"Desideratum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... desideratum is, to secure comfort on the passage, by the most efficient and economical means, thereby, as far as possible insuring the arrival of the company at their destination in good health ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... for the expedition had been defined by the Swedish navigator, and he announced the reasons which led him to believe that the north-east passage was practicable in summer, and the means by which he hoped to realize this geographical desideratum. The intelligent liberality of two Scandinavian gentlemen, and the assistance of the Swedish government, enabled him to organize his expedition upon a plan which he believed ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... endeavored to be followed throughout, is that of the common and statutes laws respecting the rights to real property. It may tend to create litigation, as to claims which are now refused entirely, but if no litigation or less is the grand desideratum, why not establish a dictatorship at once? The ipse dixit of one man will then prevent all argument. But the rights of property and jury trial in all cases are ours by the constitution—and equally are we entitled by the constitution to the pursuit of happiness ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... other's embrace. School exercises in language composition are given with great success upon the basis of the sign-language. But in all such exercises there must be a translation from one language to the other. The desideratum still exists of an increased percentage of pupils leaving our schools for the deaf, possessing a facility of expression in English vernacular. This want has been long felt, and endeavoring to find a reason for the confessedly low percentage, the sign-language has been too ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... virtually a monolith. Modern quick-setting cement accomplishes this object within a time consistent with the requirements of modern engineering works; the formation of a monolithic mass within a reasonable time and with materials requiring as little handling as possible being the desideratum. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... Horace Walpole, who gave such an impulse to the collecting mania; he declined selling the work, however, for he had thoughts of printing it himself. The application was mentioned by him, and, of course, the manuscript gained notoriety, while the original letter became a greater desideratum than ever. The library at G—— was searched most carefully by a couple of brother book-worms, who crept over it from cornice to carpeting; ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... leading writer of to-day in Hebrew, a "spiritual revival" should be the desideratum of the Zionists. Spiritual is of course not used in the restricted religious sense, but as the opposite of material. Although Ahad Ha-'Am concedes the establishment of a center in Palestine to be a necessity, he considers it only a means to the end of an "awakening" ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... theology, physics, or hyperphysics, and still less with occult qualities (which we might call hypophysical), is not only an indispensable substratum of all sound theoretical knowledge of duties, but is at the same time a desideratum of the highest importance to the actual fulfilment of their precepts. For the pure conception of duty, unmixed with any foreign addition of empirical attractions, and, in a word, the conception of the moral law, exercises on the ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... conceive my happiness upon hearing this—upon at length getting into my possession precisely the sort of work which you so long since had looked upon as a desideratum in the history of mankind, and which I had utterly despaired of ever seeing ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... not in poetry, at least in fact; And fact is Truth, the grand desideratum! Of which, howe'er the Muse describes each act, There should be ne'ertheless a slight substratum. But now the town is going to be attacked; Great deeds are doing—how shall I relate 'em? Souls of immortal Generals! Phoebus watches To colour up his ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... upon at the same instant, the last lever moving at the same moment with the first. This simultaneous movement of a succession of parallel levers, acting the one upon the other, with a force successively increasing and in geometrical proportion, is the grand desideratum, the ne plus ultra, in the science of mechanics, which the inventor professes to have achieved. To place this multiplied ad infinitum power in its plainest light, we may observe that a given power—say that of one horse—will impart to a lever ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... naturally short-sighted. To philosophers, however, this horizon, like every other, is a mere misunderstanding, a sort of slamming of the door in the face of the real beginning of their world,—their danger, their ideal, their desideratum.