"At random" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... writing a book? No, indeed! This is only a record of my heart's life, written at random and carelessly thrown aside, sheet after sheet, sibylline leaves from the great book of fate. The wind may blow them away, a spark consume them. I may myself commit them to the flames. I am tempted to do so at ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the Avenue, turning east. Now all plans concerning Broadway were given up; also, he felt no anxiety about getting lost. For he went at random. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... had happened in consequence of Henri having omitted to replace the stopper of his powder-horn, and when, in his anxiety for Joe, he fired at random amongst the Indians, despite Dick's entreaties to wait, a spark communicated with the powder-horn and blew him up. Dick and Crusoe were only a little singed, but the former was not disposed to quarrel with an accident which had sent their enemies ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... took the book which he had been urging upon me, at which Harriet coughed meaningly to attract my attention. She knew the danger when I really got my hands on a book. But I made up as innocent as a child. I opened the book almost at random—and it was as though, walking down a strange road, I had come upon an old tried friend not seen before in years. For there on the ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... last glimpse of Browning at Asolo, where the master-spell of Italy first touched his genius, and whither at the end he came—"asolare, to disport in the open air, amuse one's self at random"—at heart and in temper of the same unquenched and unquenchable vitality as on that summer day long ago when he sat where Milton had sat, and pressed, as Milton had pressed, the keys of ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... a rhyme made by uniformity of the vowels, without reference to the consonants; the regular rhyme, which obtains in other European literatures, is distinguished in Spain by the term consonante. Thus the four following words, taken at random from a Spanish ballad, are consecutive asonantes; regozijo, pellico, luzido, amarillo. In this example, the two last syllables have the assonance; although this is not invariable, it sometimes falling on the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... had been fired at the troops, the latter entered ten or twelve houses, at random, and despatched with their bayonets every one they found. In all the houses on the boulevard, there are metal pipes by which the dirty water runs out into the gutter. The soldiers, with no idea why it was so, conceived a feeling of mistrust ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... dust lay on them to the depth of many inches, serving to deaden the sound of footsteps and facilitate the commission of such deeds of violence as were at this time of daily occurrence in Spain. Riding on at random, Conyngham and his companion soon lost their way in the narrow streets, and were able to satisfy themselves that none had followed them. Here in a quiet alley Conyngham read again the address of the letter of which he earnestly desired to rid ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... prove to your worships," the lawyer said, "that for the last six months the average of boys severely caned by this man has exceeded sixteen a day, putting aside such minor matters as one, two, or three vicious cuts with the cane given at random. It fortunately happened, as I find from my young friend in the dock, that one of the boys has, from motives of curiosity, kept an account for the last six months of the number of boys thrashed every ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... the same row of the bookcase where she had got the dictionary. It was nearly all Encyclopedia, stretching away in a formidable array of volumes exactly alike, except for the tiny gold lettering across the center of the back. She lifted out one at random, the "L's," and it opened accommodatingly of its own accord, when its heaviness slid out of her grasp, to "Lepidoptera." Which was a strange and almost unpronounceable word; but the pictures which accompanied this text were somewhat explanatory ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... she came in. Tuesday was huge fun: a reception at Haggard's. All our party dined there; Lloyd and I, in the absence of Haggard and Leigh, had to play aide-de-camp and host for about twenty minutes, and I presented the population of Apia at random but (luck helping) without one mistake. Wednesday we had two middies to lunch. Thursday we had Eeles and Hoskyn (lieutenant and doctor - very, very nice fellows - simple, good and not the least dull) to dinner. Saturday, Graham and I lunched on board; ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... give competence to a man; we must have something more solid to fall back upon, and the best praise is the praise of the pocket. Our man, it is true, is a man of very limited capacity, who speaks at random upon all things, and only gives applause in the wrong place; but his money makes up for the errors of his judgment. He keeps his discernment in his purse, and his praises are golden. This ignorant, commonplace citizen is, as you see, better to us than that ...
— The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere (Poquelin)
... Sullen moods, and "words at random sent," those judging him from a distance can easily condone; the errors of a hot head are pardonable to one who, in his calmer hours, was ready to confess them. "Your temptation and mine," he writes to his brother Alexander, "is a tendency ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... Bible; and opening it at random, Christie read. She read softly and slowly, psalm after psalm; and soothed by her voice, Mrs Lee lay and listened. After a time, Christie thought that she slept, ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... Iron Ram, but also from other ships that were now drawn close in against the Serpent's hull. For every viking or Dane or Swede who fell, there were ten ready to take his place. The clang of weapons was now at its highest. Spears and arrows flew in the midst, not aimed at random, but each at its own particular mark, and each carrying death on ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... man, amid the crowd That thronged the daily mart, Let fall a word of hope and love, Unstudied from the heart,— A whisper on the tumult thrown, A transitory breath,— It raised a brother from the dust, It saved a soul from death. O germ! O fount! O word of love! O thought at random cast! Ye were but little at the first, But ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of his race had rushed into Maurice de St. Genis' head. He was talking volubly and at random, but he believed for the moment everything that he said. Tears of passion and of fervour came to his eyes and he buried his head in the folds of Crystal's white gown and heavy sobs shook his bent shoulders. She, moved by that motherly tenderness which ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... beating tom-toms and occasionally yelling, approaching at times comparatively close to the position. Knowing, however, that the sentries were out in front, the men for the most part slept quietly in spite of the noise and firing. As the Arabs could fire only at random but two men were hit during ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... earning of money, marriage, publication of books, celebrity, death; and when we have come to an end of this gossip, no ray of relation appears between it and the goddess-born; and it seems as if, had we dipped at random into the Modern Plutarch and read any other life there, it would have fitted the poems as well. It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... study the crossings of the Chattahoochee, and, when all is ready, to move quickly. As a beginning, I will keep the troops and wagons well back from the river, and only display to the enemy our picket-line, with a few field-batteries along at random. I have already shifted Schofield to a point in our left rear, whence he can in a single move reach the Chattahoochee at a point above the railroad-bridge, where there is a ford. At present the waters are ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... the late Dr. Charcot, the well-known French biologist, also demonstrate the rapport existing between the sensitive subject and foreign bodies in proximity. A bottle containing a poison is taken at random from a number of others of similar appearance and is applied to the back of the patient's neck. The hypnotic subject at once begins to develop all the symptoms of arsenical, strychnine or prussic acid poisoning; it being afterwards found that the bottle contains the toxine whose effects ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... these details at random. The others listened sympathetically, and added a few of ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... at random: he was merely venting his petulance; it was a little too exasperating to have his grandmother's portrait offered him at that moment. But to Dorothea's feeling his words had a peculiar sting. She rose and said with a touch of indignation ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... scenes from Ariosto's poems, some of the figures being still warm with colour and instinct with life—and on the walls were the fading remains of other pictures, the freshest among them being a laughing Cupid poised on a knot of honeysuckle, and shooting his arrow at random into the sky. Ordinarily speaking, the huge room was bare and comfortless to a degree,—but the Comtesse Sylvie's wealth, combined with her good taste, had filled it with things that made it homelike ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... had frequented the stage, plenty of Lilies who had taken to flight for injuries often less serious than hers. He could have mentioned names: his head was full of those who let their anger, or their folly, get the better of them and escaped at random, and who went back to every-day life—through the door of scandal—sometimes to meet with worse: martyrdom of the heart, base exploitation in the name of love. Oh, he pitied them from the bottom of his soul! No, Lily shouldn't run away: it was impossible! ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... discovered the faint trace of footprints—evidently made by Raikes. So they followed them in the reasonable belief that they would lead to the settlement of Wytopitlock. But half an hour later the trail seemed to melt away, and after a vain search for it the boys pushed on at random. ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by a the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and religion have been accused of despising humanity, and in practice it has been too often true; but after all both the conception of the prophet and that of the king were formed by paying humanity the supreme compliment of selecting from it almost at random. This daring idea that a healthy human being, when thrilled by all the trumpets of a great trust, would rise to the situation, has often been tested, but never with such complete success as in the case of our dead Queen. On her was piled the ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... found her cold too obstinate for all the precepts of Mrs Eddy; the True Statement of Being, however often repeated, only seemed to inflame it further, and one day, when confined to the house, she had taken a book "quite at random" from the shelves in her library, under, she supposed, the influence of some interior compulsion. This then was ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... of the conduct of female prisoners is so uniform, that any date and any account might be joined at random. Those who read the works of Collins, of Read, of Henderson, and of Lang, and compare them with each other, and with works of the present time, will find little variety of incident. They represent woman deprived of the graces of her own sex, and more than invested with the ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... her with her father's assistance. Kaschta ran up and down in front of the burning pavilion, tearing his hair; now calling his child in tones of anguish, now holding his breath to listen for an answer. To rush at random into the immense-burning building would have been madness. The king observed the unhappy man, and set him to lead the soldiers, whom he had commanded to hew down the wall of Bent-Anat's rooms, so as to rescue the girl who might be within. Kaschta seized ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... this Castle pertains, and his honour being appealed to as the guarantee of their authenticity, might be evidence enough for thee. But since thou listest to be so formal—Varney, or rather my Lord of Leicester, for the affair becomes yours" (these words, though spoken at random, thrilled through the Earl's marrow and bones), "what evidence have you as touching ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... to. The "promises of Chares" passed into a proverb.] and assert, and accuse this or that person, is possible; but so your affairs are ruined. The general commands wretched unpaid hirelings; here are persons easily found, who tell you lies of his conduct; you vote at random from what you hear: what ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... few of the points, set down at random, which he had been enabled to verify within the limits of a single play. They would suffice to give an idea of the process by which, when applied in detail to every one of Shakespeare's plays, he trusted to establish the secret history and import of each, not less than the general sequence and ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... all this diversity of time, place, race, and origin, the colonies had common characteristics: they were established at one stroke and according to certain fixed rules. The colonists did not arrive one by one or in small bands; nor did they settle at random, building houses which little by little became a city, as is the case now with European colonists in America. All the colonists started at once under a leader, and the new city was founded in one day. The foundation was a religious ceremony; the "founder" traced a sacred enclosure, constructed a ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... distinguished but a dark mass of human forms tossed and involved in inexplicable confusion. Arms, gleaming knives, and formidable clubs appeared, above them, but the blows were evidently given at random. The awful effect was heightened by the piercing shrieks of the women and the fierce yells of the warriors. Now and then Duncan caught a glimpse of a light form cleaving the air in some desperate bound, and he rather hoped than believed that the captive yet retained the command of his astonishing ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... superstitious, less civilized age. These legends must have been handed down to generation after generation, for, writing about 1835, Mrs Bray mentions that the peasantry near Tavistock still talked of the 'old warrior,' as they called him. To choose one or two at random, there is the story that once, after he had been away for a very long time, his wife supposed him to be dead, and thought that she was free to marry again. A spirit whispered the news to Sir Francis, who was at the Antipodes. At once he fired a ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... these chance acquaintances, of course, vanished into darkness out of his life. A few here and there got hooked on to him, so to speak, and became his lifelong intimates, but there was an accidental look about all of them as if they were windfalls, samples taken at random, goods fallen from a goods train or presents fished out of a bran-pie. One would be, let us say, a veterinary surgeon with the appearance of a jockey; another, a mild prebendary with a white beard and vague views; another, a young captain in the Lancers, seemingly exactly like other ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... degree all your arrangements. They will keep you to a steady purpose, and your work will go on far more systematically and regularly than it would do if, as in fact many teachers do, you were to come headlong into your school, take things just as you find them, and carry them forward at random without end ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... sat silent for the most part, listening to Phyllis talking excitedly and eagerly beside him, answering at random the questions which came like rapid fire from them all, but planning meanwhile how he should prolong these ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... Lyamshin swore, and sitting down to the piano, began strumming a valse, banging on the keys almost with his fists, at random. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... at random, of the doubts suggested and the illustration afforded by these editions in the study of the text. Of course such minute criticism is of interest only to those few who reckon Dante's words at their true worth. The common reader may be content ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... I am writing at random, and half-tipsy, what you may not equally understand, as you will be sober when you read it; but my sober and my half-tipsy hours you are alike a ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... and got my walking-shoes, then sat up in bed and listened, in order to exactly locate the noise. But I couldn't do it; it was as unlocatable as a cricket's noise; and where one thinks that that is, is always the very place where it isn't. So I presently hurled a shoe at random, and with a vicious vigor. It struck the wall over Harris's head and fell down on him; I had not imagined I could throw so far. It woke Harris, and I was glad of it until I found he was not angry; then I was sorry. He soon went to sleep again, which pleased me; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... far more frequent than conscious hostility. Take a hundred men at random as they hurry through the streets, and how many of them would have to acknowledge that no thought of God had crossed their minds for days or months? So far as they are concerned, either in regard to their thoughts or actions, He is 'a superfluous hypothesis.' Most ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... in going from London to Edinburgh in a third-class carriage in eight or ten hours, but listen to this," said Salemina, who had opened one of her large volumes at random when ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Turning from our direct course we made for the river at its nearest point, though in the utter darkness it was not easy to direct our way with much precision. Raymond rode on one side and Henry on the other. We could hear each of them shouting that he had come upon a deep ravine. We steered at random between Scylla and Charybdis, and soon after became, as it seemed, inextricably involved with deep chasms all around us, while the darkness was such that we could not see a rod in any direction. We partially extricated ourselves by scrambling, cart and all, through a shallow ravine. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... They have been with Mr. Young eight or ten years, and were promoted and maintain their position solely on the ground of ability and faithfulness. They go rapidly from one to another, noting whether they are picking the rows clean. They also take from each tray a basket at random, and empty it into another, thus discovering who are gathering green or imperfect berries. If the fruit falls much below the accepted standard, the baskets are confiscated and no tickets given for them, and if the ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... sort of sociable sorrowfulness, slowly sliding along the rail, "Pray, now, my young friend, what volume have you there? Give me leave," gently drawing it from him. "Tacitus!" Then opening it at random, read: "In general a black and shameful period lies before me." "Dear young sir," touching his arm alarmedly, "don't read this book. It is poison, moral poison. Even were there truth in Tacitus, such truth would have the operation ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... authority of Greece. His seemingly invidious testing of men's pretensions [82] to know, is a sacred service to the God of Delphi, which he dares not neglect. And his fidelity herein had in turn the effect of reinforcing for him, and bringing to a focus, all the other rays of religious light cast at random in the world ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... Cartesians (not Descartes; I did not make that mistake, though the reviewer of Dr. Tulloch's Essay attributes it to me) I take a passage almost at random from Malebranche, who is the best known of the Cartesians, and, though not the inventor of the system of Occasional Causes, is its principal expositor. In Part II., chap. iii., of his Sixth Book, having first said that matter can ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... accuracy. His only object seems to be to stimulate himself and his readers for the moment—to keep both alive, to drive away ennui, to substitute a feverish and irritable state of excitement for listless indolence or even calm enjoyment. For this purpose he pitches on any subject at random without much thought or delicacy—he is only impatient to begin—and takes care to adorn and enrich it as he proceeds with "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." He composes (as he himself has ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... at the same time clearly resolved she must not hear it. She felt she must get him talking upon some impersonal theme at any cost. She snatched about in her mind. "What is the exact force of a motif?" she asked at random. "Before I heard much Wagnerian music I heard enthusiastic descriptions of it from a mistress I didn't like at school. She gave me an impression of a sort of patched quilt; little bits of patterned stuff coming up ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... follows: One boy selects at random a handful of pebbles, marbles or other small objects, and closing his hand, asks, as he holds ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... go at random from street to street. As I walk, my curiosity increases and I quicken my pace. It seems impossible that a whole city can be like this; I am afraid of stumbling across some house or coming into some street that will remind me of other cities, and disturb my beautiful dream. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... assuredly a mistake to represent, with one of the liveliest of Browning's recent exponents, that the story was for him, even at the outset, in the stage of "crude fact," merely a common and sordid tale like a hundred others, picked up "at random" from a rubbish-heap to be subjected to the alchemy of imagination by way of showing the infinite worth of "the insignificant." Rather, he thought that on that broiling June day, a providential "Hand" had "pushed" him to the discovery, in that ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... Richie's affairs flagged, for the apple began to steam deliciously. Dr. Lavendar, watching her with his shrewd old eyes, asked her one or two questions; but, absorbed in the child, she answered quite at random. She put her cheek against his hair, and whispered, softly: "Turn round, and I'll give you forty kisses." Instantly David moved his head away. The snub was so complete that she looked over at Dr. Lavendar, hoping he had not seen ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... Three-Circles in Texas." Buck named at random an outfit in the southern part of the state with which he was slightly acquainted. "Been in the army over two years, and just got ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... growing silent and moody of late—a change for which I could find no cause. He would answer my questions at random, pause in his work to gaze long and intently on the ceiling, and altogether behave in ways unaccountable and strange. The play had been written at white-hot speed: the corrections proceeded at ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I said, speaking at random, but gravely, and as though some special meaning lurked in my words, "that this young lady comes of a race who do not readily change. She has made her choice, and her answer to you is my answer. She will ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... days later in glancing through his newly acquired Testament he came upon a verse which greatly troubled him for a time. His eye had caught it at random and somehow it lodged in ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... an old one—thirty years old, soiled, scribbled wantonly over with a strange name in every variety of enmity to the letterpress, and marked at random with dates twenty years earlier than his own day. But this was not the cause of Jude's amazement. He learnt for the first time that there was no law of transmutation, as in his innocence he had supposed (there was, in some degree, ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... imagination is not without difficulties. First of all, it has not hitherto attracted psychologists, so that we enter the field at random, and wander unguided in an unexplored region. But the principal obstacle is in the lack of determination of this form of imagination, and in the absence of boundary lines. Where does it begin, and where does it end? Penetrating all our life ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... showing the dull red metallic lustre of gold when scraped with a knife. There must have been half a million pounds' worth of it, Jim guessed, in that one chest alone—and there were nine others! The two men then opened a second box, at random, and this chest contained all manner of gold and silver ornaments, of the most exquisitely delicate and intricate workmanship. Cups, necklaces, finger-rings, clasps, sword- hilts, and breast-plates, the latter studded with rough, uncut jewels of enormous size, ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... questions. I answered as well as I could. When I told them I was from Kentucky, they wished to know the county. I told them Fleming. Then they asked the county seat. This also I was able to give; but when they required me to give the counties which bounded it, I was nonplussed. I mentioned a few at random, but suspect most of them were wrong. They said it looked suspicious to find a man who could not bound his own county, but proceeded ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... I many a shaft at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant And many a word, at random spoken. May soothe or wound a ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... my contemporaries have supposed that the estate of a Benedict forbiddeth the resident therein to disport himself as aforetime, in the flowery fields of fancy, and to ambulate at random through the remembered groves of the academy, or the rich gardens of imaginative delight. Verily this is not so. To the right-minded man, all these enjoyments are increased; the ties that bind him to earth are strengthened and multiplied: he anticipates new affections and pleasures, which ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... upon to address the public,—and such a public! (applause ). Ladies and gentlemen,—his feelings are too much for him, and, withdrawing to the basket, he hides his own personality in the following no doubt brilliant effusions taken at random from this intellectual vortex. Ladies and gentlemen,—I beg your attention to the ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... He walked at random, absorbed in these thoughts. As he passed some of the reading-rooms which were already lending books as well as newspapers, a placard caught his eyes. It was an advertisement of a book with a grotesque title, but beneath the announcement he saw his ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... at random sent, Finds mark, the archer little meant! And many a word at random spoken May soothe, or wound, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... on, I say, Fred," shouted Henderson, "you are firing away your balls at random and never look ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... Stevens secured complete stenographic reports of twenty high school lessons in English, history, science, Latin, modern languages, and mathematics; she observed one hundred more such lessons chosen at random, with a view to counting and noting the number and nature of the questions asked in each; and she followed each ten classes through an entire day's work for the purpose of studying the aggregate question-stimulus to which each was subjected ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... at heart, turned away from Heath Hill, and strolled out of the lower part of the town, and wandered almost at random, and ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... opened the book at random for these quotations. Its pages are stuffed with scores as good. Nor will any but the least intelligent reviewer upbraid Mr. Davidson for deriving so much of his inspiration directly from Shakespeare. Mr. Davidson is still a young man; but the first of these plays, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... my heart. Good God, then what do I retain that is of value? The little boy that I was is dead forever, before my eyes. I survived him, but forgetfulness tormented me, then overcame me, the sad process of living ruined me, and I scarcely know what he knew. I remember things at random only, but the most beautiful, ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... religion; and yet it requires but little study of the lower orders of mind and conduct in Christendom to see how fetich-worship still lingers among people called Christians, whether the fetich be the image of a saint or the Virgin, or a verse of the Bible found at random and used much as is a penny-toss to decide minor actions. Or, to look farther south, what means the rabbit's foot carried in the pocket or the various articles of faith now hanging in the limbo between religion and folk-lore in various parts of our ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... consul living in Panama, and this task was no small one: first, because it was absolutely necessary to find the man within twelve hours; second, the man must be unusually conscientious,—it was not possible, of course, to take the first comer at random; finally, there was an utter lack of candidates. Life on a tower is uncommonly difficult, and by no means enticing to people of the South, who love idleness and the freedom of a vagrant life. That light-house keeper ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... say no more. He bowed me politely out, and I walked down the street, and realised that I was restless and wretched. I wandered at random for a while. trying to think what else I could do, for my own peace of mind, if not for Sylvia's welfare. I found myself inventing one worry after another. Dr. Overton had not said just when he was going, and suppose she were to need someone at once? Or suppose something ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... him something; he said, "Yes," entirely at random—and was at once involved in a snarl of other questions, and other random answers. Under his breath he thought, despairingly, "Won't she ever stop talking! ... Edith, I'll give you fifty cents if you'll ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... a realization of the hopelessness of it all, he stood up, pocketed the souvenirs of her again, and walked away in the dusk; away, through the park; away, at random, through squalid, ugly streets, where the first electric-lights were just beginning to flare; where children swarmed in the close heat, wallowing along the gutters, dodging teams and cars, as they essayed to play, setting off a few premature firecrackers and mocking ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... These consist of oblong squares of steel, having the name of the representative engraved upon each side. The urns are so arranged that the white and blue ballots fall into different compartments, not at random, but arrange themselves against a graduated copper rod, which shows at a glance the number of ballots for or against. These rods are taken from the urns, and placed upon a piece of mechanism upon the tribune, so arranged that one side shows all the ayes, the other all the nays, and the secretaries ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... his hat determined to go out and seek her. He reached the end of the street, and there was nothing of her to be seen. She had the option of two or three routes from this point to the post-office; yet he plunged at random into one, till he reached the office to find it quite deserted. Almost distracted now by his anxiety for her he retreated as rapidly as he had come, regaining home only to find that she ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... rocks, whence shortest lies the way To Italy. And now the sun goes down, And darkness gathers on the mountains grey. Close by the water, in a sheltered bay, A few as guardians of the oars we choose, Then stretched at random on the beach we lay Our limbs to rest, and on the toil-worn crews Sleep steals in silence down, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... taken at random: it might be nearer the hilt or nearer the point, according to the distance of the object aimed at. It may also be observed that the "draw" might continue during the entire sweep from B to F, but a very slight consideration will show clearly the advantage of keeping the ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... into the valiant heart of Captain Horn. The pirates were so well armed, they kept up such a savage fire upon his decks, that although their shots were sent at random, several men had been killed, and others—he knew not how many—wounded, that he feared his crew, ordinary sailors and not accustomed to such savage work as this, might consider the contest too unequal, and so lose heart. If that should be the case, ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... train of thoughts was roused by these words in Olivia's mind; and looking at me, she eagerly inquired why the journey to Petersburg was to be given up, if she was in no danger? I assured her that Josephine spoke at random, that my intentions with regard to the embassy ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the promise?" Loder spoke at random. Her manner and her words had both affected him. There was a sensation of ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... fire-god went on his errand, devastating all the forests and trees, like unto the mighty wind, roaring and revolving at random at the end of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... simple meal her care prepared, While Lufra, crouching by her side, Her station claimed with jealous pride, And Douglas, bent on woodland game, Spoke of the chase to Malcolm Graeme, Whose answer, oft at random made, The wandering of his thoughts betrayed. Those who such simple joys have known Are taught to prize them when they 're gone. But sudden, see, she lifts her head; The window seeks with cautious tread. What distant music has the power To win her in ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... control, have so confused things in general that an observer must stand back and get a new focus before he can allow his mind to dwell on the things that he sees. One day's issue of any good newspaper is enough to show what a revolution is upon us, for we merely need to run the eye down columns at random to pick out suggestive little scraps. At present we cannot get that "larger view" about which Dr. W.B. Carpenter used to talk; he was wont to study hundreds and thousands of soundings and measurements piecemeal, and the chaos of figures gradually took form until at length the doctor had ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... show themselves in this opening, the librarian described to Evan the exact location of seat 433 outside, and pointed out a spot where Evan could command a view of seat 433 through the archway. Evan proceeded to the spot, and, taking down a book at random, affected to be lost in studying its pages. Then, half turning and letting his eyes rise carelessly, he ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... superficial heaps of mud, sand, and gravel, usually called alluvium, may be likened to the rubbish of a quarry which has been rejected as useless by the workmen, or has fallen upon the road between the quarry and the building, so as to lie scattered at random over the ground. ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... it, but just as carefully and artistically made. Notice, in addition to the form of these strange earth works, that they are so skillfully done that the attitude frequently suggests action or mood. Nor are they placed at random, but are more or less in harmony with their surroundings. Remember, too, their great number and their large size—a man 214 feet long, a beast 160 feet long, with a tail measuring 320 feet, a hawk 240 feet in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... like those of Greece and Rome, was killed by Christianity, which largely gave place, at a later date, to Muhammedanism; and yet, in the hearts of the people there are still an extraordinary number of the old pagan beliefs. I will mention a few instances, taking them at random from ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... his feet and slid the book under the pillow. Then he seized a textbook at random, and opened it wide. His eyes fastened themselves to the print, seizing upon the meaningless words as if they would save him from a retribution that Rogue Rogan had never ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... desperate and sanguinary. The peasants, fighting with the fury of despair, threw themselves recklessly upon the Republican troops; whose cannon were not yet in a position to come into action, and whose infantry, in the darkness, fired at random. Fighting in the dark, discipline availed but little. Kleber's veterans, however, preserved their coolness, and for a time the ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... of voices seemed to run to right and left all along the line, alarm spreading; with the result that those outside the narrow space where the facts were known took it to be a sudden attack from the rear, and began firing at random in the darkness. In spite of the despair that came over me, I even then could not help feeling a kind of exultation—satisfaction—call it what you will—at the surprise we had given the blundering Boers, and thinking that if the Colonel had been prepared with our men to charge into them ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... argument: he had a novel of his own on the stocks,[22] and he represented that he was in difficulties with it and in need of company. One day, in September, 1899, Dreiser took a sheet of yellow paper and wrote a title at random. That title was "Sister Carrie," and with no more definite plan than the mere name offered the book began. It went ahead steadily enough until the middle of October, and had come by then to the place where Carrie meets Hurstwood. ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... interesting as showing that grave and critical minds were prepared to consider the tale of terror as a legitimate form of literature, obeying certain definite rules of its own and aiming at the excitement of a pleasurable fear. The seed of Gothic story, sown at random by Horace Walpole, had by 1798 taken firm root in the soil. Drake's enthusiasm for Gothic story was associated with his love for older English poetry and with his interest in Scandinavian mythology. He was a genuine admirer of Spenser and attempted imitations, in modern diction, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... do we have to hunt at random for them? Can't we look for stars like our own sun? Won't they be more apt to have ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... feelings, and threw no light on his history. At my request she produced a lamp and spread out the papers on the table. I turned over the worn and time-stained manuscripts; but the leaves were loose, unnumbered, and put together at random, and it was some time before I could find ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... we finished butchering the buffaloe, and on my return to camp I trod within five inches of a rattle snake but being in motion I passed before he could probably put himself in a striking attitude and fortunately escaped his bite, I struck about at random with my espontoon being directed in some measure by his nois untill I killed him. Our hunters had killed two of the Bighorned Anamals since I had left them. we also passed another creek a few miles below Turtle Creek on the Stard. 30 yds ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... are not too conspicuous even in the oldest and best versions of 'Lord Bateman.' Choosing at random, however, we find ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... getting a sight to his satisfaction. He knew the importance of making this a killing shot. Should the bear, wounded as he now was, retreat back into his den, there would be no chance whatever of getting him out again. Alexis thought of this; and therefore resolved not to fire at random, as he had done before. He knew that a full-grown bear, unless shot in the brain or heart, can accommodate a score of bullets without ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... deficiency, or that the men had more confidence in others, after a short respite at home, returned and joined their old companies as privates. Was there ever greater patriotism and unselfishness and less ostentation shown as in the example of these men! It was but natural that men selected almost at random, and in many instances unacquainted with a majority of the men at enlistment unusual to military life, or the requirements of an officer in actual service, could possibly be as acceptable as those chosen ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... escaped as frequently as possible into town to taste the pleasures that she had almost forgotten, and revive under the influence of the theater and the roar of life. It was during one of these excursions, while Joan was lunching with Alice Palgrave, that she caught an arrow shot at random by that mischievous little devil Cupid, which landed plum in the middle of a heart that had been placid so long. In getting out of a taxicab she had slipped and fallen, was raised deferentially to her feet, and looked up to catch the lonely and bewildered ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... not, and she accused herself of perversity, in not being able to rejoice, that her mother could easily spare her to the duties she believed claimed her. In the earnestness of her thoughts, she grew silent at last, or answered her mother at random. Had she been less occupied, she might have perceived that her mother was not so cheerful as she seemed for many a look of wistful earnestness was fastened on her daughter's face, and now and then a sigh ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... shack, he produced a tightly bound bundle of letters about six inches thick, scattered them out before him on the table, and began reading them at random, while I sat bolstered back in my bunk, smoking and watching him. He was a curious study. Every little while I'd hear him chuckling and rumbling, his teeth agleam, and between these times he'd grow serious. Once I saw ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... stage and the town which it lacked, need not of course spoil it for us. The stamp of Congreve is clearly marked on the dialogue, though not on every page. You may see its essentials in two passages taken absolutely at random. 'Come, come,' says Bellmour in the very first scene, 'leave business to idlers and wisdom to fools; they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty and pleasure my occupation, and let Father Time shake his glass.' Or ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... conversational strictures; the secret history of Rawleigh's great work had never been discovered; on this occasion, however, Jonson only spoke what he knew to be true—and there may have been other truths, in those conversations which were set down at random by Drummond, who may have chiefly recollected the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... completely hidden from sight in the dark and tangled wood. Most of their women and children had retreated to the mountains. The trappers now sallied out and approached the swamp, firing into the thickets at random. The Blackfeet had a better sight of their adversaries, who were in the open field, and a half-breed was ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... from the city; the volunteers, panic-stricken, ran frantically in every direction, discharging their weapons at random, until they were a menace to all within possible range. The crashing of the falling buildings, the roar of the heavy guns, the shrieks of the terrified and groans of the wounded, formed a horrible accompaniment to the ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... in smiling and replying. "It would be presumption in my part to think so," he observed. "I was simply at random humming a few verses composed by former writers, and what reason is there to laud me to such an excessive degree? To what, my dear Sir, do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" he went on to inquire. "Tonight," replied Shih-yin, "is the mid-autumn feast, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Dale, flinging himself forward, had reached the man. Like a defiant challenge to their demand it must have seemed to the officers outside, that shot of Connie Myers at Jimmie Dale, for it was answered on the instant by another through the side window. And the shot, fired at random, the interior of the room hidden from the officers outside by the drawn shades, found its mark—and Connie Myers, a bullet in his brain, pitched forward, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... to be on one side as the other," Charley declared. "We might as well start in at random and dig a circle around the tree until we come ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... conversation out of nothing, when she clearly intimated that it was not worth her while to help him? Never in his life had he met a woman who inspired him with such invincible repugnance. He found himself talking to her at random like a man in a dream, and so indifferent to her opinion that he was not in the least distressed at his own imbecility; and Miss Tancred, like a lady in a dream, seemed to find his attitude entirely natural; perhaps she had read a similar antagonism ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... recovery of the others. "No;" but her sister's children had been alarmingly ill. "Not lost any, I hope?"—"None." Well, so taken up was I, that conversation flagged, and I answered and asked questions at random, until, at last, I happened to ask the lady if she were going to the country soon. "Not to remain. But to-morrow we are going to convey a Santo Cristo (a figure of the Crucifixion) there, which has just been made for the chapel;" glancing towards the figure; "for which reason this room is, as ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... briefly thus:—Suppose you have to build a castle, with towers and roofs and buttresses, out of bricks of a given shape, and that these bricks are all lying in a huge heap at the bottom, in utter confusion, upset out of carts at random. You would have to draw a great many plans, and count all your bricks, and be sure you had enough for this and that tower, before you began, and then you would have to lay your foundation, and add layer ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... ADRIFT. Floating at random; the state of a boat or vessel broken from her moorings, and driven to and fro without control by the winds and waves. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... was any difficulty in ascertaining the import of the dice throwing, the priests were employed to interpret. Future events were frequently inquired into by an inquisitive person cutting the branch of a tree into small pieces, and distinguishing them by certain marks, and then scattering them at random on a white cloth. The searcher after knowledge having prayed to the gods, took up the slips three times, and interpreted according to the marks. Future events were often inquired into by reading the first line or passage which happened to turn up on opening a book, or by observing the stars. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... commanded death to take away Billy—Death made pretences to obey, And only made pretences, for he shot A headless dart that struck nor wounded not. The ghaunt Economist who (tho' my grandam Thinks otherwise) ne'er shoots his darts at random Mutter'd, 'What? put my Billy in arrest? Upon my life that were a pretty jest! So flat a thing of Death shall ne'er be said or sung— No! Ministers and Quacks, them take I not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... autumn day, lashed by a bitter north wind, Durtal, shivering and ill at ease, left the terrace and took refuge in the more sheltered walks, going down presently into a garden-slope where the brushwood afforded some little protection from the wind; these shrubberies wandered at random down the hill, and an inextricable tangle of blackberries clung with the cat's-claws of their long shoots to the saplings that were ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... is high time! Let us not sink into slumber and call it prudence: up to now I have been content to see you sitting patiently at my feet; but I no longer want you there. Enough of this! I dream of roaming with you at random in the open fields, I dream of making you laugh and cry, of feeling your young soul fresh and sensitive as your cheeks. I dream of stirring your heart and rousing your imagination. We will go far across the countryside; together we shall see the light wane and the darkness begin; and, ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... the port, the silence of which was now broken by exclamations and cries from the shipping in reply to those from the shore; while the splashing of oars were heard in all directions as men leaped into boats and rowed about at random. Darkness favoured the Englishmen, but it also proved the cause of their being very nearly re-captured; for they were within two yards of the battery at the mouth of the harbour before they observed ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were, see 2 Peter 3:3-7. And there you shall see their mocking and the reason of it. Read and the Lord give thee understanding. But I would not have thee think that I speak at random, in this thing, Know for certain, that I myself have heard them blaspheme; yea, with a grinning countenance, at the doctrine of that man's second coming from heaven above the stars, who was born of the Virgin Mary. Yea, they ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... back upon La Mailleraye, and as steadily looked forwards to JUMIEGES. We ascended very sensibly—then striking into a sort of bye-road, were told that we should quickly reach the place of our destination. A fractured capital, and broken shaft, of the late Norman time, left at random beneath a hedge, seemed to bespeak the vicinity of the abbey. We then gained a height; whence, looking straight forward, we caught the first glance of the spires, or rather of the west end towers, of the Abbey of Jumieges.[80] "La voila, Monsieur,"—exclaimed the postilion—increasing his speed ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Princess of Baden-Durlach (Johanna Elizabeth) upwards of thirty years ago; and he duly produced one Son in consequence, with other good results to himself and her. But in course of time Duke Eberhard Ludwig took to consorting with bad creatures; took, in fact, to swashing about at random in the pool of amatory iniquity, as if there had been no law known, or of the least validity, ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... more wolfish than ever, and, after a significant flash toward each other, the gamblers turned fortune against their victim finally. The brandy was now placed within his reach, and under its influence Haldane threw down money at random. The first package was soon emptied. He snatched the other from his pocket and tore it open, but before its contents had likewise disappeared his head drooped upon his ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... enchantment of beauty and the highest rank, and who makes of her secret and corrupt court the sanctuary of her pleasures and the focus of her vices, this prince, blinded on the one hand by the priests, and on the other by love, holds at random the loose reins of an empire which is escaping from his grasp. France, exhausted of men, does not give to him, either in Maurepas, Necker, or Calonne, a minister capable of supporting him. The aristocracy is barren, and produces nothing but to its shame; the government must be renewed ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... by experiments on air in the first instance dried, and afterwards rendered artificially humid by pure distilled water. It has also en established in the following way: Ten volatile quids were taken at random and the power of these quids, at a common thickness, to intercept the waves f heat, was carefully determined. The vapours of the quids were next taken, in quantities proportional to e quantities of liquid, and the power of the vapours intercept the waves of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall |
