"Common" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not how this weary interval would have worn away, had it not been for the fortunate circumstance of our meeting with a bel esprit among the boarders there. We descended to the common sitting room (for private parlours there are none) before breakfast the morning after our arrival; several ordinary individuals entered, till the party amounted to eight or nine. Again the door opened, and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... model harbour, erected at tremendous cost, permits ships of heavy burden to discharge passengers and cargo with comfort and safety at a long wharf, without that unpleasant interlude of rocking sampans and reckless boatmen common to Eastern travel. A background of blue peaks and clustering palms rises beyond the long line of quays and breakwaters flanked by the railway, and a wealth of tropical scenery covers a marshy plain with riotous luxuriance. No Europeans live either in Tandjon Priok or Old Batavia, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... dining-room, or smallest parlour, was particularly admired; and I question if there be, at this hour, a handsomer in the county. The rooms were well-sized, and of fair dimensions, the larger parlours embracing the whole depth of the house, with proportionate widths, while the ceilings were higher than common, being eleven feet, if we except the places occupied by the larger beams of ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... father is reproved by Grace, meekly but firmly. Joseph takes the boy under his guidance, and becoming acquainted with "John and Sandy Smith, (two poachers,) who lived together in a wretched hut on the skirt of Crayton Common," he soon initiates the little fellow into crime. After a storming quarrel ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... rather that her mother's so on her behalf. Particular about the sort of people they meet—the tone, the standard. I'm bound to say they're like you: they don't go everywhere. That spirit's not so common in the mob calling itself good society as not ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... the history of this question will show that all former attempts to arrive at a common interpretation, satisfactory to both parties, of the first article of the treaty of October 20, 1818, have been unsuccessful, and with the lapse of time the difficulty ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... reader will easily understand, with a good deal of reserve. "The rise" was the work of ourselves and our pupils. "The collapse" was the work of others. It is not a question of "Dora"; it is not a question of the common law of libel; there are certain older laws of courtesy and forbearance which we would fain observe, for he who has not learnt to observe these has hardly made a beginning with political education. So let it be said to begin with that no one was to ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... his fire-eaters, the ones he had particularly put the devil into, and he said to them like this:—'My friends, they have given us Egypt to chew up, just to keep us busy, but we'll swallow it whole in a couple of campaigns, as we did Italy. The common soldiers shall be princes and have the land for their own. Forward, march!' 'Forward, march!' cried the sergeants, and there we were at Toulon, road to Egypt. At that time the English had all their ships in the sea; but when we embarked Napoleon said, 'They won't see us. It is ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... composed of the better and wealthier orders—the chiefs and their retainers; in short, the rank and fashion of the island. This class is infinitely superior in personal beauty and general healthfulness to the "marenhoar," or common people; the latter having been more exposed to the worst and most debasing evils of foreign intercourse. On Sundays, the former are invariably arrayed in their finery; and thus appear to the best advantage. Nor are they driven ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... black robe, and the other young, petite, extraordinarily handsome, and clad in light and bridal stuffs, yet both with the same wily look that set me thinking on poisons, and with a grace and a subtle carriage of deceit that could be common only to mother and daughter. I didn't choose to walk any farther in the part of the garden they had chosen for a night promenade, and turned ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... So little was known of these mountaineers, that in the early part of this century, their prince, Shah Zemaun, was a formidable bugbear to the Indian Council, and nothing was thought of for a time but an invasion of the Afghans. In one of the sudden revolutions, however, so common in semi-barbarous states, this shah was taken captive, and his eyes punctured with a lancet—a summary act of deposition in the East, for a blind man cannot reign. Two of his brothers competed for the vacant throne; and notwithstanding the efforts ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... physician for many years and so was back and forth all the time. I used to meet old man Berganeck, an old German, who carried supplies for the government. He always walked and knit stockings all the way. This was very common among the German settlers. The government paid such an enormous price for its freighting that one could almost pay for an outfit for supplies in one trip. Berganeck became ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... to me, gentlemen, that it is time for us to learn that woman is neither a slave nor an angel, but a human being, entitled to be treated with ordinary common sense in the adjustment of human affairs . . ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... and a piece of bread and dripping with Mrs. Tolhurst and Milly Pump. When Ellen was at home Joanna was lofty and exclusive, and had her meals in the dining-room—she did not think it right that her little sister, with all her new accomplishments and elegancies, should lead the common, kitchen life—also, of course, when Martin came they sat down in state, with pink wine-glasses beside their tumblers. But when she was alone she much preferred a friendly meal with Milly and Mrs. Tolhurst—she even joined them in pouring her tea into her saucer, ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... he had said to himself then, but had since forgotten, that no matter what wounds and perplexities the world offers, it also offers a cure for each one if we know where to seek it. Suddenly he gets a vision of the whole race of men, campers out on a swinging ball, brothers in the common motherhood of earth. Born out of the same inexplicable soil bred to the same problems of star and wind and sun, what absurdity of civilization is it that has robbed men of this sense of kinship? Why he himself, he feels, could enter a Bedouin ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... business and traffic. Likewise, at the instance of his lordship, a school of Latin was opened in our college for his servants and clergy, who were joined by the sons of some of the citizens. This school was not only a common and general benefit, but also very useful as a retreat and aid for those who in the school for children were already advanced in reading, writing, and reckoning. Although many of the boys remained in the lower school as pupils, a considerable number of students began the study of grammar with ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... thought of that point before. Now he realized that he and Ashe and McNeil were of a common mold. All about the same height, they shared brown hair and light eyes—Ashe's blue, his own gray, and McNeil's hazel—and they were of similar build, small-boned, lean, and quick-moving. He had not seen any of the true Beakermen except on the films. But now, ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... brings for everyman something of the renewal and re-creation of daily joy that the genius Gilbert saw when he wrote Manalive. In this story the hero is always eloping with his own wife and marrying her again. Flora Finching's "It was not ecstasy it was comfort" is a common enough view of a reasonably successful marriage, but Gilbert wanted to keep and did keep the flashes of ecstasy. When he wrote Manalive he had been married eleven years and he used a thought ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... I stopped to gaze back at the long front of Brosna, looking so sad. It is one of the white stuccoed houses so common in Ireland in the eighteenth century, although much finer and more magnificent than most. At the roof there was a balustrading, and below were long lines of windows of a uniform oblong shape, each with an architrave above it. The rains of our moist climate ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... notions of the travelling English, and I fear that they were encouraged not only by the cook, the "second girl," and the man-of-all-work, but by Harry and his chum, Tommy; I know she used to tell how she saw tame buffalo "roosting" on the streets, "w'ich they do look that like common cows a body ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... with two or three inches of the bone, is left; the head is cut off; all the entrails are taken out, but the skin of the belly is left uncut; the fish is then laid, with the skin undermost, on a board, and is well rubbed and covered over with a mixture of equal quantities of common salt and Jamaica pepper. Some of this mixture is carefully spread under the fins to prevent them from corrupting, which they sometimes do, especially if the weather is warm. A board with a large stone is sometimes laid upon the fish, with a view to make the salt ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... not yet discouraged, redoubled his efforts at Madrid, and found means to engage cardinal Portocarrcro in the interests of his master. In the meantime Louis concluded an alliance with Sweden, under the pretext of preserving and securing the common peace by such means as should be adjudged most proper and convenient. During these transactions king William was not wanting in his endeavours to terminate the war in Hungary, which had raged fifteen years without intermission. About the middle of August, lord Paget and Mr. Colliers, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the worlde is not the like minion. He thinketh eche woman to be brought in dotage With the onely sight of his goodly personage: Yet none that will haue hym: we do hym loute and flocke, And make him among vs, our common sporting stocke, And so would I now (ko she) saue onely bicause, Better nay (ko I) I lust not medle with dawes. Ye are happy (ko I) that ye are a woman, This would cost you your life in case ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... up to her old trick,—their common one,—and her hand slid down Lucile's arm till hand clasped in hand. "You say things which I feel are wrong, yet may not answer. I can, but how dare I? I dare not put mere thoughts against your facts. I, who have lived so little, cannot in theory give the lie to ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... behind the red-brick suburb, and Miss Rice's strip of garden grew greener. She had finished her dinner, and she leaned back thinking of the story she had heard. She was one of those secluded maiden ladies so common in England, whose experience of life is limited to a tea party, and whose further knowledge of life is derived from the yellow-backed French novels ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... in your poem, give proof of no common-place sensibility. I am therefore the more earnest that you should ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... with all that is in it is hers, descending to her through her mother from a long line of ancestresses; and the husband is merely her permanent guest. The children—at least the female children—have their share in the common home; the father has none." "Outside the house the husband has some property in the fields, although in earlier times he had no possessory rights and the land was held in common. Modern influences have reached ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... to Cronshaw and received in reply the following letter. It was written on a half-sheet of common note-paper, and the flimsy envelope was dirtier than was justified by its passage through ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... bills was thick, so thick that the enemy called it the paste-board money of the rebels. Plate, paper, and printing, all had little in common with the elaborate finish and delicate texture of a modern bank-note. To sign them was too hard a tax upon Congressmen already taxed to the full measure of their working-time by committees and protracted daily sessions; and so a committee of twenty-eight gentlemen not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... had been urged to fly, but he was a man of strong common sense, and he thoroughly understood the futility of flight. His face and his form were too well known all around the country. It would have been impossible for him to escape, even if he ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... order of over-lordship. But over-lordship has flourished at all times, and in the present scheme of industry it flourishes as it always has, in proportion to the reluctance of the people to participate as responsible factors in matters of common concern. Corruption and exploitation of governments and of industry are dependent upon the broadest possible participation of a whole people in the experience and responsibilities of their common life. It is for this reason that we need to foster and ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... of the figures as officially announced. They have even served the enemy propagandists by spreading the incredible story that ship-loads of bodies of our honored American dead were about to arrive in New York harbor to be put into a common grave. ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... family, Comte de Segur was a nobleman by birth, and ranked among the ancient French nobility because one of his ancestors had been a Field-marshal. Being early introduced at Court, he acquired, with the common corruption, also the pleasing manners of a courtier; and by his assiduities about the Ministers, Comte de Maurepas and Comte de Vergennes, he procured from the latter the place of an Ambassador to the Court of St. Petersburg. With some reading and genius, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... familiarly as if he had known them all his life. But the very thought of whiling away the time in this manner was now distasteful to him. The new situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already. Thus far his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous young man, with no troubles to conquer and no trials to face. He had lost no relation whom he loved, no friend whom he treasured. Till this night, what share ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... There was a hollow discussion first about time and weather, but it ended as we all in our hearts wished it to end. None of us uttered our real scruples. Mine, indeed, were too new and rudimentary to be worth uttering, so I said common-sense things about tea and warmth; but I began to think about my compact ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... to follow her example; but I told her that I never slept out. She then offered me the English article which brings peace to the soul, but I did not accept the one she offered as I thought it looked of a common make. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... could contain herself no longer, but cried out: "Sir, that is Tramtris, who came to us so nigh to death and who hath now done us so great honor being of our household! For I knew very well that he was no common knight but some mighty champion ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... at Badajos, 1767. A common soldier, he became the queen's lover, and the virtual ruler of Spain; died ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Libby in his bachelor days, and that Mr. Libby had travelled with them. Mr. Maynard appeared to have left to Mr. Libby the arrangement of his wife's pleasures, the supervision of her shopping, and the direction of their common journeys and sojourns; and it seemed to have been indifferent to him whether his friend was smoking and telling stories with him, or going with his wife to the opera, or upon such excursions as he had no taste for. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... therefore, my senior and preceptor. I dare not say anything more than what I have already said. The royal sage Dhritarashtra deserves to be honoured by us in every respect. They that are good, they that are distinguished above the common level, they that break not the distinctions which characterise the good, remember not the wrongs done to them but only the benefits they have received.' Hearing these words of the high-souled Phalguna, the righteous-souled Yudhishthira, the son of Kunti, addressed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was hardly above a common swindle, enough bogus orders being put among the honest ones either to make the one undertaking the job do a lot of peddling on his own account, or else cause him to pay away half his salary on ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... passion ran through it, as like mists hung over the Slock of Morvan and the gaping chasm in the side of Lochnagar. Civilization remained primitive, love and hatred could run high on the ebbing Jacobite tide, and the common round was still very much what a strong hand could do and a weak one could not do. Affections and hatreds bloom even more strongly in times of ordeal than in times of tranquillity, perhaps because the moral reins governing them have grown worn, ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... which I was born to be the protector; I have a good King, a good cause, a faithful wife, dear lovely children. De Vallance shall not long triumph. But say, Williams, didst than ever hear of treachery so complicated, so deep, so totally void of even a twinkling ray of common rectitude." ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... whose mean or bad qualities lay open to the general eye, visible, palpable to the dullest. His good qualities, again, belonged not to the time he lived in; were far from common then; indeed, in such a degree were almost unexampled; not recognisable, therefore, by everyone; nay, apt even, so strange had they grown, to be confounded with the very vices they lay contiguous to and had sprung out of. That he ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... forms it has assumed, when surrounding conditions, such as religion, climate, temperament, nationality, etc., have been different. Knowledge of historic ornament will also prevent the imposition on the public, so common in our day, of weak and unworthy productions which claim to be based on classic originals, and which constitute a great stumbling block to the progress and appreciation of good art. The result is somewhat analogous to that produced upon conscientious but ill-informed minds, who make every ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... girt close in the middle, and underneath a piece of cloth tied round their waist, and reaching down to the middle of the thigh. The common sort only tie a piece of cloth or skin round the middle. As for their food they boil, broil, or roast, all the meat they eat; honomy is the standing dish, and consists of Indian corn soaked, broken in ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... didn't know who would, and he said that he was sorry to see that I was goin' back on him after the recommend I'd had, and I said that I wouldn't go back on him if it wasn't for my conscience. I was ready to do any common piece of business, but this stealin' away little gals from lovin' mothers was a leetle too much for me. 'Well,' says he, 'there ain't no time to be lost, and how much more will satisfy your conscience?' When I said a hundred ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... mirror, and the faithful friend, are common European, though the calm attempt at poisoning is perhaps characteristically Indian, and reads like ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... come, with less pronounced characteristics, and, therefore, more perplexing. The Madrassee will be there, with his spherical turban and his wonderful command of colloquial English; he is supposed to know how to prepare that mysterious luxury, "real Madras curry." Bengal servants are not common in Bombay, fortunately, for they would only add to the perplexity. The larger the series of specimens which you examine, the more difficult it becomes to decide to which of them all you should commit your happiness. ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... have no such shells as these in Fantaisie; but we have much more beautiful ones. I should think, from their look, they must be rather common.' ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... as Graham's sleep—a whole literature of reaction in fact. The party of the reaction seems to have locked itself into its study and rebelled with unflinching determination—on paper. The urgent necessity of either capturing or depriving the party councils of power is a common suggestion underlying all the thoughtful work of the early twentieth century, both in America and England. In most of these things America was a little earlier than England, though both countries drove ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... In the store-room, now filled with fire? where else was it likely to be? on the half-deck, or in the hold? No—not probable— none of us had ever seen it there. There had been no powder observed in any part of the vessel to which the common sailors had access; none since the cargo was delivered to King Dingo. It must then be in the store-room, or in the captain's own state-room? in either case contiguous to the flames—in either case close to where I ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... South, as bad as I thought their cause, for the boldness with which they silenced all opposition and all croaking, by press or by individuals, within their control. War at all times, whether a civil war between sections of a common country or between nations, ought to be avoided, if possible with honor. But, once entered into, it is too much for human nature to tolerate an enemy within their ranks to give aid and comfort to the armies of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... volunteer ever thought for one moment of a monetary or other reward for his services when he shouldered his rifle and went forth in defence of his country when the bugles sounded. All were moved by a common patriotic impulse, and unselfishly and faithfully did their duty. At that time the Government appreciated their service, and was profuse in thanks, and there the national gratitude seems to have ended ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... Dr. Seversen. When he saw me, he stuck both arms up and said, "Here comes the man with the iron nerve." I answered him, "No, here comes the man with a little good common sense and faith in God Almighty." "Yes," he said, "common sense, but I thought it could not be done, when it was in such a mess and had been broken so long." I answered him, "Yes, but a good arm is better than an iron hook on it." He said, "Indeed, but I did ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... for half an hour Elinor frequently found her agreeable; but her powers had received no aid from education: she was ignorant and illiterate; and her deficiency of all mental improvement, her want of information in the most common particulars, could not be concealed from Miss Dashwood, in spite of her constant endeavour to appear to advantage. Elinor saw, and pitied her for, the neglect of abilities which education might have rendered so respectable; but she saw, with less tenderness of feeling, the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... bits of common with cows and a stray horse, also a little rural cemetery; but London suddenly began again parish after parish, the same blue roofs, the same tenement houses. The train had passed the first cedar and the first ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... this Jewish literature is the Bible, or what we call Old Testament literature—the oldest and at the same time the most important of Jewish writings. It extends over the period ending with the second century before the common era; is written, for the most part, in Hebrew, and is the clearest and the most faithful reflection of the original characteristics of the Jewish people. This biblical literature has engaged the closest attention of all nations and every age. Until ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... the last but is considerably paler. They are common in some localities, nesting in holes in trees or stumps, often those deserted by Woodpeckers. Their eggs are like those of the last but average paler. Data.—Corpus Christi, Texas, May 10, 1899. Nest in hole in telegraph ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... bushel. The Tennessee Peanut is about the size of the Virginia variety, but has a seed of a much redder color and less agreeable flavor. There is a Bunch variety, that does not spread out like a mat over the soil, but grows upright like the common field pea. This last kind has been raised to some extent in Virginia, but has never become popular with planters, and is fast passing out of cultivation. It is possible that the Bunch Peanut is a representative of the plant in ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... the savages are the common dance, and the dances which are held upon particular occasions, and the manner of dancing, varies somewhat. In dancing the common dance, they form a circle, and always have a leader, whom the whole company attend to. The men go before, and the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... mighty elevation and a most abundant plenteousness. Yet forgive me, in God's name, my worthy master, if you descried in me some expression of wonder at your simplicity. We are all weak and vulnerable somewhere: common men in the higher parts; heroes, as was feigned of Achilles, in the lower. You would define to a hair's-breadth the qualities, states, and dependencies of principalities, dominations, and powers; you would be unerring about the apostles ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... her first acquaintance with Lucia, not, as Maurice had dreamed of her doing, in bodily presence, but through the golden mist of a lover's description; in the midst of which she tried to see a common-place rustic beauty, but could not quite succeed; and half against her will began to yield to the illusion (if illusion it was) which presented to her a queenly yet maidenly vision, a brilliant flower which might be worth transplanting from the woods even ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... not! But what you say about Rem is only cobweb stuff. She is too friendly, too pleasantly familiar, I would like to see her more shy and silent with him. Every one has already given my daughter to Hyde, and, say what you will, common fame is ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... Do not be boorish at a common feast where there are many guests; the pleasure is greatest and the expense is ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... 1790 the Negro race has grown to be 6,580,793 in 1880! The theory that the race was dying out under the influences of civilization at a greater ratio than under the annihilating influences of slavery was at war with common-sense and the efficient laws of Christian society. Emancipation has taken the mother from field-work to house-work. The slave hut has been supplanted by a pleasant house; the mud floor is done away with; and now, with carpets on the floor, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... slept each rolled in his own blanket, but it was so cold in the tent that night we had to make a common bed by spreading one blanket beneath us on a tarpaulin and lying spoon-fashion with the other two blankets drawn over us. The blankets were decidedly narrow for three men to get under, and it was necessary for us to lie very close together indeed; but our ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... Ministers of State, and a large number of gentlemen. The poor women of Newgate numbered about sixty, and doubtless their attention was somewhat distracted by the grand company present; but Mrs. Fry, with her accustomed common-sense, reminded them that a greater than the King of Prussia was present, even "the King of Kings and Lord of Lords." After this admonition she read the 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and expounded and conducted a short devotional service. Then, she says, "the King ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... true, to pay the King new subsidies, but not until the following year, and on the presumption that he should have accepted and ratified the bills for the welfare of the people which had passed the House.[415] They thought that the common danger to religion arising from the alliance between the Pope and the King of Spain had been brought upon England also by the indulgence hitherto shown to the recusants. Parliament invited the King to draw the sword without further circumlocution for the rescue of the foreign Protestants; ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... the semen is the most subtle and spirituous part of the human frame, and as it contributes to the support of the nerves, this evacuation is by no means absolutely necessary; and it is besides attended with circumstances not common to any other. The emission of semen enfeebles the body more than the loss of twenty times the same quantity of blood; more than violent cathartics, emetics, &c.; hence excesses of this nature produce a ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... she said, "Mr. FitzHenry. You may be able to get each other partners. Besides, you have an interest in common." ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... High Style use the Preterite, For Common use the Past, In compound verbal tenses Put the Participle last. The Perfect Tense with 'Avoir' With the Subject must agree (Or does this rule apply to the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... preservation of those birds being in the care of divine Providence, the heat of the sun quickens and hatches them, and the chicks, leaving the shell, also break out of the sand above them, and gradually get to the surface in order to enjoy the common light; and thus, without any further aid, they fly away. If it happens that the chick in the egg is buried with its head down, it does not get our, for upon breaking the shell and the sand, it continues to dig always downward, as that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... envy, hate towards man or class Should from your sinful nature pass. Though others hold a higher place Or have more power or wealth or grace, The best of them, be sure, cannot Escape the common human lot; So many smiles, so many tears ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... swift-footed noble Peleides:— "Foremost in fame, Agamemnon, in greediness, too, thou art foremost. Whence can a prize be assign'd by the generous host of Achaia? Nowhere known unto us is a treasure of common possessions: All that we took with a town was distributed right on the capture; Nor is it seemly for states to resume and collect their allotments. Render the maid to the God, and expect from the sons of Achaia Threefold recompense back, yea fourfold, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... the word crept about that she was a witch I cannot certainly say. But in time it did; and, what is more—though I will swear that no word of Gil Perez' confession ever passed my lips—the common folk soon held it for a certainty that the cargo saved from the Saint Andrew had been saved by her magic only; that the plate and rich stuffs seen by my own eyes were but cheating simulacra, and had turned into rubbish at midnight, scarce ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... M. Nicole, laughing gaily. "A glass eye! A common or garden decanter-stopper, which the rascal stuck into his eyesocket in the place of an eye which he had lost—a decanter-stopper, or, if you prefer, a crystal stopper, but the real one, this time, which he faked, which he hid behind the double bulwark of his spectacles and eye-glasses, ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... exchanged grips. "I have common gratitude at all events, Lord Lammersfield," I said. "I know that you have tried to help me while I was in ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... a big old plank house—nothin' fine 'bout it. I 'members de heavy timbers was mortised together and de other lumber was put on wid pegs; dere warn't no nails 'bout it. Dat's all I ricollects 'bout dat dere house right now. It was jus' a common ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... is common among animals that daily eat at fixed hours. A donkey was accustomed to being fed at six o'clock in the morning, and when on one occasion his master did not appear on time, he deliberately kicked in the door to the barn ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... Chief-Justice Tindal, and Justices Coltman and Maule; from the Exchequer, Barons Parke, Alderson, and Gurney. Lord Chief-Baron Pollock did not attend, having advised the Crown in early stages of the case, as Attorney-General: Mr Justice Erskine was ill; and the remaining three common law judges, Justices Wightman, Rolfe, and Cresswell, were required to preside in the respective courts at Nisi Prius. With these necessary exceptions, the whole judicial force—so to speak—of England assisted in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... vengefulness of a death-sentence, and the cruelty of a sentence of exile. This is how I looked at it that morning—and even now I seem to see an undeniable vestige of truth in that exaggerated view of a common occurrence. You may imagine how strongly I felt this at the time. Perhaps it is for that reason that I could not bring myself to admit the finality. The thing was always with me, I was always eager to take opinion ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... Topinard, himself the most inveterate of my adversaries, gives in his remarkable work "The Type," says Gratiolet, "is a synthetic expression." "The Type," says Goethe, is "the abstract and general image" which we deduce from the observation of the common parts and from the differences. "The type of a species," adds Isidorus St. Helaire, "never appears before our eyes but is perceived only by the mind." "Human types," writes Broca, "have no real existence, they are only abstract conceptions, ideals, which come from the comparison of ethnic varieties, ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... couldn't break away. That's why I slept in my dressing-gown that night at the Denton. There was a red light in the hall outside and any light, particularly a colored one, is likely to set me going. I probably dreamed I was escaping from a locomotive—that's a common delusion of mine—and sought refuge in the first ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... such cruelties, was the master's interest in the slave; but he urged the common cruelty to horses, in which their drivers had an equal interest with the drivers of men in the colonies, as a proof that this was no security. He had never heard an instance of a master being punished for the murder of his slave. The propagation ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... his seed be born. Three queens has he—each lovely dame Like Beauty, Modesty, or Fame. Divide thyself in four, and be His offspring by these noble three. Man's nature take, and slay in fight Ravan who laughs at heavenly might— This common scourge, this rankling thorn Whom the three worlds too long have borne. For Ravan, in the senseless pride Of might unequalled, has defied The host of heaven, and plagues with woe Angel and bard and saint below, Crushing ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... in general described, but that the undescribed birds were surprisingly numerous; and, in fact, new species are still frequently coming under my notice. We have sparrows and water-wagtails, one species of crow, ducks, geese, and common fowls; pigeons, teal, ortolans, plovers, snipes like those in Europe; but others, entirely unlike European birds, would fill a volume. Insects are very numerous. I have seen about twelve sorts of grylli, or grasshoppers and crickets. Ants are the most omnivorous of all insects; ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... declares in his Epistles: "When I brought out my book for the purpose of exciting sluggish minds to the study of sound learning, and to provide some new arguments for these monks to discuss in their assemblies, they repaid this kindness by rousing common hostility against me; and now by suggestions, from their pulpits, in public meetings, before mixed multitudes, with great clamourings they declaim against me; they rage with passion, and there is no impiety, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire—my trust is in her interest in the British Constitution. My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, [Footnote: 72] are as strong as links of iron. Let the Colonists always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government,—they will cling and grapple ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... wound upon an enclosed core, such as the hedgehog transformer (see Transformer, Hedgehog), or common induction coil. ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... more. It has been said, "By their fruits ye shall know them," and history will record that when the die was cast and the struggle began, it was the disciples of that same creed who revived methods of warfare which have for centuries past been condemned by the common sense as well as by the humanity of the great mass of the civilized ...
— 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
... the dog and his kind have a certain distribution over the surface of the world, comparable in its way to the distribution of the human species. What is true of the dog they tell us is true of all the higher animals; and they assert that they can lay down a common plan for the whole of these creatures, and regard the man and the dog, the horse and the ox as minor modifications of one great fundamental unity. Moreover, the investigations of the last three-quarters of a century have proved, they tell us, that similar inquiries, ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... intellectual qualifications with savages, as to throw oratory, though much esteemed by them, and wisdom at the Council Fires, quite into the shade. In all this, we find the same propensity among ourselves. The common mind, ever subject to these impulses, looks rather to such exploits as address themselves to the senses and the imagination, than to those qualities which the reason alone can best appreciate; and in this, ignorance asserts its negative power over ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... a hole in the floor, according to Japanese custom, and the smoke found its way out as best it could. But there was very little of it; usually, indeed, there is none, for charcoal is the common combustible. A cauldron hung, by iron bars jointed together, from the gloom above. It was twilight in the room. Already the day without was fading fast, and even at high noon, none too much of it could find a way into ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... the way with these really great people, my dear," she said with effusion. "I have always noticed that the nobility are condescending; they adapt themselves so entirely to their surroundings." Miss Joliffe fell into a common hyperbole in qualifying an isolated action as a habit. She had never before been brought face to face with a peer, yet she represented her first impression of Lord Blandamer's manner as if it were a mature judgment based upon long experience ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... the hollow ships, and if truly noble Achilles has arisen at the ships, it will be the worse for him, if he wishes [to fight]: I indeed will not fly him from the horrid-sounding battle, but will stand very obstinately against him, whether he bear away great glory, or I bear it away. Mars [is] common,[588] and even slays ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... loved me has he been destroyed. I know it, I know it. The vampyre has doomed me to destruction. I am lost, and all who loved me will be involved in one common ruin on my account. Leave me all of you to perish. If, for iniquities done in our family, some one must suffer to appease the divine vengeance, let that one be ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... their enacting the parts of shepherdess and shepherd. She had been strengthened in this, her first love, by the former illusions of her imagination; and without one thought of evil, she had lost her common sense, and had followed her lover instead of attending to her mamma. Oh, young damsels, who are fond of pastorals, and can dream of young cavaliers and ancient castles!—who hear, on one side, the soft whisperings of a lover, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... hardly left her mouth when an irregular volley was fired at them from the right flank of the enemy's position. Every bullet struck yards above their heads, the common failing of musketry at night being to take too high an aim. But the impact of the missiles on a rock so highly impregnated with minerals caused sparks to fly, and Jenks saw that the Dyaks would obtain by this means a most dangerous index ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... I heard by the roundabout telegraph common in country neighbourhoods that Horace had found a good deal of fun in reporting what I said about farming and that he had called me by a highly humorous but disparaging name. Horace has a vein of humour all his own. I have caught him alone in his fields chuckling to himself, ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... see each other again until they were old women. The first step that she took out of her father's house that day, married, and full of hope and joy, was a step that led her away from the green elms of Boston Common and away from her own country and those she loved best, to a brilliant, much-varied foreign life, and to nearly all the sorrows and nearly all the joys that the heart of one woman ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... spoken sarcastically, but Desmond's face, though flushed, was calm and serious. Nevertheless, indolent as he was, James felt that the words were a reproof; that, although he had at first liked him, there was in reality little in common between him and this energetic young fellow; and the next time he came, he received him with much less cordiality than before; while Desmond, who was beginning to tire of the companionship of one who lacked, alike, the fun and humour, and the restless activity ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... humble life, written all over with the memories of this illustrious man,—a chapter running from early youth to grey hairs—would thenceforth be closed evermore. It was only when the flood was past, that I thought of our common country. ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... knowledge of grammar and spelling, together with a style of expression both lucid and simple; in short, these are such compositions as come naturally from a man, who, favored in youth with but a limited common school education, has in mature life mingled much with superiors and been often called upon to draft such writings as fall to the lot of a soldier or man of business. Mr. Parkman also attributes to Rogers ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... pretend to be subtle or that kind of thing; but I have ordinary common sense. I don't attempt to be ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... other, as usual; the dogs were kicked into the courtyard, and not allowed to come into the banqueting-room and pick the fat morsels off the plates of the guests, as they generally did; the gipsies, actors, and students were told to behave themselves decently; and the common people were given to understand that, though an ox would be roasted and wine would run from the gutter for them, they were nevertheless not to attempt to fight or squabble, as it would not be allowed. And every one asked his ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Hohenzollern characteristic, which has shown itself, with more or less emphasis, in monarch after monarch of the line. Nor is it surprising that monarchs should take pleasure in the stage, since the theatre is one of the places which brings them and their subjects together in the enjoyment of common emotions, and shows them, if only at second hand, the domestic lives of millions, from personal acquaintance with which their royal birth ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... a great deal, sometimes with her brothers, but not often. They went with rough men, and her mother felt afraid to have her go. The men all drank. Her brothers drank. Her father drank too. She stated it as if it were a sad fact common to all mankind, and ended with the statement which was almost, not quite, a question, ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... Maidstone, in Kent, form another. We know, from examination of the great blocks of which such buildings are made, that they could not have been raised without the aid of some ingenious machines, which are common now, but which the ancient Britons certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses. I should not wonder if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed with them twenty years, knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept the people out ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... brother, and had been dearly loved by her,—not as I had loved Charlie, perhaps; but they had been much to each other, and he had always seemed nearer to me than Aunt Philippa, who was my father's sister; perhaps because there was nothing in common between us, and I had always been devoted to ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Government and its Parliament from war; who, in spite of his seventy years, had, after the fall of Napoleon, hurried to London, to St. Petersburg, to Florence, to Vienna, in the hope of winning some support for France,—was the man called by common assent to the helm of State. He appointed a Ministry, called upon the Assembly to postpone all discussions as to the future Government of France, and himself proceeded to Versailles in order to negotiate conditions of peace. For several days the old man struggled with Count Bismarck on point ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the French General, who agreed not to molest the boats, the Admiral on his part promising that none of his people should be suffered to land on the marshes, or in any way to disturb the cattle grazing there, of which there were many thousands. In the strong north-west gales, so common in the Gulf of Lyons, the ships were in the practice of furling sails every night, and driving off from Toulon, standing in-shore again under easy sail when the gale moderated. During the winter months, when ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... faith. She trusted him and believed in him as much as she had ever done. In the end, those who trust most will find they are nearest the truth. But Annie had no philosophy, either worldly or divine. She had only common sense, gentleness, and faithfulness. She was very glad, though, that Alec had come to hear Mr Turnbull, who knew the right way better than anybody else, and could show it quite as well as Evangelist ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... first combed it down straight, then parted it in the center, and rolled it into a great ball at the back of her neck. She often wished to curl her hair, and, indeed, it would have curled with the lightest persuasion: but her mother being approached on the subject, said that curls were common and were seldom worn by respectable people, excepting very small children or actresses, both of whose slender mentalities were registered by these tiny daintinesses. Also, curls took up too much ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... passed in a hut by the roadside, which seemed to be deserted,—a hut or rancho as it is called in that country. Their food they had, of course, brought with them; and here, by common consent, they endeavoured in some sort to ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope
... fells looked down upon a strange scene a few minutes later,—a strange scene, yet one all too common in those days. A cavalcade of glittering horsemen with their flowing perukes, ruffles, gay coats, plumed hats, and all the extravagances of the costume of even the fighting man of 'good King Charles's golden days.' In ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... a train come in. It was full of tourists, who (it may have been a subjective illusion) seemed to me common and worthless people, and sad into the bargain. It was going to Interlaken; and I felt a languid contempt for people who went to Interlaken instead of driving right across the ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... Thornberry are so palpably deficient, in his having given to a little run-away, story-telling boy (as it is proved, and he might have suspected) ten guineas, the first earnings of his industry—that no one can wonder he becomes a bankrupt, or pity him when he does. In the common course of occurrences, ten guineas would redeem many a father of a family from bitter misery, and plunge many a youth into utter ruin. Yet nothing pleases an audience so much as a gift, let who will be the receiver. They should be broken of this ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... and fairly opened the gates of fairy land. You look through an unpretending pane of glass, stained yellow—the first thing you see is a mass of quivering foliage, ten short steps before you, in the midst of which is a ragged opening like a gateway-a thing that is common enough in nature, and not apt to excite suspicions of a deep human design—and above the bottom of the gateway, project, in the most careless way! a few broad tropic leaves and brilliant flowers. All of a sudden, through this bright, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... life which he had staked and lost; although it would have been better for her, in the hour that is fast coming, if she could generously have forgotten the criminality of his attempt in its enormous folly. On the other hand, any common-sensible man, looking at the matter unsentimentally, must have felt a certain intellectual satisfaction in seeing him hanged, if it were only in requital of his preposterous miscalculation of possibilities. [Footnote: Can it be a son of old Massachusetts who utters ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the Chinese Government, seeing that Japanese financiers and the Hanyehping Co. have dose relations with each other at present and desiring that the common interests of the two nations shall be advanced, agree ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... refer to the educational needs of those portions of our beloved and common country which have suffered from the destructive ravages, and the not less ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... Moral Good summed up in Benevolence. The moral faculty is the Reason, apprehending the Nature of Things. Innate Ideas an insufficient foundation. Will. Disinterested action. Happiness. Moral Code, the common good of all rational beings. Obligations in respect of giving ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... I said; "and, although you cannot utter our names, common politeness requires that you be informed of them. There is Pippity, the parrot, and here am I, Frank, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea; Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... she was ready to leave the theatre. Her aunt had been in her dressing-room with her, and the two ladies appeared together. The girl passed him quickly, motioning him to say nothing till they should have got out of the place. He saw that she was immensely excited, lifted altogether above her common artistic level. The old lady said to him: "You must come home to supper with us: it has been all arranged." They had a brougham, with a little third seat, and he got into it with them. It was a long time before the actress would speak. She leaned back in her corner, giving no sign but still ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... to her again," was his instant resolve. But the next moment he remembered that he had been indirectly the cause of an accident which might have been fatal. He must see her once more if she were visible—or, if not, he must see her mother. Common humanity demanded this. Then he would set eyes on her no more. He had almost come to hate her, for the spell she had thrown ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... a very common feeling that Heywood and Morrison, the former in particular, had been hardly dealt with by the Court in passing upon them a sentence of death, tempered as it was with the recommendation to the king's mercy. It should, however, ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... being pretty certainly found out. Psha! I have heard an authority awfully competent vow and declare that scores and hundreds of murders are committed, and nobody is the wiser. That terrible man mentioned one or two ways of committing murder, which he maintained were quite common, and were scarcely ever found out. A man, for instance, comes home to his wife, and . . . but I pause—I know that this Magazine has a very large circulation. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands—why not say a million of people at once?—well, say a million, read it. And amongst these ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... events, no possible reason for the suspicions which yet lingered at the back of his brain. Intrigue, it was certain, was to her as the breath of her body. He was perfectly willing to believe that the death of Bernadine would have affected her little more than the sweeping aside of a fly. His very common sense bade him accept ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was a mark of low breeding, that we were not wanted there at all, and that it was none of our business what they were doing. To prevent this as far as possible, a bottom-board, somewhat different from the common one, is needed. Four posts of chestnut or other lasting wood, about two inches square, are driven into the earth in the form of a square, far enough apart to come under the corners of the bottom-board, (fifteen inches,) and high enough for convenience when looking into ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... common sense. I'm seein' things in a new light. Every time I come home ye keep naggin' so much at me that I'm always glad when I git on board the boat agin. I wish to goodness I was thar now. ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... rhetoric bloomed perennial in First Readers from which her grandfather's prose had long since faded. Amid that clamor of far-off enthusiasms she detected no controversial note. The little knot of Olympians held their views in common with an early-Christian promiscuity. They were continually proclaiming their admiration for each other, the public joining as chorus in this guileless antiphon of praise; and she discovered no traitor ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... the American consul, the bars in his case were lowered even more, and he was just asked to help himself; which young Skiddy did, though sparingly. Captain Satterlee took an immense fancy to this youthful representative of their common country, and treated him with an engaging mixture of respect and paternalism; and Skiddy, not to be behindhand, and dazzled, besides, by his elder's marked regard and friendship, threw wide the consular door, and constantly pressed on Satterlee ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... sold his yearly vintage. The four or five louis presented by the Belgian or the Dutchman who purchased the wine were the chief visible signs of Madame Grandet's annual revenues. But after she had received the five louis, her husband would often say to her, as though their purse were held in common: "Can you lend me a few sous?" and the poor woman, glad to be able to do something for a man whom her confessor held up to her as her lord and master, returned him in the course of the winter several crowns out of the "pin-money." ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... been a spy for a good many years. You have been engaged so long in dishonest transactions that you are unable to understand such a thing as common honesty." ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... on English common law; judicial review of legislative acts limited to matters of interpretation; has ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... immortality of the soul assumes that the soul is a simple substance, a spirit; but I will always ask, what is a spirit? It is, you say, a substance deprived of expansion, incorruptible, and which has nothing in common with matter. But if this is true, how came your soul into existence? how did it grow? how did it strengthen? how weaken itself, get out of order, and grow old with your body? In reply to all these questions, you say that they are mysteries; ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... gold-seekers who explored from mountain to valley in search of the precious metal, often making exaggerated statements in regard to the undeveloped wealth not yet discovered, with stories about gold which were never realized. It was the common belief that the gold found in the placer mines must have been washed from the mountains near by, and seekers for gold were looking for the source of the gold field in such mountains, but it was never discovered. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... found in the library of the University of Budapest. In this book Bornemissza collected all the incantations (raolvasasok) in use among Hungarian country-people of his day for the expulsion of diseases and misfortunes. These incantations, forming the common stock of all Ugrian peoples, of which the Finns and Hungarians are branches, display a most satisfactory sameness with the numerous incantations of the Kalevala used for the same purpose. Barna published an elaborate ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... by the telephone company is a little different from that which I have shown because it uses a single common battery at a central office between two subscribers. The general principle, ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... felt very strongly, and I felt no less strongly, that one of the most efficient ways of warring against this evil type was to show the Negro that, if he turned his back on that type, and fitted himself to be a self-respecting citizen, doing his part in sustaining the common burdens of good citizenship, he would be freely accorded by his White neighbors the privileges and rights of good citizenship. Surely there can be no objection to this. Surely there can be no serious objection thus ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... it," said Harry Paul. "If it was to do any one good, or to be of any benefit, perhaps I might try it; but I cannot see the common-sense of risking my life just because you people have made it a custom ...
— A Terrible Coward • George Manville Fenn
... be discouraged when, through the confessional or any other way, you learn the fall of priests into the common frailties of human nature with their penitents. Our Saviour knew very well that the occasions and the temptations we have to encounter, in the confessions of girls and women, are so numerous, and sometimes so irrepressible, that many would fall. But ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... ordinary courtesies to a curt, grave nod. "Be seated, if you please." I turned over my papers slowly, and then looked up at her. I had, I saw, none of the common feminine shrewdness to deal with; need expect no subtle devices of concealment; no clever doublings; nothing but the sheer obstinacy which is an unintellectual woman's one resource. I would ignore it and her—boldly assume full ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... holes would prove very detrimental to a total lifting angle of 10deg., which represents the angle of movement in modern watches. Some of the finest ones only make 8 or 9deg. of a movement; the smaller the angle the greater will the effects of defective workmanship be; 10deg. is a common-sense angle and gives a safe escapement capable of fine results. Theoretically, if a timepiece could be produced in which the balance would vibrate without being connected with an escapement, we would have reached a step nearer the goal. Practice has shown this to be the ...
— An Analysis of the Lever Escapement • H. R. Playtner
... on the lawns or the fields in springtime, you are sure to find the Prairie-girl. The Guide can show her to you, if you do not know her. But he will call her "Common Dandelion," and I do not know of any flower that has so many things for us children ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... who should come among us would suppose, from the tone of our religious journals, and from the general aspect of society on the subject of religion, that the whole community was divided into a thousand contending sects, who hold nothing in common, and whose sole objects are the annoyance and destruction of each other. But if we leave out of view some hundreds, or, if you please, some thousands of theological controversialists who manage the public ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... yet a nearer group there are, beings born under the same star, and bound with us in a common destiny. These are not mere acquaintances, mere friends, but, when we meet, are sharers of our very existence. There is no separation; the same thought is given at the same moment to both,—indeed, it is born of the meeting, and would not otherwise have been called into existence ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... few remains of ancient Northern art now extant, and although rude statues of Odin were once quite common they have all disappeared, as they were made of wood—a perishable substance, which in the hands of the missionaries, and especially of Olaf the Saint, the Northern iconoclast, was soon reduced ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... said, cheerfully. "I guess Mr. Brack won't get much change out of you, Bessie. There's one thing sure, you managed to acquire a lot of sense while you lived in Hedgeville. The sort we call common sense, though I don't know why, because it's the rarest sort of sense there is. Keep on acting just like that when people ask you questions and try to get you to tell ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... in our neighborhood, and I don't exactly know what high and low church means, without it is that one set hold to meeting-houses with a belfry, and the others stand up for a high steeple—a thing that I told Cousin E. E. we common people didn't aspire to; at which she laughed again, as if I ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... of Edward I. had been but a dream, and self-interest and ambition directed the swords of Christian princes against each other rather than against the common foe. The Western Church was lapsing into a state of decay and corruption, from which she was only partially to recover at the cost of disruption and disunion, and the power which the mighty Popes of the twelfth century had gathered into a head became, for that very cause, the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... spent in advising how he should get rid of this obdurate young creature. Cutting off her head was much too easy a death for her; hanging was so common in His Majesty's dominions that it no longer afforded him any sport; finally, he bethought himself of a pair of fierce lions which had lately been sent to him as presents, and he determined, with these ferocious brutes, to hunt poor Rosalba down. Adjoining his castle was an amphitheatre where the ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ago[2];—at that time the great conflict between Austria and Prussia was preparing, the issue of which was so long a step towards the unification of Germany. I was then a master in a public school. The discussions of the impending war in our common-room, and the men who joined in them, are very present still to my mind; certainly not the faintest haze of mythical change or disproportion has had time to gather over those scenes in the interval. With some differences, ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... He gave and did all that He did and gave, because He was our friend. He asked only for what grew out of a real heart friendship with Himself. He longed to have us give all, yet only what our hearts couldn't hold back. His friendship has one thing peculiar to itself. He has no favourites, in our common thought of that word, among the countless numbers who have come to be included in His inner circle of friends. Yet He gives to each such a distinctive personal touch of His own heart that you feel yourself to be on closest terms. He is nearer and closer than ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... came Fu-Manchu's mocking voice. "It is fortunate for us all that it is so. This is my observation window, Dr. Petrie, and you are about to enjoy an unique opportunity of studying fungology. I have already drawn your attention to the anaesthetic properties of the lycoperdon, or common puff-ball. You may have recognized the fumes? The chamber into which you rashly precipitated yourselves was charged with them. By a process of my own I have greatly enhanced the value of the puff-ball in this respect. Your friend, Mr. Weymouth, proved the most obstinate ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... kind are of common occurrence in the prairies. Some horses, however, are so well trained that they look sharp out for these holes, which are generally found to be most numerous on the high and dry grounds. But in spite of all the caution both of man and horse many ugly falls take ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... original style of humour in the design, but a corresponding and appropriate character in the dialogue, or speeches connected with the figures. Like his contemporary in another branch of the art, George Morland, he possessed all the eccentricity and thoughtless improvidence so common and frequently so fatal to genius; and had not his good fortune led him towards Bow Church, he must have suffered severe privations, and perhaps eventually have perished of want. Here, he always found a ready market, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... difficult to see how the lead in this movement can be expected from private interests. In respect of foreign commerce quite as much as in internal trade postal communication seems necessarily a matter of common and public administration, and thus pertaining to Government. I respectfully recommend to your prompt attention such just and efficient measures as may conduce to the development of our foreign commercial exchanges and the building ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... Marquis De Niza, commander of the Portuguese squadron; regretting that they had not joined him prior to the 1st of August, when not a single French ship could have escaped: but, as he observes, that being without remedy, it is necessary to look forward to the next important service for the common cause; which, in his opinion, is that of preventing the French from getting any supplies of stores, by water, from Alexandria. He concludes with observing, that the Grand Signior will, he hopes, not only send an army into Syria; but also send ships of war, with bomb-vessels, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison |
