"Devoid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... may need a little modification. The position of this Byzantine Empire was a curious one: European in origin, mainly West-Asian in location. Its situation permitted it to last on so long into the West-Asian manvantara; its origin doomed that long survival to be, for the most part, devoid of the best characteristics of life. Yet during most of the European pralaya it was far and away the richest and most civilized power in Christendom; and, except during the reigns of extraordinary kings in the west, like Charlemagne, the strongest too. It specialized in military science; ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... this point, so fundamental in his thought, Bergson turns to music. "Let us listen," he says, "to a melody, letting ourselves be swayed by it; do we not have the clear perception of a movement which is not attached to any mobility—of a change devoid of anything which changes? The change is self-sufficient, it is the thing itself. It avails nothing to say that it takes time, for it is indivisible; if the melody were to stop sooner, it would not be any longer the same volume of sound, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... then found his master standing beside the door of the house, but his question—which, it is true, was not wholly devoid of a shade of sarcasm—whether the knight was waiting for the return of his sleep-walking sweetheart, was so harshly rebuffed that he deemed it advisable to keep silence ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... life and all its forms. We can understand that a divine, creative idea may develop itself under fixed conditions, as the reproductive element in opposite sexes may, under fixed conditions, prove its resources; but how, in a universe devoid of any productive thought, "external situations" can produce definite and animate forms, is, to our feeble minds, incomprehensible. Verily, therefore, we will have nothing to do with these new gods. The materialistic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... and death of a Sakai, as here seen, is devoid of every rite or ceremony, as in the case of matrimony or divorce and do not require even ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... lay about my feet, Where trees were green and flowers sweet. The climate was devoid ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... as near being Mr. Gradgrind's bosom friend, as a man perfectly devoid of sentiment can approach that spiritual relationship towards another man perfectly devoid of sentiment. So near was Mr. Bounderby - or, if the reader should prefer ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... the Striker named— Mahaud to-day the marquisate has claimed. A noble dame—the crown is hers by right: As woman she has graces that delight. A queen devoid of beauty is not queen, She needs the royalty of beauty's mien; God in His harmony has equal ends For cedar that resists, and reed that bends, And good it is a woman sometimes rules, Holds in her hand the power, and manners schools, And ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... ladies, the mother of the perambulating young officer (he was a class-mate of Rossitur's), was extremely plain in feature, even more than ordinary. This plainness was not however devoid of sense, and it was relieved by an uncommon amount of good-nature and kindness of heart. In her son the sense deepened into acuteness, and the kindness of heart retreated, it is to be hoped, into some hidden recess of his nature; for it very rarely shewed itself in open expression. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... friend, I was delighted by the effect produced by the frost. The earth, the trees, every stick, dried leaf, and stone in my path was glittering with mimic diamonds, as if touched by some magical power; objects the most rude and devoid of beauty had suddenly assumed a brilliancy that was dazzling beyond the most vivid fancy to conceive; every frozen particle sent forth rays of bright light. You might have imagined yourself in Sinbad's valley of gems; ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... duty to do, he listened in respectful silence to all she had to say. But what she counted her most powerful argument—that he owed it to himself to rise in the world—did not even touch him, did not move the slightest response in a mind nobly devoid of ambition. Her argument was in truth nonsense; for a man owes himself nothing, owes God everything, and owes his neighbour whatever his own conscience goes on to require of him for his neighbour. ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... understood him perfectly well, but she did not wish to clear the mysterious gloom, not devoid of excitement, in which they moved together; and they parted for the summer holidays, miserably on his part, cheerfully on hers. She was going to Scotland with Aunt Rose and the prospect was so delightful that she did not trouble to inquire ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... Only unwashed, naked duty remains; and its inspiration, man—bloody, dirty, vermin-covered, terrible—sometimes; and sometimes whimpering, terrified, flinching, base, bereft of all his sex's glamour, all his mystery, shorn of authority, devoid of pride, pitiable, screaming under the knife.—It is different now," said the pretty Volunteer Nurse.—"The war kills more ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... greater shadow the attic to which I shortly afterwards climbed my way up the steep, airless stairs. I was hardly prepared for the depressing spectacle that awaited me at their summit. It was not so much the shabby, fusty rooms, devoid of everything save a couple of mattresses, a rickety wooden table, a chair or two, and a heap of Passover cakes, as the unloveliness of the three women who stood there, awkward and flushing before their important ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... and truest criticisms brought against our American leisure class is that they are absolutely devoid of a proper appreciation of what is conveyed in the expression, "Noblesse Oblige." In no country in the world are there so many young women of education, wealth and leisure, free as the winds of heaven to do as they wish. In no country are there more interesting ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... curiosity men of every rank and grade of life, of every species of renown. The prosecution was in charge of the United States District Attorney, George Hay—serious, humorless, faithful to Jefferson's interests, and absolutely devoid of the personal authority demanded by so grave a cause. He was assisted by William Wirt, already a brilliant lawyer and possessed of a dazzling elocution, but sadly lacking in the majesty of years. At the head and forefront of the defense stood Burr himself, an unerring legal tactician, ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... by rough lumber, the sides and ends built up into tiers of bunks, the only ventilation and light furnished by the open hatch above. The place was clean enough, being newly fitted for the purpose, but was totally devoid of furnishings, the only concession to comfort visible was a handful of fresh straw in each bunk. The men, herded and driven down the ladder, were crowded into the central space, the majority still on their feet, but a few squatting dejectedly on the deck. In the ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... want, and then decorating it with a style of ornament that should assist, explain, and intensify it, we go wandering off to the ends of the earth, building Grecian temples and Veronese palaces, some entire and some in slices, dreary, indefinite-looking objects, devoid of all constructive principles within, and ornamented with falsified gewgaws without, stuck on in the hope of hiding rather than helping out the flimsy design. Our 'national style' we are sure can never be born of any such travesties. Borrowed ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... d'Orleans, by telling him that the prisoner had uttered nothing which concerned him, and by representing the services he did M. d'Orleans with the King. Like a sagacious man, D'Argenson saw the madness of popular anger devoid of all foundation, and which could not hinder M. d'Orleans from being a very considerable person in France, during a minority that—the age of the King showed to be pretty near. He took care, therefore, to avail himself ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... nearly killed Sir Charles Goring, Henry Goring's brother, 'with real grief.' Dawkins had represented the Prince 'as entirely abandoned to an irregular debauched life, even to excess, which brought his health, and even his life daily in danger,' leaving him 'in some degree devoid of reason,' 'obstinate,' 'ungrateful,' 'unforgiving and revengeful for the very smallest offence.' In brief, Dawkins had described Charles as utterly impossible—'all thoughts of him must be for ever laid aside'—and Dawkins backed ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... themselves together." They straggled and kept irregular step, and finally, when they began ascending a slope, where the ground was much broken and covered with stones, they gave it up altogether. The ascent continued until they found themselves on an elevation several hundred feet high, and so devoid of vegetation that a view was gained which covered an area of hundreds of square miles in ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... greeting were exchanged; Mr. Jacobs expressed his sympathy in a low voice, devoid of any acuteness, and Heyton drew a breath of relief, as he led the way into the library; to him it seemed that the man from Scotland Yard looked rather stupid than otherwise. Mr. Jacobs took a seat, and Heyton, of his own ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... point his mind was made up. He must remain in York for the present, prepared at a moment's notice to repair to Bolsover, should the dreaded summons come. With that exception, as I have said, his mind was open, and utterly devoid of ideas as ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... condenses into solid stone and again rises above the level of the sea as new land. Nothing can be more erroneous than the idea of a firm and unchangeable outline of our continents, such as is impressed upon us in early youth by defective lessons on geography, which are devoid of ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... temples, with their tall towers like slender pyramids, tapering to a point. They are curious things, and surprisingly well preserved. The interiors of these temples are uninteresting. Nofuhl says the religious rites of the Mehrikans were devoid of character. There were many religious beliefs, all complicated and insignificant variations one from another, each sect having its own temples and refusing to believe as the others. This is amusing to a Persian, but mayhap was a serious matter with them. One day in each ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... Pontiff in bed, unwell, but chatting blithely with the Bishop of Salamanca and the Procurator of the Exchequer, apparently of a droll mishap that had befallen the French Legate. It was a pale scholarly face that lay back on the white pillow under the purple skull-cap, but it was not devoid of the stronger lines of action. Giuseppe stood timidly at the door, till the Wardrobe-Keeper, a gentleman of noble family, told him to advance. He moved forward reverently, and kneeling down kissed the Pope's feet. Then he rose and proffered his request. But the ruler of Christendom frowned. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... longer to be any connection between labour and the satisfying of our wants? Political economy has not treated of gifts. It has hence been concluded that it disowns them, and that it is therefore a science devoid of heart. This is a ridiculous accusation. That science which treats of the laws resulting from the reciprocity of services, had no business to inquire into the consequences of generosity with respect to him who receives, nor into ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... two men fighting in all the two years I have been here. This cowardice does not prevent the people, who are completely devoid of all inner Christianity and all respect for authority, from ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... this extreme view set in, and of late years it has been the popular cue (largely, it must be said, among "armchair" travelers and explorers) to represent the religious rites and customs of primitive folk as a senseless mass of superstitions, and the early man as quite devoid of decent feeling and intelligence. Again, when the study of religious origins first began in modern times to be seriously taken up—say in the earlier part of last century—there was a great boom in Sungods. Every ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... tend to form too much wood, like the grape-vine. Of course fine fruit is impossible when the head of a tree is like a thicket. The growth of unchecked branches follows the terminal bud, thus producing long naked reaches of wood devoid of fruit spurs. Therefore the need of shortening in, so that side branches may be developed. When the reader remembers that every dormant bud in early spring is a possible branch, and that even the ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... been a great mistake," Lutchester assured her. "Holderness is a good fellow but devoid of imagination. He is great on constituted authority. He would have probably marched up with a squad of heavy-footed policemen—and ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we live in, and impressions furnish ideas. My world is built of touch-sensations, devoid of physical colour and sound; but without colour and sound it breathes and throbs with life. Every object is associated in my mind with tactual qualities which, combined in countless ways, give me ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... to be done?" demanded Ogilvy, playing nervously with a gold pencil on the polished table. He was one of those Americans who in a commercial atmosphere become prematurely white, and today his boyish, smooth-shaven face was almost as devoid of colour as his hair. Even Leonard Dickinson showed anxiety, which was unusual ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... obtrusively en evidence, so much so, that people, socially inclined, take their evening drive and note at a glance, by the lights displayed, who is at home and ready to receive. Those not prepared to entertain sit in semi-darkness. The houses seemed as devoid of privacy as were the verandahs of the hotels. Planted on each side of the road were huge towering trees testifying by their presence that the town was not of mushroom growth. No Europeans were met; this was understood later when it was explained that at this hour of the day they were all asleep. ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... been used as a sheep pasture for many years. It was a desolate place, devoid of trees, and full of stones. Looking across this barren waste, Douglas was soon able to detect the form of a woman silhouetted against the sky. Yes, she was singing, and he was ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... clatter of horses' hoofs, seemed at once to surround himwhile every group pursued, with all the fury of the chase, the employment in which the artist had represented them as engaged. Lovel looked on this strange scene devoid of wonder (which seldom intrudes itself upon the sleeping fancy), but with an anxious sensation of awful fear. At length an individual figure among the tissued huntsmen, as he gazed upon them more fixedly, seemed to leave the arras and to approach the bed of the slumberer. As ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Oh! realm devoid of beauty—how the light From glory's sun streams down for evermore, Hallowing your ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... attain a temperature of 60 degrees centigrade. There you will find in use the highest development of massage, the suppling of the spine, the cracking of the joints. I remember what was said by our great Dumas whose peregrinations were never devoid of incidents; he invented them when he wanted them, that genial precursor of high-pressure correspondence! But I have no time to be shampooed, or ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... Madelin, Sagnac, Sciout, Zivy, and others in France; and of Herren Bailleu, Demelitsch, Hansing, Klinkowstrom, Luckwaldt, Ulmann, and others in Germany. Some of the recently published French Memoirs dealing with those times are not devoid of value, though this class of literature is to be used with caution. The new letters of Napoleon published by M. Leon Lecestre and M. Leonce de Brotonne have also opened up fresh vistas into the life of the great man; and the time seems to have come when we may safely revise our judgments on ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... recognising his evil purpose, defended herself so well with arms and voice that he could only touch her garments. Then, when he saw that all his devices and efforts were being brought to naught, he behaved like a madman and one devoid not only of conscience but of natural reason, for, thrusting his hand under her dress, he scratched wherever his nails could reach with such fury that the poor girl shrieked out, and fell swooning at full length ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... feeling of pity either into love or admiration. The mule in question, however, seemed to be possessed of gentle and kindly qualifications. He appeared to have reached that degree of culture that disarms viciousness and softens stubbornness into tractability. I believed the sober-looking animal devoid of tricks peculiar to his kind, such as attempting to run up dead walls in cities, and climb trees in the country, mistaking himself for a perpetual motion, and trying to kick Time through the front window of Eternity. I was deceived in the docile-looking brute. He secured me as his rider by ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... outposts, scarcely any signs of storm appeared; last year's leaves, still matted together underfoot, were tangled with the green vine of the creeping linnaea and a rare root of the lustrous winter-green. Here, beneath the thick canopy of branches not all devoid of their foliage since many larches and pines were to be found there, was another climate; coming from that bland whiteness which was not cold, these dark arcades of forest struck chills to the feet and face; damp odours rose from rotting mould and wood not protected by a snowy ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... blind and insensible, or for having too little penetration and understanding to perceive the force of those natural proofs on which the existence of the Deity has been founded. A God full of equity cannot punish men for having been blind or devoid of reason. The Freethinkers, as foolish as they are supposed, are beings less insensible than those who make professions of believing in a God full of qualities that destroy one another; they are less dangerous than the adorers of a changeable Deity, who, they imagine, is pleased with ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... The faults of tea, as too commonly found at our hotels and boarding-houses, are, that it is made in every way the reverse of what it should be. The water is hot, perhaps, but not boiling; the tea has a general flat, stale, smoky taste, devoid of life or spirit; and it is served usually with thin milk, instead of cream. Cream is an essential to the richness of tea as of coffee. Lacking cream, boiled milk ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... evening Hermione and he had entirely rid themselves of their preconceived notions of each other. She had ceased from imagining him a walking intellect devoid of sympathies, he from considering her a possibly interesting specimen, but not the type of woman who could be agreeable in a man's life. Her naturalness amounted almost to genius. She was generally unable to be anything but natural, unable not to speak ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Lord Derby's tenure of power, it was made memorable by the commencement of a movement which cannot be regarded as devoid of constitutional importance, since, though originally it was only designed to supply a temporary re-enforcement to our ancient constitutional forces, the regular army and the militia, it has eventually created a force which, to the great honor of those who constitute it, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... had acted wrongly, and had felt too much ashamed, in spite of internal sophistry, to speak of her actions. Margaret considered herself deceived; felt aggrieved; and, at the time of which I am now telling you, was strongly inclined to give Mary up altogether, as a girl devoid of the modest proprieties of her sex, and capable of gross duplicity, in speaking of one lover as she had done of Jem, while she was encouraging another in attentions, at best of a ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... fair, lady's face. Very lovely in contour, but devoid of coloring; not beautiful, but winning from its childlike look of trust. The hair, banded upon the low, broad forehead, was brown; the eyes, which were very far apart, gray; the mouth, which was its most charming feature, delicate of make ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... most delicate and embarrassing problem. In fact, the problems connected with this young woman seem endless. Yet they do not disturb me as much as I had anticipated. I really believe I should miss my pretty Persian cat. A man must be devoid of all aesthetic sense to deny that she is delightful ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... was not devoid of bitterness, and it is possible that a part of his aversion to his former friends and to the king grew out of his jealousy of ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... youth which is characteristic of the prime of life,—and had also been trained in a liberal literary and musical education. She was of attractive manners, coy and altogether so lovable that the mere sight of her or even the sound of her voice vanquished every one, however devoid of affection he might be. (Valesius, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... Committee, were it not for their peculiar unteachableness, a better way." To one who can read between the lines, this arraignment of the Americans for their lack of docility to the teachings of the Priest's Prayer Book is not devoid of drollery. ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... facts of conscious experience; and, if we follow the principle of Hume's nomenclature, they must be called impressions of relation. But it must be remembered, that they differ from the other impressions, in requiring the pre-existence of at least two of the latter. Though devoid of the slightest resemblance to the other impressions, they are, in a manner, generated by them. In fact, we may regard them as a kind of impressions of impressions; or as the sensations of an inner sense, which takes ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... which was the old sitting place of Virginia families for nine months of the year, and which is hardly known in the crowded cities of the North. The floor of the passage was covered with a strip of carpeting in winter, and in summer presented a smooth polished surface devoid of matting. If you opened the first door on the left, you entered the office of Mr. Tazewell, a well lighted southern room, fourteen by twenty, in the middle of which was a table furnished with writing apparatus and covered with books and manuscripts. By that ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... up the river was devoid of incident, except that Betty nearly ran on another sand bar, being warned just in time by Mr. Hammond. Then they reached the landing ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... scarcely amongst the hills of Norway would you find figures and faces more essentially Gothic than those of the Maragatos. They are strong, athletic men, but loutish and heavy, and their features, though for the most part well-formed, are vacant and devoid of expression. They are slow and plain in speech, and those eloquent and imaginative sallies so common in the conversation of other Spaniards seldom or never escape them; they have, moreover, a coarse, thick pronunciation, and when you hear them speak, you almost imagine that it is some ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... the vinedresser's three children. The eldest, Mark, was as haughty as his father, and although he was only fourteen years of age, he was already able to join in the disorders of his drunken and gaming companions. He was entirely devoid of any sense of religion. His sister, Josephine, who was rather more than twelve years old, possessed a more amiable disposition. The pastor's wife took much interest in this child, who could not help seeing that her parents were not guided by the Spirit of God. ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... all one's days, commend me to a thoroughly relented duck; a mealy, ash-baked potato; an onion (yea, several of them) devoid of conceit, and well buttered and salted; and a salad of Slabsides celery and lettuce; with Riverby apples and pears, and beechnuts to complete the feast—beechnuts gathered in October up in the Catskills, gathered ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... scrupulous economy, he never much more than paid his way; and a few years later, when, for Emilie Linder, engaged on The Death of St. Joseph,[5] he gladly accepted beforehand the price by instalments. The correspondence shows a tender conscience, with a humility not devoid of independence. The art products were in fact of so high a quality that the painter conferred a greater favour than any he could ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... of a bandit. I feel no remorse at the recollection, no more than a soldier would feel at having served a campaign under orders from his general. I thought that I was still living in the middle ages. The laws of the land, with all their strength and wisdom, were to me words devoid of meaning. I felt brave and full of vigour; fighting was a joy. Truly, the results of our victories often made me blush; but, as they in no way profited myself, I washed my hands of them. Nay, I remember with pleasure that I helped more than one victim who had been knocked down to ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... man is this Mr. Clapp?" asked Mrs. Stanley. "His manners and appearance, whenever I have accidentally seen him with the Hubbards, struck me as very unpleasant: but is it possible he can be so utterly devoid of all principle, as wilfully ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... though affecting our daily conduct, we are mostly indebted to the representations of poets and novelists. Beattie well observes that nothing is below the attention of a philosopher which the Author of Nature has been pleased to establish. Investigations of this kind would not be unrewarded, nor devoid of a certain amount of interest; and I think that in the present subject we can, by perseverance, penetrate a little distance into an almost untrodden and apparently barren region, and if we cannot reach the source from whence the bright waters spring, can at least obtain ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... each other's hearts; but when A truce, a peace, or what you will, remits 350 The steel into its scabbard, and lets sleep The spark which lights the matchlock, we are brethren. You are poor and sickly—I am not rich, but healthy; I want for nothing which I cannot want; You seem devoid of this—wilt share it? [GABOR ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... them beyond its greatest menace, another had delivered them from actual peril, leaving them on ground where filmy grass, dead leaves, dry needles, had blazed quickly, with a consuming flash, and, utterly and almost instantly destroyed, had left behind them only thin, hot ash, devoid of peril, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... man in particular appeared to be devoid of hurry. In fact, he paused or halted whenever the two boyish young sergeants did. He invariably kept about a hundred feet behind them in this queerly bustling yet ever leisurely crowd that thronged the sidewalks ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... not, however, understand the nature of the note she had signed, and thought that simply new bills would be presented by the jewellers to her husband. She gave a false account of the transaction, and the lie was detected. I do not know that she cared very much. As she was utterly devoid of true tenderness, so also was she devoid of conscience. They went abroad, however; and by the time the winter was half over in Naples, he knew what his wife was;—and before the end of the spring ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... very striking. It stands in a deep valley, green, fertile, and well watered, but completely hemmed in by mountains of volcanic formation some 4,000 feet in height, beautiful in form, but entirely devoid of vegetation. Want of rain and the phylloxera are constant anxieties at the Cape. We observed that the field labourers were invariably men of colour. Their earnings do not exceed one ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... reply, as he glided noiselessly away, but her face, could he have seen it, was not devoid of expression. This was an act of generosity and deliberate courage of the very kind most apt to appeal to her nature, and within her secret heart there was rapidly developing a respect for this man, who with such calm assurance won his own way. He was strong, forceful, brave,—Homeric virtues ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... plotter's eyes were dancing when she slipped her hand under his arm. In a career which had not been entirely devoid of excitement, Mrs. Honoria had rarely found men difficult. But this particular young man was proving himself to be ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... simple, the evil so great and so glaringly evident that the only possible explanation of its continued existence was that the majority of his fellow workers were devoid of the power of reasoning. If these people were not mentally deficient they would of their own accord have swept this silly system away long ago. It would not have been necessary for anyone to teach ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... put: "What are you come for?" Clapperton replied, "To see the country—its rivers, mountains, and inhabitants, etcetera. My people had hitherto supposed yours devoid of all religion, and not far removed from the condition of wild beasts, whereas I now find them to be civilised, learned, humane, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... quite an eloquent and attractive preacher. A dull, quiet man, whom you esteemed as a blockhead, may suddenly be valued very differently when circumstances unexpectedly call out the solid qualities he possesses, unsuspected before. A man devoid of brilliancy may on occasion show that he possesses great good sense, or that he has the power of sticking to his task in spite of discouragement. Let a man be placed where dogged perseverance will stand him in stead, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... of this lowest passage was a door which opened into a single large vaulted room. It was devoid of furniture, but in the centre was a large and heavy wooden board clamped with iron. This lay upon a rude stone parapet, engraved with inscriptions beyond the wit of the eastern scholars, for this old well dated from a ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Rosicrucian, "fills me with abhorrence; and yet life is totally devoid of happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of humanity, how art thou attainable? Through Fame? Fame is mine, and I am wretched. Over the realms of civilisation my name is noised abroad; in the populous cities the glory of my art resounds; when my barge glided among ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... persons. One must speak in one way to men jaded with much reading; in another to those who skim lightly over the surface, tasting here and there; in another (if one would persuade them), to persons who are devoid of a taste for letters, since it is sometimes a proof of skill to avoid the very things which please the learned. In short, the definition given by our ancestors is a good one: 'To speak fitly is to persuade the hearers ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... an hour and a half ago, and he was doing very well, except that the fever was very high." "He is dying now, at any rate," was my rejoinder. On going to the bedside the patient was found perfectly unconscious, the skin dry and intensely hot, the affected joints pale and devoid of sensibility, the breathing irregular and jerking, the pulse 170 and scarcely perceptible, every muscle relaxed as in death, every power of perception abolished. A thermometer placed in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... north side of the high altar, is also intended for her. But traditions of this nature are too vague for much reliance to be placed upon them. The altar-piece itself is an Adoration of the Shepherds, not devoid of merit.—The plain arches, with their truncated columns, seen in the upper part of plate 26, near the front on either side, and repeated in the following plate, are those which terminate the flat part of the choir. ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... that low cunning and prudent management, with which small men of little intellect and no heart sometimes deceive the world. He had long outlived all feelings sufficiently strong to render him impetuous, and was utterly devoid of that generous self-respect which prompts a man to repel an attack fearlessly and at once. In short, he was one of those who lie still and wait, like the crafty pointer dogs that creep along the grass, hunting out game for others to shoot down for them, and devouring ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Seneca clearly could not mean that sort of thing. It would be a useful lake, but devoid of the changeless tone of the Potomac as it flows there now. The reservoir's proper functioning would require fluctuations in its level, with occasional ugliness at the shoreline, and if it would permit a great deal of happy water-skiing ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... double portion of indignation at the discovery of their profligacy, because it supposes, in the first place, that something like imposture must have been practised upon us in securing our affections, or what is still more degrading, that we must have been materially devoid of common penetration, or we could not have suffered ourselves to become the dupe of craft ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... will naturally envy her, who has gained the husband they all desired either for themselves or for their daughters. In their monotonous life, devoid of occupation, envy easily becomes hatred, and the gratification of these evil passions is the only compensation which the poor creatures can obtain for the total absence of love and loss of freedom. I repeat, the more beautiful ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... make me so happy Cast off all care; be mindful only of pleasure Confess I would rather provoke a lioness than a woman Corpse to be torn in pieces by dogs and vultures Creed which views life as a short pilgrimage to the grave Curiosity is a woman's vice Death is so long and life so short Devoid of occupation, envy easily becomes hatred Did the ancients know anything of love Does happiness consist then in possession Easy to understand what we like to hear Eros mocks all human efforts to resist or confine him Eyes are much more eloquent than all the tongues in the world Folly to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... eye fell upon. She is all in black, but black that sparkles and trembles and shines with every movement. She seems, indeed, to be hung in jet, and out of all this sombre gleaming her white neck rises, pure and fresh and sweet as a little child's. Her long slight arms are devoid of gloves—she had forgotten them, no doubt, but her slender fingers are covered with rings, and round her neck a diamond necklace clings as if in love ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... of those charms had no great claim to personal beauty, yet she might be called beautiful. The regular features of her small and well formed face were devoid of any distinguishing lineaments, the deep blue eyes had a quiet, earnest light, which often shone with increasing brightness, when accompanied with the expressive smile so often bestowed upon those who dwelt within and ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... considerable portion of his indignation was caused by the fact, that he knew not the individual against whom to direct it. His daughter, as a daughter, had been to him an object of perfect indifference, from the day of her birth up to that moment; that is to say, he was utterly devoid of all personal love and tenderness for her, whilst, at the same time, he experienced, in its full force, a cold, conventional ambition, which, although without honor, principle, or affection, yet occasioned him to devote all his efforts and energies to her proper establishment in the world. ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Kemble for the first time on Friday, and was disappointed. She is short, ill made, with large hands and feet, an expressive countenance, though not handsome, fine eyes, teeth, and hair, not devoid of grace, and with great energy and spirit, her voice good, though she has a little of the drawl of her family. She wants the pathos and tenderness of Miss O'Neill, and she excites no emotion; but she is very young, clever, and may become a very good, perhaps a fine actress. Mrs. Siddons was not ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the fitting guide and guardian of the mother of his family, the husband must share in those higher feelings which he seeks to regulate and reclaim. You do not hope or wish to see your wife and children devoid of religion. But if you would not surrender them to the guidance of others in those momentous concerns, you must care for them and conduct their course yourself, and must learn to travel the road along which they are to be led. The husband must become himself the priest and the director: not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... heard, losing nothing in the telling, the remarks of the other pupils' mothers upon his uncle and aunt; more especially as it was not generally the highest order of boy that was to be found there. If he had heard what the fathers said, he would have learnt that, though shy and devoid of small talk, and of the art of putting guests together, Lord Northmoor was trusted and esteemed. He might perhaps be too easily talked down; he could not argue, and often gave way to the noisy Squire; but he was certain in due time to see the rights of a question, ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thought of Gertie, so pretty, so girlish, so understandable, so full of innocent winning coquetry. I softened. Could any one help preferring her to me, who was strange, weird, and perverse—too outspoken to be engaging, devoid of beauty and endearing little ways? It was my own misfortune and nobody's fault that my singular individuality excluded me from the ordinary run of youthful joyous-heartednesses, and why should I be nasty to ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... so-and-so, in which we are all demolished. I used to read these things once, but I am getting old now, and I have ceased to attend very much to this cry of "wolf." When one does read any of these productions, what one finds generally, on the face of it, is that the brilliant critic is devoid of even the elements of biological knowledge, and that his brilliancy is like the light given out by the crackling of thorns under a pot of which Solomon speaks. So far as I recollect, Solomon makes use of the image for purposes ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... I do say that if you examined the life of a woman with a face like that—the real life—you would be certain to find that it had not been devoid of actions such as you would expect, actions illustrating that look of ideality which any one can see. What does Mrs. Derringham really know of Mrs. Chepstow? She is not personally acquainted with her, even. She acknowledged that. She ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... rejoined Szilard, "I suppose he is at least a gentleman; and if a woman looks him straight in the face on the wedding day and says to him: 'I cannot love you because I love another and always will love another,'—I cannot think he will be so devoid of feeling as to make her ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... beautiful, but utterly devoid of life. Only, though, for a short time. Before long something was seen to move a short distance away; and upon the boat being paddled round an intervening block of ice, there was a sight which sent a thrill of excitement through the Norsemen, a feeling ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... a word devoid of sense, and knew not what to do with it. A man, a God, a human-God, a Divine Man - all well and good, but what was that to me? Words, words. Satan who drew me downward I had felt, God who drew me upward I had felt. Of Christ I felt nothing. The assurance ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... Though devoid of conspicuous events, the year 1796, from the opening of the campaign, early in April, up to the evacuation of the Mediterranean, had been to Nelson one of constant and engrossing occupation. There is therefore little mention by him of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... treat the subject. Warned by a teacher's experience that learning is accounted a weariness to the flesh, the author has sought to alleviate the instructive quality of the book by casting it in the form of a romantic narrative, which he would be glad to fancy not wholly devoid of ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... a specific gravity of 1004-1008, and contains a trace of serum globulin and albumose, some chlorides, and a substance which reduces Fehling's solution. Microscopically, it may contain some large endothelial cells and a few lymphocytes, or may be entirely devoid of cells. It does not contain the antitoxins and opsonins which are normally found in the plasma and lymph, hence the liability to infective meningitis after injuries and operations on the central nervous system. With a view to diminishing these risks, hexamine, which is excreted ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... vehicle. The next point to be determined is the nature of the Varnish ordinarily employed, and spoken of by Cennini and many other writers under the familiar title of Vernice liquida. The derivation of the word Vernix bears materially on the question, and will not be devoid of interest for the general reader, who may perhaps be surprised at finding himself carried by Mr. Eastlake's daring philology into ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... spoke, she turned and went back to the house to fetch some of her work. Now, had she been going a message for me, she would have gone like the wind; but on this occasion she stepped along in a stately manner, far from devoid of grace, but equally free from frolic or eagerness. And I could not help noting as well that Mr. Percivale's eyes followed her. What I felt or fancied is of no consequence to anybody. I do not think, even if I were writing an autobiography, I should be forced to tell all about myself. But an ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... links of society. It forms our manners, our opinions, our lives. Indeed, civilization is carried down from generation to generation, or handed over from a superior to an inferior, by means of imitation. A people devoid of imitation is incapable of progress or advancement, and must retrograde. If it remains stagnant, it must of necessity bring its own decay. The quality of imitation has been the grand preservative of the Negro in all lands. Indeed, the Negro is a superior man to-day to ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... Devoid of reason, thrall to foolish ire, I walk and chase a savage fairy still, Now near the flood, straight on the mounting hill, Now midst the woods of youth, and vain desire. For leash I bear a cord of careful grief; ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... midst of idle pleasures and luxurious indulgence, have found a remedy in marriage, and felt themselves cured the moment they became fathers.' A sentence this full of sound instruction. It is not, then, because life is devoid of pleasure, that men are the prey of melancholy. That demon pierced, it is true, like a gnawing worm, through all the luxuries of the Roman world; there was no resource against it, either in beautiful slaves, or Ionian dances, or magnificent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... syllogism. This we shall render by "dict." A dict, then, was defined as "that which subsists in correspondence with a rational phantasy." A dict was one of the things which the Stoics admitted to be devoid of body. There were three things involved when anything was said—the sound, the sense, and the external object. Of these the first and the last were bodies, but the intermediate one was not a body. This we may illustrate after ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock |
