"Vital" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by rolling on the floor, gnashing their teeth, throwing about the furniture or poisoning the coffee; all this upon some strange fixed theory that women are what they call emotional. But in truth the old and frigid form is much nearer to the vital fact. Most men if they spoke with any sincerity would agree that the most terrible quality in women, whether in friendship, courtship or marriage, was not so much being ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... would, of course, have no weight whatever if the amendments were vital to our interests, but, as I said to you yesterday, it was the opinion of all of us who have studied the matter that every point made by the amendments was intended to be covered—I do not say how successfully—by the provisions ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... flame leaping from the dull fuel of gums and straw. In such images we see how the simple joy in abrupt changes of sensation which belonged to his riotous energy of nerve lent support to his peremptory way of imagining all change and especially all vital and significant becoming. For Browning's trenchant imagination things were not gradually evolved; a sudden touch loosed the springs of latent power, or an overmastering energy from without rushed in like a flood. With all his connoisseur's delight in technique, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... from its gloomy contemplation of futurity, to a juster sense of good and evil The peculiarity of her religious persuasion afforded an introduction to frequent discussions of the real opinions of that church, to which Julia had hitherto belonged, although ignorant of all its essential and vital truths. These conversations, which were renewed repeatedly in their intercourse while under the protection of his sister in London, laid the foundations of a faith which left her nothing to hope for but the happy termination ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... yet what will that tell against the accumulated labour of myriads of architects at work night and day, month after month? Thus do we see the soft and gelatinous body of a polypus, through the agency of the vital laws, conquering the great mechanical power of the waves of an ocean which neither the art of man nor the inanimate works of nature could ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... merely widely purely prices nicely lonely closely wages races spices ages places faces cases cages stages laces blazes closes roses axes gazes noses rises hateful sizes uses prizes wasteful helpful rival naval needful spiteful final vital cheerful thankful oval opal graceful truthful local ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... the questions altogether. Even when playing up a court decision, it is rarely wise to quote large extracts verbatim, owing to the heaviness of legal expression and the frequent use of technical terms. Only when the form of the decision, as well as the facts, is vital, should the language of the decree be quoted at length. And even then it is better, as a rule, to print the entire decision separately and write an independent summarizing story. When writing up trials continued from preceding days, one must be careful to connect the story with what has gone ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... return of the natural color of the urine shows that the functions of the liver are restored to their normal standard; the patient is able to do without any further medical treatment, and the natural reaction of the vital forces will be found ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... to go to. And that was the law! The fact that that boy had a good home; the circumstances which led him to—not steal, but 'swipe' something; the likelihood of his not doing it again—these were 'evidence' pertinent, nay, vital, to his case. ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... and Dr. Warren had said either wound might have caused death; for the skull was badly fractured, and vital organs had been pierced by the dagger, which the papers called it, though it really was a ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... Behind, and far transcending, the particular causes of this and that development lies the operation of great biological laws, selecting a type for survival, transforming the mind and body of men slowly but surely. Whether due to the natural selection of circumstance, or to the inward urge of vital force, there seems to be no doubt that the average intellect, not of leading thinkers or of select groups, {13} but of the European races as a whole, has been steadily growing greater at every period during which it can be measured. Moreover, the monastic vow of chastity tended to sterilize and ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... drawings made of some of the most remarkable, but when these nebulae were viewed through Lord Rosse's telescope, they presented a very different appearance, showing that the apparent form of the nebulae depends upon the space-penetrating power of the telescope, a circumstance of vital importance in observing the changes which time may produce ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... of rage exhausted by poor humans upon wrong, the energy of indignation, whether issued or suppressed, and how little it has done to right wrong, to draw acknowledgment or amends from self-satisfied insolence, he naturally asks what becomes of so much vital force. Can it fare differently from other forces, and be lost? The energy of evil is turned into the mill-race of good; but the wrath of man, even his righteous wrath, worketh not the righteousness of God! What becomes of it? If it be not lost, and have but changed its form, in what ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... sedative. It diminishes the nervous sensibility, represses the activity of the circulation, detracts from the sum of the animal heat, and thereby diminishes stimulation. In the cessation of excitement and sensibility that ensues, the whole vital actions are moderated, existing irritation is soothed; and in the same manner as sleep recruits the wasted powers, so does cold restore and invigorate the nerves when overstimulated, and in fact promotes the tone and vigour of the whole body; ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... the abandonment of orthodoxy, I naturally thought nothing in the old religion worth retaining, but this temper did not last long. Many mistakes may be pardoned in Puritanism in view of the earnestness with which it insists on the distinction between right and wrong. This is vital. In modern religion the path is flowery. The absence of difficulty is a sure sign that no good is being done. How far we are from the strait gate, from the way that is narrow which leadeth unto life, the ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... this Domstadtl business, and by way of masking it, feeling how vital it was, made various extensive movements, across the River by several Bridges; then hither, thither, on the farther side of Olmutz, mazing up and down: Friedrich observing him, till he should ripen to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... drawers of water. Thus, should the occasion arise, I should most unhesitatingly use whatever weapons law, religion, civilization itself, put into my hands, without compunction and possibly what some cavilers might call without mercy; having at stake a very vital issue—the preservation of my kind, the protection of ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... larvae which eat live prey: that of the Sphex and that of the Hydrophilus.[5] Uric acid, the inevitable product of the vital transformations, or at all events one of its analogues, must be formed in both. But the Hydrophilus' larva shows no accumulation of it in its adipose layer, whereas the Sphex' is full ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... a leaf out of her bouquet, and flings it playfully over her left shoulder, meaning thereby to intimate that her vital organ is "as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... always be a vital factor since it colours and vitalises, as well as reinforces the meaning of the music. Spirit is a fact, but a beautiful personality will invest it with all the glamour of romance. The emotion may be "pure joy" but it needs a warm heart ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... is just as vital to me as it is to you," rejoined Chauvelin earnestly, "if it is brought about through the instrumentality of ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... filled with pity. The goddess, too, looked down piteously, as if to say, 'Seest thou not that I have no arms, and cannot help thee?'" It seems evident from this, that whatever change has happened in Heine's notions, there is no vital piety in his heart, but he is the same heathen as ever. The Romanzero is divided into three parts—Histories, Lamentations, and Hebrew Melodies. The former are like the ballads he has before published, except that many of them go farther in the way of indecency, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... and endeavour to procure its withdrawal or its modification. This was by no means an easy matter. The fisheries, on which a large part of the population of Holland and Zeeland depended for their livelihood, were of vital importance to the States. On the other hand their virtual monopoly by the Dutch caused keen resentment in England. In the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth that adventurous sea-faring spirit, which ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... manners to die and make room for the fresh supplies. And so death was introduced by Natural Selection. You get it out of your head, my lad, that I'm going to die because I'm wearing out or decaying. Theres no such thing as decay to a vital man. I shall clear out; but ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... seemed to suffer so intensely, that even Mistress Gowrie was obliged to acknowledge that it might be best to wait till the doctor came. Indeed, it soon became evident to all that Blackie's blows had touched some vital part, and Geordie's herding days ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... the little ones keep up their strength? We do not like to suggest reserves supplied by the egg as rectifying the animal's expenditure of vital force, especially when we consider that those reserves, themselves so close to nothing, must be economized in view of the silk, a material of the highest importance, of which a plentiful use will be made presently. ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... election at once of a municipality, because they hope to become themselves members of it, and then to absorb all the power which is now wielded by the Provisional Government. Beyond discrediting themselves by these attempts to disturb the harmony within the walls, which is of such vital importance at the present moment, I do not think that they will do much. I have talked to many working men, and whatever may be their political opinions, they are far too sensible to play the game of the Prussians by weakening the existing Government. After the Prussians perhaps the deluge; but ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... same effect," which philosophers imagine to be vital to science, is therefore utterly otiose. As soon as the antecedents have been given sufficiently fully to enable the consequent to be calculated with some exactitude, the antecedents have become so complicated that it is very ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... country is a subject of vital interest to its honor and prosperity, and should command the earnest consideration of Congress. The Secretary of the Treasury will lay before you a full and detailed report of the receipts and disbursements ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... regenerating grace, which all true believers in Christ have, will be miserable, and be "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power." I believe every true believer is a true penitent, is regenerated, is in Christ by a vital union is a "new creature," and that those persons will be saved and none else, according to the doctrine of Christ and his apostles. I believe that God the Father worketh all things according to the council of his own will; that his redeemed and saved people should be to his ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... the Brain or Cerebral Shock.—The symptoms associated with concussion of the brain are to all intents and purposes those of surgical shock (Volume I., p. 250), the activity of the vital centres being disturbed by violence acting directly upon the brain tissue instead of by impulses transmitted to it by way of the afferent nerves. Various theories have been put forward to account for the depression of the vital functions in concussion. According to Duret, with whose views we agree, ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... there at that solemn hour of the night, as the pale moon shed her silvery beams all around and as the bright stars peeped down upon me from the ethereal blue, and the gentle zephyrs wafted to me the odor of a hog-pen in the near distance, I vowed a vow, an awful vow, that so long as I breathed the vital air, never, no, never again, would I attempt to ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... his mother for guidance and direction in this emergency. He was himself very brave and spirited; but bravery and spirit, though they are of such vital importance in a commander on the field of battle, when the contest actually comes on, are by no means the principal qualities that are required ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... my musket, as one that must be But loosed from the hold of the dead, or the free! And fearless I lifted my good, trusty sword, In the hand of a mortal, the strength of the Lord! In battle, my vital flame freely I felt Should go, but the chains of my ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... topics, would begin. These would occasionally degenerate into clamorous and angry debates. The disputants would become as earnest and excited over subjects in which perhaps they had never felt the least interest before, as if they had been considering matters of vital and immediate importance. A most heated, and finally acrimonious dispute once arose regarding General Joseph E. Johnston's hight. One party asserted positively that his stature was just five feet nine inches and a quarter. The other ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... disappear with a perusal of this full text of my speech. Therein will be found condemnation of infertile marriages and a strong plea that children are essential to the health and happiness of man and woman, are necessary to each other and of vital importance to ...
— Love—Marriage—Birth Control - Being a Speech delivered at the Church Congress at - Birmingham, October, 1921 • Bertrand Dawson
... Reform Agitation was going on around me as I wrote. The Whigs had come into power; Lord Grey had told the Bishops to set their house in order, and some of the Prelates had been insulted and threatened in the streets of London. The vital question was, how were we to keep the Church from being liberalized? there was such apathy on the subject in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of Churchmanship seemed ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... passed away, possibly under the influence of the electric condition of the atmosphere. Very likely the strength he now put forth was intensified by a convulsive reaction of all the powers of life, as is not infrequently the case in sudden awakenings from similar interruptions of vital activity. The coming to himself and the bursting of his case were simultaneous. He sat staring about him, with, of all his mental faculties, only his imagination awake, from which the thoughts that occupied it when he fell senseless had not yet faded. These thoughts had been ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... Once on a time he had been a dashing, boldly handsome fellow; there could be no doubt of that; the sort of youth that any romantic girl might have fallen in love with. He was tall and straight and powerful, despite the evidences of dissipation that his face presented. A wonderfully vital constitution had protected his body from the ravages of self-indulgence; the constitution of a great, splendid human animal, in whom not the faintest sign of a once attractive personality remained. There was no refinement there, no mark of good breeding; ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... entering the cabin and engine-room, Garret Jackson accompanying the party to aid with the machinery. It did not take long to start the motors, dynamos and the big gasolene engine that was the vital part of the craft. A little water was admitted to the tanks for ballast, since the food and other supplies were not yet on board. The Advance now floated with the deck aft of the conning tower showing about two feet above ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... him all these things. Restlessness, then, was the trouble, simple restlessness: home bored her. He could quite understand the daughter of Mr. Stanley being bored and feeling limited. But was that enough? Dim, formless suspicions of something more vital wandered about his mind. Was the young lady impatient for experience? Was she adventurous? As a man of the world he did not think it becoming to accept maidenly calm as anything more than a mask. Warm life was behind that always, even if it slept. If it was not ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... glance at the incorrigible Belle, whose vital elements were frolic and nonsense, Mildred began talking to Mr. Atwood about the great hotel a ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... way out, no trick in her power seemed worth worrying about—unless she had some melodramatic little bottle of poison concealed about her which she would drain and die, like the heroine of an old-fashioned play. He was certain that the brave, vital young creature who had seized his fancy would do nothing of the kind, however, and he felt that it ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... startling prospect to the best swimmer. Meantime, the whale rose to the surface to spout. The change in his course enabled another boat to come up, and we lay on our oars, in order that Mr. D——, (the other mate) might lance him.—He struck him in a vital part the first dart, as was evident from the whale's furious dying struggles; but in order to make sure, we hauled up and lanced the back of his head. Foaming and breaching, he plunged from wave ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... will cause them to arrive at once. The islanders of Torres Straits use models of dugong and turtles to charm dugong and turtle to their destruction. The Toradjas of Central Celebes believe that things of the same sort attract each other by means of their indwelling spirits or vital ether. Hence they hang up the jawbones of deer and wild pigs in their houses, in order that the spirits which animate these bones may draw the living creatures of the same kind into the path of the hunter. In the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... hundred five boy babies born to every one hundred girls. The law holds in every land where vital statistics have been kept; and Sairey Gamp knew just as much about the cause why as Brown-Sequard, Pasteur, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... reconnaissance, as it were, over the region of problems we have to attack, let us consider the difficulties of a single question, which is also a vital and central question in this forecast. We shall not attempt a full answer here, because too many of the factors must remain unexamined; later, perhaps, we may be in a better position to do so. This question is the probability of the establishment ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... and won't revolt! And it comes in the end to their reducing everything to the building of walls and the planning of rooms and passages in a phalanstery! The phalanstery is ready, indeed, but your human nature is not ready for the phalanstery—it wants life, it hasn't completed its vital process, it's too soon for the graveyard! You can't skip over nature by logic. Logic presupposes three possibilities, but there are millions! Cut away a million, and reduce it all to the question of comfort! That's the easiest solution of the problem! It's seductively clear and ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... curious relenting in the sharpened old face. The man had been struck in a vital spot. With his fine-pointed pen he affectionately wrote the figures on a pad: "$5.87—12:10." They were ideal; they vanquished him. Slowly he counted out money from various pockets, ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... and even those who are such are suffering from other causes, being usually the very last to receive those lessons of food and clothing and bathing and ventilation which have their origin in cities. Physical training is not a mechanical, but a vital process: no bricks without straw; no good physique without good materials and conditions. The farmer knows, that, to rear a premium colt or calf, he must oversee every morsel that it eats, every motion it makes, every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... the step he had so firmly determined not to take, certain things, such as Clare Rossiter's story, David's uneasiness, his own doubts, no longer involved himself alone, nor even Elizabeth and himself. They had become of vital ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... is no perpetuity for national existence, or for individual influence or renown. Earthly empires must decay at last, and with them the vital presence, the living influence of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Debacle may be all very fine; but I cannot read it. It suffers from impaired vitality, and uncertain aim; two deadly sicknesses. Vital—that's what I am at, first: wholly vital, with a buoyancy of life. Then lyrical, if it may be, and picturesque, always with an epic value of scenes, so that the figures remain in the mind's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with immense powers, among the rest that of coining money, in order that he might be in a position to make proposals towards certain arrangements with the Irish catholics, which, in view of the prejudices of the king's protestant council, it was of vital importance to keep secret. Glamorgan therefore took a long leave of his wife and family, and in the month of March set out for Dublin. At Caernarvon, they got on board a small barque, laden with corn, but, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... yet irresistible, suppressed the great art of healing, vital chronometry, the wrongs of inventors, the collusions of medicine, the Mad Ox, and all but drawing-room topics, at the very first symptom, and only just allowed the doctor to be the life and soul ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Germany's ambitions: of standing in the way of her legitimate aspirations. It may be that under other conditions, under a different form of government, or even under another individual ruler, those aspirations and ambitions would not appear to the German people so vital as they do now. They certainly do not appear so to an outsider; and the German people is far from being of one mind on the subject. But assuming the majority of Germans to know their own business best, and granting it to be essential that ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... Natal that Colenso raised such a storm in the religious world. The concerns of religion are a vital matter here yet. A vigilant eye is kept upon Sunday. Museums and other dangerous resorts are not allowed to be open. You may sail on the Bay, but it is wicked to play cricket. For a while a Sunday concert ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her patron, too absorbed at that hour even for benevolence, forgot her existence and yet so complicated are the webs of fate, that in the breast of that lowly stranger was locked a secret of the most vital moment to Maltravers. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... doing so," Holmes interrupted. "All that I am saying has a very direct and vital bearing upon what you have called the Birlstone Mystery. In fact, it may in a sense be called the ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... offence, be this your doome: Tulley must die, but not till fates decree To cut your vital threed, or Terentia Finde in her heart ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... the General Manager of the Pacific, Lakes & Atlantic R.R. Company, saw that he was white, tired and drawn. It was not the keen, alert expression that had been the admiration of everyone; something vital seemed to be missing, although he could not have told what it was. A flame seemed to have died somewhere in his face, leaving behind a faint suggestion of ashes; and through the young man's brain there flashed the remark of his ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Aimed at my life in its most vital part! Full well 'twas known, yet no one warned me ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the sleepers, and made their comrades shake them with all their might. It was not till after an hour's march, in which coaxing, scolding, and pushing, stimulants to laughter and provocatives to anger, had been incessantly employed in turn, that the vital powers appeared to be in tolerably full play. There was one man more obstinate than the rest, who, in order to get a place on one of the cacolets, threatened every minute to lie down on the ground. I slid among the ranks, and began telling one of his comrades all the horrible ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... a whole, there are still to be found among us some remnants of a mistake, once universally prevalent and deeply rooted, namely, the opinion that mind is not only a different fact from body—which is true, and a vital and fundamental truth—but is to a greater or less extent independent of the body. In former times, the remark seldom occurred to any one, unless obtruded by some extreme instance, that to work the mind is also ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... Forgetfulness and surprise set his east and his west at immeasurable distance. His Lethe runs in the cheerful sun. You look on your own little adult year, and in imagination enlarge it, because you know it to be the contemporary of his. Even she who is quite old, if she have a vital fancy, may face a strange and great extent of a few years of her life still to come—his years, the years she is ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... Near some obliging modest-fair to live; For there's that sweetness in a female Mind, Which in a Man's we cannot find; That by a secret, but a pow'rful Art, } Winds up the Spring of Life, and do's impart } Fresh Vital Heat to the transported Heart, } I'd have her Reason, and her Passions sway, Easy in Company, in private Gay. Coy to a Fop, to the deserving free, Still Constant to her self, and Just to me. A soul she shou'd have for great Actions fit, Prudence, and Wisdom to direct her Wit. ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... of the wreckage the guns cease. Our infantry crowd in—crowd into the house that Partow built. He'll find that numbers count; that the power of modern gun-fire will open the way for infantry in masses to take and hold vital tactical positions! And—no—no, their fire in reply is not as strong ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... lives at other people's expense, not like a swindler, but like a child.... Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty and want; but are we to throw stones at him for that? He never does anything himself precisely, he has no vital force, no blood; but who has the right to say that he has not been of use? that his words have not scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whom nature has not denied, as she has to him, powers for action, and the faculty of carrying ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... he was speaking in a voice under perfect control: "I can well understand your feeling in the matter, Miss Sinclair, and I have nothing of reproach. I do think you are making a mistake. With Vil Holland knowing what he does of your father's operations, time may be a vital factor in the success of your undertaking. Let me caution you again against carrying the photograph upon ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... physician Lemnius (1505-1568), music is a chief antidote against melancholy; it revives the languishing soul, affecting not only the ears, but the vital and animal spirits. It erects the mind, and makes ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... interior weakness, from which not the greatest nations are exempt. Russia will begin by "divido," and will perhaps come to "impero." All this may happen; I can say neither yes nor no; but one thing I am sure of, and that is, that Russia triumphant in Europe can and will attack you in your most vital interests, and can hurt you mortally, without even ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... i. p. 364, quotes the authority of Dr. J. Hunter in his Animal oeconomy, that fish, "after being frozen still retain so much of life as when thawed to resume their vital actions;" and in-the same volume (Introd. vol. i. p. xvii.) he relates from JESSE'S Gleanings in Natural History, the story of a gold fish (Cyprinus auratus), which, together with the a marble basin, was frozen into one solid lump of ice, ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... successful competition with the Italian company of the day that it was performed fourteen times in succession. Mr. Mapleson made a pitiful essay with it in March, 1882, at the Academy, but to recall as vivid and vital a performance as that under discussion one had to go back to the days of Mme. Johannsen and her associates, who gave German opera in 1856. In Dr. Damrosch's performance Marianne Brandt effected her entrance on the American stage, and the memory of her impersonation ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... has become absolutely necessary to examine the foundations of its teaching, at any risk of temporary disturbance to the faith of individuals. The advantage ultimately gained was twofold. It was not only that the vital doctrines of Christian faith had been scrutinised both by friends and enemies, and were felt to have stood the proof. But also defenders of received doctrine learnt, almost insensibly, very much from its opponents. They became aware—or if not they, at all events their successors became ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... food became a vital one. The Bedouins in the course of the two weeks preceding the abduction of the children had placed in hiding-places, supplies of durra, biscuits, and dates, but only for a distance of four days' journey from Medinet. Idris, with ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... every four new enterprises launched in the islands. He was a society man, a club man, a yachtsman, a bachelor, and withal as handsome a man as was ever doted upon by mammas with marriageable daughters. Incidentally, he had finished his education at Yale, and his head was crammed fuller with vital statistics and scholarly information concerning Hawaii Nei than any other islander I ever encountered. He turned off an immense amount of work, and he sang and danced and put flowers in his hair ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... apostolic doctrine. The conflicts within the sphere of the rule of faith, the struggles with the so-called Montanism, but finally and above all, the existing situation of the Church in the third century with regard to the world within her pale, made the question of organisation the vital one for her. Tertullian and Origen already found themselves face to face with episcopal claims of which they highly disapproved and which, in their own way, they endeavoured to oppose. It was again the Roman bishop[169] who first converted the proposition that the bishops are direct successors ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... all day long, must needs go with me. I can never forget that night. I suppose you have noticed, sir, there are times when one is more sensitive to impressions from one's surroundings than others. There are times with me, too, when I seem to have a very vital kinship with nature. At any rate, during that drive nature seemed to get close to me. The dark, still forest, the crisp air, the frost sparkling in the starlight on the trees—it all seemed to be part of me. I fear I ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... that we all, indeed I think it likely that we do not all, take it home to our thoughts with sufficient seriousness that this mysterious growth in the thing sown implies a mysterious vital power or force which is ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... from a brave man, would naturally possess—i.e. that of minimising his share in the episode to the point of making it difficult for the lay mind to realise where the heroism came in—which heroism is a vital point in my "coincidence." Fortunately, I have the best authority for saying that the "Blunt" mentioned in this record always maintained that Colonel Alfred Jones had "saved his guns." It appears that at the time of ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... frantic with rage when they discovered what had taken place in the cellars of the buildings. The Sagoths knew that something very terrible had befallen their masters, but the Mahars had been most careful to see that no inkling of the true nature of their vital affliction reached beyond their own race. How long it would take for the race to become extinct it was impossible even to guess; but that this must eventually happen ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wonderfully affected with those strains of music, which human art is capable of producing, how much more will it be raised and elevated by those, in which is exerted the whole power of harmony! The senses are faculties of the human soul, though they cannot be employed, during this our vital union, without proper instruments ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... neglect—on the part of British democracy. Under our democratic constitution the people of Great Britain have assumed the responsibility for the management of their own affairs. One great department of those affairs, the most vital of all, they and their representatives have systematically neglected. Deeply engaged and interested in domestic problems, they have left the control of their foreign relations in the hands of expert advisers. And so it was with something like stupefaction that they discovered, one day in August, ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... be most distinctively denominated the siege of Petersburg, though, in fuller phraseology, it might be called the siege of Petersburg and Richmond combined. But the amplification is not essential; for though the operation and the siege-works embraced both cities, Petersburg was the vital and vulnerable point. When Petersburg fell, Richmond fell of necessity. The reason was, that Lee's army, inclosed within the combined fortifications, could only be fed by the use of three railroads centering at Petersburg; one from the southeast, one from the south, and one with ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... vital sea lanes through South China Sea linking Indian and Pacific Oceans; two parts physically separated by Malaysia; almost an enclave ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... he said, "just for a bit, to talk the matter over quiet like? I ha' got ten pound—no matter how and no matter where—and it's yours just to let me go to sea this week instead of next. A handy, neat-looking sailor like you, Will, need never be long out of a berth, and it's vital for me to get away just now. Ten pound, just to oblige a mate! You won't get such an offer again in a ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... salient was of vital importance. Its loss would have severed the Australian line, turned the flank of the Cheshire Ridge, and exposed to enfilade fire most of the ground gained to the northward during the August fighting. A strong garrison and special vigilance were both necessary. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... of living beings, transient or permanent, of mediate or immediate effect. The most powerful of all was contagion; for in the most distant countries, which had scarcely yet heard the echo of the first concussion, the people fell a sacrifice to organic poison—the untimely offspring of vital ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... on under his own eye, until 1727, when it pleased God to take his servant to himself. At his death these Institutions were directed by his truly pious son-in-law. It is true that, at the latter part of the last century, and during the first part of the present, there was little real vital godliness in these Institutions; still, they were a temporal blessing to many tens of thousands of young persons even then. So then for several tens of years they were carried on in a truly godly way, after Franke's death, and when afterwards there was but little real, vital ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... first-named work, we seem to witness the crowning-point of those generations of striving for the advancement of the art which have indissolubly linked the name of Bach with the history of music. Bach himself stood on the top step of the ladder: with him the vital forces of the race exhausted themselves; and further ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... moon is in her wane, he returns and examines his palmiste. If the young leaf, together with the others, begins to shew a yellow tinge at its extremity, and if, on application of his ear to the trunk, a hollow, rumbling noise is heard within, he concludes that the worms have attacked the vital parts, and the tree is immediately cut down; but if these symptoms are absent, the tree is left standing until they appear. The gatherer, however, must now visit the tree frequently, because the transition of the insects is so rapid, that ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... prefer to hunt him on horseback, and will venture so near as sometimes to singe his hair with the flash of the rifle. The hunter of the grizzly bear, however, must be an experienced hand, and know where to aim at a vital part; for of all quadrupeds, he is the most difficult to be killed. He will receive repeated wounds without flinching, and rarely is a shot mortal unless through the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... are of the greatest importance to their own welfare it is hard to get them to give two minutes' consideration to them? They want excitement, and love it a great deal more than an intelligent understanding of such issues as are to them of vital importance. For instance, government ownership of railroads, telegraphs and telephones to be operated at cost for the benefit of the people; the issuing and loaning of money by the government to the people, instead of by the banks to the people; also the ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... vagueness of some birth-surviving memory of a former time. You looked far up and out to the westward and caught the glint of snow on the higher peaks. But the sight was unconvincing; it was like a story told without the "vital impulse." Always had these plains blistered under this July sun; always had the spots of alkali made the only whiteness; and the dry harsh snarl and snap of the grasshoppers' wings had pricked this torrid silence ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... the men of the battalion stood rigid and voiceless gazing at that deeply moving spectacle. Before their eyes were being paraded the tragic, pathetic remnants of a gallant regiment, which but a few weeks before had stood where they now stood, vital with life, tingling with courage. At their country's bidding they had ascended that Holy Mount of Sacrifice, to offer upon the altar of the world's freedom their bodies as a living sacrifice unto God, holy and acceptable. Now, their offering being made, they ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... instinct of some value. Our people have much natural feeling towards Nature. If modern Japanese art has degenerated it is because it does not sufficiently find out life in things. The sough of the wind in the trees may have only a slight influence on character, but it is a vital influence. I do not like, of course, the word 'heathendom' of which Uchimura seems so fond. I dearly admire Christ, but most of the Christianity of to-day is not Christ. It is largely Paul. It is a mixture. It is not the clear, pure, original thing. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... the fairy stories. Over the thickly frosted paths only one track led from the house, and that went to Therese's resting-place. This was Noemi's daily walk with little Dodi. Now there were only those two to go there; the third, Almira, lay at home at the last gasp: the ball had touched a vital part, and there ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... his address by declaring the need of college spirit in college life. He defined it as the vital thing, the heart of a great educational institution, and he went on to speak of its dangers, its fluctuations. Then he made direct reference to athletics in its relation to both college ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... earth and in the air, From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid, And shelters him, in nooks of deepest shade, From the hot steam and from the fiery glare. Look forth upon the earth—her thousand plants Are smitten; even the dark sun-loving maize Faints in the field ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... dwell upon undesirable things and our attention to be directed to low or weak ideals, fall into undesirable habits. The power that produces the habits is the same in each case; it is the way in which this power is directed that is the vital and essential thing. ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... institution of human appointment could have stood firm against such terrible and reiterated shocks. Nothing less than a Divine Foundation, and a strength not of this world could have borne the Church through the ages of persecution, not only without loss of all vital principle, but even with actual ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... growth was early, yet long, and who would wholly mature not until near middle life. Her head, however, was perfection, even in girlhood, not less by its proportions than its carriage: her graceful figure bore it like the slender setting, holding up the first splendor of the peach; a head of vital and spiritual beauty, where purity and luxuriance, woman and mind, dwelt in harmony and joy. As she seemed ever to be ripening, so she seemed never to have been a child, but, with faculties and sense clear and unintimidated, she ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... herself-a tall woman, a trifle full of figure now, but still vital of presence. Her figure, deep-chested, rounded and shapely, now began to carry about it a certain air of ease. The mouth, well-bowed and red, had a droop of the same significance. The eyes, deep, dark and shaded ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... me latest improvement," said Sundown, anxious to assert himself in view of the presence of so much femininity and a correspondingly seeming lack of vital interest in anything save ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... John's attack on Palmerston's Government in regard to the conduct of the Chinese war, his vigorous protest against the Conspiracy Bill, and his frank sympathy with Mazzini's dream of a United Italy, helped to bring the old leader, in the long fight for civil and religious liberty, into vital touch with younger men of the stamp of Cobden, Bright, and Gladstone, of whom the people justly expected great things in the not distant future. Lord John knew, however, that the Liberal camp was full of politicians ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... was of such vital moment. Where else was he to look for a living? From his college in the course of years he might get one; but he could get none that would be equal in value to this of Hurst Staple, and to his fellowship combined. If he should refuse it, all those whom he loved would ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... "Discours," and more fully developed in the "Principes" and in the "Traite de l'Homme," he worked out with extraordinary power and knowledge; and with the effect of arriving, in the last-named essay, at that purely mechanical view of vital phaenomena towards which ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... daughters, and her spouse, by sorrows steel'd, Sits harden'd: no light gale her tresses moves; No blood her redden'd cheeks contain; her eyes Motionless glare upon her mournful face; Life quits the statue: even her tongue congeals, Within her stony palate; vital floods Cease in her veins to flow; her neck to bow Resists; her arms to move in graceful guise; Her feet to step; and even to stone are turn'd Her inmost bowels. Still to weep she seems. Wrapt in a furious whirlwind, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... the new speech the House knew that it was to have an emotion, and men came trooping in again. And certainly the short stormy utterance was dramatic enough. Dissent on the part of an important north-country Union from some of the most vital machinery of the bill which had been sketched by Wharton—personal jealousy and distrust of the mover of the resolution—denial of his representative place, and sneers at his kid-gloved attempts to help a class ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... importance of temperance, and would avoid strong drinks, and take only a moderate portion of meat, they would escape much suffering from wounds and injuries to which all are liable, and which in so many cases prove fatal, although no vital part has been touched. I have seen the strongest men die from a slight scratch; and the weakest apparently recover from the most terrible hurts. The strong men have eaten and drunk to gratify their palates; the weak ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... say, 'Each man must judge his fellow, must demand proper evaluation of him.' To judge a man by his clothes, the amount of money he owns, the car he drives, the neighborhood in which he lives, or the society he keeps, is out of the question in a vital culture." ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... immigrants have come to us. If we survey the conditions of American life at present, we are strongly impressed with the differences that exist between the various strata of our population: differences in mental ability, differences in vital energy, differences in the point of culture attained, differences in capacity to rise. As a consequence, the Declaration of Independence is treated by many as an obsolete document, and its assertions as mere bombast and rhetoric; ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... I was 'good enough' for you, and we wasted many words that day, for 'good enough' can cover too many qualities to be a safe basis for general comparison. I have been arguing it with myself, blind to the vital question, but I am blind no longer. Combat which sickened you has cleared my eyes. What if I did believe that I was not good enough to touch your little finger? What if you believed that too? Would that have hindered us, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... baby clothes as a Christmas shower for the creche where an Old Girl worked, and when Form Five promised a woolen sweater from every girl for the Fourteen Club at the University Settlement, social service became a real and vital fact in their lives. For, as Judith learned, knitted sweaters mean work, and wool costs money, which had to be deducted from an already painfully shrunken allowance, and baby clothes, although fascinating and cute, represent many hours ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... consolation I had was in the hopefulness of Whistling Jim. "She'll be dar ez sho' ez de worl'," he said, and his earnestness was so vital that it was the means of lifting me across a very bad place in my experience; yet it did not cure me of the restlessness that had seized me. The night before the appointed day, I wandered far beyond the limit of the town, and presently, without knowing how I got there, I found myself near the house ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... was recommenced with retrebled spirit; but when the mutilated body of the man who had been flung from the window, was observed lying in the pool of his own proper brains and blood, such a cry arose among his friends, as would cake (* harden) the vital fluid in the veins of any one not a party in the quarrel. Now was the work—the moment of interest—men and women groaning, staggering, and lying insensible; others shouting, leaping, and huzzaing; some singing, and not a few able-bodied spalpeens blurting, like over-grown ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Captain Smith was of the same opinion, that when the Phoenix was unloaded, the rats came ashore from her, finding lodging in that building which represented the vital spot of our town. ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... Tree, to my mind the most lascivious of them all, Leah behaved like a true Lesbian; for while the young man excited her amorous fury she got hold of his instrument and took it between her lips till the work was complete. I could not doubt that she had swallowed the vital ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Michele Marullo, ay, and as Angelo Poliziano himself, in spite of his canonicate, when he relaxes himself a little in my shop after his lectures, and talks of the gods awaking from their long sleep and making the woods and streams vital once more. But he rails against the Roman scholars who want to make us all talk Latin again: 'My ears,' he says, 'are sufficiently flayed by the barbarisms of the learned, and if the vulgar are to talk Latin I would as soon have been in Florence the day they took to ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... her thin cheeks, but there was still an ingratiating, somewhat servile, tone in her voice, and she looked scornfully at Minna Eddy. Then J. Rosenstein, who kept the principal dry-goods store in Banbridge, bore his testimony. His grievances were small, but none the less vital. His business dealings with the Carrolls had been limited to sundry spools of thread and kitchen towellings and buttons, but they were as lead in his estimate of wrong, although he had a grave, introspective ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... jurisdiction.[386] They were therefore to represent the king's conduct as the just and necessary result of the pope's duplicity. These things the clergy were required to teach, not as matters of doubt and question, but as vital certainties on which no difference of opinion could be tolerated. Finally, there were added a few wholesome admonitions on other subjects, which mark the turning of the tide from Catholic orthodoxy. The clergy were ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... "in the first place on account of the hemorrhage which has taken place, an artery having been injured in the hand; and next, in consequence of the wound in his breast, which may, the doctor is afraid, at least, have injured some vital part." ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have been that would not have melted at seeing what the dear little creature suffered all Wednesday until the feeble frame was quite worn out. She was quite sensible till within 2 hours of her death, and then she sunk quite low till the vital spark fled, and all medicine that she got she took with the greatest readiness, as if apprehensive they would make her well. I cannot well describe my feelings on the occasion. I thought that the fountain-head of my tears ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... continue the march. Harold suggested to him that it would be better to wait until morning, as from their lofty position they would be able to overlook the whole of the enemy's lines of defense and might obtain information of vital importance to the general. Peter saw the advantage of the suggestion. Two of the Indians were placed on watch, and the rest of the party lay down to sleep. At daybreak they saw that the delay had been fully justified, for they ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... and beget mutual jealousy and opposition; that a land war, carried on at such a distance, would waste the blood and treasure of the English nation, without any hopes of success; that a sea war, indeed, might be both safe and successful against Spain, but would not affect the enemy in such vital parts as to make them stop their career of success in Germany, and abandon all their acquisitions; and that the prospect of recovering the Palatinate being at present desperate, the affair was reduced ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... tickle delicate ears; who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society much as the son of Imlah came before the throned kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of "Vanity Fair" admired in high places? I can not tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek-fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... himself and his own craft now. He glanced at Mr. Damon sitting beside him. That odd gentleman, with never a thought of blessing anything now, unless he did it silently, was watching the lubricating system. This was a vital part of the craft, for if anything went wrong with it, and the bearings overheated, the race would have to be abandoned. So Tom was not trusting to any automatic arrangement, but had instituted, almost at the last moment, a duplicate hand-worked ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... of the examination of probationers comes up immediately after the reading of the minutes in well-regulated church courts, being most important and vital. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... did limp away, and it is allowable to hope that they suffered no serious dismantling of their vital organs. Still, I cannot approve of these bicycle contentions, which are veritable provocative flights at ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... Little Serbia has been conscious of her great historic task, to liberate and unite all the Southern-Slavs in one independent being; therefore she, with supreme effort, collected all her forces to fulfil her task and her duty, and so to respond to the vital hopes ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... links for most readers of fiction, since their literary quality is small. In later days, this kind of production was to be called purpose fiction and condemned or applauded according to individual taste and the esthetic and vital value of the book. When the moralizing overpowered all else, we get a book like that friend of childhood, "Sanford and Merton," which Thomas Day perpetrated in the year of grace 1783. Few properly reared boys of a generation ago escaped ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... not at all necessary that this formative element should be larger than any other; on the contrary, it may be and sometimes is extremely small; for it does not work by its mass, but by its innate force and strong vital energy. In Babylonia, the element which showed itself to possess this superior vitality, which practically asserted its pre-eminence and proceeded to mold the national character, was the Semitic. There is abundant evidence that by the time of the later Empire the Babylonians ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... its effect on fertility (see Appendix B), and found that taking on the one hand a number of rural parishes, and on the other hand the inhabitants of a medium town, the former reared, nearly twice as many adult grandchildren as the latter. The vital functions are so closely related that an inferiority in the production of healthy children very probably implies a loss of vigour generally, one sign of which is ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... I approached the monster, but, on the contrary, ran directly up, so that I could almost touch the animal while bending my bow. I had five or six more arrows left, but I resolved not to shoot again unless I were certain of touching a vital part, and succeeded at last in hitting him deep betwixt ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... possession of all the facts I required as far as England and this colony are concerned. I shall, therefore, give his account of what is being done in the old country; and next condense from his remarks the substance of what has taken place in New South Wales with regard to this vital matter. ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... apparent cases of heterogenesis. At present I should prefer any mad hypothesis, such as that every disintegrated molecule of the lowest forms can reproduce the parent-form, and that the molecules are universally distributed, and that they do not lose their vital power until heated to such a temperature that they ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... loquacious. Lyon was alone with Colonel Capadose for some moments before their companions, in varied eccentricities of uniform, straggled in, and he perceived that this wonderful man had but little loss of vital tissue ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... how clear It sparkles o'er the shallows, and behold Where o'er its surface wheels with restless speed Yon glossy insect, on the sand below How the swift shadow flies. The stream is pure In solitude, and many a healthful herb Bends o'er its course and drinks the vital wave: But passing on amid the haunts of man, It finds pollution there, and rolls from thence A tainted tide. Seek'st thou for HAPPINESS? Go Stranger, sojourn in the woodland cot Of INNOCENCE, and ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... go on, the last signs of life disappear. There is not a bird, not an insect; even the flies which exist in all the lands of the earth are not found. While the deserts of the sea contain vital wealth in profusion, here are sterility and death. Yet one is intoxicated with the stillness and lifelessness of it all, and the air is pure and virginal, blowing from the world ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... sanction exists." We are constantly taunted with this, and possibly we may have to admit its truth in a measure. But our accusers do not see the immense difference between Governmental and individual responsibility in this vital matter, neither do they see how additionally hard, how hopeless, becomes the position of the slave who, under the Government sanction, has no appeal to the law of the land; an appeal to the Government which is itself an upholder of slavery, is impossible. The speaker ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... family life, of the kind we are considering, brings a vital connection with the past and the future. Reputation, possessions, friends, all become deeply significant when a man becomes a link in the generations of men. In establishing his material home, and modifying it to the changing ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... man's entity went into heaven, namely, his SEKHEM. The word literally means "to have the mastery over something," and, as used in the early texts, that which enables one to have the mastery over something; i.e., "power." The SEKHEM of a man was, apparently, his vital force or strength personified, and the Egyptians believed that it could and did, under certain conditions, follow him that possessed it upon earth into heaven. Another part of a man was the KHAIBIT or "shadow," which is frequently ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... from the associations and interests of the hour, that only a scholar's enthusiasm or ambition could sustain the research or keep alive the enterprise thus voluntarily assumed. It is this objective method and motive that chiefly accounts for the numberless inert and the few vital histories. Like any intellectual task assumed without special fitness therefor or motive thereto,—without a comprehensive grasp of mind that impels to historic exploration,—without a patriotic zeal that warms to national heroism,—without, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... writing. She had written a novel, and left unpublished a beautiful little book of her own experiences among the poor, called Streets and Lanes of the City. It was privately printed, and is full of charming humour and delicate observation, together with a real insight into vital needs. I always believe that my sister would have done a great work if she had lived. She had strong practical powers and a very large heart. She had been drawn more and more into social work at Lambeth, ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... they come forth from slime and mud,—fetid and crawling, unformed and monstrous. I grant exceptions; and even in the New School, as it is called, I can admire the real genius, the vital and creative power of Victor Hugo. But oh, that a nation which has known a Corneille should ever spawn forth a ——-! And with these rickety and drivelling abortions—all having followers and adulators—your Public can still bear ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to give me digitalis to make me weak—and, when I could not move without fainting (with weakness), to give me quinine to make me feverish again. Yes—and they could tell from the stethoscope, how very little was really wrong in me ... if it were not on a vital organ—and how I should certainly live ... if I didn't die sooner. But then, nothing has power over affections of the chest, except God and his winds—and I do hope that an obvious quick remedy may be found for your head. But do give up the writing ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... professor thoughtfully; "there is something in that. Barbers have become grand viziers, and in such shaving countries a barber is held in high respect. He would be all right there. But no, no, I cannot be weak over so vital a thing as this. Just think, you two, of the consequences if through some inept act on his part he should ruin all ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... magna loquimur, as upon railways, but vivimus. Yes, "magna vivimus"; we do not make verbal ostentation of our grandeurs, we realise our grandeurs in act, and in the very experience of life. The vital experience of the glad animal sensibilities made doubts impossible on the question of our speed; we heard our speed, we saw it, we felt it as a thrilling; and this speed was not the product of blind insensate agencies, that ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... shouted Juan, and his cry was echoed by Harry; but she did not seem to hear them, and was the first to arrive at where a huge bear lay upon its flank, feebly clawing at the rock with fore and hind paw, it having received a couple of shots in vital parts. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... silence at her friend, and then with a proud flash of her dark eyes, she swept from the room without a word, nor did Maimie see her again that afternoon, though she stood outside her door entreating with tears to be forgiven. Poor Kate! Maimie's shaft had gone too near a vital spot, and the wound amazed and terrified her. Was it for Ranald's sake alone she cared? Yes, surely it was. Then why this sharp new pain under the hand ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... creators evinced a stronger preference for Davy Jones' Locker than its designed realm. Yet several craft of this type have been built and have been mistaken for Zeppelins owing to the similarity of the broad principles of design and their huge dimensions. In one vital respect they are decidedly inferior to their ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... little counter, which creaked under his weight, in his big, fresh coat, with his clear, fresh face bent above the shallow tray of trinkets—doubtful jades, dim-eyed rings, dull clasps and coins—his large, fastidious finger poked among. He was the one vital thing in the shop. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... in the hierarchy of the Church may be, must sooner or later find themselves where Dr. M'Glynn of New York now is. Catholic Ireland can only continue to be Catholic on the condition of obedience, not formal but real, not in matters indifferent, but in matters vital and important, to the Head of the ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... of something more than sixty. Everything about him expressed strength and determination, power alike of body and mind. His features were large and heavy, but the forehead would have become a man of strong intellect; the eyes were full of astonishing vital force, and the chin was a physiognomical study, so strikingly did its moulding express energy of character. He was clean-shaven, and scarcely a seam or wrinkle anywhere broke the hard, smooth surface of his visage, its complexion clear and rosy as ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... industrial training, drawing." And he was right so far as the utility of the study is concerned. Drawing, not as a matter of picture-making, but as a means of systematic training for eye and hand, a training to accuracy and method, and as a vital help toward foremanship in any trade, ought everywhere to be held as a necessary element of industrial education. Some beginning in industrial drawing has been made in all our institutions. But, in a work like ours, the lack of special preparation on the part of ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 02, February, 1885 • Various
... made directly from originals which cost, in many instances, thousands of dollars. There is always at least one good long story of intense human interest, one or more profusely illustrated articles of international importance, and penetrating discussions of vital topics touching present-day interests. One popular section contains "The Best New Things from the World of Print"—in all at least 150 pages monthly, all profusely illustrated. THE BOOKLOVERS MAGAZINE is built ...
— Wholesale Price List of Newspapers and Periodicals • D. D. Cottrell's Subscription Agency
... killed, he said, and every charge might be of value. Still, as no flying-fish had been caught, the men cried out that they must have the shark, and Mr Griffiths at length allowed Brown, who was a good shot, to try and hit it in a vital part. Just, however, as he stood up with the musket in his hands the shark dived ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... the contents of the manuscript which she had read before? At first one hope—one idea was dominant in her soul, the hope that Flora would be crushed even to death by revelations which were indeed almost sufficient to overwhelm a gentle disposition and freeze the vital current in the tender and ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... City, was a live ember of Culinary Fire put down, say only two thousand years ago; and there, burning more or less triumphantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, it has burnt, and still burns, and thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof. Ah! and the far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then also put down there; and still miraculously burns and spreads; and the smoke and ashes thereof (in these Judgment-Halls and Churchyards), and its bellows-engines (in these Churches), thou ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle |
