"Character" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and by the pale ghastly light that gleams from the aperture above. The inscription over this chapel or mausoleum, was dictated by St. Charles himself, and breathes that modesty and piety which so peculiarly marked his character. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... midst of the deceptions which Elizabeth Hunter was called upon to practise, however, she followed the natural trend of her character in ways which proved how fundamental truth and outrightness were in her make-up. Having discussed Hugh with Luther, she told Hugh that she had done so. This gave Hugh a wrong impression of affairs between the two which she was obliged to ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... reprobates live in the hells of eternal punishment. Ultramundane society has its left and its right: it is time for the equation to be completed; for this mystical hierarchy to descend upon earth and appear in its real character. ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... faithfulness. Indeed not one condition of prevailing prayer exists which is not such in the very nature of things. These are not arbitrary limitations affixed to prayer by a despotic will; they are necessary alike to God's character and man's good. ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... essentials of life, that is to be understood. She had lived in a lax world. She was not particularly troubled by the character of her associates; she was untouched by them; she liked her fling at the baccarat-tables. These were details, and did not distress her. Love had not turned her into a Puritan. But certain recollections plagued ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... with all sorts of objects, as diverse as possible in character is brought into the room. The players are given one minute in which to take a rapid survey of same. At the end of that period the tray is taken away and the players, with pencil and paper (previously supplied them) write down the names ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... not amaze us, for being gifted with an infinite variety of simple flavors, which mixture modifies to such a number and to such a quantity, a new language would he needed to express their effects, and mountains of folios to describe them. Numerical character alone could label them. ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... out his pencil, and produced on the spot one of the most ludicrous pieces that ever was seen; which exhibited likenesses not only of the combatants engaged in the affray, but also of the persons gathered round them, placed in grotesque attitudes, and heightened with character and points ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... recent appointment as Captain in the Perthshire Fencibles (Cavalry), he adds—"Among my own military (I mean mock-military) achievements, let me not fail to congratulate you and the country on the real character you have agreed to accept. Remember; in case of real action, I shall beg the honor of admission to your ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... of course a similar spirit is superinduced among persons of the same creed and principles to that which actuates them against those who differ from them in politics and religion. It is true that the occurrence of murders of this character has been referred to as a proof that secret societies are not founded or conducted upon a spirit of religious rancor; but such an assertion is, in some cases, the result of gross ignorance, and, in many ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... see that. But it's the sort of thing one can only see after it has happened. You must have got a pretty deep-down insight into character, Governor, when you came to the top of things over there, to the ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... showed a vitality which will serve to keep it alive for many generations, which will make it welcome, however often it is revived; for there is a universal import to its satire which raises it above the local, social condition it purports to portray. And though there is nothing of an ideal character about its situations, though it seems to be all head, with a minimum of apparent heart, it none the less is universal in the sense that Restoration comedy is universal. It presents a type of vulgarity, of sporting spirit, that is common in every ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... to it. By questioning the young man as to the material exercise of his art, and as to his studies, Adelaide and her mother emboldened him to talk. The indefinable nothings of their chat, animated by kind feeling, naturally led Hippolyte to flash forth remarks or reflections which showed the character of his habits and of his mind. Trouble had prematurely faded the old lady's face, formerly handsome, no doubt; nothing was left but the more prominent features, the outline, in a word, the skeleton of a countenance of which ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... to meet the amused, complacent stare of Bill. In acknowledging the introduction, Joan felt that his piercing eyes were studying her, probing her soul, as appraisingly as if seeking to lay her appearance and character bare. His harsh, determined face suddenly broke into a wondrous warmth of smile, and he impulsively seized her ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... transactions arose the claims of Edward I. to the over-lordship of Scotland,—claims that were urged by Queen Elizabeth's minister, Cecil, in 1568, and were boldly denied by Maitland of Lethington. From these misty pretensions came the centuries of war that made the hardy character of the folk ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... been look'd upon by all Mankind to have been a 20,000l. Man at least, hath died not worth Eighteen-pence; and then the poor Wretch has been worried to his Grave, with the Character of a private Whore-master ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... ignorant. Her father and I are somewhat better judges, I should suppose, than a young man who is not a student in any true sense of the word and ignores knowledge as a purpose in life. Not that I wish to wound or depreciate you, Roger. There is, I may say, a steadiness of moral character beneath your frivolity of mind and pursuit. If my poor brother had trained you more wisely; if you had been ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... friends in his favour.—But that he had no thoughts of marrying at all, she had heard him say, if it were not to me: that as well her lord as the two ladies his sisters were a good deal concerned at the ill-usage he received from my family: but admired my character, and wished to have him married to me (although I were not to have a shilling) in preference to any other person, from the opinion they had of the influence I should have over him. That, to be sure, Mr. Lovelace was a wild gentleman: but wildness was a distemper which would cure itself. That ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the children were really distressed, with the exception of Friedrich, who had, as usual, given about half his attention to the subject in hand; and who now sat absently humming to himself the account of Bluebeard's position and character, as set forth in ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... had chosen the character of a goose-girl, looked so like a true one that one could hardly dream she ever was anything else. She was, ordinarily, a slender, dainty little lady rather tall for her age. She now looked very short and stubbed and brown, just as if she had been ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... which this development has been caused, has not slackened, but seems each day to gain new force; and the marvelous changes, political, social, moral, intellectual, and physical, which give character to the nineteenth century are but the prelude to a drama which shall make all past achievements of our race appear weak and contemptible. To imagine that our superiority is merely mechanical and material is to fail to see things as they are. Greater individuals may have lived than now are ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... map of Maryland we find that the configuration of the State is of an unusual character. The eastern portion is divided through the middle by the broad waters of Chesapeake Bay, leaving nine counties with the State of Delaware on the long stretch between the Chesapeake, Delaware Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. Of late years the great tide of population has set toward the ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... carving of the stalls against the glimmering stone beyond. It was like some vast hall of the dead; the noise of the footsteps seemed like an insolent intrusion on this temple of silence; and the religious stillness had an active and sombre character of its own more eloquent and impressive than all the tumult ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... husband to recover his good-humour, and went back to her chair. The extraordinary disclosure which she had extracted from him had produced a stupefying effect on her mind. Her customary sympathy with him, her subtle womanly observation of his character, her intimate knowledge of his merits and his defects, failed to find the rational motive which might have explained his conduct. She looked round at him with mingled feelings of ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... taste for public life. The whole thing is rotten, Borrowdean, rotten from beginning to end. I have had enough of it to last me all my days. Party policy must come before principle. A man's individuality, his whole character, is assailed and suborned on every side. There is but one life, one measure of days, that you or I know anything of. It doesn't last very long. The months and years have a knack of slipping away emptily ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that a man of this character could ill agree with Grotius: accordingly they were soon at great variance. Their misunderstanding was quickly known. Sarrau wrote to Salmasius, June 1, 1644[416], "Duncan the Swedish Agent at this Court gives the Ambassador much uneasiness." Grotius's ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... rather clear perception of the true principles of human government. A will to do right and the power to enforce it, make nations great as well as character powerful. ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... myself, where can such strength of character, such noble purpose, such original and successful business habits be hidden in that handsome, smilin' face and them graceful, winnin' ways, as he laughed and talked with ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... his decision then; to force her to release the boy from any promise; to allow him his own choice. But he felt with increasing anxiety that some of Natalie's weakness of character had descended to Graham, that in him, as in Natalie, perhaps obstinacy was what he hoped was strength. He wondered listening to her, what it would be to have beside him that night some strong and quiet woman, to whom he could carry his problems, his ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... my house might not be exactly clean, but there's no fly-specks on my character! They didn't have to sit de sheriff to make Willie marry me like they did ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... of preceding pagan creeds, except in the thorough materialism and lack of poetry in statement which it exhibits. After the Council of Nicaea, in fact, the Judaic tinge in the doctrines of the Church becomes more apparent, and more and more its Scheme of Salvation through Christ takes the character of a rather sordid and huckstering bargain by which Man gets the better of God by persuading the latter to sacrifice his own Son for the redemption of the world! With the exception of a few episodes like the formation during the Middle Ages of ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry—no idol more debasing than the worship of money. Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... monks, had become keeper of the privy seal in 1415. He was consecrated at St. Paul's by the Archbishop May 31, 1416. He persecuted the Lollards strongly, and during his episcopate many were burned at the stake. Yet his character apparently was far from being harsh. He died at Thorpe in 1435, and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... forgetting in fatigue all their dismal feelings, and in their dreams seeing the old state of things and dead persons—nay, a dead world—without wondering that they were come to life again. All the days of their journey wore an uniform character; and they kept on and on through waste and ruin, glad to leave the country behind them, and expecting, as some relief, the aspect of streets and a town. They halted, at length, within a few miles of London, and lay down to rest, thankful to be so near ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... UNDER-RATES CAPITALISM.—The ardor of the socialist often causes him to underestimate the merits of capitalism, and to exaggerate its defects. The striking achievements of capitalism, so in contrast with the negative character of socialism, are not generally appreciated by the socialist. On the other hand, the socialist places an undue emphasis upon the defects of the present system. The radical agitator too often overlooks the millions of happy, prosperous ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... uniform character throughout a wide range of territory, forming hills of a peculiar rounded form, usually clad with a scanty vegetation. The surface of the rock is for the most part in a crumbling state, and the hills are often surmounted by piles of stones like the ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... the source of smiling thoughts hereafter. I would not waste them in idle talk; or if I must have the integrity of fancy broken in upon, I would rather it were by a stranger than a friend. A stranger takes his hue and character from the time and place; he is a part of the furniture and costume of an inn. If he is a Quaker, or from the West Riding of Yorkshire, so much the better. I do not even try to sympathise with him, and ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... of literature was no more complete than his character. Certain modern English poets—Rossetti, Morris, Keats, and Shelley—he knew almost by heart. And in travels and biography—mostly of men of action—he had, at one time or another, read voraciously. But "the classics ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... worship at Jerusalem destroyed the connection of sacrifice with the natural occasions of life, so that it lost its original character ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... great a departure from the structure and spirit of our institutions; * * * is to fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the control of Congress, in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of the most ordinary and fundamental character; * * * We are convinced that no such results were intended by the Congress * * *, nor by the legislatures * * * which ratified" this amendment, and that the sole "pervading purpose" of this and the other War Amendments was "the freedom ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... was probably fully aware of the character of Mrs. Chevassat. He guessed only too readily what kind of advice she had given this poor girl of twenty, who had turned to her for help in her great suffering. He uttered an oath which would have startled even that estimable woman, and then ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... by aqueous vapour; for it follows from this that the very act of nocturnal refrigeration which produces the condensation of aqueous vapour at the surface of the earth—giving, as it were, a varnish of water to that surface—imparts to terrestrial radiation that particular character which disqualifies it from passing through the earth's atmosphere ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... establishing a string of missions from San Diego to Sonoma. The energy, self-sacrifice, and persistence of the members of this expedition furnish inspiring reading today and show clearly of what the Spanish character at its ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... sat down to collect his thoughts, and again to reason with himself. But still, as he reasoned, he saw ever before him that blush and that smile. At last he sprang up, and a noble and bright expression elevated the character of his face,—"Yes, if I enter that house, if I eat that man's bread, and drink of his cup, I must forego, not justice—not what is due to my mother's name—but whatever belongs to hate and vengeance. If I enter that house—and if Providence permit me the means whereby ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in concord with my character," said the Count. "Since I cannot be a lover, I will be a hero. Amid the cares of love I will call on glory as my comfortress; since I am a beggar of heart, I ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... with the Rev. Mr. BALLOU on the subject. That, in order to render the controversy the more interesting, by calling into action the energies of mind, and by directing the correspondence to definite purposes, he assumed the character of a real opponent, determining to maintain the opposition, in all its forms, until reduced, by necessity, to yield to successful arguments directed against it. It was with great reluctance that the advocate for the christian ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... family in New York. Haven't seen 'em in ten years. They paid me to live abroad. I'm gambling on them; gambling on their takin' me back. I'm coming home as the Prodigal Son, tired of filling my belly with the husks that the swine do eat; reformed character, repentant and all that; want to follow the straight and narrow; and they'll kill the fatted calf." He laughed sardonically. "Like hell they will! They'd rather see ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... country, they began to traverse a region quite different in its character. From time to time various interesting things cropped up to ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... now thus ordered for the expedition: first, the captain, his mate, and passenger; second, the two prisoners of the first gang, to whom, having their character from the captain, I had given their liberty, and trusted them with arms; third, the other two that I had kept till now in my bower, pinioned, but on the captain's motion had now released; fourth, these five released at last; so that there were twelve in all, besides five we kept ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... hurry remains in the fact that the 'precise clerk' of Sir Patient has a double nomenclature. In Act III he appears as Abel; in Act IV, iii, he is referred to as Bartholomew, and under this last name has an exit marked in Act V. This character is only on the stage twice and is given but some three or four lines to speak. Obviously, when writing her fourth act, Aphra forgot she ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... combination of high wind and heavy rain which few roofs are proof against, and a good deal of discomfort indoors is the result. After the first day or two the wind generally drops, and a steady perpendicular downpour follows, continuous and heavy according to the locality, and the character of the monsoon in each year. In Poona and its neighbourhood the rain rarely continues for many days in succession, and there come breaks of delightfully bright sunshine. In some years the rainy season is only spread over about two months, but in other years ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... scenes of a similar character with the scene described, and of even greater atrocity. But we must borrow the description of one of these from the historian of the clearing of Sutherland,—Donald M'Leod, a native of the county, and himself ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... "lies in a valley, in a flat, and not very pleasant district." And so truly it is: it was not very attractive approaching it our way, and the high road led directly into the town, which is without any distinctive character. It consists of a long street with what we may term a nucleus and a few fibres. The nucleus is the market-place, and the fibres are the few lanes diverging from it. The long street—that is to say, long in a little town—is quite ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... slipped away and sought her father in his study. It was called his study, though very little of that character truly belonged to it. More truly it balanced between the two purposes of a smoking-room and an office; for county business was undoubtedly done there; and it was the nook of retirement where the Squire indulged himself in his favoured luxury, the sweet weed. The Squire took ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... lady artist and I compared sketches. We both worship Whistler, and various writers we agree about, but I fear we are only in sympathy so far. I gathered from her to-night that I ought to study native character in India, for our countrymen in India had no picturesqueness, no art about them, and to associate with them one had better be at home. I felt saddened and went on deck and saw the people she called "Anglo-Indians" (more than two-thirds Scots, Irish, Cornish, and Welsh, with a negligible ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... to expound the happenings in Judah, and the Divine reasons for them. No date is given for the Prophet's Oracle. This need not have been uttered for some time after he reached Egypt, when he was able to acquaint himself with the conditions and character of his countrymen in their pagan environment, and learn in particular how they had fallen away like their fathers to the worship of other gods. Such indeed is the double theme of the words attributed to him. He is made to say that Jerusalem and Judah are now desolate because ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... whirlwind, star-blasting, and taking; do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes; there could I have him now, and there, and there again, and there; through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind; Tom's a-cold! who gives any thing to poor Tom?—In this character, and with such like expressions, our hero entered the house both of great and small, claiming kindred to them, and committing all manner of frantic actions; such as beating himself, offering to eat coals ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... was Lupin so fiercely bent upon snatching the document about the Hollow Needle from me? He surely did not imagine that, by taking it away, he could wipe out from my memory the text of the five lines of which it consists! Then why? Did he fear that the character of the paper itself, or some other clue, ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... which it had been carried out; for, to Addie's superficial observation, Lottie was only indulging in one of her old flirtations, She neither saw, nor was she able to understand, the change in Lottie's feelings and character. She also wronged Lottie by giving the impression that she herself had had nothing to do with the plot, with the exception that she had promised not ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... topotypes available to me, six show various degrees of encroachment of the color of the lateral line upon the underparts, giving the ventral surface a buffy appearance, the "distinguishing character" of the subspecies according to Osgood (op. cit.:20). When additional specimens are available, this character may be found to be one of individual variation, although no specimens from other parts of the range ...
— Geographic Distribution of the Pocket Mouse, Perognathus fasciatus • J. Knox Jones, Jr.
... this charming little oasis, hidden away in the dreary solitude of the surrounding sandhills; the one spot of green on which one's eyes may rest with pleasure in all this naked wilderness. At the bottom of a hollow enclosed between two sand-ridges is a small surface outcrop of limestone of similar character to that in which Empress Spring is situated. In this is a little basin, nearly circular, about 2 feet 6 inches in diameter and 3 feet deep, with a capacity of about seventy gallons. This is the spring, fed at the bottom of ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... enough in thought but perfect in expression. Of a different character, but equally noteworthy, are sayings such ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... squat nose is the sensual-sympathetic nose, and the high, arched nose the sensual voluntary nose, having the curve of repudiation, as when we turn up our nose from a bad smell, but also the proud curve of haughtiness and subjective authority. The nose is one of the greatest indicators of character. That is to say, it almost inevitably indicates the mode of predominant dynamic consciousness in the individual, the predominant primary center from which he lives.—When savages rub noses instead of kissing, they are exchanging a more sensitive ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... to go, of course. He was her legal guardian and he would listen to no pleadings. He didn't know anything about Marcella's character, and he thought that a new life out in the great world would soon blot out ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... were of too deep draught to be of much use in the shoal waters, to which the nature of the hostilities and the character of the Southern coast confined naval operations. Being extremely expensive in upkeep, with enormous crews, and not having speed under steam to make them effective chasers, they were of little avail against an enemy who had not, and could not have, any ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... ordered us to kill him because she believed he was selling her secrets to the Spanish, and was going to poison her in their interests. She is always fancying that some one wants to poison her. Oh, yes, my friend, a most diverting character, for she thinks of nothing but herself, and her Self is a selfish, hysterical, ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... buying, of analyzing their sales that they might learn how to buy at best advantage and sell at greatest profit; of getting rid of goods quickly by attractive advertising; of all manner of details large and small, such as pertain to the conduct of a business of the character of theirs. ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... more painfully he became aware of his own deficiencies, and the more bitterly he deplored the waste of time. He seemed to be toiling in vain after the opportunities he had lost. He knew that the examination, though limited in subjects, was searching in character, and he found it impossible to acquire, by a sudden impulse, what he should have learned by continuous diligence. As the time drew nearer, he grew more and more nervous. He had set his heart on the Swiss tour, and it now seemed ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... scanty appreciation which her thoughts have received. We found her in her little calm retreat, at Hampstead, surrounded by marks of love and reverence from distinguished and excellent friends. Near her was the sister, older than herself, yet still sprightly and full of active kindness, whose character, and their mutual relations, she has, in one of her last poems, indicated with such a happy mixture of sagacity, humor, and tender pathos, and with so absolute a truth of outline." This admirable, semi-biographical, semi-psychological poem was addressed by Joanna to her sister Agnes, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... I have sent for you to ask—I am almost too indignant at the bare suspicion to speak as becomes me—but did you—I really shall be obliged to beg your pardon, if you are as much in the dark as I was yesterday as to the character of that woman who lives under ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... said, sweeping his hand contemptuously toward the horizon, "but in such things as educational standards, in administration of justice, in the customs of a liberty loving people, in religious privileges, in everything that goes to make character and morale, Canada has already laid the foundations ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... that Francis Drake attempted to analyze the character and behavior of those about him. Mostly he judged men by a shrewd instinct; but that night he lay long awake, watching the witch-lights upon the waves from the dancing lanterns. He was acute enough to see that Doughty had hit slyly at him over Saavedra's shoulders. Doughty had ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... August she assumed the government, and was crowned with all due solemnity as Czarina or Empress. Walpole had some reason for saying that "nothing was so like a predecessor as a successor," since in character ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... The general character of his voluminous publications has not been such as to assure modern critics of his accuracy, and the wonderful minuteness, as well as comprehension, attributed by him to the Ojibwa hieroglyphs has been generally ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... Stay till I am well, and then you shall tell me how to cure myself.' He grew better, and talked with a noble enthusiasm of keeping up the representation of respectable families. His zeal on this subject was a circumstance in his character exceedingly remarkable, when it is considered that he himself had no pretensions to blood. I heard him once say, 'I have great merit in being zealous for subordination and the honours of birth; for I can hardly tell who was my grandfather.' He maintained the dignity ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Passepartout, that he was the cause of this new misfortune! Had he not concealed Fix's errand from his master? When Fix revealed his true character and purpose, why had he not told Mr. Fogg? If the latter had been warned, he would no doubt have given Fix proof of his innocence, and satisfied him of his mistake; at least, Fix would not have continued his journey at the expense and on the ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... not going too far. You cannot, you dare not, pretend to be offended with what I say, when you know that my noble husband has been injured in his character and his prospects, attacked in his domestic peace, and now exposed to peril of his life, by the falsehoods your wife has told. I tell you that we do not impute her crimes to you. If this is justice, you will prove it by doing your full ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... tire of listening to the account of their voyage and their settlement in this new and out-of-the-way land, from the cheery and delightful grandmother of the family, a Scotch lady, full of the sturdy character of her country people, and altogether one of the pleasantest acquaintances I made on ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... disclosed after his death, is most touching. He would spend hours together late into the night in walking about the house, which, to borrow his brother's expression, "his love had placed on holy ground." He was a young man of singular purity and nobleness of character—"one of a thousand," to use her own words—and, although she could not accept him as a lover, she cherished for him a very cordial friendship. Not long after, he was lost at sea. In later years she ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... between honour and honesty is this: honour is dictated by a regard to character, honesty arises from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... gold, which the first great winds of winter will transmute, as in the fable, into withered leaves. And so too he can enjoy the admirable brevity and simplicity of such little glimpses of country and country ways as flash upon him through the windows of the train; little glimpses that have a character all their own; sights seen as a travelling swallow might see them from the wing, or Iris as she went abroad over the land on some Olympian errand. Here and there, indeed, a few children huzzah and wave their hands to the express; but for the ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... originators should also operate favourably, and in mitigation in behalf of the much less guilty Boers, so as to dispose the victors to the exercise of magnanimous consideration. In exposing the villainy of the Dutch coterie in Holland, the writer is far from impugning the honourable character of that nation, the better part of whom, when once undeceived, will be the first to reprobate and disown those arch-plotters who sacrificed the peace of South Africa for personal and ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... the Aetolian confederacy manifested a greater vigour. The energy of the northern Greek character was still unbroken there, although it had degenerated into a reckless impatience of discipline and control. It was a public law in Aetolia, that an Aetolian might serve as a mercenary against any state, even against a state in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... came unanimously to an opinion of reporting to the King, that there appeared to them no foundation for any part of the charge; that Mr. Fawcett, the only evidence, had grossly prevaricated in it: that it was malicious and scandalous, and ought not to affect the character of the Bishop, or either of the gentlemen who were ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... opportunity of adding to the stores of his sketch book, soon transferred a group of MARKET PEOPLE to his paper, of which you are here favoured with a highly finished copy. The countenances, as well as the dresses, are strongly indicative of the general character of the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Babylon. She is not a captive. With the noble feeling of a sister's heart, and of her own accord, she accompanied her brothers to a land of strangers. She is as free as any daughter of Chaldea; and therefore my Jupheena will be happy to introduce her to her friends in her real character, as a youthful maid of the royal line of Judah. In thus drawing a line of distinction between yourselves and your sister, far be it from me to think that your present relation to our government renders you, in any real sense, inferior ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... as all in the house wept, when the good man feelingly delineated the lovely character of her who was still so beautiful in her marble silence; when he recalled those tender scenes on the evening of her death, which had been faithfully described to him by Fanny. The casket was placed in the funeral car, and ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... inscrutable reason, to make him happy. He carried her shawl and parasol; she herself bearing a veritable armful of flowers, leaves, red berried sprigs, a tangle of richest color. They had been in the woods and she had bedecked him with garlands and festoons of autumn leaves, till he looked a very Satyr; a character which his flushed, swarthy cheeks, and glittering animal eyes did ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... cried Fanny, "that the custom should have been discontinued. It was a valuable part of former times. There is something in a chapel and chaplain so much in character with a great house, with one's ideas of what such a household should be! A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... a sheet of paper on which were a few lines in a rather crabbed hand; which Fred would once have said was just like the character of the whimsical old maid herself, but which he now knew must ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... Alice laughed. "It's made me a terribly unpopular character! I do a lot of things they hate. For instance, at a dance I'd a lot rather find some clever old woman and talk to her than dance with nine-tenths of these nonentities. I usually do ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... seen moving along this part of the road at some half-mile distance from the skirts of the village, with face turned cityward. But that he had no intention of journeying so far was evident both by his gait and the character of his dress. He was going at a slow walk, now and then loitering, as if time was of little consequence. Moreover, he was in his shirt sleeves, and without the universal serape, which often serves ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... avail myself of this opportunity of introducing a few recent facts relative to the analogous work in Genoa; and this I do because these facts are of a character which may enable the reader more clearly to conceive of the present religious condition of Italy, and the state of the movement in ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... of his real character he feels no pain from contempt, because he supposes it incurred only by a voluntary disguise which he can throw off at pleasure. I do not think any ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... to nothingness. All of them are nearer to one another than they themselves supposed, and nearer to him than he supposed. All of them are antagonistic to sense and have an affinity to number and measure and a presentiment of ideas. Even in Plato they still retain their contentious or controversial character, which was developed by the growth of dialectic. He is never able to reconcile the first causes of the pre-Socratic philosophers with the final causes of Socrates himself. There is no intelligible account of the relation ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... physical, nerves, alive to every emotion, every pain or pleasure that rose up into his present. Only to a certain natural extent had he changed. The sudden violent revolutions of his wheel of life, had strengthened his character, though they had temporarily shocked both mind and body. His mental state, during the weeks immediately succeeding his change of residence, was one of blank depression. The hand of inheritance lay heavy on him now. The hypersensitiveness of Sophia Blashkov, during the months before his birth, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Why can we not receive Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders more than once? A. We cannot receive Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders more than once, because they imprint a character in the soul. ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 2 (of 4) • Anonymous
... too well acquainted with your character and conduct to feel any real friendship for you, and as I am without your talent for dissimulation, I cannot assume the appearance of it. I must, therefore, beg that hereafter all familiar intercourse may ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... pleasantries, which rendered him an admirable boon-companion. Fond of wine and of good cheer, he was not debauched; and with a disposition and talents so little fitted for the cloister, was nevertheless, at bottom, as good a churchman as with such a character he could be. He was a great favourite with all the house of Conde, and was invited to their parties, where his witticisms, his verses, and his pleasantries had afforded infinite amusement ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... P'int; and they say, if ye throw one o' them Harpswell babies into the sea, he'll take to it nateral, and swim like a cork: ef they hit their heads agin a rock it only dents the rock, but don't hurt the baby. Tom he was a great character on the ship. He could see farther, and knew more 'bout wind and water, than most folks: the officers took Tom's judgment, and the men all went by his say. My mother she chalked a streak o' good luck for me when ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... particularly fine fruit-tree, by hanging up thereon a somewhat similar bottle—such as may be seen, and more than one of them, in any long day's march. It was said again, that if asked by an Obeah-man to swear to his good character, they could not well refuse, under penalty of finding some fine morning a white cock's head—sign of all supernatural plagues—in their garden path, the beak pointing to their door; or an Obeah bottle under their doorstep; and either Brinvilliers ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... was upon your name; Lively, modest girl you were; Would you ne'er had felt love's flame! Yet you had no cause to shame, But bore good character. ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... judiciary existing as a separate branch of the General Government. Without such inferior court in every State it would be difficult and might even be impossible to carry into effect the laws of the General Government. The right to establish post-offices and post-roads is essentially of the same character. For political, commercial, and social purposes it was important that it should be vested in the General Government. As a mere matter of regulation, and nothing more, I presume, was intended by it, it is a power easily executed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... into the national and religious life of that time by gleaning from the Annals the vivid and living pictures they never fail to give,—pictures which are the records of eye-witnesses. The strictly contemporary character of the records is vouched for by the correct entry of eclipses: for instance, "on the day before the calends of September, in the year 1030, there was ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... Protestant lady's maid that that wicked, guzzling old Father Marty would marry the young couple as soon as look at them, and very likely had done so already. "I cannot say," continued Lady Mary, "that I actually know anything against the character of Miss O'Hara. Of the mother we have very strange stories here. They live in a little cottage with one maid-servant, almost upon the cliffs, and nobody knows anything about them except the priest. If he should be seduced into a marriage, nothing could be more unfortunate." ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... policy. No account of him could be complete without reviewing his actions and estimating the results of his work in all these directions. But the difficulty of describing and judging him goes deeper. His was a singularly complex nature, a character hard to unravel. His individuality was extremely strong; all that he said or did bore its impress. Yet it was an individuality so far from being self-consistent as sometimes to seem a bundle of opposite qualities capriciously united in a single person. He might with equal truth be called, and he ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... sat down to her dressing table, hurriedly removed her make-up, and allowed herself to be stripped of her stage finery. Her fine spirits seemed to strip off with her character. She shivered occasionally with nervousness, or superstition, and she ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... system influenced by customary law; judicial review of legislative acts, except with respect to federal decrees of general obligatory character; accepts compulsory ICJ ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... as a boarding, or rather lodging-house. The guests were not of a very high character, the landlady not being particular as long as her rent was paid regularly. Mr. Montgomery ascended the steps in a jaunty way, and, opening the door with a passkey, ascended the front staircase. He paused before a room ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... in whom she at first had to seek for the merry boyish face she knew by heart only two years ago. But months in the climates in which Roger had been travelling age as much as years in more temperate districts. And constant thought and anxiety while in daily peril of life deepen the lines of character upon a face. Moreover, the circumstances that had of late affected him personally were not of a nature to make him either buoyant or cheerful. But his voice was the same; that was the first point of the old friend ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... like this could never be the fruit of invention, or be invented to deceive. He has done himself injustice. His character was spotless and fair. All his moral properties seemed to have resolved themselves into ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... We feel its absence in many whose sparkling wit and high spirits give grace and vivacity to life, but in whom we vainly seek for some spot of quiet tenderness and sympathetic repose. Sally was, ignorantly to herself, changing in the expression of her face and the tone of her character, as she ministered in the daily wants which sickness brings in a ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was preparing for his journey, when he was challenged to a duel[24] by the Lord Mohun,[25] a person of infamous character. He killed his adversary upon the spot, though he himself received a wound; and, weakened by the loss of blood, as he was leaning in the arms of his second, was most barbarously stabbed in the breast by Lieutenant-General Macartney,[26] who was second to Lord Mohun. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... writers of this reign or of the preceding. There is no man of that age who has the least pretension to be ranked among our classics. Sir Thomas More, though he wrote in Latin, seems to come the nearest to the character ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... obeyed, and marched forth. They met, he and the English, under Brantor Hill yonder; and then appeared the real character of the boy. At the first onset, before ever a blow was struck, he turned and ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... chaplain's work. Some years ago I was on my way to conduct a Mission in Yorkshire, when I happened to meet an R.A.M.C. friend. On my telling him of the errand upon which I was bound, he expressed some surprise, and displayed complete ignorance as to the character of my intending duty. Accordingly I endeavoured to remove his ignorance by establishing a parallel between his work and mine. I pointed out that in the visitation of the hospital wards at Aldershot he doubtless ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... present day finds it difficult to realize the brightness and domestic decency which characterized the Inns of Court in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Under existing circumstances, women of character and social position avoid the gardens and terraces of ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... handle stickin' out from what would 'a' been her character, if she'd hed one, that was, I thought. An', too, I see what it'd mean to her if she knew she was wearin' a ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... the gray old pastor of the church once presided over by his father invited him to preach. He did so, delivering his one sermon; but the delivery and the sermon were not of a character that would inspire the congregation to empty the pulpit for him, so the young preacher went home to wait, as Quinbey had waited, for that pulpit to ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... successes gained by several of the Sung generals, Kaotsong had to undergo the mortification of signing a humiliating peace and retaining his authority only on sufferance. Fortunately for the independence of the Sungs, Hola was murdered by Ticounai, a grandson of Akouta, whose ferocious character and ill-formed projects for the subjugation of the whole of China furnished the Emperor Kaotsong with the opportunity of shaking off the control asserted over his actions and recovering his dignity. The extensive preparations of the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... scandalous epigrams upon him, endeavoured to effect a reconciliation by the intercession of friends, he wrote to him, of his own accord, the first letter. And when Valerius Catullus, who had, as he himself observed, fixed such a stain upon his character in his verses upon Mamurra as never could be obliterated, he begged his pardon, invited him to supper the same day; and continued to take up his lodging with his father occasionally, as he ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... knew he could not. To tell her anything of this story would be gall and wormwood! To have to drop a hint that would blacken another man's character would place him in a most awkward position. To think of doing it was like tearing out his heart for her ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... eyes and thin lips gave evidence enough that he was open to any bargain if the reward should be commensurate with the risk. The man's age, and grey hair, only served to render more noticeable his real character—he was a human tiger, held now in restraint, but only waiting a chance to break his chains, and sink teeth in any victim. The very sight of him sent a shudder through her body, even as it stiffened ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... of character that comes out in a play! Miss Essie might have had excellent opportunity for prosecuting her "studies," if she had not been busy on her own score. For Faith did not play like Mrs. Stoutenburgh. She played like herself—with a gentleness that never overstepped delicate bounds; but her foot ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Manila the friendly natives outside the city were suffering from a fatal epidemic of some character, apparently so, judging by the number of caskets taken outside. This continued for several days; one or two caskets every day were allowed to pass out by the guards, although orders were issued to search all boxes, trunks and baggage; yet these caskets were allowed to pass ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... be called a noble lady. Her nature was noble, her insight into the character of others clear, and her mode of recompensing Anton's zeal dignified—very dignified. In her eyes, at least, he had always worn a powdered wig and ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the epileptic or cataleptic kind, since the paroxysms of this young lady always began and frequently terminated with convulsions; and though in its greatest degree it has been called somnambulation, or sleep-walking, it is totally different from sleep; because the essential character of sleep consists in the total suspension of volition, which in reverie is not affected; and the essential character of reverie consists not in the absence of those irritative motions of our senses, which are occasioned by the stimulus of external objects, but in their never ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... as one that presents "people and events and circumstances, blended into an artistic whole that defies analysis." It illustrates dramatic incident, local color, and complex character analysis. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... bargain my sister made for me," Jim answered shortly. He had observed the poultry-farm from which the old man had started, with its miserable little hovel of a house and immense spread of chicken-runs, and drawn his own conclusions as to the character of its owner. "You needn't be ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... Mitchy had straightway obliged his companion and he as promptly took in the effect of the diminished light on the character of the room, which he commended as if the depth of shadow produced were all this companion had sought. He might freshly have brought home to Vanderbank that a man sensitive to so many different things, and thereby always sure of something or other, could never really be incommoded; ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... the other. "He's come here to make studies of Eastern women. A rare old time he'll have among them, I daresay! He's not famous for character. He ought to ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... made so suddenly! And in Byron's case it was more the domestic scandal about him than his actual merit that made him the rage, . . now the world knows literally nothing about Alwyn's private life or character—there's no woman in his history that I know of—no vice, ... he hasn't outraged the law, upset morals, flouted at decency, or done anything that according to modern fashions OUGHT to have made him famous—no! ... he has simply produced a perfect poem, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... and tombs." They certainly proved that Egyptian civilization had not issued in its completeness, and all at once, from the hand of the Creator in the time of Mena. Nor was this all. Investigators of the highest character and ability—men like Hull and Flinders Petrie—revealed geological changes in Egypt requiring enormous periods of time, and traces of man's handiwork dating from a period when the waters in the Nile Valley extended hundreds ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... said he once to his wife, who was deploring her nephew's character and fate—"I have hopes of Oliver even yet. A man must have something of the devil in him if he wants to drive ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... first place the weight of the proposed building and contents is estimated, then the character of the soil determined to a depth of one hundred feet if necessary. In New York the soil is treacherous and difficult, there are underground rivers in places and large deposits of sand so that to get down to rock bottom or pan is often a ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... her voice ringing with indignation. And, anxious to hit hard, she hovered so closely over the truth as sometimes to run the risk of uncovering it. The poor fellow had made long voyages abroad and saved some money. He had loved his wife passionately—that was the only blot on his character. He always dreamt of coming home, and settling down in comfort for the rest of his life. He had come at last, and a fine welcome had awaited him. His wife was as proud as Lucifer—the daughter of some green-grocer, of course. ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... had hoped to see him; and Oxford had been just the right place to send him to. He said little; it was the other two who did most of the talking. The talking itself for some time was of that disjointed, insignificant character which is all that can get out when minds are so full, and enough when hearts are so happy. Indeed, for all that evening they could not advance much further. Eyes supplemented tongues sufficiently. It was not till a night's sleep and the light of a new ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... Court were of the most elaborate character: a full account of them is given in the K[o]ji Kongen,—with explanatory illustrations. On the evening of the seventh day of the seventh month, mattings were laid down on the east side of that portion of the Imperial ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... is really of this oscillatory character; if at all times much the same processes have been going on in different parts of this universe as now—one system decaying as another is coming into being; is it not more reasonable to imagine (for it is only a question of imagining) that the primordial datum was not ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell |
