"Fluctuation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his existence ashore, he was amazed at the desperate immovability of everything. The world was made up of revolting rigidity and solidity. He felt almost nauseated at seeing all his possessions remain just where he left them, without the slightest fluctuation, or the least ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... we have found that way to protect the farmers' prices from the effects of alternating crop surpluses and crop scarcities, we shall also have found the way to protect the nation's food supply from the effects of the same fluctuation. We ought always to have enough food at prices within the reach of the consuming public. For the consumers in the cities of America, we must find a way to help the farmers to store up in years of plenty enough to avoid hardship ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... a wide, smooth beach of mixed pebbles and fragments of coral. This forms the thoroughfare of the village; the handsomest houses all facing it—the fluctuation of the tides being so inconsiderable that they cause ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... connected, as it is, with this topic, I may be permitted to repeat here the statement made in my letter of acceptance, that in my judgment the feeling of uncertainty inseparable from an irredeemable paper currency, with its fluctuation of values, is one of the greatest obstacles to a return to prosperous times. The only safe paper currency is one which rests upon a coin basis and is at all times and promptly convertible ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... maritime city of Almeria. He retained little more than the name of king, and was supported in even this shadow of royalty by the countenance and treasures of the Castilian sovereigns. Still he trusted that in the fluctuation of events the inconstant nation might once more return to his standard and replace him on the throne ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... have chanced to win in consequence of a similar, though not equal mistake. To both, I affirm, that the opinions and arguments, I am about to detail, have been the settled convictions of my mind for the last ten or twelve years, with some brief intervals of fluctuation, and those only in lesser points, and known only to the companions of my fire-side. From both and from all my readers, I solicit a gracious attention to the following explanations: first, on the congruity of the following numbers, with the general plan and object of 'The Friend;' and secondly, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... always tending to a level.[301] A permanent elevation at one point is impossible. The agency by which this levelling or equilibrating process is carried out is competition, involving what Smith called the 'higgling of the market.' The momentary fluctuation, again, supposes the action of 'supply and demand,' which, as they vary, raise and depress prices. To illustrate the working of this machinery, to show how previous writers had been content to notice a particular change without following out the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... Bentham, is an article of merchandise, and that whatever represents money is equally merchandise," resumed the president; "allowing also that it is notorious that the commercial note, bearing this or that signature, is liable to the fluctuation of all commercial values, rises or falls in the market, is dear at one moment, and is worth nothing at another, the courts decide—ah! how stupid I am, I beg your pardon—I am inclined to think you could buy up your brother's debts for ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... the amphitheater of mountain-slopes are melting most rapidly, the level of the Lake rises, and a maximum amount of water escapes through its outlet. According to the observations of Capt. John McKinney, made at his residence on the western shore of this Lake, the average seasonal fluctuation of level is about 0.61 of a meter; but in extreme seasons it sometimes amounts to 1.37 meters. The Lake of Geneva, in like manner, is liable to fluctuations of level amounting to from 1.95 to 2.60 meters, from the melting ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... commodities continue unchanged. There is more gold at one time than another, and more wheat at one time than another; so that the relation between the two is not a determinate, but a variable one; and it is this variation which causes or constitutes the fluctuation of prices. If wheat increases in quantity, more of it will be given for the same money; and if it decreases, less of it will be given for the same money; on the other hand, if money increases, more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... to cure himself of dyspepsia and affections of the eye, which clung to him through life, the dyspepsia producing fluctuation of spirits, and occasional hypochondria, which, it might have been thought, would seriously interfere with his success as a court favourite. "At one time he astonished the observer by his sanguine, bubbling, provoking, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... woman, has an insufficient amount of thyroxin in her blood and tissues. She is clumsy and awkward and will stumble when endeavoring to walk upstairs. Any effort is almost paralyzed because the range of fluctuation of energy, the ability to mobilize energy, in turn dependent upon an ability to increase the metabolic rate, is limited. In slang phrase, she cannot step on it. Her existence is set to go at a rate in the neighborhood of forty ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... temperature, admitting a little fresh air at favourable opportunities, to prevent them from being injured by damp. When the heat is kept up by dung linings, constant watching will be necessary to prevent any fluctuation of temperature, having materials at hand to assist in ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... this adjusts itself again, by the fact, that a rapid advance will produce sellers and vice versa. A further element in the market, is the "jobber", whose main object is to take advantage of the small fluctuation caused by chance, but we must not forget the big speculators. By these, we do not mean those despicable people who aim to snatch a profit, and who, on having to face a loss, plead the gaming act. Experience and force of circumstances ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer
... here to observe, that the fluctuation of exchange will naturally strengthen that expectation, and nothing but steady, firm perseverance on the part of the administration, can, or indeed ought, to produce a ready sale on good terms. Bills of exchange are remitted to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... misgiving about Himself. Only, I think, moments of a dreadful insight when he heard behind him the creeping of the tide of oblivion, and it frightened him. He was sensitive to every little fluctuation in his vogue. He had the fear of its vanishing before his eyes. And there he was, shut up among all his splendor with his fear; and it was his wife's work and Antigone's to keep it from him, to stand between him and that vision. He was like a child when his terror was on him; he would ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... of America against the negroes, between whom there has been little sympathy and little respect; and is it not possible they should appeal to the commercial classes of the North—and the rich commercial classes in all countries, who, from the uncertainty of their possessions and the fluctuation of their interests, are rendered always timid and very often corrupt—is it not possible, I say, that they might prefer the union of their whole country upon the basis of the South, rather than that union which many Members of this House look ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... the punishment of hearing these reproaches from men of honor, was the victim of a rapid and violent fluctuation of feeling. Hope, fear, triumph, doubt, remorse, alternately swayed him. As he saw the fugitives leaping from the walls, he shouted exultingly, without accurately discerning what manner of men they were, that the city was his, that four thousand of his brave soldiers were there, and were hurling ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... buying up and storing immense quantities of our home manufactures. This they must have done upon some abstruse but utterly false calculation of augmented demand from abroad, making no allowance for change of season, foreign fluctuation, or any other of the occult causes which influence the markets of the world. The result, as is well known, was most disastrous. Trade on a sudden grew slack. The capitalists, in alarm, threw open the whole of their accumulated stock at greatly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... which finds a number of proofs on each side of the question. Both these kinds of probabilities cause fear and hope; which can only proceed from that property, in which they agree, viz, the uncertainty and fluctuation they bestow on the imagination by that contrariety of views, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... length of time is an integral part of the scheme. There are many important factors governing this variation, and even if the most elaborate calculations are made they are liable to be upset at any time by the unexpected discharge of large quantities of trade wastes. With a small population the hourly fluctuation in the quantity of sewage flowing into the sewers is very great, but it reduces as the population increases, owing to the diversity of the occupations and habits of the inhabitants. In all cases where the residential portions of the district are straggling, and the outfall ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... example two railway lines doing business between the same points. We have fully pointed out the practical working of this sort of competition in the chapter devoted to railways. It is plain that the general effect is a fluctuation of rates between wide limits, an enormous waste of capital and labor, and ultimately, the permanent death of competition by the consolidation ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... level, at the outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed by the surrounding hills is insignificant in amount, and this overflow must be referred to causes which affect the deep springs. This same summer the pond has begun to fall again. It is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether periodical or not, appears thus to require many years for its accomplishment. I have observed one rise and a part of two falls, and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the water will again be as low as I have ever known it. Flint's Pond, a ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... distended, flattened at the sides unless it is very full. The skin may be stretched tense, superficial veins are distended. The navel may be flat or even protrude and around it the vessels may be greatly enlarged. There is fluctuation when you tap sharply at one side, while holding your hand on the other side you feel a ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... and four in the afternoon, after which it ebbed all night, and was low water about six in the morning. The water rises and falls between eight and nine feet, sometimes more, sometimes less; but I doubt whether this fluctuation is not rather the effect of the sea and land-breeze, than of a regular tide. We anchored here with our best bower in twenty-seven fathom water, with a bottom of sand and mud; we veered into the cove a cable and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... a farewell we fluctuate sharply between the very distant and the close and homely: and even in memory the fluctuation occurs, the grander scene casting us back on the modestly nestling, and that, when it has refreshed us, conjuring imagination to embrace the splendour and wonder. But the wrench of an immediate division from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... absolute divinity of the Logos, if their rapid ascent towards the throne of heaven had not been imperceptibly checked by the apprehension of violating the unity and sole supremacy of the great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The suspense and fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by these opposite tendencies, may be observed in the writings of the theologians who flourished after the end of the apostolic age, and before the origin of the Arian controversy. Their suffrage is claimed, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... said Paul, 'whether you did them or no. It is not a question of charm, but of health, dear, and Laurent is a very sage old gentleman indeed, and you may follow his counsel with perfect certainty. I can't help owning,' he went on, 'that I've been a little nervous lately about the fluctuation of your spirits, and I'm glad he happened to drop in and have a ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... have great economic advantages in that they would be self-reliant and self-contained, and would be less subject to fluctuation in their prosperity brought about by national disasters and commercial crises than the present unorganized rural communities are. They would have all their business under local control; and, aiming at feeding, clothing, and manufacturing ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... prematurely old look, and that they die at a comparatively early age. This is not strange. They live too fast. Their bodies and brains are taxed too severely to last long. They pass their days in a state of great excitement. Every little fluctuation of the market elates or depresses them to an extent greater than they think. At night they are either planning the next day's campaign, or are hard at work at the hotels. On Sundays their minds are still on their business, and some are ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the market as you may agree, slowly, thus preventing any material fluctuation in value," he went on. "How to hold this tremendous reserve secretly and still permit the operation of the other diamond mines of the world is the great problem ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... measuring the strength of the Order, for the membership fluctuated widely; so that in the year 1883, when it reached 50,000 no less than one-half of this number passed in and out of the organization during the year. The enormous fluctuation, while reducing the economic strength of the Order, brought large masses of people under its influence and prepared the ground for the upheaval in the middle of the eighties. It also brought the Order to the attention of the public press. The labor press gave the Order great publicity, but the ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... been very different. It was characterised by rapid conversions to Christianity on a large scale, and often, after the lapse of a few years, by sanguinary revolts against the Faith. The chief reason of such fluctuation seems to have been this, viz. because all that was profound, and of venerable antiquity in the Northern religion, was in sympathy with Christianity, as the religion of sanctity and self-sacrifice; while all that was savage in ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... Hospital, had a special canula for the purpose, which expands at its extremity after its introduction, and thus is not apt to slip.[160] Some surgeons insist that the surgeon should be able to ascertain the existence of fluctuation between the finger in the rectum, and the other hand above the pubes. This is exceedingly difficult to elicit when the bladder is very much distended, and from the constrained position of ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... less subject to fluctuation than that of most other vegetables. There is comparatively little competition between different localities, and about the only causes of low prices are temporary and local over-production, and forced sales caused by damaged stock. One year with another, a dollar and a half a ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... calling for reevaluation of the existing sources of income; and in this process there will always be a tendency to rhythmic swing like that of a river, which carries the stream of prices now on this side of the valley, now on that. But this fluctuation of general prices surely can be so greatly moderated in magnitude and in evil results as to make the word "crisis" almost a misnomer. It is toward the attainment of this irreducible minimum of uncertainty and disaster in business that efforts should ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... wishes lead her to remain with us, my husband," replied Mrs. Hamilton, impressively. She had not spoken before, for she had been too attentively observing the fluctuation of Ellen's countenance; but now her tone was such as to check the forced smile with which her niece had tried to reply to Mr. Hamilton's suggestion of becoming old and irritable, and bring the painfully-checked tears back to ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... wave. Suddenly the sense of desolation yields to soothing play of waters—a berceuse of the sea—and now a song sings softly (in horn), though strangely jarring on the murmuring lullaby. The soothing cheer is anon broken by a shift of new tone. There is a fluctuation of pleasant and strange sounds; a dulcet air on rapturous harmony is hushed by ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... weeks ago the manager of a large department store in San Francisco was kind enough to show me his record of departmental profits for a number of months. The fluctuation in relative profits of different departments month by month was apparent, especially the fact that after a certain month several departments which had previously earned high profits became relatively much ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... imitating. A change of administration there, Mr. Eaton adds, only affects a few scores of persons occupying the highest positions: the great mass of the officials live and die in their places, indifferent to the fluctuation of parliamentary majorities or the rise and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... suspense, his complexion browned and paled out of its healthful English tints. But this was not because he was weak any longer, or in diminished health. He was worn by incessant travelling, by anxiety and the fluctuation of hope and fear; but the great tension had strung his nerves and strengthened his vitality, though it had worn off every superfluous particle of flesh. A keen anxiety mingled with indignation was in his eyes as he looked across the gate which the clergyman ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... accustomed to regard money as of constant value, and an honest money must necessarily conform to this belief. If money varies in value, the people are deluded, and many are wronged if they are unaware of the fluctuation. If they become aware of it,—as they generally do by a bitter experience,—they are confronted with an uncertainty that is most detrimental to any business or enterprise. Imagine what our business would be with our measures ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... the middle of the process, while the patient was conversing with the doctor, she was suddenly "obsessed." Coincidental with this obsession, the galvanometer showed a tremendous and permanent fluctuation, indicating that the resistance of the body to the current had suddenly ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... osteo-myelitis. The symptoms corresponded with the main seat of the suppuration; only moderate swelling of the limbs occurred, this mainly consisting in soft superficial oedema; often there was no redness, and fluctuation was difficult to determine. At the same time symptoms of constitutional infection, such as continued fever, rapid pulse, restlessness, loss of strength, progressive anaemia, and emaciation, were marked. Pyaemia, as evidenced by secondary deposits, was, however, rare; ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... sort in nearly all the cases, 93 per cent. of the women, 77 per cent. of the men. Discussing the returns more minutely, Starbuck finds that only 6 per cent. are relapses from the religious faith which the conversion confirmed, and that the backsliding complained of is in most only a fluctuation in the ardor of sentiment. Only six of the hundred cases report a change of faith. Starbuck's conclusion is that the effect of conversion is to bring with it "a changed attitude towards life, which is fairly constant and permanent, although the feelings fluctuate.... In other words, the persons ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... This fluctuation was obvious in a narrative I have lately seen, the story of the life of Countess Emily Plater, the heroine of the last revolution in Poland. The dignity, the purity, the concentrated resolve, the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... weed, raised the duty to 6s. 8d. per lb. in addition to the original duty of 2d. On March 29, 1615, there was a grant to a licensed importer "of the late imposition of 2s. per lb. on tobacco"—which shows that there must have been considerable fluctuation between 1604 and 1615—while in September 1621 the duty stood at 9d. Through James's reign much dissatisfaction was expressed about the importation of Spanish tobacco, and the outcome of this may probably ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... the mythological fables (such, at least, as they are known to us,) could have furnished sufficient materials for the compass of an entire tragedy. It is true, the poets, in the various editions of the same story, had a great latitude of selection; and this very fluctuation of tradition justified them in going still farther, and making considerable alterations in the circumstances of an event, so that the inventions employed for this purpose in one piece sometimes contradict the story as given by the same poet in another. We must, however, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... above twenty shillings in value. They remarked that the farthing, which is the 960th part of L.1, might be set down as the 1000th, which would be a variation of 4 per cent. only—somewhat less than that to which copper is liable from fluctuation of price. We have thus the units at the one end of the scale, and the thousands at the other; it remains only to interpose the tens and hundreds between them, by introducing a florin as the tenth ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... Madeline on the following day, feeling something as if he were making an unholy compact with the devil. He could not possibly have said whether he really expected anything from it or not. His mind had been in a state of bewilderment and constant fluctuation during the entire interview, at one moment carried away by the contagious confidence of the doctor's tone, and impressed by his calm, clear, scientific explanations and the exhibition of the electrical apparatus, and the next moment reacting into utter scepticism ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... Sunday.—Twenty-four years have I lived.... Where is the continuous work which ought to fill up the life of a Christian without intermission?... I have been growing, that is certain; in good or evil? Much fluctuation; often a supposed progress, terminating in finding myself at, or short of, the point which I deemed I had left behind me. Business and political excitement a tremendous trial, not so much alleviating as forcibly ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... felt quite affectionately towards it, as one who has journeyed far may feel towards some old landmark of his youth which he finds unaltered on his return, from wandering in strange lands. The immutability of things, as compared with the constant fluctuation of life and circumstance, struck her poignantly. Here was this rock—cast up from the bowels of the earth thousands of years ago and washed by the waves of a million tides—still unchanged and changeless, while, for her, the face of the whole world ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... movable solenoid causes the instrument to be uninfluenced by external magnetic forces. Mr. Boys showed on the screen an image of an electric arc, and by its side was a spot of light, whose position indicated the energy, and showed every flicker of the light and fluctuation of current in the arc. He showed on the screen that if the poles are brought too near the energy expended is less, though the current is stronger, and that if the poles are too far apart, though the electromotive force is greater the energy is less; so that the apparatus may ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... observe his bearing under circumstances that are often known to test human fortitude as severely as death itself. He could, however, perceive no change; not even the unsteadiness of a nerve or muscle was visible, nor the slightest fluctuation in the ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... revolutions which have marked the interval in the manners, habits, and opinions of men. Is it reasonable, then, to suppose that any thing not immutable in its nature could possibly have withstood such continual fluctuation? But how have all these changes affected this visible image of Truth? In no wise; not a jot; and because what is true is independent of opinion: it is the same to us now as it was to the men of the dust of antiquity. The unlearned ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... bereft of all dignity, all steadfastness. The slave of every impulse; blown about by the predominant gale; a scene of eternal fluctuation. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... a great contrast between the ecclesiastical administration, which exhibited a dignified stability, resting on fixed rules and ancient traditions, and the civil government, which was exposed to continual fluctuation by the change of persons, of measures, and of systems; for few Popes continued the plans of their predecessors. The new Pontiff commenced his reign generally with a profound sense of the abuses ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the two hung side by side. Winford eased the tender in toward the big craft, fully realizing that the meteor warning dial in the control room of the freighter would hint at his presence by its pronounced fluctuation. But there was no help for it; he could only take the chance that the navigator in charge would not investigate. Winford peered up anxiously at the windows of the control room. Apparently the little craft ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat
... its application to the United States, where trade floats almost exclusively upon a paper ocean, it is yet an elementary and local view;—local, as not comprising the state of facts in England and France; and elementary, inasmuch as it omits all reference to the possibility of a great fluctuation of prices being produced by other means than an excess or deficiency of money.[A] In France, as we know, the currency is almost entirely metallic, while in England it is metallic so far as the lesser exchanges of commerce are concerned; there is an obvious impropriety, therefore, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... if the pencil was moved up instantaneously to the top of its stroke, and was also moved down instantaneously to the bottom of its stroke, and if it remained without fluctuation while at the top and bottom, the figure described by the pencil would be a perfect rectangle, of which the vertical height would represent the total pressure of the steam and vacuum, and therefore the total pressure urging the piston of the engine. But in practice the pencil will neither ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... direction of the wind was made after Andree's departure, and proved that there was a fluctuation in direction from S.W. to N.W., indicating that the voyagers may have been borne across towards Siberia. This, however, can be but surmise. All aeronauts of experience know that it is an exceedingly difficult manoeuvre to keep a trail rope dragging on the ground if it is desirable ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... father, and the real trouble that had been fretting him, it seemed, was that now he repented and wanted to follow Cardinal to Cambridge, and—a year lost—go on with science again. He felt it was a discreditable fluctuation; he knew it would be a considerable expense; and so he took two weeks before he could screw himself up ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... officer commanding in the Highlands, and was used for the reception of stores, to be distributed into the neighbouring posts as occasion might require. Its strength, like that of all others depending for defence on militia, was subject to great fluctuation. As soon as the ice was out of the river, General Howe took advantage of its occasional weakness, to carry on an expedition against it, for the purpose of destroying the stores there deposited, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... have been made. Players without number have gone stumbling over the piano keys with a tottering, spasmodic gait, serenely fancying they are heeding the master's design. Reckless, out-of-time playing disfigures what is meant to express the fluctuation of thought, the soul's agitation, the rolling of the waves of time and eternity. The rubato, from rubare, to rob, represents a pliable movement that is certainly as old as the Greek drama in declamation, and was employed in intoning the Gregorian chant. The recitative of the sixteenth ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... the government financial position; this will be apparent from having achieved a government budgetary position without a deficit that is excessive as determined in accordance with Article 104c(6); - the observance of the normal fluctuation margins provided for by the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System, for at least two years, without devaluing against the currency of any other Member State; - the durability of convergence achieved by the ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union
... in giving the history of chairs, in his "Cabinet Makers from 1750 to 1840": "Extravagance of taste and fluctuation of fashion had reached high water mark due to increase of wealth in England and her colonies. From the plain, stately pieces of Queen Anne the public turned to the rococo French designs of early Chippendale, then tiring ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... attention to the fact that the terrible battle of competition between the different nations of the world is no transitory phenomenon, and does not depend upon this or that fluctuation of the market, or upon any condition that is likely to pass away. It is the inevitable result of that which takes place throughout nature and affects man's part of nature as much as any other—namely, the struggle for existence, arising out of the constant tendency of all creatures ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... scanty, firewood only to be obtained from some distance, the open undulating surface of Jongri was particularly exposed to heavy snow-drifts, and the path was, at the best, a scarcely perceptible track. I followed every change of the wind, every fluctuation of the barometer and thermometer, each accession of humidity, and the courses of the clouds aloft. At 7 p.m., the wind suddenly shifted to the west, and the thermometer instantly rose from 20 degrees to 30 degrees. After 8 p.m., the temperature fell again, and the wind drew round from west ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... form a rational conjecture with respect to the termination of her disorder. She has not had a violent fit of frenzy since I saw you, but her mind is in a most unsettled state, and attending to the constant fluctuation of it is far more harassing than the watching these raving fits that had not the least tincture of reason. Her ideas are all disjointed, and a number of wild whims float on her imagination, and fall from her unconnectedly something like strange ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Prime Minister himself was burnt in effigy during a riot at Northampton; great excitement prevailed throughout the country, and Lord John Russell moved as an amendment "That this House, considering the evils which have been caused by the present corn laws and especially by the fluctuation of the graduated or sliding scale, is not prepared to adopt the measure of her Majesty's government, which is founded on the same principles and is likely to ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... happens that the prices of sugar and tin-plate rise and fall together; show how the fruit-crop may cause this fluctuation. ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... weapon against Authority some implement that requires sweat in the forging Authority may go unarmed. The task of contriving such weapons is early abandoned. In three months George's hot resolve was cooled; in six it was forgotten; at the end of three years, after considerable fluctuation, his allowance stood at minus two pounds ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the lowest line at which snow continues during summer, or, in other words, it is the maximum of height to which the snow-line recedes in the course of the year. But this elevation must be distinguished from three other phenomena, namely, the annual fluctuation of the snow-line, the occurrence of sporadic falls of snow, and the existence of glaciers, which appear to be peculiar to the temperate and cold zones. This last phenomenon, since Saussure's immortal work on the Alps, has received much light, in recent times, ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... pull upon it, this way and that, as it was agitated by the fluctuation of the water, it soon drew it down, and the boat, being now entirely at liberty, began to move slowly off from the shore. It soon drifted out where it was more fully exposed to the action of the wind, when it began to move much faster. And thus, while our party ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... to write to Mrs Delvile, but what now, to her, was either her defence or accusation? She had solemnly renounced all further intercourse with her, she had declared against writing again, and prohibited her letters: and, therefore, after much fluctuation of opinion, her delicacy concurred with her judgment, to conclude it would be most proper, in a situation so intricate, to leave the matter to chance, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Then he assumed the new and final proportions of a childish invalid—his fierce, true grasp of things, his wide-sweeping and ambitious viewpoint narrowed hastily to the four walls of the sick room. Instead of the stock-market fluctuation bringing forth his "Gad, that's good!" or oaths of disapproval, the taste of an especially good custard or the way the masseuse neglected his left forearm were cause for ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... adversity. What a heart must I have to rejoice in prosperity with him whose offers I have accepted, and then, when poverty comes, haggard as it may be, for me to trifle with the oracles of Heaven, and change with every fluctuation that may interrupt our happiness —like the politician who runs the political gantlet for office one day, and the next day, because the horizon is darkened a little, he is seen running for his life, for fear he might perish in its ruins. Where is the philosophy, where is the consistency, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... system of an id, as I conceive it, is in a state of continual fluctuation upwards and downwards. In most cases the fluctuations will counteract one another, because the passive streams of nutriment soon change, but in many cases the limit from which a return is possible will be passed, and then the determinants concerned will continue ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... and foot are everted, and, in children, the tibia may be displaced backwards (Fig. 124). The wasting of muscles continues, the part becomes hot to the touch, the swelling increases, and may show areas of softening or fluctuation from abscess formation. ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... inquisitive gaze of the bystanders; and his companion observing the fluctuation of his countenance, added, as the door was ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... he takes precautionary measures; he raises the price of grains. The manufacturer does the same with his products. The reaction comes, and, after some fluctuation, the farm-rent—which the tenant thought to put upon the manufacturer's shoulders—becomes nearly balanced. So that, while he is congratulating himself upon his success, he finds himself again impoverished, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... sending them to prison. Any man who would work, no matter what he had done, should be made free. The Government would then pay the man in Labor-Exchange Script. Of course, if the Government guaranteed the script, it was real money; otherwise, it was wildcat money, subject to fluctuation and depreciation. Very naturally, the Government refused to guarantee this script, or to invest in the co-operative stores. To make the script valuable, it had to be issued in the form of a note, redeemable in gold at ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... lesson for us, brethren, in times of fluctuation, of change of opinion, of shaking of institutions, and of new social, economical, and political questions, threatening day by day to reorganise society. 'We have a strong city'; and whatever may come—and much destructive will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... frequently, for want of ready money, remains long unsold. They take nothing but cash in payment; for, notwithstanding the endeavours of our Government, the notes of the Bank of France have never been in circulation among them. They have also been subject to losses by the fluctuation of paper money, by extortions, requisitions, and by the maximum. In this class of my countrymen remains still some little national spirit and some independence of character; but these are far from being favourable to Bonaparte, or to the Imperial Government, which the yearly increase of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... left the bay on the 19th of September, yet, by the irregularity and fluctuation of the wind in the offing, it was the 22d of that month, in the evening, before we lost sight of Juan Fernandez; after which we continued our course to the eastward, in order to join the Tryal off Valparaiso. Next night the weather proved squally, and we split our main top-sail, which we then ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the words are selected and arranged, the first part of the work to be considered is the orthography, which was long vague and uncertain; which at last, when its fluctuation ceased, was in many cases settled but by accident; and in which, according to your Lordship's observation, there is still great uncertainty among the best criticks; nor is it easy to state a rule by which we may ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... 2. COMPLEX CHANGE % 149. Changeableness. — N. changeableness &c. adj.; mutability, inconstancy; versatility, mobility; instability, unstable equilibrium; vacillation &c. (irresolution) 605; fluctuation, vicissitude; alternation &c. (oscillation) 314. restlessness &x. adj. fidgets, disquiet; disquietude, inquietude; unrest; agitation &c. 315. moon, Proteus, chameleon, quicksilver, shifting sands, weathercock, harlequin, Cynthia of the minute, April showers[obs3]; wheel ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... general favour or cultivation one hundred and forty years later, at least in the richer and more important districts of the country. In a pamphlet printed in 1723, one hundred and thirty-seven years after the introduction of the potato, speaking of the fluctuation of the markets, the writer says: "We have always either a glut or a dearth; very often there are not ten days distance between the extremity of the one and the other; such a want of policy is there (in Dublin especially) on ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... of a substantial epic poem. It was evidently regarded as something considerable, as a work of eminent virtue and respectability. The Northern poems, treasured and highly valued as they evidently were, belong to a different fashion. In the Beowulf of the existing manuscript the fluctuation and variation of the older epic tradition has been controlled by editors who have done their best to establish a text of the poem. The book has an appearance of authority. There is little of this in the Icelandic manuscript. The Northern poems have evidently been taken as they ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... not know to this day what particular question he asked, but he vividly remembers that she answered, and every line or fluctuation of her face ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... she confessed herself helpless in this compilation and diagnosis of so many facts and figures. Dick was prompt enough to report his stock transactions, and he was eager enough to discuss the probable fluctuation of this or that stock; but when asked to go over what Larry had done, he refused flatly and good-humoredly to "sit in any such ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... republished in the "American Naturalist," September, 1880.) The increase in the number of ridges in the three species of Arca seems to be a very noteworthy fact, as does the increase of size in so many, yet not all, the species. What a constant state of fluctuation the whole organic world seems to be in! It is interesting to hear that everywhere the first change apparently is in the proportional numbers of the species. I was much struck with the fact in the upraised ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... been reading over all your letters consecutively, and I do not feel that I have thanked you half enough for the extreme pleasure which they have given me, and for their utility. I see in them evidence of fluctuation in the degree of credence you give to the theory; nor am I at all surprised at this, for many and many fluctuations I ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... on gravitation in 1917 and his latest researches on molecular forces confirmed Maiorana's claim that the screening of gravitation has been shown to exist. In 1917, says Professor See, 'I explained the fluctuation of the Moon's main motion by the circular refraction of the sun's gravitation waves, as they are propagated through the solid body of our earth at ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... for some years, as young maidens usually cherish the desire of the Altar—the dream of the Gravestone. But the hoard was amassed so slowly;—now old Gawtrey was attacked by illness;—now there was some little difficulty in the rent; now some fluctuation in the price of work; and now, and more often than all, some demand on her charity, which interfered with, and drew from, the pious savings. This was a sentiment in which her new friend sympathised deeply; for he, too, remembered that his first gold had bought that humble stone which still preserved ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... When, for example, the walls of the abscess are thick and rigid, or when its contents are under excessive tension, the fluid wave cannot be elicited. On the other hand, a sensation closely resembling fluctuation may often be recognised in oedematous tissues, in certain soft, solid tumours such as fatty tumours or vascular sarcomata, in aneurysm, and in a muscle when it is ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... a family of seven for 10 days; five of the family to consume 0.8 as much as an adult. Calculate the cost of the food; then calculate on the same basis the probable cost of food for one year, adding 20 per cent for fluctuation in market price and additional foods not included in ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... being a missionary. He read about travels in Africa, about the work of Henry Martyn, and about the Moravian missions. He heard about China and the need of medical missionaries there; and he says that "from this time my efforts were constantly devoted toward this object without any fluctuation." ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... from Grayson waiting Maxwell. "Well, you open it," he said, listlessly, to his wife, and in fact he felt himself at that moment physically unable to cope with the task, and he dreaded any fluctuation of emotion that would follow, even if ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... never heard of Scotland; and when he asked the way to Panley she lost patience and threatened to set her dog at him. This discouraged him so much that he was afraid to speak to the other strangers whom he met. Having the sun as a compass, he oscillated between Scotland and Panley according to the fluctuation of his courage. At last he yielded to hunger, fatigue, and loneliness, devoted his remaining energy to the task of getting back to school; struck the common at last, and hastened to surrender himself to the doctor, who menaced him with immediate expulsion. Gully was greatly concerned at having ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... gangrene, or death. Improvement may go on slowly to complete recovery, or the malady may subside into a subacute and chronic form with induration. Matter (abscess) may be recognized by the presence of a soft spot, where pressure with two fingers will detect fluctuation from one to the other. When there is liquid exudation into the scrotum, or sac, fluctuation may also be felt, but the liquid can be made out to be around the testicle and can be pressed up into the abdomen through the inguinal canal. When abscess occurs in ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... financial criteria of selection hold much importance. As a family ascends in economic position, its standards of sexual selection are likely to change. And in large sections of the population, there is a fluctuation in the standards from generation to generation. There is reason to suspect that the standards of sexual selection among educated young women in the United States to-day are higher than they were a quarter of a century, or even ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... the plan above proposed, I will consider in this chapter, first, the laws which regulate the denudation of strata and the deposition of sediment; secondly, those which govern the fluctuation in the animate world; and thirdly, the mode in which subterranean ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... load, and with consequently only small fluctuation in the volume of steam to be condensed, the conditions are most favorable for regulating the amount of circulating water necessary. Naturally, an excess of water above the required minimum will not affect the pressure conditions inside the condenser. ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... in which the legitimate trader in futures protects himself from price fluctuation is easily understood. While a deal in cash wheat would refer to a definite shipment as shown by warehouse receipts, a deal for future delivery is merely an obligation involving a given quantity of grain at a ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... found?'[212] Even then growers had to face foreign competition, as the customs accounts prove that considerable quantities were imported into England. In 1482 a cwt. was sold for 8s. and 1 cwt. 21 lb. for 19s. 6d., an early example of that fluctuation in price which has long characterized them.[213] Their average price about this time seems to have been ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... varying conditions of the environment cause it to fluctuate. Each of these strains is termed a PURE LINE. If we imagine that there are three such pure lines in our imaginary case, with average weights 10, 12, 14 grains respectively, and if the range of fluctuation of each of these pure lines is 12 grains, then our curve must be represented as made up ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... naked eye, in which state it remains about five months, and continues increasing during the remainder of its period. Such is the general course of its phases. But the mean period above assigned would appear to be subject to a cyclical fluctuation embracing eighty-eight such periods, and having the effect of gradually lengthening and shortening alternately those intervals to the extent of twenty-five days one way and the other. The irregularities in the degree of brightness attained at ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... motion, motion to and fro.] Oscillation. — N. oscillation; vibration, libration; motion of a pendulum; nutation; undulation; pulsation; pulse. alternation; coming and going &c. v.; ebb and flow, flux and reflux, ups and down. fluctuation; vacillation &c. (irresolution) 605. wave, vibratiuncle[obs3], swing, beat, shake, wag, seesaw, dance, lurch, dodge; logan[obs3], loggan[obs3], rocking-stone, vibroscope[obs3]. V. oscillate; vibrate, librate[obs3]; alternate, undulate, wave; rock, swing; pulsate, beat; wag, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... will not pretend to argue with you the impropriety and offence of a Gothic revenge. But it is necessary upon a subject so important as that which now employs my pen, to be honest and explicit. It is not a time for compliment, it is not a moment for disguise and fluctuation. Whatever were the merits of the contest, I cannot forget that your hand is deformed with the blood of my husband. My lord, you have my sincerest good wishes. I bear you none of that ill will and covert revenge, that are equally the disgrace ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... a cradle; ever to hear the rolling of the wheels, which, like the murmur of a brook, the clapping of a mill, or the splash of oars in the water, forms, by its uniformity, a soothing accompaniment to the everlasting fluctuation of thought in the mind. This is a bliss, which, like that of love and lovers, genuine travellers alone believe in; and, except genuine lovers, there is nothing more seldom met with in the world than genuine travellers. For those who travel ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... employ factors, whose business it was to recover bad debts from the planters, and prolonged lawsuits became very frequent. The use of tobacco as money caused a great amount of trouble, and the Virginians were not slow to take advantage of any fluctuation in the value of their medium of exchange. This was the occasion of great injustice and suffering. It was the standing complaint of the clergy that they were defrauded of a part of their salaries at frequent intervals by ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... sharpened to the immediate demands of special groups, but with no genuine training of the imagination and no understanding of the longer problems of humanity, with no hold on the past, "amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre their thoughts, to ballast their conduct, to preserve them from being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine." It will set itself against any regular subjection ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... China. No country within 700 miles of Singapore is abundant in corn, and none is grown in the island: yet from the first establishment of the settlement to the present time, corn has been both cheap and abundant, there has been wonderfully little fluctuation, there are always stocks, and for many years a considerable exportation. A variety of pulses, vegetable oil, and culinary salt, will be derived from the same countries, as is now done ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... that can decide whether the success or failure shall be enduring; for it is only posterity that can reveal whether the relation now existing between the work and the public mind is or is not liable to fluctuation. Yet no man really writes for posterity; no man ought to ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... well-doing. James was led by the Spirit of God to write that the unstable and unbelieving man is like the "wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." There are two motions of the waves—one up and down, which we call undulation, the other to and fro, which we call fluctuation. How appropriately both are referred to—"tossed" up and down, "driven" to and fro! The double-minded man lacks steadiness in both respects: his faith has no uniformity of experience, for he is now at ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... summer only 0.3 per cent. Most of this difference is represented by the increased efficiency of the filters in summer, and only a little of it by the increased efficiency of settling. With bacteria, on the other hand, the seasonal fluctuation of the plant as a whole is comparatively small, but the settling and storage processes are much more efficient in summer than in winter, the filters being apparently less efficient. The writer believes that they are only apparently less efficient, and not really so, ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... price of the sovereign will be simply the mint value of the gold contained in the sovereign. But between no two countries does such a condition exist—take any two, and the amount of the obligation of one to the other changes every day, which causes a continuous fluctuation in the exchange rate—sometimes up from ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... Kansas argued "that the public debt is payable in silver, and if the money unit should be established in the metal least subject to fluctuation that metal is silver. Gold is the money of monarchs, and was in open alliance with our ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... of which necessarily varied, averaged in the middle of the fourteenth century tenpence the bushel;[15] barley averaging at the same time three shillings the quarter. With wheat the fluctuation was excessive; a table of its possible variations describes it as ranging from eighteenpence the quarter to twenty shillings; the average, however, being six and eightpence.[16] When the price was above this sum, the merchants might import to bring it down;[17] when it ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... "declination" of the magnetic needle—that is, to the position assumed by it with reference to the points of the compass when moving freely in a horizontal plane. Now this position—as was discovered by Graham in 1722—is subject to a small daily fluctuation, attaining its maximum towards the east about 8 A.M., and its maximum towards the west shortly before 2 P.M. In other words, the direction of the needle approaches (in these countries at the present time) nearest to the true north some four hours before noon, and departs farthest from it between ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke |
