"Decisive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... jump into a train and to go and tell his cousin the conclusion he has come to regarding the will of the late Mr. Burnett. As I have said, he is a shy man, and it was some time before I could induce him to take so decisive a step; he wanted to meet Miss Watson in my office, but I succeeded in persuading him. He will go down to you to-morrow by the five o'clock, and I need not impress upon you the necessity that you should use your influence with Miss Watson, and that his reception should ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... won now, my comrades, The struggle decisive and strong; The nation's decided the question For our bold and brave Harrison; May the nation's protection be blest To the workingmen's families and homes; John Bull can decide his own problems And call his ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... sanction of authority, from the Captain's gate, the two gentlemen and the King's messenger at the head of the party with their attendants, and the Maid in the midst. "Go: and let what will happen," was the parting salutation of Baudricourt. The gazers outside set up a cry when the decisive moment came, and someone, struck with the feeble force which was all the safeguard she had for her long journey through an agitated country—perhaps a woman in the sudden passion of misgiving which often ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... the king, still more to the queen, and that orders were, in consequence, issued to the court members of the House of Commons to devise some means to get rid of it. Indeed, the general circumstances of the times are decisive against the hypothesis of the two reverend historians; nor is it, as far as I know, adopted by any other historians. The probability seems to be, that the motion in the committee had been originally suggested by some ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... and his corps d'armee entered Catalonia in the first days of April, and advanced directly, by forced marches, across Arragon. On arriving at Segorbe, the duke learned that the Marechal de Berwick held himself in readiness for a decisive battle; and in his eagerness to arrive in time to take part in the action he sent Albert on at full speed, charging him to tell the marshal that the Duc d'Orleans was coming to his aid with ten thousand men, and to pray that if it did not interfere with his arrangements, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the truth for three weeks past. I made the discovery by chance. I have important moral proofs; but they are mere presumptive evidence. A word from Widow Lerouge, one single word, would have rendered them decisive. This word she cannot now pronounce, since they have killed her; but she had said it to me. Now, Madame Gerdy will deny all. I know her; with her head on the block, she will deny it. My father doubtless will turn against me. I am certain, and I possess proofs; ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... all about this Chiao Ta?" remarked lady Feng; "but the secret of all this trouble is, that you won't take any decisive step. Why not pack him off to some distant farm, and have done with him?" And as she spoke, "Is our carriage ready?" she went ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... best-stocked crib, whether it leads him to cover the largest creditors and shear the debtor, or to sacrifice the creditors for the future prosperity of the restored merchant. The action of the agent is decisive. This man, together with the bankrupt's solicitor, plays the utility role in the drama, where it may be said neither the one nor the other would accept a part if not sure of their fees. Taking the average of a thousand ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... clean, who mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they found it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion: but he is too clear-sighted to be unjust. He is simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive. ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... convincing and decisive Method of adjudging Causes, being by a comprehensive View and critical Examination of their Effects; of Streams, by a nice Scrutiny and Investigation of their Sources; hence may we, from the shining Characters, and extensive Abilities of our Divines ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... wait and see if it's as easy as you think," retorted Tilly from her pillow. Again Purdy had let slip a golden chance to put the decisive question; and Tilly's temper was ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... thought his privileges were being infringed, and the King drew back. Digby acted throughout as if he had a "publike charge," but he was really little other than a pirate. He sailed from Deal in December, 1627, his ships the "Eagle" and the "George and Elizabeth." It was six months before the decisive fight took place; but on the way he had captured some French and Spanish ships near Gibraltar; and what with skirmishes and sickness, his voyage did not want for risk and episode at any time. Digby the landsman maintained ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... enemy, and it is found that Luis Herrera is wanting at his post; when it is known that he has left the camp in the night-*time, on his own private business, only a few hours before a battle, which all agree will be a bloody and perhaps a decisive one? His advancement, although nobly deserved, has been rapid. There are many who envy him, and such will not fail to attribute his absence to causes by which his friends well know he is incapable of being influenced. It will be pleasant ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... Prince of Conde, who, having collected another army, was met by De Saint Luc near the island of Oleron, who sallied forth from Brouage with a strong force; and a conflict ensued, lasting the whole day, with equal loss on both sides, but with no decisive results. ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... speak the truth, not for the want of not knowing and preferring it, but because they have not the organ to speak it adequately. It requires a clear sight, and, still more, a high spirit, to deal with falsehood in the decisive way. I have known several honest persons who valued truth as much as Peter and John, but, when they tried to speak it, they grew red and black in the face instead of Ananias, until, after a few attempts, they decided that aggressive truth was ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... her garden, eating up all the young peas and beans. She let the garden be utterly destroyed rather than leave Nora to hear words of love that for her could mean nothing but misery. This went on for some weeks, when Hannah was driven to decisive measures by an unexpected event. Early one morning Hannah went to a village called "Baymouth," to procure coffee, tea, and sugar. She went there, did her errand, and returned to the hut as quickly as she could possibly could. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... terrifying forms of fear; and when Saturday and Saturday night came and passed, and Alfred Stevens did not appear, a lurking dread that would not be chidden or kept down, continued to rise within her soul, which, without assuming any real form or decisive speech, was yet suggestive of complete ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... He took no part in public business, which was directed, as before, by the mayors of the palace. When in 747 Carloman retired into a monastery, Pippin resolved to take the royal crown for himself; taking the decisive step in 751 after having received the celebrated answer of Pope Zacharias that it were better to name king him who possessed the power than him who possessed it not. Childeric was dethroned and placed in the monastery of St Omer; his son, Theuderich, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... mark all the feeling and emotions of the tyrant. Pizarro is stung with jealousy as well as rage; not so much the jealousy of love as of infernal pride; but both rage and jealousy are mastered by triumphant insolence and contempt. The utterance therefore of his laconic decisive sentence, "He dies," should be marked with a triumphant sneer as well ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... time you shall hear of us," she said, addressing herself to Bodza. "Till then avoid every decisive step. Whomsoever you may capture keep a strict watch upon them, and see that no harm befall them. Do you take me? It is possible that the captives may attempt to put an end to their own lives. But we shall require them all on account of their confessions. Therefore ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of all the evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices, a copy of every paper in which, from first to last, had been published any decisive information in regard to this sad affair. Freed from all that was positively disproved, this mass ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and stood erect before him. I knew by the deadly pallor of his face, that something decisive was about to ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... him at the decisive moment more than once, and every time he used him as a threat, he was only laughed at. The old man's omnipotence could not continue to exist side by side with his increasing decrepitude; in the boy's eyes it crumbled away from day to day. Unwilling ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... staggered by the defence, for they had no doubt hoped to surprise both fort and residency. In token of this, the attacking party retreated two or three times over, as if to ask for advice or fresh orders from their boats—orders that were pretty decisive, for they came on each time more keenly than before, the last time with bundles of inflammable wood and reeds, with which they boldly advanced to the verandah of the residency, throwing them down ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... having spoken. If Bonnebault and Marie Tonsard had overheard the conversation, nothing but harm could come of it. This event, insignificant as it seems, was destined, in the irritated state of feeling then existing between Les Aigues and the peasantry, to have a decisive influence on the fate of all,—just as victory or defeat in battle sometimes depends upon a brook which shepherds jump while cannon are unable to ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... impeded at first by obstacles of ground, but in the melee the weight of the British troopers gradually broke up the enemy, and the charge of the 4th Dragoon Guards, delivered against the flank of the Russian mass, was decisive. The whole of the Russian cavalry broke and fled to the ridge. This famous charge occupied less than five minutes from first to last, and at the same time some of the Russian squadrons, attempting to charge the 93rd Highlanders (who were near Balaklava) were met by the steady volleys of the "thin ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... smooth verse, detailing the experience of a bride who took to flirting early in her matrimonial career, but was saved from coming to grief by the decisive action of a stern husband. The book contains a capital lesson for the Girl of the Period, whose follies are satirized in it ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... against a large stone, and if it produce a complete sound, it is a mark of goodness; but if in hewing it does not shatter before the edge of the sect, or instrument commonly used for that purpose, the criterion is decisive. The goodness of slate may be farther estimated by its colour: the deep black hue is apt to imbibe moisture, but the lighter is always the least penetrable: the touch also may be in some degree a guide, for a good firm stone feels somewhat hard and rough, whereas ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... Gustav Adolf, nor was he a strenuous German patriot, like Frederick the Great. He was not even a great soldier; for while, as the head of a great host of marauding mercenaries, he made himself the scourge and the terror of Germany, he never won a decisive battle against an equal enemy. The history of his fighting is largely a history of futilities. And when he formed the plan of a separate peace,—a plan which if promptly and vigorously executed might possibly have ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... as a young woman, in kilt and plaid and Glengarry cap, a shrewd young woman though, with a very decisive personality, clinching a bargain as the best of dealers might, a little forward. He could think of her as the young girl whose hand Charles the Young Pretender kissed, and who had said to him directly: ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... associations had made. These associations were practically middle-class affairs, and now, compelled by hard times and crashing markets, and aided by the great captains of industry, they gave organized labor an awful and decisive defeat. It was an all-powerful alliance, but it was an alliance of the lion and the lamb, as the middle class was soon ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... is of importance, because the result follows that, as already intimated, a whole series of arguments or claims which may fairly be put forward by a Nationalist are not available to a Home Ruler. A Nationalist, for example, may urge that the will of the Irish people to be independent is decisive of their moral right to independence, and that the perils which a free Ireland may bring upon England need not in any way concern him or his country. Whether indeed the principle of "nationality," or the contention that any portion of a State ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... general triumph of the French arms, that Daganoweda and his warriors had seen advancing, though perhaps no one in all the force dreamed that he was advancing to a battle that in reality would prove one of the most decisive in the world's history, heavy with consequences to which time set scarcely any limit. Nor did Robert himself, vivid as was his imagination, foresee it. His thoughts and energies were bounded for the time, at least, by the ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Meanwhile, the German prisons were thronged with the first batches of recusants. The world shrugged its shoulders, and declared that they had brought it on themselves, while yet it deprecated mob-violence, and requested the attention of the authorities and the decisive repression of this new conspiracy of superstition. And within St. Peter's Church the workmen were busy at the long rows of new altars, affixing to the stone diptychs the brass-forged names of those who had already fulfilled their vows ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... some time yet, my boy," replied Uncle Richard with a sigh; and Tom felt startled, for it seemed to him as if the stern, decisive-looking countenance before him had grown older, and the lines in it ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... her in five minutes' racing. It was really shameful. But the partridge seemed to gain strength as the fox put forth his, and after a quarter of a mile race, racing that was somehow all away from Taylor's Hill, the bird got unaccountably quite well, and, rising with a decisive whirr, flew off through the woods, leaving the fox utterly dumfounded to realize that he had been made a fool of, and, worst of all, he now remembered that this was not the first time he had been served this very trick, though he never ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... with his old life, they espoused his cause almost to a man, and at last he had the joy of seeing himself at the head of a very respectable band of nearly fifty determined men. The majority of them were for advancing to the enemy without a day's delay, and striking a decisive blow once for all. But ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... who had his head-quarters at the village of Plentheim, or Blenheim. At the cost of eleven thousand killed and wounded in the armies of Marlborough and Eugene, and fourteen thousand killed and wounded on the other side, a decisive victory was secured, Tallard himself being made prisoner, and 26 battalions and 12 squadrons capitulating as prisoners of war. 121 of the enemy's standards and 179 colours were brought home and hung up in Westminster Hall. Austria was saved, and Louis XIV. utterly humbled at the time ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Robertson Smith with the Jewish paschal feast, fell in the spring or early summer, when the camels and other domestic animals brought forth their young and the shepherds offered their sacrifices.[145] Babylonia, the supreme early centre of religious and cosmological culture, presents a more decisive example of the sex festival. The festival of Tammuz is precisely analogous to the European festival of St. John's Day. Tammuz was the solar god of spring vegetation, and closely associated with Ishtar, also an agricultural deity ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... time you would take to count a hundred and one. In the midst of this choral dance, at the fifty-first pulsation, the inhabitants of the Universe pause in full career, and each individual sends forth his richest, fullest, sweetest strain. It is in this decisive moment that all our marriages are made. So exquisite is the adaptation of Bass and Treble, of Tenor to Contralto, that oftentimes the Loved Ones, though twenty thousand leagues away, recognize at once the responsive note of their destined Lover; and, penetrating the paltry obstacles ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... proposal of marriage unless she is free to entertain such a proposal and has not decided in her own mind upon a negative answer. Of course, there are times when she receives, without power to check it, an unwelcome proposal. Her refusal then should be very decisive but very considerate. She should express regret at the situation, and her appreciation of the honor which has been done her, at the same time leaving no opportunity for future hope. In case she is already engaged, ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... months after Sidney's capture of Axel, Leicester reviewed her Majesty's troops at Arnhem; and it was then that Sir Philip at last persuaded him to strike a decisive blow at the Spanish. Having actually obtained his uncle's permission to fight, Sidney lost no time in unsheathing his sword. Five days after the review at Arnhem, he and his brother Robert and the young Earl of Essex, with a small force, stormed and ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... Clem. Hom. c. 1. We still possess in great part verbatim the regula of Apelles, in Epiphan II. 44, 2 Irenaeus (I. 7. 2) and Tertull (de carne. 20) state that the Valentinian regula contained the formula, '[Greek: gennethenta dia Marias]', see on this p. 203. In noting that the two points so decisive for Catholicism the Canon of the New Testament and the Apostolic regula were first, in the strict sense, set up by the Gnostics on the basis of a definite fixing and systematising of the oldest tradition we may see that the weakness of Gnosticism here consisted in its inability ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... He had done something decisive. For the time being he felt happier. "Nothing like getting a thing off your chest!" He took a bath and, having slipped into his dressing-gown, commenced to shave. Between these acts he whistled snatches of street-songs to prove to himself his genuine ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... lies in the possibility of their execution falling into the hands of hard, dull, and cruel administrators. But in the case of a Utopia one assumes the best possible government, a government as merciful and deliberate as it is powerful and decisive. You must not too hastily imagine these things being done—as they would be done on earth at present—by a number of zealous half-educated people in a state of panic at a quite imaginary ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... Caledonia, reduced every state to subjection in the southern parts of the island, and chased before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than servitude under the victors. He defeated them in a decisive action, which they fought under Galgacus; and having fixed a chain of garrisons between the friths of Clyde and Forth, he cut off the ruder and more barren parts of the island, and secured the Roman ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... with the old manner of choosing assistants. [Footnote: Baldwin, "The Three Constitutions of Conn.," in New Haven Colony Hist. Soc., Papers, V., 210-214.] In the election of 1820 the Republican candidate for governor was elected by a decisive vote, and all of Connecticut's representation in the lower house of Congress was Republican, [Footnote: Niles' Register, XVIII., 128.] although, in 1816, the Federalist candidate had been chosen by a small majority. [Footnote: Adams, United States, IX., 133.] New ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... with the resentment awakened by the attempt to free itself from its bondage to moral corruption. That was the penalty of failure. What made him uneasy was that Charles Gould seemed to him to have weakened at the decisive moment when a frank return to the old methods was the only chance. Listening to Decoud's wild scheme had ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... world's difference between them!" cried Rudolf Rassendyll. He sat down on the bed by me, and went on in quick, decisive words: "You can't move for a day or two. Send my message to Sapt. Tell him to keep you informed of what happens. As soon as you can travel, go to Strelsau, and let Sapt know directly you arrive. We ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... which the actor might have interpolated them;—and secondly, because they interrupt, not only the sense and connection, but likewise the flow both of the passion, and (what is with me still more decisive) of the Shakespearian link of association. As with many another parenthesis or gloss slipt into the text, we have only to read the passage without it, to see that it never was in it. I venture to say there is no instance in Shakespeare ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... with little intermission, is my condition. The hours devoted to study are selected with vigilant caution from among these periods of endurance. It is not for this that I think of travelling to Italy, even if I knew that Italy would relieve me. But I have experienced a decisive pulmonary attack; and although at present it has passed away without any considerable vestige of its existence, yet this symptom sufficiently shows the true nature of my disease to be consumptive. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... then throwing off her subjection; England first throwing off her subjection, and then compelled to reform herself. The old systems of thought were at an end. The change, like all social ones, was not abrupt, but it was decisive and final. It was the earthquake which shattered for ever the crust of ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... It was at times a positive misery to the new conqueror that his opponents were such inefficient fossils. Young and at the same time capable; using the natural advantages of his territory to support the bravery of his troops; with a mind which was not only accurate and decisive, but comprehensive in its observations; unhampered by control or by principle; opposed to generals who could not think of a boy of twenty-six as their equal; with the best army and the finest theater of war in Europe; finally, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... partly owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, to the weak state of her rival's health, which, from year to year, seemed to announce speedy dissolution. At length, however, Vanessa's impatience prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs. Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature of that connexion. Stella, in reply, informed her of her marriage with the Dean; and full of the highest resentment against Swift for having given another female such a right in ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... anticipated, not only the best general practice of a later date, but specifically the purpose of Rodney in the action which he himself considered the most meritorious of his whole career,—that of April 17, 1780. The decisive signal given by him on that occasion, as explained by himself, meant that each ship should steer, not for the ship corresponding numerically to her in the enemy's order, but for the one immediately opposite at the time the signal was made. This is what Mathews and ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... sway a circle or a household. Her influence will as surely affect her associates as did the influence of those celebrated French women whose salons were the places where battles were fought and decisive moments gained. Society is in great need of women: it always will be. Now this period of young womanhood is precisely the time for cultivating those principles which will later be most ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... the head was decisive. Fleda crawled off the bed, feeling as if a month's illness had been making its ravages upon her frame and strength. She stood a moment to collect her thoughts; but alas, thinking was impossible; there was a palsy ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... moment indeed the whole Persian army put itself into quick and decisive motion, as if determined to dare all—and achieve all for their ally, if fate should so decree. It was a sight beautiful to behold, but of an interest too painful almost to be endured. The very existence ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... already—and even before meeting Waymarsh—arrived. He had believed he had a limit, but the limit had been transcended within thirty-six hours. By how long a space on the plane of manners or even of morals, moreover, he felt still more sharply after Maria Gostrey had come back to him and with a gay decisive "So now—!" led him forth into the world. This counted, it struck him as he walked beside her with his overcoat on an arm, his umbrella under another and his personal pasteboard a little stiffly retained between forefinger and thumb, this struck him as really, in comparison his introduction ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... child," said he, kissing her forehead, "so there are troubles at home, and you have been hasty and headstrong? That is not like a well-bred child. My Hortense ought not to have taken such a decisive step as that of leaving her house and deserting her husband on her own account, and without consulting her parents. If my darling girl had come to see her kind and admirable mother, she would not have given ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... parting, there could have been no very deep sense of injury on either side. It was not till afterward that, in both bosoms, the repulsive force came into operation, when, to the party which had taken the first decisive step in the strife, it became naturally a point of pride to persevere in it with dignity, and this unbendingness provoked, as naturally, in the haughty spirit of the other, a strong feeling of resentment which overflowed, at last, in acrimony ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... only two nights more before we reach Augsburg, so there must be no more shilly-shallying about the matter. If there is a stove in the room to-night, we may try that; though, if the house be in a pretty safe situation, I should prefer more decisive measures. The charcoal has ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... This trial is decisive. You are now satisfied that the apparition is but a reflex of yourself; and, in uttering your secret feelings to him, you make this phantom the dark symbolic mirror for reflecting to the daylight what else must be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... not permitted to finish the petition. Withdrawing her hand with decisive action, she bade him be silent or speak to her questions. And ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... could see clouds of birds of prey rending the air with their sinister cries. The reflections which this sight excited were profoundly painful. How many victims, and what result! The army had marched from Wilna to Witebsk, from Witebsk to Smolensk, hoping for a decisive battle, seeking this battle at Wiasma, then at Ghjat, and had found it at last at Borodino, a bloody, terrible battle. The army had marched to Moscow in order to earn the fruit of all that sacrifice, and at this place nothing had been found but ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... character to remain satisfied with these simple pleasures, and to have lived the quiet and modest life of a man of letters on such income as he could derive from the best work he could produce. But it is this same Mr. Cooke who gives decisive testimony as to Goldsmith's increasing desire to "shine" by imitating the expenditure of the great; the natural consequence of which was that he only plunged himself into a morass of debt, advances, contracts for hack-work, and misery. "His debts rendered him at times so melancholy ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... only one way out, and that way lay through the inner room. She resolved to take it. She took the small sack and approached the door. A look through the keyhole revealed them engrossed in the decisive "hand." With heaving bosom she turned the handle and ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... applied. The office of Superintendent of Finance I suppose is meant as one means of restoring economy and vigor; and nothing will keep up in the minds of the public servants such a constant sense of their duty, as a knowledge of the power to remove them in the hands of a person of vigilant and decisive character. Whether I shall have sufficient courage and perseverance to act up to that character, and whether my small abilities, supported by application and attention, will enable me to render essential service in the execution of this office, is become an ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... way as though nothing had happened. The unwonted scene of a man in Mr. Checkynshaw's position putting a clerk out of his office excited a little comment, and the banker had stopped in the long hall to explain to a bank president the occasion of his prompt and decisive action. Leo and the jaunty man passed him as they left the building; but the boy did not know him ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... before the decisive battle (August, 1806,) Kara Georg sent his cavalry round into a wood, with orders to fall on the enemy's flank as soon as the first ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... of the Fathers are, indeed, as strong and decisive in favour of the Bishop's position as the warmest advocate of Confirmation could wish; but this very circumstance was calculated to create a prejudice against the doctrine in the mind of a zealous Protestant, from the contrast in which the unequivocal and explicit declarations of ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... daylight were piercing the heavens, the Pesitistas were rallying for a decisive charge, the hopes of the little band of besieged were at low ebb when from the west there sounded ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The decisive moment had arrived, and only by the greatest exercise of will power could Jet prevent his hands ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... of public opinion would result in giving a war a more or less national character. By whatever pretext Germany should justify the European conflagration, nothing can prevent the first decisive blows being struck ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... getting in the other lines by winching them up, making bait and fly fast to the winch bar, rowing to shore, sometimes from the middle of a 200 yards' river, and securing adequate foothold ashore. The fish is to be firmly controlled with a bent rod all the while, and when he comes in there is no decisive finish with the cleek, since your kelt must have his freedom unharmed if possible. The dexterity with which the boatmen carry out these operations is marvellous, the result of being masters of their calling ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... easy to set it on fire, as the enemy were to leeward; but although the rustling in the grass betokened the presence of a great number of men, they were invisible. In a few minutes we emerged in a clearing, where corn had been planted; this was a favourable position for a decisive attack upon the natives, who now closed up. Throwing out skirmishers, with orders that they were to cover themselves behind the trunks of trees, the Baris were driven back. One was now shot through the body, and fell; but ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... chair, when the door from the hall is opened and his daughter MAUD comes in; a pretty girl, rather pale, with fine eyes. Though her face has a determined cast her manner at this moment is by no means decisive. She has a letter in her hand, and advances rather as if she were stalking her father, who, after a "Hallo, Maud!" has begun ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in the summer of 1920, and with the assistance of Mr. Pease, of the observatory staff, interference fringes were observed in the case of certain stars when the mirrors were as much as 18 feet apart. All was thus in readiness for a decisive test as soon as a suitable star ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... is abolished altogether, the Committee being of opinion, unanimous and decisive, that the position is only provocative ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... Toiras gave information that everything was preparing in the enemy's camp for a fresh assault, the king judged that it would be best to put an end to the affair, and gave the necessary orders for a decisive action. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I desire to place at his disposition an instrument the value of which I am confident you will not underestimate. The 'Echo de la Bievre,' a specialist paper, can have a decisive influence on the election ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the Dutch on their part constantly implored her to join them openly; but she continued to give evasive answers to both parties until the assassination of William of Orange on 10th July, 1584, sent a thrill of horror through England, and determined the queen and her advisers to take a more decisive part in the struggle. In the following June envoys from the States arrived in London, and were received with great honour, and a treaty between the two countries was agreed upon. Three months later the queen published a declaration to her people and to Europe at large, ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... limitations and fallacies, there can be no doubt as to the enormous value of palaeontology in enabling us to work out the historical succession of the sedimentary rocks. It may even be said that in any case where there should appear to be a clear and decisive discordance between the physical and the palaeontological evidence as to the age of a given series of beds, it is the former that is to be distrusted rather than the latter. The records of geological science contain not ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... him better, his influence over her would vanish. Doubtless he would return, and so she watched for him, ready to go down as soon as she saw him approaching. She waited with feverish shudderings, anxiously believing that this first tete-a-tete in her husband's absence would be decisive. Time passed; it was more than two hours since he had gone out with Sauvresy, and he had not ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... cannot overstate the wisdom and benefit of this act of the Government. The malignant cry of the Secession press within the Free States, and the recent action of the Confederate Congress, are decisive as to its efficiency and correctness of aim. Not less so is the silent joy which has greeted it in all generous hearts, and the new hope it has breathed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... consciousness that the decisive moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now, keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the dying man wished to see, her own ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... decisive war with the United States ended in the humble submission of Mexico, causing her to lose a large portion of her territory, amounting to more than one half its number of square miles. Probably very few of the readers of these pages could answer correctly, if they were asked what was the real cause ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... a Sikh regiment had been lost. Mr. Barton, in taking up the evening paper, lying beside Diana, which contained the news, had made very much the remark foretold by Captain Roughsedge in the afternoon. It was, he thought, a pity the repulse had not been more decisive—so as to show all the world into what a hornet's nest the Government was going—"and a hornet's nest which will cost us half a million to take before ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tops'ls weren't cut by an English sail-maker, I'm ready to pass for a Schiedam drinking big-breeched Dutchman for the rest of my born days," observed Job Truefitt, in a decisive tone, as standing up on the forecastle deck, and holding on by the mast, he shaded his eyes with his hand, and took a severe scrutiny ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... you may be the future master of this hacienda, by a marriage with the charming daughter of its present owner, who is to be its heiress. Come presently to my apartment. The conversation which I am about to have with Don Augustin must be decisive, and I shall let you know ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... the German Empire as purely a campaign on the Western Front, all other campaigns in other corners of the globe being mere "side shows." I was always a firm and consistent supporter of the "East End" school of strategy. I looked upon the war as a World War and, since the decisive Battle of the Marne in September, 1914, when the German hopes of complete and crushing victory in the West were shattered (which decision was still more finally confirmed at First Ypres), as primarily a south-eastern war. I held ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... self-seeking. He saw the President hounded and badgered by his own party, assaulted and denounced in the bitterest terms by the opposition, and he knew that the remedy could be found only in a fighting, victorious army. A single decisive victory would turn the tide of public opinion, unite the faction-ridden army and ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... for a while, I guess. This battle was even shorter than the other one—and a lot more decisive. Let's turn on the flood-lights and see ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... "I should have thought so too" (said the King), "if you had not written so well."—Johnson observed to me, upon this, that "No man could have paid a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive." When asked by another friend, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, whether he made any reply to this high compliment, he answered, "No, sir. When the King had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my Sovereign." Perhaps ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... return to Springfield the battle of Pea Ridge was fought. The success of the Union troops in this battle was considerable, and while not of sufficient magnitude to affect the general cause materially, it was decisive as to that particular campaign, and resulted in driving all organized Confederate forces out of the State of Missouri. After Pea Ridge was won, certain efforts were made to deprive Curtis of the credit due him for the victory; but, no ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of Charles' deeds was his decisive defeat of the advancing Mohammedans who were pressing into Gaul from Spain. Before speaking of this a word must be said of the invaders and their religion, for the Saracens, as the followers of Mohammed were commonly called, will ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... grappled with one of the largest of the Genoese vessels, and a desperate conflict went on. Sometimes the Venetians gained a footing on the deck of the Genoese, sometimes they were driven back, and the Genoese in turn poured on board, but no decisive advantage was gained on either side after an hour's fighting. The Genoese crew was numerically much stronger than that of the Pluto, and although Francis, with Matteo and his comrades, headed their men and cheered them on, they could make no impression ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... is women's duty to help them. I think, if women would only not be quite so afraid of being thought unwomanly, they would be a great deal more womanly than they are. To be brave, and single-minded, and discriminating, and judicious, and clear-sighted, and self-reliant, and decisive, that is pure womanly. To be womanish is not to be womanly. To be flabby, and plastic, and weak, and acquiescent, and insipid, is not womanly. And I could wish sometimes that women would not be quite so patient. They often ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... you say, on impulse," he said; "but I am glad I came, for I have your decisive answer now about the little girl. I have been thinking," he continued, slowly, "since you have been speaking, and before, when I first saw her dancing in front of the footlights, when I did not know who she was, that I could give up a horse or two, if necessary, and support this ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... reason could prompt a woman of Mrs. Collins's caliber to return to a man of Collins's type," he said. "She might hesitate a long while before leaving her husband. But once she took the decisive step, nothing short of a desire to save the life of the man she loved could induce her to return. Don't you see the situation? She must have had knowledge that Whitmore was coming back. And, isn't it more than likely that before she consented to return to her husband she ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... the decision of the German element to cast in their lot with the Republicans. Carl Schurz, one of the best men who ever took part in American public life, and a radical of the radicals, exercised a decisive influence and turned the tide in Illinois and Iowa, where a few thousand votes lost would have defeated Lincoln. Though the enthusiasm of the Republicans was not so great as it had been in 1856, the people of the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... consideration it was thought that a good way to strike a decisive blow would be to send a vessel loaded with shells and gunpowder into the harbor of Tripoli by night, and explode her there. This might result, it was thought, in the destruction of the forts and ships, and possibly part ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... first law that Solon enacted in his new capacity was bold and decisive. No revolution can ever satisfy a people if it does not lessen their burdens. Poverty disposes men to innovation only because innovation promises relief. Solon therefore applied himself resolutely, and at once, to the great source of dissension between the rich and the poor—namely, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cause, would certainly have been far less dishonorable to the British name. During the retreat, the heroic sachem had earnestly and repeatedly recommended a sudden and determined face-about on their pursuers, and only the night before the decisive battle he had urged a backward movement, that, under screen of the darkness, they might surprise the sleeping enemy in his camp, and overpower him before any combined resistance could be made. But all in vain. His white ally was but a fat poltroon—"a big, fat, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... full dose of Dr. Pierce's Pleasant Pellets may he taken at bed-time. Avoidance of exposure to cold, and light vegetable diet, are advisable. In the more severe attacks, especially when complicated by laryngeal or bronchial symptoms, the most decisive measures should be employed. The Compound Extract of Smart-weed should be taken freely, together with hot drinks, or a hot general bath. The patient should be warmly covered in bed to encourage a continued perspiration, to equalize the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the past year, though occupied only with State officers, have not failed to elicit in the political discussions which attended them all over the country new and decisive evidence of the deep interest which the great body of citizens take in the progress of the country toward a more general and complete establishment, at whatever cost, of universal security and freedom in the exercise of the elective franchise. While ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... first week of the involuntary cruise of the Adamant that the Syndicate finished its preparations for what it hoped would be the decisive movement of its campaign. To do this a repeller and six crabs, all with extraordinary powers, had been fitted out with great care, and also with great rapidity, for the British Government was working night and day to get its fleet of ironclads in readiness for a descent upon ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... spirit of conciliation he might win back the affections of his people, he was extremely reluctant to take any measures by which he should be arrayed in hostility against them. Maria, on the contrary, knew that decisive action alone could be of any avail. One night, about ten o'clock, the king and queen were sitting in their private apartment of the Tuileries, endeavoring to beguile the melancholy hours by a game of cards. The sister of the king, Madame Elizabeth, with a very pensive countenance, was kneeling ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... could, be brought home to the baronet, to take such public or rather legal proceedings as they might be advised to by competent professional advice. Our readers may already guess, however, that the stranger was influenced by motives sufficiently strong and decisive to prevent him, above all men, from appearing, publicly or at all, in any proceedings that might ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... on gray paper which bore her crest, differed from this hurriedly written scrawl on a heavier paper which he had no means of identifying. Only upon closer inspection did he discover a hesitation in the lower curves and upward strokes of the letters which were not characteristic of the decisive Marishka. ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... the Swedish government had no duty, nor even the right to withdraw without protest. Facts are of more importance than mere forms. The evasive talk of the "spirit" of constitutional law, and the administrative anomalies could not be decisive. Many events both in public annals and administrative legislature are very illogical, and very great anomalies. The main fact which the Swedish government had to hold in view, was this, that the responsibility of the Swedish ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... shock of deadly-hostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword Dreams in its easeful sheath; But some day the live coal behind the thought, Whether from Baal's stone obscene, Or from the shrine serene Of God's pure altar brought, Bursts up in ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... grand spacious bunker in front of the tee to the last hole on the golf links. It was a beautiful bunker, consisting of a great slope of loose, steep sand against the face of the hill, and solidly shored up with timber. The Navy had been in better form to-day, and after a decisive victory over the Army in the morning and an indemnity of half-a-crown, its match in the afternoon, with just the last hole to play, was all square. So Captain Puffin, having the honour, hit a low, nervous drive that tapped loudly at the timbered wall of the bunker, and cuddled down ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... passionately studied even its most trifling details, and in the depths of his heart retained a feeling of tender affection and infinite pity for Bernadette. He had just reflected, too, that on the very next day he would be able to begin that decisive inquiry which he had formerly dreamt of making at Lourdes. In fact, this was one of the reasons which had induced him to accompany Marie on her journey. And he was now conscious of an awakening of all his curiosity respecting ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... united opposition of enemies. In the One Hundred and Tenth Psalm this Heir is sharing rule at God's right hand while waiting the subduing of all enemies. He is to be divine, a king, and more, a priest-king. Surrounded by a nation of volunteers full of youthful vigor He will gain a decisive victory over the head of the allied enemies, and yet be Himself undisturbed in the continual freshness of His vigor. And all this rests upon the ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... said Norah at last, almost driven to bay by her terror lest her mistress should return at any moment, and find him there—unable to consider what was best to be done or said-rushing at something decisive, because she could not endure her present state: "Mr. Frank! we never heard a line from you, and the shipowners said you had gone down, you and every one else. We thought you were dead, if ever man was, and poor Miss Alice and her little ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... travelled by easy stages across Germany, where the campaign of Protestantism had begun, they knew that the decisive battle was yet to be fought. Europe was silent. The tumult of Charles V.'s reign was over, and that great monarch marched and countermarched no more from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. Charles had been victorious so long as he fought kings with words of steel. But the ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... bitterest opponents to deny the brilliance of the series of victories which he has won in the law courts. His acquittal in the blasphemy prosecution of Saturday was but the latest of a number of encounters in which he has succeeded in turning the tables upon his opponents in the most decisive fashion. The policy of baiting Mr. Bradlaugh which has been persisted in so long, savours so strongly of a petty and malignant species of persecution that it is well that those who indulge in it should be made to smart for their pains. The wise and weighty words used by the Lord ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... But Lysia was perfectly self-possessed, . . in fact she appeared to accept the threat of a storm as an imposing, and by no means undesirable, adjunct to the mysteries of the Sacrificial Rite, for riveting her basilisk eyes on Niphrata, she said in firm, clear, decisive accents: ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... ever-ready and imperial Douglass," as Colonel Higginson describes him, spoke in behalf of his race. The convention, however, divided upon the question of negro suffrage, and adjourned without decisive action. But under President Grant's administration the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, and by the solemn sanction of the Constitution the ballot was conferred upon the black men upon the same terms as those upon which it was enjoyed ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... final suppression of the Scottish Rebellion of 1715, by the decisive Battle of Preston, a gentleman who had taken a very active share in it escaped to the West Highlands to the residence of a female relative, who afforded him an asylum. As in consequence of the strict search which was made after the ringleaders, it was soon judged unsafe for him ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... invidious allusion is to the disposition, not infrequent at the North, but by no means general, to set a decisive limit to further legislation in favour of the cherished idiosyncrasy of the other half of the country. Hawthorne takes the license of a sympathetic biographer in speaking of his hero's having incurred obloquy by his conservative ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... approaching, we too advanced, sending on our cavalry ahead. After a long and obstinate engagement, our lines were broken, and we began to give ground; and finally our whole army was cut clean in two. One half had not suffered a decisive defeat; with these it was rather a retreat than a flight, nor did the Alanians venture to follow up their advantage for any distance. But the other and smaller division was completely surrounded by the ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... of MSS. or by the Higher Critics in recovering the J. narrative of Joseph or the E. narrative of Lot. But I think I have shown that the incidents selected by me are those which are necessitated by the artistic logic of the Shoe Marriage Test which forms the decisive incident in the Cinder-Maid formula. Where the majority of the incidents contained in the reconstruction occurred in the same order in far distant countries it is practically impossible to imagine that the resemblance is due to chance. Nor is it pertinent to point out that the separate ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... white over his right eyelid, proceeded at a rapid pace in the direction of the Original Pig stables; it is currently reported that this gentleman has arrived here for the purpose of attending the association, and, from what I have heard, I consider it extremely probable, although nothing decisive is yet known regarding him. You may conceive the anxiety with which we are all looking forward to the arrival of the four o'clock coach ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Paris, on September 13, 1820, aged eighty-five years. He left a son, the celebrated general who made the decisive charge at Marengo, and distinguished himself in Spain and at Waterloo, and who died on June 2, 1835; and a daughter, married ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... people in Europe, who have had no experience of the presence among them of a semi-civilized race, destitute of the ideas and habits which lie at the basis of free government, to condemn the action of these Colonies in seeking to preserve a decisive electoral majority for the whites. But any one who has studied the question on the spot, and especially any one who has seen the evils which in America have followed the grant of the suffrage to persons unfit for it, will form a more charitable ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... that "We are Supreme Governor of the Church of England," although the ostensible reason was because of the "curious and unhappy differences" which seemed, in His Majesty's opinion, to show the wisdom of decisive adjudication with respect to those "fond things vainly invented," for which some of his subjects had so ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... moment, a self-reliant, decisive moment. Her eyes sparkled, she caught up the ugly bonnet, she could hardly hurry fast enough to find The Woman's Exchange and Employment Agency. She even remembered the ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... kept so close to him, that, if he tried, he was as likely to hit one as the other. He walked back and forth, on the alert for such a chance, and fortunately had not long to wait. One of the furious birds, circled off a few feet, as if to gather impetus for a decisive charge, when, taking a ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... till I get a wire—," he said. "Then I'll come back and we'll reverse again." He slipped on the coat and moved back towards the table. Now that the decisive moment had come, ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... not be said characteristically to distinguish the pecuniarily successful upper-class man from the rank and file of the industrial classes. The training and the selection to which the latter are exposed in modern industrial life give a similarly decisive weight to this trait. Tenacity of purpose may rather be said to distinguish both these classes from two others; the shiftless ne'er do-well and the lower-class delinquent. In point of natural endowment the pecuniary ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... of atrocious combinations. Chance! The cunning demon! He calls himself Chance so as to better deceive us. With an infernal skilfulness he feigns not to watch us in the decisive moments of our lives, and at the same time leads us like blind fools into the very path he has marked ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... Mr. Clark went round to the widow's one evening with the air of a man who has made up his mind to decisive action. He entered the room with a bounce and, hardly deigning to notice the greeting of Mr. Tucker, planted himself in a chair and surveyed him grimly. "I thought I should ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... trains loaded with ties and steel began to move and the construction gangs followed close on the heels of the graders. And when the last spike in the track to the scene of the decisive battle was driven, the track-men with their sledges stepped aside to clear the way for the panting engines that drew the first train loaded with piling ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... energy, and defeated his enemies on all sides. Austria was the leader of the Catholic party in Europe, which was striving to restore the papal supremacy. Gustavus Adolphus held a similar relation to the Protestant party. He was engaged in the Thirty Years' War, and won many decisive victories. He captured Munich, and overran Bavaria, but was finally killed in the battle of Luetzen, in 1632. By his prowess and skill he raised Sweden to the rank of one of the first ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... and decisive conversation between Mr. Gifford and Mr. Turner about the details of their contract, and 'Ennery was presently called in to append to it his painfully precise signature in vertical writing, Miss Stevens adding hers in a pretty round hand. Then ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... resumed his pen in his "old Cossack manner."[357] Similarly he writes of John Home's tragedy, Douglas, that the finest scene was, "we learn with pleasure but without surprise," unchanged from the first draft;[358] and elsewhere he speaks of the greater chance for popularity of the "bold, decisive, but light-touched strain of poetry or narrative in literary composition," over ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... modernised version of the real Caedmon's poem, by a reviser in the ninth century. At any rate, the latter work may be treated here under the name of Caedmon, by which it is universally known. It consists of a long Scriptural paraphrase, written in the alliterative metre, short, sharp, and decisive, but not without a wild and passionate beauty of its own. In tone it differs wonderfully little from Beowulf, being most at home in the war of heaven and Satan, and in the titanic descriptions of the devils and their deeds. The conduct of the poem is singularly ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... restricted to the character of individuals or the span of human lives. The elements which compose Hinduism had been vigorous long before the eighth century and Buddhism, though decadent, continued to exist in India later. But probably the careers of these two men are the best record of the decisive turn of the tide. It is often said that they revived Hinduism, but however much they insisted on the authority of ancient tradition, the real result of their labours was not to re-establish the order of things which prevailed before the rise of Buddhism, but to give authority ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... of deep-sea sounding seems to be DECISIVE of the question as to the practicability of a submarine telegraph between the two continents in so far as the bottom of the deep sea is concerned. From Newfoundland to Ireland the distance between the nearest points is about 1600 miles, and the bottom of the sea between the two ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... haste, and hurried away to his daily-increasing business. But Theodore had seemed lost in thought, and for some little time had occupied himself with trying to balance his spoon on the edge of his cup, instead of eating his breakfast. At last he let the spoon pitch into the cup with a decisive click, and asked the aforesaid question. Grandma McPherson, looking a little older, it is true, than on the blessed day in which "Tode Mall" first sought her out, but still having the look of a wonderfully ...
— Three People • Pansy
... the prompt and decisive rejoinder. "No soldier of this command shall leave the stockade until the hour for our final departure. The fellow had a chance to come in here with the others before the gates were closed, but was obstinate as a mule, and must now take the consequences. But you need not worry ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... of a decisive battle (forgotten), frequently remembered by a decisive officer, major ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... or as it is done with slack and nerveless hand or with vim and vigor, will test the very character of our churches; will touch the conscience and well-being of the nation; and will, without a doubt, have vital and decisive connection with the future of that most populous empire on ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... negatively. A lady on my left told me that the banker was Count Alfani. Half an hour later, Madame Querini went seven and lost, she increased her stake of ten sequins; it was the last deal of the game, and therefore the decisive one. I rose from my chair, and fixed my eyes on the banker's hands. But in spite of that, he cheated before me, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Of the decisive period of Wordsworth's life, when he was living with his sister Dorothy and with Coleridge at Alfoxden, we have already spoken. The importance of this decision to give himself to poetry is evident ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... and different scene in August, 1821—a scene worthy of a poet or painter—the Great Treaty, in which the Indian chiefs gave up most of their empire east of the Mississippi. There came to this decisive convocation the plumes of the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawattamies. General Cass was there, and the old Indian agents. The chiefs brought with them their great warriors, their wives and children. There the prairie Indians made their last stand but ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... apace, and was being watched with bated breath by the Beaconsfield Town Guard. The numbers of the enemy ensconced at Alexandersfontein had diminished so materially that Major Rodger with a picked force of one hundred men ventured to try conclusions with the residue. A sharp, decisive fight ensued; the few Boers left to defend the place were so startled that they soon fled, leaving bag and baggage behind them. A few on the Boer side were killed (or wounded) and half a dozen were taken prisoners. Of the Major's men, two were injured. Despatches found in the pocket of a prisoner ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... interested in basket weaving. They shook their heads vehemently. Then at Bet's proposal that they sell her some that were already made, the ones they carried along, their heads shook more than ever and their grunts and frowns were decisive. Kit translated it to the girls as a flat refusal. Flat refusals always spurred Bet on ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... however, than that of ambassadors, however numerous they might be, and from whatever country they came; and so, setting everything aside, the king made a sign of interrogation to Saint-Aignan, which the latter answered by a most decisive negative. The king almost entirely lost his courage; but as the queens, the members of the nobility who were present, and the ambassadors, had their eyes fixed upon him, he overcame his emotion by a violent effort, and invited the latter to speak. Whereupon one of the Spanish deputies ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with breakfast before she went in to an interview, which we all felt to be important and decisive. The time seemed endless to us, and ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of which there were many among the plants, and proceed. Peter had more of the patience of an Indian, and deemed the hour too early. But le Bourdon was not yet entirely free from distrust of his companion, and telling Gershom to follow, he began paddling down one of the passages mentioned. This decisive step compelled the rest to follow, or to separate from their companions. They chose to ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... trenches and wire entanglements. Here also were concentrated the troops withdrawn from other parts of the line, and four armored trains with quick-firing guns from the depot at Rovno. General Ivanoff had no intention of making any decisive stand against the "phalanx"; neither did he think of risking his armies in a battle for Lemberg. That town was certainly of great military and political importance—worth a dozen Przemysls—and worth fighting for. But for that he would need artillery in enormous quantity. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... He did not know whether or not he wanted to go on. "I seem to have lost my grip on things. I used to be rather decisive. But we'll try it one more day, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... of experiences introduced into the Pilgrim's Progress. Many have died remarkably happy in the Lord, who, till very near their last moments have been in bondage through the fear of death. We may be sure of this, that wherever the Lord has begun a work, He will carry it on to the great decisive day. The proof of this is 'he would not go back!' 'If ye continue in My Word, then are ye ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and was certainly the best writer of heroic rhyme in our language, yet the plays which have, from the time of their first appearance, been considered as his best, are in blank verse. No experiment can be more decisive. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had never been more definite; but poor Lily, for all the hard glaze of her exterior, was inwardly as malleable as wax. Her faculty for adapting herself, for entering into other people's feelings, if it served her now and then in small contingencies, hampered her in the decisive moments of life. She was like a water-plant in the flux of the tides, and today the whole current of her mood was carrying her toward Lawrence Selden. Why had he come? Was it to see herself or Bertha Dorset? It was the last question which, at that moment, should have engaged ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... neighbouring states, and her name erased from the map. But the brave little state had earned a better fate than that of Poland. When we have come to trace out the results of her action, we shall see that just as it was Massachusetts that took the decisive step in bringing on the Revolutionary War when she threw the tea into Boston harbour, so it was Maryland that, by leading the way toward the creation of a national domain, laid the corner-stone of ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... side of the field, the lighter eleven braced for a last stand. As the "Jeffersons'" youthful quarter attempted to pass the ball, Silvey broke through and knocked the pigskin from his hands towards John, who grabbed it and ran to the other end of the field for the one and decisive ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely |
