"Unimproved" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we realize that Wagner places a heavy and intoxicating draught before us the more we shall appreciate the precious mountain spring which laves us in Mozart's music, and the less willing we shall be to permit any opportunity to pass unimproved which offers us the crystal cup. In the mind of Goethe genius was summed up in the name of Mozart. In a prophetic ecstasy he spoke the significant words: "What else is genius than that productive power through which deeds arise, worthy of standing in the presence of God and ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... tendencies is useless. The wise boarder will not so do, nor waste his time in bewailing his fate. It is absurd for him to expect that long stretches of delightful shore will be left wild and uninhabited and unimproved, for him to walk over for three or four weeks every summer. Not even the Henry George regime would oust the cottager, for under it he would simply rent what he owns; a cottager he would still remain. Finally, the boarder ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... Consider, likewise, the vast proportion of seeds and pollen, of ova and young,—a thousand or more to one,—which come to nothing, and are therefore purposeless in the same sense, and only in the same sense, as are Darwin's unimproved and unused slight variations. The world is full of such cases; and these must answer the argument,—for we cannot, except by thus showing that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... thou to contend against the rude heroes of the Norse, with their ancestral strategy unimproved! The civilisation of Battle meets thee now!—and all the craft of the Roman guides ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... careless of his personal appearance is rarely a strong character. The community whose cemetery is neglected, whose school grounds are a mass of mud and the outhouses a disgrace, whose lawns are unkept, where ash-piles and neglected puddles fill the vacant lots, whose roads are tortuous and unimproved, whose farm houses are unpainted and whose barnyards are more prominent than the door-yards—such a community is usually weak. It has little pride in itself or desire for improvement. In the case ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... let the opportunity pass unimproved; and so Owen began to move forward, trying to keep beyond the strongest path of light that flowed from the ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... to you; I share your destiny, faithful to the end. The day that I have concluded upon for this task is SABBATH next, when the family with the citizens are generally at church. For Heaven's sake let not that day pass unimproved: trust not till tomorrow, it is the cheat of life —the future that never comes—the grave of many noble births —the cavern of ruined enterprise: which like the lightning's flash is born, and dies, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the fittest is one of Darwin's emphasized laws of natural selection. He says: "In all cases the new and improved forms of life tend to supplant the old and unimproved forms. New varieties continually take the place of and supplant the parent form. New and improved varieties will inevitably supplant and exterminate the older."—Origin of Species, pp. ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various
... that hundreds from the audience were frequently admitted upon the stage. In one of his scenes, Rice introduced a negro boot-blacking establishment. Gosling was too "wide awake" to let such an opportunity pass unimproved, and Rice was paid for singing an original black Gosling ditty, while a score of placards bearing the inscription, "Use Gosling's Blacking," were suspended at different points in this negro boot polishing hall. Everybody tried "Gosling's Blacking;" and as it was ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... human knowledge. The Bible it is said was not intended to teach men science, but to teach them what was necessary for the moral training of their souls. It may be that this is true. Spiritual grace affects the moral character of men, but leaves their intellect unimproved. The most religious men are as liable as atheists to ignorance of ordinary facts, and inspiration may be only infallible when it touches on truths necessary to salvation. But if it be so, there are many things in the Bible which must become as uncertain as its geology ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... themselves so as to head off a deer, they secure the one shot which is all-sufficient. It would be counted an extremely good piece of fortune could they obtain such a fair target as has already been given the young hunters; and, having let it pass unimproved, they scarcely would have expected to ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... through the new railroad yards to the muddy banks of a big river. The town of Athabasca Landing lay at their backs. The riverbank itself was as crude and unimproved as if the place had not been a commercial center for Indians and fur men ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... adopted the plan, since religiously followed, for the most part, by his descendants, of leasing the land for a given number of years, usually twenty-one. Large tracts of land in the heart of the city he let lie unimproved for years while the city fast grew up all around them and enormously increased their value. He often refused to build, although there was intense pressure for land and buildings. His policy was to wait until the time when those whom necessity drove to use his land should ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... your ladyship?' rejoined I, fixing my eyes steadily upon hers, for her despair rendered me bold, and I was not one to suffer an opportunity to slip by unimproved. ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... its real estate. This objection is utterly fallacious. The government lands of our country were remote from the centers of capital and difficult to examine; the French national real estate was near these centers—even in them—and easy to examine. Our national real estate was unimproved and unproductive; theirs was improved and productive—its average productiveness in market in ordinary times being from four to five per ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... favorise les hereticques, dautant que lors que ce scandale advynt, il estoit seul pres du roy, sans que personne luy peust resister ne l'empescher duser de la puyssance que sadicte Sainctete luy a donnee." Of course, Paul could not let pass unimproved so fair an opportunity for repeating the trite warning that subversion of kingdoms and other dire calamities follow in the train of "mutation of religion." The punishment of D'Andelot, however, to which he often returned in his conversation, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... spiritual training of children go hand in hand. We shall speak of them under separate chapters, but the one has a great influence upon the other. It is true, the intellectual faculties may be cultivated to a high degree while the moral powers are unimproved, but the individual is out of harmony with true manhood. The spiritual and moral being may be in a fair state of health and the mental powers very much dwarfed, but still he is not in perfect harmony with manhood as designed by the creative mind. Without a blending of the intellectual, moral and ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... pastures being then unimproved, and few kinds of fodder for cattle discovered, it was impossible to maintain the summer stock during the cold season. Hence a portion of it was regularly slaughtered and salted for winter provision. We may suppose, therefore, that when no alternative was offered but these salt meats, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... a more careful and complete classification will lead to modifications in these figures, for at the present time no less than five and a-half million cows are returned as Criollo cattle, in other words, unimproved stock. ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... of happiness and misery, of love and hate, of good and evil,—all mingling their different results in that graphic record; and I trembled as my own name met my view, with the long list of opportunities for good unimproved, together with the many sins, both of omission and commission, of which I had been guilty during the past year; but there was nothing left out,—the events in the life of every individual member of the human family were there, all recorded in legible characters. As the midnight hour ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... remarkable invention. For ages, screw conveyers for corn and meal have been employed, and in spite of the power consumed and the rubbing of the material conveyed, they have remained, with little exception, unimproved and without a rival. Now we have a new conveyer, which, says The Engineer, in its simplicity excels anything brought out for many years, and, until it is seen at work, makes a heavier demand upon one's credulity than is often made by new mechanical inventions. As will be seen from the engravings, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... although there has been much more rain this season than usual. There can be no doubt that this is a splendid country, both as regards soil and climate, and it seems a pity to see such land lying waste and unimproved for so many years. It far surpasses my expectations, both in natural beauty and capabilities. We have a deal of work to do in the way of fencing, for at present everybody's livestock is running over a large part of our land; but we haven't got money to buy ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the scattered forest-town is still through beautiful forest-roads—roads that cleave grand avenues, traverse black barren heaths, ford shallow rivers, and climb over ferny knolls whence the sea is visible. The church is unrestored, the parsonage is unimproved, the long low house opposite is still the residence of Mr. Carnegie, the local doctor, and looks this splendid summer morning precisely as it looked in the splendid summer mornings long ago, when Bessie Fairfax was a little girl, and lived there, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... are you? And this is your little 'prop'? your quarter-section, your country-seat, that we've been trespassing on, eh? A nice little spot, cool, sequestered, remote,—a trifle unimproved; carriage-road as yet unfinished. Ha, ha! But to think of our making a discovery of this inaccessible mountain, climbing it, sir, for two mortal hours, christening it 'Sol's Peak,' getting up a flag-pole, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a large farm, but left it wholly unimproved; attending mainly to their vocations of fishing and inn-keeping. Isabella declares she can ill describe the kind of life she led with them. It was a wild, out-of-door kind of lief. She was expected to carry fish, to hoe corn, to ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... there is no sign of any human habitation, save that of a miserable police guard of four or five, who occupy a wretched hut on the side of the road midway, and seem by their presence to render the scene around more dreary.[4] the road is a mere footpath unimproved and unadorned by any single work of art; and, except in this footpath, and the small police guard, there is absolutely no single sign in all this long march to indicate the dominion, or even the presence, of man; and yet it is between two contiguous ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... fact mitigated somewhat the burden of Wade's worry. There was burden enough, however, and Wade had set this day to make important decisions about Moore's injured foot. He had dreaded to remove the last dressing because conditions at that time had been unimproved. He had done all he could to ward off ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... Of unimproved mettle hot and full] Full of unimproved mettle, is full of spirit not regulated or guided ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... looking upward to the summit, and thinking how much our actual elevation has brought us on the way towards it. And, further, there is coupled with every consideration of Christian privileges, the thought of what it must be to leave such privileges unimproved. In this respect, how well does the language of the two lessons from Deuteronomy suit the lesson from the Epistle to the Corinthians. We heard the description of the beauty and richness of the land which God gave to his people,—there were their advantages ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... tells of semen being carried by wind. Notoriously there was no limit either to the absurdity or crudity of these conceptions. Were these men—the wisest of their time—insane? Here again we may quote the last patient—"Insanity," he says, "is the elemental human mind left to itself, unimproved by other minds." The last is the important phrase. What minds were there to improve those of the alchemists? What critic was there to tell Joan of Arc that visions and voices were pathological? That was the regulation form of inspiration ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... from earliest years have not only been taught to lisp the Saviour's name, but to read it, pity the slave child, shut out from such advantages, and give heed to instruction, lest, having more given and unimproved, they be beaten with many stripes. Let all who have an interest at the throne of grace remember little Daisy, and pray that she may walk in her mother's footsteps, as far as she followed Christ, only ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... Invention was tasked to furnish discreditable reasons for all that he said and did. That inexhaustible capacity of devising base motives for conduct, which is an especial attribute of mean minds, had now opportunity to put forth its full powers in the way of insinuation and assertion. It did not go unimproved. A common charge brought against him after the publication of the "Letter to His Countrymen" was that it had been written for the sake of gaining office. It was even said that Van Buren had a hand in it. Then and afterward, the ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... original inhabitants of America in general deserve to be classed among the most unimproved savages that had been, discovered before those of New Holland, yet the Mexican and Peruvian governments exhibited remarkable exceptions, and seemed to be fast approaching to a state of civilization. In the difference of national character between the people of these two ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... the purpose of the writer to create the impression that the leaders of our people are neglecting their duty, or that the masses are letting their opportunities for material betterment pass unimproved, but rather to arouse both leaders and followers to the necessity for greater activity in their work. Indeed when all things, favorable and unfavorable, are taken into account, there is much to be thankful for and hopeful over in the present condition ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... extent of the highway improvement needed in any locality is dependent entirely on the demands of traffic. In sparsely settled areas, particularly those that are semi-arid or arid, the amount of traffic on local roads is likely to be small and the unimproved trails or natural roads adequate. But as an area develops either on account of agricultural progress or the establishment of industrial enterprises, the use of the public highways both for business and for pleasure increases and the old trails are gradually improved to meet, at least to some ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... to Elizabeth. She had arrived at the conviction that among her people in the new world was to be her sphere of duty; she felt a call thither which she could not disregard; and when her father, who was unwilling that the property should lie unimproved, offered the tract of land in New Jersey to any relative who would settle upon it, she gladly availed herself of the proffer, and begged that she might go herself as a pioneer ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... then breed and die, As all their ancestors had done,—and rest, Hermetically sealed, each in its shrine, A statue in this temple of oblivion! Millions of millions thus, from age to age, With simplest skill, and toil unwearyable. No moment and no movement unimproved, Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread, To swell the heightening, brightening gradual mound, By marvellous structure climbing tow'rds the day. Each wrought alone, yet altogether wrought, Unconscious, not unworthy, instruments, By ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... Chautauquan, vol. 55, pp. 21, 33, 112.] National and state highways must be built as object-lessons to the towns and counties that still leave their roads a stretch of mud or sand.[Footnote: It is estimated that ninety per cent of the public roads in the United States are still unimproved; that the average cost of hauling produce is twenty-five cents a mile-ton, as against twelve cents in France; that $300,000,000 a year would be saved in hauling expenses if our roads were as good as those of western Europe.] All of these material improvements have their civilizing ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... differing from each other in manners, and in their forms of rude policy. All, however, were so little civilized, that, if the traditions concerning their mode of life, preserved among their descendants, deserve credit, they must be classed among the most unimproved savages of America. Strangers to every species of cultivation or regular industry, without any fixed residence, and unacquainted with those sentiments and obligations which form the first bonds of social union, they are said to have roamed naked about the forests ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... while yet a child, the settled conviction that religion is the one business of life. But be believes it also due to the cause of Christ, that an example of "Religion in Earnest," so pre-eminent, should not pass unrecorded and unimproved. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... said, after a few seconds had faded away unimproved, "seems to me I mentioned wantin' Joshua to get down a ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... of the times," with more common sense than poetry in his composition, must grieve as he looks at the great advantages here possessed for drainage and irrigation which are unimproved. There is not a spot in the whole valley that is not capable of the most perfect drainage,[28] while basins have been formed by nature in the highest points, from which irrigation could be supplied to the whole valley; but decay ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... of the former "New Pattern" Blake machine. Has much greater efficiency than the old. It requires only about half the power to drive, and is transported at much less expense (the size most used weighing several thousand pounds less than the unimproved machine). It requires less than half the time in oiling and other manipulation, and less than half the ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... the countries sacred for their connection with the history of true religion. With other things by Americans, Dr. Kitto gives a prominent place to Mr. MINER K. KELLOGG'S account of Mt. Sinai, which we reprint below; and we cannot let the opportunity pass unimproved, of expressing a hope that Mr. Kellogg will prepare for the press the voluminous notes which we know him to possess of his various and interesting travels in the ancient world, which he saw with the eye of an artist, the head ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the testamentary directions of Colonel McKee are to accumulate the rents and income of his estate until the decease of all his children and grand-children, meanwhile improving (under certain conditions) his unimproved real estate. Upon the death of all his children and grand-children, the estate is to be made use of in the establishment and maintenance of a college for the education of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... frequent recurrence of the accompanying noise would bring the skipper on deck and spoil the fun, so on second thoughts he desisted, and glanced eagerly about for something else, afraid that the golden opportunity would pass by unimproved. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... minor part of their cost). But in the large cities, as a matter of fact, 90 per cent of the wage earners, who are tenants, and not home owners, do not feel these fluctuations at all. Increased land taxes do not as a rule cause an increase in average rents. Increased land taxes force unimproved land upon the market, and compel its improvement, to escape loss in holding it unimproved and idle. The resulting increased competition for tenants operates on the average to reduce rents, not to increase them. The taxes are paid at the cost of reduced ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... still the Pavilion, which is indeed the town's symbol. On passing through its very numerous and fantastic rooms one is struck by their incredible smallness. Sidney Smith's jest (if it were his; I find Wilberforce, the Abolitionist, saying something similar) is still unimproved: "One would think that St. Paul's Cathedral had come to Brighton and pupped." Cobbett in his rough and homely way also said something to the point about the Prince's pleasure-house: "Take a square box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, and the height ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... nothing but his room rent and the cost of his experiments. He had devoted himself to his inventions so entirely that he had lost all of his professional income. So it was that he was forced to face the prospect of staying in Boston and allowing this opportunity of opportunities to pass unimproved. His fiancee, Miss Hubbard, expected to attend the exposition, and had heard nothing of Bell's inability to go. He went with her to the station, and as the train was leaving she learned for the first time that he was not to accompany her. She burst into tears at the disappointment. ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... have rendered him all the aid he needs or desires at our hands, he would cut us off; aye, worse, he would murder us—murder us as we have murdered for him. Do you think I would let an opportunity to be revenged on him pass unimproved? Never!" ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... the sordid prose of the Mont Cenis road that, unlike those fine old unimproved passes, the Simplon, the Spluegen and—yet awhile longer—the Saint-Gothard, it denies you a glimpse of that paradise adorned by the four lakes even as that of uncommented Scripture by the rivers of Eden. I made, however, an excursion ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... day drew near to a close, I was conducted to a small temporary hut or cabin, where I was informed I might repose peaceably for the night, which I did without being disturbed by any one. This was another opportunity that I did not suffer to pass unimproved to pour out my soul to that Being, who had already given me reasons to believe that he did not say to the house of Jacob, seek you me in vain. Oh! that all sincere Christians would in every difficulty make Him their refuge; He is a ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... the world for it but wrinkles, seemed felicitously legal and almost supernaturally qualifying for law-writing. BLADAMS was about forty years old, though appearing much older: with a slight cast in his left eye, a pimply pink countenance, and a circular piece of unimproved property on ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... as Noel began to talk to Christine Dallas filled his pipe and went off to the table to play solitaire. Noel fancied that the smell of the rank tobacco, which was unimproved in quality, made the poor girl sick. It was a relief when Dallas got up after a while, and shoving the cards together in a heap left the room. Then Noel inquired for the baby. Somehow he always shrank from speaking of it ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... deemed polite, except by those persons among whom they are as little understood. His first aim is to adorn his own person with what he calls fine cloaths, that is the frippery of the fashion. It is no wonder that the heart of a female, unimproved by reason, and untinctured with natural good sense, should flutter at the sight of such a gaudy thing, among the number of her admirers: this impression is enforced by fustian compliments, which her own vanity ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Uncouth, Ungraceful, Unfashionable, Unladylike, Uninteresting, Unpresentable, and Ugly. She was Unpoetical, Unmusical, Unlearned, Uncultured, Unimproved, Uninformed, Unknowing, Unthinking, Unwitty and Unwise. She was Unlively, Undersized, Unwholesome and Unhealthy. She was Unlovely, Ungentle, Uncivil, Unsociable, Untameable, and altogether Unendurable. She was Unkind, Unfeeling, Unloving, Unthankful, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... strip the rancho of its great metallic wealth. He will hold the land unimproved, to be a showing in future years should trouble come as to ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... England and for which that strenuous section was but a name in the geography-book, is probably indeed a sign of how large, in the general air, he comparatively loomed. The public scene was otherwise a blank to our young vision, I discern, till, later on, in Paris, I saw—for at that unimproved period we of the unfledged didn't suppose ourselves to "meet"—Charles Sumner; with whose name indeed there further connects itself the image of a thrilled hour in the same city some months before: the gathering of a group of indignant persons on the terrace ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... this transaction was consummated, however, Glasier's Manor had nearly shared the fate of other grants. Elias Hardy, a clever lawyer employed by the government to investigate the state of the old townships with a view to the forfeiture of lands vacant and unimproved, claimed that the manor was escheatable in part as not having been fully settled. It was shown, however, that Nathaniel Gallop and others had made improvements, built dwellings, barns and out-houses, but the Indians had burned the houses and destroyed ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... the moments as though they were gold. He educated himself and did much of his best work during his spare moments. He learned arithmetic during the night shifts when he was an engineer. Mozart would not allow a moment to slip by unimproved. He would not stop his work long enough to sleep, and would sometimes write two whole nights and a day without intermission. He wrote his famous "Requiem" ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... room in the hotels of the larger towns; and, until one can build for himself, a hotel offers a very pleasant substitute—at a slightly increased expense. Land, for building purposes, or in an unimproved state, can be leased for a sum that is almost nominal, except in a few highly favored localities. Purchasers of land are more than likely to find themselves immediately embroiled in a lawsuit over the title. If no flaw exists in your title, then it does exist in one that was drawn up a hundred ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... to be borne in mind, in disposing of the canoes; for that of Gershom was to be secreted, as well as that of the bee-hunter. A tall aquatic plant, that is termed wild rice, and which we suppose to be the ordinary rice-plant, unimproved by tillage, grows spontaneously about the mouths and on the flats of most of the rivers of the part of Michigan of which we are writing; as, indeed, it is to be found in nearly all the shallow waters of those regions. There was a ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... as I have already stated, separated from each other by the valley of the Torrens, than which nothing can be prettier. Its grassy flats are shaded by beautiful and umbrageous trees, and the scenery is such as one could not have expected in an unimproved state. The valley of the Torrens is a portion of the Park lands which run round the city to the breadth of half a mile. Nothing could have been more judicious than the appropriation of this open space for the ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... In 1881 the May Laws were passed in Russia. In 1882 there was a ritual murder trial in Hungary. Our statutes and sciences, after all, are but ways and means, improved ways and means, to what?—often to unimproved ends, it seems. Our learning and knowledge are what?—but channels to educate, to lead out (e-duco) the noble qualities in man? yes; perhaps also his jealousies and hatreds. And thus there comes a time of doubt. ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the case. The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... because of the simplicity and tenderness of your disposition," may have had its effect upon Pestalozzi. He now entered upon his third venture. Having induced a wealthy firm in Zurich to advance him money, he bought about one hundred acres of unimproved land in the canton of Aargau, where he proposed to raise madder as a means of profit. Once more his real purpose was philanthropic, as he intended to show the poor peasants improved methods of farming ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... modicum of the vast sums now worse than wasted in pauperizing the unemployed; a tithe of the money squandered on building palaces for our numberless, ever-begging colleges, devoted to settling the poor upon the unimproved lands in Florida, the dangerous flood of ever-increasing crime, and physical and mental suffering which now threatens the very existence of our republic, would soon vanish from our cities, and thousands of the dangerous ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... in here for now," he explained, after a moment. "This Cedar Branch is an odd job we had to take over from another firm. It is an unimproved river, and difficult to drive, and just lined with mossbacks. The crew is a mixed bunch—some old men, some young toughs. They're a hard crowd, and one not like the men on the main drive. It really needs either Tally or me up here; but we can't get away for this little proposition. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... feeling of neglect by his superior, of opportunity slipping away through the inadequate force which timid counsels and apathetic indolence allowed him. He sees that the chance which was permitted to pass unimproved has now gone forever. "As the French cannot want supplies to be brought into the Gulf of Genoa, for their grand army," he writes to the admiral, "I am still of opinion that if our frigates are wanted for other services, they may very well be spared from the Gulf." ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... father's land speculation went out of sight in the queer mutations that befall real estate. In the year before Roswell the elder died, he took his younger son for a drive in the country south of St. Louis, where the property lies unimproved to this day. "Rosy," said the father, "hold on to your Carondelet property. In fifteen years it will be worth half a million dollars, and, very likely, a million and a half." That was thirty-three years ago when the Carondelet iron furnaces were in full blast and the city seemed ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... man, than I do from this once cherished but now abhorred and forced connection." The policy which he recommends, now that the occasion which the "admission of California and the dismemberment of Texas" might have afforded, has passed away unimproved is, "to teach that disunion is a thing certain in the future; to direct, in contemplation of this, all the energies of oar people first to preparation for a physical contest," and then "to develop all our own resources, and cut off, as far as possible, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... stage. The reason of this conduit is given in n. on l. 203. Hence the propriety of the word nudavit, which Lambin rightly interprets, nudos introduxit satyres, the poet hereby expressing the monstrous indecorum of this entertainment in its first unimproved state. Alluding also to this ancient character of the satire, he calls him asper, i.e. rude and petulant; and even adds, that his jests were intemperate, and without the least mixture of gravity. For thus, upon the authority ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... in cultivation, on account of its stony character, which makes cultivation difficult. Where unimproved it is covered with a heavy growth of chestnut, oak, and pine. The land is locally called "chestnut land." In a few small areas the larger stones have been removed and the land is cultivated, corn and wheat ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... sent to you as soon as they are recorded. There are five hundred and forty acres, which you will know how to manage better than I can tell you. You can sell by and by, ef you can't yet the money out of it any other way. The taxes won't be much, the land being unimproved." ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... language-learning period, from two years of age to ten, is allowed to pass unimproved, the task of learning them ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... very much interested in contrasting the Austrian ozokerite and petroleum industry with the American. It is a good illustration of the difference between the lower class of Poles and Jews and the Yankee. Borislau, after twenty years' work, was unimproved, dirty, squalid, and brutal. It contained one school house, but no church nor printing office. None of its streets were paved, and, in the main road through the town, the mud came up to the hubs of the wagon wheels for over a mile of its length. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... unimproved by the results of the treaty of 1871, and a grave condition of affairs, presenting almost identically the same features and causes of complaint by the United States against Canadian action and British default in its ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... superior faculty of penetration, have placed the person or group in the way of such ideas. In matters of social improvement the most common reason why one hits upon a point of progress and not another, is that the one happens to be more directly touched than the other by the unimproved practice. Or he is one of those rare intelligences, active, alert, inventive, which by constitution or training find their chief happiness in thinking in a disciplined and serious manner how things can be better done. In ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... Whig Party, while in power from 1849 to 1853, been brave enough boldly to assume a rational anti-slavery attitude, though it might have been defeated, as it was in 1852, it would have had a future. The chance passed unimproved. The temporizing attitude of the party's then leaders and the known pro-slavery feeling of most of its southern members—twelve Whigs voting in the House for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise—proved ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... religious reproof to a Doctor of Divinity; but finding the occasion thrust upon me, and the hereditary Puritan waxing strong in my breast, I deemed it a matter of conscience not to let it pass entirely unimproved. The truth is, I was unspeakably shocked and disgusted. Not, however, that I was then to learn that clergymen are made of the same flesh and blood as other people, and perhaps lack one small safeguard which ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... given on Monday to visit all the houses in the city and its suburbs where there were any Protestants, and obtain their names and surnames,[1049] afforded an opportunity which was not permitted to slip by unimproved, for the exaction of heavy bribes, as well as for more open plunder and violence. So notorious was it, nearly a week after the butchery began, that the massacre had only abated in intensity, that, on the thirtieth of August, measures were adopted to prevent any wrong from being done to foreign ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... against the Portuguese, but they will most probably in their consequences involve other powers. I need not urge the importance of immediate remittances towards paying for the large quantity of stores I have engaged for, and depend this winter will not be suffered to slip away unimproved. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... "quickly gained the hearts of the people wherever he went. His great desire was to see men coming to Jesus; and this he never forgot, whether at home or abroad. I have been with him not a little, and seldom have I seen an opportunity for a personal appeal, though only for a moment, pass unimproved." ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... von Steinmetz. When, later in the day the King arrived, a guard for him was detailed from this Bavarian contingent; a stroke of policy no doubt, for the South Germans were so prejudiced against their brothers of the North that no opportunity to smooth them down was permitted to go unimproved. ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... of God and of Religion, better the Mind, and improve the Understanding; so do weak and superstitious Principles corrupt the intellectual Faculty, and render the Soul more blind and inhuman, than it is in its natural State, unassisted and unimproved by Divine Grace. I have the rather made choice of this Argument, not only because I have never seen it urged before, but because I think it more nearly affects Men of this Faith, than any I have hitherto met with. I may be mistaken; but while it has such weight with me, I cannot but earnestly ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... that of the aforesaid civilian, but, like hosts of others, you fail to make the most of your opportunities. Suppose you were able to secure for a small sum a landscape painted by one of the masters and esteemed of great value. You would think it folly to let the chance pass unimproved. By simply cutting a hole in the wall you may have a picture infinitely grander than human artist ever painted; grander in its teaching, in its actual beauty, its variety, and its permanency; grander in everything except its market value. I am not sure but your children's children ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... without considering, perhaps, the difficulties of the voyage back again, and the time necessary to perform it in; and because they have no other means of coming to us, but by long land transportations and unimproved roads. These causes have hitherto checked the industry of the present settlers; for except the demand for provisions, occasioned by the increase of population, and a little flour, which the necessities of the Spaniards compel them to buy, they have no incitements to ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... dumb show the civilities of reception. The General cast his keen eye around the apartment, and fixing it first on the divine, addressed Everard as follows: "A reverend man I see is with thee. Thou art not one of those, good Markham, who let the time unnoted and unimproved pass away. Casting aside the things of this world—pressing forward to those of the next—it is by thus using our time in this poor seat of terrestrial sin and care, that we may, as it were—But how is this?" he continued, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... advance in the art of candle-making, for the candle, briefly described as a rod of solidified tallow or wax surrounding a wick, remained almost unimproved until the eighteenth century, when spermaceti was introduced, and in more recent years paraffin has ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... happiness of devouring books with no attempt to profit by them, except in the temporary pleasure of satisfying an appetite? So even the highest means of happiness may become a savor of death unto death when perverted or unimproved. Never should we stimulate the intellect merely to feed upon itself. Unless intellectual culture is directed to what is useful, especially to the necessities or improvement of others, it is a delusion and a snare. Better far to be ignorant, but industrious and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... hoped, with the aid of Koch's method. But this much should be remembered by everyone that this remedy also acts best and surest during the beginning of a disease. We hope that no one will allow valuable time to slip unimproved; it may easily happen that it is too late for successful treatment. Everyone will be able to recognize the symptoms of diseases, which Koch has taught to cure, from the foregoing complete description, and it is better to apply the remedy once too often than ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... past here, in Murray's grave, and give all your thoughts to the future. Half of your life has ebbed out, and yet your life-work remains undone, untouched. You have no time to spend in looking over your unimproved years." ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... of the Capitol, I was struck with the gloomy and unimproved condition of the surrounding country. Except our caravan, not a living thing moved within sight—all was desert, silent, and solitary as ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... O'Day to this point and was lying in wait for him as he came out of the courthouse into the Public Square, being anxious to describe to him some especially desirable bargains, in both improved and unimproved realty; also, Mr. Overall was prepared to book him for life, accident and ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... observations, and the terseness of the style, render this the most entertaining, as it is, perhaps, the most instructive of his works. His criticisms, indeed, often betray either the want of a natural perception for the higher beauties of poetry, or a taste unimproved by the diligent study of the most perfect models; yet they are always acute, lucid, and original. That his judgment is often warped by a political bias can scarcely be doubted; but there is no good reason to suspect that it is ever perverted by malevolence or envy. The booksellers ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... they played, although they gradually became in reality pretty heavy, were in his eyes a very unimportant consideration. Marston, on the other hand, was poor, and played with the eye of a lynx and the appetite of a shark. The ease and perfect good-humor with which Sir Wynston lost were not unimproved by his entertainer, who, as may readily be supposed, was not sorry to reap this golden harvest, provided without the slightest sacrifice, on his part, of pride or independence. If, indeed, he sometimes suspected that his guest was a little more anxious to ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... unimproved roads are represented by broken lines ( ). Such a road or lane can be seen running from the Barton farm to the Chester Pike. Another lane runs from the Mills farm to the same Pike. The small crossmarks on the road lines indicate barbed wire fences; the round circles indicate smooth wire; ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... reason of the unequal application of hands to lands, ought to be provided for by the magistrate and landlord till that can be done; for there need be no beggars in countries where there are many acres of unimproved improvable land to every head, as there are in England. As for thieves, they are for the most part begotten from the same cause; for it is against Nature that any man should venture his life, limb, ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... the laws, manners, customs, and languages, as well as in the features and complexions of men. I could not help remarking how important and extensive a field was yet unexplored, and how many solid advantages unimproved." ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... whom Edmund Burke referred, Thomas Jefferson was the foremost Commoner of his day, and he allowed no opportunity to pass unimproved, to lift the common people to higher conceptions of life and duty. Such men are rare, and I am glad to be able conscientiously to place the name of Thomas Jefferson, in many important respects, and particularly as the champion ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... sinners resist the grace of God, and spend the precious time given to seek and find it in thoughtless folly? What can they do, on such a bed of distress, who have no God? Time misspent and gone—opportunities unimproved and gone—calls resisted never to be repeated—death hunting the soul through every avenue of life—a dreadful, unknown, unthought of eternity at hand—an awful Judge, and no Advocate secured to plead. A time was when a kind Saviour was expostulating with ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... very poor form. The result is not the important thing, but the process. And sometimes teachers have understood this to mean, "Hands off!" and left the children to their crude impulses, unaided and unimproved. When the child shows what he is trying to do the teacher may show him how he can do what he wants to do. By suggestion and criticism she may get him to improve his first effort, provided she permits him to be absolutely free when he acts.—The place of this absolute ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... platform of the non-partisan organization of farmers of North Dakota which swept the State in the last election. Every branch of the government was captured by the farmers, whose platform declared for the untaxing of all kinds of farm-improvements and an increase in the tax rate on unimproved land as a means of developing the State and ending the ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... itself, but to have yielded a small income, over and above expenses. I did not tell my father—I don't know why, perhaps it was because I inherited a little of his business acumen, but I manipulated the net income in various minor undertakings, even in time buying small plots of unimproved real-estate, meaning after a year or two more to surprise my father with the result of my venture, but his death intervened before I could tell him ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... details come to the fore. An "all cash basis" is not uncommon these days and often brings a sizable reduction in the asking price. Where a mortgage is desired, fifty per cent of the purchase price must be cash for house and land, or the entire amount on unimproved land. With the latter, the mortgage lender will expect you to provide at least half of the total cost of the land and the proposed house. Gone are the days when country homes could be bought with first and second mortgages and very little cash. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... plunged in the contemplation of himself, shadowed by a melancholy that arose, not from grief at the loss of his parents, but dejection caused by the gloom of the period of mourning: and as he sat, he said within himself: I am losing time, and growing old, and letting the opportunity slip by me unimproved, and this bloom of mine is wasted, and, as it were, lying idle, for want of its proper mirror, which is not this ring, but a pair of new eyes, which would look back at my own, not as this does, vacantly and without a soul, but lit up by the soft lustre of passion and admiration. And all ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... require more pleasing thoughts than the fierce fights of early ages can ever suggest. It belongs to the idea of progress that beginnings can never seem attractive to those who live far on; the price of improvement is, that the unimproved will always look degraded. ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... that twenty years ago was defiled by the presence of idolatry. What a subject for an eloquent Bible-meeting orator! Nor has such an opportunity for a display of missionary rhetoric been allowed to pass by unimproved!—But when these philanthropists send us such glowing accounts of one half of their labours, why does their modesty restrain them from publishing the other half of the good they have wrought?—Not until I visited Honolulu was I aware ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... was a firm Resolution to learn something from whatever I was obliged to see or hear. There is a way of Thinking if a Man can attain to it, by which he may strike somewhat out of any thing. I can at present observe those Starts of good Sense and Struggles of unimproved Reason in the Conversation of a Clown, with as much Satisfaction as the most shining Periods of the most finished Orator; and can make a shift to command my Attention at a Puppet-Show or an Opera, as well as at Hamlet or Othello. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and weeks were creeping by unimproved, she retained in subsequent years only a dreamy reminiscence of the period dating from the moment when she essayed to utter the last words of Queen Katherine, words which ran zigzag, hither and thither like an electric thread through the leaden cloud of her ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the equals of men, both in intelligence and in social position; he gives a charming description of the women. "In short, their character," Forster concludes, "is as amiable as that of any nation that ever came unimproved out of the hands of Nature," and he remarks that, as was felt by the South Sea peoples generally, "whenever we came to this happy island we could evidently perceive the opulence and happiness of its inhabitants." It is noteworthy also, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... quite satisfactory, thank you, Dr. Clinton," replied Joan. "Perhaps you would like to hear us a few dates, so that our afternoon walk may not pass entirely unimproved." ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... railroad to get homesteads, and there suffer all the inconveniences and hardships and dangers of pioneer life, miles from neighbors, many miles from a doctor, and without school or church; while great tracts of splendid land lie idle and unimproved, close beside the little towns, held in the tight clasp of a hypothetical owner ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... should give him offence, and thereby lose his protection, of which he had so much need, in a city which required him to be always on his guard. He knew so little of the town, that he could not tell where to convey her, and he could not make up his mind to suffer the adventure to go unimproved. In this uncertainty, he determined to throw himself upon chance; and without making any answer, went on, and the lady followed him. Amgiad led her from street to street, from square to square, till they were both weary with walking. At last they entered ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... "to substitute the interest of money, instead of the ill-paid and precarious rents of an unimproved estate; but chiefly, it was believed, to suit the wishes and views of a certain intended purchaser, who had become a principal creditor, and forced himself into the management of the affairs by means best known to himself, and who, it was thought, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... has an admirable talent for contributing to vary and increase amusement. We have few hours unimproved. Some new plan of pleasure and sociability is constantly courting our adoption. He lives in all the magnificence of a prince: and why should I, who can doubtless share that magnificence if I please, forego the advantages and indulgences ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... 2,000 square miles of arable land in this magnificent region, and there has never been a crop failure since its settlement. Outside of Government lands prices range at from $4 to $10 per acre for unimproved, and from $12 ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... him, but he was not to let this opportunity for international courtesy go by unnoticed and unimproved. So, much to my delight and surprise, he arose, and made a ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger |
