"Useful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... precedence as the home of the first Trades' Union. The master cordwainers had organized a society in 1792, and their journeymen had followed suit two years later. The experiences and vicissitudes of these shoemakers furnished a useful lesson to other tradesmen, many of whom were organized into unions. But they were isolated organizations, each one fighting its own battles. In 1897 the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations was formed. Of its ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... reply was a little ungracious. It was, in effect, that he thought the country could have done very well without the services of the honorable members; that they never would have been missed; and that the nation was generally wide-awake to the fact that the many useful and popular measures passed towards the close of the last session owed their passing to the happy absence from Parliament of Pulteney and his friends. One might well excuse Walpole if he became ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... said, "you are the treasurer of our little household. Take this money and add to your savings. Some time you will find it useful in enlarging your business, or entering upon a ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... companionship with, the people of the interior. My own part in its production has been merely that of a midwife, though I may perhaps claim to have helped in the washing and dressing of the infant as well as in its delivery, and even to have offered some useful advice during the long years of pregnancy. And, since it is more difficult to present a brief and popular account of any complex subject the more intimate is one's knowledge of it, I may fairly hope that my superficial acquaintance with the pagan tribes ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... appliances, which have been made in recent years, and declared that valuable as these all are, they can not make up for the lack of skill and experience. He believed the increased interest in terra cotta, and in useful ornamental and out tiling points to the great source of supply as the timber of the country decreases in quantity. The drain-tile manufacture was simply the beginning of an era of skillful clay working, which would not only add greatly to the fertility of the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... we can do, sir?" Jack asked. "We shall be happy to serve as volunteers in any capacity in which you think we may be useful." ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... needs, and requirements of the individual organizations. Even the number of principal water bodies varies from organization to organization. Factbook users, for example, find the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean entries useful, but none of the following standards include those oceans in their entirety. Nor is there any provision for combining codes or overcodes to aggregate water bodies. The recently delimited Southern Ocean is ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... machinery, and calling for more hands. Every article of living is demanded with an imperativeness and over an extent of territory which set at once additional thousands to the task of production. Instead of being easier to find hands to execute in all branches of useful labor, it is likely to grow every year more difficult, as new departments of manufacture and trade divide the workers. The price of labor, even now higher in this country than in any other, will rise still higher, and thus ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... general good of mankind, by an interchange of useful things, and particularly in the line of agriculture, and the weight which your rank and station would give to your interposition, induce me to ask it, for the purpose of obtaining one of the species ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... omitted a vague rambling account of the kingdoms of Peru and Chili, as in 1616, which could have conveyed no useful information, farther than that Don Juan de Mendoza, Marquis des Montes Claros, was then viceroy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... canal of the purest water. The discovery of written letters by Tcheng-Nung, and his ingenious plan of grouping them after the manner of the constellations of stars, was emblemized in a similar manner, while Huang, or the Yellow Emperor, was surrounded by ores of the useful and precious metals, weapons of warfare, written books, silks and articles of attire, coined money, and a variety of objects, all testifying to his ingenuity ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... writers. The statements thus far made and proofs offered will be amply illustrated and confirmed as we go on to consider the chief component parts of the Pauline scheme of the last things. For, having presented the general outline, it will be useful, in treating so complex and difficult a theme, to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... left the passage about the white and red stripe, because it will be useful to us presently; all that I wish to insist upon here is the showing of the local color (pea green) of the water in the spaces which were occupied by dark reflections, and the unaltered ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... four brothers and Draupadi had undertaken pious pilgrimages to all the sacred waters of India, and had learned sundry useful trades and arts, before they, too, visited the Himalayas. There Arjuna joined them in Indra's chariot, and led them to the top of a mountain, whence they beheld the glittering palace of Kuvera, God ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... shoots a .44 bullet almost as far as an old-fashioned rifle," explained Greene. "Very useful if one runs into another 'plane unexpectedly—and the other fellow happens ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... was not only a man of great ardour in all other respects, but very warm and spirited in his manner of speaking. P. Lentulus too, the Father of the Senate, had a sufficient share of eloquence for an honest and useful magistrate. About the same time L. Furius Philus was thought to speak our language as elegantly, and more correctly than any other man; P. Scaevola to be very artful and judicious, and rather more fluent than Philus; M. Manilius to possess almost an equal share ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... ships of the company came laden with the most useful articles for traffic with the Indians, and, in return, transported back to Europe the furs which had been collected. Such were the blessings which peace and friendship conferred upon all. There seemed to be no temptation to outrage. The ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... a library be regarded as a Museum—and I use the word in its original sense as a temple or haunt of the Muses—very different ideas are evoked. Such a place is as useful as the other—every facility for study is given—but what I may call the personal element as affecting the treasures there assembled is brought prominently forward. The development of printing, as the result of individual effort; the art of bookbinding, as practised ...
— Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods - The Rede Lecture Delivered June 13, 1894 • J. W. Clark
... are antidotes or remedies for this growing evil—sanatoria where the worn-out over-worked are compelled to seek refuge, asylums of repose for those who have long lost the art of enjoying it. More useful, perhaps, are the facilities for getting healthy exercise which are offered by athletic clubs, gymnasia, and the squash courts and tennis courts now being laid out on the tops of so many of the best houses. But ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... Some men are too cantankerous for anything—don't know how to make the best of a bad job—don't see things as they are—as they are, my boy! And then what's the consequence? Obvious! Trouble, trouble; as likely as not a knock on the head; and serve 'em right too. That sort is the most useful when it's dead. The story goes that a boat of Her Majesty's ship Wolverine found him kneeling on the kelp, naked as the day he was born, and chanting some psalm-tune or other; light snow was falling at the time. He waited till the boat was an oar's ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the same as those in Greenland. The rein-deer, this beautiful and useful creature, is found in considerable herds, but has not hitherto been domesticated, being only hunted for its flesh, which makes an agreeable variety of food; and its skin, which is an elegant and necessary article ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... your flora is too great; but a simple list in close columns in small type of all the species, genera, and families, each consecutively numbered, has always struck me as most useful; and Hooker regrets that he did not give such list in introduction to New Zealand and other Flora. I am sure I have given you a larger dose of questions than you bargained for, and I have kept my word and treated you just as I do Hooker. Nevertheless, if anything occurs to me during ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... companionship with the literary lions of the lakes, he was disappointed. Coleridge was absent, and missed making his acquaintance—a circumstance he afterwards regretted, saying that he could have been more useful to the young poet and metaphysician than Southey. De Quincey, though he writes ambiguously upon this point, does not seem to have met Shelley. Wordsworth paid him no attention; and though he saw a good deal of Southey, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... and comfort. Our great undertakings in Courland and St. Petersburg have failed, it is true, and the Russian empress has ordered me to be driven away and pursued. But the Invisible Fathers have not forsaken me, as they know that I am a useful tool in their hands. They have carefully provided me with money, passports, and instructions. We have lost thousands, but we will regain them, for the future is ours. I am protected by the order, and called to a new and important ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... way to Washington in a few days. Men are wanted now—all the men that have any knowledge to be useful. I may not be very useful. But I ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... inattentive. Mr. Poulter had come up, and wanted to be useful, so she jumped up with a handful of nosegays to instruct him in laying them by each plate, leaving Dolores to herself, which she found dull. The other two, however, came back again, and the work continued, but the talk was entirely between the gentleman and lady, chiefly about ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... difficult to define. It cannot be that objectivity of consciousness means that a special effect like the jnatata of Mima@msa is produced upon the object, for such an effect is not admissible or perceivable in any way; nor can objectivity also mean any practical purpose (of being useful to us) associated with the object as Prabhakara thinks, for there are many things which are the objects of our consciousness but not considered as useful (e.g. the sky). Objectivity also cannot mean that the thing ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... quiet, unobtrusive behaviour; he was much concerned at not being able to find the remains of his late unfortunate master, to whom he was sincerely attached; his two companions* also conducted themselves well, and were very useful on shore. ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... speak French (or any other language that I could impart you) by that time, I would say it was impossible for a number of busy men to acquire a new language inside one year; that I could not guarantee useful results, but that if you would take two months to start with for the learning of Esperanto, then I might be able to teach you the other language in the rest of the time, because Esperanto is the best foundation for learning any language. ...
— Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education • Richard Bartholdt and A. Christen
... and what, probably, influenced him still more, that it had proved very expensive.[378] He has the credit of being a wise king in many respects, notwithstanding his avariciousness; and he at once saw that Kildare would be more useful as a friend, and less expensive, if he ceased to be an enemy. The result was the pardon of the "rebel," his marriage with the King's first cousin, Elizabeth St. John, and his restoration to the office of Deputy. His quick-witted speeches, when examined before the King, took the royal fancy. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... were too late for the train to Frederick. At the Eutaw House, where we found both comfort and courtesy, we met a number of friends, who beguiled the evening hours for us in the most agreeable manner. We devoted some time to procuring surgical and other articles, such as might be useful to our friends, or to others, if our friends should not need them. In the morning, I found myself seated at the breakfast-table next to General Wool. It did not surprise me to find the General ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... "For useful services past and to come!" and there were promises of still further rewards, a complete pardon for all defalcations, a place within the charmed circle of the Comedie Francaise, a grand pageant and apotheosis ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... looked over the several Bundles of Letters which I have received from Dying People, and composed out of them the following Bill of Mortality, which I shall lay before my Reader without any further Preface, as hoping that it may be useful to him in discovering those several Places where there is most Danger, and those fatal Arts which are made use of to destroy ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... bank where I am employed, and I had the good fortune to be of a little service to her one day when I was out biking. Her harness, or at least the harness on the horse she was driving, broke, and I came to the rescue with my pocket-knife and some string, thereby proving, if not ornamental, I was useful. After that I tried hard to find out who she was, but my inquiries always came to nothing. I little dreamt who Miss Melvyn was when Harry, telling me she was a Goulburn girl, asked ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... this book a source of entertainment; those more advanced, a useful companion in their reading; those who travel and visit museums and galleries of art, an interpreter ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced reasoning and mathematical powers that have never been surpassed. Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place, and all ages will reverence ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... word in answer. It is but a lying cant that would represent the merchant and the banker as people disinterestedly toiling for mankind, and then most useful when they are most absorbed in their transactions; for the man is more important than his services. And when my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so far fallen from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up an enthusiasm ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... its office was to keep the ovary in a moist condition. Another botanist argued that it was "useless material thrown off in process of growth." Krunitz noted that "bee-visited meadows were most healthy," and his inference was that "honey was injurious to the flowers, and that bees were useful in carrying it off"! The great Linnaeus confessed himself ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... respects very attractive, and will be found useful to architectural readers as well as to ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol 1, No. 11, November, 1895 - The Country Houses of Normandy • Various
... "No more of your ghastly yarns! Val is going to be useful to me or—I'm darned if I could stand him. I don't like ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... beautiful on this night: no white lace, no orange blossoms, to make the ill-natured sneer at the middle-aged bride attired like a girl; no useless finery to be laid away in chests and cherished as sentimental mementos of an occasion. A substantial heavy silk of a useful shade of useful gray was Hetty Gunn's wedding gown; and she wore on her breast and in her hair white roses, "which will do for my summer bonnets for years," Hetty had said, when she ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... conveniently use it should be made to use it, for it was not to be supposed, said they, that two Acts of Parliament and an Act of Common Council affecting the health and safety of the city should be passed to no other purpose than to injure those who undertook so useful a work on the part of the city.(75) So again, in the following year (1617), when the brewers of London wished to erect waterworks on their own account at Dowgate, they were stopped by order of the Privy Council, and told to take their water from the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... he believed that strife of sects tended to make men lose sight of the one essential in religion—harmony—and cause them simply to struggle for victory. Erasmus wanted to trim the wings of the papal office and file its claws—Luther would have destroyed it. Erasmus considered the Church a very useful and needful organization—for social reasons. It tended to regulate life and conduct and made men "decentable." It should be a school of ethics, and take a leading part in every human betterment. Man being a gregarious animal, the congregation is in the line of natural desire. The excuse for gathering ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... circumstances, is a great boon. Sleep, if natural and undisturbed, is surely as useful as any other scientific discovery. Sleep, whether administered at home or abroad, under the soporific influences of an under-paid preacher or the unyielding wooden cellar door that is used as a blanket in the sleeping ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... referring with apparent satisfaction to his evidence before the Committee, says, "it had been previously established, and is now universally conceded that the gentlemen who consume nothing in their families but what is brought from abroad are quite as good, as useful, and as meritorious subjects as they could be, if, they consume nothing but what is produced at home; and such being the case, it will require a sharper eye than has yet looked at this subject, to discover the great injury which is said to be ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Camel Corps were hard pressed, and lost eighty men before they got to the river and into a safe position under the shelter of the gunboats and Macdonald's brigade, which was at the north end of the zereba. The myth of a Camel Corps as a useful fighting unit had been exploded. Meantime, Colonel Broadwood's troopers rode away to the north, trying to shake off outflanking parties of dervishes. The Sheikh Ed Din and Khalil continued to pursue the ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... the men have gone to the war, I'll be able to drive a taxi or a war van, and make myself useful to the Government! I believe I could clean the car perfectly well if Sam should be called up, and has to leave the garage. I'd just enjoy turning the hose on it. What would they give me a week to take ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... for ever presuming to wear it at all, when you're the head of the family, and solely entitled to it. And I shall never forgive myself if it's lost, and if it's found I'll never, never wear it any more." And as she deluged her best company pocket-handkerchief (for the useful one was in a big pocket under her dress, and could not be got at, the parson being present), Church, State, the royal family, the family Bible, her highest principles, her dearest affections, and the diamond brooch, all seemed to swim before ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... the house, when the whirlwind came, and the sheehogues in it, and he said to himself: "We have November night again to-day, and I'll stand in the same place I was last year, until I see if the good people come again. Perhaps I might see or hear something that would be useful to me, and might bring back her talk again to Mary"—that was the name himself and the priest called the king's daughter, for neither of them knew her right name. He told his intention to the priest, and the priest gave ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... fell on the bell. "That is very satisfactory," said Picard; "now, can you make the next one slightly concave, so that a man may strap it under his coat without attracting attention? Such a shape is useful when passing ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... greater Celandine), because curing the skin disease known as tetters; and further, Blackbindweed. It has smooth heart-shaped leaves, and produces scarlet, elliptical berries larger than those of the White Bryony. A tincture is made (H.) from the root-stock, with spirit of wine, which proves a most useful application to unbroken chilblains, when [69] made into a lotion with water, one part to twenty. The plant is called Black Bryony (Bryonia nigra) from its dark leaves and black root. It is not given at all internally, but the acrid pulp of the ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... You will in general find us returned to sentiments worthy of former times; in these it will be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living. That you may live long to continue your useful labors, and reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sin ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... of character and conduct is the accepted aim for education in general, to make this useful and practical each teacher must fix her attention on how this ultimate aim affects her own special part of the whole work. By watching the free child she will discover how best she can help him: he knows his own business, ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... business at all! Daniel would have sent if he had wanted me. Ought to have known. Old native can give me lessons on being a gentleman every time. Blast it all! What's wrong, Howard? Get hurt? Now I am here, might as well be useful." ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... perchance. A bright light shone in the boy's eye. His face was losing its despairing expression. The flowers were speaking to his heart, whispering of Trust, Faith, Hope! Yes, he must live on, brave all sorrows, trample down difficulties, and with God's blessing try to live to be a good and useful man. ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... borders of Atlantic day His swelling pinions led the trackless way, And taught mankind such useful deeds to dare, To trace new seas and happy nations rear; Till by fraternal hands their sails unfurled Have waved at last in union o'er ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... and over-grown walnut seedlings now began to serve a useful purpose in grafting the new varieties which I obtained for testing in this locality. These were propagated by obtaining scionwood from the originators of the variety and grafting it on these seedling ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... addressed; and as no doubt many of us are taking an unusual interest in bullets just now there should be a large public for a story that is so largely concerned with them. On its own merits as a tale it is bustling and picturesque enough. The scene of it is laid in a South American Republic (that useful variant on Ruritania), and the plot deals with the rescue of the charming daughters of a rapscallion President, threatened by local revolutionaries. Naturally, therefore, there is some shooting—in the American sense—all of which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... gathering useful knowledge, the Indians amused themselves in various ways until darkness should call them forth to the business of the hour. Some, with that amazing tendency to improve their personal appearance, which is common alike to civilised and savage, plucked out the little beard with which nature ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... about me, my dear cousin; but what have I to tell? I work hard at my profession, and take nearly all the night-practice off Dr. Gershom's hands; so I have very little leisure for any thing besides: and you say to be useful is to be happy; so I suppose I am happy; but, if I may be allowed the suggestion, it is rather a negative kind of bliss, and will be decidedly augmented when Outpost is once again open to me as a second home (I assure you I shall be a frequent ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... I tried to consider what moral remedies might be within our reach. The one useful conclusion at which I could arrive was to induce Rothsay to try what absence and change might do to compose his mind. To advise him to travel alone was out of the question. I wrote to his one other old friend besides myself—the friend who had taken ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... hopelessness of success, in his endeavours to obtain a sufficiency of prominent and distinctive features to compose an entertainment founded on American character. The whole nation struck him as being destitute of salient points, and as characterized by a respectable mediocrity, that, however useful it might be in its way, was utterly without poetry, humour, or interest to the observer. For one who dealt principally with the more conspicuous absurdities of his fellow-creatures, Mr. Mathews was certainly right; we also believe him to ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... purpose in the economy of education is distinct and peculiar; it imparts knowledge, not respecting laws, forces, or principles of operating, but respecting the concrete constituents of the world. It gives us a commanding view of one whole department of the material universe; supplying information useful in practice, and interesting to the feelings. It also brings into exercise the great logical process, wanted on many ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... said Rhoda; 'kind, innocent women; but useful for nothing except what they have done all their lives. The eldest can't teach seriously, but she can keep young children out of mischief and give them a nice way of speaking. Her health is breaking ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... little scornful gesture. "I knew when I took this thing up I would have to let my scruples go, and now—while I wonder whether my hands will ever feel clean again—I'm going through. You are useful to the committee, and ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... put him in the straight road of marriage; and he proclaimed her a modest and virtuous constable's lady, as indeed she was. As this book should, according to the maxims of great ancient authors, join certain useful things to the good laughs which you will find therein and contain precepts of high taste, I beg to inform you that the quintessence of the story is this: That women need never lose their heads in serious cases, because the God of Love never abandons them, especially when they are beautiful, young, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... with a yawn. "Useful? Oh, you mean scavenging? But then you discourage him so. Remember that rotten fish in Brook Street the other day? Well, he was making a nice clean job of that, he was, when you ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... believe me? I frankly confess that I do not hesitate to lie when I hope to gain more by untruth than by that much-belauded and divine truth, which, according to your favorite Plato, is allied to all earthly beauty; but it is often just as useless as beauty itself, for the useful and the beautiful exclude each other in a thousand cases, for ten when they coincide. There, the gong is sounding for the third time. If you care for plain proof that the Roman, only an hour before he visited you this morning, had our little Hebe carried ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for phthisis, the gall for the face, chamois flesh is good to eat, and its blood cures vertigo—the skin is no less useful. Doth not the love as well as the wisdom and almightiness of the Creator ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... good for riding as we were for driving, and our master used to say that he disliked either horse or man that could do but one thing; and as he did not want to show off in London parks, he preferred a more active and useful kind of horse. As for us, our greatest pleasure was when we were saddled for a riding party; the master on Ginger, the mistress on me, and the young ladies on Sir Oliver and Merrylegs. It was so cheerful to be trotting ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... Mr. Wilkins was rapt in the contemplation of the precious qualities of blue blood. This readiness, for instance, not to trouble about money, this free-handedness—it was not only what one admired in others, admired in others perhaps more than anything else, but it was extraordinarily useful to the professional classes. When met with it should be encouraged by warmth of reception. Mrs. Fisher was not warm. She accepted—from which he deduced that with her wealth went closeness—but she accepted grudgingly. ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... of; and in regard to the daughter—Annie by name—she would in time become a marketable commodity, which might, if judiciously disposed of, turn in a considerable profit, besides being, before she was sold, a useful machine for sewing on buttons, making tea, reading the papers aloud, fetching hats and sticks and slippers, etcetera. There had, however, been a slight drawback—a sort of temporary loss—on this concern at first, for the piece of goods became damaged, owing to her ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... his worked-out New York State farm, it was his invariable rule to do absolutely nothing for a week. He hired Frank Conners to cook for that week and generally make himself useful, ...
— The Leech • Phillips Barbee
... converge on London, which would then stir for itself. The French Admiral Villegaignon promised to keep a fleet on the seas, and to move from place to place among the western English harbours, wherever his presence would be most useful. Plymouth had been tampered with, and the mayor and aldermen, either really, or as a ruse to gain information, affected a desire to receive a French garrison.[201] For the sake of their cause the Protestant party were prepared to give to France an influence in England as ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... However, this bill was useful in securing from the Supreme Court the ruling that the Legislature had power to regulate the suffrage concerning all positions created by itself. Heretofore the weight of judicial opinion had been the other way; that no ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... great religious or political institutions, like the products of nature, have their times of immaturity, of growth, of ripeness and of decay, and it by no means follows because they at last become indefensible, that they have not during many generations discharged useful functions and that those who first assailed and condemned them are deserving of praise. Not unfrequently, indeed, a public man must take his choice whether by fully identifying himself with the existing conditions ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... case had similar features," said Inspector Dunbar, who re-entered at that moment carrying a leathern grip. "If you are kept waiting and you keep your ears open, doctor, that's when your knowledge of the lingo will come in useful. We might rope in the whole gang and find we hadn't a scrap of evidence against them, for except the attempt on yourself, Dr. Stuart, there's nothing so far that I can see to connect 'The Scorpion' with Sir ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... theories of the doctrinaire. Promise without fulfillment is barren, but when you can place before the mechanic the assured fact that the performance of his duty means success in life, and that his non-performance means failure; when you can show him that this law is immutable, you have made of him a useful citizen and have instilled into his mind a firm belief that the freedom and liberty of which we boast is not an inchoate substance to be dreamed of and not enjoyed. But this desired result cannot be secured if combinations of capital, which produce the necessaries of life cheaper and better, ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... worthless scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-day, the word was given, "Draw swords?" Some felt this, doubtless; but the most part, I imagine, were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their short life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so, to a certain extent, they had their reward. At any rate, their ending was to the full as glorious as that of some other friends of ours, who crawl away from the battle-ground of the Viveurs to die, or to ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... involuntarily. "You are too indulgent, Mrs. Williams; we cannot afford to feed and clothe girls of her age, to wear themselves out reading trash all night. We are very much in arrears at best, and I think some plan should be adopted to make these large girls, who have been on hand so long, more useful. What do you say, ladies?" Miss Dorothea looked around for some encouragement and support ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... of the most sensible things I have heard you say," chattered Jenny Wren. "The more I see of bright colors the better I like brown. It always is in good taste. It goes well with almost everything. It is neat and it is useful. If there is need of getting out of sight in a hurry you can do it if you wear brown. But if you wear bright colors it isn't so easy. I never envy anybody who happens to have brighter clothes than mine. I've seen dreadful things happen ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... maid—she is a useful person. That makes me think. You certainly expect to stay here some time, do ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... and unprovoked attack meet with its just punishment and at the same time taught us a useful lesson to be more cautious in future. With respect to the size of these natives they are much the same as at Sydney, their understanding better though, for they easily made out our signs when it answered their purposes or inclination. ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... a thousand years of honourable age! For a thousand years and more, Wisdom and faithful Valour, struggling amid much Folly and greedy Baseness, not without most sad distortions in the struggle, have built them up; and they are as we see. For a thousand years, this English Nation has found them useful or supportable; they have served this English Nation's want; been a road to it through the abyss of Time. They are venerable, they are great and strong. And yet it is good to remember always that they are not the venerablest, nor the ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... economy is more important than that of making the intellect at your disposal pure as well as powerful; so that it may always gather for you the sweetest and fairest things. The same quantity of labour from the same man's hand, will, according as you have trained him, produce a lovely and useful work, or a base and hurtful one; and depend upon it, whatever value it may possess, by reason of the painter's skill, its chief and final value, to any nation, depends upon its being able to exalt and refine, as well as to please; and that the picture which most truly deserves ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... be jealous: he always is of other fellows, as he calls them. You must score that up against Dick, please. Well, I won't deny that Harry may make himself useful there: all I protest against is the idea that he will bundle us out of this dear old Friary, and make us grand, ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the Brotherhood," Pesca went on, "is, briefly, the object of other political societies of the same sort—the destruction of tyranny and the assertion of the rights of the people. The principles of the Brotherhood are two. So long as a man's life is useful, or even harmless only, he has the right to enjoy it. But, if his life inflicts injury on the well-being of his fellow-men, from that moment he forfeits the right, and it is not only no crime, but a positive merit, to deprive him of it. It is not for me to say in what frightful circumstances of ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... reminded them of the position of that family, overladen with debt contracted in their service alone. He concluded by offering most affectionately his service in any way in which he, young and inexperienced as he knew himself to be, might be thought useful; as he was long since resolved to devote his life to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... little need to tell the girls to make haste. Flemild hastily wrung out the apron she was washing, and pinned it on the line; Ermine drew the thread from her needle—the entire household owned but one of those useful and costly articles—and put it carefully away; while Derette tumbled up the ladder at imminent risk to her limbs, to fling back the lid of the great coffer at the bed-foot, and institute a search, which left every thing in wild confusion, for her sister's best kerchief and her own. ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... intentions of the King, however, were faithfully executed, and more than one rough but honest Canadian boatman of the St. Lawrence and of the Mississippi closed his adventurous and erratic career and became a domestic and useful member of that little commonwealth, under the watchful influence of the dark-eyed maid of the Loire or ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... Department of Commerce and maintained by the Office of the Geographer and Global Issues at the US Department of State. The data code is used to eliminate confusion and incompatibility in the collection, processing, and dissemination of area-specific data and is particularly useful for interchanging data between databases. Appendix F cross-references various country data codes and Appendix G does the same thing for ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... their parents, about three years previously, Susan and Elizabeth had gone to live at Coalham, and to be useful to their brother David's parish; Susan betaking herself to the poor, and Bessie finding herself specially available in the various forms of improvement undertaken by ladies in modern days. To her own surprise, and her sister's discomfiture, her talent as a public speaker had become developed. ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... finding contrivances against those I best love, overcome at all points. But nevertheless with the prophet Calchas I will go and ask the pleasure of the Goddess, not fortunate for me, the trouble of Greece.[61] But it behooves a wise man either to support a useful and good wife in his house or not to ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... their temper, state, and condition have been and still are." In illustration of his theory, he refers to the education, by the assistance of the "Honorable London Commissioners,"[6] of Mr. Samson Occom, "one of the Mohegan tribe, who has several years been a useful school-master and successful ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... notes already taken, and finding them more complete than I had anticipated, determined to make as accurate a report as I was able of the general discussion. I could not then anticipate whether such a report would be useful to the country or not; but I thought if the Conference should propose amendments to the Constitution, and these should be ultimately submitted to the States for adoption, a knowledge of the motives and reasons which influenced the action of the Conference as well as ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... could buy a part of the stock of the bank with the new bonds of the United States. This would make people more eager to own the bonds, and so would increase their price. For all these reasons Hamilton thought the bank would be very useful, and therefore "necessary and proper" for the carrying out of the powers given by the Constitution to the national government. Jefferson, however, thought that the words "necessary and proper" meant necessary ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... William had grown a big boy, and was very useful to the cowherd and his wife. He could shoot now with his bow and arrow in a manner which would have pleased his first teacher, and he and his playfellows—the sons of charcoal-burners and woodmen—were wont to keep the pots supplied at home with the game they found in the forest. Besides this, ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... description of what passed just as I foresaw. Mr. Pitt broke out a little the second day, and threatened to secede, and tell the world the iniquity of the majority; but recollecting that the majority might be as useful as the world, he recomposed himself, professed meaning no personalities, swallowed all candour as fast as it was proposed to him, swallowed camels and haggled about gnats, and in a manner let the friends of the old ministry state and vote what resolutions they ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... two-toed, long-legged, kicking creature has wings that are apparently more useful to man than to itself. In fact, the possession of these apparently superfluous appendages is generally the cause of its being hunted by man ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Fletcher, "Captain Stockton meant to take them into the band. They are bright and smart boys, and would grow up into useful members." ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... for all the furniture mother Coupeau had was her bed, an ancient walnut wardrobe which was put in the dirty-clothes room, a table, and two chairs. They sold the table and had the chairs recaned. From the very first the old lady took over the sweeping. She washed the dishes and made herself useful, happy ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... by the doctors, who were afraid that "private practice would be interfered with." We had not quite got to the millennium yet. It was so with our bill to establish a farm school to win back young vagrants to a useful life. It was killed at Albany with the challenge that we "had had enough of reform in New York." And so we had, as the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... Edward draw back the curtains, and there's another curtain to be seen. It is not beautiful to look at—but it's useful. It has six advertisements painted on it in "screaming" colour. and keep thin" says one. "Drink and keep sober" says the next, and Somebody's Patent Something is the way. "Indulge freely; we take the consequence", the motto runs beneath the two. ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... there was pointed with all the rest. There were no rain-marks on the leather case; it had been put on the roof as an after-thought when there was no rain. A very poor after-thought, let me tell you, for no thief would throw away a useful case that concealed his booty and protected it from breakage, and throw it away just so as to leave a clue as to what direction he had gone in. I also saw, in the lumber-room, a number of packing-cases—one with a label dated two days back—which had been opened with an iron ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... fell suddenly down in a fit of apoplexy; his butler, bringing in his accustomed dish of devilled kidneys for supper, discovered the venerable form extended on the Turkey carpet with a glass of Madeira in his hand; but life was extinct: and surgical aid was therefore not particularly useful. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for! I don't say," he added apologetically, "that this stuff wouldn't stand by itself—or come in useful, anyway." ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... sat nearer and nearer to my table, until after gaining a little every day during some weeks, she at last worked her way right up to me, and used to perch herself beside me whenever I worked. In this position she used, still without ever obtruding her presence in any way, to make herself very useful by holding my pens, test-tubes, or bottles, and handing me whatever I wanted, with never-failing sagacity. By ignoring the fact of her being a human being, and looking upon her as a useful automatic machine, I accustomed myself to her presence so far as to miss her on the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... obliged to fight on the other side, but that he had always been heart and soul for the North; anyhow, he was always blackguarding his old friends. I always doubted the fellow. Well, there's an end of him; and anyhow he has done useful service at last by recognizing this spy. Fine-looking young fellow that! He called him Vincent Wingfield. I seem to remember the name; perhaps I have read it in some of the rebel newspapers we got hold of; likely enough someone will know it. Well, I suppose we had better have Jackson ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... while the influence of the association stimulated them to the strict performance of their ordinary duties, was both varied and useful. Inasmuch as it reduced their recreation to a system, the laws of the club acting as a salutary check upon the waywardness of youth, it afforded an excellent discipline for the mind and heart, as ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... frightful thing that I had fallen, and not because I was subjected to the natural seduction of a certain woman. No, no woman seduced me. I fell because the surroundings in which I found myself saw in this degrading thing only a legitimate function, useful to the health; because others saw in it simply a natural amusement, not only excusable, but even innocent in a young man. I did not understand that it was a fall, and I began to give myself to those pleasures (partly from desire and partly from necessity) which ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... relate the numerous enterprises which were undertaken for the conquest of this imaginary country. Unquestionably we are indebted to them in great part for our knowledge of the interior of America; they have been useful to geography, as errors and daring hypotheses are often to the search of truth: but in the discussion on which we are employed, it is incumbent on me to rest only upon those facts which have had the most direct influence on the construction ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... is very useful for prospecting the surface soil, being more portable and more rapidly ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... have confidence. In a popular book of this kind I have not thought it necessary to give detailed references to authorities, but a list of a few of the books which I used in the preparation of the Lectures, and which are likely to be interesting to readers of Welsh history, may be useful. Among mediaeval works I may mention the two Welsh chronicles—the Annales Cambriae and the Brut y Tywysogion, both published in the Rolls Series; Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain" (translated in Bohn's "Six Old English Chronicles"); Giraldus ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... the very nicest parts; Well pleased who serves you!—all the household smarts No means neglect your favour to obtain; You've full command; resistance would be vain. Whence this conclusion must directly spring: To be a cuckold is a useful thing. ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... armed, as every one then had full need to be. He wore a sombrero in the Mexican fashion, and flung over his shoulders was a great serape which he had found most useful in the winter. With his perfect knowledge of Spanish and its Mexican variants he believed that if surprised he could pass as a Mexican, particularly in the night and ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... prosperity, can hope to take its place as a factor in the progress of the world. In our orphanage and educational work we have tried to keep these two ideas constantly before us, and to offer incentives to and opportunities for useful life-work in whatever branch, from the humblest to the highest, a child ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... to think of poor Miss ——. I wrote to ask her if there was anything she wanted and could not get in her region; yesterday I received her letter, in which she mentions a book, but says "anything that is useful for body or mind" would be gratefully received. Now I got the impression from that article in the Independent, that she could take next to no nourishment. Do you know what she does take, and can you suggest, from what you know, anything she would like? What's the use of my being sick, if it isn't ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Holliday will be glad enough for some of it to go to his grandson. I'll gin ye half o't, Hugh, and take my chance of the colonel agreeing to it. I'll give'e as much more out of my old stocking upstairs. Put it carefully by, lad. Money is as useful in war as at other times, and pay ain't always regular; maybe the time may come when the young master may be short of money, and it may come in useful. Now put on thy riding coat; and mother will put thy best clothes in ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... still has his ten-acre lot, where he may run and play. There are flowers and freckles in the spring; kite-flying, fishing, hunting, and trapping in summer and autumn. The general farm is a storehouse of useful information in rudimentary form. From day to day and from year to year the country boy may learn ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... the blinding clouds of dust. The landscape seems to get right up and mingle with the excitement. The supple, well-trained horses lose the scintillation on their coats, while Uncle Sam's blue is growing mauve very rapidly. But there is a useful look about the men, and the horses show condition after their long practice march just finished. Horses much used to go under saddle have well-developed quarters and strong stifle action. Fact is, nothing looks like a horse with a harness on. That is a job for mules, and these should have ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... is pretty much the same thing. You seem a very agreeable fellow, and will, no doubt, be quite as useful as the original person could have been. It was very civil of Mr. Balderby to send some one to meet me—very ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... journey, and he found its instinct of great service to him in various ways. As a sentinel he was better than any of the dogs. So quick was his sense of danger, that he often gave notice of the approach of beasts of prey, when every thing else seemed sunk in security. He was also very useful in guarding the people of the expedition from danger, from using unwholesome or poisonous fruits. The animal's name was Kees. Here is the very interesting account which his master gives ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... Cumulus clouds, moreover, were nearly always the terminations of such up currents of heated air, which, on cooling by expansion in the upper regions, deposited their moisture as fog. These clouds might, perhaps, prove useful in the future in showing the aeronaut where up currents were to be found. Another mode of soaring flight was that adopted by the albatross, which took advantage of the fact that the air moved in pulsations, ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... such, and as it were counted off individually, the proposition, though it may be general in its language, is no general proposition, but merely that number of singular propositions, written in an abridged character. The operation may be very useful, as most forms of abridged notation are; but it is no part of the investigation of truth, though often bearing an important part in the preparation of the materials ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... unroll and straighten out as it grows, and consequently a decoction of ferns causes the contracted muscles of the rheumatic patient to unbend and straighten out in like manner. It is also used in decoction for fever. Dispensatory: The leaves "have been supposed to be useful in chronic catarrh ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... be useful as State's evidence, for this last fellow saves his neck, perhaps, by Fritz Braun's death. It can never be known if he was only Braun's tool or the real inspirer of the crime. He must have found out about the money!" And so the careful lying of mother and son hid forever ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... neighbor, the caecum? Considered physiologically, anatomically, pathologically, surgically, the caecum is the decenter of the two. It has more cleanly habits; it is more beautiful; it serves a more useful purpose; it brings its owner less often to the doors of death. And yet what would one think of a lady who mentioned her caecum? But the appendix—ah, the appendix! The appendix is pure, polite, ladylike, even noble. It confers an ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... pathos. She had fought for her own hand for years; she could not dig, and to beg she was not ashamed; but a time had come when even the most adroit begging began to bore people. They saw through it, and then there resulted strained relations, slight stiffness of manner, even in the most useful and amiable persons, lack of desire to be hospitable, or even condescendingly generous. Cold shoulders were turned, there were ominous threatenings of icy backs presenting themselves. The very tradesmen had found this out, and could not be persuaded ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Christian, and her conversion was followed by the conversion of one or two others. Now, my dear little girls, if you will give your hearts to the Saviour, and in due time come here, or go to other heathen lands, and tell the people of a Saviour, you may, with the help of the Holy Spirit, be as useful as ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... the December number of the Journal of the British Archaeological Association (xx. 307) Mr. F. Lambert, of the Guildhall Museum, prints pertinent criticisms of Sir L. Gomme's volume, much in the direction of my preceding paragraphs. He also makes useful observations on Roman London. In particular, he attacks the difficult problem of the date when its town-walls were built. Here he agrees with those who ascribe them to the second century, and for two main reasons. First, he thinks that the occurrence of early Roman potsherds ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... ridiculous gunboat system. In 1807, during the crisis which followed the Berlin Decree, the Orders-in-Council, and the Chesapeake affair, Jefferson wrote to Thomas Paine: 'Believing, myself; that gunboats are the only water defence which can be useful to us, and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy, I am pleased with everything which promises to improve them.' Whether 'improved' or not, these gunboats were found worse than useless as a substitute for 'the ruinous folly of a navy.' They failed egregiously to stop Jefferson's own countrymen ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... toad feeds on insects, and is very useful about the garden, as it picks off the grubs and beetles that destroy ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... the English of America and the English of England with courtesy and good sense.[Q] He protested against certain transatlantic neologisms, including in his list that excellent old word "to berate," and a word so useful and so eminently consonant with the spirit of the language as "to belittle;" but, whether wise or unwise, his protest was at least civil. Other writers, both in books and periodicals, have been apt to take their tone from the Dean rather than from the Archbishop. It may even ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... minstrels or trouveres, not to say the Homeric singers of an earlier day. Their stock of news, their wider experience, their intelligent conversation, and their sacred minstrelsy procured them often a warm welcome and a night's lodging outside of Methodist circles. They diffused much useful information, and their visits dispelled the mental stagnation which is almost sure to settle upon an isolated community. The whole household gathering around the evening fire, hung with eager attention upon their lips as, from their well-stored minds, they brought forth ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... the house is in a good sanitary condition, the open fire only adds to the danger of residing in such a house, because it draws the impure air from other parts into our living rooms, where it is respired. Closed stoves are useful in some places, such as entrance halls. They are more economical than the open fireplaces; but with them there is danger of the atmosphere, or rather, the minute particles of organic matter always ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various |
