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Critical   Listen
adjective
Critical  adj.  
1.
Qualified to criticise, or pass judgment upon, literary or artistic productions. "It is submitted to the judgment of more critical ears to direct and determine what is graceful and what is not."
2.
Pertaining to criticism or the critic's art; of the nature of a criticism; accurate; as, critical knowledge; a critical dissertation.
3.
Inclined to make nice distinctions, or to exercise careful judgment and selection; exact; nicely judicious. "Virgil was so critical in the rites of religion, that he would never have brought in such prayers as these, if they had not been agreeable to the Roman customs."
4.
Inclined to criticise or find fault; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting. "O gentle lady, do not put me to 't, For I am nothing, if not critical."
5.
Characterized by thoroughness and a reference to principles, as becomes a critic; as, a critical analysis of a subject.
6.
Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis, turning point, or specially important juncture; important as regards consequences; hence, of doubtful issue; attended with risk; dangerous; as, the critical stage of a fever; a critical situation. "Our circumstances are indeed critical." "The small moment, the exact point, the critical minute, on which every good work so much depends."
Critical angle (Optics), that angle of incidence of a luminous ray at which it is wholly reflected, and no portion of it transmitted. The sine of this angle is the reciprocal of the refractive index of the medium.
Critical philosophy, the metaphysical system of Kant; so called from his most important work, the "Critique of Pure Reason."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Critical" Quotes from Famous Books



... too long, in a note, to enter upon any critical discussion respecting the Ophir of Solomon, which was more probably at Sofala, on the eastern coast ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... one of the de' Medici family, succeeded to the Papacy at a most critical period in the civil and religious history of Europe. The time that he spent at the court of his cousin, Leo X., and the traditions of his family and of his native city of Florence made it almost impossible for him to throw ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... inexhaustible purse, he dismissed his guest. When the fisherman got back to his village he found he had been away more than six months. In the chapter on Changelings I had occasion to refer to some instances of women being carried off at a critical time in their lives. One more such instance may be added here. Among the Bohemians a mythical female called Polednice is believed to be dangerous to women who have recently added to the population; ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... it was impossible to resist so good-humoured an intruder. She held her head high and walked like a queen, till a turn of the water hid her. "It's a wumman," gasped the smaller boy. "And she's terrible bonny," commented the more critical brother. Then the two fell again to the quest of ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... it was necessary to send down to him, passed between him and the Secretary of State, and was, as usual, entrusted to the care of the post-office. The Continent was just then in a more than ordinarily critical state; we were thought to be upon the verge of an European war; and there were murmurs floating about, at the dispersion of the ministry up and down the country. These circumstances made the charge of the despatch-box the more interesting to me. It was very similar in size and shape to ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... living on unfriendly terms with him or his wife appeared preposterous, whereas a single false step at this critical period might easily make Bridget her enemy for life. So Sybil expressed her willingness to fall in with Jimmy's wishes; she would go to Blackheath in the motor-car early the following morning, inconvenient as the expedition ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb

... which stood with Nestorius. Although it does not state the whole doctrine of Theodore, yet its historical position is so important that its characteristic passages belong in the present connection. Bibliographical and critical notes ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... There was that about her uncle which always acted on her moral sense like an opiate, lulling it to sleep and preventing it from rising up and becoming critical. If he had stolen a watch and chain, he would somehow have succeeded in convincing her that he had acted for the best under the dictates of a ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... to maintain an actual formal protectorate over the S. Amer. states, but it did frankly undertake to act as their nearest friend in the settlement of controversies with European nations, and no President, whether Rep. or Dem., had hesitated since this critical dispute concerning the boundaries of Brit. Guiana arose to urge its settlement ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... the world responds with the tune to the mightiest master's song, he knows, if not another echo should come back, that he has uttered a true cry. But Ginevra had not received it, and being therefore of her own mind, and not of the song's, was critical. It is of the true things it does not, perhaps cannot receive, that human nature ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... strips of bark.[423] According to Featherstonhaugh, who visited the establishment a year later, thirty acres were under cultivation and the yield of corn amounted to eight hundred bushels. It is interesting to note that this critical traveller found only one thing about Fort Snelling to commend and that was the self-sacrifice ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... Brigade the casualties suffered by the Division during the heavy German counter-attacks had been heavier than those at Ypres. The 2/4 Oxfords by luck had escaped a share in this fighting, and the Battalion's casualties during these critical ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... Defence of the Realm Acts, but if any wise Scotland Yard officer had listened to it he would probably have considered it harmless because of its contradictions. It was full of a fierce earnestness, and it was full of humour—long-drawn American metaphors at which that most critical audience roared with laughter. But it was not the kind of thing that they were accustomed to, and I could fancy what Wake would have said of it. The conviction grew upon me that Blenkiron was deliberately trying to prove himself an honest idiot. If so, it was a huge ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... The critical period draws near, and our military hero can scarce restrain his valor. Indeed, he shows symptoms of wanting to rush out and annihilate the whole band of Arabs and Moors, but Lady Ruth restrains him, as though she is clever enough to see the folly of ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... detestable school, we certainly have no hope that our remarks will reform the French novelism of the day; but we call on the critical press of England to take up the rational and righteous task of reforming ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... he accepted the editorship of a periodical called "Select Reviews," to which during the next two years he contributed various critical and biographical articles. He found little to his liking in the editorial and still less in the critical part of his work. "I do not profess," he wrote, "the art and mystery of reviewing, and am not ambitious of being wise or facetious at the expense of others." He was never a good critic, ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... as if they had been chiselled out of their native granite—men who settled themselves with a grave kind of enjoyment to listen to a full hour's sermon, and who watched every point their minister made with a critical acumen that seemed more fitting to a synod of divines than a congregation of weavers ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... it would be happy if nations would always follow the example of time, the greatest of all innovators, but who acts calmly and almost without being perceived. This happiness does not belong to colonies when they reach the critical juncture of emancipation; and least of all to Spanish America, engaged in the struggle at first not to obtain complete independence, but to escape from a foreign yoke. May these party agitations be succeeded by a lasting tranquillity! May the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... in the hands of the "grief" committee, and the belief became fixed in the minds of the officials that the employees were looking for trouble, the situation waxed critical. "Might as well make a clean job of it," the men would say; and then every man who had a grievance, a wound where there had been a grievance or a fear that he might have something to complain of in the future, ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman

... readily accepted his invitation to join the party. Bailli is recommended by Ford as "fat and good-humored" Fat he certainly is, and very good-humored when speaking of himself, but he has been rather spoiled by popularity, and is much too profuse in his critical remarks on art and architecture. Nevertheless, as my stay in Seville is limited, I have derived no slight ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... employs the peculiar combination of flutes and tenor trombones. In this number he also returns to the music of the opening number, "Requiem aeternam," and closes it with an "Amen" softly dying away. Thus ends the Requiem,—a work which will always be the subject of critical dispute, owing to its numerous innovations on existing musical forms and the daring manner in which the composer ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... of appealing to the sense of humor of several persons. The result is a collection of very carefully selected jokes and stories, only about fifty per cent of the material originally chosen being used. If any over-critical reader fails to find them humorous, may not the fault possibly be due to his ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... determined to do this, but wished gradually to reach the proper point, when, if the prospect looked bright, I might speak. My companion appeared to understand the situation—at least I imagined that the nearer I came to a proposal the more she seemed to expect it. It was certainly a very critical and important epoch in my life. If I spoke I should make myself happy or miserable forever; and if I did not speak I had every reason to believe that the lady would not give me another chance ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... apparently recovered, and was on the eve of returning home when he was suddenly seized with hemorrhage of the lungs, which rapidly reduced him and brought on prostration. Medical assistance had been obtained, but he now lay in a critical state, every means being used to prevent another attack, in which case ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... her to play one of her pieces, perhaps several. Has she not, ever since her plans for coming to the Conservatory were matured, been engaged in carefully training, manipulating, her battle-horse for this critical experiment? As the door of that little room closes upon her her knees begin to tremble. But how easy and reassuring is the director's manner! He requests her to be seated at the piano. Will she be able to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... the balance is steady. But can anybody doubt that this abdication of the seat of judgment by large numbers of people is most hurtful to mankind? Does anyone believe that there would be so many bad books, bad pictures, and bad buildings in the world if people were more justly critical? Bad things continue to be produced in profusion, and worse things are born of them, because a vast number of people do not know that the things are bad, and do not care, even if they do know. What sells the endless trash published every day? Not the few purchasers who ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest" (two volumes); "Old Virginia and her Neighbours" (two volumes); "The Beginnings of New England, or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty;" "The American Revolution" (two volumes); and "The Critical Period of American History, 1783-1789." Allied with these books, though hardly taking a place in the series, is "Civil Government in the United States, Considered with some Reference to its Origins," "The War of Independence," it will thus ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... whilst his round, red, convivial features became more inflamed, "you are super-critical ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... friend, against the day of your awakening— the day when the glamour of sex has vanished, and you see in her, as you will see, an inferior being, with a weak body, a stunted mind, devoid of creative power, almost devoid of imagination, utterly lacking in critical capacity—a being who does not know how to work, nor how to talk, ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell

... town with bands and banners and handbills and motor-cars for the saving of souls. Never at any time did I take part in nor was I attracted by any of these movements. My nature, although passionate, was too critical (or sceptical if you like, for it amounts to the same thing) and shy to be drawn into these whirls; but on several occasions Parload and I sat, scoffing, but nevertheless disturbed, in the ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... the church was critical and unsatisfactory. It was much too big for the village. It was ridiculous ... that little clump of chairs in all the huge emptiness ... what a waste of money, paying a parson to idle away his time among a dozen people.... "How Dreadful is this Place" ran ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... fellow exiles called him forth. The war was full of harrowing scenes and strange deliverances. Annie Brackett, a prisoner in an Indian party, crossed Casco Bay in a birch-bark canoe with her husband and infant and was rescued by a vessel which happened to enter the harbor at the critical moment. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... Saxmundham, where the paralysed Murple lay in the infirmary of the local practitioner, the other at the mortuary where the body of Tolliver was retained, awaiting the sitting of the coroner. Both the dead and the still living man Cleek had subjected to a critical personal examination, but whether either furnished him with any suggested clue he did not say. The only remark he made upon the subject was when Sir Henry, on hearing from Murple's wife that the doctor had said he ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... the end of the week the numbers diminished, not because there were not as many wounded, but because the situation was so critical that the Belgian authorities did not dare to leave any large number of wounded in Furnes. Supplies were coming out from England in response to urgent telegrams, and, through the kind offices of the Queen of the Belgians, we had been able to obtain a number of beds from the ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... one more of these faithful followers. This time it is a young woman. It is at the most critical juncture of God's plan, thus far. He needed a woman whom He could use to bring His Son, and could use further to mother that Son's early years. All unconsciously Mary of Nazareth and of Bethlehem was fitting into His plan in her life, her simple, ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... dressed, and attended by her black Chamberlain, drove out on a four-horse parcel-post van to see an exhibition of paintings on china at Messrs. HOWELL AND JAMES'S. It is perfectly true that in the course of my wanderings I had some champagne, but not a drop of chicken. Consequently, I have brought my critical faculty home with me entirely unimpaired. But ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various

... appearance behind the ears, often proves a most salutary effort of nature; and that, while it continues, the infant generally enjoys an exemption from those dangerous disorders, incident to this critical period of life. To imitate nature as closely as possible, the discharge from the blistered surface should be maintained for some time by stimulating dressings. I have witnessed the most beneficial effects from the practice, and can strongly ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... hour in the water and a critical examination of all the old gun-shot wounds of our whole squad, and the consequent verdict that it was simply impossible to kill a man, we returned to camp and began getting supper. There was no stomach so sensitive amongst us that ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... English Critical Terms. A vocabulary of 1400 critical terms used in literature and art, with critical and historical data for ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... to my certain knowledge," said he in the tone of one bringing forward a piece of critical analysis that was rather mortifying to exhibit. "The one is a woman and the other is John Calvin. If it's Amy, throw it off and be a man. If it's Calvinism, throw it off and become an Episcopalian." He ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... the first article in the creed by which business training must be guided. The growing necessity for critical and searching analysis of business problems, justifies all the effort we can put forth to develop plans for training into a structure of which scientific method shall be the corner-stone. But analysis is not all. Following analysis must come synthesis. Somewhere all the facts and ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss

... sages of India, who, for the first time in history, formulated the true principles of freedom and devoted themselves to the holy quest of truth and the final assessment and discovery of the ultimate spiritual essence of man through their concrete lives, critical thought, dominant will ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... Tibbetti," Bosambo went on, as yet uncertain of his ruler's attitude, since Bones must need, at this critical moment, employ English and idiomatic English, "that since the last moon was young I have lain in my hut never moving, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, being like a dead man—all this my ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... critical moment there was a rap at the door, and Winder, the butler, entered, respectfully apologetic, to summon Mr. Bowden to the telephone. The lawyer answered the call, which was apparently a very urgent one, for, without another word to Everard and Lilias, he took ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... you ever been called upon to sing Pop Goes the Weasel in a falsetto voice before a fractious baby, a small but intensely critical child, a stolidly contemptuous nurse, an agitated mother and a gaping photographer, with the knowledge that success or failure hangs upon your lips, and that all the time a diabolical machine in the street below is scoring threepence against you every ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various

... me a personal introduction. Fortunately I had brought with me a paper which I submitted on the spot; it was entitled, "Literature of the American War," collated from such campaign ballads as I could remember, eked out with my own, and strung together with explanatory and critical paragraphs. The third day following, I received this announcement in shockingly ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... these things, and now all her woman's instincts began to bloom at once. She wanted to dress and care for her treasure and deluged him with small trinkets, many of them made by her own somewhat bungling hands. After these more intimate desires had been gratified, Adelle might take a critical look at the canvas over which Archie was dawdling and pronounce it "pretty" or "odd," or ask what it was meant to be. Then throwing herself down on the sand or turf and pulling her broad straw hat over her face she prepared for "talk." "Talk" consisted ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... drawn, he wrote a friend, "Inclination having yielded to Importunity, I am now contrary to all expectation under the hands of Mr. Peale; but in so grave—so sullen a mood—and now and then under the influence of Morpheus, when some critical strokes are making, that I fancy the skill of this Gentleman's Pencil will be put to it, in describing to the World what manner of man I am." This passiveness seems to have seized him at other sittings, for in 1785 ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... Aguinaldo as an independent ally, and entered into formal co-operation with him, it may be stated that the government at Washington is unaware that any such thing has happened. Admiral Dewey, who was in command of all the United States forces during the most critical period, expressly cabled the Secretary of the Navy that he had entered into no formal agreement with Aguinaldo. If General Otis followed his instructions, and of that there can be no doubt, he also refrained from entering into any ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... protracted excursion I have not forgotten that I left Mr. Talbert leaning against our party fence, with his arms resting on the top, after a keen if not critical survey of his dwelling. He did not take up our talk at just the point where we had been in it, but after a reflective moment, he said, "I don't remember just whether Mrs. Temple told my mother-in-law you ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... from a want of discipline in their society, and partly from the absence of those studies which purify the taste, enlighten the judgment, and make, even dulness respectable. American audiences are not critical—not merely because they are not learned, but because they all take it in turns to be orators, as they do to be colonels of militia and justices of the peace. Thus they learn to bear each other's burdens, and Dulness is fully justified of her children. In a country where all men, at least ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... Eagle's Nest," such the author of "A Flatiron for a Farthing," and "The Story of a Short Life." Such, above all, the author of "Alice in Wonderland." Grownups imagine that they can do the trick by adopting baby language and talking down to their very critical audience. There never was a greater mistake. The imagination of the author must be a child's imagination and yet maturely consistent, so that the White Queen in "Alice," for instance, is seen just as a child would see her, but she continues always herself through all her ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... damp mould as fast as I covered him up. . . . Lilian and I were engaged, and we were in church together on Sunday, and the poodle, resisting all attempts to eject him, forbade our banns with sepulchral barks. . . . It was our wedding-day, and at the critical moment the poodle leaped between us and swallowed the ring. . . . Or we were at the wedding-breakfast, and Bingo, a grisly black skeleton with flaming eyes, sat on the cake and would not allow Lilian to cut it. ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... reached a critical point in his undertaking. Lydia watched in silence the deft manipulations of his strong, brown fingers, wondering at the eager, almost sparkling, alertness with which he went from one step to another of the ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... efforts to prosecute traffickers and protect trafficking victims; government authorities continued to rescue victims of commercial sexual exploitation and forced child labor and child armed combatants, and began to show progress in law enforcement against these forms of trafficking; a critical challenge overall is the lack of punishment for traffickers, effectively resulting in impunity for acts of human trafficking; India has not ratified the 2000 UN ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... at results, in several cases, only by considerable calculation, the bases of which may not always have been entirely reliable, errors may have crept in. Though the author is aware that, in a few instances, the age stated does not agree with that assigned by other recognized authority, critical re-analysis seems to warrant and confirm ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... to the cigar divan, where they sell Parique tobacco, the swinging of one's legs seems to act like a pendulum to the clockwork of one's brain. One meditates all the way, and chiefly on how few people there are who can really—to a critical adept—be said to stay ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... knoweth, not from any vanity of authorship, or because of any undue confiding in my poor ability to edify one justly held in repute among the learned, but because my heart tells me that what I write, be it ever so faulty, will be read by the partial eye of my kinsman, and not with the critical observance of the scholar, and that his love will not find it difficult to excuse what offends his clerkly judgment. And, to embolden me withal, I will never forget that I am writing for mine old playmate at hide-and-seek in the farm-house at Hilton,—the same who used to hunt ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... of these vests; which she performed so effectually, that in a moment, like so many footmen who had quitted their master's livery, we all took it again, and returned to our old service; so that the very time of doing it gave a very critical advantage to France, since it looked like an evidence of our returning to her interest, as well as to their fashion. "The Character of a Trimmer" ("Miscellanies by the Marquis of Halifax," 1704, p. 164). Evelyn reports that when the king expressed his intention never to alter ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... broad, and hard, and rough, and not much like Mrs. Geraldine's, on which there were diamonds enough to more than liquidate the debt due to Elizabeth Rogers and her heirs; and no wonder that her dress, which so often offended her brother's artistic and critical eye, was coarse, and plain, and selected with a view to durability rather than comeliness. She had done what she could, and what few women would have done, and Burton knew it, and was conscious of a great feeling of respect and pity, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... critical regard was in them. Ah! had she wronged him with her fears for the future? Her heart seemed full of trust to-night, full of confidence in him and in herself. It seemed to her that if he were here she could ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... problem was perfect. The circus folk formed a critical rehearsal audience and as Joe swam about in the inner tank with the seal, and as the goldfish flitted about in the ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum

... forget the things we are fighting for. But, at this critical period of the war, we should confine ourselves to the larger objectives and not get bogged down in argument over ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... a hearty appetite to the dinner. The plate was dingy, and the meat neither very abundant nor very tender. Still it can hardly be expected that for fifteen cents a large plate of sirloin can be furnished. Ben was not in a mood to be critical. At home he would have turned up his nose at such a repast, but hunger is very well adapted to cure one of fastidiousness. He ate rapidly, and felt that he had seldom eaten anything so good. He was sorry there was no ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... At that critical moment there broke upon their ears a distant sound that caused them both to start and look round anxiously. It was faint, and so far away that at first they could make nothing of it. A few seconds later it was repeated louder ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... these introductory notices, they will, I hope, facilitate the comprehension of the critical details into which it has been necessary to enter in the following pages, and lend some new interest to the subjects described. I have heard the artistic treatment of the Madonna styled a monotonous theme; and to those who see only the perpetual iteration of the same groups on the ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... author's name and fame. "The Garden of Allah," of all Mr. Hichens' works the most typical of his genius, appeared in 1905. "The intellectual grip of the story," says one critic, "cannot be denied, for it completely conquers the critical sense, and the ideas of the author insinuate themselves, as it were, among one's inmost thoughts." Yet Mr. Hichens' stories are popular, not only with literary connoisseurs, but also with the general public, inasmuch as they owe their fascination not so much to an extreme refinement ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... a Madonna, his black and silver hat in his hand, his eyes critical and pleased as he walked to meet her. They sat down together on a seat, without speaking. Then, each longing for the other to speak —"You have come...." he said first. (His face was oval and his hair ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... good as to take the trouble to read the enclosed MS., and if you think it fit for publication in your admirable journal of 'Mind,' I shall be gratified. If you do not think it fit, as is very likely, will you please to return it to me. I hope that you will read it in an extra critical spirit, as I cannot judge whether it is worth publishing from having been so much interested in watching the dawn of the several faculties in my own infant. I may add that I should never have thought of sending you the MS., had not M. Taine's article appeared ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... the rock pale and irresolute. Once or twice he prepared to spring, and stopped from fear at the critical instant. In truth, the leap was now most formidable; to clear it was hopeless; and the fury of the rock-tormented waves rendered the prospect of a swim on the other side terrible to contemplate. Once in the grasp of one of those ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... the critical moment of the killing of the sacred cat to the perilous exodus from Asia with which it closes, is very skillfully constructed and full of exciting adventures. It is admirably ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... already excites wild and impatient hopes in our Australians, of which you will hear an echo. It is indeed a critical event, as determining an immense extension of the ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... raised for this object, and so rapidly did the majority of the Minister diminish during the discussion of it, that there appeared for some time a probability that the Whig party would be called into power,—an event which, happening at this critical juncture, might, by altering the policy of England, have changed the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... supper they again gathered in the parlor and an hour was devoted to music. Leopold neither played nor sang, but he was an attentive and critical listener. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and Leopold asked Rosa if she would not like to take a walk up on the Cliff. She readily consented, but Alice pleasantly declined Quincy's invitation to accompany them, and for the first time since the old days at Mason's Corner, he and ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... had risen simultaneously and were facing each other. McGee, with a good-natured, half-critical expression, laid his hand on Wayne's shoulder and slightly turned him towards the window, that he might see his face. It seemed to him white ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... manner the fear of the divine, born of unfamiliarity, instead of being an evidence of reverence or of religion, becomes the mark of ignorance and cowardice. Rectitude of conduct, resulting wholly from regulating oneself as under an all-seeing critical eye and in dread of a far-reaching devastating hand, cannot produce enrichment of character. Hatred ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... 13th—the minister a skilled hand; and the whole of that able churchful—from Argyle, and my Lords Elchies and Kilkerran, down to the halbertmen that came in their attendance—was sunk with gathered brows in a profound critical attention. The minister himself and a sprinkling of those about the door observed our entrance at the moment and immediately forgot the same; the rest either did not hear or would not heed; and I sat there amongst ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... truth subsists; he can degrade the artist, but he cannot change art. No doubt, nothing is more common than to see science and art bend before the spirit of the age, and creative taste receive its law from critical taste. When the character becomes stiff and hardens itself, we see science severely keeping her limits, and art subject to the harsh restraint of rules; when the character is relaxed and softened, science endeavors to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... propriety of not suffering copies of this commission to be taken for the press, and of accompanying the communication you may think proper to make of it, with such recommendations to exertion and vigilance, as prudence and the critical state of our affairs may require, since on a review of the conduct of the enemy, it will not appear extravagant to suppose, that this may be another of those artifices so often practised to deceive and put us off our guard. Though we have no official accounts, yet we have every reason to believe, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... "Now let's not be critical, Torchy," says Vee. "Marge told me all about it, how Stanley is a good deal worried over his business and so on. He's really doing very well, you know, but he can't seem to leave his office troubles behind, the way you do. He wants to make a big success, but he's ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford

... is not a "free" line, but an intensely continent, restrained, and considered line; and the action of the hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as "free," as the hand of a first-rate surgeon in a critical incision. A great operator told me that his hand could check itself within about the two-hundredth of an inch, in penetrating a membrane; and this, of course, without the help of sight, by sensation only. With help of sight, and in action on a substance ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... she talked like a married woman, was critical, yet easy; and having guanoed her mind by reading French novels, had a variety of conclusions on all social topics, which she threw forth with unfaltering promptness, and with the well-arranged air of an impromptu. ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... historical conclusion one way or the other can affect the truth. European civilization is still one whether men see that unity or no. The Catholic Church is still the soul of it, whether men know it or do not know it. But the problem presented by the fate of Britain at that critical moment when the provinces of the Roman Empire became independent of any common secular control, has this practical importance: that those who read it wrongly and who provide their readers with a false solution (as the Protestant German school and their copiers in English, Freeman, Green and ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... her enthusiasms, for all the fondness and the "crushes" which she inspired, Carol's acquaintances were shy of her. When she was most ardently singing hymns or planning deviltry she yet seemed gently aloof and critical. She was credulous, perhaps; a born hero-worshipper; yet she did question and examine unceasingly. Whatever she might become she would ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... of Religion from Poetry aspiring to be a picture of the life or soul of man, be manifestly destructive of its very essence—how, it may be asked, shall we set bounds to this spirit—how shall we limit it—measure it—and accustom it to the curb of critical control? If Religion be indeed all-in-all, and there are few who openly deny it, must we, nevertheless, deal with it only in allusion—hint it as if we were half afraid of its spirit, half ashamed—and cunningly contrive ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... endeavours will be used for procuring a general peace, which shall be so near a conclusion that public rejoicings shall be made at the courts of several great potentates upon that account; but just in the critical juncture, a certain neighbouring prince shall come to a violent death, which shall occasion new war and commotion all over Europe; but these shall continue but for a short time, and at last terminate in the utter ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe

... pages are designed to give a historical and critical account of all that has been done in the way of translating Beowulf from the earliest attempts of Sharon Turner in 1805 down to the present time. As a corollary to this, it presents a history of the text ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker

... a critical moment men do their work badly, or perhaps a native knows how to feign death before his life is actually extinct. Dead men tell no lies, but wounded men don't have their tongues ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... to be as the wolves desired. Just at the critical moment, when further exertion seemed impossible, he caught sight of some one approaching him rapidly from the direction of the shanty, and shouting aloud while he rushed forward to meet him. With one last supreme effort he plunged toward this timely apparition, and a moment ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... was published the same year in The Historical Magazine, II. 258-259, and this, carefully revised by the present editor, appears below. For a history of New Sweden, see Professor Gregory B. Keen's chapter in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... scandal; he visited Clement twice a day in his cell, and tried all his old influence and all his eloquence to induce him to shake off this unspiritual despondency, and not rob the church of his piety and his eloquence at so critical a period. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... prejudice and of bigotry in the Parliament to whose care for better or worse the welfare of nearly ten millions of British citizens outside Great Britain was entrusted. Save for an occasional full-dress debate at some peculiarly critical juncture, the debates were ill-attended. The prevailing sentiment seems to have been that Ireland and Canada, leavened by a few respectable "loyalists" and officials, on the whole, were two exceedingly mutinous and embarrassing possessions, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... conditions. "Our colonial journalism soon became, in itself, a really important literary force. It could not remain forever a mere disseminator of public gossip, or a placard for the display of advertisements. The instinct of critical and brave debate was strong even among those puny editors, and it kept struggling for expression. Moreover, each editor was surrounded by a coterie of friends, with active brains and a propensity to utterance; and these constituted a sort of unpaid ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... a single step. It seemed as if his feet were rooted to the ground, and his eyes on the Count of Morcerf. "Father," said the young man, "I have the honor of presenting to you the Count of Monte Cristo, the generous friend whom I had the good fortune to meet in the critical situation of which I have ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... have welcomed her here at the steps; she thought they would have seen her—as she felt herself—like a goddess borne aloft in her shell, and that she might have exulted in the admiring astonishment of the Roman and of Lysias, the Corinthian: and now the most critical instant in the part she meant to play that evening had proved a failure, and it suggested itself to her mind that she might be borne back to her roof-tent, and be floated down once more when she was sure of the presence of the company. But there was one thing she dreaded more even than pain and remorse, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... suppose, then, that here the ingenuity of man is at an end, and the truth begins to be allowed to make its appearance? By no means. For here "comes the critical question,"—says Mr. Gurney, "the real turning point. To what is this decrease in the quantity of labor owing? I answer deliberately but without reserve, 'Mainly to causes which class under slavery and not under freedom.' ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... village. Surely somehow in that village—! With a sudden inspiration Darsie leaped to her feet and approached the porter once more. Into her mind had darted the remembrance of the manner in which poor people in books possessed themselves of money in critical ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... perhaps Larry had not understood. Why had the doctor never told her of his desire for her and Larry to marry? Then it was that Larry had gone away to bring proof. He had never meant to show it to her, but he must clear himself at the critical moment. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... So it is quite possible, it is even probable, that future critics may see a close similarity where we see nothing but divergence between the various productions of the Victorian age. Yet we can judge but what we discern; and certainly to the critical eye to-day it is the absence of a central tendency, the chaotic cultivation of all contrivable varieties of style, which most strikingly seems to distinguish the times we ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various

... Mallock is worthy of your consideration, Jonathan, but if you are interested in reading what he said about Socialism in the lectures I have been referring to, they are published in a volume entitled, A Critical Examination of Socialism. You can get the book in the library: they will be sure to have it there, because it is against Socialism. But I want you to buy a little book by Morris Hillquit, called Mr. Mallock's "Ability," and read it carefully. It costs only ten cents—and ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... was the quick, irregular stamp of booted feet on the stone floor, the keen music of sword striking sword. If the fight spread generally into the house, and the defenders fled to the upper rooms, my position must become more critical. So I listened rather to this noise in the hallway than to the tumult in the court-yard. By the sound of the steel coming nearer, and that of the footfalls changing somewhat, I presently knew that one of the fighters had sought the vantage—or disadvantage—of the staircase. But the other evidently ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens

... readable, and instructive manual upon a subject the exposition of which has heretofore been confined to ambitious and expensive treatises, this volume has no equal. In style it is clear and attractive; its critical estimates are based upon thorough and extensive knowledge and sound judgment, and the illustrations reproduce, as accurately as wood engravings can do, the leading works of the famous Italian masters, while anecdotes of these great artists and curious facts regarding ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... critical parts of column reinforcement. See that the bars butt squarely at the ends and are held by pipe sleeves or wired splice bars; see that the longitudinal rods are straight and vertical; see that the horizontal ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... critical," wrote his old friends. "An attempt is being made to awaken in Hungary, against the Russians, whom we like, memories of combats and extinct hatreds, and that to the profit of a German alliance, which is repugnant to our race. Bring the support of your name and your valor to our cause. ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... abyss of German platitudes, nor to put Aneurin and Taliesin in the place of Shakespeare and Burns, and to counteract by their "suavity and brilliancy" the Philistine tendencies of the Saxon and the Northman, but in order to supply sound materials and guiding principles to the critical student of the ancient history and the ancient language of Britain, to excite an interest in what still remains of Celtic antiquities, whether in manuscripts or in genuine stone monuments, and thus to preserve such national heir-looms from neglect or utter ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... incurable quittor; and, honestly speaking, we ourselves can see nothing very greatly against the operation in certain cases save its appearance. In that it is certainly rough, and is not calculated to favourably impress the more critical of our clientele. With the animal chloroformed, however, much of what can really be urged against it disappears, and on farms and other places where a skilled and competent dressing of an operation wound cannot ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... impending struggle between the house of Austria and the Protestant princes, consequent upon the election of the palatine of the Rhine to the kingdom of Bohemia, set out for upper Germany, and volunteered into the Bavarian service. The winter of 1619, spent in quarters at Neuburg on the Danube, was the critical period in his life. Here, in his warm room (dans un pole), he indulged those meditations which afterwards led to the Discourse of Method. It was here that, on the eve of St Martin's day, he "was filled with enthusiasm, and discovered the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... reading his friend's character by the light of his remarks and in opposition to them, after the critical fashion of intimates who know as well as hear: but it was amiably and trippingly, on the dance of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... capitals. "Oh, when I've run him to earth," he also said, "then, you know, I shall knock at his door. Rather—I beg you to believe. I'll have it from his own lips: 'Right you are, my boy; you've done it this time!' He shall crown me victor—with the critical laurel." ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... following afternoon 'Merican Joe set the last of the remaining marten traps. Connie proved an apt pupil and not only did he set fourteen of the thirty-five traps, but each set was minutely examined and approved by the critical eye of 'Merican Joe. When the last trap was set, the Indian commenced the construction of deadfalls, and again Connie became a mere spectator. And a very interested spectator he was as he watched every movement of 'Merican Joe who, with only such material as came to hand on ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... The critical reader is perhaps by this time become so far interested in this subject as to excuse a more ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... that you are right, Challenger," said Summerlee in a chastened voice. "I am willing to admit that my turn of mind is critical rather than constructive and that I am not a ready convert to any new theory, especially when it happens to be so unusual and fantastic as this one. However, as I cast my mind back over the events of the morning, and as I reconsider the fatuous ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... evolution he took from Koelliker, who shortly after the publication of the Origin promulgated in a critical note on Darwinism a sketch of his ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... From the man's statement of his helplessness we may infer that his malady was paralysis, or possibly an extreme form of rheumatism; whatever his affliction, it was so disabling as to give him little chance of getting into the pool at the critical time, for others less crippled crowded him away; and, according to the legends regarding the curative properties of the spring, only the first to enter the pool after the agitation of the water might expect to ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... often found in the ranks of professional criminals? They would probably have difficulty to explain it themselves. A want of savoir faire, the fact that they have never been taught to make a practical use of their acquirements, the pressure of temptation at a critical moment, the absence, possibly, from harm, leading to the hope of immunity—all, perhaps, enter into the explanation of the secret promptings which have led to the first false step, to the first planting of the feet in the path which leads to ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... interest in the pictures and found a word of praise for each child. There was some discussion, pedagogic and non-pedagogic, of the characteristics of the little people. Frederick again spoke of his wife, this time without any critical reflections, dwelling only on her good and lovely and excellent qualities, really native ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... the raft with the pilot and some of the crew. It was for him to take all the necessary measures at the critical moment. The jangada was moored to the bank with solid cables, so that it could not be carried away by the current when ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... time to come; what invitations he was obliged to decline; how for years he had kept up his popularity in one particular town; how he was busy studying the mathematics; how he had succeeded in a critical case, in which the most eminent men in the city had failed; how he had been written to concerning questions of the most vital importance. In fine, his great I stood out so full and prominent that my little i was scarcely ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... by shifting his place of concealment every night; and this young lady it was who afterwards became the mother of his only daughter. Both mother and daughter, it is remarkable, perished prematurely, and at critical periods of Csar's life; for it is probable enough that these irreparable wounds to Csar's domestic affections threw him with more exclusiveness of devotion upon the fascinations of glory and ambition than might have happened under a happier condition ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... awaken in the student a genuine love and enthusiasm for the higher forms of prose, and more especially for poetry. For love is the surest guarantee of extended and independent study, and we teachers are the first to admit that the class-room is but the vestibule to education. So in beginning the critical study of English poetry it seems reasonable to use as a starting-point the early ballads, belonging as they do to the youth of our literature, to the youth of our English race, and hence appealing with especial power to the youth of the human heart. Every man of letters ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)

... the room the same mirrors repeated the reflections he had observed so many times before. Nearby were the same booths and from within them came the same laughter and chatter and suppressed song. Opposite the tiny table the same man with the broad, good-natured face was making critical, smiling observation, as of yore. As ever, the look recalled ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... When the critical moment for the trial of strength between him and the goose arrived, he was not in good condition. It was his first wrestling match with a goose, and his technical knowledge of the art consisted in the meager fact that the strategic point was to become ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... place. His aid, Captain Farnsworth, saw this, and the vision made his heart draw in a strong, hot flood It was a girl in short skirts and moccasins, with a fur hood on her head, her face, thrillingly beautiful, set around with fluffs of wind-blown brown-gold hair. Farnsworth was too young to be critical and too old to let his eyes deceive him. Every detail of the fine sketch, with its steel-blue background of sky, flashed into his mind, sharp-cut as a cameo. Involuntarily ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... of your heart. But campaigns are not won in a day. They are won only by constant and untiring advance work. The Woman's Journal does a big share of this advance work. The Journal is always in campaign. The Journal needs your help now and it needs it given as freely as if a critical Election Day were only six weeks off. The campaigns of this year and the next few years are in the balance now. A privilege, an opportunity for furthering a great world movement, waits on those who ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the - Woman's Movement • Agnes E. Ryan

... later came a note from Staple Inn, inviting him to meet Malkin the next evening. By this time he had made a beginning of his critical essay, and the exordium so far satisfied him that he was tempted to take it for Earwaker's judgment. But no; better his friend should see the ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... always say to her, 'you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his life? If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself, instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt's, all this would have been prevented.' This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... said Marian, who had just come in and who gave a critical glance at the whole picture. "Now stay there, Patty; don't jump down when you hear us greet Uncle ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... sensitive, affectionate, pitiful. There are some persons who, when they come into a room, immediately make us feel happier. Turgenev seems to "come into the room" in his books with just such a welcome presence. That is why I wish Mr. Garnett had made his book a biographical, as well as a critical, study. ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... fight for the cattle-ranges of the West. Intense interest is aroused by its pictures of life in the cattle country at that critical moment of transition when the great tracts of land used for grazing were taken up by the incoming homesteaders, with the inevitable result of fierce contest, of passionate emotion on both sides, and of final triumph of the inevitable tendency ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... pleasure to the modern world. It made it lawful because he could reply to those who objected that what he produced was not the real thing—"The real thing exists; you will find it, when you wish to see it, accurately and closely translated by critical and competent scholars. I refer you to the originals in the notes to this book. I have found the materials of my stories in these originals; and it is quite lawful for me, now that they have been reverently ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston

... surreptitious, quite unjustifiable look as of pleasure in Elinor's eyes, which were less expanded, and if as liquid as ever, more softly bright than before. Something white actually lay on the sofa, a small garment which Mrs. Dennistoun whisked away. They were conscious of John's critical eye upon them, and received him with a warmth of conciliatory welcome which betrayed that consciousness. Mrs. Dennistoun drew a chair for him to the other side of the fire. She took her own place in the middle at the table with a large piece of white knitting, to which she gave her ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... bold or too recherche, they accustomed German ears to a new idea-presentation through sound. Rueckert, like the average Romanticist, lacked moderation in his production, and was utterly without critical faculty in respect to his own verse. Much that he has written has perished, but some of his work—both original and translation—is a permanent part of the best of German ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... a good business man, and he hated enthusiasm—except in money matters. But gradually, as Walter Tyrrel explained to him the various points in favor of the design, Sir Edward thawed. He looked into it carefully. Then he went over the calculations of material and expense with a critical eye. At the end he leant back in his study chair, with one finger on the elevation and one eye on the figures, while he observed with slow emphasis: "This is a very good design. Why, man, its just about twenty times ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... around the feeding places and grazing grounds very often lie hid, in thickets and holes and caves in the hillsides, wild animals, such as jackals, wolves and panthers, ready to spring out, at the critical moment, and devour the innocent sheep. The shepherd is aware of all these evils and enemies of his tender flock; and he goes ahead and prepares the way, avoiding the poisonous grasses, and driving away, or slaying, ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... and—and—but you know nothing of politics, my child.' He would pull up, remembering whom he was speaking to, but his eyes would sparkle for a long while after this. Well now, if I were to describe all this, and I have seen greater events than these, all these critical gentlemen of the press and political parties—Oh, no thanks! I'm their very humble ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... blushed and blundered, Mr. Dashwood had taken the manuscript, and was turning over the leaves with a pair of rather dirty fingers, and casting critical glances up and ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... get him to tell me just where it was, for I had heard rumors that he had hidden quite a pile before he went crazy. But he was either too cunning to tell me, or his mind failed him at the critical moment. All I could learn was that it was hidden somewhere about the corner of the old barn on the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope

... Edenton, was elected delegate to the Continental Congress, the first that had assembled since the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. His high ability and acknowledged statesmanship won for him in that body the distinguished honor of being elected to the office of President of Congress. But the critical situation in Edenton, and his anxiety concerning his family, decided him to decline the office and return home to share the fortunes of his townsmen and to render what aid he could ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... explain himself, in which he had injured him, and Gay could not guess at anything else in which he could have injured him so considerably."[14] It seems, however, more probable that Addison really had in mind the part he had taken in connection with "Three Hours After Marriage." Two critical publications, "A Complete Key to 'Three Hours After Marriage,'" and "A Letter to John Gay, Concerning his late Farce, entitled a Comedy," annoyed Gay; while Pope, too, and, in a minor degree, Arbuthnot, were attacked for their share in the farce. John Durand Breval, writing over the signature ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... attention; her features just Grecian enough to be a model of delicate beauty, just Roman enough to be noble; her colour heightened to that of youth by the heat of the room, and her costume, in which all the art of Paris was blended with a critical knowledge of the just and the becoming. And yet this woman ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... very fond of her father, but it was a fondness which considered his love of speech-making and his flighty enthusiasms with smiling tolerance. Her cooler and more critical way of looking at things had caused her, young as she was, to distrust his judgment in practical affairs, and about most matters she had long since ceased asking ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... breeze abeam, and its gunwale (so to speak) was dipping into his coat-collar. He announced the result of his inquiries to Helen, who had received a brief note in the mean time from a poor relation of Elsie's mother, then at the mansion-house, informing her of the critical situation of Elsie and of her urgent desire that Helen should be with her. She could not hesitate. She blushed as she thought of the comments that might be made; but what were such considerations in a matter of life and death? She could not stop to make terms with ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... ephemeral, and copies are now rare and not easily come by. Both in the comprehensiveness of their charges and in the slashing hatred which informs them (however feeble the verse), One Epistle and The Blatant Beast offer as fair a sample as any two such pamphlets can of the calumny, detraction, and critical misunderstanding Pope endured, for the most part patiently, from the publication of his Essay on Criticism to the year of his death. "Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past," (Epistle to Arbuthnot, l. 358) he exclaimed in his role ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted

... cousin Belhomme," she continued, once more turning to Heron, "is fresh from the country, citizen. He hails from Orleans, where he has played leading parts in the tragedies of the late citizen Corneille. But, ah me! I fear that he will find Paris audiences vastly more critical than the good Orleanese. Did you hear him, citizen, declaiming those beautiful verses just now? He was murdering them, say I—yes, ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy



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