"Characteristic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... promised it would be, and, wonder of wonders! it had real wall paper on the walls. This almost unheard of luxury in the East was a triumph of the skill of the hostess, and had so far successfully defied the ravages of mildew and damp. The chief characteristic of the house was that it looked like a home, its tasteful decoration and contents indicating that the inhabitants had come to stay. Most houses in the East have an unmistakeable air of being mere temporary shelters, where the owners are lodging till they ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... the Encyclopaedic idea True parentage of Diderot's Encyclopaedia Origin of the undertaking Co-operation of D'Alembert: his history and character Diderot and D'Alembert on the function of literature Presiding characteristic of the Encyclopaedia Its more eminent contributors The unsought volunteers Voltaire's share in it Its compliance with reigning prejudice Its aim, not literature but life Publication of first and second volumes (1751-52) Affair ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... him perform in a style of touching, and at times sublime, expression, the compositions of Purcell, Pergolesi, Handel, &c. We have always thought this love of harmony in a miser a more singular and inconsistent characteristic than the avarice of Perugino or Rembrandt, since in their case the art they practiced fed their reigning passion for gold; nevertheless, so it was—old Mr. Monckton would go without a meal, see his wife and family want common necessaries, with plenty of money at his ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... Sir Justin," he began, striking at once the note which seemed to him (so far as he could guess) most likely to be characteristic of ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... most industrious Federal raider, actuated by a legitimate desire of pleasure or gain. It will not be difficult to prove that such practices met with rebuke from General Morgan and his officers, and that they were not characteristic of his command. There are other impressions about Morgan and "Morgan's men" which I shall endeavor to correct, as, although by no means so serious as those just mentioned, they are not at all just to the reputation of either leader ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... The second characteristic of mysticism is its belief in unity, and its refusal to admit opposition or division anywhere. We found Heraclitus saying "good and ill are one"; and again he says, "the way up and the way down is one ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... the beauty of the scenery near Botofogo. The house in which I lived was seated close beneath the well-known mountain of the Corcovado. It has been remarked, with much truth, that abruptly conical hills are characteristic of the formation which Humboldt designates as gneiss-granite. Nothing can be more striking than the effect of these huge rounded masses of naked rock rising out of the most ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... ability and somewhat eccentric. Both these tendencies became in him more concentrated. He was born with, as it were, a congenital antipathy to the commonplace, a natural love of paradox, and he possessed the skill to embody the characteristic in finished literary form. At the same time, it must not be forgotten, beneath this natural attitude of paradox, his essential judgments on life and literature were usually sound and reasonable. His ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a very long life; the whole of which was not only devoted to literature, but his studies were uniformly directed to the investigation of truth. The love of truth might, indeed, be considered as his grand characteristic, which he steadily pursued; and this is equally true as to his motive, whether he was found on the wrong or right side of the question. A few minutes before he expired, he declared to his nephew, and others in the room, that "all he ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... peaceful rather than radiant. Perfect type of that happy mean between northern earnestness and the luxury of the south, for which we prize midland France, its physiognomy is not quite happy—attractive in part for its melancholy. Its most characteristic atmosphere is to be seen when the tide of light and distant cloud is travelling quickly over it, when rain is not far off, and every touch of art or of time on its old building is defined in clear grey. A fine summer ripens its grapes ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... domain, notary and deputy mayor of the city of Soulanges. Although married and a man of family, M. Lupin, still in excellent physical condition, was, in 1823, a brilliant figure in Madame Soudry's reception-room, where he was known for his tenor voice and his extreme gallantries—the latter characteristic being proved by two liaisons carried on with two middle-class women, Madame Sarcus, wife of Sarcus the Rich, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... we are quite sure no other method would do, he calmly dissects again in the opposite manner, leaving us gasping, and finding that there really are two ways of looking at every question—a thing we never realize till we think about it. I have in this chapter taken five of Chesterton's most characteristic books of essays, displaying the enormous depth of his intellect, the vast range of subject, the unique use of paradox. Of these five books I have again taken rather necessarily at random subjects depicting the above Chestertonian attributes, with an attempt to give some idea ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... was not able to induce their sons to aspire to anything above the occupations of the class with which they had always associated, so they were miners and stockmen with the rest. But the young men, even as boys, noticed in their mother a refinement and a clearness of intellect that were not characteristic of the women of Waddy; and out of the love and veneration they bore her grew a sort of family pride—a respect for their name that was quite a touch of old-worldly conceit in this new land of devil-may-care, and ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... forswearing transubstantiation. In 1821 George IV. visited Ireland. It was the first time that an English King had come to Ireland as the acknowledged sovereign of the people. Their hopes were high; and the deference for royalty, so eminently characteristic of the Celt, had at last found an opportunity of expressing itself. All that loyalty could do was done; all that the warmest heart could say was said. The King appeared impressed by demonstrations so entirely ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... old-world picture that the two children made, but the scene was quite characteristic ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... frustrated, and that the natives of the islands had mocked the Spaniards openly; because hitherto they had suffered no ill from the latter, but only the above-mentioned kind treatment and hospitality, which would have proved sufficient to attract a more unruly race. But such is the characteristic of this race, which has afflicted and still afflicts the priests. These people refuse to do anything thoroughly; and in order to get them to perform what is ordered of them, one must use the lash and the rattan—whence comes the saying of a holy bishop of these islands, namely, that on that day ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... and that they were 'mighty in combat, their breasts like plates of brass, and greatly to be feared.' We might adduce the songs of Ossian, where the epithets 'hairy-footed,' 'white-breasted,' and 'bounding,' are singularly characteristic of some of the striking peculiarities of the dog in question, and strangely coincide with the descriptions furnished by other writers respecting him. Mac Pherson must, at all events, have been at the pains of considerable research if he actually forged the beautiful poems, which he put ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... we may easily trace the intellectual expression of the high spirit of self-sacrifice which the patriotic enthusiasm had elicited. The spirit of patriotism has this peculiar characteristic, that while it has evoked acts of heroism which are both very numerous and very sublime, it has done so without presenting any prospect of personal immortality as a reward. Of all the forms of human heroism, it is probably the most unselfish. The Spartan and the Roman died for his ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... of nature, unfettered by the sacred canon. We can recall the so-called "Village Judge" of Bulaq, the "Scribe" now in Paris, and a few figures in bronze in different museums, as well as the noble and characteristic busts of all epochs, which amply prove how great the variety of individual physiognomy, and, with that, of individual character was among the Egyptians. Alma Tadelna in London and Gustav Richter in Berlin have, as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... be the most serious of his experiences was with Mary Philipse, of New York, daughter of Frederick Philipse, one of the richest landowners in that Colony, and sister-in-law of Beverly Robinson, one of Washington's Virginian friends. Washington was going to Boston on a characteristic errand. One of the minor officers in the Regular British Army, which had accompanied Braddock to Virginia, refused to take orders from Washington, and officers of higher grade in Virginia Troops, declaring that their commissions were assigned only ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... good-natured and fine-looking, if somewhat stupid woman, smiled as she looked at her mistress with her characteristic expression, which seemed to say that it was not for her to object to gentlewomen's caprices. She thought to herself: "The mother is like a little child herself—look how excited ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... with children which is peculiar to the female heart, the strong maternal instinct implanted by nature, and directed by a judicious education, that blending of love and authority, sentiment and reason, sweetness and power, so characteristic of the noble and true-hearted woman, and which so admirably fit her to be loved and honored, only less than adored, in her own household. But though the duties and responsibilities of mothers in this matter are the heaviest ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... AND FUNERAL CEREMONIES; what are the important and characteristic facts connected with these subjects? How is the corpse prepared after death and disposed of? How long is it retained? Is it spoken to after death as if alive? when and where? What is the character of the addresses? What articles are deposited with it; and ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... for the owner to use large gangs of slaves in the clearing of new land; in the raising of tobacco, and in caring for rice and cotton. The plantation system of agriculture and the cotton gin made slavery the success that it was in the United States. "The characteristic American slave, indeed, was not only a Negro, ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... that very common class who had more desire to be loved than power of loving. His cravings and dreams were not for somebody to be devoted to, but for somebody who should be devoted to him. And, like most people who possess this characteristic, he mistook it for ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a child's modeling-clay, much-used and very dirty, of the same shade, which certainly had no designation in the chromatic scale. Some of the Things were darker, some a trifle lighter—these, no doubt, the younger ones—but they all partook of this same characteristic tint. And the skin, moreover, looked dull and sickly, rather mottled and wholly repulsive, very like ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... his judge calmly. An American can meet death with even the stoicism so characteristic of the ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... episode, however, had been lost in its true meaning to all save one—that one the Mr. Gryce of Lionnet, who already knew what there was to be known of every family in the place, and who had the faculty of dovetailing parts into a whole characteristic of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... she, after compromising her feminine delicacy by the public disclosure of her preference, be thrust back into shame, "to blush out the remainder of her life," and die a poor, lost, scorned thing? This would be very pretty and interesting and characteristic in Viola or Ophelia, but not at all consistent with that high determined spirit, that moral energy, with which Helena is portrayed. Pride is the only obstacle opposed to her. She is not despised and rejected as a woman, but as a poor physician's daughter; and this, to an understanding ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... jumping about in Tonquin and Annam and branded "Fashoda and Colonial Expansion,'' tries to stretch a friendly hand to the Bear over the Bulldog's head. Then, to offset this proffered assistance to the Bear, the Chinese artist, with characteristic cunning, brings in the New World power. He places the American Eagle over the Philippines, its beak extended towards the Bulldog, and writes upon it the phrase, "Blood ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... words, that they were so spiritually obtuse, that they valued the earthly bread more than the heavenly! Give them as much temporal bread as you like, but mind you give them the spiritual bread first, for this is characteristic ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... looked up the hatchway, but the guard had already closed in upon it, and some of the ship's crew—with that carelessness of danger characteristic of sailors—were peering down upon ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Pharaoh's daughter, rather suffering afflictions with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Rather be counted with the poor despised, afflicted slaves under the taskmaster's lash than be a king or an absolute monarch. This brought out his characteristic prohibition of sin,—the renouncing of every worldly ambition, He here made the choice, at the time when the temptations were greatest, for all that the world could offer was his. He gave all and paid the price it requires ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... words, not perhaps in the best taste, but characteristic of D'Artagnan, whose principal object was to divert his opponent's attention, Mordaunt did not reply, but continuing to turn around he succeeded in changing ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... their occurrence in any deposit is as strong evidence as can be obtained, that that deposit was formed in the sea. Now the remains of animals of all the kinds which have been enumerated, occur in the chalk, in greater or less abundance; while not one of those forms of shell-fish which are characteristic of fresh water has yet been observed ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... woman did at a charge of something like thirty per cent. At first Peace gave himself out to Mrs. Bailey as a hawker, but before long he openly acknowledged his real character as an accomplished burglar. With characteristic insistence Peace declared his passion for Mrs. Bailey by threatening to shoot her if she did not become his. Anxious friends sent for her to soothe the distracted man. Peace had been drowning care with the help of Irish whiskey. He asked "his pet" if she were not glad to see him, to which ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... remarks, in his 'Principles of Psychology,' such solitary hallucinations of the sane and healthy, once in a life-time, are difficult to account for, and are by no means rare. 'Sometimes,' Mr. Tylor observes, 'the phantom has the characteristic quality of not being visible to all of an assembled company,' and he adds 'to assert or imply that they are visible sometimes, and to some persons, but not always, or to everyone, is to lay down an explanation of facts which is not, indeed, our usual modern explanation, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... causeway, is another witness to the Chinese characteristic of constructing costly works and then leaving them thenceforth to fall into ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... between precipitous ranges of mountains. The hills look something like those of Oahu, but their wonderful greenness denotes a cooler climate and more copious rains, also their slopes and valleys are densely wooded, and Kauai obviously has its characteristic features, one of which must certainly be a superabundance of that most unsightly cactus, the prickly pear, to which the motto nemo me impune ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... subject is an achievement worthy of Ulysses himself, and such as many of his schoolfellows could, no doubt, have related of him; but I fear I have done it no justice, though the story is so very characteristic that it should not be lost. The inimitable manner in which he told it—the glance of the eye, the turn of the head, and the light that played over his faded features, as, one by one, the circumstances came back to him, accompanied by ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Megalicthys, Gyracanthus, and Holoptychus being occasionally found there, whilst Conularias, Nautili, Spirifers aviculus, Bellerophons, and others are numerous. The sand rock overlying it contains Calamites, Lepidodendrons, Ulodendrons, Sigillarias, &c., &c. Benthall Edge and Lincoln Hill yield characteristic fossils of the Wenlock limestone and Wenlock shales in great numbers and variety, corals being most abundant. Between the Severn and the Acton Burnell hills fossils of the Caradoc may be found in drift, in old walls by the ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... diligence and promise. In their school books and college text books everything German was lauded in the superlative; everything foreign was decried as inferior, undesirable. Nearly every human discovery, invention, improvement, was somehow traced to a Teuton origin. Even characteristic German vices were held to be better than many virtues ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... consumption is increasing faster than its rate of production. There are now no vast areas of land comparable with those of North and South America awaiting the pioneer wheat growers, and consequently there is no likelihood of any repetition of the over-production characteristic ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... Cycles of Geologic Time. The Reptilian Era opens with a period of extreme elevation, which rivalled that of the Glacial Epoch and was similarly accompanied by extensive glaciation of which some traces are preserved to our day in characteristic glacial boulders, ice scratches, and till, imbedded or inter-stratified in the strata of the Permian age. Between these two extremes of continental emergence, the Permian and the Pleistocene, we can trace six cycles of alternate submergence and elevation, as ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... period, had announced that she had been "cruelly mistaken in the prince!" and a day or two after, she had added, evidently alluding to him, but not mentioning his name, that it was an unalterable characteristic of hers to be mistaken in people. Then once more, ten days later, after some passage of arms with one of her daughters, she had remarked sententiously. "We have had enough of mistakes. I shall be more careful in future!" However, it was impossible ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... but a casual examination on the part of one who had done considerable experimenting with explosives to disclose the fact that it had every characteristic of a dangerous bomb. Only the pulling out of the fuse had ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... writer schools himself to keep this conviction out of his verse, it is likely to flower in self-confident poetry of the classic type, so characteristic of the Elizabethan age. This has such a long tradition behind it that it seems almost stereotyped, wherever it appears in our period, especially when it is promising immortality to a beloved one. We scarcely heed such verses as the lines ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... his visits as heretofore. He plied the woman with questions, sometimes of the most complex nature. His conduct in this respect was characteristic of the suspicious nature of the Indian generally. The leaders of the Tehuas mistrusted Shotaye still, notwithstanding her clear and positive talk; and they had instructed the Tano to keep her company and to probe her sincerity and ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... members of this family resemble the esculent so closely that, to the amateur, tasting each one as gathered is the only guide; the hurtful ones being always hot and acrid. Equal gills, extreme brittleness, and dry, firm texture are characteristic of the whole ...
— Mushrooms of America, Edible and Poisonous • Anonymous
... noted. The use of the wheel can usually be detected through the slight inequalities of the clay that make a series of parallel lines on the inner surface. The diagrammatic representations of the pot-forms characteristic of various periods or of other objects ranging through a civilization the main features of which can be shown in outline will, it is hoped, be found useful. Simplified tables of alphabets, intended to make it possible roughly to identify the script, if not ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... stranger had not turned in the other direction, after all, but was almost in her tracks, as though he were stalking game. With foot on the step she said sharply, but in a low voice, "To the Plaza quickly," then immediately added, with a characteristic practical turn: "But don't get yourself ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... more or less the impulse given to the sciences—The introduction of the Spanish merinos has greatly improved the French wools—New inventions and discoveries adopted in the French manufactories —Characteristic difference of the present state of French industry, and that in which it ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... freezes at 10.5 deg. C. According to Raoult's law, the lowering of the freezing point caused by m grms. of a substance with the molecular weight M, when dissolved in 100 grms. of the solvent, is expressed by the formula: [Delta] E(m/M), where E is a constant characteristic for the solvent in question. The value of E for nitro- glycerine was found to be 70.5 when calculated, according to Van't Hoff's formula, from the melting point and the latent heat of fusion of the substance. Determinations of the lowering of the freezing point of nitro- ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... drowsiness creeping over her, she made her escape, and returned by her bow the way she came. Then Somnus called one of his numerous sons,— Morpheus,—the most expert in counterfeiting forms, and in imitating the walk, the countenance, and mode of speaking, even the clothes and attitudes most characteristic of each. But he only imitates men, leaving it to another to personate birds, beasts, and serpents. Him they call Icelos; and Phantasos is a third, who turns himself into rocks, waters, woods, and other things without life. These wait upon kings and great personages in their sleeping hours, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... until quite lately. The Eastern mind does not seem to be so obsessed by the objectivity of things as is the Western mind. With us the practical sense of touch is all powerful. "I know that is so, because I felt it with my hands" would be a characteristic expression with us. Whereas I do not think it would be an expression the Eastern mind would use. With them the spiritual essence of the thing seen appears to be the more real, judging from their art. And who is to say they may not be right? This is certainly the impression one gets from ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... could not speak a single word. Still, they understood Italian enough for me to make clear to them my satisfaction with their exterior. Gr. Gallen and wife were very kind to me. As I was looking for a fan, they presented me with theirs for you; it is simple, but painted in style characteristic of the country. You would like the wife very much; he, too, is a good fellow, but she amounts to more intellectually. I got Bernhard's long-expected letter today. He looks very black over politics, is expecting another child, and is building barns and stables. I long for news from you and the children. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... upon pronouncing tarrapin, was his favorite dish, and he would order oysters by the barrel from Norfolk. On one occasion he attended a banquet where all the States of the Union were represented by a dish in some way characteristic of each commonwealth. Pennsylvania was represented by a bowl of sauer-kraut; and in speaking of the fact the next morning the General remarked: "I partook of it with ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... honourably and usefully. The absence of all exultation at his approaching elevation to the peerage, and his near assumption of the title by which he is best known in the history of the country, is a characteristic of that nobility of mind which conferred dignity upon, rather than derived it from, the station to which he ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... represented in all the manuscripts, and far more frequently than any other deity. His characteristic marks are always unmistakable. An entire section of the Dresden Codex, pp. 29-43, and pp. 1 and 2, belonging thereto, treat almost exclusively of this god, and wherever he is pictured there we also find his name hieroglyph. ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... always looks like a gentleman, particularly on horseback. He is very active and athletic, and is renowned as a great master in the most exciting and perilous of field sports, the spearing of wild boars. His face has a most characteristic expression of ardour and impetuosity, which makes his countenance very interesting to me. Birth is a thing that I care nothing about; but his family is one of the oldest ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... fiends to the penitence and devoutness of Christians, we note a constantly recurring fact. These changes of mood are characteristic of fanaticism, which is always possessed by its ideas, and never rules over them. Elijah stepped down from the exaltation of the God-accepted prophet on Carmel to be the murderer of the prophets of Baal, and was left to cowardice, to melancholy, ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... or carried with them the unerring rifle. The members of the commission and citizens, who were either guarding the prisoners or protecting the court, carried by their sides a revolver, a rifle, or a fowling-piece, thus presenting a scene more characteristic of feudal times than of the nineteenth century. The fair but sun-burnt complexion of the American portion of the jury, with their weapons resting against their shoulders, and pipes in their mouths, presented a striking contrast to the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... terror, for they feared that the Snake warriors might make a circuit to the rear, and fall upon the camp where they had left their women and children. The great chief spent all his eloquence in vain, nobody would listen to him; and with characteristic fickleness they gave over the enterprise, and retreated in a panic. "Our advance was made in good order; but not so our retreat," says the Chevalier's journal. "Everybody fled his own way. Our horses, though ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... believe it. It is too good to be true. My brother's chief characteristic was neither egotism nor self-renunciation, but a strict mean between the two. He never sacrificed himself for any one else; but not only always avoided injuring others, but also interfering with them. He kept his happiness and his ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... certain hour that very afternoon, he donned his best funeral suit and boarded the same train himself. As he passed through the drawing-room car he bowed to the great man, who returned his greeting with the shortness characteristic of him, and passed on to the smoker, where he ensconced himself in a chair near the door, depositing on the seat next to him a pile of magazines and his coat. Half an hour passed and the car filled up, save for the seat next the ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... told you when you made me perfect in the use of my weapon I would pay you. My promise is sacred, and I will observe it with that scrupulous honour which has ever been the characteristic of the family; as soon as I hit something, and satisfy myself of my mastery over the weapon, the money shall be yours, but ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... legal pleadings of the partisans of the English claim. No authentic Salic law dealt with the question of the succession to the throne,[1] and the bold step of transferring a doctrine of private inheritance to the domain of public law was one of the characteristic feats of the medieval jurist, anxious to heap up at any risk a mass of arguments that might overwhelm his antagonists' case. The barons of 1328 rose superior to legal subtleties. To them the question at issue was the preservation of ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... would be a great mistake to suppose that this kind of self-indulgence was characteristic of the average Roman life of this age. The ordinary student is liable to fall into this error because he reads his Horace and his Juvenal, but dips a very little way into Cicero's correspondence; and he needs to be reminded that the satirists are ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... becomes two, the same function is performed by each, and is marked by the fundamental characteristic of multiplication, i. e., degradation; for the people originally able to communicate with each other can no longer thus communicate; so that two languages do not serve as valuable a purpose as one. And, further, neither of the two languages has made the progress one would have made, ...
— On Limitations To The Use Of Some Anthropologic Data - (1881 N 01 / 1879-1880 (pages 73-86)) • J. W. Powell
... special to say," Ford remarked, with the awkwardness of a simple nature at an emotional crisis. "I'm not very good at thanks. Miss Strange knows that already. But it's all in here"—he tapped his breast, with a characteristic gesture—"very ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... unthinkable to Englishmen, and remembers and cherishes the memory of his forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation. No more characteristic instance could be found than in the family of Kirstie Elliott. They were all, and Kirstie the first of all, ready and eager to pour forth the particulars of their genealogy, embellished with every detail that memory had handed down ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rich treat to hear such a work, read by such a person, and in such a place; and his appearance as he sat reading, in a large armed chair, with his favorite hound Maida at his feet and surrounded by books and relics, and border trophies, would have formed an admirable and most characteristic picture. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... magazines. Our thinking is done for us. Our problems are all worked out in "explanations" and "keys." Our boys are too often tutored through college with very little study. "Short roads" and "abridged methods" are characteristic of the century. Ingenious methods are used everywhere to get the drudgery out of the college course. Newspapers give us our politics, and preachers our religion. Self-help and self-reliance are getting old-fashioned. Nature, as if conscious of delayed blessings, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... holding a series of Durbars, or triumphal processions. These extended right across India, from city to city, for a thousand miles. To Roberts was assigned the important task of arranging all the details of the tour, and he did it with characteristic thoroughness. It was like moving a mammoth circus, what with elephants, tents, supplies of all kinds, and gorgeous ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... better conducted under the emperors than under the supreme rule of the Senate. Even bad emperors knew how to govern. To the Roman mind every thing was subordinate to the art of government. And every characteristic fitted the Romans to govern—energy of will, practical good sense, the conception of justice, an unyielding pride, fortitude, courage, and lust of power. And the spirit of domination was carried out into every thing. It was made a science, an art. Whatever would contribute to the ascendency ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... two neighbours are admirably characteristic, not confined to any age or place, but always accompany the young convert to godliness, as the shadow does the substance. Christian is firm, decided, bold, and sanguine. Obstinate is profane, scornful, self-sufficient, and contemns God's ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... they go; and we must not forget this at evil moments when it seems as if all the women had taken to writing hysterical improprieties, and some of the men were trying to be at least as hysterical in despair of being as improper. Other traits are much more characteristic of our life and our fiction. In most American novels, vivid and graphic as the best of them are, the people are segregated if not sequestered, and the scene is sparsely populated. The effect may be in instinctive response to the vacancy of our social life, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... revolutionary; it felt that Will was deeper than Intellect; it focussed everything here and now, and asked all things to show their credentials at the bar of the young self, and to prove their value for this latest born moment. These things are truly American; they would be characteristic of any young society with a keen and discursive intelligence, and they are strikingly exemplified in the thought and in the person of Emerson. They constitute what he called self-trust. Self-trust, like other transcendental attitudes, may be expressed in metaphysical ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... the Spanish race on Indian Bar, many of whom are highly educated gentlemen, are disposed to bear an ill opinion of our whole nation on account of the rough men here. They think that it is a great characteristic of Columbia's children to be prejudiced, selfish, avaricious, ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... father, even at that time, did not know, for though he was very careful in providing me with the least amount he thought necessary, I soon found by experience that he had given me a great deal too much. It was characteristic of his consideration for others and the unselfishness of his nature, that at this time, when weighed down, harassed and burdened by the cares incident to bringing the untrained forces of the Confederacy into the field, and preparing them for a struggle the seriousness ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... of the most flexible and alert series of movements in the world, and to its varied and graceful poises our grandmothers may owe part of the dignity of carriage that was so characteristic of them. The spinner stood slightly leaning forward, lightly poised on the ball of the left foot; with her left hand she picked up from the platform of the wheel a long slender roll of the soft carded wool about as large round as the little finger, and deftly wound the end of the fibres ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... for the Fall trade, which he had stored in a warehouse at the rear of his factory, but which he neglected to insure. A fire broke out, and the building, with its contents, was completely destroyed, resolving the valuable stoves into a heap of old iron. Even this did not stop the works. With his characteristic energy, Mr. Woolson had the ground cleared and set to work with redoubled zeal, making new stoves out of the old iron, and succeeded in doing a tolerable business that winter, in spite ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... position of the Natives of the Orange River Colony, who are debarred by law from receiving titles to landed property. Mr. Plaatje's articles on native affairs have been marked by the robust common sense and moderation so characteristic of Mr. Booker Washington. He realizes the great debt which the Natives owe to the men who brought civilization to South Africa. He is no agitator or firebrand, no stirrer-up of bad feeling between black ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... at this time was a worthy gentleman named M. d'Ainsi, who was, in every respect, a polite and well-accomplished man, having the carriage and behaviour of one of our most perfect courtiers, very different from the rude incivility which appears to be the characteristic ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... his last resting-place, save a little water, which he dragged himself to a pond to drink. He was not discovered till he was dead; but his melancholy chronicle appeared to have been carried down to very near the time when he became unconscious. I remember its great characteristic appeared to be a sense of utter failure. There seemed to be no passion, none of the bitter desperate resolution which prompts the energetic 'Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world;' but merely a weary, lonely wish to creep quietly away. I have no look but one of sorrow ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... luminous and eternal bodies, and above all in the Heaven in which they revolve, and which whirls them along with itself in that rapid course that is swifter than all other movement. And fire and heat have so great an analogy with life, that cold, like absence of movement, seemed the distinctive characteristic of death. Accordingly, the vital fire that blazes in the Sun and produces the heat that vivifies everything, was regarded as the principle of organization and life ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... commenced, the wind may blow, the tempest roar, without disturbing the friendly group. There may be now less highly-gifted bards in the Highlands, romance and chivalry may have yielded to other ideas and pursuits, but still much of the same characteristic spirit remains: the love of ancient tradition and song exists, and the superstitions of bygone ages are unforgotten. Those who do not venerate their poets, and have respect to the early history of their country, are a ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Mr. Washington, with characteristic foresight, had made his will. Irving says of it, "To Lawrence he gave the estate on the banks of the Potomac, with other real property, and several shares in iron-works. To Augustine, the second son by the first marriage, the old homestead and estate in Westmoreland. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... started bright grew dark; for a long time there were threatenings of a thunder-storm; but none looked on this as an evil omen. All were inclined to cheery views. The courtiers displayed their zeal with all the ardor, the passion, the furia francese, which is a national characteristic, and appears on the battle-field as well as in the ante- chamber. The French fight ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... and people interested in the welfare of the poor say it is bad for all concerned, but especially bad for the children, who come in too exhausted to eat, and for the women, who have to cook and clean up when the day's business should be nearly done. It is quite characteristic of some kinds of modern Germans that they should in a breath condemn us, imitate us, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... doctor; "and paradoxicality is an indicial characteristic of truth in all matters beyond ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... theories; too much dependence is placed on the aviator; the desire in the present condition of the art is to exploit the man and not the machine; dare-devil exhibitions seem to be more important than perfecting the mechanism; and such useless attempts as flying upside down, looping the loop, and characteristic displays of that kind, are of no value ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... advantage which would accrue from such a regulation, would be, that the subaltern orders of men, who imitate the customs and the prejudices of the higher class of citizens, would soon be apprehensive of incurring the same disgrace; and that fidelity in engagements would become one of the characteristic of the national manners. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... believe that the loftier instincts" (and surely, then, the more recent instincts) "of the higher animals are not accompanied BY AT LEAST A CONFUSED CONSCIOUSNESS. There is, therefore, no absolute distinction between instinct and intelligence; there is not a single characteristic which, seriously considered, remains the exclusive property of either. The contrast established between instinctive acts and intellectual acts is, nevertheless, perfectly true, but only when we compare the extremes. AS INSTINCT RISES IT ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... one of the saddest, the most discouraging, features of any reform to find its worst foes are they of its own household. But the woman movement is not unique in this particular. Other reforms have presented the self-same characteristic. He who is familiar with the history of labor-saving machinery in this country knows that its introduction was fought inch by inch by that very class whose condition it was especially designed to ameliorate. If the Jews were the first ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... climate seemed to have a tendency to melt away that frigidity which is a characteristic of people of the north, and the residents of the island were as frank, free, and hospitable as if they had never been out of the tropics. I soon formed many pleasant acquaintances and acquired many friends. And this, with the aid of books in abundance, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... co-operation. These are best illustrated by Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest inter-collegiate organization, which was established at Michigan only after long opposition centering about the introduction of a marking system, the absence of which was long a special characteristic of the University. In spite of this, many alumni were elected at the time of its establishment in 1907, upon the special recommendation of older members of the Faculty whose co-operation had been requested. Five years before the time ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... the present day with no material change except that of immediate weathering, but to alterations of this kind they are an easy prey, and yield the most characteristic forms. The narrow dikes produce ridges between slight valleys of sandstone or shale, the wide bodies produce broad flat hills or uplands. The rock weathers into a fine gray and brown clay with numerous bowlders of unaltered rock of a ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... love could now be contrasted with this noble symphony of song, in which you will detect no monotony, no repetitions of means and effects. It is one, but many; the characteristic of all that is truly ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... think about some more of the great poetry that was made before the Norman Conquest, and we shall first take one of the finest and most characteristic poems which remain to us, a poem founded on Bible story; the great poem, of which we have unfortunately only ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... him always a dynamic principle of Life, working itself out in the frame and temper of the man and producing its characteristic effects in his actions. It does not operate "like a charm or spell"—it operates only as a vital principle[59] and we become eternally the self which we ourselves form. "We naturalize ourselves," to use his striking phrase, "to the employment of eternity."[60] ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... lighter shoes. Would she be expected to dance with the Bear Canyon forest ranger and his brethren from Cinnamon Creek and Sagebrush Point—with Dick and William and Mr. Crusoe? They were picturesque, and she would enjoy describing them as characteristic of the West when she returned home, but as for dancing with them, that—she was careful not to admit to the others—was ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... possible that, as the years passed, she might have acquired some of the unpleasing qualities so apt to become the characteristic of the woman who has no one to come between her and the cares of business or the shifts and difficulties incident to the providing for a family whose means are limited. Coming in contact, as she had to do, with a world not always mindful of the claims of others, she found it necessary to ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... if he perchance paid a visit he would not perform the "work" of lifting the knocker. Of course he had his handkerchief girt round his waist to save him from carrying it, but this compromise being general was not characteristic of Karlkammer any more than his habit of wearing two gigantic sets of phylacteries where average piety was content with ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... windows of the assembly-rooms in the Procuratie, or, threading the crowd on the arms of their gallants, visited the various peep-shows and flocked about the rhinoceros exhibited in a great canvas tent in the Piazzetta. The characteristic contrasts of Venetian life seemed to be emphasised by the vagaries of the carnival, and Odo never ceased to be diverted by the sight of a long line of masqueraders in every kind of comic disguise kneeling devoutly ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Several characteristic plans of revenge were discussed in solemn detail. These included the burning of the Rennick house or barn, or both; the shooting of Rennick from among the hillside boulders as the artist sketched; of waylaying him on his walk to the post-office, by night, and crippling him for ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... with the Norse Forseti, the son of (probably at first an epithet of) Baldr, but no legend of him is told. It is disappointing that these writers should have said so little of any God except the chief one. A very characteristic touch survives in Gregory of Tours (died 594), when the Frank Chlodvig tells his Christian wife that the Christian God "cannot be proved to be of the race of the Gods," an idea entirely in keeping with the Eddic hierarchy. ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday
... going to be altogether pleasant sailing with Mrs Watkins in the house. Broxton Day saw that to be the fact, plainly and almost immediately. Janice had realized it even before her father had occasion to mark Mrs. Watkins' most prominent characteristic. ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... once, "I think we can pass the candidate completely on the psychological records. The Index of Subordination is low, but we don't want one too high for this post. Too, the Beta curve shows a good deal of variation, a Dionysian characteristic. There is, perhaps, a stronger sense of responsibility than is recorded in the Dionysian index, but this ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the distinguishing characteristic of trees, separating them from all other groups of plants. Although in the region covered by this book the trees include all the very large plants, size alone ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... by the sons of the tumult we are to understand not only the Moabites, but the whole species to which they belonged, the whole heathen world, whose nature is restlessness, desire for strife, and the spirit of conquest,—the opposites of meekness and gentleness, which are the virtues characteristic of the subjects of the kingdom of God. In ver. 18, the particular is likewise followed by the general. But while ver. 17 and 18 contain, in each of the two particular features, a previous short allusion to the general, ver. 19 most expressly and intentionally ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... to measure one of them, before they were skinned and cut up. It had a body four feet in length; and a tail two and a half feet long, black at the tip, but without the characteristic tuft of the lion. Its limbs were very thick and muscular, to enable it to climb trees and spring a great distance. Its coat was of a light tawny tint, and of a ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... ever can improve, are so extremely anxious to get credit. Every word he uttered was accompanied by an oafish grin, so ludicrously balanced between simplicity and cunning, that Nancy, who had been half her life on the lookout for such a man, and who knew that this indecision of expression was the characteristic of the tribe with which she classed him, now saw before her the great dream of ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... crowds gathering round the doors for hours before they open, and then rushing in, to the imminent peril of life and limb, pushing and pommeling and belaboring one another like madmen. Some of the lower class of purchasers, inspired by the thrifty desire for gain said to be a New England characteristic, sell these tickets, which they buy at the box-office price, at an enormous advance, and smear their clothes with treacle and sugar and other abominations, to secure, from the fear of their contact of all decently-clad competitors, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... more intelligible than we do, because he takes extra care to do so. The duty is laid upon Americans to study other languages, if they expect to sing. I know how often this study is neglected by the student. It is another phase of that haste to make one's way which is characteristic of the young student ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... Jervis, "it might have been a peculiar finger; a finger, for instance, with some characteristic deformity, such as an ankylosed joint, which ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... characteristic of this small boy that when he had been tempted into departing from the paths of truth he was absolutely wretched until he had confessed, and rubbed his little unclean hands into his wet eyes until he was "a sight to dream of, ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... hundred present. At least there were three hundred horses tethered for the most part in the ring; though some of the hearers on the outskirts of the crowd stood with their bridles in their hand, ready to mount at the first signal. The circle of faces was strangely characteristic; long, serious, strongly marked, the tackle standing out in the lean brown cheeks, the mouth set and the eyes shining with a fierce enthusiasm; the shepherd, the labouring man, and the rarer laird, stood there in their broad blue bonnets or laced hats, and presenting an essential identity ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which young Henry Stuart now led his seafaring companions was of that rich, varied, and beautiful character which is strikingly characteristic of those islands of the Pacific which owe their origin to volcanic agency. Unlike the low coral islets, this island presented every variety of the boldest mountain scenery, and yet, like them, it displayed all the gorgeous beauty ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mauchline. The church stands about midway up the street, and is built of red freestone, very simple in its architecture, with a square tower and pinnacles. In this sacred edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of one of Burns's most characteristic productions, "The Holy Fair." ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... always shrewd and always kindly; you are left to guess his dislikes from his omissions. Mr. TAYLOR was himself in command, during SCOTT'S last expedition, of two parties, and of the work done on these journeys he writes with the modesty characteristic of men who speak of dangers and adventures in which they have personally taken part. One opinion of his I cannot refrain from quoting; it is that the tragedy of SCOTT'S expedition was caused by Seaman EVANS'S illness. "I believe that, short of abandonment, the party had no hope with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... considered in a Letter to a Friend, by James R. Hope, B.C.L., Scholar of Merton, and Chancellor of the Diocese of Salisbury. Second edition, revised, with a Postscript. London: C.J. Stewart. 1842.] an eloquent passage on Canon Law, which is as characteristic of the writer as anything I have yet been able to produce, and exhibits, I think, in a striking manner how singularly this austere subject constituted at the time the poetry of his life, and how largely the conflict ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... and prepared to pass the dreary hours till the sun rose again as best we could. I thought of the time I had spent on the iceberg, and, remembering Andrew's words, I did not despair. I slept, as did my companions, many of them with the careless indifference to danger which has become the characteristic of ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... the office opened, Perkins, whose principal characteristic was that of absolute noiselessness, glided smoothly into Brookings' office. Taking a small bottle about half full of a greenish-yellow liquid from his pocket, he furtively placed it under some papers ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... you live to see many of them!"—The New Year is born with every characteristic of its defunct sire—seeming no better behaved (as some people would have little boys after a birthday or a breeching):—the old year died with a drizzle; and the young one, that everybody hoped promising, is born with ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... social life of Europe. In the sad inactivity which followed, I set to work to look through my old papers, for the sake of distraction and employment, and found much material almost ready for use, careful notes of conversations, personal reminiscences, jottings of characteristic touches, which seemed as if they could be easily shaped. Moreover, the past suddenly revived, and became eloquent and vivid. I found in the beautiful memories of those glowing days that I spent with Father Payne—it was only three years—some ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the question entirely. The bluntness of it took her by surprise. Frank speech was not a characteristic of Vesta Lorimer's set. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Emperor Napoleon, and perhaps the rarest among them, that the marvellous fecundity of his mind, and the inexhaustible variety of the projects and conceptions which he was constantly turning over, reciprocally sustained and complemented each other. This characteristic of his genius has been ignored; and little honor has been done to his foresight when he has been depicted as taken in some degree unawares by the failure of his maritime plans, and constrained to improvise by a supreme effort the direction of his campaign in ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... magnificent promise for us, if we will but lift our eyes and see. It is that lifting of the eyes which is the first need and the first difficulty; we are so apt readily to be content with what we see within touch of our hands. It is the essential characteristic of the man of genius that he is comparatively indifferent to that fruit which is just within touch, and hungers for that which is afar on the hills. In fact he does not need the sense of contact to arouse ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... the law of compensations is invariable." "The foundation of their agriculture," he asserts, "was the fallow"; and concludes, commenting upon this, that while "one can find instruction in their practice even to-day, one can benefit even more from their agricultural philosophy, for the characteristic of the American farmer is that he is in ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... various forms. Under the title of "The Three Little Birds" a version is given in Grimm's K. u. H. M. (No. 96, vol. i. of Mrs. Hunt's English translation), which reproduces the chief particulars of Galland's tale with at least one characteristic German addition; ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... JOHN NEAL, at the Broadway Tabernacle last winter, and which was so heartily laughed at by the press and the town for a day or two after. It is gratifying to remark that women themselves have been the prominent satirists of the characteristic absurdities put forth on the occasion alluded to. But to our fair correspondent: 'APPEAR, bright Spirits of the ancient Nine! (for you were women, and can well appreciate my appeal) arrayed in all the panoply of your charms! Thou, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... preparations were concluded, and the time had almost arrived to bid farewell to Kilmore Castle and the surrounding demesne. Honor's friends in the village mourned her approaching departure with characteristic Irish grief. ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun." The individualism which is implied in these facts was the most prominent characteristic of this remarkable person. Holding that "a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone," he found that a small part of his time, devoted to making lead-pencils, carpentering, and surveying, gave him enough for ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... however, at last returned. Mrs. Wetenhall (for that was the name of her relation) would by all means wait upon her to London, in appearance out of politeness; for ceremony, carried beyond all bearing, is the grand characteristic of country gentry: yet this mark of civility was only a pretence, to obtain a peevish husband's consent to his wife's journey to town. Perhaps he would have done himself the honour of conducting Miss Hamilton up to London, had he ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... France bears the characteristic name of Chanson de Geste, or song of deed, because the trouveres in the north and the troubadours in the south wandered from castle to castle singing the prowesses of the lords and of their ancestors, whose reputations they thus made ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... closely inquired into. It may be found by this investigation that the horse has been fed on damaged feed, such as brewers' grains or moldy silage, and this may be sufficient to explain the profound depression and weakness that are characteristic of forage poisoning. If it is learned that the horse has been kept in the stable without exercise for several days and upon full rations, and that he became suddenly lame in his back and hind legs, and finally fell to the ground from ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... to sit up, and then Langhetti saw her. He greeted her with all the ardent and impassioned warmth which was so striking a characteristic of his impulsive and affectionate nature. Then ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... saint was carried on by his son Feva: but his "deadly and noxious wife" Gisa, who appears to have been a fierce Arian, always, says his biographer, kept him back from clemency. One story of Gisa's misdeeds is so characteristic both of the manners of the time and of the style in which the original biography is written, that I shall take leave to ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... Sir Thomas himself, had ever seen this gentleman, nor had Sir Thomas often come across him of late years. But he was what we in England call an old family friend; and I doubt whether we in England have any more valuable English characteristic than that of having old family friends. Old family feuds are not common with us now-a-days—not so common as with some other people. Sons who now hated their father's enemies would have but a bad ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... coquetting between its two powerful neighbours, Tsin and Ts'i. The conspirator duly presented himself before the Areopagus of Tsin grandees, barefoot and attired in common cloth (i.e. not of silk, but of hemp), in order to explain to them the circumstances of the duke's exile: it is characteristic of the times, and also of the frankness of history, to find it added that he succeeded in bribing the grandees to give an unjust decision. When the Kings of Yueeh and Wu were in turn at each other's ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... celestial weapons unto his son desirous of seeing the latter adorned with all the accomplishments (of a warrior). There is only one person in this world, viz., the son, and none else, whom people desire to become superior to themselves. All high-souled preceptors have this characteristic, viz., that they impart all the mysteries of their science unto either sons or devoted disciples. Becoming his sire's pupil, O Sanjaya, and obtaining all those mysteries with every detail, the son of Saradwat's daughter has become a second Drona, and a great hero. Aswatthaman ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Simple Story are of a kind peculiarly calculated to escape the notice of a generation of readers brought up on the fiction of the nineteenth century. That fiction, infinitely various as it is, possesses at least one characteristic common to the whole of it—a breadth of outlook upon life, which can be paralleled by no other body of literature in the world save that of the Elizabethans. But the comprehensiveness of view shared by Dickens and Tolstoy, by Balzac and George ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... be enhanced by his brief and fickle love. For, as a rule, men do not understand love. They understand desire, amounting sometimes to merciless covetousness for what they cannot get,—this is a leading natural characteristic of the masculine nature—but Love— love that endures silently and faithfully through the stress of trouble and the passing of years—love which sacrifices everything to the beloved and never changes or falters,—this is a divine passion which seldom or never sanctifies and inspires ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... a throb of emotion in the Occidental heart. Without such a throb a drama is naught—a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. The charm of Loti's book lies in its marvellously beautiful portrayal of a country, a people, and a characteristic incident in the social life of that people. Its interest as a story, outside of the charm of its telling, is like that excited by inspection of an exotic curio. In his dedication of the book the author ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... mean time he was studying history for its facts and principles, and fiction for its scenery and portraits. In "The North American Review" for July, 1847, is a long and characteristic article on Balzac, of whom he was an admirer, but with no blind worship. The readers of this great story-teller, who was so long in obtaining recognition, who "made twenty assaults upon fame and had forty books killed under him" before he achieved success, will find his genius ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... indicates, how forceful, strong, and poetic is their appeal. But if it is to be assumed that they were written by a man of thirty or thirty-five, strong, vigorous, aggressive, fortunate, and successful, the appeal seems out of harmony, and lacks that delicate adaptation of speech to surroundings which is characteristic of the author. ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... accommodations and special rates for commercial travelers." Although Hillsborough is comparatively a small town, it is the centre of a very productive region, and its trade is somewhat important. Consequently, the commercial travelers, with characteristic energy, lose no opportunity of taking advantage of the hospitable invitation of the landlord of ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... look like the mouths of warrens, let a woman come out from one of them draped in her long blue gown, holding a child by the hand and bearing a jar of water on her head, light it all up with sunlight, and you have a charming and characteristic picture. ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... had been so characteristic a trait of Charles, and had added at once to the melancholy and majesty of his face, was now of a yellow waxen colour, which might be said to increase from minute to minute in lividness of hue. His large nose stood frightfully ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... 21, 1840, a specific entry was made in the Narrative, so simple, childlike, and in every way characteristic, that every word of it ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... and Bakhuizen did forty years before. The columns of the Nieuwe Gids were only opened to the very best of Dutch authors, and any works not coming up to the editors' high ideas of literary excellence were unmercifully 'slated' by these competent critics. Independence was the prominent characteristic of the authors of the period. They shook themselves free from the old thoughts and similes, and created new paths, in which their minds found freer expression. The new thoughts demanded new words, hence came about the practice of word-combination, which was in direct defiance of the conservative ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... the inevitable with half a grace when they found that the stranger and the girl of whom they were so fond were in love. With an obduracy that seems to be characteristic of fathers, the medicine-man refused his consent to the union, and the hearts of the twain were heavy. Though the white man pleaded with her to desert her tribe, she refused to do so, on the score of duty to her father, and the couple forlornly roamed about the hill, watching the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... was ready, but the revellers were wanting. The stiff-necked Romans were not content with stopping away, but insisted on going elsewhere. By one of those tacit understandings, which are always the characteristic of a country without public life or liberty, a place of rendezvous was fixed upon. Without notice or proclamation of any kind, everybody knew somehow, though how, nobody could tell, that the road beyond the Porta Pia was ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... in a very gloomy mood, and after greeting Francesco with cool ceremony, he questioned him on the matter of the company they had met yesternight. These inquiries he conducted with characteristic dignity, and no more show of concern than if it had been an affair of a strayed falcon. He thanked Francesco for his information, and gave orders that the seneschal should place apartments at his and ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... is failing you now," he said. "The name is Long Lanes. And what do you think my wife did—this is so characteristic of her!—when I presented myself at her bedside. Instead of speaking of our own baby, she reminded me of the name that I had given to our adopted daughter when I baptized the child. 'You chose the ugliest name ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... undertaken to negotiate with us on behalf of the Penyahbongs and the Malays, and although in some ways he was an estimable man, his Malay characteristic of turning everything to his own advantage at times got the better of him and delayed an agreement. At first they demanded a sum amounting to seven florins a day for each of the twenty-nine men needed, but as fourteen Malay rubber-gatherers arrived very opportunely, it was agreed that we should ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... Vienna, the first popular demand was for a Constitution. His successors in office, with a certain characteristic pedantry, devoted their studies to the Belgian Constitution of 1831; and after some weeks a Constitution was published by edict for the non-Hungarian part of the Empire, including a Parliament of two Chambers, the Lower to be chosen ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe |
