"Devoid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sizes, from the blossom that had just turned into a wee baby to the full-grown and almost ripe man or woman. On some of the bushes might be seen a bud, a blossom, a baby, a half-grown person and a ripe one; but even those ready to pluck were motionless and silent, as if devoid of life. This sight explained to Dorothy why she had seen no children among the Mangaboos, a thing she had until now ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... of the vinedresser's three children. The eldest, Mark, was as haughty as his father, and although he was only fourteen years of age, he was already able to join in the disorders of his drunken and gaming companions. He was entirely devoid of any sense of religion. His sister, Josephine, who was rather more than twelve years old, possessed a more amiable disposition. The pastor's wife took much interest in this child, who could not help seeing that her parents were not guided ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... she, toning down a little, but still betraying malevolence of a very advanced order in her voice and expression. "I see nothing derogatory in the idea of a young girl devoid of ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... that Pilgrim flock, The same that split old Plymouth rock, Their "Bay Psalm" when they tried to sing. Devoid of metre, sense, and tune, Who but a Puritanic loon ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... personal appearance of this intellectual woman was, however, but little calculated to overcome Bonaparte's prejudice. The costume of Madame de Stael was on this occasion, as it always was, fantastic, and utterly devoid of taste, and Napoleon loved to see women simply but elegantly and tastefully attired. In this interview with Napoleon, Madame de Stael gave free scope to her wit; but instead of dazzling him, as she had hoped to do, she only succeeded in ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... clearly defined by the dirt which was in them; bushy grey eyebrows, drawn frowningly over two piercing black eyes, whose light was undimmed by age; a hook nose, like the beak of a bird of prey, and a thin-lipped mouth devoid of teeth. Her hair was very luxurious and almost white, and was tied up in a great bunch by a greasy bit of black ribbon. As to her chin, Calton, when he saw it wagging to and fro, involuntarily quoted ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... contrary, they suppose them. I should be much surprised if a great poet were without vivid lights on philosophy, at any rate moral philosophy, and it will very seldom happen for a true philosopher to be totally devoid of imagination.'[31] With imagination in the highest sense Vauvenargues was not largely endowed, but he had as much as is essential to reveal to one that the hard and sober-judging faculty is not the single, nor even the main element, in a wise and full intelligence. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... priests had led men to look upon the character of God, and even of Christ, as stern, gloomy, and forbidding. The Saviour was represented as so far devoid of sympathy with man in his fallen state that the mediation of priests and saints must be invoked. Those whose minds had been enlightened by the word of God longed to point these souls to Jesus as their compassionate, loving Saviour, standing with outstretched arms, inviting all ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... little for them to do, as they were now triumphant; but if they received the proposal of Marius, he would appropriate to himself all the glory and all the troops, being a man who could endure no partner in power, and who was devoid of good faith. Cinna replied that what Sertorius suggested was true, but he felt ashamed and had a difficulty about refusing to receive Marius, after having invited him to join their party; whereupon ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... and suited themselves naturally to a subdued melody, half chant, half cry, like the mourning of the keeners round a grave. At last, rising from his knees, he spoke, and his voice became wholly unemotional, devoid of fervour or excitement. He told his story as a man might relate some quite ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... passed, bent back again to let him go over her very footsteps; but nothing could speak to betray her secret. Nature seems most mute when we most need her help: she keeps, through all our distresses, a sort of dumb and faithful neutrality, which is not, perhaps, so devoid of ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... must see him," she said, as the door closed, "and, not being entirely devoid of curiosity, I can't help feeling awfully glad to think that now I shall ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... the house of Dr. Trescott had faded quietly into the evening, hiding a shape such as we call Queen Anne against the pall of the blackened sky. The neighborhood was at this time so quiet, and seemed so devoid of obstructions, that Hannigan's dog thought it a good opportunity to prowl in forbidden precincts, and so came and pawed Trescott's lawn, growling, and considering himself a formidable beast. Later, Peter Washington strolled past the house and whistled, but there was no dim light shining from ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... looked around we saw that almost imperceptibly we had entered the new canyon and at this camp (33) we were fairly within the embrace of its rugged cliffs which, devoid of all vegetation, rose up four hundred feet, sombre in colour, but picturesque from a tendency to columnar weathering that imparted to them a Gothic character suggestive of cathedrals, castles, and turrets. The next day ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... tabernacle to another." (4) In 2 Sam. vii:10, we read, "to afflict them," whereas in 1 Chron. vii:9, we find a different expression. (5) I could point out other differences still greater, but a single reading of the chapters in question will suffice to make them manifest to all who are neither blind nor devoid of sense. ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... possible results that may follow an innocent flirtation. Young girls are not posted and they do not know men. They do not realize the pressure that will be brought to bear upon them. Many young girls grow to womanhood without any idea of the relations of the sexes. To them, love is devoid of ideas of sex, practically the same as their love for a brother or sister. It is not until they are thrown alone in the company of some older man that they suddenly awaken to a realization ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... they less ingenious in calling the state of the soul devoid of the light of the mind, "a being out of one's mind," "a being beside one's self." From whence we may understand that they who gave these names to things were of the same opinion with Socrates, that all silly people were unsound, which the Stoics ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... indeed have been deeply moved to show himself thus devoid of all prestige. In point of fact, with white lips and a changed voice he addressed the doctor quickly, without the lisp this time, and ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... mine. He was a believer in the dark doctrine which teaches that man is dust and that all things are forgotten in the grave. He expressed his opinions with a clearness and precision the more impressive because totally devoid of cavil and of rhetoric. I listened in silence, but with a deep and most chilling dismay. Even now I think I see the man as he sat before me, the light of the lamp falling on his high forehead and dark features; even now I think I hear ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I go on? Is it really required of me that I should continue to hang on to an existence which is absolutely devoid of all attraction, of all meaning?" He fixed his blue eyes on the other's face. "You're ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... two rival generals from whom Napoleon had the most to fear. Two days after his arrival in Paris Napoleon said to Bourrienne, "I believe that I shall have Bernadotte and Moreau against me. But I do not fear Moreau. He is devoid of energy. He prefers military to political power. We shall gain him by the promise of a command. But Bernadotte has Moorish blood in his veins. He is bold and enterprising. He does not like me, and I ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... were in invincible ignorance, perished with their parents (Gen. 19). Again, for the sin of Dathan and Abiron their children were swallowed up together with them (Num 16). Moreover, dumb animals, which are devoid of reason, were commanded to be slain on account of the sin of the Amalekites (1 Kings 15). Therefore vengeance is sometimes taken on those ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... of the Scorpions were pleasingly devoid of formality, and untrammeled by parliamentary conventions. There were no minutes, and the only officer was a secretary who sent out postal cards each week, reminding the members of the time and place of ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... his choice, further favoured a stock-model treatment. Such a comedy almost of necessity rejected the lyrical element in the older comedy—the chorus—and confined itself from the first to conversation, or at most recitation; it was devoid not of the political element only, but of all true passion and of all poetical elevation. The pieces judiciously made no pretence to any grand or really poetical effect: their charm resided primarily in furnishing occupation for the intellect, not only through their subject-matter ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... sneering Invective against Women, have been put down to him on no other ground than that they cannot be traced to a different source. He might have been the author of the graceful Praise of his Sacred Diana. He might have sighed for a land devoid of envy, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... and as they walked beneath the snow-clad pines they drew up a scheme of life which was astonishingly unlike the dreams and aspirations of most lovers. For it was devoid of selfishness, and they looked for happiness—not in an immediate gratification of all their desires and an instant fulfilment of their hopes, but in a mutual faith that should survive all separation and bridge the longest span of years. Loyalty was ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... are not called "cold." The standard is ordinary and it is understood. But when a woman appears in art whose life is not ruled by the love of admiration, whose nature is devoid of vanity, who looks with indifference upon adulation, whose head is not turned by renown, whose composure is not disturbed by flattery, whose simplicity is not marred by wealth, who does not go into theatrical hysterics and offer that condition ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... face all but stilled Richard's anger; she was yellow and wasted; her hair seemed far more grizzled than he remembered it. She stood as far from him as she could get, in an attitude not devoid of dignity, and looked him straight in the face. He ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... burdensome debts. He was a gambler, too, and, of course, devoid of moral principle. His object was to pay his ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... detail. The sky overcast with cloud masses, a dense mist rising from the valley, the pallid spectral light barely making visible the strange, grotesque shapes of rocks, trees and men. Before us was a narrow opening, devoid of vegetation, a sterile patch of stone and sand, and beyond this a fringe of trees, matted with underbrush below so as to make good screen, but sufficiently thinned out above, so that, from our elevation, we could look through the ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... live in, and impressions furnish ideas. My world is built of touch-sensations, devoid of physical colour and sound; but without colour and sound it breathes and throbs with life. Every object is associated in my mind with tactual qualities which, combined in countless ways, give me a sense of power, of beauty, or of incongruity: for with my hands I can feel the comic as well as ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... presence with every attribute that goes to make the scholar and the gentleman; though one who judged of character from external appearance might have misdoubted the thin straight lips, the rather pinched nostrils, the eyes too close together, and above all, the head—high and intellectual, but almost devoid of curve at the back. A clean-cut, ascetic, handsome face, as a rule calm and judicial ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... have been dowered with sensibility, and to what extent this can be utilized: whether it can crystallize—so to speak—into what is known to us as thought. My own work of investigation was undertaken in a spirit entirely devoid of prejudice; and what I have so far discovered I now place in the hands of the reader, asking him to bring the same unbiased and objective attitude of mind to bear when reading these pages. It is my hope that they may arouse his interest and instil that broader attitude of thought ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... to say that when he reached his goal two policemen, not devoid of rude wit, who had been conferring together as they bumped in their saddles, arranged an entertainment for his behoof. It consisted of first one and then the other entering his room with prodigious details of war, the massing of bloodthirsty and devilish tribes, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... which, though a crushing burden upon the people, were yet so insignificant in comparison with the real pomp of France, that they were in many instances the laughingstock of Europe. Beneath an external gloss of refinement, these princes were, as a class, coarse and selfish, and devoid of any compensating virtues. Neither the common people, whom they had impoverished, nor the Church, which they had robbed, was now strong enough to resist the growing absolutism and selfishness of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... out from his arms and his kisses, her heart heavy with grief because she longed to love and had nothing to love. She was beginning to suffer from the cold void that is formed about a woman by an unattractive, unfascinating girlhood, by a girlhood devoid of beauty and sympathetic charm. She could see that she aroused a sort of compassion with her long nose, her yellow complexion, her angular figure, her thin body. She felt that she was ugly, and that her ugliness was made repulsive by her miserable costumes, her dismal, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... were drawn taut and the poor beast stretched out helplessly upon its back, while the doctor seated himself astride, sought for the tiny punctures made by the rattlesnake's poison-fangs, and found them where the skin was thinnest and most devoid of hair, the successful discovery being due to a tiny drop of yellowish gummy matter which had ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... and easy, ready to learn and to sympathise, and quick to see and appreciate a joke, the Indian was sternly conservative, much impressed with his own rectitude of intention, as well as his capacity for action, and absolutely devoid of the slightest tinge of humour. Thus the Eskimo's expression varied somewhat with the nature of the subjects which chased each other through his mind, while that of the red man never changed from the calm of dignified immobility—except, ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... devoid of absent-minded malice, spurred his curiosity to a further effort; and, turning his well-defended ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... peculiar grayish colored bird with a greenish gloss to the back, and a long, broad tail, quite long legs, and with the face and sides of the throat devoid of feathers. They are very abundant birds in some localities, and very noisy during the breeding season, their notes resembling a harsh trumpeting repetition of their name. They are ground inhabiting birds, but nest in low bushes. Their nests are made of sticks, twigs, leaves, or moss and are generally ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... broke, when cut with the axe, were of course in proportion larger than in the previous caves. The signs of thaw, too, were unmistakeable. Though the upper surface of the earth had seemed to be utterly devoid of moisture of any kind, large drops fell freely from the roof of the cave,[97] and the ice itself was wet. The patron said there was no ice whatever in the winter months, and that from June to September was the time at which alone ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... be detected, even when devoid of his skin; for his hands are broad, and his fingers short, and there are always some hairs in the ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... one who adorns his mind, and the other his book-cases. Of the bibliomaniac as here characterized, we can suggest no better type than Thomas Hill, the original of Poole's 'Paul Pry,' and of Hull in Hook's novel, 'Gilbert Gurney.' Devoid as Hill was of intellectual endowments, he managed to obtain and secure the friendship of many eminent men—of Thomas Campbell, the poet, Matthews and Liston, the comedians, Hook, Dubois, John and Leigh Hunt, James and ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... familiar to all travellers, that savages frequently capture young animals of various kinds, and rear them as favourites, and sell or present them as curiosities. Human nature is generally akin: savages may be brutal, but they are not on that account devoid of our taste for taming and caressing young animals; nay, it is not improbable that some races may possess it in a more marked degree than ourselves, because it is a childish taste with us; and the motives ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... slowly on the trees, when the cool breezes of night ascend the valleys, when distant objects begin to assume a fantastic shape, when the branches of the oak near you, like the arms of a giant, wave to and fro, and seem to ask you to approach; when the withered tree, devoid of leaves, looks like a brigand on the watch, or your comrade, ensconced against it, seems to form a portion of it at a hundred yards off; when, in short, the sportsman can see only a few yards before him, then is the moment that the circumspect and wily woodcock leaves its abode, ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... Infinite, Eternal Love—alone of all beings devoid of self-love! Glory be to Thee for Thy humiliation, ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... Oberon's horns, offshoots of the Keltic stories, which were as rich in every kind of supernatural (being, in fact, pagan myths turned into fairy tales) as the genuine Carolingian subjects, whose origin was entirely historical, were completely devoid of such things. Arthur and his ladies and knights: Guenevere, Elaine, Enid, Yseult, Launcelot, Geraint, Kay, Gawain, Tristram, and Percival-Galahad, were the real heroes and heroines of the courtly nobles and the courtly poets of this second phase of mediaeval ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... her idea. That this slight thing should have trapped his fantasy surprised her. After she had written it, it had seemed remote, all too white, a "Symphonie en Blanc Majeur"—as Theophile Gautier would have called it—besides devoid of human interest. But Arthur had interwoven a human strand of melody, a scarlet skein of emotion, primal withal, yet an attempt to catch the under emotions of the ice-bound Esquimaux surprised in their zone of silence by the sleep ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... say, which is pleasing to Him. If it is the former, it will be the latter. I prefer to suppose that it is the former—that is, sorrow which has reference to God. And then, there is another kind of sorrow, which the Apostle calls the 'sorrow of the world,' which is devoid of that reference to God. Here we have the characteristic difference between the Christian way of looking at our own faults and shortcomings, and the sorrow of the world, which has got no blessing in it, and will never lead to anything ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... among his courtiers rather like a companion than a monarch, he retained, even while on the throne, that open affability which was capable of reconciling the most determined republicans to his royal dignity. Totally devoid of resentment, as well from the natural lenity as carelessness of his temper, he insured pardon to the most guilty of his enemies, and left hopes of favor to his most violent opponents. From the whole ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... but we can tell, from personal experience, that, at the present day, it is a most comfortable and elegant apartment. The other rooms of the lighthouse, although thoroughly substantial in their furniture and fittings, are quite plain and devoid of ornament, but the library, or "stranger's room", as it is sometimes called, being the guest-chamber, is fitted up in a style worthy of a lady's boudoir, with a Turkey carpet, handsome chairs, and an elaborately carved oak table, supported appropriately by a centre stem of three twining ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... the land-side, the Cuillin, a prodigious range of mountains, capped with rocky pinnacles in a strange variety of shapes. They resemble the mountains near Corte in Corsica, of which there is a very good print. They make part of a great range for deer, which, though entirely devoid of trees, is in these countries called ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... manhood, I demand for the enslaved at the South, on the same ground. How is it that I am a madman, and you are perfectly rational? Wherein is my ultraism apparent? If the slaves are not men; if they do not possess human instincts, passions, faculties and powers; if they are below accountability, and devoid of reason; if for them there is no hope of immortality, no God, no heaven, no hell; if, in short, they are, what the Slave Code declares them to be, rightly "deemed, sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... proximity to the cruel hearthstone, I stopped to give this settle a thorough investigation. The result was disappointing. To all appearance and I did not spare it the experiment of many a thump and knock—it was a perfectly innocuous piece of furniture, clumsy of build, but solid and absolutely devoid of anything that could explain the tragedies which had occurred so near it. I even sat down on its musty old cushion and shut my eyes, but was unrewarded by alarming visions, or disturbance of any sort. Nor did the floor ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... some places interspersed thickly with manzanita rushes, the crimson berries of which are much in favour with the Indians, also with the grizzly bear! Some of the plains they crossed were studded with magnificent oaks, devoid of underwood, such as one is accustomed to see in ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... sign of life, other than a feeble, scarcely perceptible respiration. Most of the convulsionists, however, have not these ecstasies so strongly marked. Some, though remaining immovable an entire day or longer, do not continue during all that time deprived of sight and hearing, nor are they totally devoid of sensibility; though their members, at certain intervals, become so stiff that they lose almost entirely the use ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... come across him," said Nick, full of enthusiasm for the man he admired, and devoid of small jealousy. "Falconer was one of the grandest lawyers California ever had; and in a way he made himself, though he came of the best blood we've got." (Nick would not have dreamed of mentioning that his own blood was as good. He, like most ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... up into the eyes of the Master, but looked only for a moment. The eyes were full of a frozen and icy wrath, a kind of utterly heartless hatred. His voice was for the first time devoid of irony. There was no more sarcasm in it than there is ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... describe, and thoughts to which I cannot now give utterance, that I might venture, without offence, upon this slight service: ay, that the offering might be made in the spirit of most respectful affection, and not altogether be devoid of favour in ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... a mere spoiling of the work of poetry. Methinks that if this happened, or happened often, my friend and I, who also hates the play.... But it seems probable, on careful consideration, that my friend and I are conspicuously devoid of the dramatic faculty; which being the case we had better not discuss ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... and secondly for the great zeal I bear unto you." Henry possessed in the highest degree not a few of the best of kingly attributes. His words are not the words of a hypocrite without conscience, devoid of the fear of God and man. For all the strange and violent things that he did, he obtained the sanction of his conscience, but his imperious egotism made conscience his humble slave, and blinded to his own sins a ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... permits a grouping of the elements according to their valency as follows:—Group O.: helium, neon, argon, krypton and xenon appear to be devoid of valency. Group I.: the alkali metals Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs, and also Ag, monovalent; Cu, monovalent and divalent; Au, monovalent and trivalent. Group II.: the alkaline earth metals Ca, Sr, Ba, and also Be (Gl), Mg, Zn, Cd, divalent; Hg, monovalent and divalent. Group III.: B, trivalent; Al, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... typical Tenderloin grafter. A woman absolutely devoid of moral conscience, she styled herself an actress, yet was one only by courtesy. By dint of pulling all kinds of wires she contrived from time to time to get a part to play, but her stage activities were really only a blind to conceal her true vocation. A cold-blooded courtesan ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... often Mrs. Baxter used the same word? I am sure she said "trouble" fifty times, if she said it once. She is not a bad-looking young woman, but she is a painfully monotonous talker. I should say she is totally devoid of originality.' ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Belgians are ignorant and priest-ridden. The Russians are sunk in mediaeval superstition. As for the Italians, half are atheists and the other half idolators. Only in Germany do you find a reasonable and progressive faith, devoid of superstition, abreast of scientific thought, and of the highest ethical value. Germany then, Sire, is the Kingdom of God on earth. The Germans are the chosen people, the heirs of the promise, and let their enemies ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... demoralized, crazed with terror, devoid of reason and common-sense. The Mississippi, Alabama, and most of the Tennessee regiments of the Southern army were disciplined and steady troops in which such a panic would have been impossible; but there were others even worse than those described ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... a painted boat On a shimmering morning sea, Or to flirt with a maid In the afternoon shade Seems good enough sport to be; But the evening hour, With its subtle power, Is sweeter and better far, If joined to the joy, Devoid of alloy, That lurks in a ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... for instance, an abundant opportunity for the exercise of that spirit in the glad acceptance of the narrow lot that may be ours. Probably many, indeed most, poor are only economically poor; they fall under S. Paul's criticism in that "they desire to be rich," and are therefore devoid of the spirit of sacrifice that would transform their actual poverty into a spiritual value. But all the powers and energies of life do in fact constitute life's capital. A poor boy has great possessions in the ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... becomes level, without increasing in aperture, runs for forty feet on this plane, traversing two low and narrow chambers, then making a sharp turn it ascends perpendicularly until it reaches the floor of the vault. The latter is hewn out of the mountain rock, and is small, rough, and devoid of ornament: the ceiling appears to be in three heavy horizontal courses of masonry, which project one beyond the other corbel-wise, and give the impression of a sort of acutely pointed arch. Snofrui slept there for ages; then robbers found a way to him, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... passed, and over the innumerable dead there settled a soft muddy sediment. For an unknown space of time, represented in the formation by a deposit about fifty feet in thickness, the waters of the depopulated area seem to have remained devoid of life. A few scales and plates then begin to appear. The fish that had existed outside the chasm seem to have gradually gained upon ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... seemed a mystery; to McClellan—a vain man, full of himself—the President who would merely smile at this bullyragging on the part of one of his subordinates seemed indeed a spiritless creature. Meanwhile Lincoln, apparently devoid of sensibility, was seeking during the anxious months of 1862, in one case, merely how to keep his petulant Secretary in harness; in the other, how to quicken his tortoise of ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... only originate in the dark. Certainly, conception invariably takes place in complete darkness, and the whole period of embryonic development is passed in that condition. Again, inter-stellar space is, of course, absolutely black and devoid of any form of light save the faint twinklings of the far-off stars. Without the surface of some globe to reflect the sun's rays, no light of any kind would be possible; so that if life were conveyed across space, from star to star, upon infinitesimal specks of dust, under ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... the silks and wools go to the weaving they are treated to a beauty-bath in the dye-room. Hanks of wool and skeins of silk are but neutral matters, coming to the factory devoid of individuality, mere pale, ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... Varnish ordinarily employed, and spoken of by Cennini and many other writers under the familiar title of Vernice liquida. The derivation of the word Vernix bears materially on the question, and will not be devoid of interest for the general reader, who may perhaps be surprised at finding himself carried by Mr. Eastlake's daring philology into regions poetical ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... character, unlike those of romance and melodrama, which are apt to be either a streak of black paint or else a streak of white paint. Mr. Fry is variegated. He is a moral magpie; he is, if possible, as devoid of humanity as his chief; but to balance this defect, he possesses, all to himself, a quality, a very high quality, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... these splendid soldiers, and, remembering the sacrifices of time, money, and comfort which most of them had made before they found themselves fighting in the heart of Africa, doubt that the spirit of the race burned now as brightly as ever, must be devoid of judgment and sympathy. The real glories of the British race lie in the future, not in the past. The Empire walks, and may still walk, with an uncertain step, but with every year its tread will be firmer, for its weakness is that of waxing youth ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... requisites to the study of medicine, and having acquired a true knowledge of it, we shall thus, in travelling through the cities, be esteemed physicians not only in name but in reality. But inexperience is a bad treasure, and a bad fund to those who possess it, whether in opinion or reality, being devoid of self-reliance and contentedness, and the nurse both of timidity and audacity. For timidity betrays a want of powers, and audacity a lack of skill. They are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of which the one makes ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... competent enthusiast inflame this passion with a war cry like "Remember the Maine," "Fifty-four forty or fight," "Liberty or death," and, reenforced by the animal inherent in man, it will arouse popular demonstrations devoid of all reason, creating a force that cannot be controlled by a cold, calculating intellect. Can you listen to a bugle call on a clear, still night without a quickening of the pulse as there flashes through your soul a suggestion ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... was satisfied with the production, and pointed out some corrections he thought necessary to be made. However, this composition, full of force and fire, absolutely wants logic and order; of all the works I ever wrote, this is the weakest in reasoning, and the most devoid of number and harmony. With whatever talent a man may be born, the art of writing is ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... that we owe some of our keenest pleasures in life to strangers! You must permit me to thank you again for your improving and pleasing conversation, which I shall often recall, and always with lively satisfaction. May your slumbers be refreshing and your awakening devoid of all pain! I wish you a very good night, sir." With this Miss Aglonby took up one of the top-heavy candlesticks, and glided, like the shade she was and ghost of a past period, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... and herbs from the woods for beers, go to the Strand for a gallon of molasses or liquor as the case might require, and 'browse around,' as she expresses it. It was a life that suited her well for the time-being as devoid of hardship or terror as it was of improvement; a need which had not yet become a want. Instead of improving at this place, morally, she retrograded, as their example taught her to curse; and it was here that she took her first oath. After living with ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... to his brethren who fed on husks—an eloquence innocent of the tricks of elocution or the arts of rhetoric: to have discovered himself using one of them would have sent him home to his knees in shame and fear—an eloquence not devoid of discords, the strings of his instrument being now slack with emotion, now tense with vision, yet even in those discords shrouding the essence of all harmony. When he ceased, the silence that followed seemed instinct with thought, with that ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... casual visitor, unacquainted with the character of the place, might well have been deceived. The women sitting about were made up and very decollete, to be sure, but their conduct, while not always of the highest tone, was nevertheless quite devoid of freedom. Belle permitted no overt word or action; nor was any visitor subjected to another expectation than the occasional opening of a bottle of wine "for ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... First I tried to sketch them on the whitewashed walls of my garret, on scraps of paper begged from Mackaye, or picked up in the workroom. But from my ignorance of any rules of drawing, they were utterly devoid of beauty, and only excited my disgust. Besides, I had thoughts as well as objects to express—thoughts strange, sad, wild, about my own feelings, my own destiny, and drawing could not speak ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... length of it to be about two hundred yards, and the greatest width one hundred and fifty yards, but accurate measurements might show these figures to be considerably at fault. I have spoken of the hill as a rock, and such it is—a great mass of hard limestone, whose irregular surface, almost devoid of soil, still shows where patches of it were dressed down, perhaps for ancient altars or idols. The Areopagus was a court, which in Paul's time had jurisdiction in cases ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... alongside one of the great central railways, and as he proposes merely stopping occasionally en route to unroof the house of some local medical man when any of the party are in need of advice, he confidently anticipates that the trip will not be devoid of novel and exciting features that will invest it with a distinctively fresh and exhilarating character. For full and further particulars of the enterprise, which have been carefully thought out, apply, by letter, to "IN NUBIBUS," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... a life devoid of stirring incidents, and from the date at which his correspondence with Lord Carlisle begins the course of his days is indicated in his letters. It is sufficient, therefore, to state that he died ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... that is devoid of intellect but hath merely heard of many things, can scarcely understand the real import of the scriptures, like the spoon that hath no perception of the taste of the soup it toucheth. Thou knowest everything, but yet confoundest me. Like a boat fastened to another, thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... understanding of the import of his warning. She was far too handsome and too prematurely developed physically to be devoid of experience of the ways of the opposite sex. Like Ophelia she knew there were tricks in the world and she liked frank Ted Holiday the better for reminding her of them. "I won't do it," she promised. "That is, unless you don't ever ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... could not live till the morning, but to-day he is a little better; the great fear is his excessive weakness and no pulse at all. Poor old man! I feel sorry for him; he was always personally kind to me, and I should be ungrateful and devoid of feeling if I did not ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... however, Lord Cochrane was detained for more than three weeks. It was partly underground, devoid of ventilation or necessary warmth, and, according to the testimony of Dr. Buchan, one of the physicians who visited him in it, "rendered extremely damp and unpleasant by the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... carry him to the nearest house. Our preservers, as well as the Count and myself, accompanied them. We then had our wounds dressed, and afterwards continued our journey; not, it is true, entirely devoid of fear, especially when we met one or more negroes but without any further mishap, and with a continually increasing admiration ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Laudation and denunciation were poured out with equal liberality. The contest was nearly as fierce as the struggle between the whites and Indians. If epithets had been as fatal as bullets, the loss of life would have been terrible. Happily, the wordy battle was devoid of danger, and the State of Minnesota, her politicians, her generals, and her men emerged from ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... opening of the navigation I set out on another exploring expedition. Without entering into particulars so devoid of interest, I would merely observe that, with patience and perseverance, we ultimately succeeded in making good our passage by the Hamilton, or Grand River, and found it to answer ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... familiarity of words which convey these truths for a clear understanding of the truths themselves! If the preceding disquisition, with all its subtlety and all its obscurity, should answer no other purpose, it will still have been neither purposeless, nor devoid of utility, should it only lead us to sympathize with the strivings of the human intellect, awakened to the infinite importance of the inward oracle [Greek: gnothi seauton]—and almost instinctively shaping its course of ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... planted. (Though in the Book we read One woman bore a child with no man's aid, We find no record of a man-child born Without the aid of woman! Fatherhood Is but a small achievement at the best, While motherhood comprises heaven and hell.) This ever-growing argument of sex Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense. Why waste more time in controversy, when There is not time enough for all of love, Our rightful occupation in this life? Why prate of our defects, of where we fail, When just the story of our worth would need Eternity for telling, ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... knapsack of story, nevertheless, that opened the eyes of both Zola and Goncourt to the genuine realism of Huysmans as opposed to the more human but also more sentimental surface realism of Maupassant. Huysmans proved himself devoid of the story-telling gift, of dramatic power; yet he has, if compared to Maupassant, without an iota of doubt, the more vivid vision of the two; "the intensest vision of the modern world," says Havelock Ellis. Pictorial, not imaginative vision, be it understood. In his mystic ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... that it brought thither of necessity or out of curiosity men of every rank and grade of life, of every species of renown. The prosecution was in charge of the United States District Attorney, George Hay—serious, humorless, faithful to Jefferson's interests, and absolutely devoid of the personal authority demanded by so grave a cause. He was assisted by William Wirt, already a brilliant lawyer and possessed of a dazzling elocution, but sadly lacking in the majesty of years. At the head and forefront of the defense stood Burr himself, an ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... admiration of the great Emperor was unreserved in everything but expression. Like the religion of earnest men, it was too profound a sentiment to be displayed before a world of little faith. Apart from that he seemed as completely devoid of military anecdotes as though he had hardly ever seen a soldier in his life. Proud of his decorations earned before he was twenty-five, he refused to wear the ribbons at the buttonhole in the manner practised to this day in Europe and even was ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... mountain from that of a valley, or the equality of its three angles to two right angles, from the essence of a (rectilineal) triangle; so that it is not less impossible to conceive a God, that is, a being supremely perfect, to whom existence is wanting, or who is devoid of a certain perfection, than to conceive ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... tawnie," a "salvage heathen," and "devil's imp." Many of them were well educated,—men of varied and profound erudition, and familiar with the best specimens of Greek and Roman literature; yet they seem to have been utterly devoid of that poetic feeling or fancy whose subtle alchemy detects the beautiful in the familiar. Their very hymns and spiritual songs seem to have been expressly calculated, like ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... we studied political events, or the debates in the Chamber, and discussed the proceedings of a Court whose wilful ignorance could find no parallel but in the platitude of the courtiers, the mediocrity of the men forming the hedge round the newly-restored throne, all alike devoid of talent or breadth of view, of distinction or learning, of influence ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... Nirvana and then the world with its human Buddhas and its gods exists no more. The word sunyam or sunyata, that is void, is often used as the equivalent of paramartham. Void must be understood as meaning not an abyss of nothingness but that which is found to be devoid of all the attributes which we try to ascribe to it. The world of ordinary experience is not void, for a great number of statements can be made about it, but absolute truth is void, because nothing whatever can be predicated of it. Yet even this colourless designation is not perfectly ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Deutschland black bread to be divided among ten of us. This bread was made from ground vegetables mixed with rye flour. If you read Gerard's "Four Years in Germany" you will see that samples of this food were examined by a specialist and declared to be almost devoid of food value. It was planned to reduce our numbers by a process of ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... "Serpent, bite a file!" As to your Eulogium on Lincoln I have not much to say. If he pleases you, well enough, you're easily satisfied. I take it that he is a disgrace to the Chair he occupies; and to judge from his conversations, he is devoid of all sense of refinement & etiquette; to look at his executive powers as displayed thus far, he had better be a Bey than helmsman of the "Old Ship"; and what of his efforts at speeches? In the language of Logan, "I appeal to ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... but he made no further effort toward sociability. Neither did he go away. To the dismayed eyes, watching through the cover of some long grass, he was clearly a person devoid of all fine feeling. Or perhaps he had never been taught not to stay where he wasn't wanted. Mebby he didn't even ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... this tongue (the Maya) is pure Greek. Who brought the dialect of Homer to America? or who took to Greece that of the Mayas? Greek is the offspring of the Sanscrit. Is Maya? or are they coeval? . . . The Maya is not devoid of words ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... the most admirable non-resistance. No wonder that May's discernment was at fault, I myself, if I had not been aware of the trick, should have said that the ugly rough thing which she was trundling along, like a bowl or a cricket-ball, was an inanimate substance, something devoid of sensation and of will. At last my poor pet, thoroughly perplexed and tired out, fairly relinquished the contest, and came slowly away, turning back once or twice to look at the object of her curiosity, as if half inclined to return and try the event of another shove. ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... and then went on with one of those strange bursts of rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my mind, full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is by no means devoid of poetic instinct and of ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... quite an interesting problem whether he was absolutely devoid of sense, or miserably wanting in spirit. Did he know his lady's ways and condone them, or was he a mere blind, doting fool? It was a point to be discussed over the teacups in snug little drawing-rooms, or with the aid of a cigar in the ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... beginning of his career he recognised, in common with his associates, that the contemporary classicism had run to seed, and that, beyond an effort after perfection of technique, the art of the period was all but devoid of purpose, of thought, imagination, or spirituality. At such a moment it was matter for little surprise that ardent young intellects should go back for inspiration to the Gothicism of Giotto and the early painters. ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... to take the bath; and, having done so, he was directed to attire himself in a robe somewhat like that worn by Armenians, having his long hair combed down on his shoulders, and his neck, hands, and feet bare. In this guise he was conducted into a remote chamber totally devoid of furniture, excepting a lamp, a chair, and a table, on which lay a Bible. 'Here,' said the Astrologer, 'I must leave you alone to pass the most critical period of your life. If you can, by recollection ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... few words concerning another sect which exists in Barbary, and will here premise, that if those who compose it are not Gypsies, such people are not to be found in North Africa, and the assertion, hitherto believed, that they abound there, is devoid of foundation. I allude to certain men and women, generally termed by the Moors 'Those of the Dar-bushi-fal,' which word is equivalent to prophesying or fortune-telling. They are great wanderers, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... Am I to believe that I have a son who is entirely devoid of principle? Are you so lacking ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... a sheltered age. But in the past, epochs of disturbance have been commoner than epochs of calm. What is taking place to-day is horribly abnormal for those alone who were drowsing in the abnormal peace of a society equally devoid of foresight and of remembrance. Let us call to mind those whom the past has known. Let us think of Buddha, the liberator; of the Orphics worshipping Dionysos-Zagreus, god of the innocent who suffer and will be avenged; of Xenophanes of Elea who had to witness the devastation of his fatherland ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... little doubt that most of the many stories related by the Swiss of the cruelty and extortion of the Austrian bailies are wholly or in great part devoid of a historical basis of truth, as are the dates given for their occurrence. They doubtless sprang from the very natural feelings of hatred the mountaineers of the Forest State felt against a foreign master, who ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... accumulation of mud, which condenses into solid stone and again rises above the level of the sea as new land. Nothing can be more erroneous than the idea of a firm and unchangeable outline of our continents, such as is impressed upon us in early youth by defective lessons on geography, which are devoid of a geological basis."[3] ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... march recline Dead gods devoid of feeling; And thick about each sun-cracked lout ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... group entered the bed-chamber. Two walked together in front, the one a youth little over twenty years of age, middle-sized, inclining to stoutness, with a slow, pompous bearing, a well-turned leg, and a face which was comely enough in a mask-like fashion, but which was devoid of any shadow of expression, except perhaps of an occasional lurking gleam of mischievous humour. He was richly clad in plum-coloured velvet, with a broad band of blue silk; across his breast, and the glittering edge of the order of St. Louis protruding from under it. His companion was a man of ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... gold; his collar, with bright gems bedeck'd, Fell o'er his shoulders from his round neck hung; A silver boss, by slender reins control'd Mov'd o'er his brow; a brazen pair the same, Shone o'er his temples hanging from his ears: Devoid of fear, his nature's timid dread Relinquish'd, oft the houses would he seek; And oft would gently fondling stoop his neck, Heedless who strok'd him. Cyparissus, thou Beyond all others priz'd the sacred beast: Thou, fairest far amongst the Caean youths. Thou to fresh pastures led'st the stag; ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... at the eighteenth century, and still find no tolerable history of Joan of Arc. In the year 1753 the Abbe Longlet Dufresnoy published a Life of Joan of Arc; it is totally devoid of any merit. ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... aside, so far as our search for Jeremiah himself and his doctrine is concerned, and we do so the more easily that they are largely devoid of the style and the spiritual value of his undoubted Oracles and Discourses. They are more or less diffuse and vagrant, while his are concise and to the point. They do not reveal, as his do, a man fresh ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... he were devoid of all fear, the young Navajo slowly and steadily continued his descent. He was not more than fifteen feet from the boy whom he was seeking to rescue, when, with his foot braced against a small projection and the lariat clasped tightly in his hands, ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... Devoid of all emotion save bewilderment, he sat stupidly in the scout. A moment later, so well had he aimed it, its clamp nestled snugly into the groove of the rack, and the regular automatic action took place. A tiny ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall |
