"Gratify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passers-by on the foot of some great tree, or rock, or the leaf cast from a passing canoe towards a promontory on the river, etc., although intrinsically valueless and useless to the Ombwiri nevertheless gratify him. It is a sort of bow or taking off one's hat to him. Some gifts, the Doctor says, are supposed to be ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... that he had been surprised that Mignon had not made any attempt to find out the cause of the enmity of which the superior had spoken, and which it was so important to find out; but Mignon excused himself by saying that he had no right to put questions merely to gratify curiosity. The civil lieutenant was about to insist on the matter being investigated, when the lay sister in her turn went into a fit, thus extricating Mignon from his embarrassment. The magistrates approached the lay sister's ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... real existences; the palpable beings of reason!—Beside what influence have I in the world, except over my friends and family? And shall I renounce this little influence, this only power of doing good, in order to gratify my own passions, by making myself the outcast of that family and of that world to whom it is my ambition to live an example?—My family and the world are prejudiced and unjust: I know it. But where is the remedy? Can we work miracles? Will their prejudices vanish at our bidding?—I have already ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... passed; for it is impossible that anything should be universally tasted and approved by a multitude, though they are only the rabble of a nation, which hath not in it some peculiar aptness to please and gratify the mind of man. Human nature is the same in all reasonable creatures; and whatever falls in with it will meet with admirers amongst readers of all qualities and conditions. Moliere, as we are told by Monsieur Boileau, ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... whole happiness depends upon this bargain with my lord; for it gives him the possession of three boroughs, and those, madam, are much dearer to him than the happiness of his children. I am sorry to say it, but, to gratify his political rage, he wou'd sacrifice every social tie, that is dear to friend ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... gradually, and the new words and phrases will add to the child's power of expression. The naive explanations of the phenomena of nature given by the primitive races appeal to the child's wonder about the same phenomena, and he is pleased and interested. These myths will gratify the child's desire for complete stories, and their intrinsic merit makes them valuable for ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... they call the Law. Sing hymns about 'all thine.' They build themselves their dens, gather fruit, and pull herbs—marry even. But I can see through it all, see into their very souls, and see there nothing but the souls of beasts, beasts that perish, anger and the lusts to live and gratify themselves.—Yet they're odd; complex, like everything else alive. There is a kind of upward striving in them, part vanity, part waste sexual emotion, part waste curiosity. It only mocks me. I have some hope of this puma. I have worked hard at her ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... was comparatively infrequent, these, and similar articles, were still in great demand, the simple islanders readily giving rich shells, and valuable pearls, in barter for them. I accompanied the expedition, at the request of Rokoa, and with scarcely any other object than to gratify him; though I was made the bearer of letters, and some trifling presents to a Tahitian native missionary, who had recently gone to Hao, to labour there. I had long known both Rokoa and his brother, now supposed to be lost. The former was a remarkable ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... he said, "in taking such interest in a querulous old man, like me, and I would gratify you; but, indeed, it is not the illness of the body of which I complain, for that only suffers in sympathy with the mind. Fresh breezes may fan the brow, and verdant scenes charm the ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... to be kept out of my bed, to be catechized by you," returned Mrs. Ellsworth, pleased that she had aroused curiosity and determined not to gratify it. "Turn on the light in the corridor and give me your arm. My rheumatism is very bad, owing to the chill I have caught, and if I stumble I may be laid up for ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to another that he was less genial with his own son than with any of the other children. It was natural that in these circumstances Mark should be even more dependent than most solitary children upon his mother, and no doubt it was through his passion to gratify her that he managed to avoid that Cockney accent. His father wanted his first religious instruction to be of the communal kind that he provided in the Sunday School. One might have thought that he distrusted his wife's orthodoxy, ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... will devote the remainder of her life to literature. She has in contemplation two works, both relating to Spain, which can hardly fail under her spirited and ingenious treatment of being eminently attractive. Since she is no longer in America, we may gratify curiosity by remarking that she is some years under thirty, and is one of the most beautiful and brilliantly-talking ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... education, wealth, and power. We have removed with our own hands the seal from the vessel in which a mighty spirit was enclosed; but it will not, like the genius in the fable, return within its narrow confines to gratify our curiosity, and to enable us to cast it back into the obscurity from which we evoked it." Here is another specimen from his speech on the Reform Bill of 1832. He opposed that Bill with all his energy, as is well known. Lord Durham, a very advanced reformer ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... enshrouded him during the night of his memorable voyage. He could not see where his boat was. A vague idea which he had of examining its fastening was dismissed. He felt hungry, and found the biscuit box lying under one corner of the sail. A few of these were sufficient to gratify his hunger. Nothing more could be done, and he saw plainly that it would be necessary for him to wait there patiently until morning. Once more, therefore, he rolled himself up in the sail, and tried to go to sleep. But at first ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... finding an accession to the furniture of his room, in the shape of an ancient wash-stand bearing a cracked bowl and broken pitcher, indulged himself in the rather unusual ceremony of a good wash. On the whole, Dick preferred to be clean, but it was not always easy to gratify his desire. Lodging in the street as he had been accustomed to do, he had had no opportunity to perform his toilet in the customary manner. Even now he found himself unable to arrange his dishevelled locks, having neither comb ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... sincerity of their language by their continuance in a defenceless condition. They held out also, that all wars were unlawful, and that, whatever injuries were offered them, they would sooner bear them, than gratify the principle of revenge. It is quite needless to go farther into the system of this venerable founder of Pennsylvania. But it may be observed, that no Quaker settlers, when known to be such,[18] were killed, and, whatever attacks were made upon the possessors of land in their ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... use?" she thought, with a whimsical sigh. "I mean never to marry, so men cannot interest me, and it would be the very irony of fate to make a favourable impression on a poet we wot of. So, it all comes to this: I look my best to gratify the vanity of my aunt. Well, let ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... fight against their countrymen in favor of strangers. Edward was obliged to treat with his own subjects, and in consequence of this treaty to dismiss the Normans, whom he believed to be the best attached to his interests. Godwin used the power to which he was restored to gratify his personal revenge, showing no mercy to his enemies. Some of his sons behaved in the most tyrannical manner. The great lords of the kingdom envied and hated a greatness which annihilated the royal authority, eclipsed them, and oppressed ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... you farther into a snare which may involve your everlasting happiness. If you find it impossible to drive it away from you entirely, endeavour to centre it upon your husband. Think of your personal appearance only so far as it will please him; your dress, so far as it will gratify his taste; your intellect, as it will make his home agreeable; your musical powers, as they will enable you to give him pleasure; learn to view all your charms and powers of pleasing in this light; improve them with this view, and all will go well ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... mile of Christendom (which God forbid) yet the managers must of necessity fail for want of tools to work with. But I will yet go one step further, by supposing that a hundred new employments were erected on purpose to gratify compilers; yet still an insuperable difficulty would remain; for it happens, I know not how, that money is neither Whig nor Tory, neither of town nor country party, and it is not improbable, that a gentleman ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... pleasures of the great city. It is a passion with her to ride in hansom cabs, sir. Whenever the family take their eyes off her she escapes from the house and spends the day riding about in cabs. On several occasions she has broken into the children's savings bank to secure the means to enable her to gratify this desire." ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... of this country undoubtedly proves that wars are carried on with the most sanguinary violence: their prisoners, by the customs of the country, are consigned to massacre, slavery, and sacrifice,[1] to gratify the avarice, vanity, and cruelty of their chiefs; one of these passions must be predominant, and therefore the question is, which of them is the least pregnant with evil? It cannot admit of a doubt that those who are victims to avarice meet ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... that's done not worth two straws To the welfare of the nation; If men in power do rant it still, And give no reason but their will For all their domination; Or if they do an act that's just, 'Tis not because they would, but must, To gratify some party's lust. ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good authority, that my reading and conversation have not given me anything like it. It is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer. Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her death; she is my intimate friend, and I can avouch for her reputation for these fifteen or sixteen years, on my ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... that it was more than double the value, and might probably be lost on his death. To this his friend wrote him back that if anybody would take the plate out, and give advice thereof to Mrs. Drury, she would repay them, and gratify them also for their trouble. When this letter came to the poor man's hand he said he was satisfied that his wife did not desire he should live, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Road, I perceived also that in him there was no guile. He was a good-minded, God-fearing man according to his simple lights, who had done many kindnesses and contributed liberally towards the wants of the poor, though as he had been very rich, it had cost him little thus to gratify the ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... occupied by handiwork of one kind or another. This work was to give opportunities for direct instruction; and above all it was so planned as to excite in the mind of the child a necessity for explanations as well as to gratify his desire for creativeness and for practical usefulness. The awakening of this eager desire for learning and creative activity, was one of the fundamental thoughts of Friedrich Froebel's mind. The object-teaching of Pestalozzi seemed ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... presiding genius of evil was determined to patronize this young man; for before he had been long at college, and soon after he had, with the greatest difficulty, escaped from the nightcap scrape, an opportunity occurred by which he was enabled to gratify both his propensities at once, and not only to steal, but to steal sweetmeats. It happened that the principal of the college received some pots of Narbonne honey, which came under the eyes of Cartouche, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of a Triptolemus Yellowlee would have found exceedingly little to gratify it in the parish of Lairg thirty years ago. The parish had its bare hills, its wide, dark moors, its old doddered woods of birch and hazel, its extensive lake, its headlong river, and its roaring ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... He was one of these meddlesome persons who would sell his birthright to gratify his curiosity. Presently he returned, cupped his hands over his ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... of the inundation at Petersburg. That ill wind produced luck to somebody. As the Empress had not distressed objects enough among her own people to gratify her humanity, she turned the torrent of her bounty towards that unhappy relict the Duchess of Kingston, and ordered her Admiralty to take particular care of the marvellous yacht that bore Messalina and her fortune. Pray mind that I bestow the latter ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... crying aloud for food; and he, goaded on by them, and especially by love himself, who is in a manner the captain of them, is in a frenzy, and would fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property, in order that he may gratify them? ...
— The Republic • Plato
... armed aggressor, was uniformly ascribed to partiality. Imagining that the law existed only to be used against them they took the task of retribution for supposed injuries into their own hands, and assumed arms to gratify revenge, in defiance of the law Judges, juries, and the government were laughed at by Catholic criminals, for no witness dared to communicate what he knew against them. At the close of this year, indeed, matters had proceeded to such a length in Ireland, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... as most boys would have done, talked to my mother, and pestered my father and uncle, till the latter agreed to write to an old friend of his in the navy to consult him as to the best means of enabling me to gratify my wishes. ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... certainly made many mistakes, but apparently not from any unkind motive, as he professes to be an admirer of Charlotte's works, pays a just tribute to her genius, and in common with thousands deplores her untimely death. His design seems rather to be to gratify the curiosity of the multitude in reference to one who had made such a sensation in the literary world. But even if the article had been of a less harmless character, we should not have felt inclined to take ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... said it was cruel to make a prisoner strip to gratify curiosity. Mr. Eden laughed. "Come, strip," said he; "the gentleman is waiting." The prisoner reluctantly took off his coat, waistcoat and shirt, and displayed an emaciated person and several large livid stripes on his ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... intentions of Providence. But the Author hesitates not to say, that he has availed himself of all the materials which the research of modern times has brought to light, while he has carefully rejected all such speculations or conjectures as might gratify the curiosity of learning without tending to edify the youthful mind. The account which is given of the Feasts and Fasts of the Jews, both before and after the Babylonian Captivity, will, it is hoped, prove ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... and all of us would willingly have emulated this attractive model—if we had possessed the money to spend upon luxuries! Barrack No. 2 is the domicile of the elite and wealthy of Ruhleben. The prisoners, flush of funds, have been permitted to gratify every whim and fancy. They have expended large sums of money upon the purchase of furniture and knick-knacks, the result being favourably comparable with a smart and fashionable flat, that is if a flat can be squeezed into a horse-box ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... altered considerably by the long-continued pressure exerted in one direction or another by winds and storms. The water was up when Alexander reached this pass; still he determined to march his army through it. There was another way, back among the mountains, but Alexander seemed disposed to gratify the love of adventure which his army felt, by introducing them to a novel scene of danger. They accordingly defiled along under these cliffs, marching, as they say, sometimes up to the waist in water, the swell rolling in upon them all ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... sometimes sent for her the moment she was going to receive the sacrament; she was obliged to return at once and put off her communion to another occasion. It was not that he wanted her, but it was merely to gratify his whim that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... there, did not show itself. After a number of serious, but vain attempts, on the part of Miss Millicent, to gratify her curiosity by unravelling the mystery of her new servant, whose industry, skill, and taste produced visible and very satisfactory effects in every part of the mansion, she settled down to the conclusion, that, finally, a treasure had fallen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... that your leisure serves you not: Antonio, gratify this gentleman; For, in my mind, you are much ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... does not wish to break wholly with classical tradition; and above all, they admit of indulgence in that immense variety which seems to have become one of the chief devices of modern art, attempting the compliances necessary to gratify modern taste. ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... it heartily,—who could have helped it?—and lifting the little fellow in my arms kissed him affectionately, as one does a pretty stranger child. This seemed to gratify him rather than to satisfy him; he nestled in my neck, but moved restlessly, slipping to the ground, and back again into my arms; jabbering incoherently and pleasantly; seeming to be diverted rather than ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... grow,—shy, sensitive, timid, and extremely grave. Her dress, thanks to Aunt Keery and the minister's wife, (who looked after her for her mother's sake,) was always well provided and neat, but no way calculated to cultivate her taste or to gratify the beholder. A district school provided her with such education as it could give; and the library, that was her resort at all hours of the day, furthered her knowledge in a singular and varied way, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... comprehension: but he was very warm, and indeed rather too choleric and irascible; so that he often wrangled not only with his antagonist, but (what appears very strange) with the judge himself, whom it was rather his business to sooth and gratify.—M. Messala, who was something younger than myself, was far from being a poor and an abject Pleader, and yet he was not a very embellished one. He was judicious, penetrating, and wary, very exact in digesting and methodizing his subject, and a man of uncommon diligence ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... tyrannical, and vindictive. To gratify his pride he conceived the idea of erecting a magnificent palace, and to obtain an appropriation from the Provincial Assembly he exhausted all his promises and intrigues. In this effort on the legislators he was aided by the blandishments of his lady ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... fickle; he disgraced his ministers and his generals on insufficient grounds; he allowed himself, from considerations of policy, to smother his religious convictions; and he risked subjecting Persia to the horrors of a civil war, in order to gratify a favoritism which, however justified by the event, seems to have rested on no worthy motive. Chosroes was preferred on account of his beauty, and because he was the son of Kobad's best-loved wife, rather than for any good qualities; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... two or three things to be done by Mr. Gibson, before he could feel quite comfortable about Molly's going to the festival at the Towers, and each of them involved a little trouble on his part. But he was very willing to gratify his little girl; so the next day he rode over to the Towers, ostensibly to visit some sick housemaid, but, in reality, to throw himself in my lady's way, and get her to ratify Lord Cumnor's invitation ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Maurice. So much the worse! I will be honest; you, who are so refined and proud, tell me that you did not mean what you said—that you made a pretence of vice just to please the others. It is not possible that you are content simply to gratify your appetite and make yourself a slave to your passions. You ought to have a higher ideal. Your conscience must ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... that his love for his neighbor is a holy love. Secondly, as regards the rule of love, namely, that a man should not give way to his neighbor in evil, but only in good things, even as he ought to gratify his will in good things alone, so that his love for his neighbor may be a righteous love. Thirdly, as regards the reason for loving, namely, that a man should love his neighbor, not for his own ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... perished nearly at the same time: the former was destroyed at the request of the inhabitants, to whom Henry IVth returned on that occasion his well-known answer, that he "wished for no other fortress than the hearts of his subjects;" the latter to gratify the avarice of individuals, who cloked their true designs under the plea that the buildings might serve as ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... their affectionate nature in a variety of ways. If deprived of their kittens, they have a yearning for the care of some other young creatures, which they will gratify when possible. ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... time, and, if I seem possessed of too much information concerning your private affairs, do not be too greatly astonished, but rest assured that all my researches have been made to serve another, not to gratify myself." ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... angels, saints, and other Christian figures both on their pottery and porcelain, which proves they must have been pretty eager for European customers. At the present moment they are equally willing to cater to American and European demands, and to gratify our inartistic public by sending into our markets all sorts of cheap, gaudily decorated goods which they themselves would not tolerate. It is a deplorable fact, too, that we buy them. Now you surely have got your money's worth of lecture for to-night. ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... merely to show his own skill or to gratify man's innate passion for hunting, which descends to him from a more primitive period, well, that was another matter. It is true, that he was not logical, since always he remained an ardent fisherman, partly because he had convinced himself from various observations, that fish ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... of opinion that the treaty should proceed merely to gratify the public opinion, and not from an expectation of success. I expressed myself strongly, that the event was so unpromising, that I thought the preparations for a campaign should go on without the least relaxation, and that a day should be fixed with the commissioners ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a great actress. Her mind had long been torn, and at the eleventh hour when she was on her way to meet her fate in Dorrimore she still hesitated. If she really loved Dorrimore there would have been no hesitation. But she had never met any man who did more than flatter her and gratify the pleasure ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... I see, by certain tiny marks and cracks, that these walls have lately been done over, and that they were also redecorated another time not long before. This proves that Miss Van Allen has money enough to gratify her whims and she chooses to spend it in satisfying her aesthetic preferences. Further, the walls have been carefully cared for, showing an interested and capable housekeeperly instinct and traits of extreme orderliness and tidiness. Cleverness, even, for here, you see, is a place, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... contest between the two in which Ramon was always manoeuvring to get her alone somewhere so that he might complete his conquest if possible, while her sole object was to have him gratify her vanity by appearing in public with her. This he knew he could not afford to do. He could not even drive down the street with her in daylight without all gossips being soon aware he had done so. No one knew much about her, of course, but she was "one of those eating house girls" and ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... preparations; and endeavoured, by advantageous offers, to detach the king of Sardinia from the interest of the house of Austria. This prince had espoused a sister to the grand duke, who pressed him to declare for her brother, and the queen of Hungary promised to gratify him with some territories in the Milanese; besides, he thought the Spaniards had already gained too much ground in Italy; but, at the same time, he was afraid of being crushed between France and Spain, before he could be properly supported. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... case before us. Sufficient evidence was given of Christ's innocence. The judge was convinced, and knew that it was his duty to treat him as innocent. But if to answer worldly ends, or in any respect to gratify depravity, he preferred crucifying the guiltless, he had power to do it. Though Jesus was the Son of God, God had left him in the hands of the enemy. "It was their hour and the power of darkness." They chose and conspired his death. The Jews would not receive such a Messias. Pilate did ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... can wish for, in their way of life, let them look among their own relations, where it may be acceptable, and communicate to them the like solid reasons for rejoicing in the situation they are pleased with: and do you, my dear, still farther enable them, as you shall judge proper, to gratify their enlarged hearts, for fear they should deny any comfort to themselves, in order to ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... undeserved distress. I confess he frightened me—the mean impostor! the cowardly blackguard! Do you understand now how I hated him? Do you understand why I am taking all this trouble—thankfully taking it—to gratify the curiosity of the meritorious young gentleman ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... known and is only the As Yet Unknown, and resolution to find a manly highway to it, have been forgotten in a paroxysm of littleness and terror in which nothing is active except concupiscence and the fear of death, playing on which any trader can filch a fortune, any blackguard gratify his cruelty, and any tyrant ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... "poor-spirited;" the very quality of gentleness is abhorrent to such vile trumpetings. My sentiment is long since vanished. I hope my virtues have done sucking. I can scarce think but you meant it in joke. I hope you did, for I should be ashamed to think you could think to gratify me by such praise, fit only to be a cordial to ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... narrative, was my entreating him sometime since, to inquire into a thing of this nature, that happened in Barnstable, where he lives. An account was given to me long since, it fills a sheet or two, which I have by me: and to gratify Mr. Glanvil who is collecting histories for his "Sadducismus Triumphatus". I desired to have it well attested, it being full of very memorable things; but it seems he could meet only a general consent as to the truth of the things; the ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... pamphlet which was once famous, "there is one promise of a Bonaparte which we can always believe—the promise that he will kill somebody." One pledge of a Bourbon with another Bourbon the world could always rely upon—the pledge to maintain a common interest and gratify ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... moment, Dick Winthorpe," he said. "I must have a few words with you before we part. It is plain enough that all these outrages are directed against the persons who are connected with the drainage scheme, and that their lives are in danger. Now I am one of these persons, and to gratify the petty revenge of a set of ignorant prejudiced people who cannot see the good of the work upon which we are engaged, I decline to have myself made a target. I ask you, then, who this was. Will ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... is impossible to speak too severely. We have already said that, in our opinion, he acted unjustly in refusing to respite Nuncomar. No rational man can doubt that he took this course in order to gratify the Governor-General. If we had ever had any doubts on that point, they would have been dispelled by a letter which Mr. Gleig has published. Hastings, three or four years later, described Impey as the man "to whose ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... squalid wretchedness amid homely and uncongenial surroundings awaits you; while, as my wife, you will live a life of luxury and high social position. There are many young ladies who would be glad to accept the chance which you so recklessly reject. By accepting my hand you will gratify our excellent uncle, and make me the happiest of mortals. You will acquit me of mercenary motives, since you are now penniless, and your disobedience leaves me sole heir to Uncle John. I love you, and it will be my chief object, if you will permit ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... own defects; while they find the man of talent hardly agreeable enough to compensate for his shortcomings. All capacity is a sort of intermittent fever, and no woman is anxious to share in its discomforts only; they look to find in their lovers the wherewithal to gratify their own vanity. It is themselves that they love in us! But the artist, poor and proud, along with his endowment of creative power, is furnished with an aggressive egotism! Everything about him is involved in I know not what whirlpool of his ideas, and even his mistress must gyrate ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... place, too, but not with the simple affection that her two brothers did. The young men invited their friends there without restriction, as was to be supposed; and Sophie was a gay and agreeable hostess. No one could have made the house pleasanter than she did; and she left nothing undone to gratify her brothers' tastes and wishes, like a wise and prudent ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... own pretty room. If only I could fall on my knees before you and mother, and with true penitent tears wipe out the past, how gladly I would do so. But this, I realize, is forbidden me. I have forfeited my home, my parents, my reputation, my native State even, and all to gratify a petty grudge. I wish you would see Fred Worthington and tell him how I have wronged him, and ask him if he can forgive me. He has won the contest while I am ruined—ruined so far as my old life goes—but now, my dear father and mother, ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... strongly excited by our clothing, which they examined minutely; they wished to see some parts of our dress taken off, and in order to gratify them they were allowed to have our coats, shoes, stockings, hats, &c. They were more struck with the stockings than with any thing else, frequently shouting "Hota! Hota!" This word, which is pronounced with a strong aspiration, was noted down in our list as the ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... horn. Every word the Knight had uttered, and every opprobrious epithet which he had so lavishly bestowed, had been heard by her. She nourished, in consequence, in her evil heart, a spirit of revenge, which she waited a convenient opportunity to gratify. Oh, anger! oh, loss of temper! how blind art thou! How dost thou make wise men become like the most foolish! Revenge, too, how dost thou, malignant spirit, fall into the trap thou hast thyself laid, as will be ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... Gate. Here a great concourse of people had assembled, and were suffered, in their proper turn, to ascend the ramparts in divisions, by some soldiers who guarded the steps by which they were approached. After a short delay, Ulpius and those around him were permitted to gratify their curiosity, as others had done before them. They mounted the walls, and beheld, stretched over the ground within and beyond the suburbs, the vast circumference of ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... quick train, the green, flying landscape, with glimpses of the Sound and white sails, the hillsides and clear streams becoming rapidly steeper and dearer as we turned northward: all seemed to gratify him, and when he spoke at all it was approvingly. The hour and a half required to cover the sixty miles of distance seemed very short. As the train slowed down for the Redding ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... intellectual nature,—and with respect both to that which is inward and that which is outward—that is, the body and spirit,—has the appellation of flesh; and this, because with all his faculties, internal and external, he seeks only that which is carnal, and can serve to gratify the flesh. St. Peter says here, too, that Christ suffered in the flesh, while it is certain that His suffering extended further than to the body merely, for His soul suffered the greatest anguish, as is said ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... aunt who had presided severely over her orphaned childhood. He, half-a-dozen years her senior, had been enamored of her wonderful beauty and modest intellectuality; and, being accustomed always to gratify the impulse of the moment, he had married her with a precipitancy as characteristic as it was reckless. It was owing to a certain mutual scorn of conventionalities that Helen and her husband at length decided to separate. Without the aid of the law and without scandal, they settled ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... but her chief interest in making the excursion arose from her sympathy with Rollo, and from observing how much he wished to go. It is always so with a mother. When her children are kind and attentive to her, and obedient to her wishes, she always desires most strongly to do what will most gratify them. ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... don't offend me. After all I am the steward of the Queen's court. It was I who obtained your licence to act in the palace grounds, and so apparently gratify a long-felt ambition of your ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... contemptuous note, saying that he was beneath my anger. As for Clopper, I did not condescend to notice his remark but in order to get rid of the troublesome society of these low blackguards, I determined to gratify an inclination I had long entertained, and make a little tour. I applied for leave of absence, and set off THAT VERY NIGHT. I can fancy the disappointment of the brutal Waters, on coming, as he did, the next morning to my quarters and finding ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... First, to secure his silence respecting the robbery; and, next, to so far get into his confidence as to draw out of him the object of his present expedition. Thus, he would lull his suspicions to sleep, and might thereafter gratify his ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... then it were arranged that they should be afforded every facility and encouragement to make their wants known: and if it were guaranteed that he would adopt every means that experience, wisdom and good-will suggested to gratify those wants: what more could mortal man ask? There was nothing abnormal in the idea. The principle is the same as that on which the Creator has placed man in nature: man is perfectly at liberty to do as ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... you care for an administration which will only gratify those two old parties? Are you going to snap your fingers in disdain at men who admit that they are superior to anybody else? Do you want history to chronicle the fact that President Cleveland accepted the aid of the pure and highly cultivated gentlemen who never did anything naughty ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... shoulders another robe handsomely ornamented. The pipe was then smoked with several of the old men who were seated around the chief; after some time he began his discourse, by observing that he believed what we had told him, and that they should soon enjoy peace, which would gratify him as well as his people, because they could then hunt without fear of being attacked, and the women might work in the fields without looking every moment for the enemy, and at night put off their moccasins, a phrase by which is conveyed the idea of ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... could not see enough of me then: and the things he said, and does not remember—I was a wonder that the world could not equal—it is laughable.—A look from me was joy, a word delight, a touch ecstasy. He would run to the ends of the earth to gratify a whim of mine, and life without me was not worth living. . . . If I would only love him! If I could only bring myself to care for him a little—he was too humble, too unworthy to imagine—and so forth, and so forth; and it was all true then. Now I am some one who waits upon him. He ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... divine grace, we escape from the voice of the crowd, and from the cry of custom, from the delirium of desire, that poor lonely self within us pleads to us in a cry like the call of the starveling crying to the rich man that passes by, "Oh, will you gratify desire? Oh, will you gratify pleasure? Oh, will you stimulate activity, and will you leave me alone? I, yourself, your very self, the foundation of your life, the permanent expression of your immortality—I must be satisfied, and being infinite and immortal, I know but ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... this law are not often carried on beyond the true intent and meaning of the act itself by persons who, besides being creditors, are also malicious, and gratify their private revenge by prosecuting the offender, to the ruin of ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... not the garrison that he expects to destroy," said Willet. "Tandakora fights nominally under the flag of France, but as you know, Father, he fights chiefly to gratify his own cruel desires." ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... only waiting for her to say, "Where did you get that nice pipe?" and behind this expectation was the afterthought that, perhaps, when she knew of the festive origin of the present, Teresa also would hasten to gratify him with birthday gifts. At last, however, he was forced to begin the conversation ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... hurrah so terrible that I did not know what was happening. But when M. de Fallesen, manager of the Theatre Royal, and the First Chamberlain of the King entered my compartment, and begged me to show myself at the window to gratify the curiosity of the public, the hurrahs began again, and then I understood. But a dreadful anxiety now took possession of me. I could never, I was sure, rise to what was expected from me. My slender frame would inspire disdain in those magnificent ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... fidgets, and anxious as Mrs. Hedgehog was to gratify her curiosity, she kept putting off our expedition till the children's spines should be harder; so I made one or two careful ones by myself, and told her all the news ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... in his last, but obtained leave of him almost by force, that he might be one of those twenty-four who were left at the farthest place at which they touched, in their last voyage to New Castile. The leaving him thus did not a little gratify one that was more fond of travelling than of returning home, to be buried in his own country; for he used often to say, that the way to heaven was the same from all places; and he that had no grave, had the heaven still over him. Yet this disposition of mind had cost him dear, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... the general verdict concerning Randy, and it was a true one. His father was wealthy and never refused to gratify any reasonable desire of his only son. In consequence Randy was somewhat spoiled and self willed, but in other ways he was really a ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... him, Alla," insisted Sam, and he waved her to silence with a gesture of his long, white hand. "You see, sir, it is not often we meet such a receptive nature as you kindly show, and I am but too glad to gratify your most justifiable ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... remained With arms upraised, refusing rest While with one toe the earth he pressed, Still as a post, with sleepless eye, The air his food, his roof the sky. The year had past. Then Uma's lord,(198) King of creation, world adored, Thus spoke to great Bhagirath: "I, Well pleased thy wish will gratify, And on my head her waves shall fling The daughter ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... monopoly of his profession did not suffice to give him adequate support, or gratify Copley's ambition; and he was forced to seek in a more art-loving land the full recognition and reward of his genius. He left behind him many portraits which still exist as precious heirlooms in New England families, and just as the storm of the Revolution was gathering, he set sail for the mother ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... pleased to say, I make no doubt but that I shall be very happy in you; and hope you will be so in me: For, said he, I have no very enormous vices to gratify; though I pretend not to the greatest purity, neither, my girl. Sir, said I, if you can account to your own mind, I shall always be easy in whatever you do. But our greatest happiness here, sir, continued I, is ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson |
