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Task   Listen
noun
Task  n.  
1.
Labor or study imposed by another, often in a definite quantity or amount. "Ma task of servile toil." "Each morning sees some task begin, Each evening sees it close."
2.
Business; employment; undertaking; labor. "His mental powers were equal to greater tasks."
To take to task. See under Take.
Synonyms: Work; labor; employment; business; toil; drudgery; study; lesson; stint.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Task" Quotes from Famous Books



... judgment, because I am sure you would have been a very bad farmer. It now remains for you to show that you can be a very good tradesman. You are bound in honour to me and to your father to try your best to be so; and meanwhile leave the task of upsetting the world to those who have no shop in it, which would go crash in the general tumble. ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the boy who was eager for the task, rode out of the wood which was on the slope of the hill away from the point of attack, and gained the fringe of timber along the creek. It was about fifty yards from cover to cover, but he believed he had not been seen, as neither shout nor shot ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... to his task, and they went along steadily and rapidly. The toboggan was crackling and slithering over the snow upon which the dark indigo shadows were throwing uncanny designs. The track was smooth and level now and the dog could manage very well alone, so that Hugo ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with others, in effort; their delight is in self-mastery; in them asceticism becomes second nature, a necessity, an instinct. They regard a difficult task as a privilege; it is to them a recreation to play with burdens that would crush all others.... Knowledge—a form of asceticism.—They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does not prevent them being ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche

... the eye of sense is closed. After the Reformation period the mystic tries to look with both eyes; his aim is to see God in all things, as well as all things in God. He returns with better resources to the task of the primitive religions, and tries to find spiritual law in the natural world. It is true that a strange crop of superstitions, the seeds of which had been sown long before, sprang up to mock his hopes. In necromancy, astrology, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... sold us for servants To that land of hard gems, where thy life's purchase seemed Little better than mine, and we found to our sorrow Whence came the crown's glitter, thy sign once of glory: Then naked a king toiled in sharp rocky crannies, And thy world's fear was grown but the task-master's whip, And thy world's hope the dream in the short dead of night? And hast thou forgotten how again we fled from it, And that fight of despair in the boat on the river, And the sea-strand again and white bellying sails; And ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... called "Father Sauteloup," had the task, in May, 1830, of reading to Theodore Calvi, who was condemned to death and a prisoner in the Conciegerie, the denial of his petition for appeal. [Scenes ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... Aunt Jessie soon proposed supper, and proceeded to get it, enveloped in an immense apron, with an old hat of Archie's stuck atop of her cap. Rose helped, and tried to be as handy as Phebe, though the peculiar style of table she had to set made it no easy task. It was accomplished at last, and a very happy party lay about under the trees, eating and drinking out of anyone's plate and cup, and quite untroubled by the frequent appearance of ants and spiders in places which these interesting ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... rejoiced greatly at that feat, and with a loud voice bade the men of the dun bring forth their next champion. This was Tuatha the second son of Nectan, and the fiercest of the three, he buffeted his esquires and gillas, while they armed him, so that it was a sore task for them to clasp and strap and brace his armour upon him that day, for their faces were bloody from his hands, and the floor of the armoury was strewn with their teeth. That armour was a marvel and astonishment to all who saw it, so ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... rounded every point and curve, rapids and falls rose, in apparently endless succession, before our wearied eyes. My Indians, however, knew exactly the number they had to ascend, so they set themselves manfully to the task. I could not help admiring the dexterous way in which they guided the canoe among the rapids. Upon arriving at one, the old Indian, who always sat in the bow (this being the principal seat in canoe travelling), rose up on his knees and stretched out his neck to take a look before commencing ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... from the hair shining here under his glance in luxuriant brown coils? This brightness of eye, that seemed all exhilaration, was it not trepidation instead? And this rosiness, so like redundant vigor, was it not the flush of her hot task? He fancied he saw—in truth he may have seen—a defiance in the eyes as he glanced upon, and tardily dropped, the little ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... Millicent had begun to change her views. At first she had merely been attracted by his brilliance, as any clever girl might have been, had found it stimulating to work with him, and had been pleased and proud when he selected her to be his coadjutor in the task of writing his first book. She had been, in truth, so keenly interested in the author that she had overlooked the man; and it is a fact that until she came down, at his request, to his house to work there, away from the busy ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... ends with the garden party, and little more remains to be told. She had already, in 1880, begun the task of selection from the great accumulation of letters and papers relating to her life, and writes thus to her son in Saco, Maine, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... were equally divided. It is evident that the populace is unequal to the proper exploitation of the continent Let them multiply as the human race never multiplied before and they must still remain unequal to the task before them for many centuries. The cry raised is that of "Australia for the Australians." Well, who are the Australians? Are they the men of the old British stock who made the country what it is, or the men who had the ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... gaiety. Geoffrey chose to remember only that they were together through a hard adventure, and that it was his part to smooth her way. The bond of difficulties to overcome united them. They felt the intimacy of a single absorbing interest. They had nothing to think of but accomplishing their task,—of that and of each other. As far as they could see were snow and black trunks of trees. They scarcely remembered that any one ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller

... for your task is a delicate one; we will hold the door ajar a little while after you go, so that if anything happens, such as their recognizing you, you will be able to dash back. You know it won't do for you to ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis

... better, as though Signorelli had warmed to his task. The next is very charming and one of the most successful in composition. It illustrates "How S. Benedict reveals to two monks where and when they had eaten out of the Convent." The two disobedient brothers sit in the foreground ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell

... father gave me a moderate task of weeding onions, I soon became tired of crawling on hands and knees under a scorching sun, inundating the earth with perspiration and tears, so I substituted a hoe for fingers, tearing up onions with the weeds that I might ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... all of Venetian glass, loaded with colour, they make the places where they were put rather dark than otherwise. Lorenzo was chosen to assist Brunellesco, when the latter was commissioned to make the Cupola of S. Maria del Fiore, but he was afterwards relieved of the task, as it will be told ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari

... South Carolina and Georgia," vol. 1, p. 120, is the following: "So laborious is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, thousands and tens of thousands MUST ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... had seen letters cut on stone, and was confident that with a chisel and hammer nothing could be easier. These the nursery tool-box furnished. I wrote out an elaborate inscription headed by Reka Dom in Russian characters, and we got a stone and set to work. The task, however, was harder than we had supposed. My long composition was discarded, and we resolved to be content with this simple sentence, To the memory of Ivan. But 'brevity is the soul of wit,' and the TO took so long to cut, ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... who neglected family worship on the ground that he could not make up a prayer, was severely taken to task by Mr. Pope, who gave the man a year within which to manufacture one. At the end of the twelvemonth, Mr. Pope called and requested to hear the prayer. The man glibly rattled off a long succession of phrases that ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... that rumors of the manner in which the Mars Convicts had disappeared filtered out to the politically dissatisfied on Earth and set off an unprecedented series of local uprisings which took over a decade to quell. In spite of such difficulties, the planet's economy was geared over to the new task; and presently defenses were devised and being constructed which would stop missiles arriving at speeds greater than that of light. Simultaneously, the greatest research project in history had begun to investigate the possibilities of either duplicating the fantastic drive ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz

... to was scarcely more than a three-legged stool, which he occupied four mornings in the week, the rest of his time being spent at home in the arduous task of ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... enough,' said another; 'but here's what shall give him a rousing lykewake.' So saying, he fetched a keg of spirits from a corner, while Meg hastened to display pipes and tobacco. From the activity with which she undertook the task, Brown conceived good hope of her fidelity towards her guest. It was obvious that she wished to engage the ruffians in their debauch, to prevent the discovery which might take place if by accident any of them should approach too nearly ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... my spirit, discouraged, refused to penetrate farther into the recollection of so many horrors. Having arrived at the departure of Napoleon, I had flattered myself that my task was completed. I had announced myself as the historian of that great epoch, when we were precipitated from the highest summit of glory to the deepest abyss of misfortune; but now that nothing remains for me to retrace but the most frightful miseries, why should we not spare ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... by year went on, And budding primroses were gone, And berries fell, and still the bright Crocuses came in the night, You left me to my task alone, O Love, so near me ...
— Preludes 1921-1922 • John Drinkwater

... Our task within these limits will be sufficiently long and mysterious. To increase and purify within us the desire for justice: how shall this thing be done? We have some vague conception of the ideal that we would approach; but how changeable still, ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... in upon us since the delivery of our letters of introduction, and it was now the evening of our debut in Edinburgh society. Francesca had volunteered to perform the task of leaving cards, ordering a private victoria for the purpose, and arraying herself in purple and ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... knowing how to grasp my own meaning, and give it a tangible shape in words; and yet it is concerning this very expression of our thoughts in words that I wish to speak. As I muse things fall more into their proper places, and, little fit for the task as my confession pronounces me to be, I will try to make clear that ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... features, and with the new century new voices began to be articulate. In May, 1900, there was in Montgomery a conference in which Southern men undertook as never before to make a study of their problems. That some who came had yet no real conception of the task and its difficulties may be seen from the suggestion of one man that the Negroes be deported to the West or to the islands of the sea. Several men advocated the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment. The ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... is a much more difficult matter than it has been hitherto, as presses were established not in three or four places only, but in almost every town of any size. The history of provincial printing has never yet been written, and the task of tracing out the various printers and their work would be long and arduous. All that is attempted here is to give a sketch of the earlier and more important presses, adding in an appendix a chronological list of the places in which printing was ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer

... Giletta of Narbonne (i. 38) from Bandello.[29] I suspect too that there are two plays associated with Shakespeare's name which contain only rough drafts left unfinished in his youthful period, and finished by another writer. At any rate it is a tolerably easy task to eliminate the Shakespearian parts of Timon of Athens and Edward III., by ascertaining those portions which are directly due to Painter.[30] In this early period indeed it is somewhat remarkable with what closeness he followed his model. Thus some gushing critics have pointed ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... Haven (Conn.) Union, April 16, 1919.—... Its more immediate task, as its promoters see it, is to help the members and the families of members who maybe in need of assistance. No comrade of the great struggle is to feel that he is forgotten and forsaken by the comrades who served the same ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat

... sunrise. They hunted carefully through the outlying foothills and toiled laboriously up the steep sides to the level top. It was a difficult piece of mountaineering, for the edges of the cliffs had become round and slippery with the ice, and it was no easy task to move up and along them, clutching the gun in one hand and grasping each little projection with the other. That day again they found ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... Obviously a censor should be the most profound of psychologists. Instead the important posts in the agencies of suppression go to the boy who can capture the largest number of smutty post cards. After he has confiscated a few gross he is promoted to the task of watching over art. By that time he has been pretty thoroughly blasted for the sins of the people. An extraordinary number of things admit of shameful interpretations ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... leave room for the function of a society? If children are beaten, abandoned, given over to odious practices, will not the authorities, on the complaint of those interested, or compelled by public opinion, be able adequately to fulfil the task? This reasoning, altogether French, would not properly take into account the American temperament, the genius of the Anglo-Saxon race, of its institutions, and of its usages. In France, since the fourteenth ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various

... busy chiefly with the gods and heroes of a golden age; it had been essentially romantic, and so had never attempted to study men and women as they are, or to describe them so that the reader recognizes them, not as ideal heroes, but as his own neighbors. Chaucer not only attempted this new realistic task, but accomplished it so well that his characters were instantly recognized as true to life, and they have since become the permanent possession of our literature. Beowulf and Roland are ideal heroes, essentially creatures of the imagination; but the merry host ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... not make out what Pavel Ivanich was talking about; thinking he was being taken to task, he said by ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... Provincial Government, which, in 1862, appointed him to command an expedition to examine the rivers in the province of Canterbury, with a view to ascertaining whether they contained gold. So admirably was the work accomplished that, on his return to Christchurch, he was intrusted with the task of opening up communications between the Canterbury plains and the newly-discovered gold and coal district on the west coast. 'This duty was faithfully performed, under constant hardships and discouragement,' relates his mother. 'But a few miles of road remained to be cut, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... the task she had undertaken, and in a moment his courage returned and he managed to get his foot in a crack of the rock and assist her by relieving her of part of his weight. Just above was a slight ledge; he could reach it now; and then she had him by the arm, so that another ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... constrained, on such an occasion as this to ask what were the qualities which enabled a man called comparatively late in life to new duties of unexampled complexity—what were the qualities which in practice proved him so admirably fitted to the task, and have given him an enduring and illustrious record among the rulers and governors of the nations? I should be disposed to assign the first place to what sounds a commonplace—but in its persistent and unfailing exercise is one of the rarest of virtues—his strong, abiding, dominating ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... momentarily by a sudden pang of pity, they would acquit with streaming eyes a prisoner whom an hour before they would have condemned to the guillotine with taunts. The further they proceeded with their task, the more impetuously did they follow the impulses ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... lastly, the minutiae and most delicate characters of the beds of these hills, when they are so near as to become foreground objects, and the structure of the common soil which usually forms the greater space of an artist's foreground. Hence our task will arrange itself into three divisions—the investigation of the central mountains, of the interior mountains, and of ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... may be promptly and regularly performed. If the family is to live in the village, the cattle must live in the village too. This involves the hauling home of all the hay and grain, and the hauling out again of all manure,—no slight task. If the work is all concentrated on the farm, under the immediate supervision of the farmer, there will be a certain ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring

... up something like a satisfactory answer. In old times the best methods which philosophy had at its disposal for this purpose were such as now seem very crude, and accordingly ancient philosophers bungled considerably in their task, though now and then they came surprisingly near what would to-day be called the truth. It was natural that their methods should be crude, for scientific inquiry had as yet supplied but scanty materials for them to work with, and it ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... of Bhrigu! Vishnu with Brahman assented to it. And the lotus-eyed one (Vishnu) laid the hard task on the mighty Ananta, the prince of snakes. The powerful Ananta, directed thereto both by Brahman and Narayana, O Brahmana, tore up the mountain with the woods thereon and with the denizens of those woods. And the gods came to the shore of the Ocean with Ananta ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... task to confine luxury within the limits of an empire. The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought over land from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube; and the barbarians ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... he shrank from the task. "No, no!" he said, looking wildly into Donald's face. "Not I. I am not the one to tell her, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... the task to guard thee here, Where wind is rough and frost is keen, And all the ground with doubt and fear Is ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... in the district, are both marked down by spies: ergo Mme. la Duchesse d'Agen is the only possible agent for the business, and an inoffensive old woman without any political standing is the least likely to be molested in her task. If I fail, I fail," concluded Madame decisively, "if I am stopped on the way and the money taken from me, well! I am stopped, that's all! and M. le prefet or M. le Comte de Cambray or any male agent they may have sent would have been stopped likewise. But I maintain ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... things deliver into his keeping, so that he may know that it was no mere shadow of a woman with whom he gave and took in talk on the other side of the Sundering Flood. And in very sooth she began to peak and pine, and the Carline took her to task therefor, and said that she herself would try to set this right. Till on a day the Carline knew for sure that the champion had now turned his head from all his valiances, and was thinking of nothing but of how he might come across her with ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... to speak from any chance information, nor according to any notion of my own; I have described nothing but what I either saw myself, or learned from others of whom I made the most careful and particular inquiry. The task was a laborious one, because eye-witnesses of the same occurrences gave different accounts of them, as they remembered or were interested in the actions of one side or the other." His materials, then, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... something of this kind is promised us in a future work; in the present undertaking he is especially anxious to compel us to think on all such topics in the scientific method, and in no other. For be it known, that science is not only weak in herself, and has been hitherto incompetent to the task of unravelling the complicate proceedings of humanity, but she has also a great rival in the form of theologic method, wherein the mind seeks a solution for its difficulties in a power above nature. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... he himself could thoroughly enjoy; he was largely his own master. He had daily opportunities of picking up the ways and customs of the bush, and a nightly excitement which did not pall as the secret task approached conclusion; but he was subjected to much chaff and questioning from the other young bloods of Glenranald. He felt from the first that it was what he must expect. He was a groom with a place at his master's table; he was a jackeroo who introduced station life into ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... suspected the difficulty of understanding a woman; had he spoken his serious belief on that subject, it would have been found to represent the most primitive male conception of the feminine being. Women were very like children; it was rather a task to amuse them and to keep them out of mischief. Therefore the blessedness of household toil, in especial the blessedness of child-bearing and all that followed. Intimacy with Monica had greatly affected his views, yet chiefly by disturbing them; no firmer ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... great gravity and silence, each at her separate task, while Mary Erskine went on with her own regular employment. The silence continued unbroken for about five minutes, when Bella laid down her chalk ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott

... to my Readers were I to suppose that they were not as well acquainted with the particulars of this King's reign as I am myself. It will therefore be saving THEM the task of reading again what they have read before, and MYSELF the trouble of writing what I do not perfectly recollect, by giving only a slight sketch of the principal Events which marked his reign. Among these ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... veteran Sumner commanded, the task of throwing the bridges across, was far more difficult than at the lower crossing. In the storehouses and dwellings along the banks of the river, swarms of rebel soldiers were concealed; and these, ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... to the revision and editing, and not to the translators, for every good translation must be fluent and idiomatic, to secure which is the most difficult task. Pastor Gohdes also rendered valuable help in the final revision of parts. The translation of the analyses is ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... the hardy physical labor commenced with dawn. Students would not be the sad dyspeptics they are, if they worked as many hours in the open air as my scholar-peasant. But even in him you could see that the mind had begun a little to affect the frame. They who task the intellect must pay the penalty with the body. Ill, believe me, would this work-day world get on if all within it were hard-reading, studious animals, playing the deuce with the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... The injury her father had done these men was telling painfully on her sense of right, and she essayed to speak a word of apology, of sorrow; she thought she ought to do so; she did not like them to deem her quite heartless. But it was a painful task, and the color went and came in her pale face, and her breath was labored with the excess of ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... of their possessory claims. In 1710 the splendid genius of Marlborough had brought Louis XIV. to his knees, and the arguments supplied by the stricken fields of Blenheim and Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet, should have made easy the task of English diplomacy. But from a corrupt political soil sprang the Treaty of Utrecht, the first leading instrument in the controversy of which we are attempting to collect the threads. The merits of the dispute cannot be understood without a careful ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... to be thus stopped at the beginning, and was he to wait inactive until his fellow workman had completed his task? Suddenly an idea occurred to him—he smiled, and the perspiration ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... kept our attention alive with part of their troops, till the rest, acquainted as they doubtless were with every inch of the country, had got into our rear, and, by a similar mode of proceeding, cut off our retreat. Thus we should have been taken in a snare, from which it would have been no easy task to extricate ourselves, and might, perhaps, have been obliged in the ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... revelation has been displaced by a religion which faces all the facts of existence and bases itself on them. Man has found new clews to read the story of his past, and new ways to mould his present and future. The old ethical ideals have been reaffirmed, broadened, purified. The task of building personal life and of ordering society has been set before man in fresh clearness, under heavy penalties for failure and heart-filling rewards for success. It is seen that the humble path of moral obedience issues in celestial heights of spiritual vision. Out of the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... task of preparing dinner in camp was no mean effort. The business of the moment was to produce a clear soup with its artistic garniture of sliced carrots and turnips; to be followed by tank fish captured that afternoon from the ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... Brabantois was in haste to reach the fair and get a good place for his truck of brass wares. He was in fierce wrath, because Patrasche had been a strong and much-enduring animal, and because he himself had now the hard task of pushing his charette all the way to Louvain. But to stay to look after Patrasche never entered his thoughts: the beast was dying and useless, and he would steal, to replace him, the first large dog that he found wandering alone out of sight of its master. Patrasche ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)

... well make you king, you know, and I wouldn't if I could, for I have a fancy for the task myself. But I owed you a good turn and your own words prompted the payment. 'This poor devil shall taste power,' I said. 'I will make ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... appointed was Miss Jennie Douglas, and that she received her position through the instrumentality of Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, at the request of General Francis E. Spinner, Treasurer of the United States. She was assigned to the duty of cutting and trimming treasury-notes, a task that had hitherto been performed with shears by men. General Spinner subsequently stated that her first day's work "settled the matter in her and in women's favor." James Madison Cutts, at one time Second Comptroller of the Treasury ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... that Heine declared translation was betrayal,—the rhyme and smoothness have in every case been sacrificed when necessary to preserve the exact rhythm, and as far as possible the vigour and colour, as well as thought of the original; a task entirely beyond me save for the co-operation of an accomplished Russian linguist who has kindly assisted in the literal translation of every poem ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... present toil. Thanks to the secluded locality and the fact that she was known to spend her leisure moments in wandering there, she could work without suspicion. Secretly conveying a shovel and a few tools to the spot the next day, she set about her prodigious task. As the upper works were gone, and the galleon not large, in three weeks, working an hour or two each day, she had made a deep excavation in the stern. She had found many curious things,—the flotsam and jetsam ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Office," the Prince continued, "has established a Secret Council of Defence, whose only task it is to plan the successful resistance to that invasion, if ever it should take place. You, Mr. Ducaine, are, I believe, practically the secretary of that Council. You have to elaborate the digests of the meetings, to ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... mechanic arts, the varied forms of mercantile traffic, and at the base of the fabric the home made and ordered by woman. Here but yesterday was the frontier where woman was performing her oft before repeated task, and laying, according to her methods and habits, and within her appropriate sphere, the foundations of that which is to-day a great, rich, and prosperous social and civil State. Here, too, we saw many of the mothers, not ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... the manufacture of the matting which is used for making houses. There were thirty slaves at work, all belonging to one man; over these were three masters (also slaves), to keep them at their task. They certainly did not hurry themselves, and very few people hurry themselves in this country. These slaves were all Hazna, or pagans. The Sarkee of Zinder, besides Tuaricks, has many pagan subjects. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... this powerful story go to Peru to look for the treasure which the Incas hid when the Spaniards invaded the country. Their task is both arduous and dangerous, but though they are often disappointed, their courage and perseverance are at last ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... sovereign power of Europe. So Victoria held back Palmerston and Russell and Gladstone and Derby, who would have plunged England into war with us, and left us free to subdue our enemy. Had not a woman ruled England we should have had a harder task than we did by far. Christianity has lifted woman to a level with man. It has given her liberty of movement, of faith, of life. It also demands her political deliberation. May this beginning of our second Centennial see the perfection of our political system, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the sentinel devoted himself to the task of watching the movements of the stranger, and learning what his intentions were in conducting himself in the ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... primary; all subsequent performance is liable to be in some degree, sometimes more, sometimes less, modified by the acquired disposition which the initial behaviour engenders. But the early stages of acquisition are always along the lines predetermined by instinctive differentiation. It is the task of comparative psychology to distinguish the primary tissue of experience from its secondary and acquired modifications. We cannot follow up the matter in further detail. It must here suffice to ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... you if you call me that again." H. J. Owens, because he did not relish the task he had undertaken, and because he had lost his bearing here in the confusion of hills and hollows and deep gullies, was in a ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... knelt the maid, her golden head bowed beside her brother. His left hand pressed her fair curls, but his right hand was ready for its task. The lord bent to grasp the prize for which he had fought, little heeding the crippled boy; but as his fingers were about to close upon the girl's arm the keen slender sword was raised in a hand made ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock

... task that occupies her some considerable time; for her scholastic acquirements, not very bright at the best, have become dimmed by long disuse. For all, she succeeds in deciphering its contents and interpreting them to Bill; who ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... had forced himself to stay and face it, had continued his work and his method of life unchanged. His men had noted little difference in him. He had stayed the time he had appointed for himself, had accomplished his self-appointed task, and at last, when the summer burst in upon the gulch and loosened all Nature's fetters, he found himself also free; and now, like a black curtain rent in twain and torn from the bright face of a picture, the clouds of the past seemed falling away, leaving ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... give you a task to do en you had to do it, too, if you never been want your neck broke. Yes, mam, de overseer would stock you down en whip you wid a buggy whip. Some of de time, when de colored people wouldn' do what dey been put to do, dey would hide in de ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... up pasteboard boxes, and he had pen and ink. To make new signs all in "big print" to stick up at the site of Mammy June's burned cabin was more of a task than merely writing them. This was Rose's bright idea. Russ did not ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope

... enlarged in the next 'word,' which is somewhat separated from the former, as if the flow of prophetic communication had paused for a moment, and then been resumed. In verse 9 we have the assurance, so seldom granted to God's workers, that Zerubbabel shall be permitted to complete the task which he had begun. It is the fate of most of us to inherit unfinished work from our predecessors, and to bequeath the like to our successors. And in one aspect, all human work is unfinished, as being but a fragment of the fulfilment of the mighty purpose ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... me with his words of encouragement. Ultimately I found it, but was unable to decipher its inscription, if perchance it had one. Nevertheless, I managed to keep my spirits up. This, I think, was a Herculean task, considering the darkness and my extreme lonesomeness. I can be happy under adverse circumstances, if only I have congenial company. But to lie alone, in a black cavern, prey only to the thoughts of my environment, thoughts suggesting all things apart from life, thoughts which send the ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... case. I have not any doubt that I should have cured him perfectly in eighteen months, or possibly it might have extended to two years. Some cases are very rapidly curable, others extremely tedious. Every intelligent physician who will give thought and diligence to the task, will effect ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... become manufacturers. Bankrupt Jews, without investigation of each case, were considered cheats. Their use of land and waterways was hampered by many petty obstructions. In every field an insurmountable barrier rose between them and their Christian fellow-citizens. Mendelssohn's great task was the moral and spiritual regeneration of his brethren in faith. In all disputes his word was final. He hoped to bring about reforms by influencing his people's inner life. Schools were founded, and every means used to further culture and education, but he met with much determined ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... practical application. Had these men been placed at once where something seemed to depend on their activity, instruction in tactics would have been eagerly sought after, instead of being looked upon as an irksome daily task. Nor would it have been necessary for this purpose to place raw troops in positions of critical importance. The vast extent of our line of operations, and the wide tracts of disaffected country which were, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... I find the task of forming a clear, well-defined conception of Mr. Darwin's meaning, as expressed in his 'Origin of Species,' comparable only to that of one who has to act on the advice of a lawyer who has obscured the main issue as far as he can, and whose chief aim has ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... lieutenant started when his name was called, and suspected that he was to be taken to task for the remark he had just made. It was fortunate for him, perhaps, that the principal did not hear his energetic words, or the command might have been given to the second lieutenant, for Terrill's impulsive nature would have led him into some intemperate ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... distant in manner as ever, however, when I attempted to enter into conversation with her, and I met with such scant encouragement that ere the meal was half over I desisted, leaving to the skipper the task of further ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... peace and a low temperature. He expansively predicted ultimate disaster for Tom. But at the age of eighteen and a half, Tom, with his habit of inconvenience, simply fell into a post as designer to a firm of wholesale stationers. His task was to design covers for coloured boxes of fancy notepaper, and his pay was two guineas a week. The richness of the salary brought Mr. Knight to his senses; it staggered, sobered, and silenced him. Two guineas a week at eighteen and a half! It was beyond the verge of the horizons of the ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... in his philosophy, so also in the form of his State, he goes far beyond the old Pythagoreans. He attempts a task really impossible, which is to unite the past of Greek history with the future of philosophy, analogous to that other impossibility, which has often been the dream of Christendom, the attempt to unite the past history of Europe with the kingdom ...
— The Republic • Plato

... taking up apartments which the royal favour had reserved for him at Versailles, Saint-Simon secretly entered upon the self-appointed task for which he is now known to fame—a task which the proud King of a vainglorious Court would have lost no time in terminating had it been discovered—the task of judge, spy, critic, portraitist, and historian, rolled into one. Day by day, henceforth ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... Moonlight Quill. The proprietor glanced up with a wild look, brushed a few pieces of glass from his desk, and went on with his letters. Miss McCracken gave no sign of having heard—only Miss Masters started and gave a little frightened scream before she bent to her task again. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... support of these helpless little ones and their widowed mother but her own arms and head and heart. There was no time for sentiment and tears. These little ones must be sheltered and their hungry mouths must be fed. Restraining her grief, she bravely undertakes the heavy task. ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... I don't pretend to vouch exactly - 'Tis to King Philip: and our patriarch - I often wonder how this holy man, Who lives so wholly to his God and heaven, Can stoop to be so well informed about Whatever passes here—'Tis a hard task! ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... have done more to protect and cherish her. It was a man's part to guard a woman against the evils with which she had been surrounded. On the other hand, she could not escape the fact, nor did she attempt to escape it, that she had had the more light of the two: and that, though the task were formidable, she might have fought to retain that light ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... think not. I have a lot of things to do. All those letters to write." Barry shuddered as he spoke. For nothing in all his ministerial experience was to him a more exhausting and heartbreaking task than the writing of these letters to the relatives and friends of his ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... is an audacious attempt to impose a tissue of absurdities upon the public by the mere art of style of narrative. I hardly hoped that it would go down with John Bull; but then it is always my best point of writing, to undertake such a task, and I really put what strength I have into ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... hunt it in," and he looked doubtfully at the rough gorge, covered with undergrowth, that some hundred yards farther on became dense birch forest. "I think it would be well to ride back to Aar, and return to-morrow morning with all whom we can gather. This is no task ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... Selborne and Mr. Lecky were sufficiently interested in my task to place on record for the volume some personal and political reminiscences which speak for themselves, and ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... yet—and I say it with a sense of my extreme unworthiness—I have an excessive and abiding horror of mud, or dirt in any shape or form. But is there no other way, Sir John? In remote times it was the custom in such cases to set the lover some arduous task—some enterprise to try his worth. Come now, in justice do the same by me, I beg, and no matter how difficult the undertaking, I promise you shall ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol

... a pretty lounging chair to the window, and sat there, looking happier than he had looked for months. Lady Earle went on with her task of arranging some delicate leaves and ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme

... vicar-general, Cromwell, now created peer, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the bishops of Durham, Carlisle, Worcester, Bath and Wells, Bangor, and Ely. The house might have seen what a hopeful task they had undertaken: this small committee itself was agitated with such diversity of opinion, that it could come to no conclusion. The duke of Norfolk then moved in the house, that, since there were no hopes of having a report from the committee, the articles of faith intended to be established ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... moral consideration among their countrymen and acquainted with the localities, know how to vary the means of improvement conformably with the manners, habits, and the position of every island. In preparing the way for the accomplishment of this task, which ought to embrace a great part of the archipelago of the West Indies, it may be useful to cast a retrospective glance on the events by which the freedom of a considerable part of the human race was obtained in Europe in the middle ages. In order to ameliorate without commotion new institutions ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... task the milkmaid goes. The cattle come crowding through the gate, Lowing, pushing, little and great; About the trough, by the farm-yard pump, The frolicsome yearlings frisk and jump, While the pleasant dews are falling;— The new-milch heifer is quick and shy, But the ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... a band of gladiators for some local festival at Anagnia, a little beyond Praeneste; and on the way back, if nothing went amiss, the prearranged programme could be carried out. Some pretext must be found for keeping Drusus on his estate at the time when Dumnorix would march past it, and that task could be confided to Phaon, Lucius's freedman, a sly fox entirely after his patron's ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... more difficult task of subdividing these sections into genera—a subject which has taxed the powers of many naturalists, and which is still in a far from perfect state. To all proposed arrangements some exception can be taken, and the following system is not free from objection, but it is on the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... by his presence and advice give him confidence, and assistance to carry out the promises which he had made," which were, in brief, to suppress piracy and keep good order in his dominions; not a difficult task, it might be supposed, for it is estimated that he had only about two thousand Malay subjects left, and the Chinese miners were under the efficient rule of their "Capitan," ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... uncomfortable; he had an angry feeling that Finch was too amiable. But he said no more, and Finch went back to the ship, and Asa and Joel continued with their task. ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams

... good intentions, Alfaretta carefully set the burned pudding back on the stove, wherein the wood fire had nearly gone out, and sat down to her task of needlework. In reality, she was a very tired little girl. Madam was daintily neat and vigorous for a woman of her years. Never very robust, she still exercised what strength she had in a ceaseless round of sweeping ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... proposal that Canada should pay tribute for protection had something to do with the demise of the Imperial Federation League. Any man fit to be premier of Canada would have taken pretty much the position that Sir Wilfrid did. This does not in the least detract from the credit due Laurier. The task was his and he discharged it with tact, ability, patience and courage. For his services in holding their future open for them every British Dominion owes the memory of Laurier a statue in its ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe

... which in the language of gems signifies purity and peace. It must be remembered that all Oriental languages give power to gems, perfumes and talismanic symbols. This fact makes direct translation of Oriental writings a difficult task for the Occidental scholar, who, until recently at least, gave no power to so-called ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... thought, the right twist, if he had but skill to follow, and humour it in the working; but this was a task of much nicety. Lord Oldborough appeared to be aware of the commissioner's views, and was not disposed to burden himself with new friends. It seemed easy to go to a certain point with his lordship, but difficult to get farther; easy to obtain his attention, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... three battle groups in 2005; Norway, Sweden, Estonia, and Finland established the Nordic Battle Group effective 1 January 2008; nine other groups are to be formed; a rapid-reaction naval EU Maritime Task Group was stood up ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... his task, he shouldered the wheelbarrow, and was saying "Good-afternoon," when one of the party ran after him, calling to him ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... remember, this difficulty had already been enormously increased. St. Augustine, who felt the problem acutely in the prime of his intelligence, had really a very much lighter task than the modern divine. He had merely to suggest why evil was permitted in the narrow world he knew; and he had the great advantage of being able to appeal to a primitive sin and primitive punishment of the race. The problem became more serious when original sin, or at least the notion that the ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... long and wearisome task, but it was at length completed, and by rubbing soot and dust over the new work it lost its appearance of freshness. The evening before Beaumarchef had received twelve thousand francs on the express condition that he would start at once for America, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... actual form. Something of the wasting of that snow-image which he moulded at the command of Piero de' Medici, when the snow lay one night in the court of the Pitti palace, almost always lurks about it, as if he had determined to make the quality of a task, exacted from him half in derision, the pride of all his work. Many have wondered at that incompleteness, suspecting, however, that Michelangelo himself loved and was loath to change it, and feeling at the same time that they too would lose something if the ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... work of studying them systematically was not even begun; and that many years of close observation and patient labor would be necessary in order to dispel the mysteries which hang over them, and to discover the hidden meaning of their ornaments and inscriptions. To this difficult task we resolved to dedicate our time, and to concentrate our efforts to find a solution, if possible, to ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon

... considers a woodman's work crabbed prose. The idea of making poetry out of any part of it, or out of a herder's work either, is to him stark idiocy. Sheep-washing, for instance, is simply working a whole spring day in very chilly water, and sheep-shearing is a task at which he makes "ridgy" work and endures the horror of seeing the gentle, thin-skinned creatures bleed under his awkward shears. The boy cannot conceive what poetry there is about oxen. From the moment a calf hides in the hay with its mother's help, and makes believe ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... had the foresight to avoid. His point of view was narrow, not only in affairs civil and political, but it must be said, in social and religious as well. Of all commanders, he was the most unsuited for the task. ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... great part of his life." Then the nobles returned to Blathmac and they made various complaints of Mochuda, accusing him falsely of many things; finally they asked the king to undertake the expulsion personally, for they were themselves unequal to the task. The king thereupon came to the place accompanied by a large retinue. Alluding prophetically to the king's coming, previous to that event, Mochuda said, addressing the monks:—"Beloved brothers, get ready and gather your belongings, for violence and eviction are close at hand: ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda

... that no one had ever, as far as I could discover, attempted to give a succinct account of the matter for English-speaking nations. Indeed, I do not believe that any writer in any country has essayed such a task except Laboulaye; and his Recherches sur la Condition Civile et Politique des Femmes, published in 1843, leaves much to be desired to one who is interested in the ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... their seats in the Assembly, than on that account to bring misery on their country; for that with patience their cause would ultimately triumph. They replied, that I had prescribed to them a most difficult task; they were afraid that neither the conduct of the white colonists nor of the National Assembly could be much longer borne; they thanked me, however, for my advice. One of them gave me a trinket, by which I might remember him; and ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... had a delightful summer," spoke his wife, "and the children are so well. The country was delightful, and so was the seashore. But I think I, too, am glad to be back. It will be quite a task, though, to get the children ready for school. Flossie and Freddie will go regularly now, I suppose, and with Nan and Bert in a higher class, it means plenty ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... the history of the Mendicant Orders in England would be a task beyond my capacity, but no man can hope to understand the successes or the failures of any great party in Church or State until he has arrived at some comprehension, not only of the objects which it set itself to achieve, but of ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... censure those from whose stern tongue The dire anathema has rung. I only blame my own wild ire, By Scotland's wrongs incensed to fire. Heaven knows my purpose to atone, Far as I may, the evil done, And bears a penitent's appeal, From papal curse and prelate zeal. My first and dearest task achieved, Fair Scotland from her thrall relieved, Shall many a priest in cope and stole Say requiem for Red Comyn's soul, While I the blessed cross advance, And expiate this unhappy chance In Palestine, ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... believe that the very difficulties belonging to the triumph of our great cause constitute ground for its closer relationship to the college man. The college man wishes, as well as needs, a hard job. The easy task, the rosy opportunity, makes no appeal. He is like Garibaldi's soldiers, who, when the choice was once offered them by the commander to surrender to ease and safety, chose hardship and peril. The Boxer revolution ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... McCullough laughed over this afterwards, but at the time, what he said cannot be printed. When Joseph Jefferson appeared as Rip Van Winkle, in addition to impersonating one of the villagers, Alfred was entrusted with the task of securing children to take part in the play. The stage manager advised the bashful children to make merry with Rip; that he was very fond of children and would enjoy their familiarity. Whether it was the shaggy beard or the assumed intoxication of Rip, a child refused to clamber up on ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... the marvellous system of irrigation whereby the Incas had fertilized nearly the whole of the Peruvian desert; and as he surveyed the ruins he conceived the great idea of restoring the aqueduct and repeopling the neighboring waste. To this task he devoted his life. His first proceeding was to convert the Indians and found a mission, which he called San Cristobal de Quipai; his next to show them how to make the most of the water-privileges they already ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... subjects far different from the usual short lyrics or long romances. Many of these minstrels performed the unusual task of setting the laws in poetic form. It is not unusual to find lawyers becoming good poets, but in this case the legal minstrels drew from the codes of their native land enough inspiration for long effusions. ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... he got (it was a closed car) and, with the General's eye always upon his back, he did his best as guide, a task for which his previous career of stockbroker had ill qualified him. The first thing to happen was that the car, proceeding down a narrow lane, got well into the middle of a battalion on the march, which, when the car was firmly jammed amongst the transport, ceased ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various

... composure. "I am not to be thus dealt with," he exclaimed with bitterness; "and that my Lord Feversham shall find." Prompt and judicious measures were taken to remedy the evils which James had caused. Churchill and Grafton were entrusted with the task of reassembling the dispersed army and bringing it into order. The English soldiers were invited to resume their military character. The Irish were commanded to deliver up their arms on pain of being treated as banditti, but were assured that, if they would submit quietly, they should ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... ready to do anything in the world for him. Anything but what he had asked her to do. Why she did not like to carry messages from him to Miss Minorkey she did not know. As soon as she became conscious of this jealous feeling in her heart, she took herself to task severely. Like the good girl she was, she set her sins out in the light of her own conscience. She did more than that. But if I should tell you truly what she did with this naughty feeling, how she dragged ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... simultaneously or not." I cannot be satisfied with this answer for the following reason. Supposing that as a result of ingenious considerations an able meteorologist were to discover that the lightning must always strike the places A and B simultaneously, then we should be faced with the task of testing whether or not this theoretical result is in accordance with the reality. We encounter the same difficulty with all physical statements in which the conception " simultaneous " plays a part. The concept does ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein

... of pride, taken alternately from Scripture and from classical mythology. The next circle is that of Envy. Here the penalty consists of the sewing up of the eyes, so that pictured representations would be of no use; and, accordingly, the task of calling the examples to mind is discharged by voices flying through the air. Yet another method is adopted in the third circle, where the Angry are punished by means of a dense smoke. Here the pictures are conveyed to Dante's mind by a kind of trance or vision, in which ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler

... said Fillot, who was nearest to where his officers sat, but who preferred to pass task on to the ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... girl here?' she muttered. And yet it was true. Before she had seen this girl, she had fancied the task of turning her son to be well within her powers. Now she gravely doubted the issue; nay, was inclined to think all lost if the pair met. She told the tutor this, in curt phrase; and continued: 'So, do you go down, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... news of the death of Miriam's husband, the one-time recognised heir to the title and estate, from the British Consul; and he received the grim tidings with something like relief. His was the task to convey the tragic information to Miriam. Of that interview nothing shall be said. She also had received the account of her husband's death with something like relief; for, to her, he had been dead long since. At one point only did she shed ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... a letter from such a personage be entirely overlooked by the biographer of Washington? Having assumed the task of delineating the character, and detailing the actions and opinions of the great soldier and statesman of America, an essential part of which was to be looked for in the difficulties and the opposition he encountered ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... champions to languish in a debtor's prison. It was of ill omen for the fortunes of the weak and disorderly Confederation that in 1784, after three years of herculean struggle with impossibilities, this stout heart and sagacious head could no longer weather the storm. The task of creating wealth out of nothing had become too arduous and too thankless to be endured. Robert Morris resigned his place, and it was taken by a congressional committee of finance, under whose management the disorders ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... And how much nearer than the other was the woman—she shrank from the word—whom she was about to betray, how much greater was Cleopatra's claim to her love and gratitude! Could she have any other emotion than thankfulness if the plan of escape succeeded? Yet she was reluctant to perform the task of making Barine's beautiful, symmetrical figure resemble the hunch-backed Nubian's, or to dip her fingers into the pomade intended for Cleopatra; and it grieved her to mar the beauty of Barine's luxuriant tresses by cutting off part of her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... been sent by Powhatan to take a census of the people of England, and report what they and their state were. At Plymouth he got a long stick and began to make notches in it for the people he saw. But he was quickly weary of that task. He told Smith that Powhatan bade him seek him out, and get him to show him his God, and the King, Queen, and Prince, of whom Smith had told so much. Smith put him off about showing his God, but ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger

... election of ruling party candidate Levy MWANAWASA. The new president launched an anticorruption investigation in 2002 to probe high-level corruption during the previous administration. In 2006-07, this task force successfully prosecuted four cases, including a landmark civil case in the UK in which former President CHILUBA and numerous others were found liable for USD 41 million. MWANAWASA was reelected in 2006 in an election that was ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... do all I can to help you!" said Mr Morris in return. He jumped off the table as he spoke, and advanced towards her, rubbing his hands as one who prepares for a pleasant task. "Now then!" he cried; and for the next hour Norah was kept hard at work, with never another word of praise, but with many sharp corrections and reminders to call attention to hitherto unsuspected faults. She ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... in the fields, geography and the use of the globes. Even the churchwardens shook their heads, and privately thought the Rector a little out of his seven senses, for wasting his learning upon such unprofitable scholars. Nevertheless, he continued his self-imposed task, without meeting any reward beyond the satisfaction of his own conscience. It was not till he added to his pupils myself and young Reichardt, he felt he was doing his duty with ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... their alliance with the Ninevite kings, now made no attempt at resistance; they laid down their arms and yielded at discretion, giving up their goods and their hundred and twenty war-chariots, and resigning themselves to the task of colonising a distant corner of Assyria. Other provinces, however, were not so easily dealt with; the inhabitants entrenched themselves within their wild valleys, from whence they had to be ousted by sheer force; in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... to Kensington Church; here she got out and walked the few yards necessary to take her to the Kensington Free Library, where she put down the addresses of those advertising situations likely to suit her. This task completed, she walked to Brandenburg College. When dinner was over—the Misses Mee dined midday—Mavis wrote replies to the advertisements. After parting with the precious pennies, which bought the necessary stamps at the post-office, she came home to pack ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... defend him on all occasions against us. He never speaks to her; he is at all times a man of few words, but, as far as Minora is concerned, he might have no tongue at all, and sits sphinx-like and impenetrable while she takes us to task about some remark of a profane nature that we may have addressed to him. One night, some days after her arrival, she developed a skittishness of manner which has since disappeared, and tried to be ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp

... There are as many in every other class needing help as among the poor, and the need, although it wear different dresses, is essentially the same in all. To make the light go up in the heart of a rich man, if a more difficult task, is just as good a deed as to make it go up in the heart of a poor man. But with her strong desire to carry help where it was needed, with her genuine feeling of the blood relationship of all human beings, with her instinctive sense that one could ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald



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