"Comprehension" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... summoned Chester to his presence with this hope. But the high and courageous nature of the policeman, the simplicity, the energy and deep true feeling inherent in him formed a character entirely above the level of his honor's comprehension. His craft and subtle policy were completely thrown away here. Following the noble young man, with hatred in his ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... of Maura in their school life, and who dearly loved patronising, pounced upon her guest to show her all manner of treasures and curiosities, at which she looked in great delight; and Fergus was so well satisfied with her comprehension of the principles of the letter balance, that he would have taken her upstairs to be introduced to all his mechanical inventions, if the total darkness and cold of his den had ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... own words, it will be perceived that his comprehension of the situation was a little different from the actual fact. His idea was that his last letter had been received by Minnie in England, whereupon she had been seized with such an ungovernable longing to see him that she at once set out for Rome. She had not sent him any message, ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... done by knowledge in helping us to a comprehension of the fellow-man is at best merely explanatory of his place in the phenomenal world; of itself it has only scientific value. The advantage of the sympathetic way of approach is that in this method the neighbor is accounted for on the supposition that he ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the peeping children disappeared. They gazed at each other in solemn wonder. They had never seen the like of this before. To stamp on the floor without an apparent reason, and without being done in fun, was beyond their comprehension. ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... the comprehension of what he said. She looked at his bent head—James had a curly head like a boy's—and a strange look came into her eyes, as if she were regarding him across an immeasurable gulf. Nobody had ever seemed quite so far away in the world as this boy with his cry of love ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... so be it! Good luck to you! Only I wonder what the devil induced you to come with this news to me.... What have I to do with it? What is it to me whom you love, or who loves you? It simply passes my comprehension.' ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... is very probable that he began at an early age to sing the simpler popular airs, and might even when no more than four years old have amused his elders with his childish rendering of ballads above his comprehension. For the voice of song is often heard in these mountains; and, as in the days of Orpheus, the lyre still moves the rock of the Caucasian heart, taming with its gentle influences its wildness, and softening ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... comprehension you are to-day, Gordon!" exclaimed the lady, impatiently; "Lionel Dale's income was only five thousand a year—very little, after all, for a woman ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... made in honour of two persons whose lives were spent in solitude and self-denial, it is somewhat difficult to understand; and how the dull, dreary, desolate, and ruined town can ever be made to wear a brilliant aspect, is equally difficult of comprehension; but such is said to be the case. On the morning of the fete, great honours were paid, formerly, to St. Eustelle, which are not even yet altogether discontinued. An image of the holy Virgin is suspended in the grotto near the miraculous well, and there the water is dispensed to believers ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... nice little estate even for all the daughters, and that in such circumstances all the sons would certainly get married. She acknowledged that such a result would be excellent, but she did not believe in it. A world in which the men should want to marry was beyond her comprehension. I went ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... don't reckon you paid none too much for 'em, at that," Mr. Cassidy responded, nodding his head in comprehension. "Ain't no worms in ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... perfume still lingers in the old leaves of the manuscript. And the reader who comprehends this may also comprehend the tender affection for the Ivy expressed in the old Christmas carols which I have quoted, and which, without such comprehension, seem absurd enough; while with it, they appear truly beautiful ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... widow, whose dash and style had completely overawed the plain, matter-of-fact Dolly, who did not know what half the dishes were, or what she was expected to do. But, by watching Arthur, and declining some things which she felt sure were beyond her comprehension, she managed tolerably well, though when the dinner was over, and she could breathe freely again, she found that the back of her new silk gown was wet with perspiration, which had oozed from every pore during the hour and a half she had sat at the table. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... officer whose action in consenting with the ideas of Lieut.-Col. Dennis to change the plans of their commanding officer is inexplicable. Why these two officers should have dared to assume such responsibility is beyond all comprehension. A soldier's first duty is obedience to orders, and as these had been definitely issued by Col. Peacocke, it was manifestly not their business to change them, but to see that they were rigidly carried out. ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... nay more, I feel myself under special obligation sacredly to respect the confidence they reposed in me. But the frank disclosures they made in these conversations gave me a point of view for the comprehension of the situation and the estimate of facts which I have found simply invaluable. And if Mr. Venizelos in Athens, or Mr. Maioresco in Bukarest, or Mr. Pashitch in Belgrade, or Dr. Daneff, who is no longer prime minister of Bulgaria, should ever chance to read ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... gravely with a subject that, at least, baffles our comprehension, there are certainly very extraordinary things related of animal magnetism, and apparently on pretty good testimony. Take, for instance, a single fact. M. Jules Cloquet is one of the cleverest practitioners of Paris, and is in extensive ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... others. The envoys carried also a memorial which said: "This doctrine is, among all, most excellent. But it is difficult to explain and difficult to understand. Even the Duke Chou and Confucius did not attain to comprehension. It can produce fortune and retribution, immeasurable, illimitable. It can transform a man into a Bodhi. Imagine a treasure capable of satisfying all desires in proportion as it is used. Such a treasure is this wonderful doctrine. Every earnest ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... that every body will persevere in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, until it is compelled to change that state by disturbing forces. A clear perception of this fundamental principle is essential to a comprehension of the elementary facts of physical astronomy. Since all the motions that we witness taking place on the surface of the earth soon come to an end, we are led to infer that rest is the natural condition of things. We have ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... robes, which float around what might be little marionettes without bodies at all, and which would slip to the ground of themselves were they not kept together midway, about where a waist should be, by the wide silken sashes—a very different comprehension of the art of dressing to ours, which endeavors as much as possible to bring into relief the curves, real or false, of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Leila. Some manner of signals were interchanged. "I saw Billy digging in the big drift," he said. "I trust he found the young gentleman's cane." Some pitying, dim comprehension of the delicately nurtured lad had brought to the social surface the kindliness of the girl ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... what the doctors do be callin' an ingrowin' grouch," replied Danny soberly. "'Tis due to over-exposure of the ego, they tell me, resultin' in an inflamed condition of the amoor proper, that same bein' French an' maybe beyond your comprehension." ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... this Dance consisted of several groups of two or more figures, one of which was always Death in the act of claiming a victim; and for the clear comprehension of what follows, it is necessary to anticipate a little, and remark, that there is no doubt that the Dance was first represented by living performers. Strange as this seems to us, it was but in keeping with the spirit of the time, which we call, perhaps ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... in secret with me to the Riviera. But why, if the coup had really already been made in London, as it seemed it had, we should come out to the Riviera and mix ourselves up with Pierrette and the mysterious Madame Vernet was beyond my comprehension. To me it seemed a ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... turned, perhaps with some intuition of what was going on, and with swift comprehension knew that he was being made fun of. His face on the instant was electrified with wrath. He drew himself up, and clenched his hands. Then in a twinkling his coat and cap were upon the ground. Taking the first boy at hand Steve dealt ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... rather slow in coming, was none the less ingenious. At least, M. Segmuller appeared to be perfectly satisfied. "That's very plausible," said he; "but there is one circumstance that passes my comprehension. Were you freed from your assailants before the police entered the place? ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... exclaimed the boy, running his eyes over her beaming face and graceful form with a look of non-comprehension that might have satisfied her, but did not, ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... tangled wisp of loose ends, which was all he could command, into the homogeneous web of a sermon; and at last was driven to his old stock of carefully preserved preordination sermons; where he was unfortunate enough to make choice of the one least of all fitted to awake comprehension or interest in ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... of us, since the first word, had made a feint of eating: our eyes were in each other's faces—you might say, in each other's bosoms; and those of the Indian troubled me with a certain changing brightness, as of comprehension. But I brushed the fancy aside, telling myself once more he understood no English; only, from the gravity of both voices, and the occasional scorn and anger in the Master's, smelled out there was something of import in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Duke of York and Duchesse of York did come to see them in bed together on their wedding-night, and how my Lord had fifty pieces of gold taken out of his pocket that night after he was in bed. He tells me that an Act of Comprehension is likely to pass this Parliament for admitting of all persuasions in religion to the public observation of their particular worship, but in certain places, and the persons therein concerned to ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... understand," Crosby murmured, having read the letter a second time; "the meaning of this gentleman's warning is beyond my comprehension. I have no knowledge of him, and who can the person ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... of impious jargon" is no proof of Mr. St. John's acumen or fair comprehension of the poet's meaning, but accords with his unproved assertion "The mark of man's hand is as visible in the country as in the town to all those who make use of their eyes." Yet this sentiment is a fair specimen of the stern stuff of which Mr. St. John's creeds and opinions are made up.[8] Nevertheless, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... Ashe shrugged. "Good answers for both. Suppose there was a world-wide epidemic of proportions to wipe out a species. Or a war in which they used forces beyond our comprehension to alter the whole face of this planet, which did happen—the alteration, I mean. Several things could have removed intelligent life. Then such species as the burrowers could have developed or evolved from smaller, ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... that comprehension is not necessary for happiness. For Augustine says (Ad Paulinam de Videndo Deum; [*Cf. Serm. xxxciii De Verb. Dom.]): "To reach God with the mind is happiness, to comprehend Him is impossible." Therefore happiness is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... a calculation upon his age, made a wall of it, smilingly agreed with his encomium of the Concert, and toned her voice to Fenellan's comprehension: 'Did it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... drills them unremittingly, and does not even give them time to become aware of their misery. Should they wish to speak, convention whispers their cue to them, and this makes them forget what they originally intended to say; should they desire to understand one another, their comprehension is maimed as though by a spell: they declare that to be their joy which in reality is but their doom, and they proceed to collaborate in wilfully bringing about their own damnation. Thus they have become transformed into perfectly and absolutely different creatures, and reduced to ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... and servant was not a matter to be determined upon a first light guess. Indeed, they seemed scarcely such. From dark eye to dark eye there seemed to pass a signal of covert understanding, a signal of doubt, or suspicion, or armed neutrality, yet of mutual comprehension. ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... had suffered herself to be beguiled by his seeming sincerity of manner into the hope that he was really desirous of reforming; and even now she could hardly believe her own ears, so consummate was his hypocrisy; but as the whole truth shone out to her comprehension, she saw through his scheme at once—that all his seeming repentance was a pretense as hollow as his own heart. The hope that had begun to swell in her heart was blotted out in a ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... a lonely life," he said after a few minutes, during which their talk had baffled my comprehension. "All my people died while ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... came the old check which had been growing with his growth. He found the inward bent toward comprehension and thoroughness diverging more and more from the track marked out by the standards of examination: he felt a heightening discontent with the wearing futility and enfeebling strain of a demand for excessive retention and dexterity without any ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... comprehension at Cap'n Amazon. It began to percolate into her brain that possibly this strange-looking seaman possessed qualities of apprehension for which she ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... style, and level with a child's comprehension. These versions might well find a place in every ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... said. "What is it to be insane? It is to have faculties exalted beyond the comprehension of the multitude; to soar above the grovelling world. Their eyes are too weak to bear the glory, and, because they are blind, they think others cannot see. The fools declared my father was insane. They say ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... mother would raise her head and watch the cub intently. No sound was uttered that human ears could hear; but the chase ended right there, on the instant, and the cub came trotting back like a well-broken setter at the whistle. It was marvelous beyond comprehension, this absolute authority and this silent command that brought a wolf back instantly from the wildest chase, and that kept the cubs all together under the watchful eyes that followed every movement. No ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... the Lynx is a huge cat weighing 25 to 35 or even 40 lbs., that it is an ordinary cat multiplied by some 4 or 5 diameters, and we shall have a good foundation for comprehension. ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... a man of quick comprehension, he was, at all events, honest in his density. He never said that he understood when he did not do so. When he received a telegram in barracks at Dover to come up to London the next day and meet Cornish at his club at ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... made a little gesture of comprehension that had in it also a hint of disgust, and then seeing that he would say nothing further until she gave him ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... midst of its dry prose, occasional poems like "I remember, I remember," "The Old Armchair" and other pieces of a domestic or rural nature. I was especially moved by The Old Armchair, and although some of the words and expressions were beyond my comprehension, I fully understood the defiant ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... in comprehension, and Esther went back to the house and to her own room. She ought at that time of day to have been eating her dinner with the rest of the upper servants, but she had work to do which was of much more importance than the consumption of food and drink. ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... primitive, elemental idea that was expressed in Lolla's words was beyond her comprehension, and, in fact, a good many people older and wiser than Bessie do not ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... passed, and she was in her low chair again, propped with cushions, pallid as a snow-drop, weak and languid, but still there, she told her story, simply and without comprehension of its meaning. ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... truth, or whether he only wished to mislead my suspicions into a different channel. That he was the acme of shrewdness, that his powers of deduction were extraordinary, and that his patience in unravelling a secret was almost beyond comprehension I knew well. Even those great trackers of criminals, Shaw and Maddox, of New Scotland Yard, held him in respect, and admired his acute intelligence and marvellous ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... marrow bones to his ill-favored majesty there, whom I know, as well as I know myself to be a sinner, to be nobody in the whole world, but Tim Hurlygurly the stage-player—why! it's quite another guess sort of a thing, and utterly and altogether past my comprehension." ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... even made a few suggestions, as Wilmet explained how she thought of making a sitting-room upstairs, and giving the two downstairs front ones to Mr. Audley, using the back room for the boys and children; she was altogether so much more open to comprehension, and ready to speak, that Wilmet was full of hope and assurance that she was ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to see her suffering, ludicrous though he thought her suffering to be. And it was this sweetness, this comprehension and tenderness, like sunlight flooding her gloomy and petrified young heart, that filled Helen with astonished bliss. She was tamed at last to the extent of laughing with Gerald at herself; and, though the force of her nature led ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the Gascon dialect was gradually expiring when Jasmin undertook its revival. His success in recovering and restoring it, and presenting it in a written form, was the result of laborious investigation. He did not at first realize the perfect comprehension of the idiom, but he eventually succeeded by patient perseverance, When we read his poems, we are enabled to follow, step by ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... in vain. Since these notable exploits they have never stepped out of their works or beyond their lines. How a conduct of this kind is to effect the conquest of America, the wisdom of a North, a Germaine, or a Sandwich can best decide. It is too deep and refined for the comprehension of common understandings and the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... with smiling comprehension when she detailed her struggles with editors who could detect no originality ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... happy fellow, still young, for he was scarcely forty. A man of the world in its widest and best sense, gifted with a brilliant, but not profound, mind, with much varied knowledge, but no true erudition, ready comprehension without true understanding, he drew from his observations, his adventures, from everything he saw, met with and found, anecdotes at once comical and philosophical, and made humorous remarks that gave him a great reputation ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... living; suppose the money that has been spent on the cathedrals, on the monasteries, spent in supporting hordes and hordes of priests, spent in all the endeavor to save men in a future life, if all this had been used in educating men and training them into a comprehension of what kind of beings they really are, what kind of a world this is in which they have found themselves, spent in training them into mastery of themselves, spent in teaching them how to understand and control the forces of nature in order to serve ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... prostration. I have made nurses practise lifting, while impressing the fact forcibly upon them by repetition before they lift, and during the process of raising a body and lowering it, that they must use entirely the muscles of the legs. When once their minds have full comprehension of the new way, the surprise with which they discover the comparative ease of lifting is very pleasant. The whole secret in this and all similar efforts is to use muscular instead of nervous force. Direct with the directing power; ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... part of simplicity, and that I am inclined to imagine it had something to do with the daintiest suspicion of a cast in one of her large eyes, I shall have said all that I can, and the reader will not be much advanced towards comprehension. I had struck up an acquaintance with this little damsel in the morning, and professed much interest in her dolls, and an impatient desire to see the large one which was kept locked away for great occasions. And so I had not been very long ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that, and of the causes at work to bring about such a result. He talked with more comprehension and insight as to the state of infant colonies, partially self-governed and self-dependent, struggling out of leading strings, and intent upon growing to man's estate, than anybody ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... responsibilities, dignity, freedom—all so many words. It was vile, it was horrible, that he should see her thus! And a really terrific struggle began in her between the desire to get up and cry this out, and the knowledge that it would be stupid, undignified, even mad, to show her comprehension of what he would never admit or even understand that he had revealed to her. And then a sort of cynicism came to her rescue. What a funny thing was married life—to have lived all these years with him, and never known what was at the bottom of his heart! She had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... constitutions. You are apprehensive for yours, which leans from its perpendicular, and does not stand firm on its theory. I like Parliamentary reforms as little as any man who has boroughs to sell for money, or for peerages in Ireland. But it passes my comprehension, in what manner it is that men can be reconciled to the practical merits of a constitution, the theory of which is in litigation, by being practically excluded from any of its advantages. Let us put ourselves in the place of these people, and try an experiment of the effects of such a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... emphatic grunts and the final self-accusing soliloquy, "just like me," could proceed but from one person, my old Helmstone acquaintance, Mr. Frampton; though by what strange chance he should be found wandering by owl-light in a meadow near Cambridge passed my comprehension to conceive. Feeling secure from the alteration which had taken place in me since I had last seen him—an alteration rendered still more complete by my academical costume—that he would be unable to recognise me, I determined to amuse myself ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... or nearly always uses the expression one expects. He finds the explanation that obtrudes itself because it is simple and easy; he excels in unravelling [unraveling sic] difficulties and illuminating obscurities. To facilitate comprehension by the reader Rashi resorted to the use of pictures and diagrams, some of which still appear in his Talmudic commentary, though a number have been suppressed by the editors. Once, when asked for the explanation of a difficult passage in Ezekiel, he replied that he had nothing ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... ancient also—are but jungles of verbiage which retard, rather than facilitate, human thought and progress. They have grown up anyhow; but what we now want is a made language, constructed on scientific principles, and so easy of comprehension that any intelligent person can acquire it in a ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... facilities, which were necessary to success in the great enterprizes which he undertook. His eloquence[10] was strong, abundant, and clear; and a great talent for acquiring foreign tongues added to his powers of expression. The same quickness of comprehension rendered every other study light, though undertaken in the midst of a thousand varied occupations, and at an age to which great capabilities of acquisition ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... Jotun, and the earth to be his festering flesh, we cannot conceive; yet such a theory was solemnly taught and accepted. How the ancient Indians could regard the rain-clouds as cows with full udders milked by the winds of heaven is beyond our comprehension, and yet their Veda contains indisputable testimony to the fact that they were so regarded." We have only to read Mr. Baring-Gould's book of "Curious Myths," from which I have just quoted, or to dip into Mr. Thorpe's treatise on "Northern Mythology," to realize ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... the greatest satisfaction to answer the numerous and varied questions of our inquisitive little readers; and except in instances where the answer, were it given correctly, would occupy too much space in our columns, or be too scientific for the comprehension of the youthful querist, we have left but two or three questions ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... good education, a Protestant too, could have conceived and attempted such a crime. The Italians are said to be a nation of assassins, but no Italian ever attempted my life. This affair is beyond my comprehension. Inquire how Staps died, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... guarded by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in all quarters of the Universe who are eternally trying to liberate mankind by various expedients (upaya). By expedient is meant a modified presentment of the truth, which is easier of comprehension and, if not the goal, at least on the road to it, such as ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... for his return. She had always had a vague comprehension of those pragmatic qualities in his nature which placed him miles above her, or beneath her, or beyond her. She had drunk of the cup which had been offered her, and she must not rebel because a bitter sediment lay on her lips. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... with; or, at least, were so commonplace to them as not to attract their attention. And of many of the impressions which came to me then I have realized the full import only within the past few years, since I have had a broader knowledge of men and history, and a fuller comprehension of the tremendous struggle which is going on between the races in ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... childhood, and who visited the poet in his last days, when he himself, wasted by disease, "seemed no bigger than a child under the sheet that covered him," gives what is perhaps the most lifelike picture we have ever had of a nature that seems equally to court and to baffle comprehension. Lord Houghton has little to add, on this subject, from his personal recollections; but his comments upon it evince perhaps as close a study and sagacious criticism, if not as much subtlety of thought, as Matthew Arnold's famous essay. The following ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... smiled at the want of comprehension which prevented him from seeing the thing according to the view which ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... must he be too idealistic; he must not seek too distant purposes; the group must understand him, and though he must keep them in some awe and fear of him, yet must they feel that he represents an understandable ideal. The leader who preaches things out of comprehension arouses the kind of opposition ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... were such fools. Well, come right down to it, he was rather inclined to accept the statement as largely true. And women were so utterly beyond comprehension. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... very far from the time when a reasonable hope could be entertained of reducing all that is perceived by our senses to the unity of a single principle; but the partial solution of the problem—the tendency towards a general comprehension of the phenomena of the universe—does not the less continue to be the high and enduring aim ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... degrees, the active imagination of men, uneasy in this abstract conception of objects, about which it is incessantly employed, begins to render them more particular, and to clothe them in shapes more suitable to its natural comprehension. It represents them to be sensible, intelligent beings like mankind; actuated by love and hatred, and flexible by gifts and entreaties, by prayers and sacrifices. Hence the origin of religion: and hence the ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... stories of Uncle Frank, or laughing at the humorous sallies of Aunt Lorette, I wondered what they thought of her. She made a lovely picture, and all—even caustic Deborah—capitulated to her kindliness and charm. If she had failed of complete comprehension and sympathy I could not have blamed her, but to have her perfectly at home among these men and women of the vanishing Border displayed her in a new and ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... of comprehension flitted over her features, and, seizing our hands, she led us into an adjoining apartment, and pointed to ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... none but paupers present. The children sat in the galleries; the women in the body of the chapel, and in one of the side aisles; the men in the remaining aisle. The service was decorously performed, though the sermon might have been much better adapted to the comprehension and to the circumstances of the hearers. The usual supplications were offered, with more than the usual significancy in such a place, for the fatherless children and widows, for all sick persons and young children, for all that were desolate and oppressed, for the comforting and helping of the ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... they did not talk. An unspoken comprehension, an essential comradeship, filled the deep spaces of silence that frighten and irritate those whom only custom has associated; and Caroline, flat on her filled stomach, her nose in the grass, was close in thought and vague well-being to the boy who puffed blue rings toward the ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... a personal explanation, as well as a contribution to the history of an important feature in the developments of the last twenty years. I hope also, by showing the steps by which I was led to my conclusions, to make the conclusions themselves more acceptable and easy of comprehension. ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... developed in her a facility of animated description, of happy, unconscious characterization, a piquancy and sometimes an acrimony in her remarks that were most remarkable in the mouth of a servant. She had progressed so far that she often surprised Mademoiselle de Varandeuil by her quickness of comprehension, her promptness at grasping things only half said, her good fortune and facility in selecting such words as good talkers use. She knew how to jest. She understood a play upon words. She expressed herself without cuirs,[4] and when there was a discussion concerning ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... consternation, he found the feeding-troughs clean as if they had been washed, and, not a single Irish pig to be seen or heard about the premises; but to what retreat the animals could have betaken themselves, was completely beyond his comprehension. He scratched his head, and looked about him ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... that gulf went down into the very central spaces of the earth, of which they had hitherto been wandering only in the upper crust; nay, that the seething blackness before them had relations mysterious, and beyond human comprehension, with the far-off voids of space, into which the stars dare ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... addressed to a talented and liberal-minded prince, deservedly beloved and honored throughout Germany. In the work itself, besides, there occur repeated pictures of these relations, which display at once a clear comprehension of the social problem, and a poetic power which keeps pace with the power of life-like description. To come more closely to the point, however, what is that reality which is exhibited in the story of our novel? We should very inadequately describe it were we to say, the nobility ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... reserving to himself only the bare competence on which a Catholic priest might live. He was altogether a very queer fish! I remember his coming to me once in tearful but very angry mood, because, as he said, I had guilefully spread snares for his soul! I had not the smallest comprehension of his meaning till I discovered that his woe and wrath were occasioned by my having sent him as a present Berington's Middle Ages. I had fancied that his course of studies and line of thought would have made the book interesting to him, utterly ignorant or oblivious ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... conduct of the educated classes very powerfully assisted. They outwardly conformed to the ceremonial of the times, reserving their higher doctrines to themselves, as something beyond vulgar comprehension. Considering themselves as an intellectual aristocracy, they stood aloof, and, with an ill-concealed smile, consented to the transparent folly around them. It had come to an evil state when authors like Polybius and Strabo apologized to their compeers for the traditions and legends they ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... notions of the almost inconceivable magnitude of space, to which, indeed, it is probable there are no more positive limits than there are a beginning and an end to eternity! Can these wonders be, I thought—and how pitiful in those who affect to reduce all things to the level of their own powers of comprehension, and their own experience in practice! Let them exercise their sublime and boasted reason, I said to myself, in endeavoring to comprehend infinity in any thing, and we will note the result! If it ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... their sensible qualities must be manifest in the compound; or those who were reluctant to give up the distinction of vegetables into herbs, shrubs, and trees. We can not help thinking that men must have been singularly dull of comprehension, to find a difficulty in admitting what is to us so plain and simple. We have a latent persuasion that we in their place should have been wiser and more clear-sighted; that we should have taken the right side, and given our assent at once to the truth. Yet in reality such a persuasion ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... not at all difficult to understand a carniverous tree, capable of violent and powerful motion. This is undoubtedly what we have here—a decidedly interesting phenomena, but not difficult of comprehension." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... criminalist; to examine them and to establish whatever value the material may have for him; what portions may be of use to him in the interest of discovering the truth; and where the dangers may lurk that menace him. And just as we are aware that the comprehension of the fundamental concepts of the exact sciences is not to be derived from their methodology, so we must keep clearly in mind that the truth which we criminalists have to attain can not be constructed out of the formal correctness of the content presented us. We ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... a long time blowing up—too long for my patience," said Wilkins, gruffly. "How the country can go on year after year paying its tribute to these plunderers passes my comprehension. But you may attack them as you please. You will never get any forrarder so long as Parliament and the Cabinet is made up of ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... use of all that illuminating material unearthed by the explorations of hypnosis and especially of psycho-analysis. Along with correct ideas about such matters as digestion, sleep, and fatigue, I give, so far as the patient is able to understand, a comprehension of the rights of the denied instincts, the ways of the subconscious, the fettering hold of unfortunate childish habits, the various mental mechanisms by which we fool ourselves, and the ways by which we may make ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... heavenly garments against those earthly ones. The roof! the dome! Rich, gorgeous, filled with sunshine, cheerfully sublime, and fadeless after centuries, those lofty depths seemed to translate the heavens to mortal comprehension, and help the spirit upward to a yet higher and wider sphere. Must not the faith, that built this matchless edifice, and warmed, illuminated, and overflowed from it, include whatever can satisfy human aspirations at the loftiest, or minister to human necessity ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Jewel, beaming at his ready comprehension. "You'll find out there isn't a thing to be afraid of with Cousin Eloise, and oh, Dr. Ballard," the child smiled at ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... variety of gossip and opinion. Some of the over-wise even made themselves ridiculous by decrying the whole business; as nothing better than a hoax. But hoax, with these sort of people, is, I believe, a general term for all matters above their comprehension. For my part, I cannot conceive upon what data they have founded such an accusation. Let ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... if he had not understood it. But what he saw made good what he lacked in perfect comprehension of the language. He had seen the two mortal enemies of the musketeers, had seen Mordaunt adjust the fuse; he had heard the proverb, which Mordaunt had given in French. Then he felt and felt again the contents of the tankard he held in his hand; ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... poor thoughts, However trivial all that he conceives. Sweet bashfulness! it claims at least this praise; The dearth of information and good sense, That it foretells us, always comes to pass. Cataracts of declamation thunder here; There forests of no meaning spread the page, In which all comprehension wanders lost; While fields of pleasantry amuse us there With merry descants on a nation's woes. The rest appears a wilderness of strange But gay confusion; roses for the cheeks, And lilies for the brows of faded ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... under heaven had that to do with the present boundary between us and Mexico? How, Mr. Chairman, the line that once divided your land from mine can still be the boundary between us after I have sold my land to you is to me beyond all comprehension. And how any man, with an honest purpose only of proving the truth, could ever have thought of introducing such a fact to prove such an issue is equally incomprehensible. His next piece of evidence is that "the Republic ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... connected under a single principle, we may say with equal justice: many a book would have been much clearer, if it had not been intended to be so very clear. For explanations and examples, and other helps to intelligibility, aid us in the comprehension of parts, but they distract the attention, dissipate the mental power of the reader, and stand in the way of his forming a clear conception of the whole; as he cannot attain soon enough to a survey of the system, and ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... a career and who have acquired from their youth those qualities which have, from the beginning, distinguished the graduates of the Military Academy at West Point: the disciplined honor, the unfaltering courage, the comprehension of sacrifice, and that knowing obedience which proceeds from constant demonstrations of the fact that effective cooperation in war requires instant compliance with the command of authority, the sort of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... of such kind, that the resulting man will in fifty years after become gouty or insane, is a truth which would be incredible were it not daily illustrated. But though the manner in which hereditary likeness, in all its complications, is conveyed, is a mystery passing comprehension, it is quite conceivable that it is conveyed in subordination to the law of adaptation above explained; and we are not without reasons for thinking that it is so. Various facts show that acquired peculiarities resulting from the adaptation of constitution ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... to bright. Alternately angry and serene, and lavishing abundance which she again withdraws, nature seems inexplicably capricious, and though capable of responding to the highest requirements of the moral sentiment through a general comprehension of her mysteries, more liable, by a partial or hasty view to become darkened into a Siva, a Saturn, or a Mexitli, a patron of fierce orgies or blood-stained altars. All the older poetical personifications exhibit traces ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... vastly well," returned Mrs. Selwyn; "but I must own it is rather too enigmatical for my faculties of comprehension. You can, however, have no objection to seeing this ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... is a long tale of storm and stress. Not only was he slow in gaining appreciation while he lived; full comprehension of his power was not granted him till after his energetic life was over. Recognition in his own country is incomplete to day. He was born in 1803, near picturesque Grenoble, in the little town of Cote St. Andre, the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... she should,' replied Mr. Hood. 'How ever they live as they do passes my comprehension. There was Mrs. Cartwright taking home fruit and flowers which cost a pretty penny, I'll be bound. And her talk! I thought I should never get away. There's one thing, she never has any but good-natured gossip; I never leave ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... want of comprehension, I may call it, in reference to propriety of conduct. A certain nobleness, and freedom from all that was petty and cold, kept her from coquetry. At the same time she had a womanish vanity about her admirers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... the housekeeper should be particularly sensitive because the man who had driven him from the station ate peppermint was quite beyond the boy's comprehension. Nor could he thoroughly understand why the suspicion of Mr. Keeler's slight inebriety should cause such a sensation in the Snow household. He was inclined to think the tipsiness rather funny. Of course alcohol was ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... to re-establish it in its primal splendour. Truth obliges me to acknowledge that Mosaide has very much assisted me with his deep comprehension of the language and the alphabet of the Hebrews. But let us not lose sight of our principal subject. Be informed from the outset, my son, that the sense of the Bible is figurative, and that the capital error of the theologians ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... me back word to say absolutely nothing about the Genoa episode—he may even claim that it's quite beyond his comprehension. That will give us a chance to meet more naturally, and then we can talk things over more minutely, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... he really was—and no doubt, also, there are many who would honestly take his view. As if the fact that he was born with all possible advantages did not make him and his plight inexcusable. It passes my comprehension why people of his sort, when suffering from the calamities they have deliberately brought upon themselves by laziness and self-indulgence and extravagance, should get a sympathy that is withheld from those of the honest human rank and ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... doubt that with many people this feeling of reverence has been in the way of the truest understanding of Jesus, and ofttimes those who have clung most devoutly to a belief in his deity have missed much of the comfort which comes from a proper comprehension of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... sheet of paper was filled with equations and calculations, and the table was covered with reference books. After two hours of intense study and hot discussion Crane's face took on a look of dawning comprehension, which changed to amazement and then to joy. For the first time in Seaton's long acquaintance with him, his habitual ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... scarcely secure sufficient experience in even the essentials of the trade to render him expert in these various processes. In short, the traditional apprenticeship system is unable to give either the general comprehension of the industry or the ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... away to use their own weapons and facing only one small four-limbed creature, they considered their game already in the bag, but they had no comprehension of earthly muscles, nor any understanding of the power and range of a hundred-pound bow driving a steel-headed war arrow. Thus, while they were arguing, Stevens took the offensive, and a cruelly barbed steel war-head tore completely through ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... earth-shaking cataract, liquid highways to the realms of strange dreams! He turned involuntarily and met his master's eye. Between these two, master and boy, knave and knight, there was at times so strange a comprehension that Robin-a-dale was scarcely startled to find that his thoughts ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... "Until now you were only a woman. Oh, and now, my dear, you are again that resistless gipsy who so merrily beguiled me to the very heart of loss. You are Love. You are Youth. You are Comprehension. You are all that I have had, and lost, and vainly hunger for. Here in this abominable village, there is no one who understands—not even those who are more dear to me than you are. I know. I only spoil good paper which might otherwise be profitably used to ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... morning, watching Mr. Jardine's phaeton dwindle to a speck in the distance of the avenue, and then she went slowly back to the house, feeling as if she were quite alone in her misery. It was not that Fanny Palliser was wanting in kindness or sympathy, but she was wanting in comprehension of Ida's feelings, and the stronger nature could not lean upon the weaker; and then the mother would be absorbed in her grief at the loss of her boy, who had become doubly precious since his illness. No, Ida felt that now John Jardine was gone she must bear her burden alone. Help for ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... remains to consider the last material sentence, delivered by your Lordship at this conference, and which to my limited comprehension, appears, in the same breath, to affirm and deny the same position. "The finding of him incapable of managing his own affairs, is not sufficient to authorize further proceedings, but there must be a ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... declare your Northern phlegm is past my comprehension.—'Well,' indeed! it seems to me as bad as bad can be. Only think of it—only six per cent of intelligence united with this ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... changes in its body, the changes in its soul and spirit, which we pass by as commonplace, are full of suggestions of abnormality, of disaster, and of death. Young people suffer much from the want of comprehension and intelligent sympathy of their elders, much also from their own ignorance and too fervid imagination. The instability of the bodily tissues and the variability of their functions find a counterpart in the instability of the mental and moral natures and ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... last perceives that nature—the world—must be an embodiment of reason. An interest in the contemplation and comprehension of the present world became universal. Thus experimental science became the science of the world; for experimental science involves, on the one hand, the observation of phenomena; on the other hand, also the discovery of the law, ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... by particular lawgivers. This was natural enough and pardonable under the circumstances; but how any modern writer can consider such customs (whether aboriginal or instituted by lawgivers) especially favorable to love, passes my comprehension. Yet one of the best informed of my critics assured me that "in Sparta love was made a part of state policy, and opportunities were contrived for the young men and women to see each other at public games and become enamored." As usual in such cases, the writer ignores the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... consequently go back for a moment to Alexander's early training and antecedents. No despotic system can be judged without a knowledge of personal facts relating to its bearer. A sketch of the character of Alexander II. and of his strange acts of "benevolence," will make it clear to the commonest comprehension why his antagonists should at last have met him ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... teacher, though she could explain difficult rules in a sensible way. She could not, or would not, understand the difference between dulness and inattention; her sharp hasty manner would frighten away all her pupil's powers of comprehension; she sometimes fell into the great error of scolding, when Phyllis was doing her best, and the poor child's tears ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... number of heads taken in tribal battle. At the same time he was a devoted slave to the man who, at the risk of his own life, had rescued him from the murderous spears of his aboriginal foes. That was a kind of record within Gongi's comprehension, from the contemplation of which he turned to speak of Louis Bachelor as "That fellow budgery marmi b'longin' to me," which, in civilised language, means "my good master." Gongi often dilated on this rescue, and he would, for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... thing remaining, and that is, as Candace said, the cross of Christ. If God so loved us,—if He died for us,—greater love hath no man than this. It seems to me that love is shown here in the two highest forms possible to our comprehension. We see a Being who gives himself for us,—and more than that, harder than that, a Being who consents to the suffering of a dearer than self. Mary, I feel that I must love more, to give up one of my children to suffer, than to consent to suffer myself. There is a world of comfort ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... thou hast!—like a frightened child! I know not if I shall reach thy comprehension, were I to answer thee—but I, being only daughter to my father, Gualtier of Montferrat, who had no son—plead with my mother to send me hither when I came of age, to do homage loyally to King Janus, and ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... went out with myself and another subaltern and about forty men. We crossed the Mungo River in canoes, and then did a long and very difficult march all through the night in absolute dense forest. However the guides managed it passes comprehension. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... glanced with a grin of comprehension from me to the letter, advanced, set his hat on the table beside it, and his gloves (after blowing into them) beside ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... scarcely inhabited except by the coyote and the tecolote,[2] are handsome cities with their surrounding cultivation and characteristic life. As we top the summit of a range and behold these centres of population from afar, a bird's-eye view and philosophical comprehension of their ensemble is obtained. Seen from the outside, they present a picturesque view of cathedral spires and gleaming domes and white walls; the towers rising from the lesser buildings amid groves ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... not what to say; I know not what advice to give; I know not what even to wish. Your situation is so complicated, so mysterious, that it passes my comprehension. There are others whose claims, whose feelings should be considered. You ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... knowledge of what acid will turn blue litmus-paper red is going to help an officer to find fodder for his troop horses, or inspire him to lead a forlorn hope, was then, and still is, beyond my youthful comprehension. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... always existed in the Church of England. It is called by different names: Moderate, Catholic, or Broad Church, by its friends: Latitudinarian or Indifferent, by its enemies. Its distinctive character is the desire of comprehension. Its watchwords ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... spectroscope; to tell of a "cool" stage when the vapor of iron furnishes chief spectrum lines, and of a "hot" stage when the iron has presumably been dissociated into unknown "proto-iron" constituents—then indeed does it go far beyond the comprehension of the keenest eighteenth-century intellect, though keeping within the range of understanding of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... strange in her voice usually hard; something in the elegant fragility of her slipper! Everybody knew that Bentley was the architect of the Cathedral and that he had died of cancer on the tongue. The knowledge was not esoteric; it did not by itself indicate a passion for architecture or a comprehension of architecture. Yet when she said the exclamatory words, leaning far back in the seat, her throat emerging from the sequined frock, her tapping slipper peeping out beneath the skirt, she cast a spell on him. He perceived in her a woman gifted and ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... abandon a snug abode in a decent street for the squalor of a rickety shell in a mean locality, and was now prostrate on his bed, dying of rapid consumption. By what mysterious providence a new-born babe should thus be sent to such a man's door is beyond my comprehension. But the wife of Varick, softer of heart than its mother, took in the shivering waif, adopted it in place of one only a few weeks older, which she had buried two days previous, and resisted all urgency of the few friends she had to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... to permit this translation of the Ars Grammaticae to be of use in both these areas of scholarship I have made an effort to reduce to a minimum those places where a knowledge of either Japanese or Latin is required for the comprehension of the translation. It is sincerely hoped that the result is not an effort that is satisfying to neither, and thus ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... sick-nurse. Four hours after her arrival Fanny's child was born. It had been sad enough for Mary to watch her mother's last moments and Eliza's insanity; but this new duty was still more painful. She loved Fanny Blood with a passion whose depth is beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals. Her affection for her was the one romance of her youth, and she lavished upon it all the sweetness and tenderness, the enthusiasm and devotion of her nature, which make her seem to us lovable above all women. And now this friend, the best gift life ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... makes it possible to understand how far the time was ripe for the comprehension of the mystery of Christ. In the Mysteries, a man was artificially prepared for the dawning upon his consciousness, at the appropriate time, of the spiritual world. Within the Essene or Therapeutic community the soul sought, by ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... you the plans of Smithers & Co. are beyond your comprehension. Whether they are friends to Potts or not, it seems that they are his creditors to an amount which it would be difficult for him to pay if they ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... Zephirine's comprehension; she thought her consul a very great man; but the Marquise laughed, and her laughter ranged her ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... thought—for ye judge of Roman virtue by your own—that I would break my plighted oath, rather than, returning, brook your vengeance. I might give reasons for this, in Punic comprehension, most foolish act of mine. I might speak of those eternal principles which make death for one's country a pleasure, not a pain. But, by great Jupiter! methinks I should debase myself to talk of such high things to you; to you, expert in womanly inventions; to you, well-skilled to drive ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... feelings of that early sweetheart, now a happy and beloved wife, would be, did she know the words written so long ago were spread before cold and critical eyes, and discussed by two people who could have no comprehension of the conditions and circumstances which led to ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... interest at! Glenfern; for, to the inexpressible delight and amazement of the sisters, Mrs. Douglas, after due warning, became the mother of a son. How this event had been brought about without the intervention of Lady Maclaughlan was past the powers of Miss Grizzy's comprehension. To the last moment they had been sceptical, for Lady Maclaughlan had shook her head and humphed whenever the subject was mentioned. For several months they had therefore vibrated between their own sanguine hopes and their oracle's disheartening doubts; ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... comprehension," he declared, admiringly. "Where you ever learned so much is more than ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... ourselves; and yet upon a small scale these same miracles are the breath and essence of life; to cease to work them is to die. And by miracle I do not merely mean something new, strange, and not very easy of comprehension—I mean something which violates every canon of thought which in the palpable world we are accustomed to respect; something as alien to, and inconceivable by, us as contradiction in terms, the destructibility of force ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... The sleeping faun, praised on from century to century, and never yet praised enough; so drunk, so fast asleep, so like a human body! Modesty reproving Vanity, by Leonardo da Vinci, so totally beyond my expectation or comprehension, great! wise! and fine! Raphael's Mistress, painted by himself, and copied by Julio Romano; this picture gives little satisfaction though except from curiosity gratified, the woman is too coarse. Guido's Magdalen up stairs, the famous ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... price: first, a multitude of people, so ignorant of the history of the country that they do not know what the conflict is about; secondly, a smaller class of better-informed citizens, who have no moral comprehension of the inevitable opposition of democracy and aristocracy, free society and slave society, and who believe sincerely that a permanent compromise or trade can be negotiated between these opposing forces in human affairs; thirdly, a clique ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of an undercurrent of sympathy with the forlorn waif her father had brought from the city some months before. The very love and awe with which the mountains filled her imaginative soul gave her comprehension of the fear with which they imbued the dull-witted offspring of San ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten |
