"Fluctuate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... high hedges slowly, so as not to get overheated, though the day was chill enough. After all was said and done there was something real about land, it didn't shift. Land, and good pictures! The values might fluctuate a bit, but on the whole they were always going up—worth holding on to, in a world where there was such a lot of unreality, cheap building, changing fashions, such a "Here to-day and gone to-morrow" spirit. The French were right, perhaps, with their peasant proprietorship, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... better than doubt. The love of truth and the consciousness of that certainty would raise me above hatred and slander. I should then have some kind of principle by which to regulate my conduct; I should then know on what foundation to build. To fluctuate, to waver, to postpone inquiry, was more criminal than any kind of opinion candidly investigated and firmly adopted, and would more effectually debar me from happiness. At my age, with my talents and inducements, it was sordid, it was ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... difficult to say—I fluctuate. At times, I feel as though I should drop insensible on the earth, and then I feel better than I have done for ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... that he may feel a confidence that he is not to be ruined by sudden changes. But to make a tariff uniform and permanent it is not only necessary that the laws should not be altered, but that the duty should not fluctuate. To effect this all duties should be specific wherever the nature of the article is such as to admit of it. Ad valorem duties fluctuate with the price and offer strong temptations to fraud and perjury. Specific duties, on the contrary, are ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... the language abounds in classical insipidities, epithets that describe nothing, and generalities at second hand from older poets, who may once, perhaps, have written with their "eyes upon the object." Blushing Flora paints the enameled ground; cheerful murmurs fluctuate on the gale; Eridanus through flowery meadows strays; gay gilded[32] scenes and shining prospects rise; while everywhere are balmy zephyrs, sylvan shades, winding vales, vocal shores, silver floods, crystal springs, feathered quires, and Phoebus ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... for more or less; finding that these days were selected more in accordance with the desires of the betters than their judgment, I selected an outsider, and took the longest date named for my day, August 20th. The odds fluctuate daily in the market, according to the view the knowing ones take of the weather: these bets form a subject of interest and banter which daily ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... agree at the commencement of the season to fish for a stated price, or they might allow it to fluctuate from week to week?-They might do either; or they might agree to be settled with at the end of their six weeks' fishing, in a similar manner to what they do at the herring fishing, when they settle with the men immediately upon ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind— These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made. But now the sounds of population fail, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, For all the bloomy flush of life is fled— All but yon widow'd, solitary thing, That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; She, wretched ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... tried by me, last year, ending December, was one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two. The average number of apprentices in the district during that time was twelve thousand seven hundred. Offences, generally speaking, are not of any magnitude. They do not increase, but fluctuate according to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the superstitions of the learned Orient, magic and astrology always remained the hybrid daughters of sacerdotal culture. Their existence {194} was governed by two contrary principles, reason and faith, and they never ceased to fluctuate between these two poles of thought. Both were inspired by a belief in universal sympathy, according to which occult and powerful relations exist between human beings and dead objects, all possessing a mysterious ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... more particularly if the cause of the rise or fall be visible, and its continuance in any degree probable. Average estimates are never just but when the object fluctuates, and no reason can be assigned why it should not continue still to fluctuate. The author chooses to allow nothing at all for this: he has taken an average of six years of the war. He knew, for everybody knows, that the first three years were on the whole rather unsuccessful; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... be used to solve this important problem. My plan is this: It is well known that many variable stars, such as Algol, [sigma] Librae, U Coronae, and the remarkable variable D.M. 1.3408 deg., discovered by Mr. E.F. Sawyer, fluctuate at regular intervals. Now, I believe it is possible to determine very accurately the intervals between these changes, and, by noting the change of time in these intervals, when the earth is in different points of its orbit, we get the time ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... largely by the cost of production and transportation. If events or circumstances operate to increase or curtail either the sugar supply or the number of buyers, and such events or circumstances follow one after the other alternately, the price will fluctuate. ...
— About sugar buying for Jobbers - How you can lessen business risks by trading in refined sugar futures • B. W. Dyer
... to consider those varieties, which vary in a much wider range than the ordinary ones, and seem to fluctuate between two opposite extremes, as for instance variegated leaves, cultivated varieties with variegated or striped flowers, double flowers and some other anomalies. They are eversporting and ever-returning from one type to the other. If however, ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... anchored and stationary in my dreams; but great storms and driving mists cause him to fluctuate uncertainly, or even to retire altogether, like his gloomy counterpart the shy Phantom of the Brocken—and to assume new features or strange features, as in dreams always there is a power not contented with reproduction, but which absolutely creates or transforms. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... no idea how far their coalition was to carry them,—for he was the most able, active, and zealous partisan of those changes with which the country was at present threatened. The principles of the noble earl were principles by which any man might safely abide; the principles of Mr. Canning fluctuate daily, and depend upon transitory reasons of temporary expediency. These are the conscientious reasons of my resignation." As for the absurd calumny, that he had threatened the king with his resignation unless he was made prime minister, the duke said it hardly deserved an answer. "Could any man ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... degree influence the style of the fabric, and its selection must be according to the effect intended to be produced.[133] The fashions of the day, and the needs of the special manufacture, must greatly modify the choice of materials, which fluctuate, often disappear, and sometimes ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... kinds, reasoning in 65 thought and in speech. Let us look first to that of thought. This kind of reasoning, judging from the teachings of those Dogmatics who are now our greatest opponents, those of the Stoa, seems to fluctuate between the following things: the choice of the familiar, and avoidance of the alien; the knowledge of the arts that lead to this choice; and the comprehension of those virtues that belong to the ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... will of course fluctuate throughout the whole line of route; but I may as well mention the most important personages who were to start with me from Tripoli. Setting aside my colleagues, Barth and Overweg, there was, in the ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... solitude; and the waters play a painter's part in setting their splendid subject free. Two movements shake but do not scatter the still night: the bright flashing of constellations in the deep Weir-pool, and the dark flashes of the vague bats flying. The stars in the stream fluctuate with an alien motion. Reversed, estranged, isolated, every shape of large stars escapes and returns, escapes and returns. Fitful in the steady night, those constellations, so few, so whole, and so remote, have a suddenness of gleaming ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... state. In such a state costs resolve themselves into wages and interest, and the conception of such a static state is therefore not complete unless we know how wages and interest themselves are determined. What we have already said implies that they fluctuate about certain standards, just as do the prices of goods, and that they would remain at these standards if society were ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... and has recently undergone his metamorphosis into the clerical form. Rather a paradoxical specimen, if you observe him narrowly: a sort of cross between a sycophant and a psalmist, a poet whose imagination is alternately fired by the "Last Day" and by a creation of peers, who fluctuate between rhapsodic applause of King George and rhapsodic applause of Jehovah. After spending "a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets," after being a hanger-on of the profligate Duke of Wharton, after aiming in vain at a parliamentary career, and ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... before. Well, if it belongs to me, you might at least permit me to develop it as I would any other possession. I take it as an investment. It will probably fluctuate." ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... to include in our conception; and if, after having thus fixed our conception, we never vary from it, never include in the class any thing which has not those common properties, nor exclude from it any thing which has. A clear conception means a determinate conception; one which does not fluctuate, which is not one thing to-day and another to-morrow, but remains fixed and invariable, except when, from the progress of our knowledge, or the correction of some error, we consciously add to it or alter it. A person of clear ideas is a person who always knows in virtue of what properties ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... the unsettled state of our Government will be acknowledged by all. Commercial intercourse is impeded, capital is in constant peril, public securities fluctuate in value, peace itself is not secure, and the sense of moral and political duty is impaired. To avert these calamities from our country it is imperatively required that we should immediately decide upon ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... destructive birds or quadrupeds—their numbers would amount to more than twenty millions. But we know very well that our bird population is no greater, on the average, now than it was ten years ago. Year by year it may fluctuate a little according as the winters are more or less severe, or from other causes, but on the whole there is no increase. What, then, becomes of the enormous surplus population annually produced? It is evident they must ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... imbecile, although I knew it to be he, to separate him from his dress; and tried to call him, I remember, PILOT. After another interval of total unconsciousness, I found he had gone, and recognised another figure in its place. It seemed to wave and fluctuate before me as though I saw it reflected in an unsteady looking-glass; but I knew it for the captain; and such was the cheerful influence of his face, that I tried to smile: yes, even then I tried to smile. I saw by his ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... the burning heat of the sun was reflected with double violence from the hot sand, and the distant ridges of the hills, seen through the ascending vapour, seemed to wave and fluctuate like the unsettled sea, I became faint with thirst, and climbed a tree in hopes of seeing distant smoke, or some other appearance of a human habitation; but in vain, nothing appeared all around but thick underwood ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... them, as their own worst enemies. They know nothing of the luxury of doing good, and when they are called to make up their last account, they will mourn that they have no investments in those funds that never fluctuate—in that bank "where moth and rust doth not corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." Let such remember, moreover, that as they brought nothing into world, so they can carry nothing out of it. And let it also be remembered, in the language ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... overview: The UAE has an open economy with a high per capita income and a sizable annual trade surplus. Its wealth is based on oil and gas output (about 30% of GDP), and the fortunes of the economy fluctuate with the prices of those commodities. Since the discovery of oil in the UAE more than 30 years ago, the UAE has undergone a profound transformation from an impoverished region of small desert principalities ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... NEXT came on with artless grace, And on a javelin's quivering length reclined: To exalt her mien she bade no splendour blaze, Nor pomp of vesture fluctuate on ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... the question of changes in the appearance of bright stars. It seems pretty certain that more than one per cent of these bodies fluctuate to a greater or less extent in their light. Observations of these fluctuations, in the case of at least the brighter stars, may be carried on without any instrument more expensive than a good opera-glass—in fact, in the ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... But this divorce of spoken and written language is of questionable advantage. It at once destroys all permanent improvement in a tongue through elegance of style, sonorous periods, or delicacy of expression, and the life of the language itself is weakened when its forms are left to fluctuate uncontrolled. Written poetry, grammar, rhetoric, all are impossible to the student who draws his knowledge ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Hail, to the ancient farmer, Naught to him the fall of stocks that turns pale the speculator, Naught to him the changes of trade, wrinkling the brow of the merchant, Naught to him, the light weight, or exorbitant price of the baker; Sure was his bread, howsoe'er the markets might fluctuate, Sweet loaves of a rich brown, plentifully graced his table, Made by the neat hand of wife or daughter, happy in healthful toil. Skilfully wrought the same hands, amid the treasures of the dairy, Rich cheeses, and masses of golden butter, and bowls of ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... meets promenading Patriot, this Sunday; and sees his own grim care reflected on the face of another. Groups, in spite of Patrollotism, which is not so alert as usual, fluctuate deliberative: groups on the Bridges, on the Quais, at the patriotic Cafes. And ever as any black cockade may emerge, rises the many-voiced growl and bark: A bas, Down! All black cockades are ruthlessly plucked ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... ebbs and flows in the spiritual power of the Church. Yes! and the tide runs out of your harbours. Is there any less water in the sea because it does? So the gift may ebb away from a man, from a community, from an epoch, not because God's manifestation and bestowment fluctuate, but because our receptivity changes. So we dismiss, and are bound to dismiss, if we are Christians, the unbelieving explanation, 'The Spirit of the Lord is straitened,' and not to sit with our hands folded, as if an inscrutable sovereignty, with which we have nothing to do, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... mind and force Hast Thou made Thy universe, But as atmosphere and zone Of Thy loving heart alone. Man, who walketh in a show, Sees before him, to and fro, Shadow and illusion go; All things flow and fluctuate, Now contract and now dilate. In the welter of this sea, Nothing stable is but Thee; In this whirl of swooning trance, Thou alone art permanence; All without Thee only seems, All beside is choice of dreams. Never yet in darkest mood Doubted I that Thou wast good, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the price of stocks are the same, the place is silent, and only a few individuals, with faces which grin but cannot smile, are seen crawling in and out, or standing yawning in the court, with their hands in their breeches' pockets. If, however, the quotations fluctuate, and the Royal Exchange, where most of the leading men of the money market lounge, be full of bustling and rumours, and especially if characters, with eyes like basilisks, and faces lined and surfaced like an asparagus bed ere the plants come up, be ever ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... her, following the music bar by bar, and with an interest and a pleasure that did not concord with his appearance. For there was nothing in his appearance to indicate that his intelligence was on a higher plane than that of the mess-room. His appearance seemed to fluctuate between the mess-room and the company promoter's office. He was a good-looking solicitor, he was a good- looking officer; the eyes were attractive; the nose was too large, but it was well-shaped; a heavy military moustache curled over his ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... determined several tribes or nations that seemed to fluctuate between the Huns and the Romans. The indefatigable diligence of the patrician gradually collected the troops of Gaul and Germany, who had formerly acknowledged themselves the subjects or soldiers of the republic, but who now claimed the rewards of voluntary service and the rank of independent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... not always called Israel in his subsequent history. His new name was a name of character and of spiritual standing, and that might fluctuate, and the old self resume its power; so he is still called by the former appellation, just as, at certain points in his life, the apostle forfeits the right to be 'Peter,' and has to hear from Christ's lips the old name, the use of which is more ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... 1. The beauty of this simile will be lost to those who have never been at sea during a calm. The water is then not quite motionless, but swells gently in smooth waves, which fluctuate in a balancing motion, until a rising wind gives them a certain determination. Every circumstance of the comparison is just, as well ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... instinct is it that this noble animal, the horse, will at once perceive the slightest change in his rider's physical temperament, and allow himself so to be influenced by it, that, according as his master's spirits fluctuate, will his own energies rise and ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... year 1826 Schwabe, a German astronomer, commenced to keep a regular register of the number of spots visible on the sun. After watching them for seventeen years he was able to announce that the number of spots seemed to fluctuate from year to year, and that there was a period of about ten years in their changes. Subsequent observations have confirmed this discovery, and old books and manuscripts have been thoroughly searched for information of early date. Thus a more or less complete record of the state of the sun as regards ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... legalists to whom the Conscription Act appeared unconstitutional. In the spring of 1863 the issue of conscription drew the line fairly sharply between the two political coalitions, though each continued to fluctuate, more or less, to ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... point: Vpadina Akchanaya -81 m (note - Sarygamysh Koli is a lake in north eastern Turkmenistan whose water levels fluctuate widely; at its shallowest, its level is -110 m; it is presently at -60 m, 20 m above Vpadina Akchanaya) ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and unstable minds of men! How quickly our intentions fluctuate! All thoughts we lightly change, but mostly when These from some lover's quarrel take their date. But now, so wroth I saw that Saracen With woman, so outrageous in his hate, I weened not only he would ill assuage, But never more ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... revolve, rotate, turn, gyrate, spin, trundle, circumgyrate; inwrap, infold, convolve; wallow, welter; rock, sway, lurch, titubate, fluctuate. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... which, in one place, will only pass for 6 bars, will in others fluctuate to 10; hence the trader must form an average standard, to reduce ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... judgment, and with that strong predilection in favor of local objects, which can hardly fail to mislead the decision. The same process must be repeated in every member of which the body is constituted; and the execution of the plans, framed by the councils of the whole, will always fluctuate on the discretion of the ill-informed and prejudiced opinion of every part. Those who have been conversant in the proceedings of popular assemblies; who have seen how difficult it often is, where there is no exterior pressure of circumstances, to bring them to harmonious resolutions ...
— The Federalist Papers
... of a farewell we fluctuate sharply between the very distant and the close and homely: and even in memory the fluctuation occurs, the grander scene casting us back on the modestly nestling, and that, when it has refreshed us, conjuring ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... doubt whether they WERE pearls thus ineffectually thrown; and always doubt the judiciousness of strewing pearls before swine. The prosperity of a book lies in the minds of readers. Public knowledge and public taste fluctuate; and there come times when works which were once capable of instructing and delighting thousands lose their power, and works, before neglected, emerge into renown. A small minority to whom these works appealed has gradually become a large minority, and in ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... principle, and of which European democrats never could approve. All through the organic laws of the Nation and the States there are to be found restraints on numbers, as if the leading idea of the Constitution-makers of America were aversion to mere majorities, things that fluctuate from year to year,—almost from day to day,—and therefore are not to be trusted. We are stating the fact, and it does not concern our purpose to discuss the wisdom of what has here been done. How happened it, then, that our polity was so generally regarded ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... committed in their name. Every time they have been willing to disturb the harmony of mankind—whenever they have been desirous to render him unsociable, they have cried out that their gods ordained that he should be so. Thus they render mortals uncertain, make the ethical system fluctuate by founding it upon changeable, capricious idols, whom they represent much more frequently cruel and unjust, than ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... nevertheless her presence is repeated often enough to show that the huntress appreciates the value of this prey when she comes across it. The three sorts of game are in the larval state, with rudimentary wings. Their dimensions, which vary a good deal, fluctuate between two-fifths and four-fifths of an ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... Nor without Cause: For drinking liberally they were found to expell, and allay the Fumes and Vapors of the genial Compotation, the spirituous Liquor gently conciliating Sleep: Besides, that being of a crude nature, more dispos'd, and apt to fluctuate, corrupt, and disturb a surcharg'd Stomach; they thought convenient to begin with Sallets, and innovate the ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... restlessness &x. adj. fidgets, disquiet; disquietude, inquietude; unrest; agitation &c. 315. moon, Proteus, chameleon, quicksilver, shifting sands, weathercock, harlequin, Cynthia of the minute, April showers[obs3]; wheel of Fortune; transientness &c. 111[obs3]. V. fluctuate, vary, waver, flounder, flicker, flitter, flit, flutter, shift, shuffle, shake, totter, tremble, vacillate, wamble[obs3], turn and turn about, ring the changes; sway to and fro, shift to and fro; change and change about; waffle, blow with ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of which the state is not the proprietor, either for use or dominion, but the guardian only and the regulator. They have ordained that the provision of this establishment might be as stable as the earth on which it stands, and should not fluctuate with the Euripus of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the "balance of nature." One year there is a plague of field-voles, perhaps next year "grouse disease" is rife; in one place there is huge increase of starlings, in another place of rabbits; here cockchafers are in the ascendant, and there the moles are spoiling the pasture. "But while the parts fluctuate, the fauna as a whole follows a path of its own. As well as internal tides which swing to and fro about an average level, there is a drift which carries the fauna bodily along an 'irretraceable course.'" This is partly due ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... 'Thus I fluctuate between the peril of sensuous pleasure and the proof of wholesomeness, and am more inclined (though I would not offer an irrevocable judgement) to approve of the use of singing in the Church, that, by the pleasure of the ear, weaker minds may rise to the emotion of piety. Yet ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... tacitly agreed to dispense with its employment. Their place was supplied by a currency exclusively of paper, and in many cases of the worst description. Already are the bank notes now in circulation greatly depreciated, and they fluctuate in value between one place and another, thus diminishing and making uncertain the worth of property and the price of labor, and failing to subserve, except at a heavy loss, the purposes of business. With each succeeding day the metallic currency decreases; by some it is hoarded ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... is slightly smaller. The color should be pure white with a dull finish, while the engraving, plain script or more elaborate text, is a matter of choice and fashion varying from time to time. It is safe to trust the opinion of a first-class stationer in this matter, for styles fluctuate, and he should be constantly informed of what polite ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... when an intelligent girl is said to fluctuate between childhood and womanhood. Let me add that these seeming fluctuations depend much on the company she is in: the budding virgin is princess of chameleons; and, to confine ourselves to her two most piquant contrasts, by her mother's side she is always more or less ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... constantly; but still a fall disturbed us little, because a thousand dollars a foot was our figure, and so we were content to let it fluctuate as much as it pleased till it reached it. My pile of stock was not all given to me by people who wished their claims "noticed." At least half of it was given me by persons who had no thought of such a thing, and looked for nothing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... change the face of nature, on the earth, without defacing nature. At all times there is a terraqueous globe, for the use of plants and animals; at all times there is upon the surface of the earth dry land and moving water, although the particular shape and situation of those things fluctuate, and are not permanent as are the ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... slant and has determined the development of its poetic forms, is still responsible for the evolution of new forms. Neither stress nor syllabic weight is a very keen psychologic factor in the dynamics of French. The syllable has great inherent sonority and does not fluctuate significantly as to quantity and stress. Quantitative or accentual metrics would be as artificial in French as stress metrics in classical Greek or quantitative or purely syllabic metrics in English. French prosody was compelled to develop on the basis of unit ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... have 12 1/2 subdivisions and that the half subcaste comprises the descendants of illicit unions. Of course the twelve subdivisions are as a rule mythical, the number of subcastes being always liable to fluctuate as fresh endogamous groups are formed by migration or slight changes in the caste calling. Other castes have a Lohri Sen or degraded group which corresponds to the half caste. In other cases the illegitimate branch has a special name; thus the Niche Pat Bundelas of Saugor and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Americans do not tend to fluctuate between emotional extremes, in complete dejection one day and in exultation the next, according to changes in the situation. They continue, on the whole, on a fairly even keel, when the going is tough and when things are breaking their way. Even when heavily shocked by battle losses, they tend ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Their specific gravities fluctuate between .91 and .93. When heated, fats assume a dark color, and boil between 482 deg. and 572 deg. Fahr., but the boiling-point continuously rises, while an uninterrupted decomposition proceeds. From oxide of glycyl ensues acroline; oleic acid affords a fatty acid, and among the decomposition ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... expectation, or desire of exciting pleasurable sensations. On the very contrary, Mrs. Morgan and her sister will bear witness so far, as to say, that the longer I abstained, the higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyments—till the moment, the direful moment arrived, when my pulse began to fluctuate, my heart to palpitate, and such falling abroad, as it were, of my whole frame, such intolerable restlessness, and incipient bewilderment, that in the last of my several attempts to abandon the dire poison, I exclaimed ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... same forces, and in spite of similar obstacles, they face the same enemies, they are affected by the same dangers, and the history of the last thirty years shows quite clearly that their power of influencing public affairs and of commanding national attention fluctuate together. Together they are elevated, together they are depressed, and any Tory reaction which swept the Liberal Party out of power would assuredly work at least proportionate havoc in the ranks of Labour. That may not be a very palatable truth, but it is a truth ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... may change, and the public affections fluctuate with respect to others, with respect to him, they have, in war and in peace, in public and in private life, been as steady as his own firm mind, and as constant as his own ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... more money with you; and I am not one of those to whom the croupier or porters will lend money. The second rule is the most difficult, and decides whether you are a gambler or not. I make a rule always to leave off when I have won a certain sum—or even before, if the chances of my game fluctuate. There is the difficulty; it appears very foolish not to follow up luck, but the fact is, fortune is so capricious, that if you trust her more than an hour, she will desert you. This is my mode of play, and with me it answers; but it does not follow that it ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... the proportion of reserve to liability at which the Bank should aim; but he does not say whether he regards a third as the minimum below which the reserve in the Banking Department should never be, or as a fair average, about which the reserve may fluctuate, sometimes being greater, ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... real value of a corn rent, it is to be observed, however, varies much less from century to century than that of a money rent, it varies much more from year to year. The money price of labour, as I shall endeavour to shew hereafter, does not fluctuate from year to year with the money price of corn, but seems to be everywhere accommodated, not to the temporary or occasional, but to the average or ordinary price of that necessary of life. The average or ordinary price of corn, again is regulated, as I shall likewise endeavour ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... are permitted to speak of the harmony of the tones of a cloud, why not of the harmony produced by the consenting lines of a countenance, where every grace melts into another, and the various features and expressions fluctuate into a fine whole? Whatever, whether it be the beauty of the human face, or the quiet lustre of statuary, or the mild glory of moonlight, gives the effects of music, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... railway time-table, and a delay of an hour implied a casualty as far-reaching as the breaking down of an express. Of the cause of the present derangement Hugh Millner was ignorant; and the experience of the last months allowed him to fluctuate between conflicting conjectures. All were based on the indisputable fact that Mr. Spence was "bothered"—had for some time past been "bothered." And it was one of Millner's discoveries that an extremely parsimonious use ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... St. Aponal. Of no interest. Some say that Bianca Cappello fled from it; but the tradition seems to fluctuate between the various houses belonging ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... found himself in one of those difficult situations, in which prepossession, being compelled to fluctuate in uncertainty between several points at once, has no sooner determined and fixed upon one side, than it removes and gets ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... cities—pauperism is almost unknown—the people are on farms—the style of living is less costly by half, but greatly superior in quality and comfort—according to the census, there is but little crime—almost all have homes—the amount of agricultural labor does not fluctuate—the farms are not cultivated by the spade and hoe, but are large enough to justify a system of enlarged agricultural operations by the aid of horse power. The result is that more is saved, and the proceeds ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... esteem and pleasure; pity is composed of sorrow and contempt: the mind may for some time fluctuate between them, but it can ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... having been once introduced, little room was left for improvement, beyond the slight variations in the form of the Letters, which, as a matter of taste, would always be liable to fluctuate: a comparison of works, printed at ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders
... Whether it is not a great point to know what we would be at? And whether whole States, as well as private persons, do not often fluctuate for ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... trust that the same Providence will forever continue to protect the prosperity of the prince and people. From these vague and indefinite expressions of piety, three suppositions may be deduced, of a different, but not of an incompatible nature. The mind of Constantine might fluctuate between the Pagan and the Christian religions. According to the loose and complying notions of Polytheism, he might acknowledge the God of the Christians as one of the many deities who compose the hierarchy of heaven. Or perhaps he might embrace the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... pigmentary type of feminine beauty. Such variation as exists seemingly involves a somewhat greater degree of darkness for the southern beauty in harmony with the greater racial darkness of the southerner, but the variations fluctuate within a narrow range; the extremely dark type is always excluded, and so it would seem probable is the extremely fair type, for blue eyes have not, on the whole, been considered to form part of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... them, Joe. Not only do that, but buy more. This is destined some day to be a great city. It has a favorable location, is the great mining center, and the State, I feel convinced, has an immense territory fit for agricultural purposes. Lots here may fluctuate, but they will go up a good deal higher ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the engine speed to fluctuate through more or less regular periods from high to low speeds; the engine will seem to be mis-firing and there will be noticeable a strong odor, as well as, usually, a heavy black ...
— Marvel Carbureter and Heat Control - As Used on Series 691 Nash Sixes Booklet S • Anonymous
... gradually leave her. But my father shakes his head and speaks of others of our family once similarly afflicted, for whom he likewise persisted in hoping against hope, and who are now removed where hope and fear fluctuate no more. There were, however, differences between their case and hers—important differences I think. I must cling to the expectation of her recovery, I cannot ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... autumn of 1865—my spiritual studies underwent an entire change—they were studies—serious studies. I now kept a careful journal of all communications, which journal I continued for three years, so that I can trace all my fluctuations of opinion—for I did fluctuate—during that period. Now, too, it was necessary for me to consult those who had already gone deeply into the subject; and the record of my experiences would be both imperfect and ungracious if I did not here acknowledge the prompt kindness of the two gentlemen to whom I applied—Mr. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... tumult arose in the west; and turning to that quarter, I perceived, at the extremity of the Mediterranean, in one of the nations of Europe, a prodigious movement—such as when a violent sedition arises in a vast city—a numberless people, rushing in all directions, pour through the streets and fluctuate like waves in the public places. My ear, struck with the cries which resounded to ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... lying at the root of human life which are invincible to all doubt. We can demonstrate many things; but there are natural realities beyond our power of demonstration. On the side of sense, all things seem to fluctuate and waver in uncertainty; on the side of mere intellect we soon cross the limit of our powers. But Humanity is more than either sense or intellect. There is, as he believes, a primitive endowment of spiritual instinct in man, which looks forth upon a higher world of reality. ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... wrong, perverse, poisonous, about life as you have always lived it, and something hopelessly ethereal about the life which your innermost inhabitant wants to live—these disagreeable sensations grow stronger and stronger. First one and then the other asserts itself. You fluctuate miserably between their attractions and their claims; and will have no peace until these claims have been met, and the apparent opposition between them resolved. You are sure now that there is another, more durable and more "reasonable," life possible ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... equally well aware of the fact that aerial craft cannot communicate over long distances. For instance, A sends his airmen aloft and conversation begins between the clouds and the ground. Presently the receivers of B begin to record faint signals. They fluctuate in intensity, but within a few seconds B gathers that an aeroplane is aloft and communicating with its base. By the aid of the field telephone B gets into touch with his whole string of wireless stations and orders a keen look-out and a listening ear to ascertain whether ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... feeling helps us for certain degrees of congestion, but for exact science, that is for the criticism of "fine" art, we want the notation. The notation, however, is what we lack, and the verdict of the mere feeling is liable to fluctuate. In other words an imputed defect is never, at the worst, disengageable, or other than matter for appreciation—to come back to my claim for that felicity of the dramatist's case that his synthetic "whole" IS his form, the only one we have to do with. I like to profit in his company by the ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... I was in such a nervous state that I was obsessed in some mysterious manner and went off like a rocket. I can assure you I feel like a stick this morning. You will forgive me, won't you? for you know that although my affections do fluctuate for some people, they ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... of gathering the industry under the paternal care of the government, of relieving it from the exigencies of private enterprise which must of necessity fluctuate, of keeping the art in dignified prosperity, and of devoting to its uses the highest talent of ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... dial from its setting, watched a slender thread of light within a transparent sphere above it fluctuate in breadth as the dial twisted. And when it was at its widest, she gambled that it indicated the broadest transmitting beam of ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... heavily-willowed Kentucky shore the roily mess of the Ohio, and for several miles exerts a considerable influence in clarification. The Lower Wabash, flowing through a soft clay bottom, runs an erratic course, and its mouth is a variable location, so that the bounds of Illinois and Indiana, hereabout, fluctuate east and west according to the exigencies of the floods. The far-reaching bottom itself, however, is apparently of slight value, giving evidence, in the dreary clumps of dead timber, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... originally pulled the trigger may have been a series of pictures in the mind aroused by printed or spoken words. These pictures fade and are hard to keep steady; their contours and their pulse fluctuate. Gradually the process sets in of knowing what you feel without being entirely certain why you feel it. The fading pictures are displaced by other pictures, and then by names or symbols. But the emotion goes on, capable now of being aroused by the substituted images and names. ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... out,— The whiteness,—and asleep again! but now It was a woman, robed, and with a face Lovely and dim. And Gladys while she gazed Murmured, "O terrible! I am afraid To breathe among these intermittent lives, That fluctuate in mystic solitude, And change and fade. Lo! where the goddess sits Dreaming on her dim throne; a crescent moon She wears upon her forehead. Ah! her frown Is mournful, and her slumber is not sweet. What dost thou hold, Isis, to thy cold breast? A baby god with finger on his lips, Asleep, ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... as the impression made by his tones, gestures, and looks, remained in my memory, this suspicion was impossible. Wickedness may sometimes be ambiguous, its mask may puzzle the observer; our judgment may be made to falter and fluctuate, but the face of Mervyn is the index of an honest mind. Calm or vehement, doubting or confident, it is full of benevolence and candour. He that listens to his words may question their truth, but he that looks upon his ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... out fire. {91b} Flicht and wary, fluctuate and change. {92b} Frawfull fary, froward tumult. {152c} Fyke, fuss. {30} Fytte, a song, canto. First English, fit, a song. When Wisdom "thas fitte asungen haefde" had sung ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... watched the gas gage on the instrument board of the roadster fluctuate wildly as the attendant of the station shook the hose to speed the flow of the last few drops. Five gallons—a dollar ten. Did he have that much? He began to assemble various small hoards of ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... to be made under the best conditions, the temperature of the water used and of the extract after it is made should not fluctuate. In the pumping percolator, as in the steeping method, the temperature varies greatly from the time the extraction is started to the completion of the operation. This is deleterious. Also, local overheating of the infusion occurs at the point of application of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... it is freely chosen, and adopted for a time only; because it is not stigmatized by public opinion, and creates no permanent inequality between the servant and the master. But whilst the transition from one social condition to another is going on, there is almost always a time when men's minds fluctuate between the aristocratic notion of subjection and the democratic notion of obedience. Obedience then loses its moral importance in the eyes of him who obeys; he no longer considers it as a species of divine obligation, and he does not yet view it under its purely human aspect; it has ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville |
