"Function" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attendance; and it was impossible to accommodate all who came. It is said that hundreds were turned away. The writer and his friends considered themselves fortunate to be able to thread their way through the crowd without being crushed or having their garments torn. It was the grandest function of a social character which ever took place on the Pacific coast. The costly paintings adorning chambers, galleries and reception rooms, the splendid specimens of statuary, the numerous pictures, the brilliant ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... not be so. The handsome Ruby wished to have a "function," some of the conventional excitements of this entertainment. The two sisters must be married together; a special train must come from Boston; a grand reunion would be held of all the old family friends who had shaken their heads over the Ellwell misfortunes. So the two ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... assign to him or them, subject to any Limitations or Directions expressed or given by the Queen; but the Appointment of such a Deputy or Deputies shall not affect the Exercise by the Governor General himself of any Power, Authority, or Function. ...
— The British North America Act, 1867 • Anonymous
... Function and Importance of Imitation in Life. Natural selection has developed few aspects of human nature so important for survival as the tendency to imitate, for this tendency quickly leads to a successful adjustment of the ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... and who lived there; also of an Abandoned Youth, who lived somewhere else, Far Away; how a Slum Doctor dressed for a Function, such as involved Studs; and how Kern Garland wishted she was a Lady . . . . . . . . . . ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... in Chapter I, a world socialist commonwealth would require to retain a rate of interest, if only as a matter of bookkeeping, in order to choose between the various capital undertakings that were technically possible. And this is the primary function which the fate of interest fulfils in our present-day society. It separates the sheep from the goats. It serves as a screen, by means of which capital projects are sifted, and through which only those are allowed to pass which will benefit the future in ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... growth, whereas in the other instances of vegetable porous bodies, there is an anima or forma informans, that does contrive all the Structures and Mechanismes of the constituting body, to make them subservient and usefull to the great Work or Function they are to perform. And so I ghess the pores in Wood, and other vegetables, in bones, and other Animal substances, to be as so many channels, provided by the Great and Alwise Creator, for the conveyance ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... preparation for secession with unremitting industry; Mississippi had authorized a convention and appointed commissioners to visit all the slave-States and propagate disunion, among them Mr. Thompson, Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, who afterwards exercised this insurrectionary function while yet remaining in the Cabinet; the North Carolina Legislature had postponed the election of United States Senator; Florida had passed a convention bill; Georgia had instituted legislative proceedings to bring ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... fashionable preparatory schools and colleges mean very little. The inhabitants have been so long out of the world that, though they make a show of keeping up-to-date in dress and manners and literature, they depend to a great extent on hearsay, and a function that in Hades would be considered elaborate would doubtless be hailed by a Chicago beef-princess as ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... pilasters which took their place, being reduced to the humble function of ornaments added to the wall of a building, it became very usual to combine them with arched openings, and to put an arch in the interspace between two columns, or, in other words, to add a column to the pier between two arches (Fig. 146). These arched openings being often ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... that their late entrance would attract marked notice to them, and now he felt a desire to avoid such attention; but she would make of it a special event, a function. Despite Prescott's efforts, she marshaled himself and herself in such masterly fashion that every eye in the room was upon them as they entered, and none could help noticing that they came as an intimate pair—or at least the skilful lady made ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... it as it truly is, full of stench and corruption.[86] It is this office of reason which Dante undertakes to perform, by divine commission, in the Inferno. There can be no doubt that he looked upon himself as invested with the prophetic function, and the Hebrew forerunners, in whose society his soul sought consolation and sustainment, certainly set him no example of observing the conventions of good society in dealing with the enemies of God. Indeed, his notions of good society were not altogether ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... the advertisements," retorted Madame Recamier. "As I was saying, an advertisement could be placed in Boswell's paper as follows: 'Are you giving a Function? Do you want Talent? Get your Genius at the Recamier Salon (Limited).' It would be simply magnificent as a business enterprise. The common herd would be tickled to death if they could get great people at their homes, even if they had to pay ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... filled with struggling poor. The great synagogue in the Old Jewry became a tavern; the palace of the Savoy a barracks. These changes it is our special province to record, as to trace them is our peculiar function. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... occupied in serving tea," breaks in Aunty. "Besides, we shall try to give this affair the appearance, at least, of a genuine social function. I imagine that the presence of such persons as Mr. Wiggins will make the task ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... of the resources of the South even though Jefferson Davis in a message to the Confederate Congress in February, 1864, had spoken bitterly of Southern disorganization[1197]. Yet this belief in stalemate in essence still postulated an ultimate Southern victory, for the function of the Confederacy was, after all, to resist until its independence was recognized. Ardent friends of the North in England both felt and expressed confidence in the outcome, but the general attitude of neutral England leaned rather to faith in the powers ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... process of his own, as a means of preserving order, he again broadened its use in another way in the Assize of Clarendon, finding in it a method of bringing local knowledge to the assistance of the government in the detection of crime, the function of the modern grand jury and its origin ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... of these questions tends to show that there is an essential distinction between meridians of a geographical or hydrographical nature and meridians of observatories. The meridians of observatories should be considered essentially national. Their function is to permit observatories to connect themselves one with another for the unification of the observations made at them. They serve also as bases for geodetic and topographical operations carried on around them. But their function ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... other time we might have smiled at the sight of that soldier-priest served by choristers of thirty-five in uniform; at that ceremony it was inexpressibly touching and attractive, and it was especially delightful to see how carefully and precisely each performed his function that the ceremony might not ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... machine, he also gave us iced champagne every evening. As an example of how thorough the Maharajah was in his arrangements, he had brought three of his mallees, or native gardeners, with him, their sole function being to gather wild jungle-flowers daily, and to decorate the tables ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... oils, salts, and sulphurs, which pervade, without irritation, the minutest canals, must afford that species of aliment which the body in a morning and afternoon requires. While it attenuates, it restores the tone and substance of the juices, strengthens the solids, invigorates every natural function, and thus affords the means of enjoying all the comfort that a healthy body and a happy mind ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... The function of the leader of a club, a homogeneous crowd, is far more difficult than that of a leader of a heterogeneous crowd. The latter may easily be led by harping on a small number of strings, but in a homogeneous group like a club, whose sentiments and interests are identical, the leader ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... just such as the huts of the gold-seekers, and how, with joy and pride, he and the Padre had added to it and reconstructed as the years went by. He remembered the time when he had planted the first wild cucumber, which afterward became an annual function and never failed to cover the deep veranda with each passing year. There, too, was the cabbage patch crowded with a wealth of vegetables. And he remembered how careful he had been to select a southern aspect for it. The small barns, the hog-pens, where he could even now hear the grunting ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... Then, as I understand, your function was to acquaint yourself with everything that was going on in connection with the conference, and disseminate the news to the different branches of the peace conference ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... unreasonable, sir," said Drake, "and such objections could as properly apply to the professions of the painter and the musician. These are the children of joy. Their first function is to amuse. And surely amusement has its place in ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Alcohol. Another form of destructive disease often occurs. There is an increase of fat globules deposited in the liver, causing notable enlargement and destroying its function. This is called fatty degeneration, and is not limited to the liver, but other organs are likely to be similarly affected. In truth, this deposition of fat is a most significant occurrence, as ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... name. I gathered that the intended visit of the King met with his disapproval. He asked if I knew anything, or could discover anything, of the purposes animating the anarchist clubs of Paris, and their attitude towards the royal function, which was now the chief topic in the newspapers. I replied that within four days I would be able to submit to him a complete report on the subject. He bowed coldly and withdrew. On the evening of the fourth day I permitted myself the happiness of waiting upon ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... heroines, she valued least. Ethel, who had perceived in her pages some remarkable lapses, undertook at one time to revise her proofs; but I remember her telling me a year after the girl had left school that this function had been very briefly exercised. "She can't read me," said Mrs. Stormer; "I offend her taste. She tells me that at Dresden—at school—I was never allowed." The good lady seemed surprised at this, having the best ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... For the king's subjects, so far from being charmed by his resolution to marry a woman out of their midst, are scandalized. They riot, sing mocking songs, circulate base slanders, and threaten to mob the royal bride on her way to her first public function. She is herself terribly wrought up, particularly by the curse of her father, who hates the king with the deep hatred of a fanatical Republican. A royal princess, who had come to insult her, is conquered by her candor and truth, and stays to sympathize with her and lend her the support ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a long standing affection for the Duke of Bourbon. On September 21st, 1824, he conferred on him at the same time as on the Duke of Orleans, the title of Royal Highness. The last of the Condes was, besides, Grand Master of France. This court function was honorary rather than real, and the Prince appeared at the Tuileries only on rare occasions. Charles X. loved him as a friend of his childhood, a companion of youth and exile, but he had a lively regret to see him entangled in such relations with the Baroness of Feucheres. The advice he ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Phobar's mind did not function—but his legs moved regularly. In the grasp of this mental, metal monster he was a mere automaton. Phobar noticed idly that he had to step down from a flat disk a dozen yards across. By some power, some tremendous discovery that he could not understand, he had been ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei
... residence with a loaded pistol. The States, without extinguishing their sovereignty, created the Federal Government; it is the child of State legislation, and now the child seeks to chastise and control the parent. The General Government can possess no inherent or self-created function; its power, its very existence, were granted for certain uses. As regards your State's connection with that Government, no other State has the right to interfere; but as for another State's connection with it, the power that ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... feeling, awaited the arrival of the Duke and Duchess in the great avenues which branch out from beneath the vast Dome of the Exhibition-building. We have not in Australia any sense of the historical prestige which attaches itself to a royal opening of the British Parliament. There the stately function is magnificent in its setting and pregnant in its associations, but it is in scarcely any sense of the word ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... try," she promised. "Ask Mrs. Harvey to excuse my going up to see her this afternoon. I have another call to make, and I want to rest before the function tonight." ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... something much deeper? Are the men really like the women? Such a conception opens up considerations of very great significance. So far as I understand the matter, it appears that, as well as the deep inherent differences between the two sexes, there are other differences due to divergence in function. It seems probable that changes in environment or in function (as when one sex, for some reason or other, performs the duties usually undertaken by the other sex), may alter or modify the differences which tend to thrust the sexes apart. I feel very sure that there can be changes in the secondary ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... Teachers; and therefore Christianity gave them no new Right, but only directed them in the way of teaching truth; and consequently they needed no Imposition of Hands (besides that which is done in Baptisme) to authorize them to exercise any part of the Pastorall Function, as namely, to Baptize, and Consecrate. And in the Old Testament, though the Priest only had right to Consecrate, during the time that the Soveraignty was in the High Priest; yet it was not so when the Soveraignty was in the King: For we read (1 Kings 8.) ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... the natives of Northern Asia, are addicted to Shamanism. The shaman combines the double function of priest and doctor, ministering to the physical and spiritual being at the same time. When a man is taken sick he is supposed to be attacked by an evil spirit and the shaman is called to practice exorcism. There is a distinct spirit for every disease and he must be propitiated in a particular ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... in preparation for beginning to look over the correspondence manana. It is not the custom to make appointments in Tegucigalpa. If one resident desires the presence of another at dinner, or some less excusable function, he wanders out just before the hour set until he picks up his guest somewhere. By night the town is doubly dead. The shops put up their wooden shutters at dusk, the more energetic inhabitants wander a while about the cobbled streets, dim-lighted here ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... friends in the sudden flicker of the fire, or the brightening of a candle-flame. Balzac, the Seer, the believer in animal magnetism, in somnambulism, in telepathy, the weaver of strange fancies and impossible daydreams—Balzac with philosophical theories on the function of thought, and faith in the mystical creed of Swedenborg—in short, the Balzac of "Louis Lambert" and "Seraphita," is not, however, depicted by Boulanger: he can only be found in M. Rodin's wonderful statue. There the great voyant, who, in the beautiful vision entitled "L'Assomption," ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... now standing in the presence of his presbytery and surrounded with his congregation. It is a tremendous enough question to put to any man at any time: 'Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of saving souls your great motives and chief inducement to enter into the function of the holy ministry?' A man who does not understand what it is you are saying to him will just make the same bow to these awful words that he makes to all your other conventional questions. But the older he grows in his ministry, and the more he comes to discover the incurable ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... controversial questions between theorists and experimenters to be solved: in particular, M. Voigt has verified the consequences of the calculations, taking care not to make, like Cauchy and Poisson, the hypothesis of central forces a mere function of distance, and has recognized a potential which depends on the relative orientation of the molecules. These considerations also apply to quasi-isotropic bodies which are, in fact, ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... well up in 'Pickwick,' though I don't know whether he would have been equal to Calverley's famous examination-paper, and he had a special liking for the 'Uncommercial Traveller.' But when Dickens deserted his proper function Fitzjames was roused to indignation. The 'little Nell' sentimentalism and the long gallery of melodramatic deathbeds disgusted him, while the assaults upon the governing classes generally stirred ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... under the Constitution it is a function of the Senate to advise and consent to, or dissent from, the ratification of any treaty of the United States, and no such treaty can become operative without the consent of the Senate expressed by the affirmative vote of two thirds of ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... the imagination, we not only inadvertently foster vice and enervation, but we throw away one of the most precious implements for ministering to life's highest needs. There is no doubt that this ill adjusted function consumes quite unnecessarily vast stores of vital energy, even when we contemplate it in its immature manifestations which are infinitely more wholesome than the dumb swamping process. Every high school boy and girl knows the difference between ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... Negro Congressmen in the light of the standards already referred to, we shall first make inquiry as to their mental fitness to function as law makers. Broadly considered, they may be divided into two groups: first, those who possessed but limited education; second, those who ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... fit outpost for this palace of many women. Of the number of the king's wives I have no guess; and but a loose idea of their function. He himself displayed embarrassment when they were referred to as his wives, called them himself 'my pamily,' and explained they were his 'cutcheons'—cousins. We distinguished four of the crowd: the king's mother; ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Christ is one, it consists of many divisions, each of which has its proper function and object. In times past God has raised up companies of His servants to do this or that particular work—the sons of St. Francis to preach poverty, those of St. Bernard to labour in prayer with all holy women dedicating themselves to this purpose, the Society of Jesus for the education of youth ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... down that he wasn't the aggressor; his contract with Max stipulated that he should have the deciding word in the selection of the cast—aside from the leading role, of course—and when Alison chose, as she invariably did, to try to usurp that function, the author merely stood calmly and with imperturbable courtesy upon his rights. In consequence, it was Alison who made the conference so stormy a one that Max more than once threatened to tear his hair, and as a matter ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... the good convalescent how dear his preservation was to him, the King released him from his function for the rest of the year, and begged him to watch over his health, the most important of ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... have been acquainted with a stringed instrument once upon a time: at best a competent viola player occupies the first desk, so that he may play the occasional soli for that instrument; but, I have even seen this function performed by the leader of the first violins. It was pointed out to me that in a large orchestra, which contained eight violas, there was only one player who could deal with the rather difficult passages in ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... its truth. He felt assured that Miriam suffered in much the same way, having reached the same result by so very different a process of development. But it was equally clear to him that neither of these women really could do anything; it was not their function to do, but to be. Eleanor Spence would in all likelihood have illustrated the same unhappy problem had it been her lot to struggle against adverse conditions; she lived the natural life of an educated woman, and therefore was beset by no ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... even in Rome the tribunate was unlike all other magistracies. The holder had no outward signs of office, no satellites to execute his commands, no definite department to administer like the consul or the praetor. It was his first function to protest on behalf of the poorer citizens against the violent exercise of authority, and, on certain occasions, to thwart the action of other magistrates. He was to be the champion of the weak and helpless against the privileged orders; and his ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... the right-hand side is the like function with d, d', d" in place of a, a', a" respectively, and is of course also a determinant. Moreover, the functions b'c" - b"c', b"c - bc", bc' - b'c used in the process are themselves the determinants ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... Again, the close quarters aboard Coast Guard (p. 117) vessels made the talents of stewards for general service duties more noticeable to officers.[4-51] The evidence suggests, however, that the majority of the black stewards, about 63 percent of all the Negroes in the Coast Guard, continued to function as servants throughout the war. As in the rest of the naval establishment, the stewards in the Coast Guard were set apart not only by their limited service but also by different uniforms and the fact that chief stewards were not regarded as chief petty ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... some shame not to value at L600 [equivalent to L2000 now], may be competently furnished for L60 [equivalent to L200 now]. If any man, for his own curiosity or delight, be in books further expensive, that is not to be reckoned as necessary to his ministerial either breeding or function. But Papists and other adversaries cannot be confuted without Fathers and Councils, immense volumes and of vast charges! I will show them therefore a shorter and a better way of confutation: Tit. I. 9; 'Holding fast the faithful Word as he hath been taught, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... why a function cannot be its own argument is that the sign for a function already contains the prototype of its argument, and it cannot contain itself. For let us suppose that the function F(fx) could be its own argument: in that case there would be a proposition 'F(F(fx))', in ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein
... character, gorgeous vestments, beautiful music, and the gleam of many lights combining to make a tout ensemble that suggested some great occasion of national thanksgiving, as, indeed, it was. Scarlet and green were the brilliant colour-notes of the function. The celebrant of the Mass was Mgr. Canon Moyes, other dignitaries taking part in the service. Amongst the congregation were the children of the King of the Belgians—Prince Leopold, Duc de Brabant; Prince Charles, Comte de Flandre; and Princess Marie-Jose, ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... cold-moist, and the blood that of air, being hot-moist.[FN394] There were made in man three hundred and sixty veins, two hundred and forty-nine bones, and three souls[FN395] or spirits, the animal, the rational and the natural, to each of which is allotted its proper function. Moreover, Allah made him a heart and spleen and lungs and six intestines and a liver and two kidneys and buttocks and brain and bones and skin and five senses; hearing, seeing, smell, taste, touch. The heart He set on the left side of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the sale of holy images in a street opening into the Piazza of St. Peter's. We all know that they are of a Venetian family neither rich nor great; their pride and joy is solely in him, as it well might be, and it is said that when they come to hear him in some high function at the Sistine Chapel their rapture of affection and devotion is as evident as ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... be running Hamilton Lord. The exclusive franchise will keep out the other traders, and I can see to it that our trade city does no harm. We've a thousand planets in the Federation; who's going to know if one of the cities doesn't really function?" ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox
... of a similar tone and character: "A majority of the Senate, whose interference with the preliminary question has, for the best of all reasons, been studiously excluded, anticipate the action of the House of Representatives, assume not only the function which belongs exclusively to that body, but convert themselves into accusers, witnesses, counsel, and judges, and prejudge the whole case; thus presenting the appalling spectacle, in a free state, of judges going through a labored preparation ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... either to good or bad respectively by the missionary and the trader. There were also the Government representatives, whose chief business it was to strengthen and consolidate the missionary's work, a function they carried on but indifferently well. But as for those traders! well, I put them down under the dangers of West Africa at once. Subsequently I came across the good old Coast yarn of how, when a trader from that region went thence, it goes without ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... no use. This Germanic horde, which I saw pouring down across Belgium, bound for France, does not in retrospect seem to me a man-made, man-managed thing. It seems more like a great, orderly function of Nature; as ordained and cosmic as the tides of the sea or the sweep of a mighty wind. It is hard to believe that it was ever fashioned of thousands of separate atoms, so perfectly is it welded into a whole. It is harder still to accept it as a mutable and ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... by the law man is directed, in his acts, to the end, as stated above (Q. 90, A. 2). But the directing of human acts to their end is not a function of nature, as is the case in irrational creatures, which act for an end solely by their natural appetite; whereas man acts for an end by his reason and will. Therefore no law is natural ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... institutions, and raises, by anticipation, some other questions to which growing necessities will sooner or later compel the attention both of theoretical and of practical politicians. The chief of these last, is the distinction between the function of making laws, for which a numerous popular assembly is radically unfit, and that of getting good laws made, which is its proper duty and cannot be satisfactorily fulfilled by any other authority: and the consequent ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... town-schools, colleges, and universities, and even orphan-asylums and country-schools. Three objects are asserted to be obtained by his disciples: development of muscular fibre, increased arterialization, and improved innervation. Increase of function promotes the growth and capability of organic structures, and causes an augmented afflux of arterial blood and nervous influence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... went on century after century. Swift, more than a hundred years ago, described the prelates of his country as men gorged with wealth and sunk in indolence, whose chief business was to bow and job at the Castle. The only spiritual function, he says, which they performed was ordination; and, when he saw what persons they ordained, he doubted whether it would not be better that they should neglect that function as they neglected every other. Those, Sir, are now living who can well remember ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fail, but I now found that mechanical laws rule man in the long run; that no effort of will, no power of spirit, can draw beyond a certain limit upon muscular force. The soul, it is true, can stir the body to action, but its function is to excite and apply force, and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... social education are mistakes so serious. Other changes, demanded by new ideas of the function of the school, have been made prematurely and clumsily, but without grave danger. We have adjusted ourselves readily enough to compulsory education, normal schools, higher education for women, expert supervision, the kindergartens, physical training, industrial schools, university extension, care ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... that it is the function of an artist to communicate to us beautiful things or ugly things, things graceful or things profound, things of pleasure or things of grief. Say rather, simply, it is his function, as artist, to communicate—perfectly, ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... and catch-holes for a lid, like other sarcophagi.—More damaging details still remain in relation to the coffer as "a grand standard measure of capacity," and prove that its object or function was very different. In his first work Professor Smyth describes the coffer as showing no "symptoms" whatever of grooves, or catchpins or other fastenings or a lid. "More modern accounts," he re-observes, "have been further ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... so persistently, and for so many generations, been held up to us as a God who tries and torments and punishes that we can hardly see Him as anything else. Torture comes, in the minds of many of us, to be not only His main function but His only function. "I am all right," is the unspoken thought in many a heart, "so long as I am not overtaken by the Will of God. When that calamity falls on me my poor little human happiness will be wrecked like a skiff in a cyclone." This ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... the dean, fondly attached to every ornament of his dignified function, was never seen (unless caught in bed) without an enormous wig. With this young Henry was enormously struck; having never seen so unbecoming a decoration, either in the savage island from whence he came, or on board the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... act. He had heard it before—especially in the theatre—and his soul had shaken with laughter. He had read of it in novels, only to toss such books aside. "The beauty of renunciation," he had often said, "appeals to the morbid, the sickly, and the sentimental. It has no function among the healthy and the sane." He had not only said that, but he had believed it. He believed it still, and lived by it. By doing so he had amassed his modest fortune and won a respected position in the world. He had not got on into middle life without meeting the occasion ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... qualified for the office of a tutor. He likewise added, by way of eulogium, that he was a man of exemplary piety and particularly zealous for the honour of the church, of which he was a member, having been many years in holy orders, though he did not then exercise any function of the priesthood. Indeed, Mr. Jolter's zeal was so exceedingly fervent, as, on some occasions, to get the better of his discretion; for, being a high churchman and of consequence a malcontent, his resentment was habituated into an insurmountable prejudice against the present ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... unpleasantly aware of the transitory nature of man's hopes and the vanity of his joys. When his train wound into the rough open space, it found itself surrounded by a troop of men whose looks and gestures bespoke their function without the intermediation of an interpreter. But no interpreter was needed in this case, as Signor G—— was a Spaniard by birth, and their expressive pantomime was a sufficiently eloquent substitute for speech. In plain English, he had fallen among thieves, with very little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... of these striking differences to illustrate this fact. Originally pins were stuck upon a paper web by hand, and placed in rows, equidistant from each other. This necessitates the cooperative function of the fingers and the eye. An expert pin sticker could thus assemble from four to ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... rule, general, not personal, and yet the best ones have the personal touch. The letter is a silent salesman whose function is to anticipate the needs of its customers and offer to supply them. In this as in any other kind of salesmanship it is the spirit which counts for most, and the spirit of genuine helpfulness (mutual helpfulness) gives pulling power to ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... the simple meaning of the commandment: since holidays are observed anyhow, such observance should be devoted to hearing God's Word, so that the special function of this day should be the ministry of the Word for the young and the mass of poor people, yet that the resting be not so strictly interpreted as to forbid any other incidental work that cannot be ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... in the power to admit new States. The end of acquiring territory is the formation of States, and the powers of territorial government, so far as power was conferred upon Congress, must have had reference to that end. Therefore it is, that the duty and the function of Congress are alike filled in the civil government of a territory, when the Congress shall have defined a mode or an organization by which the citizens in a territory shall be able to exercise their inherent right of self-government ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... Vegetable Poisons on the human frame vary according to circumstances. The most usual are: that of disturbing the nervous function, producing vertigo, faintness, delirium, madness, stupor, or apoplexy, with a consequent loss of understanding, of speech, and of all the senses; and, frequently, this dreadful scene ends in death in a ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... we can safely predict a change that will by and by distinguish him from all other creatures even more widely and more fundamentally than he is distinguished today. Whenever in the course of organic evolution we see any function beginning as incidental to the performance of other functions, and continuing for many ages to increase in importance until it becomes an indispensable strand in the web of life, we may be sure that by a continuance of the same process its influence is destined to increase still more in the future. ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... only a matter for the private conscience, but one which even there must be leniently and trustfully considered. For remember how many serve mankind who do no more than meditate; and how many are precious to their friends for no more than a sweet and joyous temper. To perform the function of a man of letters it is not necessary to write; nay, it is perhaps better to be a living book. So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend. The true services of life are inestimable in ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... novels whilst Wellington was winning battles; and, if Carlyle be a true prophet, the most brilliant writer is scarcely worthy to unloose the shoe's latchet of the silent heroes of action. Perhaps it is graceful in masters of the art to depreciate their own peculiar function. People who have less personal interest in the matter need not be so modest. I will confess, at any rate, to preferring the men who have sown some new seed of thought above the heroes whose names mark epochs in history. I ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... interest,—instead of being equally diffused over the various members of the national family, leads to the gradual formation of educated or financial castes, but obtains for the nation itself neither recognized function, position, dignity, nor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... retorted Miss Motley, who hated to be plagued about abstract questions, being a young woman of an essentially concrete nature, born to consume and digest three meals a day, and having no views that go beyond that function. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... been visiting him as a favor and he felt in duty bound to make the time pass pleasantly, but she troubled him so little with herself, that nearly always he forgot her. Whenever there was any public function to which they were bidden he always told her apologetically, as though it must be as much of a bore to her as to him, and he regretted that it was necessary to go in order to carry out their mutual agreement. Marcia, ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Callao*, Cusco, Huancavelica, Huanuco, Ica, Junin, La Libertad, Lambayeque, Lima, Loreto, Madre de Dios, Moquegua, Pasco, Piura, Puno, San Martin, Tacna, Tumbes, Ucayali note: the 1979 constitution mandated the creation of regions (regiones, singular—region) to function eventually as autonomous economic and administrative entities; so far, 12 regions have been constituted from 23 of the 24 departments—Amazonas (from Loreto), Andres Avelino Caceres (from Huanuco, Pasco, Junin), Arequipa (from Arequipa), Chavin (from Ancash), Grau (from Tumbes, Piura), Inca (from ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... in me of extravagance," she said, laying her hand for a moment upon his arm, "I owe to you. Who else would have cabled to all my people to come over here for such an unimportant function as my wedding!" ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had exalted them out of due proportion in the spiritual economy. To make a god of them was to make an empty and inadequate god. Reason should be the guardian of the soul's advance, but not the object. Its function was that of a great sandpaper which should clear the way of excrescences, but its worship was to allow a detail to ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... the other day at a function next a man of some eminence, and I was really amazed at the way in which he discoursed of himself and his habits, his diet, his hours of work, and the blank indifference with which he received similar confidences. ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... fattener. It is when, by virtue of its absorption, certain phases of the body are allowed to function naturally. It is true in the case of meddling minds, also in more or less conscientious natures. Mary Louise's nerves had temporarily ceased to feed upon her. She was getting plump. The lace frill at the bottom of her elbow sleeve lay flat ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... repairs while the remainder of the village was going to ruin, and used as farming outlooks long after the site was abandoned as a place of residence. As these farming outlooks have been discussed at some length in another paper[1] it is not necessary here to enlarge upon their function and the important part they play in Pueblo architecture. If the high mounds in question mark, as supposed, the sites of farming outlooks such as those which are found in the north, they indicate that the occupancy of the region in which they occur was continued after the ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff
... assured himself that he had no doubt in regard to the result. He felt that the end had been accomplished by the work which had already been done; and the convention itself seemed to him somewhat unreal and unmeaning. It had in his mind not much more than the function of announcing a result which he felt to have been arrived at already in the canvassing of lists of delegates in which he had taken part at Mrs. Wilson's. Until the thing was formally announced, however, it was impossible ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... reasoning with herself, nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive of her action. She was not thinking at all. She seemed for the time to be taking a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function and to have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... On a special Algebraic function, and its Camb. Phil. Soc. application to the solution of ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... wound General Browne himself, while he too vehemently interferes." [Adelung, iv. 356, and the half-intelligible Foot-note in Ranke, iii. 220.] This was the finale of those 6,000 Hessians, and indeed their principal function, while in French pay;—and must have been, we can Judge how surprising to Prince Friedrich, and to his Papa on hearing ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... an English Physiologist, in an address before the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, remarked that "tea increased waste in the body, excited every function, and was well fitted to cases where there was a superfluity of material in the system;—but is injurious to the under-fed, or where there is greater waste than supply." Dr. Smith recommended tea as a preventive of heat-appoplexy, and in cases of suspended ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... not forget the task wherewith Pete had charged him. It is a familiar duty in the Isle of Man, and he who discharges it is known by a familiar name. They call him the Dooiney Molla—literally, the "man-praiser;" and his primary function is that of an informal, unmercenary, purely friendly and philanthropic matchmaker, introduced by the young man to persuade the parents of the young woman that he is a splendid fellow, with substantial possessions or magnificent prospects, and entirely fit to marry her. But he has a secondary ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... process into which mental excitements and physiological changes enter, and these are so subtly related to each other that one always increases the other, until the maximum desire is reached, to which the will must surrender. Nature needs this automatic function; otherwise the vital needs of individual and race might be suppressed by other interests, and neglected. In the case of the sexual instinct, the mutual relations between the various parts of this circulatory process are especially complicated. Here it must be sufficient to say that ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... Tom explained, "Actually its function is to replace the carbon dioxide that I exhale with fresh oxygen drawn from the water. Otherwise, although the carbon dioxide I'd breathe out would be a very small amount at a time, it soon would make the air unfit. The nitrogen, which makes up much of the air we breathe, is chemically inert ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... and Heaven, confessing those Sins that press'd my tender Conscience; even then to load my Soul with the blackest of Infamies, to add to my Number a Weight that must sink me to Hell? Alas! under the Security of his innocent Looks, his holy Habit, and his aweful Function, I was led into this Room to make my Confession; where, he locking the Door, I had no sooner began, but he gazing on me, took fire at my fatal Beauty; and starting up, put out the Candles and caught me in his Arms; and raising me from the Pavement, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... my weakness, or my gift, I don't know which, I visualised the story for myself. I really can't help it. And the vision of Mrs Fyne dressed for a rather special afternoon function, engaged in wrestling with a wild-eyed, white-faced girl had a certain ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... that. I have known, or at least I have supposed I knew, for years, that you thought more of him than of anyone else. You are twenty years old now; it is high time that you were married, and it would break my old heart to see you take up with any of those society-beaux who hover around you at every function where you appear. On the other hand, I shall be very glad when you are Roderick Duncan's wife. He is the son of the best friend I ever had, the only man I ever trusted. And he is every bit as good a man as his ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... arms as in Man, or forelegs as in Quadrupeds, or pectoral fins as in Fishes, or wings as in Birds. The wing in an Insect, on the contrary, is a flattened, dried-up gill, having no structural relation whatever to the wing of a Bird. They are analogous only because they resemble each other in function, being in the same way subservient to flight; but as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... Order.—The first and most important work of any government is the preservation of order. We think of this function most frequently as exercised in the arrest of offenders who violate the law. In fact, most young persons receive their earliest ideas of government by seeing the policeman, or constable, who stands for the authority of the government. But he is not the only officer who is ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... researches of science, or direct professional study. Here and there college walls may shelter an occasional student, but not in larger proportions than may be found in private life. Elementary teaching of youths under twenty is now the only function performed by the university, and almost the only object of college endowments. Colleges were homes for the life-study of the highest and most abstruse parts of knowledge. They have become boarding schools in which ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... It severed the downtown district from the manufacturing area, crossing the river near the Ninth Street bridge and swallowing the great Searsroebuck store like a capsule. The office of the Daily Intelligencer, like the Civic Center, was unthreatened and able to function, but we were without water and gas, though the electric service, subject to annoying interruptions, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... describes him in a letter to Putnam as a man who "when he is much interested, looks as if he were taking aim with his rifle." To some it seemed that one eye of Mr. Binkus was often drawing conclusions while the other was engaged with the no less important function ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... vital action. In its passive and negative state it is affected by impressions coming to it in different ways through the sense organs, resulting in nervous and mental action. These two functions are interdependent. It is the latter or afferent function with which we are now concerned. The range of our sense-perceptions puts us momentarily in relations with the material world, or rather, with a certain portion of it. For we by no means sense all that is ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... of this region the ancient Brotherhood of Saint John Beheaded have had their church and place of meeting for centuries. It was their chief function to help and comfort condemned criminals from the midnight preceding their death until the end. To this confraternity belonged Michelangelo, among other famous men whose names stand on the rolls to this day; and doubtless the great master, hooded in black ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... John Stuart Mill, then a young man not yet twenty-five years of age, was published in 'The Westminster' for January, 1831. It bears testimony to the writer's fine insight and sure foresight; and it bears testimony, too, to his high estimate of the function of poetry in this world—an estimate, too, in kind and in degree, not older than this present century. The review is as important a landmark in the development of poetical criticism, as are the two poems I have mentioned, in the development ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... that a weary or inattentive infant in a class must have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or when and where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system in operation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth, and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their wretched faces; sometimes with one hand, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... when the risk offered is what the street terms a "skate" or a "target," there is a sudden halt, and the completion of the binder becomes a more difficult matter. Then the really astute placer has a chance to demonstrate his efficiency. It is his function to persuade with winged words his adversary, the company's local underwriter or "counterman," that the stock of cheap millinery belonging to the Slavonic gentlemen with the unfortunate record of two fires of unknown origin and two opportune failures is even more desirable—at ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... It's the question of all questions, it seems to me. The function of the Church, in my opinion, is to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... The function which Jupiter so conspicuously fulfills as master of the hounds to the sun is worth considering a little more in detail. To change the figure, imagine the sun in its voyage through space to be like a majestic battleship surrounded by its scouts. Small vessels (the ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... function when the door opened and Rosalind sailed in, looking particularly charming after a breezy walk ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... really acquainted with Sylvia, because of the extent to which this world was clamouring for her. I used to drop in when she 'phoned me she had half an hour. I would find her dressing for something, and she would send her maid away, and we would talk until she would be late for some function; and that might be a serious matter, because somebody would feel slighted. She was always "on pins and needles" over such questions of precedent; it seemed as if everybody in her world must be watching everybody else. There was a whole elaborate science of how to treat the people you met, so that ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair |
