"Critical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was disposed to regard her sister with more critical eyes. She felt no annoyance at the patronizing tone toward herself, but the reference to Wilbur made her blood rebel. Still she could not bear to harbor distrust against that grave face with its delicate beauty and spiritualized air, which ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... or exchanging recipes with the German Hausfrau, visiting impartially the nearest kindergarten and market, making an atmosphere of her own, hearty and genuine as far as it went, in the house and on the street. On the other hand, her daughter was critical and uncertain of her linguistic acquirements, and only at ease when in the familiar receptive attitude afforded by the art gallery and opera house. In the latter she was swayed and moved, appreciative of the power and charm of the music, intelligent as to ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... Warton's could not have been excelled even by the nice and critical pen of the late Sir U. Price; and when he informs us, in more than one instance, of the great Earl of Chatham's "turning his mind to the ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... been much felt by Mrs. Stanley, Mr. Wyllys, and Ellsworth. Hazlehurst himself really appeared better prepared for the misfortune than any of the party; in fact he conceived Mrs. Stanley's position to be more painful than his own, though so much less critical in a pecuniary view. Mrs. Creighton was certainly neither so gay, nor so easy as usual in her manner; one might have fancied that she felt herself in an unpleasant and rather an awkward position—a very unusual thing for that lady. It might have struck an observer ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... she so controlled her mind that she did not whisper this Mormon's name to her own soul, she did not even think it. Besides, beyond this thing she regarded as a sacred obligation thrust upon her, was the need of a helper, of a friend, of a champion in this critical time. If she could rule this gun-man, as Venters had called him, if she could even keep him from shedding blood, what strategy to play his flame and his presence against the game of oppression her churchmen were waging against her? Never would she ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... utmost importance as a part of the literature of the opening of the nineteenth century. It is in the letters that we see better than elsewhere the germs of the speculations which afterwards came to fruition between 1817 and 1850, when the poetical and critical principles of the Lake School gradually took the place of the Classicism of the eighteenth century, and the theology of Broad Churchism began to displace the old theology, and the school of Paley in Evidences ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... their war in Algiers; and the distance it had come with us proved how well it was adapted to its purpose. We left it, to the great sorrow of the whole party, who were grieved to part with a companion which had made the whole distance from St. Louis, and commanded respect for us on some critical occasions, and which might be needed for the same ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... the most part they were not better than what she had had down home. There was a sound quality in the girl's make-up that helped her to see through the glamour of mere place and recognise worth for itself. Or it may have been the critical faculty, which is prominent in most women, that kept her from thinking a five-cent cheese-cloth any better in New York than it was at home. She had a certain self-respect which made her value herself and her own traditions higher than her ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... profession, and they are apt to lay undue stress on what they call accurate and minute scholarship, and to neglect wide and cursory reading. I know the arguments for minute accuracy, but I also know the mischief that is done by an exclusive devotion to critical scholarship before we have acquired a real familiarity with the principal works of classical literature. The time spent in our schools in learning the rules of grammar and syntax, writing exercises, and composing verses, is too large. Look only at our Greek and Latin grammars, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... be assured that he will by such a move do more to carry out true Conservatism, and to reconcile the workmen with the real aristocracy, than any politician for the last twenty years has done. The truth is, we are in a critical situation here in England. Not in one of danger—which is the vulgar material notion of a crisis, but at the crucial point, the point of departure of principles and parties which will hereafter become great and powerful. Old Whiggery is dead, old true ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... pulled from beneath, wide awake and placid as usual; and she sat in one lap or another during the rest of the concert, sometimes winking at the candle, but usually listening to the songs, with a calm and critical expression, as if she could make as much noise as any of them, whenever she saw fit to try. Not a sound did she make, however, except one little soft sneeze, which led to an immediate flood-tide of red shawl, covering every part of her but the forehead. After a little while, ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... I have sought to revise the traditional story of his career in the light of facts gleaned from the British Archives and of the many valuable materials that have recently been published by continental historians. To explain my manner of dealing with these sources would require an elaborate critical Introduction; but, as the limits of my space absolutely preclude any such attempt, I can only briefly refer ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Rendall. If she had any suspicions and if she turned on to me the art of her sex and the charms of her particular self, I was well aware that Thomas Sylvester would have a bad time of it. In fact I really dared not answer for the fellow's nerve. He being both critical and susceptible, a girl with Jean's distinctive aroma was dangerous company with a job of this kind on hand. And playing the whisky-enfeebled fool in a dirty black beard ceased entirely to amuse me when the other party was Miss Rendall. However, this morning Mr. Hobhouse felt braver, and ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... to anything else. Now it is different. Your father's action has made our union impossible for ever. I thank you for the honour you have done me. I do like you. I like you well enough to be your wife, but I will not accept this sacrifice on your part. Your offer, coming at such a critical time, is dictated only by your noble, generous nature, by your sympathy for our misfortune. Afterwards, you might regret it. If my father were convicted and driven from the bench and you found you had married the daughter of a disgraced man you would be ashamed of ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... Captain Thornton, was waylaid by a Mexican force of ten times their number, and after a bloody conflict and the loss of many lives, was obliged to surrender. With but eight days' rations, and the country to the east fast filling up with the Mexican troops, the position of General Taylor became very critical. He at once resolved, at every hazard, to procure additional supplies; and, leaving the fort under the command of Major Brown, he set out with a large portion of his army, on the 1st of May, for Point Isabel. He reached that place the next day without molestation. Soon after his departure, the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... earnest desire of Dr. Shaw and the suffragists that she might now give her important services to the Federal Suffrage Amendment, which was at a critical stage, but this hope could not be realized. Former President Taft and President Lowell of Harvard University, both of whom had done valuable work for the Peace Treaty and the League of Nations, were starting ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... beauty of Lander's "Gebir" came first from Southey in "The Critical Review." Southey found that the poem grew upon him, and became afterwards Landor's lifelong friend. When Shelley was at Oxford in 1811, there were times when he would read nothing but "Gebir." His friend Hogg says that when he went to Shelley's rooms ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... now passed down the little narrow room, but when she came to the critical spot, the supposed meeting ground, her desire to laugh conflicting with the effort to pull a long face, caused such a wry contortion of her plump visage that seriousness deserted them once more, and they bubbled over in mirth that would have ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... and critical notices may be found in several of the above, especially in Crpet, Darmesteter and Hatzfeld, and the Histoire littraire; Jeanroy, Origines de la posie lyrique en France, 1889; G. Paris, Origines de la posie lyrique en France, Journal des Savants, ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... gentlemanly rank on board. His face was an exceedingly round but sober one; he was dressed in a faded blue woollen frock or shirt, and patched trowsers; and had thus far been dividing his attention between a marlingspike he held in one hand, and a pill-box held in the other, occasionally casting a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two crippled captains. But, at his superior's introduction of him to Ahab, he .. politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain's bidding. It was a shocking bad wound, began the whale-surgeon; and, taking my advice, Captain Boomer here, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... is the price of liberty, the price of purity, the price of honor, the price of every thing worth having. The young Church, vigorous, victorious, and enthusiastic, seems to have been off her guard at a critical moment and while she slept the enemy sowed ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... was not worth calling a dog. Fan's grandson had been carried off in earliest prime by a chicken-bone that had pierced his vitals, and Cyril did indeed persuade his father to buy a bull-terrier. The animal was a superlative of forbidding ugliness, but father and son vied with each other in stern critical praise of his surpassing beauty, and Constance, from good nature, joined in the pretence. He was called Lion, and the shop, after one or two untoward episodes, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... ship was so lucky as to take a mail aboard, grew accustomed to be told that there was nothing for him. He lost heart and stopped writing himself. What was the use, he asked himself? Had she not abandoned him? The critical days of the war were over; peace was assured; the victory won, the country was already growing forgetful of the victors. Such were his moody reflections as he paced the deck, hungry for the word that never came. Yes, he was forgotten. There could ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... the church was critical and unsatisfactory. It was much too big for the village. It was ridiculous ... that little clump of chairs in all the huge emptiness ... what a waste of money, paying a parson to idle away his time among a dozen people.... "How ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... are new elements, new methods and a new spirit at work upon construction that the world has never known before. Mankind may be now in the dawn of a fresh phase of living altogether. It is possible. The forces of construction are proportionally gigantic. There was never so much clear and critical thought in the world as there is now, never so large a body of generally accessible knowledge and suggestion, never anything like the same breadth of outlook, the same universality of imaginative freedom. That is ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... articulate but expressive answer; and then such a strange smile went wandering round his lips, a smile so critical, so almost callous! I suppose that for natures of that order his sympathies were callous. In a few terse phrases he told me his opinion of, and feeling towards, the actress: he judged her as a woman, not an artist: ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... efforts to prosecute traffickers and protect trafficking victims; government authorities continued to rescue victims of commercial sexual exploitation and forced child labor and child armed combatants, and began to show progress in law enforcement against these forms of trafficking; a critical challenge overall is the lack of punishment for traffickers, effectively resulting in impunity for acts of human trafficking; India has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... roar of the great guns—those on the quarter and main-decks still continuing to pour a destructive fire into the enemy's starboard bow as they could be brought to bear the Frenchmen, from the position in which their ship was placed, being only able to reply with musketry. Their critical position made them rush on and on again with the greatest frenzy, but each time they were driven back with heavy loss, many of them falling overboard from off the bowsprit, or being cut down by the British seamen. Meantime Rolf Morton ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... approximately accurate, at the same time wishing to avoid the affectation of extreme precision, such, for example, as adding twenty or thirty candles to measurements of so many thousands, and we are satisfied that the most critical expert tests will prove our claim to be within the mark. The limit of subdivision is only reached when the difficulty of further increasing the electromotive force of the machines, involving great care in insulation and a host ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... easily with the one man who came along. But no man fixed his image. After a year or so I think I began to lose the power which is natural to a young girl of falling very easily into love. I became critical of the youths and men who were attracted to me and I became analytical ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... recent one, where words and syllables are subjects of disquisition and transposition; and the above-mentioned parallel passage in my own case irresistibly propelled me to hint how much easier it is to be critical than correct. The gentlemen, having enjoyed many a triumph on such victories, will hardly begrudge me a slight ovation ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... I unsay that word.—It was a bad omen for Thoas to say at so critical a moment that a rule was broken. The priestess declares the word unsaid—just the opposite of "accepting" an omen.—Dr. Verrall, however, suggests to me that the line means, "I ask Hosia (the spirit of Holiness) to take in charge what ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... Smiles. In the words of the old-time classical geometer, I have found it; and as he remarked on another occasion (I believe subsequently), 'Give me where to stand, and I will move the Universe.' His precise words, if I recall the original Greek, were Dos Pou Sto—and the critical ear will detect a manly—er—self-reliance in the terse monosyllables. In these days," pursued Mr. Mortimer, setting down the market-basket, unbuttoning his furred overcoat, extracting a green and yellow bandanna from his breastpocket and mopping ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... proper evacuations, and seemed to recover; but next day, in the evening, became lethargic, and being seized with a suffocation, instantly expired. The king deeply regretted the death of this favourite minister, which was the more unfortunate as it happened at such a critical conjuncture; and he appointed lord Town-shend to fill his place of secretary. Earl Stanhope was survived but a few days by the other secretary Mr. Craggs, who died of the small-pox on the sixteenth ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... yes: It must have been at his suggestion, at 110 An hour so critical as was the eve Of the old man's death, whose ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... spoke of the critical circumstances in which the Spanish nation was placed; of the difficulties which encompassed this people; of the safety of their native country; of laurels, and of the god of victory; of enemies with whom they ought to fight;—did not contain the name of France. They availed ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... The SAN ISIDRO struck; and Nelson thought that the SALVADOR struck also. "But Collingwood," says he, "disdaining the parade of taking possession of beaten enemies, most gallantly pushed up, with every sail set, to save his old friend and messmate, who was to appearance in a critical situation;" for the CAPTAIN was at this time actually fired upon by three first-rates—by the SAN NICOLAS, and by a seventy-four, within about pistol-shot of that vessel. The BLENHEIM was ahead, the CULLODEN crippled ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... that the alliance of the French Huguenots at Grenoble with the princes made the position of the States very critical. Bouillon was loud in his demands upon Maurice and the States for money and reinforcements, but the Prince fortunately understood the character of the Duke and of Conde, and comprehended the nature of French ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in his hired buggy from the township to her door, his critical eye took in the many changes that the old homestead had undergone with high approval. Used as he was to far finer houses and the best of everything, he felt that here was as fair a camping-place as even he could desire. Redford, with a quarter of a million behind it, with this setting of sunshine ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... modest aim of making the pictures intelligible. Critical explanations are beyond its scope, and historical data are for the most part relegated to the accompanying tables. The Introduction is intended for teachers, and contains suggestions for a comparative study of the pictures which may be carried out ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Central Europe. His utterances in behalf of the oppressed nationalities, not only Belgium, Serbia, and Poland, but also the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs, became stronger and more frequent during the spring and summer of 1918, and solidified the opposition to Germany at a critical period of the war. On September 3 he recognized the Czecho-Slovak National Council as a belligerent government. This meant the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had not been contemplated ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... Zotenberg's volume contains the Arabic text of the story of 'Ala Al-Din, or the Wonderful Lamp, with numerous critical notes, most of which refer to Galland's version. A few pages of Chavis' text are ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... however, her indomitable spirit resorted to fresh schemes, and chafed fiercely and hotly at thought of her wrongs; and this made her the more critical of all that displeased her ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... breakfast, and who is as unsettled and miserable as she well can be. Kit has espoused her cause con amore, and is (I need hardly say) ready for open war at a moment's notice. She has indeed arranged a plan of action that will bring her on the battle-field at a critical moment to deliver a speech culled from some old novels in her room and meant to reduce both ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... time Muriel had been seated on the ground, listening with profound interest, but scarcely understanding a word, though here and there, after her six months' stay in the island, a single phrase was dimly intelligible to her. But now, at this critical moment she rose, and, standing upright by Felix's side in her spotless English purity among those assembled savages, she pointed just once with her uplifted finger to the calm vault of heaven, and then ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... and old painted Scandinavian ceiling. Everything would have passed off charmingly, if Basil had not begun to be rather foolish and unlike himself, while he and I were in the Cathedral together. Fortunately, an old friend of his he hadn't seen for years, appeared unexpectedly at the critical moment, and invited us to visit him near Aboyne. I hadn't quite time to say 'no' to Basil definitely, and we haven't gone back to the subject since, so I am hoping for the best. I used to think it would ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was going to Ireland on a second expedition at the time that the advanced guard of William of Orange reached Honiton, and when the advanced guard of King James's English army was at Salisbury. It was at this critical period that Lord Wharton, who has been described as "a political weathercock, a bad spendthrift, and a poet of some pretensions," joined the Prince of Orange in the Revolution, and published this famous song. He seems to have been a dissolute ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... was anyway critical our interview here ended. Mr. Muller had thenceforth ceased to regard me as an emissary from his rivals, dropped his defensive attitude, and spoke as he believed. I could make out that he would already, had he dared, have stopped the sale himself. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Moe, have been made at various times and at long intervals during the last fifteen years; a fact which is mentioned only to account for any variations in style or tone—of which, however, the Translator is unconscious—that a critical eye may detect in this volume. One of them, The Master Thief, has already appeared in Blackwood's Magazine for November 1851; from the columns of which periodical it is now reprinted, by the kind ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... perhaps because these men conceived trade unions as the response of labour to oppressive laws which true freedom of competition would render superfluous than because they founded any serious hopes of permanent social progress upon Trade Unionism itself. In point of fact, the critical attitude was not without its justification. Trade Unionism can be protective in spirit and oppressive in action. Nevertheless, it was essential to the maintenance of their industrial standard by the artisan classes, because it alone, ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... justice, therefore, remains the secret of the race. Of such secrets it has many, which it reveals one by one, at such moments of history as become truly critical; and the solutions it offers to insuperable difficulties are almost always unexpected, and of strangest simplicity. The hour approaches, perhaps, when it will speak once more. Let us hope, without being too sanguine; for we must bear in mind that humanity has yet by no ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... energy, an earnestness of purpose, to which the past bears no parallel, too late will they repent the folly of their own supineness, their own blindness. As in the affairs of men, so in those of nations, there is a critical point when those who hope for success must seize the winged moment as it flies and work steadily on with singleness of aim and unchangeable, unfaltering devotion of purpose. That moment, once past, will never return. Now is our golden opportunity, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the importance of each item, here are some of the attractions which make this Exposition vocal and harmonious: Edwin Henry Lemare, of London, by general critical agreement declared the greatest living organist, is expected here early in September, when he will begin his series of one hundred organ recitals, to continue till the Exposition closes in December. A unique episode of the Exposition music must not be overlooked ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... however, till the year 338, a year after the death of the emperor, his only witness, and twenty-six years after the event. On his march from Gaul to Italy (the spot and date are not specified), the emperor, while earnestly praying to the true God for light and help at this critical time, saw, together with his army, in clear daylight toward evening, a shining cross in the heavens above the sun, with the inscription: 'By this conquer;' and in the following night Christ himself appeared ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... occasion in question, disregarding the U-boat's signal to stop and show his national flag, he turned at a critical moment at high speed on the submarine, which escaped the steamer by a few meters only by immediately diving. He confessed that in so doing he had acted in accordance with the instructions of the Admiralty. One of the many nefarious franc-tireur proceedings of the British merchant marine ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... could be of little service; expert though he was in his specialty, he was blind to evil in men. As for Blake, she did not care to ask aid from him so soon after his refusal of assistance. And as for others, she felt that all who could give her information were either hostile to her father or critical of herself. ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... eloquent "old Christopher;" his contemplations are always lofty, and his descriptions gorgeous. As a poet, he is chiefly to be remarked for meek serenity and gentle pathos. His tales somewhat lack incident, and are deficient in plot; but his other writings, whether critical or philosophical, are marked by correctness of taste, boldness of imagery, and dignity of sentiment. Lion-hearted in the exposure of absolute error, or vain pretext, he is gentle in judging human frailty; and irresistible in humour, is overpowering in tenderness. As a contributor to periodical ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... an order to his assistants. The horse that Bart had ordered was quickly brought out, ready for mounting, and then he was followed by another, onto which a saddle was flung. Frank looked the animals over with a critical eye. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... meeting was called to consider the communication from Cosmo Versal. It was the general belief that a little critical examination would result in complete proof of the fallacy of all his work, proof which could be put in a form that ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... the high-sounding promise of its title; and at best its author's knowledge of the subject, notwithstanding his continental wanderings, can have been but that of an external spectator. Still in an age when critical utterance was more than ordinarily full-wigged and ponderous, it dared to be sprightly and epigrammatic. Some of its passages, besides, bear upon the writer's personal experiences, and serve to piece the imperfections of his biography. If ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... of a few days ago we had occasion to mention the fact of the existence of Mr. Zeke Kilburn, an advance agent, who called upon us at the time, to endeavor to induce us, by means apparently calculated more closely for the latitude of Mendocino, to extend to Miss Saville, before her appearance, the critical approbation which we gladly extended after. This little item of interest we alluded to at the time, and furthermore intimated, with some vagueness, that there existed in Kilburn's character a certain misdirected zeal combined with a too keen artistic appreciation, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... will see how frankly critical some of these notes are. The mere fact that the President permitted me to continue to write to him in a vein of candour that was frequently brusque and blunt, is the conclusive answer to the charge ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... awakening— the day when the glamour of sex has vanished, and you see in her, as you will see, an inferior being, with a weak body, a stunted mind, devoid of creative power, almost devoid of imagination, utterly lacking in critical capacity—a being who does not know how to work, nor how to talk, ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... politely listened to, the men really consulted are the men who have the biggest stakes—the big bankers, the big manufacturers, the big masters of commerce, the heads of railroad corporations and of steamship corporations.... Every time it has come to a critical question, these gentlemen have been yielded to and their demands have been treated as the demands that should be followed as a matter of course. The government of the United States at present is a foster-child of the special interests" (p. 57-58). "The organization of business ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... his dynamics. The fairylike quality of his play, his diaphanous harmonies, his liquid tone, his pedalling—all were the work of a genius and a lifetime; and the appealing humanity he infused into his touch, gave his listeners a delight that bordered on the supernatural. So the accounts, critical, professional and personal read. There must have been a hypnotic quality in his performances that transported his audience wherever the poet willed. Indeed the stories told wear an air of enthusiasm that borders on the ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... comes to talk to me about your beauty and your eyes, it makes me quite cross. I have had enough of hearsay, and beautiful eyes were not made to be heard." When at last Fanny did see Cecile, this fond sister of Felix's, who naturally would be most critical, was enthusiastic over her. "She is amiable, simple, fresh, happy and even-tempered, and I consider Felix most fortunate. For though loving him inexpressibly, she does not spoil him, but when he is moody, meets him with a self-restraint which in due course of ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... began to knock each other about, and to keep the game alive, complained of the flies to the landlord, remonstrating with him that elsewhere the innkeepers had them caught in order that gentleman of position might not be annoyed by them. However, towards the fifth day, which is the critical day of fevers, the host not having seen, although he kept his eyes wide open, the royal surface of a crown, and knowing that if all that glittered were gold it would be cheaper, began to knit his brows and go more slowly about that which his high-class merchants required ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... trees, is a nook where the curious sun, peeping at you through the interlaced leaves, will stencil Japanese shadows on your white umbrella. Then the trap is unstrapped, the stool opened, the easel put up, and you set your palette. The critical eye with which you look over your brush case and the care with which you try each feather point upon your thumbnail are but an index ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... of degrees. In an image of a well-known face, for example, some parts may feel more familiar than others; when this happens, we have more belief in the accuracy of the familiar parts than in that of the unfamiliar parts. I think it is by this means that we become critical of images, not by some imageless memory with which we compare them. I shall return to the ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... it. It is a happy stroke of policy, and will, they say, decide many wavering votes in the House of Lords. The King, it seems, requests Lord Grey to take the order, as a mark of royal confidence in him "at so critical a ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... avert this scandal; he visited Clement twice a day in his cell, and tried all his old influence and all his eloquence to induce him to shake off this unspiritual despondency, and not rob the church of his piety and his eloquence at so critical ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... gallant passage through the breakers round the vessel, set her engines going full speed ahead. The seas now struck and bumped the Mandalay so heavily that, in spite of all efforts to save her, she was in a most critical position, and at the same time a great disaster nearly occurred. The great steel hawser of the tug, as she strained all her powers, was now tautening and slackening, and then, as steam strove for the mastery against the storm, again tightening with enormous force ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... that she was glad to be back at dear old York Hill seemed to be all that she could remember of her speech. Three hundred pairs of hands had clapped her a warm welcome, but now she confronted three hundred pairs of critical eyes. She faltered, began again, and finally looked appealingly, a schoolgirl once more, at her ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... figures? Yet when people see these frauds, they find no fault with them but on the contrary are delighted, and do not care whether any of them can exist or not. Their understanding is darkened by decadent critical principles, so that it is not capable of giving its approval authoritatively and on the principle of propriety to that which really can exist. The fact is that pictures which are unlike reality ought not to be approved, and even if they are technically ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... left wing of the Catholic Church, Landless Worker's Movement, and labor unions allied to leftist Worker's Party are critical of ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... standing near the fat lady, watching the proceedings with a critical eye. His dress was very primitive, and his home-made veldschoens were very large, but he ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... experienced such terror, that, not without cause, he began to fear an attack of illness. He flung his cloak hastily from his shoulders and shouted to his coachman in an unnatural voice, "Home at full speed!" The coachman, hearing the tone which is generally employed at critical moments and even accompanied by something much more tangible, drew his head down between his shoulders in case of an emergency, flourished his whip, and flew on like an arrow. In a little more than six minutes the prominent personage was at the entrance of his own house. Pale, thoroughly scared, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... for contingents of men, if not for supplies of money. To Tyre he must naturally have looked for no niggard or grudging support. What then must have been his disgust and rage at finding that, at the critical moment, Tyre had gone over to the enemy? Notwithstanding the favours heaped on him by his suzerain, "Baal, king of Tyre, to Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, his country entrusted, and the yoke of Asshur ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... of Sir Pertinax consistently to the end, Macklin remained true to the tradition of critical, satiric comedy that he had been bred in but that by this time had almost disappeared. Protesting against the refusal of a license for his play, in 1779, Macklin composed a defense of satiric comedy. He insists ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... to be critical on one who had interfered with their favourite project of a marriage between Philip and Hester; and, though full of compassion for the cruelty of Daniel Robson's fate, they were too completely men of business not to have some apprehension that the ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Mary, disposed to high Tory views; and that had not the popular cry of the Church being in danger aided the designs of the Whigs, the Highflyers, or rigid Tories, would not have remained in quiescence during that critical period, which resembled the settling of a rushing current of waters into a frothing and bubbling pool, rather than the calm tenour of a gently-flowing stream. Throughout the distractions of his reign, it was the wise policy of William the Third to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... upon his so brutally abused translation of Homer. 'Dr. Clarke, whose critical exactness is well known, has not been able to point out above three or four mistakes in the sense through the whole Iliad. The real faults of the translation are of a different kind.' So says Warton, himself a scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief fault of a ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... thoughts wander whither they would in this quiet holiday idleness, and they went back to the years which she had spent with her father. She thought of winter evenings in London when Valentine had taken her the round of the theatres, and they had sat together in stifling upper boxes,—she pleased, he critical, and with so much to say to each other in the pauses of the performance. How kind he had been to her; how good, how brotherly! And then the pleasant walk home, through crowded noisy thoroughfares, and anon by long lines of quiet streets, in which they used to look ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... name among some to be branded with shame. He vowed that if God would give him the victory he would offer to Him whatever first came out of the door of his house to meet him on his return. It was a rash vow, I am ready to admit. Yet rash as it was, I do not find it in my heart to be severely critical of him. I rather join with Dr. Peck in my admiration. You know what is the matter with a great many of us smug church members? We are so prudent. We have such admirable possession of all our faculties. We are in danger of dying of self-control. ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... children are naturally loving and then the beautiful ties which neither time nor misfortune can sunder are formed. When the children are grown it is too late to establish such a relation. Then they look at their parents with as critical eyes as they use toward other people, and though they may become very good friends, the tender love is lacking. Love between man and woman is unstable, but the beautiful love that springs from companionship of children and parents lasts until ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... prove the truth or falsity of the assertion, is to select any given number of boys and girls of average intellect, of the same or nearly the same ages, and afford precisely the same advantages to them all, for a given length of time, and then subject boys and girls to a like critical examination. Even with the disadvantages under which they labor in our ordinary and even higher schools, girls have surmounted the difficulties of their position, and without favor—indeed, in spite of ridicule, partiality, and opposition—have come out first in ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... been plain to him that the charges were serious, and that he was awkwardly situated, but the true enormity of his peril did not dawn upon him until freedom was offered in such a remarkable manner. He grew cold and shuddered instinctively as he realized that his position was so critical that the princess had deemed it necessary to resort to strategic measures in order to save him from impending doom. Starting to his feet he paced the floor, nervousness turning to dread, dread to terror. He pounded ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and Kittredge's reduced edition of Child, p. 467, 1905. They publish this Elliot version only. The version has modern spelling. On this version and its minor variations from Scott's, I say more later; Colonel Elliot gives no critical examination of the variations which ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... six yards from Mick. The critical time has come. No one can see him move, for he changes his position such a little and such a little more that he is in a new place without seeming to have left the old one. His actions are as imperceptible as those of water. Five yards. Four and a ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... courage he prepared to defend himself to the last, in three castles, with a garrison of three thousand men. That he might do so with entire effect, he began by destroying his own capital of Yannina, lest it should afford shelter to the enemy. Still his situation would have been most critical, but for the state of affairs in the enemy's camp. The Serasker was attended by more than twenty other Pashas. But they were all at enmity with each other. One of them, and the bravest, was even poisoned by the Serasker. Provisions were ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... crossing the watershed eastwards by one of the numerous passes struck the route which leads past Muztagh-Ata and on towards the Gez defile. In the brief supplementary notes contributed to Professor Cordier's critical analysis of this portion of Marco Polo's itinerary, I have pointed out how thoroughly the great Venetian's description of the forty days' journey to the E.N.E. of the Pamir Lake can be appreciated by any one who has passed ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... there also we shall find that they who are the most incompetent assume the most authority, and that the public favour such pretensions; for in quackery of every kind, whether medical, political, critical, or hypocritical, quo quis impudentior ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... Wordsworth's own poetry, of work touched with intense and individual power, with work of almost no character at all. He has much conventional sentiment, and some of that insincere poetic diction, against which his most serious critical efforts were directed: the reaction in his political ideas, consequent on the excesses of 1795, makes him, at times, a mere declaimer on moral and social topics; and he seems, sometimes, to force an unwilling pen, and write by rule. By making ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... all spirit of revenge. It will save us from idle worry and fruitless rebellion against such ills as cannot be cured. In short, it will free our lives from the crippling influence of negative moods and critical attitudes. It will teach us to be ruled by our admirations rather than by ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... was carried on by Rachel giving copious and disparaging information concerning the "Yankees," and the Lieutenant listening in admiration to the musical accents, interrupting but rarely to interject a question or a favorable comment. He was as little critical as ardent young men are apt to be of the statements of captivating young women, and Rachel's spirits rose as she saw that the worst she had to fear from this enemy was an excess of devotioni. The ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... of late. While she had been struggling to make a home for him and her old aunt, thinking and spending for him till there was nothing left for herself, he, absorbed in his own affairs, had been disdainful and critical, fretted by her habit of laughing at things, annoyed by ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... at the fence and called, but the excited mare paid no heed. Inside the enclosure the horses chased one another; the situation was a critical one. The breath of the stallion came like smoke from his nostrils and white foam ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... makeshift appliances, which may be used with and as a substitute for the cages of wire gauze, although the latter are preferable. We shall return to the point presently. For the moment let us watch the process of breeding, taking care that the critical hour ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... that clings about the life of Giorgione seems to forbid a cool, critical view of his work. Byron indited a fine poem to him; and poetic criticism seems for him the proper kind. The glamour of sentiment conceals the real man from our sight. And anyway, it is hardly good manners to approach a saint closely and examine his halo to see whether it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... which was not his own. When he drew up scenarios for himself—(for he stuck at nothing)—they were idiotic: and when he attacked the great works of Goethe, Hebbel, Kleist, or Shakespeare, he understood them all wrong. It was not want of intelligence but want of the critical spirit: he could not yet understand others, he was too much taken up with himself: he found himself everywhere with his ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... this moment was too critical, too full of peril and uncertainty, to afford opportunity for moralizing over Bungay's chances of escape. Only one possibility lay before me—there remained no choice, no necessity for planning. It is pure luck which pries open most doors of life, and it was upon luck alone I must rely ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... that unless he got Fred away before drinking any more, he would not be in a condition to go at all. It was a critical position, but he saw that he must be bold ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Giotto's, is the one which of all his works is most potent and patent in its beauty, and has struck, and, in so far as we can tell, will for ages strike, with its greatness multitudes of widely different degrees of cultivation whose intellectual capacity is as far apart as their critical faculty. I mean the matchless Campanile or bell-tower 'towering over the Dome of Brunelleschi' at Florence, formed of coloured marbles—for which Giotto framed the designs, and even executed with his own hands the models for the sculpture. With this lovely sight Dean ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... deficit. The government is working to modernize capital plant and increase the country's competitiveness in the increasingly integrated world markets. Growth is expected to remain stable in 2000 as the economic integration of Europe proceeds. Improvement in the education sector is critical to ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... these particulars which could be transformed into a positive ground of suspicion. But the moral grounds of suspicion remained: the strong motives Bulstrode clearly had for wishing to be rid of Raffles, and the fact that at this critical moment he had given Lydgate the help which he must for some time have known the need for; the disposition, moreover, to believe that Bulstrode would be unscrupulous, and the absence of any indisposition to believe that ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... (1893). We need not enter into the merits of style and composition if we mention that 'Un remords, Tony, and Constance' were crowned by the French Academy, and 'Jacqueline' in 1893. Madame Bentzon is likewise the translator of Aldrich, Bret Harte, Dickens, and Ouida. Some of her critical works are 'Litterature et Moeurs etrangeres', 1882, and 'Nouveaux ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... Now, in the full blaze of physical possession, the divine glow had paled about his brow. She had found him only a man, self-conscious, egotistic and domineering. He had many personal habits she did not like. He was overfastidious in his dress, and critical and fussy about her lack of order in housekeeping. He was finicky about his food. He hated tea, declaring the odour made him sick. She felt this a covert thrust at ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... At this critical moment Archie assumed command. He is a Captain in the Yeomanry and has tackled bigger jobs than ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... teach classes of girls. Chancellor Hoyt of the university had been lured from Exeter, New Hampshire. He was widely known in the educational world, and was one of the most brilliant men I ever knew, strong, wise, witty, critical, scholarly, with a scorn of anything superficial ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... me in his absence to have very curious and critical decisions in my power. One of these is the "reading in" or "reading out" of a man from his party. This is invariably done by a leading political newspaper. I remember, for instance, a man who had been very prominent in politics, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... individual, and her story is full of poetry and pathos. Also one feels a breath from the Val d'Arno rustling amid the pages, and a sense of Florentine life, such as one rarely gets out of books. The critical objection I should make to it, apart from minor points, is that often you spoil the artistic attitude by adopting a critical antagonistic attitude, by which I mean that instead of painting the thing objectively, ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Mirrors of Downing Street has brought together a series of critical and biographical studies, presented as "reflections" from the mirror in the Imperial council chamber, of thirteen typical Britons who have done noteworthy work during the years of the war and who are ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... ventured to look at his companions; for, during the most critical moments of their danger, he had been apprehensive that the anxiety of his countenance might communicate some additional alarm to those who were so little able to ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... me, Stella!" interrupted Janice, with a sudden laugh. "That list of crimes will never send anybody to jail. You are awfully critical. Amy has awfully pretty manners, and just wonderful hair. She sings and dances well, too. And Gummy—'Gumswith' is his ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... his own conduct throughout the whole of this arduous enterprize merits the warmest approbation of Congress. He (p. 017) improved upon the plan recommended by me, and executed it in a manner that does signal honour to his judgment and to his bravery. In a critical moment of the assault, he received a flesh wound in the head with a musket ball, but continued leading on his men ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... indeed their gain was but too great for a time, through the madness and folly of the people. But now they were silent; many of them went to their long home, not able to foretell their own fate or to calculate their own nativities. Some have been critical enough to say that every one of them died. I dare not affirm that; but this I must own, that I never heard of one of them that ever appeared after the calamity ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe |
