"Nature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... faultlessly clothed in scarlet and black, holding their spiked helmets carefully under their arms. The pale blue of a Bavarian dotted the assembly at rare intervals, some officer from Von Werder's army, attentive, shy, saying little even when questioned. The huge Saxon officers, beaming with good-nature, mixed amiably with the sour-visaged Brunswick men ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... meet is the girl we have met before. I evolved this sage reflection, as, lost deep down in the green alleys of the dingle, having fortified the romantic side of my nature with sandwiches and sherry, I lazily put the question to myself as to what manner of girl I expected the Golden Girl to be. A man who goes seeking should have some notion of what he goes out to seek. Had I any ideal by which to test and measure the damsels of the world ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... nettled, "is it my good nature, or your lack of it, that seduces you into saying ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... historians to whom the mere fact of a black gown or at least an ecclesiastical robe, confounds every testimony, and to whom even the name of Frenchman does not make it appear possible that a priest should retain a shred of honour or of honesty. We should have said by the light of nature and probability that had every guarantee been required for the impartiality and justice of such a tribunal, they could not have been better secured than by the selection of such men to conduct its proceedings. They made a great and terrible mistake, as ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... the building, and on the south front, which looked in towards the cliff next the cove, there was scarcely any snow at all. This was in part owing to the constant use of the shovel and broom, but more so to the currents of air, which usually carried everything of so light a nature as a flake to more quiet spots, before it was suffered to settle on ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... portion of the country about Rouen—(especially in the direction of the road leading to Caen—) is gradually left desolate and barren, but even here, as you approach the town, there is a dreary flatness of country, unrefreshed by the verdure of foliage: whereas the soil, kind and productive by nature, requires only the slightest attention of man to repay him a hundred fold. What they will do some fifty years hence for fuel, is quite inconceivable. It is true that the river Orne, by means of the tide, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... said Millar quickly, "but it slipped through my fingers, and what slips through our fingers is what we want—we seek it breathlessly—that is human nature. You, too, will seek your found treasure once it slips through your fingers. And then you will find that worthless thing worth everything. You will ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... essentials are as readily grasped by the clodhopper as by the profoundest scholar whose years are spent in delving into the mysteries of science. No finite mind can fathom the mysteries of life, of death, of sleep, of the beginning, the end, of eternity, of the real nature of the soul and of God, how He came into existence; nor, indeed, shall we ever comprehend in all their fullness the simplest phenomena around us. What is the essence of color or taste or smell? How is the word spoken ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... she lifted her clenched right hand towards her lips, then dropped it without touching them. Leonard knew but too well what deed she meditated. He knew also the deadly nature of the drug she carried. If once it touched her tongue! The suspense was terrible. He could bear it no longer; even at the risk of discovery he must ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... followed forked and they took the deeper branch. This in turn split in two and again they followed the deeper branch. Near the close of a day of hard work the stream they were following opened out on a beautiful park-like prairie, while beside the canoe was an ideal camping site fitted by Nature to that end. ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... the savage powers of Nature there came a strange and incredible response. The wind shrieked, then seemed to ship about in the sky, completely changing direction. And all at once the smoke from the fire began to pour in upon him, choking his lungs and filling his ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... of a sky in fragments is to miss what I learn to look for in all achieved works of Nature and art: the organism that is unity and life. It is the unity and life of painting. The Early Victorian picture—(the school is still in full career, but essentially it belongs to that triumphal period)—is but a dull sum of things put together, in concourse, not ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... my dearest boy, it grieves me to think sometimes that you have not that perfect love for and confidence in us which you ought to have. You know, my darling, that it would be as much our pleasure as our duty to watch over the development of your moral and spiritual nature, but alas! you will not let us see your moral and spiritual nature. At times we are almost inclined to doubt whether you have a moral and spiritual nature at all. Of your inner life, my dear, we know nothing ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... unabashed, quite as Siegfried might have done: "Certainly! Whatever flies I shoot on the wing!" But at once after this the difference between the two is manifest. To both whole regions of emotion are unknown, but certain emotions which are outside the nature of one, are potentially the very strongest in the other. Siegfried is not pitiful. The strong, radiant being is incomplete on that side, so that the Christian heart winces a little, here and there, at the bright resoluteness with which he pursues his ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... had held office since November, was a big, good-natured, tolerant man, who looked younger than his 35 years because of his freckles and his always rumpled mop of sandy hair. But those who sought to take advantage of his good nature in the courtroom found themselves up against as keen a lawyer and prosecutor as could be found in the whole state, or ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... settled by chance at roulette the night before the lists come down! If it's not, it ought to be. The average result would be just as fair. Come, Harcourt, I know that you, with your Temple experiences, won't drink Oxford wine; but your good nature will condescend to see the children feeding. Wilkinson, sit opposite there and give Twisleton some of that pie that he was talking of." And so they sat down to their banquet; and Harcourt, in spite of the refinement which ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... consideration may be sure of a hearty welcome and all the assistance he deserves. Withal, no man who has once enjoyed a few days in the Argan Forest can sincerely regret Europe's neglect of it: human nature is not unselfish ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... behind. Always, underneath Dorn's perplexity and pondering, under his intelligence and spirit at their best, had been a something deeply personal, something of the internal of him, a selfish instinct. It was the nature ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... this, let him pause on each instance, one by one, and think of what he has seen, and heard, and read, and known of; and he will surely come to the conviction that human nature cannot, even in the very service of charity, be safely trusted with the secret exercise of irresponsible power, and that no light can be too fierce to beat upon and purify every spot where the weak are committed to the tender mercies of the ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... longer Lieutenant-General of Acadia, he was yet unwilling to give up the scheme which appealed so strongly to his adventurous nature. On his return to Paris, his influence had been sufficient to secure for one year a monopoly of the new fur trade. Champlain, cherishing the memory of the voyage of the previous year, persuaded him that the valley of the St. Lawrence would ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... THE COD.—In our preceding remarks on the natural history of fishes, we have spoken of the amazing fruitfulness of this fish; but in this we see one more instance of the wise provision which Nature has made for supplying the wants of man. So extensive has been the consumption of this fish, that it is surprising that it has not long ago become extinct; which would certainly have been the case, had it not ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... process of the readjustment of human beings to changed social and economic conditions is marked at intervals by crises wherein the struggle always going on beneath the surface between the new forces and existing conditions wells up to the surface and takes on the nature of a duel between contending champions. If this is true of one class or of one people, how much more is it true when the change is one that affects ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... experimental animals should be carefully examined, to avoid the risk of employing such as are already diseased: since it must be remembered that in a state of nature, as well as in captivity, the animals employed for laboratory inoculations are subject to infection by various animal and vegetable parasites, and in some instances such infection presents no symptoms which are obvious to the casual examination; the sex should be ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... nature what it may, men will always turn to one who sings so melodiously of eternal verities—of those human tasks and needs which no lapse of years can change. How modern he reads to us, who have been brought into contact with the true spirit by men like Johnson-Cory and Lefroy! And how unbelievably remote ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... reaction, which, as has before been noted, was with him the usual result of the call to exertion. His letters steadily reflect, and occasionally mention, the glow of exultation produced by constant action of a worthy and congenial nature. "We are in high health and spirits besieging Bastia," he writes to his wife soon after landing; and shortly before the fall of the place he says again: "As to my health, it was never better, seldom so well." Yet, although from beginning to end the essential ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... eclipse of the moon as caused by the shadow of the earth cast by the sun. But he was as one born out of due time. We are all familiar with the use made by students of unfulfilled prophecy of every extraordinary occurrence in nature, such as the sudden appearance of a comet, an earthquake, an eclipse, etc. We know how mysteriously they interpret those simple passages in the Bible about the sun being darkened and the moon being turned into blood. ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... were maundering with some design, beating about the bush of some communication that he feared to make, or perhaps only talking against time in terror of what Herrick might say next. But Herrick had now spat his venom; his was a kindly nature, and, content with his triumph, he had now begun to pity. With a few soothing words he sought to conclude the interview, and proposed that they should change ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... till an hour or two, at least, after the time that his silence upon it becomes tormenting. A course of small, quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm,—nor so vague as to be misunderstood—with now and then a look of kindness, and little or nothing said upon it,—leaves nature for your mistress, and she fashions it ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... not become milder and the summers cooler, can only be answered by means of the thermometer; this instrument has, however, scarcely been invented more than two centuries and a half, and its scientific application hardly dates back 120 years. The nature and novelty of the means interpose, therefore, very narrow limits to our investigation regarding the temperature p 176 of the air. It is quite otherwise, however, with the solution of the great problem of the internal heat of the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... sometimes difficult to avoid an involuntary rhyme; but the blank verse appears to me the only metre capable of adapting itself to all the gradations, if I may use the term, of the Homeric style; from the finished poetry of the numerous similes, in which every touch is nature, and nothing is overcoloured or exaggerated, down to the simple, almost homely, style of some portions of the narrative. Least of all can any other metre do full justice to the spirit and freedom of the various speeches, in which ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... accept IMF requirements. Turkmenistan's 1999 deal to ship 20 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas through Russia's Gazprom pipeline helped alleviate the 2000 fiscal shortfall. Inadequate fiscal restraint and the tenuous nature of Turkmenistan's 2001 gas deals, combined with a lack of economic reform, will limit ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and pleasant, and Sara strolled leisurely along, soothed into a half-waking dream by the peaceful influences of the moment. Even the manifold perplexities and tangles of life seemed to recede and diminish in importance at the touch of old Mother Nature's comforting hand. After all, there was much, very much, that was beautiful and pleasant still left ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... civilised world, or throughout the checkered range of classes and conditions of men; but, with such frequency and amplitude that it must be taken as a major premise in any attempted insight into human behaviour, it will hold true that they are of a spiritual, immaterial nature. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... not how long; without motion, without thought, without even rage or hate, now—in one blank paralysis of his whole nature; conscious only of self, and of a dull, inward fire, as if his soul were a dark vault, lighted with ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... passages, we may collect that, however mild the temper of Sertorius was, circumstances must often have compelled him to acts of severity and even cruelty. The difficulties of his position can only be estimated when we reflect on the nature of a campaign in many parts of Spain and the kind of soldiers he had under him. Promptitude and decision were among his characteristics; and in such a warfare promptitude and decision cannot be exercised at the time when alone they are of any use, if a man is swayed by any other considerations ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... would have become an idiot on the spot—long before the end of that experience. Luckily, people, whether mature or not mature (and who really is ever mature?) are for the most part quite incapable of understanding what is happening to them: a merciful provision of nature to preserve an average amount of sanity for working ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... that is a pussy's nature. I like cats, but I like birds better, so I don't keep any. How nice you look here. Oh, what charming roses!" going to the nodding beauties standing in a vase on the counter. "Are those for sale? If so they're going ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... perhaps another ten thousand years before one more new link in the chain of man's mastery over Nature and the chief's mastery over his men was forged. This time it was probably a woman who—again by a happy chance or by necessity of maternal solicitude—noticed the effect of heat upon clay and introduced the art of ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... animals ringing on the pavement of the patio inside, the sentinel had his reflections and conjectures. He wondered where the colonel-commandant could have been to keep him so long absent from his command, and he had perhaps other conjectures of an equally perplexing nature. They did not much trouble him, however. What mattered it to him how the commandant employed his time, or where it was spent, so long as he got his sueldo and rations? He had them with due regularity, and with this consoling reflection he wrapped his yellow cloak around him, leaned ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... widely as we could in the failing moonlight—moons are of a painfully unreliable nature; but the growing dawn showed us the familiar shape, shrouded in some heavy cloth like canvas, and no slightest sign of any watchman near. We decided to make a quick dash as soon as the light was strong enough ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... symbol of all, was the Myrrh, which in the occult and mystic symbolism indicated the bitterness of mortal life, bitter though pungent, preserving though stinging—this was the meaning of the Myrrh, that this child, though Divine in his inner nature, was still mortal in body and brain, and must accept and experience the bitter tang of life. Myrrh, the strength of which preserves, and prevents decay, and yet which smarts, and tangs, and stings ever and ever—a worthy symbol of Mortal Life, surely. Wise ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... day. Facing eastward, there confronted them close at hand the huge black bulk of the mammoth Mogul engine, its dazzling head-light shining afar up the westward right of way, and throwing into heavier shade, by force of contrast, every object outside its beams. In the solemn stillness of nature in those high levels, almost the only sound was the soft hiss of escaping steam from the cylinder-cocks or an occasional rumble from the boiler. Even murmured words seemed audible and intelligible sixty feet away, and twice big Ben Tillson, the engineer of ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... with imitating nature. The oldest statues are impressive for their life and freshness, and are doubtless portraits of the dead. Of this sort is the famous squatting scribe of the Louvre.[14] But beginning with the eleventh dynasty the sculptor is no ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... nature of this intelligence, Owen again laughed, much to the indignation of the others, who thought it was a very serious state of affairs. It was a dam' shame that these people were allowed to take the bread out of English people's mouths: ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Hardy broke down as he thought of the many years he had practically ignored this brave, strong, uncomplaining nature in his own house, and remorse tore him fiercely as he recalled how he had persistently discouraged all the poor girl's ambitious efforts to make her way as an artist, not on account of the expense—for Mr. Hardy was not a niggard in that respect—but ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... following pages I have had access to certain sources of official information, the nature of which I am not at liberty to specify further. I have used these freely in such chapters of this book as deal with recent and contemporary events in Turkey or in Germany in connection with Turkey: the chapter, for instance, entitled 'Deutschland ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... him with a hard disdain. "What have I ever done to thee, wretch?" cried the old man,—"what but loved and cherished thee? Thou wert an orphan,—an outcast. I nurtured, nursed, adopted thee as my son. If men call me a miser, it was but that none might despise thee, my heir, because Nature has stunted and deformed thee, when I was no more. Thou wouldst have had all when I was dead. Couldst thou not spare me a few months or days,—nothing to thy youth, all that is left to my age? What ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... seem to proceed from either a mere distaste for the chatter of gossips or an unwillingness to wound the feelings of survivors, though both these traits are discernible enough. The strong and more pervading cause lay in an instinctive nobility of nature which sought only what was excellent and had no keen scent for blemishes or meannesses. There are in his Diaries many bitter reproaches and vehement denunciations, but they are all directed against his own conduct. Like Orlando, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... wind-row of which we are writing lay on the brow of a gentle acclivity; and, though small, it had opened the way for an extensive view to those who might occupy its upper margin, a rare occurrence to the traveller in the woods. Philosophy has not yet determined the nature of the power that so often lays desolate spots of this description; some ascribing it to the whirlwinds which produce waterspouts on the ocean, while others again impute it to sudden and violent passages of streams of the electric fluid; but the effects in the woods are familiar ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... experience, and reflection. They are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs. For instance, with what relishing force such sayings as the following touch the evil resident in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... in Mayab, seem to have had the same symbolical meaning. The figure of Amun was that of a man whose body was light blue, like the Indian god Wishnu,[TN-22] and that of the god Nilus; as if to indicate their peculiar exalted and heavenly nature; this color being that of the pure, bright skies above. The blue color had exactly the same significance in Mayab, according to Landa and Cogolludo, who tell us that, even at the time of the Spanish conquest, the bodies ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... he know where he was. His pipe had fallen from his mouth, and he found himself stretched full length upon the ground. But something unusual had awakened him, and when he had gathered his scattered senses he looked about him to ascertain what the nature of the disturbance had been. The next moment a laughing voice ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... practice introduced something closely approximating to a second baptism. Tertullian indeed (de paenit. 12) speaks unhesitatingly of two planks of salvation.[228] Moreover, if we consider that in any particular case the decision as to the deadly nature of the sin in question was frequently attended with great difficulty, and certainly, as a rule, was not arrived at with rigorous exactness, we cannot fail to see that, in conceding a second expiation, the Church was beginning to abandon the old idea that Christendom was a community of saints. ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... steady young man, looking out for a wife "capable of friendship, love, and tenderness, with good sense enough to be easy, and good nature enough to like him." He found his beau-ideal in Jacintha, who had besides a fortune of L30,000.—Dr. Hoadly, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... result; the school, because, whatever public opinion has demanded, schools have never been able to turn out merely educated human beings, but always boys and girls, prospective men and women. And so they must continue to do. Nature reasserts itself with every coming generation. This being so, we must continue to "make women." If we desire to make homemaking women, the most economical way to accomplish this is to use the already existing machinery for making women of some sort. We cannot begin ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... however, are not satisfied with social reform, but are bent on the total destruction of our system of government and industry, holding the system itself, rather than the faults and shortcomings of men, to be by its very nature responsible for all the economic evils of the day. "Down with the Stars and Stripes" is their cry. "Abolish religion and the present form of marriage." "Atheism and free-love must reign supreme." Then, ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... of esteem; nay, the same object may be lovely in one respect, and detestable in another — The mind has a surprising faculty of accommodating, and even attaching itself, in such a manner, by dint of use, to things that are in their own nature disagreeable, and even pernicious, that it cannot bear to be delivered from them without reluctance and regret. Baynard was so absorbed in his delirium, that he did not perceive me when I entered, and desired one of the women to conduct the aunt into her own chamber. — At the same ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... of you," said Goldsturmer, "to receive me at this hour. Nothing but the very pressing nature of my business—but I will get to the point. You will doubtless remember a certain rope of pearls. Let me see, it ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... inherited. Abraham was a Babylonian, and the Mosaic Law is not Egyptian but Babylonian in character, wherever it ceases to be specifically Israelite. The influence of Babylonia, moreover, continued to the last. It was the Babylonish Exile which changed the whole nature of the Jewish people, which gave it new aims and ideals, and prepared it for the coming of the Messiah. The Babylonian influence which had been working in the West for four thousand years received, as it were, a fresh impulse, and affected the religion and life of Judah in a new and ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... is human nature. The real evils of life, of which we so loudly complain, are few in number, compared to the daily, hourly pangs we ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... "petrific mace" before he had had time to do more than lay the groundwork and begin the main structure of the fiction he had in hand; and, as in the case of Thackeray, the suddenness of his decease has never been clearly accounted for. The precise nature of his malady was not known, since with quiet hopelessness he had refused to take medical advice. His friend Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was the only physician who had an opportunity to take even a cursory view of his case, which he did ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was also thinking how to dress Danusia, because for her womanly nature it was a question of great importance, and under no consideration would she consent to have her beloved foster child married in her everyday dress. The servants who were also told that the girl must dress in the color ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... valve the septum itself contains a small chamber, making five. The size of these septa is enormous compared with those of any other brachiopod shell; and they must nearly have divided the animal into two equal halves; but they are, nevertheless, of the same nature as the septa or plates which are found in the interior of Spirifera, Terebratula, and many other shells of this order. Messrs. Murchison and De Verneuil discovered this species dispersed in myriads through a white limestone of Upper Silurian age, on the banks ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... 10% of the work force. Japanese tourists predominate. The agricultural sector is made up of cattle ranches and small farms producing coconuts, breadfruit, tomatoes, and melons. Industry is small scale in nature - mostly handicrafts and fish processing. GNP: purchasing power equivalent - $165 million, per capita $3,498; real growth rate NA% (1982); note - GNP numbers reflect US spending Inflation rate (consumer ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... are off the soul, When thou dost bask in Nature's eye, Ask, how she view'd thy self-control, 15 Thy struggling, task'd morality— Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air. Oft made ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... clear to him, there had been perhaps less confidence in his tone, for, after all, he was not by nature a man of action, and his character was the very reverse of valiant. Yet so excellent an actor was he as to deceive even himself by his acting, and in this suggestion of some vague fine deeds that ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... how suddenly she cooled towards the poor young fellow you chose for her, when she got the idea into her head that she was going to become a beauty whom the world would envy and adore? Before very much longer she will have her times of ennui, of passionate desire; the claims of nature will assert themselves. Then will come moments of bitterness and self-forgetfulness, when she will readily listen to evil counsellors. And who shall save a damsel from falling who herself ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... approbation or disapprobation; and this all follows from sympathy, a fundamental element of the social instincts. A man who possessed no trace of such instincts would be an unnatural monster. On the other hand, the desire to satisfy hunger, or any passion such as vengeance, is in its nature temporary, and can for a time be fully satisfied. Nor is it easy, perhaps hardly possible, to call up with complete vividness the feeling, for instance, of hunger; nor indeed, as has often been remarked, of any ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... one incident which occurred in this scene, as Xerxes looked down upon it from the eminence where he sat, which greatly interested and excited him, though he was deceived in respect to the true nature of it. The incident was one of Artemisia's stratagems. It must be premised, in relating the story, that Artemisia was not without enemies among the officers of the Persian fleet. Many of them were envious of the high distinction which she enjoyed, and jealous of the attention which she received ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... from the hills blew them back again. Winter began to settle on the rugged confines of the moors, and still Julian Wemyss stayed on with Stair Garland at the Bothy on the Wild of Blairmore. First, because it agreed with the mystery-loving side of his nature, and also because, so long as the weight of Napoleon's rule pressed upon Europe, he did not know where he could be safer. At Vienna, perhaps, but so long as the Princess Elsa remained at Hanover Lodge, he could not bring himself to make the long and ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... set forth the whole circumstance, and particuler handling of euery occurrent in the 3. voyages of our worthy Generall, Captaine Frobisher, it shal not be from the purpose to speake somewhat in generall of the nature of this Countrey called Meta Incognita, and the condition of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... In the agony of his disappointment he is about to renounce Phene forever as the artists, waiting outside to sneer at him, expect. The poor, innocent being, in whom his kindness and tenderness have stirred to life for the first time her womanly nature, is about to be cast out to a life of degradation and misery, when Pippa passes, singing. Her song awakens Jules to a higher feeling, to a more human and heroic determination; and the ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... plays just because there is no care about centuries in them, but a life which all men recognize for the human life of all time; and this it is, not because Shakespeare sought to give universal truth, but because, painting honestly and completely from the men about him, he painted that human nature which is, indeed, constant enough—a rogue in the fifteenth century being at heart what a rogue is in the nineteenth century and was in the twelfth; and an honest or knightly man being, in like manner, very similar to other ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... learned that the reports accompanying the set of photographs and "fragments of metal" were not the original reports on the Nebraskan case, made by Lieutenants Towers and McBride, which were received by the State Department last week, but were in the nature of a second set of supplementary reports, based on actual examination of the battered bow of the Nebraskan and the technical examination of the interior of her forward compartment. This examination was made by Lieutenants Towers and McBride, while the Nebraskan ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... remembered the boy who long ago harped at his feet, and my land of Lyonesse which I left for him; the Morholt's spear and blood shed in his honour. He remembered how I made no avowal, but claimed a trial at arms, and the high nature of his heart has made him understand what men around him cannot; never can he know of the spell, yet he doubts and hopes and knows I have told no lie, and would have me prove my cause. O, but to win at arms by God's aid for him, and to enter his peace and to put on mail for him again ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... desertion, death and hell—He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength, and taught them His, and conquered them right royally. And since He hung upon that torturing cross, sorrow is divine, godlike, as joy itself. All that man's fallen nature dreads and despises, God honoured on the cross, and took unto Himself, and blest and consecrated for ever. And now blessed are the poor, if they are poor in heart as well as purse; for Jesus was poor, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... woman, enthroned, having something stern and melancholy in her aspect. Statius has found out a melancholy employment for her, which is, to keep a sort of register of the dead, and to mark down all that should be added to that number. The same poet mentions another of her offices of a more agreeable nature: he says, when any woman dies who had been a remarkably good wife in this world, Proserpine prepares the spirits of the best women in the other to make a procession to welcome her into Elysium with joy, and to strew all the way with flowers where ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... in the air just now," answered Norman. "It is a natural reaction of a strong physical nature against the utilitarian views of the day. Miss ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... face was set with two bright eyes, softened in expression until a slight halo revealed to me a countenance half beautiful and half terrible. "Who are you, and what is your mission?" I finally ventured to ask after speech had found my lips, for I was altogether ignorant of his nature ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... not inattentive to the higher tribunals, to whose keeping, chiefly, were intrusted the personal rights and property of the subject. They reorganized the royal or privy council, whose powers, although, as has been noticed in the Introduction, principally of an administrative nature, had been gradually encroaching on those of the superior courts of law. During the last century, this body had consisted of prelates, knights, and lawyers, whose numbers and relative proportions had ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... with its edifices crumbling under the seasons, and its countless unpeopled streets, avenues and alleys. All who have seen the sight unite in describing it as one of the most remarkable that comes from the lavish hand of nature. ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... validity of the Devonian series as an independent system of rocks, preserving in its successive strata the record of an independent system of life. Some high authorities have been inclined to the view that the Devonian formation has in nature no actual existence, but that it is made up partly of beds which should be referred to the summit of the Upper Silurian, and partly of beds which properly belong to the base of the Carboniferous. This view seems to have been arrived at in consequence of a too exclusive study ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... most grievous that the lady, as she heard this announcement, got the better of her woman's nature, and suppressing her tears, made answer:—"My lord, I ever knew that my low degree was on no wise congruous with your nobility, and acknowledged that the rank I had with you was of your and God's bestowal, nor did I ever make as if it were mine by gift, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... 4th.—To-day I preached to the Indians. Peter Jacobs, an intelligent youth of 18, interpreted, and afterwards spake with all the simplicity and eloquence of nature. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... they have the advantage not only of being educated, but of having plenty of time, if they choose, to profit by their education in after life. The mass in America ought, therefore, to be better educated than the mass in England, where circumstances are against it. I must now examine the nature of education given in the ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Exe, in a quiet way, has much to boast of in the nature of beauty and romance, particularly where it flows past the wooded grounds of Powderham Castle, the Devonshire seat of the great Courtenay family. Truly there is much to redeem modern Exeter and make it interesting over and above its historical ...
— Exeter • Sidney Heath
... Gallaher, "it's a relaxation to come over here, you know. And, after all, it's the old country, as they say, isn't it? You can't help having a certain feeling for it. That's human nature.... But tell me something about yourself. Hogan told me you had... tasted the joys of connubial bliss. ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... no longer figures in the story, I must be allowed to relate the sequel, as a proof of what human nature can endure without destruction. Months elapsed, and some of the party of the above mentioned camp were on their way to a trading port with their skins, when they saw a horseman approach them, with a face so scarred and disfigured that they ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... jamais mieux la nature que lorsque nous nous efforcons d'exprimer sobrement et simplement l'impression que nous en avons recue."—M. ANDRE THEURIET, "L'Automne dans les Bois," Revue des Deux Mondes, 1st ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been killed by the phylloxera. A few lingering flowers of hawkweed relieved the monotony of the dreary waste. But if, while looking before me, the scene was saddening, in looking back there was a sublime and soul-lifting picture which the forces of Nature had been painting unmolested for ages. I can do no more than suggest to the imagination the combined effect of those fantastic rocks rising from the foaming torrent to the drifting, tinted clouds; buttresses and bastions of the ancient earth laid bare in the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... the choir also, and jealously watched her every move, but of this Marcia was unaware until informed of it by Miranda. With her inherited sweetness of nature she scarcely credited it, until one Sunday, a few weeks after the departure of Harry Temple, Hannah leaned forward from her seat among the altos and whispered quite distinctly, so that those around could hear—it was ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... addressed to her no language that could tranquillize her fears. On the contrary, to any but a Roman mother his valedictory words, taken in connection with the known determination of his character, were of a nature to consummate her depression, as they tended to confirm the very worst of her fears. He was then going to stand his chance in a popular election for an office of dignity, and to launch himself upon the storms of the Campus Martius. At that period, besides other and more ordinary ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... been indorsing notes. A friend comes and appeals to you. If you are of a sympathetic nature and very fond of him, if you have no money to loan him, it is so easy to put your name on the back of a note. Of course, it is rarely paid at maturity, because your friend's judgment was wrong, and so the note is renewed ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... without him he could do nothing. Besides, it was a satisfaction to him to feel that he had Rufus in his power, and he had no desire to lose that advantage by setting him free. Tyrant and bully as he was by nature, he meant to gratify his malice at our ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... court, or to our age, can make me believe nature to be so changed, but that public liberty will be among us as among our ancestors, obnoxious to some person or other; and that opportunities will be furnished for attempting, at least, some alteration to the prejudice of our constitution. These ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of the pioneer's soul is an effect of his bodily loneliness. The vast outdoors of nature forest or prairie or mountain, made him silent and introspective even when in company. The variety of impacts of nature upon his bodily life made him resourceful and self-reliant; and upon his soul ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... had given its disorder a personality, the room seemed alien, hostile and madly chaotic. For the first time since the reassurances of Captain Goritz in the green limousine as to her safety, she had a definite sense of personal danger. She was not timorous by nature, and the hope of success in her mission of atonement had given her the courage for the venture. She realized now that the will which had kept her buoyant through two arduous days and nights had suddenly forsaken her and left her supine, without hope or initiative. The actions of the ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... of Nature is a passion with all men; only we select different lines of research. Men have spent long lives in such attempts as to turn the baser metals into gold, to discover perpetual motion, to find a cure for certain malignant diseases, and to navigate ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... (on Monday and Thursday), but at periods of perplexity to fast thirteen days consecutively. Sometimes, on account of such small trifles as dreams, they would abstain from food; but severe drought, pestilence, famine, war, and inundations were sure to make them fast until nature was nearly exhausted. The Hebrews held certain views and followed particular customs with respect to the dust of heathen countries. Dust that came from Gentile lands was reckoned so defiling, that the Jewish rulers ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... that no civilization has, as yet, ever succeeded, and none promises in the immediate future to succeed, in enforcing this primary obligation, and we are thus led to consider the cause, inherent in our complex nature, which makes it impossible for us to establish an equilibrium between mind and matter. A difficulty which never has been even partially overcome, which wrecked the Roman Empire and the Christian Church, which has wrecked all systems of law, and which has never ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... I will not conceal from you that the Countess Sarah has written me a dozen letters of at least extraordinary nature." ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... situation. Moreover, he usually did the right thing,—except, when he did very cruel things—bent upon making people happy when their existence touched his, just as he insisted that his material environment should be beautiful; lavishing upon those near him all the warmth and radiance of his rich nature, all the homage of the poet and troubadour, and, when they were no longer near, forgetting—for that also was a part of ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... is only too generous by nature," returned his wife; and then after a little more conversation Malcolm took leave of Mrs. Godfrey, and he and the Colonel walked down to ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... great Coleridgian position, that "Christianity, rightly understood, is identical with the highest philosophy, and that, apart from all question of historical evidence, the essential doctrines of Christianity are necessary and eternal truths of reason—truths which man, by the vouchsafed light of Nature and without aid from documents or tradition, may always and anywhere discover for himself." To this work accordingly Mr. Green devoted the few remaining years of his life, and, dying in 1863 at the age of seventy-two, left behind him in ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... successfully, it is essential that the surgeon should be conversant not only with the normal anatomy and physiology of the body and with the various pathological conditions to which it is liable, but also with the nature of the process by which repair of injured or diseased tissues is effected. Without this knowledge he is unable to recognise such deviations from the normal as result from mal-development, injury, or disease, or rationally to direct his efforts towards ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... its shades, the ceaseless hum of the insects that hovered over the pool, the chime of the distant waterfall, the occasional bleating of the sheep from the mountaintop, were all blended into the delicious harmony of nature. ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... strictly considered, they will be found to agree very well; for when it is asserted that veins of loadstone have nothing to do with the variation of the compass, it is to be understood of the constant variation of a few degrees to the east, or to the west: but in cases of this nature, where the variation is absolutely irregular, and the needle plays quite round the compass, our author's conjecture may very well find place: yet it must be owned that it is a point far enough from being clear, that ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... a great shock to Tommy. He had not forgotten his vows to change his nature, and had she been sympathetic now he would have confessed to her the real reason of his silence. He wanted boyishly to tell her, though of course without mention of the glove; but ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... on to even a deeper matter—to those terrible changes in nature, so common in the East, in which whole districts, by earthquake or drought, are rendered worthless and barren. They too, he says, are God's lessons, though sharp ones enough. 'He turneth the rivers into a wilderness, and the water-springs into dry ground; a fruitful land into ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of capital, was, the memorial read on, "in the nature of things, regulated by the proportion that the numbers of, and competition among, capitalists bears to the number and destitution of laborers." The only sure way of benefiting labor, "and the way best calculated to benefit all classes," was to diminish the destitution among the ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... tension in the crowd and heat of the House of Commons, what joy! what physical relief! He caught eagerly at the sensation of bodily pleasure, driving away his cares, letting the morning freshness recall to him a hundred memories—the memories of a traveller who has seen much, and loved Nature more than man. Blue surfaces of rippling sea, cool steeps among the mountains, streams brawling over their stones, a thousand combinations of grass and trees and sun—these things thronged through his brain, evoked by the wandering airs of this pale London sunrise and the few dusty ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... same interruption in affairs of this nature shows very great ill-breeding. I don't know what's the reason, but in England if a thing of this kind gets wind, people make such a pother, that a gentleman can never fight in peace and quietness. However, if it's the same to you, captain, I should take it as a particular kindness ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... in the dark with the still fitfully struggling Dumps, employed his leisure in running over some of the salient events of his past career, and in trying to ascertain, by the very faint light that came from a distant street-lamp, what was the nature of his immediate surroundings. His nose told him that the cask at his elbow was beer. His exploring right hand told him that the tap was in it. His native intelligence suggested a tumbler on the head of the cask, and the exploring hand proved the ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... short distance, and then upon crossing a little rise, in order to skirt a bad section of marshy ground, it was discovered that they had a good chance to look backward. A rather pretty view rewarded their efforts, and as all the boys appreciated Nature in her fall dress, they stood for a minute drinking ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... consideration or other. Thus, knights, archbishops, and nobles received lands and rights in return for the provision, when required, of military service by themselves and a certain force of their retainers, except that no personal military service was required from the archbishop from the very nature of his calling. The monasteries and other Church institutions had many possessions and rights. The Church, which was established in the realm before Parliament, was a very great owner of land. The authorities ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... Indeed, conversation on ordinary lines would have been impossible, but that Bayne with an infinite self-confidence, as it seemed to Mrs. Briscoe, took the centre of the stage and held it. All Bayne's spirit was up! The poise and reserve of his nature, his habit of sedulous self-control, were reasserted. He could scarcely forgive himself their momentary lapse. He felt it insupportable that he should not have held his voice to normal steadiness, his pulses ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... mother learned that he was approaching France, she set out from Paris with a magnificent retinue to meet her pet child, taking with her his brother, the Duke of Alencon, and Henry of Navarre. Dissipation had impaired the mental as well as the physical energies of the king, and a maudlin good-nature had absorbed all his faculties. He greeted his brother and his brother-in-law with much kindness, and upon receiving their oaths of obedience, withdrew much of the restraint to which they previously had been subjected. ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... thereabouts. It's really of no consequence, however. Any good, faithful dog will serve my purpose. What I want to impress upon you is this: it is most difficult for a faithful old dog to survive a change of masters. It isn't human nature—or dog nature, either. I'm glad that you are convinced, Neenah—but please don't tell Sahib Bowles that he is ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... enough, even after the lapse of a third of a century. Judge Pope writes, "It is needless to say that the Third South Carolina Regiment had a half-score or more young officers, whose conduct in battle had something to do with giving prestige to the regiment, whose jolly good nature, their almost unparallel reciprocal love of officers and men, helped to give tone and recognition to it, their buoyancy of spirits, their respect for superiors and kindness and indulgence to their inferiors, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... say to me, who had even sneered at my unwashed and unshaven exterior, now addressed me in terms of more than polite interest. Judas himself stopped in a promenade of the room, eyed me a moment, hastened smoothly to my vicinity, and made a few oily remarks of a pleasant nature. Simultaneously by Monsieur Auguste Harree and Fritz I was advised to hide my money and hide it well. There were people, you know ... who didn't hesitate, you understand.... I understood, and to the vast disappointment of the clamorous ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... along, seein' as I've been drug in this far. All I'll say is that when we get to the bottom of this, we'll find it was done by fellows you'd never suspect. I know human nature. My guess is no drunken cowboy pulled this off. No, sir. I'd look higher for ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... crossing, which, being few and difficult, were easily guarded. Continuous lines of infantry parapets, broken by battery epaulements located for sweeping the wide approaches from the river, extended the whole distance; while abattis strengthened every place which the nature of the ground allowed an attacking column ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... designation from their connection with that Everlasting Covenant. The adoption of this obvious rule of interpretation would have saved the many vain attempts that have been made to deny the existence of the Everlasting Covenant, and to misrepresent the true nature of those different dispensations of Divine grace, which have been denominated from it. It would have prevented from absurdly maintaining that what is represented as God's covenant with his people, is not, in reality, a covenant, but merely a law. By tracing all the dispensations of grace to one ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... winter really gives place to spring. The scene, when the tide is high on a morning in June, is often an exceedingly pretty one, for to the pristine picturesqueness of the surroundings is added those touches of human nature enjoying itself, which, if it doesn't "make us kin," goes ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... old customs, handed down from the Spanish to the Texans, corners were always established from natural landmarks. The union of creeks arid rivers, mounds, lagoons, outcropping of rock, in fact anything unchangeable and established by nature, were used as a point of commencement. In the locating of Spanish land grants a century and a half previous, sand-dunes were frequently used, and when these old concessions became of value and were surveyed, some of the corners had shifted a mile or more by the action of the ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... me by surprise, but all things considered, thinking that my part was better than the one accepted by the lover, I laughed heartily at the proposal. I confess, however, that I should not have laughed if I had not known the nature of the individual who was to be the witness of my amorous exploits. Understanding all the anxiety of my friend, and wishing to allay it, I immediately wrote to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... said as he bent over her, "you shall have your chance to rest. You shall sleep under the open sky. Nature shall have you, Jessamine, and make you over into something of loveliness ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... deep lungs with the familiar medium which is known as air in Chicago. He was standing upon the platform of a New York Central train that was pulling into the La Salle Street Station, and though the young man was far from happy something in the nature of content pervaded his being, for he ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the representations made by zealous persons, on January 16 in the year 1677 declared the said "masses for Christmas" to be not only opposed to the rubrics, but also cause for scandals, and of superstitious nature, on account of certain ballads that were interwoven with them, and other like abuses. This decree of the Congregation arrived in these islands in the year eighty; acting in conformity thereto, the archbishop prohibited the said masses in his archbishopric. They were no longer celebrated ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... But he had no grace in his heart. He prided himself greatly on having visited old Moretz and expressed himself ready to become his friend. Moretz, on the other hand, had accepted not only the letter but the spirit of the gospel. He knew himself by nature to be a sinner. He had given his heart to God. He desired to please Him by imitating the example of His blessed Son, and he trusted for salvation alone to the complete and perfect sacrifice ...
— The Woodcutter of Gutech • W.H.G. Kingston |
