"Experiment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the scientific intelligence: first, the object is presented to the perception; then combination presents its different phases; and, finally, the thinking activity circumscribes the restlessly moving reflection by the idea of necessity. Experiment in the method of combination is an excellent means for a discovery of relations, for a sharpening of the attention, for the arousing of a many-sided interest; but it is no true dialectic, though it be often denoted by ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... that Miss Mitford, the admired authoress, was the first to discover that the common mignonette could be induced to adopt tree-like habits. The experiment has been tried in India, but it has sometimes failed from its being made at the wrong season. The seed should be sown at the end ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... not so. The development of American literature (using the term in its broadest sense) in the past forty years is greater than could have been expected in a nation which had its ground to clear, its wealth to win, and its new governmental experiment to adjust; if we confine our view to the last twenty years, the national production is vast in amount and encouraging in quality. It suffices to say of it here, in a general way, that the most vigorous activity has been in the departments of history, of applied science, and the discussion ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... been boning on that lately, and I got a fresh supply from the laboratory the other day to experiment with." ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... no airs of scepticism now; his imagination was stirred, and a sense of some unknown reality at the bottom of that which he had affected to treat before as illusion, inspired a strange interest in the experiment. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... no doubt the trick has been well played. I know Governor La Barre, and this Francois Cassion, for I have served under both, while Monsieur la Chesnayne was my Captain, and friend. I was not always a soldier, Madame, and once I sought holy orders, but the flesh was weak. However, the experiment gave me education, and led to comradeship with those above me in station—discipline in the wilderness is not rigid. Many a night at the campfire have I talked with my captain. And I have heard before of this Sieur de Artigny, and of ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... my chicks, and let me know the result. Even if you don't succeed, there's no doubt the experiment will prove interesting, and you'll do no harm. Don't be afraid of disturbing the birds; they're friends of mine, as you know, and, if you tell them you are doing it for me, they will gladly put up with ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... on the after boat-deck. They loosened the canvas cover of a lifeboat, levelled oars and other prominent obstacles, and disposed their scanty bedding to the best possible advantage on this uneven ground. The experiment was not altogether an unqualified success and minor disadvantages made themselves apparent during the passage of the night. The oars were rigid and uneven, and the breeze and the cold penetrated from both above ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... experiment of lying in bed I might never have discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, "Il me faut des geants." But when I ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... was Churchill and the Life of Cromwell that progressed slowly. The experiment succeeded well enough, as I grew less domineering and he less embarrassed. Toward the end I seemed to have become a familiar inmate of his house. I used to go down with him on Saturday afternoons and we talked things over in the train. It was, to an idler like myself, wonderful the way that ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... people from the Balkan states, Swedes, Danes, Russians, and a few from India, China, and Japan. The clatter of their various tongues made a very Babel inside the ark, when they talked to one another in groups, but nearly all of them were able to speak English, which, after many years of experiment, had been adopted as the common language ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... resorted to an expedient as disastrous as it was dishonest—a wholesale debasement of the coinage, which was continued into the following reign and was remedied only under Elizabeth. The first experiment was made as early as 1526; but it was the financial embarrassments of Henry's last years which brought about a debasement that was almost catastrophic. From 1543 to 1551 matters went from bad to worse ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... The experiment lasted a trifle over six months. At the end of that time the junior partner of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot had another interview with his firm's most recent addition ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the trade in sea-borne coals. To meet this emergency, a scheme is on foot for sending coal from the Tyne to the Thames in steam-colliers, which, by their short and regular passages, shall compete successfully with the railways. The experiment is well worth trying, and ought to pay, if properly managed: meantime, our railways will extend their ramifications. Looking for a moment at what is doing in other parts of the world, it appears that there are at present 2000 miles of railway in France, besides as ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... that all people who know anything about the Army should rejoice extremely that our first experiment in mobilization has been as successful as it ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... in the plain, close-fitting camlet gown and prim white linen cap, cuffs, and collar of the Puritan maid, and with a pale, young looking mask on her face, reentered the saloon to try her experiment. ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... thought this very interesting, and they wished that there were canoe-birch trees growing at Elmridge, that they might be enabled to try the experiment for themselves. ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... experiment there is an instance of chemical action, as well as of single affinity, for the sulphur and mercury would remain separate if heat was not applied. In consequence of this agent, they unite into an uniform whole, totally inseparable by mechanical means, and possessing characters distinct ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... superiority of modern times over those of the most favored nations of antiquity. But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of the Teutonic races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe the wonderful advance of modern society, but the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... full the question that confronted Jarley was as to the value of its contents, and to ascertain this he resolved upon an experiment upon himself. No one else, he believed, would be willing to subject himself to the experiment, nor did he wish at that time to let others into his secret. Even Mrs. Jarley was not aware of his efforts, and so he made the experiment. He liquefied the energy ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... events, I thought to myself, that should any such untoward accident occur to me, it would be no unpleasant circumstance to imitate the priest; but that it would be infinitely more agreeable to make the first experiment in a marl-pit, on my father's farm, than on the lake. Accordingly, after three days' fasting, and praying for the power of not sinking in the water, I slipped very quietly down to the pit, and after reconnoitering the premises, to be sure there was no looker-on, I approached the brink. ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... to continue the experiment further since Julius had given up his attempts to locate the right box in the first choice and was apparently satisfied to discover it by a process of trial and error. He had, it would seem, satisfied himself that the problem was insoluble. These ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... the gradual symptoms of returning life, until the rising sun vivified the whole into activity, bustle, and business. On one occasion the night was passed in the observatory, for the purpose of meeting the first glimpse of day; but the cold was so intense as to preclude any wish to repeat the experiment. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the brightest fair has some touch of the equivocating fiend. Love, let poets and lovers say what they will to the contrary, can no more subsist without hope than flame can exist without fuel. In all the cases cited to prove the contrary, we suspect that there has been some inaccuracy in the experiment, and that by mistake a little, a very little hope has been admitted. The slightest portion, a quantity imperceptible to common observation, is known to be quite sufficient to maintain the passion; but a total exclusion of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... have become so familiar with its original measures and so accustomed to its peculiar rhythm, that they cannot willingly dispense with any part of the form which Tegne'r gave it. Several of the metres employed by him were unknown to Swedish readers until they appeared in this poem. Tegne'r's experiment of introducing them was a successful one; and they are now, in the minds of Swedes, as much a part of the work as the story itself. The feminine rhymes, occurring in fifteen of the twenty-four cantos, are so melodious that no one who had heard the original, even if ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... steps to the Western world affectionate curiosity had gone hand in hand with a desire to better his condition. He took his uncle's portrait quite as if Mr. Wentworth had never averted himself from the experiment; and as he compassed his end only by the exercise of gentle violence, it is but fair to add that he allowed the old man to give him nothing but his time. He passed his arm into Mr. Wentworth's one summer morning—very few arms ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... one of the disputed statements of the Nicene Creed, examine it by the nicest powers of the senses, study it upwards, downwards, and crosswise, experiment to learn if it has any mysterious chemical forces in it, consider its figures in relation to any astrological positions, to any natural signs of whirlwinds, tempests, plagues, famine, or earthquakes, try long to discover some hidden symbolism in it, and confess finally that no man unregenerate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... information of posterity" (Criswick). An encampment on the top of the hill and the figure itself are probably the work of early Celts. The "Giant" is reminiscent of the "Long Man of Wilmington" on the South Downs near Eastbourne. An interesting experiment in the communal life was started in 1913 near the town. After struggling along for five years it finally "petered out" in 1918, helped to its death, no doubt, by the exigencies of ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... of writing them down? There would be no danger, in that case, of my forgetting anything important. And perhaps, after all, it may be the fear of forgetting something which I ought to remember that keeps this story of Midwinter's weighing as it does on my mind. At any rate, the experiment is worth trying. In my present situation I must be free to think of other things, or I shall never find my way through all the difficulties at Thorpe Ambrose that are ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... mastered the meaning of it, and sat down to my own studies. I remember I was then reading the Anglo-Saxon Gospels. I think it was fully half-an-hour before Tom rose and gently approached my place. I had not been uneasy about the experiment after ten minutes had passed, and after that time was doubled, I felt certain of some measure of success. This may possibly puzzle my reader; but I will explain. It was clear that Tom did not understand the sonnet at first; ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... portion of them would be sound, and proceeded to examine them, and select the sound ones. But finding this took time, he said, "I think, if you put them all into water, the good ones will sink;" which experiment we tried with success. He could plan a garden, or a house, or a barn; would have been competent to lead a "Pacific Exploring Expedition"; could give judicious counsel in the gravest ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... death but the more or less strong pressure of a highwayman's finger on the trigger of a musket, is no easy task; but all this I accomplished, and once more got through the village with a whole skin indeed, but with the unalterable resolution to blow my brains out rather than again try such an experiment. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... creation was finished, it is set down unto us that man was placed in the garden to work therein; which work, so appointed to him, could be no other than work of contemplation; that is, when the end of work is but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity; for there being then no reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, man's employment must of consequence have been matter of delight in the experiment, and not matter of labour for the use. Again, the first acts which man ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... to have a little space cleared to give room for his motions. It was in vain the people who distributed the refreshments, and who were placed at the other side of the table, expostulated upon the danger of the experiment; Morrice had a rage of enterprise untameable, and, therefore, first taking a ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... possession, and kept back part of the price."[1052] Will there be no Ananiases in the Socialist Commonwealth? Besides, the early Christian Communism was voluntary and dictated only by charity. It certainly was not enjoined as a religious duty.[1053] Lastly, the first Christian experiment in Communism proved immediately a failure, probably because there were many Ananiases, and because Communism is opposed to human nature and leads to poverty and strife, not to prosperity and peace. Hence, St. Paul ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... the certainty of bay salt, the benefit that will thereby accrue to the Colony will be great, and they shall willingly assist Mr. Capps in making his experiment, which, brought to perfection, will draw a certain trade to them. And they hope that the fishing upon their coasts will be very near as good ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... rapidly a body burns, the greater is the amount of heat evolved by it in a given time; but the total amount of heat developed by a specific weight of the body is the same, whether the combustion takes place rapidly or slowly. An experiment performed with phosphorus illustrates the case perfectly. If we burned two pieces of equal weight, the one in oxygen, the other in atmospheric air, we should find that the former would emit a light five times as brilliant ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... that any but the voluptuous (non-esthetic) qualities of the figure are appreciated, and as for the faces, if the men really appreciated beauty as we do, they would first of all things insist that the girls must keep their faces clean. An amusing experiment made by St. John with some Ida'an girls (I., 339) is suggestive from ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... with the exception of Thoreau, were not indigenous. Emerson may have gone there from an hereditary tendency, but more likely because his cousins the Ripleys dwelt there. Hawthorne came there by way of the Brook Farm experiment. How, with his reserved and solitary mode of life, he should have embarked in such a gregarious enterprise is not very clear; but the election of General Harrison had deprived him of a small government office—it seems as if Webster ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... record has not been one of disgrace, although it has been one of defeat; for some of them really desired success more than they desired dividends. These, all of them, bore their share of a great experiment, an experiment in a new land, under a new theory of government, a theory which says a man should be able to restrain himself, and to govern himself. Only by following their theory through to the end of that experiment could they know that it ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... had studied chemistry in his scanty spare time, with the object of understanding his business better. He found the composition of varnishes an interesting subject, and as the best gums employed came from the tropics and were expensive he began to experiment with the exudations from American trees. His employers hinted that he was wasting his time, but Harding continued, trying to test a theory that the texture and hardness of the gums might depend upon climatic temperature. By chance, a resinous substance which had come ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... of the other persons in court took out their watches to check this experiment. The girl turned round, and Tressamer gave the ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... how near she was. Sometimes it seems as if the cruelty of fate were unnecessary, as if the word too little or the word too much, which has the power to alter a whole life, were withheld or spoken merely to further a Providential experiment. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... much—rendered him perhaps even morbidly sensitive—to impressions of this order; the society of artists, the talk of studios, the attentive study of beautiful works, the sight of a thousand forms of curious research and experiment, had produced in his mind a new sense, the exercise of which was a conscious enjoyment and the supreme gratification of which, on several occasions, had given him as many indelible memories. He had once said ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... and you can easily try it for yourself if you can get a grown-up to give you the syphon. If you want to have a really thorough experience, put the tube in your mouth and press the handle very suddenly and very hard. You had better do it when you are alone—and out of doors is best for this experiment. ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... it, that it would not only shrink instantly, like unveiled modesty, at the touch of one's hand, but even at the near approach of some special organisms, ere they had extended a hand towards it. Five persons tried the experiment before the sixth illustrated the fact that touch was not absolutely necessary to cause the leaves to shrivel up or shrink through seeming fear. Our host even intimated that when the mimosa had become familiar with ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... almost endless variety—the greater part far removed from the primitive type. Are we to infer from this that negroes will cease to be negroes by dint of civilization—that wool will give place to hair, and vice versa? If so, a wide field is opened for experiment ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... little gold by me in order to ascertain for myself exactly the amount of pleasure to be got out of handling it; this being the traditional delight of the old-fashioned miser. It is by no means to be despised. Three or four hundred dollars in double-eagles will do very well to experiment on. There is something very agreeable in the yellow gleam, very musical in the metallic clink, very satisfying in the singular weight, and very stimulating in the feeling that all the world over these same yellow disks are the master-keys that let one in wherever he wants to go, the servants ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "Casuals" was published, but at that time it was not easy to find any one who had read them. They were Letters from an Ocean Tramp (1908) and Aliens (1914); the latter has been rewritten since then and issued in a revised edition. It is a very singular experiment in the art of narrative, and a rich commentary on human folly by a man who has made it his hobby to think things out for himself. And the new version is headlighted by a preface which may well take its place among the most interesting literary confessions of this generation, ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... go on asking. A great many persons class together belief in astrology and belief in apparitions: the two things differ in precisely the way in which a science of observation differs from a science of experiment. Many make the mistake which M. le Marquis made when he came too late, and hoped M. Cassini[86] would do the eclipse over again for his ladies. The apparition chooses its own time, and comes as seldom or as often as it pleases, be it departed spirit, nervous derangement, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... for the deaf is still sometimes regarded as an experiment, while its advocates insist that its success has been demonstrated. Among school authorities in cities especially, pleas for the establishment of day schools are often listened to with favor, and there is frequently a tendency to give them at ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... what weakness or faintness soever he might find in himself during the time; he followed their advice, and by that means destroyed himself before he was aware, not dreaming of death or any danger in the experiment. Scribonia advising her nephew Libo to kill himself rather than await the stroke of justice, told him that it was to do other people's business to preserve his life to put it after into the hands of those who within three or four days would fetch him to execution, and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... ha, ha! That experiment was worth money. I never thought it would work out so well. If you could amuse me like that more often, Eric, you would stand even better with me than ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... sternest man try the experiment of eating a dinner of five courses in the midst of people who have had very little or nothing but black bread to eat. Not a man will have the spirit to eat, and to watch how the hungry lick their chops around him. Hence, then, in order to eat daintily ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... he thought, they had everything to make them happy and keep them interested, however. Here was the powerful radio station built by Mr. Hampton under government license to use an 1,800 meter wave length, for purposes of trans-oceanic experiment. Then, too, Frank and Bob jointly owned a powerful all-metal plane, equipped with radio, and adapted for land or water flying. Besides, there was the new and powerful speed boat bought for the three of them this summer by Mr. Hampton and ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... liberality in preparing scientific lectures for the free entertainment of the working public. Shut up in the public hall among the materials of his lecture, he was found dead from the result of some solitary experiment—slain by his own kindness. A rich monument to the soldiers and sailors slain in the civil war was unveiled in 1871: it is formed of a pillar from the old United States Bank, surmounted by an eagle cast ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... valuable Instruction Papers of the American School of Correspondence, and the method adopted in its preparation is that which this School has developed and employed so successfully for many years. This method is not an experiment, but has stood the severest of all tests—that of practical use—which has demonstrated it to be the best yet devised for the education ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... simply to see if I should be received. Yes, it is merely in the nature of an experiment—it is made. It is to your honor, I admit, but I will not repeat it—I shall disappear. It is more simple. Yes, I have told you and I was determined to tell you that you will never see me, so long as ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... emotion was possible to express this emotion that now surcharged him. This was no pain of man's devising. This was a special and a private agony of the gods reserved for victims approved for very nice and exquisite experiment. He felt himself squeezed right down beneath a pressure squeezing to his vitals; and there was squeezed out of him just ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... taught by women, and women with whom, in many cases, education—the shaping of the immature human creature to noble ends—is the sincerest of passions; who find, indeed, in the task that same creative joy which belongs to literature or art, or philanthropic experiment. The schoolmistress to whom money is the sole or even the chief motive of her work, is, in my experience, rare to-day, though we have all in our time heard tales of modern "academies" of the Miss Pinkerton type, brought up to date—fashionable, exclusive, ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... favorable circumstances possible for the experiment of self-government, with every possible inducement to preserve our country, we must not give it up. The years of civil war which will succeed dismemberment of the Union will cause true men to seek refuge and security, from military despotism, in some other country. Some ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... cause of ignorance, of no less moment, is a want of a discoverable connection between those ideas we have. For wherever we want that, we are utterly incapable of universal and certain knowledge; and are, in the former case, left only to observation and experiment: which, how narrow and confined it is, how far from general knowledge we need not be told. I shall give some few instances of this cause of our ignorance, and so leave it. It is evident that the bulk, figure, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... does in a sarcastic passage, which Erter may have imitated unconsciously? And if further proof be needed that Zabara was a man of science, the evidence is forthcoming; for Zabara appeals several times to experiment in proof of his assertions. And to make assurance doubly sure, the author informs his readers in so many words of his extensive medical practice ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... him this latest blow—a shrewder one than he had confessed to Ocky. That notebook full of formulas, the results of a lifetime of experiment and research, would be worth more than a gold mine to a competitor. There were men in the business who would pay handsomely for the picking of Simon Varr's brain! But who had known that, and turned his knowledge to advantage by the crooked way ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... she feels that she needs a nurse,—I'm going to try to get that nurse Betty Brock had,—Em may have to go back to the hospital, in fact, and Mamma is so nervous about Ken, and I—-" Ella cleared her throat, "I feel this way about it," she said. "When you came here it was just an experiment, wasn't it?" ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... day it rained, and the River went up two inches. The morning following was fair enough, but so cold you could see your breath. We began to experiment. ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... commodore decided on allowing each of us to trust to our own abilities and to act according to circumstances. The vessels were patched-up schooners and sloops, and fitted in so hurried a way that they were scarcely manageable. The experiment was to have been made that night, but the wind and weather proving unfavourable, Captain Palmer, with whom we consulted, advised us to defer ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... facility and ease, he was not a literary boy, and did not care for books. He was drawn towards machinery of all kinds, and spent his spare time in dabbling in scientific experiments or in watching trains go by on the Great Western line. Once he blew off his eyebrows while making some experiment with explosive chemicals; his hands were always smudged with dark, mysterious stains, and his room was like that of a mediaeval alchemist, littered with retorts, bottles, and test-glasses. Before leaving school he invented a ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... gratification that inebriates the soul be discovered. If at that moment temptation approach, even a meaner and less potent temptation may then succeed. The night advances with hasty feet. Night is the season of dissipation and luxury. Be this the hour of experiment, and let the apprehensive mind of Imogen be first assiduously lulled to repose. Here, Roderic, you must rest your remaining hopes. There is not another instrument can be discovered, to disarm and vanquish ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... creatures, especially of the children, excited his compassion. Out of his own means he established a Sunday school, in which he and his wife were the principal teachers. His friends were asked to send their slaves, and the experiment was successful. The benches were always crowded, and the rows of black, bright-eyed faces were a source of as much pride to him as the martial ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... above him heard, That vow the sleep of centuries stirred; In world-wide wonder listening peoples bent Their gaze on Freedom's great experiment. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... she said, "you invited my mother and me to that exhibition. You gave us tickets for front seats, where we would be certain to be hypnotized if your experiment succeeded, and you would have made us see that false show, which faded from those people's minds as soon as they recovered from the spell, for as they went away they were talking only of the fireworks, and not one of them mentioned a magic egg, or a chicken, or anything of the kind. Answer ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... one meaning in my words, and answered, "It was then mere whim to see me do this thing, a lady's curious mind, eh? My faith, I think your sex are the true scientists: you try experiment for no other reason than to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... every hole and corner; nose; trace up; search out, hunt down, hunt out, fish out, ferret out; unearth; leave no stone unturned. seek a clue, seek a clew; hunt, track, trail, mouse, dodge, trace; follow the trail, follow the scent; pursue &c 662; beat up one's quarters; fish for; feel for &c (experiment) 463. investigate; take up an inquiry, institute an inquiry, pursue an inquiry, follow up an inquiry, conduct an inquiry, carry on an inquiry, carry out an inquiry, prosecute an inquiry &c n.; look at, look into; preexamine; discuss, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... cable to connect the wires from Cagliari with the coast of Algeria. We will not here enter into an inquiry as to the causes of these disasters, instructive as it might be if we had space, and this were a fitting opportunity. Suffice it to say that the first experiment failed soon after leaving Cape Spartivento; on the second, the line was laid for about two-thirds of the course, but with such a profuse expenditure of the submarine cable that it was run out, and the enterprise abruptly terminated. A third attempt ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... unsurpassed by anything in English literature. One day he sees the *Religio Medici* in a shop-window (or, rather, outside a shop-window, for he would hesitate about entering a bookshop), and he buys it, by way of a mild experiment. He does not expect to be enchanted by it; a profound instinct tells him that Sir Thomas Browne is "not in his line"; and in the result he is even less enchanted than he expected to be. He reads the introduction, and he glances at the first page or two of the work. ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... more, yet of our permission to receive more: That very paper, first given in by us (which I had cited, and unto which he makes this reply), did speak not only of our learning, but of the church of Scotland's receiving, and, which is more, there is an actual experiment of it, the last General Assembly having ordered the laying aside of some particular customs in that church, and that for the nearer uniformity with this church of England, as was expressed in their own letter to the reverend Assembly ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... 'It was owing to the influence of Lord Normanby over the President. It was a fine succes de tribune. It gave your Government and ours an occasion to boast of their courage and of their generosity, but a more dangerous experiment was never made. You reckoned on the prudence and forbearance of Austria and Russia. Luckily, Nicholas and Nesselrode are prudent men, and luckily the Turks sent to St. Petersburg Fuad Effendi, an excellent diplomatist, a much better than ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... of two anagrams in your Number for May 7, calls to my mind a few that were made some years ago by myself and some friends, as an experiment upon the anagrammatic resources of words and phrases. A subject was chosen, and each one of the party made an anagram, good, bad, or indifferent, out of the component letters. The following may serve as a specimen of the best of the budget ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... which lies against the Lancaster rifle (?) applies to the Whitworth in a less degree. If the reader, having tried the lead-pipe experiment above, will next hammer the tube hexagonal and try the plug again, he will find the same result; but if he will try it with a round bore grooved, and with a plug fitting the grooves, he will see that the pressure is against the wall of the groove, and acts at right angles to the radius ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... motto. Many times, when I have got upon the cars, expecting to be magnetized into an hour or two of blissful reverie, my thoughts shaken up by the vibrations into all sorts of new and pleasing patterns, arranging themselves in curves and nodal points, like the grains of sand in Chladni's famous experiment,—fresh ideas coming up to the surface, as the kernels do when a measure of corn is jolted in a farmer's wagon,—all this without volition, the mechanical impulse alone keeping the thoughts in motion, as the mere act of carrying certain watches in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... like he'd eat sumpin' he couldn't swaller—see?" her face was radiant, and her sides shook with laughter. She had counted upon McGaw falling into her trap, and she was delighted over the success of her experiment. Tom had once before caught him raising a bid when he discovered that but one had ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... near town, a next-door neighbor is something more than a mere numeral; he is a possible acquaintance, who will at least consider a new-comer as worth the experiment of a call. I soon knew that "Shuturgarden," the next house to our own, was occupied by a Colonel Currie, a retired Indian officer; and often, as across the low boundary wall I caught a glimpse of a graceful girlish ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... varied, and attractive are the country's features, so full of bustle, change and experiment have its few years been, that lack of material is about the last complaint that need be made by a writer on New Zealand. The list of books on the Colony is indeed so long that its bibliography is a larger volume than this; and the chief plea to be urged for this history ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... the cure of the digestive organs, I spoke of stomachic irritation, and said it was occasioned by some morbid peculiarity. It is difficult to find out the exigents; it must be done by experiment. We give a medicine, it answers. The digestive organs have such a sympathy with contiguous organs, that no wonder if such contiguous organs are affected. The liver, for instance, cannot perform its office aright if the bowels are uncomfortable. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... repeated this experiment a great many times, with herbs of various kinds, and the result was constantly the same: from which it appears, that herbaceous food, on its first deglutition, enters into the honeycomb, as well as into the paunch; the proportion, however, being considerably greater into the paunch than into ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... hospitality the most grateful compliments are hereby offered) being of the company, bent like the rest upon going to the summit of Cheops. Those who were cautious and wise, took a brace of donkeys. At least five times during the route did my animals fall with me, causing me to repeat the desert experiment over again, but with more success. The space between a moderate pair of legs and the ground, is not many inches. By eschewing stirrups, the donkey could fall, and the rider alight on the ground, with the greatest ease and grace. Almost ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... then said to the officer that if he would bring to me a person who could speak French, he would find the same embarrassment in this case also. An emigre of the Bourbon regiment comes forward for the new experiment, and after a few phrases affirms without hesitation that I am surely a Frenchman. The ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... begins with Faith, which has been defined ... as the resolution to stand or fall by the noblest hypothesis. This venture of the will and conscience progressively verifies itself as we progress on the upward path. That which began as an experiment ends as an experience. We become accustomed to breathe the atmosphere of the ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... think that it would be a good experiment to cut off most of the leaflets on one side of the petiole, as soon as they are asleep and vertically dependent; when the pressure is thus removed, the opposite leaflets will perhaps bend beyond their vertically dependent position; if not, the main petiole might be a little twisted so that ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... that I was unluckily prevented from accompanying my captain in a little expedition in which he gained much credit and a goodly portion of prize money. The Falmouth was sent by Admiral Benbow, with the Ruby and the Experiment, to cruise off the Petit Guavas. 'Twas the middle of May when they returned (with four prizes, one a very rich ship), and meanwhile things had happened which mitigated ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... teach your children and use yourselves manners toward your servants which show them that you respect their dignity as individuals, as you desire them to respect yours? Here we have continually in our homes an excellent ground for experiment in the practice of that mutual respect which is one of the essential conditions of social sanity. I fear we profit by it too little. We do not fail to exact respect, but we fail to give it. So it is most frequently the case that we get only hypocrisy and this supplementary result, all ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... side, that no direct rays pass through the lens to illuminate the screen, and to concentrate as bright a light as possible on the picture, and on that alone. There should be no other light in the room when the experiment is tried, and the picture should be very clear and distinct. Two double convex lenses placed one at each end of a tube of card-board will act better than one ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sympathetic note, and he became grave. Love had come into this youngster's life, and he wondered in what direction it would influence it. He knew well enough, no one better, how much damage love could do. He knew well enough the other, and right side of the picture. But Buck was an unusual experiment. Even to him, who knew the boy so well, he was still something of a problem in many ways. One thing was certain. He would get the trouble badly, and time alone could show what ravages and complications might ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... and meticulously straightened his cuff before tightening his mouth in what was meant for a smile. "I assume, then, that the experiment was ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... to all appearance, in high health and spirits. What agency had wrought this marvellous recovery? According to the Indian, it was a certain evergreen, called by him ameda, a decoction of the leaves of which was sovereign against the disease. The experiment was tried. The sick men drank copiously of the healing draught,—so copiously indeed that in six days they drank a tree as large as a French oak. Thus vigorously assailed, the distemper relaxed its hold, and health and hope began to revisit the ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... is a survival—a survival of the fittest. Mr. Darwin invented the theory that goes by that name, but the Ornithorhynchus was the first to put it to actual experiment and prove that it could be done. Hence it should have as much of the credit as Mr. Darwin. It was never in the Ark; you will find no mention of it there; it nobly stayed out and worked the theory. Of all creatures in the world ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mother that people after all said nothing very dreadful (for what was said was always more to Lady Attlebridge than what was true), could keep on something like friendly relations with her sister, and could maintain a cheerful view of her own position and of her experiment. Inevitably the hostility of his future mother-in-law and of Fanny brought out the worst side of Quisante's manners; in the effort to conciliate he almost fawned. May had to find consolation in a growth of openness and simplicity towards herself. And she had one notable triumph ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... I did. The weather was delightful, and the birds were singing everywhere; and the thought came to me, that if I could only stay out of doors, and lie down in the shadow of a tree, I could get my lesson. I begged the privilege of trying the experiment. The kind heart that presided over the school-room could not resist my petition; so I was soon lying in the coveted shadow. I went to work very severely; but the next moment found my eyes wandering; and heart, feeling, and fancy were going up and down the earth in ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... alter all things at his pleasure, and then, if he can persuade a large number of men to flatter him in the power he has usurped, that he is absolved in his own conscience, and ought to stand acquitted in the eyes of mankind? On this scheme, the maker of the experiment must begin with a determined perjury. That point is certain. He must take his chance for the expiatory addresses. This is to make the success of villany the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... will not be the contents of the vessel and tube, but that of a column of water equal to the length of the tube and the depth of the vessel. This law of pressure in fluids is rendered very striking in the experiment of bursting a strong cask by the action of a few ounces of water. This law, so extraordinary and startling of belief to those who do not understand the reasoning upon which it is founded, has been called the Hydrostatic paradox, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... Sun Wu was a great general and yet held no civil office? What we are told, therefore, about Jang-chu [28] and Sun Wu, is not authentic matter, but the reckless fabrication of theorizing pundits. The story of Ho Lu's experiment on the women, in particular, is utterly ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... decline of cliques and hazing might, it is true, result from the admission of women to men's universities, but the young men would undoubtedly lose much in earnest, concentrated energy and dignified virility through the presence of the fair. The experiment, radical at best, has failed more than once. The style of this essay is slightly wanting in ease and continuity, yet possesses the elements of force. "The Traitor", by Agnes E. Fairfield, is a short story of artistic development but questionable sentiment. The present ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... them being built after Christian's own designs. The formation of a national army was more difficult. Christian had to depend mainly upon hired troops, supported by native levies recruited for the most part from the peasantry on the crown domains. His first experiment with his newly organized army was successful. In the war with Sweden, generally known as the "Kalmar War," because its chief operation was the capture by the Danes of Kalmar, the eastern fortress of Sweden, Christian compelled Gustavus Adolphus to give way on all essential points (treaty ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... indolent propensities, had best avoid this occasion of temptation. He must be able to command himself to think, and industriously prepare himself by meditation, if he would be safe in this hazardous experiment. He who does this, and continues to learn and reflect while he preaches, will be no more empty and monotonous than if he ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... prospects were cloudy enough as far as anything from his father was concerned. Besides, she hoped that marrying Mary would steady her son— a favourite scheme with mothers of drunkards. As for Mary's own peace or happiness, she never gave them a thought. The experiment would be something like caging a tiger and a lamb together for the purpose of subduing the tiger's ferocity; pleasant enough for the tiger, but simply destruction to the lamb. However, Mrs Rothwell pressed Mark to propose, so he yielded after a faint resistance, ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... Brook Farm community nearly a twelvemonth, a small part of which time was spent in Boston. Some of the letters which his sisters wrote him show a delightful solicitude reigning at home, during the period of his experiment. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... reliable account of the Camel than any other in the language: Indeed, it is believed that there is no other. It is the result of long study, extensive research, and much personal observation on the part the author; and it has been prepared with special reference to the experiment of domesticating the Camel in this country, now going on under the auspices of the United States government. It is written in a style worthy of the distinguished author's reputation for great learning and ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... corn-whiskey!—these only, communing in affectionate brotherhood, the son of Virginia and the spirits of old Kentucky! Why, fellow—citizens, as the Governor of the State, he refused to sign the gallon-law until he had tested, by experiment, that a gallon would do ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... or not to assign the cause. Do you consider that a true variety should be produced by causes acting through the parent? But even taking this definition, are you sure that alpine forms are not inherited from one, two, or three generations? Now, would not this be a curious and valuable experiment (16/1. For an account of work of this character, see papers by G. Bonnier in the "Revue Generale," Volume II., 1890; "Ann. Sc. Nat." Volume XX.; "Revue Generale," Volume VII.), viz., to get seeds of some alpine plant, a little more hairy, etc., etc., than ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... chance of life could remain to so ill-starred a bark. The navigation, however, has been effected. But men used to the river still say that the chances would be fifty to one against any vessel which should attempt to repeat the experiment. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... was alive or not, 'cause while the cook had changed a heap since I'd first met up with him, I'd never heard any such talk as this; but after a time I came out of it an' the anguish I underwent gettin' back to life wasn't nowise worth the experiment. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... education today consists in the presentation of absolute, scientific fact. Sentimentality and the multiplication of words no longer mean anything. In dealing with the teen age boy, spare your words, but pile up the scientific, concrete, "seeing-is-believing" data. By proved experiment let him discover through the investigation of himself and others—through books, pictures, slides, etc.—that everything we take for granted is scientific truth. You do not need today to prove to a boy that liquor is bad. Physiology in the public school and the everyday ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... to Mr. Keble. Froude's was a keen logical mind, not easily satisfied, contemptuous of compromises and evasions, and disposed on occasion to be mischievous and aggressive; and with Keble, as with anybody else, he was ready to dispute and try every form of dialectical experiment. But he was open to higher influences than those of logic, and in Keble he saw what subdued and won him to boundless veneration and affection. Keble won the love of the whole little society; but in Froude he had gained a disciple who was to be the mouthpiece and champion of his ideas, and ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... censorship less than the ballad. Probably, if it had been thought humanly possible to prevent the publication and the circulation of scurrilous poems against eminent men and women, Walpole might have ventured on the experiment. But he had too much robust common-sense not to recognize the impossibility of doing anything effective in the way of repression in ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... hair smoothly brushed on the temples and sticking up in tufts behind. Though he concealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt, he was evidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying his theory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole world ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy |
