"Passively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... room a sudden revelation startled me. Everyone knows what it is to have details come under the eye which the mind first interprets long after the eye ceases to rest upon them. The impressions are received passively; but they are registered, and can be calmly read whenever the mind is in activity. It was so now. I suddenly, as if now for the first time, saw that the addresses on Bourgonef's letters were written in a fluent, masterly hand, bold in character, and with a certain sweep which ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... torpid creature which hibernates in caves. Solitude had reacted upon his brain like a narcotic. After having strained and enervated it, his mind had fallen victim to a sluggishness which annihilated his plans, broke his will power and invoked a cortege of vague reveries to which he passively submitted. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... and that you ought to know. If you don't like me, you are quite welcome to do the other thing." And then they parted. This took place after Mr. Brown's adherence to the Robinson interest, and while Brisket was waiting passively to see if that five hundred pounds ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... now, if I chance to hear the "Chansons sans Paroles," or if I hum to myself a few bars of a ballad, then sure to be long forgotten by the world at large, "Oh, movin' man, don't take ma baby grand!" I shall have only to close my eyes, and wait passively. First Tiffin will come with the lighted candle: "Beau temps, monsieur." I shall hear Talbott shouting, "Rendezvous two thousand over field. If—get lost—better—home." J. B. will rush up smoking the cork end of a cigarette. "I've just had the adventure of my life!" And Miller, sitting on an ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... world, and the French court knew that he had revealed them. His position had become untenable. His friendship for Henry could not be of use to him with the delicate-featured, double-chinned, smooth and sluggish Florentine, who had passively authorized and actively ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... uttering a word, passively and silently placed herself on her brother's chair—he having, at the same time, taken that on ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... custodian, and ran without interruption into the yard; but here, alas, he was at bay. It was not the same yard through which he had entered so shortly before, and he could find no way of exit. It was futile to attempt anything further, and, discovering this unwelcome fact, he passively yielded himself up, and was rewarded for so doing by receiving sundry cuffs and jerks from his captors, who carried ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... no one had ever imagined. Those who beheld it were too stunned to cry out, too overwhelmed with terror and horror to utter a word. They stood, or fell into chairs or upon the floor, trembling in every limb, with staring eyes and drooping jaws, passively awaiting their fate. ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... sympathy in theological opinions, than by the principles of legal and hereditary government: that the duke himself had discovered a very restless and turbulent spirit; and having often violated his loyalty to his elder brother and his sovereign, there remained no hopes that he would passively submit to a woman, whom he might, in quality of husband, think himself entitled to command: that the French nation, so populous, so much abounding in soldiers, so full of nobility who were devoted to arms, and for some time accustomed to serve for plunder, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... would stand, if I have plied him effectually with adverse influences, in such a position as to render any other end impossible without the hurt to Florence which his religion is, to avoid inflicting—passively awaiting, for instance, the sentence and punishment to come at night, would as surely inflict it as taking part with her foes. His aim is to prevent the harm she will do herself by striking him, so he ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... East is even more impersonal in its religion than are those from whom that religion originally came. India has returned again to its worship of Brahma, which, though impersonal enough, is less so than is the gospel of Gautama. For it is passively instead of actively impersonal. ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and, saying, "Euchred, old man!" held out his hand. Tennessee's Partner took it in his own, and saying, "I just dropped in as I was passin' to see how things was gettin' on," let the hand passively fall, and adding that it was a warm night, again mopped his face with his handkerchief, and ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... one of the busiest men that might be found in the metropolis, struck out new lines. Hitherto he had received his correspondence interestedly and pleasurably but passively. He began to take it up actively and sharply. He began to write back, either graciously approving or very sharply criticising his samples, his specimens and his free trials; and the advertisers responded voluminously, either abjectly ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... arms of her lover, who, notwithstanding his bonds, released his hold of her slight form with a reluctance greater than that with which he parted with life. The struggle in the mind of Jacopo seemed over. He bowed his head passively to the block, before which he was kneeling; and it is probable, by the manner in which his hands were clasped, that he prayed for her who left him. Not so Gelsomina. Parting her hair over her spotless forehead with both hands, she advanced towards the fishermen, who ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... have not time to relate, but long Louis lay with his mother's hand in both of his, telling her of the events of the last two months, and often she bent her head down and kissed his broad forehead and flushed cheek; and when she would not let him talk any more, he lay very passively, his eyes filling with grateful tears, and now and then in the overflowing of his heart, raising them to his mother, with "Mamma, thank God for me. Oh, how very grateful ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... down his broom passively, and saying, "What an impatient little miss you are!" clappered off to the dining-room, and brought forth the desired articles ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... of it floated along the peaks and ridges. The double fires had dried his clothing and had sent warmth into his veins, increasing his vitality somewhat, but it was far below normal nevertheless. He had an immense aversion to further movement. He wanted to stay there between the coals, awaiting passively whatever fate might have for him. Somehow, his will to make an effort and live ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... closed. All that Don Felix had reported concerning the widow of Morales was correct. The first stunning effects of her dread avowal were recovered, sense was entirely restored, but the short-lived energy had gone. The trial to passively endure is far more terrible than that which is called upon to act and do. She soon discovered that, though nursed and treated with kindness, she was a prisoner in her own apartments. Wish to leave them she had none, and scarcely the physical strength; but to sit ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... in Socialism which followed the astonishing success of the Labour Party at the polls. When Keir Hardie was chosen as leader of the party, it was recognised that Socialism was no longer the creed of a few fanatics, but a political force supported, actively or passively, by the great organisations of Labour throughout the country, able to fight, and sometimes to beat both the older parties. A new era in politics had begun. The Tories had been defeated before by Mr. Gladstone's unrivalled personality. Now they were defeated, as they had not been for three-quarters ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... have understood his English, but she comprehended, nevertheless. She looked up fixedly for a moment, then passively closed her eyes. Then she turned, and Frowenfeld put out one strong arm, helped her to a sitting posture on the side of the bed and ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... lovers—lovers only could have been thus. For him the Duchess would display her most sparkling wit, her most captivating wiles; and when at last she had wrought upon his senses and his soul, she might submit herself passively to his fierce caresses, but she had her nec plus ultra of passion; and when once it was reached, she grew angry if he lost the mastery of himself and made as though he would pass beyond. No woman on earth can brave the consequences of refusal without some motive; ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... watch the effect of what he had said upon the girl. She turned deadly pale, and seemed about to sink upon the floor. Spikeman took her hand, which she no longer withdrew, but yielded passively, as if in a state of stupefaction, and pressing it within his own, led her ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... upon the breast of Siegmund. He folded her closely, and his mouth and his breath were warm on her neck. She sank away from his caresses, passively, subtly drew back from him. He was far too sensitive not to be aware of this, and far too much of a man not to yield to the woman. His heart sank, his blood grew sullen at her withdrawal. Still he held her; the two were motionless and ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... all the world like a demon out of a trap-door, specially when he entered the zone of that unearthly light. And there they stood in a row, like delinquents at judgement, while we, the true culprits, had only passively to accept explanations. Of course these were plausible enough. Dollmann having seen the yacht in port that morning had called on his return from Memmert to ask us to supper. Finding no one aboard, and concluding ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... necessity for the complete development of woman as a prerequisite for the highest development of the race." Just so long as woman remains under guardianship, as if she were a minor or an incompetent—just so long as she passively accepts at the hands of men conditions, usages, laws, as if they were decrees of Providence—just so long as she is deprived of the educative responsibilities of self-government—by just so much does she fall short of complete ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... of banishment (a presidio) for the malefactors of the mother country. Agriculture did not emerge from primitive simplicity. The inhabitants led a pastoral life, cultivating food barely sufficient for their support, because there was no stimulus to exertion. They looked passively upon the riches centered in their soil, and rocked themselves to sleep in their hammocks. The commerce carried on scarcely deserved that name. The few wants of the people were supplied by a contraband trade with St. Thomas and Santa Cruz. In the island's finances a system of fraud ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... and so forth, is the express intention of being industrious, temperate, and gentle, and regulating one's actions accordingly. But the inward principle exercised by a routine of irksome restraints, submitted to passively on no other grounds but the laws of authority, or the influence of fashion, or imposed merely as the necessary condition of childhood, may be only that of yielding to present impression. He who, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... destiny, that every life be, to a greater or less degree, fraught with that heart-purifying element, which we term sorrow. And who would have it otherwise? Who would glide passively along the bright river of smiles, without one taste of that chiefest of disciplines, sorrow? How grateful should we be to Him who has permitted us to drink of the same cup with his only Son! for he was a "man ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... intelligence amounts to prudence and common sense. At a distance we may appear self- luminous; in reality we are only passivity and reflected light. Solferino gave us Lombardy, Sadowa gave us Venice, Sedan gave us Rome. We were just active enough to take advantage of fortunate circumstances, and passively clever enough not to wreck our advantage by stupidity. In foreign novels we are scoundrels of the deepest dye, concocters of poisons and wholesale swindlers. In reality we are indifferent and indolent. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... lurched by them, she gave an odd little laugh and would have removed her hand. He pressed his arm close to his side, imprisoning it. She looked up quickly, a sharp catch in her breath. Then she allowed her hand to rest there passively. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... of his muscles, satisfied us that he had fully made up his mind to go through with it. Just as the pirates gained the foot of the rocks, which hid us for a moment from their view, we bent over the sea and plunged down together, head foremost. Peterkin behaved like a hero. He floated passively between us like a log of wood, and we passed the tunnel and rose into the cave in a shorter space of time than I had ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... the first time aroused, of the plague and famine that were desolating the city; and, with sudden apprehensions that Goisvintha might still be following her, knife in hand, through the lonely streets; while passively prominent over all these varying sources of anguish and dread, the scene of the young chieftain's death lay like a cold weight on her heavy heart. The damp turf of his grave seemed still to press against her breast; his last kiss yet trembled on her lips; she ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... touchingly, and yet with such a world of childish tenderness. And the man, who would have opposed the most stubborn resistance to his fellow-men, had they sought to force him from the room, going passively, almost meekly out, led by that little child—I could not, for a time, turn my thoughts from the image thereof! And then thought bore me to the wretched home, back to which the gentle, loving child had taken her father, and my ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... hour. When the barber arrived, I had him take Swain in hand, give him a shave and shampoo and general freshening up. Then I saw that he got into clean things; and then the breakfast arrived, and I made him sit down and eat. He obeyed passively, and I could see the food did him good. When he had finished his coffee, I handed ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... passively, still keeping her hands before her face. But no sooner was she seated than she began to rock uneasily back and forth, moaning to herself, till suddenly the long-dried fount was opened up; the merciful blessing of tears found vent. She shook with uncontrollable sobbing; she wept for the first time ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... least we have again this historical curiosity: a human being in an original position; swimming passively, as on some boundless 'Mother of Dead Dogs,' towards issues which he partly saw. For Louis had withal a kind of insight in him. So, when a new Minister of Marine, or what else it might be, came announcing ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... snorted a contemptuous approval. Jacobus gave up the subject passively. After a time he unglued his thick lips to ask me if I had seen his brother yet. I was very curt ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... replied the other, his person responding passively to the rapid vibrations imparted. 'O, be tender, please—a little softer, there's a dear nephew! My arm is no ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... against overwhelming odds, and was hopelessly beaten for her pains. It was her strong determination that her son should be prevented from holding another tete-a-tete with Claire Gifford. Erskine actively, and Claire passively, desired and intended to bring about just that very consummation, while Major Humphreys, shrewdly aware of the purpose for which he had been invited, aided and abetted their efforts by the development of a veritable frenzy of gardening enthusiasm. He questioned, he disputed, he meekly acknowledged ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... liberties. I confess I hope for this no longer. The Fugitive Slave Bill is a shocking sample of the depravity of public sentiment in the United States. So atrocious a measure could not have passed into a law, if the majority of the people had not actively assented, or passively consented. Here, by the preponderating influence of our aristocracy, a small, but compact body, measures are often carried into laws that are very distasteful to multitudes; but such a mean, vile law as the Fugitive Slave Bill could ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... how regularly or irregularly they change. Nor do we know how far a determinant must be strengthened by the passive flow of the nutritive stream if it is to be beyond the danger of unfavourable variations, or how far it must be weakened passively before it loses the power of recovering itself by its own strength. It is no more possible to bring forward actual proofs in this case than it was in regard to the selection-value of the initial stages of an adaptation. ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... should amply compensate and console a misguided and unhappy race for the miserable past and the painful and dreary present. To those, therefore, who could not sympathise with his views, it will be seen that Herbert, in attempting to fulfil them, became not merely passively noxious from his example, but actively mischievous from his exertions. A mere sceptic, he would have been perhaps merely pitied; a sceptic with a peculiar faith of his own, which he was resolved to promulgate, Herbert became odious. A solitary votary of obnoxious opinions, Herbert would have ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... voice of Zicci as Glyndon, pale, wan, and silent, returned passively the joyous greeting of Merton,—"Signor Inglese, I told your friend we should meet to-night; you see you ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... band for an opening, but could find none. The enemy had apparently retired into a tightly closed shell of energy. The small vessel no longer struggled, nor even moved, but was merely resisting passively. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... the sofa, Thomas made no attempt to get through the hours, but passively allowed the hours to get through HIM. Where other men in his situation would have read books and improved their minds, Thomas slept and rested his body. Where other men would have pondered anxiously over their future prospects, Thomas dreamed ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... alive, but who were neither clean nor noble, men who were clean and noble, but who were not alive. Then there was a great, hopeless mass, neither noble nor alive, but merely clean. It did not sin positively nor deliberately; but it did sin passively and ignorantly by acquiescing in the current immorality and profiting by it. Had it been noble and alive it would not have been ignorant, and it would have refused to share in the profits of ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... only that the great body of the students are a licentious crew, acknowledging no discipline or restraints, but that the grave elders of the university, and those who wield the nominal authority of the place, passively resign the very shows of power, and connive at general excesses, even when they do not absolutely authorize them in their personal examples. Now, when such representations are made, to what standard of a just discipline is it that these writers would be ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... submit passively to all these regulations, however injurious to majesty: he sent writs to all the sheriffs, ordering them to constrain every one to swear obedience to the twenty-five barons [o]: he dismissed all his foreign forces: he pretended that his government ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... meekly by Lilac. She watched passively while her aunt punched all the mattresses, placed a searching finger beneath every sheet and blanket, sat down in the chairs, and finally examined every article of Mrs White's wardrobe. "'Tain't any of it much good to me," she said, holding ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... shedding terror can borrow any alliance from chapels, from ruins, from monastic piles, from Inquisition dungeons, inscrutable to human justice, or dread of confessionals,—all this is unfathomably mysterious to Southern Europe. The Southern imagination is passively and abjectly dependent on social interests; and these must conform to modern types. Hence, partly, the reason that only the British travel. The German is generally too poor. The Frenchman desires nothing but what he finds ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... some precious morsel should be lying hidden within—the few perfect lines, the phrase, the single word perhaps, to which he often works up mechanically through a poem, almost the whole of which may be tame enough. He who thought that in all creative work the larger part was given passively, to the recipient mind, who waited so dutifully upon the gift, to whom so large a measure was sometimes given, had his times also of desertion and relapse; and he has permitted the impress of these too to remain in his work. And this duality there—the fitfulness with which the higher ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... at what he has been doing! We used sometimes to visit the wolves while they slept; on these occasions a slight whistle was at first sufficient to make them start upon their legs; at last, like most sounds with which the ear becomes familiar, they heard it passively. All our attempts to frighten the rabbits by noises while they were engaged ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... all other nations they deem some form of religious worship indispensable, but, contrary to the usage of most, they are singularly indifferent as to what that particular form is to be; leaving it passively to be determined by the conjunction of circumstances, the accident of locality, and the influence of friends or worldly prospects of gain. Still, in the hands of the Christian missionary, they are by no means the plastic ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... would passively tolerate an intrusion, were forced to harbor another rendezvous of turbulent men. It is said that Enoch Crosby, the famous spy of the Revolution, who is believed to have been Cooper's model for the hero of the novel, "The Spy," came ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... can not be used passively. [Greek: klaionta] is the conjecture of Orelli, approved by Dindorf. I have expressed ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... when they begin to reflect and to plan, they divide the world into the hateful and the delightful, the avoidable and the attainable. And in feeling their way toward what attracts them, or in escaping what they fear, they at first follow passively the lead of instinct: they watch themselves live, or rather sink without reserve into their living; their reactions are as little foreseen and as naturally accepted as their surroundings. Their ideas are incidents ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... was to be gave him a slight nod—not actively disdainful or contemptuous, only passively; for he ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... singular and sudden dislike of him continued, and though she passively submitted to his being in the room, she would not speak a word to him nor look at him as long as she could avoid it; and when he approached the baby or took it in his arms a jealous ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... against the Chancellor, who, he tells me, is irrecoverably lost: but, however, that he will not actually joyne in anything against the Chancellor, whom he do own to be his most sure friend, and to have been his greatest; and therefore will not openly act in either, but passively carry himself even. The Queen, my Lord tells me, he thinks he hath incurred some displeasure with, for his kindness to his neighbour, my Lady Castlemaine. My Lord tells me he hath no reason to fall for her sake, whose wit, management, nor interest, is not likely to hold up any man, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the world shows that the vast majority in every generation passively accept the conditions into which they are born, while those who demand larger liberties are ever a small, ostracised minority whose claims are ridiculed and ignored. From our stand-point we honor the Chinese women who claim the right to their feet and powers of locomotion, the Hindoo widows ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... one, for instance, has given more forcible or decisive expression than Mr. Spencer has done to the duty of not passively accepting the current theology. See his First Principles, pt. i. ch. vi, Sec. 34; paragraph beginning,—'Whoever hesitates to utter that which he thinks the highest truth, lest it should be too much in advance of the time, may reassure himself by looking at his acts from ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... but had appreciably diminished the pressure in other portions of the theatre of war. Gatacre was firmly established at Sterkstroom, with an advanced post at Cypher Gat, the main body of those fronting him remaining passively at Stormberg. A Boer commando had made a demonstration towards Molteno on 3rd January, and another party, about the same date, had driven out of Dordrecht a patrol of British mounted troops, which had occupied that place on the 23rd December. At Mafeking and Kimberley the garrisons were still gallantly ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... liberty into "a deceitful sense" which he imagined the Almighty had conferred on man for wise and good purposes. He concluded that if men could see the truth, in regard to the scheme of necessity, without any illusion or mistake, they would relax their exertions in all directions, and passively submit to the all-controlling influences by which they are surrounded. But God, he supposed, out of compassion for us, concealed the truth from our eyes, in order that we might be induced to take care of ourselves, by the ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... her sorrow been, Anguish and woe, Pouring their full fury, Bearing her low. But, in agony sore, The affliction she bore Meek as a child. Though every breath was in agony seethed, Yet not a murmur her parched lips breathed, So passively mild. All the earth's gladness Is but as sadness Unto her now. All its gay pleasures And its great treasures Are but as measures Empty and vain. Peace, peace in her ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... lips by way of return to my salutation, turning herself at the same time a little away as if to avoid further notice or intercourse: curiosity, however, overcame good-breeding in me, and mounting the little bank to a level with the shady tree against which she passively leaned, I immediately ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... sterility. In youth, perhaps, it is the latter aspect of Mr. Carlyle's teaching which first touches people, because youth is the time of indefinite aspiration; and it is easier, besides, to surrender ourselves passively to these vague emotional impressions, than to apply actively and contentedly to the duty that lies nearest, and to the securing of 'that infinitesimallest product' on which the teacher is ever insisting. It is the Supernaturalism which stirs men first, until larger fulness of ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... fear—I was in a way prepared for anything but the deep, heart-shaking horror that sank under the cold, damp touch of those fingers. They laid hold of my elbow firmly, lifting as if to indicate that I was to rise. I did so, moving forward passively as it drew me on. To my astonishment I was unable to hear my own footfall or that of my conductor. I thought we were walking upon soft earth. Crossing our path in front of me I could see, in the darkness, a gleaming ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... fearfully alive to the sharp truth, that of all griefs, a strong love unreturned or unfulfilled is the grief which most blights a woman's life. Say, rather, any human life; but it is worst to a woman, because she must necessarily endure passively. So enduring, it is very difficult to recognize the good hand of God therein. Why should He ordain longings, neither selfish nor unholy, which yet are never granted; tenderness which expends itself in ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... my Mass, the old priest rose from his place and began to prepare the vessels and arrange the Missal. As soon as I took off the vestments he put them on. I assented passively, supposing him to be the next on the list; I even answered his Kyrie. But at the Collect a frantic sacristan burst through the crowd; and from remarks made to the devout old priest and myself, I learned that the next on the list was still waiting in the sacristy, and that this old man was ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson
... I could not make her talk at all. I never saw such reticence before or since. As if she were determined "to die and make no sign," she sat, bowing and smiling, and amounting to nothing, one way or another,—giving no opinion, if asked, and asking no question. She was passively polite, but so very near nothing that I was rejoiced when Mr. Remington entered with my husband, and proposed that we should go into the dining-room. He carelessly introduced Mrs. Remington, but further than that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... Staggchase, or led on by Miss Merrivale. He went about in a state of continual astonishment at the extent to which he had committed himself with the latter, and fell into that dangerous mental condition where one seems passively to regard his own actions rather than to direct them. Rangely had been so long settled in the conviction that he was to marry Ethel Mott, even the not infrequent rebuffs of that lady producing in his mind only temporary misgiving, ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... hard luck," Thorpe assented, passively glancing past her at the pale, neutral-tinted wall of mist which obscured the view. "But hang it all—it must clear up some time. Just you have patience, and you'll see ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... till we heard from MacRae again, and, lying there passively, we grew afraid that after all they would give us the slip; for the smoke was now rolling in black clouds above the gorge. So far the thickest of it had blown overhead, but any moment a change of wind might whip it down the canyon bottom like an ocean fog, and that ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... passively, for she was weak, nerveless, and exhausted. He picked up the open letter, replaced it within the envelope, and put it in her hand. "It's yours," he said, "by the divine right of your love. When I come this evening, don't let ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... in short, was separately cast. If a complete figure were wanted, the disjecta membra were put together, and the result was a statue of a man, or of a woman, kneeling, standing, seated, squatting, the arms extended or falling passively by the sides. This curious collection was discovered at Tanis, and dates probably from Ptolemaic times.[38] Models of the Pharaonic ages are in soft limestone, and nearly all represent portraits of reigning sovereigns. These are best described as cubes measuring about ten inches each way. The ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... creature retreats as hastily as it can, changing its method of progress to an all-fours, sloth-like gait, the long free thumb of each hand grasping wire after wire and doing most of the leverage, the hind legs following passively. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... silence, he waited, passively courteous, at her further service if she had need of him, content if she had not, tolerant of her tacit prayer for time in which to think a way out of ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... too strongly by the determination that his widowed mother's hopes should never be blasted by any assertion of his own will? Was he passively permitting himself to be warped and twisted into a minion of an institution alien to his soul in bigoted adherence to his morbid sense of integrity? Was he for the present countenancing a lie, rather than permit the bursting of a bomb which would rend the family and bring ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... window. He came nearer the clumsy wight, and saw that it was a pan of batter the cook had left on the table, probably the morning griddle-cakes. The negro was a mass of white, pasty glue, and knelt on the floor, licking his hands passively. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... pure-blooded Alsacian, was a natural son of the general of that name, who fell in one of Bonaparte's first victories with the army of Italy. Tall and strong, he belonged to the class of soldiers accustomed, like the Russians, to obey, passively and absolutely. Nothing hindered him in the performance of his duty; he would have collared an emperor or a pope if such were his orders. He ignored danger. Perfectly fearless, he had never received the smallest scratch during his sixteen years' campaigning. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... beating about the bush in this way," said Meldon. "If you think I'm going to remain passively indifferent while my unfortunate friend allows himself to be entrapped by a ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... of a poem has a much higher and subtler duty than just to take the words and through them attempt passively to render the page into his own language. He must brace himself into an active state, a creative mood, the most creative he can command, then transport himself into the mind and mental attitude of the poet he would translate, feeling ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... troop of soldiers knew beforehand that the Electoral Prince was coming that way, they would certainly lie in wait for him and fall upon him, either for purposes of plunder or in order to carry him off and extort a high ransom for him. The Electoral Prince will not passively submit to capture, but will resist; a battle will ensue, and then it might easily happen that in the heat of conflict a dagger should pierce the Prince or a ball go through his head. Those Swedes and ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... plunged into this war? Officially and to the world at large she has explained her resolution by Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality, and in the royal message to Parliament it was solemnly declared that England could not stand by and passively tolerate such a breach of international ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... commotion, 30 A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame; Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound— Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange 35 To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange With the clear universe of things around; 40 One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings Now float above thy darkness, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... broken. He felt it would be useless to endeavour to explain or to expostulate; he spoke not, but was passively hurried to a carriage in which he was borne to the metropolis as fast as four horses could carry him, without rest or refreshment. Of course, after a minute examination, he was declared innocent, and was released; but justice smiled too late, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... all lecturers, from the beginning, have made mention of the drunkards' wives and children, of widows' groans and orphans' tears; shall these classes of sufferers be introduced but as themes for rhetorical flourish, as pathetic touches of the speaker's eloquence; shall we passively shed tears over their condition, or by giving them their rights, bravely open to them the doors of escape from a wretched and degraded life? Is it not legitimate in this to discuss the social degradation, the legal disabilities of the drunkard's wife? If in showing her wrongs, we prove the right ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... guide, set off to the suburban region. Mrs. Beaufort had wished to accompany him; but the husband observing that young men would be young men, and that there might possibly be a lady in the case, Mrs. Beaufort, after a pause of thought, passively agreed that, all things considered, she had better remain at home. No lady of proper decorum likes to run the risk of finding herself in a false position. Mr. Beaufort accordingly set out alone. Easy was the carriage—swift were the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Mysteries. The Indian Lingam was the union of both, as were the boat and mast and the point within a circle: all of which expressed the same philosophical idea as to the Union of the two great Causes of Nature, which concur, one actively and the other passively, in the generation of all beings: which were symbolized by what we now term Gemini, the Twins, at that remote period when the Sun was in that Sign at the Vernal Equinox, and when they were Male and Female; and of which the Phallus was perhaps taken from the generative organ of the Bull, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... was still silent, merely pressed both hands to her temples and stared into the glowing hearth. Then he drew one of her hands down softly from her hair, seized it and went with her over the vestibule, through the door communicating with the front of the house. She followed him passively, her eyes upon the ground and the other hand still on her hair. In the living room he led her to the large chair which stood by the window and forced her into it. "So," said he softly, "here we are all alone, Lena. Here in this chair has Mother sat many a Sunday afternoon. ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... same nature. So far as concerns measurable energy, all the facts collected bear out the theoretical conception that the living body is to be regarded as a machine which converts the potential energy of chemical composition, stored passively in its food, into active energy of motion ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... child," as it is called, are nothing more than means employed to excite this reiteration of ideas by the mind. A toy, for example, is presented to the infant, and his attention is fixed upon it. He is not satisfied with passively seeing the toy, as he sees all the other objects in the room, but he actively looks at it. Nor is this enough; the toy is usually seized, handled, mouthed, and turned; and each movement prompts the mind to active thought,—to reiterate the idea which each of the sensations suggests. ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... and Protestants, {599} and aimed at Machiavelli as the chief supporter of tyranny, advanced four theses: 1. Subjects are bound to obey God rather than the king. This is regarded as self-evident. 2. If the king devastates the church and violates God's law, he may be resisted at least passively as far as private men are concerned, but actively by magistrates and cities. The author, who quotes from the Bible and ancient history, evidently has contemporary France in mind. 3. The people may resist a tyrant ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... travelling carriages kept driving up to the place of embarkation. I stood perfectly astounded and bewildered—shame for my ridiculous costume would have made me fly at any other time—but there I remained to be laughed at patiently, while that villain O'Flaherty leading me passively forward, introduced me to his friends—"Mrs. Bingham, Mr. Lorrequer; Mr. Lorrequer, Miss Bingham. Don't be prepossessed against him, ladies, for when not in love, and properly dressed, he is a marvellously ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... Louis passively moved to the window, where he exclaimed that he saw Aunt Catharine sunning herself in the garden, and must go ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the cloister, now stalked abroad in all his terrors. Zeal was exalted into fanaticism, and a rational spirit of proselytism, into one of fiendish persecution. It was not enough now, as formerly, to conform passively to the doctrines of the church, but it was enjoined to make war on all who refused them. The natural feelings of compunction in the discharge of this sad duty was a crime; and the tear of sympathy, wrung out by the sight ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... leads the child to take the box of colors, and keeps him absorbed in them, the objects lend themselves passively to his manipulation, but the colors reflect the luminous rays of the sun, which then strike the virgin retinae of eyes not as yet completely matured and adapted. So, too, when the child's heart turns to ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... American barbarisms by showing a number of English barbarisms which had been creeping into use, and declares that in the use of language one nation as well as the other will commit these errors, but he returns again and again to his position that Americans in their use of language are not to wait passively ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... is! Right over there under the spruces." He threw the bearskin over the sorrel, who stood passively by the roadside, hanging a meditative head. Then he caught Mattie's hand and drew her after ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... overcoming the habit of deriving your whole pleasure passively from the book itself, which can only be effected by excitement of curiosity or of some passion. Force yourself to reflect on what you read paragraph by paragraph, and in a short time you will derive your pleasure, an ample portion of it, at least, from the activity of your own ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... Eleonora, who had already been perplexed and angered by more than one critical stare, as one and another man loitered past and gazed intrepidly at her. She hurried at once to her sister, who was sitting passively behind her counter as if wearied out, and who would not be stirred to interference. "Never mind, Lenore, it can't be helped. It is all for the cause, and to stop it would be worse taste, fitting on the cap as an acknowledged beauty, and to that ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of her own act. There was nothing she could do—and yet, however was she to go about with such a load upon her conscience? Confessing, she might at least be regarded as one who desired and meant to be honest. Confession would, anyhow, ease the weight of her load. Passively at last, from very weariness of thought, her mind was but going backward and forward over its own traces, heedlessly obliterating them, when suddenly a new and horrid consciousness emerged from the trodden slime— ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... Psychologists point out how much of what we think we see is supplied by association or unconscious inference, how much is mental interpretation, and how doubtful is the residuum which can be regarded as crude datum. From these facts it is argued by the psychologists that the notion of a datum passively received by the mind is a delusion, and it is argued by the physiologists that even if a pure datum of sense could be obtained by the analysis of experience, still this datum could not belong, as common sense supposes, to the outer world, since its whole nature is conditioned ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... up, and, seeing the cloth and the places set, pulled his chair to the table, and passively took the food she brought him. She moved about the room between shelves and fire, and, when she had served him, seated herself at leisure to begin her own supper. Uncle Ramon was a peon of some substance, doing business in towns and living comparatively ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... immediate answer. And so the quiet came back, settling down sensibly on the room again—even as, when at dawn the camp is struck, the secular quiet of the desert comes back and possesses its own again. And, in obedience to that quiet, Katherine's hand rested passively in the hand of her companion, while she gazed wonderingly at the delicate, half-averted face, serious, lit up by the eagerness of a vital enthusiasm. And, having a somewhat sorrowful fund of learning to draw upon in respect of the dangers all eccentricity, either ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... clever bit of colloidal ooze, protoplasm as the ameba, protruded a bit of itself as a pseudopod, it achieved a new freedom. For, accidentally or deliberately, it created for itself a new power—the ability to go directly for food in its environment, instead of waiting, patiently, passively, as the plant does, for food to just happen along. Therewith developed in place of the previous quietist pacifist, quaker attitude toward its surroundings, a new religion, a new tone: aggressive, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... drooped and two tears slipped from beneath her lashes as she sat on the edge of her narrow bed with her hands lying passively in her lap. Tears were so weak and futile in a world where only action counted that it was seldom they ever reached her eyes, ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... old days Ruth had passively endured the shame that Hamlin's crimes had brought upon her. They had been so unexpected that they had stunned her—they had been so miserably mean that she had not dared to ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... gallant efforts to check herself. But her spirit was temporarily quite broken. She stood passively with the tears running down her face while Avery hastily dressed her again and set her rumpled hair to rights. Then again for a few seconds they held each ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... claws, but poor naked man is condemned to be intelligent, or he will perish. This feeling William James embodied in that theory of thought and of truth which he called pragmatism. Intelligence, he thought, is no miraculous, idle faculty, by which we mirror passively any or everything that happens to be true, reduplicating the real world to no purpose. Intelligence has its roots and its issue in the context of events; it is one kind of practical adjustment, an experimental ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... looked up and stepped outside the open door. She was handling this thing that had happened, taking possession of it. It lay in her mind in the midst of a suddenly stricken and tenderly saddened consciousness. It lay there passively; it did not rise and grapple with her, it was a thing that had happened—in Burra Bazar. The pity of it assailed her. Tears came into her eyes, and an infinite grieved solicitude gathered about her ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... spiritual anaesthetic he must have, if he holds his grief fast tied to his heartstrings. But as grief must be fed with thought, or starve to death, it is the best plan to keep the mind so busy in other ways that it has no time to attend to the wants of that ravening passion. To sit down and passively endure it, is apt to end in putting all the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... been living passively on the most affectionate terms with her brother and sister, and though often secretly yearning after the dear old father, whose darling she had been, and longing for power of usefulness, she took it on trust that her present lot had been ordered for her, and was thankful, like ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge |
