"Comprehend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in a monastery; and he exhorted them to insist on the renewal and observance of it: the barons swore, that they would sooner lose their lives than depart from so reasonable a demand [x]. The confederacy began now to spread wider, and to comprehend almost all the barons in England; and a new and more numerous meeting was summoned by Langton at St. Edmondsbury, under colour of devotion. [MN Nov. 1.] He again produced to the assembly the old charter of Henry; renewed his exhortations of unanimity and ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... your note yesterday surprised me. By what right you presume to refer to any harmony of relations between us, and to speak of the value of my "friendship" I am at a loss to comprehend. That harmony was first disturbed by the pecuniary difficulties in which you so dishonestly involved me, and from which I am only now beginning to extricate myself, apart from which I could entertain no feelings of "friendship" for an officer for whom I have such abundance ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... worse almost than all that would harm Pelle himself, were the glimpses he now and then had of the depths of humanity: in the face of these his child's brain was powerless. Why did the mistress cry so much and drink secretly? What went on behind the windows in the big house? He could not comprehend it, and every time he puzzled his little brain over it, the uncomfortable feeling only seemed to stare out at him from all the window-panes, and sometimes enveloped him in all the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... did the president of the Atlantic Bridge Company comprehend the trap he had walked into, but now the whole hideous business became apparent. He had been fooled, swindled, and in a way to render recourse impossible; nay, in a manner to blacken his reputation if the story became public. He fell actually ill from the passion of his rage and ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... not seem at once to comprehend, but when his sons had persuaded him to sit, he made a peremptory motion with his stick towards the old councillor who had spoken before. This individual glanced at the chief for permission, and having received it, told me this ...
— The Priest's Tale - Pere Etienne - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • Robert Keable
... together the Kayans and Kenyahs. In Sarawak there are numerous and often small tribes which it is frequently very difficult or quite impossible to differentiate from one another, although the extremes of the series can be distinguished; we therefore decided to comprehend them under the non-committal term of Klemantan (p. 42). I showed that they were of mixed origin, and stated that, "It is possible that the Kalamantans were originally a dolichocephalic people who mixed first with the indigenous brachycephals (Punan group) and later ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... sent a kind of thrill through his other hearers, and that such of them as understood for two or three of them talked their PATOIS only—looked at him angrily; and in a twinkling I began to comprehend. But I affected ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... worked to woo and win and hold a human soul, she did, great superwoman that she was. I couldn't then half comprehend the skill of it, the wonder. But this I soon began to find: that under all our cultivated attitude of mind toward women, there is an older, deeper, more "natural" feeling, the restful reverence which looks up to ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... of their communities. They ride powerfully forward on a wave of confident energy, as if human life had more dawns than sunsets in it. For the most part her pioneers are unreflective creatures, driven by some inner force which they do not comprehend: they are, that is perhaps no more than to say, primitive and epic in ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... an elaborate explanation which we will spare the reader, and which his pupils evidently did not comprehend, though they smiled with ineffable sweetness and listened with close attention. When, however, the teacher descended from theory to practice, and took the pump to pieces, put it up again, and showed the manner of ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... things that the Fates had in store for me: that for a whole year of my life, indeed, I was to do little else. But so has my portion been meted out to me; and during the last few months I have, after terrible difficulties and struggles, been able to comprehend some of the lessons hidden in the heart of pain. Clergymen and people who use phrases without wisdom sometimes talk of suffering as a mystery. It is really a revelation. One discerns things one never discerned before. One approaches the whole of history from ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... man can "whisper soft nonsense in a lady's ear," when all the circumstances of the scene are congenial. We ourselves have frequently descended to make ourselves merely the most agreeable man in the world, till we unfortunately discovered that the blockheads who could not comprehend us when we were serious, were still farther from understanding the ineffable beauty of our nonsense; so that in both cases we were the sufferers. They took our elegant badinage for our sober and settled opinions, and laughed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... all know with what a burning interest his arrival had been awaited, or the effect that his voice had produced and his first appearance. He did not know how the dull schoolgirl had weighed him in a mysterious balance which she herself did not quite comprehend and had found him slightly wanting. Neither could he tell the extent of the paralyses produced in that same mind of hers by the cracked china, the old dish cover, Byrne's awkwardness, and the ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... and thirty years since, and have continued to enjoy its teachings, in a greater or less degree, to the present moment. The disappearance from among our colored people, of the savage condition of the human mind—the incapacity to comprehend religious truths—and its continued existence among those of Jamaica, can now be understood. The opportunities enjoyed by the former, for advancement, over the latter, have been six to one. With these facts before the mind, it is not difficult to perceive that the colored population ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... understood from him that he was a non-juring minister, had written a book that had drawn the fire of the Church, was charged with treason, and driven out of England, sustaining the loss of "a living" worth fifty pounds a year; that on religious matters the deponent could not always comprehend him; that the accused said Negroes were only fit for slaves, and to put them above that condition was to invite them to cut your throats. The observing Horsemanden was so much pleased with the above declaration, that ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... arrogate to ourselves any skill in the scientia scientiarum, or say, 'The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He set a compass upon the face of the deep;' we shall leave aesthetic science to those who think that they comprehend it; we shall, as simple disciples of Bacon, deal with facts and with history as 'the will of God revealed in facts.' We will leave those who choose to settle what ought to be, and ourselves look patiently at that which ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... the other side, and the Carib turned excitedly to us, talking rapidly, but without our being able to comprehend a word. ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... "Ah! I comprehend you. Then, your acquaintance with Mr Wilder commenced at Newport? It was while your ship was lying ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... spite of her work along the acknowledged lines of science, she had pursued her hypnotic studies furtively, half in scorn and half in fear of her scientific brethren. What would she not have given to be enabled to watch, to comprehend the changes passing within that human form so close to her that she could see its every external detail, could touch it by the out-stretching of a hand! But its inner shrine, its secret place, remained barred against those feeble implements of ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... meal, Rolf and Van launched the canoe and paddled down the lake. A mile from camp they landed, for this was a favourite deer run. Very soon Rolf pointed to the ground. He had found a perfectly fresh track, but Van seemed not to comprehend. They went along it, Rolf softly and silently, Van with his long feet and legs making a dangerous amount of clatter. Rolf turned and whispered, "That won't do. You must not stand on dry sticks." Van endeavoured to move more cautiously ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... times, protected as we are by the laws and by the number of people about us, can hardly comprehend such a life as that of the American colonies in the early part of the eighteenth century, when it was possible for a pirate like Capt. Teach, known as Blackbeard, to exist, and for the governor and the secretary of the province in which he lived perhaps to share his plunder, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... Greek characters, or through Catullus for the sake of discovering such words as were like enough to English). That is not the spirit of a pilgrimage at all. The pilgrim is humble and devout, and human and charitable, and ready to smile and admire; therefore he should comprehend the whole of his way, the people in it, and the hills and the clouds, and the habits of the various cities. And as to the method of doing this, we may go bicycling (though that is a little flurried) or driving (though that is luxurious and dangerous, because it ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... fellow-countrymen, those who think and feel according to the teaching and examples of the Holy Writ, will be convinced that they do not regard themselves as strangers in the land of their birth, and will then rightly comprehend the real meaning of their voluntary renunciation of a return to a land of the Jews, and of their fidelity to their homes ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... had—gone away—you felt free?" Joan's face quivered. Raymond nodded. How easy it was to talk to Joan. How quick she was to comprehend and help one ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... RIC. I comprehend. Mademoiselle parle francais? Mais sans doute; telle que je la vois! La demande etait bien ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... extraordinary an occasion to an undeserving man like Reissiger. When I assured him that this act had afforded me the liveliest satisfaction, and that I had myself persuaded my colleague to take the baton, he confessed that at last he began to understand me, but failed altogether to comprehend how the other could accept a position to which he had ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... that the figurative meaning of the word "erfassen" like that of "apprehend" and "comprehend" [or of the native "grasp"] is a metaphysical extension of the primitive ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... "But somehow, when I had the thing on, I got some funny ideas. I wonder if anyone could really oppress someone he fully understood. I wonder if two people who could fully comprehend each other's point of view could have a really serious disagreement." He picked up the ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... "Nay, you do not comprehend his artifice," said Hircan. "You are not experienced in war and in the use of the stratagems that it requires; among these, one of the most important is to kindle strife in the camp of the enemy, whereby he becomes far easier to conquer. This master monk well knew that hatred ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... though rescued from the flood, if life was in her. The sisters were by this time recovered, and weeping over her, along with the father—and, indeed, with all present; but the mother could not be made to comprehend what they were about at all at all. The country people used every means with which they were intimate to recover Rose; she was brought instantly to a farmer's house beside the spot, put into a warm bed, covered over with hot salt, wrapped in half-scorched blankets, and made subject to every other ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... masks over their faces, they mounted the steed and set out for adventure, the horse seeming to comprehend its strange burden and stepping as lightly as its tortures would permit, while the saddle slid cheerfully about its back, threatening any moment to roll the desperados on to ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... deceits Give us clearly to comprehend, Whither tend All thy pleasures, all thy sweets! They are cheats, Thorns below and flowers above. Ah, Love! Perjured, false, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the pistol," continued the prisoner, "I beg to tell you it's mine, not yours, and I shall claim it again. What, you don't understand? Well, I'll have to find some way to make you comprehend later on." ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... been required, not to comprehend, through the medium of the poetry of the prologue, that Labor was wedded to Merchandise, and Clergy to Nobility, and that the two happy couples possessed in common a magnificent golden dolphin, which they desired to adjudge to the fairest only. So they were roaming ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... "Fathers," and the Constitution; and those who leave England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Germany, and Scandinavia to make their home in America soon come to share in these possessions. While the immigrants from southern Europe do not comprehend the Constitution, they know Washington. An object lesson may be had almost any pleasant Sunday or holiday in the public garden in Boston from the group of Italians who gather about the statue of Washington, showing, by their mobile faces ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." Now do you comprehend what charity really is? It is toleration, it is kindness, it is humanity, it is truth, it is the spirit of God made manifest in man. He that gives liberally to the poor, to the church, to education, to the campaign fund, yet says to his brother, "Thou fool," because ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... state-room—where Miss Winthrop was aroused from her serious contemplation of All-pervading Thought by a sudden and most energetic demand upon her protection and her salts-bottle. And, before she could be made in the least degree to comprehend why Grace should require either the one or the other, Grace had still further complicated and mystified the ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... a far-away island to find her father was subject of sufficient anxiety; but Olivia in the power of a pretender who might have at command such undreamed resources was more than cool reason could comprehend. That was the principal impression that Med, the King's ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... its entrance, was content to stray among the dwellings of the "Red-skins," prying with but little reserve into their domestic economy, commenting sometimes jocularly, sometimes gravely, and always freely, on their different expedients, or endeavouring to make the wondering housewives comprehend his quaint explanations of what he conceived to be the better ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... later to be the cause of another financial disaster. Replying to her criticism of his journey to Sardinia, he begged her never to censure those who feel themselves sunk in deep waters and are struggling to the surface, for the rich can never comprehend the trials of the unfortunate. One must be without friends, without resources, without food, without money, to know to its depths ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... your letter of the 14th justifies me in noticing you by this mail. Your newspapers of the same date, and also of the 15th, contain particulars of the races; but so technically expressed that I comprehend nothing of it. Your story is quite intelligible as far forth as it is legible. I am very glad that Papa Alston has won once. It is, I am told, the first time in his life. Where is Hampton all this while, that you say nothing of him? Already I have told you that on the 4th of March I ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... and companionship. Business was the one engrossing thing of his life, and this he honestly believed woman incapable of, from her very nature. It was true of his wife, but due to a false education rather than to any innate difficulties, and he no more expected her to comprehend and sympathize intelligently with his business operations, than to see her go down to Wall Street with him wearing his ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... naturally brings with it some slight nervous disturbances; there is nothing the matter with you but the suffering occasioned by the horrible coercion which they are using with you. Your simple and generous soul does not comprehend it. You yield; you forgive those who injure you; you torment yourself, attributing your suffering to baleful, supernatural influences; you suffer in silence; you give your innocent neck to the executioner, you allow ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... or diagnosing the seat and nature of the morbid change occurring in an organ or group of organs cannot be overestimated. Laymen do not comprehend the difficulty or importance of correctly grouping the signs or symptoms of disease in such a way as to enable them to recognize the nature of the disease. In order to be able to understand the meaning ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... since dinner—and, of course, Becky offered to go, but at that moment Blind Peter came to the door, and he undertook to convey some supper for the captain and Tom; and the black boy, seeming to comprehend the matter, begged by signs to be allowed to accompany him, and to carry the baskets. To Blind Peter day and night were the same, and with every inch of the ground he was well acquainted, so that he had no difficulty ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... school. The older ones are opposed to educating the youngsters and do not want them to learn to speak English. Some of the boys who were able to speak it fluently were ashamed to do so. They are apt pupils and can comprehend ideas with wonderful accuracy; the Government hopes that time will remove their prejudices and so ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... seemed to soften for a moment; then it hardened again, and another change came over it which Peggy did not comprehend. ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... creeping up to us. What ill-timed visit is this? A feeling of fear gains possession of me also. I have a rapid impression of some great unknown danger, in this isolated spot, in this strange country of which I do not even yet comprehend the inhabitants and the mysteries. It must be something very frightful to hold her there, rooted to the spot, half dead with fright, she who does ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... which the government proposed to settle, has settled, or will settle the question, proves that both it and the American people have only confused views of the rights and powers of the General government, but imperfectly comprehend the distinction between the legislative and executive departments of that Government, and are far more familiar with party tactics ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... hopes to have a school of his own—when he is older, you know—and then I could take the younger boys off his hands and save him the cost of an usher; don't you think that would be possible?' looking anxiously at Michael, for somehow those steady clear eyes seemed so thoroughly to comprehend him. ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... she bit her lips so as not to cry, and went away. The whole house seemed suddenly darkened; every one looked gloomy; there was a strange hush; a shrill cock was carried away from the yard to the village, unable to comprehend why he should be treated so. Bazarov still lay, turned to the wall. Vassily Ivanovitch tried to address him with various questions, but they fatigued Bazarov, and the old man sank into his armchair, motionless, only cracking ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... its being beneficial to the people placed under my care, by giving them a general and connected view of the principles and philosophical bearing of the Christian religion. In exhorting them privately, I discovered that many of them understood that religion better in itself, than they appeared to comprehend the manner in which it stood in connexion with the surrounding circumstances of this life. In other words, they were acquainted with doctrines and principles whose application and use, whether in regard to thought, or feeling, or daily practice, they ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Agnes never neglected the little thing, though sometimes, between it and her patients, she was nearly beside herself. Reader, if you are a woman, and have ever had even an ordinary sickness in your household, you can easily comprehend the position in which Agnes was placed with her three patients to nurse, and an infant to care for at the same time. Yet she never murmured, ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... old lady, in alarm, "don't take oaths, the rashness—the folly of which you cannot comprehend. For goodness' sake don't entertain such wicked thoughts. Lablache is ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... been surprisingly difficult. At the same time that he had felt no necessity to apologize for his marriage he had known that Taou Yuen must surprise, yes—shock, his family. She was Chinese, to them a heathen: they would be unable to comprehend any mitigating dignity of rank. Where they'd actually suffer, he realized, would be in the attitude of Salem, the stupid gabble, the censure and cold pity caused by ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... about Christ. More eager after credible theory than after doing the truth, they have speculated in a condition of heart in which it was impossible they should understand; they have presumed to explain a Christ whom years and years of obedience could alone have made them able to comprehend. Their teaching of him, therefore, has been repugnant to the common sense of many who had not half their privileges, but in whom, as in Nathanael, there was no guile. Such, naturally, press their theories, in general derived ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... natural history seems to be surer than evolution, and yet the final solution of evolutionary problems defies the most subtle skill of the trained analyst of nature's order. No single human mind can contain all the facts of a single small department of natural science, nor can one mind comprehend fully the relations of all the various departments of knowledge, but nevertheless evolution seems to describe the history of all facts and their relations throughout the entire field of knowledge. Were it possible for a man to live a hundred years, ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... angels, with whom men in those times also had communication; also, that when the face speaks, that is, the mind through the face, angelic speech is with the man in its ultimate natural form, which is not the case when the mouth speaks by words. Every one can also comprehend that verbal speech could not have been used by the Most Ancient people, since the words of a language are not imparted immediately, but have to be invented and applied to objects; which it requires a course ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg
... difficulties which their practical life presents, they readily conclude that everything in the world may be explained, and that nothing in it transcends the limits of the understanding. Thus they fall to denying what they cannot comprehend; which leaves them but little faith for whatever is extraordinary, and an almost insurmountable distaste for whatever is supernatural. As it is on their own testimony that they are accustomed to rely, they like to discern the object which engages their attention with extreme clearness; they ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... To comprehend the blankness of this period in all matters relating to social and economic questions, it is necessary to recall the fact that no such needs as those of the mother country pressed upon us. To those ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... said; "and the regiment will probably be packed off to the frontier again. However, these things don't make much difference in the long run. What I am most anxious about, marquis, is that his majesty should thoroughly comprehend that Leslie was not to blame, and that this affair was so forced upon him that it was impossible for him to avoid it. There is much more than the lad's own safety dependent ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... completely and very surely were the details of frightful looting and of the first atrocities perpetrated by the Germans, who demonstrated a premeditated intention to destroy, defile and wipe out everything in their path. And Paris was doubtless the first city in France to comprehend the significance of this war, which is a war of civilization against barbarism, a sacred war in which the forces of humanity raise a rampart of human breasts against the violent reappearance of ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... either falls short of what is needed in case of dark-colored interiors, or proves excessive with light-tinted rooms. The architect works from one point, economy, the decorator from another, aesthetic; while the householder, the consumer who pays the illuminating bills, cannot comprehend why his lighting bills increase as his taste for luminous or dark-colored furnishings is gratified. Many houses are left in the white plaster for a year or more until the plaster settles. In this condition a small unit of light is sufficient, but when the decorator ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford
... he failed to appreciate the entire significance of this. A secret room difficult to enter he could comprehend, but a secret room difficult to QUIT passed his comprehension completely. Moreover, he was no better off ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... secure, True Blue went below to report what had been done. He found Paul sleeping more soundly than usual. Perhaps some of the medicine the surgeon had given him, on account of his wound, had affected him, True Blue thought. He had to speak two or three times before he could make him comprehend what he ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... Thomas, I perfectly comprehend you, and do justice to the generosity and delicacy of your notions, which indeed are quite of a piece with your general conduct; and I entirely agree with you in the main as to the propriety of doing everything one could by way of providing ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... comprehend, even if I could tell you, Rosendo. But—how shall I say it? Some are millions of miles from us. Others so far that their light reaches us only after ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... confine ourselves to empty conventional criticism. We are obliged to look further and deeper; and in this department of Legendary Art, as in the others, we must take the higher ground, perilous though it be. We must seek to comprehend the dominant idea lying behind and beyond the mere representation. For, after all, some consideration is due to facts which we must necessarily accept, whether we deal with antiquarian theology or artistic criticism; namely, that the ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... Miller once drank the two glasses of whiskey which fell to his share at the usual treat of drink of the masons with whom he worked. On reaching home he tried to read Bacon's Essays, his favorite book, but he could not distinguish the letters or comprehend the meaning. "The condition into which I had brought myself was, I felt, one of degradation," said he. "I had sunk, by my own act, for the time, to a lower level of intelligence than that on which it was my ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... God with tears of joy, I was prepared to do. My personal expenses had been trifling. The amount of business done was large—my the profits had not been withdrawn. Although my sufferings had been great, and difficulties had met me which I could neither prevent nor comprehend, still reason told me that the property must have increased in value. It was with alacrity that I engaged, at my uncle's particular request, an accountant to investigate the proceedings of the house, and to pronounce upon its present state. The result of the examination could not but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... world is full of mysteries. I can comprehend the pleasure to be got out of the hydraulic engine; but what can be the fascination of a whip, when one has nothing to flagellate but the calves of his own legs, I could never understand. Yet a small riding-whip is the most popular article with the miscellaneous New-Englander ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... ruined castle, out comes a barking dog, just such another as assailed us at the old castle near Black Castle, to which we walked full fifteen years ago; the first walk I ever took with Sophy, and how she got home without her shoe, to this hour I cannot comprehend. It was this barking dog which brought you immediately to my mind, and if I have given you too much of it you must forgive me. Now we are upon the subject of old castles, do you remember my retailing to you, at second ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... and the expression of the painter whose work he wishes to know. There is no way of understanding the why and the how of technical expression so sure and complete as to study with the brush and paint, following the same method and processes as the master you copy, and trying to comprehend the meaning and the ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... still lingered at the threshold. He could not comprehend why they were so glad to see him—such as he was. Then his mother came and put her arms around him and drew him into the room, and he knew that he ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... small inn, within half a mile from Greatwood. Their bill had been made out in the name of "Mr. Clapp and friend." This was satisfactory as far as it went, and accounted for the sailor's knowledge of the house; though Mrs. Stanley could not comprehend at first, how this man should have pointed out so exactly, her husband's favourite seat. Harry reminded her, however, that Clapp had passed several years of his youth at Franklin Cross-Roads, in a lawyer's office, and had very probably been at ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... which must be considered as the fundamental part of botany, and the study of which is rendered attractive and easy by the introduction of natural methods, is to the geography of plants what descriptive mineralogy is to the indication of the rocks constituting the exterior crust of the globe. To comprehend the laws observed in the position of these rocks, to determine the age of their successive formations, and their identity in the most distant regions, the geologist should be previously acquainted with ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... dropped down beside me, her eyes shining and wet, Sally entered the room in time to see her cousin bend to kiss me gratefully with sisterly fervor. Yet it was a woman's kiss, given for its own sake. Sally could not comprehend; it was too sudden, too unheard-of, that Diane Sampson should kiss me, the man she did not love. Sally's white, sad face changed, and in the flaming wave of scarlet that dyed neck and cheek and brow I read with mighty pound of heart that, despite the dark ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... deed the consequences of which can not yet be seen. I can understand, Sir, how Captain Dudleigh could have planned this thing; but how you, a calm, quiet clergyman, in the full possession of your faculties, could have ever been led to take part in it, is more than I can comprehend. I, Sir, was her guardian, appointed as such by her father, my own intimate friend. Captain Dudleigh was a villain. He sought out this thoughtless child merely for her money. It was not her that he wanted, but her estate. I could easily have saved her from this danger. He had no chance with ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... Taught by thy kind twin-sister, Certitude, Yon puzzled crowd, whose tired intent Hunts like a pack without a scent. And now come home, Where none of our mild days Can fail, though simple, to confess The magic of mysteriousness; For there 'bide charming Wonders three, Besides, Sweet, thee, To comprehend whose commonest ways, Ev'n could that be, Were coward's 'vantage and no ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... as much as to say: 'The devil is not quite so black as he is painted;' while the worthy collector only shrugged his shoulders, and lifted his eyebrows in pantomimic expression of his inability to comprehend such a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... was magnificent; he could scarcely comprehend that this languid world of sea and palm, of heavy odour and slow breezes, was his own land still. Under the spell the Occident vanished; it was the Orient—all this dreamy mirage, these dim white walls, this spice-haunted dusk, the water inlaid ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... chancellor. I, for my part, will do so all the more readily, that I confess to you my utter ignorance of the question which is to come before us to-day. I was really so preoccupied at our last sitting that I—I failed exactly to comprehend its nature. I think, therefore, that it will be well for us to vote with Count von Uhlefeld—that is, if the president of the Aulic Council, Count Harrach, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... thee fails to comprehend that we Friends neglect one thing in our training, and that is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... outcome of woman suffrage. There can be no doubt that the vast majority of women have sentimental objections to the death penalty that quite outweigh such practical considerations in its favor as they can be persuaded to comprehend. Aided by the minority of men afflicted by the same mental malady, they will indubitably effect its abolition in the first lustrum of their political activity. The New Woman will scarcely feel the seat of power warm beneath her before giving to the assassin's "unhand me villain!" the authority ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... nearly corrected this habit. Of what great and essential service this was to her happiness through life, will appear in the course of this little tale. John had heard all that passed, but did not quite comprehend what was meant. He walked on, however, in silence, considering in his mind how much he should like to be rich enough to gratify Miss Helen. Little did he think, poor boy, that the day would come, when, in that very cottage, he would ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... Mourairef, had arrived, and was indignantly maintaining that Sophie and Penelope, the two waiting-maids of the princess, had arrived at the Tete Noire, to take a suite of rooms for their mistress; whilst the landlord and his coadjutors, slow to comprehend, averred that the great lady had herself been there, and departed. The truth at length came out—that these two smart Parisian lasses, having a fortnight before them, had determined to give up their places, and play the mascarade which I have described. When M. and Madame de Mourairef, two ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... the limitations of our finite intellects and accept all well- authenticated facts, whether revealed in the Bible or in nature. We must learn that in the very nature of things our finite minds cannot fully grasp and comprehend the infinite. Therefore we have God's revelation in the Bible, which, though not the product of the human intellect, fully ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... you are a Theist you can. If you are an Atheist you can't. Unbelievers say the Infinite One, if there be such, can not be revealed to man. This conclusion is rested upon the assumption that the finite can not comprehend the infinite. This is regarded as a complete overthrow of revealed religion. Can nothing be revealed to me unless I can comprehend it? Can I know nothing without comprehending it? I know load-stone, but do I comprehend it? I know ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... England are quite fanatically fond of washing; and are often enthusiastic for teetotalism. I cannot therefore comprehend why it is that they exhibit a mysterious dislike of rain. Rain, that inspiring and delightful thing, surely combines the qualities of these two ideals with quite a curious perfection. Our philanthropists are eager to establish ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... struggle, and those are the conditions of life for the nation; whereas, the man who has achieved, who is at the head of a great body of capital, has passed the period of struggle. He may sympathize with the struggling men, but he is not one of them, and only those who struggle can comprehend what the struggle is. I would rather take the interpretation of our national life from the general body of the people than from those who have made ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... argument. I've studied the judges closely, so that I know what lines to take, and I always notice what seems to interest the jury most, in each case. But, more important than this study, is the fact that I can comprehend about how the average man will look at a certain thing. You see I am the son of plain people. Then I am meeting all grades of mankind, and hearing what they say, and getting their points of view. I have never sat in ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... appointed to a particular district, as superintendent of its interests, and as manager of the whole correspondence on its concerns with the Grand Arch. This, the crowning order and key-stone of the society, was reputed to comprehend sixteen "mysterious and illustrious names," amongst which were obscurely whispered those of the Czar, the Crown Prince of Bavaria and of Wurtemburg, of the Hospodar of Wallachia, of Count Capodistria, and some others. The orders of the Grand Arch were written in cipher, and ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... I'm in a fortunate position," she began, quite serious now, as she took up her cup. "I understand you, and I understand Liza. Liza now is one of those naive natures that, like children, don't know what's good and what's bad. Anyway, she didn't comprehend it when she was very young. And now she's aware that the lack of comprehension suits her. Now, perhaps, she doesn't know on purpose," said Betsy, with a subtle smile. "But, anyway, it suits her. The very same thing, don't you see, may ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... a body of people, who came running up and stopped the asses, giving me to understand that I must go with them to Peckaba, to present myself to the King of Walli, or pay customs to them. I endeavoured to make them comprehend that the object of my journey not being traffic. I ought not to be subjected to a tax like the Slatees, and other merchants who travel for gain; but I reasoned to no purpose. They said it was usual for travellers of all descriptions to make a present to the King of Walli, and ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... different ages move, 'Tis so ordained (would fate but mend it!) That I shall be past making love When she begins to comprehend it. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... of New Hampshire, Senator Toombs agreed that the Territory of Kansas would certainly be a free State. Such, he thought would be its future destiny. "The senator from New Hampshire," he said, "was unable to comprehend the principles of the bill. The friends of the Kansas bill, North and South, supported the bill because it was right, and left the future to those who were affected by it. The policy of the Kansas bill wrongs no man, no section of our common country. We have ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... classes of people under the sun, the so-called labouring man has best cause to pray for deliverance from his friends. His friends are, or rather were, of three classes. The first, ardent but wingless angels of mercy, who fail to comprehend the fact that the unlovely lot of their would-be wards is the result of conditions imposed more largely from within than from without; the second, those who care neither for lots nor conditions, regarding the labourer as a senseless tool with ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... philosophy of government. Hobbes's speculations did not fit in with the theory of either of the two bodies of combatants in the Civil War. They were each in the theological order of ideas, and neither of them sought or was able to comprehend the application of philosophic principles to their own case or to that of their adversaries.[220] Hebrew precedents and bible texts, on the one hand; prerogative of use and high church doctrine, on the other. Between these was no space for the acceptance of a secular and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... in the invisible and ineffable heights above there exists a certain perfect, pre-existent Eon, and him they call Proarche, Propator, and Bythos; and that he is invisible and that nothing is able to comprehend him. Since he is comprehended by no one, and is invisible, eternal, and unbegotten, he was in silence and profound quiescence in the boundless ages. There existed along with him Ennoea, whom they call Charis and Sige. And at ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... was the blow that the Palmyreans stood as if stunned, unable to comprehend what had happened. But the Roman ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... perfect than they are, by saying that which is not? Those who would deem them more interesting did they resemble ourselves, have not yet truly realised what it is that should awaken the interest of a sincere mind. The aim of the observer is not to surprise, but to comprehend; and to point out the gaps existing in an intellect, and the signs of a cerebral organisation different from our own, is more curious by far than the relating of ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... itself an artistic element, one which, on aesthetic and ethical grounds, may be called imperatival—an element that acts in opposition to its purely scientific behaviour. Philology is composed of history just as much as of natural science or aesthetics: history, in so far as it endeavours to comprehend the manifestations of the individualities of peoples in ever new images, and the prevailing law in the disappearance of phenomena; natural science, in so far as it strives to fathom the deepest instinct of man, that of speech; aesthetics, ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... science, advance of science, advance of learning; schoolmaster abroad. [person who knows much] scholar &c. 492. V. know, ken, scan, wot[obs3]; wot aware[obs3], be aware &c. adj.- of; ween[obs3], weet[obs3], trow[obs3], have, possess. conceive; apprehend, comprehend; take, realize, understand, savvy* [U.S.], appreciate; fathom, make out; recognize, discern, perceive, see, get a sight-of, experience. know full well; have some knowledge of, possess some knowledge of; be au ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... solved in a less crude manner. "It is strange," he says, "that there should be so much of the best part of the globe still unoccupied, where the foot of man never trod, and in Europe such destruction of people. It is however for some purpose we do not, as yet, comprehend." Those were the days when Napoleon Bonaparte's star was rising and when, in defiance of England, led by Pitt, he smote state after state which stood in the path of his ambition. Nairne's friend and business agent James Ker, an Edinburgh banker, was obviously no admirer of Pitt, ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... too deep for your childhood to comprehend, and yet I will some day tell you. But here comes Miss Vernon, and the bell ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... useful to her, and would trouble her least? Finally she decided on telephoning to a rich American spinster whom she had known for years, a woman who was what is called "large minded," who was very tolerant, very understanding, and not more curious than a woman has to be. Caroline Briggs could comprehend a hint without demanding ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Maria! Don't you see that even out of this affair, unpleasant as it seems, a clever woman may make her advantage," cries my lord. Maria said she failed to comprehend. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... year, as has been seen in the Article analyzed above, I had spoken of the excesses which were to be found among persons commonly included in it:—at that time I thought little of such an evil, but the new views, which had come on me during the Long Vacation, on the one hand made me comprehend it, and on the other took away my power of effectually meeting it. A firm and powerful control was necessary to keep men straight; I never had a strong wrist, but at the very time, when it was most needed, the reins had broken in my hands. With an anxious presentiment on my mind of the ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... your pardon. I speak the English ver' well; but mordieu if I can comprehend a word as you speak it! Tenez ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which give so much trouble to learners of our language. A foreigner is told that stupid means dull, yet he is corrected if he says a stupid knife. Many who learn English as a native tongue fail to comprehend the many delicate shades of ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... possessed, and by the license of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established herself, with her infant child. A mystic shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself to the spot. Children, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman should be shut out from the sphere of human charities, would creep nigh enough to behold her plying her needle at the cottage-window, or standing in the doorway, or laboring in her little garden, or coming forth along the pathway that led townward; and, discerning ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... red-tape routine. It only behooved us to use circumspection enough to avoid making mistakes in our papers, and fortune was ours. I knew everything was all right, but George, being a thorough business man himself, could not comprehend that it could be quite right, and he insisted upon one supreme test. Any single bill of exchange is seldom drawn for more than L1,000, rarely for L2,000, and one of L6,000 is almost unheard of. If a party in Bombay wanted exchange on London for ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... stories for younger children who are unable to comprehend the Starry Flag Series or the Army and Navy Series. But they all display the author's talent for pleasing and interesting the little folks. They are all fresh and original, preaching no ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... too late, for I had already taken your fate too intimately to heart. I believed with all possible ardour that you would for my sake comprehend life, that you would cease to wander about to your own injury and without advantage to anyone else, that you would accept a substantial ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... lieutenant had received and obeyed this order, Captain Clinton, who was a fast talker, had told the corporal just what he wanted him to do, and explained to him the contents of the paper he had copied from his note-book; and Bob, who was quick to comprehend, had caught and weighed all his words as fast as they were uttered. He then put himself at the head of his men and led them away, George Ackerman ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... Atholl suffered under the unparalleled cruelties of the English soldiery. The Duke of Cumberland had visited that interesting district; and it requires little more to be said, to comprehend that beauty was turned to desolation; that crimes hitherto unheard of among a British army reflected dishonour on the conquerors, and brought misery to the conquered. On the sixth of February, 1746, the Duke had arrived at Perth. His first orders were to seize ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... himself again and able to comprehend the details of the story which involved the disappearance of his ward. It slowly filtered through his mind as he sat stark-eyed and numb before the kitchen fire that this was the means her mysterious people had taken to remove her from his custody. The twenty years had expired, and they had ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... was down, and her own room was cold. But she had set her teeth together, determined not to give way to depression, and had made her rather severe toilet for dinner when word was brought to her by the children's nurse that Dr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald desired to see her. For a moment she could not comprehend what that might mean; then the truth assailed her, took her by the hand, and ran her down ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... that our thoughts and acts are in the end impregnated with that which strikes our eyes. But the exercise of the arts and the contemplation of their products is a restricted privilege. It is not given to everyone to possess, to comprehend or to create fine things. Yet there is a kind of ministering beauty which may make its way everywhere—the beauty which springs from the hands of our wives and daughters. Without it, what is the most richly decorated house? A dead dwelling-place. With it ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... dearth of every kind of ideal interest in rural populations some safety-valve had to be found, and that there were real organised secret meetings, witches' Sabbaths, to supply this need of sensation,—the thing is less difficult to comprehend. The religious hysteria that resulted in the banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson was but another phase of the same thing. And the degeneration to be noted to-day in the remote hill-towns of New England is likewise attributable to Michelet's "dearth of ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... predominant people that the physical unity which the peninsula possesses was expressed by a single name. Italy was the name originally given to a small peninsula in Brut'tium, between the Scylacean and Napetine gulfs; the name was gradually made to comprehend new districts, until at length it included the entire country lying south of the Alps, between the Adriatic and Tuscan seas. 2. The names Hesperia, Saturnia, and Oenot'ria have also been given to this country ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... testimony was given to the law-abiding character of the negroes. When the apprenticeship system was first introduced, they did not fully comprehend its provisions, and as they had anticipated entire freedom, they were disappointed and dissatisfied. But in a little while they became reconciled to the operations of the new system, and have since manifested a due subordination ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Douglas, just beside me, reached over my outstretched arm and took the hat, holding it throughout the delivery of the inaugural address. I stood near enough to the speaker's elbow not to obstruct any gestures he might make, though he made but few; and then it was that I began to comprehend something of ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... comprehend the scope of the present work, the author's motive and object in preparing it should be distinctly kept in view. He has written, not for America, but for France. "It was not, then, merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity," ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... other men's space. Speaking, therefore, now finally to the principal question, How far did this memorable experiment succeed? I reply, that, in the sense of realizing all that the joint revivers proposed to realize, it succeeded; and failed only where these revivers had themselves failed to comprehend the magnificent tendencies of Greek tragedy, or where the limitations of our theatres, arising out of our habits and social differences, had made it impossible to succeed. In London, I believe that there ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... for the word man, as, "a hand to the lead," "clap more hands on," &c.—To hand a sail, is to furl it.—To lend a hand, to assist.—Bear a hand, make haste.—Hand in the leech, a call in furling sails. To comprehend this it must be understood that the leech, or outer border of the sail, if left to belly or fill with wind, would set at naught all the powers of the men. It is therefore necessary, as Falconer has it, "the tempest to disarm;" so by handing in this leech-rope before the yard, the canvas is ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... more nonsense!" I said. "I say now that our people like fine, sonorous language from the altar; and they comprehend it! Try them next Sunday with a passage from Lacordaire, and you'll see what I mean. Try that noble passage, 'Il y a un homme, dont l'amour garde la tombe,'—'There is a man whose tomb is guarded by love,'—and see if they'll understand you. Why, my dear fellow, fifty years ago, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... departed, and was ten miles from Verny before he could comprehend how he had summoned up resolution enough to leave it. Louise, shut up in her little room, was weeping bitterly, and felt no inclination to go out, since she could no longer meet Henri; but, in a short time, both of them, without feeling less regret, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... most sublime. Why is such simple means so highly successful in exalting our feelings? Why is it, when looking at this picture, we have moments of divine oblivion in which we fancy ourselves in Heaven? That is what we must try to penetrate and comprehend. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... subtler, differences. In Agony she read a nature impulsive, enthusiastic, brilliant, confident, fascinating; also hot-headed, strong-willed and impatient of restraint. In Oh-Pshaw she saw a less all-conquering, a more plodding nature, slower to comprehend, less ardent and with less power to influence. But if the eyes were not so sparkling they were more thoughtful, and if the red lips were set in a less bewitchingly mischievous curve there was something about their lines that told more of patience and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... however, that Schamyl should not fully comprehend, as he appears not to do, the nature of the deliverance which would seem to be preparing for him. Attempts are said to have been made to induce him to adapt his policy to the peculiar state of the relations of eastern and western Europe, and to coperate with the enemies of Russia ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... some extent he had wrestled with the world and wrung from it the conditions of subsistence, relieved the strain under which he had been laboring. He sold his pictures rarely, however, and only when absolutely compelled to get money. Miss Marston could not comprehend his feeling about the inadequacy of his work, and he gave up attempting to make her understand ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... and always profuse in their offers of services, though it is hardly to be expected that their generosity will be put to the test. Gentlemen will smoke in the ladies' faces in the street, the corridors, cafes, cars, anywhere, apparently not being able to comprehend that it may be offensive. Even in the dining-rooms of the hotels, the cigar or cigarette is freely lighted, and smoked with the coffee while ladies are present. In short, tobacco seems to be a necessity to the average Spaniard, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... primary conditions which determine the existence both of individuals and of entire species. These conditions will also determine the population of a species; and by a careful consideration of all the circumstances we may be enabled to comprehend, and in some degree to explain, what at first sight appears so inexplicable—the excessive abundance of some species, while others closely allied to ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... or Austria.[155] There the miseries of life and the disintegration of society are too notorious to require analysis; and these countries are already experiencing the actuality of what for the rest of Europe is still in the realm of prediction. Yet they comprehend a vast territory and a great population, and are an extant example of how much man can suffer and how far society can decay. Above all, they are the signal to us of how in the final catastrophe the malady of the ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... tells him. "My father says so," is reason enough for him. He does not say, "I will not believe it, because I cannot understand it." So it should be your first object to ascertain what the Bible teaches, and then submit to it with the confidence of a little child. You cannot expect fully to comprehend the ways of an infinite Being. You can see but a very small part of the system of his moral government. It cannot be strange, then, if you are unable to discover the reasonableness of every truth which ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... more than a dollar a week. If ill, or with a family of children to look after, her case was apparently hopeless. How all the sewing-women thus suddenly reduced to idleness were to gain a livelihood I could not comprehend. A cry of distress rose up from the toiling inmates of many a humble home around us. The privilege to toil had been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... her love to her child should be daily strengthened by such communings with her own heart and her Savior, in sweet fellowship with her little one, though so young as not fully to comprehend all it sees and hears, yet it will remember and be influenced, eternally, by what has been done and said in its presence. This mother fully realizes that she is under the watchful eye of God, her Maker and Redeemer—that the Holy Trinity—the mysterious "three in one" have been ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... I fled instantly, with Giton, and left Eumolpus to his fate. I learned, a few days later, that the Crotonians, furious because the old fox had lived so long and so sumptuously at the public expense, had put him to death in the Massilian manner. That you may comprehend what this means, know that) whenever the Massilians were ravaged by the plague, one of the poor would offer himself to be fed for a whole year upon choice food at public charge; after which, decked out with olive branches and sacred vestments, he was ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... field and Sidney on the scaffold is enthusiastically toasted by many an honest radical who would be puzzled to explain the difference between Ship-money and the Habeas Corpus Act. It may be added that, as in religion, so in politics, few even of those who are enlightened enough to comprehend the meaning latent under the emblems of their faith can resist the contagion of the popular superstition. Often, when they flatter themselves that they are merely feigning a compliance with the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sadness about her face that I do not comprehend. She certainly knows nothing of sorrow. It does not arise from want; for she, of all maidens in this Queen City, is farthest from that. Old Ben Mordecai has untold wealth, and there comes in the 'marrow of the nut.' Of course, he is as stingy as a Jew can be; but not with his daughter. ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... house; and thinking we had enough for a long time to come, I would have liked to be able to make our little monkey understand that we wanted no more. The parrot had learned to discover my wishes very well, but with the monkey I supposed it would be a matter of some difficulty to make him comprehend me. He seemed to divine my thoughts, however, or else his own good sense came to his aid, for, almost immediately, he gave a little shriek, which the next monkey took up, and which went along the line until the sounds died away in the distance. After this a few more nuts ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... father's intended marriage with madame came on Leam with a crushing sense of terror and despair. Unobservant youth sees little, and even what it does see it does not comprehend. Though the girl had accustomed herself by slow degrees to many works and ways which mamma had never known; though the faculties which had been, as it were, imprisoned by that close-set, hide-bound love of hers were now a little loosened and set free; though the activities of youth ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... grateful for this opportunity to burn incense as a worshipper at the shrine of your genius! You ask to what extent will the work affect the destiny of woman? I answer, its possibilities in that direction are limitless! They are beyond the power of any living mortal to comprehend! With woman surrounded by such conditions of financial independence, and such harmonious environments as will permit her to devote the best energies of her soul to the perfection of the highest type of motherhood, there will come a solution of the problem ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... steadfastly at that, never removing your eyes from it for a moment, and see what happens." And, thus saying, the man went and squatted himself upon his heels in the centre of the floor, and began to chant, in a low, monotonous voice, certain words the meaning of which I could not comprehend. ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... they surround us, but from his own mind, which was, to borrow a phrase of Ben Jonson's, the very 'sphere of humanity', he fetched those images of virtue and of knowledge, of which every one of us recognizing a part, think we comprehend in our natures the whole; and oftentimes mistake the powers which he positively creates in us, for nothing more than indigenous faculties of our own minds which only waited the action of corresponding virtues in him to return a full and clear ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... is becoming so general a portion of education, that it will doubtless soon be introduced at the infant schools among the other eccentric evolutions or playful whirls of Mr. Wilder-spin. At it is the fashion to comprehend nothing, but to have a smattering of everything, we beg leave to smatter our readers with a very thin layer of political economy. In the first place, "political" means "political," and "economy" signifies "economy," at least when taken separately; but put them together, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... single handed, in an attempt to rescue the poor fellow, when I saw him swing himself down from limb to limb, and drop to the ground in the midst of the astonished Crows, and take to flight. For a moment they were too surprised to comprehend that it was really a man, and a foe; but they soon recovered from the panic, and sounding their war cry, the whole band gave chase. Shognaw took to a river half a mile distant, and plunging in, rose among some rushes that skirted the bank, among which he hid himself till ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... was ended, and saying, "My lord is gone before." But the day after he resigned the great seal of England (of which his wife knew nothing), Sir Thomas presented himself at the pew-door, and, after the fashion of his servitor, quaintly said, "Madam, my lord is gone." The vain woman could not comprehend his meaning, which, when, during their short walk home, he fully explained, she was greatly pained thereby, lamenting it with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... authors whose attacks on the outposts of science, or whose elaborate reconcilements of old and new, might have afforded him some support. On the other hand, he altogether lacked that breadth of intellect which seeks to comprehend all the results of speculation, to discern their tendency, to derive from them a consistent theory of the nature of things. Though a man be well versed in a science such as palaeontology it does not follow that ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... men younger than their actual age, d'Arthez was a prey to those agitating irresolutions which are caused by the force of desires and the terror of displeasing,—a situation which a young woman does not comprehend when she shares it, but which the princess had too often deliberately produced not to enjoy its pleasures. In fact, Diane enjoyed these delightful juvenilities all the more keenly because she knew that she could put an end to them at any moment. She was like ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... youth now seemed to comprehend what was wanted of him. He poled his clumsy craft toward the Gem and peered down into the water to see what manner of creature was at the other end of the anchor rope. Then he waved his pole at the girls, as though to reassure them, ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope |
