"Inordinate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... desire. Howbeit, I believe that thou sleepest oftener to Him than He to thee." Put away "distracting noises," and thou wilt hear Him. First, however, find the image of sin, which thou bearest about with thee. It is no bodily thing, no real thing—only a lack of light and love. It is a false, inordinate love of thyself, from whence ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... I will overcome this infatuation!" he repeated, as he paused in his hasty walk, bowed his head, and folded his hands in prayer to God for deliverance from the power of inordinate and ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... conceited about it—until Sara Ray cured him by calling him a "dear, sweet cat," and kissing him between the ears. Then Pat sneaked abjectly off, his tail drooping. He resented being called a sweet cat. He had a sense of humour, had Pat. Very few cats have; and most of them have such an inordinate appetite for flattery that they will swallow any amount of it and thrive thereon. Paddy had a finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his liking. The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist and say, "Bless your gray ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... jackanapes brought back her mirth, and so the hours passed, as happy as any in my life. Truly the memory of these things tells me how glad this world might be, wherein God has placed us, were it not troubled by the inordinate desires of men. In my master's house of Tours, then, my days of holiday went merrily by, save for one matter, and that of the utmost moment. For my master would in no manner permit me to wed his daughter while this war endured; ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... the tyrants of this city were less ferocious than were those of the other dynasties of that age, perhaps because their domain was too small a stage for the dark deeds inspired by inordinate ambition—although the human spirit does not always develop in harmony with the influences of nature. One of the most hideous of evil doers was Sigismondo Malatesta of mild and beautiful Rimini. The Sforzas of Pesaro, however, seem generous and humane rulers in comparison ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... down, a little more madonna-like across her sweet, mild forehead, then snatching out abruptly at a convenient shirt-waist began with extraordinary skill to apply its dangly lace sleeves as a protective bandage for the delicate glass-faced motto still in her lap, placed the completed parcel with inordinate scientific precision in the exact corner of her packing-box, and then went on very diligently, very zealously, to strip the men's photographs from the mirror on her bureau. There were twenty-seven photographs in all, and for each one she had already cut and ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... about it. My own opinion has always been that Rhodes' attitude arose principally from his conviction that Jameson was the only one who understood his constitution, the sole being capable of looking after his health. Curious as it may seem, I am sure the Colossus had an inordinate fear of death and of illness of any kind. He knew that his life was not a sound one, but he always rebelled against the idea that, like other mortals, he was subject to death. I feel persuaded that one of the reasons why he chose to be buried in the Matoppo ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... occurring it is an omen of defeat, just as disease is an omen of death, although, for those diseased already, medicine and convalescence may be approaches to health again. Where a man's nature is out of gear and his instincts are inordinate, suffering may be a sign that a dangerous peace, in which impulse was carrying him ignorantly into paths without issue, is giving place to a peace with security in which his reconstructed character may respond ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Finland's aspirations toward independence, of her inordinate demands in the matter of military legislation, of her turning her population into an armed nation; in a word, all the apprehensions felt that Finland may break loose from Russia are, down to the present moment, devoid of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... where they had left off, but ever so much further on, and that these added links added still another between High Street and Notting Hill Gate, and then between the latter station and Queen's Road an extension really inordinate. At Notting Hill Gate, Kate's right-hand neighbour descended, whereupon Densher popped straight into that seat; only there was not much gained when a lady, the next instant, popped into Densher's. He could say almost nothing to her—she scarce knew, at least, what he said; she was so occupied ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... Louis XIV the Comtesse de Lude devoted herself to the hunt with a frenzy born of an inordinate enthusiasm. At the head of a pack of hounds she knew no obstacle, and, on one occasion, penetrated on horseback, followed by her dogs, into the oratory of the nuns ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... this inordinate ambition to "get on"? Louis Stevenson was happier, as a small boy with a bull's-eye lantern at his belt, than any king upon his throne. The secret of enjoyment is to learn to look about us, to value what our destiny has ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... was poor. All his wishes were apparently gratified; and yet he was the most miserable man in his dominions. He exhausted all the sources of pleasure, and nothing remained but satiety and disgust. His mind and his body were alike diseased. His inordinate gluttony made him most inconveniently corpulent, and produced ulcers and the gout. It was dangerous to approach this "corrupt mass of dying tyranny." It was impossible to please him, and the least contradiction drove him into fits of ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Monday, May 11.—For a while PRIME MINISTER'S protest against inordinate questioning, his announcement of determination not to take part in further shorter catechism more or less distantly related to the "plot" and the "coup," had wholesome effect. As he stated, since ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... shadow of the earth ended, according to Ptolemy, at the heaven of Venus. Philalethes suggests that there may be here an allegorical meaning, the shadow of the earth being shown in feebleness of will, worldly ambition, and inordinate love, which have allotted the souls who appear in these first heavens to the lowest ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... exteriorities, nothing can be trivial, in a record of life so conceived. And this point of view also helps the writer to keep all his details in proportion; the autobiographer's usual fault, artistically at least, being an inordinate valuation of small concerns, because they happened to him. To St. Augustine, while not the smallest human event is without significance, in its relation to eternity, not the greatest human event is of importance, in its relation to time; and his own share ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... miserable home, which, however, was scrupulously clean, and we drank tea and discussed people and events in distant Europe far into the night. And Madame sang Polish love-songs in a sweet, pathetic voice, and I recounted one or two American yarns in Yankee vernacular which excited inordinate gaiety, so easily amused were these poor souls with minds dulled by long years of lethargy and despair. And I wondered, as I glanced around the squalid room, how many years had elapsed since its mud-walls had last echoed to the sounds ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... the Fourteenth Amendment.[756] The State is not bound to adjust the charge after the fact, but may, in anticipation, fix what the legislature deems to be a fair fee for the expected service, the presumption being that if, in practice, the sum charged appears inordinate the legislative body will reduce it in the light of experience.[757] Such a statute may, in spite of the presumption of validity, show on its face that some part of the exaction is to be used for a purpose other ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... be glad to seek her favors. But all that was to cast oil in the flaming fire. The said John stood still, without any alteration of countenance, for a long season, while that the queen gave place to her inordinate passion, and in the end he said: "Madam, in God's presence I speak: I never delighted in the weeping of any of God's creatures; yea, I can scarcely well abide the tears of my own boys, whom my own hand corrects, much less can I rejoice in your majesty's weeping. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... you judge for yourself to be best; else what will become of you when I am in Russia? It must be some higher and more stable principle of action that must govern you. It must not be the mere wish to please this or that friend;—the defect of your character, Helen, remember I tell you, is this—inordinate desire to be loved, this impatience of not being loved—that which but a moment ago made you ready to abandon two of the best friends you have upon earth, because you imagine, or you suspect, or you fear, that a third person, almost a stranger, does not like before he has ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... foreseen and been watching for that unparalleled disaster. So, Paris was burning then at last, Paris, upon whose monuments the German shells had scarce been able to inflict more than a scratch! and he was there to see it burn, and in the spectacle found compensation for all his grievances, the inordinate length to which the siege had been protracted, the bitter, freezing weather, the difficulties they had surmounted only to see them present themselves anew under some other shape, the toil and trouble they had had in mounting their heavy guns, while all the time Germany from behind was reproaching ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... fabrication of insulting nicknames, such as Prince Featherhead, which run from ear to ear and create a laugh throughout the country. Gondremark has thus some of the clumsier characters of the self-made man, combined with an inordinate, almost a besotted, pride of intellect and birth. Heavy, bilious, selfish, inornate, he sits upon this court and ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old friend Shirley. He knew very well that Shirley did not wear a high silk hat and carry a cane, and he had a sufficient knowledge of human nature and of himself to know that if his present personal appearance were made the subject of ridicule, or even inordinate surprise, it would not afford him the same stimulating gratification which ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... all conducted very nearly alike, one contract only the excessive profits on which during a short term would pay the whole of their year's dividend. I shall undertake to show that upon two others the inordinate profits given, with the losses incurred in order to secure those profits, would ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... byssus which was carried by a Negro behind him. His necklace of blue plates flapped against the flowers on his black tunic; his huge arms were compressed within circles of diamonds, and with open mouth he brandished a pike of inordinate size, which spread out at the end like a lotus, and flashed more than a mirror. Immediately the earth shook,—and the Barbarians saw all the elephants of Carthage, with their gilt tusks and blue-painted ears, hastening up in single line, clothed with bronze and shaking the leathern towers which ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... 28, 1774, asserts that many readers in England had not understood the book as well as Bode, afrequent expression of inordinate commendation; that Bode follows close on the heels of Yorick on his most intimate expeditions. The Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen[14] copies in full the translation of the first chapter as both Zckert and Bode rendered it, and praises the latter in unqualified terms; ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... up on to the scaffold. They obeyed promptly. The priest resumed his reading of the service for the condemned. The excitement seemed to make the doomed ones exceedingly thirsty. I never saw men drink such inordinate quantities of water. They called for it continually, gulped down a quart or more at a time, and kept two men going nearly all the time ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the middle and lower classes of the capital come hither in large numbers to amuse themselves with the tall swings, the merry-go-rounds, and the scowlike boats, to eat dulces at the booths, and to drink inordinate quantities of pulque at the many stands at which it is dispensed at popular prices. The pungent liquor permeates the surrounding atmosphere with its sour and offensive odor. Here one sees numerous groups busy at ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... the elders a very satisfactory account of all that had happened among his people, both in and out of the Session, during his absence; and he was vastly pleased to find there had been no inordinate increase of wickedness; at the same time, he was grieved for the condition in which the poor weavers still continued, saying, that among other things of which he had been of late meditating, was the setting up of a lending bank in the parish ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... Providence, has not directed this matter which you esteem so great an affliction, for your greatest good, and most essential advantage. And suffer me to tell you, that in all my observations on life, I have always found that those connections which were formed from inordinate passion, or what some would call pure affection, have been ever the most unhappy. Examine the varied circles of society, you will there see this axiom demonstrated; you will there see how few among the sentimentally refined are even ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... unheard-of depths below the surface of the sea or at extraordinary heights above the level of the land, while his friends, his rivals, and all manner of men and women besides, gaze with amazement! Patent agents are only too well aware how often an inordinate desire for self-glorification goes along with real inventive talent, and how many of the brotherhood of inventors make light of the losses which may be inflicted upon trusting investors so long as they themselves may get ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... case of a first child, when a poetical history of the mating of the parents may precede. The presence of the idea that the book would some day be read by others than the intimate circle, would restrain the tendency of some persons to inordinate self-revelation and 'gush.' Such books as these would form the dearest heirlooms of a family, helping to knit its bonds firmer, and giving an insight into individual character which would supplement the more tangible data for the pedigree in a most valuable way. The photographs taken ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... its station by being called The Day Nursery and another room equally dingy and uninviting was known as The Night Nursery. The slice of a house was inhabited by the very pretty Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, its inordinate rent being reluctantly paid by her—apparently with the assistance of those "ravens" who are expected to supply the truly deserving. The rent was inordinate only from the standpoint of one regarding it soberly in connection with the character of the house itself which was a ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... did in Egypt, so the book of India utilizes the leaves of that important tropical tree, the palm. The sheets of the book before me are strips of palm-leaf two inches wide and two feet long. They are written on both sides and, following the run of the grain, lengthwise. This makes an inordinate length of line, but, owing to the small number of lines on the page, the confusion of the eye is less than might be expected. The leaves composing the book are clamped between two boards of their own size, the block thus formed is pierced with two ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... shall slough the ragged skin of empire and become again a small, hardy, fishing and pastoral people. The profiteers will leave us, like rats and their parasites. We shall be able to feed ourselves by our industry. We shall be contented, and as happy as men with inordinate desires and subordinate capacities can ever hope to be. There is no reason to suppose that we need cease to be a nursery of heroes, that our old men will not see visions or our young men dream dreams. Neither vision nor dream will be the worse for having its ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... important news, dashing off to the Foreign Office in a taxi-cab, posing Ministers of State with unanswerable conundrums, very probably ruffling the calm waters of Washington with cablegrams of inordinate ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... restrain such wish," replied The dying fox; "be such defied; Inordinate desires deplore; The more you win, you grieve the more. Do not the dogs betray our pace, And gins and guns destroy our race? Old age—which few of us attain— Now puts a period to my pain. Would you the good name lost redeem? Live, then, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... expectation! To be sure, some results transcend our hope; but how many fall below it,—balk it,—turn out exactly opposite to it! Among those who meet with disappointments in life, there are those who are expecting impossibilities,—whose expectations are inordinate,—are more than the nature of things will admit; or who are looking for a harvest where they have planted no seed. They carry the dreams of youth in among the realities of the world, and its vanishing visions leave them naked and discouraged. The light of ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... thirty-five hundred." He would count up one side of a street and down the other, and place the results in his note-book. I think he published in some paper the record of this individual census as applied to a number of houses and villages. There must have been in his constitution an inordinate love of detail, intensified, perhaps, by much contemplation of those battalions of words which make his spelling-book pages look like spiritual ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... comes down through some twenty years. Carved upon limestone and granite, now it seems engraven also on every Egyptian heart that beats not only with the movement of shadoof, or is not buried in the black soil fertilized by Hapi. Thus can inordinate vanity prolong the true triumph of genius, and impress its own view of itself upon the minds of millions. This Rameses is believed to be the Pharaoh who oppressed the ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... water and struggled with an imaginary obstruction in my throat, and mentally cursing my stupidity in telling my friend's private business to a stranger who had already betrayed an inordinate ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... endeavour to excuse any inordinate or extreme attachment by labouring to show in their highest colours the merits of ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... navigation prevailed on both the African and Indian shores, at the entrance of the Red Sea; and one particular instance was adduced, in which the crew of a Muscat vessel, wrecked on the coast near Aden, were subjected to such inordinate extortion by Sultan Mahassan, that "the master, in anger or despair, burned his vessel. The Bombay government could only give general instructions, that in case of any outrage being offered to a vessel under British colours, redress should be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... arch, and vowed never again to pass it in the pursuit of ill-gotten wealth. I had always a perfect horror of gambling, and little imagined I was pursuing it in a wholesale manner. To satisfy my inordinate curiosity, for sight-seeing, I have twice or thrice in my life passed the threshhold of a gambling-house in London, but never felt the least personal desire to embark the smallest sum, although keenly alive to the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... subject. The limited influence of a national bank in averting derangement in the exchanges of the country or in compelling the resumption of specie payments is now not less apparent than its tendency to increase inordinate speculation by sudden expansions and contractions; its disposition to create panic and embarrassment for the promotion of its own designs; its interference with politics, and its far greater power for evil than for good, either in regard to the local institutions ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... "Much learning doth make thee mad." At any rate the point to be noted is that overindulgence in erudition has always been known to have an unfortunate effect upon the intellectual faculty. Too much wine—though it must have required an inordinate quantity in certain mendacious periods—was regarded as provocative of truth; and too many books as clearly put bats in a man's belfry. The explanation is of course simple enough. If one overweights the head the whole structure ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... the Germans, who are not nice in their modes of warfare, cried out against him. It is an evil fortune that has thrown us into his hands; still, although grasping and avaricious, he can hardly demand for a simple knight any inordinate ransom. The French themselves would cry out did he do so, seeing that so large a number of their own knights are in our hands, and that the king has ample powers of retaliation; however, we need not look on the dark side. It is not likely that our captivity will be a long one, ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... to hold on to the hair of the mother when she is using her arms for the purposes of locomotion. This inference appears to me justifiable, inasmuch as no other explanation can be given of the comparatively inordinate muscular force of an infant's grip. For experiments showed that very young babies are able to support their own weight, by holding on to a horizontal bar, for a period varying from one half to more than two minutes[7]. With his kind permission I here reproduce one of Dr. Robinson's instantaneous, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... cannot be offended, if I point out some of his Imperfections, since they will find that they are very few in Proportion to his Beauties. Amongst the former, we may reckon some Anachronisms, and also the inordinate Length of Time supposed to be employ'd in several of his Pieces; add to all this, that the Plots of his Plays in general, are charged with some little Absurdity or other. But then, how easily may we forgive this, when we reflect upon his many Excellencies! The Tragedy ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... and Godfrey knew it, and this vexed him the more. He had an inordinate opinion of himself and his own consequence, and felt humiliated at being disobeyed by a servant, without being able to punish him for his audacity. This feeling was increased by the presence of a third party, who was ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... organised companies of men, are parties, they are in the highest degree ceremonious; they require a variety of symbolical acts and words intended to impress the business on the memory of all who take part in it; and they demand the presence of an inordinate number of witnesses. From these peculiarities, and others allied to them, springs the universally unmalleable character of the ancient forms of property. Sometimes the patrimony of the family is absolutely inalienable, as was the case with the Sclavonians, ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... artifice; while the mere manual operation tutored his fingers to dexterity at quaint penmanship. He had much leisure too; for it is recorded that his master's business seldom occupied him more than two hours a-day. He was left to devote the rest of his time unquestioned to all the devices of an inordinate imagination. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... he took the greater part of the conversation upon himself, and evidently expected to be listened to. But that was nearly all he wanted. Let him talk, and hear you laugh when he was funny, and he was satisfied. He seemed to have no inordinate desire for admiration or even for approbation. He was fond of telling tales of adventure, some wonderful, some absurd, some having nothing in them but his own presence, and occasionally, while the detail was good the point for the sake of which it had been introduced would be missing; ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... the bestial side of the war-regime (already done justice to by many writers) and consider only the higher aspects of militaristic sentiment. Patriotism no one thinks discreditable; nor does any one deny that war is the romance of history. But inordinate ambitions are the soul of every patriotism, and the possibility of violent death the soul of all romance. The militarily patriotic and romantic-minded everywhere, and especially the professional military class, refuse to admit for a moment that war may be a ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... with Christ in God. 4. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. 5. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 6. For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. 7. In the which ye also walked sometime, when ye lived in them. 8. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... buildings in this town, and some well-appointed hotels. Lake schooners, and steam and canal boats are here in abundance, it being an entrepot for western produce and eastern merchandize. A few straggling Indians are to be seen skulking about Buffalo, like dogs in Cairo, the victims of the inordinate use of ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... are merely the signs of an ill-regulated and inordinate vanity," remarked a Mandarin of the eighth grade, who chanced to be passing, and who stopped to listen to Kai Lung's words. "Nevertheless, it is not fitting that a collection of decaying hovels, which Wu-whei assuredly is, should, in however ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... fiber of the men who were about to inaugurate the modern world. Severely nurtured, unused to delicate living, these giants of the Renaissance were like boys in their capacity for endurance, their inordinate appetite for enjoyment. No generations, hungry, sickly, effete, critical, disillusioned, trod them down. Ennui and the fatigue that springs from skepticism, the despair of thwarted effort, were unknown. Their fresh and unperverted senses rendered them keenly alive ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... contest at some manly game—wrestling, racing, pitching the bar, or the like. At a period somewhat later, these boisterous pastimes began to degenerate; and the Welsh squire became more polished, but not, perhaps, more happy. Still the custom of inordinate potation fondly clung to him. Immediately contiguous to every mansion of any magnitude was erected a summerhouse, usually situated in a spot, selected for the beauty of the scene which it commanded; and to this sanctum did the gentlemen retire after dinner, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... there; but the re-action comes surely, and only a stronger dose next time accomplishes the end desired. Nervous headaches, hysteria in its thousand forms, palpitations, and the long train of nervous symptoms, own inordinate tea and coffee drinking as their parent. Taken in reasonable amounts, tea can not be said to be hurtful; and the medium qualities, carefully prepared, often make a more wholesome tea than that of the highest price, the harmful properties ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... of all inordinate passions to meet their extremes; so was it with mine. Could I have pursued any of these studies with moderation, I might have been to this day, perhaps, both learned and happy. But I could be moderate in nothing. ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... a superfluous illustration of the truth that the one deadly evil to be shunned by those who would remain philanthropists is a practical knowledge of men, and of the truism that the statesman's bane is an inordinate fondness ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... be divided into sub-genera, three in number. Hence, no less than eight genera might be made out of the twelve recent species of Scalpellum and Pollicipes, and their formation, in some degree, be justified; but, in my opinion, this inordinate multiplication of genera destroys the main advantages of classification. At one time, I even thought that it would be best to follow Lamarck, and keep the twelve recent species in one genus; but considering the number of fossil ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... gloom of a brownstone step shadow when the door above opened and a housemaid in cap and apron thrust a plaintively meowing cat from the portico into the street. Trotter quickened his steps, tingling, abashed, shaken with an inordinate and ridiculous sense of guilt. He felt that he wanted to keep out of the light, that he ought to skulk in the shadows until he was free of the weight on his arm. He hurried on until he became desperate, determined to end the farce at any hazard. So, as he passed ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... name of Jacobus Sylvius, according to the fashion of the day, has been fortunate in acquiring a reputation to which his researches do not entitle him. For the name of Dubois the history of anatomy, it is said, is indebted to his inordinate love of money. At the instance of his brother Francis, who was professor of eloquence in the college of Tournay at Paris, he devoted himself to the study of the learned languages and mathematics; but discovering that these elegant ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... seriously incline to share the long up-hill struggle of a rising barrister? Those dull Temple-chambers are lucky enough if the sun condescends to visit them at rare intervals in his journey westward. But Waring's own singleness of purpose beguiled him more effectually than the most inordinate vanity could have done. Putting character out of the question, he thought a woman could only derogate by allying herself to one of inferior birth; and he knew his own blood to be nearly equal to Miss Tresilyan's. He was right so far—if she had only loved him she would have ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... as now we do behold him, but a Different Animal with four short legs. He was gray and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate: he danced on an outcrop in the middle of Australia, and he went to the Little God Nqa at six before breakfast, saying, "Make me different from all other animals by five ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... quarter where I could push my inquiries, there was nothing left me but to return to the Advocate's. I was well received by the four ladies, who were now in company together, and must give the news of Prestongrange and what word went in the west country, at the most inordinate length and with great weariness to myself; while all the time that young lady, with whom I so much desired to be alone again, observed me quizzically, and seemed to find pleasure in the sight of my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... father thoughtfully, "offer yourself to some rising American novelist as a study for the new hero,—one absolutely without ambition, capacity, or energy; willing, however, to be whatever the novelist chooses to make him, so long as he hasn't to choose for himself. If your inordinate self-consciousness is still in your way, I could give him a few ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... boy plays unfairly and is barred from the game. One bullies his weaker companion and arouses the anger and scorn of all his fellows. Another vents his braggadocio and feels at once the withering scorn of those who listen. Laziness, selfishness, meanness, dishonesty, ingratitude, inconstancy, inordinate pride, and the countless other faults all have their social penalties. The child of normal intelligence sees the point, draws the appropriate lesson and (provided emotions and will are also normal) ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... the hopelessness of their position grew upon the minds of all. Their ammunition was almost gone—each man had but a few rounds remaining—and it was evident that Pesita, through an inordinate desire for revenge, would persist until he had reduced their fortress and claimed the last of them as ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... long as a single bubble of grease would rise to the surface of the water; every vestige of meat was gnawed and scraped from the surface and then the bone was charred until it crumbled, when it was eaten. No one who has not experienced it can imagine the inordinate hunger for animal food of those who had eaten little else than corn bread for so long. Our exhausted bodies were perishing for lack of proper sustenance. Nature indicated fresh beef as the best medium to repair ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... character so interesting to all present, the sitting was prolonged to quite an inordinate length, and though no one, except perhaps the professor, noted the fact, it was past midnight when the adventurous quartette rose from the table, and taking their wine and cigars with them, moved into the ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... character, but as his Friend. I introduced him to my Friends, Lord Grantley and his Brother General Norton, who were vastly taken with him, as indeed are every one. And I should be mortified in the highest degree to see the honourable feelings of my little fellow exposed to insult by the inordinate Indiscretions of any Servant. He has Ability and a quickness of Conception, and a correct Discrimination that is seldom seen in a youth, and he is a fit associate of men, and choice indeed must be the Company that ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... to the happiness and welfare of the community. The ceremony of coronation was considered, indeed, a necessary condition for the exercise of the royal authority; but though this in some measure acted as a check upon his inordinate power, still all offices and dignities were in the gift of the King, few, if any, being hereditary, and even the magnates could not prevent the monarch giving away ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... either kind. He probably belongs to some working family, whom he favours with his company only at such times as pleases himself, for he is utterly unmanageable by his parents. He has exuberant spirits and an inordinate love of mischief, which shows itself in manifold ways. He has a sort of organization of his own, and seems to revel in uncurbed liberty of action. Occasionally some wrathful citizen executes summary justice upon him, in spite of the ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... never been ambitious before. I have never cared enough about the world. I wrote first because the songs sang off the point of my quill, and then to keep a roof over my head. I have never placed any inordinate value on my work after it was done, although the making of it gave me the keenest happiness, the polishing delighted all the artist in me. It is only now, now, for the first time, that I have been fancying myself going down to posterity in the company of the immortals. Oh God, what ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... the liver, which is dense, smooth, and shining, and, containing in combination both bitter and sweet, is fitted to receive and reflect, as a mirror, the images of thoughts. Whenever the Reason disapproves, it checks inordinate desires by its bitterness, and, on the other hand, when it approves, all is soothed into gentle repose by its sweetness; moreover, in sleep, in sickness, or in inspiration it becomes prophetic, so that even the vilest portion of the body ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... merchant, who had run over during his holidays to have a peep at the turbulent Irish. He had been in Ireland for a few weeks, and had visited some cabins and spoken to some laborers, and had settled the matter to his own satisfaction. "The ills of Ireland arise from the inordinate love of the soil in the Irish, and their lower civilization. For instance, an English farmer in renting a farm would consider how much would support his family first, and if the landlord would not accept ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... It is true in many cases that indirect interest is not interest at all. It is a dangerous thing in education to substitute indirect for direct or true interest. The former often means the cultivation, primarily, of certain inordinate desires or feelings, such as rivalry, pride, jealousy, ambition, reputation, love of self. By appealing to the selfish pride of children in getting lessons, hateful moral qualities are sometimes started into active growth ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... after the little affair in Marseilles I don't trust them," replied The Sparrow. "When anyone makes a slip, either by design or sheer carelessness, or perhaps by reason of inordinate avarice, then I always have to safeguard myself. I suspect—and my ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... from an operation owing to disease has at times given queer and unlooked-for results, as, for instance, in the case of the old man that Sprengle mentions, in whom castration did not remove an inordinate sexual desire. Sir Astley Cooper mentions a case in his "Diseases of the Testes" that is somewhat unique. After castration Sir Astley's patient showed the following results: "For nearly the first twelve ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother's side a Powler, married this lady, being by the father's side a Scadgers. Lady Scadgers (an immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher's meat, and a mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years) contrived the marriage, at a period when Sparsit was just of age, and chiefly noticeable for a slender ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... not read in her face whether she suspected that he could have told her more. And in spite of an inordinate, human joy in being again in her presence, his desire to hide from her that which had taken place within him, and the inability he felt to read his future, were instinctive: the more so because of the very spontaneity they had achieved at their ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... relinquish their firm embrace. Three or four of the party had ventured out, and we had secured a large sackful, after which we all retired to the tent, except one of our number, who, having a lady-love in Cardwell with an inordinate affection for shell-fish, lingered to fill a haversack for his 'inamorata'. We were comfortably smoking our pipes and watching with satisfaction the tide rising higher and higher, when a faint "coo-eh" from the direction of the rock reached us, followed by another and another ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... such a state of subserviency that it dares not insert any discussion upon a general question of politics because it might give umbrage to the Government of the day? I pass over the undeniable fact that it is underlings only whom you are scared by, and that the Ministers themselves have no such inordinate pretension as to dream of interfering. I say nothing of those underlings generally, except this, that I well know the race, and a more despicable, above all, in point of judgment, exists not. Never mind their threats, they can do no harm. Even ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... while on the way thither an olive wreath was placed upon his head, to signify that upon him depended the safety and liberty of the city. This, among many similar instances, serves to prove how undesirable it is to enter upon office or power exciting inordinate expectations; for, being unable to fulfil them (many looking for more than it is possible to perform), shame and disappointment are the ordinary results. Tommaso and Niccolo Soderini were brothers. Niccolo was the more ardent and spirited, Tommaso the wiser man; who, being very much the ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... you subject yourself to this punishment? or for what reward will you inflict all this misery on another? I will add, on your friend? for the possession of a woman; for the pleasure of a moment? But, if neither virtue nor religion can restrain your inordinate appetites, are there not many women as handsome as your friend's wife, whom, though not with innocence, you may possess with a much less degree of guilt? What motive then can thus hurry you on to the destruction of yourself and your friend? doth the peculiar rankness ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... on the sly; but he telegraphs home to stop the appearance of some that had been written, breaks off another in the middle, and becomes absorbed in the official duties, which were of themselves quite sufficient to satiate any but an inordinate appetite ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Cranmer's degradation at Oxford, with which solemn and painful act Bonner was charged; but the strongest words used by the bishop in answer to Cranmer's continued protests and recriminations were, according to Foxe himself, merely that " for his inordinate contumacy, he denied him to speak any more, saying that he had used himself ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... keen, quick brain behind the dark and lovely eyes, a faultless knowledge of the courtesies of finer folk. Mic-co had wrought generously and well. Only the girl's inordinate shyness and the stern traditions of her tribe, Diane fancied, kept her chained to her ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... only was thus prepared for him; for at that period of his education it would have been impossible, without harsher measures than his tutor wished to adopt, to prevent him from cross-readings, which would greatly have blemished his scholarship. Some minor offences, such, for instance, as inordinate efforts to begin upon a second line before he had regularly perused the first, were punished by switching him on the nose, turning the double desk round—in which case it presented him with a mirror, that frightened him dreadfully—or even, in case of perverseness, leaving him to himself, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... other demonstrable truth, inasmuch as they have their foundation in human nature itself, and can be rejected but by him who rebels against the noblest impulses of the heart, to give himself up to the sway of passions or inordinate appetites. ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... Development in this direction is viewed apprehensively by many people who regard that the concentration of power in the hands of an "inner cabinet" might well fail to be accompanied by a corresponding concentration of recognized responsibility. During more than a decade criticism of the inordinate size of the cabinet group has been voiced freely upon numerous occasions ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Maur had endeared himself to Lord Henry chiefly by the inordinate beauty of his person, his exuberant health, and his modesty. He was wealthy and the only son of a wealthy father. All the "loot" of the de Porvilliers had come to him through his mother, and to Lord Henry's surprise had failed to turn his head. On the contrary, ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... the saying is, unless you have stopped sometime in your busy going, to consider, aside and with understanding, the pathos of the old actor. It is a curiously poignant human thing, written about by a few, suffered by many, and ignored by the loud, inordinate world. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... one of those inordinate pests which almost every village, town and hamlet in the country is more or less accursed with. He was a great, tall, bony, sharp-nosed, grinning genius, who, being in possession of a small farm, with plenty of boys and girls to work it, did not do anything but eat, sleep and lounge ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... due to inflammation, injuries, working in phosphorus, or from the inordinate and ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... never wavers In truth to the Psyche of gain. Bountiful Money! 'Twill make you Worthy in manners and birth; Beauty for better will take you (Little as that may be worth), Hosts by the hand kindly shake you, Crowds, when you wish to be funny, Mind doing homage to Money, Laugh with inordinate mirth. Sages and moralists blame thee, Stoics stand gloomy above thee, Preachers with obloquy name thee, Hermits and anchorites shame thee, But symbol of all that is sunny, Coy, courteous, flattering Money, I love thee, I ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... came to the rescue. She slid into the silence with a technicality, asking if John still took his old inordinate amount of sugar. Thence it was but a step to the burning question of the day; and in tones a little shaken, she commented on the interval since she had last made tea for the prodigal, and congratulated him on his return. And then addressing Mr. Nicholson, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mr. Condor, "which sometimes swell to quite an inordinate figure. Your uncle, I presume, Mr. Newt, would not be unwilling to contribute a certain share of the expense of your election; and indeed, now that you are so conspicuous a leader, he would probably expect to contribute ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... been a small and stertorous automobile locally known as "Puffy Pete," Mr. James Mindle always referred to his process of postal transfer from the station to the town as "teamin' over the mail." He was a frail, grinny man from the prairie country, much given to romantic imaginings and an inordinate admiration for Banneker. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... machines—no doubt of the Pianotist and Pianola kind—and he spent all the leisure he could gain in going to and fro in the earth lecturing on "The Need of a Return to Nature," and on "Simple Foods and Simple Ways." He did it for the love of it. It was very clear to us he had an inordinate impulse to lecture, and esteemed us fair game. He had been lecturing on these topics in Italy, and he was now going back through the mountains to lecture in Saxony, lecturing on the way, to perforate a lot more records, lecturing the while, and so start out lecturing again. He was undisguisedly ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... the contagion, and the life of the habitual valetudinarian tends promptly to depress the nerve energy which provides the true stamina of health. In the words of an eminent physician, 'It is not by being anxious in an inordinate or unduly fussy fashion that men can hope to live long and well. The best way to live well is to work well. Good work is the daily test and safeguard of personal health.... The practical aim should ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... exultation at the downfall of a despot, who, aiming at the sovereignty of the world, scrupled not to sacrifice virtue and good faith at the shrine of ambition. The fate of both chiefs was similar, for both perished in captivity—the one the victim, perhaps, of inordinate ambition, the other of unscrupulous avarice and envious malignity. The misfortunes of Toussaint L'Ouverture have indeed with justice been pronounced the "history of the negro race," for, in almost every instance where coloured men have pushed themselves above the common level, they have ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... need never doubt the chance of his success, for he has only to knock, and it shall be opened unto him. The principal requisites for admission, in a literary point of view, are as follows. First, an inordinate share of affectation and conceit, with a few occasional good things sprinkled, like green spots of verdure in a wilderness, with a "parca quod satis est manu." Secondly, a prodigious quantity of assurance, that neither God nor man can ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... and are, honourable men of the highest standing who failed to ascribe disinterested motives to the man who suddenly and secretly betrayed his colleagues, his party, and his closest friends, and tried to break up the Empire to satisfy an inordinate ambition, and an insatiable craving for power. 'He might have been mistaken, but he acted for the best'? Was he acting conscientiously for the best in persuading the 'masses' to look upon the 'classes' - the war cries are of his coining - as their natural enemies, and worthy ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... been accused of ambition in presenting this measure—ambition, inordinate ambition. If I had thought of myself only, I should have never brought it forward. I know well the perils to which I expose myself: the risk of alienating faithful and valued friends, with but little prospect of making new ones, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... however, a persistent rumour that Valens himself had been bought with a heavy bribe. He had long been in mean circumstances and ill concealed his sudden accession of wealth. Prolonged poverty had whetted his inordinate desires, and the needy youth grew ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... success. For example, Lucas had said: "Don't go and get above yourself, old chap. They may decide not to build it after all. You never know with these corporations." A remark extremely undeserved, for George considered that the modesty and simplicity of his own demeanour under the stress of an inordinate triumph were rather notable. Still, he had his dignity to maintain against the satiric, and his position was such that he ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... David Hume persuaded Rousseau to go with him to England, where the exile could find a secure shelter. In London his appearance excited general attention. Edmund Burke had an interview with him and held that inordinate vanity was the leading trait in his character. Mr. Davenport, to whom he was introduced by Hume, generously offered Rousseau a home at Wootton, in Staffordshire, near the, Peak Country; the latter, however, would only accept the offer on condition that he ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... improvement. It has been stated in former reports, that since the first establishment of this society, in the year 1843, and essentially through its influence, great ameliorations have been secured; that the inordinate hours of work formerly prevalent had, speaking generally, been greatly reduced; that Sunday labor had been abolished; that the young people were rarely kept up all night; and that, as a consequence of these improvements, there ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... The fatal objection to all Mr. Froude's advocacy of colour-domination is that [194] it is futile from being morally unreasonable. In view of the natural and absolute impossibility of reviving the same external conditions under which the inordinate deference and submission to white persons were both logically and inevitably engendered and maintained, his efforts to talk people into a frame of mind favourable to his views on this subject are but a melancholy waste of well-turned sentences. Man's estimate ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... all coming to my ball to-night," said she. Mr. Prohack had never heard of any ball. In an instant she told him that she had remarked two most charming ladies with him in the box—(inordinate faculty of observation, mused Mr. Prohack)—and in another instant she was selling him three two guinea tickets for a grand ball and rout in aid of the West End Chorus Girls' Aid Association. Could ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... heed to the scoffs and the jeers of those who passed along the street, laughing him to scorn as they beheld him lying there in a stupor from excessive drink at that inordinate hour of the day. And among those who came by at last was a man from Satsuma, who was moved to voice the reproaches of all ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... the advantages of old age, if we contemplate it in another point of view; if we consider it as delivering us from the tyranny of lust and ambition; from the angry and contentious passions; from every inordinate and irrational desire; in a word, as teaching us to retire within ourselves, and look for happiness in our own bosoms. If to these moral benefits naturally resulting from length of days be added that sweet food of the mind which is gathered in the fields of science, I know not any season of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... was himself. His faults of character—inordinate ambition, inflexible obstinacy, reckless daring—were such as in the end to negative his military genius and lead to the destruction of the great power he had so rapidly built up. The other was Czar Peter of Russia. It was unfortunate for the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... far as Persian politeness and civility will admit, the intrusion of the inevitable self-sufficients who presume on their "eminent respectability" as loafers, in contradistinction to the half-naked tillers of the soil, to invade the premises and satisfy their inordinate curiosity, and their weakness for kalian, smoking and tea-drinking at another's expense. After duly discussing between us a samovar of tea, we take a stroll through the village to see the old castle, and the umbars that supply the village with water. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... own, who would not learn, Thou didst use for my punishment- a fit penalty for one, so small a boy and so great a sinner. So by those who did not well, Thou didst well for me; and by my own sin Thou didst justly punish me. For Thou hast commanded, and so it is, that every inordinate affection should be ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... are barely a fiftieth of an inch in length. The creature is unable to make use of them, not only in the liquid honey upon which it lives, but even on a solid surface. If we take the larva from the cell and place it on a hard substance, to observe it more readily, we see that the inordinate protuberance of the abdomen, by lifting the thorax from the ground, prevents the legs from finding a support. Lying on its side, the only possible position because of its conformation, the larva remains motionless or only makes a few lazy, wriggling movements of the abdomen, without ever ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... stored his mind during these journeys with that wealth of imagery, drawn from the scenery of his native land, which constitutes the most national element in his verse. He also contracted, during his residence in Branting's house, an inordinate love of books. Once during the harvest-time he was placed on guard at an open gate, so as to prevent the cattle from breaking into the adjoining field. To the great chagrin of his patron, however, the cows made their way unhindered ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... value in that distinction, it ought to be steadily maintained. If indulgence be shewn to such conduct, and the offenders know that in a longer or shorter time they shall be received as well as if they had not contaminated their blood by a base alliance, the great check upon that inordinate caprice which generally occasions low marriages will be removed, and the fair and comfortable order of improved life will ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... present State banks are employed as depositories, but without adequate regulation of law whereby the public money can be secured against the casualties and excesses, revulsions, suspensions, and defalcations to which from overissues, overtrading, an inordinate desire for gain, or other causes they are constantly exposed. The Secretary of the Treasury has in all cases when it was practicable taken collateral security for the amount which they hold, by the pledge of stocks of the United States or such of the States as were in good credit. Some ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... and became the passionate dream of their existence. All who visited that region knew him as the Seeker and by no other name. As none could remember when he first took up the search, there went a fable in the valley of the Saco, that for his inordinate lust after the Great Carbuncle, he had been condemned to wander among the mountains till the end of time, still with the same feverish hopes at sunrise—the same despair at eve. Near this miserable Seeker sat a little elderly personage, wearing ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... depopulated, the survivors living in the utmost starvation and misery and being despoiled of all that they possessed. Muhammad exterminated whole tribes as if they had been vermin. Incensed at the refusal of the inhabitants of a certain harassed tract to pay the inordinate demands of his subordinates, he ordered out his army as if for a hunt, surrounded an extensive tract of country, closed the circle towards the centre, and slaughtered every living soul found therein. This amusement was repeated ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... so inordinate that he accepted the compliment as his due, though he waved his hand with an air ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... barbecue, that we attended without reference to our personal politics, and solely for the sake of Judge Piper and the girls; nor did he go to the Agricultural Fair Ball—open to all. His abstention we believed to be owing to his lameness; to a wholesome consciousness of his own social defects; or an inordinate passion for reading cheap scientific textbooks, which did not, however, add fluency nor conviction to his speech. Neither had he the abstraction of a student, for his accounts were kept with an accuracy which struck us, who dealt at the store, as ignobly practical, and even ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... those to whom the ordinary operations of human trade or labor had proved tedious or unproductive—with whom the toils, aims, and impulses of society were deficient of interest; or, upon whom, an inordinate desire of a sudden to acquire wealth had exercised a sufficiently active influence to impel to the novel employment of gold-finding—or rather gold-seeking, for it was not always that the search was successful—the very name of such a pursuit carrying with it to many no small degree ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... darkness, lit only by the solitary candle, the Baron and his host endeavored to maintain the sceptical buoyancy with which they had set forth upon their adventure. But the chilliness of the room (they had no fire, and it was a misty night with a moaning wind), the inordinate quantity of odd-looking shadows, and the profound silence, were immediately destructive to buoyancy ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... consequence—an uninterrupted succession of mixed odours of cooking from early morning till late at night; fleas and other insect pests, which seemed to thrive mightily on the powders put down for their extermination; landladies afflicted with spasms and inordinate thirst, and landladies' cats with unappeasable appetites; cramped quarters, of course, which did not afflict one on fine days, but on rainy ones became pandemonium; terrible attempts at amateurish cooking and service—in ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... appearing in a series of Eminent Women, it served to emphasise the growing opinion that Emily, as well as Charlotte, had a place among the great writers of her day. Miss Robinson added nothing to our knowledge of Emily Bronte, and her book devoted inordinate space to the shortcomings of Branwell, concerning which she had no ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Berlin fully confirms this point of view. Here are inordinate crowds whom politics have separated from kith and kin, trying to get passes to go home, to live, to exist. The door-keeper smokes a cigar; the first clerk makes eyes at the women applicants, the girl clerks ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... which was spent entirely in Italy and Sicily, he contributed three articles on M. Rio's book, "L'Art Chretien," to the Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve. We see in them the young student conscientiously writing his first review—writing it at inordinate length, as young reviewers are apt to do, and treating the subject ab ovo in a grave, pontifical way, which is a little naive and inexperienced indeed, but still promising, as all seriousness of work and purpose is promising. All that is individual in it is first of all ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... club of Equality and Fraternity. Any passer-by was at liberty to enter and take part in the debates, his only qualification for this temporary membership being an inordinate love ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... slippery night-life of the Gipsy; his familiarity with deep ravine and lonely wood-path, moonlight and field-lairs; his use of a secret language, and his constant habit of concealing everything from everybody; his private superstitions, and his inordinate love of humbugging and selling friend and foe, tend to produce in him that goblin, elfin, boyish-mischievous, out-of-the-age state of mind which is utterly indescribable to a prosaic modern-souled man, but which is delightfully piquant to others. Many a time among Gipsies I have felt, ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... this variability, it would be difficult to conceive the inordinate variety of human nature. But when you consider that all the important tendencies of the creature, his appetites, his loves, his hates, his curiosity, his sexual cravings, his fears, and pugnacity, are freely attachable to all sorts of objects as stimulus, and to all ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... sensuality. The gratification of our taste in the abundant supplies of nature, converted by art to the purposes of wholesome food, is perfectly compatible with the necessary maintenance of health; it is only the indiscriminate or inordinate indulgence of our appetites, regardless of the consequences, that is the proper object of censure. Many of the diseases to which we are subject might be traced to this source; yet we are generally so little aware ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... prompt, but between Shawport and Crewe it suffered delays, so that there was not an inordinate amount of time to ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... "Guy takes inordinate pride in his parterre, arranges and overlooks all the flowers himself. I often tell him I am jealous of my beautiful rivals; they monopolize his ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... 'Where, sir, is all this dainty cheer? Nor turkey, goose, nor hen is here. These are the phantoms of your brain, And your sons lick their lips in vain.' 20 'O gluttons!' says the drooping sire, 'Restrain inordinate desire. Your liqu'rish taste you shall deplore, When peace of conscience is no more. Does not the hound betray our pace, And gins and guns destroy our race? Thieves dread the searching eye of power, And never feel the quiet hour. Old age (which few of us shall know) Now puts a period to my woe. ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... characters have already been treated, both copiously and ably, by some eminent writers of the present (and, indeed, of future) ages; though to tread in the footsteps of the immortal FAGIN requires a genius of inordinate stride, and to go a-robbing after the late though deathless TURPIN, the renowned JACK SHEPPARD, or the embryo DUVAL, may be impossible, and not an infringement, but a wasteful indication of ill-will ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the set face, and the introspective eyes. Then came the murder, and Richard's complete prostration. Mr. Slocum in his own excitement had noted it superficially at the time, but now he recalled the young man's inordinate sorrow, and it seemed rather like remorse. Was his present immobile serenity the natural expression of a man whose heart had suddenly ossified, and was no longer capable of throbbing with its guilt? Richard Shackford was rapidly becoming an ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the ground of inordinate expense is doubtless better taken, and can be met only by substantial proof that the enormous outlay is a wise one. Tobacco may be "the anodyne of poverty," as somebody has said, but it certainly promotes poverty. This narcotic lulls to sleep all pecuniary economy. Every pipe ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... bloom were still there, but in my heart a chill had entered to drive out the warmth. My ruin, my failure, the poverty to which I had brought Sally and the child through my inordinate ambition, and the weight of the two hundred thousand dollars of debt on my shoulders—all these things returned to my memory, with an additional heaviness, like a burden that has been lifted only to ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow |
