"Groundwork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... answers to the queries he put down upon paper yesterday in Downing Street. The result is to my mind a decision which I fear will not tally very well with our wishes and the views you have formed as the groundwork of the communication at present proposed with Vienna." He then states that, even if a Russian squadron appears in the North Sea, yet we cannot keep a permanent squadron in the Mediterranean. "For that ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... general, the question is asked, "is he amiable?" Undoubtedly they still wear swords, and are brave through pride and tradition, and they know how to die, especially in duels and according to form. But worldly traits have hidden the ancient military groundwork; at the end of the eighteenth century their genius is to be wellbred and their employment consists in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... tobacco-pouch (which also contains a note-book), knife, purse, and pocket pipe-lighter, which comprise the necessary and indispensable groundwork, here are two leather laces twisted like earthworms round a watch enclosed in a case of transparent celluloid, which has curiously dulled and blanched with age. Then a little round mirror, and another square one; this last, though broken, is of better quality, and bevel-edged. A flask ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... was considered a failure because the administration did not afterwards support him; and it is true that no government would submit to a demand for adventitious damages so long as it could prevent this; but it was a far-reaching exposure of an unprincipled foreign policy, and this speech formed the groundwork for the Treaty of Washington and the Geneva arbitration. It was a more important case than the settlement of ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... living in the world. What will be the consequence? The first effect on the minds of all who come to understand it, is terribly iconoclastic. It drives out before it everything else in the shape of religious belief. It leaves no room for any conceptions belonging even to the groundwork or foundation of ordinary religious faith. And what becomes then of all rules of right and wrong, of all sanctions for morality? Most assuredly there are rules of right and wrong thrilling through every fibre of occult philosophy really ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... such a man fell into errors, it must be from defects not intrinsical; they must be rather sought in the particular habits of his life, which, though they do not alter the groundwork of character, yet tinge it with their own hue. He was bred in a profession. He was bred to the law, which is, in my opinion, one of the first and noblest of human sciences,—a science which does more to quicken and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... appeared to Father Xavier as an excellent groundwork for the planting of the gospel. He wept for joy at the happy news; and adored the profound judgments of the Divine Providence, which, after having refused the grace of baptism to the king of Travancore, when all his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... our modern civilization? And pertinent to this question another—Why is it that the pirate has, and always has had, a certain lurid glamour of the heroical enveloping him round about? Is there, deep under the accumulated debris of culture, a hidden groundwork of the old-time savage? Is there even in these well-regulated times an unsubdued nature in the respectable mental household of every one of us that still kicks against the pricks of law and order? To make my meaning more clear, would not every boy, for instance—that is, every ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... strata—the very groundwork of a farm—geology was the true guide to the proper selection of suitable seed. Crops had been garnered by the aid of the electric light, the plough had been driven by the Gramme machine; electricity, then, would play a foremost part in future ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... mysteriously connected by hidden bonds, from the most elevated to the humblest existences; therein lies the explanation of the variegated coloring, the complication of this study of manners, the assemblage of scattered threads of which the writer with a regard for truth is compelled to make the groundwork ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... upheaval, in which everybody would be killed by everybody else. "It will come sooner than we think," she would observe darkly; a mathematical expert of exceptionally high powers would have been puzzled to work out the approximate date from the slender and confusing groundwork ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... the last-mentioned author's explanation of such serial homology as exists in the centipede and its allies, the very groundwork is open to objection. Multiplication by spontaneous fission seems from some recent researches to be much less frequent than has been supposed, and more evidence is required as to the fact of the habitual propagation of any planariae ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... endeavoring to raise such a superstructure of improvement as was adapted to the wants of modern society. Criminal law was regulated according to the wise codes of Gregory XVI., which were a real progress. Civil legislation had for its groundwork the old Roman law, which the Popes, at various times, had wisely adapted to their age and the circumstances of their people. There are certain points of great delicacy, with regard to which, in Christian communities, religious authority only can legislate. These excepted, the Justinian code, with ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... subject, and gaed us a twa-hours discourse on the system of banking in Scotland; wherein the superiority of the method adopted by his countrymen, to wring the last drop of interest out a shilling, was pertinaciously and dogmatically argued, upon the great groundwork of "the general and aibstract ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... bestowed upon it with due knowledge of the fact and with deliberate intent, the name of a person of undoubted African descent. However, at this stage to reveal the circumstances governing this phenomenon would be to run ahead of our tale and to precipitate its climax before the groundwork were laid for its premise. Most stories should start at the beginning. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... or a regatta, ever think of these musty old legends looked up by scholars out of convent chronicles and peasants' fireside talk? The difference between past and present is not greater or more startling than is their likeness, the groundwork of human nature being the same for ever. Especially in these old lands, how like the life of to-day to that of hundreds of years ago in all that makes life real and intense! The same thing in a mould of other shape, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... moon's orbit, and in the motion of her nodes. He determined with new accuracy the astronomical refractions from an altitude of 45 deg. down to the horizon, where he found it to be 34'; and he made a vast collection of observations on the planets, which formed the groundwork of Kepler's discoveries and the basis of the Rudolphine Tables. Tycho's powers of observation were not equalled by his capacity for general views. It was, perhaps, owing more to his veneration for the Scriptures than to the vanity of giving his name to a new system that he rejected the Copernican ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... shall mention last, and whom I cannot persuade myself to think a mere modern in the groundwork, is Ossian. He is a feeling and a name that can never be destroyed in the minds of his readers. As Homer is the first vigour and lustihead, Ossian is the decay and old age of poetry. He lives only in the recollection and regret of the past. There is one impression which he conveys more entirely ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... genuine diction. Our language, for almost a century, has, by the concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original Teutonic character and deviating towards a Gallic structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavor to recall it, by making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style, admitting among the additions of later times, only such as may supply real deficiencies, such as are readily adopted by the genius of our tongue, and incorporate easily with ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... artist people; but it was the spirit, so great and tender, that melts my heart to think of. It was the spirit of true religion,—such, my Country! as, welling freshly from some great hearts in thy early hours, won for thee all of value that thou canst call thy own, whose groundwork is the assertion, still sublime though thou hast not been true to it, that all men have equal rights, and that these are birth-rights, derived from ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to imagine all the enjoyable part of it," he answered. "I must have a groundwork to go upon. She's got to have feelings come to her upon this horse. You can't enter into a rider's feelings when you've almost forgotten which side of the horse you ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... Jesus. "When not merely the particular nature and manner of an occurrence is critically suspicious, its external circumstances represented as miraculous and the like; but where likewise the essential substance and groundwork is either inconceivable in itself, or is in striking harmony with some Messianic idea of the Jews of that age, then not the particular alleged course and mode of the transaction only, but the entire occurrence must be regarded as unhistorical" (Strauss' "Life of Jesus," vol. i., p. 94). ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... cloister, the effect is one of great brilliance. But just as the secular drama suffered from this passion for display, so the higher poetical development of the Mystery was arrested by the same cause. In the texts which are left we find for the most part the poorest dramatic groundwork, relieved now and then by a fine lyrical or rhetorical passage, but no trace of the grand symbolic enthusiasm which distinguishes ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... every one, high or low, rich or poor, ought, according to his means, to seek. I think I shall class them according to the elemental division of the old philosophers: Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. These form the groundwork of this need-be,—the sine-qua-nons ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Bilney, moved by a brotherly pity towards Mr. Latimer, begged to wait upon him in his study, and to explain to him the groundwork of his (Mr. Bilney's) faith. This blessed interview effected his conversion: the persecutor of Christ became his zealous advocate, and before Dr. Stafford died he became reconciled ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... reader from 1837, the year of Dr. Ebers's birth in Berlin, to 1863, when An Egyptian Princess was finished. The subsequent events of his life were outwardly calm, as befits the existence of a great scientist and busy romancer, whose fecund fancy was based upon a groundwork of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... otherwise a racial instinct necessary to the absolute unison of a pair. Thus, though he might never love a woman of the island race, for lack in her of the desired refinement, he could not love long a kimberlin—a woman other than of the island race, for her lack of this groundwork of character. ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... Grafton refuse to accompany them for two reasons; 1st, because the feelings of the public are not high enough for so decisive a measure; and, 2dly, because the others will not agree to make the great fundamental abuse of the constitution, as well as the temporary misconduct of government, the groundwork of that secession. In a word, because they will not declare, that the object of the measure is to obtain the abolition of corruption, and not merely the change of those who minister it. This schism will, however, reduce opposition so as to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... printed questions to prominent persons in different parts of the Province, asking for topographical and other information. The thirty-first question was so framed that, if truthfully replied to, it was certain to elicit facts which would form the groundwork of damnifying strictures on the principal abuses of the time. "What, in your opinion," asked Mr. Gourlay, "retards the improvement of your township in particular, or the Province in general?" Throughout ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... have, in the very beginning, the groundwork for something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made of the table is obvious—but in this particular cipher we shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will commence by assuming ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... eye upward to the ceiling. It is frescoed with themes of a barbaric age. The finely-outlined figure of a female adorns the centre. Her loins are enveloped in what seems a mist; and in her right hand, looking as if it were raised from the groundwork, she holds gracefully the bulb of a massive chandelier, from the jets of which a refulgent light is reflected upon the flowery banquet table. Madame smilingly says it is the Goddess of Love, an exact copy of the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... he was never able to surpass Leonardo; and although it appears to many that he did surpass him in sweetness and in a kind of natural facility, nevertheless he was by no means superior to him in that sublime groundwork of conceptions and that grandeur of art in which few have been the peers of Leonardo. Yet Raffaello came very near to him, more than any other painter, and above all in grace of colouring. But to return to Raffaello himself; in time he found himself very much hindered and impeded ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... all things. Let us be sincere and Protestant, strictly moral, strictly just (though always with a leaning towards mercy), strictly honest, and strictly true, and we gain—it is a slight point, certainly, but still it is something tangible; we throw up a groundwork and foundation, so to speak, of goodness, on which we may afterwards ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... by the imperfection or weakness of volition, by a certain degree of mental instability and lack of inhibitory control of the desires, tendencies, activities and motor expressions of the individual, this defect laying the groundwork for the impulsions and obsessions, as also for hysterical, so-called neurasthenic, hypochondriacal, depressive and so-called dementia praecox reactions. The tic movement is the symbol of the psychic defect ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... we lay no groundwork sooner than that? Sometime in the foreseeable future, at least! Take it up with Propaganda, Blauvelt! It seems to me that the briefing mentioned an indigenous race on ...
— The Outbreak of Peace • Horace Brown Fyfe
... a merit; the grosser the burlesque, the broader the parody, the greater was the success and the more effective was the result: but in a dramatic attempt of higher pretention than such as might be looked for in the literary groundwork or raw material for a pageant, this intrusion of incongruous contrast is a pure barbarism—a positive solecism in composition.... On the other hand, even Gifford's editorial enthusiasm could not overestimate ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... his mind, if not the Durham ballad, the similar but more detailed corruption of it which he had heard told by his father's servant, John MacKinlay, in the days of George's Square and Green-breeks, and which he has preserved in the introduction to Guy Mannering, as the groundwork of that tale. It has been shown that the three last Cantos of The Lord of the Isles were written between the 11th of November and the 25th of December; and it is therefore scarcely to be supposed that any part of this novel had been penned ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... play. But none did he espy, nor did the chance-flung cap ever fall upon his eager, outstretched hands. And if in later years the subject still fascinated me, it made me feel what the grown man realizes always more clearly, that fables and fairy tales rest on a solid groundwork of fact. Why, when so many other legends have been verified, should this universal tradition of vanishers and invisibles ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... proclaiming devotion to justice, as the controlling motive in the organization of the Government, and its secure establishment the chief object of its aims. By this most solemn recognition, the common law, that grand legal embodiment of "justice" and fundamental right was made the groundwork of the Constitution, and intrenched behind its strongest munitions. The second clause of Sec. 9, Art. 1; Sec. 4, Art. 2, and the last clause of Sec. 2, Art. 3, with Articles 7, 8, 9, and 13 of the Amendments, are also express recognitions of the common law as the presiding ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... had assumed a dazzling white, with a roof so grey that the shingles might have been veritable slates. Resemblance to the lime-washed houses of home was Robert's fancy; which, in Zack Bunting's mind, was a perverted taste, as he recommended a brilliant green groundwork, picked out with yellow, such canary-bird costume ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... evident that his family think a good deal of this young lordling, and I must take care to keep in his good graces. He is fond of flattery, though it doesn't do to lay it on too thick, but his sisters and mother will be well pleased to hear his praises sung, and as I have a fair groundwork to go upon, I may praise him to the skies behind his back; he is sure to hear what I say of him, and will be more pleased than if I flattered him to his face. I shall thus get into the good graces of the ladies, who may induce the marquis to use his influence at the Admiralty ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... and her representation in Parliament, while retaining colonial institutions. At present the prospects of Imperial Federation seem to be indifferent. On the other hand, the affection between all branches of our race which is the indispensable groundwork of Federation becomes visibly stronger, and will become stronger, provided that we do not revert to the ancient and discredited policy either of dictating to the Colonies or taking sides with one ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... related to this love of the material is the sense of the beautiful. "Beauty is pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing," says Santayana. Pleasures of the eye and ear, of the imagination and memory, are those most easily objectified, and form the groundwork on which all higher beauty rests. The green of the spring, the odor of Red Riding Hood's flowers, the splendor of the Prince's ball in Cinderella—these when perceived distinctly are intelligible, and when perceived delightfully are beautiful. Language is a kind of music, too; ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... La Fontaine's most admired fables, and is one of the few for which he did not go for the groundwork to some older fabulist. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld, to whom it was dedicated, was the author of the famous "Reflexions et Maximes Morales," which La Fontaine praises in the last lines of his fable. ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... leading periodicals of the day; while they were more than once quoted by Sir Walter Scott, who characterised the whole as an elegant work. In the production of these tales, Mr Roby's practice was to make himself master of the historical groundwork of the story, and as far as possible of the manners and customs of the period, and then to commence composition, with Fosbroke's Encyclopedia of Antiquities at hand, for accuracy of costume, &c. He always gave the credit of his style, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a new idea, and the following evening he made a groundwork of branches in the corner of the corral itself, and put down his blankets on the evergreens. Diablo was much concerned and walked about examining the new work from every angle. There Bull slept, and the next night ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... on the old familiar lines, and supplies the groundwork of an eminently readable story, peopled by many life-like "humours" and an attractive, spirited heroine. The adventures of Valerie are various and well-sustained; her bearing throughout secures the reader's sympathy, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... Spangles are very rarely found on canvas-bound books. The backgrounds of several of the later specimens are worked in silver threads, sometimes in chain-stitch and sometimes in tapestry-stitch; others again have the groundwork of silver threads laid along the surface of the canvas and caught down at regular intervals by small stitches—this kind of work is called 'laid' or 'couched' work. Books bound with this metal ground have always strong work superimposed, usually executed ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... the wax takes all shapes, and yet is wax still at the bottom; the [Greek: spokeimenon] still is wax; so the soul transported in so many several passions of joy, fear, hope, sorrow, anger, and the rest, has for its general groundwork of all this, Love." (Henry More, quoted in Carey's Dante, Purgatorio, c. xviii.) Hence, says Carey, Love does not figure in Collins's ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... founder, which was written in Latin by one of the Canons soon after Rahere's death in the reign of Henry II. An illuminated copy of this work, made at the end of the fourteenth century, is preserved in the British Museum, with an English translation, which forms the groundwork of all subsequent histories.[1] ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... story the groundwork of a most fantastic tale. Gyges, according to him, was originally a shepherd, who, after a terrible storm, noticed a fissure in the ground, into which he crept; there he discovered an enormous bronze horse, half broken, and in its side the corpse of a giant ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... The phonetic groundwork of a language, however, is only one of the features that give its literature a certain direction. Far more important are its morphological peculiarities. It makes a great deal of difference for the development of style if the language can or cannot create compound words, if ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... had been done by the members themselves, in hours after mill duties were over. The color mixer had supplied the material with which the once ugly white walls were tinted; and upon the soft-hued groundwork there had been stencilled a delicate conventional design. At one end of the large room designated the "reading room" a scroll bore the legend which old Adam Burns had given Amy as a "rule of life": "Simplicity, Sincerity, Sympathy," and opposite gleamed in golden letters ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... embodies, better than any other experiences of mankind, those things which at the same time appeal to the whole nature of the child and furnish him the means of interpreting the complex processes about him, this experience has been made the groundwork of the present series. ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... a servant, the thought should bow him with conscious unworthiness, not lift him in self-satisfaction. Nehemiah's confession not only sprung from the thought of Israel's vocation, so poorly fulfilled, but it also laid the groundwork for further petitions. It is useless to ask God to help us to repair the wastes if we do not cast out the sins which have made them. The beginning of all true healing of sorrow is confession of sins. Many promising schemes for ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... itself into three portions. In the first, I shall endeavor to investigate and arrange the facts of nature with scientific accuracy; showing as I proceed, by what total neglect of the very first base and groundwork of their art the idealities of some among the old masters are produced. This foundation once securely laid, I shall proceed, in the second portion of the work, to analyze and demonstrate the nature of ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... and yellow-haired, would remind one instantly of Henrietta, an olive brunette with large, languishing dark eyes and hair that was blue-black. The hint of resemblance that ran through them all, reconciling every differentiation, was Ah Chun's contribution. He had furnished the groundwork upon which had been traced the blended patterns of the races. He had furnished the slim-boned Chinese frame, upon which had been builded the delicacies and subtleties of ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... Rosalba's milieu is a type of others of its class. She lives with her mother and sisters, an honest, cheerful, industrious existence. They are fond of old friends and old books, and indulge in music and simple pleasures. Her sisters help Rosalba by preparing the groundwork of her paintings. She pays visits, and writes rhymes, and plays on the harpsichord. She receives great men without much ceremony, and the Elector Palatine, the Duke of Mecklenburg, Frederick, King of Norway, and Maximilian, King of Bavaria, come to her to order miniatures ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... of Man in this World," copied by Will. Baspoole, whose copy "was verbatim written by Walter Parker, 1645, and from thence transcribed by G.G. 1649; and from thence by W.A. 1655." This last copy may have been read by, or its story reported to, Bunyan, and may have been the groundwork of his Pilgrim's Progress. It will be edited for the E.E.T. Soc., its text running under the earlier English, as in Mr. Herrtage's edition of the Gesta Romanorum for the Society. In February 1464,[5] ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... complexities as he watched him go. Together with Rabbit, and the Mexican woman down El Paso way whom John had mentioned, but of whom Dad never had spoken, and no telling how many more scattered around the country, Dad seemed to be laying the groundwork for a lively roundup one of his days. He said he'd been marrying women off and on for forty years. His easy plan seemed to be just to take one that pleased his capricious temper wherever he found her, without regard to ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... rounds continue to draw high international interest. Libya faces a long road ahead in liberalizing the socialist-oriented economy, but initial steps - including applying for WTO membership, reducing some subsidies, and announcing plans for privatization - are laying the groundwork for a transition to a more market-based economy. The non-oil manufacturing and construction sectors, which account for more than 20% of GDP, have expanded from processing mostly agricultural products to include the production of petrochemicals, iron, steel, and aluminum. Climatic conditions and ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... series of "wander years," during which he visited many European countries, giving lessons in singing and upon the piano, and meeting with varying fortunes. In all these years, however, he cherished the plan of producing a trilogy in the Wagnerian manner with a groundwork from Florentine history. In a letter he says: "I subdivided the historical periods in the following way: first part, 'I Medici,' from the accession of Sextus IV. to the Pazzi conspiracy; second part, 'Savonorola,' from the investiture of ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... To open the groundwork or balance of these new politicians: "Feudum," says Calvin the lawyer, "is a Gothic word of divers significations; for it is taken either for war, or for a possession of conquered lands, distributed by the victor to such of his captains and soldiers as had merited in his wars, upon condition ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... vivid recollections of what had at different times agitated his own bosom, there are but little grounds, however he might himself occasionally encourage such a supposition, for connecting him personally with the groundwork or incidents ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... to take breath for a short time among the fashionable world of Paris, where we are but just arrived. Allow us to prepare at our leisure the groundwork of our novel, and do not hurry on the conclusion ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... medium new possibilities came into the world, and a continual succession of painters have been inventing ways of putting on paint, the result being the stock of methods and processes of handling which are the groundwork of ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... none of these things, nor all combined, would have given to Defoe that immortality which is his as the author of Robinson Crusoe. Of the groundwork of the story ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... coincide with those advanced by others I cannot say, and have not been careful to inquire. The mere fact of coincidence or of dissent on such a question is of less importance than the principle accepted by either student as the groundwork of his theory, the mainstay of his opinion. It is no part of my project or my hope to establish the actual date of any among the various plays, or to determine point by point the lineal order of their succession. ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... dead, after so long a time, he came to this city, where he took the name he now bears, without for twelve years ever having discovered any traces of this Alberto, or of his son Horatio. This is the substance of the story, which I have repeated so that you may better remember the groundwork of the plot. Now, you are to personate an Armenian merchant, who has seen them both safe and sound in Turkey. If I have invented this scheme, in preference to any other, of bringing them to life again according ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... the framing of new laws by which the freedom of Rome might be better secured, Spurius Posthumius and two other citizens were, by general consent, despatched to Athens to procure copies of the laws which Solon had drawn up for the Athenians, to the end that these might serve as a groundwork for the laws of Rome. On their return, the next step was to depute certain persons to examine these laws and to draft the new code. For which purpose a commission consisting of ten members, among whom was Appius Claudius, a crafty and ambitious citizen, was appointed for a year; ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... corner. The corner—the big one, is further along, and then there's the hill and the hot sun on the dusty road. You'll need your sporting instincts. But you've got them. So had St. Paul and those others who furnished the groundwork for that oft-mentioned Roman holiday. That's religion, as I see it. That's what they did; pushed on—faced things down—went out smiling—"gentlemen unafraid." It's like swimming—you can't go under if you make ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... that you live in Graustark and have not seen its princess—before," she said, laying groundwork for enquiry concerning the acts and whereabouts of the ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... "The groundwork of my early character was plasticity and fickleness. I was mortified by this exposure of my ignorance, and disgusted with my former course of reading. I now set myself violently to the study of history. With my turn of mind, and with the preposterous habits ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... breath God says, Draw nigh, and, Draw not nigh. There can be no knowledge of God or nearness to Him, where we have not first heard His, Draw not nigh. The sense of sin, of unfitness for God's presence, is the groundwork of true knowledge or worship of Him as the Holy One. 'Put off thy shoes from off thy feet.' The shoes are the means of intercourse with the world, the aids through which the flesh or nature does its will, moves about and does its work. In standing upon holy ground, all ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... these data by heart. He had a fine memory for such things, and in an hour or two had those details so perfectly committed that he never forgot one of them as long as he lived. The knowledge acquired in this stray fashion he found invaluable in later life. It was his groundwork ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... story is fact. I have supplied details, dialogue, and passion. For the facts which constitute the groundwork I am chiefly indebted to Dr. Oswald W. Seidensticker's very valuable monograph entitled "Ephrata, eine amerikanische Klostergeschichte." The reader will find a briefer account of the monastery from the same learned and able writer in The Century ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... being the sixth of April, the Durbeyfield waggon met many other waggons with families on the summit of the load, which was built on a wellnigh unvarying principle, as peculiar, probably, to the rural labourer as the hexagon to the bee. The groundwork of the arrangement was the family dresser, which, with its shining handles, and finger-marks, and domestic evidences thick upon it, stood importantly in front, over the tails of the shaft-horses, in its erect and natural position, like ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... selective draft had merely been started. Only the groundwork had been laid. The principal operation—the draft itself—had to be undertaken, and the process was a slow one. Half the men who registered claimed exemption from military service for a multitude of reasons, but as not more than 6 per cent were ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... a soiled dressing gown of purple flannel, with several of the buttons off. In the clear light of a window at the woman's back, her hair, with a groundwork of crimson, was overshot with iridescent lights. On a small table at her side a tray had been left, with the remains of dejeuner; a jug stained brown with streaks of coffee; a crumbled crescent roll; some balls of silver paper which had contained cream ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... them. He is probably indeed much more impulsive, much more liable to be whirled about by gusts of emotion than we are; yet it would be unfair to judge his life as a whole by these occasional outbursts rather than by its general tenour, which to those who know him from long observation reveals a groundwork of logic and reason resembling our own in its operations, though differing from ours in the premises from which it sets out. I think it desirable to emphasise the rational basis of savage life because it ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... son of the state of Shiner's heart that had been suggested to him by Shiner's movements. He preferred to let such delicate affairs right themselves; experience having taught him that the uncertain phenomenon of love, as it existed in other people, was not a groundwork upon which a single action of his own life ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... tears, and made a laughing promise in reply to his uncle's laughing demand. But, for all the fun of the remark, there was yet a strong groundwork of belief beneath this assertion of the Canon Lucien Bonaparte; the old man was a shrewd observer. His friendship for the little Napoleon was strong. And in spite of all the boy's faults,—his temper, his ambition, his sullenness, ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... adopted in Council, and officially ready for transmission to Madras, in twelve or thirteen days. In this perplexity of plan and of transmission, the Court of Directors may have made an arrangement of their affairs on the groundwork of the first scheme, which was officially and authentically conveyed to them. The fundamental alteration of that plan in India might require another of a very different kind in England, which the arrangements taken ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... might be mumbled through, whilst the mind was busied elsewhere. Whole populations adopted this first essay of an art thereafter to be used by Loyola in his attempt to govern the world, an art of which his Exercises furnish the ingenious groundwork. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... famous Oriental collection, the Cukasaptati (from cuka, a parrot, and saptati, seventy, The Seventy Tales of a Parrot), better known by its Persian and Turkish name, Tuti-Nameh, Tales of a Parrot.[32] The frame, or groundwork, of the various Oriental versions is substantially the same. A husband is obliged to leave home on business, and while he is absent his wife engages in a love affair with a stranger. A parrot, which the husband has left behind, ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is plausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with the Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate philological groundwork which we require them to lay is in theory an admirable preparation for appreciating the Greek and Latin authors worthily. The more thoroughly we lay the groundwork, the better we shall be able, it may be said, to enjoy the authors. True, if time were ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... throne ready prepar'd for the sin of pride to sit in state upon, especially if it took an early possession: EVE you may suppose was a perfect Beauty, if ever such a thing may be supposed in the human frame; her figure being so extraordinary, was the groundwork of his project; there needed no more than to bring her to be vain of it, and to conceit that it either was so, or was infinitely more sublime and beautiful than it really was; and having thus tickl'd ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... feet long and eighteen inches wide, six ditto eighteen inches square; two pieces black cambric, six feet square; four pieces white cotton cloth, six feet square; (these boxes and cloths are to be used in forming up the groundwork of almost every tableau;) two red damask table covers, (very handy things to use in decorating showy pictures;) one circular platform, four feet in diameter, (much used to form the top of pedestals to group statuary tableaux on;) two steel bars, for producing sounds to represent ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... have been badly served in this essential. Of all the admirable qualities which they have shown none is more wonderful than the spirit which has carried them through the laborious and distasteful groundwork of their calling without one note of music, except that which the same indomitable spirit provided out of their own heads. We have all seen them marching through the country, through the streets of London, in absolute silence and the crowds through which they passed ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... is mythological in the history of AEsculapius, there is a groundwork of facts. Splendid temples were built to him in lovely and healthy places, usually on a hill or near a spring; they were visited by the sick, and the priests of the temples not only attended to the worship of AEsculapius, ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... (p. 288) years dissatisfied with himself, because, in his novel of "The Pilot," he had put the character of Paul Jones too high. He thought that the hero had been credited in that work with loftier motives than those by which he was actually animated. Feelings such as these formed the groundwork of his character, and made him intolerant of the devious ways of many who were satisfied with conforming to a lower code of morality. There was a royalty in his nature that disdained even the semblance of deceit. With other authors one feels that the man is inferior to his work. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... either,—it is all one, so any thing is to be got by it. Yet, after all, thin, speculative Jonathan is more like the Englishman of two centuries ago than John Bull himself is. He has lost somewhat in solidity, has become fluent and adaptable, but more of the original groundwork of character remains. He feels more at home with Fulke Greville, Herbert of Cherbury, Quarles, George Herbert, and Browne, than with his modern English cousins. He is nearer than John, by at least a hundred years, to Naseby, Marston Moor, Worcester, and the time when, if ever, there were ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... them; so that the division of Aristotle, founded on the circulating fluids, or that of Lamarck, on the absence or presence of a backbone, or that of Ehrenberg, on the differences of the nervous system, cover the same ground. Lamarck attempted also to use the faculties of animals as a groundwork for division among them. But our knowledge of the psychology of animals is still too imperfect to justify any such use of it. His divisions into Apathetic, Sensitive, and Intelligent animals are entirely theoretical. He places, for instance, Fishes and Reptiles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... example, may be scattered throughout the spheres which HERSCHEL would assign to the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth magnitudes. However this may be, the fact remains that it is from HERSCHEL'S groundwork that future investigators must build. He found the whole subject in utter confusion. By his observations, data for the solution of some of the most general questions were accumulated, and in his memoirs, which STRUVE well calls "immortal," he ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... form the groundwork of the stories of the other sons of Jacob are also comparatively old. They afford us almost the only information we possess about the great change which must have taken place in the league of the tribes soon after Moses. This change principally affected the group of the four old Leah tribes which ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... and one which profoundly modified all subsequent progress and development. To these four main sources we have made many additions in modern times, building an entirely new superstructure on the old foundations, but the groundwork of our civilization is composed of these four foundation elements. For these reasons a history of even modern education almost of necessity goes back, briefly at least, to the work and contributions of ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... of the first of human bards, in these words celebrate the majesty of Him who is Higher than the highest, the Maker, Guardian, and Sovereign of the universe. Religion adopts this description as the groundwork of its sentiments and exercises. With God it begins, to Him it returns, in Him it rests. To Him it traces all blessing, from Him receives direction concerning the aim and course of life, and as its first and last ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... resort, a few years ago, to the young botanist Ruhmer, assistant at the Botanical Museum at Schoeneberg, who has unfortunately since died of some chest-disease, in order to get some sort of a groundwork for direct investigations. I asked him to look up the literature of the subject, with respect to the employment of the Indian Araceae for domestic uses or in medicine. A detailed work on the subject was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... reason, because the delicate nature of the material upon which he works, its exquisite surface and delicate texture, imparts a marked purity to all his tints. The coarsest complexion gains in lustre and smoothness when attempt is made to render it upon ivory; the dainty groundwork gleams through and gives beauty and clearness to the swarthiest hues. And then, in addition to this, Cosway had in full the portrait-painter's faculty of flattering his sitters. He could hardly fail to please them. He understood ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... channel in the wax, down to, but not into, the surface of the copper plate. The bottoms of these channels will eventually form the surface of the relief lines in the resultant electrotype plate, but now appear as dark lines against the whitish groundwork of the wax. ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... as docile a pupil as any reasonable preceptor might have desired. But still, reading and writing—they are very uninteresting elements! Had the groundwork been laid, it might have been delightful to raise the fairy palace of knowledge; but the digging the foundations and the constructing the cellars is weary labour. Perhaps he felt it so; for in a few days Alice was ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was, being a woman of some education, his mother had taught him to read and write and cipher—not that he was a great adept at any of those arts, but he possessed the groundwork, which was an important matter; and he did his best to keep up his knowledge by reading sign-boards, looking into book-sellers' windows, and studying any stray leaves ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... aside, and put me through a conversational sort of examination. I was studiously modest, but being very fairly grounded by the admirable system of teaching pursued by Miss Frankland, I not only satisfied him, but he took occasion to compliment Miss Frankland very highly for the admirable groundwork she had laid. I fancied also, as he continued in conversation with her, that he grew more kindly and unctuous, as if the spirit of lust was infusing itself in his veins, as he continued to converse with and gaze on that most engaging and ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... obtain some information concerning his new adversary. Kutusof was described to him as an old man, the groundwork of whose reputation had been formerly laid by a singular wound. He had since skilfully profited by circumstances. The very defeat of Austerlitz, which he had foreseen, added to his renown, which was further increased ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... people, but we must also endeavour to promote their spiritual development in every way. The means for doing so is the school. Military education under the present-day conditions, which are continually becoming more severe, can only realize its aims satisfactorily if a groundwork has been laid for it in the schools, and an improved preliminary training has been given ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... close, complex; Short-clipp'd steeds with wrinkled necks Arching high; spear, shield, and all The panoply that doth recall Mighty war; such war as e'en For Helen's sake is waged, I ween. Purple is the groundwork: good! All the field is stained with blood— Blood poured out for Helen's sake; (Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake!) But the shapes of men that pass Are as ghosts within a glass, Woven with whiteness of the swan, Pale, sad ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... intelligent substance, but of what species? It must, it seems to me, be an active principle which has sensations, and which has only that.... If we reflect on the nature of the soul of animals, it supplies us with groundwork which might lead us to think that its spirituality will save it ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... successfully. It has frequently been stated that Byron's story was completed by Polidori; but this assertion is not precisely accurate. Polidori made no use of the actual fragment, but based his story upon the groundwork on which the fragment was to have been continued. Byron's story describes the arrival of two friends amid the ruins of Ephesus. One of them, Darvell, who, like most of Byron's heroes, is enshrouded in mystery, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... covers, is to paint them in oil paint. In the early sixteenth century the Venetians copied the Eastern custom of sinking panels in their book covers, and painted coats of arms on these sunk portions very successfully. The groundwork of the shield itself was usually raised a little, either by something under the leather, or by some gesso-like ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... many also gave credit to, and when she had brought forth a man-child, several, not unimportant persons, took an interest in its rearing and bringing up. The name given the boy was Silenus, for some reason or other. Lysander, taking this for the groundwork, frames and devises the rest himself, making use of not a few, nor these insignificant champions of his story, who brought the report of the child's birth into credit without any suspicion. Another report, also, was procured ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... This circumstance, added to his well-known integrity and dauntless courage, made me very desirous to engage him. A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship: I have never believed it to be necessary, and when I heard of a mariner equally noted for his kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience paid to him ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... who ere thou art that thus dost strive With fierce assault my groundwork to subvert, And boldly dost into Gods secrets dive, Base fear my manly face note make m' avert. In that odde question which thou first didst stert, I'll plainly prove thine incapacitie, And force thy feeble feet back to revert, That cannot climb so high a mysterie, I'le shew ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... Plutarch, and Diogenes Laertius. Among the moderns, La Rochefoucauld, Saint-Evremond, and La Bruyere are admired by all judicious readers. From these French writers Boyer has selected materials for the groundwork of his collection. He has added passages from Antoninus, Pascal, and Gratian; from the English authors Bacon, Cowley, L'Estrange, Raleigh, Temple, Dryden, Wycherley, Brown and others; and from his own pen. They range from a single line to a passage of several ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... a small band of resolute men under the magnificent leadership of Cortez is always rightly ranked among the most romantic and daring exploits in history. With this as the groundwork of his story Mr. Henty has interwoven the adventures of an English youth, Roger Hawkshaw, the sole survivor of the good ship Swan, which had sailed from a Devon port to challenge the mercantile supremacy of the Spaniards in the New World. He is beset by many perils ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... can hardly fail to see that many of the Tales in this volume have the same groundwork as those with which he has been familiar from his earliest youth. They are Nursery Tales, in fact, of the days when there were tales in nurseries—old wives' fables, which have faded away before the light of gas and the power of steam. It is long, ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... was employed under the Directorate of Military Aeronautics, and in 1916 was made Director of Aircraft Equipment, with the rank of brigadier-general. He wore himself out in the service of the country, and died in May 1918. These three men laid the groundwork of the plans which were ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... which a second and enlarged edition was published in 1624. Cotta, who was a physician of great eminence and experience, residing at Northampton, has supplied in this very able, learned, and vigorous treatise, a groundwork which, if pursued to its just results, for he writes very cautiously and guardedly, and rather hints at his conclusions than follows them out, would have sufficed to have overthrown many of the positions of the supporters of the system of witchcraft. His work has a strong scholastic ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... may well say we must be sorry for it, having so lately seen it in all its gay spring beauty—and though no doubt the surface, which is all we saw of its inhabitants, is better than the groundwork, how much of good and great it contains! How the best Frenchmen everywhere, and the best Parisians in particular, must grieve over the deep corruption which has done much to bring their country to its present dreary prospects. I did not mean ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... believes them. They are not lies; for it is not intended that they should obtain credit. I should despise the man who attempted to base his advertisements on a system of facts, as I would the builder who lays his foundation upon the sand. The groundwork of advertising is romance. It is poetry in its very essence. Is ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... the powers of his intellect than this. The result was that at the end of four months he obtained a license to practise as an attorney, and published a "Manual on the Practice of Law," which, Troup tells us, "served as an instructive grammar to future students, and became the groundwork of subsequent enlarged practical treatises." If it be protested that these feats were impossible, I can only reply that they are ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the Righi. Mr. Berkley was an Englishman of fortune; a good-humored, humane old bachelor; remarkable alike for his common sense and his eccentricity. That is to say, the basis of his character was good, sound common sense, trodden down and smoothed by education; but this level groundwork his strange and whimsical fancy used as a dancing-floor, whereon to exhibit her eccentric tricks. His ruling passion was cold-bathing; and he usually ate his breakfast sitting in a tub of cold water, and reading a newspaper. He kissed every child he met; and to every old man, said in passing, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... farmer caste, has furnished the principal groundwork of many admixtures and subdivisions, until at the present time there are endless subcastes, to each of which a particular kind of employment is assigned. The Sudras are still the menials, but there are different grades of degradation even ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... young leaves shyly fluttered, earth and sky were wrapped in that silvery haze with which coy Springtime half veils her radiant face. The vivid verdure of wheat and oat fields, the cooler aqua marina of long stretches of rye, served as mere groundwork for displaying in bold relief the snowy tufts of plum, the creamy clusters of pear, and the glowing pink of peach orchards that clothed the hillsides, and brimmed the valleys with ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... taught by Christ to His disciples; such a task was impossible for the Apostles, because the Gospel was then unknown to mankind, and lest its novelty should offend men's ears it had to be adapted to the disposition of contemporaries (2 Cor. ix:19, 20), and built up on the groundwork most familiar and accepted at the time. (56) Thus none of the Apostles philosophized more than did Paul, who was called to preach to the Gentiles; other Apostles preaching to the Jews, who despised philosophy, similarly, adapted themselves to the temper of their ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza
... powerful tendency to dissolve effectually that narrowness of mind, which mankind have been too unhappily bred up in. Those treaties discover the politician founded on the philosopher, and a harmony of affections made the groundwork of mutual interest. France has won us more powerfully than any reserved treaties could possibly bind us, and by one generous and noble act has sown the seeds of an ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... form, though in a different arrangement, and the introduction of the blue border is adapted after patterns observed among their white neighbors. In the former is presented also what the Ojibwa term the groundwork or type of their original style of ornamentation, i.e., wavy or gently zigzag lines. Later art work consists chiefly of curved lines, and this has gradually become modified through instruction from the Catholic ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... due relief. The proper distribution of light can alone reveal the whole body. For this reason I do not sharply define lineaments; I diffuse about their outline a haze of warm, light half-tints, so that I defy any one to place a finger on the exact spot where the parts join the groundwork of the picture. If seen near by this sort of work has a woolly effect, and is wanting in nicety and precision; but go a few steps off and the parts fall into place; they take their proper form and detach themselves,—the body turns, the limbs stand out, we feel ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... makes the liberation of Italy by Garibaldi the groundwork of an exciting tale of adventure. The hero is an English lad who joins the expedition and takes a prominent part in the extraordinary series of operations that ended in the fall of the ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... subtle also, and, moreover, it was wondrous comely. All the courtiers in the banqueting-hall raved about Phorenice's face and the other beauties of her body and limbs, and though not given to appreciation in these matters, I could not but see that here at least they had a groundwork for their admiration, for surely the Gods have never favoured mortal woman more highly. Yet lovely though she might be, for myself I preferred to look upon Ylga, the girl, who, because of her rank, was privileged to sit on the divan behind us as immediate attendant. There ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... making rapid headway. If the importance of forests were at all understood, even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government. Only of late years by means of forest reservations has the simplest groundwork for available legislation been laid, while in many of the finest groves every species of destruction is still ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... enough to conceive unaided. The swain in the poem tells of his intention to make a bonnet for his chosen nymph to wear. He will fashion it with "golden thimble, scissors, needle, thread"; taking velvet from the April sky as a groundwork, stars for trimming, moonlight for banding, and a web of dreams for lining. He will scent it with the perfume of "the reddest rose that the singing wind finds sweetest where it farthest blows," and "will take it ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... my departed hope and love. This is not Genius. Genius spreads its wings And soars beyond itself, or selfish things. Talent has need of stepping-stones: some cross, Some cheated purpose, some great pain or loss, Must lay the groundwork, and arouse ambition, Before it ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Galilee or Judea; neither are we sure that He always journeyed on foot, or that He adhered to a uniform mode of travelling. It is most singular that the inspired writers throw out no hint on which an artist might seize as the groundwork of a painting of Jesus. As if to teach us more emphatically that we should beware of a sensuous superstition, and that we should direct our thoughts to the spiritual features of His character, the New Testament never mentions either the colour of His hair, or ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... almost a century has, by the concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall it, by making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style.... From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance.' Johnson's Works, v. pp. 31, 39. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... nose, rosy lips, splendid teeth, the blackest of eyes, and the brownest of skin. The veils, which serve to hide their prettiness, are real works of art, composed of gold and silver coins, beads and shells, tastefully and geometrically arranged on a groundwork of black lace. After repeated hand kissing from our amorous tars—an action whose significance is apparently lost on these damsels—we bid good bye to the "nut-brown maids," and at 5 p.m., on September 4th, enter the broad waters of the ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... aristocratic than the Tories? Not at all. In tendency by principle they are the same. The real difference is not in the creed, in the groundwork, but in certain ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... OR NET GROUNDWORK STITCH.—This stitch is also represented at No. 21, on page 13, but the method of making the knot is here illustrated. It is used for ground-work where Brussels net is not imitated, and is very effective wherever it is used. It is begun in the corner or ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.
... most of the characteristics of this work in the thirteenth century; such as the angels with peacock feather wings, moulded by hot irons; the features of all the figures similarly manipulated; the beautiful gold groundwork, which in this instance is covered with double-headed eagles; and lastly, the fashion of the beard on the face of our Lord and of all the men delineated—the upper lip and round the mouth being invariably shaven; whereas, in Continental ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... voluminous, and the object of which will need explanation; these are the Tableau de Paris and L'espion Anglois. The former is truly a picture of private manners in Paris, but presented on the dark side, and a little darkened moreover. But there is so much truth in its groundwork, that it will be well worth your reading. You will then know Paris (and probably the other large cities of Europe) as well as if you had been there for years. L'espion Anglois is no caricature. It will give you a just idea of the ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... in outward form or in action, they were represented under the figure of animals." [13] Sir George W. Cox points out how phrases ascribing to things so named the actions or feelings of living beings, "would grow into stories which might afterwards be woven together, and so furnish the groundwork of what we call a legend or a romance. This will become plain, if we take the Greek sayings or myths about Endymion and Selene. Here, besides these two names, we have the names Protogenia and Asterodia. But every Greek knew that Selene was a name for the ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... instrumental music, its value lying in its establishing the principle, first, that instrumental music might exist independently of vocal, and, second, that it might enhance the expressiveness of vocal music when associated with it. The groundwork of the two great forms of the period next ensuing, the fugue and the sonata, had been laid, and a certain amount of precedent established in favor of free composition in dance and fantasia form. Meanwhile the pianoforte of the day, the clavicembalo, as the Italians ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... investigating the ancient picture-writing and the remains of the wonderful ruins of that region. Probably no stranger has ever enjoyed better opportunities of reading the ancient manuscripts and studying the dialects of the Central American races. With these helps he has prepared a groundwork for the history of the early civilized peoples of our American continent,—a history, it should be remembered, ending where Prescott's begins,—reaching back, possibly, as far as the earliest invasions of the Huns, and one of whose fixed dates is at the time of the Antonines. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... in the progress of a people, and long before they are acquainted with the use of letters, they feel the want of some resource which in peace may amuse their leisure, and in war may stimulate their courage. This is supplied to them by the invention of ballads; which form the groundwork of all historical knowledge, and which, in one shape or another, are found among some of the rudest tribes of the earth. They are for the most part sung by a class of men whose particular business it is ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... influenced by the new environment? It took centuries to make him just what he is. Can't you spare him one generation to shed the crust of those centuries? Can't you be satisfied with making him the solid groundwork of ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... learns a good many things by the way; at the very outset, that drawing accurate and clear must be the groundwork of any painting worthy the name. Both in the use of pencil and brush there must be a degree of painstaking observation, wholesome as a discipline and delightful in its harvests. How many of us, unused to the task of careful observation, can tell the number of the musk-mallow's petals, or ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... unmistakably the groundwork of Philip's romance. It had a woodcut frontispiece of Little Robert in a roundabout and baggy trousers, inadequately embracing his cowering mother's hoopskirt, while his father, the Drunkard in question, staggered remorsefully back. It was ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... border round a square shape, at each corner there comes an open space that requires a filling. Fig. 119 shows two wheels that are commonly used to ornament such places. The square in the first one has a preliminary groundwork of threads thrown across from corner to corner and from side to side, all meeting and crossing in the centre. The working thread is brought through at this point and the wheel commenced by taking a kind of back stitch ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... of arms in his own room, until his dexterous precision was something akin to the sleight of a juggler. He investigated the theory of every movement in an anatomical view, and made several most valuable improvements on Hardee. He rearranged the manual so that every movement formed the logical groundwork of the succeeding one. He studied the science of fence, so that he could hold a rapier with De Villiers, the most dashing of the Algerine swordsmen. He always had a hand as true as steel, and an eye like a gerfalcon. He used to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various |
