, when Lord Castlereagh insisted on seeing him, and, having obtained access to him, entered (Lord Hawkesbury being also present) on points of public business of the most serious importance (principally ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... husband, her visiters, and herself. She then portrayed the future evils which would result from such habits of neglect and inattention, and the modes of attempting to overcome them; and then offered a reward for the future, if, in a given time, she succeeded in improving in this respect. Not a tone of anger was uttered; and yet the severest scolding of a practised Xantippe could not have secured such contrition, and determination to reform, as was gained ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... seldom wished to hear any thing but newspapers, that was a diversion of his thoughts. Arthur had a clear, pleasant voice, and read very well for a child of his age; and every time he read aloud, he was improving himself in this part of education. Another pleasant change was, going to school. Arthur had dreaded this very much, because all the scholars would be strangers to him, and he had never been to school without older brothers and sisters with him. Being so shy and timid, he ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... and his life is divided between a struggle with nature and his fellow-man for the permission and the means to live, on the one hand, and seasons of idleness, empty perforce of every opportunity and every desire for improving his condition, on the other, cannot acquire the materials of a real knowledge of his physical environment. His only data for interpreting the world and the objects it contains, so far as he is acquainted with them, are his own consciousness and his own emotions. Upon these his ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... worth at this moment so much less than the land of England. Coming back to the question of buying farms, I put it to the House whether, if it be right to lend to landlords for improvements, and to tenants for improving the farms of their landlords, to those who propose to carry on public works, and to repair the ravages of the cattle plague, I ask whether it is not also right for them to lend money in cases where it may be advantageous to landlords, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... to the fact that the Cape is at that stage in its development where it is becoming widely and favorably known as a summer resort region. Its business facilities are increasing, the quality of its stores improving and from a more or less provincial community it is developing into a region second to none in prosperity along the New ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... seat in the House of Commons, in the hope of being thereby enabled to assist in improving the condition of the land of my birth. So long as I continued to believe that I could serve Ireland effectually in the House of Commons, I shrank from none of the labours which are connected with the varied functions of that assembly. ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... steps, heels over head, until he lay sprawling on the manger or mule—trough before the door, where the Ceases are fed under busha's own eye on all estates—for this excellent and most cogent reason, that otherwise the maize or guinea—com, belonging of right to poor mulo, would generally go towards improving the condition, not of the quadruped, but of the biped quashiet who had charge of him—and there he lay ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... rapidly improving. Reconnaissance yesterday to south several miles; to east to Laguna Bay; to northeast eight miles, driving straggling insurgent troops in various directions, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... for the little ones. It presents vivid pictures of New England life, and is fragrant and dewy with fresh breezes from the maple bush, the hillside, and the pasture lands. The style is excellent, and the matter as sprightly and entertaining as it is simply natural and morally improving. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... was always willing—this was the maddening part of Susanna!—to own herself entirely in the wrong, and always ended any conversation on the subject with a cheerful: "But anyway, I'm improving, you admit that, don't you, Jim? I'm not nearly as bad as ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... my second summer vac in France, partly because my mother was not well, and also because an old scheme for improving my French had been revived. When Fred and I had gone to Oxford there had been some idea of us trying for the Indian Civil Service, but for various reasons this was abandoned, and although Fred had ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... to prompt and decisive action. He intended to go off again in a few hours to Prince Albert to direct the siege against that town. Only those who had witnessed the wantonness and the capture of the "white witch" followed. Most of the rebels were too busy improving the shining hour of unlimited loot. A half-breed on one side and an Indian on the other, each with a dirty mitt on Dorothy's shoulder, led her to the Judgment Hall of the dusky prophet, Louis David Riel, "stickit priest," and now malcontent and political agitator ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... way first, and when you get a little way down, turn off that way.' 'Quite right,' I said. And at that the Lapp laughed contentedly, and said: 'There! I did not know that forty or fifty years back, so I must see better now than I used to—yes, it is improving all the time.' And then he crouched down and crept into his hut again—the same old hut, his home on earth. And he sat down by the fire as before, full of hope that in some few years he would be able to make out the sun... Eva, 'tis strange about hope. Here am I, for instance, hoping all the ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... day came Wentworth arrived without his brother, and evidently out of temper. Magdalen asked if Michael were less well, and was curtly assured that he was steadily improving. The luncheon dragged through somehow as under a cloud. Colonel Bellairs was fortunately absent on a visit to Miss Barnett at Saundersfoot. His absence was the only silver lining to the cloud. Fay hardly spoke. Magdalen was thankful that her prickly Lord ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... example: I have done the same. I find, neighbours, that our rents have doubled since my great-grandfather began to make the book. Ay,—but there are more than four times the number of labourers employed on the estate, and at much better wages too! Well, my men, that says a great deal in favour of improving property, and not letting it go to the dogs. [Applause.] And therefore, neighbours, you will kindly excuse my bobby: it carries grist to your mill. [Reiterated applause.] Well, but you will say, 'What's the squire driving at?' Why this, my friends: There was only one ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... country are improving to such an extent that the cargo of this ship bound for Nueva Espana is worth four hundred thousand pesos. It carries two thousand marcos of gold without taking into account the large quantity ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... worthless. The Japanese is doubtless quite well satisfied of the superiority of his people over the mushroom growths of western civilization, and finds no difficulty in borrowing from the latter whatever is worth reproducing, and improving on it in adapting it to his own racial needs. The Chinese do not waste their time in idle chatter over the relative status of their race as compared with the white barbarians who have intruded themselves upon ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Indian migrant labor. Bhutan's hydropower potential and its attraction for tourists are key resources; however, the government limits the number of tourists to 4,000 per year to minimize foreign influence. The Bhutanese Government has made some progress in expanding the nation's productive base and improving social welfare but growth continues to be constrained by the government's desire to protect the country's environment and cultural traditions. Growth picked up in 1995 and the country's balance of payments remained strong with comfortable reserves. The cautious fiscal stance planned ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... animals is really a very improving and wholesome kind of life, to the person who will allow himself to be influenced by their sensible and high-minded ideals. When you come to think about it, man is really the only animal that ever makes a fool ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... a scientific inference, based on facts so numerous as not to admit of serious question, that during the history of our globe there has been a continually improving development of life. As ages upon ages pass, new forms are generated, higher in the scale than those which preceded them, until at length reason appears and asserts its sway. In a recent well-known work Alfred Russel ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... the table of a person of distinction in the neighborhood, where he had an opportunity of showing in how decent and graceful a manner he could unite the Christian and the gentleman, and give conversation an improving and religious turn, without violating any of the rules of polite behaviour, or saying or doing any thing, which looked at all constrained or affected. Here we took our last embrace, committing each other ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... the Cathedral, to see some thirty odd sedan chairs on the one side, and I suppose as many on the other, each with two, three, and some with four coolies in gorgeous liveries in attendance, all waiting the closing of prayers, lying in the shade, and some of them improving the opportunity to enjoy a quiet gamble with dice this fine Sunday morning. It did not seem to me to be quite consistent for some of my Scotch friends who stand so stoutly for Sabbath observance to keep so many human beings on duty, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... see me; she took hold of me by both hands. She said: "My dear child, you are improving. You were wretchedly thin when I saw you last. Now you are almost as well-developed as your sister. I think you are prettier than your sister." Mr. didn't agree to that. He and his wife began to ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... said, "the nation will form some conception of the extent of the debt which we owe the American Navy for the manner in which it has co-operated, not only in connection with the convoy system, but in fighting the submarines. If the naval position is improving to-day, as it is, it is due to the fact that the British and American fleets are working in closest accord, supported by an immense body of skilled workers on both sides of the Atlantic, who are turning out destroyers ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... was decidedly improving, I now attempted a "spirt," or what was one for me.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... nice enough when it was newly pasted, but after a time nothing remained of kingfisher green. In this court too there are no peach or apricot trees and these bamboos already are green in themselves, so were this shade of green gauze to be put up again, it would, instead of improving matters, not harmonise with the surroundings. I remember that we had at one time four or five kinds of coloured gauzes for sticking on windows, so give her some to-morrow to change ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... men said the king intended to promote laws which would do good. Anyway, the king's interest did make his subjects happier, and the officers of state became very busy with projects and schemes for improving trade, providing work and ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... Lord Scrope of Bolton, and was born at Kirby Wiske, near Northallerton, in 1515. At the age of fifteen he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where he applied himself to Greek and Latin, mathematics, music, and penmanship. He had great success in teaching and improving the study of the classics; but seems to have had a somewhat checkered academic career, both as student and teacher. His poverty was excessive, and he made many unsuccessful attempts to secure patronage and position; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... time an action had been brought against me, in the name of my landlord, Parson Williams, of Whitchurch, of whom I had rented Cold Henly Farm for three years, at a loss of about two thousand pounds, which I sunk in cleaning and improving the estate. When Mr Cobbett fled from England to go to America, in 1817, some of the Winchester attorneys and parsons openly said that they "had driven Cobbett out of the country, and they would try hard to make me follow him." They were as good as ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... having done but little more than cut the timber out and remove impassable obstructions. We crossed high and rugged mountains, and forded dangerous streams. But in the West the people are waking up to the importance of improving the public roads. The abundant natural wealth of that country, when properly developed by wise industry, will respond in such lavish abundance that there will be no lack of means to build the best of roads, and in every respect to raise the country generally to that state of beauty by high culture, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... while his health was steadily improving. The menace of consumption was removed; and though he suffered from severe attacks of pain in the side, the cause of this persistent malady does not seem to have been ascertained. At Naples he was under treatment for disease of the liver. Afterwards, his ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... measure. His marriage had so far been a total failure, a source of bitter regret; and the only course for improving his case, that of leaving the country, was a sorry, and possibly might not be a very effectual one. Do what he would, his domestic sky was likely to be overcast to the end of the day. Thus he brooded, and his resentment gathered force. He craved a means of striking one blow back at the cause of his ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... has been so impressed with the importance of improving the condition of the people, of increasing the wealth of the nation, of enriching both tenant and landlord, by draining the land, that the history of her legislation, in aid of such operations, affords a lesson of progress even to fast ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... a few hints upon his interpreter.[268] In 1796, Bentham writes long letters suggesting that he should be sent to France with Wilberforce, in order to re-establish friendly relations.[269] In 1798 he is corresponding at great length with Patrick Colquhoun upon plans for improving the Metropolitan police.[270] In 1801 he says[271] that for two years and a half 'he has thought of scarce anything else' than a plan for interest-bearing notes, which he carefully elaborated and discussed with Nicholas Vansittart and ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... "improve" the roads and ponds on my property on the principle on which France has been "improving" her railway systems and her ports, I should bring up in bankruptcy. Where else can the country bring up? Nothing, so far, has saved us but the woollen stocking of the peasants. Come to my place in Picardy, and I will show you a dozen old fellows who go ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... her disappointment. Prudence had told her the contents of the letter, and also her mother's wishes on the subject. Alice was naturally too cheerful to think much of the matter; besides, she was glad that Robb's business was improving. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... They have now been embodied for two months, and I am expressing the considered opinion of one of the most eminent Generals when I say that the divisions now in camp in various parts of the country, and improving every day in efficiency, have completely justified their title to play any part that may be assigned to them, either in home defense, in the manning of our garrisons, or in the battle lines at ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... indulgent father and mother, who fondly believed that she was perfect, readily consented to her improving her talent under the teaching of the great artist, and she made rapid progress in her art. But this was not the chief result of her lessons. Slowly she became infatuated with the personality of Custance, while he, having begun to play the ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... up at night, and if called were fearfully cross. At one time I had a fierce contest with a surgeon of this kind, and fought it out, coming off victorious. I was called up one night to see a patient who had required and received the closest attention, but who was, we hoped, improving. Finding him apparently dying, I sent at once for Doctor ——, meanwhile trying, with the help of the nurse, every means to bring back warmth to his body, administering stimulants, rubbing the extremities with mustard, and applying mustard-plasters. ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... and the king had just put upon their plates some of the appetizing pate de foie gras which the master of ceremonies himself had served up, and were proceeding like other mortals to consume them with great relish. The cavaliers, improving the opportune moment of silence, stood about the room and partook of the viands taken from the sideboard. Suddenly this silence was interrupted by a voice which was not uttered in the room itself, but swept through it like the blast of a trumpet: "If ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... in their proper places. They're rejected. I have accepted two out of fifty or more. The American author sends tons to the literary mill, but it grinds out but a few pounds. But the novices are improving. They will yet lead the world, for we have a new country full of God's wonderful works, and a composite population whose loves and hates reproduce in new scenes all the passions of the Old World. They are the same pictures of human goodness and frailty in ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... when they parted, Mackenzie to seek his lodging-place, Dr. Slavens to make the rounds of the stores in the hope of finding one open in which he could buy a new outfit of clothing. They were all closed and dark. The best that he could do toward improving his outcast appearance was to get shaved. This done, he found lodging in a place where he could have an apartment to himself, and even an oil-lamp to light him ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... doubt, but they are not one whit worse than the lugubrious processions with their 'arrangements' in black and feathers which are still to be seen in England; and there, as here, it is to be hoped that with improving national taste ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... such a high opinion of it when you've lived as long in it as I have," retorted Miss Eliza sourly, "and you won't be so enthusiastic about improving it either. How is your mother, Diana? Dear me, but she has failed of late. She looks terrible run down. And how long is it before Marilla expects to ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the colony are every day improving, to the satisfaction of all classes; and the great number of respectable settlers, and their patience and perseverance in establishing themselves, are the surest grounds for the ultimate prosperity of the settlement. The only objections, as I can see, that can be urged with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... passed his corner or lived in the houses of the neighborhood. Among the more familiar types are college-students cramming for the day's recitation, giggling school-girls, dapper clerks, pert messenger-boys improving the time by reading a blood-and-thunder story-paper in the very smallest of type, business-men, all nerve in the morning, and in the afternoon chatting affably or half asleep, ladies keen for a shopping-"meet" on Fourteenth Street, housewives with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... shillings and sixpence per share, they were entitled to buy Boston Copper shares any time within the next three months at a price of L6 3s. Supposing therefore (as Mr. Taynton on very good authority had supposed) that Boston Copper, a rapidly improving company, rose a couple of points within the next three months, and so stood at L7 10S 6d; he had the right of exercising his option and buying them at L6 3S thus making L1 7S 6d per share. But a higher rise than this was confidently expected, and Taynton, though not really of an over ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... either upon that prolonged period of recuperation which will restore fertility, or upon an actual increase in the amount of manure used. Apparently, then, open-field land had become exhausted, since an increase in yield could be obtained by giving it a rest, without improving the methods of cultivation, etc., or ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... the educating and improving effect of participation in government. We believe that every citizen in the United States is made more intelligent, more learned and better educated by his participation in politics and political campaigns. It must be remembered that education, like all things else, is relative. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... their clothes are new, and are chiefly noticeable for the quality which Stevenson refers to as "a kind of mercantile brilliancy." They are nearly as much occupied in allowing others the inestimable pleasure of gazing at them as they are in improving their own minds. They are visitors, pure and simple, and they are characterized by such an air of newness that even the flies avoid them for fear of sticking to ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... it is extremely unlikely, in the absence of a national calamity, that any further demand will be made upon them, or that the shifting and vague shadows of another impending Budget will darken the prospects of improving trade. ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... half the compensation of the experts I now employ—but these things could be sacrificed only at the expense of results. For many years the superiority of the Bogue Institute faculty has been nationally recognized and this reputation we are today maintaining—and improving, where this ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... agricultural, there must be space of time between the commencement and the consummation of occupation. There will be a moment, when the equitable right of the agricultural settler is fixed, although he have as yet done nothing more in the way of inhabiting or improving than to cut a tree or drive a stake into the earth. And it may be long before he improves each one of all his quarter quarter-sections. So, in principle, it is in the case of settlement for a town. We must deal with such things according to their ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... turbulent period among their rulers the people of Albemarle were giving their principal attention to growing corn and other farm products. They were improving their settlements and reaping the full reward of industry and perseverance. In 1704 the manufacture of tar began, and it was soon discovered that this native article was destined to become a very valuable commodity, both at home and ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... there, and assures him there will soon be an opportunity of employing them better at home. Hence it appears that emigration from the Highlands, though not in such numbers at a time as of late, has always been practised. Dr. Johnson observed that 'the Lairds, instead of improving ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... of his allies, effectually freed his country from external enemies, Michael had now a brief space of time for improving its internal condition, for it is hardly necessary to say that these desolating wars had reduced it to the very lowest stage of misery. Fields were tilled, cattle imported from Transylvania, seed corn distributed amongst the peasantry, and soon the face of the land ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... of all drawbacks, the South is improving, and will continue to improve, and the process will be hastened as the white man lays aside his race prejudice and the black man lifts himself above it by acquiring property, intelligence and character. Whatever helps this consummation does more for the future ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 4, April, 1895 • Various
... runneth underneath," between Letherhead and Dorking; but these Australian rivers, when they do appear, are inclined to stagnate. The municipality of Adelaide, however, have wisely dammed up the river, and converted it into a lake of about one and a half miles long, thus improving an eyesore into an ornament. It is spanned by a handsome bridge. Near the north terrace, too, are the Botanical Gardens, one of the best in Australia. The Zoological Gardens are close by, where there is a black ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... enough (he is, I believe, a mulatto) to vote as a citizen, he has always been quite white enough to be taxed as one, and has to pay his proportion, (which, from the extent of his business, is no trifle) of all the rates and assessments considered requisite for the support of the poor, and improving and beautifying that city, of which he is declared not to ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... historic age, man's brilliant age, the age of civilization, is the conservatism of its technique and its spiritual restlessness. In the pre-historic age man's best energies were apparently devoted to perfecting the means to material existence. Improving the instrument was the grand preoccupation. From the old stone age to the new, from that to bronze, and from bronze to iron is the story of pre-historic development. Then follow some forty centuries during which man rests content with his instrument. Between ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... was much employed in assisting the noblemen and landed gentry of Scotland in improving the landscape appearance of their estates, especially when seen from their mansion windows. His fine taste, and his love of natural scenery, gave him great advantages in this respect. He selected the finest sites for the new mansions, when they were erected in lieu of the old towers and crenellated ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... While undoubtedly he was fortunate in happening to be at the right place at the right time, yet he was precision, method, accuracy, energy itself. What seemed luck with him was only good judgment and promptness in seizing opportunities, and the greatest care and zeal in improving ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... some of them, I'll admit, but we could get along very well without them and most of us do. But think of the real things Edison has done. The first phonograph; improving the telegraph so that six messages can be sent over the same wire at the same time; improving the telephone so that everybody can use it; collecting fine iron ore from sand and dirt by magnets; increasing the power and the lightness ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... Petrarch's handwriting. He exhibited a page of the copy-book of Vicentino, the great Venetian writing-master, which was greeted with a spontaneous round of applause, and made some excellent suggestions about improving modern ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... Issue: Improving the current inadequate preparedness of the public for a catastrophic earthquake requires a substantial increase in public information and public awareness. Although public information is primarily a State, local, and private-sector responsibility, ...
— An Assessment of the Consequences and Preparations for a Catastrophic California Earthquake: Findings and Actions Taken • Various
... of honestly acquiring, keeping and improving, all good things, material, intellectual and moral, and of dealing with ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... foreign town, with scanty resources of society, and yet scantier of honourable or useful occupation. Here also we do but describe what we have too frequently seen—the English gentleman, who at home would have been improving his estates, and aiding the public institutions of his country, abandoned to utter insignificance; his mind and resources running waste for want of employment, or, perchance, turned to objects to which even idleness might reasonably ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... great chemist, discoverer of the element thallium, and inventor of numerous scientific instruments; while Sir Oliver Lodge's most striking work has been in electricity, and more particularly in the direction of improving wireless telegraphy. But both have long been actively interested in psychical research, and perhaps most of all in those phases of it bearing on the telepathic hypothesis, their great aim being to discover just what the technique of telepathic communication from mind ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault; but, on the whole, he's a good worker. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... showing a sociable disposition. It was usually late in November before the black bear denned up for the winter, commonly adapting the shelter beneath some windfall to make a winter home by enlarging and improving it and perhaps by raking in some ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... desiccated relative told the Doctor it didn't look well for his wife to be running around with the young people, and that settled it. She gave up like an angel, and she's not the kind that likes to give up either. Now her days are devoted to the heavy domestic, and her evenings to improving her mind in the Doctor's stuffy ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... a further time will be required to render complete the works in the harbor of New York and in some other places. By the enlargement of the works and the employment of a greater number of hands at the public armories the supply of small arms of an improving quality appears to be annually increasing at a rate that, with those made on private contract, may be expected to go far toward providing for the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... swollen from the heavy rains, and so full of drift-wood, that my usual retreat into some creek seemed cut off; so I ran under the sheltered side of "Three Mile Island," below Newburg, Indiana. The climate was daily improving, and I no longer feared an ice blockade; but a new difficulty arose. The heavy rafts of timber threatened to shut me in my camp. At dusk, all might be open water; but at break of day "a change came o'er the spirit of my dream," and heavy blockades of timber rafts made ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... us. When the way we had first chosen is barred against us, we are not to lie still, but to move onward with added diligence on the way that is thus opened to us. If outward success is arrested and reverted, there is only the more reason for improving the staple of our inward being. If those dearest to us have passed beyond the reach of our good offices, there are the more remote that may be brought near, and made ours, by our beneficence. If our earthly ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... forgotten patriot The Yarranton family Andrew Yarranton's early life A soldier under the Parliament Begins iron works Is seized and imprisoned His plans for improving internal navigation Improvements in agriculture Manufacture of tin plate His journey into Saxony to learn it Travels in Holland His views of trade and industry His various projects His 'England's Improvement by Sea and Land' His proposed Land Bank His ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... know that I will tell it on such terms. However, I—must talk. Well, then. I have not been dreaming by daylight, but up and improving my opportunities. Partly from himself, and partly from Kate, and partly from the matron here, I have made the following discoveries. Mr. Roger Raleigh has left some very gay cities, and crossed some parallels ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... occupies a position that secures it so much deference. In general, they do not seem to abuse their great advantages. The respect for religion—at least for the forms of it—is universal, and there are few, I imagine, of the great proprietors who are not more or less occupied with improving their estates, and with providing for the comfort of their tenantry, while many take a leading part in the great political movements of the time. There never was an aristocracy which combined so much practical knowledge and industry with ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Detachment. Priv. Elkins had been hurt in the fight on the 1st of July and had been sent to the hospital. He found the accommodations so wretched that he feigned improvement and returned to his detachment. He remained with the detachment until the 14th of July, improving so far as his injury was concerned, but contracted the climatic fever. During this time he was prescribed for twice by the assistant surgeon with the Rough Riders, Dr. Thorpe, previous to the time this regiment was moved westward on the firing-line. His condition became worse, and ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... thyroid expert, is a descendant of Roger Sherman, signer of the Declaration of Independence. A pioneer worker for state suffrage before taking up national work. Before entering suffrage movement active in improving conditions in New York public schools. Chairman Advisory Council of the N.W.P., and one of the most forceful speakers in the suffrage ranks. In 1916 and 1919 as member of "Suffrage Special" and "Prison Special" toured the country ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... the angles. No: arrange your burners and regulators to suit the gas that is furnished, demand of the company that it fulfil the law and the contract in regard to the quality of the gas, and give all gas-improving machines ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... do, but always does just as he agrees, regardless of cost. For this reason he is known in Wall street as "Old Integrity." Russell Sage is a shrewd, close calculator, and is worth many millions, the result of improving his opportunities. He is a consistent member of the Evangelical Church, and is very charitable. Long may such men live, for we have ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... gone—solemn thought! As we glance at the record of its events, and contemplate its changes, we can but feel a realizing sense of the shortness of time, and the necessity of improving the present to the best possible advantage. One after another has dropped from our little circle, till we are left but few in number; but enough to claim the precious promise of the blessed Saviour, that he will be with us if we meet in his name. And, my sisters, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... the coiffeur from the banks of the Garonne. France honours intellect, no matter to what class of society it belongs: it is an affectionate kind of social democracy. Indeed, among many virtues in French society, none is so delightful, none so cheering, none so mutually improving, and none more Christian, than the kindly intercourse, almost the equality, of all ranks of society, and the comparatively small importance attached to wealth or condition, wherever ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... animal function by nutriment, intimating that the ladies had supped but in an indifferent way the evening before, and acknowledging that, philosopher as he was, he should go through the desired explanations after improving the slight acquaintance he had already made with certain condiments in one of the armoires, with far more zeal and point, than could possibly be done in the present state of his appetite. The suggestion was so very plausible that there was no resisting it; and, suppressing my curiosity ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... affair could be conducted better in some details which they think important. Well, it would be surprising if it were not so. The same criticisms are made of every governmental and great industrial enterprise. Everything human seems to make progress by correcting and improving. But the thing for you and me to keep a critically keen eye upon is this: that no such detail be allowed to affect by so much as a hair's weight the steadfast ardor of ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... a flourishing seaport of France, on the Loire, 40 m. W. of Nantes, where large sums have been expended in improving its spacious docks to accommodate an increasing shipping-trade; its exports, brandy, coal, wheat, &c., are mainly ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... a practice which depletes the rural villages and deprives the land of the strong arms that should find employment in working it. The ministers are not without hope that the rush city-wards may be checked by improving the conditions of country life, rendering it more attractive to the young, and enlisting the aid of Government in the scheme of small-holdings. Motives of health, morality, and patriotism, are all concerned in the fostering of a hardy ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... unknown in the libraries of Europe. [113] The rest of Italy was animated by a similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid the liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive property of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece were soon capable of transmitting and improving the lessons which they had imbibed. After a short succession of foreign teachers, the tide of emigration subsided; but the language of Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the natives of France, Germany, and England, [114] imparted to their country ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... What amount of argument, Sossius Senecio, will make a man know that he is improving in respect to virtue, if his advances in it do not bring about some diminution in folly, but vice, weighing equally with all his good intentions, "acts like the lead that makes the net go down?"[249] For neither in music nor grammatical knowledge could anyone recognize any improvement, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... expedition. Every day had its nimble, yet wholly imaginary account of what had happened, skipping from mouth to mouth, and from cabin to cabin. The French folk ran hither and thither in the persistent rain, industriously improving the dramatic interest of each groundless report. Alice's disturbed imagination reveled in the kaleidoscopic terrors conjured up by these swift changes of the form and color of the stories "from the front," all of them more or less tragic. To-day the party ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... kinds of satire, there is none so entertaining and universally improving, as that which is introduced, as it were occasionally, in the course of an interesting story, which brings every incident home to life, and by representing familiar scenes in an uncommon and amusing point of view, invests them with all the graces of novelty, while nature ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... chosen as one of the artistes, and arrayed in her best brown velveteen dress, with a new pale-yellow hair ribbon, she waited about in her usual agonies of stage fright. Learning from Dr. Linton, however improving it might be to her touch, was hardly conducive to self-complacency, and, after having suffered much vituperation for her imperfect rendering of a piece, it was decidedly appalling to have to play it in public, especially with the ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... neighbors, not because they are wrong, but because they are harms. The true explanation of the reference of liability to a moral standard, in the sense which has been explained, is not that it is for the purpose of improving men's hearts, but that it is to give a man a fair chance to avoid doing the harm before he is held responsible for it. It is intended to reconcile the policy of letting accidents lie where they fall, and the reasonable freedom ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... parted, Mackenzie to seek his lodging-place, Dr. Slavens to make the rounds of the stores in the hope of finding one open in which he could buy a new outfit of clothing. They were all closed and dark. The best that he could do toward improving his outcast appearance was to get shaved. This done, he found lodging in a place where he could have an apartment to himself, and even an oil-lamp to light him ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... country. I tramp away all alone. The little Swede begs often to go. At first I rather enjoyed him. But he is growing far too affectionate. I am not equal to caring for two young things; a broken-hearted girl and a homesick fat boy are too much for me. He is improving so rapidly I think it better for him to talk love stories and poetry to some one more appreciative. I am not in a very poetical mood. He might just as well talk to the pretty young teacher as to talk about her all ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... as it appeared. If I heard about me the spiteful criticisms of irritating critics, I was consoled by talking to Berlioz who honored me with his friendship and whose admiration for Hugo equalled mine. In the meantime my literary education was improving, and I made the acquaintance of the classics and found immortal beauties in them. My admiration for the classics, however, did not diminish my regard for Hugo, for I never could see why it was unfaithfulness to him not to despise Racine. It was fortunate for me that this was ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... undoubtedly, more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate successours, of whom any remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphysick style only in his lines upon Hobson, the carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment, and more musick. Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... settles on the ground and begins to cultivate it, that day, yes, that hour, the owner will demand a high rent. And why will he ask this rent? Because, Young Senor, as soon as land is cultivated, the government puts a high tax on it. The Rats punish the farmers for improving the country. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... proceeded, gazing at his polished boots with a well-assumed air of embarrassment, "since I know that you are one of the enlightened ones, I will confess to you that I did keep a little establishment a la Pierre Loti. My Japanese teacher thought it would be a good way of improving my knowledge of the local idiom; and this knowledge meant an extra hundred pounds to me for interpreter's allowance, as it is called. I thought, too, that it would be a relief after diplomatic dinner parties to be able to swear for an hour or so, big round oaths in the company ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... delighted at it. Few armies have made so long a march in the same time that the army of the Indus has done. The country is every day improving. The road to Candahar from where we are now encamped lies in a continued valley seldom stretching in width above two miles; cultivation on each side of the road, and numberless villages nestling under the hills. ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... made grand illuminations, and thus the whole population celebrated the return of the Queen of Pleasure to her occupation, for she was at that time the presiding deity of Love. The experts in all the arts loved her much, because she spent considerable sums of money improving the Church in Rome, which contained poor Theodora's tomb, which was destroyed during that pillage of Rome in which perished the traitorous constable of Bourbon, for this holy maiden was placed therein in a massive ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Worth Street, formerly known as Anthony Street, after a Rutgers, and the Old Brewery Mission was establisht there. Thru Mrs. Pease, a member of the Market Street church, whose husband was the brave projector of the Five Points House of Industry, the church became interested in improving conditions. When Mr. Pease went south, his place was taken by Benjamin R. Barlow, one of the Market ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... matters had raised him to high position as a manufacturer at the time of the rapid advance of the cotton trade. Many poor men have followed the same path to wealth. Owen's peculiarity was that while he became a capitalist he preserved his sympathy with the working classes. While improving machinery, he complained that the 'living machinery' was neglected. One great step in his career was his marriage to the daughter of David Dale of New Lanark, a religious and worthy manufacturer.[179] Dale had employed a number of ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... spirits, and among the rest upon all his three brothers, which got him from the Norse populations the surname of Blod-axe, "Eric Blood-axe," his title in history. One of his brothers he had killed in battle before his old father's life ended; this brother was Bjorn, a peaceable, improving, trading economic Under-king, whom the others mockingly called "Bjorn the Chapman." The great-grandson of this Bjorn became extremely distinguished by and by as Saint Olaf. Head-King Eric seems to have had a violent wife, too. She was thought to have poisoned one of her other ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... quadrupeds, which all foreigners now class among the chief wonders of London, were brought from the marshes of Walcheren; the ancestors of Childers and Eclipse from the sands of Arabia. Already, however, there was among our nobility and gentry a passion for the amusements of the turf. The importance of improving our studs by an infusion of new blood was strongly felt; and with this view a considerable number of barbs had lately been brought into the country. Two men whose authority on such subjects was held in great esteem, the Duke of Newcastle and Sir John Fenwick, pronounced ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... such whose profession or calling compelled them to remain chaste, were generally shrunken and wrinkled like those of old men, and that the contrary is the case with those who use them to an excess. "All the athletæ," says he, "as well as those who for the sake of preserving or improving the voice, are, from their youth, debarred the pleasures of love, have their natural parts shrunken and wrinkled like those of old men, while, in such as have from an early age indulged in those delights to an excess, the vessel of those parts, by the habit of being dilated, ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... season advanced, the weather, far from improving, grew worse. Everything seemed to go wrong that year. After the squalls and mists, the sky was covered with a white expanse of heat, like plates of sheet iron. In two days, without transition, a torrid heat, an atmosphere of frightful heaviness, succeeded the damp cold of foggy ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... the maddest enterprise, and if either had stopped to think they would have realised this fact. Two against four, and the latter armed with a quick-firer! And by way of improving matters, the two had outrun all their companions and were far out in a country swarming with ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... clever method that accelerates decomposition by improving aeration and facilitating frequent turning. A rotating drum holding from eight to eighteen bushels (the larger sizes look like a squat, fat, oversized oil drum) is suspended above the ground, top-loaded with organic matter, and then tumbled every few days for a few weeks until the ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... the privileges above accorded, Intelligence, Education, a Knowledge of the Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, and other Mechanical and Industrial Occupations, which they shall put into immediate operation, by improving the lands, and in other ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... and investigations into the creatures at the bottom of the sea, of Portuguese men-of-war, and albatrosses; and there were some orders to scientific-instrument makers for her to send to them—a very improving letter, but a good deal like a book of travels. Only at the end did the writer say, 'I hope my little daughter is happy among her cousins, and takes care to give her aunt no trouble, and to profit by her kind care. Your three cousins here, Mary, Lily, and Maggie, are exceedingly nice girls, and ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Augsburg, and the Loredani and Morosini, of Venice, and the Medici and Tornabuoni, of Florence, and many other names alien and all unfamiliar—merchants, most of them, it seemed, who had perpetuated their name and fame by improving the precise moment when their town, like plaster-of-Paris, ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... brothels, your Lordship seems to think that I have not sufficiently recognized that the establishment of the system was a police measure, intended to give the Hong Kong Government some hold upon the brothels, in hope of improving the condition of the inmates, and of checking the odious species of slavery to which they are subjected. I can, however, assure your Lordship, whatever good intentions may have been entertained and expressed by Her Majesty's Government when the licensing system ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... more than the mere words, which were no more than "common form" of conversation? Probably, for something in them brought back her conference with the Major on Boxing Day morning when her mother was at church. What was that she had said to him when she was sitting on his knee improving his whiskers?—that if she, later on, saw reason to suppose his suspicions true, she would ask her mother point-blank. Why not? And here she was with the same suspicions, quite, quite independent of the Major. And see how dark it was in both rooms! One could say anything. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... of the topicks of human disquisition had found English writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but success. This was a stock of knowledge sufficient for a mind so capable of appropriating and improving it. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Gibbon's Decline and Fall in bed: "Well, I really must read one more chapter before I go to sleep!" Speaking generally, the classics do not afford you a pleasure commensurate with their renown. You peruse them with a sense of duty, a sense of doing the right thing, a sense of "improving yourself," rather than with a sense of gladness. You do not smack your lips; you say: "That is good for me." You make little plans for reading, and then you invent excuses for breaking the plans. Something new, something which is not a classic, will surely draw you away from ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... ground. The old Army of the Valley crowed and clapped on the back the Light Division and D. H. Hill's troops. "Old times come again! Jest like we used to do at Winchester! Chirk up, you fellows! Your drill's improving every day. Old Jack'll let up on you after a while. Lord! it used to be seven ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... developments of savings institutions. The social importance of increasing and improving the agencies of savings for the masses is being more fully recognized, but much more might be done in these directions. Some possible changes have been suggested above, and a few words ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... number of songs or couplets which they recite to the music of the guitar. For the purpose of improving myself in the language I collected and wrote down upwards of one hundred of these couplets, the subjects of which are horse-stealing, murder, and the various incidents of gypsy-life in Spain. Perhaps a collection of songs more characteristic of the people ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... purpose is apt to be attended with something of excess or extravagance; but in "Ravenshoe" there is nothing morbid, nothing cynical, nothing querulous, nothing ascetic. The doctrine of the book is a reasonable enjoyment of all that is good in the world, with a firm purpose of improving the world in all possible ways. It is one of the many books which have appeared in England of late years which show the influence of the life and labors of the late Dr. Arnold. It is as inspiriting in its influence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... half of 1838 was spent at Les Jardies, where the novelist was busy either with his pen or in improving the interior and exterior of the property. A scheme for cultivating a pine-apple orchard in his grounds kept him from fretting over the sorry termination of his Sardinian dream. He intended to set five thousand plants, and sell the fruit at five francs a piece, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... indeed, allege repentance, but generally from hypocritical motives; either because they hope to gain some advantage by working on the feelings of philanthropists, or with a view to escaping, or, at any rate, improving their condition while in prison. Thus Lacenaire, when convicted for the first time, wrote in a moving strain to his friend Vigouroux in order to get money and help from him, "Repentance is the only course left open to me. You ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... country gentleman, made a motion of which he did not at all foresee the important consequences. He proposed that the members should enter into an association for the defence of their Sovereign and their country. Montague, who of all men was the quickest at taking and improving a hint, saw how much such an association would strengthen the government and the Whig party. [670] An instrument was immediately drawn tip, by which the representatives of the people, each for himself, solemnly recognised William as rightful and lawful King, and bound ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to the task of improving the talents given him. His well-directed efforts bore good fruit, as year after year Jehossee Island, from a half submerged, sedgy, boggy waste, grew into one of the finest rice-plantations in the south. The new lord of the manor ditched the marshes, and walled in his new rice-fields with dikes, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault; but, on the whole, he's a good worker. There's no vice ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... of men from the country came to town to see the circus. 11. In the shed is a mixture[44] of oars, seats, sails, rudders, booms, and gaffs. 12. They had to take the balance of his arm off. 13. Addison's essays were a great factor in improving the morals of his age. 14. General Manager Payson Tucker at once sent detectives to the scene, and every effort will be made to secure the guilty parties. 15. For a few days Coxey's army was a success as a show. 16. If it were not for him and a few others of his ilk the matter ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... Guizot, in his "Lectures on European Civilization." Civilized states are ever developing into a more perfect organization, and a more exact and more various operation; they are ever increasing their stock of thoughts and of knowledge: ever creating, comparing, disposing, and improving. Hence, while bodily strength is the token of barbarian power, mental ability is the honourable badge of civilized states. The one is like Ajax, the other like Ulysses; civilized nations are constructive, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... voluble tongue running at full speed could barely give the outlines of it. He informed her, likewise, that he had been sent for, while lying in Trent, by Captain Weisspriess, whom he had seen at an inn of the Ultenthal, weak but improving. Beppo was the captain's propitiatory offering to Vittoria. Meanwhile the ladies sat on a terrace, overlooking the court, where a stout fellow in broad green braces and blue breeches lay half across a wooden table, thrumming a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... man lived for nearly a century in the one place. It may be said that not long before he died he wagered that he would reach his hundredth year, but he missed that by three years. His whole energy and thought were devoted to improving his estate. He had no notion of art or things of that kind, yet he managed to make his village and its surroundings very beautiful by long years of care. The sleepy place where he lived was right away from the currents of modern life. If you walked over a mile ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... the horses, and Pete, from his position between Billy and Hopalong, was crawling from rock to rock in an endeavor to get near enough to use his Colts, his favorite and most effective weapons. Intermittent puffs of smoke arising from a point between Skinny and Buck showed where Lanky Smith was improving each shining hour. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... remedy had anything to do with the result in this case. We only wish every mother would have faith enough to give this simple treatment a fair trial, making up the lather as described in this book and not, as many do, "improving" on our method by rubbing the soap on the wet skin and making a sort of lather ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... she answered. "At least I am every moment improving in health and spirits, now I ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... the resolution of the House of the 31st ultimo, I have the honor herewith to transmit a report from the Secretary of War, accompanied by the original manuscript report of Captain Thomas J. Crane, dated February 3, 1844, on the best mode of improving the navigation of the Ohio River at the Falls of Louisville, together with the original maps ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... sit, And wonder how first it came; They'll talk of their schemes for improving it, And will not ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... training during childhood," says President Eliot, "there should result in the child a taste for interesting and improving reading, which should direct and inspire its subsequent intellectual life. That schooling which results in this taste for good reading, however, unsystematic or eccentric the schooling may have been, has achieved a main end of elementary education; ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman
... letter also was sent to me, addressed to a friend of mine, and by him communicated to me, in which this identical poem was singled out for fervent approbation. What then shall we say? Why, let the poet first consult his own heart, as I have done, and leave the rest to posterity,—to, I hope, an improving posterity. The fact is, the English public are at this moment in the same state of mind with respect to my poems, if small things may be compared with great, as the French are in respect to Shakspeare, and not the French alone, but almost ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... incomparably longer time at her disposal. Nor do I believe that any great physical change, as of climate, or any unusual degree of isolation to check immigration, is actually necessary to produce new and unoccupied places for natural selection to fill up by modifying and improving some of the varying inhabitants. For as all the inhabitants of each country are struggling together with nicely balanced forces, extremely slight modifications in the structure or habits of one inhabitant would often give it an advantage over others; and still further ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... leave a little lady with a slight flush and smile on her face that do not subside immediately when the door is closed, and with an inclination to walk up and down the room rather than to seat herself quietly at her embroidery, or other rational and improving occupation. At least this was the effect on Lucy; and you will not, I hope, consider it an indication of vanity predominating over more tender impulses, that she just glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it. The ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... is curled a little and fluffed a little, and that's what makes it look different, too," The Author decided, and stared at me critically. "You are improving," he ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... practically-minded engineers were improving upon their rattling "heat engines," a group of "pure" scientists (men who devote fourteen hours of each day to the study of those "theoretical" scientific phenomena without which no mechanical progress would be possible) were following ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... bulk of export revenues. Since 1986, the government - with the support of foreign countries and international agencies - has acted to rehabilitate and stabilize the economy by undertaking currency reform, raising producer prices on export crops, increasing prices of petroleum products, and improving civil service wages. The policy changes are especially aimed at dampening inflation and boosting production and export earnings. During 1990-2001, the economy turned in a solid performance based on continued investment in ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... classicist he entered into a solemn compact to hold all their conversation, even on the most trivial topics, in Latin, with heavy penalties for careless lapses into English. Probably the linguistic result would have astonished Quintilian, but the experiment at least had a certain influence in improving the young man's Latinity. Another favourite dissipation was that of translating English masterpieces into the ancient tongue; there still survives among Page's early papers a copy of Bryant's "Waterfowl" done ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... as he sat near the bed so vigilant and anxious in his desire to be of service. And when the doctor came, how his great blue eyes watched his every movement! Then he would waylay the doctor as he left the house, asking if Carl were not improving, and if he would not be up in a few days. But the physician did not dare encourage the boy. It was soon observed that every morning and evening, immediately after the doctor's visits, Tom walked over to the office in the warehouse, where Giles more than once found him engaged ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... while after the capture of Breda there was breathing time in Holland, and Maurice was busy in increasing and improving his army. Parma was fettered by the imperious commands of Philip, who had completely crippled him by withdrawing a considerable number of his troops for service in the war which he was waging with France. But above all, the destruction of the Armada, and with it of the naval supremacy of ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... trill, after a period, longer or shorter, of proper practice. Stiff, strong voices master it sooner than small, weak ones. I expended certainly ten years upon improving it, because as a young girl I had so very little strength, although my voice was very flexible in executing all ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... visitor. Perhaps they entertained him with 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul'; and to us, who are acquainted with Captain Brown's sad want of relish for 'the pure wells of English undefiled,' it may be matter for congratulation that he has had the opportunity of improving his taste by holding converse with an elegant and refined member of the British aristocracy. But from some mundane failings who is ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... politeness to visitors and the intelligent answers they give to questions. I am afraid our British veterans, brave as they are in the field, occupy themselves, when laid up as invalids, more in destroying their bodies by spirituous liquors than in improving their minds by reading. The Chapel of this establishment where were displayed the banners and trophies taken at different epochs from the enemies of France, and which were much mutilated by the wars since the Revolution, is now stripped ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... that the power of soils to absorb and hold moisture depends on the amount of sand, clay, or humus which they contain, and the compactness of the particles. We see also how useful organic matter is in improving sandy and clayey soils. ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... said Mrs. Dashwood; "our little troublesome is becoming quite a well-behaved young person. I feel very grateful to you, Miss Kerr, for I believe it is all owing to your tender care and kind good-nature that the child is improving ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... not study and uphold the scholastic philosophy without improving it; the works of Aristotle, of which it is said the early schoolmen possessed only a vitiated translation from the Arabic,[442] was, at the period these friars sprung up, but imperfectly understood and taught. Michael Scot, with the assistance of a learned Jew,[443] translated and published the ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... captain and Peter were working at the timber, the rest of us were smoothing down the planks; and we had now a large pile ready to fix on as soon as the ribs were set up. My father, Marian, and I were improving in the manufacture of matting. We could not, however, make it of sufficient strength for the sails; still, the material we manufactured would serve to form a roof for the cabin, or it might do for kilts ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... into one of those nests, where he will be protected against idleness by the little he will do, and against revolutions by the little he will be. It's a charming profession; the very smell of books is improving; merely by breathing it you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... may be true. But before you get to be a manager anywhere you will have to work up to it through a great many years of lower positions, and you must learn to write." The boy could not see why, and went to find work elsewhere, before improving his writing. ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... There was no improving of the occasion, but with the same sad gravity the school was dismissed; and the children learned that day one of life's golden lessons—that the man who remains master of himself ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... which he had already rehearsed his "Bridging the Abyss." Here, with a couple of confidential assistants who had traveled with him in America, he worked from morning till night, correcting, revising, improving, in the midst of stretched cords and nets. And then came his interview with Harrasford, his engagement at the Astrarium, his meeting with Lily, in ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... falling fast over the Australasian lines. The darkness was welcome, for it brought a certain rest and coolness to the thousands of sun-baked and weary men. For two days they had slaved like navvies—digging, sand-bagging, reorganising trenches, improving communications, and bringing up supplies, Maxims, and ammunition. It was not the usual thing. Indeed, it was most unusual. Only the Staff knew why, for this war has taught us that we must not advertise our coming events. Of course the Tommies groused. They always do. It is ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... farmhouses; in short, a monotony, a dead stillness, spreading over the whole country, an absence of life and activity that quite overcame my spirits. The home of the Mecklenburg noble, who weighs like a load on his peasants instead of improving their condition, gives me the idea of the den of some wild beast, who devastates even thing about him, and surrounds himself with the silence of the grave." Pertz, Leben Stein, i. 192. For a more cheerful description of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... such by hard work; by improving moments before they pass into hours, [15] and hours that other people may occupy in the pursuit of pleasure. They spend no time in sheer idleness, in talking when they have nothing to say, in building air- castles or floating off on the wings of sense: all ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... early days of her marriage. Between the candlesticks were clusters of violets. A bright wood fire burned upon the hearth, but the golden-brown curtains were not yet drawn upon the evening. The golden-brown carpet, newly cleaned, was speckless again. Marie moved about, improving on the table arrangements, and the hands which touched this or that into better design were little, slim and white. The finger nails had regained their tapering prettiness. And as she smiled with pleasure, between her lips an unblemished row of teeth showed. She wore black, to her mother's ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... Hilary in the town, and she stopped to speak to me. She is reforming, too," Margaret added, with another smile. "I seem to be having quite an improving effect upon other people's characters. She told me that one reason why she took such a dislike to me was because she was afraid that I would accept her sister's offer to go out to Los Angelos with her in ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... decidedly improving," said Maurice, as he entered. "I feel certain he recognized me to-day, and I thought he attempted ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the man to neglect his opportunities, and there can be no doubt that as soon as his purpose had established itself in his mind he made use of every opportunity that presented itself for improving his meagre scientific knowledge, in order that his proposal might be set forth in a plausible form. In other words, he got up the subject. The whole of his geographical reading with regard to the Indies up to this time had been ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... Northern people than of our own; and further, because of their larger population, as well as their greater facility in obtaining recruits from foreign countries, the Administration continued assiduously to exert every faculty to increase the efficiency of the army by addition to its numbers, by improving its organization, and by supplying the needful munitions and equipments. Inactivity is the prolific source of evil to an army, especially if composed of new levies, who, like ours, had hurried from their homes at their country's call. For these, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... of a circle is sometimes found to be quite beneficial. If a circle meets night after night with the same membership, but without obtaining any perceptible results, then it may be well to consider the desirability of adding some new elements to the membership in the hope of improving the conditions. Sometimes the addition of a new sitter of the right physical and psychical temperament works a most remarkable improvement, and in many of such cases noteworthy phenomena are then produced ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... execution, or the day of the last great trial. I will not now discuss it further with one who is yet on the other side of the veil. But if you will cast in your lot with us as a brother, come with me to the council, who are still sitting, to arrange the future march of the army, and the means of improving our victory." ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... promotes and develops the welfare of the wage earner of the United States, by improving the working conditions and advancing their ...
— Citizenship - A Manual for Voters • Emma Guy Cromwell
... nature of man is very prone to abuse and pervert such natural helps to idolatry and superstition. This instance of the Jews, wretchedly improving their phylacteries to superstitious purposes, their idolizing of the brazen serpent; and thereby of a cure, turning it into a plague, a snare, with the like, are sufficient testimonies. And we see how the papists ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... another, which has grieved us all deeply. My friend, the fatal malady that has been for so many generations connatural in our family has now claimed another victim. Poor Rosario, who, thanks to our cares, was improving gradually in her health, has entirely lost her reason. Her incoherent words, her frenzy, her deadly pallor, bring my mother and my sister forcibly to my mind. This is the most serious case that I have witnessed in our family, for the question here is ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... this very moment—when old Wardle and Sam Weller were approaching the hole with cautious steps and 30 Mr. Benjamin Allen was holding a hurried consultation with Mr. Bob Sawyer on the advisability of bleeding the company generally, as an improving little bit of professional practice—it was at this very moment that a head, face, and shoulders emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage; But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thornbit ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... Governor] intends to introduce basket-making. We have, in addition to the public schools, visited several private ones, and are pleased to find so many children receiving education: this is really the chief source of hope for improving the morals of the Greeks, and dispersing the gross darkness which surrounds this people, whose long servitude and sufferings under very hard masters have almost driven them ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... importance than that of pecuniary interest. In its manifold phases it embraces the stability of our republican institutions, resting on the actual political equality of all its citizens, and includes the fulfillment of the task which has been so happily begun—that of Christianizing and improving the condition of the Africans who have by the will of Providence been placed in our charge. Comparing the results of our own experience with those of the experiments of others who have borne similar relations to the African ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... our Sabbath meetings, I may mix with others and take part in a more active and busy life. In itself, I do not suppose that the trade of a currier is a very pleasant one; but that matters little if, when work is done, one has leisure for some sort of communication with others, and for improving one's mind. It will be to me something like what going to court in London would be to you, Walter. I am most grieved about my mother. She will ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... and great wealth. He said to the King one evening at supper, "Your Majesty does me the favour to treat me with great kindness: I should be inconsolable if I had the misfortune to fall under your displeasure. If such a calamity were to befall me, I should endeavour to divert my grief by improving some beautiful estates of mine in such and such a province;" and he thereupon gave a description of three or four fine seats. About a month after, talking of the disgrace of a Minister, he said, "I hope ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... attitudes, it may be said briefly that the relative unimportance of enlightenment is a fact, but no argument against it. Modesty, austerity, and clean living on the part of parents will counterbalance much negligence in direct guidance or protection. But the former need be in no wise lessened by improving the latter. Of the second, I dare affirm that if the men and women in America should stop whatever they are doing for an evening and read this book, there would be less harmful imagination as a result than from the occupations which its reading would replace. Of ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... an improving power, using all the wealth entrusted to it to the best advantage, the nation is enriched in root and branch at once, and the Government is enabled, for every order presented, to return a quantity of wealth greater than the order was written for, according to the fructification obtained in the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... in mind, we seek another line of thought. The world grows smaller every day. Russia fights huge battles five thousand miles from her capital. England governs India. Spain and the United States contend for empire in the antipodes. Our rapidly improving means of communication, electric trains, and, it may be, flying machines, cables, and wireless telegraphy, link lands so close together that no man lives to-day the subject of an isolated state. Rather, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... opportunity to say that observation has convinced me that all good and true book-lovers practise the pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed. Indeed, I fully believe with Judge Methuen that no book can be appreciated until it has been slept with and dreamed over. You recall, perhaps, that eloquent passage in his noble defence of the poet Archias, wherein Cicero (not Kikero) refers to ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... you," I answered. "Matters are improving. I got a thrashing the first day and have never had one since. It has been blowing pretty hard till now, but we shall have fine weather in time, and I shall like the life very well. It is better to begin with the rough and to end with the smooth ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the Argentine Republic, stands on the right bank of the broad but shallow river Plate, 150 m. from the Atlantic; it is a progressing city, improving in appearance, with a cathedral, several Protestant churches, a university and military school, libraries and hospitals; printing, cigar-making, cloth and boot manufacture are the leading industries; it is the principal ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... too, and he questioned me up about my business as sharp as I ever was questioned; seemed to kind of strike his fancy; I guess he wanted to find out if there was any money in it. He was making money, hand over hand, then; and he never stopped speculating and improving till he'd scraped together three or four hundred thousand dollars, they said a million, but they like round numbers at Moffitt, and I guess half a million would lay over it comfortably and leave a few thousands to spare, probably. Then he came on to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Improving Cattle. The fact that it is not possible for every farmer to possess pure-bred cattle is no reason why he should not improve the stock he has. He can do this by using pure-bred sires that possess the qualities most to be desired. ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... busy, all day and every day. And it is well that it is so, for in this climate the only way to keep one's faculties from rust is to keep them constantly in use. It is encouraging, however, to find the good results of our labor so apparent. I think our people are improving very fast, and they are very contented and happy. (Next week don't be surprised, however, to ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... knowledge. He who possesses most of the information of his age will not quietly submit to neglect its current acquisitions, but will go on improving as long as means and opportunities offer; while he who finds himself ignorant of most things, is only too apt to shrink from a labour which becomes Herculean. In this manner ambition is stifled, the mind gets to be inactive, and ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... consciousness in the present! Here at least is a vision, a theory, [149] theoria, which reposes on no basis of unverified hypothesis, which makes no call upon a future after all somewhat problematic; as it would be unaffected by any discovery of an Empedocles (improving on the old story of Prometheus) as to what had really been the origin, and course of development, of man's actually attained faculties and that seemingly divine particle of reason or spirit in him. Such a doctrine, at more leisurable moments, would of course ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... no 'poaching' on wet ground, or absurd conflict with frost. Accept every opportunity of wheeling out manure; and as long as the ground can be dug without waste of labour, proceed to open trenches, make drains, and mend walks, because this is the period for improving, and the place must be very perfect which affords no work for winter weather. Dispose of all rubbish by the simple process of putting it in trenches when digging plots for early seeds. In sheds and outhouses many tasks may be found, such as making large substantial tallies for the garden; the ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... retarding and preventing that detested union, I resolved to avail myself of my talent for drawing, and professed myself a master of that science, in hope of being employed by the father of Serafina, who, I knew, let slip no opportunity of improving his daughter's education. Accordingly I had the good fortune to attract his notice, was invited to his house, honoured with his approbation, and furnished with unrestricted opportunities of conversing with the dear object of my love. The passion which her beauty ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... letter. We had the intelligence from George last Thursday week, having been only prepared for the illness by a note received from Arabel the day before. Ba was sadly affected at first; miserable to see and hear. After a few days tears came to her relief. She is now very weak and prostrated, but improving in strength of body and mind: I have no fear for the result. I suppose you know, at least, the very little that we know; and how unaware poor Mr. Barrett was of his imminent death: 'he bade them,' says Arabel, 'make him comfortable for ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... able adviser, Hakuseki, desired to restore the currency to the system pursued in the Keicho era (1596-1614), but their purpose was thwarted by insufficiency of the precious metals. They were obliged to be content with improving the quality of the coins while decreasing their weight by one half. These new tokens were called kenji-kin, as they bore on the reverse the ideograph ken, signifying "great original." The issue of the new coins took place in the year 1710, and at the same time the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... memorable talk with Warde; recorded because it illustrates Warde's methods, and because, ultimately, it came to be regarded by John as the turning-point of his intellectual life. Since he had taken the Lower Remove, John's energies of mind and body had been concentrated upon improving himself at games. Vaguely aware that some of the School-prizes were within his grasp, he had not deemed them worth the winning. To ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... designed at the factory bear names which consist of a pair of initial letters, with a number affixed. The letters indicate the type of the machine; the number indicates its place in the series of continually improving variants of the same type. Three of these types were gradually being evolved at the factory in the course of the year 1911. The earliest to attain to practical success was the B.E. type of machine. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... he had stepped down from the mowing machine and had been ensnared by the idea of improving it. Why had he ever taken it up? Did he need money? No. Or was the work at a standstill? No. But the steel would on; it had need of a man; it had taken him by the throat and said, ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... assumes the name of Madame de Korff. Trial of Cardinal de Rohan and others for forgery; of the king, December 11th, 1792. Trianon, Little, pavilion of the, given to the queen; the queen at the; parties at the; festivities at the; the queen improving the. Tricolor flag adopted in Paris. Tronchet, M. Tuileries, shabbiness of the, and removal of the court to the. Turgot, A.R.J.; dismissal ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... made him a visit, still hoping to find He had took better care for improving his mind: He told me his dreams, talk'd of eating and drinking, But he scarce reads his Bible, ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts
... corresponding with her husband, had clearly given up all idea of returning to England or of Montagu joining her abroad. She was quite content with her state, which, after all, so far as we know, was her own choice. She took a house at Lovere, and interested herself in improving it ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Saltzburg, having asserted that there existed antipodes, the Archbishop of Mentz declared him a heretic; and the Abbot Trithemius, who was fond of improving steganography or the art of secret writing, having published several curious works on this subject, they were condemned, as works full of diabolical mysteries; and Frederic II., Elector Palatine, ordered Trithemius's original work, which was ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... had a great effect in improving the South, that section has not yet been transformed into an Eden. In spite of farm demonstrations, experiment stations, and boys' and girls' clubs, the stubborn inertia of a rural population fixed on the soil has only been shocked, not routed. Much land is barely ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... is the common tendency of living beings to go on doing what they have been doing most recently. The last habit is the strongest. Hence, if he took great pains last time, he will play better now, and will take a like degree of pains, and play better still next time, and so go on improving while life and vigour last. If, on the other hand, he took less pains last time, he will play worse now, and be inclined to take little pains next time, and so gradually deteriorate. This, at least, is the common ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon what conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide and solitary thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with street-corner statues of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and a small parcel ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... express, and conceive, if possible, the horrours of imprisonment attended with reproach and ignominy, of involuntary association with the refuse of mankind, with wretches who were before too abandoned for society, but, being now freed from shame or fear, are hourly improving their vices ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... letters or along the sequence of detailed occurrence, we are never more than a little while, or a little distance, from his brother Orion. In one form or another Orion is ever present, his inquiries, his proposals, his suggestions, his plans for improving his own fortunes, command our attention. He was one of the most human creatures that ever lived; indeed, his humanity excluded every form of artificiality —everything that needs to be acquired. Talented, trusting, child-like, carried away by the impulse of the moment, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... at Oxford, he was believed to have been struck with an uncommon disease, and to have been consumed with vermin, as a mark of divine vengeance, for his multiplied crimes and treasons. He had been so little studious of improving his private fortune in those civil wars, of which he had been one principal author, that the parliament thought themselves obliged from gratitude to pay the debts which he had contracted.[***] We now return to the military operations, which, during the winter, were carried on with vigor ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... William has fixed twenty-two families, who are all upon the improving hand, the meanest growing richer; and find themselves so well off, that no consideration will induce them to work for others, not even in harvest: their industry has no bounds; nor is the day long enough for ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... himself by my side, he continued to converse in his peculiar way—bluntly eloquent and carelessly learned—till the half-hour bell rang. He talked on Australia, the Wakefield system, cattle, books, his trouble in arranging his library, his schemes for improving his property and embellishing his grounds, his delight to find my father look so well, his determination to see a great deal of him, whether his old college friend would or not; he talked, in short, of everything except politics ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those of the human race. The great distinction between man and the inferior animals is, that the one learns almost every art progressively, by his own experience operating with the accumulated knowledge of past generations, whilst the others work by a fixed rule, improving very little, if any, during the course of their own lives, and rarely deviating to-day from the plans pursued by the same species a thousand years ago. It is true that the swallow, which doubtless ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... still scolded about him; but even she could not help seeing that on the whole he was improving. He "cared" more and "forgot" less. He could always learn easily, and now he really tried to learn. His lessons, instead of going through his head "threading my grandmother's needle," went in and staid there. The blue book got a few marks, it ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... were uniform in size, shape and construction, there was nothing to prevent the occupant from subsequently enlarging and improving his house. For the present, however, the interests of all were best served by speed ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... Sir Mark. "'London, South, and Channel. Same as number three.' Confound number three! Who wants to refer to that? Oh, here we are: 'Light winds, shifting to east. Fine generally.' Climate's improving, girls. More coffee, Myra. Pass my ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... the unassuming tomb Of him who told where health and beauty bloom, Of him whose lengthened life improving ran— A blameless, useful, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... are applying to it the principle of the Minie musket, and we are improving the material. We hope to make our guns as capable of resisting rapid and continued firing as well and as long as the English and the Swedish guns, which are the best in Europe, can do. And we find that we can throw a ball ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... fifteen days of their first acquaintance they were bound together as friends and partners. Altotas, in the course of a long life devoted to alchymy, had stumbled upon some valuable discoveries in chemistry, one of which was an ingredient for improving the manufacture of flax, and imparting to goods of that material a gloss and softness almost equal to silk. Balsamo gave him the good advice to leave the philosopher's stone for the present undiscovered, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... wrong. The situation is improving. Business conditions are already vastly better. It takes time. You'll get ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... Espana, I believe that soon we shall not even miss those made in Flandes. What I say of the painters applies also to embroiderers, who are already producing excellent embroidered works, and are continually improving in that art. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... undeniable right to its shelter and protection, and required at my hands to be sent home again. In my first simplicity,—finding them gentlemanly in manners, passably educated, and only tempted a little beyond their means by a laudable desire of improving and refining themselves, or, perhaps for the sake of getting better artistic instruction in music, painting, or sculpture than our country could supply,—I sometimes took charge of them on my private responsibility, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... seeing my dearest wish granted: That my son may not as his father be, but a better. What would become of the house, and what of the city if each one Were not with pleasure and always intent on maintaining, renewing, Yea, and improving, too, as time and the foreigner teach us! Man is not meant, forsooth, to grow from the ground like a mushroom, Quickly to perish away on the spot of ground that begot him, Leaving no trace behind of himself and his animate action! As by the house we straightway ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... more attended to in these seats of knowlege, perhaps would be very considerable. The leisure and abilities of the learned in these retirements might either suggest expedients, or execute those dictated by wiser heads[k], for improving it's method, retrenching it's superfluities, and reconciling the little contrarieties, which the practice of many centuries will necessarily create in any human system: a task, which those who are deeply employed in business, and the more active scenes of the profession, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... The word sa@mskara is used by Pa@nini who probably preceded Buddha in three different senses (1) improving a thing as distinguished from generating a new quality (Sata utkar@sadhana@m sa@mskara@h, Kas'ila on Pa@nini, VI. ii. 16), (2) conglomeration or aggregation, and (3) adornment (Pa@nini, VI. i. 137, 138). In the Pi@takas the word sa@nkhara is used ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would address the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... were at work prospecting for gold, and improving the country in all manner of ways, Lobengula became cantankerous. It must be remembered that he suffered from gout, for which he was treated by Dr. Jameson. Now, Lobengula without gout was sufficiently savage to cause much apprehension; with it, it is impossible to describe the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... invited Douglass to visit her at Andover, Massachusetts, where she consulted with him in reference to the establishment of an industrial institute or trades school for colored youth, with a view to improving their condition in the free States. Douglass approved heartily of this plan, and through his paper made himself its sponsor. When, later on, Mrs. Stowe abandoned the project, Douglass was made the subject of some criticism, though he was not at all to blame for Mrs. Stowes ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... worth understanding,' Herbert answered in his clear musical voice—'well worth understanding, Selah, especially for you, dearest. If, in imitation of obsolete fashions, you wished to read a few verses of some improving volume every night and morning, as a sort of becoming religious exercise in the elements of self-culture, I don't know that I could recommend you a better book to begin upon than the Poems and Ballads. Don't you see the moral of ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... this home organization the other multifarious tasks of devising new weapons for the war, improving the various types of aircraft, building larger submarines and guns of greater calibre went forward with unimpaired speed. Nothing was too vast or too complicated to be undertaken, no detail was too trivial to be studied. Politics, economics, military ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... and I'll keep an eye on the accounts. But you needn't think I'll sit at home "improving" myself: Not I. I'll do that church-work. That girl gave me a lesson this morning, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... He would have resented an attempt to use his troubles as a text for improving remarks, since he already knew his failings. What he desired was a means of escaping their consequences, and the American, whose tone was reassuringly matter of fact, seemed to offer it. He began an explanation and, with the help of a few leading questions, made his financial position ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... becoming the best and truest friend of my youth and early manhood. My circumstances changed, however, soon after that marriage, for as I was now nearly eight years old it was deemed appropriate that I should be sent to a boarding-school, both by way of improving my mind and of having some nonsense knocked out of me, which, indeed, was promptly accomplished by the pugnacious kindness of my schoolfellows. Among the latter was one, my senior by a few years, who became a very distinguished journalist. I refer to the late Horace Voules, so long ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... strongly, and he loved to have them by his side. It is true that he secretly regretted Louise was not more genuine, that Beth was so cynical and frank, and that Patsy was not more diplomatic. But he reflected that he had had no hand in molding their characters, although he might be instrumental in improving them; so he accepted the girls as they were, thankful that their faults were not glaring, and happy to have found three such interesting nieces ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... thought to herself: "With my few brains I am yet wiser than you. A heartfelt, willing kiss from your child would make you happier than all the learning that you make so much fuss about, and a caress or a spank from you—each at the proper time—would do little Zeno more good than all the world-improving discoveries in search of which you embitter your ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... by African standards and improving with the help of the growing mobile cell system domestic: adequate system of cable, microwave radio relay, tropospheric scatter, radiotelephone communication stations, and a domestic satellite system ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... enough for any pursuit to interest her. She was not musical, could not draw; and when Mrs. Poynsett had, by way of experiment, asked her to read aloud an hour a day, and selected the Lives of the Lindsays, as an unexceptionable and improving book, full of Scottish history, and even with African interest, she dutifully did her task as an attention to her invalid mother-in-law, but in a droning husky tone, finding it apparently as severe a penance as ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Claustro dos Filippes the work of Joao de Castilho comes to an end. He had been actively employed for about forty years, beginning and ending at Thomar, finishing Belem, and adding to Alcobaca, besides improving the now vanished royal palace and even fortifying Mazagao on the Moroccan coast, where perhaps his work may still survive. In these forty years his style went through more than one complete change. Beginning with late Gothic he was ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... two were impressed. He himself was impressed. His notion, which he was modifying and improving every moment, seemed to him perfect and ever more perfect. He was intensely and happily stimulated in the act of creation; and they ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... tramp forth again. We generally make our final camp about 8 o'clock, and within an hour and a half most of us are in our sleeping-bags.... At the long halt we do our best for our animals by building snow walls and improving their rugs, &c. ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... given her a brief experience of how things should be done, and how they should look, and she had never forgotten; Penelope, on the other hand, had forgotten, or never noticed Angela and Poppy, fired by Esther's example, had spasmodic passions for improving the house or garden, during which every one suffered more or less, and they themselves were exhausted long before the huge tasks they had ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
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