"Unassisted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A man may desire to go to Mecca. His conscience tells him that he ought to go to Mecca. He fares forth, either by the aid of Cook's, or unassisted; he may probably never reach Mecca; he may drown before he gets to Port Said; he may perish ingloriously on the coast of the Red Sea; his desire may remain eternally frustrate. Unfulfilled aspiration ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... valley, before the sun drops beneath the bright waves of Ontario, will be decided by individual skill, unassisted by friendly influence, the right between Black Snake and his adopted brother, Grey Eagle, to fill the place made vacant by the death ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... not think that the Lords-Master were to be trusted to abolish slavery; he said so, on the launch, returning to the ship. Jurgen, Prince Trevannion was inclined to agree. He doubted if any of the Lords-Master he had seen were to be trusted, unassisted, to fix a ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... of which is sufficiently characterized by wearing a European costume, calling himself by a well-sounding German or Russian name (in the novel under discussion the hero goes by the name of Arnold), cultivating friendly relations with noble-minded Christians and making a love match unassisted by ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... marine botany almost owes its existence, and who survived to an age long beyond the natural term of man, to see, in her cheerful and honoured old age, that knowledge become popular and general which she pursued for many a year unassisted and alone. Here, too, the scientific succession is still maintained by Mr. Pengelly and Mr. Gosse, the latter of whom by his delightful and, happily, well-known books has done more for the study of marine zoology than any other living man. Torbay, ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... fear, which the sight of the livre of gold converted into joy. Leaving him still staring at his fortune, I rode away. But when we had gone some little distance, the aspect of his face, when I charged him with treason, or my own unassisted discrimination, suggested a clue to ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... intending to pursue the little river, but were soon lost among ascents and descents, narrow stairs, precipitous gardens, and noisy paper-mills. Probably no unassisted stranger ever made his way out of Amalfi on to the mountain slopes. They had scorned to take a guide, but did so at length in self-defence, so pestered were they by all but every person they passed; man, woman, and child beset them for soldi, either frankly begging or offering a direction and ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... in expenditure than her unassisted treasury would warrant, was at all times ready to receive and encourage private bounties from her wealthy citizens; and the promptness and generosity of Magagnati's gift, the first which had been offered in this emergency, seemed in the interests of the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... It was the only littleness she had observed in O'Hara so far—this reluctance to hide his smaller lights under a bushel—and in its place, it was amusing. Here was an obvious instance where nature unassisted by training appeared ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... millions and millions. Whoever has followed the history of the series of HERSCHEL'S telescopes will have observed this. But HERSCHEL was not content with the bare fact, but strove ever to know how far a telescope of a certain construction and size could penetrate, compared with the naked and unassisted eye. These investigations were never for the discovery of new facts concerning the working of his instruments; it was for the knowledge of the distribution of the fixed stars in space itself that he strove. . . . HERSCHEL'S instruments were designed to aid vision ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... "carry on his great and important business without agencies? Can the honourable gentleman himself" (a brewer) "be certain that the invigorating and admirable produce of his manufacture will attain the celebrity that it merits, or become the daily beverage of countless thousands in the tropics, unassisted by those aids which to commerce or diplomacy are alike indispensable?" This is very like the Premier's eloquence. I almost think I am listening to him, and even see the smile of triumph with which he appeals ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... need for some firm governing hand became more evident. They would have liked to anger Venice to the point of withdrawing all protection and leaving them to their own devices—yet they dared not attempt it openly, appreciating the futility of any armed resistance that unassisted Cypriotes might offer. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Secretary of the Treasury. His second notion was that Ratcliffe wanted to put Mrs. Lee under obligations, in order to win her regard; and, again, that he wanted to raise himself in her esteem by posing as a friend of honest administration and unassisted virtue. Then suddenly it occurred to him that the scheme was to make him appear jealous and vindictive; to put him in an attitude where any reason he might give for declining would bear a look of meanness, and ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... provided with a more capable or energetic helper than William Herschel found in this remarkable woman. Whatever work had to be done she was willing to bear her share in it, or even to toil at it unassisted if she could be allowed to do so. She not only managed all his domestic affairs, but in the grinding of the lenses and in the polishing of the mirrors she rendered every assistance that was possible. At one stage of the very delicate operation ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... would care to base their claims of social superiority upon such a very diluted foundation as this. But they would have good reason to trace with pride their descent from the plucky girl who started for America in a hogshead, and who was able to land alone and unassisted on the Jersey coast in a storm, and to take care of herself after she ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... and your philosopher part company. For he asserts that man is left to deduce from his own unassisted reason everything which relates not to ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... among the nations. No poet's fancy has spun from out his imagination a more glorious tale, or pictured in glowing words an epic of heroic love and transcendent valour, to compete with the actual reality of the career of this simple village maiden of old France: she who, almost unassisted and alone, through her intense love of her native land and deep pity for the woes of her people, was enabled, when the day of action at length arrived, to triumph over unnumbered obstacles, and, in spite of all opposition, ridicule, and contumely, ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... beautiful painting by Behnes, the sculptor. John revelled in an elysium of bliss, and, hanging the picture on the place of honour over the mantelpiece, to the great disgust of Patty, got more and more embedded in tenderness, until his letters became sheer unreadable for passionate love, unassisted by grammar. The thing getting tiresome now, and there being no more verses to correct, Mrs. Emmerson thought fit to drop her Northamptonshire poet, and accordingly wrote him a quiet little note asking for a return ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... pronunciation by which the Martian language could be transliterated was a most important contribution," he said. "And Martha did that almost unassisted." ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... a dense jungle, where the narrow path became more and more difficult for our carriers. Crawling over rocks, under branches, along slippery little cliffs, on steps which had been cut in earth or rock, over a trail which not even dogs could follow unassisted, slowly we made our way down the valley. Owing to the heat, humidity, and the frequent showers, it was mid-afternoon before we reached another little clearing called Pacaypata. Here, on a hillside nearly a thousand feet above the river, our men decided to spend the night in a tiny little ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... very much," said the young man. He helped the young ladies over crevasses of carpentry and along narrow paths of planking, on which they had made their way unassisted before. The elder sister left the younger to profit solely by these offices as much as possible. She walked between them and her father, who went before, lecturing on each apartment, and taking the credit of the whole affair more and more as he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for a full quarter of an hour, but he used the glasses often, always looking at the same spot on the western horizon. Robert was at last able to see a black dot there with his unassisted eyes, and he knew that it must ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he preferred to manage it without the hindrance of official restraints. And so this solitary man made up his mind, single handed, to crush the slave traffic in a district larger than England, and to wage war, unassisted, with a dozen local chieftains and against twenty thousand fighting men The attempt seemed Quixotic, but Alec had examined the risks and was willing to take them. He had on his side a thorough knowledge of the country, a natural power ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... guardian and a protector? How did I deserve to be deprived of that patrimony which was my natural claim, to be sent forth, after having formed so reasonable expectancies, after having received an education suitable to my rank, unassisted and unprovided, upon the theatre of ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... its end. Nature has not yet taught her weaklings how to match that powerful combination. And so a naturalist, in studying the artifices adopted by hunted animals, should be interested chiefly as to how such artifices would succeed against pursuers unassisted by human intelligence. I am inclined to believe that even a pack of well-trained harriers would have been unable to follow the doe-hares I have referred to, unless the scent lay unusually well on the ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up. Had you and I been at Goethe's elbow when, in the October of 1786, he entered Rome and was received by the excited Tischbein, no doubt we should have whispered in his ear, 'Beware of that man! He will one day fail you.' Unassisted Goethe had no misgivings. For some years he had been receiving letters from this Herr Tischbein. They were the letters of a man steeped in the Sorrows of Werther and in all else that Goethe had written. This was a matter of course. But also they were the letters of a man familiar with ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... knowledge, such a nature as his was sure to gain that,—to acquire in any event, and almost unknowingly, what mere talent only obtains by severe, methodical application. We know how genius makes unconscious studies, while in the daily routine of life. The soul works on, unassisted, and at length bursts out into sudden blaze. How did Booth study? Just as young Franklin weighed the minister's sermons, while mentally intent upon the architecture of the church roof. Night after night the lonely face brightened the shadows of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... and noble head. They sobbed over him—they blubbered over him—they compared him with his photograph, and declared he was libelled—they showered cards over him to get his autograph; and when, at length, by persuasion, not unassisted by mild violence, they were induced to withdraw, they declared that, for those few moments of ecstasy, they'd have willingly made ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... on farming as to the quantity. I would advise you to apply manure of some kind to all your land. I believe there is nothing better or cheaper for you to begin with than shell lime. I would prefer cultivating less land manured in some way than a large amount unassisted. We are always delighted to hear from you, and I trust with care you may escape the chills. The incentives I spoke of were a sweet wife and child. God bless you, my ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... audacity of Reverend Finch—persisting to our faces in the assumption that he had been the first to discover our neighbor, and that Lucilla and I were perfectly incapable of understanding and appreciating Oscar, unassisted by him—was entirely without a parallel in my experience. I asked myself what his conduct in this matter—so entirely unexpected by Lucilla, as well as by me—could possibly mean. My knowledge of his character, obtained through his daughter, and my memory of what ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... the continent, we find the air contains a certain amount of salt so finely divided that it floats in the atmosphere. So, too, we find the air, even on the mountain tops amid eternal snows, charged with small particles of dust, which, though not evident to the unassisted eye, become at once visible when we permit a slender ray of light to ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... easier for many minds working in harmony together to grasp a thought, than for the single brain to receive it without aid. No one earthly being ever conceived a great idea unassisted. One might have believed and proclaimed the origin of an idea, but unknown and innumerable others secretly aided in its conception. The strongest intellect, however, retained and gave it to the world, ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... system of philosophy was made up of hypotheses, and the only foundation of science was laid in conjecture. The imagination, called necessarily into extraordinary action, in the absence of scientific certainty, was still further exercised in vain attempts to discover, unassisted by observation and experiment, the elements and first principles of nature. It had reached a monstrous growth about the time to which we are referring. Indeed it may be said, that all the intellectual productions of modern times, from the seventeenth ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... girls had insisted on replacing the gas-jets that she preferred, cast a hard glitter over the hollowed lines of her face and over the thinning curls which she had striven to brush back from her temples. Her figure, unassisted as yet by Miss Willy's ruffles, looked so fragile in the pitiless glare that his heart melted in one of those waves of sentimentality which, because they were impotent to affect his conduct, cost him so little. As she stood there, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... weak flesh would bear no more; and the noble spirit, unrecognized by the lord of the soil, returned to God who gave it. I seemed to see in his history a sad presage of my own. If he, stronger, more self-restrained, more righteous far than ever I could be, had died thus unknown, unassisted, in the stern battle with social disadvantages, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... of fashionable life, think upon this picture! To vile and heartless landlords, who see not, hear not, know not those to whose heart-breaking toil ye owe the only merit ye possess—that of rank in society—come and contemplate this virtuous man, as unfriended, unassisted, and uncheered by those who are bound by a strong moral duty to protect and aid him, he looks shuddering into the dark, cheerless future! Is it to be wondered at that he, and such as he, should, in the misery of his despair, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... from Canadian cities. They naturally look for some grace of culture or refinement in the woman they would marry, and there are few women of the station they once belonged to who could face the loneliness and unassisted drudgery that must be borne by the small wheat-grower's wife. There were also reasons why this question had been troubling Hawtrey in ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... were too young, and Agrippina was too violent and tactless, to be able alone to cope successfully with Sejanus, supported as he was by Tiberius, by Livia, and by Antonia. We can thus explain why Tiberius opposed and prevented the marriage: Agrippina, unassisted, had caused him sufficient trouble; it would have been entirely superfluous for him to sanction her taking to herself an official counselor in the ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... Simon had spoken, and now, as the soldiery was upon them, they leaned yet nearer the wall. For a moment Mary hid her face. At her feet the Christ had fallen, and from her came one wail, choked down at once. She stooped to aid him, but he stood up unassisted and reached to ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... "this is a family council. Herve and I are fortunate, here at Lancilly. We need no longer decide family affairs by our unassisted wits." ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... words and followed me. She knew my utterance. I was the master—she the disciple. But here was one who could lead me. I would be the follower and disciple. From her I could learn more than in all my life I could ever discover by my own unassisted efforts. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... and laboured so hard to represent the impossibility of my affording him relief by my own unassisted exertions, that at length I succeeded, and the Bailie, who was as placable as hasty in his temper, extended his favour to me once more. I next took the liberty of asking him how he had ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... account of his voyage it appeared that no meridional observation was obtained by him for the latitude near this channel; and also that the weather when he passed through was thick and cloudy. This error therefore, when he was unassisted by an observation for his latitude in a place where the tide sets at the rate of three or four knots, did not appear at all improbable; and as my conjectures by comparing our respective plans were soon afterwards confirmed, we hauled in for ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... restrictions imposed by custom or agreement, as it was to government regulation. Individualism is much more than a mere laissez-faire policy of government. It believes that every man should remain and be allowed to remain free, unrestricted, undirected, unassisted, so that he may be in a position at any time to direct his labor, ability, capital, enterprise, in any direction that may seem to him most desirable, and may be induced to put forth his best efforts to attain success. The arguments ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... cord which hung in the far corner of the room. "No, don't call her. I'll lie down a moment, and—and—we'll talk—this—over." She clung to the letter and would not let it out of her hand, but rose and walked wearily to the couch unassisted and lay down, closing her eyes. "After a minute, Aunt Ellen, I'll tell you. I must think, I must think." So she lay quietly, gathering all her force to consider and meet what she must, as her way was, while Jean sat beside, stroking her hand and saying ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... fear of being deposed,—to seem neutral and attempt to conciliate, still the war really was carried on in his behalf. "The great, the terrible, the magnificent in the fate of Becket," says Michelet, "arises from his being charged, weak and unassisted, with the interests of the Church Universal,—a post which belonged to the Pope himself." He was still Archbishop; but his revenues were cut off, and had it not been for the bounty of Louis the King of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... are used to a greater or less extent. Long experience seems to indicate that the first cutting of any object should be unassisted by any external representation of it whatever, in order that the attention of each child may be focused upon his own mental picture of the object. When he has put forth his best effort from this standpoint, he should compare his cutting with the real object or a good ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... (1585?-1642?).—Dramatist, was an actor in the Queen's Company 1610. He collaborated with Middleton in A Fair Quarrel and The Changeling, and in others with Dekker, Webster, etc., and wrote unassisted A New Wonder, A Match at Midnight, A Shoemaker, a Gentleman, and several others; also a picture of life in London called A Search for Money. R. was vigorous and humorous, but his verse ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... career, he had coolly, dispassionately, sordidly, and with a hand as firm as Astraea's own, held the matrimonial scales, and weighed the influence and preferment that he could command by a politic and brilliant marriage, against the advantages of freedom, and the glory of unassisted success and advancement. For the lady herself—a bright, mirthful, pretty brunette, who in contrast with his frigid nature seemed a gaudy tropical bird fluttering around a stolid arctic auk—he ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... young man of dissypated habits to fix hisself up as A real Cannibal from New Zeelan, and when I was simply tellin the audience that he was the most feroshos Cannibal of his tribe, and that, alone and unassisted, he had et sev'ril of our fellow countrymen, and that he had at one time even contemplated eatin his Uncle Thomas on his mother's side, as well as other near and dear relatives,—when I was makin' these simple statements the mis'ble young man said I was a lyer, and ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... but who also conducts by a special providence all those who put their trust in him,—a God who teaches his elect, by the unction of his Spirit, truths inaccessible to the wise of this world; and who makes them, by his grace, to practise a degree of virtue to which human nature unassisted is totally unable to attain? The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, is exceedingly glorified by the virtues of those great men; and that glory is exalted, and we are led to adore it, because the lives of those men have been written for our instruction. Is not Moses ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... his own mind; he will gain by being spared an entrance into your Babel. Few indeed there are who can dispense with the stimulus and support of instructors, or will do any thing at all, if left to themselves. And fewer still (though such great minds are to be found), who will not, from such unassisted attempts, contract a self-reliance and a self-esteem, which are not only moral evils, but serious hindrances to the attainment of truth. And next to none, perhaps, or none, who will not be reminded from time ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... which naturally occurs to unassisted reason as a mode of accounting for the mingled existence of good and evil in the visible world—that belief which, in one modification or another, supposes the co-existence of a benevolent and malevolent ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... literary salons to encourage him. Goethe, with whom he exchanged letters and compliments at times, said with rare insight that he 'had in himself an originating principle of conviction, out of which he could develop the force that lay in him unassisted by other men'. ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... no doubt, surprize many of the present age, and be a just cause of triumph to them, if they find that what Roscommon and Oxford attempted in vain, shall be carried into execution, in the most masterly manner, by a private gentleman, unassisted, and unpensioned. The world has just reason to hope this from the publication of an English Dictionary, long expected, by Mr. Johnson; and no doubt a design of this sort, executed by such a genius, will be a lasting monument of the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... that of Bartolommeo. During their long association the task of designing fell upon the Frate, while Albertinelli took his orders and helped to work out his conceptions. Both were excellent craftsmen and consummate colourists, as is proved by the pictures executed by each unassisted. Albertinelli's "Salutation" in the Uffizzi yields no point of grace and vigour to any of his ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... are old enough to judge for yourself how your time should be spent! If you win a scholarship, I'll manage to help you through a 'Varsity course, but I can't afford to keep you there unassisted. Remember it is your whole career which is ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... as was even now pouring down the slope of Majuba. The wounded were now being brought in rapidly by our mounted Hussars, who did their work steadily. Some of the poor fellows were terribly wounded, and though Surgeon-Major Cornish did his best for them unassisted, many had to lie unattended to in their suffering. All brought the same bitter news of defeat and annihilation, not very reassuring to our little force, which was now about to take its part in the day's engagement. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... taxation in the ordinary modes. Did not experience evince the contrary, it would be natural to conclude that the propriety of a general power of taxation in the national government might safely be permitted to rest on the evidence of these propositions, unassisted by any additional arguments or illustrations. But we find, in fact, that the antagonists of the proposed Constitution, so far from acquiescing in their justness or truth, seem to make their principal and most ...
— The Federalist Papers
... to doubt her own judgment than Henry's, she was very soon obliged to give him credit for being right, however disagreeable to her his going. But the inexplicability of the general's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be understood? Who but Henry could have been aware of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... any faction with invectives; they can neither indulge vanity nor gratify malignity; but are read without any other reason than the desire of pleasure, and are therefore praised only as pleasure is obtained; yet, thus unassisted by interest or passion, they have past through variations of taste and changes of manners, and, as they devolved from one generation to another, have received new honours ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... wait upon the family at that meal, assisted by the footman, and see to the cleanliness of everything at table. On taking away, he removes the tray with the china and plate, for which he is responsible. At luncheon, he arranges the meal, and waits unassisted, the footman being now engaged in other duties. At dinner, he places the silver and plated articles on the table, sees that everything is in its place, and rectifies what is wrong. He carries in the first dish, and announces in the drawing-room that dinner ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... which controls things that must be, had the woman completely in its grip. Whatever she was to do would be done without any actual forethought or preparation; she would realize that afterward as we all do when we have passed through a crisis and have done better, perhaps, than our poor, unassisted thought might have accomplished ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... of agonized supplication went to Geoffrey's heart. Kitty flew down the steps into the sleigh, unassisted, and Betty followed, her hand in Yorke's. There arose a hoarse shout "The spy, the spy—he has escaped by the road!" and as Betty set her foot on the runner, a dark figure vaulted over Kitty and buried itself in the robes at ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... whole, man, by the unassisted power of his own faculty, will always conceive Zeus to be less just, wise, good, and ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... imaginary accounts, given for the sake of creating a sensation. I do not suppose that the monks of Lough Derg devised any scenic effects, but left the imagination of the dupes to riot of its own accord unassisted. In the fifteenth century a monk of Eymstadt, in Holland, undertook the pilgrimage to Lough Derg. He arrived at the lake, and applied to the prior for admission, who referred him to the bishop of the diocese. The monk ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... The Master said, 'Though a man may be able to recite the three hundred odes, yet if, when intrusted with a governmental charge, he knows not how to act, or if, when sent to any quarter on a mission, he cannot give his replies unassisted, notwithstanding the extent of his learning, of ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... which Mr. Darwin is appearing to combat. A general impression is left upon the reader that some very foolish objectors are being put to silence, that Mr. Darwin is the most candid literary opponent in the world, and as just as Aristides himself; but if the unassisted reader will cross-question himself what it is all about, I shall be much surprised if he is ready with ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... rebellion against the whole power of Rome—a mad and desperate revolt, which could not end but in the political ruin of the nation. Great preparations were made for the approaching contest, in which the Jews were to fight single-handed and unassisted by allies. The fortified posts were in the hands of the insurgents, but they had no organized and disciplined forces, and were divided among themselves. Agrippa, the representative of the Herodian kings, openly ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... far as I am conscious of having any, and the public will forgive the egotism of the detail, as what is necessarily connected with it. I have only to repeat, that I avow myself in print, as formerly in words, the sole and unassisted author of all the novels published as the composition of the "Author of Waverley." I ought to mention, before concluding, that twenty persons at least were, either from intimacy or from the confidence which circumstances rendered necessary, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... Macnamara met him, and pressed him to dine that day with a few friends at his house. You know Phil; so that when I tell you Sam Burke, of Greenmount, and Roger Doolan were of the party, I need not say that the English traveller was not left to his own unassisted imagination for his facts. Such anecdotes of our habits and customs as they crammed him with, it would appear, never were heard before; nothing was too hot or too heavy for the luckless cockney, who, when not sipping his claret, was ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... face. He required watching. He himself recognized that in his handling of tricky drugs there was a danger. The business was getting out of hand. It was small and growing smaller every month, yet it was too much for Mr. Ponting to cope with unassisted. They were living, all three of them, in a state of tension most fretting to ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... some occult personal signification impenetrable to understandings uninstructed in local traditions. A more charitable hypothesis is that it was owing to a misadventure on the part of Mr. Barney Bree, who, making the interment unassisted (either by choice for the conservation of his golden secret, or through public apathy), had committed a blunder which he was afterward unable or unconcerned to rectify. However it had come about, poor Scarry had indubitably been put into ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... now. Ropes were hastily flung over the side, and swarming down these with the agility of monkeys, they took Bert out of his rescuer's hands and passed him up to the wharf; Connors followed unassisted, so soon as he ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of the House, and the members that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to venture; and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law book, wrote the within.[83] Upon offering them to the House, violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast on me by the party for submission. After a long and ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... from the semblance of a vaporous tissue—an illuminated haze only discernible through the telescope, the private view of the favored few—till it gradually became visible to the unassisted eye of the profanum vulgus, and finally it flamed across the darkling spaces with its white crown of glory, its splendid wing-like train, and its effect of motion as of a wondrous flight among the stars—and all the world, and, for aught we know, ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... infuriated Spaniards. But Wellington suddenly stopped short in his victorious career. It was in December, 1809, when the news of the fresh peace concluded by Napoleon with Austria arrived. On the Spaniards hazarding a fresh engagement, Wellington left them totally unassisted, and, on the 19th of November, they suffered a dreadful defeat at Ocasia, where they lost twenty-five thousand men. The Rhenish confederated troops were, in reward for the gallantry displayed by them ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... of that kind of disbelief and heresy which, far from being wanton, arises from a total inability to envisage greatness, whether in kings, ideals, or gods. For we arrive at our most exalted images, not by solitary flights of imagination unassisted, but by actual progressive steps in the world of concrete things; so that the spring-board from which we take our final leap into the highest concepts of what a god might be, is always the highest man we happen to ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... head moving quickly hither and thither over the garden hedge. Entering the gate he found that three young unfattened pigs had escaped from their sty by leaping clean over the top, and that she was endeavouring unassisted to drive them in through the door which she had set open. The lines of her countenance changed from the rigidity of business to the softness of love when she saw Jude, and she bent her eyes languishingly upon him. The animals took advantage of the pause ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... of whom she was a passionate admirer, and thought no toil too great which promoted her musical growth. Her labor was a labor of love, and all the ardor of her nature was poured into it. Music was not the sole accomplishment in which she became skilled. Unassisted by teaching, she, like Malibran, learned to sketch and paint in oil and water-colors, and found many spare moments in the midst of an incessant art-training, which looked to the lyric stage, to devote to ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... tea—often making the tea himself. Too poor to possess a chamber, he slept on a lounge in the public room. He would owe no man any thing, asked no favors, and fawned on nobody. He would fight his own fight, make his own way; with the intellect heaven had sent him, carve out his own future, unassisted. The sallow youth, groaning under dyspepsia, with scarce a friend, and nothing but his brain, promised himself that he would one day rise from his low estate, and wield the thunderbolts of power, as one born to grasp and ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... recovered his spirits. Prince, said Ebn Thaher to him, we run the risk of being destroyed, if we stay here any longer; let us therefore endeavour to save our lives. He was so feeble that he could not rise unassisted. Ebn Thaher and the confident lent him their hands, and supported him on each side. They came to a little iron gate which opened towards the Tigris, went out at it, and got to the side of a little canal communicating with the river. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... herself; there were only three of them, and if a pretty girl is not equal to three subalterns, well, what are we coming to in England? And, as it turned out, Miss Gertie had to deal with them all, sometimes collectively, sometimes one by one, practically unassisted. Cynthia was otherwise engaged. Gertie complained neither of the cause nor of ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... the East; one Argument of which is, that it has been translated by R. Moses Narbonensis into Hebrew, and illustrated with a large Commentary. The Design of the Author is to shew, how Human Capacity, unassisted by any External Help, may, by due Application, attain to the Knowledge of Natural Things, and so by Degrees find out its Dependance upon a Superior Being, the Immortality of the Soul, and all ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... himself or herself over her and misjudge acts or events in her life with respect to which she considered herself the only person qualified to judge. At such times she would declare in strong terms that by her own unassisted strength she had raised herself from a mean and unprotected position to the level of the best men and women of her day. Herself overflowing with emotion, and of a noble disposition, she craved affection and goodwill, and gave back a hundredfold what she received. If she felt herself ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... supposed that as one saw more of the world the sentiment of respect became the most active of one's emotions. It was excited, none the less, by the beautiful city of Florence, which pleased her not less than Madame Merle had promised; and if her unassisted perception had not been able to gauge its charms she had clever companions as priests to the mystery. She was—in no want indeed of esthetic illumination, for Ralph found it a joy that renewed his own early passion to act as cicerone to his eager young kinswoman. Madame Merle remained ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... his own words, that "no community ever did or ever can emerge unassisted by external helps from a state of utter barbarism into anything that can be called civilization"; and that, in short, all imperfectly civilized, barbarous, and savage races are but fallen descendants of races more fully civilized. This view was urged with his usual ingenuity and vigour, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... had taken up a strong position at the Campus Vogladensis (Vouille: dep. Vienne), about ten miles from Poitiers. Here he wished to remain on the defensive till the expected succours from Theodoric could arrive, but his soldiers, confident in their power to beat the Franks unassisted, began to revile their king's over-caution and his father-in-law's delay, and forced Alaric to fight.[102] The Goths began hurling their missile weapons, but the daring Franks rushed in upon them and commenced a hand-to-hand encounter, in which they were ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... the men who, in February, 1825, suffered death with six European criminals. They were unassisted by counsel, and perhaps the evidence was not fully understood by them. It is useless, however, to extenuate their treachery: and their execution, whether politic or not, can scarcely be accounted unjust. But, unhappily, these deeds of barbarity were not left to the vengeance ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... self-reliance never deserted him; he would have died rather than have yielded up Silesia until wrested from him. At last the battle of Torgau, fought in the night, and the death of the Empress of Russia, removed the overhanging clouds, and he was enabled to contend with Austria unassisted by France and Russia. But if Maria Theresa could not recover Silesia, aided by the great monarchies of Europe, what could she do without their aid? So peace came at last, when all parties were wearied ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... I dwelt upon their peculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation. I mused upon the alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them in imagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even when unassisted by the lips, a capability of moral expression. Of Mademoiselle Salle it has been well said, "Que tous ses pas etaient des sentiments," and of Berenice I more seriously believed que toutes ses dents etaient des idees. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... unassisted, from the carriage to greet the members of the household, and with all his old courtliness offered each his hand. Then in a canvas chair we had brought we carried him up-stairs to his room—the big, beautiful room that looked out to the sunset ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... with more effect than he otherwise could do. Such a plan is, in fact, like the plan of a newspaper for an ordinary community, where sentiments and opinions stand on their own basis, and influence the community just in proportion to their intrinsic merits, unassisted by the authority of the writer's name, and unimpeded by any prejudice which ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... was widening in front of the doorway. A big man in officer's uniform was seen to stagger away bent almost double and holding his hands over his abdomen. "My God, I'm shot!" he had cried to the soldier beside him. This was Warren O. Grimm; the other was his friend, Frank Van Gilder. Grimm walked unassisted to the rear of a nearby soft drink place from whence he was taken to a hospital. He died a short time afterwards. Van Gilder swore on the witness stand that Grimm and himself were standing at the head of the columns of "unoffending paraders" ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... home to Grafton Street after the first night of the revival of "Richard III." and slipped on the stairs, injuring his knee. With characteristic fortitude, he struggled to his feet unassisted and walked to his room. This made the consequences of the accident far more serious, and he was not able to ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... his arms, but she refused his aid with a motion that was unmistakable. She was making every effort to conceal her agitation, and she dared not trust herself with words. After taking a weak step or two, and finding that she could not walk unassisted, she rested herself upon the arm of a large chair, and signed to him to leave her. Much mortified, but knowing no other course, he bowed profoundly and ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... is guilty, let the facts have been what they may, and let the twelve have been ever so much in error. Majesty, however, can pardon guilt, and hence arises some awkward remedy for the mistakes of jurymen. But an unassisted Majesty cannot itself investigate all things,—is not, in fact, in this country supposed to perform any duties of that sort,—a Secretary of State is invested with the privilege of what is called mercy. It is justice rather that is wanted. If Bagwax were in the right about ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... and after a suitable time intend to marry. Cece wanted to apologise for the conventionality of this story, but I begged him not to trouble; if unassisted nature were to be always original, the occupation of poets ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... stood pondering. She considered that it was very vexing and unfair in him to refuse her all knowledge of his remaining secrets, under the peculiar circumstances of her connection with him. She went close to the cabinet. As there was no keyhole, the door must be capable of being opened by the unassisted hand. The circles in the dust told her at which edge to apply her force. Here she pulled with the tips of her fingers, but the panel would not come forward. She fetched a chair and looked over the top of the cabinet, but no bolt, knob, or spring was ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... protest. He merely lifted Myrtle in his arms and gently placed her in the front seat. Beth, much amused, took the seat behind, unassisted save that the Major opened the door for her. Mr. Jones evidently understood his car. Starting the engines without effort he took his place at the wheel and with a nod ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... the history of Dieppe, no notice has been taken of the honor acquired by its sailors, who have, however, on all occasions, distinguished themselves. They did so particularly in the year 1555, when, unassisted by their king, or by any other part of France, they armed their merchant vessels, and attacked and defeated, and nearly destroyed, the Flemish fleet, consisting of twenty-four sail of ships of war. At all times they have been considered as supplying ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... into the tub of muddy water. But Thomas was not experienced in the wiles and artifices of mine-salters, and the residue of yellow particles left in the pan was proof positive that the claim was making good. It did strike him as strange, however, that when he selected a pan of dirt and washed it unassisted he found nothing. At such times Bill explained glibly enough that no pay dump carried steady values, and that an inexperienced sampler was apt to get "skunked" under the best of circumstances. Concentrates lay in streaks and pockets, he declared. Then to prove his ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... for the very considerable measure of success which has been the outcome of these fierce industrial struggles. On the whole, the strikers gained much better terms than they could possibly have done unassisted. Almost entirely foreigners, they had no adequate means of reaching with their story the English-speaking and reading public of their city. The Leagues made it their particular business to see that the strikers' side of the dispute was brought out in the press ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... heathen humbug now in operation, from so many distant portions of the earth, shows how radically similar is all heathenism. It shows, too, how mean, vulgar, filthy, and altogether vile, is such religion as man, unassisted, contrives for himself. It shows, again, how sadly great is the proportion of the human race still remaining in this brutal darkness. And, by contrast, it affords us great reason for thankfulness that we live in a land of better culture, and happier ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... method of making the chalk tell us its own history. To the unassisted eye chalk looks simply like a very loose and open kind of stone. But it is possible to grind a slice of chalk down so thin that you can see through it—until it is thin enough, in fact, to be examined with any magnifying power that may be thought desirable. A thin slice of the ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... which I had been as it were born, in which my father and uncles and cousins served, against the wish of my father, and to the surprise of my relatives. But I had reached man's estate, and felt a pride in going my own way, and in seeking, unassisted, my fortune, whatever ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... that an unrelenting temper would only drive the rebels to a desperate resistance. Meekness was something far from Berkeley's heart, but he was desperately anxious to end the rebellion before the redcoats arrived. Then he could tell the King that he, unassisted, had restored order. To accomplish this he was even willing to forego the satisfaction of hanging some of the leaders of the rebellion, provided Lawrence and Drummond were not ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... who was occupied for four years at the Cape of Good Hope in exploring the celestial regions of the Southern Hemisphere, describes the coming on of the Milky Way as seen in his 20-foot reflector. He first remarks 'that all the stars visible to us, whether by unassisted vision or through the best telescopes, belong to and form part of a vast stratum or considerably flattened and unsymmetrical congeries of stars in which our system is deeply and eccentrically plunged; and, moreover, situated near a point ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... were quickly astride the ridge of the roof. It would have been perilous work for any man to have ventured further unassisted, but Dab tied one end of the rope firmly around his waist, Ham Morris tied himself to the other, and then Dab could slip down the steep roof in any direction ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... relays of patients to watch a critical case; but, undoubtedly also, always under her own superintendence; and she is called to whenever there is something to be done, and she knows how to do it. The patients are not left to do it of their own unassisted genius, however "kind" and ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... little of the animal; the lithe, easy motion of the lion or the tiger was not there. The impression conveyed was, that such strength had been gained through a course of incessant exertion of the rudest kind, unassisted by generous food ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... that which we find in the fields or commons around them; and the beauty of architecture, or the associations connected with it, in like manner often ennobling the most tame scenery;—yet not so but that we may always distinguish between the abstract character of the unassisted landscape, and the charm which it derives from the architecture. Much of the majesty of French landscape consists in its grand and grey village churches and turreted farmhouses, not to speak of its cathedrals, castles, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... lonely detachment from their kind, of their isolation, crept through Durkin's mind. He felt momentarily depressed by a sense of friendlessness. It was like reverting to primordial conditions, wherein it was ordained that each life, alone and unassisted, should protect and save itself. He wondered if primitive man, or if even wild animals, did not always walk with that vague consciousness of continual menace, where lupine viciousness seemed eternally at war ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... "ask amiss:" when we pray without corresponding effort. Some worthy people think that prayer alone is to obtain for them all the benefits they can desire, and that the influences of the Holy Spirit will, unassisted by human effort, produce a transforming change in the temper and the conduct. This they call magnifying the grace of God, as if it could be supposed that his gracious help would ever be granted for the purpose of slackening, instead of encouraging and exciting, our own exertions. Do not the ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... smallest Margrave who could see his whole principality from the cracked windows of the mean and ruinous old house which he called his palace. It was not enough that England and Holland furnished much more than their contingents to the war by land, and bore unassisted the whole charge of the war by sea. They were beset by a crowd of illustrious mendicants, some rude, some obsequious, but all indefatigable and insatiable. One prince came mumping to them annually with a lamentable story about his distresses. A more sturdy beggar threatened to join ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the royal academy in his admirable Discourse on imitation, has set the folly of depending on unassisted genius, in the clearest light; and has shewn the necessity of adding the knowledge of others, to our own native powers, in his usual striking and masterly manner. "The mind, says he, is a barren soil, is a soil soon exhausted, ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... we should venture to say, a very beautiful result, and we may say it yielded us no little astonishment. What our calculation might lead to we never dreamt of; that it should educe a conclusion so recondite that our unassisted power never could have attained to, and which, if we could have conjectured it, would have been at best the most distant probability, that conclusion being itself, as it would appear, the quintessence of truth, afforded us a measure of satisfaction ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... was not being prepared for them as it should be. The men cried shame of their commander, and volunteered to do whatever they could to assist the captain.[*] The weather moderated, and some sails were set on the vessel, which finally unassisted reached Falmouth. Two steam men-of-war had been sent in search of her, but ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... the introduction of the Christian religion into China, the extent to which we shall be permitted to acquire a knowledge of the habits, the economy, the literature, and the science, of China; the exertions which may be expected from other nations to share in the advantages which we have, by our own unassisted efforts, secured—we must pass over, as inconsistent with the limits assigned us, or, indeed, the scope ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Omsk, while Bolshevist forces rose up in his rear. His defeat ruined our plans in North Russia, and at last convinced the Allies of their folly in seeking to impose a government on the Russian people; and evacuation became the order of the day. In South Russia Denikin, unassisted by foreign legions, met with more native support and greater success. The Bolsheviks were driven from the shores of the Black Sea, and the Ukraine recovered Kiev. Students of Russian history drew interesting ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... decorous alacrity by the conductor, and followed by the station-agent with Alice in his arms, and by the telegraph-operator with a home-made satchel or two of luggage and luncheon. It was disgusting,—to two thin, tough-necked women, who climbed aboard, unassisted, at the other end of the ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... the last step. Neither the first nor the last has been the difficult step with me, but rather what lies between. The first is usually helped by the excitement and the promise of new beginnings, and the last by the prospect of triumph; but the intermediate path is unassisted by enthusiasm, and it is here we are so likely to faint. M'Kay nevertheless persevered, supporting me, who otherwise might have been tempted to despair, and at the end of the two years we were still at our posts. We had, however, learned ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... nor took any food; in two days one-half died of hunger, and the other remained weak and languid. Commiserating their condition, he gave them one of their black companions. This little creature, unassisted, formed a chamber in the earth, gathered together the larvae, put everything into complete order, and preserved the lives of those which were about ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... large sums of money. This agent's first step was to assemble a congress of Thebans, allies, and Lacedaemonians at Delphi to treat of peace. On their arrival, without attempting to communicate or take counsel with the god as to how peace might be re-established, they fell to deliberating unassisted; and when the Thebans refused to acquiesce in the dependency of Messene (30) upon Lacedaemon, Philiscus set about collecting a large foreign brigade to side with Lacedaemon and to prosecute ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon |
