"Action" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the action of the new piece they would require an outside location, but there were some interiors to be shot on the lot. He forgot the ill-fitting overalls when shown his attic laboratory where, as an ambitious young inventor, sustained by the unfaltering trust of ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... can be conducted effectively and successfully by exceptionally brilliant teachers, that children may be given an excellent code of good intentions, and a wonderful skill in the research for good or bad motives for any given course of action they may or may not want to take, but that they can be systematically trained by the average teacher at our disposal in this desirable "subject" is quite another question. It is one of the things that the ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... for a while, he could soon feel that the circulation of his blood, so suddenly and violently arrested by the terrific shock, was gradually recovering its regular flow; his heart grew more normal in its action; his head became clearer, and ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... ground, even while his intellectual faculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given them. With her knowledge of a train of circumstances hidden from all others, she could readily infer that, besides the legitimate action of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been brought to bear, and was still operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale's well-being and repose. Knowing what this poor fallen man had once been, her whole soul ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... indignant at the recital, and entered upon an investigation of the outrage with great energy. He was satisfied that the fathers of the trespassers could not be held for their acts, that no breach of the criminal laws had been committed; but that the boys themselves could be made liable in an action, and that on failure to pay the judgment, they could themselves be taken in execution and committed to jail. He at once commenced a suit for the trespass before a magistrate, against all whom ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... of winter. This done, he smoothed down the serape, which showed a volatile tendency to blow up a good deal, and, with a brief comment to the effect that "oilskin or india-rubber could not be better," and no staring about him to observe the effect of his action on the passengers, replaced his hat, sat down, picked up his book again, readjusted his eye-glasses, and went on with the episode he had been reading aloud to his nephew, who, mildly bored by King Philip's war, was mildly amused by the spectacle the baronet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... reproach in her face. Those who remember Greuze's 'Head of a Girl,' have an idea of Cytherea's look askance at the turning. It is not for a man to tell fishers of men how to set out their fascinations so as to bring about the highest possible average of takes within the year: but the action that tugs the hardest of all at an emotional beholder is this sweet method of turning which steals the bosom away ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... which was standing at the door. One of the Croats was left weltering in his blood; the other disengaged himself from the table, and ran after Trenck, who suffered him to approach, killed him within his own gun, struck off his head and brought it home in triumph. By this action the banditti were deprived of their ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... turnpike, where they knelt in good order and sent volley after volley into the pursuing ranks. Fremont's men wavered and then stopped, and Ashby, upbraiding his horsemen and calling their attention to the resolute stand of the infantry, brought them into action again. Infantry and cavalry then uniting, drove back the Northern vanguard, and, for the time being, the Southern rear guard was safe ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... province. It is in anticipation of these changes that I feel prompted to address to you this present letter, my object being to place before you the origin and growth of the Indian settlement at Metlakahtla, and from these facts thus brought out to deduce a policy, or at least certain principles of action, which I am anxious to commend to the Government in the treatment of all the Indian tribes in that ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... medicine. 13. He persuaded advised me to consult a lawyer. 14. His behavior was funny odd. 15. The plan seems practical practicable. 16. That is the latest last letter. 17. That certainly was not a human humane action. 18. He waited on waited for his mother. 19. The completeness completion of the work brought ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... "Why, that action of hers did not express her aversion of you, or if it did it could be easily overcome. You should have remained with her and she would ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... than some.-Christ an Advocate for strong men.-2. In particular, to show if Christ be our Advocate-(1.) If one have entertained Christ to plead a cause.-Quest. How shall I know that?-Answ. By being sensible of an action commenced against thee in the high court of justice.-(2.) If one have revealed a cause to Christ.-An example of one revealing his cause to Christ, in a closet.-In order to this, one must know Christ, (a.) To be a friend.-(b.) ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... their fallen quarry reared a cheval de frise of flame and fallen timber impossible to cross. The young officer hesitated, shrugged his shoulders, wheeled his men about, and left the fire to correct any irregularity in his action. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... turning to a citrine colour, or yellow, by chemical action; that was the colour which proved the ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... murmured, over and over again. "It is better than I thought. A variety of scene, already for the action to be ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... crowned by the honors of perpetual magistracy, I but act in correspondence with my own private sentiments, and am influenced exclusively by patriotic considerations. But all my political and moral obligations, the principles which have governed every action of my life, call on me to pause before I bestow on you my suffrage, until I feel assured that your authority shall be erected on a basis worthy of the ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... planned an action, And brought his forces round; But—well, there rose a faction, And ran the thing aground. And—their offence was heinous, Yet Caesar had his will; And Titus Labienus Was stationed on ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... placed in a difficult position just then. Had I acted upon my impulse, I should have risen and walked off—such conduct is an affront to womanhood, I think; but I was held in my place by a fear—foolish, yet grounded, that my action would be regarded as an expression of jealousy, the jealousy of an old maid, of a woman much younger and prettier than herself. This is but one of the many instances of the injustice of the world. I don't think that I am addicted to jealousy, but I may not know ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... go out. It would never do for John to come and find him there. With two men of such violent temper, already jealous to the breaking point, there was no telling what terrible tragedy might happen. Besides, she was anxious to be alone, so she might think out some plan of action. Something must be done at once. It was near eleven already. John would reach New York about noon; he would probably seek her out at once. She could reasonably expect him that very afternoon. A cold chill ran through her at the thought. What would she say to him? Get rid of Brockton ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... to see, and expected to find our careful watchman carefully curled up somewhere, but there was no snoring this time, and Uncle Bob's threat of a bucket of water to wake him did not assume substance and action. ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... his anchor down than Captain Cable began to lower a boat, and Petersen, seeing the action, broke into mild Scandinavian profanity. "He is going to try and get to us!" he said, pessimistically, and went forward to give the necessary orders. He knew his business, too, this Northern sailor, and when, after a long struggle, the boat containing Captain Cable and two men came within reach, ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... anger drove her to action. She threw on her plumed hat and her velvet coat, and slipping out unseen, walked swiftly out of the town and up the lake shore. Every little breeze from the waters sent a shower of golden leaves dropping about her. But the air was still in the woods. It was ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... bring in God, or Christ speaking, or treating of the mysteries of religion. I will allow more where the history is taken out of the sacred scriptures; but yet in the nature of the argument is civil, as the action of David flying from his son Absolom; or of Joseph sold by his brethren, advanced by Pharaoh to the government of Egypt, and that dignity adored by, and made known unto his brethren. Of which argument is Sophompaneas, written by Hugo Grotius, embassador from the Queen of Sweden to the King ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... Steve, my little buddie Steve!" And she stepped across the room to him in a way which showed she was capable of being stirred into action sometimes. ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... follows closely the want or delay of the vision of God, and has that for its object. There is also another pain, as it were outward, and this is proportioned to the sensible pain which is caused in us by fire, or any like action, contrary to nature and hurtful to it. That in Purgatory this sorrow does follow the loss of God is most certain; for that loss, or delay, is truly a great evil, and is most keenly felt to be such by those ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... poetry assigned to the "Chorus" between the acts is retained as a peculiar feature, connecting and explaining the action as it proceeds. This singular personage, so different from the Chorus of antiquity, I have endeavoured to render instrumental to the general effect of the play; the whole being planned with a view to realise, as far as the appliances of a theatre can be exercised, ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... of instant and decisive action. Even while her late visitor was speaking schemes had begun to form in her mind like bubbles rising to the surface of a rushing river. By the time the door had closed behind Bream Mortimer she had at her disposal no fewer than seven, all good. It took her but a moment ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... bluffy, and in places bold, but, on the side where Phoebus had drifted with the tide, clutching his old scow with mortal grip, there extended a point of level woods and marsh or "cripple," as if by the action of some back-water, and this low ground appeared to have a considerable area, and was nowhere tilled or fenced, or gave ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the voice came so near to Zeb that he jumped back in alarm. Two childish voices laughed merrily at this action, and Dorothy was sure they were in no danger among such light-hearted folks, even if those ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... of youth; but he was instructed in the art of war by the tender care and severe discipline of his father. Under the standard of such a leader, young Theodosius sought glory and knowledge, in the most distant scenes of military action; inured his constitution to the difference of seasons and climates; distinguished his valor by sea and land; and observed the various warfare of the Scots, the Saxons, and the Moors. His own merit, and the recommendation of the conqueror of Africa, soon raised him to a separate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... into whose hands am I required to make this surrender?—Theoretically, to the community, that is to say, to a crowd in which an anonymous impulse is the substitute for individual judgment; in which action becomes impersonal because it is collective; in which nobody acknowledges responsibility; in which I am borne along like a grain of sand in a whirlwind; in which all sorts of outrages are condoned beforehand for reasons of state: practically, to the plurality of voices counted by ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... always remained as pasture, for the soil would in this case have been much more compact. The fragments of marl almost rested on an undisturbed substratum of white sand with quartz pebbles; and as this would be little attractive to worms, the mould would hereafter be very slowly increased by their action. ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... which they subsist and from whom they believe their ancient clans are sprung. The dances vary in complexity from the ordinary social dance, in which all share promiscuously and in which individual action is subordinated to rhythm, to the pantomime totem dances performed by especially trained actors who hold their positions from year to year according to artistic merit.[1] Yet even in the totem dances the pantomime is subordinate to ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... all the more to prompt action. Seeing that all his explanations made things worse, Charlie abruptly left, mounted his broncho, and went "rockity rockity" as the pony's heels went "puff, puff" on the dusty trail ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... hearts being, by the union of their similar forms, as one organ in regard to place, act, by an agreement of their corresponding functions, as one organ in respect to time. The action of the auricles is synchronous; that of the ventricles is the same; that of the auricles and ventricles is consentaneous; and that of the whole heart is rhythmical, or harmonious—the diastole of the auricles occurring in harmonical time with ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... a great grief," he wrote, "and she will be a serious loss to our cause, but I am determined that we will not enact over again the course of action which drove both you and me from home. Odd! That she should just reverse our story! Anyhow, you and I, Jean, have been too much persecuted to turn into persecutors. The child is as much in earnest for her delusion as we for our truth. Argument and remonstrance will ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Dr. H. C. Mueller.[6-1] In its higher forms Incorporation subordinates the nominal concepts of the phrase to those of time and relation, which are essentially verbal, and this often where the true verbal concept, that of abstract action, is lacking, and the verb itself is in reality a noun in the ...
— A Record of Study in Aboriginal American Languages • Daniel G. Brinton
... dusty jolting railway, and the horrid fusty office with its endless disappointments, they are well gone. It is well enough to fight and scheme and bustle about in the eager crowd here [in London] for a while now and then, but not for a lifetime. What I have now is just perfect. Study for winter, action for summer, lovely country for recreation, a pleasant town for talk ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... your action; nor does this justify it. Still, I am not here to blame you. I want to get at the truth. What did you do ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... will contribute much to inform and control the action of those who may desire to emigrate and your discretion gives the best assurance that no rash action will be advisable. I regret the committee has no funds at command to pay ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... helped France to be what she is; and next, perhaps, one of its corollaries, expression. The French are the first to laugh at themselves for running to words: they seem to regard their gift for expression as a weakness, a possible deterrent to action. The last year has not confirmed that view. It has rather shown that eloquence is a supplementary weapon. By "eloquence" I naturally do not mean public speaking, nor yet the rhetorical writing too often associated with the word. Rhetoric ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... board may direct. In conjunction with the finance committee, he shall make an estimate at the close of each fiscal year of the probable expenses for the ensuing year, and submit the same to the board for its action. ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... Carman into the stream. It carried him down with the speed of a mill-race, Lincoln raised his voice above the roar of the flood, and yelled to Carman to swim for an elm-tree which stood almost in the channel, which the action of the high water changed. Carman, being a good swimmer, succeeded in catching a branch, and pulled himself up out of the water, which was very cold, and had almost chilled him to death; and there he sat, ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... Seven centuries dissolve and vanish away, being as they were not, and the thirteenth century lives less for us than we live in it and are a part of its gaiety and light- heartedness, its youthful ardour and abounding action, its childlike simplicity and frankness, its normal and healthy ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... not represent to himself except in his own form, allow me also to represent them as reality shows me mortals. I will form them after the models of the greatest, highest, and best, and also, when the subject permits, in powerful action in accordance with my own power, but always as real men from head to foot. We must also cling to the old symbols which those who order demand, because they serve as signs of recognition, and my Demeter, too, received the bundle ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... all these ages changes of other sorts were going on in my islands—elevations and subsidences, separations and reunions, which helped to modify the life of the group considerably. Indeed, volcanic action was constantly at work altering the shapes and sizes of the different rocky mountain-tops, and bringing now one, now another, into closer relations than before with its neighbours. Why, as recently as 1811 ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... 'Kaze bumbye, so long tam, folks come fetch-a we nuncle 'tretch out. 'E is bin-a tek wit' da' hecup; 'e t'row 'e head dis way; 'e t'row 'e head dat way." Daddy Jack comically suited the action to the word. "'E is bin tek-a da' hecup; da' hecup is bin tek um—da' cramp is bin fetch um. I is bin see mo' dead ghos', but me no ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... Europo-American Sector, wasn't any picnic. But the fact is that a lot of my ordinary and deputy assistants have a little too much regard for the alleged sanctity of human life, and this is something that may need some pretty drastic action." ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... last sharp look in my direction, hastened to where his brother stood, and entered into a whispered conversation with him. Then I heard the door close again, and almost at the same instant Mr. Pollard the elder advanced, and without seeking an excuse for his action, sat down close by my side. The fan at once dropped; I had no wish to avoid this ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... but in order that this action may bring desired results, it must be based upon ample knowledge. The natural impulse when we see an evil is to adopt direct methods looking to an immediate cure; but such direct methods which at once ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... gathered around Mrs. Paxton were inclined to think the note a hoax, but Mrs. Dainty, coming forward, lifted her handsome head, and looking at the men who were lounging comfortably in the large rockers, or sitting upon the piazza railing, spoke the word that spurred them to action. ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... body and soul; then the action of the demon, insinuating and obstinate, almost visible, while the heavenly action remained, on the contrary, dull and veiled, appeared only at certain moments, and seemed at others ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... and man of action, the world has seen few such men as Luther. His genius, as it were, discovered and laid bare the inexhaustible treasures of the German language; his sympathy and genial humanity sent a thrill of song, poetical and tonal, throughout the fatherland. He was the great awakener of German emotion. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... April: Military operations commence 9 a.m. Action at Courbevoie. Flourens marches his troops to Versailles, ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... the verbal, we are to derive the sentimental allegory, which is nothing more than a continuation of the metaphorical or symbolical expression of the several agents in an action, or the different objects in ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... saw the monster fall they could scarcely believe their eyes, but their astonishment was greater still when, running up to the scene of action, they found Valiant Vicky seated in triumph on the elephant's head, calmly mopping his face with ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... excited in turn, for his brother officer's manner had suddenly changed from resigned indifference to eager action, as he felt the violent jerk given to his line by something or other that he ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... dizzy, and there was no space for aught but action. Perhaps Albinia was glad of the hurry, she could not talk to Gilbert till she had learnt to put faith in him, and she would rather do him substantial kindnesses than be made the sharer of feelings that had too often proved ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... All difficulties that were under his power to control he would bravely meet; but when anything troubled him which he could not remedy,—in fact, on occasions when he was perplexed, worried, or unable to decide promptly upon a course of action,—he often was a changed being. Quick as a flash the beautiful, genial glow would vanish, the kingly ermine would drop off, and he could be likened only to one of the little silver owls that we see upon dinner-tables, quite grand and proper in bearing, ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... it was in their judgment to blight their land with ignorance and indolence, to be followed by crime and anarchy. Their point of view was so radically different from that held by a large number of Northern people that it left no common ground for action,—scarcely, indeed, an opportunity for reasoning together. In the South they saw and felt their danger, and they determined at all hazards to defend themselves against policies which involved the total destruction of their social and industrial fabric. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the name the Prussian Guard who faced them gave to the men of the 370th. Their French comrades called them "The Partridges," probably on account of their cockiness in action (a cock partridge is very game), and their smart, prideful appearance ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... dwelling in the province of Owari, was able to get rid of Bimbogami by means of a charm. On the last day of the last month of the year he and his disciples and other priests of the Shingon sect took branches of peach-trees and recited a formula, and then, with the branches, imitated the action of driving a person out of the temple, after which they shut all the gates and recited other formulas. The same night Enjobo dreamed of a skeleton priest in a broken temple weeping alone, and the skeleton ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... himself, and became the leader of a band, and a prince among the nations around; while the other, cherished and cared for, was content to dwell in the peaceful enjoyment of wealth and prosperity. Thus do we find that trials are necessary to develope the higher qualities and to call them into action. The truly great and noble, the eminent in talent or usefulness, are never nursed in the ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... to the younger of the girls, who instantly caught it and pressed it to her lips. It was the action of a child. Guadalupe followed the example of her sister, but evidently with a degree of reserve. What, then, should have caused this difference in ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... official action on the Patriot side was taken by the Selectmen, who, in a touching as well as searching address to the Governor, (February 18, 1769,) requested him to communicate to them such representations of facts only as he had judged proper to make to the Ministry during the past year relative to the town, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... asked aloud. Deklay could only have taken such a drastic action with the majority of the clan solidly behind him. It could well be that this reactionary was the new chief, this act of Travis' expulsion merely ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... twentieth of May; it was then the seventh, and Jeanne awaited their arrival with intense impatience. Besides her natural desire to see her parents, she felt it would be such a relief to have near her two honest hearts, two simple-minded beings whose life and every action, thought and desire had always been upright and pure. She felt she stood alone in her honesty among all this guilt. She had learnt to dissimulate her feelings, to meet the comtesse with an outstretched hand and a smiling face, but her sense of desolation ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... reached was that the party of trappers were not strong enough to pursue the Blackfeet, and the proper course to pursue was to rejoin the main body and report what had been done. It would then be time enough to decide upon their future action. ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... movements and operations of crystal-life we obtain evidences of still a little higher forms of Sensation and response thereto. The action of crystallization is very near akin to that of some low forms of plasmic action. In fact, the "missing link" between plant life and the crystals is claimed to have been found in some recent discoveries of Science, the connection being found in certain crystals in the interior of plants composed ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... gauntlet gloves for hunting, but that's not London), and her sallow face. People call her interesting, but I call her bilious. And a wretched long-legged Rosinante, with round reins and tassels, and a netting over its ears, and a head like a fiddle-case, and no more action than a camp-stool. Such a couple I never beheld. I wonder John wasn't ashamed to be seen with her, instead of leaning his hand upon her horse's neck, and looking up in her face with his broad, honest smile, and taking no more notice of her sister Jane, who is a clever girl, with something in ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... pasture; but the law immediately stepped in to prevent a proceeding which it regarded as petty treason to the commonwealth. Self-protection is the first law of life; and the country relying for its defence on an able-bodied population, evenly distributed, ready at any moment to be called into action, either against foreign invasion or civil disturbance, it could not permit the owners of land to pursue for their own benefit a course of action which threatened to weaken its garrisons. It is not often that we are able to test the wisdom ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... up in bed, with wide staring eyes and half-open rigid lips, and, feeble as she was, thrust her arms straight out before her with great force, her hands open and lifted up, with the palms outwards. The whole action was of one violently repelling another. She began to talk wildly as she had done before you were born, but, though I seemed to hear and understand it all at the time, I could not recall a word of it afterwards. It was as if I had listened to it when half asleep. I attempted ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... town, nor then unwatch'd, he goes, In darker mood, as if to hide his woes; Returning soon, he with impatience seeks His youthful friends, and shouts, and sings, and speaks; Speaks a wild speech with action all as wild— The children's leader, and himself a child; He spins their top, or at their bidding bends His back, while o'er it leap his laughing friends; Simple and weak, he acts the boy once more, And heedless children call him ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... eclipsed by Dickens; but if the analysis of human motives be her forte and art, she stands first, and it is very doubtful whether any artist in fiction is entitled to stand second. She reaches clear in and touches the most secret and the most delicate spring of human action. She has done this so well, so apart from the doing of everything else, and so, in spite of doing some other things indifferently, that she works on a line quite her own, and quite alone, as a creative artist in fiction. ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... strength. His features were regular and well defined; his eyes black and brilliant; his moustache thick and curving, and his complexion deeply embrowned with the sun. All these circumstances tended to show that he was a man of action; while a certain air of energy and command bespoke fiery passions, and the hot Arabian blood, which flows in the veins of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... action struck me as queer," Ralph continued. "You see they talked in a low voice, put their heads close together, looked all around as if they were afraid some one might be watching them, and then moved off, always turning to the right and to the left. You know when valuable iron ore was discovered ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... cause of his animosity, he had given it full and ready vent. A few coarse expressions aimed in the direction of the young stranger had done their work. The boy had risen to go, with disgust written openly upon his face, and instantly the action had been seized upon by the older man ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... his arm in a sling, was on his two miles' walk to Offendene. He was rather puzzled by the unconditional permission to see Gwendolen, but his father's real ground of action could not enter into his conjectures. If it had, he would first have thought it horribly cold-blooded, and then have disbelieved ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the Gresleys were both late, and had extracted her own letters. She never did it a second time. On the contrary, she begged pardon in real regret at having given such deep offence to her brother and his wife, and in astonishment that so simple an action could offend. She had made an equally distressing blunder in the early days of her life with the Gresleys by taking up the daily paper on its arrival ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... was taken prisoner Siccatee scarcely ate or slept. Carefully hidden behind the nearest tree, her bright little eyes would peep out, and her soft tail wave up and down while she watched every action and incident in the new life of ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... clear insight into the principles involved, his appreciation of weak points in the way that the system worked, would have thought that here was the stuff of which a minister is made. Patient, active, and persevering, energetic and prompt in action, he surveyed his business horizon with an eagle eye. Nothing there took him by surprise; he foresaw all things, knew all that was happening, and kept his own counsel; he was a diplomatist in his quick comprehension of a situation; and in the routine of business he was as patient and plodding ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... point the company broke forth in admiration of the ballet-master. For no sooner did the sound of music strike upon the ear of Ariadne than something in her action revealed to all the pleasure which it caused her. She did not step forward to meet her lover, she did not rise even from her seat; but the flutter of her unrest was plain ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... study of that story, is, that this old villain, John Poquelann, has his brother locked up in that old house. Now, if this is so, and we can fix it on him, I merely suggest that we can make the matter highly useful. I don't know," he added, beginning to sit down, "but that it is an action we owe to ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... shadow. "I hear of so many fickle and timid friends," he wrote;[541] yet he had confidence in Greeley, who, while calling with Weed, exhibited such friendly interest that Seward afterward resented the suggestion of his disloyalty.[542] On reaching Auburn to await the action of the convention, his confidence of success found expression in the belief that he would not again return to Congress during that session. As the work of the convention progressed his friends became more sanguine. The solid delegations of New York, Michigan, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Concerning the ocular, physiologic action of the two chief alkaloids respectively of Calabar Bean and of Jaborandi, there still exists difference of opinion. It has always been easy to attribute the myotic action of these drugs, or at least, of eserin, to their stimulant action on the peripheral ends of the oculo-motor, ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various
... to repine, Guly. Perhaps 'tis all for the best. Sometimes when I have looked upon your calm and tranquil face, and noted the high principles which have governed your every action, I have felt as if I would give worlds to be possessed of the same; but again I have thought, perhaps you could not have been thus sustained had it not been for my fearful example, such a terrible, terrible lesson in itself of an undisciplined and ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... Germans, having by this time come round to Stevenson's opinion, backed the claims of Mataafa, which they had before stubbornly disallowed, while the English and Americans stood for another candidate. In 1899 these differences resulted in a calamitous and unjustifiable action, the bombardment of native villages for several successive days by English and American war-ships. As a matter of urgent necessity, to avert worse things, new negotiations were set on foot between the three powers, with the result that England withdrew her claims in Samoa altogether, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... As here used the term does not necessarily imply an indwelling soul or spirit. The concept includes such things as in the apprehension of the animistic savage or barbarian are formidable by virtue of a real or imputed habit of initiating action. This category comprises a large number and range of natural objects and phenomena. Such a distinction between the inert and the active is still present in the habits of thought of unreflecting persons, and it still ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... on the unconverted nature, he strode off to find his colleague, whom he perplexed by a few rapid words on the necessity of going into the country for the day. His impatient condition required vehement action; and with a sense of hurrying to rescue Phoebe, he could scarcely brook the slightest delay till he was on his way to Hiltonbury, nor till the train spared him all action could he pause to collect his strength, guard his resentment, or adjust his measures for warning, but not ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for her, and had seen her safely asleep and cuddling a kitten. Mrs Pearson was only too happy to have the baby to occupy her long-disused wicker cradle, and Tirzah had rushed off to the scene of action as soon as she had seen the lady ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 1: Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (1752-1831) was a fellow-townsman and friend of Goethe. His Sturm und Drang, which was at first named Wirrwarr, came out in 1776. The scene is 'America.' The speakers are Wild, a lusty and masterful man of action; Blasius, a blas worldling; and La Feu, a sentimental dreamer. They propose to try their fortunes ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... thing, after all, in all this action was the revelation of an Army, unable as yet to make itself well understood in words but capable of thus manifesting its resolution to fight for the liberation of all men ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... of another thought. For all ordinary purposes, this mode of speaking is correct enough; but let us ask, Why is imagination so weak?—why are its suggestions so evanescent? Simply because it is under the control of reason. But if the action of reason could be suspended, we should then see how great, and even formidable, is the imaginative power. It is the most untiring of all our mental faculties, refusing to be put to rest even during sleep: it can alter the influence of all external ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... the Rio Grande the right basis, for offensive operations against Mexico," and suggested a plan to conquer a peace, which he afterward planned and executed. Political reasons to some extent delayed action in sending General Scott to Mexico, and his views on the proper campaign in Mexico were not approved by President Polk. General Scott thought that unless his plan met the full approval and support of the Government, it might ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... sit on deck. With the first hours of daylight next morning we have to be up and packing, for by ten o'clock we must be on board the Florence, a small, yacht-like coasting-steamer which can go much closer into the sand-blocked harbors scooped by the action of the rivers all along the coast. It is with a very heavy heart that I, for one, say good-bye to the Edinburgh Castle, where I have passed so many happy hours and made some pleasant acquaintances. A ship is a very forcing-house of friendship, and no one who has not taken a voyage can ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... smoke, which the eye of imagination could trace downward to their root on quiet hearth-stones festooned overhead with hams and flitches. It was one of those sequestered spots outside the gates of the world where may usually be found more meditation than action, and more passivity than meditation; where reasoning proceeds on narrow premises, and results in inferences wildly imaginative; yet where, from time to time, no less than in other places, dramas of a grandeur and unity truly Sophoclean are enacted in the real, by virtue of the concentrated passions ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Their dropsied infants wail without redress, And all is want and woe and wretchedness; Yet should these boys, with bodies bronzed and bare, High-swoln and hard, outlive that lack of care - Forced on some farm, the unexerted strength, Though loth to action, is compell'd at length, When warm'd by health, as serpents in the spring, Aside their slough of indolence they fling. Yet, ere they go, a greater evil comes - See! crowded beds in those contiguous ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... all learn,—to hate slavery, teterrima causa. But the issue does not yet appear. We must get ourselves morally right. Nobody can help us. 'T is of no account what England or France may do. Unless backed by our profligate parties, their action would be nugatory, and, if so backed, the worst. But even the war is better than the degrading and descending politics that preceded it for decades of years, and our legislation has made great strides, and if we can stave off that fury of trade which rushes to peace at the cost of replacing ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to this tirade Mrs. Strudwarden stooped down again and kissed the irresponsive brown nose. It was the action of a woman with a beautifully meek nature, who would, however, send the whole world to the stake sooner than yield an inch where she knew herself to ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... in water, lest they should begin to curl and wither before night; while the evergreens were heaped in a corner and left to their fate. Now it was afternoon, and the girls, released from their tasks, had flown to the scene of action. Already the gymnasium began to assume a festive appearance. Several garlands were in place, and on the floor sat six or eight juniors, busily weaving more. Ladders stood here and there. At the top of one stood the Snowy Owl, arranging a "trophy," as she called it, of brilliant leaves, on another, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... Louis Agassiz; he investigated it, became a convert, and saw that its implications extended far beyond the Alps, for these erratic bowlders were found on mountains and plains throughout the northern hemisphere. Agassiz found everywhere evidences of glacial action, and became convinced that at one time a great ice cap had covered the globe down to the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere. So came the conception of a universal Ice Age, now one of ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... balloons, coast patrol, convoy of vessels, seaplanes and seaplane-carriers, work against submarines. Secret dropping of agents. Development of machines. New scientific devices. Men of science and men of action. The supremacy of the infantry in war. The making of its tradition by ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... of all others, the most touched by generosity, either of feeling or action. In this state of irritation, it was not possible that things should long go on without coming to a crisis. Major Gascoigne proposed, as the measure that would be most likely to restore and preserve peace, to quit the regiment.—It ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... to live at need among the snows of Iceland or on the scorching rocks of Malta. In vain you guard against death; he must needs die; and even if you do not kill him with your precautions, they are mistaken. Teach him to live rather than to avoid death: life is not breath, but action, the use of our senses, our mind, our faculties, every part of ourselves which makes us conscious of our being. Life consists less in length of days than in the keen sense of living. A man maybe buried at a hundred and ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... tall, reserved, fair-haired maiden, answered the description considerably better. He concluded, therefore, that his acquaintance must be a visitor, perhaps a dependent and companion; though the freedom of her thought, action, and way of life seemed hardly consistent with this idea. However, this slight incident served to give him a sort of connection with the family, and he could but hope that some further chance would ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
