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Let alone   /lɛt əlˈoʊn/   Listen
Let alone

adverb
1.
Much less.  Synonym: not to mention.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Let alone" Quotes from Famous Books



... not outgrown the delusions of your sex. Is an Englishman's house his castle while housemaids maraud over it, ransacking his possessions, irritating poor peaceful dust that only wants to be let alone, sweeping away ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... health, cared for and kindly nursed in childhood, sickness, and old age; multiply faster, live longer, are free from all the corroding ills of poverty and anxious care, labor moderately, enjoy the blessings of the gospel, and let alone by wicked ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... would have been all right if Harry would have lent a hand now and then," she said, "but he won't even clean his own boots, let alone any one else's; while as for bringing in a scuttle of coal, or going an errand, or putting a spade near the garden, he'd think himself disgraced for ever if he did either. Disgraced! He!" with a bitter laugh, and the meaning ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... I had best stand up to them, having started off so recklessly, and tried to lash myself into bravery by remembering how full I was of the blood of all the Cholmondeleys, let alone those relations of yours alleged to have fought alongside the Black Prince; so though I wished there were several of me rather than only one, I said with ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley

... got to know," he continued, "but the tale he told about the invented brother was his own history, and quite deceived me and Morley. Also that soliloquy after Mrs. Benker departed was a masterly conception. It would have cheated any one, let alone me. The man was acting for the benefit of myself and Morley, and knew we were listening. What ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... as I do. With regard to the charge of pistols and revolvers, and my using them, I call my God as a witness that I neither used pistols, revolvers, nor any instrument on that day that would deprive the life of a child, let alone a man. Nor did I go there on purpose to take life away. Certainly, my lords, I do not want to deny that I did go to give aid and assistance to those two noble heroes that were confined in that van—Kelly and Deasey. I did go to do as much as lay in ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... to tell how far things will go, Daisy, now that they have actually taken up arms. But I do not think the Southern people want anything of the North, but to be let alone." ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... a low voice, for the door between the rooms was open a trifle. "There isn't enough stuff here to feed a canary bird, let alone two human beings. Why, whatever do they live on? They must be as poor as Job's turkey. I can't just place that man, somehow; seems as if I must have known him once; but he's changed a heap. Help me skirmish around for some ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... would begin: "Oh, don't push me—don't come so near—I don't like having my face blown on." Presently my sister with angelic patience would show him a mistake. "Oh, don't interfere—you make it all mixed up in my head." Then he would be let alone for a little. Then he would put the slate down with an expression of despair and resignation; if my sister took no notice he would say: "I thought Mamma told you to help me in my sums? How can I understand without having it explained to me?" It was impossible to get the last word; indeed he used ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... know I was getting a little rough myself. Really, I hope I didn't hurt any of them. I didn't mean to. I'm very vigorous, for I belong to an athletic club. I dare not trust myself to play rough with men, let alone boys—yes, I didn't dare strike. I didn't want to ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey

... They seemed to put a great deal of rigour into the job; whether from natural enthusiasm or efficient direful supervision I could not say. Certainly they must have worked in watches, however; no human being could keep up that row continuously for a single day, let alone the whole season of ripening grain. As we passed they fell ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... mountain wall the road is carried in seventeen sharp zigzags; so steep is it that the country people call it the 'Devil's Staircase.' Any army holding the top of the pass would have an ascending enemy at its mercy, let alone an army of Highlanders, accustomed to skulk behind rock and shrub, and skilled to rush down the most rugged hillsides with the swiftness and surefootedness ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... he?" retorted Mrs. Forbes sharply. "His two boys acted as selfish to him as boys could. He's a disappointed, humiliated man in that proud heart of his. He's been hunted out and harrowed up in this peaceful retreat, when all he asked was to be let alone with his horses and his golf clubs, and I think one daughter-in-law's enough under the circumstances. I have some respect for Mrs. Harry, whoever she is, because she lets him alone. In all the long years we've spent here, when he often had no one to talk to but ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... empty to receive Dr. MacBride and me. And I saw that the Judge had been very clever indeed. For I had abstained from telling any tales about the present feeling between Trampas and the Virginian; but he had divined it. Well enough for him to say that "particulars" were something he let alone; he evidently kept a deep eye on the undercurrents at his ranch. He knew that in Roberts, Trampas had lost a powerful friend. And this was what I most saw, this final fact, that Trampas had no longer any intervening ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... mysel'," said the Scotsman, who had joined us silently, "mysel' that has'na a dud to my back. D'ye ken that when there's ony distribution o' the gudes I get a' the female apparel; which is no justice ava for a meenister, let alone a sea-faring man." ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... whose sake the glittering show appears Has sown the world with laughter and with tears, And they whose welcome wets the bumper's brim Have wit and wisdom,—for they all quote him. So, many a tongue the evening hour prolongs With spangled speeches,—let alone the songs; Statesmen grow merry, lean attorneys laugh, And weak teetotals warm to half and half, And beardless Tullys, new to festive scenes, Cut their first crop of youth's precocious greens, And wits stand ready for impromptu claps, With loaded barrels and ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... said. "There is neither room for man or beast in this damned abbey. The guest house has no more than half a dozen rooms, and the stable—why, it is not fit for pigs, let alone the ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... have lately read aloud for the second time your Bronte book; let alone private readings. It is unique in plan and excellence, and I am greatly obliged to you for it. Apart from the pleasure of the book, the form of it has always interested me as a professional biographer. It certainly is novel; and in this case ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... nothing except to be let alone. Certainly I do not ask to be accepted as Ilam Carve. I was leading a placid and agreeable existence in a place called Putney, an ideal existence with a pearl among women, when my tranquillity was disturbed and my ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett

... stood by, when they heard it, said, "Behold, he calleth Elias." And one ran and filled a spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, "Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take ...
— Jesus of Nazareth - A Biography • John Mark

... fear from others, everything from himself. Justice, law, the world—on all sides he was let alone; nothing was asked of him; that which was owed was paid; but he by a sickly aberration was going to awake the dead who slept in their tomb, from which no one thought of taking them, and to make spectres of them which he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... So many millions of girls and women, and all like beasts in a forest! As she grows up, so she dies! Never sees anything; never hears anything. A peasant,—he may learn something at the pub, or maybe in prison, or in the army,—as I did. But a woman? Let alone about God, she doesn't even know rightly what Friday it is! Friday! Friday! But ask her what's Friday? She don't know! They're like blind puppies, creeping about and poking their noses into the dung-heap.... All they know are their silly songs. Ho, ho, ho, ho! But what they mean ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... the child and lifted into the full light of the lamp one of the little hands I saw lying outside of the coverlet. There was no mistaking it for a girl's hand, let alone a little lady's. ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... hospitality, though to drink intoxicants on the march is suicidal. Men "fell out," first by ones and twos, then by whole half-dozens and dozens. The Subaltern himself was scarcely strong enough to stagger up the long hills at the back of the town, let alone worrying about his men. The Colonel was aghast, and very furious. He couldn't understand it. (He ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... never crossed Hog Mountain before, and, so help his gracious, he would never cross it again. The roads were all rough and the ladies were all queer. As for the latter—well, great Jingo! they would scarcely look at his most beautiful collection of shawls and ribbons and laces, let alone buy them. In Villa Bay (or, as Cohen called it, "Feel Hooray") he had heard that Teague Poteet had been arrested and carried to Atlanta by a man named Woodward. No one had told him this, but he heard people talking about it wherever ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... much for a commoner, let alone a peer," said Roland, growing fierce. "If I were no better off than Carrick, I'd drop the title; that's what I'd do. Why, if he could live as a peer ought, do you suppose we should be in the position we are? One a soldier; one (and that's me) lowered to be a common ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... do you think yachts are for, anyhow? To let alone?" He looked at the maid as he spoke and pointed significantly to the door. She went out at once and returned upstairs to her mistress whom she found quite restless to "get-a-goin'" as she ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... with light, careless irony he says of his lady friend: 'She has read Spencer!' And they all listen to him, and no one cares to understand that this charlatan has not the right to kiss the sole of Spencer's foot, let alone speaking about him in that tone! Sapping the foundations of civilisation, of authority, of other people's altars, spattering them with filth, winking jocosely at them only to justify and conceal one's own rottenness and moral poverty is only possible for a very vain, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... the United States, concerning the contrast between it and Europe, is incorrect. At the time in the nation's history when material conditions were easy, theoretically, the thought of abortion, let alone its execution, could not spring up; and it did not. All the reports of that time, not forgetting Washington Irving's humorous account of the custom of "bundling," confirm the fact. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... country, equal in extent, fertility, beauty and resources to any of our States—nay, superior to any. I had secured the means, in men and arms, of keeping it. I knew how only it could be defended. I asked no aid of any of you. I only asked to be let alone. Verily, I have my reward also, as Hastings had his, for winning India for the ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... the Count answered. "It is a frightful strain—you of course realise that—for anyone who has been accustomed to the decencies, let alone the luxuries, of life. This filth"—he pronounced the word with indescribable bitterness—"this herding of men like cattle—they treat us no better than pigs here. The fellows drop their dung in the very room where they sleep. What is one to expect of a place like this? Ce n'est pas ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... about sixteen, I went to work driving a bakery wagon, so that I didn't see quite so much of my former pals, but delivering bread took me into places where no honest or moral man or boy ought to even dare to set his foot, let alone one like me; so I ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... He was aware that he had already asked them to do the impossible, and they had done it. And they deserved to be let alone. But Major Connel wasn't himself unless he had given every ounce of energy he had left, or the energy left in those around him. He patted Roger on the shoulder ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell

... to settle the slavery question forever and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible and have no ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... about the third day after birth with swelling of the lid of one or other eye, though both are soon involved. The eyelids swell rapidly, and if the affection is let alone, they soon put on the appearance of two semi-transparent cushions over the eyes. On separating the lids, which it is often very difficult to do owing to the spasmodic contraction of the muscles, their inner surface ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... he gave her but brief survey, since her companion, in all likelihood Miss Vanrenen, might quite reasonably attract his attention. Indeed, she would find favor in the eyes of any young man, let alone one who had such cause as Viscount Medenham to be interested in her appearance. In her amazingly lovely face the haughty beauty of an aristocrat was softened by a touch of that piquant femininity which the well-bred American girl seems to bring from Paris with her clothes. A mass of dark brown ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... be repeated too often, and because the toan of obsyvation with which they have been genrally received by the press, is not igsackly such as I think they merit. How, indeed, can these common magaseen and newspaper pipple know anythink of fashnabble life, let alone ryal? ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... be let alone, without pouring Vinegar or some other accid liquor upon it, out of every Grain thereof would be form'd a little Fly, which would skip and fly up and down for a day or two, and at last changing its colour, fall down quite dead, deprived ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... you, then you go to prison and hard labor to the full extent of the law. We've fixed things so you can't play any more tricks. This man is a private detective. As long as you do the square thing by your wife and child, you'll be let alone. If you try to sneak off, you'll be nabbed. Now, if you aint a scamp down to your heel-taps, get up out of that chair like a man, treat your wife as she deserves for letting you off so easy, and don't make her change her mind by acting as if ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... racial factor; but they do not seem to have been decisive with Durham. At the last moment he gave way to a dread of predominant French influence in Lower Canada, similar at bottom to his dread of the unchecked influence of the British minority. While he feared that the latter, if let alone, would inaugurate a reign of terror, he added also: "Never again will the present generation of French-Canadians yield a loyal submission to a British Government." The argument is inconsistent with the whole spirit of the Report, which attributes the friction in both Provinces to bad political ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... of people; they are small people and they never did that amount of business in all their lives, let alone ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... were no inspection days, No standards then were known, Children could freely make dirt pies, And learning let alone! ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge

... some such form that one tries to dream the future. The chaos into which religious observance has fallen at the present day is, surely, a real disaster. Religious services in which men and women cannot take part, either honestly or with any spiritual gain, are better let alone. Yet the ideal of a common worship is an infinitely noble one. Year after year the simplest and most crying reforms in the liturgy of the Church of England are postponed, because nobody can agree upon them. And ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... aboard the convict-ship Success while she was in the New York harbor this spring," commented the minister. "I don't see how civilized men could think out so many different modes of torture and remain civilized, let alone human." ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... Mis Maddox was all out o' husbands jest then,—she 'd jest disposed of her fourth, somehow or 'nother; she always hed a plenty 'n' to spare, though there's lots o' likely women folks round here that never hed one chance, let alone four. Her daughter Fidelity was a chip o' the old block. Her father hed named her Fidelity after his mother, when she wa'n't nothin' but a two-days-old baby, 'n' he didn't know how she was goin' to turn out; if he 'd 'a' ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... bein' naturally o' a cold turn, and him comin' from a warm country, too. Then out I goes, and down the river, until I sees the Black Eagle a-comin' up wi' a tug in front of her. Well I knowed the two streaks o' white paint, let alone the screechin' o' the parrots which I could hear from the bank. I could see the heads o' some of the men peepin' over the side, so I waves my handkercher, and one o' them he waves back. 'Trust Jim for knowin' his little ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... fleet of native schooners, who, watching her closely and assured now of her course, spread out to intercept her. Expert seamen themselves, nowhere did they leave a space wide enough for a rowboat, let alone a ninety-ton ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... gentleman who presided there a quiet glance equivalent to a beckon, and, as that person came near, communicated two or three items of intelligence or instruction concerning office details, by which that invaluable diviner of business meanings understood that he wished to be let alone for an hour. Then M. Grandissime passed on into his private office, and, shutting the door behind him, walked briskly to ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... his other side with a deep sigh, wanted to be let alone, became suddenly conscious, ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... make the rest of the hill on foot, only to encounter, on arriving at a gate bearing these large and forbidding letters: "Her boer Edward Grieg, som oensker at vaere fri for folk." ("Here lives Edward Grieg, who wishes to be let alone.") ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... not mean anything?" echoed Annie. "I'm afraid I can't allow myself to be let alone. I must find out what I'm accused of. Kitty, you say you kept my secret safely. Speak now ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... and buy him wine," replied the Cardinal; "he is howling like a soul in hell that he wants to be at peace, and to be let alone, and get his wine! It is his one idea that Roussillon is good for his disease. Well, when he has drunk it, I dare say he will ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... is a fable about as unjust to the ocean, as some of AEsop's are to the animals. The ocean is a magnanimous element, and would scorn to assassinate a poor fellow, let alone taunting him in the act. But I don't understand what you say about enmity couched in friendship, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... way: My 'Niram and your Ev'leen Ann have been keeping company—ever since they went to school together—you know that 's well as I do, for all we let on we didn't, only I didn't know till just now how hard they took it. They can't get married because 'Niram can't keep even, let alone get ahead any, because I cost so much bein' sick, and the doctor says I may live for years this way, same's Aunt Hettie did. An' 'Niram is thirty-one, an' Ev'leen Ann is twenty-eight, an' they've had 'bout's much waitin' as is good for folks that ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... keep aloof, keep out, retire, stand back, hold aloof, keep away, let alone, stand aside, stand off, hold off, keep clear, let be, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... usually attended Caranby, made his appearance and stated that his patient would not live many hours. "He was always weak," said Yeo, "and of late his weakness increased. The two severe shocks he has sustained would almost kill a stronger man, let alone an old man of so delicate an ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... lady, the front elevation of whose name is Stella, takes pen in hand and gives the Icon. a red-hot "roast" for having intimated that Platonic Love, so-called, is a pretty good thing for respectable women to let alone. Judged by the amount of caloric she generates, Stella must be a star of the first magnitude, or even an entire constellation. She "believes in the pure, passionless love described by Plato as sometimes existing between the sexes—the affinities of mind as ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... up while you see if Polly can come and scrub the room out. It ought to be done before you stay here, let alone ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... Krenner, the teacher of mathematics and architectural drawing at the Lakeview Hall school that the girls were attending. "You can be sure that neither Dr. Prescott nor I would take any chances on that score. A heavy logging team went over it yesterday, and the ice didn't even creak, let alone crack. And every day that passes of this kind of weather ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... on my own ale," said he, "if the 'Angel' was full of devils let alone petticoats. An', as between friends, y'r 'onour, win or lose, dunna tell my missus you've 'ad better ale ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... beautiful. He admitted it with less belligerency than usual. He sat thinking, "what the deuce has happened to her. She said she was glad to see me." He was afraid to start an inquiry. She had never before smiled at him, let alone voiced pleasure over his presence. It was a mistake of some sort but he would enjoy it for awhile. But perhaps it was ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... should be offered to me because I'm too good to love a man honestly.... You see, I'm none of the things you think I am, Graham. Nor that you want me to be. Not white, not innocent. Not a 'good' woman even, let alone an angel. That's what makes ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... special mode of martyrdom was not proper to the plantation, and Flor felt in herself few particles of the stuff of which martyrs are made, she was determined, that, as to telling so much as that Sarp was still in the swamp, let alone betraying the way to his late habitat,—even were she able,—she never would do it, though burned at the stake. The determination had a dark look; nevertheless, two glimmers lighted it: one was the hope, in a mistrust of her own strength, that Sarp had already ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... and thrice the distance that should have separated us from the first Andorran village, but we had seen nothing, not a wall, nor smoke from a fire, let alone the tower of a Christian church, or the houses of men. Nor did any length of the way now make us wonder more than we had already wondered, nor did we hope, however far we might proceed, that we should be saved unless some other influence could be found to save us from the ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... reverie more vain! He raised his head and stared about him. The glaring lamp showed all the details of the room, and made it seem so real, so much more real than mere thoughts, let alone that of which one cannot think. He got up to alter the stove-damper, pushing it shut with a clatter of iron, burning his fingers slightly, and sat down again, feeling it a relief to know, if by the smart, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... your strongest thinkers speak and that the weaker forbear, and that extraneous matters, so far as possible, are let alone. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... whirled over to the exit, and crawled out. And what his eyes beheld was enough to startle anybody, let alone a boy. If a genuine cyclone had not struck the camp on the Little Machias, then something almost as bad must have dropped down upon them, Thad thought, as he stared, hardly able to believe his eyes, or understand ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... you should be allowed to resume the war. With all the Tubes sealed, it will be many months before forces from below can reach the surface, let alone organize a military program. By that time the cycle will have entered its last stages. You will not be so perturbed to find ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick

... the new agent was a man who did not fear anything that breathed the breath of life. He made short work of all offenders. The result was that delays ceased, the company's property was let alone, and no matter what happened or who suffered, Slade's coaches went through, every time! True, in order to bring about this wholesome change, Slade had to kill several men—some say three, others say four, and others six—but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... wife of the farmer at Lac qui Parle, was overjoyed to see me. Think what it must have meant to a woman way off in the wilderness in that early day to see anyone from civilization, let alone her brother. I had not seen her in several years. They had a nice little garden and quite a patch of wheat, which I was told was fine for the climate. The seed came from the craw of a wild swan that they had shot. It was supposed to have come from the Pembina country for ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... Jack's gunshots. He could not begin to get near enough with that twenty-foot rope. There was but one hope left—a huge overhanging pine tree a little above the falls—perhaps he could help the struggling man from its branches. But before he could even reach the tree, let alone crawl out above the river, the dark, drifting mass, with its struggling arms and white face, had already been sucked far past its furthest branches. Beside Jack, whose straining eyes watched for the inevitable end, stood Fox-Foot, his arms folded tightly across his chest, his gaze ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... they see, not what they hear or read. We have great fleets in the Mediterranean, but they seldom touch at African ports. The Moors have a small opinion of England, France, and America, and put their representatives to a deal of red-tape circumlocution before they grant them their common rights, let alone a favor. But the moment the Spanish minister makes a demand, it is acceded to at once, whether it be just ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... stock of the story-teller. Now that he had ended, she looked him over from head to foot. An obstinate stupidity was the mark of the man to her eye. How dare he sit in judgment upon the meanest of his fellows, let alone Harry Feversham? she asked, and in the same moment recollected that she herself had endorsed his judgment. Shame tingled through all her blood; she sat with her lips set, keeping Willoughby under watch from the corners ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... conflict of opinion it seems to me that there is only one position for the law to take—to allow prices to regulate themselves naturally. But the principle of "let alone" has obstinate enemies. They insist upon legislation without even knowing the desired objects of legislation. It would seem, however, to be the duty of those who wish to create high or low prices artificially, to state, and to substantiate, the reasons of their preference. ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... lives with, before I begins. I'm awful tempered, but I'm dreadful forgivin'. Have you Hecker's flour, Beebe's range, hot and cold water, stationary tubs, oilcloth on the floor, dumb waiter?' Then follows her planned programme for the week: 'Monday I washes. I'se to be let alone that day. Tuesday I irons. Nobody's to come near me that day. Wednesday I bakes. I'se to be let alone that day. Thursday I picks up the house. Nobody's to come near me that day. Friday I goes to the city. Nobody's to come near me that day. Saturday ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... seventy-five thousand men, (and a call made on North Carolina among the rest), for the purpose of subjugating our Southern brethren of the Confederate States, who are asking nothing but for their rights to be respected and their institutions let alone, the interest of North Carolina being identified with the said Confederate States, we, as her citizens, deem it highly necessary to express our views to the world, irrespective of ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe

... Burne-Jones, and yet which is little else but vestments and curtains and diaper—where there is no lesson taught, no subject dwelt on, no character studied or portrayed. If we wish it to be so—if we have nothing to teach or learn, if we wish to be let alone, to be soothed and lulled by mere sacred trappings, by pleasant colours and fine and delicate sheen and the glitter of silk and jewels—well and good, these things will serve; but if they fail to satisfy, go to St. Philip's, Birmingham, and see ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... to hintroduce pretty Gals as Waiters, all us old Fogys, as he rudely called us, woud have to go and git our seweral livings in a more manly employment! Of course boys will be boys, so we kindly forgave him, more specially as he stands six foot one in his stockings, let alone his boots. However he made up for his bad manners by singing with his capital voice, his new Song of "Old Robert the Waiter" being a rayther complementary Parody, as he called it, upon "Old Simon the Cellerer," which was receeved with emense aplause. So he gave, as an arncore, the Waiter's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various

... intense amazement overspread her face as she stood in front of the tall, forbidding tenement and looked up at the narrow, grimy windows. It seemed almost incredible that handsome, fastidious Jay Gardiner would even come to such a place, let alone fall in love ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... enjoyed it cannot bear to be deprived of the hope that he is possessed in Heaven of a parent who is like his earthly father—of a friend and counsellor who will never, never fail him. There is no such religious nor moral education as kindly genial treatment and a good example; all else may then be let alone till the child is old enough to feel the want of it. It is true that the seed will thus be sown late, but in what a soil! On the other hand, if a man has found his earthly father harsh and uncongenial, his conception of his Heavenly Parent will be painful. He ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... highly educated witnesses. I once had to write a protocol based on the testimony of a famous scholar who was witness in a small affair. It was a slow job. Either he did not like the terms as I dictated them, or he was doubtful of the complete certainty of this or that assertion. Let alone that I wasted an hour or two, that protocol, though rewritten, was full of corrections and erasures. And the thing turned out to be nonsense at the end. The beginning contradicted the conclusion; it was ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... let alone, it might have been at the bottom of the river now. The man who felt its loss called on a higher power than his own. He told his sorrow to one who had sympathy for him. Do we cry unto God about those who have sunk out of our reach? The lapsed masses, as we call ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... skunk as ever ye see!" and levelling the gun, he was about to shoot, when memories of former odours made me implore him to desist. "But he'll ate all the pork!" the old fellow remonstrated, much aggrieved at being deprived of so fine an opportunity of displaying his prowess. I assured him that, if let alone, the "beautiful skunk" would go quietly away when he had enjoyed a good meal; but, if disturbed, he would use his natural weapon of defence, and destroy everything in the ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... seemed to know something of the story, and said it was a shame a gentleman should sell another such a brute; let alone a cousin. I am not here to play the Mentor to you, or to carry about servants' tittle-tattle. When you have seen more of your cousins, you will form your own opinion of them; meanwhile, take an old soldier's advice, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... on the mill. The plain is seething below As Vesuvius seethes with flame, But O! not with fire, but gore, Earth incarnadined o'er, Crimson with shame and with fame!— To the King run the messengers, crying 'Thy Son is hard-press'd to the dying!' —'Let alone: for to-day will be written in story To the great world's end, and for ever: So let the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... confidential now, but I fancy my unresponsive attitude must have exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to inform me he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man. I said I could see that very well, but what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets—and rivets were what really Mr. Kurtz wanted, if he had only known it. Now letters went to the coast every week.... 'My dear sir,' he cried, 'I write from dictation.' I demanded rivets. There ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... the lawyer or somebody to turn her out, I guess. And it's only five miles by the good road. You couldn't go to any of these sailor shacks down here, and the big summer hotel over yonder isn't any place for a sick man, let alone a ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... paler than usual, and very attentive and subduced in her behaviour to Alice; she would evidently fain have been silent, but as Molly was her own especial guest, that could not be, so all her endeavours went towards steering the conversation away from any awkward points. But each of the four, let alone little Bella, was thankful when the market-cart drew up at the shop door, that was to take Mrs. Brunton back to ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... shown a finer sense of the occasion. It was literally a charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, and quite tantamount to his saying outright: "The true knights we love to read about never push an advantage too far. I know what you mean now: you mean that—to be let alone yourself and not followed up—you'll cease to worry and spy upon me, won't keep me so close to you, will let me go and come. Well, I 'come,' you see—but I don't go! There'll be plenty of time for ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... said Carrie weakly, noticing that it had not been proved yet whether the members of the company knew their lines, let alone the details of expression, "that it would be better if we just went through our lines once to see if we know them? We might pick up ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... stait. she sed Docter Perry sed if Beany had eny mind he shood say sumthing was praying on it. the minister preeched on the wicked whitch fleas when no man persuith. that wood be all rite but detecktives is pursuing us. i wish he hadent sed enything about it. i wish i cood be let alone ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute

... I heard this from that righteous person when he recited the old and sacred declaration on this topic. I heard this from Krishna also, O king, while he was engaged in discoursing, O son of Pandu, upon Brahmanas.[14] The property of a Brahmana should never be appropriated. They should always be let alone. Poor, or miserly, or young in years, they should never be disregarded. The Brahmanas have always taught me this. Having promised to make them a gift, the gift should be made. A superior Brahmana should never be disappointed in the matter of his expectations. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... had been made into walls by twined vines. Brilliant bursts of flowers were splotches of vivid color, and the attendant insect life was altogether too abundant. Dane tried to tally his immunity shots and hoped for the best. At the moment he wondered why anyone would want to visit Khatka, let alone pay some astronomical sum for the privilege. Though he could also guess that the plush safari arranged for a paying client might be run on quite different lines ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North

... as th' newspaper wur enow fur a mon to tackle," he would say, reflectively; "but theer's summat outside o' th' newspapers. I nivver seed a paper as had owt in it about desert islands, let alone cannybles." ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... walking over the bridge. Then she went on to say, as they were waiting for the char-a-banc, that she had always heard there was nothing to see at Hampton, except a lot of nasty, grimy old pictures, and some of them not fit for any decent woman, let alone girl, to look at, and she wondered why the Queen allowed such things to be shown, putting all kinds of notions into girls' heads that were light enough already; and as she said that she looked at Alice so nastily—horrid old thing—that, as she ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... help from God or man. But is the thing possible? As well might a hyena say: I will be a man, and become one. That would be to create. Andrew must be kept from the evil long enough to let him at least see the good, before he was let alone. But when would we be let alone? For a man to be fit to be let alone, is for a man not to need God, but to be able to live without him. Our hearts cry out, 'To have God is to live. We want God. Without him no life of ours is worth living. We are not then even human, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... Pike's," responded the old man. "The town never dreamed you were goin' to turn out pretty at all, let alone the WAY you've turned out pretty! The Tocsin had a good deal about your looks and so forth in it once, in a letter from Paris, but the folks that remembered you kind of set that down to the way papers talk about anybody with money, and nobody was prepared for it when they saw you. You don't ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... good ten pound short yet. We shall have to hire Brown's boat a bit and do as well as we can, though it isn't a very paying business when one takes to hiring: it will be hard enough to make two ends meet, you see, sir, let alone saving up for the new boat. But I can't see nothing else for it, sir; that is, if Polly won't let me risk ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... absinthe, and no one pays any attention to him. On he strides up the "Boul' Miche," past the cafes, continuing his ravings. As long as he is moderately peaceful and confines his wandering brain to gesticulations and speech, he is let alone ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... not all the synods of the four quarters of the globe could answer thy questions—let alone this ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... from Scripture on the ground that it is too general, and that those words were not written merely for them. "If twenty cases have been experienced where the Indian borrower has failed to return what he borrowed, it cannot be said that the entire Tagalog nation are sinners, let alone other nations, which may not have been seen. Such a ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... the odds? It's of a piece with the rest of my life for the last three years. My husband was a handsome young countryman once, God help us! He could live on ten shillings a-week before he married me; let alone that he could pick up things here and there. Rabbits and hares some of them, as why should he not? And I could earn a little too; it was not so bad there. And then and for long the place was a pretty place, the ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris

... the temptation is so frightful—when I get back home. Remember that I have never known what it was to sit and talk through the evening with ordinary friends, let alone—It's too much for me just yet. And, you know, I don't venture to work on Sundays. That will come; all in good time. I must grant myself half a year of luxury after such a ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... the real roots, or causes, of great matters needing attention. Everything is approached and dealt with entirely from the external. Either from ignorance or fear of the probable results to be met with upon close inspection, the beginnings, the real causes of evil doings are let alone to grow until they become unbearable. Then comes the "hue and cry" joined in by all who seek to have ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... girth her, Miss," he complained, "she got very big entirely on the grass; the surcingle's six inches too short for her, let alone the way she have herself shwoll ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... for a child; all out-doors for a playground, good, sound sleep, plenty of wholesome food, three times a day, and always hungry at that. Why, the few years after you begin to toddle, and before you learn to read, if you're properly let alone, are choke-full of happiness that ripples like a brook through your whole life. I say, once more, it's a sin and a shame to cheat a child out of that which is just God's portion of a ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... trying to use it on a spaceship. You'd start with a terrific jolt. The acceleration would fade and just when you were recovering from the first jolt, you'd get a second one and that second one would iron you out. A spaceship couldn't take it, let alone a human body." ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak

... benefit to himself and his family; when, in addition, the father or sons of the households lie buried by the Yser, the Somme, the Meuse or the Drina, it is impossible for the authorities to inspire any enthusiasm for life, let alone war, even among so docile a people ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... have alone done it, and the world will believe it! So rouse up, I for one do not want to be taxed with the murder of a woman, and still less to be hung innocently for the death of one. I would not risk my little finger for all the women alive, let alone my neck for a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... much for a clue to the riddle. Why must he be saddled with this necessity of striking in self-defence? Why had this feud been forced upon him, who asked nothing better than to be let alone? He told himself it wasn't altogether the professional jealousy of De Morbihan, Popinot and Wertheimer; it was the strange, rancorous ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... slightest knowledge of the English language, was suddenly thrust upon the people and proclaimed their king. Fortunately for the Hanoverian dynasty, the English people, as a whole, had grown into a mood of comparative indifference as to who should rule them so long as they were let alone. It was impossible that a strong feeling of loyalty to any House should burn just then in the breast of the great majority of the English people. Those who were devoted to the Stuarts and those who detested ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... You can do something with a mad woman; you can lock her up; but a clever woman's the devil. And I'd never have thought it of her," he added regretfully. "Such a nice quiet little thing as she seemed, with hardly a word to say for herself. You wouldn't have imagined that she knew what 'views' are, let alone having any of her own. But that is just the way with women. There's ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... telling himself that, there came to the door a loud knock, the peculiar rat-tat-tat of a telegraph boy. But before he had time to get across the room, let alone to the front door, Ellen had rushed through the room, clad only in a petticoat ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... of suspended animation in which something is so {wedged} or {hung} that it makes no response. If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the computer doesn't even echo the letters back to the screen as you type, let alone do what you're asking it to do, then the computer is suffering from catatonia (possibly because it has crashed). "There I was in the middle of a winning game of {nethack} and it went catatonic on me! ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... Lyons, to notify Seward, if the agreement on maritime law was made in Washington, that such agreement would not affect the belligerent right of the South to issue privateers[300]. Apparently Mercier had been given no instructions to make this clear—let alone any "latitude" to deal with privateering—although, as a matter of fact, he had already given Seward his personal opinion in accord with Lyons' instructions; but this was not an official French stand. Lyons was therefore greatly ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... of names alleged to be a complete list of members of the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party Mensheviki. Of course all are Jews. I look over the list and see at once that three of those named are not even members of that party, let alone of its supreme authority. Ratner, Rappoport, and Gotz do not belong to that party, but are prominent as leaders in the Socialists-Revolutionists party. Perhaps there are other mistakes in this list—but ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo

... has been cut down will grow again. The soil that has been made poor will, if let alone, sometime become fertile again. But those species of birds, animals, and fish which we have completely destroyed will never be ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks

... in the reservation the same as white people lived. One year I raised a crop of corn, and gathered and stored it, and the next year I put in a crop of oats, and when the crop was almost ready to harvest, you told your soldiers to put me in prison, and if I resisted to kill me. If I had been let alone I would now have been in good circumstances, but instead of that you and the Mexicans are hunting me with soldiers." He said: "I never gave any such orders; the troops at Fort Apache, who spread this report, knew ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo

... sparrer-hawks stick your fingers or your noses into this business that I'm in now, I'll give the lobsters and cunners round this island just six good hearty meals. Now, that's the business end, and it's whittled pickid, and you want to let alone of it!" ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... fellowship to a man just about to be married? In his position Bertram had of course been free to speak out. If, indeed, there had been any object in holding to the college, then the expression of such opinions, let alone their publication, would not have ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... on the face of it," was his response. "Mrs. Frostwinch can't build churches, let alone temples, ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... insisted we ought to go. It was a national institution, a sight everyone should see once in a lifetime, and so forth. I protested it was an extravagance; that to be married was really more than we could afford, let alone race-meetings. But Selina was firm. She would pay, if necessary, out of the house-keeping money. Besides it need cost nothing. We might win enough money to cover ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various

... thought very little of the pain she might suffer, and very much of the needed warning which had not been given. And then, suddenly, the words flashed across her, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven." Then the warning was better let alone, if it were God's will. She rose with a calmer face, and followed Mistress Clere to the next room to ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt

... play," answered Oscar, pleasantly. "It isn't boy's work, let alone man's work, to be cooking and washing dishes. I wonder what mother would think to see us at it?" And a suspicious moisture gathered in the lad's eyes, as a vision of his mother's tidy kitchen in far-off Illinois rose before his mind. Sandy looked ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... the Scripture proof in the cases of Deborah and Huldah, and in the prophecy of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the Church. And as the Bible was not decisive, he thought the subject should be let alone, because, "by custom and public consent and long practice, it has been established that realms and principalities may descend to females by hereditary right, and it would not be lawful to unsettle governments which are ordained by the peculiar providence of God." I imagine Knox's ears must have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "I have no thoughts at all upon such a subject; for two reasons: first, my training as a soldier tells me to let alone affairs which are not my own; and second, you say this spy is a woman; know then that it is the prayer of every soldier that God will preserve him from any military duty which has to do with a woman, as it means ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... hung with hanks of black hair; his eyes was one minute like still intellectual pools and the next like burnin' coals of fire—that was my pap's way of puttin' it. Ernest was just his opposite. He was a chunky boy with white hair and pale eyes. He was a nice boy when let alone, but in the whole fifteen years of his life he'd never had no call to bound Kansas or tell the capital of Californy outside of school hours, so he regarded Leander with a fierce and childlike hatred. But Ernest had a noble streak in him, too. For ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... little disappointed," Channing wrote, "at learning that the Unitarian Association is to commence operations immediately. I conversed with Mr. Norton on the subject before leaving Boston, and found him so indisposed to engage in it that I imagined that it would be let alone for the present. The office which in your kindness you have assigned to me I must beg to decline. As you have made a beginning, I truly rejoice in your success." Norton and Sparks also declined to serve as directors, ill-health and previous engagements being assigned by them for ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... David Micheldene. "I would have you to know, clerk, that I am a free English burgher, and that I dare say my mind to our father the Pope himself, let alone such ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sense in it, in your case; they have brought you up like a child, fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and taught you, so that you have a good education; that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have been kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best only let alone; and what do I owe? I've paid for all my keeping a hundred times over. I won't bear it. No, I won't!" he said, clenching his hand ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... center six French soldiers held a blanket and in the center of this blanket was a man. He rose and fell as the six men alternately released the blanket and then drew it taut again. He was yelling at the top of his voice to be let alone and threatening dire vengeance on his tormentors when he would be able to get at them. But he was laughing and taking ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes

... mood for them, but agonizing when you were not; and since it wasn't permissible to cover human beings up like canaries when you had tired of them, or send them away like children when they had prattled enough, Angela cuddled down among her cushions and rugs, glad to be let alone for the first time in her life. But there was a young mother with a small imp of a curly-haired girl, who fascinated her, and made her think. Once, when the imp fell on the deck, to be caught up and kissed until ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... was vaguely nettled; he did not see that Ford needed any settlement-worker encouragement. If he was let alone, and his moral regeneration forgotten, and he himself treated just like any other man, Mason felt that Ford would thereby have all the encouragement he needed. Ford was once more plainly content with life, and was taking it in twenty-four-hour doses again; healthful ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... best possible assembling and adjustment of them all, would it not? If you want the great piston of the engine to run with absolute freedom, give it absolutely perfect alignment and adjustment with the other parts of the machine, so that it is free, not because it is let alone or isolated, but because it has been associated most skilfully and carefully with the other parts of the ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson

... is a result of dwelling on a borrowed religion. If let alone no man would become insane on religious topics, for the religion he would evolve would be one of joy, laughter and love, not one of misery or horror. The religion that contemplates misery and woe is one devised by priestcraft for ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... that; but what's the use? You 'll only come to exactly the same conclusion all the others have. Besides, I have been especially authorized to offer you a thousand dollars simply to drop the thing. It's worth that much to us just now to be let alone." ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... is a lover of mysteries and schemes," said Richard. "He would never be content to let alone the question of our little wench's birth, and would be fretting us for ever ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the nice ones got married during the war—the servants you loved and regarded as part of the family—and nine-tenths of those that are left have no sense of even giving good work in return for their wages—let alone civility! The tradition ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... front of us. Flowers grow in between, butterflies play together, and birds nest in the wire. When the grass becomes too high it has to be cut, because otherwise it would prevent good observation. In some places grass doesn't have a chance to even take root, let alone grow. The shells take ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene

... had every water-right on the river that there's some ten thousand acres of high land that couldn't be reached with a fire-hose. They know that there's another thousand or so where the soil isn't deep enough to grow radishes, let alone sugar-beets. They know, too, that instead of the $250,000 of your estimate to complete the ditch it will require nearly half a million, and they're on to the fact that in order to get this estimate you cut your own engineer's figures in two, and then some, upon the ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... never hold it and study it when, the moment you touch it, you have to exchange it for commodities. No! it is when you can spare some for a precious seed, and watch its growth, and see—see its power of self-multiplication if it is let alone—just let alone," he repeated, with a touch of pathos in his voice. "Now these few pence, thirteen and a half in all—a boy with an accumulative nature and youth, early youth, on his side, might build a fortune ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... will go to parties with young Furrey, and to church with young Snevel. I shall see her tramping the streets with one, and waltzing all night with another, and sitting on the stairs with a third. She is too pretty to be let alone, and her mother is against her. She is young and the force of nature is strong, and women are born for sacrifice—she will marry one of these young shrimps, and do her duty in the sphere whereto she has ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... cure, "was an important item. You seemed to consider her case of typhoid as a malady that would cure itself if let alone. Marianne needed care, serious care, strong as she was. The girl, Yvonne, she saved from drowning last year, and her baby, she still shelters among her own children in her hut. They, too, had to be fed; for Marianne was helpless to care for them. ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... protect existing propertied rights; but they were not seeking any exceptional privileges—except those traditionally associated with the ownership of private property. The anti-Federalists, on the other hand, having less to protect and more to acquire, insisted rather upon being let alone than in being protected. They expressed themselves sometimes in such an extremely insubordinate manner as almost to threaten social disorder, but were very far from being fundamentally anti-social in interest or ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... started on the dead run for my billet, about 400 yards away, and in a minute or two Mac followed with another comb. The fellows greeted us with exclamations of delight and surprise; many of us had been two years in the battle line without ever having seen, let alone tasted, such a delicious morsel. Every man in the billet fell to, munching the honey with expressions of sheer joy; every fellow in the bunch had his face and hands littered with the sticky joy like so many kids munching taffy. In the midst of our ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... The Harriet Barne was better than half finished. There was a collapsium plant at Storisende Spaceport, but Yves Jacquemont said it was only half the size of the one at Barathrum; it would be three months before it could produce armor for one, let alone both, ships. ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... come to find out about them all is more than I can understand. I've often wondered at it. Ah! your dear father used to say in his facetious way that he was "lost in the Times," when he wanted to be let alone. I don't mean advertised for as lost, of course, though he might have been, for I have seen him lose his head frequently; indeed I have been almost forced to the conclusion more than once that the Times had a good deal to do with your father's mental confusion; it told such awful lies ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... tattling people that carry tales between him and his sister Peg, on purpose to sow jealousies and set them together by the ears. They say that there were some hardships put upon Peg which had been better let alone; but it was the business of good people to restrain the injuries on one side and moderate the resentments on the other—a good friend acts both parts, the one without the other ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... brain that if the South could have been let alone by the commercial spirit and the pseudophilanthropy of the North, it would have worked out slavery into a perfectly ideal condition for the laborer, in which he would have been insured against want, and protected in all his personal rights by the state. He read the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the empty house that night and sat down to look the facts squarely in the face. I had hitherto been so occupied with the necessary preparations for the funeral, and with instituting a search for Cat-Eye Mose, that I had scarcely had time to think, let alone map out any logical plan of action. Radnor was so stunned by the blow that he could barely talk coherently, and as yet I had had no ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... derive the Sense and Construction of which they speak, in any other manner, than that in which the Nature of the things themselves makes them appear; and so far as they are his Discoveries only, intrudes them on no Man. He is very willing they should be let alone by those, who have not Skill to use them to their ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob

... in vain that the archdeacon argued and lectured, and even threatened; in vain he my-lorded his poor father in his sternest manner; in vain his "good heavens!" were ejaculated in a tone that might have moved a whole synod, let alone one weak and aged bishop. Nothing could induce his father to fill up the vacancy caused by ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... the third day and the other only sleeps.—[They are fed chiefly on dry grain with a few nuts, and occasionally some blades of grass. They are shy, and sleep most of the day. During that time they want a quiet place and to be let alone, but when tame they will come out at night and climb up ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... fell asleep, and was dreaming of home, and warm biscuit, with honey, and a feather bed, when I was rudely awakened by a corporal who told me to mount. I asked him what for, and told him that I didn t want to ride any more that night. What I wanted was to be let alone, to sleep. He said to get on the horse too quick, and I found there was no use arguing with a common corporal, so the boys hoisted me on to the horse, and about nine of us started off through the woods in the moonlight, looking for a main road. The corporal was ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... let the plants be kept very clean. The earth should be occasionally stirred, when the rains have run the surface together; and, when the plants come up, let them have their own way the first season. As the plants will blossom the second season if let alone, and the bearing of seed has a tendency to weaken every thing, take off the flower-buds as soon as they appear, and not allow the plants to seed. When the leaves begin to decay in autumn, clear them all off, and dig a complete trench between ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr

... the use of talkin' like that? Them things is bad enough to have to do, let alone set around an' talk about 'em. Anyone'd think you took pleasure ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... me—that I do. Now, I'm not a-going to chaw my own bilge-water, not for no man. Besides, you need not look so thundering ugly. Why, I've practised all my life, and could squirt through the eye of a needle without touching the steel, let alone such a great saliva-box as that there window.' Colonel A at last his anger got up, and he spat bang in his companion's face, exclaiming, 'I beg you a thousand pardons, squire, but I've not practised ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... being ostracized, but he certainly was not popular. If he had made no strong friendships, neither had he so deported himself as to win enmity or even dislike. He was regarded simply as a very taciturn fellow who desired to be let alone, and his apparent wish in this ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock

... house is to be let for life or years; Her rent is sorrow, and her income tears. Cupid, 't has long stood void; her bills make known, She must be dearly let, or let alone. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... the brass of her speaking to you at all let alone writing here. Just you give me the letter and I'll shut her up. The idea! I hope you were cool to her, the way they treated us. Stay with ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... never too late for a great nation to rectify a wrong done to even the humblest of its subjects, let alone a man of such undoubted courage and rectitude as ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan

... pile-driver— three-quarters of a ton of solid flesh and bone, going at the speed of a fast train, carries some weight. It seemed as though a live tree could scarcely have stood upright against that charge, let alone ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson

... with her hand on the door knob. "I don't want to be forgiven and sympathised with. I just want to be let alone." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... followed up this as a step that hinted a general compromise, and at last frankly presented his requests. He asked that tax reform be smoothed over, that the corporations be allowed an opportunity to "turn around," and finally that the prohibitory law should be let alone. He argued warmly that General Waymouth could not be criticised by either side if he left the law as he found it. The radicals were satisfied with the various enactments as they stood, and if there were ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day



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