"Act on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I can act on a message from my superior, I must surely satisfy myself as to the credentials of the messenger. However, let us hear the message. Perhaps that may tell us something. Some things bear on their faces the evidence of what they are—still more ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... the truth, Jim was a trifle dazed. He didn't grapple the ins and outs of a conspiracy of Spanish miners just for the sake of a holiday. And as Toro couldn't wait (it was close on half-past two), Jim thought he might as well act on his advice. He liked to see the big buckets of ore swinging off into space from the mine level and making their fearful journey at a thrilling angle, down, down until, as mere specks, they reached the transport and washing department ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... ships and sailors stood out in brilliant relief against the somber background of the inefficiency of the army. The offensive was thought to be properly a matter for the land forces, which had vastly superior advantages against Canada, while the navy was compelled to act on the defensive against overwhelming odds. The truth is that the navy did amazingly well, though it could not prevent the enemy's squadrons from blockading American ports or raiding the coasts at will. A few single ship actions could not vitally influence the course of the war; ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... assemble in large numbers, in gambols. My informant asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so engaged; hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old logs, which is done in the latter case with equal facility by the four extremities. They do not appear ever to act on the offensive, and seldom, if ever really, on the defensive. When about to be captured, they resist by throwing their arms about their opponent, and attempting to draw him into contact with their teeth." (Savage, ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... preceding evening, and repeated in the morning; and, soon after the British rear had moved from its ground, prepared to attack it. General Dickenson had been directed to detach some of his best troops, to take such a position as to co-operate with him; and Morgan was ordered to act on ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... a saying of the late Sir Herbert Edwardes which he highly valued: "He who has to act on his own responsibility is a slave if he does not act on his own judgment." Acting on this maxim, he must set aside the views of others as to his duty, provided his own judgment was clear regarding it. He must even set aside the feelings and apparent interest of those dearest to him, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... those powers of reasoning and selection, through which we make it work in all the highly complex ways of our ordinary commercial applications of it—we know better than that. We look to Personality for this. In our every-day pursuits we always act on the maxim that "Nature unaided fails," and that the infinite possibilities stored up in the Law, can only be brought to light by a power of reasoning and selection working through the Law. This co-operation of the Personal with the Impersonal is the Law of the Law; and since the Law is unchangeable, ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... has spoken. In Bailey v. The Drexel Furniture Co. (decided May 15, 1922) the Child Labor Tax Law was pronounced unconstitutional. The Court, while conceding that it must interpret the intent and meaning of Congress from the language of the act, held that the act on its face is an attempt to regulate matters of state concern by the use of a so-called tax as a penalty. The opinion of the Court, written by Chief Justice Taft, is an emphatic assertion of the duty and function of the Court ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... Author. Do you act on yours, and take care you do not stay idling here till the dinner hour is over.—I will add this work ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... this era: how, after all our toil, we were to be turned out into the world, with beards on our chins indeed, but with few other attributes of manhood; no existing thing that we were trained to Act on, nothing that we could so much as Believe. 'How has our head on the outside a polished Hat,' would Towgood exclaim, 'and in the inside Vacancy, or a froth of Vocables and Attorney-Logic! At a small cost men are educated to make leather into shoes; but at a great cost, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... Congress, on such grave and important subjects, otherwise than by a direct and responsible recommendation, a public and open recommendation, equally addressed and equally known to all whose duty calls upon them to act on the subject? What would be the state of things, if he might communicate his wishes or opinions privately to members of one house, and make no such communication to the other? Would not the two houses be necessarily put in immediate collision? Would they stand on equal footing? Would ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... oracle of truth and the one ark of salvation; and his was the faith which would compass sea and land, sacrifice all that it possessed, and give its body to be burned, if it might by any means bring one more soul to safety. If he could win a single human being to see the truth and act on it, he was supremely happy. To make the Church of Rome attractive, to enlarge her borders, to win recruits for her, was therefore his constant effort. He had an ulterior eye to it in all his public works—his zealous teetotalism, his advocacy ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... his own doing entirely, his own thought. I am ashamed to say that it had never entered my head, but I was delighted to act on his ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... but how can we trust the present Government? How is it possible to trust them when one finds at Brussels, at Genoa, at the Hague, and elsewhere they preach the necessity of the economic unity of Europe, and then go down to the House of Commons and justify this Act on the strictest, the baldest, the most unvarnished doctrine of economic particularism for this country? Nor does it stop there. I told you just now that for me this doctrine on which the League is based goes right through many other problems than those ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... Celery are carminative, and act on the kidneys. An admirable tincture is made from these seeds, when bruised, with spirit of wine; of which a teaspoonful may be taken three times a day, with a spoonful or two of water. The root of the Wild Celery, Smallage, or Marsh Parsley, was reckoned, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,—as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... act on one's own convictions and not on those of somebody else, however beloved that other person might be, but truly the penalty of daring to take an independent line of action was almost unbearably severe. It really seemed, at times, as if ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... logical consequences of the principles laid down. Clerambault resisted feebly, for he knew that nothing can be done to convince a young man who has made himself part of a system. Discussion is hopeless at that age. Earlier there is some chance to act on him, when, as it were, the hermit-crab is looking for his shell; and later something may be done when the shell begins to wear and be uncomfortable; but when the coat is new, the only thing is to let him ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... economical, and thought it would be praiseworthy to save money for Mr. Crawford. He inquired the location of the boarding house, and imprudently decided to act on ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... description of personal courage must quail. Persons were then present, Rouser Redhead among the rest, who had been sent upon some of those midnight missions, which contumacy against the system, when operating in its cruelty, had dictated. Persons of humane disposition, declining to act on these sanguinary occasions, are generally the first to be sacrificed, for individual life is nothing when obstructing the ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... without hopes that Fakrash might act on this suggestion, and that so he would be relieved of him in the simplest and most satisfactory way; but any such hopes were as usual doomed ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... of the value of 10,000,000 acres of land for an eleemosynary object within the several States, to be administered by the political authority of the same; and it presents at the threshold the question whether any such act on the part of the Federal Government is warranted and sanctioned by the Constitution, the provisions and principles of which are to be protected and sustained as a first ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... come only by administering a severe check to one of the two contending parties. He erred in attempting to arrest the one which all modern history showed was irresistible. It is no doubt true, as appears by his cabinet opinion recently printed, that he stood ready to meet the first overt act on the part of the South with force. Mr. Webster would not have hesitated to have struck hard at any body of men or any State which ventured to assail the Union. But he also believed that the true way to prevent any overt ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... aimed at each other or at one indivisible object. The laws of the United States are supreme, as to all their proper, constitutional objects; the laws of the States are supreme in the same way. These supreme laws may act on different objects without clashing; or they may operate on different parts of the same common object with perfect harmony. Suppose both governments should lay a tax of a penny on a certain article; has not each an independent and uncontrollable power ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... vane of the one beside it, and the whole wing forms a solid sheet like a blind with the slats closed. After the down-stroke is finished and the up-stroke begins, the pressure is taken off from the lower surface of the wing, and begins to act on the upper surface and to press the feathers downward instead of upward. The broad vanes now have nothing to support them, and they bend down and allow the air to pass through the wing, which is now like ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... nearing the coast his vessel struck a rock, yet passed on in safety because, as he said, no harm could happen with the bells on board. On his journeys every missionary carried a bell with him for the new church he was to build. Father Serra's first act on reaching a stopping-place was to hang the bell in a tree and ring it to gather the Indians and ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... satisfactory, as a writer of verse, to compose in the short metres than in the long and serious ones? Why, in general, am I better fitted for what is difficult than for what is easy? Always for the same reason. I cannot bring myself to move freely, to show myself without a veil, to act on my own account and act seriously, to believe in and assert myself, whereas a piece of badinage which diverts attention from myself to the thing in hand, from the feeling to the skill of the writer, puts me at my ease. It is timidity which ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... touched me. I needed help. Should Mother Anastasia choose to close the doors of the House of Martha against me, what could I do? It might divert this lady to act on my behalf. If she procured an interview for me with Sylvia, I would ask no more of her. There was nothing to risk except that Sylvia might be offended if she heard that she had been the object of compacts. But something must be risked, ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... here to put questions, not to give information. I've gone a long way beyond the official tether already. If you've a grain of sense, and I think you're not altogether lacking in that respect, you'll keep a close tongue, and act on the tips thrown out. You'll find pearls of price among the rubbish-heap of my remarks generally. Good-by. See you ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... good services on the part of Great Britain and France, Her Majesty's Government would be ready to take that course. If, however, the Government of France would consider such a step as likely to be unavailing, the two Powers might remind Austria, Prussia, and the Diet, that any act on their part tending to weaken the integrity and independence of Denmark would be at variance with the treaty of May 8, 1852. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... mind of caution and reserve, which has already been referred to, made him refuse to part with old views even when he was beginning to accept new ones. He allowed both to "lie on the table" together, and while declaring his mind to be open to conviction, he felt it safer to speak and act on the old lines till the process of conviction had been completed. It took fourteen years, from 1846 to 1860, to carry him from the Conservative into the Liberal camp. It took five stormy years to bring him round ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... tartar contains sufficient acid to act on baking soda, and is a convenient and safe ingredient for baking powder. When soda and cream of tartar are mixed dry, they do not react on each other, neither do they combine rapidly in cold moist dough, but as soon as the heat of the oven penetrates the doughy mass, the cream ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... authority, some compensation ought to be given; and the Upper Canada Act above mentioned was amended next year, in the first session of the United Parliament, so as to extend to all losses occasioned by violence on the part of persons acting or assuming to act on Her Majesty's behalf. Nothing was done at this time about Lower Canada; but it was obviously inevitable that the treatment applied to the one province should be extended to the other. Accordingly, in 1845, during Lord Metcalfe's Government, and under a Conservative Administration, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... listless walk brought her up alongside him, and still he said nothing. The cruelty of fooled honesty is often great after enlightenment, and it was mighty in Clare now. The outdoor air had apparently taken away from him all tendency to act on impulse; she knew that he saw her without irradiation—in all her bareness; that Time was chanting his satiric psalm at ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... bind you to me for always. Let us marry at once, or, at least, as soon as possible. Then, since we shall have thrown in our lots for good and always, we shall achieve together what we have been unable to do separately. My spirit shall act on yours, and one day your genius shall fashion the great masterpiece of my life. As soon as we are married we shall take a theatre and I shall put on the most suitable play I can find. As I have already told you, I have given up those idle dreams of a vast theatre ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... said, "Small as my virtue is, in the government of my kingdom, I do indeed exert my mind to the utmost. If the year be bad inside the Ho, I remove as many of the people as I can to the east of it, and convey grain to the country inside. If the year be bad on the east of the river, I act on the same plan. On examining the governmental methods of the neighboring kingdoms, I do not find there is any ruler who exerts his mind as I do. And yet the people of the neighboring kings do not decrease, nor do my ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... upon bread in order that the army and navy may be increased, and having appealed in vain to the Pope to intercede with the civil authorities, and call back Italy to its duty, it now behoves us, as a suffering and perishing people, to act on our own behalf. Unless annulled by royal decree, the tax will come into operation on the 1st of February. On that day let every Roman remain indoors until an hour after Ave Maria. Let nobody buy so much as one loaf of bread, and ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... that with all our capacity to measure and estimate this strange force of gravitation we, after all, know absolutely nothing as to its real nature; that we cannot even imagine how one portion of matter can act on another across an infinite abysm (or, for that matter, across the smallest space), we see at once that our most elementary scientific studies bring us into the presence of inscrutable mysteries. In whatever direction we turn this view is but emphasized. Electricity, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... French literary gentleman, M. Emanuel Gonzales, has the credit of the invention. He and an advertisement agent fell out about a question of money, the affair was brought before the courts, and the little plot so got wind. But there is no reason why you should not take the plot and act on it yourself. You are a known man; the public relishes your works; anything bearing the name of Snooks is eagerly read by the masses; and though Messrs. Hookey, of Holywell Street, pay you handsomely, I make no doubt ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that it was no act on O'Neill's part; he wasn't so sure about Sheila. He checked the two men on the floor, who were still out cold. Then he stepped through the door carefully, to make sure that the big bruiser ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... tip," she leaned forward as though about to impart a very valuable bit of information. "Don't you never go in for ridin'. There ain't no act on earth so hard as a ridin' act. The rest of the bunch has got it easy alongside of us. Take the fellows on the trapeze. They always get their tackle up in jes' the same place. Take the balancin' acts; there ain't no difference in their layouts. Take any of ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... William James, of Harvard, showed how useless it was to get men to listen to appeals if they were not energized to act on them. This gave a scientific basis for registered decisions. As soon as John R. Mott and G. Sherwood Eddy dared act on this the results were so remarkable that the conservatives no ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... the Company would have derived from such an augmentation of their military force as these troops constituted, ready to act on any emergency, prepared and disciplined without any charge on the Company, as the institution professed, until their actual services should be required, I have observed some evils growing out of the system, which, in my opinion, more than counterbalanced those ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Villa had been so angered over the bold looting of the bank in the face of a company of his own soldiers that he would stop at nothing to secure the person of the thief once his identity was known. Bridge was perfectly satisfied with the ethics of his own act on the night of the bank robbery. He knew that the girl would have applauded him, and that Grayson himself would have done what Bridge did had a like emergency confronted the ranch foreman; but to have admitted complicity in the escape of the fugitive would have ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... act on the baronet's careless invitation, and concluded it better he should not stay to dinner. Then, as there was yet time, and it was partly on Wingfold's way, they set out ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... impartial report, which he would scarcely get from Count Erskyll, on this new jewel in the Imperial Crown. To be able to furnish that, he would have to remain until the Midyear Feasts, when the Convocation would act on the new constitution. Whether the constitution was adopted or rejected was, in itself, unimportant; in either case, Aditya would have a government recognizable as such by the Empire, which was already recognizing some fairly unlikely-looking governments. In either case, too, Aditya would ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... into the shop; he must have gone in immediately after and repurchased the necklace. He had taken an unpardonable liberty, and had dared to place her in a thoroughly hateful position. What could she do?—Not, assuredly, act on her conviction that it was he who had sent her the necklace and straightway send it back to him: that would be to face the possibility that she had been mistaken; nay, even if the "stranger" were he and no other, it would be something too gross ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... person is compelled to make any payment or to do any act upon a bank holiday which he would not be compelled to do or make on Christmas Day or Good Friday, and the making of a payment or the doing of an act on the following day is equivalent to doing it on the holiday. By the same act it was made lawful for the sovereign from time to time, as it should seem fit, to appoint by proclamation, in the same manner as public fasts or days of public thanksgiving, any day to be observed as a bank holiday ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... three or four days' food. He ended by transporting up that steep slope everything but his canoe and the small tent. It might be, he said to himself as he lugged load after load, just a whim, a fancy, but he was free to act on a whim or a fancy, as free as if he were in the first blush of careless, adventurous youth,—freer, because he had none of the impatient hopes and urges and dreams of youth. He was finished, he told himself in a transient mood of bitterness. Why should he be governed by practical considerations? ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... over the upper part of the collar, along and above the back to the tail, independent of the terret-pad and crupper. This is tying the horse's head to his tail with a vengeance.[54-*] To be consistent, the opponents of the theory which I have laid down should act on this principle—though I have never known them go quite so far. Sed quis custodes custodiet ipsos? What is to prevent the tail from falling forward with the body? They indeed argue, "Surely if you throw back the weight ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... coasting round to the Gulf, taking with him a small tender; whilst Walker, or whoever might be appointed in Queensland, should proceed north, overland. Nothing further could be done in Melbourne by the committee or Government; but I have now to narrate a noble act on the ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... the principle of selection by man, that is the picking out of individuals with any desired quality, and breeding from them, and again picking out, can do. Even breeders have been astounded at their own results. They can act on differences inappreciable to an uneducated eye. Selection has been methodically followed in Europe for only the last half century; but it was occasionally, and even in some degree methodically, followed in the most ancient ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... amazement, however, the fierce-looking warriors, open mouthed and apparently terror-stricken, slunk backward, huddling together, all the time staring at him with bulging eyes. His first thought was that they were surprised to find him so bold, but the next act on their part caused him to ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... very outset of his treacherous career, Zebek-Dorchi was sagacious enough to perceive that nothing could be gained by open declaration of hostility to the reigning prince: the choice had been a deliberate act on the part of Russia, and Elizabeth Petrowna was not the person to recall her own favors with levity or upon slight grounds. Openly, therefore, to have declared his enmity towards his relative on the throne, could have had no effect but that of arming suspicions against ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Mabel found her mother, on coming to wish her good-morning one day, shivering so violently that she could not complete her dressing. Loftus was not at home. He had rejoined his regiment for a brief spell, so Catherine and Mabel had to act on their own responsibility. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... fairer player than Cowan, and such a misfortune as losing him by disqualification for any act on the field was never dreamt of by the Princeton men. The trouble was that Terry mistook an accident for a deliberate act. Holden was skirting Princeton's left end when Cowan made a lunge to reach him. Holden's deceptive pace was nearly ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... the least effort to reassemble his broken forces. Had he possessed either spirit or conduct his army might have been rallied and reenforced from his garrisons, so as to be in a condition to keep the field and even to act on the offensive; for his loss was inconsiderable, and the victor did not attempt to molest his troops in their retreat, an omission which has been charged to him as a flagrant instance of misconduct. Indeed, through the whole of this engagement ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... had impelled her. She hurriedly rode off, fearing she knew not what. She knew she fled, incontinently fled. And her first act on arrival home had been to rid herself of the almost mannish suit in which she worked, so that Jeff, when he made his appearance, might find her the woman ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... things, such as bank-notes, bills of exchange, and checks, which circulate as money, and perform all the functions of it, and the question arises, Do these various substitutes operate on prices in the same manner as money itself? I apprehend that bank-notes, bills, or checks, as such, do not act on prices at all. What does act on prices is Credit, in whatever shape given, and whether it gives rise to any transferable instruments capable of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... affections. I too, your godfather, have known what the enjoyment and advantages of this life are, and what the more refined pleasures which learning and intellectual power can give; I now, on the eve of my departure, declare to you, and earnestly pray that you may hereafter live and act on the conviction, that health is a great blessing; competence, obtained by honourable industry, a great blessing; and a great blessing it is, to have kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives; but that the greatest of all blessings, as it is the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... whole the American agencies in London are, we think, both that and conscientious. But the frequenter of the salerooms cannot fail to note a very unsatisfactory aspect of this business by proxy, where an inexperienced amateur with a well-lined purse employs an almost equally inexperienced person to act on his behalf—that is to say, one who is a bookseller by vocation, but who enjoys no conversance with bibliographical niceties. His principal consequently scores very poorly by buying wrong things ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... say that whatever may have been said in this country or in Chile in criticism of Mr. Egan, our minister at Santiago, the true history of this exciting period in Chilean affairs from the outbreak of the revolution until this time discloses no act on the part of Mr. Egan unworthy of his position or that could justly be the occasion of serious animadversion or criticism. He has, I think, on the whole borne himself in very trying circumstances with dignity, discretion, and courage, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... the Turk's Head, that the landlady thereof was obviously in pain from her teeth, or from a particular tooth. She must certainly have informed herself as to his name and condition, and Mr Cowlishaw thought that it would have been a graceful act on her part to patronize him, as he had patronized the Turk's Head. But no! Mayoresses, even the most tactful, do not always do the right ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... rather be spoke to by a sergeant than by you. He tells me to go to hell when I challenges him to argue it out like a man. It aint polite; but its English. What you say aint anything at all. You dont act on it yourself. You dont believe in it. Youd punch my head if I tried it on you; and serve me right. And look here. Heres another point for ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... duty of making efforts to bring the people of the Southern States to adopt these principles, and act on them, it is entirely another matter. On this point you would find a large majority opposed to your views. Most persons in the non-slave-holding States have considered the matter of Southern slavery, as one in which they were no more called to interfere, than in the abolition of the press-gang system ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... this idea he first of all made his hearers familiar in several sermons. Then, sure of the approval of his design by the majority, he turned to the Great Council with the prayer, that, in the deliberate and entire neglect to act on the part of the Bishop, they would appoint such a public convocation. This gave rise to a lively and earnest debate. It could not escape the older statesmen how readily results, not to be foreseen, flow from a violation of forms, whilst others, looking at events in ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... never do it," answered Jim, soberly. "But I'll tell you, onct fur all, who it is shall be my heir if any thing chance me, an' I'll expect you'll act on the squar: that person is Miss Mary Edwards, your own sister, an' you'll not go ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... is offering prizes to its readers with a view to ascertaining which is the best-looking animal in the Zoo, and which is the ugliest. It is, of course, no affair of ours, but we think it would be a graceful and humane act on the part of our contemporary to give a consolation prize to the poor beast adjudged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... confuse and outwit the swindler occurred to our hero. He was intent on locating the brief item he remembered having seen in the newspaper. He wanted to act on his plan before the stranger returned. Frank's eye ran over column after ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... cathartic. It acts through the blood. When it is absorbed by the blood its chemical ingredients act on certain nerves as irritants. These nerves excite the liver and bowel to action and ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... both to ourselves and to the community," I continued to Salemina, "is to learn how there can be three distinct kinds of proper Presbyterianism. Perhaps it would be a graceful act on our part if we should each espouse a different kind; then there would be no feeling among our Edinburgh friends. And again, what is this 'union' of which we hear murmurs? Is it religious or political? ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Senate had grown to fear him. Pompey too was jealous of his growing power, and Caesar was finally ordered by the Senate to disband his army. The two officers of the people, called the tribunes, whose names were Antony and Cassius, vetoed this act on the part of the Senate, and were hunted from Rome and fled to Caesar's camp ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... war; and they who will the end will the means: the war being deemed necessary, taxes became indispensible for its support. Some might prefer one mode of raising them—some another; but these are minor considerations. Public men, united in bodies, must act on great principles. Mutual deference is a fundamental requisite for the composition and efficiency of a Party: for, if individual judgment is to be obtruded and insisted upon in subordinate concerns, the march of business will be perpetually obstructed. The leaders will not know whom they ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... bad action is indulged in, wonderful changes take place in the nervous system, and energy becomes stored up in certain cells, so as to make it easier to do the wrong act on a future occasion. It is equally true that every time a good action is done, similar changes, but in a reverse direction, take place, that make the doing of the same action easier in the future. This explains the tremendous power of habit. Our body, brain and nervous system become changed, ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... lips tightened. "That's all very well," she broke out impatiently. "That's the sort of advice men always give to women, and never act on themselves. It's not the masculine way to sit calmly by and let another carry off what one wants. If a man cares, he fights for his rights. It's only when he isn't interested that he's passive and speaks of honorably playing the game. All's fair in love ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... weapons, and once or twice, the evening before my arrival, crossing within a very short distance of the tents, as if for the purpose of reconnoitring our position and strength; I determined, however, nothing but the last extremity should ever induce me to act on the defensive. [Note 6: "And they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... dark portions of the plate are apt, in cases, to be too light. The most common methods of finishing are reetching and burnishing. The finisher dips a camel's-hair brush in acid and applies it to the high-light portions of the plate, or other places that are too dark, and allows it to act on the metal until these parts of the plate are lightened sufficiently. The parts of the plate that are too light are made darker by rubbing down the surface of the plate with a tool called the burnisher. The skilful, artistic finisher has other methods at his command of making the ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... Ivan, without delay, broached the matter to Breda. But she was so angry with him for having dared even to mention exorcism, that he thought it best to act on the advice of the old occultist and to catch her unawares. Consequently, one evening, when the moon was in the full, and she had just changed into wolf form, he stole into her room accompanied by the old man and two assistants. After a desperate struggle, Ivan and the three exorcists ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... Government, aware of the unexpected advantage, followed up the blow. Mr. O'Connell took shelter in the sacredness of the Hall, which, he imagined, he had guarded against the encroachments of arbitrary power, and thither they followed him. Having abandoned a position where he could act on the offensive, he was forced to contend against the aggressive attacks of Government flushed ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... with substances of which they know nothing. Why should a brass and a wooden instrument—a bassoon and horn—have so little identity of tone, when they act on the same matter, the constituent gases of the air? Their differences proceed from some displacement of those constituents, from the way they act on the elements which are their affinity and which they return, modified by some occult and unknown process. If we knew what the ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... and awful sense of the words, give them beans. That sort of tyranny is all very well; for it is the people tyrannising over all the persons. But "temperance reformers" are like a small group of vegetarians who should silently and systematically act on an ethical assumption entirely unfamiliar to the mass of the people. They would always be giving peerages to greengrocers. They would always be appointing Parliamentary Commissions to enquire into the private life of butchers. Whenever they found a man quite at their ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... to the Congress will not have arrived.... On the other hand, November 8th will be too late. By that time the Congress will be organised, and it is difficult for a large organised body of people to take swift, decisive action. We must act on the 7th, the day the Congress meets, so that we may say to it, 'Here is the power! What are you going to ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... name is such an one, son of such an one and my father's brother is called such an one." And behold, O Commander of the Faithful, he was the son of my paternal uncle and of the noblest house of the Banu Uzrah. Said I, "O my cousin, what moved thee to act on this wise, secluding thyself in the waste and leaving thy fair estate and that of thy father and thy slaves and handmaids?" When he heard my words, his eyes filled with tears and he replied, "Know, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... to you," began Miss Cresswell, as they crossed the campus. She tucked Elizabeth's arm under her own. Elizabeth felt that something confidential was forthcoming. She was yet unused to the friendship of girls and any act on their part out of the ordinary made ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... and other great bankers, began to learn that Smithers & Co. had vast funds every where, in all the capitals of Europe, and in America. Even in the West Indies their operations were extensive. Their old Australian agency was enlarged, and a new banking-house founded by them in Calcutta began to act on the same vast scale as the leading house at London. Smithers & Co. also continued to carry on a policy which was hostile to those older bankers. The Rothschilds in particular felt this, and were in perpetual dread of a renewal of that tremendous ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... "I will go to Henry Burgoyne's house at once, to- night. I will act on what you have suggested. I will see if this has or has not been one long, unprofitable mistake. If my visit should be fruitless, I will send you this coin to add to your collection of dishonored honors, but if it should result as I hope it may, it will be your doing, Miss Catherwaight, ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... and I'll try to act on it," replied the chief, "but, gee whiz! I'm not used to stuff of this sort. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... "it would be a good thing for us to present ourselves to the Duke of Marlborough. Then we shall see if he is disposed to take an interest in us, and help us. If he is, he will tell us what had best be done towards getting Nicholson's statement made in the presence of some sort of official who will act on it. If he gives us the cold shoulder, we shall have to do as best we can in some other direction, and it will be well to have the matter settled, if possible, before we catch ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... denotes pleasures and favors of short duration. For a young woman to dream that a rhinestone proves to be a diamond, foretells she will be surprised to find that some insignificant act on her part ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... case, Miss Nora, I will say nothing further. But the fact is, I have before had my suspicions as to the hand which pulled that trigger which sent the shot into the Squire's leg, and it would be an extremely graceful act on my part to have that person arrested, and would doubtless insure the agency for me. But I will say no more; only, please understand, under no circumstances, except the payment of the rent, can Andy Neil get ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... not the tables of the law, which were not in it at first. It was a further step to make Sinai the scene of the solemn inauguration of the historical relation between Jehovah and Israel. This was done under the poetic impulse to represent the constituting of the people of Jehovah as a dramatic act on an exalted stage. What in the older tradition was a process which went on quietly and slowly, occupied completely the whole period of Moses, and was at the beginning just such as it still continued to be, was now, for the sake of solemnity and vividness, compressed into a striking scene of inauguration. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... Tullivers had been reared in the praiseworthy past of Pitt and high prices, you will infer from what you already know concerning the state of society in St. Ogg's, that there had been no highly modifying influence to act on them in their maturer life. It was still possible, even in that later time of anti-Catholic preaching, for people to hold many pagan ideas, and believe themselves good church-people, notwithstanding; ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... who manifests it is unable to control properly the movements of his feet and legs. He has lost command from the supreme cerebral centre; the lower nerve ganglia seem to have become insubordinate and to act on their own initiative. But is locomotor-ataxy a disease? Clearly your answer will depend upon whether you are on the side of the man or the microbe. If you sympathize with the man and are thinking of him, it is a disease; but if your heart is with the microbe there in the spinal cord, the locomotor-ataxy ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... ladies, to hear of some virtuous act on your part which, methinks, should not be hidden but rather written in letters of gold, that it may serve women as an example, and give men cause for admiration at seeing in the weaker sex that from which weakness ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... occupied its position on the heath; and there is reason to believe, that the opportunity afforded by this delay had been improved to prepare each regiment separately, and particular agents in each regiment, against the arrival and proposals of the commissioners. The latter dared not act on their own discretion, but resolved to obey their instructions to the very letter. Proceeding, therefore, to the heath, they rode at once to the regiment of infantry of which Fairfax was colonel. The votes of the two houses were then read to the men, and Skippon, having ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... the sentiments of his particular sect, though the large fortune inherited from his father had left him too independent to pursue the sinuous policy of trade. He had permitted temperament to act on prejudice to such an extent that he vindicated the right of England to force men from under the American flag, a doctrine that his cousin was too simple-minded and clear-headed ever to entertain for an instant: ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... would have shot either or both on the slightest provocation. He was of the breed of the wolf, accustomed from childhood to deadly weapons, brought up in tradition of their use, and, like many outlaws who have bulked large in the history of the West, young enough to act on impulse without ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... prove fatal to Carmichael, and since it was uncertain whether he could right the engines in their present situation, we decided to act on the suggestion without loss of time. Gazen and I calculated the positions of the rifles and the number of shots to be fired in order to give the required impetus to the car. The engine-room, being well provided with scuttles, was chosen as the ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... was wounded, and had to hand over the command; and after four hours' fighting the Federals fell back in perfect order under cover of the night. Nor was there any endeavour to pursue. The Confederate troops were superior in numbers, but there was much confusion in their ranks; the cavalry could not act on the steep and broken ground, and there were other reasons which rendered a ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Rahab the harlot. Her acquaintance with these amiable idolaters may have been slight, but the comparison was odious, and far from tactful. Knox also reviled the creed in which she had been bred as "a poisoned cup," and threatened her, if she did not act on his counsel, with "torment and pain everlasting." Those who drink of the cup of her Church "drink therewith damnation and death." As for her clergy, "proud prelates do Kings maintain to murder the souls for which the blood of ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... varies, caeteris paribus, to the extent of 15 per cent., with the quantity of water added to the iodide of silver before adding the iodide of potassium; the minimum required being when the two salts act on each other in as dry a form as possible. Take the precipitate of iodide of silver, got by decomposing 100 grains of nitrate of silver with 97.66 grains of iodide of potassium; drain off the last water completely, so that the precipitate occupies ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... taken me ten minutes one day to learn, from a by no means dull gipsy, whether the latter word was known to him, or if it were used at all. He got himself into a hopeless tangle in trying to explain the difference between wafro and naflo, or ill, until his mind finally refused to act on vessavo at all, and spasmodically rejected it. With all the patience of Job, and the meekness of Moses, I awaited my time, and ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... way we have is that of experimenting on some one else's mind. We can act on our friends and neighbours in various ways, making them feel, think, accept, refuse this and that, and then observe how they act. The differences in their action will show the differences in the feelings, etc., which we have produced. In ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... an hour's cogitation, Ferris had made up his plan of operations. "I must let him drop! I cannot reach him. I will then act on a certainty. She will report to me. I will clear all up here and start West to-morrow night. But I will await her report and a second order to join her. I must let her ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... exciting causes, generous or cruel, heroic or cowardly, but they will always be so imperious that the interest of the individual, even the interest of self-preservation, will not dominate them. The exciting causes that may act on crowds being so varied, and crowds always obeying them, crowds are in consequence extremely mobile. This explains how it is that we see them pass in a moment from the most bloodthirsty ferocity to the most extreme generosity and ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... replied the daemon. "As to the distinction, it is one with a difference. You are personal to yourself, individual to others; and we, though individual to you, may be still impersonal. If spirit takes form from having something to act on, the fact that we act on you is sufficient, so far as you are concerned, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... that grace in its operation on the heart was irresistible,—sometimes through the word, at other times without it. Dr. Knapp says, "God does not act in such a way as to infringe upon the free will of man, or to interfere with the use of his powers" (Phil. ii. 12, 13). Consequently, God does not act on men immediately, producing ideas in their souls without the preaching or reading of the scriptures, or influencing their will in any other way than by the understanding. Did God act in any other way than through the understanding, he would operate miraculously and irresistibly, and the practice ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... lifetime of Waucop. On the death of the latter, he assumed his rank, but was obliged to fly into exile, during the reign of Edward. On the accession of Mary he was recalled from his place of banishment in Brabant, and his first official act on returning home was to proclaim a Jubilee for the public ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... removed from the command of the division, notwithstanding his high personal esteem for him and his confidence in his personal gallantry. The trouble seemed to be in the comprehension of orders and in the grasp of the surrounding circumstances. Sherman did not feel at liberty to act on the request, as Hovey had been assigned to the new division, before it took the field, in fulfilment of a promise of General Grant under whom Hovey had served in the Vicksburg campaign, and had been recommended for promotion as a recognition of good conduct ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... customhouse had refused to admit hams from Ireland to an entry. The bill likewise received another considerable alteration, importing, That, instead of the duty of ona shilling and three-pence, charged by the former act on every hundred weight of salted beef or pork imported from Ireland, which was found not adequate to the duty payable for such a quantity of salt as is requisite to be used in curing and salting thereof; and to prevent as well the expense to the revenue, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... them had ever before been called to act on a coroner's jury, and all seemed impressed with the awfulness of the crime, as well as imbued with a personal ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... timidly informed that his principles, if carried out, would split the world to pieces. "Let it split," was his careless answer; "there are enough more planets." By pure intellectual grit, he thus effected a revolution in the ideas and sentiments of the South, and through the South made his mind act on the policy of the nation. The present war has its root in the principles he advocated. Never flinching from any logical consequence of his principles, Mr. Calhoun did not rest until through him religion, morality, statesmanship, the Constitution ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... of the belief—in a fairly advanced stage of differentiation and involving an anthropomorphic personification of the preternatural agent appealed to—is afforded by the wager of battle. Here the preternatural agent was conceived to act on request as umpire, and to shape the outcome of the contest in accordance with some stipulated ground of decision, such as the equity or legality of the respective contestants' claims. The like sense of an inscrutable but spiritually necessary tendency in events is still traceable ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... man's first act on entering the dining-room was to go straight to a mirror, remove his hat, arrange his hair with a little comb which he took from his pocket; after which he went to a porcelain basin with a reservoir above it, took a towel which was there for the purpose, and bathed his face and hands. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... the 2d of July with twenty-two sail, of which eight were three-deckers. Before his return, in the 7th of August, he was joined by eight others; mostly, however, sixty-fours. With this inferiority of numbers the British Admiral could expect only to act on the defensive, unless some specially favourable opportunity should offer. The matter of most immediate concern was the arrival of the Jamaica convoy, then daily expected; with which, it may be mentioned, de Grasse ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... with honor"; and the general, who fully reciprocated the President's feeling, took his leave, accompanied by Captain Robert Anderson and Lieutenant E.D. Keyes, his aid-de-camp. He left with general instructions, but in certain events he was to act on his own judgment without restriction. Arriving in Boston, he met Governor Edward Everett, and arranged for calling out the militia and ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... enjoyed a rare extension of being and they had caught me up in their flight; only I couldn't breathe in such an air and I promptly asked to be set down. Everything in the facts was monstrous, and most of all my lucid perception of them; the only thing allied to nature and truth was my having to act on that perception. I felt after I had spoken in this sense that my assurance was complete; nothing had been wanting to it but the sight of my effect on him. He disguised indeed the effect in a cloud of chaff, a diversion that gained him time and covered his retreat. He challenged ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... and does not contain constitutional doctrine. I believe that, so long as the slave States are able to sustain their institutions without going abroad or calling upon other parts of the Union to aid them or act on the subject, so long I will consent never to interfere. I have said this, and I repeat it; but if they come to the free States, and say to them, you must help us to keep down our slaves, you must aid us in an insurrection and a civil ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various
... said Janet, "facts never do. You take facts as they come; you act on them instinctively, but you don't realize them. I am ugly. There's no doubt about it. You don't think I'm ugly, but you see I am. That prompts your question without knowing it. But men have made fools of themselves—even over me. There was one man at the school last year—took a ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... mix thoroughly. Take a tooth-brush, and wet it freely with this preparation, and briskly rub the black teeth, and in a moment's time they will be perfectly white; then immediately wash out the mouth well with water, that the acid may not act on the enamel of the teeth. This should be ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... man who most eagerly desires them. The coarse sensualist, to whom all women are alike, attracts sensual women, not exactly because they find in him the satisfaction of their craving, but because they themselves act on him indiscriminately. But a woman will adapt herself with the greatest ease to the needs of the differentiated erotic (for instance, she will become really sentimental to please the man who prefers sentimental women), for ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... by her sobs and lamentations. Morestal and Philippe, silent and fever-eyed, seemed to avoid each other. Marthe, who suspected her husband's anguish, kept her eyes fixed upon him, as though she feared some inconsiderate act on his part. And the same dread seemed to trouble Mme. Morestal, for she warned Philippe, time ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... disease injures the quality of the meat, and how eagerly he pounces on a bit of coal or cinder, or any coarse dry substance that will adulterate the rich food on which he lives, and by affording soda to his system, correct the vitiated fluids of his body,—yet very few have the judgment to act on what they see, and by supplying the pig with a few shovelfuls of cinders in his sty, save the necessity of his rooting for what is so needful to his health. Instead of this, however, and without supplying the animal with what its instinct craves for, his nostril ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... THE FEDERAL PARTY.—The end of the war with Great Britain (1812-15) was marked by the extinction of the Federal party. But the Republicans, the opposing party, were now equally zealous for the perpetuity of the Union, and were quite ready to act on a liberal construction of the Constitution with respect to the powers conferred on the General Government. This had been shown in the purchase of Louisiana: it was further exemplified in 1816 in the establishment of a national bank, and in ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... permitting the importation for the period of six months of certain building materials and provisions free of duty, but revoked it when about half the period only had elapsed, to the injury of citizens of the United States who had proceeded to act on the faith of that decree. The Spanish Government refused indemnification to the parties aggrieved until recently, when it was assented to, payment being promised to be made so soon as the amount due ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... shall not therefore act on vague suspicion; but the boy whom I do suspect is one whose course lately has given me the deepest pain; one who has violated all the early promise he gave; one who seems to be going farther and ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... capture Cemetery Ridge on the evening of the first day. I think that the criticism is unjust; for, in the first place, the attempt would have been of doubtful issue, and then if he had tried and succeeded, what advantage would have been gained? It was clearly Meade's role to act on the defensive and select the arena upon which the decisive contest must be waged. If Cemetery Ridge had been taken, instead of hurrying his other corps to that position to form a junction with the First and Eleventh, he would ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... to broach the iniquitous partition plot. It is made a matter of much dispute which of them started the project, and they all equally disclaim the infamy of being its author. The fact, no doubt, was, that in this, as in all other unjust coalitions, they did not, in the first instance, act on a preconcerted plan; but each individual power cherished secretly its design, and like designing villains, who understand one ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... doing much to inspire Nina with courage to act on her own responsibility occasionally, and the few weeks' acquaintance with girls of her own age made quite an improvement in her manner, so that she could now laugh with the rest at the harmless jokes which passed back and forth, without ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... a bill. This was presented as merely an extension of the principles of the Postal Aid Act of 1891, involving "no new departure from the established practice of the Government." Its ocean mail sections were intended "simply to strengthen the existing act on lines where it has happened to prove inadequate." The subsidies which it granted were termed, inoffensively, "subventions," and its promoters protested that these "subventions" were "not in any opprobrious ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon
... thinker will purposely develop the habit of making very deliberate motions. This trait is the result of his determined repression of a recognized inclination to act on impulse. He has accomplished perfect self-control in order to guard against the danger of making up his mind too quickly on his first thoughts. But his slowed-down movements will be so precise and certain as to indicate ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... him began to act on Vinicius also. His nostrils dilated, like those of an Eastern steed. The beating of his heart with unusual throb was evident under his scarlet tunic; his breathing grew short, and the expressions that fell from his lips were broken. ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Crown of Portugal kept the trade with the East in its own hands as a royal monopoly, and was able to despatch great fleets with armies, in some instances, of 1500 soldiers on board. Whereas the Dutch and English merchant adventurers were unable to act on such a large scale. The existence of the Royal monopoly may have, in the end, affected the Portuguese development in the East prejudicially, but in the commencement it was absolutely necessary, for the whole strength of the little ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... awakening had revealed to him that his head had been pillowed, and it seemed such a kind and thoughtful act on Christine's part that he could scarcely believe it; at the same time he was full of shame and self-reproach that by his sleep he had left her unguarded, and he said: "Miss Ludolph, I hope you will pardon you recreant ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... natures out of him and predict the world he is to inhabit, as the fins of the fish foreshow that water exists, or the wings of an eagle in the egg presuppose air. He cannot live without a world. Put Napoleon in an island prison, let his faculties find no men to act on, no Alps to climb, no stake to play for, and he would beat the air, and appear stupid. Transport him to large countries, dense population, complex interests and antagonist power, and you shall see that the man Napoleon, bounded that is by such a profile and outline, is not ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Intend to act on the Square in regard to that little Mater I have aranged Things so that I ant got to stop with you but I'll drop in onct in a wile to keep up a show for a Drink—respy yours, ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... 'Sometimes dim pictures float before my mind, and I seem to have vague recollections of things that happened ages and ages ago. But they pass away in a second. I am afraid you think my conduct unpardonable, but I can hardly help myself. You see, having no memory, I act on impulse. That was ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... the regular staff officers usually rank only as captains, except in cases where a major-general commands; he is entitled to an assistant adjutant-general with the rank of major. Officers detailed from the line to act on any staff in any capacity, bring with them the rank they hold in the line. They are not entitled, except the authorized aides and in some other particular cases, when ordered by the War Department, to additional allowances; but if they are foot officers, and are properly detailed for mounted duty, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to see Mrs. Siddons act on the 25th; it was thought impossible to get a box, but the moment my father pronounced the name Edgeworth, Mr. Brandon, the box-keeper, said he should have one. Lady Charleville, who is a very clever woman, goes with us with her ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... is an action, while diminution is a passion. Now no agent is passive by the very reason of its acting, although it is possible for it to act on one thing, and to be passive as regards another. Therefore he who sins, does not, by his sin, diminish the good ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... do? I had told her sister that I would take her for better or for worse, and I made a point of honor and conscience in all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to act on it, which in this case I had no doubt they had; for I was now fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence the conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain. 'Well,' thought I, 'I have said it, and, be the consequences what ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... gusts of misery and apprehension, of failing heart and recovered resolution, of anguish and of prayer, the long night at length passed, and with the first dawn she arose, shaken and weak, but resolved to act on her terrible resolution ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... injured, but was stated in a London paper of August 21 to be out of danger. Nor is it known when he returned; we have no further news of him until in January he began work on Jephtha. Morell says that he himself wrote Jephtha in 1751, but, as Handel had completed the first act on February 2, it is probable that Morell, like Jennens, supplied him ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... life; and that these were unmarried. On my saying that observation had led me to a very different conclusion, his indictment took another form. He insisted that woman hangs upon the past; that public opinion progresses, but that women are prone to act on the opinion of yesterday or of last year; that women and womanish men take naturally to old absurdities, among which he mentioned the doctrines of the Trinity, "spiritism," and homeopathy. At this ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... not spoken. She was not there to talk. She was only to act on the 26th of July. She was the means ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Captain Mugford. He was reading in the sitting-room, and put down his book to hear our exciting revelation. When we had told him all, he asked us not to go to the cove again, until Mr Clare and he had had time to act on the information we had given, and told us to caution the other boys in the same way if we met them before he did. "And now," said he, "I will go out and meet Mr Clare and Walter—down on the neck, are they not? I have no doubt that the cave is the ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... the opinion of the former, agreed as well together as God and the devil. Still more after his accession to the English throne James came to prefer the episcopal form of church government as more subservient, and to act on the maxim, "no ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... city clerks began dropping in, bringing telegrams and letters bearing encouraging announcements. Evan called for volunteers to act on a reception committee, to meet all trains and to introduce the fellows. Everybody responded, and ten ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... my opinion of your sense," said Sir Tom, taking the boy by the arm, "but also of your advantages, Jock, my boy. We cannot act, you see, in that straightforward manner, more's the pity, in the world; but I shall try the first part of your programme, and act on your advice," he said, as they walked into the room where the ladies were awaiting them. The smaller room looked very warm and bright after the large, dimly-lighted one through which they had passed. The Contessa, in her tender conference with Lucy, formed a charming group in the ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... to F. The most common usage is to tune one drum to the tonic, and the other to the dominant of the key in which the composition is written. The pitch of the kettle-drum can be varied by increasing or lessening the tension of the head by means of thumb-screws which act on a metal ring. ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... (leucocytosis), as well as in their phagocytic action, and in the course of destroying the bacteria they produce certain ferments which enter the blood serum. These are known as opsonins or alexins, and they act on the bacteria by a process comparable to narcotisation, and render them an easy prey for ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles |
