"Singleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lucille, or rather the singleness of your devotion to Lucille," she remarked, "is positively the most gauche thing about you. ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the way for a future gospel preaching. We need complete science, clear understanding, solid judgment. We need to solve innumerable problems, to comprehend principles exactly by their detailed development in practice. We need inward concentration, to gain singleness and unity of purpose. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... daughter, appeared in view in pursuit of the fugitives. It was not till Mahtoree had taxed his courage that the Big Horse had ventured on the perilous and fearful quest. He approached with the strength of heart and singleness of purpose which accompany an Indian warrior who deems the eyes of his nation upon him. When first the Brave was discovered thus wantonly, and with no other purpose but the shedding of blood, intruding on the dominions of the spirits, no words can ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the tract on the Creation (De Opifico, lxi.), Philo enumerates what he terms the five most beautiful lessons, superior to all others. These are—(i) God is; (ii) God is One; (iii) the World was created (and is not eternal); (iv) the World is one, like unto God in singleness; and (v) God exercises a continual providence for the benefit of the world, caring for His creatures like a parent for ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... therefore, a surpassing singleness of mankind. The blazing tiger will spring upon the deer, un- dimmed, the hen will nestle over her chickens, we shall love, we shall hate, but it will be like music, sheer utterance, issuing straight out of the unknown, the lightning and the rainbow appearing in us unbidden, ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... gloom, and was degenerating into sulky resentment when he went away, after several failures to get back to the old ground he had held in relation to Alma. He retrieved something of it with Mrs. Leighton; but Alma glittered upon him to the last with a keen impenetrable candor, a child- like singleness of glance, covering ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... intimate correspondence and talk. But they miscalculated the effect on those who did not know him, or whose interest it was to make the most of the advantage given them. They seem to have expected that the picture which they presented of their friend's transparent sincerity and singleness of aim, manifested amid so much pain and self-abasement, would have touched readers more. They miscalculated in supposing that the proofs of so much reality of religious earnestness would carry off the offence of vehement language, which without these proofs might naturally be thought ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... pastorate, and henceforth, with singleness of purpose, devoted himself to his one calling. From time to time new buildings were added to meet new needs. In 1852 an insane asylum for Protestant women was founded, as sisters were often called upon to nurse patients of this class. The building set apart for the purpose was ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... all the vessels on the shore or sinking them beneath the waves. The bold leader had been counselled to seek shelter from the storm under the lee of the shore, but he refused, and kept on despite the storm, daring death in his singleness of purpose. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... new ones; so that the next generation has a hundred, the next two hundred, the next four hundred, till every human being becomes such a helpless compound of perverted inclinations, that he is altogether at the mercy of external circumstances, loses all independence and singleness of character, and degenerates so rapidly from the primitive dignity of his sylvan origin, that it is scarcely possible to indulge in any other expectation, than that the whole species must at length be exterminated by its ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... heart; her single-mindedness, unstained by selfish thought, pride, or vanity, or folly, in its simplicity and singleness of purpose, were displayed before him. The generous benevolence of purpose; the warm and grateful piety; the peculiar right-mindedness; the unaffected love for all that was excellent, true, good, or beautiful, and the happy ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits—yet so, as "with a difference." We are generally in harmony, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... them, and that in any case the discovery of what it was that made them plausible would be a benefit to truth,'[2]—to thrust out the spirit of party, of sect, of creed, of the poorer sort of self-esteem, of futile contentiousness, and so to seek and again seek with undeviating singleness of mind the right interpretation of our experiences—here is the genuine seal of intellectual mastery and the true ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... our admiration, deeply impressed as we are with a sense of the extraordinary qualifications, of the varied acquirements, of the conscientious convictions, and the singleness and rightmindedness of purpose of the right honourable the vice-president of the Board of Trade, we must yet presume to hesitate before we give an implicit adherence upon all the points in the confession of economical faith expressed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... this letter comes from by opening slap-dash upon the text, as in the good old times. I never could come into the custom of envelopes,—'tis a modern foppery; the Plinian correspondence gives no hint of such. In singleness of sheet and meaning, then, I thank you for your little book. I am ashamed to add a codicil of thanks for your "Book of the Church." I scarce feel competent to give an opinion of the latter; I have ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... of the great poets of the world, not so much through vividness of imagination as through his singleness of nature, his vivid impressibility, and his keen perception. He received the gifts of the passing hour so happily that to produce pure and lasting poetry it was enough for him to utter in natural words something of the fulness of his heart. He says on every occasion exactly ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... world may see how strong and how true was the love I bore you, I shall give such a proof of it here on my death-bed, as the world has never seen or heard of;—one that shall remain an unparalleled example, if not of goodness, at least of singleness of heart. I desire that a notary be immediately sent for to make my will, wherein I will double Leonora's jointure, and recommend her, after my death, which will not be long delayed, to marry that young man whom these gray hairs have never offended. Thus she will see that, as in ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... In this singleness of purpose he made very few and no entangling acquaintances, nor did he impart to any one the secret of his fortune, loyally reserving it for his partner's first knowledge. To a man of his natural frankness and simplicity this was a great trial, and was, perhaps, ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... three important events: the discovery of a new world, the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, and the death of Lorenzo de' Medici. Spain's crusade of seven hundred years was over. We must search in vain for any struggle to match this in singleness and persistence of purpose. Commencing one hundred years before Charlemagne created a Holy Roman Empire, it ended triumphantly under a king and queen who were to play a leading part in ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... old maid, so-called, unexpectedly to her associates becomes a wife, some man of taste, discernment and sympathy having induced her to change her state. Probably no other man of his kind has proposed before, which accounts for her singleness. After her marriage hundreds of persons who had sneered at her condition find her charming, thus showing the extent of their prejudice against feminine celibacy. Old maids in general, it is fair to presume, do not wait for ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... conquests, in hurling aside every impediment, whether public opinion or law, and in creating new laws which satisfied their extending plans for a ramification of profit-producing interests. If forethought, an unswerving aim and singleness of execution mean anything, then there was something sternly impressive in the way in which this rising capitalist class went forward to snatch what it sought, and what it believed to be indispensable to its plans. There was no hesitation, nor were there any scruples as to niceties ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... never associated with stimulating minds, or had what advantages travel and contact with the world may be supposed to afford—working out his own thoughts into steel and iron, making a scientific name for himself—a fortune, if it pleases him to work for money—and keeping his singleness of heart, his perfect simplicity of manner; it puts me out of patience to think of my expensive schooling, my travels hither and thither, my heaps of scientific books, and I have done nothing to speak of. But it's evidently ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a resolution that would have cost any {179} man but one with absolute singleness of purpose a poignant effort. At the age of twenty-seven, he decided to enter the Royal Navy. Now, in a democratic age, we don't talk about such things; but there are unwritten laws and invisible lines ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the parentage and offices of the Graces. But one fact, the most vital of all, they could not in its fulness perceive, namely, that the intensity of other perceptions of beauty is exactly commensurate with the imaginative purity of the passion of love, and with the singleness of its devotion. They were not fully conscious of, and could not therefore either mythically or philosophically express, the deep relation within themselves between their power of perceiving beauty, ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... his days in singleness. He had a Wife, a comely Matron, old Though younger than himself full twenty years. She was a woman of a stirring life Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had Of antique form, this large for spinning wool, That small for flax, and if one wheel had rest, It was because the other ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... they stretched him out comfortably on his own bed. Then after some further excitement, the members of the family began gradually to disperse. Hsi Jen at last entered his room, and waited upon him with singleness of heart. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... men about him. Warrior and conqueror as he was, they saw him set aside at thirty the warrior's dream of conquest; and the self-renouncement of Wedmore struck the key-note of his reign. But still more is it this height and singleness of purpose, this absolute concentration of the noblest faculties to the noblest aim, that lifts AElfred out of the narrow bounds of Wessex. If the sphere of his action seems too small to justify the comparison of him with the few whom ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... rather seem necessary to arouse his faculties and to give an interest to his existence. Surrounded by hostile tribes, whose mode of warfare is by ambush and surprisal, he is always prepared for fight and lives with his weapons in his hands. As the ship careers in fearful singleness through the solitudes of ocean, as the bird mingles among clouds and storms, and wings its way, a mere speck, across the pathless fields of air, so the Indian holds his course, silent, solitary, but undaunted, through the boundless bosom of the wilderness. His expeditions ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service as to the Lord, and not to men; knowing that whatsoever ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... soon to think about it. Let there be clean and pure division first, perfected singleness. That is the only way to final, living unison: through ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Greek civilisation, was a temporary compromise, not a final solution. It depended on presumptions of the imagination, not on convictions of the intellect; and as we have seen, it destroyed itself by the process of its own development. The beauty, the singleness, and the freedom which attracts us in the consciousness of the Greek was the result of a poetical view of the world, which did but anticipate in imagination an ideal that was not realised in fact or in thought. It depended ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... school—twenty-four and twenty-six—and they seemed to feel their position; their speech was strained and odd; all the "sceptical, wicked, immoral French novels, over forty of them, the best substitute for French conversation to be met with," which the girls had toiled through with so much singleness of spirit, had not cured the broadness of their accent nor the artificial idioms of their Yorkshire French. Monsieur Heger, indeed, considered that they knew no French at all. Their manners, even among English people, were stiff and prim; ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... blood-red cross of the crusader will stand no admixture of colour. The soul dominated by one idea gains ground. Henri Dunant, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Fry, General Booth, Josephine Butler—these succeed by dint of their singleness of purpose. The narrowness serves to concentrate the strength and ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... elementary sounds in our language, different orthoepists report differently; because they cannot always agree among themselves, wherein the identity or the simplicity, the sameness or the singleness, even of well-known sounds, consists; or because, if each is allowed to determine these points for himself, no one of them adheres strictly to his own decision. They may also, each for himself, have some peculiar way of utterance, which will confound ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... incapacity to resent petty injustices done to herself. She was handicapped in any effort by her utter lack of intellectual training and by a natural tendency to mental confusion, but her lack of small vanities not only spared her untold suffering, but added much to her singleness of aim. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... this matter of marriage to some future period; it would be some time—a year, perhaps, or two. The thing did not take definite shape in his mind. Marcus "kept company" with his cousin Trina, but he knew plenty of other girls. For the matter of that, he liked all girls pretty well. Just now the singleness and strength of McTeague's passion startled him. McTeague would marry Trina that very afternoon if she would have him; but would he—Marcus? No, he would not; if it came to that, no, he would not. Yet he knew he liked ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... If singleness of heart, true charity, and Christian works; if trials and sufferings, dangers and perils, encountered boldly by a helpless woman on her errand of mercy in the camp and in the battle-field, can excite sympathy ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... to see you an honest man's wife before I die," he said. This was after John Ludlow had been compelled to give it up, though the Doctor had advised him to persevere. The Doctor exercised no further pressure, and had the credit of not "worrying" at all over his daughter's singleness. In fact he worried rather more than appeared, and there were considerable periods during which he felt sure that Morris Townsend was hidden behind some door. "If he is not, why doesn't she marry?" he asked himself. "Limited ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... answered. "Why,—you can see that happen every day. Men whom young ladies actually repulse at first, often attract these same ladies in the end by their devotion, determination and singleness of purpose, and they gain the love they seek in the ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... most certainly the correct manner in which to face the question, and while Egypt has benefited enormously by this singleness of purpose in her officials, it was, historically, a false attitude. Egypt is not a little country: Egypt is a crippled Empire. Throughout her history she has been the powerful rival of the people of Asia Minor. ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... self-enjoyment. A noble soul, an elevating example to those artists who believe that art and life may be dissociated. Carriere has left no school, though his spiritual influence has been great. A self-contained artist, going his own way, meditating deeply on art, on life, his canvases stand for his singleness and purity of purpose. On the purely pictorial side he is, to quote M. Mauclair, "an absolutely surprising painter of hands ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... ELLIPSIS} likewise with all the Catholic Church I reverently receive the faith of the Council of Chalcedon.