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noun
Bit  n.  In the British West Indies, a fourpenny piece, or groat.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bit" Quotes from Famous Books



... informed W—— that Mrs. Lamotte was once more visible, and "at home," and when a day or two later, Constance and her aunt, in splendid array, drove again into W——, calling here and there, and dropping upon each hearthstone a bit of manna for family digestion, the result was what ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... I have lost it," I answered, as if that did not trouble me a bit. We spoke no more about the watch that day, but it seemed to me that David not only approved of what I had done, but that he really admired it to some extent. I was sure ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... alive of heart patients. You have no idea how engrossing such a profession may become—how imbecile, in view of that engrossment, appear the ways of princes, of republics, of municipalities. A rough bit of road beneath the motor tyres, a couple of succeeding "thank'ee-marms" with their quick jolts would be enough to set me grumbling to Leonora against the Prince or the Grand Duke or the Free City through whose territory we might be passing. I would grumble like a stockbroker whose ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... his own affection's counsellor, Is to himself—I will not say, how true— But to himself so sweet and close, So far from sounding and discovery, As is the bud bit with an envious worm, Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, Or dedicate his ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... cried Mr Wititterly, menacing the page with both fists. 'I knew it, Miss Nickleby,' he said, looking round with an air of melancholy triumph, 'that society has been too much for her. This is all soul, you know, every bit of it.' With this assurance Mr Wititterly took up the prostrate form of Mrs Wititterly, and carried her bodily ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... as a dependent product, or as the producing principle of the organism, it ends at death: for, in the former case, it can no longer be produced when the organism perishes; in the latter case, that it ceases to sustain the organism is a proof that it has itself decayed."22 In this specious bit of special pleading, unwarranted postulates are assumed and much confusion of thought is displayed. It is covertly taken for granted that every thing seen in a given phenomenon is either product or producer; but something ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... sourly to each other, glancing round at the walls of the pit, on the bottom of which the bit of city stands, "it is a good thing to know that Herculaneum amounts ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... proposed a compromise, according to which Arschot should be allowed to preside in the council of state while Fuentes should content himself with the absolute control of the army. This would be putting a bit of fat in the duke's mouth, they said. Fuentes would hear of no such arrangement. After much talk and daily attempts to pacify this great Netherlander, his relatives at last persuaded him to go home to his country place. He even promised Arenberg and his wife that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Faithful; so he went and returning with the suit, kissed the earth before the Khalif and gave it to him. Then he threw off the clothes he had on and dressed himself in those which the gardener had brought, to the great amazement of Gaffer Ibrahim, who bit his nails in bewilderment and exclaimed, 'Am I asleep or awake?' 'O Gaffer Ibrahim,' said the Khalif, 'what state is this in which I see thee?' With this, he recovered from his drunkenness and throwing himself on the ground, repeated ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... the form of a Badawi woman with a face-veil of brocade covering her features. Hereupon my wife drew the Burka' from before the woman's face and caused her doff her dress, and when she was stripped she was black as a bit of charcoal. Now as soon as I saw this, O Viceregent of Allah, my wits were bewildered and I considered my affair and I knew not what to do, thinking of the conditions whereto I had consented."—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... her name. She only came here last week, and she is so fond of the water, and spends so much time upon it. Oh, you'll like her when you see her. She's a beauty, with such lovely eyes and dark hair. And she's not a bit stuck up, either. She just talks in a friendly way, and makes you feel easy all over. There, now, I guess you'd better pile some more wood. I have a bit of work to do, and when I'm through I'll come out and give you a hand. I like to be with you. I ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... you for letting it be Evelyn." Then, his voice breaking a little, "Oh, say you're a tiny bit glad to see me, just a tiny ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... frightened you a bit. A pistol's always better than a knife any day. Well now, I'll tell ye how it all is." Saying this, he seated himself on his own bed, and began a long narration. He would not go further West than Leavenworth. Whether he got his money or whether he lost it, he would not travel a foot ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... dust, besides the teeth of wild beasts; and what this threatening implied, might have been well known to Israel from their former history; compare Num. xxi. 6: "And the Lord sent against the people serpents, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died,"—a passage to which Jeremiah alludes in chap. viii. 17, where he says; "For behold I send against you serpents, basilisks, against which there is no charm, and ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... far right as it can be,' he replied, in rather an inexplicable voice. 'Emmie, my dear, this girl of ours has taken the bit between her teeth. Geraldine never gave us this trouble. She fell in love with the right man at the right time, and ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... probability, Morgan seemed determined to lose no time. He passed a bit of tinder-paper under the heater on the hearth, which caught fire instantly. He lighted four wax-candles, all there were in the room, placed two on the mantel-shelf and two on a bureau opposite, and spread upon ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... JAKEMAN was in Eldon Road, Reading, last week, a cat suddenly pounced on him and bit him. We have not yet received a full account of the incident, but apparently the constable was on detective duty and cleverly disguised ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various

... covers the ground with ice so it is impossible for them to get to the grass. At such times the poor animals suffer cruelly. We often hear them lowing, sometimes for days, and can easily imagine that we see the starving beasts wandering on and on, ever in search of an uncovered bit of grass. The lowing of hundreds of cattle on a cold winter night is the most horrible sound one ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... intend to turn a bit aside! Well, there's that Mr. Mordaunt, whose daughter you pulled out of the lion's paws;—he has a house near ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... of the disease is interesting. The worm, which is about an inch long and looks not unlike a bit of thread, lays eggs by the thousand in the intestinal tract of a human victim. Afterwards they pass out in the excreta and, favored by heat and moisture, develop in the soil in about three days into minute larvae. These larvae have a most extraordinary power ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... to see me before I gave him a sugarplum in his stomach, and then, before the others could come out, I jumped on to the horse and was off like a shot. Eight or ten of them followed me, I think, but I took the crossroads through the wood; I have got scratched and torn a bit, but here I am. And now, my good fellows, attention, and take care! Those brigands will not rest until they have caught us, and we must receive them with rifle bullets. Come along; let us take up ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... when conquered, was to be held as a fief of St. Peter, and spiritually, as well as temporarily, enslaved. News how the Gonfanon of St. Peter, and a ring with a bit of St. Peter himself enclosed therein, had come to Rouen, to go before the Norman host, as the Ark went before ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... that guy was plugging for you!" Ray said. "And see how he managed to slide in that bit about corruption, right before his ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... to the head teacher. She was a "Yankee" woman who knew just where to look for dirt. She went into the room and inspected the floor and closets; then she took her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork, about the walls, and over the table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor, or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly remarked: "I guess you will do to enter ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... not a bit like Lord Pembroke,' I answered. 'I know the Penshurst portraits very well. I was staying near ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... me. And once, curiously, I saw only his feet. It was soon after the battle of Bull Run, when some say that we ran, and some say that they ran. And all was quiet on the Potomac; but the nation was stamping and champing the bit. And passing the White House one day, I saw three pairs of feet on the sill of an open window; and pausing for a moment, a good-natured fellow said, 'That's the Cabinet a sittin', and them big feet's old Abe's.' So, lecturing in Boston not long after, I ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... A young man for her? Not a bit of it. I always said that there was some motive in my lady's retired way of living; she is rich, she is handsome, yet the duke does not love her; and now the first time she goes out, a young man comes next day to see her, ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... as they could, with what neighbours they could git togither, but by rason iv the snow, there wasn't enough gothered to make much divarsion; however it was a plisint wake enough, an' the churchyard an' the priest bein' convanient, as soon as the youngsthers had their bit iv fun and divarsion out iv the corpse, they burried it without a great dale iv throuble; an' about three days afther the berrin, ould Jim Mallowney, from th'other side iv the little hill, her own cousin by the mother's side—he had a snug bit iv a farm an' a house close by, by ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... packed, and bonnutted, and ready for a start; becas, my dear, where there's none but women, I don't think it natural to stop. You're splendud! How a little fella like Pole could go and be father to such a mighty big son, with your bit of moustache and your blue eyes! Are they blue or a bit of grey in 'em?" Mrs. Chump peered closely. "They're kill'n', let their colour be annyhow. And I that knew ye when ye were no bigger than my garter! Oh, sir! don't talk of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... from browning her coffee. "Yes; it's the Blue Danube waltzes. I'm familiar with 'em. If any of the church people come at you, you just send 'em to me. I ain't afraid to speak out on occasion, and I wouldn't mind one bit telling the Ladies' Aid a few things about standard composers." Mrs. Kronborg smiled, and added thoughtfully, "No, I wouldn't mind ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... had enough of this; I'm smothering and can't hear a word of all they're saying of the deceased.' 'God bless you, and lie still and quiet a bit longer,' says I, 'for my sister's afraid of ghosts, and would die on the spot with fright if she was to see you come to life all on a sudden this way without the least preparation.' So he lays him still, though well-nigh stifled, and I made haste to tell the secret of the joke, whispering to one ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... "Not a bit of it," returned the squire cheerily. "A landlord's chief pre-occupation ought to be the comfort of his tenants and his next thought should be to keep his houses in repair. I never owned any houses before, so I have determined to start with ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... speak while you have food in your mouth, this little door has to open, and some bit of food may slip in. The windpipe will not pass it to the lungs, but tries to force it back. Then we say the food chokes us. If the windpipe can not succeed in forcing back the food, the ...
— Child's Health Primer For Primary Classes • Jane Andrews

... get on with a "set of poor tapsters and town-apprentice people fighting against men of honor; to cope with men of honor they must have men of religion." Hampden answered, "It was a good notion if it could be executed;" and Cromwell "set about executing a bit of it, his share of it, by ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... great occasion—if she could only hit on a design which wouldn't look as though it came out of a woman's magazine—something really sophisticated—she could cover her old white slippers with that bit of gold-tissue off Aunt Victoria's hat—she shook out the chiffon and laid it over the bed, looking intently at its gleaming, shimmering folds and thinking, "How horrid of Father and Mother to go and try to spoil everything so!" She went back to the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... to begin to crumble them down and to wear them away to nothing. You write the principle which was so hard to receive upon the tablet of your memory; and day by day a gentle hand comes over it with a bit of india-rubber, till the inscription loses its clear sharpness, grows blurred and indistinct, and finally quite disappears. Nor is the gentle hand content even then; but it begins, very faintly at first, to trace letters which bear a very different meaning. Then ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... Mr. Acton taken in by a bit of Palais Royal gimcrackery! What an advertisement for Bogaerts et Cie! They are perfect artists in frauds. Don't you remember their stand at the first Paris Exhibition? They had imitations there of every celebrated ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... bowed his head to hide his tears. Aileen bit her lower lip and clenched her hands to keep down her rage and disappointment and tears. Four years and three months! That would make a terrible gap in his life and hers. Still, she could wait. It was better ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... you know as well as I do that that wouldn't work. It would do all right for a bit. Then one morning: 'Dear Mr. Chandos,—I should be glad if you could make it convenient to call here some time between Tuesday and Thursday.—Yours faithfully. Editor of Something-or-other.' Sooner or later a man who writes at all regularly for the papers is bound to meet the editors ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... the maddening pain, the horse cast off all control, and, heedless of bridle and scorning the bit, dashed forward in a furious run—forward over the meadow swift as an arrow, ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... Tea-Plant."—My authority for this bit of folklore is the brief statement published by Bretschneider in the "Chinese Recorder" ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn

... of art in selfishness to make it appear as if you were thinking only of others. This was the design of Walter's polite message. Soon a bit of tender steak, a roast potato, tea, and toast were smoking appetizingly beside him, and he congratulated himself that he had escaped the bore of ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... a man on board that knows the first thing about handling a steamboat; and I am not a bit wiser myself," said the major, when the sick man had been disposed of. "Every man that is fit to be made into a soldier is sent to the army; and we have nothing but the lame, and the halt, and the blind to handle ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic

... Portionless maids, freeze and burn in your solitary attics. If the world tolerates misery of any kind, it is to turn it to account for its own purposes, to make some use of it, saddle and bridle it, put a bit in its mouth, ride it about, and get some fun ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... stringing up Jarman's guy," said Trimble, "ought to help our man a bit. It'll show we're taking the matter up. By the way, Sarah's not heard the latest—we're going to blow him up ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... women have lived always with the shadow of the war over us—it never leaves us, night or day. We do not live completely where we are in these days. A bit of us is always with our men on our many fields of war. We live partly in France and Flanders, in Italy, in the Balkans, in Egypt and Palestine and Mesopotamia, in Africa, with the lonely white crosses in Gallipoli, with our men who guard us sleeping and waking, going ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... of the Emperor, who held of him, sometimes as hereditaments, more often for life, and more often still without fixed rule or stipulation, lands; domains, throughout the extent of which they exercised, a little bit in their own name and a little bit in the name of the Emperor, a certain jurisdiction and nearly all the rights of sovereignty. There was nothing very fixed or clear in the position of the beneficiaries ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... Ministers declining every proposition that Lord Harrowby made to them, though Lord Grey owned that they did not ask for anything which involved an abandonment of the principle of the Bill. They are, then, not a bit nearer an accommodation than they ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... "Not a bit of it. You will be my friend. But you must obey me implicitly. I am going to send you to school, and give you a chance to learn something. Next week I shall return to Dr. Sampson's boarding school and you will go with me as ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger

... him to hold her up, so that she could look into the horses' mouths to see if their teeth wanted filing or were decayed. When her father laughed at her, she told him that horses often suffer terrible pain from their teeth, and that sometimes a runaway is caused by a metal bit striking against the exposed nerve in the tooth of a horse that has ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... Northbrook, Derby, and I were for immediate acceptance of the offer; Hartington against; Lord Granville for amiably getting out of it; Trevelyan and Lefevre silent; Rosebery late. Mr. Gladstone at first sided with Lord Granville, then came half way to us, and then proposed that we should wait a bit till Condie Stephen reached us. I replied by showing that Condie Stephen was a Jingo, the friend of Drummond Wolff and of Bowles of Vanity Fair, and would make things worse. Then Mr. Gladstone came completely to our side. Childers drew ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... fire were kindled in the minute stove never otherwise heated, and the old English and French newspapers freshened themselves up to the actual date as nearly as they could. We were mostly, perhaps, Spanish families come from our several provinces for a bit of the season which all Spanish families of civil condition desire more or less of: lean, dark fathers, slender, white-stuccoed daughters, and fat, white-stuccoed mothers; very still-faced, and grave-mannered. We were also a few English, and from time to time a few Americans, but I believe ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... sharp enough to bite, and I bit! In my first rage I closed my book, and cried out: 'Madame—! Well! as you have a pig's head, you do not require that Brutus should offer up the head of his son!' I was on the point of leaving the room, but the poor duchess, who was just beginning ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... an' nickerbockers begin to be sowt up. A chap enjoys his bed a bit better, an' doesn't like gettin' up in a mornin' quite as weel. Tawkin' abaat enjoyin' bed makes me think ova young chap aat o' Midgley at' gate wed an' browt his wife to Halifax to buy a bed, an' nowt wod suit her but a shut-up en, like her father an' mother had allus had: ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley

... buying bananas. When Kamaswami came to him, to complain about his worries or to reproach him concerning his business, he listened curiously and happily, was puzzled by him, tried to understand him, consented that he was a little bit right, only as much as he considered indispensable, and turned away from him, towards the next person who would ask for him. And there were many who came to him, many to do business with him, many to cheat him, many to draw some secret out ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse

... woman that goes about with a clean apron and four borrowed children; and the dumb man with a bit of chalk and no legs, and the very red nose. She has these, to be sure, and a lot more. But suppose she looks after them all the day, she can't be looking after them all the night too. The mind must be unbent sometimes, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... and a more faithful impression of the present aspect of the work, and especially of the seats of the horsemen; the limb straight, and well down on the stirrup (the warrior's seat, observe, not the jockey's), with a single pointed spur on the heel. The bit of the lower cornice under this arch I could not see, and therefore had not drawn; it was supplied from beneath another arch. I am afraid, however, the reader has lost the thread of my story while I have been recommending my veracity to him. I was insisting upon the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... of bird's-eye, his experience in the Argentine Republic having left him with strongly aristocratic prejudices; "but when it comes to a duffer like that, that knows no better than me, what ain't a bit better than me, and what is as clumsy a duffer about a horse's plates as ever I knew, and would almost let a young 'un buck him out of his saddle—why, then I do cut up rough, I ain't denying it; and ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... and with the other mowed large spaces in them with his battle-axe. Suddenly he flung away his war-club, red with blood, rushed upon a wounded warrior, and, chopping off his arm at a single stroke, carried the dissevered member to his mouth, and bit it again ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... from their coffins the bones of their skeletons—take them all, mind ye. One by one you must then remove them into the moonlight, outside the walls of the building, and there lay them softly on the bit of green sward which faces to the south. This done, you must next place them in the order in which they lay in their last resting-place. When you have completed that task, you must return to the chapel, and in their coffins you will ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... Madame Balnokhazy bit her lips. The undeserved compliment smote her to the heart. She was the magnanimous fairy, of whom Desiderius spoke, and that fickle woman of whom she had spoken herself. The barrister ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... the door next afternoon, and little Pansy ran to open it, expecting to see the postman, but the knocking was only a bit of Tom's fun. Frank had left for Hull the evening before to meet him, and here was Tom the sailor, tall and bonny and dark. Pansy jumped into his arms like a baby, Aralia rushed to meet him, and his mother came out, though a little more slowly. When the ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables

... force of heredity? Not at all. We wish merely to emphasize that a man has sixteen great-great-grandparents, instead of one, and that those in the maternal lines are too often overlooked, although from a biological point of view they are every bit as important as those in the paternal lines. And we wish further to emphasize the point that it is the near relatives who, on the whole, represent what one is. The great family which for a generation or two makes unwise marriages, must live on its past reputation and see the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... Aaron. 'An' what good does it do me? Nothin' 't all. What can I buy with it, here on this here island? Nothin'. Here I am—an' here we all be—scorched an' burnt by the sun, and bit by these here scorpions, an' other varmints, an' dressed in rags an' tatters, an' all the while, all that loot of our'n lyin' ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... old books, the old books, the books of long ago! Who ever felt Miss Austen tame, or called Sir Walter slow? We did not care the worst to hear of human sty or den; We liked to love a little bit, and trust our fellow-men. The old books, the old books, as pure as summer breeze! We read them under garden boughs, by fire-light on our knees, They did not teach, they did not preach, or scold us into ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... the British. Americans have a traditional hatred of the Hanoverian monarchy, and a democratic disbelief in autocracy. They are far more acutely aware of differences than resemblances. They suspect every Englishman of being a bit of a gentleman and a bit of a flunkey. I have never found in America anything like that feeling common in the mass of English people that prevents the use of the word "foreigner" for an American; there is nothing to reciprocate ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... had the appearance of sailors huddled up on quarter-deck benches, silent and fearful of seasickness. At last, after many vicissitudes and narrow escapes, we reached a fine macadam road and breathed more easily and enjoyed the scenery a bit better. ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... climate, evermore showering. We, however, are children of the mist, and must not mind a little whimpering of the clouds any more than a man must mind the weeping of an hysterical wife. As you are not accustomed to be wet through, as a matter of course, in a morning's walk, we will bide a bit under the lee of this bank until the shower is over." Taking his seat under shelter of a thicket, he called to his man George for his tartan, then turning to me, "Come," said he, "come under my ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... the wagon, others passed in and around the helpless giant, and one valiant follow bit him a thwack on the ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... Tilton to procure from his wife a lying letter; and Tilton concocted a lying report for the committee, in which he made them express the highest admiration for himself, his adulterous wife, and her paramour. Here we have a bit of the machinery of high civilization—a committee, with its investigation and report, used, or attempted to be used, with just the kind of savage directness with which a Bongo would use it, when once he came to understand it, and found he could ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... with her husband that I didn't hear and that ended in her taking the child by the hand and returning with him to the house. Her husband joined me in a moment, looking, I thought, the least bit conscious and constrained, and said that if I would come in with him he would show me my room. In looking back upon these first moments of my visit I find it important to avoid the error of appearing to have at all ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... sea-voyage, in upon the infantry; and while as a result the force was in utter confusion, they killed many of the soldiers at close quarters. They would have cut down all the rest besides, who had crowded together on a bit of high ground, had they not been severely wounded. Even as it was, by this deed they alarmed Caesar considerably. When he stopped to consider how he had been tripped by a few, while expecting, too, that Scipio and Juba would arrive directly with all their powers, as ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio

... in the postoffice grew until there was room for little else. These books were surveys and agricultural reports. Unreadable to say the least, but heavy in the extreme. The postoffice at Santa Fe was a little bit of a concern, and the postmaster said there was no room for the books there. Earlier in the year I had carried one of these sacks to the postoffice and had attempted to get the postmaster to accept them as mail. I told him that ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... . . . you're a stranger to us, and if baby was left on our hands . . . Not as we think you'd leave her chargeable as the saying is, but if you were ever ill, and got a bit back with your payments . . . we being only ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... of the Passion have yet to be found, and again the earth yields up her treasure. A man great in wisdom tells Elene to bid the noblest of the kings of the earth to put them on his bridle, make thereof his horse's bit. This shall bring him good speed in war, and blessing and honour ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... was large, benign, paternal, broad in mind, thoroughly human and beloved, and yet profoundly erudite. He was our iconoclast in the way of food; for he performed small but illuminating dissections on his plate, and announced triumphantly results that were not a bit in accordance with the menu. A single bone was sufficient to take the pretension out of any fish. Our other particular friend was C., with whom later we travelled in the interior of Africa. C. is a very celebrated ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... fair a bit," growled Pewee, in all earnestness. "I don't hardly believe that Bible ship's a-going now." Things were mixed in Pewee's mind, but he had a vague notion that Bible times were as much as fifty years ago. While ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston

... corner of the square there is a quaint red-brick, gable-ended house, with a bit of rusticated woodwork. This is all part of the same block as the Old Curiosity Shop, supposed to ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... "that is the holy end to which the faithful plod,—the slaughter of these small fish with a bit ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... as he was going home, meditatively; and the revolving lighthouse came blazing out upon him suddenly, and disturbed him. He did not like that so much; made a vignette of it, however, when he was asked to do a bit of Calais, twenty or thirty years afterwards, having already done ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... Carnot, I., 527. (Narrated by Prieur.) "Often when hurriedly eating a bit of dry bread at the Committee table, Barere with a jest, brought a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of retention, or of forgetting, is the same as atrophy through disuse. The warming-up effect, well seen in the muscle which is sluggish after a long rest but becomes lively and responsive after a bit of exercise, [Footnote: See p. 73.] appears also in the fact that a skilled act needs to be done a few times in quick succession before it reaches its highest efficiency, and in the fact of "primary memory", the lingering of a sensation ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... heart; of the people, for they seemed never weary of repeating them; and it was not till a tremendous clap of thunder shook the very walls that several were silent and looked up with increasing alarm. The moment's pause was seized on to begin the fight. Caesar bit his lip in powerless fury, and his hatred of the towns-people, who had thus so plainly given him to understand their sentiments, was rising from one minute to the next. He felt it a real misfortune that he was unable to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... is early morning, And hope is calling aloud, And your heart is afire with Youth's desire To hurry along with the crowd. But linger a bit by the roadside, And lend a hand by the way, 'Tis a curious fact that a generous act Brings leisure and luck to ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... descending upon this awful scene of misery. The multitude of the wounded was so great, that notwithstanding the utmost exertions of the surgeons, hour after hour of the long night lingered away, while thousands of the wounded and the dying bit the dust in ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott

... heeled, staggering to the shelter of Tetard's Hill. Southward we saw the beacons ablaze, marking the chevaux de frise below Fort Lee, and on the Jersey shore the patrol's torches flashing along the fort road. But we had set a bit o' rag under Tetard's Hill, and slowly we crept north again past Yonkers, struggling desperately at Phillips, but making Boar's Hill and Dobbs Ferry by mid-afternoon. And that night the wind shifted so suddenly that from Tappan to Tarrytown was but a jack-snipe's twist, and we lay snug ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... is a handkerchief! Are you sufficiently in your right mind to take a bit of advice? This is not the sort of madonna for you; you need a Marchioness of Mondejar—one of those slim creatures, clad in steel, who through love are capable of all the expedients which distress ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac

... of course," was the reply. "We'll need all our nerve in this undertaking, and a little bit more, and," he tapped the flask significantly, ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... shaking her body. She was beautifully dressed. Her shoes were adorable, and the semi-transparent hose over her fine ankles. She made a most disturbing, an unbearable, figure of compassion. She needed wisdom, protection, guidance, strength. Every bit of her seemed to appeal for these qualities. But at the same time she dismayed. He moved nearer to her. Yes, she had grandeur. All the costly and valuable objects in the drawing-room she had rejected in favour of the satisfaction of a morbid and terrible ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... him at various times in his summer cottage at Long Branch, and on one of these occasions he gave a bit of history which specially interested me. As we were taking coffee after dinner, a card was brought in, and the President, having glanced at it, said, "Tell him that I cannot see him.'' The servant departed with the message, but soon returned and said, "The gentleman ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... "You're all trouble enough, I can well believe," she said carelessly, "though you particular three are certainly amusing little duds—for an afternoon. But for a steady diet—I'm afraid I'd get a bit tired of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... way angry that winged frogs are living on the moon; such kind of marsh-birds are very worthy inhabitants of a world which has not been sanctified by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. True, we only know the minor part of the universe, and it is quite possible, as M. d'Asterac says—who is a bit of a fool—that this earth is no more than a spot of mud in the infinity of worlds. Maybe the astronomer Copernicus was not altogether dreaming when he taught that, mathematically, the earth is not the centre ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... here His word of praise not less sincere, Although he ended with a jibe; "The hero of romance and song Was born," he said, "to right the wrong; And I approve; but all the same That bit of treason with the Scribe Adds nothing ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... flash to catch a point, leaned over the box-rail and looked at the champions with fire in her eye. "Oh, you just wait! wait!" she bit out ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey

... depression to which he was becoming more and more subject. I stayed to luncheon. The old gentleman was cross and very difficult; he could eat nothing—had no appetite at all. Christina tried to coax him with a little bit of the fleshy part of a mutton chop. "How in the name of reason can I be asked to eat a mutton chop?" he exclaimed angrily; "you forget, my dear Christina, that you have to deal with a stomach that is totally disorganised," and he pushed the plate from him, pouting and frowning like a naughty ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... just been planning a bit, mother," he said with a smile. "Sometimes when I sit here by this old fire I forget myself. I travel to the strangest lands and think the strangest thoughts. Still, they all seem so very real to me that when I try not to think of them a peculiar restlessness ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... typical a product of the Prussian system as the London policeman is of our own; and if we adopt Prussian or Spartan methods, we must run the risk of being ruled by him. "No other nation," says Dr. Sadler, "by imitating a little bit of German organisation can hope thus to achieve a true reproduction of the spirit of German institutions. The fabric of its organisation practically forms one whole. That is its merit and its danger. It must be taken all in all or else left unimitated. And it is not a mere matter ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... answer jumped to the tip of Max's tongue, but he bit it back. So this living corpse was Pelle, the champion boxer of the Legion, who would ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... line ahead of us. One was missing! I saw it now, wavering down, close over the ship. A bolt leaped up diagonally from a distant angle on the rocks and caught the disabled platform. It fell, whirling, glowing red—disappeared into the blur of darkness like a bit of ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... he carried it home, and put it on a shelf, But it was only grey in the gloom. So he fetched a pail, and a bit of cloth, And he went ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell

... Coutlass, armed with nothing but Hellenic fury, thoughtful of nothing but his lady-love—surely reckless of his own skin. He beat, kicked, bit, scragged, banged their foolish heads together, cursed, spat, gouged, and strangled as surely no catamount ever did. Brown leaped in to lend a hand, and into the midst of that inferno three more bullets penetrated, each wounding a man. Lady Waldon, mad ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... bare smooth summit, whence the wide misty landscape stretched all around us. Six lakes should have been visible; but we were obliged to be content with the whole stretch of Ulleswater, eight miles behind us, Bassenthwaite to the north, and perhaps a bit of Keswick; but I would not have missed the scene for any reasonable consideration. Scott, of course, stood on the top of the hill looking down on the Tarn, with Striding Edge on his right. Alas! no "eagles" are ever "yelling" on the mountain, ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... feel a bit sour about it, too," he replied, "if it were not that I haven't much pride left in these days, considering the show of physical retaliation I have made ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... did indeed. The violence of that young man, my dear Miss Pecksniff; the frightful opinions he expressed upon the subject of self-destruction; the extraordinary actions he performed with his tea; the clenching way in which he bit his bread and butter; the manner in which he taunted Mr Jinkins; all combined to form a picture never ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... Blunder, were the next victims of his wrath, and measured their lengths on the ground. Then Fairmaid, a bitch which Mr John Temple had bred up in his house, and fed at his own table, and lately sent the squire fifty miles for a present, ran fiercely at Joseph and bit him by the leg: no dog was ever fiercer than she, being descended from an Amazonian breed, and had worried bulls in her own country, but now waged an unequal fight, and had shared the fate of those we have mentioned before, had not ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... of bed without mosquito curtains; if he has good horses, he ought not to leave them exposed at night without wire-gauze round the stable-shed—a plan which, to my surprise, I never saw used in the West Indies. Otherwise, he will be but too likely to find in the morning a triangular bit cut out of his own flesh, or even worse, out of his horse's withers or throat, where twisting and lashing cannot shake the tormentor off; and must be content to have himself lamed, or his horses weakened to staggering and thrown out of collar-work ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... didn't mean to leave you for a moment. Lie down again, dear, and cry as much as you like. I am going to read a little bit out of the ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... Cuddesdon.—Up soon after 6. Began my Harmony of Greek Testament. Differential calculus, etc. Mathematics good while, but in a rambling way. Began Odyssey. Papers. Walk with Anstice and Hamilton. Turned a little bit of Livy into Greek. Conversation on ethics and metaphysics ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... of course the occasion of much parliamentary discussion, the feeling of the house being in favour of a larger vote. The chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, hoped by this "bit by bit" preparation for the war to show his majesty the czar British desire for peace; and expected to conciliate him by showing how few regiments we were willing to raise, and the modicum of expense wo contemplated. All who ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the screw ceased to revolve. The men baited the hooks as soon as fish were indicated. The boat had reached the locality where the catch of the day before had been obtained, and all hands were on the lookout. The lines were thrown over, and the fish bit quickly as soon as the steamer was at rest. In half an hour they ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... it, and get back to clean, wholesome, criminal work. Of course, sir, I'll be glad to know if you ever do light on a cause of any kind. And I'll be grateful if you can ever tell me how the man was dragged out of bed when the cat bit him, and who used the knife the second time. For master Silvio could never have done it by himself. But there! I keep thinking of it still. I must look out and keep a check on myself, or I shall think of it when I have to keep ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... Pau, in the shadow of the Pyrenees, the French caddie sprang, so to speak, from the ground, the perfect likeness of his Scottish brother. He was just as sly, just as importunate in his demands to be employed, just as fond of "putting at short holes," more profane, and every bit as contemptuous of all non-golf- playing humanity as the boyish Scotch caddie, in whom contempt has reversed the usual process, and bred familiarity with ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... trouble about the point. One name's as good as another, as our friend Kermode, who seems to have been a bit of philosopher, remarked when they ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... by the name of fustian, and some approach to simplicity and even playfulness. But whenever Greene gets hold of a king, he invariably makes him talk in the right royal style which we have already seen; and our Henry III. does not condescend to discourse in a bit more simple English than the Soldan of Egypt or the ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... loyalty, raved and walked majestically out of the Stadt House, not deigning to answer to the compliments offered to her by some of the inferior officers. Her bosom swelled with indignation, and she was determined to tell his Majesty a bit of her mind, if she should obtain access to him; and the next day she took the trouble to go all the way to the Hague, again to see his Majesty, but his Majesty wasn't at home, and Lord Albemarle to whom she sent in, was indisposed, and his Grace the Duke of ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... had the further discomfort of physical ailing, for though the worst symptoms of my illness had been mitigated, I was far from my usual vigor. The undeniable result of this appeared in my home letters, and it would not be altogether honest to suppress the hearty bit of private grumbling which ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... be just the smallest bit unfair? Aren't there, after all, droves of the right men in rubber collars? I don't know any," she added hastily; "that is, not exactly the same. But it seems to me that you have lived so exclusively in a certain atmosphere that you might have got ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... Edouard, "just come into the garden a bit. Put up your hat at a hundred yards, and I'll show you how to ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... drop me before I repented, as she knew I would do so soon as her back was turned, thereby making me look the worst of fools, that my relations with that young lady would have been strained. But not a bit of it. When next we met, which was on the following morning, she was just her easy, natural self, attending to my hurts, which by now were almost well, joking about this and that, inquiring as to the contents of certain letters which I had received ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... replied, "I remember a 'beautiful bit of a story,' as Pat would say, which occurred that autumn; its hero was a brother officer, a particular friend of mine—it may serve ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various

... idea. I found a clever workman and made him cut out under my direction the foundation of a saddle, which I wadded and covered with choice leather, adorning it with rich gold embroidery. I then got a locksmith to make me a bit and a pair of spurs after a pattern that I drew for him, and when all these things were completed I presented them to the King and showed him how to use them. When I had saddled one of his horses he mounted it and rode about quite delighted with the novelty, ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous



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