"Ascribe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Minneapolis, where the millers had an almost unlimited water power, and wheat at the lowest price, merchant milling was almost given up as impracticable. It was certainly unprofitable. To the apparently insurmountable obstacles in the way of milling spring wheat successfully, we may ascribe the progress of modern milling. Had it been as easy to raise good winter wheat in Wisconsin and Minnesota as in Pennsylvania and Ohio, or as easy to make white flour from spring as from winter wheat, we should not have heard of purifiers and roller ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... among the dilettanti, and I was at once engaged by the manager, who took me to Venice, where I subsequently joined the company of the excellent Tartaglia with whom I am now acting. Since then I have been attended by continued success, which I cannot but ascribe to my virtuous resolve to face poverty and distress rather than profit a moment longer by the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... great church-window painted The same, to make the world acquainted How their children were stolen away, And there it stands to this very day. And I must not omit to say That in Transylvania there's a tribe 290 Of alien people who ascribe The outlandish ways and dress On which their neighbours lay such stress, To their fathers and mothers having risen Out of some subterraneous prison Into which they were trepanned Long time ago in a mighty band Out of ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... singing, for day and night I can do nothing but sing "Let the saints be joyful," etc., etc. But I must close. I can not send so much love and thankfulness to my parents as they deserve. My present happiness, all my happiness I ascribe under God to them ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... and her cheeks glowed with resentment at this impudent intimation, which she considered as an unseasonable insult, and the young gentleman, perceiving her emotion, stood corrected for his temerity, and asked pardon for the liberty of his remonstrance, which he hoped she would ascribe to the prevalence of that principle alone, which he had ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Utopian to believe that the kingdom we are taught to pray for may come—verily come—for the asking, it is surely not for man to judge; but it is at least at his choice to resolve that he will no longer render obedience, nor ascribe glory and power, to the Devil. If he cannot find strength in himself to advance towards Heaven, he may at least say to the power of Hell, "Get thee behind me;" and staying himself on the testimony of Him who saith, "Surely I come quickly," ratify his happy prayer with the faithful "Amen, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... exception. And they defend themselves by the opinion of Socrates, of Cato, of Plato, and of St. Clement; but, as you say, they misunderstand the opinions of these thinkers. And the inhabitants of the solar city ascribe this to their want of education, since they are by no means learned in philosophy. Nevertheless, they send abroad to discover the customs of nations, and the best of these they always adopt. Practice makes the women suitable for war and other duties. Thus they agree with Plato, in whom I ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... spinning and weaving it, the form of the jewel to be placed in it, and the danger against which this box would protect it—ten entirely distinct branches of knowledge, which every child who should pick up such a box in the street would unhesitatingly ascribe to its maker. Now, the box in which the eye is placed is composed of seven bones glued together internally, and covered with skin on the outside, lined with the softest fat, enveloped in a tissue compared with which the finest ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... criticism now consists. Lamb, says Hazlitt, tried old authors 'on his palate as epicures taste olives;' and the delicacy of discrimination which makes the process enjoyable is perhaps the highest qualification of a good critic. Hazlitt's point of view was rather different, nor can we ascribe to him without qualification that exquisite appreciation of purely literary charm which is so rare and so often affected. Nobody, indeed, loved some authors more heartily or understood them better; his love is so hearty that he cannot ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... not ascribe it to an unmeaning vanity, when I tell you, I never took such pains to please; I even gave a particular attention to my dress, that I might, as much as possible, justify my Rivers's tenderness: I never was ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... Prayer. God of mercy, take us into Thy care. Forgive us our sins. Deliver us from evil, and our enemy the Devil. Assist us to conquer him and ascribe all honour ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... There was a peg for everything, and everything seemed to be on its peg. Nothing littered the well-scrubbed floor or defiled the well-brushed hearthstone, and it did not require a second thought on the part of the beholder to ascribe all this to the tidy little middle-aged woman, who, with an expression of deep anxiety on her good-looking countenance, attended to the wants of her ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... then, ignoring Mary, ascribe his symptoms to their true cause? By dragging out the horror of that moonlit night, he could account for any vagary of nerves. But that way of escape was equally impossible. He could not let that shadow fall across her path ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... our own times in the Vedas and Brahmanas and Upanishads. To none of these books, which have, for the most part, reached us in various recensions often showing considerable discrepancies and obviously later interpolations, is it possible to ascribe any definite date. But in them we undoubtedly possess a genuine key to the religious thought and social conceptions, and even inferentially to the political institutions of the Aryan Hindus through the many centuries that rolled by between their first southward migrations into the Indian peninsula ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... origin of dreams was universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and thence also their efficacy as oracles. Nothing could be more natural than such an idea. From the crude and imperfect notions which long prevailed with respect to the soul, it was scarcely possible for them to ascribe the impressions, which their memory retained of the creation of their fancy during their slumbers, to the instrumentality of their own conceits; they could not fail therefore to impute them to the interposition of some foreign agent, and to whom more naturally could they ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... Mr. Touchwood," answered Mowbray; "my sister entertains sentiments so very different from what you ascribe to her, that she and I parted on the most unpleasant terms, in consequence of my pressing this man's suit upon her. God knows, that I only did so, because I saw no other outlet from this most unpleasant ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... knowledge of, and attention to, the improvement of his kingdom. By some of his immediate successors the ancient maxims of the Egyptians, which led them to avoid intercourse with strangers, were gradually done away; but it is to Psammeticus, historians ascribe the most decisive measures for rooting out this antipathy. In his reign the ports of Egypt were first opened to foreign ships generally. He seems particularly to have encouraged commercial intercourse with the Greeks; though afterwards, either from ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... attributes is conceived through itself, inasmuch as all the attributes it has have always existed simultaneously in it, and none could be produced by any other; but each expresses the reality or being of substance. It is, then, far from an absurdity to ascribe several attributes to one substance: for nothing in nature is more clear than that each and every entity must be conceived under some attribute, and that its reality or being is in proportion to the number ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... of this disease, ventilation, as has been stated, is very much neglected in the pits now under consideration, where the various cases have occurred; and to that neglect I ascribe the prevalence of the malady. In those pits referred to, the workable apartments are so confined, and become after a time so destitute of oxygen, as, along with the smoke from lamps and gunpowder, to render the air unfit for healthy respiration. The only effectual remedy ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar
... on the teacher. Weak in body, worn with sickness, fasting, stripes, and prison-penance, and naturally credulous and imaginative, is it strange that in some measure he yielded to this miserable delusion? Let those who would harshly judge him, or ascribe his fall to the peculiar doctrines of his sect, think of Luther, engaged in personal combat with the Devil, or conversing with him on points of theology in his bed-chamber; or of Bunyan at actual fisticuffs with the adversary; or of Fleetwood and Vane and Harrison millennium-mad, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... London of "some hundred and seventy volumes written either by peninsular authors, or in the peninsular tongues[30]." At such a time this number represents a very considerable influence; and it is, therefore, no wonder that critics have fallen victims to the allurements of a theory which would ascribe Spanish origins for all the various prose epidemics of Elizabethan literature. To pair Lyly with Guevara, Sidney with Montemayor[31], and Nash with Mendoza, and thus to point at Spain as the parent, not only of the euphuistic, but also of the pastoral and picaresque ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... or carried away with any nouelty or strange practise, vnusually practised in this kingdome, or that I will ascribe vnto my selfe to giue any iudiciall approbation or allowance to things mearely vnfrequented, doe I publish, within my booke, this relation of the setting of Corne, but onely because I would not haue our English Husbandman to be ignorant of any skill or obscure faculty which is either proper ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... the collection of the Earl of Ellesmere a picture of the head of a girl which the connoisseurs of the nineteenth century ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci. The connoisseurs of the twentieth century ascribe it to Luini. But for the colour of the hair it might have been a portrait of Lady Loudwater, a faded portrait. It might also very well be a portrait of one of her actual ancestresses, for her grandmother was a lady of an ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... powers, like the deities of Homer in the war of Troy, were seen to mingle at every stop with the tide of sublunary affairs; and so powerful and irresistible does their agency, when once revealed, appear, that we are perhaps now likely to fall into the opposite extreme, and to ascribe too little to individual effort or character. Men and nations seem to be alike borne forward on the surface of a mighty stream, which they are equally incapable of arresting or directing; and, after surveying the vain and impotent attempts of individuals to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... name, Title that age which they would have the best; Thou being the best of things: and far transcending All style of joy, in children, parents, friends, Or any other waking dream on earth: Thy looks when they to Venus did ascribe, They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids; Such are thy beauties and our loves! Dear saint, Riches, the dumb God, that giv'st all men tongues; That canst do nought, and yet mak'st men do all things; The price ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... unique genus of tree-shells (Achatinella), plate XII, that inhabit the Hawaiian woods. The natives are persuaded that these shells have the power of chirping a song of their own, and the writer has often heard the note which they ascribe to them; but to his ear it was indistinguishable from the piping of the cricket. This is the song that the natives credit to ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... nothing without you." Such was the spirit of these men, who, while the struggle lasted, were prodigal of health and ease; but who, in the day of triumph, disclaimed, each for himself, even that part of the merit which their religion allowed them to ascribe to human effort ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the interior of the water no light reaches the eye, we have the condition necessary to produce blackness. Looked properly down upon, there are portions of the Atlantic Ocean to which one would hardly ascribe a trace of colour: at the most a tint of dark indigo reaches the eye. The water, in fact, is practically black, and this is an indication both of its depth and purity. But the case is entirely changed when the ocean contains solid particles in a state of mechanical suspension, capable of sending ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... know this much of love: that if she loved me, she ought not to esteem me less for this crime, but rather call me her true lover, inasmuch as I regarded it as an honour to do all love bade me do, even to mount upon a cart. She ought to ascribe this to love; and this is a certain proof that love thus tries his devotees and thus learns who is really his. But this service did not please my lady, as I discovered by her countenance. And yet her lover did for her that for which many have shamefully reproached and blamed him, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... since the appetitive faculty stands in the same opposition to reason in which the lowest stands to the highest and the last to the first, it is not possible for the reason to be uppermost and first, and yet for any other part to be the one called [Greek omitted] (or HIGHEST). For they that ascribe the power of the middle to it, as the ruling power, are ignorant how they deprive it of a higher power, namely, of the highest, which is compatible neither to the irascible nor to the concupiscent faculty; since it is the nature of them both to be governed ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... that of any of his sons; nor did his form exhibit greater physical strength than that of a man, well shaped, robust, and deep of chest, who still preserved in age the pith and sinew of mature manhood. Neither, indeed, did legend or fame ascribe to that eminent personage those romantic achievements, those feats of purely animal prowess, which distinguished his rival, Siward. Brave he was, but brave as a leader; those faculties in which he ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it, and which have afforded great Matter of Speculation to the Curious. I have heard various Conjectures upon this Subject. Some tell us that C is the Mark of those Papers that are written by the Clergyman, though others ascribe them to the Club in general: That the Papers marked with R were written by my Friend Sir ROGER: That L signifies the Lawyer, whom I have described in my second Speculation; and that T stands for the Trader or Merchant: But the Letter X, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... grandparents; as a rule he did not know his own parents after he had passed the adolescent stage and had been turned out upon the world to care for himself. If, then, certain of his fellow-beings showed those evidences of infirmity which we ascribe to age, it did not necessarily follow that he saw any association between such infirmities and the length of time which those persons had lived. The very fact that some barbaric nations retain the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... celebrated through the whole neighbourhood, for his ingenuity in the carving of tobacco-stoppers, and a variety of other accomplishments. Some of the peasants even mistook him for a conjuror. If I might be allowed in the conjectural licence of an editor, I should be inclined to ascribe the following composition to this celebrated and ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... secret cause, which separates or unites them. The same reasoning extends to identity. We readily suppose an object may continue individually the same, though several times absent from and present to the senses; and ascribe to it an identity, notwithstanding the interruption of the perception, whenever we conclude, that if we had kept our eye or hand constantly upon it, it would have conveyed an invariable and uninterrupted perception. ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... tears as she made answer to the plea. Without slightest effort to deny her once purpose she consoled and reassured him. "It was determined, that granted favour you should never leave this place." Her brow darkened for a moment at the ominous words; than cleared radiant. "Those who enter here ascribe to their good fortune the pleasures they enjoy. Instead of modest gratitude they show the arrogance of possession. Purpose was first shaken by the filial love expressed for those who gave you being, the tender care and anxiety for their welfare. A man like you, one is ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... square before the ruins. Directing my steps across it, I reached an ancient castle, once inhabited by the Scaligeri, sovereigns of Verona. Hard by appeared the ruins of a triumphal arch, which most antiquarians ascribe to Vitruvius, enriched with delicate scrolls and flowery ornaments. I could have passed half-an-hour very agreeably in copying these elegant sculptures; but night covering them with her shades, I returned home to the Corso; where the outlines of several palaces, designed by ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... peasantry of the present day relate many wonderful things of an ancient hero whom they name Holger Danske, i.e. Danish Holger, and to whom they ascribe ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... task of his, straight through the heart of danger, had been achieved, and in his modesty, which was a modesty of thought as well as word, he did not ascribe it to any strength or skill in himself, but to the fact that a Supreme Being had chosen him for a time as an instrument, and was working through him. Like nearly all who live in the forest and spend most of their lives in the presence of nature, he invariably felt the power of invisible ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... own time, after the intercourse that there has been between them and the whites, more than a suspicion of such unknown, cruel people lurks in the minds of many of the Indians. It would be futile for me to try to ascribe an origin for these fears, my knowledge of their language and idiosyncrasies being ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue
... in mercy to the boasted intelligence of this age, the historian, when writing the history of these times, will ascribe the attempt of the President to enforce the Lecompton resolution upon an unwilling people to the fading intellect, the petulant passion and the trembling dotage of an old man on the verge ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... baggage. The many who have condemned the work without reading it will be surprised to find that not one word has been said to prejudice intending emigrants from making Canada their home. Unless, indeed, they ascribe the regret expressed at having to leave my native land, so natural in the painful home-sickness which, for several months, preys upon the health and spirits of the dejected exile, to a ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... members of the Provisional Government attributed the evasive reply of the Emperor Alexander to the influence of the speech of Dessolles. For my part, while I do justice to the manner in which he declared himself on this important occasion, I do not ascribe to his eloquence the power of fixing Alexander's resolution, for I well know by experience how easy it is to make princes appear to adopt the advice of any one when the counsel given is precisely that which they wish to ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... acquainted with their mode of life find that savages are not absolutely devoid of intellectual activity of an empirical kind, since they partly understand the natural causes of some phenomena, and are able, in a rational, not an arbitrary manner, to ascribe to laws and the necessities of things many facts relating to the individual and to society. They are, therefore, not without the scientific as well as the mythical faculty making due allowance for their intellectual condition; and these primitive ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... was: "If thou hast learnt much Torah, ascribe not any merit to thyself, for thereunto wast thou created." He found his real calling in the study of the Law. His knowledge was spoken of reverently as though it included the whole cycle of Jewish learning. And not only the Law but many languages ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... civilians. Your friends, however, who know you better and value your worth, think otherwise; and having seen a paragraph about a certain O'Malley being tried by court-martial for stealing a goose, and maltreating the woman that owned it, ascribe your not writing to other motives. Do, in any case, relieve our minds; say, is it yourself, or only a relative that's mentioned? Herbert came over from London with a long story about your doing wonderful things,—capturing cannon ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the constitution of elementary particles, it retains part of its importance. For even when it is a question of describing the electrical elementary particles constituting matter, the attempt may still be made to ascribe physical importance to those ideas of fields which have been physically defined for the purpose of describing the geometrical behaviour of bodies which are large as compared with the molecule. Success alone can decide as to the justification of such an attempt, which postulates physical ...
— Sidelights on Relativity • Albert Einstein
... service if to-day I address my remarks to a different class of objectors altogether: that far larger body, I mean, who without at all desiring to impugn the Inspiration of GOD'S Oracles, yet make no secret of their belief that the Bible is full of inaccuracies and misstatements. These men ascribe a truly liberal amount of human infirmity to the Authors of the several Books of the Bible;—slips of memory, misconceptions, imperfect intelligence, partial illumination, and so forth;—and, under one or other of those heads, include whatever they are themselves disposed to reject. The writers ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... after looking at the bright sun, that the impression in his eye first assumed a yellow appearance, and then green, and then blue; and wishes to ascribe these appearances to some affection of the nerves. (Porterfield on the Eye, Vol. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Lord Rochester by the St. Johns is not new to me, and you had more reason to doubt of their affinity by the former marrying his mistress, than to ascribe their consanguinity to it. I shall be glad to see the epistle: are not "The Wishes" to be acted? remember me, if they are printed; and I shall thank you for this new list ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... others I commune, who tell me whence The torrent doth of foreign discord flow; Relate each skirmish, battle, overthrow, Soon as they happen; and by rote can tell Those German towns, even puzzle me to spell. The cross or prosperous fate of princes they Ascribe to rashness, cunning, or delay; And on each action comment, with more skill Than upon Livy did old Machiavel. O busy folly! why do I my brain Perplex with the dull policies of Spain, Or quick designs ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... purpose of a writing of antiquity as about the fragments of the Satyricon of Petronius." The discovery and publication of the Trau manuscript brought about a literary controversy which has had few parallels, and which has not entirely died out to this day, although the best authorities ascribe the work to Caius Petronius, the Arbiter Elegantiarum at the court of Nero. "The question as to the date of the narrative of the adventures of Encolpius and his boon companions must be regarded as settled," ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... die out in one millennium after his death. This rumour—and the similar one that is everywhere heard in India, viz., that this being the dark cycle of the Kali Yuga, the practice of Yoga Vidya, or sublime spiritual science, is impossible—I ascribe to the ingenuity of those who should be as pure and (to use a non-Buddhistic but very convenient term) psychically wise as were their predecessors, but are not, and who therefore seek an excuse! The Buddha taught quite the ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... appreciation; and I trust that the readers of this Preface will not hasten to put it down to wounded vanity of a natural disposition to ingratitude. I suggest that a charitable heart could very well ascribe my choice to natural modesty. Yet it isn't exactly modesty that makes me select reproof for the illustration of my case. No, it isn't exactly modesty. I am not at all certain that I am modest; but those who have read so far through my work will credit me with ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... two considerations, the force of which made man a religious animal. The first is, his proneness to ascribe hostility or benevolent intention to every thing of a memorable sort that occurs to him in the order of nature. The second is that of which I have just treated, the superior dignity of mind over body. This, we persuade ourselves, shall ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... not contented with offering incense to animals, carried their folly to such an excess, as to ascribe a divinity to the pulse and roots of their gardens. For this they are ingeniously ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... and amenity. It is to the absence of this social instinct, to the inability to understand the attitude of other parties to a discussion, to the unwillingness to appreciate their point of view, that we may ascribe the failure of German diplomacy, a failure which has left her almost without a friend in her hour of need. And success in diplomacy is one of the supreme tests ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... The little man had not shown me before the pathetic side of the freak's life. By asking him to dinner as if he were normal I had earned his eternal gratitude. And yet, with a smile, which I trust the Recording Angel when he makes up my final balance-sheet of good and evil will not ascribe to an unfeeling heart, I could not help formulating the hope that his gratitude would not be shown by presents of China fowls sitting on eggs, Tyrolese chalets and bottles with ladders and little men inside them. I did not feel within me the wide charity of Lola Brandt; and I could not repress ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... Carleton; "it is too universal. You find it everywhere; and to ascribe it everywhere to education would be but shifting the question ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Mr. Ormond, ascribe it to idle curiosity, but to a wish to be of service, if I inquire what your future plans ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... however, there prevailed a want of confidence in their efficacy, and then the sacred rites had as little power in arresting the progress of this deeply rooted malady as the prayers and holy services subsequently had at the altars of the greatly revered martyr St. Vitus. We may, therefore, ascribe it to accident merely, and to a certain aversion to this demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices of the St. Vitus' dance in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... attached to them, were effectively transmitted only through the instruction of the young. The religious element did scarcely more than afford a powerful sanction for the moral and social beliefs upon which the social organization of the past rested; hence, when we ascribe great importance to the religious factor in social evolution, we also ascribe, at the same time, great importance to education, because it was essentially the educational process, together with religious sanction, which made possible most of the civilizations and ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... very dangerous to boats in a fresh breeze. Owing to this, one of the boats that accompanied us, sailing at the rate of seven miles an hour, struck upon one of these rocks. Its mast was carried away by the shock, but fortunately no other damage sustained. The Indians ascribe the muddiness of these lakes to an adventure of one of their deities, a mischievous fellow, a sort of Robin Puck, whom they hold in very little esteem. This deity, who is named Weesakootchaht, possesses considerable power, but makes ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... to every new association with him into which I can enter. I feel, sir, that the compliment which you have paid to this little work of mine, produced without any idea that it should receive so distinguished an honor or find its way so far from home, I must ascribe rather to friendship than to any intrinsic merit of the work; but I thank you, and I am most appreciative of the honor that you do me in causing it to be translated into Spanish and making it the subject of ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... find out where the present indifference started, many ascribe it to Bobo Gilding, to whom entering a great drawing-room was more suggestive of the daily afternoon tea ordeal of his early nursery days, than a voluntary act of pleasure. He was long ago one of the first to rebel against old Mrs. Toplofty's exactions of party calls, by ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... right away that the English are a home people, a domestic people; and he does not need to go into their houses or homes to find this out. It is in the air and in the general aspect of things. Everywhere you see the virtue and quality that we ascribe to home-made articles. It seems as if things had been made by hand, and with care and affection, as they have been. The land of caste and kings, there is yet less glitter and display than in this country, less publicity, and, of course, less rivalry ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... purchased the ordinary pilgrim garb, but he also took the precaution to attach to his person "a star sapphire," the sight of which inspired his companions with "an almost reverential awe," and even led them to ascribe to him thaumaturgic power. [113] His further preparations for the sacred pilgrimage reads rather like a page out of Charles Lever, for the rollicking Irishman was as much in evidence as the holy devotee. They culminated ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... doth not ascribe any thing of the form of presbyterian church government to Mr. Knox, because they admitted of superintendents in the church in his time, which he thinks was Episcopacy: but says, That Mr. Andrew Melvil brought this innovation (as he is ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... to his excitement at the sight of the flames, and at hearing the shots fired, that I ascribe ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... however, convinced her how much she was mistaken. To evince her repentance, she on the very next day attended her mother-in-law to church, who was highly edified by the sudden and religious turn of her daughter, and did not fail to ascribe to the efficacious interference of one of her favourite saints this conversion of a profane sinner. But Napoleon was not the dupe of this church-going mummery of his wife, whom he ordered his spies to watch; these were unfortunate enough ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the scenery, and are very refreshing, after continually looking at the everlasting paddy fields, which constitute the principal features of the sea coast of China. It is to this circumstance that I ascribe the exaggerated accounts we have of the beauty of the island of Ku-lang-so. It forms, however, a very pleasant promenade, and may be enjoyed without interruption from the inhabitants. The city of Amoy is built ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... replied to my letter in the same magazine, mentioned the appearance of this song in Dodsley's Letters on Taste (3rd edition, 1757.) These letters, being edited by John Gilbert Cooper, doubtless led Aikin, in his collection of songs, and Park, in his edition of Ritson's English Songs, to ascribe it to Cooper. That writer speaks of it as an "old song," and with such warm praise, that we may fairly suppose it was not his own production. C. K. adds, from his own knowledge, that about the middle of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... though you are still so blinded as not to see their first cause. However, I am satisfied to know that your delusion has come to so abrupt, and in my opinion so happy, an end. To its cause—a woman, as usual—I am perfectly indifferent. Why should I needlessly ascribe to her any worse sin than she had committed? If only for your sake I will avoid doing so, for an honorable soul clings to those whom it sees maligned. Still, it seems to me that it is for you to speak, not for me. I should ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... between us: like friends of an equal age, we freely conversed on every topic, familiar or abstruse; and it was her delight and reward to observe the first shoots of my young ideas. Pain and languor were often soothed by the voice of instruction and amusement; and to her kind lessons I ascribe my early and invincible love of reading, which I would not exchange for the treasures of India. I should perhaps be astonished, were it possible to ascertain the date, at which a favourite tale was engraved, by frequent repetition, in my ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... for every term of eight years during your natural life, may as little disorder your health as mine was disordered by opium I had taken for the eight years between 1804 and 1812. To this moderation and temperate use of the article I may ascribe it, I suppose, that as yet at least (that is, in 1812) I am ignorant and unsuspicious of the avenging terrors which opium has in store for those who abuse its lenity. At the same time I have been only a dilettante eater of opium; eight years' practice even, with ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... great research and erudition which one would have wished to have been all re-written by some writer of real genius who could have given order, meaning and vividness to a mere chaos of accurate and laboriously sifted learning. The great prominence which it is now the fashion to ascribe to the study of diplomatic documents, is very apt to destroy the true value and perspective of history. It is always the temptation of those who are dealing with manuscript materials to overrate the small personal details which they ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... just made up his mind to ascribe to this cause, all his nervousness; when something seemed to drop in the adjoining room; and his dog, starting to ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... yet. It is death that looms in the future, the shadow of death upon life. "None can escape his destiny" we often exclaim when we hear of death lying in wait for the traveller at the bend of the road. But were the traveller to encounter happiness instead, we would never ascribe this to destiny; if we did, we should have in our mind a far different goddess. And yet, are not joys to be met with on the highways of life that are greater than any misfortune, more momentous even than death? May a happiness not be encountered that the eye cannot see? and is it not of the nature ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... young tending to strengthen love of home and domestic life, and to do away with the prevalent tendency to what has been termed individualism, will be a step in the right path and will aid in lessening the evils which so many wrongly ascribe to faulty legislation. If any further proof of this fact is needed it is found in the knowledge that by far the larger part of the seekers for relief come from our native population, while none but those who have some practical experience in the realities of the divorce court room ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... violation of the rule thus defined has been injurious to our commerce. As to the remaining article of the declaration of the conference of Paris, that "privateering is and remains abolished," I certainly can not ascribe to the powers represented in the conference of Paris any but liberal and philanthropic views in the attempt to change the unquestionable rule of maritime law in regard to privateering. Their proposition was doubtless intended to imply approval of the principle that private property ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... tried to study the law at Cambridge, and afterwards went abroad for a year or two by my advice; but returned dissatisfied with all things. As he had had an eruption for some years on a part of his face, which he probably endeavoured to remove by external applications; I was induced to ascribe his perpetual ennui to the pain or disagreeable sensation of a diseased liver. The other young gentleman shot himself in his bed-room, and I was informed that there was found written on a scrap of paper on his table, "I am impotent, and therefore not ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... no doubt to some real differences, but there is no difference of the kind suggested by Reid. 'All [the qualities] are relative and equally relative—our perception of extension and resistance as much as our perception of fragrance and bitterness.'[485] We ascribe the sensations to 'external objects,' but the objects are only known by the 'medium' of our sensations. In other words, the whole world may be regarded as a set of sensations, whether of sight, smell, touch, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... things of Heaven: such are the noblest employments of the mediaeval soul; how much of pity, of love, may remain for man; how much of study for the knowable? To Wastefulness like this—to misapplication of mind ending almost in palsy—must we ascribe, I think, the strange sterility of such mediaeval art as deals not merely with pattern, but with the reality of man's body and soul. And we might be thankful, if, during our wanderings among mediaeval things, we had seen the ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... The Chinese ascribe great strengthening powers to the soup made of the birds'-nests, which they boil down into a syrup with barley sugar, and sip out of tea cups. The gelatinous looking material of which the substance of the nests is composed ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... genius in the commander-in-chief has led British writers to ascribe the results of the war to the want of ability in their own generals, their view being well summed up by a writer in 1778, who said, "in short, I am of the opinion ... that any other General in the world than General ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... called Bogoja attacked the town of Arta, and in order to gain an easier victory announced, the chroniclers tell us, that he was of Serb, Albanian, Bulgar and Greek descent. One must therefore be a little dubious of maps which ascribe the Macedonian Slavs to any particular nationality. Much more than the rival maps, it was Kiepert's that was used by the Russians and others for determining the Bulgaria of San Stefano. "It is the best map that we know of," said Bismarck, and Kiepert's ethnographical ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... rocking is regularly used in putting restless children to sleep. The shaking sensation experienced in wagons and railroad trains exerts such a fascinating influence on older children, that all boys, at least at one time in their lives, want to become conductors and drivers. They are wont to ascribe to railroad activities an extraordinary and mysterious interest, and during the age of phantastic activity (shortly before puberty) they utilize these as a nucleus for exquisite sexual symbolisms. The desire to connect railroad ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... ascribe it to the bubbling of the hot-water pipe of a washing basin fixed in the dressing-room, as I supposed, against the wall of the bedroom, but saw next day that the basin in question was fixed against the opposite wall of ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... while the third alone was taken direct[363]. These three blended with the pre-existing mythological play, and with the traditions of the romantic drama generally, to produce the pastoral drama of the English stage. The influence ot the eclogue was on the whole slight, but to it we may reasonably ascribe a share of the topical and allusive elements, when these do not appear assignable either to the Arcadian drama or to masque literature generally.[364] The influence of the mythological drama, again, is ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... handsome. He had none of the elegance that we ascribe to conquerors of feminine hearts. I wondered what might be his hid den charm. Was it mental? I never had heard of a clever saying of his. In his glance? Perhaps. Or in his voice? The voices of some beings have a certain irresistible ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... China, is not so well ascertained; and in America their ancient existence rests only on very indistinct traditions. As to who was the real discoverer of the use of corn, we have no authentic knowledge. The traditions of different countries ascribe it to various fabulous personages, whose names it is here unnecessary to introduce. In Egypt, however, corn must have grown abundantly; for Abraham, and after him Jacob, had recourse to that country for supplies during times ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... to escape from this atmosphere, the closer it seems to pervade us. Tolstoi felt this as strongly as the most orthodox Fathers of the Church. Yet his doctrines on God, vague and pantheistic as they are, slow to ascribe to God any traditional qualities and trying in vain to invent new ones—his doctrines on God are less comprehensible than the dogma of the Trinity—less ...
— The Religious Spirit of the Slavs (1916) - Sermons On Subjects Suggested By The War, Third Series • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... we are going to wallow in idolatry like this, we do well to choose the dog, and not the cat, to play the worshipper's part. I am not without a suspicion that the dog is far from feeling the rapture and the reverence which we so delightedly ascribe to him. What is there about any one of us to awaken such sentiments in the breast of an intelligent animal? We have taught him our vices, and he fools us to the top of our bent. The cat, however, is equally free from illusions and from hypocrisy. ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... Dr. Darwin conceived that the religious feeling of man might have grown out of the natural emotions of fear,[1] love, gratitude, &c., when once men began to question as to the explanation of the phenomena of life, and to ascribe the forces of nature to the possession of a spirit such as he himself was conscious of: and with much more positive intent, Mr. H. Spencer has also, after most painstaking inquiries, formulated what he conceives to be the origin of ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... such leaning. But while he had no love for the barbarous language in which Trinitarians have sometimes spoken of the divine relation subsisting between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, yet he was willing to ascribe to our Lord all that is ascribed to him in the Holy Scriptures. Thus joyfully he accepted this new brotherhood he had found in Kansas, and our churches just as joyfully set him to preaching. We needed preachers, and here was one already made ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... fighting against this false fate. I don't know even if I was sure myself where the truth of the matter began. The conviction that it would end disastrously had been driven into me by all the successive shocks my sense of security had received. I began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to agents in themselves powerless. It was as if Schomberg's baseless gossip had the power to bring about the thing itself or the abstract enmity of Falk could put my ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... myself to you against the charges of the Whig," he went on. "I doubt even if I shall answer them publicly. Greater men than I have had their names blackened in a campaign, and deemed silence the wisest answer. People don't ascribe many virtues to the politician, but even he occasionally turns the other cheek. As for my tardiness to-day—well, I ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... has neither wife nor child, but the Esthonians ascribe to him a foster-daughter, of whom ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... Pistoja is obscure. Some ascribe its foundation to the Boian Gauls, some to the Romans; however that may be, it was here in Pistoria, as the city was then called, that the army of the Republic came up with Cataline, and defeated him ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... say, the Bāb's Deputy. Two other titles maybe mentioned. One is 'The Gate.' Those who regarded 'Ali Muḥammad of Shiraz as the 'Point' of prophecy and the returned Imâm (the Ḳa'im) would naturally ascribe to his representative the vacant dignity of 'The Gate.' Indeed, it is one indication of this that the Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel designates Mullā Ḥuseyn not as the Gate's Gate, ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... to the end of the Eighteenth century, ascribe the first knowledge of chess in England, to the time of the reign of William the Conqueror, or to that of the return of the first Crusaders, some adding not earlier than 1100 A.D., H. T. Buckle the author and historian who was foremost ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... consider this well, we shall find it possible to understand why occult science should ascribe more far-reaching effects to another inner experience of the soul, very closely allied to this feeling of shame. Occult science finds that within the hidden depths of the soul a kind of secret feeling of shame exists, of which man in ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... estate, possessed the office of a lord of the bed-chamber to his Majesty. Historians do not ascribe much importance to the situation, or to the talents of nobles in this department, nor shall this little history. A lord of the bed-chamber is a personage well known in courts, and in all capitals where courts ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... spoken, but was restrained by his colleague Ruthven, who said to him, "Peace, my lord. Let the Lady Mary of Scotland ascribe her signature to what she will, it is our business to procure it, and carry it to the Council. Should there be debate hereafter on the manner in which it was adhibited, there will be time ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... word, isn't it?—and it has realised all you anticipate for it, we may set matters right with these persons. But not now—not now. If no other explanation is offered, people, in the present unsatisfactory state of meteorological science, will ascribe all this to a cyclone; there might be a public subscription, and as my house has collapsed and been burnt, I should in that case receive a considerable share in the compensation, which would be extremely helpful to the prosecution of our researches. But if it is known that ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... that we, also when the measure is not attached to the earth, disregarding its displacement, may describe the motion of the body in respect to the measure always in the same way—i.e., as one uniformly accelerated, as we ascribe now and again a fixed value to the acceleration of the sphere of gravitation, in a particular case the value ...
— The Einstein Theory of Relativity • H.A. Lorentz
... prone are we all to ascribe to chance or fortune those gifts and blessings which indeed come directly from God—to build altars to Fortune rather than to Him who is the author of every good thing which we have gotten. And this faith of men, that their blessings, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... somewhat at hazard) it is possible to ascribe Aesop, about whom nothing is known except that he wrote the fables which have been imitated from generation to generation. The collection that we possess under his name is one of these imitations, perpetrated ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... bravely and recited the first stanza without mishap. When you started to think of the second one, however, it would not come. The memory balked. Now what was the matter? How can we explain this distressing blank? In psychological terms, we ascribe the difficulty to the failure to make proper associations between stanzas. Association was made effectively between the lines of the single stanzas, but not between the separate stanzas. After you ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... to ascribe any intense desire on the part of the Duc de Bouillon to aid the Protestant cause against Spain at that moment, acting as he was in combination with Conde, whom we have just seen employed by Spain as the chief instrument to effect the destruction of France and the bastardy of the Queen's ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Gloucester, Arundel, and twelve other Peers and prelates, a permanent council to inquire into the condition of all the public departments, the courts of law, and the royal household, with absolute powers of redress and dismissal. We need not ascribe to Chaucer's Parliamentary exertions in his patron's behalf, nor to any malpractices in his official conduct, the fact that he was among the earliest victims of the commission. In December 1386, he was dismissed from both his offices in the port of London; but he retained ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... opinions, and experiences, from which it seemed that the objects and interests of cultivated people in Berlin were quite the same as those of cultivated people in New York. Each of the parties to the discovery disclaimed any superiority for their respective civilizations; they wished rather to ascribe a greater charm and virtue to the alien conditions; and they acquired such merit with one another that when the German ladies got out of the train at Franzensbad, the mother offered Mrs. March an ingenious folding footstool which she had admired. In fact, she left ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... upon the Defamatory Libels that have been publish'd against me. Whatever Calumnies they have been willing to asperse me with, whatever false Reports they have spread of my Person, I can easily forgive those little Revenges; and ascribe 'em to the Spleen of a provok'd Author, who finds himself attack'd in the most sensible part of a Poet, I mean, in ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... Ptah,* Beautiful child of love.* The gods ascribe praises to him.* Maker of things celestial [and] of things terrestrial, he illumineth Egypt,* Traverser of the celestial heights in peace.* King of the South, King of the North, Ra, whose word is truth, Chief of Egypt.* Mighty in power, ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... JANSZOON, born at Haarlem, to whom his countrymen, as against the claims of Gutenberg, ascribe the invention ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Mr. Edwards, in his book 'On Libraries,' "that these lines have a certain appositeness to an important manoeuvre at Austerlitz, gives an independent interest to the story; but it is highly imaginative to ascribe the victory to that manoeuvre. And for the other preliminaries of the tale, it is unfortunate that Napoleon had learned a good deal about war long before he ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... anything to reproach him with.... His age, his appearance, and all that was known of his character conciliated public favor. He was in the bloom of youth; his person and address were pleasing; scandal imputed to him no vice; and flattery might without glaring absurdity ascribe to him many ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... a gap in the horseshoe where the calk should have been. The German trenches, for the most part, lay inside the encircling lines of batteries. In shape they rather suggested a U turned upside down; yet it was hard to ascribe to them any real shape, since they zigzagged so crazily. I could tell, though, there was sanity in this seeming madness, for nearly every trench was joined at an acute angle with its neighbor; so that a man, or a body of men, starting at the rear, out of danger, ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... to search for traces of its inhabitants. We would look for them in the deposits on the sea bottoms; we would examine the shores wherever the configuration seemed favorable for harbors and the sites of maritime cities — forgetting that it may be a little ridiculous to ascribe to the ancient lunarians the same ideas that have governed the development of our race; we would search through the valleys and along the seeming courses of vanished streams; we would explore the mountains, ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... presentation of Clifford's case as one that is less obviously inadequate:—if any resemblance to the material and dynamical conditions of the microcosm can be detected in the macrocosm, we should have good reason to ascribe to the latter those attributes of subjectivity which we know as belonging to the former; but if no such resemblance can be traced, we shall have some reason to suppose that these attributes do not belong to the universe. Even this, however, I should regard as much too ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... Algue and other Jesuit fathers of Manila in their compendious work, Archipielago filipino (Washington, 1900). Statistics showing the growth of the Christianized native population from 1735 to 1898 are compiled from various sources—a remarkable increase, which the editors ascribe mainly to missionary labors. Then the various sees are enumerated, with their bishops, cathedrals, courts, seminaries, and priests; and the various houses, colleges, and other institutions possessed by the respective religious ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... middle-aged Europe. The riddle or conundrum began, as far as we know, with the Sphinx, through whose mouth the Greeks spoke: nothing less likely than that the grave and mysterious Scribes of Egypt should ascribe aught so puerile to the awful emblem of royal majesty—Abu Haul, the Father of Affright. Josephus relates how Solomon propounded enigmas to Hiram of Tyre which none but Abdimus, son of the captive Abdaemon, could answer. The Tale of Tawaddud ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the world. The time, in which this kind of credulity was at its height, seems to have been that of the holy war, in which the Christians imputed all their defeats to enchantment or diabolical opposition, as they ascribe their success to the assistance of their military saints; and the learned Dr. Warburton appears to believe (Supplement to the Introduction to Don Quixote) that the first accounts of enchantments were brought into this part of the world by those who returned from their eastern ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... of different clay from common mortals," she said slowly, as she scattered the leaves before her. "That's the only reason one can ascribe for their vagaries." ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... admitted, I still adhere to my opinion, that the complete ruin of the Wantipur temples could only have been effected by gunpowder; and I would, then, ascribe their overthrow to the ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... occupations, and seating myself at a window, consumed the day in alternately looking out upon the storm, and gazing at the picture which lay upon a table before me. You will, perhaps, deem this conduct somewhat singular, and ascribe it to certain peculiarities of temper. I am not aware of any such peculiarities. I can account for my devotion to this image no otherwise, than by supposing that its properties were rare and prodigious. Perhaps you will suspect that such were ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... Red Indian race. As the discovery in question had not been made when I saw the excavation in progress at the gas-works in 1846, I cannot form an opinion as to the value of the chronological calculations which have led Dr. Dowler to ascribe to this skeleton an antiquity of 50,000 years. In several sections, both natural in the banks of the Mississippi and its numerous arms, and where artificial canals had been cut, I observed erect ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... poets of that time seem to have possessed as joint-stock a highly poetical and abstract tone of language, so that the worst of them often remind you of the very best."[151] This circumstance he accounts for by a reference to the audiences, and this in turn he seems to ascribe partly to the great number of theaters then open in London. He dwells so much on the evils of limiting the number of play-houses to two or three, that we may fairly consider it one of his hobbies, and it is possible that he had some slight influence toward increasing that public opposition ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... came to the scaffold he was very faint, and began his speech to the crowd by saying that during the last two days he had been visited by two ague fits. "If, therefore, you perceive any weakness in me, I beseech you ascribe it to my sickness rather than to myself." He took the ax and kissed the blade, and said to the sheriff: "'T is a sharp medicine, but a ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... national life are instinctive and unconscious. One cannot differentiate natural influences so as to ascribe to each its value. The ideals of nations, like those of individuals, are derived from all the concrete qualities of character." [Footnote: F. H. Giddings in "Democracy and Empire."] The ideals which ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... and surprise, with which the Indians were so familiar, the colonists were without practice. It is to the want of this experience, purchased at a very dear rate in the course of the war, that we must ascribe the numerous surprises and defeats from which the colonists ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... how your eyes are flashing! I shall begin to be quite frightened of you. I didn't ascribe any motives to you, but I only warned you to beware of Captain Gates. He told Kenneth you were a bewitching little thing two days after he had first seen you, and I think the fact of your being so different to the usual run of girls he sees ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... inserted many particulars relating to their own local interests and concerns; which, so far from invalidating the general history, render it more interesting and valuable. It would be a vain and frivolous attempt ascribe these latter compilations to particular persons (31), where there were evidently so many contributors; but that they were successively furnished by contemporary writers, many of whom were eye-witnesses ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... fleeing from the Gauls, but upon defeating them if possible. And so, seeing that the people of Ardea were sufficient in numbers, but wanting in confidence because of the want of experience and remissness of their leaders, he first began to tell the younger men that they ought not to ascribe the misfortunes of the Romans to the bravery of the Gauls, for the misconduct of the former had given them a triumph which they did not deserve. It would, he urged, be a glorious thing, even at the risk of some danger, to drive away a tribe of savage barbarians, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... and functions of the adductor mechanism of the lower jaw, the problem of accounting for the appearance of temporal openings in the skull is often encountered. Two patterns of explanation have evolved. The first has been the attempt to ascribe to the constant action of the same selective force the openings from their inception in primitive members of a phyletic line to their fullest expression in terminal members. According to this theory, for example, ...
— The Adductor Muscles of the Jaw In Some Primitive Reptiles • Richard C. Fox
... intelligent Americans or read the contemporary literature of the first French Revolution to understand. I find, for example, so typical a young American as the late Frank Norris roundly asserting that it is the People to whom we are to ascribe the triumphant emergence of the name of Shakespeare from the ruck of his contemporaries and the passage in which this assertion is made is fairly representative of the general expression of this sort of mysticism. "One must keep one's faith in the People—the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... suitable manner, as thy property." So must I act, and I must think conformably to such action. Accordingly, I am necessitated to regard these things as standing under their own natural laws, independent of me, but which I am capable of knowing; that is, to ascribe to them an existence independent of myself. I am constrained to believe in such laws, and it becomes my business to ascertain them; and empty speculation vanishes like mist when ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... assumed as a legacy from Christian apologetics; and it has involved, at any rate so far as European philosophy is concerned, the definition of ultimate being in such spiritual terms as make possible the relation with man postulated in Christianity. For this it has been regarded as sufficient to ascribe to the world an underlying unity capable of bearing the predicates of perfection, omnipotence, and omniscience. Each proof of God has defined him pre-eminently in terms of some one of these ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... marks of design in physical phenomena. What used to be considered as marks of design can be better explained by considering them as the results of evolution according to necessary laws; and you and Scripture make a mere assumption when you ascribe them to the operation of a mind like ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... the Lady Isabelle. No sooner did this ungracious thought intrude itself, than he hastened to stifle it, as he would have stifled a hissing and hateful adder that had intruded itself into his couch. Was it for him—him the Favoured—on whose account she had stooped from her sphere, to ascribe blame to her for the very act of condescension, Without which he dared not have raised his eyes towards her? Did not her very dignity of birth and of condition reverse, in her case, the usual rules which impose ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... ascribe the rise of the new epic to the nature of the Boeotian people and, as already remarked, to a spirit of revolt against the old epic. The Boeotians, people of the class of which Hesiod represents himself to be the type, ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Commander of all the world, in whose hand is power and might which none is able to withstand: We bless and magnify thy great and glorious Name for this happy victory, the whole glory whereof we do ascribe to thee, who art the only giver of victory. And, we beseech thee, give us grace to improve this great mercy to thy glory, the advancement of thy Gospel, the honour of our Sovereign, and, as much as in us lieth, to ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England |
