"Lapse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of wild chiefs of whom we know nothing, until with their axes they cut their Runic signs into a few of these stones, which then came into the calendar of time. But as for me, I had gone quite beyond all lapse of time, and had become a cipher and a nothing. Then three or four beautiful falling stars came down, which cleared the air, and gave my thoughts another direction. You know what a falling star is, do you not? The learned men are not at all clear about it. I have my own ideas about shooting ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... prove that they were not without some apprehensions of a different result. The letters are still more interesting, as showing how warmly alive to each other's feelings the hearts of both husband wife could remain, after the long lapse of near twenty years, and after trials more fatal to love than ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... and droll errors of these old psalm-books can, after the lapse of centuries, be pointed out and must be smiled at, there is after all something so pathetic in the thought of those good, scholarly old New England saints, hampered by poverty, in dread of attack ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... four weeks 600,000 new levies are called to arms. With the 600,000 men levied previously, it is the heaviest draft ever made from a population. No emperor or despot ever did it in a similar lapse of time. The appreciation current here is, that the twenty millions of inhabitants can easily furnish such a quota; but the truth is that the draft, or the levy, or the volunteering, is made from about three millions of men between the ages of twenty and forty years. One million ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... the Darwinian theory, to show in what sequence the various smaller and larger circles had separated from the common fundamental form and from each other, in what sequence they had acquired the peculiarities which now characterise them, and what transformations they had undergone in the lapse of ages,—if the establishment of such a genealogical tree, of a primitive history of the group under consideration, free from internal contradictions, was possible,—then this conception, the more completely it took up all the species ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... lapse into the American vernacular was quite lost upon the Princess Kalora, who was sitting very still and gazing in a most ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... bottle. One of the first things the Mormon always did in establishing a new settlement was to plant fruit, shade trees and vines and the like, so that in a very few years there was a condition of comfort only attained by a non-Mormon settlement after the lapse of a quarter of a century. Dancing is a regular amusement among the Mormons and is encouraged by the authorities as a harmless and beneficial recreation. The dances were ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... visitors, and, without seeing any of the family, she walked back into the music room. Here she felt perfectly at home, and, closing the door, forgot everything but her music. Taking no heed of the lapse of time, she played piece after piece, until startled by the clear tones of the doctor's voice. She looked up, and saw him standing in the door which opened into the ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... see that there was no use in arguing any further with the old man. I left him with the idea that the lapse of a little time would soften his views on Saloonio. But I had not reckoned on the way in which old men hang on to a thing. Colonel Hogshead quite took up Saloonio. From that time on Saloonio became the theme of his constant conversation. He was never tired of discussing the character ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... them at his own risk. Without his money and his enterprise they would have amounted to nothing. If Benedict had not lost his reason, the document would have been legally signed. The cause of Benedict's lapse from sanity did not occur to him. He only knew that if the inventor had not become insane, he should have secured his signature at some wretched price, and out of this ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... was a little nettled at this; and indeed, if it may not be called a lapse of the tongue, it was a small deviation from politeness in Jones, and into which he scarce would have fallen, had not the delight he felt in praising Sophia hurried him out of all reflection; for this commendation of one cousin was more than a ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... granted to him in a case so unique and peculiar soon passed over and was utterly restrained. It is evident that, after the lapse of the period during which it pleased the Almighty to establish His own Church by miraculous displays of power, it could not consist with his kindness and wisdom to leave the enemy in the possession of the privilege of deluding ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... up in this Speech Day business, haven't you?' said Aunt Annie, as if wishful to excuse him to himself for the extraordinary lapse. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... Mrs. Harblow," he said, over his shoulder. "Told her it was a bit of a surprise." He turned, with a momentary lapse into something like humour. "You see," he said, "it is ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... have received a letter from you so long ago, and not yet to have thanked you for it, is what I could hardly have believed myself—if the rapid lapse of time in the uniform retirement in which we live were not pressed upon me in a variety of ways which convince me that as a man grows older, his sand, as the grains get low in the glass, slips through more glibly, and steals away with accelerated speed. I wish I could either ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... the lapse of three-quarters of a century, came back to his own: and what that own, at that day ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... the deep valley, it burns also upon the heavy masses of snow; so that after the lapse of years, they melt into shining ice-blocks, and become ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... white ever since the milk of the Virgin fell upon it, when she was nursing Jesus, and endowed it with miraculous virtues." A German tradition tells the same story of the Polypodium vulgare (Marienmilch), based upon an older legend of the goddess Freia, many of whose attributes, with the lapse of heathendom, passed over to the central female figure of Christianity (448. 499). A similar origin of the white lily from the milk of Juno is given in ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... the Elbe in their rear. Early the next morning the King with Bismarck, Roon, and Moltke rode out and took up their positions on the hill of Dub, whence they could view what was to be the decisive battle in the history of Germany. Here, after the lapse of more than a hundred years, they were completing the work which Frederick the Great had begun. The battle was long and doubtful. The army of Prince Frederick Charles attacked the Austrian division ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... lapse of years, Anna, too, had greatly improved. The extreme delicacy of her figure was gone, and though her complexion was as white and pure as marble, it denoted perfect health. With John Jr. she was still the favorite sister, the one whom he loved the best. "Carrie was too stiff and ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... too surely. "To-morrow all will be distinct and clear enough!" she had said; ay, distinct it was; and so engrossingly intense became the thoughts thronging in her mind, bewildering succession, that Isabella sat motionless, her brow leaning on her hand, wholly unconscious of the lapse ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... members of Council. There is nothing in the oath about any limit of time, but it has always been held in practice that a time comes when all political importance has departed from the proceedings of the Council, and when the obligation of secrecy may be held to lapse. There is nothing, however, more delicate than the question of where the line is drawn. Chamberlain was directed by the Cabinet, for example, at the time of the Kilmainham Treaty, to carry on negotiations with Parnell which were ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... more than the truth when she had said that of all men living none but I could write that "Life." His remaining behind in my Chelsea garret that evening after the others had left had been the beginning of a friendship that, barring that lapse of five years at the end, had been for twenty years one of completest intimacy. Whatever money there might or might not be in the book, I had seen my opportunity in it—the opportunity to make it the vehicle for all the aspirations, faiths, enthusiasms, ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... lyrics. Suppose him to be a poet, an observer, a wit, a humorist. Tradition at Stratford says something about the humorist, and tradition, IN SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES, would have remembered no more of Burns, after the lapse of seventy years. ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... 1862 he was elected a member of the Academy, and later became librarian to Louis Napoleon; his novels, of which "Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre" and "Sibylle" are the most noted, are graceful in style, and reveal considerable dramatic force, but often lapse into sentimentality, and too often treat of indelicate subjects, although in no spirit ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... such things many years have intervened, chequered with various events of life, yet whilst I am writing, the scenes are brought again fresh to my remembrance; the same train of thought is awakened; and the lapse of time has not in the least diminished the estimate then formed of the danger, the awful peril, to which the practice of addressing saints and angels in prayer, even in its most modified and mitigated form, exposes those who are in communion with Rome. ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... accede to my request. Before entering the den a second time I repacked my respirator, with due care, and entered the smoke in company with Captain Shaw. I could hear him breathe long slow inhalations; his labour was certainly greater than mine, and after the lapse of seven minutes I heard him cough. In seven and a half minutes he had to quit the place, thus proving that his lungs were able to endure the irritation seven times as long as mine could bear it. I continued in the smoke, with hardly any discomfort, for sixteen minutes, and certainly could have ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... in an adverse direction is the conclusion of many, among them Savorgnan in his book "La Guerra e la Populazione," in which he calls war dysgenic. The psychologist tends to see in war a reversion, a lapse to barbarism. War is a product of the original savage in man, whom civilization has never tamed, as Freud would say. War lingers because of man's love of old institutions. We cling to old habits and customs, which take on a semblance of the aesthetic, because ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... and agreeable, but it is too new. It overpowers, but gives no repose, and the fatigue of enjoying is greater than the enjoyment itself. To hear again, years afterward, an old melody, every note of which we supposed we had forgotten, and yet to recognize it as an old acquaintance; or, after the lapse of many years, to stand once more before the Sistine Madonna at Dresden, and experience afresh all the emotions which the infinite look of the child aroused in us for years; or to smell a flower or taste a dish again which we have not thought of since childhood—all these ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... she had received his advances passed away. She became at that moment a human being, self-forgetting, the heritage of her charms—for she really had a curious but very poignant attractiveness—suddenly evident. It was only a momentary lapse and it was entirely wasted. Not even one of the waiters happened to be looking that way, and Tavernake was ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... when you speak of Vices. All Mankind are so far related, that Care is to be taken, in things to which all are liable, you do not mention what concerns one in Terms which shall disgust another. Thus to tell a rich Man of the Indigence of a Kinsman of his, or abruptly inform a virtuous Woman of the Lapse of one who till then was in the same degree of Esteem with her self, is in a kind involving each of them in some Participation of those Disadvantages. It is therefore expected from every Writer, to treat his Argument in ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... steamers, many of them of leviathan dimensions, which are employed in running to and from Detroit, in Michigan, and the intermediate ports, as well as in the Upper Lake trade. Being quite a depot, Buffalo bids fair, ere the lapse of many years, to be the grand emporium of the West. The public buildings do not deserve much notice; the Eagle Theatre, a joint-stock concern, being the only building of much interest. There are, however, several spacious hotels, and ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... Chief Justice Parsons was raised to the Bench, and when he was the leading lawyer of America, a client wrote, stating a case, requesting his opinion upon it, and enclosing twenty dollars. After the lapse of some time, receiving no answer, he wrote a second letter, informing him of his first communication. Parsons replied that he had received both letters, had examined the case and formed his opinion, but somehow ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... suppose that I remained in this frightful condition of absolute hopelessness for more than five minutes, but it seemed to me an eternity. If a drowning man can review his life in an instant, what was there not left for me to think and suffer in the lapse of those five horrible minutes? I was young when the unscrupulous hand of this daring murderer pushed me into this pit; I was old when with a thrill of joy such as passes over the body but once In a life- time, I heard a voice issue from the darkness, saying severely, ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... has its ground in the lapse of weeks during which nothing has been done towards punishing the king. Suddenly roused to a keen sense of the fact, he feels as if surely he might have done something. The first act ends with a burning vow of righteous vengeance; ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... "After a lapse of time which seemed to me as an age, the youth re-appeared with a dozen young warriors, all armed and decked in their war paint. They remained grouped round the entrance for a few minutes, while Waunangee changed his own dress, and Winnebeg provided me with a rifle, tomahawk ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... of those legal travesties that sometimes occur when a scion of a rich and influential family happens to transgress the law. It seems that the saloon-keeper, who was at first reasonably sure of what happened, suffered a strange lapse of memory when on the stand. Gooch thinks he was bought up, but Gooch is fallible where human motives are involved. His misanthropy ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... lapse of time is gradually bringing performance nearer to promise, and Dr. ADDISON was able to announce that over one hundred thousand houses were now "in the tender stage." Let us hope no bitter blast will nip them in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... growth of the soul must be understood as being brought about not suddenly, but slowly and gradually, seeing that the process of amendment and correction will take place imperceptibly in the individual instances, during the lapse of countless and unmeasured ages, some outstripping others, and tending by a swifter course towards perfection, while others, again, follow close at hand, and some, again, a long ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... precisely to account for our own actions, how much more difficult and hazardous must it be, in new and momentous scenes, when the mind is hurried and distressed by conflicting passions, to judge of another's conduct; and yet here are two young men, who, after a lapse of near four years (in which period one of them, like myself, has grown from a boy to be a man), without hesitation, in a matter on which my life is depending, undertake to account for some of my actions, at a time, too, when some of the most experienced officers in the ship are not ashamed ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... wore, and men got used to him, and loved him as if he had been a rare image which had been brought to that land for its adornment; and now they no longer called him the Spearman, but the Wood-lover. And as for him, he took all in patience, abiding what the lapse ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... becoming, by the greater lapse of time, still more doubtful as to what the intentions of the parties might be, I, in March 1824, repeated my demand to Mr. Moore in a more peremptory manner, and was in consequence at length put into possession of the original deed. ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... however, though they passed as lightly as the summer clouds themselves, obliterated, in the lapse of time, even these remains of the old conflict; and wore away such legendary traces of it as the neighbouring people carried in their minds, until they dwindled into old wives' tales, dimly remembered round the winter fire, ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... mudbank as well as anywhere else, and it was not from a multiplicity of events, but from the lapse of time alone, that he expected relief. Yet in the sameness of days upon the Shallows, time flowing ceaselessly, flowed imperceptibly; and, since every man clings to his own, be it joy, be it grief, he was pleased after the unrest of his wanderings to be able to fancy the whole universe and ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... in the course of my travels, experienced any thing like the pleasure in seeing a statue or other monument of ancient art, as in reading a well-written inscription. It seems to me as if a human voice issued from the stone, and, making itself heard after the lapse of ages, addressed man in the midst of a desert, to tell him that he is not alone, and that other men, on that very spot, had felt, and thought, and suffered like himself. If the inscription belongs to an ancient nation, which no ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... harming of my neighbours, if in reason it can be avoided. As to manners, I think that to repeat a bit of scandal, and circulate backbiting stories, are worse offences than the actions that gave rise to them. If I mentally condemn a person, I feel guilty of moral lapse. I hate self-assertion; I am ashamed of self-advertisement. I dislike loudness of any kind. Probably I have too much tendency to negation of all sorts. Small-talk bores me to extinction, but I will discuss a point of ethics or psychology half the night. To make capital out of a person's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the brush. At first I was a good deal frightened, not knowing how long the trance might continue. However, after the lapse of twelve hours, the man recovered consciousness again, and the complete use of all his faculties just as suddenly as the old miser had ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... asked, in his severest voice, pointing to the picture. It was a portrait of their mother, taken in early youth, almost effaced by the lapse of time. But they recognized it very well, and, wringing their hands, fell on their knees before the bed and ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... his hands, heedless of the lapse of time, and of anything save his own absorbing emotion, Arthur still sat in the armchair, into which he had thrown himself, his thoughts dwelling, with strange pertinacity, upon the past,—the past that seemed to mock ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... exchequer bills was so lowered by the change of the ministry, and the lapse of the time allotted for their circulation, that they fell nearly twenty per cent, to the prejudice of the revenue, and the discredit of the government in foreign countries. The commons having taken this affair into consideration, voted, That provision should ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... give me thanks, but I am more to thank you, and I charge you thank them of the Lower House from me; for had I not received knowledge from you, I might a' fallen into the lapse of an error, only for want of true information. Since I was queen, yet did I never put my pen to any grant but upon pretext and semblance made me that it was for the good and avail of my subjects generally, though a private ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... are not going to be like your mother," said Mr. Burke, gently. "My poor cousin Nora was subject to a strange lapse of memory at times," he remarked to Louise. "She always recovered in time, but for days she could remember nothing of her former life—not even her own name. Are you ever affected ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... from Sakra's throne placed on the front of his palace, I spake unto that worshipful sage (Agastya), "Do thou free me from this curse." Thereat filled with compassion, that energetic one said unto me, "O king, thou shall be freed after the lapse of some time." Then I fell to the earth (as a snake); but my recollection (of former life) did not renounce me. And although it be so ancient, I still recollect all that was said. And the sage said unto ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that those statesmen—even the wisest or the best-informed of them—could not take so correct a view of France and its politics as it is possible for us, after the lapse of three centuries, to do. The interior leagues, subterranean schemes, conflicting factions, could only be guessed at; nor could the immediate future be predicted, even by such far-seeing politicians as William of Orange; at ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a young Florentine who has his money on, say, Gabri the battitore, withhold criticism when Gabri's arm fails and the ball drops comfortably for the terzino Ugo to smash it into Gabri's net? Such a lapse should not ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... the new republic—the best enunciators of our future policy of justice and equality. Any work short of this is narrow and partial and fails to meet the requirements of the hour. What is so plain to me, may, I trust, be so to all before the lapse of many months, that all who have worked together thus far, may still stand side by side in this crisis of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... expressing it. 'Say what you will,' was his answer to the Tempter; 'I know there is as much betwixt the two boards of this Book as can ensure me forgiveness for my transgressions and safety for my soul.' As he spoke, the clock, which announced the lapse of the fatal hour, was heard to strike. The speech and intellectual powers of the youth were instantly and fully restored; he burst forth into prayer, and expressed in the most glowing terms his reliance ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... think, my worthy woman, do you think, that the wilful lapse of such a child is to be forgiven? Can she herself think that she deserves not the severest punishment for the abuse of such talents as were intrusted ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... how that face had changed! The bright, frank, boyish countenance, looking eagerly out upon a world that seemed so pleasant; the young man's hopeful smile; and then—and then, the hard face that grew harder with the lapse of years; the smile that took no radiance from a light within; the frown that blackened as the soul grew darker. He saw all these, and still for ever, amid a thousand distracting ideas, his thoughts, which were beyond his own volition, concentrated in the ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... we now behold was pre-ordained and so distinctly predicted; if the one mournful half of the prophecy has been so entirely and minutely fulfilled, after so great a lapse of ages, dare we, can we, doubt for a moment that the glorious remainder will ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... very material to you, and yet to me it is wholly spiritual, for it is giving time and study rather to making things better in the between, which is really all that we can influence; but perhaps when I can no longer enter into active, practical work, I may lapse into speculations. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... until in sight of the enemy, and then endeavored to gain possession of Visby and the ground near by. In this he was so far successful that Albert and his army had to leave the camp and conclude a truce. But nevertheless he did not till after a lapse of seven years give up his hope of remounting the throne of Sweden, making a final peace with Margaret, and henceforward living in Gadebush, Mecklenburg, where in 1412 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... after the above words were written, the estimate expressed in them of Stevenson's qualities as a writer, and of the place he seemed likely to maintain in the affections of English readers all the world over, had been amply confirmed by the lapse of time. The sale of his works kept increasing rather than diminishing. Editions kept multiplying. A new generation of readers had found life and letters, nature and human nature, touched by him at so many points with so vivifying and illuminating a charm that it had become scarcely ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their lawful sovereign? That, and not speculative error, is the real charge against them. Henry did all he could to put himself in the wrong. His atrocious request that More "would not use many words on the scaffold" makes one hate him after the lapse of well-nigh four hundred years. The question, however, is not one of personal feeling. Good men go wrong. Bad men are made by providence to be instruments for good. It is not More, nor Fisher, it is the ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... hand, there was some small failure or mischance, perhaps early in the voyage; the sailors then began to reckon up ill omens, and to say that little good would come of this business. Further on, some serious misadventure happened which made them turn, or from the mere lapse of time they were obliged to bethink themselves of getting back. Safety, not renown or profit, now became their object; and then hope was at last out the negative of some fear. Thereupon, no doubt, ensued a good deal of recrimination ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... it badly.' And, indeed, he had a most amazing disposition to lapse into tears The disposition was never near to mastering him, but there ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... of these gentlemen to whom I have referred, then President of the Board of Control, Governor of India, author, as he told a committee on which I sat, of the Affghan war, is now decorated with a Norman title—for our masters even after a lapse of eight hundred years ape the Norman style—sits in the House of Peers, and legislates for you, having neglected in regard to India every great duty which appertained to his high office; and to show that it is not ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... of the tide again And the slow lapse of the leaves, The rustling gold of a field of grain And a bird in the ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... petticoated fair one who was being subjected to tender little liberties, necessarily addressed in enigmas. He righted immediately, under a perception of the thoroughbred's contempt for the barriers of wattled sheep; and caught the word 'guilt,' to hide the Philistine citizen's lapse, by relating historically, in abridgement, the honest beauty of the passionate loves of the two whom the world proscribed for honestly loving. There was no guilt. He harped on the word, to erase the recollection of his first ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... conceivable defect in every conceivable degree, from the smallest detail to the general conception of his poem. And yet he triumphs over himself. It is a hateful task to read the Pharsalia from cover to cover, and yet when it is done and the lapse of time has allowed the feeling of immediate repulsion to evaporate, the reader can still feel that Lucan is a great writer. The absurdities slip from the memory, the dreariness of the narrative is forgotten, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... history of the earth begins with the close of the dim Archean era. It is the lapse from then till now, a few hundred million years at most out of all infinity, which ever can greatly concern man, for during this time were laid the only rocks whose reading was assisted by the presence of fossils. During this time the continents attained their final shape, the ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... indulged in a light luncheon, he went for a stroll into the street. Looking up, he saw the windows of the rooms where he had spent such lonely, bitter hours crusading against the world's ignorance. It was all so distant, so far in the past, that it was like returning to a boyhood's haunt after the lapse ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... Republic, at the most glorious period, and in the most splendid costume he ever wore—that in which he suffered unmerited persecution, and in which he prepared to die for liberty." These words produced a deep impression upon the mind of the child. He remembered them to repeat them after the lapse ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... of olden days, and had revived it. And the memory of that soft impalpable caress in the darkness of the inn corridor came back to him with a shudder. The girl had first mastered him, and then led him to the one act that was necessary for her purpose. He had been waylaid, after the lapse of centuries—caught, and conquered. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... action that happened years after the first; if it be so connected with it, that nothing but time can be supposed to intervene? Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... the phrase, he seemed to feel hardly as certain of having prevented me from suspecting his lapse of memory, as he had felt on the first occasion. The wistful look clouded his face again: and, after apparently designing to accompany me to the street door, he suddenly changed his mind, rang the bell for the servant, and remained in ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... I now made a start at erecting the tide-gauge, and after the lapse of five days got the instrument into position. We could work on it only at low tide, for much rock had to be chipped away and numerous wire stays fixed. The work was therefore of a disagreeable character. Its appearance when finished did not by any means suggest the amount ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... us return, after the lapse of a few years, as I did, to Epaigwit. I shall never forget the impression it made upon me. It was about this season of the year I went there to fish, intending to spend the night in a camp, so as to be ready ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... lasting. It was not easy for a venerable European nation, intrenched within its own regal institutions, in shaking off the past to begin a future of popular sovereignty. Much was gained by sweeping away the worst abuses of the past, but reaction came, succeeded, after a long lapse of time, by a second attempt to establish a republic, again to fail, until the collapse of the power of the adventurer whose election to the presidency was the beginning of the end of the republic of 1848, led to the third experiment, ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... Republic. She thus announces a perpetual claim, which at the end of a century will furnish her as plausible a ground for discontent against any nation which at the end of that time may enter into a treaty with Texas as she possesses at this moment against the United States. The lapse of time can add nothing to her title to independence. A course of conduct such as has been described on the part of Mexico, in violation of all friendly feeling and of the courtesy which should characterize the intercourse between the nations ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... definite object? At the end of an hour, he appeared to be faint from fatigue, and, noticing a bench, he sat down. The spot, not far from Auteuil, on the edge of a pond hidden amongst the trees, was absolutely deserted. After the lapse of another half-hour, Ganimard became impatient and resolved to speak to the man. He approached and took a seat beside Baudru, lighted a cigarette, traced some figures in the sand with the end of ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... district. At first the converts flock in, get baptised in batches, go to church, attend school, and adopt European clothes with an alacrity and enthusiasm that frequently turns their devoted pastor's head, but after the lapse of a few months their conduct is enough to break his heart. Dressing up in European clothes amuses the ladies and some of the young men for a long time, in some cases permanently, but the older men and the bolder youths soon get bored, and when ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... bustle of breaking camp; or on the eve of battle, when the mind might be occupied with other things of immediate and pressing importance. Sometimes they were prepared long afterwards, when it was as difficult to recall the exact sequence and order of events as it would be after the lapse of years. Some of the "youngsters" of those days failed to realize the value their reports would have in after years as the basis for making history. Others were so unfortunate as to have them "lost in transit" so that, although they were duly and ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... the title of "A Bygone" you recently published the tale of a certain estimable butler and his one lapse, during many years' service, into alcoholism. This reminds me of the shorter and sharper history of our own James, who came to our Northern home on a Monday afternoon and left upon the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... primeval wisdom, of Man the possessive animal. They would quiet down when they had fulfilled their tidal fever of dispossessing and destroying; when the creations and the properties of others were sufficiently broken and defected—they would lapse and ebb, and fresh forms would rise based on an instinct older than the fever of change—the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... general judgment, and which appeal to his own tastes or sympathies with particular strength. One of such books in my own case is THE HEPTAMERON of Margaret of Navarre. I have read it again and again, sometimes at short intervals, sometimes at longer, during the lapse of some five-and-twenty years since I first met with it. But the place which it holds in my critical judgment and in my private affections has hardly altered at all since the first reading. I like it as a reader perhaps rather more than I esteem it as a critic; but even as a critic, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... could be managed. Cauchon would make promises to her; in return she would promise to leave off the male dress. He would violate his promises, and that would so situate her that she would not be able to keep hers. Her lapse would condemn her to the stake, and the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... private company of the Shogun, are many centuries old, and have been carefully preserved as heirlooms from generation to generation; being made of very thin wood lacquered over, and kept each in a silken bag, they have been uninjured by the lapse of time. ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... melancholy waste,— Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his own dashings—yet ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... grief: this woman is the queen, No tears dim her eyes: her sunken cheek has that waxen yellow tinge that one sees on the bodies of saints preserved by miracle. In her look is that mingling of calm and suffering that points to a soul at once tried by sorrow and imbued with religion. After the lapse of an hour, while no movement had disturbed the profound silence which reigned about the bed of death, the king trembled slightly; opened his eyes, and endeavoured feebly to raise his head. They thanking the physician and priest with a smile, who had both hastened to arrange his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the practical assistance of Englishmen, would, no doubt, have enabled him to improve upon his invention until it had obtained sufficient credit to be secure against the misfortune of being totally forgotten. After the lapse of 100 years from the date of Papin's invention, when the first steamboat was put upon the river Rhine, the vessel was fired into by concealed marksmen on shore, and navigation was more dangerous than it is now on the upper waters of the Missouri in times of Indian hostility. ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... unmercifully over the strange medleys he used to bring forth when meaning to sound the various "calls." But of late Eben seemed to have mastered his silver-plated bugle, and was really doing very well, with an occasional lapse excepted. ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... external forces. Each organic aggregate, whether considered individually or as a continuously existing species, is modified afresh by each fresh distribution of external forces. To its pre-existing differentiations new differentiations are added; and thus that lapse to a more heterogeneous state, which would have a fixed limit were the circumstances fixed, has its limits perpetually removed by the perpetual change of the circumstances. These modifications upon modifications, which result in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... After the lapse of fifteen or twenty minutes, and when it was presumed that the sufferer had been smothered, and crushed to death, Father Bonin and the nuns ceased to trample upon her, and stepped from the bed. All was motionless and silent ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... two generations." Social improvement is always very slow. How extremely tardy has been the progress of civilization! How gradually have its humanizing influences operated in elevating the mass of the people! It requires the lapse of generations before its effects can be so much as discerned: for a generation is but as a day in the history of civilization. It has cost most nations ages of wars, before they could conquer their right of existence as nations. It took four centuries ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... went by, his muse grew stronger, richer, fresher, and more original. As an English critic, writing pleasantly of him and his work, in the London Spectator said lately: "His books are delightful reading, with no monotony except a monotony of brilliance which an occasional lapse ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... occasionally rather insipid. 'Il y a des tracasseries de societe.' I cannot record them, though perhaps years hence, when I may look over what I now write, I might be amused with stories of long-forgotten jealousies and various interests extinguished by the lapse of time, or perhaps silenced in the grave; still it would be melancholy to retrace the days of my youth and to bring before my imagination the blooming faces and the gaiety and brilliancy of those who once shone the meteors of society, but who would then ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... purpose are those of our universities. In these institutions we find boards which are chosen for the attainment of intellectual ends; in certain cases the choice is made by the vote of an intelligent body of alumni, or in other ways guarded by that body, so that the chance of lapse in the quality of the contract is reduced to a minimum. Several instances could be given showing that such trusts, even when they do not directly pertain to the teaching work of these institutions, have been long and faithfully maintained. We ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... embassy, and the first attache as well as the secretary of legation left the hotel at a very early hour. The former with a letter from Bernadotte repaired to Laxenburg where the empress, as is well known to your excellency, has been residing with her court for the last few days. After the lapse of an hour, he returned, and brought the general the verbal reply from the empress that her majesty would return to Vienna in order to attend the festival of the volunteers, and would then be ready to grant an immediate audience ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... to allow, that the obstacle in question, is as great, as you regard it—nevertheless will it not increase with the lapse of years, and become less superable the longer the work of abolition is postponed? I suppose, however, that it is not to be disguised, that, notwithstanding the occasional attempts in the course of your speech to create a different impression, you are in favor of perpetual slavery; ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... us the spirit of earth's great ones, just as the cellar of the king holds wines growing more precious with the lapse of years. From time to time God sends to earth some man with a supreme gift called genius. Passing through our life and world, he sees wondrous sights not beholden of our eyes, hears melodies too fine for our ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... The history of criminal jurisprudence justifies the assertion that eye-witnesses of any fatal difficulty differ materially in regard to important particulars, even when their testimony is taken immediately after the difficulty. It is not strange, therefore, that after the lapse of an ordinary life-time a dozen different versions should have been contributed by the survivors concerning this unfortunate tragedy. James F. Reed, after nearly a quarter of a century of active public life in California, died honored and respected. During his life-time ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... years are past Since I have look'd upon thee last, And thought thee fairest of the fair, With thy sylph-like form and light-brown hair! I can remember every word That from those smiling lips I heard: Oh! how little it appears Like the lapse ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... some differences between them, which, or some of which, observable at first, grew more distinct in the lapse of years, in their places of nativity, in their temperaments, in their intellectual traits, and in their politics. Both were partly of Gallic descent; but here they differed as in other things. Tazewell was French on the father's side; Taylor on the mother's. ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... misfortunes or overwhelming valour on the enemy's side, but simply as the result of the condition of utter and lamentable defencelessness into which a truckling Government and an undisciplined, blindly selfish people had allowed England to lapse—the greatest, wealthiest Power in civilization was brought to its knees in the incredibly short space of one week, by the sudden but scientifically devised onslaught of a single ambitious nation, ruled by a monarch whose lack of scruples was more than balanced by his ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... second character lurking around her—indefinite, vague, repelling—the subconscious self, that no artifice can hide—the sin and the shame of deeds unrepented. If there had been a time when he had loved her, its potence could not leap the lapse of years and overcome his repugnance for her kind, and he looked at her coldly, barring her progress with a hand, which caught her two and held them in a grip ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... translation, it was warmly received in France. From that country its reputation in no long space of time spread in every direction; translations followed one after another into all the cultivated tongues of modern Europe; and in all it met the same degree of favor. Nor has lapse of time shaken seriously its popularity. The career of success, which began sixty (p. 037) years ago, has suffered vicissitudes, but never suspension; and to this hour, whatever fault may be found with the work as a whole, the name of Harvey Birch is still one of the best known in ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... sadly, "it is quite probable the first option may be allowed to lapse, and I understand good money is to be made in Arkansas timber." His face had grown a trifle ashy. "Of course, this being the case, I feel in honor bound, Mr. Strumley, to instantly recall ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... The lapse of time, the ruthless hand of ignorance and the devastations of war have laid waste and destroyed many valuable monuments of antiquity, on which the utmost exertions of human genius have been employed. ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... freaks,—they crept, they climb'd, they budded, And hung their flowers and berries in the sun; As the breeze taught, they danced, they sung, they twined Their sprays in bowers, or spread the ground with net-work. Through the slow lapse of undivided time, Silently rising from their buried germs, Trees lifted to the skies their stately heads, Tufted with verdure, like depending plumage, O'er stems unknotted, waving to the wind: Of these in graceful form, and simple beauty, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... from taking up arms against us, was the war conducted on our part. Provisions and other supplies furnished to our Army by Mexican citizens were paid for at fair and liberal prices, agreed upon by the parties. After the lapse of a few months it became apparent that these assurances and this mild treatment had failed to produce the desired effect upon the Mexican population. While the war had been conducted on our part according ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... the lapse of more than thirty years, after so many events of greater importance, when an honest and rational man asks himself what motives could have excited such fierce anger and rash enterprises, he can find none either sufficient or legitimate. Neither the acts of power nor the probabilities of ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in a kind of graphic style which—What an idiot I am!" he broke off to exclaim, he had been feeling in his pocket; "I have actually left the letter at home! Please forgive me. But perhaps you will regard my lapse of memory as ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... discouragement seek to dog your steps)— every great structure requires the process of time. "The giant trees of California were once puny saplings. The slow lapse of time has drawn nature into their mighty hearts." Just as surely as the absorption of natural forces built the giant redwoods, just as surely can you draw ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... well, and the planter wondered. Deesa had vagabonded along the roads till he met a marriage procession of his own caste and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted past all knowledge of the lapse ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... To praise him inordinately was the only consolation his three daughters could find in the first fervour of their grief. Time was when they had been apt to confess to one another that papa was occasionally rather "trying," a vague expression which scarcely involved a lapse of filial duty on the part of the grumbler. But to hear them to-day one would have supposed that they had never been tried; that life with Lord Calderwood in a small house in Chapel-street, Mayfair, had ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... could conceivably colour the whole "sentiment of existence" in a simple and sensitive character. But all these preliminary moods and stirrings of spirit were rather obscure at the time, and they do not appear clearer to me now after the lapse of so many years. ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... metempsychosis taught by the ancient philosopher Pythagoras of Samos, according to which when a man died his soul remained in the shades below suffering any punishment which the man had deserved, till after a certain lapse of time all the taint of the former existence had been worn away, when the soul returned to earth to animate some other body. The passage referred to here by Walpole occurs in Ovid's "Metamorphoses," xvi. 160, where Pythagoras ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... another act, father.'"[24] Forster read the tragedy aloud from the manuscript for Dickens, who wrote of it with unmeasured enthusiasm in a letter, known to Browning only when printed after the lapse of some thirty years: "Browning's play has thrown me into a perfect passion of sorrow.... I know no love like it, no passion like it, no moulding of a splendid thing after its conception like it." Things had gone ill with Macready at Drury Lane, and ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... way, we may accept the statement that many morbid conditions are known to result from sexual excess, but few from continence. This, however, goes a little too far, for certain psychopaths and sexual hyperaesthetics often lapse into a state of mental and nervous excitement from forced continence, so that their neurosis becomes accentuated and may even end in insanity. I have seen this occur both in men and women, but such cases are ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... the lapse of a few days would suffice to bring the Colonna and the Senator to open war. Could he take part against those of his own blood? The very circumstance of his love for Irene would yet more rob such a ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... roused him. In the ride that followed, twenty different persons and things came into their talk; but never once the princess. That, arousing himself again from his half-dreamful lapse from the old guarded habit, was put away steadily and quietly. His battle had been fought once. He was not to weaken his victory with fancies of the 'might have been.' He had not been tempted, through all these months; he would not tempt himself, now that real trial ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... dozen miles reached the army, where he was received with indescribable enthusiasm. This famous incident gave rise to Buchanan Read's stirring poem of Sheridan's ride, now one of the most popular pieces in the repertories of public readers, both in England and the United States. After the lapse of a few hours, spent in preparing his forces, Sheridan ordered an advance, and literally swept the enemy from the field in one of the most overwhelming and decisive engagements of the war. All the lost ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... a part of Mrs. Heep's humility, that she still wore weeds. Notwithstanding the lapse of time that had occurred since Mr. Heep's decease, she still wore weeds. I think there was some compromise in the cap; but otherwise she was as weedy as in the ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... he knew of Borrow is indicated by the fact that he referred to him as 'independent in circumstances.' Brandram told Caroline Fox many years afterwards that Gurney had effected the introduction, but this was merely a lapse of memory. In fact we find Borrow asking to be allowed to meet Gurney before his departure. In any case he has himself told us, in one of the brief biographies of himself that he wrote, that he promptly walked to London, covering the whole ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... her head scornfully. "I wouldn't trouble trouble till trouble troubles you, Kitty-Kat. If you can go to church with as clear a conscience as mine, I'll take off my hat to you. One lapse doesn't make ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... no monument that we could point to in Europe which has a more eventful history, or which, after a lapse of thirteen hundred years, presents to the spectator, in the year 1869, a grander spectacle. If we walk in the public gardens that surround it, and see its towers, from different points, through the trees, or, better still, ascend one of the towers and look down on its pinnacles, ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... thus appeared to be lost, and not possible to be followed up, when, after the lapse of nearly two years, Professor Bickell, in a letter of February 22, 1870, drew my attention to the fact that the Chaldan Patriarch, Jussuf Audo, who, according to Jochannn bar Bbisch, was in possession of that translation, was now in Rome, as member ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... what there was of this in the hands of a monopoly; an excellent drainage system plodding along for the want of means at a rate which would have required twenty years to complete it. The return of yellow fever, the city's arch-enemy, after a lapse of eighteen years, created consternation. Senseless quarantines prevailed on all sides; business was paralyzed; property values had fallen; commercial rivals to the right and left were pressing. A crisis was at hand, and all depended on the hygienic regeneration ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... which he had cast upon Greville in the porch before starting out on this drive. Twice in a few hours had he overstepped the bounds of politeness, he, who flattered himself on presenting an unimpeachable exterior, whatever might be the inward emotions! The explanation of the lapse was a suddenly conceived prejudice at the moment of first meeting. The girl's jaunty self- possession had struck a false note, and he had labelled her as callous and selfish. Now, looking at her afresh, he realised ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to contain six men, as did the pirate's, does not overcome its inertia and shoot ahead forty feet without any apparent lapse of time, like a bullet shot from a rifle. Morris and his men were in position before the boat had made ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... the characters should be rich people; and second, the last act should be located in a manager's office, and show the acceptance of the play. As I did not care for these suggestions, Mr. X dropped the matter, and Mr. Harris allowed his rights in the play to lapse. ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... listened to as before, with much commiseration, but he was again recommended to trust in Providence. Talbot came away quite crest-fallen, and evidently with little hope of any immediate relief. After the lapse of a few days, however, he appeared again before his confessor, apparently much elated, and invited the worthy abbe to dine with him at the Rocher du Cancale. This invitation was gladly accepted, the holy father not doubting but that he should have all the delicacies in the land, to which, in ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... wherein he blew or made a perpetual motion by the power of the four elements. For every thing which (by the force of the elements) passes, in a year, on the surface of the earth (sic!) could be seen to pass in this cylindrical wonder in the shorter lapse of twenty-four hours. Thus were marked by it, all years, months, days, hours; the course of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, &c. It made you understand what cold is, what the cause of the primum mobile, what the first principle of the sun, how it moves ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... a sigh for thee! O'er the waves, among the flowers, Through the lapse of odorous hours, Breathes a lonely, longing sound, As of something sought, unfound: Lorn are all things, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... fluids, and every flower forming its own fruit and seed, speedily to be separated from, and lost to its parent stem; thus causing in a few months an extent of waste many hundred times greater than what occurs in the same lapse of time after the tree is cut down, and all its living operations ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... This was, no doubt, partly because he stood out so wonderfully, to the end, against admitting, by a weak word at least, that any element of their existence WAS, or ever had been, an ordeal; no trap of circumstance, no lapse of "form," no accident of irritation, had landed him in that inconsequence. His wife might verily have suggested that he was consequent—consequent with the admirable appearance he had from the first ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... In considering the sources of unfounded inference, it is unnecessary to reckon the errors which arise, not from a wrong method, nor even from ignorance of the right one, but from a casual lapse, through hurry or inattention, in the application of the true principles of induction. Such errors, like the accidental mistakes in casting up a sum, do not call for philosophical analysis or classification; theoretical ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... republican government, it would probably at the end of that period be more populous and more prosperous than the neighboring despotic States. But it would have incurred the risk of being conquered much oftener than they would in that lapse of years. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... He guided every subordinate then, and in the last days of the rebellion, with a fund of common sense and superiority of intellect, which have left an impress so distinct as to exhibit his great personality. When his military history is analyzed after the lapse of years, it will show, even more clearly than now, that during these as well as in his previous campaigns he was the steadfast Centre about and on which everything ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... reached the starry heights. Yes, let us believe that, for some days at least, John's mind was overcast, his faith lost its foothold, and he seemed to be falling into bottomless depths. He sent them to Jesus, saying, Art Thou He that should come? We can easily trace this lapse ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... was pouring my libations on the tomb of Clytaemnestra, I heard that he was come to Nauplia with his wife, safe through a length of years. Conduct me, for I long to stand by his hand and salute him, seeing my friend after a long lapse of time. ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... pitching his howl a note above his neighbours, so that the tone rose and sank, and there was no one soul erect in that Hall save Shagpat, he on his throne of cushions smiling behind the lathers, inanimate, serene as they that sin not. After an hour's lapse there came a pause, and the people hearkened for the voice of the King; but in the intervals a louder moan would strike their ears, and they whispered among themselves, "Tis that of the fakir, El Zoop!' and the moaning and howling prevailed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... single plants and animals, we pass to that of the Earth's flora and fauna, the course of our argument again becomes clear and simple. Though, as was admitted in the first part of this article, the fragmentary facts Paleontology has accumulated, do not clearly warrant us in saying that, in the lapse of geologic time, there have been evolved more heterogeneous organisms, and more heterogeneous assemblages of organisms, yet we shall now see that there must ever have been a tendency towards these results. We shall find that the production ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer |