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} To this my confession I have added the holy constitutions [i.e., confessions of faith] of the above-mentioned councils, and I have subscribed with complete singleness of heart to ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... he may not be concerned with any conceivable theme under the sun, but that his business is to provide us with an experience, and that any end he may have beyond making that experience vivid and complete is an alien end, destroying his singleness of purpose, wholly disruptive of his art and ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... do not deserve, and get the praise of men by it; but remember that you cannot deceive Almighty God, who sees your wickedness and deceit, and will punish you accordingly. For the rule is, that you must obey your masters in all things, and do the work they set you about with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good-will doing service as to the Lord, ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... next; studies medicine a while, then law, is next a school-teacher, and then an insurance agent, will, in the end, be nothing. Men who are always changing, never learn enough about anything to make it of any value. Men who are eminent in their professions have stuck to them with a singleness of purpose. Men talk much about genius, when, generally, the genius of which they speak is but the result of unremitting application. The genius that blesses this world is simply a talent for hard work. They are men who have the resolution to try, and the ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... freckles, trim, alive, and obviously hungry. Around his plate were cold mutton, a game pie, eggs, bacon, tarts, toast, and sodden-looking marmalade. Mauburn was eating of these with a voracity that published his singleness of mind to ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... shall be King over all the earth: in that day there shall be one Lord, and his name one." Acts ii. 46. "And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread, from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart." Acts iv. 32. "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart, and one soul." I Cor. vii. 17. "But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk; and so ordain I in all ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... Haeckel's deductions, the extent of his knowledge, and the singleness of his aim, to which he makes them all subservient, lend {50} to his works a great charm. But on the other hand we dare not conceal that, even on the ground of explanations belonging purely to natural history, the ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... empty, uninteresting plate, she sees another plate three chairs distant, and upon that plate there is a biscuit or some other sweet attraction. Upon such occasions Lulla all but plunges into space between the chairs, in her singleness of purpose. Having reached the lap nearest that plate, she turns and smiles at her late entertainer just to make sure she is not offended. But even if she knew she would be, Lulla would not hesitate. Curly head foremost, eyes on the goal: ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... entertained in thy house and in thy presence with nutritive and excellent food, and do they also obtain pecuniary gifts at the conclusion of those feasts? Dost thou, with passions under complete control and with singleness of mind, strive to perform the sacrifices called Vajapeya and Pundarika with their full complement of rites? Bowest thou unto thy relatives and superiors, the aged, the gods, the ascetics, the Brahmanas, and the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... object of the Institution is to provide and maintain boats that shall save the lives of shipwrecked persons, and to reward those who save lives, whether by means of its own or other boats. The grandeur of its aim and singleness of its purpose are among ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... singleness of heart is the most necessary condition of faith and true virtue, "For Christ teaches that only those who become again as it were little children, and by the simplicity of that age cut off the inordinate affections of vice, can enter the kingdom of heaven. These follow and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Ghek tarry by the river, for his seemingly aimless wanderings were in reality prompted by a definite purpose, and this he pursued with vigor and singleness of design. He followed such runways as appeared to terminate in the pits or other chambers of the inhabitants of the city, and these he explored, usually from the safety of a burrow's mouth, until satisfied that what he sought was not there. ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... walk, Adam went into the grounds of Castra Regis, and Oolanga saw her follow him with great secrecy. He feared to go closer, as now on both sides of him were enemies who might make discovery. When he realised that Lady Arabella was bound for the Castle, he devoted himself to following her with singleness of purpose. He therefore missed seeing that Adam branched off the track and returned ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... Austin, that you have expected both Amy and Nell to be like your self in steadiness and singleness of purpose, when you have not really had any youth. Possibly the very fact that you had to fight off every youthful inclination and be a mature man before your time, for the sake of your family, has placed you where you can not sympathize with their fickleness. Really, Austin, they are ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as to Christ; (6)not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; (7)with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men; (8)knowing that whatever good thing each may have done, ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... individual taste, that general reaction from the insipid imitation of the Palladian style, towards a restoration of the Gothic, which marked the close of the eighteenth century. This was the object he had set his heart on, with a singleness of determination which was regarded with not a little contempt by his fox-hunting neighbours, who wondered greatly that a man with some of the best blood in England in his veins, should be mean enough to economize in his cellar, and ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... not an extravagant theory that the cabby's singleness of purpose and concentrated view of life are the results of the hansom's peculiar construction. The cock-of-the-roost sits aloft like Jupiter on an unsharable seat, holding your fate between two thongs of inconstant leather. Helpless, ridiculous, confined, bobbing like a toy mandarin, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... entirely unconscious. Filtering down through so many generations, the mannerism had ceased at last to be merely a physical peculiarity, and had become strangely spiritual in its suggestion. The craving for possession, the singleness of desire, the tenacity of grasp, the dread of relinquishment, the cold-blooded determination to keep intact the thing which it had cost so much to acquire—all that was bound up in the spirit of Cyrus Treadwell, and all that would pass at last with ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... that the existing system of government, if not the most eligible that could have been devised, was at least unproductive of those glaring ill consequences, with which it has subsequently been attended. A singleness of design and a unity of action, could not be deviated from during the period of its infancy by the most ignorant and inexpert bungler in political science. There was a broad path open to its government, which it could not possibly mistake. The colony as yet entirely dependent on external ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... said appealingly, "He and his brave soldiers are now in the midst of their great trial, and I trust that at your meeting you will so shape your good words that they may turn to men and guns, moving to his and their support." This patriotic singleness of thought for the country's safety defeated and scattered all more political plans, and the hearts of the people turned more and more to Mr. Lincoln. He had been steadily growing in the esteem of his countrymen. The patience, wisdom, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... may belong to a conception, and does belong to the man who initiates and assumes, as he did, the responsibility for a novel and hazardous course of action. Many agents had to contribute to the forwarding of supplies and repairs; but, while singleness of credit cannot be assumed, priority is justly due to him upon whose shoulders fell not only all blame, in case his enterprise failed, but the fundamental difficulty of so timing the reliefs of the vessels under his command, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... have made affidavit that it was false and forced from them by torture. Rizal made a splendid defence, but he was condemned, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. On that day Jose Rizal y Mercado and Josephine Bracken were married. Then the sweetness and strength of his character and his singleness of purpose made a beautiful showing. In the night, which his bride spent on her knees outside his prison, he wrote a long poem of farewell to his patria adorado, fine in its abnegation and exquisite in the wanderings of its ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... forget the deference due his age, his experience, and commanding abilities, yet there was ever a deep, under-current feeling of veneration for him, pervading all hearts. Those who were excited to the highest pitch of frenzy by his proceedings, could not but admire the singleness of his purpose, and his undaunted courage in discharging his duties. On all subjects aside from slavery, his influence in the House has never been surpassed. Whenever he arose to speak, it was a signal for a general abandonment of listlessness and inattention. Members dropped ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... who pass their lives in singleness, devotion, or meditation, for those in holy matrimony, those engaged in life's battle in mountains, and caves, and pits of the earth, our holy fathers and brothers, let ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... by nature, I think, a pianist. You would never find yourself. In the effort to do so, I'm afraid your playing would become warped, eccentric." He threw back his head and looked at his pupil intently with that one eye which sometimes seemed to see deeper than any two eyes, as if its singleness gave it privileges. "Oh, I have watched you very carefully, Miss Kronborg. Because you had had so little and had yet done so much for yourself, I had a great wish to help you. I believe that the strongest need of your nature ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... gun. In his library there was never a sign of sporting tools, not even a golf-club. He was not effeminate; in fact, if "the man had been dowered with better health, we would have lost the author," says one speaker of him; but he simply never let go the pen, and, doubtless, his singleness of purpose, his want of toil-resting hobbies, was hampering to his health. Walking-tours, during which he was busy all the while taking mental notes for some article, was no brain holiday. In Samoa, he enjoyed the purest of pleasures, gardening. "Nothing is so interesting," he says, in ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... be granted by even his most extravagant opponents, he addressed himself with the loftiest resolution and singleness of purpose, excluding all puerile questions of ways and means. He was, by the moral law, no more bound to take into account the process whereby the accused was brought to book and the weight of retribution brought to bear than a detective is bound ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... true"—defined as actually-existing—"thing or decorating a useful thing;" when he declares that every attempt by the imagination to "exalt or refine healthy humanity has weakened or caricatured it." Mr. Ruskin bade men "go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing;" and Mr. Hamerton was literally ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... remark on his lips, the master walked slowly forward, continuing his orders to repair the damages with a singleness of purpose that rendered him, however uncouth as a friend, an invaluable man ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of Fra Giovanni, and a thing truly very rare, to resign a dignity and honour and charge so important, offered to himself by a Supreme Pontiff, in favour of the man whom he, with his singleness of eye and sincerity of heart, judged to be much more worthy of it than himself. Let the churchmen of our own times learn from this holy man not to take upon themselves charges that they cannot worthily carry out, and to yield them to those who are most worthy of ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... fuse to form a new unit of life, then takes place the great mystery of creation. A new individual appears—not the result of the fusion merely. Something more. The quality of individuality cannot be derived. The new individual, in his singleness of self, is a perfectly new whole. He is not a permutation and combination of old elements, transferred through the parents. No, he is something underived and utterly unprecedented, unique, a ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... guest. Sprung from brutal passion, nurtured by selfish policy, the Reformation in England displayed little of what had, in other countries, distinguished it; unflinching and unsparing devotion, boldness of speech, and singleness of eye. These were indeed to be found; but it was in the lower ranks of the party which opposed the authority of Rome, in such men as Hooper, Latimer, Rogers, and Taylor. Of those who had any important share in bringing the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... off with their spears, while the king passed on into the mosque: and how the man came on the morrow with yesterday's blood-spots on him, and cried out for right. What follows is told with great singleness and truth: "Thou knowest," ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... more impressed with my companion's remarkable singleness of purpose. Everything was a pretext for some wildly idealistic rhapsody or reverie. Nothing could be seen or said that did not lead him sooner or later to a glowing discourse on the true, the beautiful, ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... yes, where we are infected with the foreign singleness more than at Boston. Perhaps a still livelier illustration of our ironical temperament was given me once before when I brought some things into Boston. There were some Swiss pewters, which the officers joined me for a moment in trying to make out were more than two hundred ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... all this, she submitted passively, kissing the cross with reverence, and even offering to kneel as she made the solemn protestation. All this was painful to the prisoner, who distinctly foresaw the consequences. Still, so profound was his reverence for Ghita's singleness of heart and mind, that he would not, by look or gesture, in any manner endeavor to undermine that sacred love of truth which he knew formed the very foundations of her character. She was accordingly sworn, without anything ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... independent mind, wedded to a character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pursued its own path of self-improvement for more than half a century, part gymnosophist, part backwoodsman; and thus did it come twice, though in a subaltern attitude, into the field ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... recognised stir of his better nature, this clearing of his mental eye-sight under the light of a bright example, that made him call the little torch-bearer his good angel. If this were truth, this purity, uprightness, and singleness of mind, as conscience said it was, where was he? how far wandering from ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... remarkable system of schools, noted for their thoroughness, for their singleness of purpose, for their rapid growth, and for their trained teachers. They gave little attention to primary education, but sought to reach the higher classes. Emulation ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... her so eagerly for her hopes. Scarcely. His singleness of interest at least was wholly masculine. But that didn't deter her. She found herself giving them to him just the same, ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... kindled in the heart of Manuel. It was not devotion to Don Valerian Miranda that moved him to follow the fortunes of his master into exile; his love for Conchita accounts for his presence there. And he loves her with an ardour and singleness of passion such as often burns in the ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... entered within it, when the key shall have been turned upon their spirit and have confined them in narrower straits than even Puritanism could have done, it will be left for them to find, in their blind obedience and passive submission, the recompense for the singleness of character, the foresight, and the energy, that they have left ...
— The Altruist in Politics • Benjamin Cardozo
... This singleness of purpose is well illustrated by a story about the painter Protogenes. He painted the figure of a Satyr, and beside it, as a trifle, he inserted a partridge. But when he found that admiration for the lifelikeness of the partridge tended to distract the attention ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... well pleasing unto the Lord." "Fathers provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged." "Servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as man pleases, but in singleness of heart fearing God." "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness," &c. "The wages of sin is death." "Let us run the race with patience." "Judge not, that ye be not judged." "Whatsoever ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... punishment; and, when seriously to blame, punishment seemed so natural a consequence, that she never thought of avoiding it, otherwise than by expressing sorrow for her fault. She was uninfected by Esther's deceit, though she never suspected any want of truth; her singleness of mind was a shield from all evil; she knew she was no favourite in the nursery, but she never expected to be liked as much as Ada, her pride and glory. In the meantime Emily went on contriving opportunities and excuses for spending her time at Devereux ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... particular, one uplifted peak, silver and sapphire as the clear day, and soaring supreme over the jumble of lesser summits, attracted him. He knew now that that was where he was going, and thither he pressed on with singleness of purpose, delaying only when absolutely necessary, to hunt or to sleep. The cage, the stage, the whip, Hansen, the bear, even the proud excitement of the flaming hoops, were swiftly fading to dimness in his mind, overwhelmed ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... spoilt Cambyses, it attains more nearly to tragedy. The low characters, Mansipulus and Mansipula, the Vice (Haphazard), and the abstractions, Conscience, Comfort and their brethren, reappear with as little success. But the singleness of the theme helps towards that elevation of the main figures and intensifying of the catastrophe which tragic emotion demands. Unfortunately, from the start the author seems to have been obsessed with the notion that the familiar rant of Herod was peculiarly ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... and wonderful being this old domestic was. Not only did she never talk, but she seemed never even to think, of herself. Her whole life was compounded of love and self-sacrifice. Yet so used was I to her affection and singleness of heart that I could not picture things otherwise. I never thought of thanking her, or of asking myself, "Is she also happy? Is she also contented?" Often on some pretext or another I would leave my lessons and run to her ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... study became necessary for its gratification; and, in the course of one of them, Mike confessed to Henry that he loved his sister, previously piling upon himself many anticipatory terms of ignominy for daring to do so presumptuous a thing. Henry, however, was so taken with the idea that, in his singleness of mind, he suffered no pang of retrospective suspicion of his friend's love for himself. Pending Esther's decision,—and of her mind in the matter, he had something more than a glimmering,—he welcomed Mike with gladness as a prospective brother-in-law, and, as soon as he found an opportunity, ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... time, will "age fail to wither him." That he cannot entirely shake off the fetters which fasten him to his epoch is manifest. But in proportion as his vision is clear, in proportion as he has with singleness of eye striven to draw the past with reverent loyalty, will his bondage to his own time be loosened, and his work will remain faithful work for which due gratitude will ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... wilderness, and the candle of the Lord shone brightly upon it; now, the blending of many inferior lights distracted my mind from its one object of contemplation, and broke the harmony that was so sweet in its singleness. ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... Buck's eager eyes, large dark-brown eyes that could light with sudden, almost volcanic heat, or smile their soft, lazy smile of amusement at the quaintnesses of life about him. The Padre understood the largeness of heart, the courage which urged him, the singleness of purpose which was always his. Then, when their decision had been taken, he remembered the abrupt falling back of the man into the quiet, almost monosyllabic manner ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... Besides the noise of the camp, he heard the usual murmur of the night wind among the trees. He listened to it as one would to a soft low monotone that called and soothed. He had an uncommonly acute ear and his power of singleness and concentration enabled him to listen to the sound that he wished to hear, to the exclusion of all others. The noises in the camp, although they were as great as ever, seemed to die. Instead, he heard the rustling of the young ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... that open understanding with the Paronsina and her mother which he had long dreaded and avoided. He could not conceal from himself that his marriage was a kind of desertion of the two dear friends so dependent upon his singleness, and he considered the case of the Paronsina with a real remorse. If his meditated act sometimes appeared to him a gross inconsistency and a satire upon all his former life, he had still consoled himself with the truth of his passion, and had found love its own ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... betraying their country. Kosciuszko was ill-versed, either by nature, training, or inclination in the art of politics; but through this tangled web of perplexity and uncertainty, when present and future were equally enveloped in obscurity, his singleness of aim supplied him with the unerring instinct with which through the whole of his life he met and unmasked the pitfalls that were spread before the unhappiest and the most cruelly betrayed of nations. Under the dictates of this ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... forgetfulness and decay, in the sight of his own shortcomings and limitations, or on the edge of the tomb, he alone who has found his soul in losing it, who in singleness of mind has lived in order to love and understand, will find that the God who is near to him as his own conscience has a face of light ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... though seventy-nine, dear to troops of dear ones, encircled in his age by love and honor, living in poverty that was abundance, with faith that was itself the substance of things hoped for, his simple face ruddier and mellower than before—rocking his head and singing in the singleness of his heart. The other man—barely thirty, yet already old, having missed his youth, his thin cheeks pallid as linen, his eyes burning with a somber light—alone in the world, desolate, apart—walking with an uncertain step and a tremor of the whole frame, ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... seemed vague, far-fetched, little better than affectations. The clear thing to be done was to get that bird. This done, I could consider the rest. To admit any other thought militated in some way against the singleness and compactness of my being. Wise or unwise, what had I to do with far-off matters of that sort? My business was to succeed in a certain task, not to be sage and so forth. I actually felt a kind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... expected to or glad he did not; but one good thing the Parson's words accomplished. They purged him of the artificial standpoint of the afternoon. It was impossible for one as naturally direct as Ishmael to be in contact with so much of singleness of purpose as the Parson's and not be ashamed of his own impulses towards theatrical vision. He turned his head away to hide his emotion, which the Parson took to spring from the news he had imparted and welcomed with relief. He took the boy's hand and pressed ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... actually present in a given world is there with all its relations; for it to be known as it there exists, they must be known too, and it and they form a single fact for any consciousness large enough to embrace that world as a unity. But what constitutes this singleness of fact, this unity? Empiricism says, Nothing but the relation-yielding matrix in which the several items of the world find themselves embedded,—time, namely, and space, and the mind of the knower. And it says that were some of the items ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... that those things which are most righteously done, should be perverted by the slanders of malicious men, and that one should bear the reproach of sin where he has rather deserved the hope of honour. Many things are done with singleness of eye, the right hand knoweth not what the left hand doth, the lump is uncorrupted by leaven, nor is the garment woven of wool and linen; and yet by the trickery of perverse men a pious work is mendaciously transformed into some monstrous act. Certes, such is the unhappy condition of sinful ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... frescoes, it will be remembered, which so strongly impressed Leigh Hunt and Keats. Holman Hunt—though apparently not his associates—had also read with eager approval the first volume of Ruskin's "Modern Painters," in which the young artists of England are advised to "go to nature in all singleness of heart . . . rejecting nothing, selecting nothing." Pre-Raphaelitism was a practical, as "Modern Painters" was a theoretical, protest against the academic traditions which kept young artists making school copies of Raphael, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... not been passed in singleness. His Helpmate was a comely matron, old— Though younger than himself full twenty years. 80 She was a woman of a stirring life, Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had Of antique form; this large, for spinning ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... for this very reason less a professional novelist of assured standing. His gifted, erratic brother Henry, in the striking series of stories dealing prevailingly with the Australian life he so well knew, makes a stronger impression of singleness of power and may last longer, one suspects, than the better-known, more successful Charles, whose significance for the later generation is, as we have hinted, in his sensitiveness to the new spirit of social revolt,—an isolated voice where ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... Again and again he remonstrated with him for wasting his time when he might be working for the company. Always the younger man listened respectfully, and continued to read his books and to search for the lost mines with a determination and singleness of purpose that aroused the secret approbation of the old Scotchman, and the covert ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... interesting letters penned by the hand of Concklin convey minutely his last struggles and characteristically represent the singleness of heart which impelled him to sacrifice his ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... in thy bosom, Conscience? Diligence, reach it hither. [Make as though he[229] read it. Conscience, speak on; let me hear what thou canst say, For I know in singleness thou ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... immorality was quick followed by a dangerous scoffing scepticism, which shook to the foundation every religious and moral conviction, and the very principles of society itself. Voltaire was by turns philosopher, rhetorician, sophist, and buffoon. The want of singleness, which more or less characterised all his views, was irreconcileable with a complete freedom of prejudice even as an artist in his career. As he saw the public longing for information, which was rather tolerated by the favour of the great than ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... of such rare excellence, such singleness of purpose, such true devotedness, in which the intellectual and the spiritual were so well balanced, and well developed together:—a character in which, with all the occasional undulations and agitations of the ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... here referred to is of the human being, we do not gainsay it; but this is beauty in its mixed mode,—not in its high, passionless form, its singleness and purity. It is not Beauty as it descended from heaven, in the cloud, the rainbow, the flower, the bird, or in the concord of sweet sounds, that seem to carry back the soul to ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... embarrassment to the avalanche of eulogium that overwhelmed me. "What a good thing it is, Miss Spence, that you have only one idea," a gentleman once said to me on my country tour. He wished thus to express his feeling concerning my singleness of purpose towards effective voting. But at this welcome home I felt that others realized what I had often said myself. It is really because I have so many ideas for making life better, wiser, and pleasanter ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... friends, and, in the bloom of life, made an entire sacrifice of herself to God, by making her religious profession in a great nunnery, in the county of Fife. In this holy state, by an extraordinary love of poverty and mortification, a wonderful gift of prayer, and purity or singleness of heart, she attained to the perfection of all virtues. Several miracles which she wrought made her name famous among men, and she passed to God in a good old age, in the year 1007. Several churches in Scotland bore her name, particularly one near Glasgow, still called St. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... think of you always, and your name will be sacred to us, and that will teach us singleness and devotion," Verena went on, in the same tone, still not meeting Ransom's eyes again, and speaking as if she were trying now to stop herself, to tie ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... processes; and language, being a chief instrument of culture, has to follow and subserve these multiplied and diversified demands, Any fall, therefore, on its part from the obedient fineness of its modes and modulations back into barbaric singleness and crudeness, any slide into looseness or vagueness, any unweaving of the complex tissue, psychical and metaphysical, into which it has been wrought by the exquisite wants of the mind, will have a relaxing, debilitating ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... exuberance of gayety; yet, surely, all that which seemed so strong, so true, so real could not be gone so soon,—and it could not be so soon consoled. Mary wondered at her, as the Anglo-Saxon constitution, with its strong, firm intensity, its singleness of nature, wonders at the mobile, many-sided existence of warmer races, whose versatility of emotion on the surface is not incompatible with the most intense ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... of one who performed a daughter's part to her when her own children were content to commit her to the care of hirelings, the old lady lingered six months, and died, blessing her benefactress and engaging, in singleness of belief in the affection his wife had borne him, "to tell Herbert how good she had been to ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... through my weak and groundless confidence that you have reached me. You have employed without scruple all those advantages it put into your hands. You have undermined me at your ease. I left you to protect my life's blood, my heart of heart, from every attack, to preserve the singleness of her affections, and the constancy of her attachment. It was yours to have breathed into her ear the sighs of St. Julian. It was yours ambitiously to expatiate upon his amiable qualities. You were every day to have added fuel to ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... must simply exist as so many ultimate THATS or facts of being, in the first instance; and then, as a secondary complication, and without doubling up its entitative singleness, any one and the same THAT in experience must figure alternately as a thing known and as a knowledge of the thing, by reason of two divergent kinds of context into which, in the general course of experience, ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... With such singleness of purpose to crystallize her, she cannot absorb even the gravest of warnings; not from unwillingness or stupid obstinacy, but from sheer inability to grasp any novelty. That her beloved master and mistress—either or both—should not have the best ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... desperately earnest with a singleness of purpose which had in it something of the recklessness of the father before her. She was a child in all else. A wide vision of achievement was spread out before her. She could see nothing beyond. She could see nothing to give her pause, nothing even to bestir ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... the foregoing summary it will be seen that education in the Infant School is a thing of curious patches, of strength and weakness, of light and shade; perhaps the greatest weakness is its lack of cohesion, of unification: on the one hand we find much provision for the children's real needs, much singleness of purpose in the teacher's work, such a genuine spirit of whole-hearted desire for their education: on the other hand, an unreasoning sense of haste, of pushing on, of introducing prematurely work ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Emerson delivered an address in the Divinity School of Harvard, which produced a gusty shower of articles, sermons, and pamphlets, and raised him without will or further act of his to the high place of the heresiarch. With admirable singleness of mind, he held modestly aloof. 'There is no scholar,' he wrote to a friend, 'less willing or less able to be a polemic. I could not give account of myself if challenged. I delight in telling what I think, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... earnest feeling! How much that he had spoken still echoed in the heart, and rung in the brooding ear of Egremont. And his friend, too, that pale man with those glittering eyes, who without affectation, without pedantry, with artlessness on the contrary and a degree of earnest singleness, had glanced like a master of philosophy at the loftiest principles of political science,—was he too a workman? And are these then THE PEOPLE? If so, thought Egremont, would that I lived more among ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... of quiet only will, I believe, detect them by those results of them which I described when I was speaking of locutions. [10] They are most easily recognised; and if a soul consents not to its own delusion, I do not think that Satan will be able to deceive it, provided it walks in humility and singleness of heart. He who shall have had the true vision, coming from God, detects the false visions at once; for, though they begin with a certain sweetness and joy, the soul rejects them of itself; and the joy which Satan ministers must be, I think, very different—it shows no traces of pure and holy love: ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... doubts as to his own efficacy as a special Providence,—he returned to the rancho. If he thought again of Jim's defection and Gilroy's warning, it was only to strengthen himself to a clearer perception of his unselfish duty and singleness of purpose. He would give up brooding, apply himself more practically to the management of the property, carry out his plans for the foundation of a Landlords' Protective League for the southern counties, become a candidate for the Legislature, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... jocundity was never to be achieved but by postponement, deference, and modesty. Nor can the prodigality of the meadows in May be quoted in dispute. For Nature has something even more severe than modertion: she has an innumerable singleness. Her buttercup meadows are not prodigal; they show multitude, but not multiplicity, and multiplicity is exactly the disgrace of decoration. Who has ever multiplied or repeated his delights? or who has ever gained the granting of the most foolish of his wishes—the prayer for reiteration? ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... the whole tried to find out what the ways of God were, and to follow them in singleness of heart? To a certain extent, yes; but he had not been thorough; he had not given up all for God. He knew that very well he had done little as compared with what he might and ought to have done, but still if he was being ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... face looking over her bunch of sweet-peas. There was in it something indescribably youthful and innocent, almost angelic. The light from the window made her hair toss into gold; her blue eyes sought Cynthia with the singleness of blue stars. It was evident whom she had come to see. She held out her flowers towards her with a gesture at once humble and worshipful, like that of ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... which the picture rests for its singleness of purpose. No picture but begins in this way, whether it is afterwards built up on the same canvas or not. The sketch points the way. But all the preliminary sketches of a painting are not problems of composition or color; are not conceptions of the brain. There are suggestions received from ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... been the prime mover. He gave to each his strong support, but uniformly shunned to appear in public. For himself or his friends he asked no reward: for himself, he asked only to do the hard work. His transparent singleness of purpose, his freedom from all by-ends, his plain good sense, courage, adherence, and his romantic generosity disarmed first or last all gainsayers. His examination before the United States Senate Committee on the Harper's ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... stand up in the singleness of his ignorance to understand all the mysterious feelings connected with a dead.—Harv. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... with parting breath!" It has shaped his purpose throughout his earthly career, and he passes into the Great Unknown, moving in the direction of his ideal; impelled still, amid the utter retrocession of the vital force, by all the momentum resulting from his weight of character and singleness of aim. ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... arrested her steps. They were new. She had never seen them before, and when she saw the blended ciphers, a perception of the truth dawned upon her understanding. Perhaps there never was a young maiden of sixteen years, who had more singleness and simplicity of heart than Helen. From her shy and timid habits, she had never formed those close intimacies that so often bind accidentally together the artless and the artful. She was aware of the existence of love, but knew nothing of its varying phases. ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... proud of him. Standish came of a long chain of soldiers, and that the weakest link in the chain had proved to be himself was a sorrow no one else but himself could fathom. Since he was three years old he had been trained to be a soldier, as carefully, with the same singleness of purpose, as the crown prince is trained to be a king. And when, after three happy, glorious years at West Point, he was found not clever enough to pass the examinations and was dropped, he did not curse the gods and die, but began again to work his way up. He was determined he still would ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... adventure: there must be no frittering of energy, no mixture of motives. We hear much of the mystical temperament, the mystical vision. The mystical character is far more important: and its chief ingredients are courage, singleness of heart, and self-control. It is towards the perfecting of these military virtues, not to the production of a pious softness, that the discipline of asceticism is largely directed; and the ascetic foundation, in one form or another, ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... words and what of song I may at last most gloriously uncloud For thee the light beyond, wherewith to view The core of being at the centre hid. And for the rest, summon to judgments true, Unbusied ears and singleness of mind Withdrawn from cares; lest these my gifts, arranged For thee with eager service, thou disdain Before thou comprehendest: since for thee I prove the supreme law of Gods and sky, And the primordial germs of things unfold, Whence Nature all creates, and multiplies ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... thought that seemed The purpose and the substance of my being, I swore to her, that were she red with guilt, 65 I would exchange my unblenched state with hers.— Friend! by that winding passage, to that bower I now will go—all objects there will teach me Unwavering love, and singleness of heart. Go, Sandoval! I am prepared to meet her— 70 Say nothing of me—I myself will seek her— Nay, leave me, friend! I cannot bear the torment And keen inquiry of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... decivilised—was in the beginning intended to be something jocund; and jocundity was never to be achieved but by postponement, deference, and modesty. Nor can the prodigality of the meadows in May be quoted in dispute. For Nature has something even more severe than moderation: she has an innumerable singleness. Her butter-cup meadows are not prodigal; they show multitude, but not multiplicity, and multiplicity is exactly the disgrace of decoration. Who has ever multiplied or repeated his delights? or who has ever gained the granting of the most foolish ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... the king protecteth virtue; and virtue, protected by him, protecteth him (in return)! I see, however, that virtue protecteth thee not! Like the shadow pursuing a man, thy heart, O tiger among men, with singleness of purpose, ever seeketh virtue. Thou hast never disregarded thy equals, and inferiors and superiors. Obtaining even the entire world, thy pride never increased! O son of Pritha, thou ever worshippest Brahmanas, and gods, and the Pitris, with Swadhas, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... abandon that last dream of declining years. My object in returning to the London world was to try whether I could not find, amongst the fairest and most attractive women that the world produces—at least to an English eye—some one who could inspire me with that singleness of affection which could alone justify the hope that I might win in return a wife's esteem and a contented home. That object is now finally relinquished, and with it all idea of resuming the life of cities. I might have re-entered a political career, had I first secured to myself a mind sufficiently ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... much good fellowship). At least Dr. Harry Ironside did. He was a young fellow born to be popular whether he would or not; handsome, with pleasant manners, kind-hearted, possessed of a respectable competence independent of his profession, to which he brought considerable abilities and great singleness of purpose. Everybody "took" to him, from crusty Mr. Foljambe to jaunty Mr. Lyle; from Miss Perkins, whose ear-trumpet he improved upon, to old Susan, into whose gold-rimmed spectacles he put new glasses which made her see like a girl again. The one drawback to his success ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... consults his betrothed's taste—which of course may be gratified or greatly modified, according to the length of his purse—or he may, without consulting her, buy what ring he chooses. A solitaire diamond is the conventional emblem of "the singleness and endurability of the one love in his life," and the stone is supposed to be "pure and flawless" as the bride herself, and their future together—or sentiments equally beautiful. There is also sentiment for a sapphire's "depth of true blue." Pearls are supposed to mean tears; emeralds, jealousy; ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... singleness of purpose, should have been simple. It attained a complexity at times at which he marveled. An inclination to blurt out the truth with panicky abruptness when he wanted to lie, plunged him into more than ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... but had never gone farther than San Francisco. The new city offered ample scope for his talents, and he speedily became, not only rich, but a dominating personality among financial circles. He accomplished this by supplementing his natural ability with absolute singleness of purpose. It was known that his sole idea was the making of money. He was reputed to be hard, devoid of sentiment, unscrupulous. Naturally he enjoyed no popularity, but a vast respect. More people had heard of him, or felt his power, than had seen him; for he went little abroad, and preferred ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... still waiting to go aboard. It does not look inviting, and they hesitate. In a minute or two their spirits sink so low, that if they should see the wooden bull step out of a grotto on the deck of the steamer the spectacle could not revive them. At that instant they think, with a surprising singleness, of Nantasket Beach, and the bright colors in which the Gardens of Maolis but now appeared fade away, and they seem to see themselves sauntering along the beautiful shore, while the white-crested breakers crash upon the ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... Exclusion. — N. seclusion, privacy; retirement; reclusion, recess; snugness &c. adj.; delitescence[obs3]; rustication, rus in urbe[Lat]; solitude; solitariness &c. (singleness) 87; isolation; loneliness &c. adj.; estrangement from the world, voluntary exile; aloofness. cell, hermitage; convent &c. 1000; sanctum sanctorum[Lat]. depopulation, desertion, desolation; wilderness &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... very best manner. The scheme, the root motive of the book, may be said to be a vindication of the present generation—the generation that was condemned as neurotic and decadent by common consent a little more than three years ago, but is now enduring the ordeal of the war with great singleness of heart. This theme, in Miss Sinclair's hands, assumes big proportions and gives her at the same time ample opportunity for character analysis, in which art she is ...
— The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle's Diary - With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones • Cyrus Pringle
... contrast with what he had repeatedly written in his Antiquities and his Wars about the strife of different sects. His books would have supplied the best argument to any pagan criticising his apology. Josephus further ascribes to the singleness of the tradition the absence of original genius among the people. The excellence of the Law produces a conservative outlook, whereas the Greeks, lacking a fixed law, love a new thing. S.D. Luzzatto, the Hebraist of the middle of the ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... accident, a dramatist comparable to Moliere, the obligation to compose operas in versified numbers not only does not embarrass him, but actually saves him trouble and thought. No matter what his dramatic mood may be, he expresses it in exquisite musical verses more easily than a dramatist of ordinary singleness of talent can express it in prose. Accordingly, he too, like Shakespeare and Shelley, leaves versified airs, like Dalla sua pace, or Gluck's Che fare senza Euridice, or Weber's Leise, leise, which ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... keeping on repeating the one Creative Process at an ever-rising level; and since these are the sole working conditions, the progress is one which logically admits of no finality. And this is where the importance of realizing the Singleness of the Originating Power comes in, for with a Duality each member would limit the other; in fact, Duality as the Originating Power is inconceivable, for, once more to quote "Paddy's Philosophy," "finality would be reached before ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... scarcely be classed either as idyl or epic, though, in spite of its scenes being mainly rural, it perhaps approaches more nearly to the epic. There is an Homeric simplicity in its descriptions of half-drunken warriors with their superb physique, their bravado, their native dignity and singleness of character. Marianka, the beautiful heroine, passes from one picture to another in her quiet, regular toil. Whether, clad in a loose skirt of pink cotton, she drives the oxen or piles the kizyak or dung-fuel along the fence with her hoe, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... could be given of the confidence felt in him, than these concurrent last wishes of two such men. Each had brought to the office he held not merely intellectual pre-eminence, but a dignity and elevation of character, and a singleness of purpose, rarely equaled; and to each the future welfare of the institution over which he presided was an object of the ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... citizens, giving larger leisure in which to cultivate other pleasures than those which their offices or homes could afford, she was ripe for the coming of the day of open-air games. And having turned to them, she threw herself into their pursuit with the ardour and singleness of purpose which are characteristic of the people and which, as applied to games, seem to English eyes to savour almost of professionalism. As a matter of fact they are only the manifestations of an essential ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... station of command, Rises by open means; and there will stand On honourable terms, or else retire, And in himself possess his own desire; Who comprehends his trust, and to the same Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; 40 And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state; Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall, Like showers of manna, if they come at all: Whose powers shed round him in the common strife, Or ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... anticipated each other's words. The woman saw much of her dead husband reflected in Will and felt a moral conviction that through the storms of youth, high temper, and inexperience, he would surely pass to good things, by reason of the strenuous honesty and singleness of purpose that actuated him; he, on his side, admired the great calmness and self-possession of his mother. She was so steadfast, so strong, and wiser than any woman he had ever seen. With a fierce, volcanic affection Will Blanchard ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... states, it is necessary to understand what that statement implies in order to appreciate the great need for the higher culture of the vocal organism. If the individual's condition were attuned to perfect harmony, to perfect unity of action, and to singleness of purpose, together with the habit of personal expression rather than expression through some limited mode of action—if, indeed, this were so, his voice would scarce need training,—certainly not corrective training,—nor would he need "culture" of any kind, being ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... blessed singleness of heart, What heed has she for nations' wrath? She sings a little peaceful hymn As she prepares the ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... was in the diocese of Cologne, and during the twenty-five years that he lived in the House on the Mount he never visited his friends, nor saw his native land once he had departed from her. He loved the Blessed Virgin with singleness of heart, and on the seventh day of the week he abstained from one portion of pottage out of devotion to her. In these three desires he was heard of the Lord before his death, namely, to die on an high day, and amid the Brothers—for he greatly loved them—and to have a short ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... one or another enquirer taking up this book will ask, to begin with, "What is a Herbal Simple?" The English word "Simple," composed of two Latin words, Singula plica (a single fold), means "Singleness," whether of ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... through ill-assorted unions, Or habits reckless of maternal dues; How marriage, sacredest of mortal steps, Is entered on from motives all unworthy; Social ambition, mercenary aims, The dread of poverty, of singleness,— The object of uniting families,— And momentary passion fatuous. So I resolved, God helping, to be true To my own self, and ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... means weakness every time. Your lumber-jack likes to be met front to front, one strong man to another. As you value your authority, the love of your men, and the completion of your work, keep a bluff brow and an unbending singleness ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... path of bhakti or devotion to God. If a man loved God not as an abstract spirit but as a loving Person, if he loved with intensity and singleness of heart, adoration itself might obtain for him the same reward as a succession of good lives. Vishnu as protector might reward love with love and confer immediately the ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... seriously, "your happiness is very dear to me. For nothing else would I let any differences between us amount to an issue. For God's sake, forego this mad idea. You are disrupting a family for whose upbuilding I have fought with a very fierce singleness of purpose." ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... fireplace, and the flat doorstones before what was once the threshold. Grass and brambles covered the foundations; lilacs, with spikes of brown dead blossoms, grew tall and thick around it, and roses, gone back to wild singleness, blossomed near the steps and along a path, which was only a memory, the grass had tangled ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... minutes before his anger seemed childish and evaporated into the chill of deadly and insistent fear. He was perceiving himself up against much more than a mere incident, up against her nature—its pride and scepticism—yes—and the very depth and singleness of her love. While she wanted nothing but him, he wanted and took so much else. He perceived this but dimly, as part of that feeling that he could not break through, of the irritable longing to put his head down and butt his way out, no matter what the obstacles. What ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
