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noun
Solidity  n.  
1.
The state or quality of being solid; density; consistency, opposed to fluidity; compactness; fullness of matter, opposed to openness or hollowness; strength; soundness, opposed to weakness or instability; the primary quality or affection of matter by which its particles exclude or resist all others; hardness; massiveness. "That which hinders the approach of two bodies when they are moving one toward another, I call solidity."
2.
Moral firmness; soundness; strength; validity; truth; certainty; as opposed to weakness or fallaciousness; as, the solidity of arguments or reasoning; the solidity of principles, triuths, or opinions.
3.
(Geom.) The solid contents of a body; volume; amount of inclosed space.
Synonyms: Firmness; solidness; hardness; density; compactness; strength; soundness; validity; certainty.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Solidity" Quotes from Famous Books



... the sickly talk about "ideals," it is well to remember that as long as they are a mere self-painting of the yearning spirit, they have no more solidity than floating air-bubbles, gay in the sunshine and broken by the passing wind. You do not so much as touch the threshold of religion, so long as you are detained by the phantoms of your thought; the very gate of entrance ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... man whose name stands for caution, has pronounced a panegyric on our situation. Here are his words quoted in this leader; now listen: 'We may safely venture to contemplate with instructive admiration the harmony of its proportions and the solidity of its basis.' What ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... House, "a very pretty villa furnished with silver jars, vases, cabinets, and other rich furniture, even to wantonnesse and profusion," on the site of which Burlington Street now stands; Clarendon House, a princely residence, combining "state, use, solidity, and beauty," surrounded by fair gardens, that presently gave place to Bond Street; Southampton House, standing, as Evelyn says, in "a noble piazza—a little town," now known as Bloomsbury Square, whose pleasant grounds commanded a full view of the rising hills of ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... strongest made, as indicated by its weight, which is almost a couple of pounds. To ensure this unusual strength it is necessary that its sides should be of equal thickness and the bottom of a uniform solidity throughout, in order that no particular expansion may ensue from sudden changes of temperature. The neck must, moreover, be perfectly round and widen gradually towards the shoulder. In addition—and this is of the utmost consequence—the ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... living proof," cried Paragot, "of the solidity rerum agrestium. Look at him! Shew me a horse of his age in Paris. The Paris horses, like Youth in the poem, grow pale and spectre thin and die of premature decay. Here, mon petit," said he giving a sou to a blue bloused urchin who was restraining the impetuous ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... Declaration of Independence, a document not rigorously true in philosophy but inimitable as the battle cry of freedom and progress; there was Washington, whose military genius, indomitable will, and noble solidity of character were able to carry the war through to the end; and there was Franklin, too cool-headed ever to have inflamed the hearts of the people with the inspiration of hope and revenge, incapable of uttering political platitudes which could express tersely the national feeling, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More

... well known, and have been universally admired. It is in vain that we would look for superior proofs of wisdom, talent, and patriotism. Lord Chatham said that, for himself, he must declare that he had studied and admired the free states of antiquity, the master states of the world, but that, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, no body of men could stand in preference to this congress. It is hardly inferior praise to say that no production of that great man himself can be pronounced superior ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.

... even if the Hebrew writer had any mistaken or confused notions in his own mind, that would not afford any just ground against revelation itself. But I would point out that many of the expressions which may be quoted to show the idea of solidity, are clearly poetical. And if we go to the poetic or semi-poetic aspect of things, may I not ask whether there is not a certain sense in which the earth-envelope may be said to be solid? The air has a considerable density, its uniform and inexorable pressure on every square inch of the earth's ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... prophecy of Jewish solidarity in America and of the contribution of Judaism to the world's future is more optimistic than my own. Dr. Eliot points to the still unmelted heaps of racial matter, without suspecting—although he is a chemist—that their semblance of solidity is only kept up by the constant immigration of similar atoms to the base to replace those liquefied at the apex. Once America slams her doors, the crucible will ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill

... even here there might be a difficulty. An active, diversified, and therefore a youthful, ingenuity is required by the quick exigencies of this singular war. Fortress Monroe, for example, in spite of the massive solidity of its ramparts, its broad and deep moat, and all the contrivances of defence that were known at the not very remote epoch of its construction, is now pronounced absolutely incapable of resisting the novel modes of assault which may be brought to bear upon it. It can only be the flexible talent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... continue to increase toward the center. We do not know what is the temperature, but it is perfectly possible that at a greater depth the earth may become rigid once more if the effect of pressure in promoting solidity and rigidity continues, as Bridgman tells me he thinks probable. We do not even have to assume a change in the chemical composition of the earth's substance, though it is perfectly allowable. This, then, will be a third layer, once more rigid, perhaps extending to the center and of ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... the very thick floes at 1 A.M., and jammed through some of the most monstrous I have ever seen. The pressure ridges rose 24 feet above the surface—the ice must have extended at least 30 feet below. The blows given us gave the impression of irresistible solidity. Later in the night we passed out of this into long lanes of water and some of thin brash ice, hence the progress made. I'm afraid we have strained our rudder; it is stiff in one direction. We are in difficult circumstances ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... the steam is turned on fully, and the juice boils until it reaches the solidity of twenty-five degrees, as measured by the saccharometer. This point attained, more pipes conduct it to a series of square iron tanks called filterers. Each is provided with a false bottom, covered with thick woolen blankets, and through these the juice slowly drips into an ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... desperate attacks on the Great Wall of China) to receive from the Dalai Lama, as well as from the lesser Pontiffs of Tibet and Mongolia, high-sounding religious titles, prove conclusively that dignities other than mere possession of the Throne were held necessary to give solidity to a reign which began in militarism and which would collapse as the Mongol rule had collapsed by a mere Palace revolution unless an effective MORAL title were ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... gifts, and in fine, use every means to make himself beloved. He ought to be about thirty-five years old, and to have attained a certain solidity rarely met with before that age. He should also be noble and rich, and of a good presence, furnished with all qualities proper to a gentleman; and, above all, his life should be exemplary, without affectation or hypocrisy . . . . On the arrival of such an agent in London, speaking ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... words. With the loss of every degree of such realism as we have described, there is for art a clear gain of liberty and largeness of competence. Thus, painting, in which the round outlines of things are thrown on to a flat board, is far more free than sculpture, in which their solidity is preserved. It is by giving up these identities that art gains true strength. And so in the case of novels as compared with the stage. Continuous narration is the flat board on to which the novelist throws everything. And from this there results for him a great loss of vividness, but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... leather head, the case might be different; but you yourself are well acquainted with my talents of logic and conthroversy; an' I have sound rasons and good authority, which I could quote, if necessary, for proving that nothing increases the weight of the brain, and accelerates to gravity and solidity more than good feeding. Pay attention, therefore, to my words, for I expect that they will be duly observed:—buy me a knife and fork; and when I get them, it's not to lay them past to rust, you consave. The beef and mutton must follow; and in future I'm resolved to have my tay ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... Almost all were in a wretched condition, having but few guns, and manned by very insufficient crews. The largest vessels were the three corvettes, Confederacion, Santa Cruz, and Valparaiso. Only one ship, the schooner brig Colocolo, was distinguished for solidity and swift sailing. The fleet was commanded by an admiral of little ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... fearlessness—so that timidity and slowness and diffidence and unreadiness become base and feeble qualities, when they are not the things of which anyone need be ashamed! Let me say then that moral courage, the patient and unrecognised facing of difficulties, the disregard of popular standards, solidity and steadfastness of purpose, the tranquil performance of tiresome and disagreeable duties, homely perseverance, are not the things which are regarded as supreme in the ideal of the school; so that the fear which is the shadow of sensitive and imaginative natures is turned ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... arms. The doors are large and clumsy, and the entrance is through a vestibule or hall. The roof had been recently painted a brilliant red at the expense of the Variag's officers. On the inside, the church has an antiquated appearance, but presents such an air of solidity as if inviting the earthquakes to come and ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... of a well-known lawyer, Dr. Francisco Maria de Leon. Of the three Guanche skulls one was of African solidity, with the sutures almost obliterated: it was the model of a soldier's head, thick and heavy. The mass of mummy-balsam had been tested, without other result than finding a large proportion of dragon's blood. In the fourteenth century ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... say; but directly after breakfast the fog came on, and—well, one cannot leave a yacht alone in a fog,' I said, with professional solidity. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... thought he sometimes failed from an exuberance of manner, and dissipated the impression of the general character by the variety of his resources. To be complete, his delineation of it should have more solidity, depth, sustained and impassioned feeling, with somewhat less brilliancy, with fewer glancing lights, pointed transitions, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... Holland, in the sixteenth century. In the matter of samovars, especially, there is a wide range of choice in this cradle of "the portable domestic hearth," although there are only two or three among the myriad manufacturers whose goods are famed for that solidity of brass and tin which insures against dents, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... great public virtues: respect for the rich and contempt for the poor. Feeble spirits who were still moved by human suffering had no other resource than to take refuge in a hypocrisy which it was impossible to blame, since it contributed to the maintenance of order and the solidity of institutions. ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... into a glass, close it up, and set them in the sun to dry. After they are thoroughly dry, put them in a glass matrass into a stream of running water and leave them there twenty days; by that time they will contract the natural hardness and solidity of pearls. Then take them out of th matrass and hang them in mercurial water, where they will moisten, swell, and assume their Oriental beauty; after which shift them into a matrass hermitically closed to prevent any water coming to them, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... it was too comfortable for that. There were too many chairs and sofas; and they were designed on broad lines for the stolid, permanent sitting of stout, comfortable bodies. There were too many photographs on view of persons distinguished for their solidity rather than for their good looks, the portraits of the guests whom one would expect to find installed in those chairs. A grand piano was there; but the absence of any music in its neighbourhood indicated that its purpose was chiefly to symbolize harmony in the home life, ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... outward appearance by a science relying wholly upon the senses. All who are capable of absorption in an inward passion must have experienced at times the strange feeling of unreality in common objects, the loss of contact with daily things, in which the solidity of the outer world is lost, and the soul seems, in utter loneliness, to bring forth, out of its own depths, the mad dance of fantastic phantoms which have hitherto appeared as independently real and living. This is the negative ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... forth its great solidity in the exterior of its churches, and nowhere more than in Digne's deserted Cathedral. Flat buttresses line the walls, the transepts are square and plain, and on either side the facade wall is upheld by a formidable support. This severity of line is not greatly modified by the deep recesses ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... interest by their mode of treatment, he took what may be called cosmopolitan traditions, legends of human nature, and nationalized them, by the infusion of his perfectly Anglican breadth of character and solidity of understanding. Wonderful as his imagination and fancy are, his perspicacity and artistic discretion are more so. This country tradesman's son, coming up to London, could set high-bred wits, like Beaumont, uncopiable lessons in drawing gentlemen such as are seen nowhere ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... kinds of impressions conveyed by the senses. The first are those of the figure, bulk, motion, and solidity of bodies. The second those of colours, tastes, smells, sounds, heat, and cold. The third are the pains and pleasures that arise from the application of objects to our bodies, as by the cutting of our flesh with steel, and ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... out into your preserving pan or possenet, and boil it gently till it be grown thick, stirring it carefully all the while. Then put two pound of pure Sugar to it, and mingle it well, and let it boil gently, till you see the matter come to such a thickness and solidity, that it will not stick to a plate. Then make it up into what form you will. The like you may do with ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... way of looking at life, but was it reasonable that he should force his girl to look at things with his eyes? The man was distasteful to him as being unlike his idea of an English gentleman, and as being without those far-reaching fibres and roots by which he thought that the solidity and stability of a human tree should be assured. But the world was changing around him every day. Royalty was marrying out of its degree. Peers' sons were looking only for money. And, more than that, peers' daughters were bestowing ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... home, the heaven of God, may be suffused throughout the material universe, ignoring the existence of physical globes and galaxies. So light and electricity pervade some solid bodies, as if for them there were no solidity. So, doubtless, there are millions of realities around us utterly eluding our finest senses. "A fact," Emerson says, "is the last issue of spirit," and not its entire extent. "The visible creation is the terminus of the invisible ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... cooperate with him. He plants the grain or seed expecting that all its vegetative forces will cowork with his plans. Every energy of earth, air, water, and the far-off sun work into his plans as if they had no other end in all their being. If a man wants a house, he expects the solidity of the rock, all the adaptations of wood that has been growing for a century, expects the beauty of the fir tree, the pine, and the box to come together to beautify ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... great mass and extent of the building than to any symmetry of plan. Probably we must conceive of them as great complex blocks of solid building, rising in terrace above terrace, the flat roofs giving an appearance of squareness and solidity to the whole. On a closer approach the eye would be impressed by the wide and spacious courts, the stately porticoes, the noble stairways, and the wealth of colour everywhere displayed; but, on the whole, so far as can be judged, ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... pallet arbor of proper strength, nor will they be found planted on the tangents in the medium size escapement with a long pallet arbor, nor in such a one with a very wide tooth (see Fig. 4) as the heel would come so close to the center A, that the solidity of pallets and arbor would suffer. We will give an actual example. For a medium sized escape wheel with a primitive diameter of 7.5 mm., the center distance AB is 4.33 mm. By using 3deg. of a lifting angle on the teeth, the distance from the heel of the tooth to the pallet center ...
— An Analysis of the Lever Escapement • H. R. Playtner

... armaments. "Machine guns and barbed wire permit the rapid organisation of defensive points of a value which cannot be disputed. In particular, they have given to a trench, or to a natural obstacle, a solidity which permits a front to be extended in a manner unsuspected before this war; they permit the prompt consolidation of a large system that is easy to hold" (Marshal Foch). "The modern rifle and machine gun add tenfold to the relative power of the Defence as against the Attack. It has ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... were paid was less valuable; it was not possible that the small part of society which may be called the sober and reasoning part, should not be so struck with the sudden fortunes and extravagant enthusiasm which prevailed, as not to doubt of the solidity of a system, unphilosophical in itself, and which, after all, had to depend on the profits of a commercial company, the good faith of the regent, and the skill of Law; it was impossible, on these and other accounts, but that ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... thought they wanted strength and efficiency to carry on proper measures with success; and that he knew but one man MEANING, AS YOU WILL EASILY SUPPOSE, MR. PITT who could give them strength and solidity; that, under this person, he should be willing to serve in any capacity, not only as a General Officer, but as a pioneer; and would take up a spade and a mattock." When he quitted the seals, they were offered first to Lord ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... buffets life had dealt them. He passed amusedly over the black-eyed, frail-bodied Mrs. Grantly, and halted on the fourth person, a portly, massive-headed man, whose gray temples belied the youthful solidity of his face. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... had a constant succession of visitors, and a considerable number of blows, scratches, and rubbing noses were the consequence. Our beach presented a most interesting and busy scene. A dozen superb war canoes were lying ready to convey the forces; and, considering their limited means, the solidity of their structure and the carved work on them are surprising. None but men of rank are allowed to work upon them, and they labour like slaves. Some canoes were to be lengthened; others patched; others were condemned ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... covered with vegetation, and, in many cases in the Hudson Bay country, have even been known to nurture trees of considerable dimensions. The broad flat tail of the animal serves a most excellent purpose, in carrying the mud to the dams or huts, and in matting and smoothing it into a solidity. ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... cellar there was not a nooky corner on which the eye could light. Two drawing-room windows flanked the front door on the left; two dining-room windows on the right. There was not even a gable or a dormer to break the square solidity of the whole. Fourteen windows in all, each chastely shrouded in Nottingham lace curtains, looped back by yellow silk bands, fastened, to a fraction of an inch, at the same height from the sill, while Aspidistra plants, mounted on small tables, ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... themselves with strolling around it once again, admiring its shingles that were weather-beaten to a silvery gray, enthusing over the quaintly-gabled windows of its upper story, calling each other's attention to its palpable solidity of structure. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... cried, shouted. He felt tears streaming down his cheeks like the rivers that watered Paradise. What! This hope that had haunted him from boyhood, wafting from the pages of the holy books, was not then a shadowy splendor on the horizon's rim. It was a solidity, within sight, almost within touch. He himself might hope to sit in peace under his own fig-tree, no more the butt of the street boys. And the vague vision, though in becoming definite it had been transformed to earthliness, was none the less grand for that. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... man of business—it would have come easier to tell the truth. And how futile a thing it was to stave off discovery for a single day! How doubly ashamed he would have to feel after that poor pretence of responsible solidity! If he had only been disposed to be tempted at all—here surely was an added reason ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... instant Blithedale looked vague, as if it were at a distance both in time and space, and so shadowy that a question might be raised whether the whole affair had been anything more than the thoughts of a speculative man. I had never before experienced a mood that so robbed the actual world of its solidity. It nevertheless involved a charm, on which—a devoted epicure of my own emotions—I resolved to pause, and enjoy the moral sillabub until ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... I reserve for another letter an analysis of the holy books which you are taught to respect as the oracles of heaven. I now perceive for the first time that I have perhaps made too long a dissertation; and I doubt not you have already perceived that a system built on a basis possessing so little solidity as that of the God whom his devotees raise with one hand and destroy with the other, can have no stability attached to it, and can only be regarded as a long tissue of errors ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... Schuetz, however, was the first to establish the passion-music in genuine oratorio form. He was born in 1585, and died in 1672. The pupil of an Italian master, the famous Gabrielli of Venice, he retained the Italian forms, but added to them his native German force and solidity. His most prominent work, "Die Auferstehung Christi," first performed at Dresden in 1623, where he was chapel-master to the Elector George I., is regarded as the foundation of the German oratorio. ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... fifteen minutes before I could decently make my departure, wondering whether I hadnt made a mistake in becoming involved with the Tharios at all. But there being no question of the solidity of the general's position, I decided, since it was not afterall incumbent upon me to continue a social connection with them, to bear with it and confine my acquaintance as far as possible to Joe ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... wax," says Reamur, speaking of this marvellous building, "which is effected by this arrangement of the cells,—besides the fact that by this plan the comb may be filled without a single gap, there are other advantages in the way of the solidity thus given.... Every possible advantage in the way of the solidity of each cell is brought about by the manner of its construction, and by its place with reference to the rest of the cells in ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... tree-trunks, which had been cut to the desired height, and left rooted in the ground, while the two ends of it rested upon the end walls. The walls themselves were constructed of thick mud plaster, overlaying a foundation of laced willow branches. The whole construction was of unusual solidity, and the smoke-blackened thatch yielded two holes, Indian fashion, through which the ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... "The volubility and brilliancy, when acquired, gained a character of their own from the resisting peculiarities of her organ. There were a breadth, an expressiveness in her roulades, an evenness and solidity in her shake, which imparted to every passage a significance beyond the reach of more spontaneous singers." But, after all, the true secret of her greatness was in the intellect and imagination which lay behind the voice, and made every tone ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... race. If all men do not believe in a permanent reality—a substance which is external to themselves, a substance which offers resistance to their muscular effort, and which produces in them the sensations of solidity, extension, resistance, etc.—they believe nothing and know nothing at all ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... giving: imitation is going on all-fours, and man is uneasy in that animal attitude. The horse comes only as horse: I am here not merely as man, but as John; I blush and ache till John is something pronounced and maintained against the mob of centuries, till men must feel his singularity and solidity, as the ocean is displaced and readjusted by every drop of rain. More or less, I must at least purely avail. Erectness is delivery to the private law, and something in each remains erect, and lifts him above the brute and the crowd. He is, and feels himself to be: he will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... all to do it proper honor,—to salute it with a "three times three,"—as he should succeed in securing it in its place. Cautiously extending the staff, he brought it in contact with the snow, and gave it several light blows, for the purpose of ascertaining its solidity. It seemed of almost icy texture, and emitted a half-sharp and half-muffled sound in reply. Then, elevating the standard aloft in both hands, he brought it down with force, as the farmer urges a stake into the ground; not doubting, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... eager to lay, already is scattering her eggs on the ground. And in this labyrinth of complicated buildings, so far existing only in imagination, laws of ventilation must be considered, of stability, solidity; resistance of the wax must not be lost sight of, or the nature of the food to be stored, or the habits of the queen; ready access must be contrived to all parts, and careful attention be given to the distribution of stores and houses, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... our own bodies, and of their solidity, and of their figure, and of their motions, is taken for granted in my account of ideas; because the ideas themselves are believed to consist of motions or configurations of solid fibres; and the question now proposed is, how we become acquainted with the figures of bodies external ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... Company propose shipping teas to some of the American Colonies, to be there sold by agents on the Company's account, and as I apprehend South Carolina may be fixed upon as one of them, I beg leave to propose Mr. Roger Smith, of South Carolina, for whose solidity I ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... caught beyond his head and his long legs thrust out and crossed at the ankles. His gaze was fixed on her unwaveringly; and yet, when she tried to meet its focus, it went behind her as though it pierced the solidity of her body and the walls in the contemplation of a far-removed shining image. Her disturbance grew to the inclusion of a degree of fretfulness at his unbroken silence, his apparent absorption in whatever ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... die. For long years to come his name will be fragrant in the hearts of our people; and his lifelong consecration to the enterprise of the world's conversion will prove an example and a stimulus to this and the coming generation. The equipoise of his mind, the solidity of his character, the strength of his faith, the brightness of his hope, the simple, steadfast fidelity of his devotion to the Master, will speak trumpet-tongued to multitudes who never saw his face in the ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... answering the arguments of the Opposition. Amongst those whose talents raised the highest expectations, only to be disappointed in the moment of debate by want of resolution, was Lord Mornington—subsequently distinguished by the brilliancy and solidity of his orations. Mr. Grenville elsewhere alludes to Lord Mornington's intention of speaking from day to day, which he fears he will suffer the session to pass over without carrying into execution, and begs of Lord ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... color and texture of coat Jan was neither all wolfhound nor all bloodhound. For the rest, his bodily appearance and build favored his mother's race more than his father's. The depth and solidity of his head and muzzle, the length and shape of his ears, the rolling elasticity and plenitude of his skin and the deep wrinkles it had already formed about his face, were all features true to bloodhound type, as were also the thickness ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... had to pay for themselves. And it had now given us my friend Mr. Stewart, one of the ablest and honestest ministers in Scotland, or elsewhere, whether Established or Dissenting. And these facts, which were but specimens of a numerous class, had a tangibility and solidity about them which influenced me more than all the theoretic reasonings pressed on my attention about the mischief done to the Church by the over-kindness of Constantine, or the corrupting effects of State favour. But then I could as little agree with some ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... don't cry. A queen mustn't cry. (He rubs his arm, wondering at the reality of the smart.) Am I awake? (He strikes his hand against the Sphinx to test its solidity. It feels so real that he begins to be alarmed, and says perplexedly) Yes, I—(quite panic-stricken) no: impossible: madness, madness! (Desperately) Back to camp—to camp. (He rises to ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... enormous losses in the War, and that while French, Dutch and Swiss doctors have been obtained by the Belgrade Government, one cannot use telegraphists who are ignorant of the language. An excellent province in which Yugoslavia's solidity can be studied is Bosnia. At the outbreak of the War the Moslems and Croats were not imbued with the Yugoslav idea; it seemed to them that the Serbs, one of whom had slain the Archduke, were traitors to Southern ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... diameter looked like an immense rose-window, of six circles grouped round a seventh. In truth, each of these sections would reveal the existence of seven chambers in the moon,—each a sphere itself,—whose arches gave solidity to the whole; while yet, of the whole moon, the greater part was air. In all there were thirteen of these moonlets, if I am so to call them; though no one section, of course, would reveal so many. Sustained on ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... Hogarth was a novelist and play-wright, if not indeed a heart-rending tragedian? Who will refuse to those nameless monastic architects who planned and fashioned the fretted towers of Gloucester, the stern solidity of Durham, the fairy steeple of Strasburg, or the delicate pinnacles of Milan, the praise due to them of being genuine poets of the immortal Epic? Phidas and Praxiteles, Canova and Thorswaldsen, are in this view real authors, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... wholesale and indiscriminate appreciation, yet he does feel vaguely assured that the nature of things is ordered, harmonious, dependable, and regular, that affairs are, cosmically speaking, in a sound state. He feels a vast and comfortable solidity about the frame of things in which his life is set; he can depend on the familiar risings and settings of the sun, the recurrent and assured movement of the seasons. Were this trust suddenly removed, were the cosmic guarantee withdrawn, to live would be one long mortal terror. That this is precisely ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... however exceed the bounds prescribed to modesty itself, were I to neglect availing myself of the authority of others, who were not only far from being professors of this art, but who hold the highest rank in the public opinion for solidity of understanding, and purity of morals, and who yet did not disdain to give their opinion in favor of an art only imagined frivolous, for want of considering it in ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... to me," said a quiet beckoning voice from the other side of the rails, and Youghal drew rein and greeted Lady Veula Croot. Lady Veula had married into a family of commercial solidity and enterprising political nonentity. She had a devoted husband, some blonde teachable children, and a look of unutterable weariness in her eyes. To see her standing at the top of an expensively horticultured staircase receiving her husband's ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... measurable manifestations. So judging, what a contrast between the emotional and intellectual worlds of West and East! Far less striking that between the frail wooden streets of the Japanese capital and the tremendous solidity of a thoroughfare in Paris or London. When one compares the utterances which West and East have given to their dreams, their aspirations, their sensations,—a Gothic cathedral with a Shinto temple, an opera by Verdi or a trilogy by Wagner with a performance ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... the passenger by rail. Trains are built on the American plan, stations are spacious and airy, refreshments easily secured, and every halting-place offers an embarras de richesses in the shape of tropical fruits, wherewith to supplement or replace the solidity of the Dutch commissariat. Coffee and tea plantations in ordered neatness, contrast with the untamed profusion of forest vegetation, clothing sharp promontory and shelving terrace. Dusky villages cling like birds' nests to ledges of ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... confined, and drawn up into a narrow and inglorious study, and that which should be the leading science in every well-ordered commonwealth remained in all the barbarism of the rudest times, whilst every other advanced by rapid steps to the highest improvement both in solidity and elegance; insomuch that the study of our jurisprudence presented to liberal and well-educated minds, even in the best authors, hardly anything but barbarous terms, ill explained, a coarse, but not a plain expression, an indigested method, and a species of reasoning ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Street, the Free Library and the Town Hall attract attention. The latter is nearly on the site of the old free schools, which were built by Sir John Vanbrugh with all the solidity characteristic of his style; and Leigh Hunt opined, if suffered to remain, they would probably outlast the whole of Kensington. However, no such misfortune occurred, and the only relics of them remaining are the figures of the charity ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... which seemed too small to carry the weight of his academic distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and then he entered himself—so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity. And yet his first action, when the door had closed behind him, was to stagger against the table, whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there was that majestic figure prostrate and insensible upon ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... by distilling the seeds of the plant Pimpinella anisum; the product is the oil of aniseed of commerce. As it congeals at a temperature of about 50 deg. Fahr., it is frequently adulterated with a little spermaceti, to give a certain solidity to it, whereby other cheaper essential oils can be added to it with less chance of detection. As the oil of aniseed is quite soluble in spirit, and the spermaceti insoluble, the ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... waves of Tiber with a bridge [of boats]. The boat, thus used, is no longer moved by slowly hauled ropes, as it is wont to be. Fixed itself, it affords a means of transit to others. The joining of its planks gives the desired appearance of solidity; all the terror of the waves is removed by its likeness to the land, and the traveller passing over it unharmed only wishes that ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... as he made it, that it was not a very able retort, but he was feeling too limp for satisfactory repartee. Criticisms in the Bureau, dealing with his alleged solidity of skull, he did not resent. He attributed them to man's natural desire to chaff his fellow-man. But to be unmasked by the general public in this way was another matter. It struck at the root ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... tomb worthy, if possible, of the name destined to be graven on it will be erected. The study of the artist should be to give to this monument a simple beauty, a noble form, and that aspect of solidity which shall appear to brave all the efforts of time. Napoleon must have a monument durable as his memory. The grant for which we have applied to the Chambers is to be employed in the removal of the remains to the Invalides, the funeral obsequies, and the ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... soldier's trousers which by Karataev's advice he tied with string round the ankles for warmth, and a peasant coat and cap. Physically he had changed much during this time. He no longer seemed stout, though he still had the appearance of solidity and strength hereditary in his family. A beard and mustache covered the lower part of his face, and a tangle of hair, infested with lice, curled round his head like a cap. The look of his eyes was resolute, calm, and animatedly alert, as never before. The former slackness which had shown itself ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... are cleverer than the English mothers? No,—it points to the reverse, that the English girl you look down upon, under her soft, gentle manner has something superior to you American women—she has solidity and brain-power. That is why the English man is superior to the American. Now, ladies, you, with your pretty faces, your charming manners, your vitality, and shall I say it? your worldliness, have boys ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... those questions that appeal very strongly to the more prevalent and less charitable types of English mind. It has a practical and constructive air, it deals with impressively enormous amounts of tangible property, it rests with a comforting effect of solidity upon assumptions that are at once doubtful and desirable. It seems free from metaphysical considerations, and it has none of those disconcerting personal applications, those penetrations towards intimate qualities, ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... slopes away from the eye in every direction, and eludes rather than courts observation. But as the spectator gazes, as he prolongs his examination and inspection, the pyramids gain upon him, their impressiveness increases. By the vastness of their mass, by the impression of solidity and durability which they produce, partly also, perhaps, by the symmetry and harmony of their lines and their perfect simplicity and freedom from ornament, they convey to the beholder a sense of grandeur and majesty, they produce within him a feeling of astonishment and awe, such as is scarcely ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... at Rokugo was very beautiful, and, except that its ornaments were superior in solidity and good taste, differed little from a Romish church. The low altar, on which were lilies and lighted candles, was draped in blue and silver, and on the high altar, draped in crimson and cloth of gold, there was nothing but a closed shrine, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... unnamed,—with Mr. Rallston's congratulations and best wishes. There is no describing the many costly and beautiful gifts from the great circle of friends, relatives, and school-mates. Papa's, too, is of eminent solidity, though flimsy paper is the medium, but there are some that cannot be passed over without remark. There is significance ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... beside him, and they looked at each other while the leaves whispered around them and the birds fluttered and chirped. He discovered again the feeling of rightness, sitting beside Gistla. There was a solidity about her, a quiet maturity that he seemed able to feel in himself only when he was with her. And that too was strange, because in American terms of age, she was ...
— George Loves Gistla • James McKimmey

... another; the stream working the mass into a firmness, and washing down fresh mud. This, settling there, became an accession of matter, as well as cement, to the rubbish, insomuch that the violence of the waters could not remove it, but forced and compressed it all together. Thus its bulk and solidity gained it new subsidies, which gave it extension enough to stop on its way most of what the stream brought down. This is now a sacred island, lying by the city, adorned with temples of the gods, and walks, and is called in the Latin tongue inter duos pontes. Though some ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... in 1890: "We introduced the 'Ideal' to public notice in 1886, and claimed for it superiority to any other variety in the following points: Reliability of heading, size and solidity of heads, earliness, and protective habit of inner leaves." Further tests by himself and others he says substantiate these claims. The plants are said to be very dwarf, with erect outer leaves. At the New York experiment station, in 1889, it was a few days later than the three other varieties ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier

... lived since the beginning of the world, has had his infancy in which he was absorbed by the most urgent needs of life; his youth in which he succeeded pretty well in things of imagination like poetry and eloquence, and even began to reason, but with more courage than solidity. He is now in the age of manhood, is more enlightened, and reasons better; but he would have advanced further if the passion for war had not distracted him and given him a distaste for the sciences to which he ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... descended from an ancestry of honor and influence from the twelfth century. That ancestry lived in warlike times. Some of them were renowned for deeds of heroism. All of them were known for loyalty, intelligence and solidity of character. Washington Irving paid a visit to the ancient "Washington's manor" at Sulgrave, several years before he wrote the "Life of ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... our personal life. One day our circumstances appear to share the unshaken solidity of the planet, and our security is complete. And then some undreamed-of antagonism assaults our life. We speak of it as a bolt from the blue! Perhaps it is some stunning disaster in business. Or perhaps death has leaped into our quiet meadows. Or perhaps ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... it is because I desire to speak specially of what I know specially. It was, however, without doubt, in his Fellowship at Merton that he found at this period the peculiar work of his life. A wonderful combination of fertility with solidity always struck me as one of his most marked mental characteristics. Only by that facility could he have accumulated and digested the learning which he acquired in relation to Church, and especially to College History and College Law. In mastering ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... few days Owny's cars and men were sent for this purpose; but when they came to take the haystack to pieces, the solidity of its centre rather astonished them—and instead of the cars going back loaded, two had their journey for nothing, and went home empty. Previously to his men leaving the widow's field, they spoke to her on the subject, and said, "'Pon my conscience, ma'am, the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... tufa, of brick, excellently prepared, having more surface and less thickness than ours; of peperino (Sarno stone), which time renders very hard, sometimes with travertine and even marble in the ornaments; then there was Roman mortar, celebrated for its solidity, less perfect at Pompeii, however, than at Rome; and finally, the stucco surface, covering the entire city with its smooth and polished crust, like a variegated mantle. But these edifices tell us nothing in particular; there is neither a style peculiar ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... high point in the picture—the small area occupied by the Madonna and Child—and by the subordination of the free play of other elements. The contrast between the broad base and the apex gives a feeling of solidity, of repose; and it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the tendency to rest the eyes above the center of the picture directly induces the associated mood of reverence or worship. Thus the pyramidal form serves two ends; ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... every sort of exceptional conduct. Roderick Anthony had begun already to suffer. That is why perhaps he was so industrious in going about amongst his fellowmen who would have been surprised and humiliated, had they known how little solidity and even existence they had in his eyes. But they could not suspect anything so queer. They saw nothing extraordinary in him during that fortnight. The proof of this is that they were willing to ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... yet," he said, in his solid way. Kennedy's chief characteristics were solidity, and an infinite capacity for taking pains. Nothing seemed to tire or discourage him. He kept pegging away till he arrived. The ordinary person, for instance, would have considered the jam-pot, on which he was then ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... which deal with distant objects, and scarcely grasp these objects at all, whereas all that the touch perceives it perceives thoroughly. Besides, if to nerve-force we add muscular action, we form a simultaneous impression, and judge of weight and solidity as well as of temperature, size, and shape. Thus touch, which of all our senses best informs us concerning impressions made upon us by external things, is the one oftenest used, and gives us most directly the ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... protestations and vows to be shaken by the dislike of the family? Did I not always object that to you, and you made light thing of it, as what you were above, and would value; and is it come to this now?' said I. 'Is this your faith and honour, your love, and the solidity ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... birth into samurai families in consideration of monetary payments by their parents. This mercenary custom was strictly interdicted by the Matsudaira regent, who justly saw in it a danger to the solidity of the military class. But it does not appear that his veto received ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... resemblance of Johnson is not to be found in any age, parts of his character are admirably expressed by Clarendon in drawing that of Lord Falkland, whom the noble and masterly historian describes at his seat near Oxford;—'Such an immenseness of wit, such a solidity of judgement, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination.—His acquaintance was cultivated by the most polite and accurate men, so that his house was an University in less volume, whither they came, not so ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... our family—but in compensation he endowed me with a solid mind to match my solid body. The Family means a great deal to me, Barry—more than anybody has ever realised—and there are times when I wonder why the solidity of mind was given to the one member of the race who could not perpetuate it in the direct line." She sighed, and then as if ashamed of unwonted emotion, jerked her dishevelled grey head with a movement that was singularly reminiscent of her nephew. ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... thing, have a collection of hells quite unique in their varied unpleasantness. Maybe the difference is a question of race rather than of creed; that the vigorous life of the West shrinks from its antithesis, and that its unimaginative common-sense finds a bodiless condition too lacking in solidity of comfort; whereas the more dreamy, mystical East, prone to meditation, and ever seeking to escape from the thraldom of the senses during earthly life, looks on the disembodied state as eminently desirable, and as ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant

... order or proportion; variety and regularity; design, connexion, art, and power; aptitudes, dependence, correspondence, and adjustment of parts to a whole or to an end. He goes over our leading ideas in detail, to show that mere sense cannot furnish them. Thus, Solidity, or Impenetrability, needs an exertion of reason; we must compare instances to know that two atoms of matter cannot occupy the same space. Vis Inerticae is a perception of the reason. So Substance, Duration, Space, Necessary Existence, Power, and Causation ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... of the human mind there is, indeed, a sort of antique furniture which I collect, not merely for their antiquity, but for the sound condition in which I still find them, and the compactness which they still show. Centuries have not worm-eaten their solidity! and the utility and delightfulness which they still afford make them look as fresh and as ingenious as any ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... blunt-bowed affair, awakening the ideas of primitive solidity, like the wooden plough of our forefathers. And there were, about her, other suggestions of a rustic and homely nature. The extraordinary timber projections which I have seen in no other vessel made her square stern resemble the tail end of a miller's waggon. But the four stern ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... once to M. Courtois, aux Montagnes Russes, No. 11, Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, facing the Rue Vivienne, there the stranger is sure of being fairly treated with regard to the worth of the commodity, the solidity and neatness of the execution, and punctuality in the fulfillment of his engagements. The difference of prices between a fashionable London and Parisian tailor is immense, the former will make you pay 7l. 7s. for a coat of the best cloth, whilst M. Courtois only charges 100 francs (4l.) ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... known over the Continent as the "boom of '81," and holding on with abundant courage and invincible hope, had gathered to itself what of strength it could, until by 1884 it had come to assume an appearance of enduring solidity. Hitherto accessible from the world by the river and the railroad from the south, in this year the city began to cast eager eyes eastward, and to listen for the rumble of the first trans-continental train, which was to bind the Provinces of Canada into a Dominion, and make Winnipeg into one of the ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor

... this adventure that we encountered a continent of immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless, was supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had no fewer than four hundred ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... distance, with the sun playing on it and the sea gulls swooping about its top, it seemed something slender and ethereal. It was only when one was close at hand that its real strength and solidity could ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... made me almost giddy: it was something like the movement of a vessel in a little cross-ripple, or still more like that felt by a person skating over thin ice, which bends under the weight of his body. A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest associations: the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid; — one second of time has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced. In the forest, as a breeze moved the trees, I felt only the earth ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... remainder of Zinzendorf's work in America may be briefly told. There is no doubt that, like many another eager and hopeful reformer, he overestimated the strength and solidity of the support that was given to his generous and beneficent plans. At the time of Muehlenberg's arrival Zinzendorf was the elected and installed pastor of the Lutheran congregation in Philadelphia. The conflict ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... development and conglomeration of knowledge. I presume, therefore, that we are to attribute the marked inferiority of the old Egyptians in all particulars of science, when compared with the moderns, and more especially with the Yankees, altogether to the superior solidity ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... and I to part till we had spent an hour in talking over this amiable family, with whom he could not help being much delighted, though he observed they were very deficient in the bon ton, there was too much solidity in all they said, they would trifle with trifles indeed, but had not the art of treating more weighty subjects with the same lightness, which gave them an air of rusticity; and he did not doubt, but on ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... his numerous predella paintings; but even more remarkable is the wonderful plastic quality of his modelling. By this he makes us realise better than any one before him the tenseness of sinew, the resistance of hard muscle, and the supple elasticity of flesh, giving a solidity and weight to his forms that make them ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell

... and a number of chairs of various shapes and doubtful solidity were the only furniture of the room, but in an arched recess in the wall a plaster figure holding a cornucopia, from whence fell in thick profusion the plaster presentments of the fruits of this earth, stood on an elevated pedestal, which had been draped with ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... eyes of many of them to the beauties that lie everywhere about them. Then his long agitation for a better architecture has not been wholly in vain. Though the architects all laughed at him when his lectures were given, many of his ideas slowly made their way, and the new demand for strength and solidity and sincerity in building has ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... he was fortunate in that the work which fell to him, at the first, and again at the last of this war, was peculiarly suited to his professional characteristics; but he was not interchangeable with Rodney. In the latter there was a briskness of temper, a vivacity, very distinguishable from Howe's solidity of persistence; and he was in no sense one to permit "discipline to come to nought," the direction in which Howe's easy though reserved disposition tended. The West Indies were to be the great scene of battles, and, while the tactical ideas of the two appear to have been essentially ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... beneath. Not a stone looks in its place; they appear as if confusedly heaped one on the other, after having been destroyed and built up again: it is, therefore, with infinite surprise that you find, on approaching nearer and nearer, that its solidity is still so great—that the melted lead inserted between the stones, which binds it so firmly, is as strong as ever, and that parts of the interior of the arch are even and smooth; much, however, of this has been restored. After looking at this magnificent arch a little while, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... word. The writer doubles and trebles his style when silence is imposed on a nation by its master. From this silence there arises a certain mysterious plenitude which filters into thought and there congeals into bronze. The compression of history produces conciseness in the historian. The granite solidity of such and such a celebrated prose is nothing but the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... influence was soon to draw, as if by magnetic power, the man who had formed an alliance with him amid blood and steel, and who was destined to lend the right solidity to the newly erected structure of the institute—I mean Heinrich Langethal, the most beloved and influential of my teachers, who stood beside Froebel's inspiring genius and Middendorf's lovable warmth of feeling ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... enlarges the sphere of the Affections. Affection is above Thought, but it is sustained and invigorated by its influence. Thought being the foundation upon which Affection is built, the strength, permanence and reliability of Affection must depend on the solidity and justice of the ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler

... a complete and abiding faith in that great silent body of Americans who are not standing up and shouting and expressing their opinions just now, but are waiting to find out and support the duty of America. I am just as sure of their solidity and of their loyalty and of their unanimity, if we act justly, as I am that the history of this country has at every crisis and turning point illustrated ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... ventilators, reaching from the deck to the lower saloon, are also richly ornamented, while handsome mirrors multiply all this splendor. The general effect is that of chasteness and a certain kind of solidity. There is not much gilding, the colors used are not gaudy, and there is a degree of elegant comfort about the saloons that is sometimes wanting amid splendid fittings. There is a ladies' drawing-room near the chief saloon full of every luxury. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... that impressed Peter most was the solidity and stability of this Southern village that he could hear moving around him, and its certainty to go on in the future precisely as it had gone on in the past. It was a tremendous force. The very old manor about him seemed huge and intrenched in long traditions, while he, Peter Siner, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... the best interests of the Association. Were Mr. Moitoret more in touch with the rising ideals of the newer United, he would realize the essential childishness of our "official business" as contrasted with the substantial solidity of our developing literature. Possibly the plan of Mr. Campbell, as experimentally tried during the present year, will alter Mr. Moitoret's present opinion. Taken altogether, we are not sure whether the Sun will prove beneficial or harmful to the United. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... at the passages separately, and we shall find that they present the one thought with differences, and that if we combine these, as in a stereoscope, the picture gains solidity. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... begin his work with an outline; he builds up with his material a likeness of the object which, rough at first, establishes from the beginning the essential conditions of relief and solidity. ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various

... Rome, but in a very different character. Fortune had now allotted me a serious part to act. I had even in my infancy a grave disposition, nor was I ever seen to smile, which infused an opinion into all about me that I was a child of great solidity; some foreseeing that I should be a judge, and others a bishop. At two years old my father presented me with a rattle, which I broke to pieces with great indignation. This the good parent, being extremely wise, ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... called the 'Abbaye aux Hommes,' and la Ste. Trinite, the 'Abbaye aux Dames'—both founded and built in the eleventh century; the first (containing the tomb of the Conqueror) with two plain, massive towers, with spires; and an interior remarkable for its strength and solidity—'a perfect example of Norman Romanesque;' adorned, it must be added, with twenty-four nineteenth-century chandeliers with glass lustres suspended by cords from the roof; and with gas ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... be more accurate to say your house received the preference, if it is such. I was struck by its appearance of solidity and wealth, and, differing from all others in the door being ajar, I lingered before it last night with some inclination to enter. Then the procession which accompanied you came along. I heard your address to your friends, ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... factory the stranger knew that there were three rows of cabins in the post, that the factory was a mighty fortress in its low solidity, and that the small log structure to the right of it with the barred window was the pot ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... Something of the character of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural colors, the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and solidity, and when a lamp had been brought, and chairs set, the sacristan went to this chest, and produced therefrom, with growing excitement and nervousness, as Dennistoun thought, a large book wrapped ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... those days were very far from having attained the strength and solidity which a few generations later were bestowed upon them. The stones of which they were constructed were comparatively small, and fastened together by mortar, consequently they could ill resist even an assault by ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... the creator of the world-tragedy, is a mere shadow in comparison to the great genius of whom Mueller, the Swiss historian, says: "Quite impartially and truly, as before God, I must say that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observations, the solidity of his understanding (not dazzling wit), his grand and comprehensive views, filled me with astonishment, and his manner of speaking to me with love for him. By his genius and his disinterested goodness, he has also conquered me." But I give another authority, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... things at the bare thought of which he felt a premonitory tingling in the rearward part of his person. But somehow the feel of the coin in his hand seemed to enfranchise him. He had at once a sense of manly solidity, and of having been floated off into a giddy atmosphere in which nothing succeeded like success and the law of gravity had lost all spanking weight. He backed towards Mrs Pengelly's shop door, greedy, ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... melt, while others remain solid (Phil. Trans. 1858, p. 214). He also arrived at the conclusion (p. 219) that heat could be conducted through the substance of a mass, and melt portions of the interior, without visible prejudice to the solidity of the other parts of ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... made to give them grace and beauty by adding ornamentation. Rarely if ever did Mr. Beecher fall into the error of thus mixing in an incongruous structure two architectural styles. He knew when to use the Norman strength and solidity, and when the Gothic ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... in a cretonne-covered armchair, with a book of travel on his knee, and thoughts of Millicent Chyne in his mind. The astute have no doubt discovered ere this that the mind of Mr. Guy Oscard was a piece of mental mechanism more noticeable for solidity of structure than brilliancy or rapidity of execution. Thoughts and ideas and principles had a strange way of getting mixed up with the machinery, and sticking there. Guy Oscard had, for instance, concluded some ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... the result of this complete innovation, or, as some friends of his will call it, reform, in the whole body of its solidity and compound mass, at which, as Hamlet says, the face of heaven glows with horror and indignation, and which, in truth, makes every reflecting mind and every feeling heart perfectly thought-sick, without ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... me he would give his daughter half his fortune on her marriage. Half Graybrooke's fortune happens to be just forty thousand pounds!" He took a turn in the room. No! It was impossible to apply to Sir Joseph. Once shake Sir Joseph's conviction of his commercial solidity, and the marriage would be certainly deferred—if not absolutely broken off. Sir Joseph's fortune could be made available, in the present emergency, in but one way—he might use it to repay his debt. He had only to make the date at which the loan expired coincide with the date of his marriage, and ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins

... intense sunlight from amidst the trim verdure of their orchards, and their large barns and granaries surveying complacently far and wide the abundant harvests that are to be gathered into their capacious walls. The comfort, solidity, loneliness, and inelegance, not to say ugliness, of these rural dwellings is highly characteristic, the latter quality being to a certain degree modified by distance; the others represent very pleasingly, in the midst of the prosperous prospect, the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... tissue with it, to serve the same purpose as the hair in the mortar, the straw in the bricks and in the plaster of the old wall, and the amianthus in the earthen vessels. Thus we have the combination A B C, or fibro-cartilage. Again, the bones were once only gristle or cartilage, A B. To give them solidity they were infiltrated with stone, in the form of salts of lime, an inorganic element, so that bone would be spelt out by the letters ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... rushing down the steep place and perishing in the waters, as the herd of swine was doing,—a son worthy of the Fathers of New England. I think of him as a kind of tall pillar, on a foundation of such granite solidity as to quiet all fears of possible moving therefrom. He was an example—and became by his S. Carolina mission a conspicuous one; by his attitude and demeanor, opposing the whole moral power of the North to the despotic and insolent assumptions ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... of their native mothers. Jessie McRae was graceful as a fawn. Every turn of the dark head, every lift of the hand, expressed spirit and verve. She must, he thought, have inherited almost wholly from her father, though in her lissom youth he could find little of McRae's heavy solidity of mind and body. ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... To give solidity and permanence to the inspirations of genius two things are especially necessary. First, that the idea to be communicated should be powerfully apprehended by the speaker or writer; and next, that he should employ words and phrases which might convey it in all its truth to the ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... The solidity of those women was something amazing. Terry soon found that it was useless, tore himself loose for a moment, pulled his revolver, and fired upward. As they caught at it, he fired again—we heard ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman



Words linked to "Solidity" :   hollowness, hollow, solid, compactness, solidness, porosity, consistence, eubstance, impermeableness



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