Word: bettering
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1870-1879
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...quickly the orangeman and the Sophomore who wears ladies' size. The poor mat has been cursed every hour of the day and night, and now, at last, seeing that it still remained unannihilated, some one has employed violence and has doubtless returned it to its native dust-heap; or, better still, some match-boy, in sympathy with its kindred rags, has put the mat to a similar use with the old sheep-skin which Bryan O'Lynn appropriated, when, as the ballad runs, "he had no breeches to wear...
DEAR JACK, - I happened to meet the other day a fellow by the name of Robinson, who has lately been in Cambridge, and who told me that he had seen you there. He is related, I believe, to one of your classmates. My fraternal interest got the better of my manners, and I put him in a rather awkward position by asking him what he thought of you. He replied, with apparent sincerity, that you seemed to be a very good fellow, and that you were devilish amusing and impudent Now Robinson himself is a very good sort...
Good society is something like heaven; its existence is often denied by those who have no hope of getting in. But at the same time it undoubtedly exists, and exercises an influence which is none the less for being unseen. And the more you have of it, the better for you it will be. I find that I am becoming horribly snobbish, so I shall hasten to close my letter. Always behave like a gentleman. If you want to do an impudent thing, do it in such a way that nobody will know that it is impudent till he stops...
...make them think that you are of use to them. But don't let your snobbishness take the form of boasting of your own rank. If you are a gentleman, the whole world can see it; and if you are not, you had better not call attention to the fact. We are all snobs, you know. But our snobbishness differs as much as do our noses. The peculiar form of snobbishness which I have condemned is, I regret to say, my own; but your nose is of a better shape than mine, and it is my sincere hope that your...
...than a casual observer would suppose, for it is a sacred law handed down from all antiquity, that he who does not curse at an examination is a prig and a hypocrite. But this is all mere words, and but for the thought that five cents might be much better expended round the corner of Brighton Street than at the University Bookstore in a blue book, there is an intense calm excited in the breasts of us all at the announcement of an examination, which is only to be imputed to Harvard indif - I pause, lest I may be accused...