"Random" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sir, look forenenst you." The captain did look up, and saw me perched on the branch of a scrubby hawthorn-tree. Surprised and amused, he exclaimed, "By Jove! how odd! What a magnificent bird! Why Poll, what the deuce brought you here?" "Eh, sirs," I replied at random, "it was aw' for the love of the siller." The captain, and his little groom Midge, who had picked himself up on the other side of the cabriolet, shrieked with laughing. "I say, my boy," said the captain, "is that macaw your's?" "It is," said the little ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... argue that way with women—as if life were not the same for us as for you. Pass me the book. I wager that I can open it at random, and that you cannot deny the truth of the first ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... haste. There is much agitation among the computer staff at the Institute. An assistant technician has been discovered to be able to predict the answer the computer will give to problems set up at random. He is one Hans ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... joyous young couples are never seen arming each other along the road of an evening. Thousands of allusions in our rural songs and poetry, innumerable scenes in our genre pictures, speak of blissful hours of which Japan gives no sign. There is no courting; there are in the public view no "random fits of dallin'." An unmarried young man and young woman do not walk and talk together. A young man and woman who were together of an evening would be suspected of immorality. Even when married they would not think of linking arms on the road. I was a beholder of a family ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... glowering first at his father and then at me. Sandy, who was, in his mind's eye, re-rigging a schooner, went on with his paper-and-pencil work, unconscious of his son's scrutiny. I dropped my eyes to the Allan Ramsay, which I had opened at random, but lost nothing of Danvers's conduct, and liked him for it. He had known but the women who needed protection, and his attitude to my mind bespoke ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... there were only good and bad in this world it would not matter so much," said Correze a little recklessly and at random. "Life would not be such a disheartening affair as it is. Unfortunately the majority of people are neither one nor the other, and have little inclination for either crime or virtue. It would be almost as absurd to condemn ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... baskets or bundles of traits from which the child takes its traits at random. In the wonderful play of Maeterlinck's, called the "Bluebird," we are taken to the "land before birth," where the children are waiting to be born, having selected their parents to be. Of course, this is only a pleasant fancy, like the advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes to ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... talking somewhat at random, now of the recent past, then of their first meeting and their marriage; but presently I began to form a fairly coherent picture of their lives; and it seemed to me that my surmises had not been incorrect. Mrs. Strickland ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... endless number of questions to ask about the winter, and especially about her pretty sister Mrs. Charteris; with a latent view to supplemental information also about Rollo and his wife, if such were to be had. Annabella answered at random, made Mrs. Coles desperate, was bored; and yet did not go away. At last she seized a chance and moved to a seat beside Hazel. It was at a time when several other people were present and just then engaged more or less with each other and a ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... a fresh gladness about the commonest experiences. We cannot but rejoice with him in all sights and sounds. But though we cannot deny him truth, his truth is honesty and not understanding. The experiences in which he discovers so much worth, are random and capricious, and do not constitute a universe. To the solution of ultimate questions he contributes a sense of ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... grew deep on acres where wheat had been planted, and weeds sprouted thickly in the orchards, and blight and mildew competed for the crops. But though here and there I could see a dugout, with traces of fire and abandoned tools flung about at random, nowhere in all that dismal world did I observe ...
— Flight Through Tomorrow • Stanton Arthur Coblentz
... but I thought I could and when the Princess told me to bring this car after her I was sure I could. She is ahead with her son and Princess Modjeska and some guests. I fear I will not be able to reach Lodz." He pressed a lever at random, and the ear shot forward with a speed that nearly threw Warren from the step. Another frantic attempt and she slowed down with a suddenness that almost put the others ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... so, Master Guy, but I would rather fight by day than by night; it is random work when you can neither see your mark nor look straight along your arrow. If we had a moon we should do well enough, but on these dark nights skill does not go for much; still, I doubt not that we shall give a good account of ourselves, for at any rate we shall be ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... Vienna and Warsaw, of her distant neighbors, and last year's visitors, it was evident that her mind was elsewhere; her eye wandered, she lost the thread of her discourse, answered me at random, and smiled her ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... taste for the arts, and would improve if his mind were not fettered by cold rules and mere technical ideas. I often lose patience, when, with a glowing imagination, I am giving expression to art and nature, he interferes with learned suggestions, and uses at random the ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... portion of Yacoub's division, appeared; and over fifteen thousand men came streaming down the hill, waving banners and shouting their war cries. They were led by their emirs, on horseback; but the infantry kept pace with these, occasionally discharging their rifles at random. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... seacliff took our troubled talk— The words at random thrown, And Echo lived about this walk Of ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... the Congress a fair and impartial random selection system for the draft. I submit it again tonight for your ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the temptation of stealing, must be considered pretty nearly on a par in the scale of honesty; and judging in this manner, the balance might possibly be found in favour of the latter when compared with any similar number of Europeans taken at random from the ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... find one that isn't improved and finished and rounded off by an Amen at the end." He selected a hymn at random, and sang a stanza in his rich voice that poured itself out ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... enable the workmen to leave the hay in sheaves, but to do this an additional hand is wanted to rake or pitch off the sheaves. The sheaves should be laid off in rows, and by system, rather than at random, ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... random. Here is our old guidebook. The road is all mapped out, the way surveyed, by which we march to ruin. All the dire calamities of Greece may be ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the historian of Rock, "cursorily and at random, a few features of the reigns preceding the Reformation, in order to show what good use was made of those three or four hundred years in attaching the Irish people to their English governors; and by what a gentle ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... Boogies then, though he seemed not to know it. His needle worked swiftly on the red one he was making for the madam, and his aimless, random phrases seemed to flow as before; but I knew now where to apply for the details that had been too many for ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... response is correct. It is well on many occasions, if we have any doubt as to the knowledge of children, to anticipate the response which they should give, and to make them acquainted with it, rather than to allow them to engage in random guessing. The boy who in writing his composition wishes to use a word which he does not know how to spell, should feel entirely free to ask the teacher for the correct spelling, unless there is a dictionary at hand which he knows how to use. It is very much better for a boy to ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... sister, and brothers—never speak, even to one another. You may trust us that far," rejoined Herbert, emphatically. "Nor do I see what we can do, except wait for other proof that Mabel really knows anything beyond a name she has picked up at random and never, to my knowledge, repeated, save in her ravings. Should she recover, the test can be easily applied, and we can judge then, how to handle ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... and much at random. Mr. Fernald quietly walked up the aisle to the platform. Mr. Moller arose and for a moment the two spoke in low tones. Then the principal nodded, smiled and turned to retrace his steps. As he did so his smiling regard fell upon the occupants ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... skill. The four hundred skilled archers forming the royal body-guard each shot at the ring without success. It chanced that a boy on a neighbouring house-top was at the same time diverting himself with a little bow, when one of his arrows, shot at random, went through the ring. The boy, having obtained the prize, immediately burned his bow, shrewdly observing that he did so in order that the reputation of this feat should ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... desultory talk about church-music, through which words ran at random, Mrs. Edgar broke ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... speaking of women, I have seen many beautiful figures, but hardly one except Agnes that could, without hyperbole, be styled truly and memorably magnificent. Though in the first order of tall women, yet, being full in person, and with a symmetry that was absolutely faultless, she seemed to the random sight as little above the ordinary height. Possibly from the dignity of her person, assisted by the dignity of her movements, a stranger would have been disposed to call her at a distance a woman of commanding presence; but never, after he had approached near enough ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... more completely than Olive. To her, too, music was a delight, and her listening face turned itself to different parts of the room, unconsciously, while her eyes vaguely rested on the bibelots that emerged into the firelight. At moments Mrs. Burrage bent her countenance upon her and smiled, at random, kindly; and then Verena smiled back, while her expression seemed to say that, oh yes, she was giving up everything, all principles, all projects. Even before it was time to go, Olive felt that they were both (Verena and she) quite demoralised, and ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... his feet and slid the book under the pillow. Then he seized a textbook at random, and opened it wide. His eyes fastened themselves to the print, seizing upon the meaningless words as if they would save him from a retribution that Rogue Rogan had never ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... and abandonment of movement now acquired is not a combination of erratic movements and gestures distributed at random. The freedom gained is the result of perfect control, not in any degree the result of unguided abandon. My dancers know how to work because they are sure of themselves; the controlled individual is the ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... one study to the next, vague-eyed, standing for a long time before each, staring, lost in thought. Sometimes, in the evening he read, choosing a book at random among the motley collection in a corner case—a dusty, soiled assortment of books, ephemeral novels of the moment, ponderous volumes which are in everybody's library but which nobody reads, sets of histories, memoirs, essays, beautifully bound and once ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... again in the same places the foxgloves and wallflowers, the beds of nettles growing round the big stones, and the patches of lichen along the three windows, whose shutters, always closed, were rotting away on their rusty iron bars. Her thoughts, aimless at first, wandered at random, like her greyhound, who ran round and round in the fields, yelping after the yellow butterflies, chasing the shrew-mice, or nibbling the poppies on the edge of ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... present situation would allow. At this very moment he was wondering at his own weakness "in turning himself into a miserable land-lubber, all for love of the capt'n and the two little middies." Meantime, Donald was divided between random boy-thoughts on one side, and a real manly interest in Dorothy, whose lot seemed to him decidedly less pleasant than his own. Dorry was quietly enjoying the change from keen grief to its absence, and a sense of security in being so near Uncle and Donald. And the uncle—what shall ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... from the window glinted on the holy Book of books that the girl treasured. She opened it. A line read at random comforted her. Clasping the volume in her hands, she knelt in ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... "drives" were renewed in the northeastern districts of the Orange River Colony at the end of January, 1902, the experience of the last few months had shown that they must be conducted on new methods. Hitherto the typical "drive" had been a net or nets cast too often hastily and at random, the meshes of which were large, irregular, and easily cut. The new "drive" was a bar of steel pushed steadily forward by simultaneous action throughout its length, and with its ends resting on the two completed blockhouse lines running ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... brave but cruel warrior who was killed in a similar way. He had removed his helmet from some unexplained cause—possibly to relieve the pressure on his head—when a random arrow pierced his throat; but his death was to many a cause of rejoicing, for owing to his cruel deeds at the Battle of Wakenfield, he had earned the sobriquet of "the Butcher." While that battle was raging, the Duke of York's son, the Earl of Rutland, a youth ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Directors for explanation. And here your Lordships are to observe that this correspondence is never in the way of letters written and answers given; but he and the Directors are perpetually playing at hide-and-seek with each other, and writing to each other at random: Mr. Hastings making a communication one day, the Directors requiring an explanation the next; Mr. Hastings giving an account of another bribe on the third day, without giving any explanation of the former. Still, however, the Directors are pursuing their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... out that a considerable number of heartnut and butternut trees were planted at random in the same orchards with the black walnut trees used in these experiments and at the same time (1932). In many cases black walnut trees grew within 50 or 100 feet of the heartnut trees. The bunch disease ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... a farmer who was riding home a cob he had bought that day at Launceston, and the farmer and he began to have a chat about horses suggested by that circumstance. Oddly enough, their random talk came ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... This is an emblem of their minds; at first they have no principles laid down within them as a foundation for the intellect to build upon: they have no discriminating convictions, and no grasp of consequences. And therefore they talk at random, if they talk much, and cannot help being flippant, or what is emphatically called "young." They are merely dazzled by phenomena, instead of perceiving things as ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... You are one for talking at random. Hang it! what devotion shall it be? [He reflects a few moments.] Ah! I have it! I will perform the devotion ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... had entrenched themselves in great force. Not expecting to come so soon upon them, Mr. Edmonstone, his faithful man Coffee and two Indian chiefs found themselves considerably ahead of their own party. As yet they were unperceived by the enemy, but unfortunately one of the Indian chiefs fired a random shot at a distant Maroon. Immediately the whole negro camp turned out and formed themselves in a crescent in front of Mr. Edmonstone. Their chief was an uncommonly fine negro, above six feet in height; ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... of the way-back-hard-shell preacher whose hymn book had been stuffed with profane poems by some lewd fellows of the baser sort. He always opened at random and, trusting to divine guidance, read the first hymn that presented itself; he commenced: "We will sing together the one thousand three hundred and ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... been with Mr. Young eight or ten years, and were promoted and maintain their position solely on the ground of ability and faithfulness. They go rapidly from one to another, noting whether they are picking the rows clean. They also take from each tray a basket at random, and empty it into another, thus discovering who are gathering green or imperfect berries. If the fruit falls much below the accepted standard, the baskets are confiscated and no tickets given for them, and if the picker continues ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... character, too, in their very jests. For they did not throw them out at random, but the very wit of them was grounded upon something or other worth thinking about. For instance, one, being asked to go hear a man who exactly counterfeited the voice of a nightingale, answered, "Sir, I have heard the nightingale itself." ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the hour. Such a personality as this may be analyzed; it defies any concise synthesis. One resorts to figures of speech, and they were abundantly resorted to by those who paid him the tribute of their admiration and love upon the occasion of his seventieth anniversary. Let us take an instance at random from ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... from this question, which once had been so important, and which now seemed so secondary; but the conversation must be maintained. She said at random: "She has a ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... he began. But Angela sternly caught his eye, mutely commanding him to eat. When he had chosen several dishes at random, and the waiter had gone, she reproached him again. "What would people think if you went away in the midst of dinner? There's a man opposite staring at us now! You're not as tactful as you were the night of the burglar. Then, ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... was not yet. At first in random coasting sloop, and afterwards in the cutter belonging to the service, the engineer must ply and run amongst these multiplied dangers and sometimes late ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... may have taken under their guidance. He can only say: If we perceived their origin and their authenticity, we should be able to determine the extent and limits of reason; but, till we can do this, all propositions regarding the latter are mere random assertions. In this view, the doubt respecting all dogmatical philosophy, which proceeds without the guidance of criticism, is well grounded; but we cannot therefore deny to reason the ability to construct a sound philosophy, when the way has been prepared by a thorough ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... overshadowed by the grand and imposing figure of the national independence. But in fact the emperors themselves, in these distant times, had little knowledge of this province, and spoke of it vaguely, and as it were at random, in their diplomas, the chief monuments of the history of the Middle Ages. The counts of Holland and the apostolic nuncios addressed their acts and rescripts indiscriminately to the nobles, clergy, magistrates, judges, consuls, or commons of Friesland. Sometimes appeared in those documents the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... passengers to a side of the upper deck, from which the scenery was supposed to present itself to the observer in increased quantity and quality. There, in comfortable steamer chairs, they sat and began to piece together the random lines that were to form an intelligent paragraph in the big ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... from what shrewd people thought of him. Lord Palmerston, no partial critic, declared, 'I have come in my life across only one absolutely disinterested man, and that is—Stockmar.' Subtle aphorisms on the conduct of life may be culled, almost at random, from his letters to the royal pair. We can take but one, which, read in conjunction with the lives he influenced, ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous
... as he watched her go. Left alone, he sat with his arms along his knees, perfectly still. His heart beat heavily, and all his being felt sullen, watchful, aloof, like a balked animal. Thoughts came up in his brain like bubbles—random, hissing out aimlessly. Once, in the startling inflammability of his blood, his veins ran hot, ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... is that there was malice in it. Yet there was a divine purpose behind the wrath of man. Again and again one has to remark how, in these last scenes, every shred of action and every random word aimed at Jesus for the purpose of injuring and dishonouring Him so turned, instead, to honour, that in our eyes, now looking back, it shines on Him like a star. As a fire catches the lump of dirty coal or clot of filth that is flung into it, and converts it into a mass of light, ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... breathe deep the warm air, revelling in the woods sounds and woods odours and woods life with entire self-abandonment. Orde followed her in silence. She seemed to be quite without responsibility in regard to him; and yet an occasional random remark thrown in his direction proved that he was not forgotten. Finally they emerged ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... was that high theurgic magic that made the English Don Quixote, roughly traduced by some Jervas, perhaps the best of all English books. And it was the same element that made the journey of Roderick Random to London, so ostensibly a narrative of coarse jokes and common experiences and burlesque manners, told in no very choice diction, essentially a wonderful vision of the eighteenth century, carrying to one's very nostrils the aroma of the Great North Road, iron-bound under black ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... flying the Australian flag—the gridiron of England smuggled up in the northwest corner of a big red field that had the random stars of the Southern Cross wandering around ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with people, who were running from all directions towards the scene of fight. This spectacle lent the secretary wings; and he did not relax his pace until he had gained the Bayswater Road, and plunged at random into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sometimes called me a poet, and though they employed the term vaguely and at random, yet it was not wholly unjustified. For I am a destroyer of suggestion, a shatterer of the group, a wanderer from the herd, an idol-hater, but also a searcher for joy, beauty and bliss, a lover of reality; and all these are characteristics ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... (Chap. 24, No. 5) that in New Testament usage many words have a technical and therefore peculiar meaning. We are not at liberty, however, to determine such technical meanings at random, or in accordance with any preconceived opinions. It can only be done, as in the case of all other writings, in accordance with the acknowledged laws of interpretation. The general result, then, at which we arrive is, that in determining the meaning ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... protected, governd, restraind, rewarded or punishd. If then a soldier has the right in common with other men, to arm himself for his defence when he thinks there is a necessity for it, he has certainly no more right then they, to use his weapons of death at random; or at all under a pretence of suppressing riots, or any other pretence, without the presence of the civil magistrate, unless his own life is in danger, and he cannot retreat: Such a liberty would tend to increase the disorder rather than suppress it, and would endanger life rather than save it: ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... precisely; and there are some lawyers who think and reason very loosely, and come to hasty and incorrect conclusions. Still, you are more likely to get a good opinion on such a subject from a lawyer than from other men taken at random. So, if you please, you may go down and state the question to Mr. Hall, and I will abide by ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... post, April 9, 1778, where Johnson said:-'Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any subject; so he talked always at random.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... where it crosses the valley of Taipi, Mr. Osbourne tells me they are to be reckoned by the dozen; and as the roads have been made long posterior to their erection, perhaps to their desertion, and must simply be regarded as lines drawn at random through the bush, the forest on either hand must be equally filled with these survivals: the gravestones of whole families. Such ruins are tapu in the strictest sense; no native must approach them; they have become outposts of the kingdom of the grave. It might appear a natural and pious custom ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at last, striking back at random, and then sitting up he rubbed his eyes. There was Louie sitting opposite to him, crying great tears of rage and pain, now rocking her ankle as if it hurt her, and now dealing cuffs ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... silent and moody of late—a change for which I could find no cause. He would answer my questions at random, pause in his work to gaze long and intently on the ceiling, and altogether behave in ways unaccountable and strange. The play had been written at white-hot speed: the corrections proceeded at a snail's pace. The author had also fallen into a habit of bolting his meals in silence, and, when rebuked, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... however, was to elapse before the sea-tale came into its own. It was not until a generation after Defoe that Smollett, in "Roderick Random," again stirred the theme into life. Fielding in his "Voyage to Lisbon" had given some account of a personal experience, but in the general category it must be set down as simply episodal. Foster's "Voyages," a translation ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... a will, for much had to be done in a very short space of time. It was a case of excavating under extreme difficulties, for apart from the smoke and heat from the blazing huts bullets were dropping frequently and at random upon that part of the kraal still held by the hard-pressed but as ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... and showed that it had originally contained a number of leaves of blank paper; these leaves were partially covered with the hand-writing of William Stanley. The date of his going to sea, and the names of the vessels he had sailed in, were recorded. Brief, random notes occurred, of no other importance than that of proving the authenticity of the pocket-book. A sailor's song was written on one page; another was half-covered with figures, apparently some trifling accounts of his own. The date of a particular storm of unusual severity, was put down, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... old Jersey unnoticed, three or four prisoners let themselves down into it quietly, cast off the rope, and drifted away slowly with the tide. It was evening, and the darkness saved them. Their escape was discovered, and guns were fired at random after them; but they floated unharmed along the East River, passed what are now the Fulton and South ferries, and reached by a miracle the New Jersey shore. Here they found friends, and were safe. At another time, in the cold winter of 1780, fifteen ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... remained in Prince's Dock over six weeks; but as I do not mean to present a diary of my stay there, I shall here simply record the general tenor of the life led by our crew during that interval; and will then proceed to note down, at random, my own wanderings about town, and impressions of things as they are recalled to me now, after the lapse of so ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the senses, so it also was not the thought, not the rational mind, not the learned wisdom, not the learned ability to draw conclusions and to develop previous thoughts in to new ones. No, this world of thought was also still on this side, and nothing could be achieved by killing the random self of the senses, if the random self of thoughts and learned knowledge was fattened on the other hand. Both, the thoughts as well as the senses, were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them, both had to be listened to, both had to be played with, both ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... Austrians frightened her, and she was afraid to go off at random, or even to call. Throughout the night she tried to think and plan as she sat up with her back against the rock listening for the rat, tat, tat, which began again after she returned to the cave, ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... if the word contains "a," and the other puts it in its proper place, crossing the letter off of the alphabet above. The other guesses different letters at random, every right one being put in its place, while for every wrong one a line is drawn to help construct a gallows for the "hang-man." If there are many wrong guesses, the "hang-man" may be completed and then the word is told the other player. The players take turns ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... then, I suppose,' said I, 'and here he was speaking at random—at least, I cannot believe there is any harm in those laughing ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... their hands above their heads, shrieking for mercy. Clay and his officers answered them instantly by running from one group to another, knocking up the barrels of the rifles and calling hoarsely to the men on the roofs to cease firing, and as they were obeyed the noise of the last few random shots was drowned in tumultuous cheering and shouts of exultation, that, starting in the gardens, were caught up by those in the streets and passed on quickly as a line of flame along the ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... other's side under the stab of her words—words that, uttered at random, flew, straight as the arrow that slew Ahab, to the joint of his armour. "To-day you and that man are one," she repeated. "One! ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... without insistency. A symbolist might imagine eternal correspondence between the amber brew and her sunny hair. It was easy to adore Emma at tea, and generally she did not resent a discreetly pronounced homage. But this afternoon she grew almost petulant with Crocker as they talked at random, and finally laughed out impatiently: "I really can't bear your ignoring my St Michael, especially as you have never seen him before and may never see him again. ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... bore the Viceroy. On the contrary, he amused him. Mellish was nervously anxious to go straight to his Fumigatory, and talked at random until tiffin was over and His Excellency asked him to smoke. The Viceroy was pleased with Mellish because he did not ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate—not to the artist but to the public, blinding them to all, but harming the artist not at all. Without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... century. Here and there an old house has been demolished, to be sure; even now you may see the work of destruction going on, as a new street is being cut through a time-honored block close to the old church. But in the main the old thoroughfares run hither and thither, seemingly at random, as of old, disclosing everywhere at their limits a sky-line of picturesque gables, and shut in by walls that often are almost canon-like in narrowness; while the heavy, buttressed doors and the small, high-placed windows speak of a time when ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... home she spoke of Lucia Catherwood as one comes to a subject in the course of a random conversation, and connected her name with that of the Secretary in such a manner that Prescott felt a thrill of anger rise, not against Mrs. Markham, but against Lucia and Mr. Sefton. The remark was quite innocent ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Muses, goddesses who dwell on high, Tell me,—for all things ye behold and know, While we know nothing and may only hear The random tales of rumor,—tell me who Were chiefs and princes of the Greeks; for I Should fail to number and to name them all,— Had I ten tongues, ten throats, a voice unapt To weary, uttered from a heart of brass,— Unless the ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... hats and the Waltham watches. Why do they not read? All have been taught, and curious as the inconsistency may seem, they all value the privilege of being able to read and write, and yet they do not exercise it, except in a casual, random way. I for one, when the public schools began all through the rural districts, thought that at last the printing-press was going to reach the country people. In a measure it has done so, but in a flickering, uncertain manner; they read odd bits which come drifting to their homes in irregular ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... everything. Every generation had its own particular type of writing. Compare, for instance, any bundle of letters taken at random, out of an old desk or library. It is quite easy to sort them into bundles in sequence of dates, and also guess accurately the age and position of the writers. The flowing Italian hand, used by educated women early in the nineteenth century, has now developed into ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... continuous Book of Scripture, but consisted of passages extracted almost at random, of varying lengths, apparently just as certain paragraphs had attracted her when she heard or ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... get her started north ahead of it. When she comes back she won't care so much," she replied incoherently, pulling a scrap of a morning newspaper from her card-case and holding it out at random for the nearest one to take. Father caught it from her hand, and going to the window, read aloud in slow, precisive accents ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... there is no doubt that many lives would have been sacrificed had not the combatants been too much intoxicated to fight with vigour. Many of them fell prostrate and helpless on attempting to rise. Others dealt their blows at random, staggering and falling one upon another, until they lay in a heap, shrieking, biting, tearing, and stabbing—a bloody struggling mass, which told more eloquently than tongue can tell, that, deep and low though savage human nature has fallen in sin and misery, there ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... random. She wanted to move, to do something, anything. She felt as if she must occupy herself in some way, or begin to cry out, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... being his first love in this respect. For it was here, when a child, and a very sickly child, poor little fellow, that he found in an old spare room a store of books, among which were "Roderick Random," "Peregrine Pickle," "Humphrey Clinker," "Tom Jones," "The Vicar of Wakefield," "Don Quixote," "Gil Blas," "Robinson Crusoe," "The Arabian Nights," and other volumes. "They were," as Mr. Forster wrote, "a host of friends when he had no single friend." And it was while ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... achieving the immortal victory, and the illustrious triumph, protecting innocence and truth by the adamantine shield of his prodigious eloquence, it has been my lot to discharge only a few random arrows at the defeated champions of this disgraceful cause." Dr. Lushington followed on the 26th of October, with a luminous view of the case, and the king's attorney and solicitor-general replied. The peers then debated, and on the 6th of November divided on the second reading of the bill, Which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Colonel Vaughn reports "was gallantly executed in good order but with great enthusiasm. As we appeared in sight at a distance of four hundred yards, the enemy broke and fled in all directions, firing as they ran only a few random shots.... The enemy did not wait to fire their artillery, which we captured, both guns loaded; they were, however, spiked by the enemy before he fled. From the best information, their number was between two ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... for perfect: they are moods Purifying my women to become My unexpressive, uttermost intent.— As music binds into a strict delight The manifold random sounds that shake the air, Even so fashioned must I have the being That fills with rushing power the boundless spirit: Amidst it, musically firm, a joy That is a fiery knowledge of itself, Thereby self-continent, a globed fire. ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... depend upon a thoroughly good understanding between those nations which are now joined in battle for its defence, and that ignorance of each other's history is perhaps the greatest menace to such an understanding. To take one instance at random—how many English writers have censured, sometimes in terms of friendly sorrow, sometimes in a manner somewhat pharisaical, the treatment of Negroes in Southern States in all its phases, varying from the provision of separate waiting-rooms ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... the care of her person, she neglected the care of her clothes, which had been so beneficial to her mind; for it must be remembered that it was during those long hours of meditation, while she sat sewing, that her reading had been digested, her knowledge assimilated, her opinions formed, and her random thoughts collected and arranged, ready to be turned to account on an emergency. Until this time, too, she had kept Sunday strictly as a day of rest. Books and work, and all else that had occupied her during the week, were put away on Saturday night, and not taken out again until Monday ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... valleys of the wood; and though the stars came out overhead and displayed the interminable order of the pine-tree pyramids, regular and dark like cypresses, their light was of small service to a traveller in such lonely paths, and from thenceforth he rode at random. The austere face of nature, the uncertain issue of his course, the open sky and the free air, delighted him like wine; and the hoarse chafing of a river on his left sounded ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... point of his axe into the vizor of the Burgundian, and there so firmly did it stick, that he was enabled to pull his antagonist to and fro at his will, while the Bastard, rendered as blind as his horse by the stoppage of the eye-hole, dealt his own blows about at random, and was placed completely at the mercy of the Englishman. And gracious as the gentle Sir Anthony was, he was still so smarting under many a bruise felt through his dinted mail, that small mercy, perchance, would ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whether of science or art, may be compared to the growth of an organism such as a tree. The wind, or the random visit of a bee, unites the pollen in the flower, the green fruit forms and ripens to the perfect seed, which, on being planted in congenial soil, takes root and flourishes. Even so from the chance combination of two ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro |
