"Precise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mind, a technique of thinking, which helps its possessor to draw correct conclusions. It is not difficult in the sense in which mathematical and scientific techniques are difficult; but the fact that its modes of expression are much less precise than these, renders decidedly difficult the task of conveying it correctly to the minds ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... life, the Literary Executor carefully compiled them (always in the writer's exact words), and endeavoured in piecing them together to avoid needless repetition. He does not doubt that Mr. Townshend held the clue to a precise plan, which could have greatly simplified the presentation of these views; and he has devoted the first section of this volume to Mr. Townshend's own notes of his comprehensive intentions. Proofs of the devout spirit ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... not noticed the figure of a man, who, descending the opposite bank, and clambering at considerable risk over the masses of heaped up ice, stood waiting for the approach of the child. So truly had he judged the sweep of the current, that he had planted himself upon the edge of the ice at the precise spot where the block struck. Reaching out his arm at the moment when it slipped beneath, he seized the boy by the collar of his jacket and drew him to the place on which he stood. As soon as the crowd caught sight of the man, they ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Somebody asked the president of a Western railroad company, in which McClellan was an engineer, what he thought about his abilities. "Well," said the president, "he is a first-rate man to build bridges; he is very exact, very mathematical in measurement, very precise in adjusting the timber; he is the best man in the world to build a good, strong, sound bridge, but after he has finished it, he never wishes anybody to cross over it." (Great laughter). Well, we have disposed of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... in a frock-coat and white trousers; a flower stuck in his button-hole, his bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with habitual determination. There was not much of the sailor in his looks, but plenty of the martinet; a dry, precise man, who might pass for a preacher in some rigid sect; and, whatever he was, not the Captain Trent of San Francisco. The men, too, were all new to me: the cook, an unmistakable Chinaman, in his characteristic dress, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eleven o'clock precisely there will be a noisy disturbance in the corridor which leads to the main staircase. M. de Marsan, in all probability, will come out of his room to see what the disturbance is about. Will you undertake to be ready at that precise moment to make a dash from the service staircase into the room to seize the document, which no doubt will be lying on the top of the desk, and bring it to an address which I am ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... or as to the LXX Greek. And justly so; for the evidence in our hands does not, unfortunately, admit of anything closer than a "period" being safely fixed. The materials we have are not sufficiently precise for closer approximation with any decree of security. Rothstein (Kautzsch, I., p. 178) very wisely says, "Natürlich lasst sich mit irgend welcher Sicherheit über diese Frage nichts ausmachen." With this, until further evidence be forthcoming, ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... who had come to Caderousse's assistance when he had called for help, were not slow in coming forward. Their testimony was short and precise. They confirmed the fact of Caderousse's being found with a ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... lignum-vitae, for a more stubborn-twisted constitution never existed than that of "Old Duke." The power of resistance that this man developed was something wonderful. Dr. C. P. Adams, of Hastings, Minnesota, and the St. Paul physicians who were connected with the regiment well remember, though, wiry, precise, and soldierly "Duke," who, even in the old Army of the Potomac, immersed up to his ears like the rest of the army in the mud and dirt of the encampment of Falmouth, above Fredericksburg, came out on general inspection as ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... serene majesty and your high mightinesses require from me a clear, simple, and precise answer, I will give you one, and it is this: I cannot submit my fate either to the Pope or to the councils, because it is clear as the day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless, therefore, I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by the clearest ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... any of these precise forms that Hamilton holds the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. He assumes a middle place between Reid and Kant, and endeavors to blend the subjective idealism of the latter with the realism of the former. "He identifies the phenomenon of the German with the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... productions of her selectest scholars in honor of religion. It is in sacred hymns and choirs, with which the words of the poet are connected only by slight and airy bands, that those feelings are breathed forth which precise language is unable to contain; and thus the tones of thought and emotion alternate with each other in mutual support, until all is satisfied and filled with the Holy and the Infinite. Of this character is the influence of religious men upon one another; such is their natural and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... abolition. In Alsace, after March, there is the same refusal "in many places;" many of the communities even maintain that they will pay no more taxes until their deputies to the States-General shall have fixed the precise amount of the public contributions. In Isere it is decided, by proceedings, printed and published, that "personal dues" shall no longer be paid, while the landowners who are affected by this dare not prosecute in the tribunals. At Lyons, the people have come to the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... third stroke scattered her acquisitions. Thenceforth, for nearly ten years, stroke followed upon stroke, each still further jumbling the threads of her intelligence, but by degrees so gradual and with such partiality of loss and of survival, that her precise state was always and to the end a matter of dispute. She still remembered her friends; she still loved to learn news of them upon the slate; she still read and marked the list of the subscription library; she still took an interest in the choice of a play for the theatricals, and ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... doubtfully. "She is an enigma. She speaks the most precise English, with absolutely no trace of slang. But she looks as though the whole world were her natural enemy. Elfreda named her the Anarchist. I am rather ashamed to say we call her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... early poetry. It is a story which is hardly a story at all, told by comment, evasion, and recurrence, by 'little images, recollections, and circumstances of past pleasures' or distresses; with something vague and yet precise, like a dream partially remembered. Here and there is the creation of a mood and moment, almost like Coleridge's in the Ancient Mariner; but these flicker and go out. The style would be laughable in its simplicity if there were not in it some almost awing touch of innocence; some hint of ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... of the prince enlightened me as to the position of my delightful fellow countrywoman, and I understood why she had been so precise about the time at which I was to come. Redegonde had made the conquest of the worthy prince, who was always disposed to gallantry, but felt it his duty during the first year of his marriage with the King of England's ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... into the dressing-room. There was no one there. No trace of the smallest disturbance among the things. The medicine-bottles and the medicine-glass stood on the little table exactly as I had left them. I was very careful and precise in my arrangement of these things, and it would have been difficult for the slightest interference with them to have escaped me. What could that sound have been—some accidental shiver of the glass, stirred by a breath of wind, one of those ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... significant glance with the old justice; the same idea struck them both at the same moment. These bank-notes could only be the payment for some important service rendered by Jenny to Tremorel. M. Lecoq, however, wished for more precise information. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... kept carefully in the backgrouud, and are heard to shout from behind the scenes in a singular tone resembling ululation, and accompanied by a sound not unlike vigorous clapping. This, however, may be artistically in keeping with the habits of the rustic population of those localities. The precise connection between agricultural pursuits and statesmanship I have not been able, after diligent inquiry, to discover. But, that my investigations may not be barren of all fruit, I will mention one curious statistical fact, which I consider thoroughly established, namely, that no real farmer ever ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... No precise date has been assigned to the writing of Elinor and Marianne; but after the completion of that sketch her time has been ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... villages, camps, Versailles gardens, etc. etc. etc. etc., with no wings, no flies, no looking off in any direction. If you tell me that you are to be in town by that time, I will not fail to refresh your memory as to the precise day. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... It is impossible to make out the precise form which the author intended to give to this sentence, but ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... a fellow of infinite good-luck; and so it fell out that, at the precise moment when all his plans were complete, the Czar Feodor obligingly died. So opportunely did this event happen, that grave historians have been inclined to suspect Boris of having procured it in some way; but of this there is ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... not that very thing we imagined; in that we are often disappointed. It consists in the shining forth of new and before undiscovered traits. But when were extravagant anticipations ever yet realized, and that too in the precise objects, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... tenderness and care; and her pregnancy being pretty far advanced, conducted her to his country seat, where she was delivered of Mr. A—, about the latter end of April, or beginning of May; for none of the witnesses have been able, at this distance, with absolute certainty to fix the precise time of his birth, and there was no register kept in the parish. As an additional misfortune, no gentleman of fashion lived in that parish; nor did those who lived at any considerable distance care ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... like board' of a floor, but loozly, like those link' of a chain. They are jointed in the subjec' of friddom! 'Tis true, only friddom of negro', yet still—friddom! An', messieurs et mesdames, that is now the precise moment when that whole worl' is wile on that topique; friddom of citizen', friddom of nation', friddom of race', friddom of the sea'! And there is ferociouz demand for short storie' joint' on that topique, biccause now at the lazt that whole worl' is biccome ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... however, was not great, and as they had cast over the wall a handful of flowers from the garden to mark the precise spot, it was ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... to present the Legion of Honor to the bravest of your soldiers," said a sharp, precise voice, articulating ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... "More! To be precise, I have received exactly seventy-two thousand pounds, Mr. Narkom. But, as I tell you, I have to-day but one hundred pounds of that sum left. Lost in speculation? Oh, dear no! I've not invested one farthing in any scheme, company, or purchase since the ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... curiosity about it." (Here Mr. Cazalette, standing close by me, nudged my elbow, to remind me of what he had just said upstairs.) "And I told the inspector something else, or, rather, put him in mind of something he'd evidently forgotten," continued Lorrimore. "That inquest, or, to be precise, the adjourned inquest, was attended by a good many strangers, who had evidently been attracted by mere curiosity. There were a lot of people there who certainly did not belong to this neighbourhood. And when the proceedings were over, they came crowding round that table, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... story, as nearly as I can recollect, in the following way. Of course I cannot recall the precise words; but the order of the thoughts—how often have they been pondered!—I ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... benevolent dragon; its claws were always claws, the grinning fretted mouth was perpetually fixed for a cloud of smoke and a mild rumble of complaint. The severe waxed hickory beyond with the broad arm for writing, a source of special pride, had been an accommodating and precise old gentleman. The spindling gold chairs in the drawingroom were supercilious creatures at a king's ball; the graceful impressive formality of the Heppelwhites in the dining room belonged to the loveliest of Boston ladies. Those with difficult haircloth seats in the parlor were deacons; ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... presence before you entered, saying, 'I will make you look like'—I forget it now, but his humourous threat was to reduce our young friend to the aspect of some inconsiderable sum in the money of your country. I cannot recall the precise amount, but it was not so much as what you call one dollar. Strange, is it not, that the rich who have too much money gamble as feverishly as the poor who have none, and therefore have an excuse? And the love of ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... poetry of the more austere critics was devised according to the strictest principles of dignity and sublimity, with a precise exclusion of everything "Gothic" and romantic. Davenant's Preface to Gondibert—"the Author's Preface to his much Honour'd friend, Mr Hobs"—may show how the canon of epic was understood by poets who took things seriously; "for I will yield to their opinion, ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... attack. The intended surprise, so important for the success of an offensive, has thus failed. In due course Italy also obtained, from documents which some deserters handed to the Italian high command, information which gave her a sufficiently precise idea of our dispositions. English, French and Italian officers and men captured by us declare unanimously that their regiments were advised on the evening of June 14 that the Austrian offensive would start at two o'clock on the ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... among the contents of an old chest in the muniment room of St. Mary Redcliff's. The Rowley poems included two tragedies, Aella and Goddwyn, two cantos of a long poem on the Battle of Hastings, and a number of ballads and minor pieces. Chatterton had no precise knowledge of early English, or even of Chaucer. His method of working was as follows: He made himself a manuscript glossary of the words marked as archaic in Bailey's and Kersey's English dictionaries, composed his poems first in modern ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... gates of the Park, Apsley House, the long line of Piccadilly, all uncertain, gentle, reduced to a whimsical mildness of aspect in the half-light of the dawning, he again recalled the fact, which he had mentioned that night to Doctor Levillier, of people watching an invalid who had seen, at the precise moment of dissolution, the soul escaping furtively from its fleshy prison like a flame, which was immediately lost in the air. Surely, wandering souls, if indeed there were such things, might still retain this faint semblance of a shape, a form. And if so, they might perhaps occasionally ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... need of a revision of the law regarding immoral publications in literature and art becomes every day more manifest. There is required especially a precise definition of what the statute is designed to prohibit. At present there is no uniform criterion. It is just what the local Dogberry and the scratch jury happen to find. Books that have had an established place in literature for generations and are found in all the great libraries ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... Philostratus, and our own wonderful Bacchus and Ariadne at the National Gallery from the Epithalamium Pelei et Thetidos of Catullus. In the future it is quite possible that the Austrian savant may propose new and precise interpretations for the Three Ages and for Giorgione's ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... rooting them out of the way. The hens, in turn, took it out on the little porkers, pecking them when they strayed too far from their mother. And over the top rail a horse looked drowsily on, ever and anon, at mathematically precise intervals, switching a lazy tail that flashed high lights in ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... sorry that she had given him such precise instructions, but did not contradict herself by asking him to stay longer. She promised Lady Maud again to be at Craythew on Friday of the next week if possible, and certainly on Saturday, and Lady Maud and Logotheti went ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... white trousers; a flower stuck in his button-hole, his bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with habitual determination. There was not much of the sailor in his looks, but plenty of the martinet: a dry, precise man, who might pass for a preacher in some rigid sect; and whatever he was, not the Captain Trent of San Francisco. The men, too, were all new to me: the cook, an unmistakable Chinaman, in his characteristic dress, standing apart on the poop steps. But perhaps ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and simplest of men. On the bench he wore his baggy old alpaca coat as though it were a silken robe. And, as has been heretofore remarked, he had for his official and his private lives two different modes of speech. As His Honor, presiding, his language was invariably grammatical and precise and as carefully accented as might be expected of a man whose people never had very much use anyway for the consonant "r." As William Pitman Priest, Esq., citizen, taxpayer, and Confederate veteran he mishandled the king's English as though he had but small personal regard for ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... love Dante for the precise reason that these men hate him. He makes sex the centre of everything. One need not be deceived by the fact that Dante worships "purity," while Voltaire, Goethe and Nietzsche are little concerned with it. This very laudation ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... from the Devonian by any mountain-making deformation or continental uplift. The one period passed quietly into the other. Their conformable systems are so closely related, and the change in their faunas is so gradual, that geologists are not agreed as to the precise horizon which divides them. ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... elder, and what an outcry is raised: "Such rudeness;" "Such an ill-mannered child;" "His parents must have neglected him strangely." Not at all: The parents may have been steadily telling him a great many times every day not to do these precise things which you dislike. But they themselves have been all the time doing those very things before him, and there is no proverb that strikes a truer balance between two things than the old one which weighs example ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... association with his fellow-villager, Deering. I had fancied him saturnine of spirit, slovenly of dress, and lounging of habit, upon no authority that I could allege, and I was wholly unprepared for the neat, small figure of a man, very precise of manner and scrupulous of aspect, who said, "How do you do, sir? I hope I see you well, sir," when his daughter presented us to each other, the morning after the eventful day described, and he shook my hand with his very ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 1709, he appears as purchasing the colonelcy of an Irish Regiment. This regiment was ordered, in 1710, to Spain; but before that year the colonel and his wife and son had a separate home provided for them, by the care of Sir Henry Gould. At what precise date is uncertain, but some time before 1710, Sir Henry had purchased an estate at East Stour in Dorsetshire, consisting of farms and lands of the value of L4750, intending to settle some or the whole of the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... with whom the popular imagination associated the idea of the panic, but what specific ground there was for laying upon him the responsibility of the precise predictions which led to it none could rightly say. It was remembered afterward that every new folly had been ascribed to him. "The Father says so and so," or "The Father says such and such will come to pass," and then came prophecies ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... thought of the means of obeying Lady Julia, by withdrawing his suit; therefore, with a mixture of vexation and embarrassment in his manner, he answered in commonplace phrases, meant to convey no precise meaning, and endeavoured to disengage himself from his companion; but the lawyer, who had fastened upon him, linking his arm in Vivian's, continued to walk him up and down under the great gateway, saying that he had a word or two of importance for his private ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... entered the trenches many Germans broke from the dugouts. All who did were subsequently well cared for. Each of our men was given definite instructions for his precise task and a map of the enemy's trenches, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... unhealthy, and so I never came without incommoding her. This and other causes made her hate the very sight of me. However, nothwithstanding great discomforts and daily annoyances, I persevered in going. The Duke's orders, meanwhile, were so precise, that no sooner did I knock at those doors, than they were immediately opened, and I was allowed to pass freely where I chose. The consequence was that occasionally, while walking noiselessly and unexpectedly ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... whether they counted such children as God's reward for service or Nature's premium on sanity, they always left the reward to God or the premium to Nature, as a less definable thing. The only person (and this is the point) towards whom one could have precise duties was the partner in the process. Directly considering the partner's claims was the nearest one could get to indirectly considering the claims of posterity. If the women of the harem sang praises of ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... did not lead him to neglect more ambitious forms of art; how he had a picture in his studio of a Greek subject which was said to be remarkable from several points of view; how no one had seen it nor knew the precise site of the studio in which it was being vigorously though secretly confected; how (in answer to a suggestion) this shyness was common to the Admiral, Michelangelo, and others; how they (Dick and Van Tromp) ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... attracted my attention by appearing with food in their beaks, and by seeming much put out. Yet so wary were they of revealing the locality of their brood, or even of the precise tree that held them, that I lurked around over an hour without gaining a point on them. Finally a bright and curious boy who accompanied me secreted himself under a low, projecting rock close to the tree in which we supposed the nest to be, while I moved off around the mountain-side. ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... instance of what is really the essential issue in every strike. The bottom fact about the taxi chauffeurs, stated simply, was that they did not believe in their employers. They believed that, if the precise figures were known, their employers were getting more than their share. On the other hand, the bottom fact about the employers was that they did not and could not believe that, if the precise figures were known, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... commander-in-chief, like those whom he was superseding, was under precise orders from the home government to be guided by M. de Saligny. Notwithstanding the disastrous consequences of his misrepresentations, the French minister, strangely enough, still retained his hold upon the ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... most horrific groaning emanated from the lion. The mouse ran up, looked him over, and soliloquised in precise language,—evidently remembered, "What is the matter with the lion? Oh, I see; he is caught in a trap." And then she gnawed with her teeth at the imaginary rope ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... years 1570-71 Drake made two voyages to the West Indies, apparently to gain a more precise acquaintance with the seas, the situation, strength, and wealth of the Spanish settlements. In 1572 he sailed with two ships, one of seventy-five tons, the other of twenty-five tons, their united crews mustering only seventy-three men and boys, all volunteers. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... over-emphasising minute details and nuances of words, insisting upon derivations and tenses, packing into language a mass of suggestions and associations which could never have entered into the mind of the writer. Language ought to be treated sympathetically, as the not over-precise expression of human emotion and wonder; but my father made it of a half-scientific, half-fanciful analysis. This might prove suggestive and enriching to more mature minds. But Hugh once said to me that he used to feel day after day like a small china mug being filled out of a ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... will probably enable the invading fleet to elude the vigilance of the aeroplane scouts and patrols. Under these circumstances it is suggested that balloon-mines should be sent aloft and be concealed in the clouds. It would be impossible to detect the wires holding them captive, so that the precise location of the lurking danger would not be divined by the invader. Of course, the chances are that the invading airship would unconsciously miss the mines; on the other hand the possibilities are equally great that it would blunder into one of these traps and be ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... deranged my nervous system; and if I found a servant would not do a thing in my way, I would let her accomplish it in her own manner, and at her own time—so that it was done, that was all I required. I felt almost disheartened as the remarks of my precise aunt proved to me how remiss I had been, and resolved in a very humble mood to reform. Bat when Aunt Lina continued her conversations about the mismanagement before my father, then I felt the "old Adam" stir within me. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... closing its mouth with the thumb, and examine the color of the fluid in the tube-shaped neck of the bottle, and afterwards, should it be required, add another drop of the ammonia. Repeat this until the proper tone of color has been reached, neither red nor blue. After thus fixing the precise point of the saturation of the acids, the burette is held upright, and the quantity of the solution of ammonia consumed is accurately determined,—that is, to what line on the scale the burette has been emptied. The quantity ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... with folk, with deeds undreamed of by thirty-nine and three-quarters out of forty millions of people, and by that quarter-million only known as nursery tales. Not only so, but he has been awakened to the significance of common things, having at hand an interpreter, and been enabled to be precise where Wordsworth was vague. He has known Zeus in the thunder, in the lightning beheld the shaking of the dread AEgis. In the river source he has seen the breasted nymph; he has seen the Oreads stream over the bare hillside. There are men who see these things and don't believe them, others ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... never tires of telling us about the old times, and about Mr. Blake and yourself," he answered in his precise English, and with the simple dignity which he never lost. Lila, watching him, prayed silently that a miracle might open the old lady's eyes and allow her to see the kind, manly look upon ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... from two heads. If you hear a thing like that from Indians, you call it 'legend'; if from the Company's papers, you call it 'history.' Well, in this there is not much difference. The papers tell precise the facts; the legend gives the feeling, is more true. How can you judge the facts if you don't know the feeling? No! what is bad turns good sometimes, when you know the how, the feeling, the place. Well, this story of the Great ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... over the sea, and so by skill one driver can beat another. If a man go wide in rounding this way and that, whereas a man who knows what he is doing may have worse horses, but he will keep them well in hand when he sees the doubling-post; he knows the precise moment at which to pull the rein, and keeps his eye well on the man in front of him. I will give you this certain token which cannot escape your notice. There is a stump of a dead tree—oak or pine as it may be—some six feet above the ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... further than to pronounce that the dispensing power, as of late exercised, was illegal. That a certain dispensing power belonged to the Crown was a proposition sanctioned by authorities and precedents of which even Whig lawyers could not speak without respect; but as to the precise extent of this power hardly any two jurists were agreed; and every attempt to frame a definition had failed. At length by the Bill of Rights the anomalous prerogative which had caused so many fierce disputes was absolutely and for ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... prosecuted by the increasing knowledge of the age, to maintain any shadow of popular government, in opposition to such unlimited authority in the sovereign. It was necessary to fix a choice; either to abandon entirely the privileges of the people, or to secure them by firmer and more precise barriers than the constitution had hitherto provided for them. In this dilemma, men of such aspiring geniuses, and such independent fortunes, could not long deliberate: they boldly embraced the side of freedom, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... The family deserved to prosper, I said to myself, as I lay under a big magnolia-tree (just beginning to open its large white flowers) and idly enjoyed the scene. And it was just here, by the bye, that I solved an interesting etymological puzzle, to wit, the origin and precise meaning of the word "baygall,"—a word which the visitor often hears upon the lips of Florida people. An old hunter in Smyrna, when I questioned him about it, told me that it meant a swampy piece of wood, and took its origin, he had always supposed, from the fact that bay-trees and ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... from this time there was manifest, with no loss of power or effect, a well-assured seriousness, somewhat jealous and exclusive, not so much in the selection of the material on which the arts were to work, as in the precise sort of expression that should be induced upon it. It was as if the gay old pagan world had been BLESSED in some way; with effects to be seen most clearly in the rich miniature work of the manuscripts of the capitular library,—a marvellous Ovid especially, upon the pages of which those old ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... good broad forehead, well-arched eyebrows, and straight, dark-brown hair, parted at the side, which, like his entirely unshaven beard, he wore short until late in life. In his dress and manner he was rather neglige than precise, and he bestowed little thought on his personal appearance or what Mrs. Grundy might say. Taking him all in all, the champion of James Lambert looked the lion-hearted hero that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... heart could bear, if it were not for the prospect of eternity, and the full sense of the comparative nothingness of time, which that prospect produces. If I look on the last thirty years, things seem as but yesterday; and when I look forward, the end of this mortal journey must be near, though the precise point where it will terminate is not in sight. Yet were you under my roof, as I live in hope that one day you will be, you would recognize just as much of the original Robert Southey as you would wish to see remaining;—though the body is somewhat ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... such moments his cheeks glowed and his huge mustache curled with enjoyment. The romance and poetry of the hard trade of arms seemed first to be inaugurated when this joyous cavalier, with his floating plume and splendid laughter, appeared upon the great arena of the war in Virginia." Precise people shook their heads, and called him frivolous, undervaluing his great ability. Those best capable of judging him were of a different opinion. Johnston wrote to him from the west: "How can I eat or sleep in peace without you upon the outpost?" Jackson ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... one expects the jokes of Bernard Shaw to have some intellectual root, however fantastic the flower. And obviously all historic common sense is against the idea that that dim Druid people, whoever they were, who dwelt in our land before it was lit up by Rome or loaded with varied invasions, were a precise facsimile of the commercial society of Birmingham or Brighton. But it is a part of the Puritan in Bernard Shaw, a part of the taut and high-strung quality of his mind, that he will never admit of any of his jokes that it was only a joke. When he has been most witty he will passionately deny his ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... peasantry of the Lavedan district next to be met with. The pleasant face is framed in by the ever-favorite hood or head-mantle. This is sometimes, as here, a kerchief, of conspicuous colors, peculiarly coifed,—the precise twist varying according to the mode of each locality. Often, as with the women of Goust, the kerchief is of plain white, tied below the chin, and set off with a short outside cape, black or colored, over the crown. At times the cape alone ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... safer to have a regular well-known rule to act by; but I don't see how you can give me, e.g., precise directions. It seems to me that you must use great care in selecting your man, and ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... these directions, which certainly were not very precise, made another attempt to find the treasure. There was more than one "projecting rock," and he dug over all the sand and gravel to the depth of a foot in the vicinity of every part of the cliff which answered to the description given. ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... that Adrienne had purchased me, this artful woman had never lost sight of the intended victim. By means of an occasional bribe to little Nathalie, she ascertained the precise progress of the work, and learning that I should probably be ready for sale that very morning, under the pretence of hiring the apartment, she was shown into my important presence. A brief apology explained all, and Adrienne civilly ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... water. How could they dream of sending thousands of men, horses, and guns over a thing so slender that it looked as though it were supported by the fragile meshes of a spider's web? Captain D. gave me the Colonel's precise orders: not to pass more than four troopers at a time, and these ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... would imply that the voyagers had mixed with these natives very considerably in order to have been able to speak so positively in regard to their mental faculties, and therefore could not have been mistaken as to their complexion for want of opportunity to discover it. The precise place where they first landed and saw these black people is not mentioned further than that the country where they lived was situated in the thirty-fourth degree of latitude. From this place they proceeded further along the coast northwardly, ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... At this precise point the minds that had borne his company so long began to part from it. Fry looked in his face with an expression bordering on open contempt, and Hodges shoved rudely by ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... and calling "fate into the list." For his wife, he is little more than an agent, a frame of bone and sinew for her fiery spirit to command. The nature of his feeling towards her is rendered with a most precise and delicate touch. He always yields to the woman's fascination; and yet his caresses (and we know how much meaning Salvini can give to a caress) are singularly hard and unloving. Sometimes he lays his hand on her as he might take hold of any one who happened to be nearest to him ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little rogue, quite too much for her precise and stately mother, who was ever holding up as a model a child, in her grave fifty years agone, who had read the Bible through twice before she was five years old, and knitted all the stockings worn by the coachmen! All in vain: Sydney was not fated to die early or figure as a young ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... exchanged shots twice with his adversary, and put a ball into his body which he carried all his life. By this time, too, the precocious and ungovernable boy had become, as he flattered himself, a complete atheist. One of his favorite amusements at Princeton was to burlesque the precise and perhaps ungraceful Presbyterians of the place. The library of his Virginian home, it appears, was furnished with a great supply of what the French mildly call the literature of incredulity,—Helvetius, Voltaire, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... not easy to determine the precise ratio in which production has been increased by these instrumentalities. It is unquestionably very large,—not less, probably, than threefold. That is to say, a given population, including all ages and conditions, can produce the articles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... not so precise but that we are content that particular Kirks use them in that behalf, with the consent of the ministry of the same as they will answer to God and Assembly of the Universal Kirk gathered ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston
... line," he said. "Instructions came from—from headquarters, to ascertain the precise limitations of the reservation. The results gave the 'Laughing Water' claim to its present owners, by right of prior location, after the opening hour, as the claim was included in the tract." He had uttered this speech before. It fell very ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... days of the classic supremacy and the rise of romanticism. Like Claude, like Chardin, he stands somewhat apart; but he has distinctly the romantic inspiration, constrained and regularized by classic principles of taste. He is the French Correggio in far more precise parallelism than Lesueur is the French Raphael. With a grace and lambent color all his own—a beautiful mother-of-pearl and opalescent tone underlying his exquisite violets and graver hues; a color-scheme, on the one hand, and a sense of design in line and mass more suave ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... of his life followed. Providentially, his first glance was directed at the precise spot where a crouching Sioux made a slight movement with his rifle, which gave the white man an instant's warning of his peril. He ducked his head, and had he not instinctively closed his eyes, ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... recovered. It was as though the mainspring was broken in a watch; and, though the wheels still turned of their own momentum, the revolutions were few in number and soon ceased. "A strange illness," says Correa, "and a strange manner of death was that! Without any precise symptom, that which was diagnosed as pneumonia turned to hepatitis, becoming in the judgment of others pericarditis, and meanwhile the patient, with his brain as clear as ever and his natural gentleness, went on submitting ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... advanced thinker, a profound physicist, and an inspired poet; a master of the old school and at the same time the founder of the new school, the national-classical, of Hebrew poetry." His pure and precise style, his good-natured, Horace-like, delicate, yet unmistakable, humor, he showed in a series of books bearing the name of Asaf, which still must be counted among the ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... superintending the preparation of some medicine for one of his horses. Making known my errand, he consented to drive me to the Mill Road; but first assured me that it would disarrange all his plans for the day. Thomas was an old bachelor, with ways very set and precise; and his hours were divided off as regularly as ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... the sight of Enver. He was a slim fellow of Rasta's build, very foppish and precise in his dress, with a smooth oval face like a girl's, and rather fine straight black eyebrows. He spoke perfect German, and had the best kind of manners, neither pert nor overbearing. He had a pleasant trick, too, of appealing all ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... straightest woman I ever saw, and the most precise. I never shall forget how scared I was when Steve took me up to see her that first time. I put on all my plainest things, did my hair in a meek knob, and tried to act like a sober, sedate young woman. Steve would laugh at me and say I looked like a pretty nun, so I couldn't be as ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... by no means one of the late Prince Metternich's "geographical expressions." The present tenants of the soil give a precise and practical definition of its limits. Their Arz Madyan extends from El-Akabah north (north lat. 29 28') to El-Muwaylah with its Wady, El-Surr (north lat. 27 40'). It has thus a total latitudinal length of 108 direct geographical miles.[EN149] South of this line, the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... and committed to the stream, to flow to the Ganges, as the best interment for a Hindoo. These sipahees knew nothing of the man's history; but the people who saw the affair from the Dhundee Fort mentioned that the body was thrown into the river at the precise place where he had thrown in that of his eldest brother, after murdering him in the boat with his own hands, as stated in the extract from my Diary; and all believe that this retribution arises from an interposition from above. The eldest son of ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... forecastle bulkheads, with the assurance that he should never put his foot on deck again "until the brig was no longer a brig." This was the expression of the cook, who threw him into the berth—it is hardly possible to say what precise meaning intended by the phrase. The whole affair, however, proved the ultimate means of my relief, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... very gravely to pin tiny sprigs of purple clematis across the white surface. This latter decoration was performed with the sure touch of artists. No mediaeval designer of tapestry could have chosen, with more secure selection, the precise points of distance at which to place the bouquets; nor could the tones and tints of the greens and purples, and the velvet of the occasional heartsease, sparsely used, have been more correctly combined. When the task was ended, the commonplace house was ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... however, that the way John narrates the incident differs widely from those descriptions of miracles, the offspring of the popular imagination, which fill the synoptics. Let us add, that John is the only evangelist who has a precise knowledge of the relations of Jesus with the family of Bethany, and that it is impossible to believe that a mere creation of the popular mind could exist in a collection of remembrances so entirely personal. It is, then, probable that the miracle in question was ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... usually produce these things will be getting nothing for their labor except money which they will be unable to use to buy dinners, because there will be no dinners to buy. That supposititious case is a precise parallel to what has happened in Russia. Russia produced practically no manufactured goods (70 per cent. of her machinery she received from abroad), but great quantities of food. The blockade isolated her. By the blockade ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... for fiction. Washington Irving, reverting to the Spectator, produced his sketches, and, following the trend of his time, looked forward to a new form and wrote The Spectre Bridegroom and Rip Van Winkle. It is only by a precise definition of short-story that Irving is robbed of the honor of being the founder of the modern short-story. He loved to meander and to fit his materials to his story scheme in a leisurely manner. He did not quite see what Hawthorne instinctively ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Nice of you to drop in on me while in the neighborhood." His English was suave, precise. "Professor Norman Prescott, leader of the American Kinchinjunga expedition, I believe." He paused and lifted inquiring eyebrows to his ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... visual ray passes through it. If now we trace on the floor a line AB from the nail to the spot B, just under the eye, and from the point o, where this line passes through or under the glass, we raise a perpendicular oS, that perpendicular passes through the precise point that the visual ray passes through. The line AB traced on the floor is the horizontal trace of the visual ray, and it will be seen that the point a is situated on the vertical raised from ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... noted any correspondences of phrase so precise as to prove reminiscence beyond possibility of dispute; but it is not difficult to trace striking correspondences which, though falling short of explicit reproduction, inevitably suggest a relation; and these it now behoves us ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... with the knife and fork, that, at the end of the second remove, he had actually disposed of more food than any other person at table. He now began to converse, and we shall open the conversation at the precise point in the dinner, when it was in the power of Aristabulus to make one ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... the pillows, and lifted the girl with her long, strong arms, then stooping over her a moment she finished her arrangements by softly smoothing the hair from her forehead with a caressing movement most unlike her usual precise business-like proceedings. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... little man, a Mr. Clay, who has come all the way from England to see Mr. Ferrars, and begged to be allowed to attach himself to our party. A perfect little kill-joy he is, so prim, so proper and precise, that one is tempted to believe he must have been born a grown-up, and so has ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... craft, although a tradition (not, however, of undoubted authority) says that he was assisted in his government by the counsel of twelve superintendants, selected from the twelve tribes of Israel. But we know too little, from authentic materials, of the precise system adopted at that remote period, to enable us to make any ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... Vennal, we mustn't start anything personal of our lady guest," broke in Furnese from the Chair, "we may take up her ideas or take 'em down, but while she's the guest of this here Farmers' Club, which is till eleven-thirty precise, we mustn't start arguing about her age or matrimonious intentions. Anyways, I take it, that's a job ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... the proper time. That the Government was desirous of forming its own opinion on the fullest information and with the greatest consideration; and that we wished the House to have the same opportunities. That I was not then prepared to inform him in what precise form we should propose that the ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... intelligent design no less in those limitless regions of space than in our narrow terrestrial home. The discovery was emphatically (in Arago's phrase) "one with a future," since it introduced the element of precise knowledge where more or less probable conjecture had previously held almost undivided sway; and precise knowledge tends to propagate itself and advance ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... You shall know me, if you will, as well as I know myself. And do not think me far from the point when I say I have a feeble health. I am what the doctors call anaemic; a rather bloodless creature. The blood is life, so I have not much life. Ten years back—eleven, if I must be precise, I thought of conquering the world with a pen! The result is that I am glad of a fireside, and not sure of always having one: and that is my achievement. My days are monotonous, but if I have a dread, it is that there will be an alteration in them. My father ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... taking agnostic naturalism just as it seemed disposed a generation ago to present itself, it now appears as if it had been turned exactly inside out. Instead of the physical world being primary and fundamental and the mental world secondary, if not altogether problematical, the precise converse is true. ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... her time for consideration, she would have been wiser and done better. No, Delaserre—this must not be. The picture presses close upon me, because I am aware a girl in Julia's situation has no distinct and precise idea of the value of the sacrifice she makes. She knows difficulties only by name; and, if she thinks of love and a farm, it is a ferme ornee, such as is only to be found in poetic description, or in the park of a gentleman of twelve thousand a year. She would be ill prepared ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Macedonian army, for instance, despite the fact that the Greek soldiers were infinitely more cultivated. To speak of German scholarship and culture as having conquered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a misapprehension, probably resulting from the circumstance that every precise notion of culture has now vanished ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... one of Bohemia's moat popular saints and patrons. It happened that Bo[vr]ivoj had occasion to ask his neighbour Svatopluk, Prince of Moravia, for protection, and then he became acquainted with that energetic missionary, St. Methodius. Unhappily we have no precise information concerning date and place of this picturesque event. The chronicler has done his best by giving the following story to fill up the blank. He narrates that Bo[vr]ivoj was not allowed to sit ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... to the railway-station, and I was very much touched with the attention. It was who should carry my botany-box, who should set my cap straight, who should give me the most precise and statistical information about the train which returned to Paris, with a stop at Noisy; the while, Ophelia-like, I chanted snatches of old songs, and mingled together in a tender reverie my recollections of Mary Ashburton, my coming ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... fences, and trees, and bushes with crystal drops, which sparkled and glittered in the sunbeams like royal diamonds—then he hung icicles on the poor old horses' noses, and tripped up the heels of precise old bachelors, and sent the old maids spinning round on the sidewalks, till they were perfectly ashamed of themselves; and then he got into the houses, and burst and cracked all the water pitchers, and choked up the steady ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... felt my way down the avenue—it was still black dark under the dark trees—and later up the tunnel of the side road which I hit upon by an instinct that made me feel for it at the precise moment when I reached the point of its junction with the avenue—I returned with a sense of satisfaction to the memory of the last four hours. I was conscious of some kind of plan in the way the comedy of Brenda's disappearance had been put before us. I realised ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... his lighted room, he wondered whether, had her trained and inbred policy been less precise, less worldly, she might have responded to such a man as he. Perfectly conscious that he had been capable of loving her; aware, too, that his experience had left him on that borderland only through his cool refusal to cross it and face a hopeless ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... neighbouring countries (such as Indrapura and Indragiri in Sumatra, Singapura at the extremity of the peninsula, and Sukapura and the mountain of Maha-meru in Java) are indisputably of Hindu origin. It is not my intention however to assign a precise etymology; but in order to show the general analogy to known Sanskrit terms it may be allowed to instance Samuder, the ancient name of the capital of the Carnatik, afterwards called Bider; Samudra-duta, which occurs ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... came in. "I didn't in the least know when you might arrive," said he, beginning with an apology for his absence. "How could I, my dear?" Alice scorned to remind him that she herself had named the precise hour of the train by which they had arrived. "It's all right, papa," said she. "I was very glad to have an hour to write a letter or two. Poor Lady Macleod is very ill. I must go to ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... also the glaucous willow, and it is botanically Salix discolor. It is more distinct than some others of the family, for the willow is a great mixer. The tree expert who will unerringly distinguish between the red oak and the scarlet oak by the precise angle of the spinose margins of the leaves (how I admire an accuracy I do not possess!) will balk at which is crack willow, or white willow, or yellow or blue willow. The abundant vigor and vitality and freedom of the family, and the fact that it ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... in close communion with these banded "Knights," or were actual members of their secret organizations, may be an open question. But it is very certain that if they all were not oath-bound members, they generally pursued the precise methods of those who were; and that, as a rule, while they often loudly proclaimed loyalty and love for the Union, they were always ready to act as if their loyalty and love ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... this undeniable truth make against Universalism? Far from it—so far, indeed, as to make for it. The reason is no mystery. Of matter we have ideas clear, precise, and indispensable, whereas of something not matter we cannot have any idea whatever, good, bad, or indifferent. The Universe is extraordinary, no doubt, but so much of it as acts upon us is perfectly ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon manufactured entirely of dirty newspapers? No man in Holland certainly; yet here, under the very noses of the people, or rather at some distance above their noses was the identical thing in question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of the precise material which no one had ever before known to be used for a similar purpose. It was an egregious insult to the good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As to the shape of the phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible. Being little or nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside down. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Hester, with no little interest, the precise time at which the vessel might be expected to depart. It would probably be on the fourth day from the present. "This is most fortunate!" he had then said to himself. Now, why the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate we hesitate to reveal. Nevertheless—to hold ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... meaning, it plainly stands for nothing else than the praise of other men, the being admired, honoured, and feared; or, more commonly, having a celebrated name; that is, for a something external to ourselves. But whatever precise notions they wished to attach to the word, they used to talk in glowing language of the necessity of going through dangers and sufferings for glory's sake,—labouring to benefit the world ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... quoth I, for I'll put the precise sum into a piece of paper, and hold it ready in my hand all the way: 'Now I shall have nothing to do,' said I (composing myself to rest), 'but to drop this gently into the post-boy's hat, and not say a word.'—Then there wants two sous more to drink—or there is a twelve ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... tresses down her back, was of so deep a chestnut hue that it might easily have been mistaken for black; and her eyes—well, they sparkled and flashed so brilliantly that it was difficult for a stranger to determine their precise colour. Her features were perhaps scarcely formed with sufficient regularity to warrant her being termed strictly beautiful, but she was most assuredly, at least in my eyes, bewitchingly lovely. She possessed just sufficient colour in her cheeks and ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... from his pocket a thick letter, strongly sealed, and addressed in Jefferson's fine, precise hand. "I must be away from Richmond for a week or more, and the matter may be important. I can conceive no reason why, so that it be put directly into Mr. Rand's hand, one agent should be better than another. I'll confide it to ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... old Romans thought of it all, and reflect on the strangeness of life that a people so remote from our times should have lived and loved and died, as we live and love and die to-day. Whether Treves lie on the right or left bank of the Moselle is immaterial except to the tiresomely precise or to those who pin their faith to guide-books and such shallow teachers. There is a more valuable lesson to be learnt of the place than that of its exact situation; and no Baedeker or Murray can help you to ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... At this precise moment the priest was sitting with folded arms, beyond the body, on a stool or trestle, in the alcove or recess where it lay. Right overhead was one of the small round apertures in the gable of the chapel, which, opening on the bank, appeared ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Indians came to the fort with a few furs and some bear's grease. Though we had not seen any of them, it appeared that they had received information of our being in the country, and knew the precise situation of our house, which they would have visited long ago, but from the fear of being pillaged by the Copper Indians. I questioned the chief about the Great Bear and Marten Lakes, their distance from Fort Enterprise, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... language to describe the species of vivid dream that had come to him at intervals since earliest childhood, showing in detail how he discovered these very Tablets of the Gods, and proclaimed their splendid contents—whose precise nature was always, however, withheld from him in the vision—to a ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... such a focus of trade will centre large commercial and political interests. To protect and develop its own, each nation will seek points of support and means of influence in a quarter where the United States always has been jealously sensitive to the intrusion of European powers. The precise value of the Monroe doctrine is understood very loosely by most Americans, but the effect of the familiar phrase has been to develop a national sensitiveness, which is a more frequent cause of war than material interests; and over disputes caused by such feelings there will preside ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... electro-magnetic disturbance of the ether. Optics is a branch of electricity. Outstanding problems in optics are being rapidly solved now that we have the means of definitely exciting light with a full perception of what we are doing and of the precise mode of its vibration. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... pleasure of things they possess the superiority of genuineness over all fiction and romance. As they emit themselves facts are showered over with light ... the daylight is lit with more volatile light ... also the deep between the setting and rising sun goes deeper many fold. Each precise object or condition or combination or process exhibits a beauty ... the multiplication table its—old age its—the carpenter's trade its—the grand opera its—the hugehulled cleanshaped New-York clipper at sea under steam or full sail gleams with unmatched beauty.... the American circles ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... its extension—its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... not omit anything that ought to be said but speak what the whole people would have chanted with one tongue if they could have obtained one voice. I am well aware that it is difficult to hit your precise sentiments. Especially is it no easy task to treat matters of such magnitude,—what speech could equal the greatness of the deeds?—and you, whose minds are insatiable because of the facts that you know already, ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... averted face grew more and more impressive. He kept inscrutably silent for a moment, and then, placing me in a ship of a certain size, at sea, under conditions of weather, season, locality, etc.—all very clear and precise—ordered me to execute a certain manoeuvre. Before I was half through with it he did some material damage to the ship. Directly I had grappled with the difficulty he caused another to present itself, and when that, too, was met he stuck another ship before me, creating ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... Isaiah of Jerusalem, successful statesman as well as deep seer, still vividly lives for us in some thirty-six chapters of that great collection the 'Book of Isaiah' (i-xii, xv-xx, xxii-xxxix). There is his majestic vocation in about 740 B.C., described by himself, without ambiguity, as a precise, objective revelation (chap. vi); and there is the divinely impressive close of his long and great activity, when he nerves King Hezekiah to refuse the surrender of the Holy City to the all-powerful Sennacherib, King of Assyria: that Yahweh would not allow a single arrow to be shot against ...
— Progress and History • Various
... similar in appearance and properties wherever found, whether in the tissues of the human body, in a blade of grass, or in the green slime of a stagnant pool. And yet probably no two samples of protoplasm are ever exactly similar in all respects, though we may never be able to detect their precise differences. These differences are due to the fact that the stuff is alive, and within it are constantly going on those changes accompanying metabolism, or the building up and tearing down processes that always accompany life. All separate ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... a regular part of the evening's amusement. It was the one thing which was allowed to break down the barrier of etiquette. On all other occasions, the rules which regulated who might and who might not be admitted to the royal presence were as precise and strict as in many cases they were unreasonable and unintelligible. But at the gaming-table every one who could make the slightest pretensions to gentle birth was allowed to present himself and stake his money; [5] and the leveling influence of play was almost as fully exemplified in the ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... ablative abolute. The attendant circumstance may be one of time (when or after), or one of cause (since), or one of concession (though), or one of condition (if). In each case try to discover the precise relation, and tranlate the ablative and its participle by a clause which ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... to the last letter of the alphabet. And before we can consent to this radical modification and retrograde ratio of the English language, we must agree to revive the customs, the habits, and the precise language of our progenitors, the Goths and Vandals. Were all the advocates for the introduction of such philosophical grammars into common schools, at once to enter on their pilgrimage, and recede into the native obscurity and barbarity of the ancient Britons, Picts, and Vandals, it is believed, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... and forth unsteadily. Alden assisted her to her chair and stood before her as she sat with her elbows upon her knees, her face hidden in her hands. With the precise observation one accords to trifles in moments of unendurable stress, he noted that two of the hooks which fastened her gown at the back of her neck had become unfastened and that the white flesh showed ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... hands with the injunction to rebuild the city that had fallen in ruins. The ideograms, with which his name is written, En-ki, designate him as god of that 'which is below,'—the earth in the first place; but with a more precise differentiation of the functions of the great gods, Ea becomes the god of the waters of the deep. When this stage of belief is reached, Ea is frequently associated with Bel, who, it will be recalled, is the 'god of the lower region,' but who becomes the god of earth par ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... have not always succeeded in reproducing the precise shade of meaning of words certain of which had become antiquated and even unintelligible to the native scholars of the later Middle Irish period themselves. This is especially true of the passages in rosc, which are fortunately not numerous and which were probably intentionally ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... stormed Madigan, in his rage forgetting his daughter's precise appellation, "go out into the kitchen and give your orders. If you had the least grain of common sense you'd know that the first duty of a housekeeper is to have some system about her work; to do things at the right time and not to interrupt the evening's ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... Edgewood, Milliken's Mills, Spruce Swamp, Duck Pond, and Moderation was "haying." There was a perfect frenzy of haying, for it was the Monday after the "Fourth," the precise date in July when the Maine farmer said good-bye to repose, and "hayed" desperately and unceasingly, until every spear of green in his section was mowed down and safely under cover. If a man had grass of his ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... at this precise spot. I don't quite recognise it. I hope my long illness has not ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... Grant, was referred to with the declaration that its "pledge must be fulfilled by a continuous and steady progress to specie payments." The platform also embraced a distinct declaration for a radical reform of the civil service, making a broader and more precise enunciation than was contained in the Liberal platform of 1872, though the assigned reason for that revolt, as given by its champions, was the alleged hostility of the Republican party to improvement in the Government service. The Protective ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... They were all shackled together. A notary public was present, and they signed and acknowledged their confessions, that they had been bribed to swear against my father and convict him; and they even acknowledged, in their terror, the precise sums which they had ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... according to report, it is intended that these united buildings, should, in addition to the National Library, contain the collections of statues, pictures, &c. &c. still remaining at the disposal of the government. I would not undertake to vouch for the precise nature of the object proposed; but it cannot be denied that, in this project, there is a boldness well calculated to flatter the ambition of the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... real to more than a small extent outside of the simplest phases of common emotional life,—those phases in which child and man are at one. The more complex feelings of the Oriental have been composed by combinations of experiences, ancestral and individual, which have had no really precise correspondence in Western life, and which we can therefore not fully know. For converse reasons, the. Japanese cannot, even though they would, give ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn |
