"Significancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in my last Lecture, that we are bound to judge of persons and events in history, not by their outward appearance, but by their inward significancy. In speaking of the Turks, we may for a moment yield to the romance which attends on their name and their actions, as we may admire the beauty of some beast of prey; but, as it would be idle and puerile to praise its shape or skin, and form no further judgment upon it, so in ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... from Fathom's eyes by this declaration, which she uttered with such a significancy of look, as thrilled to his soul with joyful presage, while he replied, it would, indeed, be a difficult task to find a man who merited such happiness and honour; but, surely, some there were, who would task their faculties to the uttermost, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... with great significancy of tone and manner, that Gomez Arias might be sure the governor was prepared, should there be aught in contemplation that might affect ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... Mr. Riley, "there's no greater advantage you can give him than a good education. Not," he added, with polite significance,—"not that a man can't be an excellent miller and farmer, and a shrewd, sensible fellow into the bargain, without much help ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... failed because they took no account of the commons of England or of national interests. The leading baron, Thomas of Lancaster, was executed; Edward II was murdered; and his assassin, Mortimer, was put to death by Edward III, who grasped some of the significance of his grandfather's success and his father's failure. He felt the national impulse, but he twisted it to serve a selfish and dynastic end. It must not, however, be supposed that the Hundred Years' War originated in Edward's claim to the French throne; that claim was ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... beings have been found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is not arbitrary like the grouping of the stars in constellations. The existence of groups would have been of simple significance, if one group had been exclusively fitted to inhabit the land, and another the water; one to feed on flesh, another on vegetable matter, and so on; but the case is widely different, for it is notorious how ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... word is the same in every one of these passages, is it not very wrong to give it an improper and grossly exaggerated significance in three texts, while translating it correctly ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... said Peleg, with a significance in his eye that almost startled me. "Look ye, lad; never say that on board the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself. 'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... up, and smiled with ill-natured significance; for Cratinus, the ribald, had openly declared in the theatre, that Pericles needed only to look in his mirror, to discover a model for the sloping roof of the Odeum. Athenian guests were indignant at being ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... rain prevented all military movements on May 26, and, as it proved, saved the city from attack. Once more Chinese diplomacy came to the relief of Chinese arms. To save Canton the mandarins were quite prepared to make every concession, if they only attached a temporary significance to their language, and they employed the whole of that lucky wet day in getting round Captain Elliot, who once more allowed himself to place faith in the promises of the Chinese. The result of this was seen on the 27th, when, just as Sir Hugh ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... remain, their significance having after a half century been interpreted by a lady of the house to whom they had long been familiar, but who had lacked any clue to their origin until, in the course of a private investigation, she determined beyond a doubt their relation to Church. The chamber ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... but who is only in imperfect agreement with the sayer as to the ideas which the words or symbols that he utters are intended to convey. The nature of the symbols counts for nothing; the gist of the matter is in the perfect harmony between sayer and sayee as to the significance that is to be ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... custom, paid attention to the name and not the thing, were much exercised over my "breakfasting with Platt." Whenever I breakfasted with him they became sure that the fact carried with it some sinister significance. The worthy creatures never took the trouble to follow the sequence of facts and events for themselves. If they had done so they would have seen that any series of breakfasts with Platt always meant that I was going to do something he did not like, and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... at Petrograd that on the South-West front Wszlmysl has fallen and that the pursuit of the Austrians has reached Mlprknik has a significance that may easily be overlooked by those who are unfamiliar with the topography of the district and its pronunciation. Wszlmysl (pronounce Wozzle-mizzle) is a large fortified town in the district of Mprzt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... points that admit of being argued with deference to the rules of right reason, let us establish in turn two positions which do not admit of being argued because they are evident in themselves: (a) Where the significance of symbols is uncertain, it is easy to interpret falsely; (b) When a subject is obscure and difficult, no person is qualified to speak positively if his knowledge be obtained at second-hand. Now, have we good reason to suppose that Mgr. Meurin ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... I had denied to the notion of causality all objective reality in its [theoretic] use, not merely with regard to things in themselves (the supersensible), but also with regard to the objects of the senses, it would have lost all significance, and being a theoretically impossible notion would have been declared to be quite useless; and since what is nothing cannot be made any use of, the practical use of a concept theoretically null would have been absurd. But, as it is, the concept of a causality free from empirical conditions, ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... in the roar of the artillery, but Maurice caught their significance clearly enough, and it left him dumfounded by astonishment and alarm. What! Marshal MacMahon wounded since early that morning, General Ducrot commanding in his place for the last two hours, the entire ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Roger was contented to be owed seven and fourpence; a debt never likely to be liquidated. Much speculation this afforded to the gossips; and when the treater's back was turned, they touched their foreheads, for the man was clearly crazed, and they winked to each other with a gesture of significance. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... scientific way of understanding being almost spent. And so, besides myths, we find the same mathematic figures, cosmic graphs which remain among the aboriginal peoples in all continents, mystic figures and signs whose true cosmic or scientific significance is lost, yet which continue in use for purposes of conjuring ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... is no doubt that at this moment Gordon lost all control over himself, and employed personalities that left a sore feeling behind them. That they did so in this case was, as I am compelled to show later on, amply demonstrated in December 1883 and January 1884. The direct and immediate significance of the occurrence lay in its furnishing fresh evidence of the unanimity of hostility with which all the European officials in the Delta regarded the Khedive's proposal, and his attempt to make use of General Gordon's exceptional character and reputation. ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... confession of faith and rule of life"—Mr. H. G. Wells avows himself a believer in the "Being of the Species," and, prospectively at least, in "the eternally conscious Being of all things." The individual as such is merely an "experiment of the species for the species," and without significance per se; we are "episodes in an experience greater than ourselves," "incidental experiments in the growing knowledge and consciousness of the race." Mr. Wells's fundamental act of faith is a firm belief in "the ultimate rightness and significance of things," ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... happenings of this most wonderful morn. "It began to dawn." Yes, that was the first significance of the resurrection. It was a new day for the world. Everything was to be seen in a new light. Everything was to wear a new face—God, and heaven, and life, and duty, and death! ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... which appear necessary to a well-conducted and duly bloodthirsty meeting under the duello, and he read them with an impressiveness which was only equalled by the portentious dignity of George Washington. As he stood balancing himself, and took in the solemn significance of the matter, his whole air changed; he raised his head, struck a new attitude, and immediately assumed the position of one whose approval of the affair was of the ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... stood back to look up at the narrow windows above her, there was no sound, and no one answered her summons. She sat down upon a fallen piece of stonework, and her thoughts troubled her. Truly, she had come back to a new life. Even that locked door seemed to have its significance. She did not remember ever to have found it fastened before when ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... low cry he sprang back toward the other tent, and then, as sudden as his movement, there flashed upon him the significance of the bakneesh wreath. The woman was saying to him what she had not spoken in words. She had come out in the night while he was asleep and had hung the wreath where he would see it in the morning. The blood rushed warm and joyous through his body, and with something which ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... outright on the Procrustean bed; they are probably always disfigured. The rhetorical artifice of Macaulay is easily spied; it will take longer to appreciate the moral bias of Carlyle. So with all writers who insist on forcing some significance from all that comes before them; and the writer of short studies is bound, by the necessity of the case, to write entirely in that spirit. What he cannot vivify he ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... philosophy of the Divine—and may it not be as a result of it?—the people of India too often delight in unreal and deceptive exhibitions of themselves. At any rate, it is exceedingly difficult for a man of the West, especially he of the Anglo-Saxon type, to apprehend the full significance and the correct drift of life ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... worldly ambitions in the Reformers, the lust of persecution {232} in the Saints. Yet these great protagonists of history are easy to distinguish among the crowd of actors who have played their parts. Their words grip the attention, their actions are fraught with real significance, and it is they who win applause when the play ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... mind conceives." Hence reviling, properly speaking, consists in words: wherefore, Isidore says (Etym. x) that a reviler (contumeliosus) "is hasty and bursts out (tumet) in injurious words." Since, however, things are also signified by deeds, which on this account have the same significance as words, it follows that reviling in a wider sense extends also to deeds. Wherefore a gloss on Rom. 1:30, "contumelious, proud," says: "The contumelious are those who by word or deed ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... blood. Bless you! she'll never make a rap by keeping boarders. She never grudges them anythink, and would sooner deny herself than that they should go without their fancies. But there, now, that fine young gentleman you brought," went on Susan with the slightest respectful significance, "I'm sure we're greatly indebted to you, Miss—speaks as if he meant to stay on here with his sister for the present. He has taken our largest rooms off our hands, so that we may be easy on that head, and I for one won't be sorry if Mr. and Mrs. Foljambe ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... conjecture my thoughts. A smile of lofty significance expressing a feeling of mixed scorn and humility, rose upon his countenance—as if admitting his own feebleness, while insisting upon his recovered strength, A sentence which he uttered to me in a whisper, at this moment, was intended to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... William Morris was most felicitous in envoys and dedicating poems, and in the sonnet prefixed to this translation he was particularly happy. The first eight lines describe the hero of the saga—the last six lines the significance of this literary creation: ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... what lay behind that curiously controlled expression, and the memory of certain words he had let fall during their journey together suddenly recurred to her with a new significance attached to them. . . . "Just as though we had any too many pleasures in life!" he had said. And again: "Oh, for that! If we could have what we wanted in this world! ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... promptings of nature; if they are bound together by no spiritual ties and interests and hopes; if they are not prompted by faith to make provision for the soul, and for eternity; then we think they have not as yet realized the deepest and holiest significance of their home. ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... parts of the English-speaking world that spirit is becoming associated with the name the New Theology. To associate it with any one personality is to belittle the subject and to obscure its real significance. There are many brave and good men in the churches and outside the churches to-day, men of true prophetic spirit, who would reject utterly the name New Theology, but who are thoroughly imbued with this new-old spirit ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... that the four little broken walls alone remaining of all that the colonists built, should be not the walls of house or tavern or fort, but of the tower of the village church! Almost with the solemn significance of a tomb above the ashes of the dead, stands the sacred pile over the buried ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... Hobson and Mr Simkins," cried Mrs Belfield, with a look of much significance and delight, "suppose you two and I was to walk into the next room? There's no need for us to hear all the young lady may ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... well-known dictatorial temper. Does Dr. Lightfoot bring forward any evidence to contradict this piece of collegiate history? None whatever. He merely treats us to a few of his own conjectures, which simply prove his anxiety to depreciate its significance. And yet he ventures to parade the name of Bentley among those of the scholars who contend for the genuineness of these letters! He deals after the same fashion with the celebrated Porson. In a letter to the author of this review [7:2], ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... chair with a sharp little sigh and pensively touched the scratches on her face, her expression falling suddenly into lines of discontent. It was a kind of reaction which frequently followed moments of intense activity and, realizing its significance, she yielded to it sulkily, her gaze on the face of the clock which was ticking off purposeless minutes with maddening precision. She glanced over her shoulder in relief as her maid appeared ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... that everything was right, while I tried to hear what the padre and Don Manuel were saying; but they spoke too low for me to make out more than a word now and then. I heard Don Manuel say 'San Diego;' 'the Pocahontas, a small ship but;' 'Spain,' and a few other words of no significance. Padre Peyri said hardly a word, but stood with bowed head, and eyes cast on the ground. At last Don Manuel knelt to receive the padre's blessing, and with a last low sentence, and an 'adios,' spoken aloud, ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... (GALEOPITHECUS VOLANS); the porcupine (HYSTRIX CRASSISPINIS); numerous bats, squirrels, rats and mice; the big shrew (GYMNURA); several species of monkeys, and two of the anthropoid apes. The last are of peculiar significance, since they are incapable of crossing even narrow channels of water, and must be regarded as products of a very late stage of biological evolution. Of these two anthropoid species, the gibbon (HYLOBATES MULLERI) is closely allied to species found in the mainland and ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... his occupation to indulge his musical taste, his lay is that of industry and contentment. There is nothing plaintive or especially musical in his performance, but the sentiment expressed is eminently that of cheerfulness. Indeed, the songs of most birds have some human significance, which, I think, is the source of the delight we take in them. The song of the bobolink to me expresses hilarity; the song sparrow's, faith; the bluebird's, love; the catbird's, pride; the white-eyed flycatcher's, self-consciousness; that of the hermit ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... sample case. I saw then how facilely easy it was going to be to take fright at shadows. Evidently the young man was a salesman, and his apparent pursuit of me had been merely a coincidence in corner turnings. And in the recoil from the apprehensive extreme I refused to attach any significance to the fact that he was purchasing a ticket to the same distant town to which I had but now paid ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... horses to dance on their hind legs, an advance above practical joking and below pictorial caricature. Moreover, intellectual entertainment was required at their sumptuous feasts, and genius was tasked to find something light and racy, maxims of deep significance interwoven with gay and fanciful creations. There was not sufficient subtlety about these inventions to entitle them to the name of humour in our modern sense of the word; much complication was not then ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... unrevealed by the art of the printer, lay dormant under heaps of decaying—though priceless—M.SS. in the damp vaults of the old Parliament Buildings; these and several other circumstances surround the memory, haunts and times of the Laird of Longwood with peculiar significance. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... these days could a wise man reign any longer than ignorance permitted him? The everlasting veerings of the majority, without any reason meanwhile for the change, show that, except on rare occasions of excitement, the opinion of the voters is of no significance. But when we are asked what substitute for elections can be proposed, none can be found. So with the relationship between man and woman, the marriage laws and divorce. The calculus has not been invented which ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... obscure and their real significance is frequently overlooked. The most prominent symptoms are yellowness of the white of the eye and of the membrane lining the mouth; the appetite is poor, the body presents an emaciated appearance, the feces are light colored, while the urine ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... weight and significance to Alban Morley's hints was the report in the newspapers of Guy Darrell's visit to his old constituents, and of the short speech he had addressed to them, to which he had so slightly referred in his conversation with Alban. True, the speech was short: true, it touched ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... highly religious people worshiping after their own creed, and are sincere and conscientious in their devotions. Almost everything they do has some religious significance and every day its religious observance. Their religion satisfies them and harms no one, then why not leave them in peace? We believe that we can benefit them, which is doubtless true, but might they ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... the canvas, instead of being blended and transfigured into a thing of beauty. It was the organ of society, but not of the essential truths which vitalize society, and its incidents did not rise much above the significance ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... rather than a specific plane assumes still greater significance if we consider it in the light of what Strindberg has told us about his purpose with the main characters of his first great play. As I have already said, those characters were meant to be both mouthpieces of the author and revived ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... did he honor their demand. A silence full of emotion filled the assembly as for a moment before beginning his tall form stood in commanding attitude on the rostrum, the impressiveness of his theme and the significance of the occasion reflected in his thoughtful and earnest features. The spell of the hour was visibly upon him; and holding his audience in rapt attention, he closed in a brilliant peroration with an appeal to the people to join ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... leaders: Republican Party, Jim NICHOLSON, national committee chairman; Democratic Party, Steve GROSSMAN, national committee chairman; several other groups or parties of minor political significance ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... its inherent intelligence and susceptibility, we can impress any recognition of personality that we will. These are the great facts that the mental scientist works with, and the student will do well to ponder deeply on their significance and on the responsibilities which their realization must necessarily ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... these Pacific roads, the difficulties which they have met and in a large degree conquered, and their general features, our consideration of them must from this point grow out of their national importance and world-wide significance. For the Pacific Railroad is not simply a gigantic public work, it is the world's great highway. The world has had several grand routes, along the line of which, for certain periods of time, the life-blood and intelligence of humanity have coursed. Such was the route ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... death's head, about half an inch in width, with eye-sockets staring vacantly, and grisly mouth gaping in a wide and horrible smile, made the more horrible by the two rows of protruding teeth. The girl almost dropped the letter, as full realization of the significance of the design ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... class of Canadians, who enjoy more frequent opportunities than the inhabitants of the other great colonies of renewing or fortifying their love of the competition of English social life, and of the marks of success in it, the court, as the fountain of honor, apart from all political significance, is an object of almost fierce interest. In England itself the signs of social distinction are not so much prized. This kind of Canadian is, in fact, apt to be rather more of an Englishman than the Englishman himself in all these things. He imitates and cultivates English usages with a passion ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... This is a rigorous rule for anything which man has made, but it does not try "Othello" so severely as "Balder"; and "Balder" is not utterly crushed by it. There are scenes in this drama, and also in "The Roman," which will not soon lose their significance, or easily melt out of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... be important, in order to clear up our ideas about the notions which are in fashion, to note the relation of the economic to the political significance of assumed duties of one class to another. That is to say, we may discuss the question whether one class owes duties to another by reference to the economic effects which will be produced on the classes ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... I found what I sought; there was not only marked on it the date of the Duke's burial, the 6th of May, which had a mystic significance to me, since it was on the very 6th of May that I was now standing to contemplate these mute yet eloquent graves, but also there was noted down the text from which the funeral sermon had been preached (2 Tim. iv. 7), as well as the list of the psalms sung on the occasion, among ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... kinds of accent are recognized, the Musical accent, and the Poetic, or Verbal, accent. The first appertains to the domain of sound; the second, to the domain of significance. The first, for aesthetic reasons, throws into relief certain tones of a musical phrase; the second brings into prominence the sentiment underlying the poem or text. Note, also, that in spoken declamation, accent applies to a syllable only; in singing, the verbal ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... peerless pagan—large in intelligence, exalted in character, and guided by a conscientious rectitude which has made his name shine like a star in the lurid light of Roman history, still failed utterly to comprehend the significance of this spiritual kingdom established by Christ on earth. He it was who ordered the first persecution in Gaul. In pursuance of his command, horrible tortures were inflicted at Lyons upon those who would not abjure ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... Stunned by the significance, the far-reaching implications of his experiment, Morton remained standing while Weissmann ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... by his close attention to the interior and spiritual significance of things that this painter is proved to be a poet, a religious poet who has sight, in this world, of the essence of being, in ineffable varieties: painter, and poet, and musician also, for in the trenches he lives with Beethoven, ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... him on his face, but he rose to his knees and, creeping close, squared his shoulders to protect the slighter body. At the same time the significance of the position of Morganstein's unconscious bulk struck him. "You rat!" he cried with smothered fury. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... captain suggested that the neighbours should be notified and a search-party should start out at once. As this seemed the only thing to do, Jasper hurried to the village and aroused Andy Forbes from his slumbers. It took the storekeeper several minutes to grasp the significance of the affair, and Jasper ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... goodness of God.' With this sentence bound about their foreheads, walked Fra Angelico and S. Francis. To men like them the mountain valleys and the skies, and all that they contained, were full of deep significance. Though they reasoned 'de conditione humanae miseriae,' and 'de contemptu mundi,' yet the whole world was a pageant of God's glory, a testimony to His goodness. Their chastened senses, pure hearts, and simple wills were as wings by which they soared above the things of earth, and sent the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... suspected; and so fine and so delicate was the perception of my guilty conscience, that it often detected suspicion in the most purposeless remarks, and in looks, gestures, glances of the eye which had no significance, but which sent me shivering away in a panic of fright, just the same. And how sick it made me when somebody dropped, howsoever carelessly and barren of intent, the remark that 'murder will out!' For a boy of ten years, I was carrying a pretty ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is a point that is worth consideration. When, moreover, the cheaper magazines became a possibility, how came it that such publications as McClure's and The Cosmopolitan arose? The illustrated magazines of the United States are indeed a fact of profound significance, for which the Englishman when he measures the taste and intellectuality of the American people by its press makes no allowance. Magazines of the same excellence cannot find the same support in England. ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... is the moral significance of Carlyle's "symbolic myth"? What are the supreme lessons which he uses it ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... concerned, that you ever wrote at all to him. It was taking too much notice of him: it was adding to his self-significance; and a call upon him to treat you with insolence. A call which you might have been assured he would ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... phrase nalo no hoi na wahi huna, which means literally "conceal the secret parts," has a significance akin to the Hebrew rendering "to cover his nakedness," and probably refers to the duty of a favorite to see that no enemy after death does insult to his patron's body. So the bodies of ancient chiefs are ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... arrival of a squad of guards, who hustled the two men out into a passageway and drove them to another room, where certain measurements were taken. The muscular figures of the two were different from these red ones, but it was a moment before McGuire realized the sinister significance of the proceedings. Their breadth of shoulders, the thickness of their chests—what had these figures to do with their captivity? And then the flyer saw the measures compared with the dimensions of ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... the sharp angles of eternal law, the continual debate of these living questions is the one offered means of grace and hope of earthly redemption. And thus a true, unhesitating patriot may be willing to listen with patience to arguments which he does not need, to appeals which have no special significance for him, in the hope that some less clear in mind or less courageous in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... I understand the significance of your similitude," I replied, a little annoyed at this inopportune indulgence of the pastoral privilege. "You would imply the dangerous tendency of a certain sort of philosophical speculation; and so far we doubtless agree. Yet I ought to say, that, in cases where personal investigation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Lancashire mill-owner. William Edward Forster, the creator of national education, a Chartist in his youth, had become the gaoler of Parnell and the protagonist of coercion in Ireland. Joseph Chamberlain alone seemed to realise the significance of the social problem, and unhappily political events were soon to deflect his career from what then seemed ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... of the greatest obstacles to agricultural progress to be the fact that not one European owned a single foot of the soil, "a singular fact in the history of nations," removed only about the time of his own death. His remarks on this have a present significance:— ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... the Whig party had disappeared from the roll of parties in the United States. It was a bad name for a good party. English in its origin, it had no significance in American politics. The word "Democratic," as applied to the opposing party, was equally a misnomer. The word "Democracy," from which it is derived, means a government of the people, but the controlling power of the Democratic party resided ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... prepared memorandum upon what he called "my positions." Apparently he had a muddle of doubts about the early fathers and the dates of the earlier authentic copies of the gospels, things of no conceivable significance. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... Thirty-fourth annual convention, which was especially distinguished by the presence of visitors from other lands, in the First Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C., Feb. 12-18, 1902.[14] There was special significance in this meeting place, as the pastor of the church for many years was the Rev. Byron Sutherland,[15] who from its pulpit had more than once denounced woman suffrage and its advocates; but it was now under the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... had in it a world of significance. He could hot have seen that face without light. Light had been let into their rock-bound abode, so late buried ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... often extremely inconvenient," said I, as I offered her my arm, feeling quite sure that she had not lost the significance of my last words, for women find ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... was first announced came to mock the scene but went away admiring. The spirit of the hour infused itself into the public heart, which appeared to throb but to one impulse and one aim: at all events no one was, no one could be, found obdurate enough to question the significance or ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... of the customers recognized the significance of the button. They thought it meant that David belonged to the Y. M. C. A. or was a teetotaler. David, with his gentle manners and pale, ascetic face, was liable to ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... all his admirable command of English, could not follow the Coke variety in its careless freedom. But he knew his man. Though bewildered by strange names and stranger words, he was alive to the significance of things being made easy "for the missus and the girls." So, even this gnarled sea-dog had a soft spot in his heart! On the very brink of the precipice his mind turned to his women-kind, just as De Sylva himself had whispered a last memory of his daughter ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... fortnight I was so deep in my task that, in the realest sense, the greater part of my life was in the past. The significance of those extraordinary peregrinations of ours had been in the opportunity they had afforded for a communion of brain and spirit of unusual rarity; and all this determined to my work with the accumulated force of its long penning-up. I have spoken of Andriaovsky's ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... as it was strange to think that she, who had trembled at the necessity of becoming almost a slave to unfeeling strangers, had been compelled to rest while a husband performed tasks naturally hers. It was all very homely, yet the significance of the act was chivalrous consideration for her weakness; the place, the nature of the ministry could not degrade the meaning of his action. Then, too, during the meal he had spoken natural, kindly words which gave to their breaking ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... the battle was brought. Foreseeing the significance of the result he said, "The liberties of ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... Bench, that the supremacy clause rendered null and void a State constitutional or statutory provision which was inconsistent with a treaty executed by the Federal Government,[1] it was left for him to develop the full significance of the clause as applied to acts of Congress. By his vigorous opinions in McCulloch v. Maryland[2] and Gibbons v. Ogden[3] he gave the principle a vitality which survived a century of vacillation under ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... North kept him personally informed of every movement of the political chess board. Personally he had never believed in the possibility of the South winning in a conflict of arms since the death of Jackson had been given its full significance in the battle of Gettysburg. He had however believed in the possibility of the party of the North which stood for the old Constitution winning an election on the issue of a bloody and unsuccessful war and, on their winning, that ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... they had over shot the mark by half a mile. In the street over which stood love's star, the hero thundered his presence at a door, and evoked a flying housemaid, who knew not Mrs. Berry. The hero attached significance to the fact that his instincts should have betrayed him, for he could have sworn to that house. The door being shut he stood in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... great number of nods, and winks, and frowns of extra significance, Kate added her entreaties that the visitors would remain; but it was observable that she addressed them exclusively to Tim Linkinwater; and there was, besides, a certain embarrassment in her manner, which, although it was as far from impairing its graceful character as the tinge it communicated ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... infallible witness. Secondly, must we believe that such events as the birth of Christ in Bethlehem and his betrayal by Judas took place merely in order that certain prophecies might be fulfilled? This would reduce the life of Christ to a mere phantasm and rob it of its entire historical significance. Or shall we assume (as some critics have done) that all these events were simply invented to prove the ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... lost the significance of his position, had forgotten the snow and cold and lack of food, had forgotten even the fact of death which he was hugging to his breast. His powers, burning clear in the spirit, were concentrated on the changes taking place within himself. ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... received the final seal in March 1612, a new colony was established in Bermuda in the following July. Its early history has a double significance for the later history of Virginia. In the first place, the Bermuda colony emphasizes the growing interest of the adventurers in what might be produced in America as against what might be found by way of America. The occupation ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... when she read about the Ancient Britons to poor Bates came vividly into her mind, and though she had since re-read the passage that had then attracted her attention a hundred times, it had never before presented itself to her in its full significance. Hurriedly turning the well-thumbed leaves, she read aloud the passage which had ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... belly, he drew near the body of his victim. The human character had quite departed. Like a suit half-stuffed with bran, the limbs lay scattered, the trunk doubled, on the floor; and yet the thing repelled him. Although so dingy and inconsiderable to the eye, he feared it might have more significance to the touch. He took the body by the shoulders, and turned it on its back. It was strangely light and supple, and the limbs, as if they had been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The face was robbed of all expression; but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly smeared ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... as well, have a symbolical origin. But the nineteenth century does not deal with such picturesque methods of expression. We pride ourselves upon saying in so many words just what we mean; therefore much of the poetic imagery of other days has no significance in ours. And is it not symbolism without sense which constitutes one of the phases of superstition? As for your bread-and-butter exorcism, Anna, I presume it was simply the expression of a hope that nothing might interfere between hungry folk and their dinner. This is, indeed, but a bit of juvenile ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... sash, and he placed these successively before his target, arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go through the glass without glancing or having its force materially abated. It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of some practical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up to render these out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a quiet way in one of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. He was very thoughtful in taking the precaution to get so far away; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... great gulf below. These will have some idea of what I saw, but they may take the word of one who knows, which is easier than making the experiment, that such places look very much worse from the bottom. Those who have not may try to picture tremendous—and the word is used with its amplest significance—walls of slightly overhanging rock, through which aided by grinding boulders and scoring shingle, the river has widened as well as deepened its channel a little every century, while between the white welter at their feet lies ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... of his foregone conclusion that I have accepted Mr. Darwin as my master, and his hypothesis as my guide, your reviewer represents me as blind to the significance of the general fact stated by me, that 'there has been no advance in the foraminiferous type from the palaeozoic period to the present time.' But for such a foregone conclusion he would have recognised in this statement ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... What is the significance of these events in the light of our previous examination of English history? Simply this: That the French, in passing at once from absolutism and feudalism to complete self-government, were trying to jump to the Second stage of representation without passing ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... full significance of the Celebrity's tactics struck Mr. Cooke, and he reached out and caught hold of Mr. Trevor's coattails. "Hold on, old man," said he; "Allen isn't going to be ass enough to own up to it. Don't you see we'd all be jugged and fined for assisting a criminal over the border? It's out of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a barrier, and we had entered a land of the living—but it was unclear before us. The drifting mountain mists, the sun-glitter and the haze of noon kept the scene from striking through to our brains with its true significance. For there was an eerie difference about the scene; it was not a land below us such as any of us had ever seen. I felt that and yet I could not think clearly about it. We moved along like zombies, not thinking—just accepting the unusual and the ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell |
