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adverb
About  adv.  
1.
On all sides; around. "'Tis time to look about."
2.
In circuit; circularly; by a circuitous way; around the outside; as, a mile about, and a third of a mile across.
3.
Here and there; around; in one place and another. "Wandering about from house to house."
4.
Nearly; approximately; with close correspondence, in quality, manner, degree, etc.; as, about as cold; about as high; also of quantity, number, time. "There fell... about three thousand men."
5.
To a reserved position; half round; in the opposite direction; on the opposite tack; as, to face about; to turn one's self about.
To bring about, to cause to take place; to accomplish.
To come about, to occur; to take place. See under Come.
To go about, To set about, to undertake; to arrange; to prepare. "Shall we set about some revels?"
Round about, in every direction around.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"About" Quotes from Famous Books



... good. Tears never yet wound up a clock, or worked a steam ingin'. The next time you go out to a smoking party, young fellow, fill your pipe with that 'ere reflection; and for the present just put that bit of pink gingham into your pocket. 'Tain't so handsome that you need keep waving it about, as if ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... best about goin' with 'ee on this trip," returned the youth, "an' I've resolved to go on one ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne

... just thinkin' of a yarn my father used to tell about," he explained. "It was about old Susan Kleghorn, one of the Oregon pioneer women. Wall-Eyed Susan, they used to call her; but she could shoot to beat the band. Once, on the Plains, the wagon train she was in, was attacked by Indians. They got all ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... competitors, he sold the oil which came up with his water as a patent medicine. In order to give a mysterious virtue to this remedy, Kier printed on his labels the information that it had been "pumped up with salt water about four hundred feet below the earth's surface." His labels also contained the convincing picture of an artesian well—a rough woodcut which really laid the foundation of the ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick

... this order until about five P. M., but nevertheless made a display in force of Reynolds's corps, with Newton and Brooks in support. But a countermand was soon received, and ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... an intricate winding route; reviewing regiments, inspecting garrisons, now here now there; doing all manner of inspections; talking I know not what; oftenest lodging with favored Generals, if it suited. Distance to Konigsberg, by the direct road, is about 500 miles; by this winding one, it must have been 800: Journey thither took nine days in all. Obliquely through Pommern, almost to the coast of the Baltic; their ultimatum there a place called Coslin, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... recollection to him. Still, as a man of progress, he declared his belief that we English would ultimately turn out the best cooks, having indubitably the best material. 'Our incomprehensible political pusillanimity' was the one sad point about us: we had been ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... don't talk about starving to death," cried Mollie, dismayed. "That's coming too near the truth for comfort. Oh, this miserable stone. It's cutting clear through ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope

... Emperor's sanction to revoke the sacred title conferred posthumously on Hideyoshi. One looks in vain for any fragment of magnanimity among such acts. Ieyasu is reported to have avowedly adopted for guidance the precept, "Before taking any step propound to your heart the query, how about justice?" He certainly did not put any such query to his own conscience in connexion with the castle ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... ill and faint. His own joy seemed to overwhelm him. He forgot his stocks, he forgot his borrowed money, he forgot Lloyd's; he was perfectly happy at the sight of that beautiful young creature of his own heart, who was preferred before all others in the sight of the whole city. In truth, there was about Ellen a majesty and nobility of youth and innocence and beauty which overawed. The other girls of the class were as young and as pretty, but none of them had that indescribable quality which seemed to raise her above ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Now, therefore, we are at liberty to examine some of the details of the Ducal Palace, without any doubt about their dates. I shall not however, give any elaborate illustrations of them here, because I could not do them justice on the scale of the page of this volume, or by means of line engraving. I believe a new era is opening to us in the art of illustration, [Footnote: See the last chapter ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... in Rome than in Greece, and perhaps were more piously observed. About one day in four was set apart for the worship of particular gods, celebrated by feasts and games and sacrifices. The principal feast days were in honor of Janus, the great god of the Sabines, the god of beginnings, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... deposits on receipt is conducted tends to produce the same desirable results. Sums to as low an amount as L10 (and in some instances lower) are taken by the banks from the depositor, who may claim them at demand. He receives an interest, usually about one per cent below the market rate. It is stated that these deposits are, to a great extent, left uncalled for from year to year, and that the depositors are in the habit of adding, at the end of each year, to the interest then accrued, the amount of their yearly savings; that the sums thus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... gaiety, the strife and bustle of the world; The hollowness of courtesies, and substance of deceits, idleness and pastime— All these and many more alike, thick conveying fancies, Flit in throngs about my theme, as honey-bees at even ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... here, and some provisions, but did not much trouble ourselves about laying in any stores, our beef and hogs, which we got at Java, being not yet all gone by a good deal. We had a little skirmish on shore here with some of the people of the island, some of our men ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... porch, which was the common ground of all the families, either Mrs. McCartey or Mrs. Loyette sewed near him to keep an eye on the children, but, as his strength came back, they made him, with a sigh of relief, their substitute, and disappeared into the house about neglected housework. "Oh, ain't it lovely now!" cried Mrs. McCartey to Mrs. Loyette, "to have an old person of your own about the place that you can leave the children with a half-minute, while you snatch the wash-boiler off the fire or keep the baby from ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... received their names. Do not believe, however, that many were saved. Do not forget that all these names came from the east. But the Evil One scattered us abroad, said Gagavitz and Zactecauh. Thus we spoke when we turned about in our hills and valleys: "We lately took up our bows and shields, if anywhere there was war; let us now seek our hills and valleys." Thus we spoke. Then we were scattered about in many places; then we all went forth, each division ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton

... Frances Howard, a younger daughter of the earl of Suffolk, the bride and bridegroom being the one thirteen, the other fourteen years old at the time of the marriage. The relatives of the countess however, who had brought about the match, thought it most decorous to separate them for some time, and, while she remained at home with her friends, the bridegroom travelled for three or four years on the continent. The lady proved the greatest ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... formations, and of citizens whose anxiety to be present was unfortunately much in excess of their utility, there were enough to bring the entire total up to perhaps two-score over eight hundred. Our real and effective fighting force was about half-way between these two figures—I should ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... "His teachings will be good counsels about a man's own affairs, how best to govern his family; and also about the affairs of the state, how most ably to administer and speak of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... steal it. I wanted particularly to see you. How long are you going to stay down yonder? Rosamund and I start for our honeymoon on Thursday next, and we shall probably be away for a couple of months, in Tyrol. Does this astonish you? It oughtn't to, seeing that you've done your best to bring it about. Yes, Rosamund and I are going to be married, with the least possible delay. I'll tell you all the details some day—though there's very little to tell that you don't know. Congratulate me on having come to my senses. How precious near I was to making a tremendous ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... for the Sydney 'Bulletin' in 1892 when Lawson suggested a 'duel' of poetry to increase the number of poems they could sell to the paper. It was apparently entered into in all fun, though there are reports that Lawson was bitter about it later. 'In Defence of the Bush', included in this selection, was one of Paterson's ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... ask about one when we get to East Milford," her father promised. "There aren't any Shetland ponies for sale in Bellemere; that I know. Maybe we can find one in ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope

... the Liaison Section contacted Lieutenant Colonel , Army Air Forces Intelligence, inquiring about an article which appeared in the West Coast newspapers recently stating in substance that an airplane carrying recovered flying saucers crashed in route from Portland, ...
— Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA Documents - Unidentified Flying Objects • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation

... to talk to her about herself with the kindly perception which was inseparable from him. He wondered if the time had not come when she would confide in him. Her shock, whatsoever it had been, had left her in the position of a woman wholly at a loss to comprehend ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... strength of the Federalists chiefly lay. By them the real motive of it was considered to be partiality for France. The treasury was nearly empty; there were but few ships of war, and only a small land force of about ten thousand men, made up in part of raw recruits. Before this time, the North-western Indians, under Tecumseh, whom the British were suspected of inciting to war, had been defeated at Tippecanoe (1811), by William Henry Harrison, governor ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... acquaintance. It had been of no use to change the costume. Even changing the sex did no good. I had a famous old gossip in one of my tales,—a much-babbling Widow Sertingly. 'Sho!' they all said, that 's old Deacon Spinner, the same he told about in that other story of his,—only the deacon's got on a petticoat and a mob-cap,—but it's the same old sixpence.' So I said to myself, I must have some new characters. I had no trouble with young characters; they ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... know what I do suffer" of the Wessex peasant is a cry natural to the whole human race. It is not that we ask to be confronted and healed by our immortal friend. We ask merely that our sorrows should not be altogether drowned in the abyss as though they had never been. There is a certain outrage about this annihilation of the very memory of ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... soundly asleep, and then went to the storehouse and took out all it contained. Dan's rage when he discovered his loss the next morning was something to wonder at. He knew where his property was, and he demanded its immediate return, threatening in case of refusal, to tell General Gordon about the barrel in the potato-field. This frightened Godfrey, who gave up the contents of his pockets, but not until he had forced Dan to tell him where he obtained the money he had seen in his hands at the landing the day before. He was astonished when he learned ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... with his Part, and never learns it; of one, who never sings in an Opera without thrusting in one Air which he always carries in his Pocket; of one, who bribes the Composer to give him an Air that was intended for another; of one, who takes Pains about Trifles, and neglects Things of Importance; of one, who, by procuring undeserved Recommendations, makes himself and his Patron ridiculous; of one, who does not sustain his Voice, out of Aversion to the Pathetick; of one, who gallops to follow the Mode; and of all the bad ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi

... should accompany her mistresses. Even Mrs. Hand seemed to be pleased thereat, her only doubt being lest her daughter should meet and be led astray by that bad woman, Mrs. Cliffe, Tommy Cliffe's mother, who was reported to have gone to London. But Miss Hilary explained that this meeting was about as probable as the rencontre of two needles in a hay-rick; and besides, Elizabeth was not the sort of girl to be easily "led ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... perhaps made to run north instead of north-west, or east instead of south-east. It follows that measurements of distances especially across the wider seas, were often very inaccurate, although within and about the Mediterranean there was so much traffic and such close observation of the stars that the errors were gradually reduced. The mariner, when he did not follow the coast and guide his course by familiar landmarks, steered by the stars, but of these he had a very intimate ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... as far as possible, a compact little force which might, at a critical moment, be of immense utility. You will, of course, master the geography of the country, of which we are all but absolutely ignorant; find out about the passes, the mountain paths, the defensible positions. All these things may someday ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... find words to express what commotions your books have brought about here. They cannot even now eradicate from their minds the most false suspicion that your works were composed with my aid, and that I am the standard-bearer of this party, as they call it. They thought that they had found a handle wherewith to crush good learning—which they mortally ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... difficulty, connected with space. When we look at the sun we wish to know something about the sun itself, which is ninety-three million miles away; but what we see is dependent upon our eyes, and it is difficult to suppose that our eyes can affect what happens at a distance of ninety-three ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... and half hidden by the coach door—and accosted a stranger walking briskly up the pavement towards us with a small valise in his hand; a gentlemanly person of about thirty-five or forty, in clerical suit ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... scrubbed away like any tidy parent on a Saturday night. Some of them took the performance like sleepy children, leaning their tired heads against me as I worked, others looked grimly scandalized, and several of the roughest colored like bashful girls. One wore a soiled little bag about his neck, and, as I moved it, to bathe his wounded breast, ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott

... advance upon the guns. Lord Cardigan saw at once the desperate nature of the enterprise. The guns were a mile and a half distant, backed by the whole Russian army. The line to be ridden over was swept not only by the fire of the guns he was about to charge, but by those of other batteries on the flank. No support was possible, for the heavy cavalry were at this time far away, executing a movement which had been ordered. Lastly, even if successful, ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... what I mean," rejoined Bacon. "They might have had a swan or a peacock for all we knew about it." ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe

... this impassioned speech, which I have repeated as correctly as my memory enabled me to commit to my note-book, he turned his eyes upwards, and remained for at least five minutes in silent prayer. As he was about finishing his wife entered. Her appearance called forth from his excited mind a burst of affection, and seizing her in his arms, he wept over her like a child. He was met as fervently by the gentle and affectionate ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... overheard these dialogues as often as I. He wants to know what was odd about this particular letter-board before which I was standing. At first glance I saw nothing odd about it. But presently I distinguished a handwriting that was vaguely familiar. It was mine. I stared, I wondered. ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm

... me; so I raised her night-gown carefully, and took off her linen only to find that I had been duped once more. This roused her, and she tried to stop me, but it was too late. However, I gently chid her for the trick, and feeling disposed to forgive it set about making up for lost time, but she got on the high horse, and pretended to be hurt at my taking her by surprise. I tried to calm her by renewed tenderness, but the wretched creature only got more furious, and would give me nothing. I left her alone, but I expressed my opinion of her in pretty strong ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... casting about on all sides to find some means to prevent Caesar's being king, and here admits that it can be done only by killing him. Thus the soliloquy opens in just the right way to throw us back upon his antecedent meditations. In ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... mentioned by the historian above quoted, viz., that about the year 1720 the Parish Church of St. Matthew being judged too full to allow of further burials in its interior, the Church of San Domenico (its subsidiary church) was chosen as a place of burial for the parishioners, for which purpose it was used down to about 1780, and that Stradivari purchased ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... homes, abandoning houses, crops, and their heavier furniture, and migrating southward. Long wagon-trains were sweeping through the city every day, accompanied by hundreds of families, and droves of horses and cattle. A fair estimate of the entire Mormon population of Utah is about forty-five thousand. Of this number, ten thousand is the proportion of the towns north of Salt Lake City, and upward of fifteen thousand that of the city itself and the settlements in its immediate neighborhood. Considerably more than half the people of the Territory, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... her face being hidden behind a veil of living green. Thus disguised she is called the Dodola, and goes through the village with a troop of girls. They stop before every house; the Dodola keeps turning herself round and dancing, while the other girls form a ring about her singing one of the Dodola songs, and the housewife pours a pail of water over her. One of the songs ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... viii., p. 631.), when I spoke of the Church of England separating from Rome. As to the Romanists "conforming" for the first twelve (or as some have it nineteen) years of Elizabeth's reign, the less said about that the better for both parties, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various

... know a blessed thing about it, do you?" dared Greg. "I thought not. You see, we do know something about what Army officers do with their time. That's what ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock

... depressed several inches below the surrounding surface. Fill these shallow excavations with little stones, the larger in the bottom, the smaller on top, and cover all with gravel. You now have roads and walks that will be dry and hard even in oozy March, and you can stroll about your place the moment the heaviest shower is over. The greater first cost will be more than made good by the fact that scarcely a weed can start or grow on pathways thus treated. All they will need is an occasional rounding up and ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... was going on inside, we were told we had nothing to do with their fun ashore, that we might look in at a window, however, but should not go in. We took him at his word; a merry scene it was inside. The English officers' dunnage had been broken into, and there was a party of the corps strutting about in uniform coats and feathers. We thought it best to give these dare-devils a berth, and so we left them. One was never safe with them on the field ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... public. Ordinary people are more convenient; you are accountable to nobody for your actions, and as long as you follow the common rules laid down by the faculty, there is no necessity to trouble yourself about the result. What is vexatious among people of rank is that, when they are ill, they positively expect their doctor ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere

... laughed outright, for arms and legs went like independent flails. When he leaped, he hurled himself into space with a degree of violence that seemed to insure a somersault; yet he always came down with a crash on his feet. Plunging was Henri's forte. He generally lounged about the settlement when unoccupied, with his hands behind his back, apparently in a reverie, and when called on to act, he seemed to fancy he must have lost time, and could only make up for it by plunging. This habit got him into many awkward scrapes, but his herculean power as often got him out ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... mechanically at first, and read about a page. That page so shocked a mind accustomed to a purely traditional and mystical interpretation of the Bible that the book dropped abruptly from her hand, and she stood a moment by her husband's table, her fine face pale ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... indispensable, and he waited until the moment of execution before he informed the others of his intention. No one, of course, would deliberately betray a secret of this kind, but it sometimes happens, under such circumstances, that officers give indications of what is about to take place by sending for their washing, packing their trunks, and making ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday

... he is pleased, as he considers it creditable to the establishment. He then relieves his feelings by shaking his fist in the direction of Versailles, and exit growling "Canaille de Bismarck." I get up. I have breakfast—horse, cafe au lait—the lait chalk and water—the portion of horse about two square inches of the noble quadruped. Then I buy a dozen newspapers, and after having read them, discover that they contain nothing new. This brings me to about eleven o'clock. Friends drop in, or I drop in on friends. We discuss how long it is to last—if friends are French we ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... all and said to himself: "I wonder if I am the same individual as he who not so many months ago was talking about the good sense of letting China wait indefinitely for Christ? Anyhow, somebody has had better sense than that every day of the last ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... this would be an impracticable course; but a better means might be devised, and they should be informed about it. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... twenty-four years, by the sheer force of his own ambition, had jumped to the foremost place in English letters. It was soon after this that Voltaire called him "the best poet of England and, at present, of all the world,"—which is about as near the truth as Voltaire generally gets in his numerous universal judgments. For the next twelve years Pope was busy with poetry, especially with his translations of Homer; and his work was so successful financially that he bought a villa at Twickenham, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... ancient man in his most serious moments. Apuleius[1201] gives the case of Charites who had intense love for her husband. Her base lover was a victim of erotic passion. Stobaeus (fifth or sixth century A.D.) collected and classified passages from Greek authors on various topics. Titles 63 to 73 are about women and marriage. The views expressed run to both extremes of approval and disapproval. No one of the writers has apparently any notion of conjugal affection. In some cases under the tyrannical Roman emperors of the first century women showed extreme wifely devotion.[1202] ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... he was Lord Castlereagh. Acting precisely by the accounts recorded in the newspapers, he went through the same forms, and actually divided his carotid artery, using his penknife, as had done the unfortunate peer. Peace be with him! To proceed. I was driving in a gig, a distance of about forty miles from town, on the Northern Road, when, at the bottom of a steep hill, we fell in with a group who were walking up it. It consisted of a venerable old man, with his grey locks falling down on his shoulders, dressed as a countryman, with a bundle on a stick over his shoulders; ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... lights in the street below, shining through the window which had no blind or curtain to intercept it, was enough to show the character of the room, though not sufficient fully to reveal the various articles of lumber, old corded trunks and broken furniture, which were scattered about. It had a shelving roof; high in one part, and at another descending almost to the floor. It was towards the highest part that Ralph directed his eyes; and upon it he kept them fixed steadily for some minutes, when he rose, and dragging thither an ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... called to high thinking for generous ends, did not fall below his vocation, but, steadfastly pursuing the pure search for truth, without propounding a system or founding a school or cumbering himself overmuch about applications, lived the life of the spirit, and breathed into other men a strong desire after the right governance of the soul. All this is generally realised and understood, and men may now be ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley

... whispered Angel, over The Seraph's curls, "that it's a telegram from father saying that he's coming to fetch us! Wouldn't that be jolly? And she's waxy about it ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... but little more than seventy years since the Elector of Hesse sold large numbers of his poor subjects to the government of England to aid it in establishing unlimited control over the people of this country. About the same period, Frederick of Prussia had his emissaries everywhere employed in seizing men of proper size for his grenadier regiments—and so hot was the pursuit, that it was dangerous for a man of any nation, or however free, if of six feet high, to place himself ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... civilization as made my heart fail at first sight, though not unused to the meagreness, crudity, and hardness of such a place; but there I had come to take the warm welcome of his hands and look once more into his face before time should part us. He flung his arms about me, with a look of the South in his eyes, full of happy dancing lights, and the barren scene was like Italy made real for one instant of ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... the heels of triumph, and banishes the feelings of exulting joy. We will cite another, where misery was followed and consummated by ennui. The most eloquent of the Girondists was Vergniaud. It was he that in the spirit of prophecy compared the French revolution to Saturn, since it was about to devour successively all its children, and finally to establish despotism with its attendant calamities. The rivalship of the Mountain in the Convention, the unsuccessful attack on Robespierre, the trial and condemnation of Louis XVI., the defection of Dumourier and its consequences, had doubtless ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... of Sanskrit MSS. had been exported to China. These literary exportations began as early as the first century A. D. When we read for the first time of commissioners being sent to India by Ming-ti, the Emperor of China, the second sovereign of the Eastern Han dynasty, about 62 or 65 A. D., we are told that they returned to China with a white horse, carrying books and images.(72) And the account proceeds to state that "these books still remain, and are ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... reach the shore, but it was all in vain. The waves, racing and tumbling over each other, knocked him about as if he had been a stick or a wisp of straw. At last, fortunately for him, a billow rolled up with such fury and impetuosity that he was lifted up and thrown far on ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi

... spellbound by the miner's success. "It's just fantastic, utterly, how much he knows." She shook her smooth blond head. "I wish I knew that much about something." ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... grinning triumphantly, but I didn't. "Why, just fine, Rob," I told him, "though you really should have given me notice that you were leaving. I was worried about you." ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf

... B.C. Sicily was devastated by the Carthaginians, and by the companies of disciplined free-lances who called themselves Mamertines, or Mars's men. The hopes of the Greek inhabitants of the island were centred in Hiero, son of Hierocles, who was about to besiege Messana (then held by the Carthaginians) and who had revived the courage of the Syracusans. To him Theocritus addressed this idyl, in which he complains of the sordid indifference of the rich, rehearses the merits of song, dilates on the true nature of wealth, and of the ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... bought peppermint candy, so Bully and Bawly had something good to eat, even if they didn't finish the race, and the bad fish had nothing. Now, in case I see a green rose in bloom on the pink lilac bush, I'll tell you next about ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... holidays began, the girls went for a walk to a pond about a mile out of Heathermuir, to see if it would bear for skating. There had been continuous frost for some days, and as the pond was a shallow one, Dr. Hunter thought it was quite safe for them to go. Mrs. Forester could trust Marjory to take Blanche anywhere, but as she had not ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... and then the ludicrous climbed uppermost, and I laughed, whereat Madame looked positively shocked, and even mamma seemed aghast and murmured something apologetic about my having been at boarding-school in the country, and at college, where I had ridden horseback without proper instruction, which had injured my figure. Only imagine, Aunt Lavinia, those glorious gallops among the Rockcliffe Hills ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... me finish," protested Libbie. "I only meant to say this story was about a bride who ran away from her wedding guests for fun and hid in a great carved chest; the chest had a spring lock and it closed tight when she pulled it down. Her husband and all the guests hunted and hunted, and they ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... a bit of advice to be passed on to you fellows," Jack added, out of hearing of the girls. "That was, to go about armed for a time, and ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... Protestant cemetery, between the Boulevards Eugenio and Amedeo, the latter leading northwards to the Piazza Cavour with the Porta S.Gallo. From this Porta commences the road to the Etrurian city of Faesula, the modern Fiesole, 3miles from Florence, and about 600 feet above it, on the summit of a ridge composed of a dark-coloured sandstone. Rail to Fiesole. Carriage there and back, 8 to 10 fr. From the Porta S.Gallo it is an easy walk of about 2 miles. See the excellent map of the environs (Dintorni) of ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... course, reigned supreme in the servants' hall, the other occupants taking their cue from her, and regulating their tastes and occupations in accordance with hers. Now this woman—an obese, red- armed, and red-visaged person of about forty years of age—was possessed by a morbid and consuming curiosity concerning all those horrors and criminal mysteries which appear from time to time in the public prints; and the more horrible they were, the greater was her interest in them. ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... angel—"for I shall make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire on a sheaf. And they shall devour all the people around about, on the right hand and the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... . "Brave old world she is after all," he said; "and right well made; and looks right well to-day in her go-to-meeting clothes, and plenty of room and chance for a brave man to earn his bread, if he will but go right on about his business, as the birds and the flowers do, instead of peaking and pining over what people think ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... a sensation of helplessness and of dependence on the Almighty, such as he had never before experienced, crept over him. What the thoughts of the hermit were he could not tell, for that strange man seldom spoke about himself; but Moses was not so reticent, for he afterwards remarked that he had often been caught by gales while in the canoe, and had been attached for hours to their floating anchor, but that "dat was out ob sight de wust bust ob wedder dey'd had since dey come to lib at Krakatoa, an' he had ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... October, General Sale, having been reinforced, marched to Khoord-Cabul; "and about the 22d, the whole force there assembled, with Captain Macgregor, political agent, marched to Tezeen, encountering much ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... about 734, lashes the pride and ambition of Israel (not Judah) and threatens her people with loss of territory and population, anarchy and civil war. The passage was probably originally followed by v. 26-29, which has a similar refrain, and which, with its vivid description of the ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... Sir William Fraser was not, I have been told, a popular person in that society about which he thought so much, and his book, Disraeli and His Day, did not succeed in attracting much of the notice of the general reader, and failed, so I, at least, have been made to understand, to win a verdict of approval from the ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... companions. One morning, a week or so after the hanging, his body was found lying among the other dead at the South Gate. The impression made by the fingers of the hand that had strangled him, were still plainly visible about the throat. There was no doubt as to why he had been killed, or that the Raiders were his murderers, but the actual perpetrators ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... in any Celtic renaissance, and all the talk he had heard about stained glass and the revivals did not deceive him. "Let the Gael disappear," he said. "He is doing it very nicely. Do not interfere with his instinct. His instinct is to disappear in America. Since Cormac's Chapel he has built nothing but mud cabins. Since the ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... they would reply that nothing could be more thrilling than to meet a famous actor in plain clothes and identify him. I am not a young woman myself, but I should be inclined to share their opinion. There is something about an actor in real life, moving along like a human being—one of us—that always stirs my pulse. It is exciting enough to see Mr. LLOYD GEORGE or Mr. ASQUITH or Sir OLIVER LODGE; but no one stirs the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various

... but paled instantly. Calumet thought there was reproach in the glance she threw at him, but he did not have time to make certain, for at the instant she looked at him she darted toward a rock about ten feet distant, no doubt intending ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... what he did, Shadrach; you don't need to tell me. But he's dead, and his boy is a good boy—you liked him and so did I. And Shadrach, I've been thinkin' an awful lot about this since I got the letter and have been well enough to think. And I've made up my mind to just this: There has been sorrow and trouble enough brought on already by that wickedness. There shan't be any more. What wrecked all our lives thirty-five years ago shan't ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... 1877 makes the statement that for six hours after coitus there is a peculiar odor noticeable in the breath, owing to a peculiar secretion of the buccal glands. He says that this odor is most perceptible in men of about thirty-five, and can be discerned at a distance of from four to six feet. He also adds that this fact would be of great medicolegal value in the early arrest of those charged with rape. In this connection ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... that of a young man who, contemplating suicide, carried a revolver about with him for a whole day. He spoke of suicide to his friends, occasionally discharged shots into the ground, and finally, during the evening, blew his brains out. That he contemplated suicide was evident from his conversation, but that his mind was not made up, is also evident ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... came about that Count Herbert von Schonburg, although still a young man, relinquished all thought of conquering the Holy Land, and found himself one evening, after a long march, gazing on the placid bosom of the broad Rhine, which he had ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... earth, always transcending in importance politics and affairs. Just as a true patriotic Englishman cannot be too busy to run after a fox, so a Frenchman is always ready to forsake all in order to follow a woman whom he has never before set eyes on. Many men thought twice about her, with her romantic Saxon mystery of temperament, and her Parisian clothes; but all refrained from affronting her, not in the least out of respect for the gloom in her face, but from an expert conviction that those rapt eyes were fixed immovably on another ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... the log than the timekeeper; they smiled at the prediction of so speedily making land, and thought themselves two or three days' sail from the coast. It was therefore with great pleasure, that on the 13th, about six in the morning, I learned that very high land was seen from the mast-head, though not clearly, as it was surrounded with a thick fog. The wind blew hard, and the sea was very rough. Large drops of rain fell at intervals, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... unrecognized and unrewarded. In fact, not a single American reviewer noticed it, and most of them slated the book violently as a mass of heresies and contumacies, a deliberate attack upon all the known and revered truths about the woman question, a headlong assault upon the national decencies. In the South, where the suspicion of ideas goes to extraordinary lengths, even for the United States, some of the newspapers actually denounced the book as German propaganda, designed to break down American morale, and ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... all the mine owners who have not railways or railway officials for partners, to the wall. For instance, in Eastern Kansas, on the line of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Company, were two coal companies, whose plants were of about equal capacity, and several individual shippers. The railway company and its officials became interested in one of the coal companies, and such company was, by the rebate and other processes, given rates which ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various

... mother, set no bounds to their lavish expenditure. In 1521, Lautrec, Francois's general in Italy, drew on the royal treasury for four hundred thousand ecus to pay his Swiss mercenaries. Semblancay was about to send him the money, when he was summoned, according to the generally received story, by Louise de Savoie, to hand it over to her, which he did. Owing to the defection of his unpaid Swiss, Lautrec was defeated at the Bicoque and lost the Milanaise; when bitterly reproached by the ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... long one, but the last of A Terrace in Prague. It tells little about Kings of Bohemia, and more about Jesuits and the work they left behind to mark the influence they wielded. There are churches and statues of their erection, but you are left to decide for yourself whether you like those works ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... horses, to breast such a storm; for his errand might be a prolonged one, and was, indeed, a case of life or death. At ten o'clock he had left a patient in a most critical condition, and was now returning to further attend the sufferer. His ulster was fastened tightly about him, his head thrust deeply into his collar, his hands in his pockets, and with teeth grimly set he ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond

... figure) provided with a lateral tube, A, that terminates in a lower tubulure, B, above which there is a contraction, C. Upon pouring water into the lateral tube until the level reaches D, and placing a particle of camphor on its surface, the camphor will be seen to continually move about, even when the liquid has reached the upper edge of the vessel. To reduce the level to various heights, it is only necessary to revolve the tube in the cork through which it is fitted to the tubulure. In ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various

... the first moment of the evening I had enjoyed. All these people interested me; they seemed of another world, a world where grandmamma and I could live happily if we might. They made quite a noise, and they danced badly, but there was nothing vulgar or bourgeois about them. I felt like an animal who sees its own kind again, after captivity; I wanted to break away and join them. Augustus, on the contrary, was extremely ill ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... is aware that Alloway's kirk, the Burns monument, the cottage where the poet was born, the elaborate temple, erected to his memory, and Tam O'Shanter's brig, are all within a few rods of each other, at about two miles' distance from Ayr. The view of the temple, kirk, and 'brig,' from the opposite side of the stream, is worthy of Arcadia. The temple is familiar from engravings; but the bridge, with its graceful arch, draped by low-hanging ivy, is far more beautiful. Yet this ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... they looked about to find where to sleep. Thereupon the door flew open unexpectedly all at once, and into the room came the wizard; a bent old man in a long black garb, with a bald head, a gray beard down to his knees, and three iron hoops instead of a girdle. By the hand he led a beautiful, ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... be no criterion of truth, there can be no certain ground of science, and there remains nothing for us but doubt. Such was the conclusion to which Pyrrho, the founder of the Sceptics, came. He lived about B.C. 300. His philosophical doctrine of the necessity of suspending or refusing our assent from want of a criterion of judgment led by a natural transition to the moral doctrine that virtue and happiness consist in perfect quiescence or freedom from all mental perturbation. This doctrine, it ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... the next morning (9th) the north end of the above reef bore East-South-East and the land about Cape Hay South-South-East. The Barthelemy Hills were also seen from the masthead, and reported as islands; this mistake of ours therefore tends still more to excuse the error of ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... breast Two smiling twin-born infants press'd; At her feet, couching, War was laid, And with a brindled lion play'd: Justice and Mercy, hand in hand, 230 Joint guardians of the happy land, Together held their mighty charge, And Truth walk'd all about at large; Health for the royal troop the feast Prepared, and Virtue was high-priest. Such was the fame our Goddess bore Her Temple such, in days of yore. What changes ruthless Time presents! Behold her ruin'd battlements, Her walls decay'd, her nodding ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... assistance of the community to enable us to compete with this formidable enemy. The superiority of the Germans in material was most marked in their heavy guns, their high explosive shells, their rifles, and perhaps most of all their machine-guns. These have turned out to be about the most formidable weapons in the war. They have almost superseded the rifle and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... the "lap" or roll of cotton is placed behind the machine so as to rest on a roller of 6 inches in diameter, which slowly unwinds the lap at the rate of about 9 inches per minute, ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... boy." So he went forth, and he tracked him in the snow for three days; and on the third night he heard some one singing in a hollow; and it was a magic song, that which the m'teoulin sings when he is in dire need and death is near. And making a circle round about the place, Glooskap looked down and saw a wigwam, and heard the voice more distinctly as he drew nearer; and it was the voice of the boy, and he was singing a song against all of the snake kind. And he was wandering about the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... says the Abbess of Rupertsberg, the Fern puts nightmares to flight. The devil hates and flees from it, and thunder and hail rarely fall on spots where it takes shelter; also the man who wears it about him escapes witchcraft ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... Berow had bought a little pig with the money my daughter had paid her in the winter for spinning, and the poor woman kept it like a child, and let it run about her room. This little pig got the mischief, like all the rest, in the twinkling of an eye; and when my daughter was called it grew no better, but also died under her hands; whereupon the poor woman made a great outcry and tore her hair for ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... night and day, and thinks she will bring the greatest eagle out of it that ever sharpened his beak on the rocks of Mount Skycrack. I can warrant no one else will touch it while she has got it. But she is rather capricious, and I confess I am not easy about it; for the least scratch of one of her claws would do for me at once. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... the British Museum. A sentinel or two kept guard before the gateway of this extensive edifice in Great Russell Street, and there was a porter at the lodge, and one or two policemen lounging about, but entrance was free, and we walked in without question. Officials and policemen were likewise scattered about the great entrance-hall, none of whom, however, interfered with us; so we took whatever way we chose, and wandered about at will. It is a hopeless, and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... ready, and was about to start, when I perceived my telescope lying down where Bramble had placed it on the table. "They are not very fond of letting pilots have their glasses on board of a King's ship," said I, "so I will ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... accent betrayed his foreign birth. He had been a Capuchin monk for many years, perhaps for more than half his lifetime, and Corona could remember him from her childhood, for he had been a friend of her father's; but he had not been consulted about her marriage,—she even remembered that, though she had earnestly desired to see him before the wedding-day, her father had told her that he had left Rome for a time. For the old gentleman was in ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... breasts became enlarged, and promised a good supply of nourishment for the infant, at its close there was merely a little oozing from the nipple. During the next fortnight a slight, but very gradual increase in quantity took place, so that a dessert spoonful only was obtained about the middle of this period, and perhaps double this quantity at its expiration. In the mean time the child was necessarily fed upon an artificial diet, and as a consequence its bowels became deranged, and a severe diarrhoea followed. A wet-nurse was advised ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... fellers laugh at that! They still talk about it! 'Tom Lillywhite, he wants a man', they say. It's quite a word in the country. 'Tom ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... girl's brow became thoughtful. Of a sudden she was aroused from a brown study—reflective mood, perhaps, would be a more select phrase—by the unexpected appearance of young Thurston. There was a sort of "Ah! have I caught you alone!" expression about this adventurer's eye, even while he was making his bow, that struck me. I looked for great events, nor was I altogether disappointed. In one minute he was seated at Julia's side, on the same sofa, and within two feet of her; in two more he ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... so delightful!" Isabel answered; but she was not altogether at ease about Henrietta's reproductive instincts, which belonged to that side of her friend's character which she regarded with least complacency. She wrote to Miss Stackpole, however, that she would be very welcome under Mr. Touchett's roof; and this alert young woman lost no time in announcing ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... now found no difficulty in bringing about a friendship between Ida and Jennie Burton, and the two maidens spent the greater part of Sabbath afternoon together. Ida hid nothing in her full confidence, not even the crime that had been in her thoughts, and which might have destroyed the life that now was growing so rich and beautiful. When ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... back as though asleep. Toxingwa was twisting around, as though to get his arm free from one sleeve of his jacket. He too, finally fell back. MacMillan surmised the cause and kicked the door to one side. In about fifteen or twenty minutes they came around all right. The Commander on another of his expeditions nearly had a similar experience when he saw his Eskimos acting strangely, and quickly kicked out the side of ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... not sure that he's far wrong. Don't let it go any further, but, between ourselves, the sacrifices and votive offerings have fallen off terribly of late. Why, I can remember the time when people offered us human sacrifices, no mistake about it, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... and said:—Sir, I am so far from thinking the rules of the house asserted, that, in my opinion, the right of the members is infringed by this peremptory demand. Is it not, in the highest degree, requisite, that he who is about to reason upon the petition should acquaint himself with the subject on which he ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... thinking of? Red, of course—I meant red, all the time," Barton hastily assented, inwardly cursing himself for a fool. It was evident that the less he conversed about Sandy Flash, the better. ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... with terror—they felt above them a guardianship a hundred times mightier than his power, and had no further fear of his rage or his malice, just as if for them he had ceased to be the lord of life or death. Once, about sunset, the roar of lions and other beasts reached them from distant vivaria. Formerly those sounds filled Vinicius with fear because they were ominous; now he and Lygia merely looked at each other and raised their eyes to the evening twilight. At times Lygia, still very weak and unable ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... a half smile. Then he stretched forth his hand and touched the word "Nero" with the tip of his forefinger. "That did. Things awaken a man's memory occasionally, Mr. Narkom, and—— Tell me, isn't that the beast there was such a stir about in the newspapers a fortnight or so ago, the lion that crushed the head of a man in full view of ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... they could talk. Then the Hen let a-go of Santa Fe's neck and said comical—speaking kind of precise and toney, like as if she was an officer's wife sure enough: "You had better return to your study, dear Uncle Charley, and finish writing that sermon you said we'd interrupted you in that was about caring for the sheep as well as ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier



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