"Action" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... SOS. The action is unworthy. You gloat over the advantage which my want of courage gives you over me; that is not fair treatment. It is mere bullying to wish to profit by the poltroonery of those whom one makes to feel the weight of one's arm. To thrash a man who does not retaliate is not the act of a ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... noblemen of the king of England were with the Emperor in his battell against the Soldan of Iconium.] We are right glad likewise that some of your maiesties princes and nobles accompanied vs in this action, who are able to report vnto you all things which haue happened. And albeit we were exceedingly grieued for the losse of our people; yet thought it we expedient to signifie vnto you the successe of our affaires, as vnto our welbeloued friend, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... of course, and boiled frantically around the end as though trying to catch up with the rest of the stream which had gone on without it, but some of it dived down under and came up on the other side. There, as though bewildered, it paused in an uneasy pool. Its constant action had excavated a very deep hole, the debris of which had formed a bar immediately below. You waded out on the bar and cast along the length of the ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... that signifies to be, to act, or to be acted upon. 2. An irregular verb is a verb that does not form the preterit and the perfect participle by assuming d or ed. 3. A neuter verb is a verb that expresses neither action nor passion, but simply being, or a state of being. 4. The indicative mood is that form of the verb, which simply indicates or declares a thing, or asks a question. 5. The imperfect tense is that which expresses what took place, or was occurring, in time fully past. 6. The ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, remarked abruptly to Frank Crosse of Woking, in the county of Surrey, 'We command you that within eight days of the service of this writ on you, inclusive of the day of such service, you cause an appearance to be entered for you in an action at the suit of the Hotspur Insurance Company, Limited.' If he didn't do so, Her Majesty remarked that several very unpleasant things might occur, and Hardinge Stanley, Earl of Halsbury, corroborated Her Majesty. Maude was frightened to death when she saw the document, and felt as ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... did the National Society adjourn, than the women who had listened to the discussions with such deep interest, assembled to organize themselves for action. A few extracts from Mary Grew's final report of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1870 ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the other hand, is one who, contrarily, deduces his action from ideas. The theoretical philosopher transforms life into ideas. The practical philosopher transforms ideas into life; he acts, therefore, in a thoroughly reasonable manner; he is consistent, regular, deliberate; he is never hasty or passionate; ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... relation to a Divine Redeemer. That bond is deeper than all national bonds, than all blood-bonds, than community of race, than family, than friendship, than social ties, than community of opinion, than community of purpose and action. It is destined to absorb them all. All these are transitory and they are imperfect; men wander isolated notwithstanding them all. But if we are knit to Christ, we are knit to all who are also knit to Him. One life animates all the limbs, and one ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... as Calixtus acted here quite independently and, without previous consultation, issued a peremptory edict, that is, one settling the matter and immediately taking effect; from the grounds it assigned, in so far as he appealed in justification of his action to Matt. XVI. 18 ff.[334]—the first instance of the kind recorded in history; from Tertullian's opposition to it, because the latter treats it not as local, Roman, but as pregnant in consequences for all Christendom. But, as soon as the question ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... to me that with my inexperience it would be foolish to go into action with this mitrailleuse, so I ordered it to the rear and told the facchino to provide something a little more primitive to start with, something less elaborate, some gentle old-fashioned flint-lock, smooth-bore, double-barreled thing, calculated to cripple at two hundred ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... father [144a] before the magistrate as a sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately persisted in declaring, that his conscience would not permit him to embrace the profession of a soldier. [145] It could scarcely be expected that any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the Centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of a public festival, that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of his office, and exclaimed with a loud voice, that he would obey none but Jesus Christ the eternal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... and my companions on the raft tugged at the poles. We cleared the shore, and in a few minutes the action of the current gave us a ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... as it would have horrified her large family connection and circle of friends in that provincial town where standards are as slowly undermined as the cliffs of France by the action of ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... forceful, dynamic, the sort of man who is a better captain than lieutenant, whose hands are strong to grasp life by the throat and demand that she stand and deliver. Only because of his wide and successful experience, of his initiative, of his way of quick, decisive action mated to a marked executive ability, had Luke Sanford chosen Bayne Trevors as his right-hand man in so colossal a venture as the Blue Lake Ranch. Only because of the same pushing, vigorous personality was he this ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... glorious day of Quesada's existence, his glorious and last day. I call it the day of his glory, for he certainly never before appeared under such brilliant circumstances, and he never lived to see another sun set. No action of any conqueror or hero on record is to be compared with this closing scene of the life of Quesada, for who, by his single desperate courage and impetuosity, ever stopped a revolution in full course? Quesada did: he stopped the revolution at Madrid for one entire day, ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... field, managing its own affairs, raising its own funds, and sending out its own missionaries, both men and women. Its very existence has been a great strength to the Woman's Auxiliaries, stimulating them to independent action, and especially to the demand for a voice in the disposal of the large sums they raise and turn over to the treasury of ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... mentioned it during his fever, he begged they would respect his desire, and not permit the name to escape them. 'Give him a chance,' he said. He always feared that the knowledge of what he had done might some day drive the man to desperation, and make him become more wicked through horror at his own action.' ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... by some unusual emergency, by some extraordinary reward, they extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice without touching their principles. What, for example, in this case of D——, has been done to vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the surface of the building into registered square inches; what is it all but an exaggeration of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... original action. Be so good as to admit that I can't go to Mrs. Widdowson and request her to publish a statement that ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... questions, there must be a concession to the South of the right to emigrate into all the Territories, or at least an equitable partition of the National Domain. In reply, Douglas reminded him that the South had, by the action of a Republican Congress, the full right to emigrate into all the territory of the United States; and that, with the consent of the Republican Congress, every inch of the territory of the United States south of the thirty-seventh degree of latitude was at that hour open to slavery. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... all bodies re-action is equal to action, it is certain that the earth gravitates also towards the moon; and that the sun gravitates towards both. That every one of the satellites of Saturn gravitates towards the other four, and the other four towards it; all five towards ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... England[764]. There may be a little vanity mixed; but he has shewn, that money is not his first object.' BOSWELL. 'Yet Foote used to say of him, that he walked out with an intention to do a generous action; but, turning the corner of a street, he met with the ghost of a halfpenny, which frightened him.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, that is very true, too; for I never knew a man of whom it could be said with less ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... cure cannot be reached by the reading of the Bible, by Sunday-school training, nor by any possible political or legislative action. Men or women cannot be legislated into virtue. That the remedy, to a great extent, must be supplied by woman's action and influence, we not only concede, but claim. But it is only as woman, as wife, as mother, that she must do the work: as woman, to soften asperities, and to refine ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... insignificant. He was not a gentleman by birth, but he was—and Mary's standard was fairly high—so far as she could see, a thorough gentleman in feeling and in action. Moreover, he had ability, and an immense capacity for hard work, both of them ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... that was to be made on the morrow, with the object of obtaining possession of the Boer gun at Game Tree Fort, the fire from which had lately been very disastrous to life and property in the town. He was fated in this very action to meet his death, and afterwards I vividly recalled our conversation, and reflected how bitterly disappointed he would have been had anything occurred to prevent his taking part in it. The next day, Boxing Day, I shall ever remember as being, figuratively speaking, as black and dismal ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... the four frigates were distant from each other rather more than a league—the Dawn being just then half a league from the two Frenchmen, and rather more distant from the English. Had an action then commenced, we might have been a mile out of the line of fire. Curious to know the result, I stood on a short distance farther, and backed my top-sail, to await the issue. I was influenced to take this course, from an expectation that either party, after a conflict with an equal, would be less ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... its right foot in a slow arc, employing a double-jointed, breaking action of its leg. For a long moment it rested its entire weight on its lumpy right foot, while its momentum carried its body sluggishly forward. Then it repeated the motion with its left leg; then again its right. All the while evidencing great ...
— Vital Ingredient • Charles V. De Vet
... of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in the world, that there was a use for him, a something which he alone could do, and he patiently awaited the Lord's orders. Now he knew that his special work had been put ready to his hand—the deliverance of these two little ones. And although the call to action did not sound until his sands of life were well-nigh run, the answer "Ready!" rang none the ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... tried to realize how she had awoke that very morning, hopeful and happy, and that she had had a dreadful loss which was her own—only hers, and could meet with no sympathy from others. But then she remembered that it had met with sympathy already—not much in words, but in tone and look and action—from the one unfailing friend of her whole life. Maurice knew—Maurice did not contemn her—there was a little humiliation in the thought, but more sweetness. She went over the whole scene in the chapel, and for the first ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... The cantonments of Meerut were of great extent, being nearly five miles in length by two in breadth, the barracks of the British troops were situated at some distance from those of the native regiments, and the action of the troops was paralyzed by the incompetency of the general, an old man who had lost all energy, and who remained in a state of indecision while the men of the native regiments shot their officers, murdered all the women and children, and the white inhabitants ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... and the juice to flow out from its pores: as much as one-third of the juice of the meat is often forced out in this manner. Now, as this juice is pure extract of meat, containing albumen, osmazome, and other valuable principles, it follows that meat which has been preserved by the action of salt can never have the nutritive properties ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... distinct to ourselves, much less to others. Why did he twice throw a look into the glass in the act of passing it? He stood for a moment with head erect facing it. His eyes for the nonce seemed little to peruse his outer features; the grey gathered brows, and the wrinkles much action of them had traced over the circles half up his high straight forehead; the iron-grey hair that rose over his forehead and fell away in the fashion of Richard's plume. His general appearance showed the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gave the signal for the home flight. Home they turned, and as they did so, four big Albatrosses, a section of the first group they had met, joined to two of the second group, came at them. Without any concerted idea of action Joe, Jimmy, and Harry looped straight over simultaneously, every one of the three performing a perfect loop and coming right side up at the same moment. Each of them, also, fired a round at the Boche immediately in front of him and made off for home ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... lower class the comparatively cribbed, cabined, and confined existence is also of the greatest service to that community of thought and action upon which conjugal happiness to so large an extent depends. Domestic occupations also occupy the thoughts of the wives, and business those of the husbands, so continually, as to leave few moments of mental vacuity for Satan to introduce mischief into. Of an evening the clubs are almost ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... children learn "The Shepherd of King Admetus," which is one of the finest poems ever written as showing the possible growth of real history into mythology, the tendency of mankind to deify what is fine or sublime in human action. Not every child will learn this entire poem, because it is too long. But every child will learn the best lines in it while the children are teaching it to me and when I take my turn in teaching it to them. No child fails to catch the spirit ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... Harcourt treated the deputation with the utmost discretion when he received them. We also know that Mr. Harcourt and General Botha are on very friendly personal relations, and under these circumstances, without wishing to dictate any action in the matter to the powers that be on both sides of the water, we would like to join ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... anarchistic idea is this, that there are qualities present in man, which permit the possibilities of social life, organization, and co-operative work without the application of force. Such qualities are solidarity, common action, and love of justice. To-day they are either crippled or made ineffective through the influence of compulsion; they can hardly be fully unfolded in a society in which groups, classes, and individuals are placed in hostile, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... English Renaissance—for Elizabeth's England, action and imagination went hand in hand; the dramatists and poets held up the mirror to the voyagers. In a sense, the cult of the sea is the oldest note in English literature. There is not a poem in Anglo-Saxon but breathes the saltness and the bitterness of the sea-air. To the old English ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... points, and such as most directly tended to the public welfare, being imprinted on the hearts of their youth by a good discipline, would be sure to remain, and would find a stronger security, than any compulsion would be, in the principles of action formed in them by their best lawgiver, education. And as for things of lesser importance, as pecuniary contracts, and such like, the forms of which have to be changed as occasion requires, he thought it the best way to prescribe no positive ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Once every month the King, wrapped in a dark cloak and with a muffled lantern in his hand, went in and knelt by her side calling out, 'Mi reina! Mi reina!' and sometimes breaking through the formal etiquette that in Spain governs every separate action of life, and sets limits even to the sorrow of a King, he would clutch at the pale jewelled hands in a wild agony of grief, and try to wake by his mad kisses the ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... law; so that, when such unfortunate occurrences happen as the late shooting affair, there seems to be nothing for it but indignation and sorrow, and perhaps an examination into the circumstances to discover if they justified recourse to such extreme action: e. g., the shooting seems to have stopped further proceeding in the draft. If there were any civil power here, such things would be as unjust and horrible as they seem. As it is, each case has to be weighed by itself and may prove better than it seems. The Massachusetts ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... breeds of our domesticated animals, as compared with the wild Species of the same Genus, they are of a peculiar character entirely distinct from those that prevail among the latter, and are altogether incident to the circumstances under which they occur. By this I do not mean the natural action of physical conditions, but the more or less intelligent direction of the circumstances under which they live. The inference drawn from the varieties introduced among animals in a state of domestication, with reference to the origin ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... and so did the pea-blossoms, and the pods actually began to fill before I saw that well-driver again. I had had a good deal of correspondence with him in the meantime, urging him to prompt action, but he always had some good reason for delay. (I found out afterwards that he was busy fulfilling a contract made before mine, in which he promised to drive a well as soon as the ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... proud, contented face as the firelight played on it, and made the treasured letter visible to its reader. Then she had listened to particulars of the other son, in the Baltic, of whom his mother was temperately proud, not rising to her previous enthusiasm. He had, however, been in action; that was his strong point, at present. By that time Mrs. Thrale's domestic record only needed a word or two about her daughter, Mrs. Costrell, to be complete for its purpose, a tentative enlightenment of its hearer, which might induce counter-revelation. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... ways at home. Should the reader ever meet a prince in that prince's country, I should advise him to do just as other people do there. He will probably question, and not unreasonably, if he should accept the implied inferiority; but the best of all principles for extempore action is to do what seems the usual thing, unless we have previously decided from mature consideration to do the unusual thing. It is not the prince's fault that he is a prince: he means to be civil to you, and you can do no good by making him and yourself uncomfortable. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... there are a thousand and one things in the nature of aids to the underwriter—things whose proper action he doesn't directly control, although he has to keep a father's eye on them to see that they ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... had drunk but a few drops of the narcotic potion, was awakened by this cry which echoed through his soul; he arose as though moved by a spring, flung off his coverings, and with that promptitude of action that God has bestowed upon mothers in moments of danger, event up to his daughter's room, found a light, knelt on the edge of the bed, and began to test his child's pulse and watch her breathing with ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... committee of the state council, constituted the real government of the country. Here the most important affairs were decided upon without the concurrence of the other seignors, Orange, Egmont, and Glayon, who, at the same time, were held responsible for the action of government. The Cardinal was smooth in manner, plausible of speech, generally even-tempered, but he was overbearing and blandly insolent. Accustomed to control royal personages, under the garb of extreme obsequiousness, he began, in his intercourse ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and that same afternoon found them in the same place, with the American ready for action, and the boys carrying rope ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... Nibor, "life will manifest itself in a few minutes. It is possible that the muscles will act first, and that their action may be convulsive, on account of not yet being regulated by the influence of the nervous system. I ought to apprise you of this fact, in order that you may not be frightened if such a thing transpires. Madame, being a mother, ought to be less astonished at it than any one else; she has experienced, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... the beautiful hilly outlines beyond Plassy rose upon her view with a new expression. Sterner, and graver; they seemed to say, "It is life work, now, my child; you must be firm, and if necessary rugged, like us; but truth of action has its own beauty too, and the sunlight of Divine favour rests there always." A shadowless sunlight lay on the crowns and shoulders of the mountains as Eleanor drew near. She got out of the carriage to walk the last few steps and look at the place. Plassy never was more lovely. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... away may live to fight another day," was in reality the only literature the bold and adventurous pirate would comprehend or accept. Therefore, well equipped in a stanch, trim vessel, with the lockers filled, the magazines stocked, the guns aimed and ready for action, they were brave enough to combat even a man-of-war. The books are replete with the thrilling accounts of engagements and set battles waged between pirates and resisting armed merchantmen, resulting completely in ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... at it and said impressively, "Tragic is sad, but sad like his eyes, sad but still wonderfully beautiful, more beautiful than anything that is jolly." Then she bent her head back and let the bunch glide slowly into her open mouth, and in this action she felt wholly magnificent, wholly beautiful, wholly a part of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... in the man's manner or tone. He was not excited and he spoke in a low but distinct voice. Mr. Maxwell was conscious, even as he stood there smitten into dumb astonishment at the event, that somehow the man's action reminded him of a person he had once seen walking and talking in ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... parts of the colony of Virginia, so notoriously known to be the property of the crown of Great Britain. He inquired by whose authority and instructions the French Commander-general had marched this force from Canada, and made this invasion; intimating that his own action would be regulated by the answer he should receive, and the tenor of the commission with which he was honored. At the same time he required of the commandant his peaceable departure, and that he would forbear ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... loss of the wealth which ought to have gone to support the family earldom. It was monstrous to him that the property of one Earl Lovel should not appertain to the next Earl. He would on the moment have had the laws with reference to the succession of personal property altered, with retrospective action, so that so great an iniquity should be impossible. When the case against the so-called Countess was, as it were, abandoned by the Solicitor-General, and the great interests at stake thrown up, he would have put the conduct of the matter into other hands. Then had come upon him the bitterness ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... jeer at Tommy's want of interest in the sex, thinking it a way of goading him to action. One evening, the bottles circulating, they mentioned one Dolly, goddess at some bar, as a fit instructress for him. Coarse pleasantries passed, but for a time he writhed in silence, then burst upon them indignantly ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... saying," and yet out of this hatred will spring a deeper, truer, love, and the stage may not be escaped on the way to the Strait Gate. Then the aspirant must learn Control of thoughts, and this will lead to Control of actions, the thought being, to the inner eye, the same as the action: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."[197] He must acquire Endurance, for they who aspire to tread "the Way of the Cross" will have to brave long and bitter sufferings, and they must be able to endure, "as seeing ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... which made it possible for her to be allowed to plead her case there as she had pleaded it in Manila. A pardon was sent back, as fast as wire and steamer and wire again could convey it. Heber Smith wears the uniform of a second lieutenant, now, won for bravery in action since he went back into the service; and every one who knew her in the Philippines, cherishes the memory of ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... called Sundar or the Beatiful. To a European taste it is the most intolerably tedious of the whole poem, abounding in repetition, overloaded description, and long and useless speeches which impede the action of the poem. Manifest interpolations of whole Cantos also occur. I have omitted none of the action of the Book, but have occasionally omitted long passages of common-place description, lamentation, and long stories which have ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... days were pregnant with rumour and action. The waves of terror and despair that lashed over the city, as blow after blow fell, had now receded. The white banner, that was always lowered at the approach of an enemy, still spread its undulating folds above Janiculum; the crops and fruit trees and vines smiled ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... differing in this from all the other Oriental creeds, and even from the Alohayistic legend with which the book of Genesis commences, attributed the creation to the immediate action of the Supreme Being. The Theosophists of the other Eastern Peoples interposed more than one intermediary between God and the world. To place between them but a single Being, to suppose for the production of the world but a single intermediary, was, in their eyes, to lower the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... man leading a solitary life, but also an ardent lover. I would have spent all my life in work, asking no more from fate than to see Marie at her window from time to time at night. But, once she was being persecuted, another man arose within me, a man of action, bungling, certainly, and inexperienced, but a man who was ready to stick at nothing, and who, not knowing how to save Marie Fauville, had no other object before him than to do away with that enemy of Marie's to whom he was entitled to ascribe all ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... Snip was one of them. Snip's failing was so well known that no attention was paid to him. He gave, indeed, a short bark, and bounced up two or three times like a trap-ball, looking both ways at once; but this action only called down upon him ...
— The Long Hillside - A Christmas Hare-Hunt In Old Virginia - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... nearby two strokes chimed out, dropping separate and rounded on the silence. They dropped on him like tangible things, calling him to action. He sat up, his brain-clouds dispersed, and thought. Any information of the lost bandit would gain clemency for Mayer, and Mayer had a clew. Knapp would remember the paper taken from his partner's coat ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... in verse in Drum Taps and The Wound Dresser, and in prose in Specimen Days. From these scenes he was removed by his appointment to a Government clerkship, from which, however, he was soon dismissed on the ground of having written books of an immoral tendency. This action of the authorities led to a somewhat warm controversy, and after a short interval W. received another Government appointment, which he held until 1873, when he had a paralytic seizure, which rendered his retirement ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... camera ready for instantaneous use. He knew that if by any great good luck he "jumped" a deer that had been lying down, and sleeping in the heat of the day, it would require considerable presence of mind and a quick action in order to snapshot the animal at ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... the devil asked our Lord to fall down and worship him. Now how could that be a temptation to pride? Surely that was asking our Lord to do anything but a proud action, rather the most humiliating and most base of all actions. My friends, it seems to me that if our Lord had fallen down and worshipped the evil spirit, He would have given way to the spirit of pride utterly and boundlessly; and I will ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the House, he-was able to put all the parties to the prosecution into-the witness-box and make them give an account of themselves. Mr. Newdegate was one of the victims, and the poor man made confessions that furnished Mr. Bradlaugh with ground for a successful action against him under the law of Maintenance. Mr. Newdegate was a hard-mouthed witness, but he-was saddled, bridled, and ridden to the winning-post. His lips opened literally, making his mouth like the slit ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... see 'ee that bad," came the voice. She paid no heed, but clenched her hands under the bedclothes; her heart had settled into an even thunderous beating that to her ears almost deafened the voice that provoked its action. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... than that presuming you go by automobile. So you see the toes of the town touch two foreign frontiers; and of all German cities it is the most westerly and, therefore, closest of all to the zone of action in ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... given to wink, I have never before heard of the Heavenly Bodies being accused, of immorality. It is true that the duplicity is said to be only "apparent" or alleged, but this is doubtless due to the precaution of the scientist to escape an action for libel. Flatterers have often been accused of this vice, and Satellites are not much better. A "Star" on the stage might perhaps thus acknowledge the presence of a friend and admirer in the Stalls or in the charmed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... evaluated independently by the judges. Then each judge made a second evaluation with the knowledge of the findings of the other two judges. The Chairman then arbitrated the differences of opinion among the three judges. This action amounted only to the placing of four entries after the first prize ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... me when neither of the mates were looking, and touching a formidable-looking knife he wore in his sheath, signify that he should enjoy running the point into me. Some relation of his had been among the men killed, and this made him feel bitter towards us. Peter, who saw the action, advised me to remain quiet, and to take no notice of it. "He only wants an excuse for a quarrel, and therefore, unless you wish to please him, do not give it," observed my friend. I followed his advice, not only at the present, but on many future occasions, ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... by the atmosphere and melody of her verse. Its spell was upon him, too. Unlike Mr. Hamlin, he did not sing. He only halted once or twice, silently combing his straight narrow beard with his three fingers, until the action seemed to draw down the lines of his face into limitless dejection, and an inscrutable melancholy filled his small gray eyes. The few birds which had hailed Mr. Hamlin as their successful rival fled ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... gravitation draws it gradually to the ground. This is the manner in which experienced aviators operate, but it must be kept in mind that these men are experts. They understand air currents, know how to control the action and direction of their machines by shifting the position of their bodies, and by so doing avoid accidents which would be ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... it was not until he had completed more than ten thousand experiments that he obtained any positive preliminary results whatever. Through all this vast amount of research there had been no previous signs of the electrical action he was looking for. These experiments had extended over many months of constant work by day and night, but there was no breakdown of Edison's faith in ultimate success—no diminution of his sanguine and confident expectations. The failure of an experiment simply meant to him that he had found ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... their development, the higher manifestations of them being many times—perhaps a hundred or a thousand times—stronger than the lower. Each of these characteristics is totally inconsistent with any action of the law of natural selection in the production of the faculties referred to; and the facts, taken in their entirety, compel us to recognise some origin for them wholly distinct from that which has served to account for the animal characteristics—whether ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... implanted on it unalterably to the last. This was the quickness, keenness, and practical power, the eager, restless, energetic outlook on each several feature, that seemed to tell so little of a student or writer of books, and so much of a man of action and business in the world. Light and motion flashed from every part of it. It was as if made of steel, was said of it, four or five years after the time to which I am referring, by a most original and delicate observer, the late Mrs. Carlyle. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... It was no case for putting up his feet, for the gale was blowing hard on his right cheek, but the downward grade enabled him to keep his course with little exertion. His anxiety to get back to the scene of action was for the moment appeased, since he knew he was making as good speed as the weather allowed, so he had ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... social disposition, in an interest and attachment to external, physical things rather than to subjective states and objects of introspection; in a disposition for expression rather than enterprise and action. The changes which have taken place in the manifestations of this temperament have been actuated by an inherent and natural impulse, characteristic of all living things, to persist and maintain themselves in a changed environment. Such changes ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... He watched the big man plant himself, swaying a little on his feet as though poising for action, and beside him a slightly ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... was fearless, not because he had grown used to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because he had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger. He had grown accustomed when going into action to think about anything but what would seem most likely to interest him—the impending danger. During the first period of his service, hard as he tried and much as he reproached himself with cowardice, he had not been able to do this, but with time it ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... province of Connaught) was given to Medhbh before every other province. (The reason that the government of this land was given to Medhbh is because there was none of the race of Eochaidh fit to receive it but herself, for Lughaidh was not fit for action at the time.) And whenever, therefore, the monarchy of Erin was enjoyed by any of the descendants of Cobhthach Coelbregh, the province of Connaught was his ruidles (i.e., his native principality). And for ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... magnificent republic had supposed that what Charles VIII wanted was simply a passage through her territory, so when the news came there was a general feeling of discontent, which was augmented by the return of the other ambassadors, whom Piero had not even consulted when he took action as he did. Piero considered it necessary that he should return, so he asked Charles's permission to precede him to the capital. As he had fulfilled all his promises, except the matter of the loan, ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... In point of energetic action and material progress, Velasquez reminds us of a later Governor-General, the famous Tacon. In a single decade, Velasquez founded the seven cities of Baracoa, Santiago de Cuba, Trinidad, Bayamo, Puerto del Principe, St. ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... only too well that my perverse and biting fortune could not long delay to send me some fresh calamity, because I kept ever before my eyes the great mistake I had committed while seeking to do a good action. I refer to my affairs in France. The King could not swallow the displeasure he felt at my departure; and yet he wanted me to return, if only this could be brought about without concessions on his part. I thought ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Domingo last week," he explained. "And they're waiting for me now. I'm to lead the attack on the fortress. We land in shore boats under the guns of the ship and I take the fortress. First, we show the ship clearing for action and the men lowering the boats and pulling for shore. Then we cut back to show the gun-crews serving the guns. Then we jump to the landing-party wading through the breakers. I lead them. The man who ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... a purse of twenty thousand francs. In 1890 Monet and Camille Pelletan presented to M. Fallieres, then Minister of Instruction, the picture for the Luxembourg, and in 1907 (January 6), thanks to the prompt action of Clemenceau, one of Manet's earliest admirers, the hated Olympia was hung in the Louvre. The admission was a shock, even at that late day when the din of the battle had passed. When in 1884 there was held at ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... destruction!" cried Kirkpatrick, and, enraged at opposition, he thrust his commander (little expecting such an action) from off the body of the earl. De Valence seized his advantage, and catching Kirkpatrick by the limb that pressed on him, overthrew him; and by a sudden spring, turning quickly on Wallace, struck his dagger into his side. All this was done in an instant. Wallace did not fall, but staggering, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... express our endorsement of the action of our beloved president, Miss Willard, and of the national executive committee, in regard to the Prohibition party, as being in harmony with the resolution passed in the national convention ...
— Two Decades - A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York • Frances W. Graham and Georgeanna M. Gardenier
... freedom of mind, united with power and elasticity, is the disposition in which a true work of art ought to dismiss us, and there is no better test of true aesthetic excellence. If after an enjoyment of this kind we find ourselves specially impelled to a particular mode of feeling or action, and unfit for other modes, this serves as an infallible proof that we have not experienced any pure aesthetic effect, whether this is owing to the object, to our own mode of feeling—as generally happens—or ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... Sergeant. "When I came here, I undertook to throw the necessary light on the matter of the missing Diamond. I am now ready, and waiting to redeem my pledge. When I have stated the case to Lady Verinder as the case now stands, and when I have told her plainly what course of action to take for the recovery of the Moonstone, the responsibility will be off my shoulders. Let her ladyship decide, after that, whether she does, or does not, allow me to go on. I shall then have done what I undertook to do—and I'll take ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... you say, or hear, without a chill somewhere deep inside. Not even me and I know a man can survive ionic weapons. I know because I did once. Weapons so powerful I'm one of the last men alive who saw them in action. Mathematically the big ones could wipe out a Galaxy. I saw a small one destroy a star in ten seconds. I watched Saltario for a long time. It seemed a long time, anyway. It was probably twenty seconds. I was wondering if he ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... conclusions would be correct—for what? For the world of telephonic messages, for the type of messages that go through the telephone. Something definite and valuable he might know with regard to the spheres of action and of thought of his telephonic subscribers, but outside those spheres he could have no experience. Pent up in his office he could never have seen or touched even a telephonic subscriber in himself. Very much in ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... the two flights of narrow stairs to the counting-room, where his first action was to take off a large piece of cannel coal just put on the fire by Mr. James Bowdoin, and damn his son and heir for his extravagance. As the coal put back in the hod was rapidly filling the room with its smoke, James the younger fled incontinently; ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... it civilization which makes laws or admits of laws and finds accommodating administrators of laws, under the action of which the most sacred charge of a State—its helpless and innocent childhood—is left a prey to vile associations of men and women, from whose soul within them is obliterated all that was Divine, and all which is ...
— Is The Young Man Absalom Safe? • David Wright
... be, because it will be after your last audience, and when you have taken your leave of the Queen, so that you cannot then appear in public nor in any public action, because it will be to present yourself before those of whom you had taken ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... was thoroughly roused. She persisted. "Once more," she whispered, persuasively, "let us be friends." She gently laid her hand as she spoke on Mercy's shoulder. Mercy roughly shook it off. There was a rudeness in the action which would have offended the most patient woman living. Grace drew back indignantly. "Ah!" she cried, "you ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... he, "after what we've been talking about! I am more strict and formal than you, if it comes to that; and that you should object to such an innocent action shows that you are ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... other associations representing bankers, manufacturers, middle-class artisans, and the legal and medical professions; various organizations represent the cultural interests of Flanders and Wallonia; various peace groups such as the Flemish Action Committee Against Nuclear ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Britannulist on the ground, and I must say that after that Mr Brittlereed managed the matter altogether to Jack's satisfaction. Over after over Jack went on, and received every ball that was bowled. They tried their catapult with single, double, and even treble action. Sir Kennington did his best, flinging the ball with his most tremendous impetus, and then just rolling it up with what seemed to me the most provoking languor. It was all the same to Jack. He had in truth got his "eye in," and as surely as the ball came to him, it was sent away to ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... hour that tender bosom fill With agony and dark despair Is grief too great for me to bear. I cannot, brother, call to mind One wilful fault or undesigned, When I have pained in anything My mothers or my sire the king. The right my father keeps in view, In promise, word, and action true; Let him then all his fear dismiss, Nor dread the loss of future bliss. He fears his truth herein will fail: Hence bitter thoughts his heart assail. He trembles lest the rites proceed, And at his pangs my heart should bleed. So now this earnest wish is mine, The consecration to resign, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... a seamed and broken flat of dead coral, elevated but slightly above the level of the sea. Though there was no wind, and had been none during the day, the mighty billows of the open ocean came rolling in upon the outer edge of the reef with their accustomed violence. The action of the trade-winds is upon the whole so steady and uniform, that when it does cease for short periods, its effects continue, and upon the windward side of these coral-belted islands, there are breakers that never cease to rage, even in the calmest weather. ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... action to the word he caught up a shining cake-tin and cast it straight at Carey. That gentleman dodged, but Anthony caught it, performed upon it an imitation of the cymbals, then turned about and laid it in a nest of similar tins upon a shelf ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... began awkwardly playing with it. It was at this moment that the greater excitement awoke mamma, who finding to her surprise what Ellen was doing, seized her hand, and pressing and rubbing it with more art against her clitoris, continued its action with exclamations of delight, declaring that Ellen was her dear precious loved girl, and then with a positive cry of delight, spent profusely over Ellen's hand. After panting for some time in perfect ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... sweetmeats, to die of inanition or to pester you to death with complaints and jealousies and inopportune caresses; but to be with you and help your life when you most need help, by word and thought and deed, to grow more and more a part of you, an essential element of you in action or repose, to part from which would be to destroy at a blow the whole fabric of your existence. Would you not say that with such a woman the transitory pleasure of early conversation and intercourse had been the stepping-stone to the lasting happiness ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... female types. He commented to me briefly, but sadly, "Yes, we have now two governments"; but she was all aglow. Never would she lay down arms; M. Ollivier's light heart was "not in it" with hers; her countenance shone with joy, except when clouded with contempt for the craven action of the Star of the West, a merchant-steamer with supplies for Fort Sumter which had turned back before the fire of the Charleston batteries. Never could she have done such a thing. What influence women wield, and how irresponsible! ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... kindness and tenderness of the tone and action spoiled Ellen's breakfast. She could not look at anybody nor hold up her head for the rest of ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to discuss the wanton disregard of these solemn obligations and protestations, when the present Chancellor of the German Empire, in his speech to the Reichstag and to the world on Aug. 4, 1914, frankly admitted that the action of the German military machine in invading Belgium was a ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... literary treasures sometimes by his skill in an art which lay much more in the hand than in the head: however, as Pinelli never stirred out of his native city but once in his lifetime, when the plague drove him from home, his field of action was so restricted, that we can hardly conclude that he could have been so great an enterpriser in this way. No one can have lost their character by this sort of exercise in a confined circle, and be allowed to prosper! A light-fingered Mercury would hardly haunt the same spot: ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... this unexpected confounding of his hopes. Her head throbbed with dull pains which gradually increased in intensity; these, at last, became so violent that she wondered if it were going to burst. She felt the need of action, of doing anything that might momentarily ease her mind of the torments afflicting it. Her wedding frock attracted her attention. Mavis, with a lump in her throat, took off and folded this, and put it out of ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... action to the word, Herr Schimmelpodt grasped the clerk by one shoulder and one thigh. Up over his head the German raised the unhappy young man. Herr Schimmelpodt's arms fell and rose as he "exercised" with the young man for ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... great mass of strata which now forms the centre of the island was formerly at the bottom of the ocean; and that the western part, now a firm breccia, had been a beach of shingle produced by the action of the waves on the upper strata, which may have formed a coast above the sea: the granite of the eastern end of the island had been forced into its present situation from beneath the strata, with sufficient violence to dislocate and contort the beds nearest to it, and ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... the morning, received no answer to his speech; drew near the bed, and saw the calm, beautiful face lying white and cold under the ineffaceable seal of death. The attitude was exquisitely easy; there had been no pain—no struggle. The action of the heart must have ceased as he ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... would Miss Wealthy herself go into the parlor when the Doctor had finished his dessert, till she was sure that Benny had been taken out of doors. Hildegarde was inclined to remonstrate at this course of action, but Miss Wealthy would not ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... by the whole detachment. The pursuit of the retreating Indians was immediately renewed, and continued until both parties had crossed Sycamore creek. This brought them upon the camp of Black Hawk, who having been apprized of the approach of the whites, had mounted his men and prepared for action. The Indians were concealed behind some bushes, and after having fired their guns, raised the war-whoop and resorted to the tomahawk. Their fire was returned, with but little effect, and then Major Stillman, instantly ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... superintendent, and he had sent How Long to the auditor, and the auditor had told him to go to the gang boss and get his time, and then proceed in the proper manner, after which, if his claim turned out to be all right, we would call a meeting of the syndicate and take early action in relation to it. By this, the reader will readily see that, although we were not wealthy, we knew how to do business just the same as though we had been a ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... of Session of Scotland an action is first tried by one of the Judges, who is called the Lord Ordinary; and if either party is dissatisfied, he may appeal to the whole Court, consisting of fifteen, the Lord President and fourteen other Judges, who have both in and out of Court the title of Lords, from the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... "culture". She visited our atoll, where Kutrov's passionate exposition had already raised the mean temperature some degrees, but didn't stay long. Such debates didn't suggest any course of social or political action, and couldn't be trued in to any of ...
— The Troubadour • Robert Augustine Ward Lowndes
... comprehensive reform or the need for watchful conservatism presented itself to his mind depended largely upon the weight which his emotions cast into one or the other scale, and this element made it difficult to forecast his probable action. Thus his political character was the result of influences differing widely in their origin—influences, moreover, which it was hard for ordinary ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... had to do so much talking," he said. "And I particularly apologize to you, Pollard. But I'm tired of being hounded. As a matter of fact, I'm now going to try to play the part of the hound myself. Action, boys; action is what we must have, and action right in this county under the ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... metaphysics it consciously went back to him and expressly opposed the metaphysics of the Stoics. Yet on this very point it also learned something from the Stoics; for the Neoplatonic conception of the action of God on the world, and of the nature and origin of matter, can only be explained by reference to the dynamic pantheism of the Stoics. In other respects, especially in psychology, it is diametrically opposed to the Stoa, though superior. Fourthly, ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... mother was busy putting things into shape, for the Delight Makers had left behind a fearful disorder. Shyuote was there, too; he was careful not to assist his mother, but to stand in her way as much as possible, which action on his part called forth some very active scolding. But it struck Okoya that she appeared more cheerful than before. Her motions were brisker, her step more elastic. Say Koitza placed the usual food before her eldest son, and at this moment Zashue came in also. He felt exceedingly proud of his exploits ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... for my own neck to keep honour with the dishonourable Doltaire, who himself had set the noose swinging; and, inexpressible misery! involved in my shame and peril a young blithe spirit, breathing a miasma upon the health of a tender life. Every rebellious atom in my blood sprang to indignant action. I swore that if they fetched me to the gallows to celebrate their Noel, other lives than mine should go to keep me company on the dark trail. To die like a rat in a trap, oiled for the burning, and lighted by the torch of hatred! No, I would die ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... meet their needs. Something of the breadth of the landscape and of the free sweeping winds of heaven gave them breadth and power to look the world squarely in the face, and to measure it at its true value, when their hour for action came. ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... his right mind would commit so childish an act. It would be revenge of a reactive order, fool matching fools, whereas Bennington ought to be more magnanimous. The labor unions called special meetings, and with one or two exceptions voted to stand by the action of ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... birth in the order of worms through the evil acts of thy past life. If, however, thou thinkest of attaining to righteousness and merit, thou mayst again attain to it. Deities as well as beings crowned with ascetic success, enjoy or endure the consequence of acts done by them in this field of action. Amongst men also, when acts of merit are performed, they are performed from desire of fruit (and not with disregard for fruit). The very accomplishment that one seeks to acquire are sought from desire of the happiness they will bring.[528] Learned or ignorant (in a former ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 250,000 copies, instead of 400,000, as he and his publisher, Mr. Goethemann, confidently expected. Mr. Abel has memorialised the Prime Minister, but without effect, and at last determined to take decisive action himself. Accordingly, having chartered a swift steamer manned by Manx fishermen, and carrying 500 volunteers wearing the national uniform, Mr. Abel set out from Douglas (I. of M.) on Wednesday last and, landing in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... had a soreness which the constant sight of her irritated. It was in vain that he said there was no occasion, perhaps no opportunity, for her to speak, yet he was hurt that she seemed to have seen nothing uncommon in his risking his own life for that of a man like Hicks. He had set the action low enough in his own speech; but he knew that it was not ignoble, and it puzzled him that it should be so passed over. She had not even said a word of congratulation upon his own escape. It might be that she did not know how, or did not think it was her place ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells |