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} In more polite language: La philosophie ne suffit pas au grand nombre. Il lui ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... The great desideratum in modern times is an efficient check upon the power of banks, preventing that excessive issue of paper whence arise those fluctuations in the standard of value which render uncertain the rewards of labor. It was supposed by those who established the Bank of the United States that from the credit ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of a popular Selection from the French Classics, has professionally experienced the want of a book of French Poetry for Children, and to supply this desideratum, has produced a little volume with the above title. It consists of brief extracts, in two parts—1. From Morel's Moral de l'enfance; 2. Miscellaneous Poems, Fables, &c., by approved writers; and is in French just what Miss ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... with Mr. Gladstone in 1887, he referred to the enormous power and responsibilities of the United States, and suggested that a desideratum was a new unity between our two countries. We had that of race and language, but we needed a moral unity of English-speaking people for the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... copper on aluminium used to be considered a desideratum in the days when it afforded the only means of soldering the latter. Many receipts have been published from time to time, and I have tried, I think, most of them. On no occasion, however, till this year (1896), have I succeeded in obtaining ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... against oppression by possessing the ballot, would cease to be the prominent object of philanthropic interest. Northern distrust, disarmed by Southern magnanimity, would give place to the liveliest sentiments of confidence and regard. The great political desideratum would be attained. The negro question would be forever removed from the political arena. National parties would again crystallize upon legitimate questions of National interest—questions of tariff, finance, and foreign ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... desideratum of our age, We insisted on cheap gloves and shoes and wine and ribbons, and why not cheap divorces? Philosophers tell us that the alternate action of the seasons is one of the purest and most enduring ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... mode of manufacture has been improved on by a method of working the hair into the solid ivory; and brushes of this description are now the best in the market. Their chief excellence consists in their preserving their original white colour to the last, which is a great desideratum. Billiard-balls constitute another considerable item of ivory consumption. They cost from 6s. to 12s. each; and the nicety of our ornamental turning produces balls not only of the most perfect spherical ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... Crataegus has long been a desideratum with botanists. The present year has added numerous new species, most of which must be regarded as provisional until sufficient time has elapsed to note more carefully the limits of variation in previously existing species and to eliminate possible hybrids. During the present period ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... specialist I was quite determined to sleep. I had laid in a bundle of the daily papers. No country cottage was advertised to let but I knew of it by evening, and about all the likely ones I had already written. The scheme occupied my thoughts. Trout-fishing was a desideratum. I would take my rod and plenty of books, would live simply and frugally, and it should make a new man of me by Christmas. It was now October. I went to sleep thinking of autumn tints against an autumn sunset. It must have been very early, certainly not later than ten o'clock; ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... reared large families, feared the gods, respected the State, and made an honest living, it became a land of great estates and wealthy men, and the self-respecting peasantry were transformed into soldiers for foreign wars, or joined the rabble in the streets of Rome. [14] Wealth became the great desideratum, and the great avenue to this was through the public service, either as army commanders and governors, or as public men who could sway the multitude and command votes and influence. Manifestly the old type of education was not intended to meet such needs, and now in Rome, as previously ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... This desideratum has at last been filled up; and science has shown, as usual, that by simply obeying Nature, we may conquer her, even so far as to have our miniature sea, of artificial salt-water, filled with living plants and sea-weeds, maintaining each other in perfect health, and each ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... rode home, meditating many things in his mind. It occurred to him that Mrs. Bold was sister-in-law to the archdeacon, and that not even for twelve hundred a year would he submit to that imperious man. A rich wife was a great desideratum to him, but success in his profession was still greater; there were, moreover, other rich women who might be willing to become wives; and after all, this twelve hundred a year might, when inquired into, melt away into some small sum utterly ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... the desideratum, I proposed that Lindsay and self both withdraw, and have the offices filled with others. I desired my friend should understand that I asked for no sacrifice I was not willing to share. My withdrawal was stoutly opposed ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... to be able to give a clear explication and complete enumeration of all the ideas of reason, and of the necessary and universal principles or axioms which are grounded on these ideas. This is still the grand desideratum of metaphysical science. Its achievement will give us a primordial logic, which shall be as exact in its procedure and as certain in its conclusions as the mathematical sciences. Meantime, it may ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... favorite tool of the interests. You found a benevolent institution, and after you are dead it becomes a nest of graft. Even the Church of Jesus was for centuries so corrupt that all good men felt its reform in head and members to be the greatest desideratum in Christendom. Evil is more durable and versatile than youth and optimism imagine. The belief in a satanic power of evil expresses the conviction of the permanent power of evil. In early Christianity ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... has already been made of the sober gaze lightened by a suggestion of sly mirthfulness. In a company where sprightliness was the great desideratum, Stonor, no doubt, would have been considered slow. Men with strong reserves are necessarily a little slow in coming into action; they are apt, too, as a decent cover for their feelings, to affect more slowness than they feel. A woman can ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... west, was assumed as certainly well founded, though he had not been able to accomplish it; and it was asserted, that it could not be attended with any insuperable difficulty to sail from the South Sea, then recently discovered, to the Molucca Islands. The grand desideratum was to find a passage westwards, from the Atlantic Ocean into the new-found South Sea, which they expected might be met with through the Rio de la Plata, or by some other opening on that eastern coast of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... "Providence," supposing the term to be used by those who are unable to characterize it distinctly, to show wherein it consists, so as to enable us to decide whether a thing is rational or irrational. An adequate definition of Reason is the first desideratum; and whatever boast may be made of strict adherence to it in explaining phenomena, without such a definition we get no farther than mere words. With these observations we may proceed to the second point of view that has to be considered ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... produced. Skin smooth and nearly covered with red, in the sun. Flesh is greenish white, very tender, juicy, and crisp. Without any shriveling or loss of flavor, it keeps till May. So good a winter and spring sweet apple is a desideratum in ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... since I felt the desideratum which Mr. Edgell has brought before the public;{2} and, by way of testing the practicability of transcribing, and printing the parochial registers of the entire kingdom in a form convenient for reference, I made an alphabetical ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... of useful knowledge. The alphabetical arrangement presented in the following sheets, pointing out at once the article necessary to be consulted, prevents the drudgery of going through several pages in order to find it, and supplies by its convenience and universal adaptation, the desideratum so long needed ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... the forenoon, although accompanied by a considerable swell, induced Captain Stanley to make a third attempt to obtain deep-sea soundings. He had been much interested in the success of experiments of this kind, in which the grand desideratum has always been to produce POSITIVE PROOF OF HAVING REACHED BOTTOM by bringing up a portion of its substance, hitherto unattempted on account of the great length of time required for the experiment, and the disproportionate strength of the line to the enormous weight ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... doctor seems quite a desideratum," he reflected. "I want him first to give me a certificate that my uncle is dead, so that I may get the leather business; and then that he's alive—but here we are again at the incompatible interests!" And he returned ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for Artillery must always be behind some sheltering roll of the ground, where it requires none, or at the most a weak, escort; and this desideratum will be best fulfilled when it is on the inner—that is, the supported—flank of its Cavalry, because in this position it can presumably remain in action longest, and hampers the movements of its own force least. Similarly, in pursuit or in covering a retreat its sphere of activity is distinctly ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... The great desideratum of the philological method is a proof that the 'Disease of Language,' ex hypothesi the most fertile source of myths, is a vera causa. Do simple poetical phrases, descriptive of heavenly phenomena, remain current in the popular mouth after the meanings of appellatives (Bright ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... the bird delightedly. "You are certainly more alert than most! But, as I was saying, I am usually to be found Thinking. The first condition of Thinking is solitude. And that, I fear, is a desideratum most difficult ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... difference between the climate of Europe and America, by persons who have investigated that subject. But the causes of the alteration that has taken place in the seasons in North America, remain yet a desideratum with the learned. Whether the alteration is occasioned by the precession of the equinoxes, or by the position of our globe with the other planets, (for changes no doubt are taking place in the great ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... monsoons, the coasts and currents which have wrecked their ships, for their shipwrecks brought them shame. There was no pilot, no compass for those pilgrims of marriage. This work is intended to supply the desideratum. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... notices of such truly valuable, and oftentimes curious and rare, books, as the ensuing pages describe; but more especially a Personal History of Literature, in the characters of Collectors of Books; had long been a desideratum even with classical students: and in adopting the present form of publication, my chief object was to relieve the dryness of a didactic style by the introduction ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... you forget the poet that you might be, even yet? No rational person would dispute that the society and amiable chat of Dame Lisa must naturally be a desideratum—" ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... qualities generally as depend upon second thoughts. A collection of specimens of English poetry, for the purpose of exhibiting the achievement of prose excellences by it (in their legitimate measure) is a desideratum we commend to Mr. Saintsbury. It is the assertion, the development, the product of those very different indispensable qualities of poetry, in the presence [8] of which the English is equal or superior to all other modern literature—the native, sublime, and beautiful, but often wild and irregular, ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... requisites for gentility—a companion to the toilet, the salons, the Queen's Bench, the streets, and the police-stations, has long been felt to be a desideratum by every one aspiring to good-breeding. The few works which treat on the subject have all become as obselete as "hot cockles" and "crambo." "The geste of King Horne," the "[Greek: BASILIKON]" of King Jamie, "Peacham's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... extravagant—were true in some mysterious, intrinsic way. This time he chose to speak to us of guilt and innocence, of good and evil works, and their effect on man's salvation. He aired the theory, which roused approving murmurs in the listening circle, that to have a good intention was the chief desideratum for every son of Adam on his journey through the world, no matter though his works might turn ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... stroke is effective for speed, but it soon wears out all but the strong, expert swimmer. In acquiring it you must remember that pace is the great desideratum, and, consequently, rapidity of action is requisite. To gain this you must combine two movements in one, by striking with the propeller on whichever side you swim at the same time as the feet, the sustainer acting ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... smoking. At 9 A.M. the islanders, receiving intelligence of our arrival, came down the hill of which this island is formed, in great numbers, and held a market; but as we were unprovided with what they wanted, little business could be done. The chief desideratum was flesh of fish or beast, next salt, then tobacco—in fact, anything but what I had brought as market money, cloth and glass beads. This day passed in rest and idleness, recruiting ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... streets are, like all French streets, narrow, and the houses have a look of antiquity, and a want of all repair; nothing like comfort, neatness, or tidiness, in any one of them. This is a melancholy desideratum in France, a want for which nothing can compensate. The road this day conducted us through a finer district than we have observed on this side of Paris; more especially between Nevers and St Pierre, where we have travelled through a richer and more beautiful ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... as renowned for her fast sailing, and repeated escapes from the cruisers, as Captain McElvina and his crew were for their courage and success. The capture of the vessel had long been a desideratum of the English Government; and Captain M—-, although gratified at her falling into his hands, was not very well pleased to find that a lad, whom he had intended to bring forward in the service should, as he supposed, have voluntarily joined a party, who had so long ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... itself. "Speech," says Talleyrand, that profound political pantomimist, "was given to conceal our thoughts;" and truly this is the chief use to which it is applied. We are continually clamouring for acts in lieu of words. Let but the art of Pantomime become universal, and this grand desideratum must be obtained. Then we shall find that candidates, instead of being able, as now, to become legislators by simply professing to be patriots, will be placed in the awkward predicament of having first to act as such; and that the clergy, in lieu of taking a tenth part ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... improvement, and ought to strive after it; and this (D. V.) he honestly intends to do—taking his time, however, and following as his guides Nature and Truth. If these lead to what the critics call art, it is all very well; but if not, that grand desideratum has no chance of being run after or caught. The puzzle is, that while the people of the South object to my delineation of Northern life and manners, the people of Yorkshire and Lancashire approve. They say it is precisely the contrast of rough nature with highly artificial cultivation ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... loved the old romantic legends of their country, often urged upon the Welsh literati the duty of reproducing the Mabinogeon. Southey, in the preface of his edition of "Moted'Arthur," says: "The specimens which I have seen are exceedingly curious; nor is there a greater desideratum in British literature than an edition of these tales, with a literal version, and such comments as Mr. Davies of all men is best qualified to give. Certain it is that many of the round table fictions originated in Wales, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch |
