"Construe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not been lost on the Provencal, who well knew how to construe the wind by the direction of straws, and saw at once, by the boldness of the populace, that they themselves were conscious of a coming tempest. "Par Dieu," said he, as he saluted Adrian, who, gravely, and without ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... such a declaration, there was a pride about her manner, a certain restraint which she ever seemed to exercise over me, that effectually sealed my lips. Her very presence was a moral tonic, and I felt it would be easier to tear out my tongue than to utter anything which she could construe into possible insult. The very depth of her perfect womanhood was itself protection, and, until the veil was finally lifted, my lips were vowed ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... the imagination a polygon with an infinite number of sides (i.e. with a number of sides greater than any given number), but neither can we construe to the imagination a polygon with a million of sides; nevertheless, we understand what is meant by the first description as well as by the second, and can reason upon both. There is, indeed, this difference between the two: That the terms used in describing the first, proclaim at once in their ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... faculties, but that what we choose to call so are only different activities of the same power. Each one is just as essential as the other, on which account Education must grant to each faculty its claim to the same fostering care. If we would construe correctly the axiom a potiori fit denominatio to mean that man is distinguished from animals by thought, and that mediated will is not the same as thought, we must not forget that feeling and representing are not less necessary to a truly complete ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... little unhinges me, and, still more, the number of visitors we have had; but winter is approaching, and I have good hopes. I mentioned Michael Angelo's poetry some time ago; it is the most difficult to construe I ever met with, but just what you would expect from such a man, shewing abundantly how conversant his soul was with great things. There is a mistake in the world concerning the Italian language; the poetry of Dante and Michael Angelo proves, that ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... half years of age. Although at that time, and in earlier generations, boys, no older than Farragut then was, were not infrequently turned aboard ship to fight their own way in life, Porter did not so construe his duties to his charge. In the latter part of 1810 he finally left New Orleans and went North again, this time by the Mississippi River and in a gun-boat. The voyage to Pittsburg against the swift current took three months; and it was not till toward the close of the year that ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... "Wilton" was printed, "there be certaine busie wits abrode that seeke to anagrammatize the name of Wittenberge to one of the Universities of England; that scorn to be counted honest, plaine meaning men, like their neighbours, for not so much as out of mutton and potage, but they will construe a meaning of kings and princes. Let one but name bread, but they will interpret it to be the town of Bredan in the Low countreyes; if of beere he talkes, then straight he mockes the countie Beroune in France; if of foule ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... toucher non plus qu'au feu." Letter of Secretary Bourdin to his brother-in-law Bochetel, the Bishop of Rennes, French ambassador in Germany, Aug. 23, 1561, apud Laboureur, Add. aux Mem. de Castelnau, i. 731. If we are to construe the language of the Histoire eccles. des egl. ref. (i. 307) with verbal strictness, the theological discussions occasionally waxed so hot that the prelates found themselves unable to solve the knotty questions ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... heavens—is this, that the first volume contains all the facts, and the second volume contains His interpretation and application of the facts in the understandings and hearts of His people. We have no more facts from which to construe God than these which belong to the earthly life of Jesus Christ, and we never shall have, here at all events. But whilst the first volume to the bottom of the last page is finished and tolerates and needs no additions, day by day, moment by moment, epoch by epoch Christ is bringing His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... that thus Mr. Jerome would have the saving grace to admire and toady him. But Mr. Jerome showed no signs of doing anything of the sort; he treated him with an austere and distant politeness that Lord Ashbridge could not construe as being founded on admiration and a sense of his own inferiority, for it was so clearly founded on dislike. That, however, did not annoy Lord Ashbridge, for it was easy to suppose that poor Mr. Jerome knew no better. But Barbara annoyed him, for not only had she shown herself ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... words, they too are subject to illusion; the enemy can form and counterfeit them. Or if they come from a good angel (for God Himself never speaks thus) we may mistake and misapprehend them. They are spoken in a divine manner, but we construe them in a ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... his day had not appeared in published translations, or had not been translated at all as far as we know. In my opinion Will had Latin enough to puzzle out the sense of the Latin, never difficult, for himself. He could also "get a construe," when in London, or help in reading, from a more academic acquaintance: or buy a construe at no high ransom from some poor scholar. No contemporary calls him scholarly; the generation of men who were small boys when he died held him for no scholar. The ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... forget me," he said, "in the multitude of state affairs, yet I am well assured that, had he some pretty pastime to array for entertainment of the Queen's Grace, horse and man would be seeking the humble cottage of Erasmus Holiday. PARVO CONTENTUS, in the meanwhile, I hear my pupils parse and construe, worshipful sir, and drive away my time with the aid of the Muses. And I have at all times, when in correspondence with foreign scholars, subscribed myself Erasmus ab Die Fausto, and have enjoyed the distinction due ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... The several components of a name had their established order, not dependent upon the will or skill of the composer. When we read modern advertisements of "cheap gentlemen's traveling bags" or "steel-faced carpenters' claw hammers," we may construe such phrases with a latitude which was not permitted to the Algonkins. If 'Connecticut' means—as some have supposed it to mean—'long deer place,' it denotes a place where long deer abounded; if 'Piscataqua' was named 'great deer river,' it was because the deer ...
— The Composition of Indian Geographical Names - Illustrated from the Algonkin Languages • J. Hammond Trumbull
... "In Grammar Schools, boys were made to construe their Latin into French."—Ibid. "Pueri in scholis, contra morem caeterarum nationum, et Normannorum adventu, derelicto proprio vulgari, construere Gallice compelluntur. Item quod filii nobilium ab ipsis cunabulorum crepundiis ad Gallicum idioma informantur. Quibus profecto rurales homines ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... that the present warden would furnish the men with only the same outfit as in summer, the under-clothes they might happen to have on at the time, added. And, in making out this summer suit, he would construe the letter of the law in the superlative degree, which says, "A suit of cheap clothing,"—he obtaining the cheapest, the most miserably poor. To illustrate, a man left prison in one of those suits, and, before walking a mile, was obliged to call and borrow ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... pumpkin business; but all to no purpose. Do what he would, go where he would, contribute to what he would, mix with what society he would, be as generous as he would, people were heard to whisper 'pumpkins;' and to construe his motives as prompted by the same spirit which induced him to make a business of cultivating that vegetable. A similar odor, arising from his connection with Pierce, Smooth found clinging to his garments. ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... our cowardice. A quiet, sober, unaltered frame of judgment, that insults no one, that has in it nothing violent, brutal and defying, is the frame that becomes us. If I would teach another man, my superior in rank, how he ought to construe and decide upon the conduct I hold, I must begin by making that ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... surely no appearance,' said Lord George, glancing at Barnaby, and whispering in his secretary's ear, 'of being deranged? And even if he had, we must not construe any trifling peculiarity into madness. Which of us'—and here he turned red again—'would be safe, if ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... showed beyond peradventure that the Common Law doctrine was grounded upon unshakable authority; that, considering the fact that the entire phraseology of the constitutional clause regarding treason comes from an English statute of Edward III's time, it was reasonable, if not indispensable, to construe it in the light of the Common Law; and that, certainly as to a procurer of treason, such as Burr was charged with being, the Common Law doctrine was the only just doctrine, being merely a reaffirmation of the even ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... I can construe the obscure wish with which your letter concludes. I join heartily in desiring some termination to my present doubts; but whether in the direction you would think right, or by a return to Anglicanism, is the question. I am astonished to find how resolute Keble is in maintaining ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... credentials, spare to deliver the glorious message with which he is charged by the true Head of the Church. For a man thus minded, there is within the pale of the establishment no place. He has been at no college; he cannot construe a Greek author or write a Latin theme; and he is told that, if he remains in the communion of the Church, he must do so as a hearer, and that, if he is resolved to be a teacher, he must begin by being a schismatic. His choice is soon made. He harangues on Tower Hill ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... distance, and the path to its fulfilment offered him but little entertainment. His studies did not seize his attention firmly; he followed them from a sense of duty, not of pleasure. Virgil and Horace he learned to construe accurately; but is said to have taken no deep interest in their poetry. The tenderness and meek beauty of the first, the humour and sagacity and capricious pathos of the last, the matchless elegance of both, would of course escape his inexperienced perception; while the matter of their ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... vigorous protest. "A Law," they declared, "may as well Receive its beginning by proclamation as such revivall.... Some Governor may be sent to Govern us who under the pretense of the liberty he hath to construe prerogative and stretch it as far as he pleaseth may by proclamation Revive all the Lawes that for their great Inconveniences to the Country have been Repeal'd ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... nosegay instantly attracted the girl's hand—perhaps before there had been time for thought to thoroughly construe the position; for it happened that when her arm was stretched into the air she steadied it quickly, and stood with the pose of a statue—rigid with uncertainty. But it was too late to refuse: Christopher had put the nosegay within her fingers. ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... is named William, and I should have told you; but I write without any manner of connection, just as things come uppermost: but don't, my dear papa, construe this, too, as an ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... for him. That is a piece of cowardice, and protest is more than justifiable. There is a fine true story of a famous head-master, who disliked a weakling, putting on a stupid, shy, and ungainly boy to construe, and making deliberate fun of him. There was a boy present, of the stuff of which heroes are made, who got up suddenly in his place and said, "You are not teaching that boy, sir; you are bullying him." The head-master had the generosity ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... be more charming? True it is that pingit in the first line does not seem to construe satisfactorily, and I am not certain that the poet may not have written fingit. Fingit would not be pure Latin, but that ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... and, without the explanation or addition of a single word, retraced his steps and disappeared in the woods, leaving the puzzled Elwood to construe the meaning of his story as he best could. Very soon, however, sounds reached his ears which enabled him to form some conjecture what the man intended by his odd announcement. The mingling voices of ox-team drivers, with their loud and peculiarly modulated "Haw ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... where his evening clothes were! He returned to his room and made another frantic search—but they were nowhere to be found; and as he could not bring himself to receive his guests in his ordinary morning costume—which the Professor would probably construe as a deliberate slight, and which would certainly seem a solecism in Mrs. Futvoye's eyes, if not in her daughter's—he decided to put on the Eastern robes, with the exception of a turban, which he could not manage to wind round ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... this a little while before you came in. If you were not a little dunce at Greek, you would be able to construe the classic author ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... we must construe its nomenclature into, the language of the present day. What, then, is the modern synonym for the "ideas," "representations," "phantasms," and "species," which the theory in question declares to be vicarious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... in almost all cultivated languages, on almost all subjects and sciences; farther, as man is ever the prime object to man, already it was my favourite employment to read character in speculation, and from the Writing to construe the Writer. A certain groundplan of Human Nature and Life began to fashion itself in me; wondrous enough, now when I look back on it; for my whole Universe, physical and spiritual, was as yet a Machine! However, such a conscious, recognised groundplan, the truest ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... would like to understand whether we all construe the rule referring to the secrecy of our transactions alike. I am told that different constructions are placed upon it by different members, and would suggest the propriety of the PRESIDENT'S giving his views of the ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... very wisely decided not to allow the Indian question to rest upon the results of the campaign of 1863, which left the Indians in possession of the country west of the Missouri, rightly supposing that they might construe their escape from General Sibley the previous year into a victory. It therefore sent out another expedition in 1864, to pursue and attack them beyond the Missouri. The plan and outfit were very similar to those of 1863. General ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... force of the tendency to perversion may be more decisive and at other times more influence may be exerted by the collateral increase of the same through the deviation of the libido from the normal sexual aim and object. It would be unjust to construe a contrast where a cooperation exists. The greatest results will always be brought about by a neurosis if constitution and experience cooperate in the same direction. A pronounced constitution may perhaps be able to dispense with the assistance of ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... vessels in distress, and to deviate for the purpose of saving life and property.'' The nature and extent of the liberty will depend on the words of the contract. The inclination of English courts has been to construe clauses giving a liberty to deviate somewhat strictly against the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... toward boys, good scholars of their times; The least of these is past his accidence, Some at qui mihi; here's not a boy But he can construe all the grammar rules. Sed ubi sunt sodales? not yet come? Those tarde venientes shall be whipp'd. Ubi est Pipkin? where's that lazy knave? He plays the truant every Saturday; But Mistress Virga, Lady Willow-by,[12] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... arising out of the family of the oppressor himself. I am encouraged to believe that G.M. is likely again to enter on the field. More I dare not here say; nor must I drop a hint which another eye than thine might be able to construe. Enough, my feelings are lighter than they have been; and, though fear and wonder are still around me, they are unable ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... tragic opera can I regard it. Every sentence in it is accounted for by the course the drama takes; no further explanation is called for; and I shall certainly not waste my readers' time by picking out a few words here and there and trying to construe them into a metaphysical exposition: there is quite enough to digest without that. Even the longing for death which Tristan expresses as the only cure for the woes of an impossible life arises from the drama; Tristan no more preaches Schopenhauer than he preaches ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... ring at a quarter to eleven, and Tom got in early and took his place in the lowest row, and watched all the other boys come in and take their places, filling row after row; and tried to construe the Greek text which was inscribed over the door with the slightest possible success, and wondered which of the masters, who walked down the chapel and took their seats in the exalted boxes at the end, would be his lord. And then came the ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... though it would be wrong to construe it as an omen of Divine wrath, cannot but have an injurious effect on the fruits of the earth. Let it be your care to see that the scarcity of this one year does not bring ruin on us all. Even thus was it ordained ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... can construe in no other sense the verbose "article." It may be read in Dr Hay Fleming's 'Reformation in Scotland,' pp. 449, 450, with sufficient ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... more strange than true— That cloudy weather can construe Unto our thoughts a gloomy view, That all things seem ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... "Let them construe that who can," answered Whitaker; "the fellow who drove them was a west-country man, and only said they came from a friend to help to furnish out your ladyship's entertainment; the man would not ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... day; ever since you left me. You cannot conceive any thing more forlorn, more vacant, more anxious, than this weak heart has been and still is. I was terrified at my own sensations, and, with my usual folly, began to construe them into omens of evils; so inadequate, so disproportioned was my distress to the cause that ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... jolly Captain, snapping his fingers. "I know what young men are. A gay dashing lad, I suppose, whose hot blood and youthful frolics old maiden ladies construe into the most ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... the visit of the prince, when a royal messenger appeared, bearing a letter sealed with the king's signet. The old thane, who had passed his youth in more troublous times, and could scarcely read the Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels, then extant, could not construe the monkish Latin in which it was King Edred's good pleasure ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... college examination at Cambridge. Whewell was then Master of Trinity. One of the subjects I had to take up was either the 'Amicitia' or the 'Senectute' (I forget which). Whewell, more formidable and alarming than ever, opened the book at hazard, and set me on to construe. I broke down. He turned over the page; again I stuck fast. The truth is, I had hardly looked at my lesson, - trusting to my recollection of parts of it to carry me through, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... violet eyes that would have drawn Saint Pyrites from his iron pillar—or whatever the allusion is—and of the lady's smile and look—a little frightened, but a look that, with the ever coward hears of a true lover, he could not yet construe. They were asking his name and bestowing upon him wellbred thanks for his heroic deed, and the Scotch cap was especially babbling and insistent. But the eloquent appeal was in the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... times when, as he believed, that beautiful girl's high thoughts had tended toward him; there had been looks, gestures, even words, that had this effect to him, or that seemed to have had it; and Beaton saw that he might easily construe Mrs. Horn's confidential appeal to him to get Margaret interested in art again as something by no means necessarily offensive, even though it had been made to him as to a master of illusion. If Mrs. Horn had to choose between him and the life of good works to which her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... though I had afterwards proof to the contrary, a coward; and matching myself against him I knew I would do the king's navy more credit than he. But I kept my thought to myself—and next day made a sad bungle, I remember, of my construe of Thucydides' account of the sea fight ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... which certain laws of individual states have been sustained, in cases where, to say the least, it was very questionable whether they did not infringe the provisions of the constitution, and where a disposition to construe those previsions broadly and extensively, would have found very plausible grounds to indulge itself in annulling the state laws referred to. See the cases of City of New York vs. Miln, 11th Peters, 103; Briscoe vs. the Bank of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, ib., 257; Charles ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... fight Hood at Pulaski, as he (Thomas) had at first ordered. I simply submitted to him the plain record, with the best possible construction I could put upon it, and that only so far as it was necessary for me to construe it to give the general basis of my action. If any official duty remained to be done in that regard, that duty devolved on General ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... breakfasted on a slice of yam, they were fully prepared to quit the island. But as it was not deemed either politic or proper to go away till the arrival of the great king of the dark water, who was hourly expected, and who might be inclined to construe their departure into contempt, they consented to await his coming. Rather, however, than remain in a close black hut, full of men, whose garments were generally covered with vermin, and rarely if ever cleaned, and who made it a common practice to sit on the mat where ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Fujiwara no Matate, and to the privy councillors, Fujiwara no Yoshitsugu, Fujiwara no Momokawa, and Fujiwara no Uwona. It was with the Fujiwara families that the responsibility rested chiefly, and the general conduct of the Fujiwara at that period of history forbids us to construe their apparent indifference in a wholly bad sense. Probably the simplest explanation is the true one: ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... dreams, which the poets superstitiously observed, and truly, (sith they had not the light of Christ,) did much better in it than the philosophers, who, shaking off superstition, brought in atheism. Plato therefore, (whose authority I had much rather justly construe, than unjustly resist,) meant not in general of poets, in those words of which Julius Scaliger saith qua auctoritate barbari quidam atque hispidi abuti velint, ad poetas e republica exigendos: but only ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... a mere whim which sprang up suddenly out of nothing, and which will as suddenly vanish into nothing. They, therefore, confidently expect a reaction. They are always looking out for a reaction. Everything that they see, or that they hear, they construe into a sign of the approach of this reaction. They resemble the man in Horace, who lies on the bank of the river, expecting that it will every moment pass by and leave him a clear passage, not knowing the depth and abundance of the fountain ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the Scholar," cried Captain Westbury, laughing; and he called to a trooper out of the window—"Ho, Dick, come in here and construe." ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the dimly revealed, slender figure trudging sturdily in front, Beth Norvell began to dread the necessity of again having to meet Winston under such conditions. What would he naturally think? He could scarcely fail to construe such action on his behalf as one inspired by deep personal interest, and she instinctively shrank from such revealment, fearing his glance, his word of welcome, his expressions of surprised gratitude. The awkwardness, ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... tales; and a wise teacher led him later through Virgil and Terence and Plautus and the Italian poets in the same freedom of spirit. Withal, he never acquired any facility in Greek,[152] and, refusing to play the apprentice where he was accustomed to be master,[153] he declined to construe in a difficult tongue; read his Plutarch in Amyot; and his Plato, doubtless, in the Latin version. It all goes with the peculiar spontaneity of his mind, his reactions, his style; and it was in virtue of this undulled spontaneity that he was fitted to be for Shakspere, ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... early occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... If properly checked in time, evil propensities may be eradicated; but this should not extend to anything but serious defects; otherwise, the intuitive perceptions which all children possess will construe the act into "spying" and "informing," which should never be resorted to in the case of children, nor, indeed, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... stopped here. If they had, they would have accomplished but half their work. No definition can be so clear as to avoid the possibility of doubt; no limitation so precise, as to exclude all uncertainty. Who, then, shall construe this grant of the people? Who shall interpret their will, where it may be supposed they have left it doubtful? With whom do they repose this ultimate right of deciding on the powers of the government? Sir, they have settled all this in the fullest manner. They have left it with the government ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... that our sensations ever transcend the sphere of sense, or attain a real objective existence. "Colour, hardness, figure, and so forth," he will say, "are generated within the sphere of sense, in obedience to its own original laws. They form integral parts of the sphere; and he who endeavours to construe them to his own mind as embodied in extrinsic independent existences, must for ever be foiled in the attempt." This man declines giving any answer to the problem. We ask, how can our sensations be embodied in distinct permanent realities? And he replies, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... other unclassical place which never had a Latin name, we are much mistaken! The "Relievo dei Cavalli" at Alcamo offers no relief for you! The Magpie may prate on her sign-post about clean beds, for magpies can be made to say any thing; but pray do not construe the "Canova Divina" Divine Canova! He never executed any thing for the Red Lion of Calatafrini, whose "Canova" is a low wine-shop, full of wrangling Sicilian boors. Or will you place yourself under the Eagle's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... paused before a puff-jawed Triton, who wallowed in an arid basin and uplifted toward heaven what an indulgent observer might construe as a broken conch-shell. "Love! Mon Dieu, how are the superior fallen! I have not the decency to conceal even from myself that I love my wife! I am shameless, I had as lief proclaim it from the house-tops. And a month ago—tarare, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... construe the Constitution, or to ascertain the powers of the Government and the rights of the citizens, it is legitimate and necessary to recur to those principles and make them the guide in such investigation. It is an oft-repeated ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... third and fourth guard to wrangle the remuda, I sent Levering up the creek with my brother's horses and to recover our loaned saddle stock; even Bob Quirk was just thoughtless enough to construe a neighborly act into a horse trade. About two miles out from the creek and an equal distance from the trail, I found the best bed-ground of the trip. It sloped to the northwest, was covered with old dry grass, and would catch any vagrant breeze except ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... serious things indeed—things which touched even the life of his master. So it is no wonder that at this time of day he rather resented pains being taken with his education. It was like setting a double-first to construe ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... that point, we should unhesitatingly defer to the opinion of the Court of Appeals, which held that it would give it that construction if the case called for it. In view of the language above quoted it would be unbecoming for us to say that the Court of Appeals would not construe the law as applicable to domestic commerce alone, and if it did, the case would fall directly within the Mississippi Case.[43] We, therefore, feel compelled to give it that construction ourselves and so construe ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury," etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... The senate now made an attempt to open up to Gracchus a tolerable retreat; two consulars challenged him to discuss the matter further in the senate house, and the tribune entered into the scheme with zeal. He sought to construe this proposal as implying that the senate had conceded the principle of distributing the domain-land; but neither was this implied in it, nor was the senate at all disposed to yield in the matter; the discussions ended without any result. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... holy men is to be construed, as we construe the doctrine of an over-ruling and special Providence; of the divine supervision and guidance of the church; of the faithfulness of God in answering prayer. The truth of these doctrines is not inconsistent with the existence ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... then neither abstract oneness nor abstract independence exists; only concrete real things exist, which add to these properties the other properties which they possess, to make up what we call their total nature. To construe any one of their abstract names as making their total nature impossible is a misuse of the function of naming. The real way of rescue from the abstract consequences of one name is not to fly to an opposite name, equally abstract, but ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... their dispute on the meaning of this sentence in a tract considerably longer than the poem of Horace. It is printed at the close of the eleventh volume of Madame de Sevigne's Letters, edited by Grouvelle, Paris, 1806. Presuming that all who can construe may venture an opinion on such subjects, particularly as so many who can't have taken the same liberty, I should have held "my farthing candle" as awkwardly as another, had not my respect for the wits of Louis 14th's Augustan "Siecle" induced ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... volatile to his nose, lectures on strength. Fellows who faint at the veriest trifle criticise the tactics of Hannibal; whimpering boys store themselves with phrases out of the slaughter at Canna; and blubber over the victories of Scipio, because they are obliged to construe them. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the Caribbean Sea, or dangerous heretics menaced the Catholic faith there. Inquisitors might have been suspicious, but the Inquisition had not yet been established beyond the Atlantic. The Queen of England was his sovereign's sister-in-law, and the Governor saw no reason why he should construe his general instructions too literally. The planters were eager to buy, and he did not wish to be unpopular. He allowed Hawkins to sell two out of his three hundred negroes, leaving the remaining hundred as a deposit should question be raised about the duty. Evidently ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... to control, and are unable to discern between sternness of manner, and a cold unfeeling hardness of heart; and construe into insults and injuries the necessary restraint imposed upon their actions for their good. Yours, I admit, was a painful situation, which you rendered still more unpleasant by your ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... were alarmed—nay, they expressed their alarm so anxiously, that I dared not pronounce the word plague, that hovered on my lips, lest they should construe my perturbed looks into a symptom, and see infection in my languor. I had scarcely recovered, and with feigned hilarity had brought back smiles into my little circle, when ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... in the lower fifth; for we don't get through more than we used to do there; and if you were to hear the men construe, it would make your hair stand on end. Where on earth can they have come from? Unless they blunder on purpose, as I often think. Of course, I never look at a lecture before I go in, I know it all nearly by heart, so it would be sheer waste ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... congratulated him sincerely; and he was very sensible to my approbation, for I was not accustomed to greet him with "Good; very good," on all occasions. It is true, knowing his character as I did, I avoided saying anything that was calculated to offend him; but when I said nothing, he knew very well how to construe my silence. Had I flattered him I should ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... sighed deeply, then began to smile again. Now he understood. He understood that Nekhludoff's mind was not entirely sound, and he immediately tried to find a way of profiting by Nekhludoff's project, and endeavored to so construe it that he might turn ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... intended as guides for and restrictions upon the administrative officials, but in all cases the latter are given considerable latitude. The cost of the benefit, therefore, depends largely upon the strictness with which the officials construe the rules. In those unions where the injuries entitling to a benefit are not specifically defined, the officers have great discretionary power. Indeed, even if they have the best intention, it is in many ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy
... confessions," responded he. "I may say that I never could construe your visits to Paul, the ingenious artist, merely as dictated by admiration of his ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... of all legislation, and the referee in all disputes. Lawyers trained by the study of this code learned to conceive of all the functions of the state as acts, powers, and rights of a monarchical sovereign. They stood beside the kings and princes of the later Middle Ages ready to construe the institutions of suzerainty into this monarchical form. They broke down feudalism and helped to build the absolutist dynastic state, wherever the Roman law was in force, and wherever it had greatly influenced the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... 'Tis not for us, on reason's shifting grounds, Lightly to guide and construe rites divine. Perform thy duty; I'll accomplish mine. Two strangers, whom in caverns of the shore We found conceal'd, and whose arrival here Bodes to my realm no good, are in my power. With them thy goddess may once more resume Her ancient, ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... are not endowed with the prodigious talents which we have. I have always had a regard for dunces,—those of my own school days were among the pleasantest of the fellows, and have turned out by no means the dullest in life; whereas, many a youth who could turn off Latin hexameters by the yard, and construe Greek quite glibly, is no better than a feeble prig now, with not a pennyworth more brains than were in his head before his ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... intention of the legislator as evidenced by—what I should like to call—the history of the clause. They look for the intention of the draftsman, they search the Parliamentary proceedings concerning the clause, and they interpret and construe the clause with regard to the intention of the draftsman as well as to the ...
— The League of Nations and its Problems - Three Lectures • Lassa Oppenheim
... the administration had operated so much, that he was dismissed with honour; and Only instructed to abridge all delays by authority of the House-in short, "we spit in his hat on Thursday, and wiped it off on Friday." This is a now fashionable proverb, which I must construe to you. About ten days ago, at the new Lady Cobham's(105) assembly, Lord Hervey(106) was leaning over a chair, talking to some women, and holding his hat in his hand. Lord Cobham came up and spit in it—yes, spit in it!—and then, with a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... or indeed, whilst my hand is in, I charge it with full pay. And I strictly enjoin upon my trustees and executors, but especially upon the man in the moon, if his unsocial lip has left him one spark of gentlemanly feeling, that he and they shall construe all claims liberally; nay, with that riotous liberality which is safe and becoming, when applied to a fund so inexhaustible. Yes, reader, my fund will be inexhaustible, because the period of its growth will be measured by the concurrent deposition ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the folio edition of Jonson's works. Probably this sonnet—it has fourteen lines—is one of the most cryptic things in the whole of Elizabethan literature. No member of our family or any other family has ever been able to construe it. Yet it is a pleasure to me to gather from the concluding couplet that the author ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... was not favorable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old enough now to be apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with the poker on his knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the lower bars, my sister would so distinctly construe that innocent action into opposition on his part, that she would dive at him, take the poker out of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to lead up to it, my ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... for trouble and annoyances we had caused them, thanks for their past kindness, and the hope that they would write to us again when convenient. We referred to our contentment in our new home, and avoided any words which they might construe as a ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... di on ta panta kai di ou ta panta pollous vious eis doxan agagonta ton archegon tes sotepias auton dia pethematon teleiosai. The English translators take agagonta as referring to the same person as auto, but it seems grammatically preferable to construe it as ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... tempora! can pedantry compel Musicians who write choruses to construe them as well? Is this (I ask) the way to deal with genius great and high? Why fetter it with Latin Prose? and Echo ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... would require no small share of casuistry to construe this declaration into an acceptance of the bargain, but the Saracens, having heard the offer of their sovereign, deliberately counted out the stipulated sum on the mantle of Sir Isumbras; took possession of the lady, carried the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... more sincerity of heart than in my piece though written by a professed republican, I dared not declare myself the panegyrist of a nation, whose maxims were exactly the reverse of my own. More grieved at the misfortunes of France than the French themselves I was afraid the public would construe into flattery and mean complaisance the marks of a sincere attachment, of which in my first part I have mentioned the date and the cause, and which ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... wording, a recognition of his unswerving loyalty would have accorded better with the estimate I had otherwise formed of her character. The absence of any tone or word that even one so devoted as I could construe to her advantage was puzzling ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... let him get the Titles and Descriptions by heart, which he will more easily do, by reason of these impressions which the viewing of the pictures hath already made in his memory. And now let him also learn, 1.To construe, or give the words one by one, as they answer one another in Latin and English. 2.To Parse, according to the rules, (which I presume by this time) he hath learn'd in the first part of his Accidence; where I would have him tell what part of Speech any ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius
... occasion, she ordered the coachman to stop near the Rue du Helder, and she reached the street just in time to betray her secret to Victor Chupin, and receive a foul insult from M. Wilkie. The latter's cruel words stabbed her to the heart, and yet she tried to construe them as mere proofs of her son's honesty of feeling—as proof of his scorn for the depraved creatures who haunt the boulevards each evening. But though her energy was indomitable, her physical strength was not equal to her will. On returning home, she felt so ill that she ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... be a courtier of popular favor he did not conceal from himself or from others the chagrin which he would feel if there should be a manifestation of popular disfavor. Before the popular election he stated that if it should go against him he should construe it as the verdict of the people that they were dissatisfied with his services as a public man, and he should then retire to private life, no longer expecting or accepting public functions. He did not regard politics as a struggle in ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... look'd about, she did behold How over that same door was likewise writ, Be Bold—Be Bold, and everywhere Be Bold. Whereat she mused, and could not construe it; At last she spied at that room's upper end Another iron door, on which was writ— ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... lawyer who has obscured the main issue as much as he can, and whose chief aim has been to leave as many loopholes as possible for himself to escape by, if things should go wrong hereafter. Or, again, to that of one who has to construe an Act of Parliament which was originally drawn with a view to throwing as much dust as possible in the eyes of those who would oppose the measure, and which, having been found utterly unworkable in practice, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... them all, from Stoneman down, Thy smile who construe and expound Thy frown, And fall with saintly grace upon their knees To render thanks when Thou dost ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... clauses are immoral that is enough for our purpose, and shews that no honest man should engage to uphold them. Who has the right to construe and expound the laws? Of course the Courts of the Nation. The Constitution provides (Article 3, Section 2,) that the Supreme Court shall be the final and only interpreter of its meaning. What says the Supreme Court? ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... could have been more commonplace than the greeting exchanged. Even the fancy of fourteen years could not construe Constance's "Hello, old boy!" and Max's nonchalantly offered hand into the slightest foundation for a romance. So far as outward appearances went Max was much more affectionate towards the Colonel, who did not disguise his marked ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... was agreed that he should take lessons of me; and to my house he came every evening, and I gave him what instructions I could. I was astonished at his progress. He acquired the pronunciation in a lesson, and within a week was able to construe and converse. By the time he left Llangollen, and he was not here in all more than two months, he understood the Welsh Bible as well as I did, and could speak Welsh so well that the Welsh, who did not ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... day—take him fresh from Alexander Smith, or Alfred Tennyson's Maud, or the Mystic of Bailey—and we will engage to find him at least ten passages in the first ten pages of Men and Women, some of which, even after profound study, he will not be able to construe at all, and not one of which he will be able to read off at sight. Let us take one or two selections at random from the first volume, and try. What, for instance, is the meaning of these four stanzas from the poem entitled "By ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... right, upon all doubtful points, to construe the charter in that manner which was most favorable to himself. But no interpretation was allowed inconsistent with the "Sacrosancta Dei" and the "Vera Christiana Religio"—the former implying a prohibition of the most wicked ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... to know how many women truly want the suffrage, and how, when it was won, the earnest anti-tariff wife would construe the marriage service in the face of the husband's belief in high tariff. The indirect influence of women in politics is worth a thought. We felt it sorely in 1861, and thence on to the war's end, and to-day it is the woman ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... in 1803, was an era in the world of English letters. The papers were not merely reviews, but monographs on interesting subjects—a new anatomy of history; it was in a general way an exponent, but quite an independent one, of the Whig party, or those who would liberally construe the Constitution,—putting Churchmen and Dissenters on the same platform; although published in Edinburgh, it was neither Scotch nor Presbyterian. It attacked ancient prescriptions and customs; agitated questions long considered settled both of present ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... vnto hym the Epistles of Cicero, gathered togither and chosen out by Sturmius, for the capacitie of children. First, let him teach the childe, cherefullie and plainlie, the cause, and matter of the letter: then, let him construe it into Englishe, so oft, as the childe may // The order easilie carie awaie the vnderstanding of it: // of teaching. Lastlie, parse it ouer perfitlie. This done thus, let the childe, by and by, both construe and parse it ouer againe: so, that it may appeare, that the childe ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... held apart, for there is as yet no trace of that conception, according to which the body of Christ represented in the bread[292] is the sacrifice offered by the community. But one feels almost called upon here to construe from the premises the later development of the idea, with due regard to the ancient Hellenic ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... have had three hundred thousand francs in gold, she might have had ten times the landed property she actually possessed, and the du Guenics would never have allowed themselves to pay her the slightest attention that the old woman could construe as looking to her fortune. From a feeling of truly Breton pride, Jacqueline de Pen-Hoel, glad of the supremacy accorded to her old friend Zephirine and the du Guenics, always showed herself honored by her relations with Madame du Guenic and her sister-in-law. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... I could learn you to be famous, hey?" Even the words of this gutter filth he sought to construe into something nattering ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... able to affirm that the interior is all one immense elevated plateau. Information which I obtained from an elderly missionary at Hopedale, together with numerous indications that an intelligent naturalist would know how to construe, enabled P—— to determine this fact with confidence. It is a table-land "varying from five to twenty-five hundred feet in height." Here not a tree grows, not a blade of grass, only lichens and moss, What a vast and terrible waste it must be! Where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... draped over her bust with unconquerable grace, and a black reboso folded about her fine proud head, rode down to the beach with Ana Paula on the aquera behind and Gertrudis Rudisinda on her arm. The boys howled on the corridor, but the good senora felt she could not too liberally construe the kind invitation of a chamberlain of ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... all; they were years, as he forcibly says, "dragged out in disputations."[413] Did he mean to include those eight years in his forty spent upon the sea? Navarrete thinks he did not. When he wrote under excitement, as in this letter, his language was apt to be loose, and it is fair to construe it according to the general probabilities of the case. This addition of eight years brings his statement substantially into harmony with that of Bernaldez, which it really will not do to set aside lightly. Moreover, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... definite mental background which it is the purpose of the lecture to modify in a specific way. In the presentation of a novel outlook with wide ramifications a single line of communications from premises to conclusions is not sufficient for intelligibility. Your audience will construe whatever you say into conformity with their pre-existing outlook. For this reason the first two chapters and the last two chapters are essential for intelligibility though they hardly add to the formal completeness of the exposition. Their ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... therefore could not have been guilty of the heartless allusion to it in the Dedicatory Epistle, he there said, "If anything occurred to me that might seem to look that way, I referred to the mind,"—a phrase which it is difficult to construe otherwise than as an admission that he had written the Dedicatory Epistle, but had employed the familiar quotation there ("monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum") only metaphorically. All in all, then, the authorship of the Dedicatory Epistle, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... emphasize the fundamental opposition of principle, and to exasperate the war party in the United States. To deprive a foreign merchant vessel of men was not considered a hostile act; and the difference in the case of ships of war was only because the Crown chose so to construe. The argument was, that to retain seamen of British birth, when recalled by proclamation, was itself hostile, because every such seaman disobeying this call was a deserter. It was to be presumed that a foreign Power would not countenance their detention, and on this presumption no search of its ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... actions too, Possess a subtle meaning, when That meaning others may construe, As plain ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... water as on the land. His feats of diving and swimming were remarkable; and a better rabbit-dog and more sagacious, courageous watchdog never lived. As to the languages, I will acknowledge he could speak none; but he understood English perfectly, and never failed to construe rightly any of Mr Clare's Latin addresses—much better than ever Walter could do. Indeed, Mr Clare's commands to and conversations with Ugly were ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... might be given of the other grants, such restraint, though the most innocent, could not have failed to have had an injurious effect on the vital principles of the Government and often on its most important measures. Those who might wish to defeat a measure proposed might construe the power relied on in support of it in a narrow and contracted manner, and in that way fix a precedent inconsistent with the true import of the grant. At other times those who favored a measure might give to the power relied on a forced or strained construction, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... leave of Mrs. Allen. He feared that if he said more she might construe it as a request, that she should immediately lay his proposal before Mabel. With a despairing, haunted look ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... eyes, but with the atoms," he said. "When your conviction of a truth is not merely in your brain but in your being, you may diffidently vouch for its meaning." He discouraged any tendency a student might have to construe book-knowledge as a ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... darted a suspicious glance up and down the street. There was no one whom even the clever Henri Dubois could construe as an enemy—no one save some chattering Marseillais loitering around their doorsteps, and three girls huddled together in ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... of impassioned malice against German translations of the Bible, and against laymen who sought edification from them. He says that "no prudent person will deny that there is need of many supplements and explanations from other writings" than the Bible, to the end, namely, that a person may construe from the German Bibles the true Catholic faith. Fact is, that faith is not in the Bible. This happened three years after the birth of Luther. ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau |
