"Variable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... golden cheese out of it, whether they milk the same cows or turn in new ones. In other words, the millionocracy, considered in a large way, is not at all an affair of persons and families, but a perpetual fact of money with a variable human element, which a philosopher might leave out of consideration without falling into serious error. Of course, this trivial and fugitive fact of personal wealth does not create a permanent class, unless some special means are taken to arrest the process of disintegration in the third generation. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... cost and the question of materials cannot be separated. A shed even of the dimensions given consumes a lot of wood, and the last, that it may withstand our variable and treacherous climate for a good number of years, should, as regards those parts directly exposed to the weather, be of good quality. Yellow deal may be selected for the boards; pitch pine is better, but it costs considerably more. For the frames and ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... the Virginia we made the passage to the river's mouth in a trifle over five days, during the last three of which the wind was light and variable with us, anchoring in Banana Creek at two p.m. on the fifth day from that on which we had been picked up. The Virginia having succeeded in completing her complement of officers and men at Sierra Leone, the half-dozen picked up with ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... the beginning to sing in large compasse, then following on to rise and fall, the halfe note, whole note, musicke of five voices, firme singing by four voices, three together, or one voice and a halfe. Then their variable contrarieties amongst them, when one delivers forth a long tenor or a short, the pausing for time, breathing in measure, breaking the minim or very least moment of time. Last of all, to heare the musicke of five or six voices chaunged to so many of asses is amongst ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... be taken into consideration. Let it be well borne in mind that if its destructive power surpasses anything ever conceived or dreamed of, it extends over a zone not exceeding a mile in extent. The distance of this dangerous zone is variable, but once the engines have been set, the modification of the distance occupies some time, and a warship that succeeds in passing the zone has nothing ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... roughened as soon as the place was clear of company. She spoke at my father impetuously, with manifest scorn and reproach, struck her silver-mounted stick on the carriage panels, again and again stamped her foot, lifting a most variable emphatic countenance. Princess Ottilia tried to intercede. The margravine clenched her hands, and, to one not understanding her speech, appeared literally to blow the little lady off with the breath of her mouth. Her whole bearing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... very variable throughout the day. Between 6 and 7 a.m. we were going twelve knots; between 7 and 8 only three; but as we never stop, we manage to make up a ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... compacted snow surface suitable for wheeled fixed-wing aircraft; no paved runways; 12 locations have snow-surface skiways limited to use by ski-equipped planes - 8 runways/skiways greater than 3,000 m,10 runways/skiways 1,000 to 3,000 m, 3 runways/skiways less than 1,000 m, and 4 of unspecified or variable length; airports generally subject to severe restrictions and limitations resulting from extreme seasonal and geographic conditions; airports do not meet ICAO standards; advance approval from the respective governmental or non-governmental ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... contains archaic and variable spelling, which is preserved as printed. Minor punctuation errors have been repaired, and hyphenation ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... adaptability of the Jew to his environment has been at once his strength and his weakness. His strength, in that it provided a variable cloak to shelter him in storm on the one hand,—on the other, to deck him seasonably, as it were, for the onward journey, when days were fair; his weakness, in that it has often led him to forget that the cloak was but raiment;—"and is ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... valid argument against extreme fineness of the stone used in liberal applications is the danger of loss by leaching. Soils are so variable in their ability to hold what may be given them that it is idle to offer any estimate on this point. The amount of lime found in the drainage waters of limestone land teaches no lesson of value for other land, the excessive loss in the former case being due oftentimes to erosion that creates ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... the fire," she rejoined, leading the way; "and sit down, and let us have tea, and talk, and be cosey. You want me to talk about myself, and I will if I can. I was happy just now, but you see I am depressed in a moment. It is misery to me to be so variable. And I constantly feel as if I wanted something—to be somewhere, or to have something; I don't know where or what; it is a sort of general dissatisfaction, but it is all the worse for not being positive. If I knew what I wanted, I should be ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... preserved as printed. Variable spelling, hyphenation and use of accents has been made consistent where there was a clear prevalence of one form over the other, or with reference to reliable sources; otherwise, these are preserved as printed. Typographic errors, e.g. omitted, superfluous ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... have cited to demonstrate that the return from the playlet is a most variable quantity. The small-time pays less than the big-time, and each individual act on both small- and big-time pays a ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... except to their wives. Today they reject that religion, which yesterday they professed. I ascribe this fickleness to the situation of their country; they are islanders and seamen, and probably become affected by the variable element that surrounds them. They inquire very often after each other's health, so that one would suppose them to be all doctors; but the question: how do you do? is merely a form of speech; a sound ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... water may be purchased in gutta-percha or lead bottles. It is of variable strength and doubtful purity. It must always be examined quantitatively for the residue left on evaporation. It is used occasionally for the examination of silicates. It attacks silica, forming fluoride of silicon, which is a ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... steered for Quibo, having very uncertain winds and variable weather, and were thirteen days on this short allowance. No one who has not experienced it can conceive our sufferings in this sultry climate, by the perpetual extremity of thirst, which would not permit us ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... lavender requires the gardener's aid to grow. The usual productions of this part are heath, broom, fern, and other plants, with prickly thorns: these hardy shrubs seem fitted, by their sterility, to the variable climate ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... type), blood red (Burmah type), or pale (Ceylon), is more pleasing usually than the red of any of the other species. Viewed from the back of the stone (by transmitted light) it is still pleasing. It may be purplish, but is seldom orange red. Also, owing to the dichroism of the ruby the red is variable according to the changing position of the stone. It therefore has a certain life and variety not seen in any of the others except perhaps in red tourmaline, which, however, does not approach ruby in fineness of ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... interests that are now abroad among us. Everybody is talking about art, and writing about it, and more or less interested in it; everybody wants art, and there is not art for everybody, and few who talk know what they are talking about; thus students are led in all variable ways, while there is only one way in which they can make steady progress, for true art is always and will be always one. Whatever changes may be made in the customs of society, whatever new machines we may invent, whatever new manufactures we may supply, Fine Art must remain ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... and relics of Rome have been found in it, but it has not the characteristic of Roman work. It runs upon no regular lines; its contour is curved and variable. It is surely far older than the Roman occupation. Earth, heaped and beaten hard, is the most enduring of things; the tumuli all over England have outlasted even the monoliths, and the great defensive mounds at Norwich and at Oxford are stronger and clearer cut than anything that the Middle ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... preacher, St. Paul, who 'became all things to all men, that he might save some.' Here is a nice trial of christian prudence. Accordingly, in every case you will distinguish between what is indispensable, and what is variable; between what is divine, and what is of human authority. I mention this, because men are apt to deceive themselves in such cases; and we see the traditions and ordinances of men frequently insisted on with more rigor than ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... trees recommended for windbreaks and the methods of planting are numerous and variable and to discuss them at length would take too much time. However, the principal ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... With variable winds, the three ships that composed the fleet sailed towards the west till the 26th of January, 1606, when, in the afternoon, they sighted a small island. No anchorage could be found and it was thought that it could not be inhabited, ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... real bliss. The pleasure she now felt she believed would always be renewed, and in an equal degree, by the objects which first excited it. The weakness of humanity is never willingly perceived by young minds. It is painful to know, that we are operated upon by objects whose impressions are variable as they are indefinable—and that what yesterday affected us strongly, is to-day but imperfectly felt, and to-morrow perhaps shall be disregarded. When at length this unwelcome truth is received into the ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... great rider, so there was about him some of a horseman's sureness and habitual definiteness of decision, also some of the horseman's animal darkness. Yet his soul was only the more wavering, vague. He seemed made up of a set of habitual actions and decisions. The vulnerable, variable quick of the man was inaccessible. She knew nothing of it. She could only feel the dark, heavy fixity ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... perhaps, to magnify some one thing beyond its proportionate importance to adopt hasty conclusions; to entertain some questionable or erroneous principle because it appears to solve a difficulty, or perhaps falls in with an old prepossession; to make too much account of variable and transitory feelings; or to carry zeal beyond the limits of discretion. In examples of a lower order of the correction or reversal of the effects of ignorance by the influence of religion, the remains will be still more palpable. So ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... ubi supra. In a somewhat similar strain Granvelle about this time wrote: "I am so strongly assured that religion is going to take a favorable turn in France, that I know not what to say of it. The world in that quarter is so light and variable, that no great grounds of confidence can be assumed. But it is at any rate something that matters are not growing worse." Letter to Bolwiller, April 9, 1564, Papiers ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... followed was wild, and the wind variable. Next day the sun did not show itself at all till evening, and the wind blew dead against them. At sunset, red and lurid gleams in the west, and leaden darkness in the east, betokened ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... colonel's temper is as variable as an April day—now all smiles and sunshine, but by-and-by a cloud takes all away. He becomes impatient with a long-winded story, told by some business applicant—and storms whenever any one asks him if the Secretary ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... previously described the breakfast table of the millionaire Coronel R. da Silva, with its black beans, the dreadful farinha, the black coffee, and the handful of mutilated bolachas or biscuits. The only variable factor was the meat, sometimes wild hog, occasionally tapir, and very often the common green parrot or the howling monkey. At most meals the pirarucu fish appears, especially on Mondays when the rubber-workers have had the whole of Sunday in which to indulge in the sport of ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... tall. Calyx of 3 sepals; corolla of 3 rounded, spreading petals. Stamens and pistils numerous, the former yellow in upper flowers; usually absent or imperfect in lower pistillate flowers. Leaves: Exceedingly variable; those under water usually long and grass-like; upper ones sharply arrow-shaped or blunt and broad, spongy or leathery, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... the faces at this Parisian fete, to compare with the novel faces and picturesque surroundings awaiting him at Naples, where he meant to spend a few days before presenting himself at his post. He seemed to be drawing the comparison now between this France so variable, changing even as you study her, with the manners and aspects of that other land known to him as yet only by contradictory hearsay tales or books of travel, for the most part unsatisfactory. Thoughts of a somewhat poetical cast, albeit hackneyed ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... memory, needed in most cases but a touch to restore them. For while his intellectual life had ranged far and wide, his business career had run along a single channel, his circle of intimates had not been very large nor very variable, nor was his memory so overlaid that he could not push aside its later impressions in favour of those graven there so deeply in ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... through into hyperspace. Every beacon has a code signal as part of its radiation and represents a measurable point in hyperspace. Triangulation and quadrature of the beacons works for navigation—only it follows its own rules. The rules are complex and variable, but they are still rules that a ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... Aryan folk-lore; and sundry nondescript personages with superhuman powers which have no exact analogues among the other Aryan races, and seem to be original products of Caucasian fancy. Among the latter are karts, female ogres with cannibalistic tastes; narts, or giants of protean shapes and variable dispositions; and certain mysterious equestrians who are always described as "hare-riders." These three classes of supernatural beings, karts, narts and hare-riders, are known to the whole body of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... miles from which is Moro Moreno, from which the shore runs to Arica, and all this coast, up to the hill of St Francis, is very much subject to south winds, though the adjoining seas have the winds variable and uncertain. On the 20th the whole air was darkened by an Arenal which is a cloud of dust, and so thick that one cannot see a stone's throw. These are raised by the wind from the adjoining shore, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... The first law of motion is, that a ball once projected will fly on to all eternity with undiminished velocity, unless something checks. The fact is, that a ball stops in a few seconds after proceeding a few yards with very variable motion. Every man would wring his child's neck and pick his friend's pocket if nothing checked him. In fact, the principle thus stated means only that governments will oppress unless they abstain from oppressing. This is quite true, we own. But we might with equal propriety ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rifle-shooting. The sights and the object aimed at cannot be in focus together, and a great deal depends on the form of sight. Tycho Brahe invented, and applied to the pointers of his instruments, an aperture-sight of variable area, like the iris diaphragm used now in photography. This enabled him to get the best result with stars of different brightness. The telescope not having been invented, he could not use a telescopic-sight as we now do in ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... in a single day. Several bullocks were here purchased, and a considerable quantity of onions. At noon, on the 24th, having gained no intelligence, the fleet again weighed, and stood for Ceuta; but variable winds, and a thick fog, kept them all night in Gibraltar Gut. About four o'clock, next morning, the Termagant joined, with an account of the combined fleet's having been seen, the 19th of June, by the Curieux brig, standing to the northward. ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... Italy; the most esteemed of all are those of Roquevaire; they are very large and very sweet. This sort is rarely eaten by any but the most wealthy. The dried Malaga, or Muscatel raisins, which come to this country packed in small boxes, and nicely preserved in bunches, are variable in their quality, but mostly of a rich flavour, when new, juicy, and ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... powders are too variable for this purpose, but I found that radite B, one form of my new explosive, can be used for propelling the shells from a gun. The ordinary gun will last only two or three rounds, due to the erosive action of the radite ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... cognizance of the Court of Directors. This renders it the more necessary that the Residents in such places should be persons not disapproved of by the Court of Directors. They are to manage a permanent interest, which is not, like a matter of political negotiation, variable, and which, from circumstances, might possibly excuse some degree of discretionary latitude in construing their orders. During the lifetime of General Clavering and Colonel Monson, Mr. Bristow was appointed to this ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... little and very variable, and this day was a calm, so that they could advance very little in their voyage. In the evening the wind grew fresh, and increased till three o'clock the next morning, so that they made good way in their course; but these deep seas began to rise, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... which at spring-tides will admit ships that draw eighteen feet. This bar lies in thirty-two degrees and forty minutes north latitude, and seventy-eight degrees and forty-five minutes west longitude from London. Its situation is variable, owing to a sandy foundation and the rapid flux and reflux of the sea. The channel leading to George-town is twelve or thirteen feet deep, and likewise those of North and South Edisto rivers, and will admit all ships ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... very atmospheric conditions which had kept away the merchant fleets of bygone ages induced the O.S.N. Company to violate the sanctuary of peace sheltering the calm existence of Sulaco. The variable airs sporting lightly with the vast semicircle of waters within the head of Azuera could not baffle the steam power of their excellent fleet. Year after year the black hulls of their ships had gone up and down the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... their protector. The people of the farm (a widow and her children, with the peasants in their employ) were kindly and simple folks. What safer home for the wanderers than that to which Hastings had removed them? The influence of Sibyll over his variable heart or fancy was renewed. Again vows were interchanged and faith plighted. Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers, who, however gallant an enemy, was still more than ever, since Warwick's exile, a formidable one, and who shared ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... capable of increase and decrease, like sensation itself. According to the individual, consciousness may have a very large or a very small field, and may embrace at the same time a variable number of objects. I can pay attention to several things at the same time, but when I am tired it becomes more difficult to me. I lose in extension, or, as is still said, the field of consciousness is restricted. It may also lose ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... the spelling of proper names is both peculiar and variable, but the principle observed in this translation has been to adopt the spelling given in the text, except in cases where variation is evidently the result of a printer's error, and in those instances in which the writer translated names, e.g., Hertzogenbosch ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... the premise. As God the invisible is the changeless, what is the variable, fleeting, visible unreality? The real is everlasting, the unreal is transitory. The real is ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... into light and heat. They have united to form a single sun and a nebula, which will some day condense into a system of planets like ours. To-night the astronomers on Earth will discover a new star—a variable star as they'll call it—for it will grow dimmer as it moves away from our system. It has often ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... got amongst the variable winds, for we struck a breeze yesterday immediately after exercising, and went pitching along at the rate of eight knots before dark. Sea quite rough. This morning calm again. Have touched the edge of the Gulf Stream, judging ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... viewpoint amounts to is an exaltation of conscience-a much more concrete (and variable) thing than this abstract formula. Do your duty, at any cost! Our hearts respond to such preaching, but our intellects remain perplexed, if the practical apotheosis of goodness is not supplemented by an ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... these innocent young things thought it very funny to take their husbands' hats, put their feet in them, and, thus shod, to run a steeplechase across the room. Meantime Madame de la Roche-Jagan felt the General's pulse frequently, and found it variable. ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... Bob in the Hut, soon," he added, "and this will repay us all for more than twice the risks—all but you, little vixen; for your mother tells me you are getting, through some caprice of that variable humour of your sex, to be a little estranged ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... been changed and are listed below. Author's archaic and variable spelling is preserved. Author's punctuation style is preserved. Passages in italics indicated ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... if it had held good as a principle of English law, would have secured the acquittal of so wicked a poisoner as Palmer. He quoted from the famous French lawyer d'Aguesseau: "The corpus delicti is no other thing than the delictum itself; but the proofs of the delictum are infinitely variable according to the nature of things; they may be general or special, principal or accessory, direct or indirect; in a word, they form that general effect (ensemble) which goes to determine the conviction of an honest man." If such a ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... rainy evening, one of those sudden and sharp reminders of autumn that in our variable climate come to us in the midst of summer. The heavy clouds had made the day shut down early, and the rain was so persistent that it was useless to plan walks or rides, or entertainments of that nature. Also it was an evening when none but those who are habitual ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... any of Wallace's officers approached, they separated, or withdrew to a greater distance. This strange conduct Wallace attributed to its right source, and thought of Bruce with a sigh, when he contemplated the variable substance of these men's minds. However, he was so convinced that nothing but the proclamation of Bruce, and that prince's personal exertions, could preserve his country from falling again into the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... accurately the spheres of the state and the Church respectively, regarding the Church as an organisation, not as an invisible community of the faithful. The distinction of religious and secular is a variable one; every formation of a religious community is a step towards the secularisation of religion; the religion of the heart alone remains an inward thing. The tasks of the two competing organisations are not radically different in their nature; on the one side it may be said that had not the Christian ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... one else whom she could appeal to. Mrs. Lander, after her first warning, had not spoken of him again, though Clementina could feel in the grimness with which she regarded her variable treatment of him that she was silently hoarding up a sum of inculpation which would crush her under its weight when it should fall upon her. She seemed to be growing constantly better, now, and as the interval since her last attack ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... civilisation so with religion. The early faith of the Slavs, the Celts, and the Teutons is now generally regarded as best representing that of the Aryans. It was a religion in which rite and belief were indefinite and variable compared with those of the later Aryan faiths of India and of Southern Europe, there being neither a regular priesthood nor the use of writing to impart fixity to religious forms. The river, the fountain, and the aged oak, each had its legend and its ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... the Rondo, and other larger or (as they are sometimes called) higher forms, is the Subject or Theme. The form and contents of this factor, the Theme, are so variable that a precise definition can scarcely be given. It is a musical sentence of very distinct character, as concerns its melodic, harmonic and, particularly, its rhythmic consistency; and of sufficient length to establish this individuality,—seldom, if ever, less than an entire period or double-period; ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... completeness of the present, as well as the entire error of the many so-called "exploded" old theories, which, during the last century, have followed each other in such rapid succession. For instance: while denying, with Laplace, Herschel and others, that the variable patches of light perceived on the nebulous background of the galaxy ever belonged to remote worlds in the process of formation; and agreeing with modern science that they proceed from no aggregation of formless matter, but belong simply to clusters of "stars" ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... advantages of truth. He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote— For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow: "Cloudy; variable winds, with ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... measuring star photographs at the Observatory of Paris (an American who became English by her marriage with the astronomer Roberts, but is not forgotten in France);—Mrs. Fleming, one of the astronomers of the Observatory at Harvard College, U.S.A., to whom we owe the discovery of a great number of variable stars by the examination of photographic records, and by spectral photography;—Lady Huggins, who in England is the learned collaborator of ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... was staggered, but not beyond recovery. The messenger bore back, at my suggestion, a refusal of the offer and a further refusal to consider any more offers that evening. There was indicated a need for calm daylight consideration, and a face-to-face meeting with this variable Mr. Cohen. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... an orb that is only variable at our caprice, and contemplating a woman who shifts and quivers ever with her own, how vast ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ever-varying expression of her large black eyes. She was a brunette, but there was on her cheek so rich and changeable a color that one forgot in looking at her, whether she were dark or light. Her disposition was something like her complexion—dark and variable. Her father was a native of South Carolina, and from him she inherited a quick, passionate temper. At times she was as gentle as a lamb, but when anything occurred to trouble her, all her Southern blood boiled up, and she was as Fanny said, "always ready to fire up at a moment's ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... of his brain a mirror, unclouded, bright, and true of surface; then he will reflect events as they presented themselves to him, neither distorted, discoloured, nor variable. Historians are not writing fancy school essays; what they have to say is before them, and will get itself said somehow, being solid fact; their task is to arrange and put it into words; they have not to consider ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... other to the world. Hence the many transformations of that semi-madness, and their quick variety. Young Gourlay was showing them now. His had always been a wandering mind, deficient in application and control, and as he neared his final collapse it became more and more variable, the prey of each momentary thought. In a short five minutes of time he had been alive to the beauty of the darkness, cowering before the memory of his father's eyes, sobbing in self-pity and angry resolve, shaking in terror—indeed he was shaking now. But his ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... The late Andrew S. Fuller had not seen them, but asked me to bring him a few. When he saw them he was surprised and at once pronounced them the finest hickories he had ever seen, and named them "Hales' Paper Shell." The hickory is one of the most valuable of North American nuts. It is of a variable nature. I have over twenty old trees on my place, and no two bear nuts of the same shape or size, and although some neighbors planted some nuts from the old tree and produced fruit from them they were only ordinary ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... who suffer much from competition in the north. Some considerable contracts for girders, bridges, gasometers, etc., are under execution at the works devoted to constructive ironwork; but the merchant iron trade, as a whole, is very dull. Unmarked iron is weak and variable, and to this circumstance may be attributed the reduction, announced this week, in various descriptions of ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... official suite of offices, was a dream of gleaming black porcelain and solid gold. Each spout, each faucet, was a gracefully stylized mermaid, the combination stall shower-steam room a marvel of hydraulic comfort and decor with variable lighting plotted to give the user every sort of beneficial ray, from ultraviolet to ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin
... and fitted exactly to the guides; it is also provided with a second or top carriage with 40 mm. motion. The top carriage can be moved by hand and accurately set by means of a micrometer screw. The microscope is of variable magnifying power, focused by rack and pinion. Illumination for transparent objects is given from below by means of a plane mirror. The instrument is mounted on heavy supports, under an angle to make it convenient for the observer. The instrument is finished in first-class manner, ...
— Astronomical Instruments and Accessories • Wm. Gaertner & Co.
... to the more fastidious sense of the present day the vagaries and weaknesses of their writer. Johnson protested against this attempt to 'enchain his volatility' by vows. But Boswell replies that they may be useful to one 'of a variable judgment and irregular inclinations. For my part, without affecting to be a Socrates, I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil Principle, and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me tolerably steady in the ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... under the first Constitution of the State, adopted at Kingston in 1777, a year after the Declaration of American Independence; and socage tenure by fixed and determinate service, not military or variable by the lord at his will, had been adopted long before by an Act of the first Assembly of the Province of New York held in 1691 under the first Royal Governor, after the reconquest of the province from Holland, and in the reign of William and Mary. This Act provided that all lands ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... about 2000 feet to between 5000 and 6000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, the climate corresponding with that of the central districts of France. The temperature is, however, very variable, and its changes are sudden. Frost and snow make their appearance in November, and often last for fifteen or twenty days together. It is remarked, that frost does not injure the olive-trees up to the level of about 3800 feet; and snow even ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... in India falls naturally a little faithful company of assistants to oil the wheels of life—groom, gardener, butler and so forth—and a spacious dwelling-place to think of England in, and calculate the variable value of the rupee, and wonder why the dickens So-and-so got his knighthood. Agra seemed to me to be the most widespreading city of all; but very likely it is not. In itself it is far from being the most interesting, but it has one building of great beauty—the Pearl Mosque in the Fort— ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... however, resting on an annual vote, was obviously uncertain; and it became necessary to declare the terms on which it was enjoyed. The minister of the day notified to the officers of the Anglican and Scotch churches that incomes dependent on variable resources and mutable opinions were liable to casualties. He therefore warned them that, beyond the fair influence of the crown and the equitable claims of existing incumbents, no guarantee could be given.[223] During a financial crisis these views were reiterated by one governor, who reminded the ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... ringing the Angelus. The sun was sinking;—and from the many quaint and beautiful grey towers which crown the ancient city of Rouen, the sacred chime pealed forth melodiously, floating with sweet and variable tone far up into the warm autumnal air. Market women returning to their cottage homes after a long day's chaffering disposal of their fruit, vegetable, and flower- wares in the town, paused in their slow trudge along the dusty road and crossed themselves devoutly,—a bargeman, lazily gliding ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... you have,—whatever sympathy with imperfect, but most subtle, feeling,—whatever perception of sublimity in conditions of fatal power, may here find fullest occupation: all these being joined, in the strong animal races, to a variable and fantastic beauty far beyond anything that merely formative art has yet conceived. I have placed in your Educational series a wing by Albert Duerer, which goes as far as art yet has reached in delineation of plumage; ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... cold as the day before. The thermometer had risen twenty-five degrees during the night—a great change, but not unusual in our variable climate. Phil rather enjoyed this walk, notwithstanding his ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... order of the variable winds. How can we penetrate the law of our shifting moods and susceptibility? Yet they differ as all and nothing. Instead of the firmament of yesterday, which our eyes require, it is to-day an eggshell which coops us in; we cannot even see what or where our stars of destiny are. From day to day, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... differ in nature, in so far as they are assailed by those emotions, which are passions, or passive states; and to this extent one and the same man is variable and inconstant. ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... in mythology, a moral consciousness and a corresponding poetic conception of things. Both factors are variable, and variations in the first, if more hidden, are no less important than variations in the second. Had fable started with a clear perception of human values, it would have gained immensely in significance, because ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... had here taken up its abode; and these were the oracles of thought. "Throw aside your books of chemistry," said Wordsworth to a young man, a student in the Temple, "and read Godwin on Necessity." Sad necessity! Fatal reverse! Is truth then so variable? Is it one thing at twenty, and another at forty? Is it at a burning heat in 1793, and below zero in 1814? Not so, in the name of manhood and of common sense! Let us pause here a little.—Mr. Godwin indulged in extreme opinions, and carried with ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... remaining for metaphysic? This, that physic inquires concerning the material and efficient causes, but metaphysic handles the formal and final causes. So physic is in a middle term between natural history and metaphysic; for natural history describes the variety of things, physic the variable or respective causes, and metaphysic the fixed and constant causes. Of metaphysic I find that it is partly omitted and partly misplaced. In mathematics, which I place as a part of metaphysic, I can report no deficience. But natural prudence, or the operative part of natural ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... her soul;—for this too was very variable; this too had its "raptures;" and here too at times also a glimmering light would break through the chaos. If the complexion were muddled, and the nose red and swollen, she had a most ordinary appearance; but in cooler moments, and when the rose-hue confined itself merely to the cheeks, she was ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... provided a tool of wonderful efficiency. The motion, which sometimes amounts to several hundreds of miles a second could thus be measured to within a fraction of a mile. The discovery that the motion was variable, owing to the star's revolving around a great dark planet sometimes larger than the star, added greatly not only to the interest of these researches, but also to the labor involved. Instead of a single measure ...
— The Future of Astronomy • Edward C. Pickering
... that two-ninths of the atmosphere by weight is a highly magnetic body, subject to great changes in its magnetic character, by variations in its temperature and condensation or rarefaction, without being persuaded that it has much to do with the variable disposition of the magnetic forces upon ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... the variable stars offer strong evidence as to the early life of the double stars. The so-called beta Lyrae variables vary continuously in brightness, as if they consist in each case of two stars so close together that their surfaces are actually in contact ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... small, warm nurseries where Nature could cuddle her children, has bred upon its boundless plains a massive, untutored, homogeneous folk, fed upon the crumbs of culture that have fallen from the richer tables of Europe. But that item of area is a variable quantity in the equation. It changes its character at a higher stage of cultural development. Consequently, when the Muscovite people, instructed by the example of western Europe, shall have grown up intellectually, economically and ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... Bruce had been greatly depressed, his temper more variable than ever, and he had managed to collect a quite extraordinary number of entirely new imaginary illnesses. He was very capricious about them and never carried one completely through, but abandoned it almost as soon as he had proved to Edith ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... unrelieved monologue. So tak' heed. We're not wanting these changes, and to be up-to-date, and all that. I'm happy as I am, and so's David. He has his hope of the council, and the bribes and them things. And I've my guild and my friends, with their odd clothes and variable accents. That's the life I want, and I won't change it. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... half a mile, this variable sigh changed to a continuous murmur. There was now before the voyagers a straight course of nearly two miles, at the end of which lay hid the unseen power which gave forth this solemn menace. The river, perfectly clear of ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... class of useless dials consisted of those with variable centres. They were drawn on fixed horizontal planes, and each day the style had to be shifted to a new position. Instead of hour-lines they had hour-points; and the style, instead of being parallel to the axis of the earth, might make any chosen angle with the horizon. There ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... Mira was unpredictably variable. Sometimes it was blazing, brilliant and hot. Other times it was oddly dim, cool, shedding little warmth on its many planets. Gresth Gkae, leader of the Mirans, was seeking a better star, one to which his "people" could migrate. That star had to be steady, reliable, with a good planetary ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... east and delimited on the west by more or less compact ice, has been named the D'Urville Sea. We found subsequently that its freedom from obstruction by ice is due to the persistent gales which set off the land in that locality. To the north, pack-ice in variable amount is encountered before reaching the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... this, owing to its short duration. On any vertical the mid-depth velocity was greater than the mean, and the bed velocity was the least. The details showed that the mid-depth velocity was nearly as variable from instant to instant as any other, instead of being nearly constant, as suggested by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... Usage is not altogether consistent in this particular; the same combination is in some words pronounced as two syllables (ni-ais, li-en, pri-ere, pri-ons, jou-et), in others as one (biais, rien, bar-riere, ai-mions, fou-et); and even the same word is sometimes variable (ancien, hier, duel). In general such combinations are monosyllabic if they have developed from a single vowel in ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... "The rainy season of a place within the tropics always begins when the sun has reached the zenith of that place. Then the tradewinds, blowing regularly at other seasons, become gradually weaker, and at length cease and give way to variable winds and calms. The trade-wind no longer brings its regular supply of cooler, drier air; the rising heats and calms favour an ascending current" (in the sea-depths, I may add, as well as on land), "which bears the damp air into the upper ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... solid impurities present in water as ordinarily met with is extremely variable: rain water which has been collected toward the end of a storm contains only a minute fraction of a grain per gallon, while river or spring water may contain from less than thirty grains per gallon or so and upward. Ordinary sea water generally ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... is it that emotion should be reticent and active than that it should be voluble and idle. It is a good servant, but a bad master. A man that trusts to impulse and emotion to further his Christian course, is like a ship in that belt of variable winds that lies near the Equator, where there will be a fine ten-knot breeze for an hour or two, and then a sickly, stagnating calm. Push further south, and get into the steady 'trades,' where the wind blows ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... element in keeping up population of a species as supply of food and other favourable conditions, because the numbers of a species constantly vary greatly in different parts of its area, whereas the average number of offspring is not a very variable element. ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... Our last year's favorable showing was due in large part to legacies. These are variable, and we must rely on the gifts of living donors. Unless, therefore, the churches and individuals make larger contributions than last year, we have no assurance of an escape from debt, even if the work be maintained merely as at present. ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 1, January, 1890 • Various
... print through a ribbon give variable shades and the typist in filling in must watch carefully to see that her typewriter ribbons match the impressions made in the body of the letter, especially where the form letters are printed several months in advance and ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... began to scatter themselves through the light and shadow made here by closely neighboring beeches and there by rarer oaks, one may suppose that a painter would have been glad to look on. This roving archery was far prettier than the stationary game, but success in shooting at variable marks were less favored by practice, and the hits were distributed among the volunteer archers otherwise than they would have been in target-shooting. From this cause, perhaps, as well as from the twofold ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... densities, which cause both reflection and refraction of sound, prevent the air from being a reliable medium for carrying it. Now, submarine signalling has none of these defects, for the medium is water, subject to no such variable conditions as the air. Its density is practically non variable, and sound travels through it at the rate of 4400 feet per second, without deviation ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley |
