"Figurative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is, however, that of Venus and not Mars. Petronius is fond of figurative language, and in several other passages, he has made use of the slang of the arena: (chap. 61 ), "I used to fence with my mistress herself, until even the master grew Suspicious"; and again, in chapter 19, he says: "then, too, we were girded higher, and I had so arranged matters that ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... features—its magnificent rivers, with their numerous tributaries—its lofty mountains, its dark forests, its extended plains and its vast extent. A voyage in a canoe, from the source of the Hogohegee[9] to the Wabash,[10] required for its performance, in their figurative language, 'two paddles, two warriors, three moons.' The Ohio itself was but a tributary of a still larger river, of whose source, size and direction, no intelligible account could be communicated or understood. The Muscle Shoals and the obstructions in the river ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... come up to the other end of the place. The dogs are brought and set upon the poor animal who sometimes destroys several dogs before it is killed." The colloquial "to badger" (i.e. worry or tease) is a metaphorical derivative, and "drawing a badger" is similarly used in a figurative sense. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... strongly situated upon a high mountain, partly surrounded by thick forests and partly girdled by a river. It defended one of the rugged and solitary passes by which the Christians were wont to make their inroads, insomuch that the Moors, in their figurative way, denominated it the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... in the dock. The days of the years of his pilgrimage were not few, and quite probably, except in a figurative sense, not evil. He was of sturdy build, quiet manners, and his countenance was indicative of great sincerity. In a voice extremely deferential he stated that he had once ministered to a dying Confederate, and it was impossible for ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... all figurative expression, what hopes can we ever have of engaging mankind to a practice which we confess full of austerity and rigour? Or what theory of morals can ever serve any useful purpose, unless it can show, by a particular detail, that all the duties which it recommends, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... and his diction was elegant and copious. But his devotional poetry is, like that of others, unsatisfactory. The paucity of its topics enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction. It is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others what no man has done well. His poems on other subjects seldom rise higher than might be expected from the amusements of a man of letters, and have different degrees of value as they are more or less laboured, or as the ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... went on, "for the—er—character of your reception. In short, I hope, on your complete recovery, to find you some steady employment, such as too many of our returning heroes are at this moment seeking in vain. In the meanwhile our town has some lions which may amuse your convalescence—a figurative term, meaning objects ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "Perhaps not more than nine-tenths stand straight on their legs; the remainder are in quite angular attitudes; a few even sprawl out helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and dismembered." There is no modern writer who possesses so large a profusion of figurative language. His works are also full of the pithiest and most memorable sayings, such ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... manner and conceit of expression, however, were natural to Herbert, and he did not fail to look down, in a literal and figurative sense, upon ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... Adrian's figurative speech, instructed Austin that the baronet was waiting for his son, in a posture of statuesque offended paternity, before he would receive his daughter-in-law and grandson. That was what Adrian meant by the efforts of the System to swallow ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... labels for everybody and he pigeonholed them with the utmost promptitude. A man was a murderer or a saint or a bricklayer, and he was nothing else. But at this moment, standing in the light-flooded entrance to Ginger's lodgings, waiting for Storch to lead him back to his figurative cell, he knew that a man could be a murderer and a saint and a bricklayer and a thousand other things besides. And if he were to sit again about that round table of violence and despair he felt that, while he might find much to stir hatred, he would never again ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... I wept and sobbed the more, my uncle, after a pause, continued in the somewhat figurative strain which the reader has observed he sometimes adopted, and which perhaps his dramatic studies had ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... formerly been a novice who neglected to sweep out the Council room, hence was reborn as a broom,(!) therefore the wisest of all the world's sages stands accused of idiotic superstition. Why not try and understand the true meaning of the figurative statement before criticising? Is or is not that which is called magnetic effluvia a something, a stuff or a substance, invisible and imponderable though it be?... The mesmeric or magnetic fluid which emanates from man to man, ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... are we in all climes and under whatever rule, quoth I, internally, as I listened to these wordy disputants; for, to do messieurs the pilots justice, the matter was conducted in a manner more worthy the courts, better argued, and in language less offensively figurative, than similar disputes at which it has been my chance to assist between angry ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... blackness outside, of which our Lord adds, in words not put into the king's mouth, but which we have heard from Him before, 'There shall be the [well-known and terrible] weeping and gnashing of teeth—awful though figurative ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... shall take no notice of your advertisement," he replied and stood in the middle of the street, his hat in his hand, to the intense annoyance of a taxi-cab driver who literally all but ran him down and in a figurative sense did so until T. X. ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... the end, leads inevitably to death. He is excluding himself from that sphere of good, that career of service and devotion, wherein alone true life is to be found. He is banishing himself to that outer darkness which is our figurative expression for the absence of all those rewards of virtue and the presence of all those penalties of vice which our previous studies have brought to our attention. "Sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death." "The wages of ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... begotten Son of God, because He and no one besides Him was begotten of the divine substance;'[443] but he also held that 'Scripture so plainly attributes a divine and sovereign power to Christ as to leave no room for a figurative sense.'[444] And the early Socinians thought that Christ must not only be obeyed but His assistance implored, and that He ought to be worshipped, that 'invocation of Christ or addressing prayers to Him was a duty necessarily arising from the character He sustained ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... gypsy dialect by Vardo-mescro and Petulengro (Romano Lavo-Lil, page 185). Thus the Smiths are known among themselves as the Petulengros. Petul, a horse shoe, and engro a "masculine affix used in the formation of figurative names." Thus Boshomengro (a fiddler) comes from Bosh a fiddle, Cooromengro (a soldier, a pugilist) from ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... with a ruddy glow the heavy panelings and the time-worn tapestries. Dinner was just over, the dessert was on the table, and two gentlemen were sitting over their wine—though this is to be taken rather in a figurative sense, for their conversation was so engrossing as to make them oblivious of even the charms of the old ancestral port of rare vintage which Lord Chetwynde had produced to do honor to his guest. Nor is this to be wondered at. Friends of boyhood and early manhood, sharers ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Christianity which to some minds imported an unnecessary strictness of view, but none could quarrel with it, for he practised his austerities upon himself, not toward others. Certain precepts of the Sermon on the Mount usually interpreted in a figurative sense he took literally as rules of action. "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away" was one of these. His literal fidelity to this precept afforded him the deep satisfaction of giving aid to honest neighbors ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... food, seem to simple dwellers on the surface of the earth almost like miracles. Deprive him of his horse, and he can do nothing but sit on the ground cross-legged, or en cuclillas,—on his heels. You have, to use his own figurative ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... heard to the end of the play in Macbeth's less poetic speeches, and leaves the same impression of burning energy, though not of imaginative exaltation, as his great speeches. In these we find either violent, huge, sublime imagery, or a torrent of figurative expressions (as in the famous lines about 'the innocent sleep'). Our impressions as to the diction of the play are largely derived from these speeches of the hero, but not wholly so. The writing almost throughout leaves an impression ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... sir," said Denham quietly. "I was not speaking in a figurative way, but in plain, downright English. That really is part of an ancient gold-mine, in which the water has collected in ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... were qualified in the country- side as "fair pests." But in the house, if "faither was in," they were quiet as mice. In short, Hob moved through life in a great peace - the reward of any one who shall have killed his man, with any formidable and figurative circumstance, in the midst of a country gagged and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... may be considered, from the above account of it, as merely figurative. For the small quantity of yams, which we saw the first day, could not be intended as a general contribution; and, indeed, we were given to understand, that they were a portion consecrated to the Otooa, or Divinity. But we were informed, that, in about three months, there ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... This is a feeling which almost every one must have at the conclusion of any work he has undertaken. A common and very simple reason for this disappointment is that most of us overrate our capacity. We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to, in virtue of our endowments. The figurative descriptions of the last Grand Assize must no more be taken literally than the golden crowns, which we do not expect or want to wear on our heads, or the golden harps, which we do not want or expect to hold in our hands. Is it not too true that many religious sectaries think ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... interesting form, the fall of a man whose great bad actions have cast a disastrous lustre on his name. In the execution of the work, as intricacy of plot could not have been attempted without a gross violation of recent facts, it has been my sole aim to imitate the impassioned and highly figurative language of the French Orators, and to develop the characters of the chief actors on a ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... own way Mr. Neugass was a jokester, insisting upon the laugh, sitting back upon his figurative haunches, waiting. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... very latest widow here for two days "charring." She is the lady alluded to by Rex when he told Stephen that she had been weighed, and was found wanting. In justice to her physique, I must say that this was not according to avoirdupois measure!! but figurative. She whipped about as nimbly as an elephant. She was rather given to panting and groaning. You can fancy her. [Sketch.] "Mrs. Hewin, ma'am, don't soil your 'ands! Let me! As I says to the parties at the 'Imperial' at Folkstone, ladies thinks an elderly person can't get through their work, but ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... recover these lost sheep"—that "the stouter and better worth catching the fish were, the more anxious should they be to secure them in the net of the Prince of Apostles." When separated from the figurative bombast by which a Frenchman frequently obscures a sensible reason, this plea seems fair enough: provided that the motives of the missionaries were unmixed with spiritual vanity, and the pride of creating a strong sensation. It was no doubt ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... 1. Confusion in the Orthodox Statement. 2. Great Importance attributed to this Doctrine. 3. Stress laid on the Death of Jesus in the Scripture. 4. Difficulty in interpreting these Scripture Passages. 5. Theological Theories based on the Figurative Language of the New Testament. 6. The three principal Views of the Atonement—warlike, legal, and governmental. 7. Impression made by Christ's Death on the Minds of his Disciples. First Theory on the Subject in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 8. Value of Suffering as a Means of Education. 9. ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... the other nations of America. In council, where all common and tribal affairs were decided, the Iroquois showed great capacity for calm deliberation, and became quite eloquent at times. Their language was extremely figurative, though incapable of the expression of abstract thought, as is the case with Indian tongues generally. The Indian—essentially a materialist—could only find his similes, metaphors, and illustrations in the objects of nature, ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... earth. We do wrong in elevating that narrative above its proper position, and orthodox geologists have grossly erred in attaching much importance to the language of the first chapter of Genesis. There is nothing poetical or figurative in the whole account; it contains no mystical or symbolical meaning, and is a plain statement of just so much as suited the Jewish mind. All attempts, however, to find any consistency between it and the present state of science are simply ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... figurative expression and give its meaning. "Thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave." The blow which separation from Benjamin would involve will cause the aged father to die of a ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Edinb. Rev., July 1808.] he was prepared to go a considerable step farther, and claim that there was no essential difference between ancient mythology and the theology of the Christians, that both were interpretations, in more or less figurative language, of the great mysteries of being, and indeed that the earlier interpretation, precisely because it was more frankly figurative and poetical than the later one, was better fitted to stimulate and to allay the sense of wonder ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... quartermaster; "the armies have kept a respectful distance; they were like nothing I can think of," said the figurative Frenchman, "except two hideous serpents wallowing in mire, and vomiting at each other whole rivers of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... run about the braes And pu'd the gowans' fine —in a figurative point of view—on several occasions. I am not exactly aware,' said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll in his voice, and the old indescribable air of saying something genteel, 'what gowans may be, but I have no doubt that ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... devil is necessarily implied in the words of the text. The theory which seeks to divest all that is said about the devil in Scripture of everything like personality, and to refine it away into figurative representation of "the principle of evil," is as unphilosophical as it is unscriptural. How can we conceive of moral evil in the abstract? How can we think of it apart from the depraved will of some intelligent being? Whatever theories may be held respecting the difficult question of the ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... very choice language; for, among their other accomplishments, the Crows are famed for possessing a Billingsgate vocabulary of unrivalled opulence, and for being by no means sparing of it whenever an occasion offers. Indeed, though Indians are generally very lofty, rhetorical, and figurative in their language at all great talks, and high ceremonials, yet, if trappers and traders may be believed, they are the most unsavory vagabonds in their ordinary colloquies; they make no hesitation to call a spade a spade; and when they once undertake ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... everything that is made manifest is light.' Observe that Paul here speaks of 'light,' not 'the light,'—that is, he is speaking now not of Christian character, which he had likened to light, but of physical light to which he had likened it, and is backing up his figurative statement as to the reproving and manifesting effects of the former, by the plain fact as to the latter, that, when daylight shines on anything, it is revealed, and, as it were, becomes light. He clenches his exhortation ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... of sensuous intuition, which is possible and necessary a priori, may be called figurative (synthesis speciosa), in contradistinction to that which is cogitated in the mere category in regard to the manifold of an intuition in general, and is called connection or conjunction of the understanding ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... may not be defined, are illustrated by every image that can swell the imagination; while the misery of the lost, in its unutterable intensity, though the language that describes it is all necessarily figurative, is there exhibited as resulting chiefly, if not wholly, from the withdrawment of the light of God's countenance, and a banishment from his presence! best comprehended in this world by reflecting on the desolations, which would instantly follow the loss of the sun's vivifying and ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down from their radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subject are not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape the suspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as much to veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude, where he says: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... wildness in the songs of this class of birds, that awakens a delightful mood of mind, similar to that which is excited by reading the figurative lyrics of a romantic age. This feeling is, undoubtedly, to a certain extent, the effect of association. Having always heard their notes in rude, wild, and wooded places, they never fail to bring this kind of scenery vividly before the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... interest of humanity, He reposed his faith on the abilities of clerics who knew nothing of human nature or practical politics, but comprehended only a paternal control, absolute, and to be enforced by the rod, actual or figurative; or on those of civilian devotees and fanatics less intelligent ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... would have penetrated her motives; I should have felt with her feelings. But I have never been in love; no gentleman gave me the opportunity when I was young. Now I am middle-aged, neglect has done its dreary work—my heart is an extinct crater. Figurative again! I had better put my pen away, and say ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... unwearying mercy of the Saviour. Others again, who had been brought up in the practice of the ablutions which have to be performed by those who are initiated into the deeper secrets of the heathen mysteries, regarded baptism as an act of purification, a mystical process of happy augury, or at the best a figurative purification of the soul, and crowded to receive it. Here, in Alexandria, the number of these deluded ones is especially great; for where could any superstition find a more favorable soil than in this seat of philosophical half-culture, or ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Larkyns did not give), and had assisted in the other festivities that usually mark the end of the academical year, - Mr. Verdant Green found himself to be possessed of a considerable acquisition of knowledge of a most miscellaneous character; and on the authority, and in the figurative eastern language of Mr. Bouncer, "he was sharpened up no end, by being well rubbed against university bricks. So, good by, old feller!" said the little gentleman, with ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... GALLEY. The opposite of what is termed Coventry; for it is figurative of a man incurring the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... took up the argument against him, and maintained that no man ever thinks of the NOSE OF THE MIND, not adverting that though that figurative sense seems strange to us, as very unusual, it is truly not more forced than Hamlet's 'In my MIND'S EYE, Horatio.' He persisted much too long, and appeared to Johnson as putting himself forward as his antagonist with ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... past, when language was figurative, and often pictorial, had recourse to a system of symbols to express abstract truths and ideas. In order to impress the minds of pupils with a true concept of the attributes of the celestial forces, we call planets, they personified their powers, qualities, and attributes. Just as the average ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... the magic influence of a beautiful diction, it will always be found that it consists in this happy relation between external freedom and internal necessity. The principal features that contribute to this freedom of the imagination are the individualizing of objects and the figurative or inexact expression of a thing; the former employed to give force to its sensuousness, the latter to produce it where it does not exist. When we express a species or kind by an individual, and portray a conception in a single case, we remove from fancy the chains which ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... effort of reason. Two forms of abstraction rule in the whole mass of knowledge, viz.: the 'quantitative', relative determinations according to number and magnitude, and 'qualitative', material characters. Means of submitting phenomena to calculation. Atoms, mechanical methods of construction. Figurative representations; mythical conception of imponderable matters, and the peculiar vital forces in every organism. That which is attained by observation and experiment (calling forth phenomena) leads, by analogy and induction, to a knowledge of 'empirical ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... lecturing to his pupils upon the diseases of the heart, narrated an anecdote to prove that the expression "broken heart" was not merely figurative. On one occasion, in the early period of his life, he accompanied, as surgeon, a packet that sailed from Liverpool to one of the American ports. The captain frequently conversed with him respecting a lady who ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... that it often proves a very difficult matter to trace the connexion between the figurative and the literal sense of the stanza. The essentials in the composition of the pantun, for such these little pieces are called, the longer being called dendang, are the rhythmus and the figure, particularly the latter, which they ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... of adventurous and enterprising youth there? Australia, like Canada, has its call of the west and the north, with their appealing tale of untried potentialities. Canada has also, across its merely figurative and political southern border, a vast and teeming world, reaching down to the equator, and comprising almost every possible diversity of human effort and natural resource. Australia, the purely British island continent, is more isolated. But, broadly ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... not how to guide the white horses is driving it." Such language might in time easily become the common language for describing times of drought; and so, at length, would grow up, out of what was at first merely a description, in figurative language, of a natural happening, a story, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... must eat the whole dinner to appreciate its opulent inevitability. Still I may offer a few olives, a branch or two of succulent celery to those who have not as yet been invited to sit down. One of his ladies walks the Avenue in a gown the "color of fried smelts." Such figurative phrases as "Her eyes were of that green-grey which is caught in an icicle held over grass," "The sand is as fine as face powder, nuance Rachel, packed hard," "Death, it may be, is not merely a law but a place, perhaps a garage which the traveller reaches on a demolished motor, but whence ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... the tendency of the short story toward simplicity that even figures of speech are to be avoided. This does not mean that we are carefully to discard any expression which savors of the figurative: such a thing would be absurd, for literature and everyday speech abound in figurative language which passes current unquestioned. But figures which are introduced simply for literary effect are unnatural, and so are to be avoided. They are really digressions, ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... white satin and you were going to wear it," she said. "White satin is just the sort of thing for you, Mollie. Never mind, wait until the figurative ship ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... quenched." They do not try to force the literal meaning on language when Jesus said, "I am the door"; "I am the vine"; or the Scriptures state, "That rock was Christ." One thing is true, that, the language being figurative, the reality must ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... from beginning to end is figurative, a piece of far-fetched, enigmatical symbolism in the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... temple with his feet joined together, and afterwards proved, in an eloquent discourse, that the Sovereign of heaven and earth, who accepted not the persons of men, makes no distinction between the right and left foot. The envious man and his wife alleged that his discourse was not figurative enough, and that he did not make the rocks and mountains to dance ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... lingers in the German expression, "Friend Hain," as a euphemism for the figure which announces that one's hour has come. The hawthorn was the special wood used for fire-burial in Germany; hence the figurative poetical expression which would make Hagen a ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... more clear! more natural! more agreeable to the true spirit of simplicity? Here are no tropes, no figurative expressions, not even so much as an invocation to the Muse. He does not detain his readers by any needless circumlocution, by unnecessarily informing them what he is going to sing, or still more unnecessarily enumerating ...
— English Satires • Various
... of Faculty and Mr. Penney, joined to that of some four or five hundred respectable ladies of both sexes besides, all sticking out around him in cubes, hexagons, and prisms, like cleft almonds in a bishop-cake. Hardly inferior in the figurative is the passage which follows: 'The Doctor (Dr. Chalmers) rides on at a rickety trot,—Messrs. Cunningham, Begg, and Candlish by turns whipping up the wornout Rosenante, and making the rider believe that windmills are Church ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... accompanying envelope, and found within a real instead of a figurative blister, he grew crimson with rage. But he was consoled when he went to horsewhip his attorney, and met the chemist pelting down the street with O'Grady tearing after him with a cudgel. For some years O'Grady had successfully kept out of his door every process-server sent ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... sometimes dragged it with a string round its neck to and from school. At other times, setting it up on her desk, she made a pincushion of its patient and inoffensive body. Whether this was done in revenge of what she considered a second figurative obtrusion of Clytie's excellences upon her, or whether she had an intuitive appreciation of the rites of certain other heathens, and, indulging in that "fetish" ceremony, imagined that the original of her wax model would pine ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... that can be measured by thermometers was not the kind that was causing two groups of men in two hotels, only a few blocks apart on the East Side of New York's Midtown, to break out in sweat, both figurative and literal. ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett
... else, K. Le Moyne had also given up the love of woman. That, of course, is figurative. He had been too busy for women; and now he was too idle. A small part of his brain added figures in the office of a gas company daily, for the sum of two dollars and fifty cents per eight-hour working day. But the ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... stick to mules it would have been a happy wisdom. As it was, he managed to kill two birds with one stone—that is to say, he killed the sugar speculation by holding for high rates till he had to sell at the bottom figure, and that calamity killed the mule that laid the golden egg—which is but a figurative expression and will be so understood. Sellers had returned home cheerful but empty-handed, and the mule business lapsed into other hands. The sale of the Hawkins property by the Sheriff had followed, and the Hawkins hearts been torn to see Uncle Dan'l and his wife pass from the auction-block ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... across to Joe's side of the car, and shook him almost out of his seat, as she shouted, "Joe! you've shook de lion's paw!" This was her phrase for having entered on the dominions of England. But Joe did not understand this figurative expression. Then she shook him again, and put it more plainly, "Joe, you're in Queen Victoria's ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... recognize, however, that the term "world-ruler" as applied to even the greatest of these nations has but a restricted sense. When the Persian monarch called himself lord of the sun and moon, he only meant in a figurative way that he was acquainted with no other king so powerful as himself; that beyond his own dominions he heard only of feeble colonies, and beyond those the wilderness. Alexander, when he sighed for more worlds to conquer, had in reality made himself lord of less than a quarter of Asia and of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... meaning attached in Scripture to the expression God dwells in man. According to the first meaning, we understand it in the most plain and literal sense the words are capable of conveying. According to the second, we understand His dwelling in a figurative sense, implying this—that He gives an acquaintance with Himself to man. So, for instance, when Judas asked, "Lord, how is it, that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us and not to the world?" Our Redeemer's reply was this—"If a man love me, he will keep my ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... PARSING. A benevolent man helps indigent beggars. Studious scholars learn many long lessons. Wealthy merchants own large ships. The heavy ships bear large burdens; the lighter ships carry less burdens. Just poets use figurative language. Ungrammatical expressions offend a true critic's ear. Weak critics magnify trifling errors. No composition is perfect. The rabble was tumultuous. The late-washed grass looks green. Shady trees form a delightful arbor. The setting sun makes ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... of conduct which has been pursued. It is said and believed through Paris literally, that the Count de Montmorin, "pleuroit comme un enfant," when obliged to sign the counter-declaration. Considering the phrase as figurative, I believe it expresses the distress of his heart. Indeed, he has made no secret of his individual opinion. In the meantime, the Principal goes on with a firm and patriotic spirit, in reforming the cruel abuses of the government, and preparing a new constitution, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... Toots) for his opinion on such a question. The Chicken replying that his opinion always was, 'Go in and win,' and further, 'When your man's before you and your work cut out, go in and do it,' Mr Toots considered this a figurative way of supporting his own view of the case, and heroically resolved to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... of several hundred miles, following the windings of the Monongahela river from its rise among the mountains of Western Virginia till, far away in the north, it met the flood of the Alleghany, at the present site of the city of Pittsburg. The voyage, in a birch canoe, required, in the figurative language of the Indians, "two paddles, two warriors ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... nor impulse of the kind on the part of the orators, nor apparent expectation of such a phenomenon on that of the audience. In fact, I imagine that the latter were best pleased when the speaker embodied his ideas in the figurative language of arithmetic, or struck upon any hard matter of business or statistics, as a heavy-laden bark bumps upon a rock in mid-ocean. The sad severity, the too earnest utilitarianism, of modern life, have wrought a ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shop during the remainder of that day. As he sat and watched the never-ceasing stream of people pass the windows, almost without casting a glance at the ornithological specimens that stood rampant there, he required no further evidence that the business had already gone to that figurative state of destruction styled "the dogs." The only human beings in London who took the smallest notice of him or his premises were the street boys, some of whom occasionally flattened their noses on a pane of glass, and returned looks of, if possible, exaggerated surprise at the ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... said that there are more kinds; the woman who washes the cap in which a baby is baptised becomes comare, but I do not know whether this is so anywhere but in Catania. And the word is sometimes used in a figurative sense as a term of endearment in addressing a partner or any intimate friend, and sometimes with the intention of inspiring confidence in addressing a stranger in a lower station of life. When two plump gentlemen and one thin one entered the yard of the "White Hart" ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... of his rude eloquence, his wild imagery, his ecstasy of faith, rolled over the assembly and awoke it anew to enthusiasms. Much that he said was accepted by the more intelligent ministers who led the meeting as figurative, as the finer fervors of truth, and they felt the responsive glow of emotion and quiver of sympathy. He intended it in its simple, literal significance. And to the more local members of the congregation the fact was ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... modest record to the willing service of those whose munificence has reared the pile, and give increased light and richness to the scene. The great western window, also covered with armorial bearings, throws a dim, yet kindling, tint on the stone font aptly placed beneath it, as figurative of its character—initial to that further sacrament, meetly celebrated where the star of Him who first blessed it proclaimed His advent to the expectant world. While throughout the holy building, high-springing arch, and sombre aisle, and vaulted ceiling, and curiously-wrought ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... chemical philosopher should adopt the simplest style and manner; he will avoid all ornaments as something injurious to his subject, and should bear in mind the saying of the first king of Great Britain respecting a sermon which was excellent in doctrine but overcharged with poetical allusions and figurative language, "that the tropes and metaphors of the speaker were like the brilliant wild flowers in a field of corn—very pretty, but which did very much hurt the corn." In announcing even the greatest and most important discoveries, the true philosopher will communicate ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... during this voyage, I took every opportunity of improving my acquaintance with it, by conversing with Omai, before we arrived, and by my daily intercourse with the natives, while we now remained there.[1] It abounds with beautiful and figurative expressions, which, were it perfectly known, would, I have no doubt, put it upon a level with many of the languages that are most in esteem for their warm and bold images. For instance, the Otaheiteans express their notions of death very emphatically, by saying, "That the soul goes into darkness; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... expressions in the Bible must not be taken literally. In reference to Biblical interpretation Saadia makes the general remark that whenever a verse of Scripture apparently contradicts the truths of reason, there is no doubt that it is figurative, and a person who successfully interprets it so as to reconcile it with the data of sense or reason will be rewarded for it. For not the Bible alone is the source of Judaism, Reason is another source preceding ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... universally acknowledged, and it is natural that it should be more appreciated by his fellow-craftsmen than by general readers less interested in technical questions. The defects are the natural complements of its merits. When accused of being too figurative, he had a ready reply. 'Wordsworth,' he says in one of his 'Conversations,' 'slithers on the soft mud, and cannot stop himself until he comes down. In his poetry there is as much of prose as there is of poetry in the prose of Milton. But prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... a bunker, if you can, That beetles o'er a deadly ditch, Where any but the bogey-man Is practically bound to pitch; Plant me beneath a hedge of thorn, Or up a figurative tree, What matter, when my love has sworn To halve the round of ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... ranked. Their language sounds agreeably, and is not difficult to learn. The vowels occur much more frequently than the consonants, our c, g, k, s, and p, being entirely wanting. Cook and his companions made considerable progress in it; and one of them says—"It is rich in figurative modes of expression; and I am convinced that a nearer acquaintance with it would place it on a level with the most distinguished for boldness and ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... something is due to my own position, and I cannot treat my daughter like a bale of cloth, as you suggest in your figurative speech. However," he added, warily, "I will take the necessary steps as soon as possible, and will trespass ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... rising," he proclaimed, in a loud, sing-song voice, "the flood is rising; now it's about your pockets—praise God! now it's above your waists. It's rising! it's rising! Hallelujah! the sea of redemption is rising," his voice rose with the figurative flood. "At last it's about your hearts, your hearts are immersed in the ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... scribe or historian would describe the event as the "voice of the Lord" ("kallam el Allah"), having spoken unto the person; or, that God appeared to him in a dream and "said," etc. Thus much allowance would be necessary on the part of a European reader for the figurative ideas and expressions of the people. As the Arabs are unchanged, the theological opinions which they now hold are the same as those which prevailed in remote ages, with the simple addition of their belief ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... his life corresponding to such traits as tortured limbs and burning thirst, pierced hands and parted garments, has driven some critics to the hypothesis that we have here a psalm of the exile describing either actual sufferings inflicted on some unknown confessor in Babylon, or in figurative language the calamities of Israel there. But the Davidic origin is confirmed by many obvious points of resemblance with the psalms which are indisputably his, and especially with those of the Sauline period, ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... the Indian boy from Apple Orchard to his lodge in the wilderness, and shown how he passed many of his hours in the hills, it is proper now that we should mount—in a figurative and metaphorical sense—behind Mr. Rushton, and see whither that gentleman also bends his steps. We shall thus arrive at the real theatre of our brief history—we mean at ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... Sabbath morning of our arrival an air of everlasting peace abode with it. That same air of peace continued to abide with it during all the days we spent here. Yet, if you took a step to the southwest—a figurative step in seven-league boots—you were where all hell broke loose. War is a most tremendous emphasizer ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... Agrippa, who when the whole people of Rome had resolutely divided themselves from the Senate, with apparent show of utter ruin: though he were (for that time) an excellent orator, came not among them upon trust of figurative speeches, or cunning insinuations: and much less, with far-fetched maxims of philosophy, which (especially if they were Platonic [Footnote: Alluding to the inscription over the door of Plato's Academy: ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... to denote a particular state of disordered mind, which is supposed to differ from idiotcy and lunacy, has been the source of considerable perplexity to medical practitioners; and, in my own opinion, opens an avenue for ignorance and injustice. The application of figurative terms, especially when imposed under a loose analogy, and where they might be supplied by words of direct meaning, always tends to ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... element in Burmese religion is the worship of Nats[173] or spirits of various kinds. Of the prevalence of such worship there is no doubt, but I cannot agree with the authorities who say that it is the practical religion of the Burmese. No passing tourist can fail to see that in the literal as well as figurative sense Burma takes its colour from Buddhism, from the gilded and vermilion pagodas and the yellow robed priests. It is impossible that so much money should be given, so many lives dedicated to a religion which had not a real hold on the hearts of the people. The worship of Nats, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... notwithstanding, was a good Catholic, or at least pretended to be one, and certainly desired to become such, but it appeared to her that the Scriptures were too literally and harshly explained, supposing that all we read of everlasting torments were figurative threatenings, and the death of Jesus Christ an example of charity, truly divine, which should teach mankind to love God and each other; in a word, faithful to the religion she had embraced, she acquiesced in all its professions of faith, but on a ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... with apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured her that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the Serpent informed her that "chestnut" was a figurative term meaning an aged and moldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass the weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort, though I had honestly supposed that they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... figurative oratory a good story is told of a barrister pleading before Lord Ellenborough: "My lord, I appear before you in the character of an advocate for the City of London; my lord, the City of London herself ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... incident occurs in No. IV of M. Emile Legrand's Receuil de Contes Populaires Grecs (Paris, 1881), where a prince sets out in quest of some maiden acquainted with "figurative language," whom he would marry. He comes upon an old man and his daughter, and overhears the latter address her father in metaphorical terms, which she has to explain to the old man, at which the prince is highly pleased, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... found in this sense elsewhere in the Old Testament or in later Hebrew literature. But, if the proposed rendering be adopted, the reference will be not to a cult of the phallus but to sexual intercourse, a figurative description of idolatry. ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... is by no means a figurative expression, for if this were true there would be no comfort in it to God's children. Yet, as a matter of fact, this prayer of Paul's has been an inspiration to God's people everywhere. It is rather a special Pentecostal privilege for God's children ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... "Sundus," a kind of brocade (low Lat. brocare to figure cloth), silk worked in high relief with gold and silver. The idea is figurative meaning it was hung outside and inside with fine stuff, like the Ka'abah, the "Bride of Meccah." The "lords" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... them swift of foot, graceful in movement, and give them a form like the Apollo's; he may put as much expression as he pleases into their black eyes; he may tessellate their speech as freely as he will with poetical and figurative expressions, drawn from the aspects of the external world: for all this there is authority, and chapter and verse may be cited in support of it. But we have a right to ask that he shall not transcend the bounds of reason ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... both of the other groups, are distinguished by a separate name for either sex: pen and cob for the swan, gander and goose, drake and duck, and the figurative use of some of these terms in such popular sayings as "making ducks and drakes of money," "sauce for the goose," etc., is too familiar to call ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... are puzzled over the meaning of the passage "with skirt uplifted, drew near and fondled me." To the European mind there seems to be nothing obscure in it. The mother probably lifted her skirt to wipe her eyes, when she was crying. It is evidently a figurative way of saying that ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... to the Cabala have lately been condemned, one must know that the Cabala is double; that one is true, the other false. The true and pious one is that which ... elucidates the secret mysteries of the holy law according to the principle of anagogy (i.e. figurative interpretation). This Cabala therefore the Church has never condemned. The false and impious Cabala is a certain mendacious kind of Jewish tradition, full of innumerable vanities and falsehoods, differing but little from necromancy. This kind of superstition, therefore, ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... Perseus terram a monstris liberat Perseus frees the land from monsters (literal separation—actual motion is expressed) (b) Perseus terram tristitia liberat Perseus frees the land from sorrow (figurative ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... suggestions attributed to Brewster and Herschel, in the beginning of the article, about "a transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of vision," etc., etc., belong to that species of figurative writing which comes, most properly, under the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... arrived at Parga, which he now saw for the third time since he had obtained it, when his secretaries informed him that only the rod of Moses could save him from the anger of Pharaoh—a figurative mode of warning him that he had nothing to hope for. But Ali, counting on his usual luck, persisted in imagining that he could, once again, escape from his difficulty by the help of gold and intrigue. Without discontinuing the pleasures in which he was immersed, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... mountains round about Jerusalem; but even as those mountains rose before us glorified, uplifted, and bejewelled by the vague splendours of the sunset, so the form of the history was enlarged and its colours irradiated by the figurative ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... to continue is said to be forty and two months, which would be one-half the tribulation period; and this statement is probably not at all figurative. By his overwhelming supernatural power and wisdom he gains authority over every living thing in the Satanic system, excepting those recorded in the Lamb's book of life. These are not brought under his ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... yearly from the hyperborean regions toward the south, and daily he traverses the firmament in a chariot. He sleeps in a sea-nymph's bosom or rises from the dawn's couch. In all this we see clearly a scarcely figurative description of the material sun and its motions. A quasi-scientific fancy spins these fables almost inevitably to fill the vacuum not yet occupied by astronomy. Such myths are indeed compacted out of wonders, not indeed to add wonder ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the small outline of Dan Jordan's babe in the bed. She hardly understood Paul's figurative words, but vaguely imagined that the apostle was afflicted with something like the wizened child which ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... June 7, 1847) in reference to my saying on the general question of miracles: Why these dubious miracles?—such as curing blindness that may have been cured by a process?—since the unity given to the act of healing is probably (more probably than otherwise) but the figurative unity of the tendency to mythus; or else it is that unity misapprehended and mistranslated by the reporters. Such, again, as the miracles of the loaves—so liable to be utterly gossip, so incapable of being watched or examined amongst a crowd of 7,000 people. Besides, were these people ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Introduction to the Greek and Latin Classics, vol. i., p. 370; which agrees, for the greater part, with the observations in the Bibl. Crevenn., vol. v., 290. The work is a sine qua non with collectors; but in this country it begins to be—to use the figurative language of some of the German bibliographers—"scarcer than a white crow,"—or "a black swan." The reader may admit which simile he pleases—or reject both! But, in sober sadness, it is very rare, and unconscionably ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... says, he transcribed to the letter, without finding how to complete the syllables. And this signified that the Scripture is clear to all, when taken according to base reading; and that this is the faith which occupies the place of the rudiments. Wherefore also the figurative expression is employed, 'reading according to the letter,' while we understand that the gnostic unfolding of Scriptures, when faith has already reached an advanced state, is likened to reading according to the ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... slightest degree from the orthodox opinion. He utterly refuses to compromise with any modern theorists. To all such he says, "The narration of Moses is historical and is to be received in its natural sense, and no right-thinking man will deny this." To those who favoured the figurative interpretation he says, "With such reasonings any passage of Scripture ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the learned man's astonishment, when that unaccountable person flung the money on the pavement, and requested in figurative terms to be allowed the pleasure of fighting him ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... keen delight to the few enlightened travellers who sojourn within its borders. It is a field which has been neglected by anthologists and essayists; one of its few serious recognitions being in a certain "Treatise of Figurative Language," which says: "Nonsense; shall we dignify that with a place on our list? Assuredly will vote for doing so every one who hath at all duly noticed what admirable and wise uses it can be, and often is, put to, though never before in rhetoric has it been so highly honored. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... precision [Footnote: Hysterical precision. What does this mean?] on the ledge of the parapet, passing each other at whisker's length, but cutting each other dead. [Footnote: Cutting each other dead. Have you ever thought of the quaint absurdity of this figurative expression?] Not a cat had a look or a sniff for his fellow; not a cat so much as guessed at another's existence. Among those hundred-and-three restless Spirits there was not a cat that did not affect ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... precepts of the Gospel were given, were in very different circumstances from those in which we are placed. The injunctions were drawn rather tighter than is quite necessary, in order to allow for a little relaxation in practice. The expressions of the sacred Writers are figurative; the ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... 33: He is smitten)—Ver. 78. "Habet," literally "He has it." This was the expression used by the spectators at the moment when a Gladiator was wounded by his antagonist. In the previous line, in the words "captus est," a figurative allusion is made to the "retiarius," a Gladiator who was provided with a net, with which he endeavored ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... morning. Ballantyne blames the Ossianic monotony of my principal characters. Now they are not Ossianic. The language of the Ossianic poetry is highly figurative; that of the knights of chivalry may be monotonous, and probably is, but it cannot be Ossianic. Sooth to say, this species of romance of chivalry is an exhaustible subject. It affords materials for splendid description ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... disappointment. Many have turned away with their extravagant anticipations materially chagrined. This might be expected in a casual observer. It is true, some portions of the Mississippi do not present that vastness which a person would very naturally expect, having previously accepted literally the figurative appellations that have been applied to it. The Mississippi is not superficially a great stream, but when it is recognized as the mighty conduit of the surplus waters of fifty large streams, some of which are as large as itself, besides receiving innumerable of less pretensions—when ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the frequent success that attended such efforts is their highest praise. He seldom attempted an ambitious flight, and when he did his best friends felt it was not his true line. He dealt but little in figurative language, except when argument failed him; still he has left some specimens of much beauty in this style. In his great speech introducing Catholic Emancipation in 1829, he told Parliament it had but two courses to follow—to advance or to recede; to advance by conceding the ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... explained to the chiefs of the numerous tribes the terms of the treaties made at Forts McIntosh and Harmer, and demanded that they be ratified with additional concessions and grants. Many of the replies, in the figurative language of the Indians, are eloquent appeals to their "Great Father" and their "Elder Brothers" to allow them to possess in peace the land of their fathers; that they were not represented when these treaties were made, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... General Valencia, writing perhaps under some inspiring influence, is more figurative in his discourse. "Soldiers of Liberty!" he exclaims; "Anarchy put out its head, and your arms drowned it in a moment." This would have been a finer figure in the days of the great lakes. And again he exclaims—"Mexicans! my heart feels itself wounded by the deepest grief, and all humanity ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... mystifying His hearers by an unusual use of so exact a vehicle for expressing definite thought as the Greek language, and that on the most momentous subject of which He ever spoke to men. It is a canon of interpretation, according to Alford, that "a figurative sense of words is never admissible except when required by the context." The context, in most cases, is not only directly unfavorable to a figurative meaning, but in innumerable instances in Christ's teaching Life is broadly contrasted with Death. In the teaching of the apostles, again, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... injunction to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons." They hold with strict fidelity to what they conceive to be the literal teachings of the Bible as expressed in its poetical and highly figurative language. ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... next? How much would it have helped poor Belisarius, in his sore estate, if he had kept a record of his household expenses, as my friend Minimus does? By the same token, he sometimes makes odd misentries, pious figurative fictions, in order to save the feelings of Mrs. Minimus, who is auditor-general and comptroller of the household. And speaking of Belisarius, just fancy the hard fate of that gallant and decayed soldier! Figure him left naked by the master whom he had served so well, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... greater work. The omission of a future state of reward and punishment, in the Mosaic writings, was perpetually urged as a proof that the mission was not of divine origin: the ablest defenders strained at obscure or figurative passages, to force unsatisfactory inferences; but they were looking after what could not be found. Warburton at once boldly acknowledged it was not there; at once adopted all the objections of the infidels: and roused the curiosity ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... enabled to behold one's Soul, or, a sort of double existence is realised in consequence of which the Soul becomes an object of internal survey to the Soul itself. Very probably, writers on yoga employ this language in a figurative sense. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to hear that the Longfellow is a very jolly fellow, a lover of fun and good dinners, and of an amiability and personal popularity that have aided not a little the popularity of his writings in verse and prose—for he writes prose too, prettier, quainter, more figurative, and more poetic if anything, than his poetry. He is also a professor at Harvard College, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... out of the blood, and rejects them as "bile." Attributes were given to the liver which can only be predicated of the whole animal; the "appetency" of the liver, it was said, was for the elements of bile, and "biliosity," or the "hepatic sensation," guided the gland to their secretion. Such figurative language, I need not say, explains absolutely nothing of the nature ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... noise, both in a literal and figurative sense, during the greater part of the preceding eight years. It had made the rounds of the principal opera houses on the European continent, but most of the noise came from Paris, and among those who sat in Mr. ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... importance in every sense that St. Meuse should not give way to riot or disorder on that occasion. He hoped and believed it would not—here M. le Maire laid his hand on his heart—but a spark, as I knew, fired tinder, and the St. Meuse populace were at present figurative tinder. I might be ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... New Distemper, or The Dissenters' Usual Pleas for Comprehension, Toleration, and the Renouncing the Covenant, Considered and Discussed. Non Quis sed Quid. London. 1680. 12mo. Second Edition. Pp. 184. (With a figurative frontispiece, representing the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... which was unusually figurative for Carrington, Mrs. Lee could find no ready answer. She could only reply that Carrington's life was worth quite as much as his neighbour's, and that it was worth so much to her, if not to himself, that she would not let ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... to hear that he had shaved his beard—had laid aside his sad-colored clothes, and was adorned like a bridegroom of ancient days. What could be the meaning of all this? Was Toad-in-the-hole mad? or how? Soon after the secret was explained—in more than a figurative sense "the murder was out." For in came the London morning papers, by which it appeared that but three days before a murder, the most superb of the century by many degrees had occurred in the heart of London. I need hardly say, that this was the great ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... passing references to the Cross in "Science and Health," but the word is used generally in a figurative and sentimental way. Mrs. Eddy's cross is simply the pain of being misunderstood and criticised in the preaching and practice of Christian Science, though indeed the Cross of Jesus was also the outcome of hostilities and misunderstandings ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... artifices in order to apologise for the numerous glaring falsehoods and horrid violations of all decency and decorum, which abound in almost every page. Any thing, it seems, will do with these men but the word of God. They ridicule the figurative language of Scripture, but will run allegory-mad in support of the most worthless productions that ever were published. I should think it time lost to translate any of them; and only a sense of duty excites me to read them. An idea, however, of the advantage which ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... an air of hauteur in his countenance, arising from an elevated pride of soul, which did not forsake it when life was extinct. He was habitually taciturn, but, when excited, his eloquence was nervous, concise, and figurative. His dress was plain, and he was never known to indulge in the gaudy decoration of his person, which is the common practice of the Indians. On the day of his death, he wore a dressed deer skin coat and pantaloons. He was present in almost ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Annotations, on its first pages, a "Preface declaring the reason and use of the Book;" and at the last pages a "Table directing to some principal things observed in the Annotations of the Psalms," a list of "Hebrew phrases observed which are somewhat hard and figurative," and also some ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... training of men. Things long hidden appeared discovered with an amazing clearness and nakedness. These men who had awakened, laughed dissolvent laughs, and the old muddle of schools and colleges, books and traditions, the old fumbling, half-figurative, half-formal teaching of the Churches, the complex of weakening and confusing suggestions and hints, amidst which the pride and honor of adolescence doubted and stumbled and fell, became nothing but a curious and pleasantly faded memory. "There must be a common ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew. In its several tribes of gypsies, beggars, thieves, cheats, etc., with an addition of some proverbs, phrases, and figurative speeches, etc. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... to divine the meaning of his visitor. He took it for some figurative form of expression, and, without making any reply, passed his hand over his forehead, as if ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... of this wood." What figurative language! The flatterer adopts the grand style to add dignity to his speech, to make it more attractive. Will the child understand this cunning? Does he know, how could he possibly know, what is meant by ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... information as any one else may obtain from the current gossip of Ullerton. You haven't yet got to the dessous des cartes. Remember what I told you in London. G. S. has the clue to this labyrinth; and what you have to do is to hold on to the coat-tails (in a figurative sense) of his ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... toconverse with the handsome widows." This was an amiable weakness; and it sometimes led him into mischief. Imagination was the ruling power of his mind. His thoughts were twin-born; the thought itself, and its figurative semblance in the outer world. Thus, through the quiet, still waters of his soul each image floated double, "swan ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... first finds himself called upon to pay tributes of this nature as to a being inimitably his superior, he is at the same moment taught by a revelation that this awful superior is the same who created him, and that in a sense more than figurative, he himself is the child of God. There stand the two relations, as declared in Paganism and in Christianity,—both probably true. In the former, man is the essential enemy of the gods, though sheltered by some conventional arrangement; ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... to two principal causes; first and chiefly, because the churchyard cross was always placed here; secondly, because this is the sunny side of the churchyard. The cross, the emblem of all the Christian's hopes, the bright sun shining on the holy ground, figurative of the sun of righteousness, could not fail to bring to mind the comforting assurance that they who slept around would one day rise again. And as the greater part of the congregation entered the church by the south ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... image-worship. On this point Aristotle and the Bible are in accord. The inference is that in the Holy Scriptures there are many metaphors and words with a double or allegoric sense. Such is the case with the word "image." It has two meanings, the one usual and obvious, the other figurative. Here the word must be taken in its figurative sense. God is conceived as the highest Reason, and as reason is the specific attribute which characterizes the human mind, it follows that man, by virtue of his possession of reason, resembles God, and ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... know it—nor do I think it; nor what is more, do you think it; for you are sharp enough to know that where there are so many figurative terms in use to signify murder, it is not probable that had they, on this occasion, wished to signify murder, they would have used a phrase which every one knows expresses an intention to drive a man out of the country. Yes, sir, you ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... answer questions put to him as clearly and as concisely as possible. He should make his statements in plain and simple language, avoiding as much as possible technical terms and figurative expressions, and should not quote authorities in support ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... beside all the usual events in the life of that savage region, the author violates no probability in putting into his mouth the most strange and characteristic stories. The whole are told with a fictitious reproduction of the teser and somewhat monotonous, yet figurative style, proper to all savages. La Grande Kabylie recounts the personal experiences of the author in that yet unconquered country of the Arabs, whither he went with Marshal Bugeaud in his last expedition. Kabylia he describes as a picturesque and productive region. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Legislation,' it must be understood that 'legislation' is here to be understood in a figurative sense only. When we speak of legislation in everyday language, we mean that process of parliamentary activity by which Municipal Statutes are called into existence. Municipal Legislation presupposes a sovereign power, ...
— The League of Nations and its Problems - Three Lectures • Lassa Oppenheim
... bivalve shell-fish. "As happy as a clam at high-water," a figurative expression for ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth |
