"Attribute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Henry seems to know a great deal about what transpires inside the Whitney house," observed Miller thoughtfully. "Tell me, Mitchell, what motive do you attribute to Miss Whitney for the killing ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... in the small room, which seemed then to grow even smaller and unfit to hold his dignity, the attribute of a supreme warrior. That swing of the shoulders that had frozen the timid when he was but a lad had increased with his growth and education at the ratio of ten to one. It, combined with the sneer upon his mouth, told mankind that there was nothing in space which could appall him. ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... have at all times invented to solace themselves for their disinherison. The sudden and fated rise of one of the folk to the heights of power occurs sufficiently often to afford material for the day dreams of ambitious youth. There is even a popular tendency to attribute a lowly origin to all favourites of fortune, as witness the legends that have grown up about the early careers of Beckett, Whittington, Wolsey, none of whom was as ill-born as popular tradition asserts. Yet such legends invariably grow up in the country of their heroes, which is the only one ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... real Gory, was Giddy, with his thick waving black hair (which he tried for vain years to train into docility), his lean swart face, and his slightly hooked Gory nose. In appearance Winnebago pronounced him foreign looking—an attribute which he later turned into a doubtful asset in Nice. On the rare occasions when Giddy graced Winnebago with his presence you were likely to find him pursuing the pleasures that occupied other Winnebago boys of his age, if not station. In some miraculous way he had escaped being a snob. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... animal with means for offence and defence. To man she has given daring, and that strange indifference in cool blood to danger, when danger has become familiar, which seems the attribute of ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. The key of knowledge of the depravity of the heart is furnished the liquor dealer in the above interview, by the concession, "I would like to live a different life." The saloon keepers generally attribute their remaining in the business to the necessity of it in order to obtain a livelihood. But there are other occupations in which they could be diligently employed in order to maintain their families. Imagine a frail, aged, ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... world beside. Thrice his life was attempted; but he was not then quite tired of living, and he defended it. This defence was construed by an overseer into a brawl, and the irons from which he had been relieved were replaced. His strength—brute attribute that alone could avail him—made him respected after this, and he was left at peace. At first this treatment was congenial to his temperament; but by and by it became annoying, then painful, then ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... mere spectacle of a battle-field with the appalling mass of hideous suffering deliberately and ingeniously inflicted by man upon man should be sufficient to scatter all idyllic pictures of human nature. It was once the custom of a large school of writers to attribute unjust wars solely to the rulers of the world, who for their own selfish ambitions remorselessly sacrificed the lives of tens of thousands of their subjects. Their guilt has been very great, but they would never have pursued the course ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... two chances of marrying the wrong woman. He marries her because she is beautiful, and because he persuades himself that every other lovable attribute must be associated with such beauty, or because she is in love with him. If this latter is the case, she gives certain values to what he thinks and to what he says which no other woman gives, and so he observes to himself, "This is the ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... riots, may be attributed the turn of Napoleon's fortunes. How far he was responsible for each of Murat's successive acts cannot be known. With exaggerated conceptions of the Emperor's ubiquity, some attribute every detail in every step to the direct intervention of the master. This is unproved and highly improbable; but the spirit was his, and the use he made of each occasion as it arose is matter of history. The fires of rebellion ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... we account for Lady Chesterfield's conduct, unless we attribute it to the disease incident to most coquettes, who, charmed with superiority, put in practice every art to rob another of her conquest, and spare nothing to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... worship of God is taught us by the light of Nature, I will begin with his Attributes. Where, First, it is manifest, we ought to attribute to him Existence: For no man can have the will to honour that, which he thinks ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... Trevi to be sure that he will see the eternal city again. We need not bind ourselves to Paris by such little superstitious practices. Its mysterious spell obtains the pledge without any intervention, and lures and draws the absent one so that he cannot rest until he returns. But why attribute this spell to Paris alone? Every place where we have been young, dreamed, loved, and suffered, possesses it. We feel the affection for it which the ploughman has for the field to which he entrusted his seed. We have the desire to see whether we shall still find ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... (adds his Lordship) spending part of a summer[156] at my parsonage-house in the country, he chose for his regular reading the old Spanish romance of Felixmarte of Hircania, in folio, which he read quite through[157]. Yet I have heard him attribute to these extravagant fictions that unsettled turn of mind which prevented his ever ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... attribute the circumstance that there has always been a small section of the population to which the ordinary methods of constitutional agitation have appeared feeble and unavailing, but to understand to the full the reason for it one must realise that if there have been three ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... attribute in the vegetable kingdom, where fixed habitation or position makes such a condition necessary; it is also common to many of our lower forms of animal life, and even in the human foetus the presence of the Wolfian bodies and the canal of Mueller in the same individual attest a primitive case ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... the telephone became a factor in the everyday world. Yet each step of the climb to success had its sunlight as well as its shadow, its humor as well as its pathos; and it was fortunate both men appreciated this fact for it floated them over many a rough sea. Man can spare almost any other attribute better than his sense of humor. Without this touchstone he is ill equipped to battle with life," concluded Mr. ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... developed one attribute of royalty—a feeling that I need not reveal all my mind or my secret designs even to my intimate friends. I had fully resolved on my course of action. I meant to make myself as popular as I could, and at the same time to show no disfavour to Michael. By these means I hoped to allay ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... inhabitants of Cos learnt the manufacture from them. The most propable supposition is, that silk was spun and wove in Assyria and Cos, but the raw material imported into these countries from the Seres; for the silk worm was deemed by the Greeks and Romans so exclusively and pre-eminently the attribute of the Sinae, that from this very circumstance, they were denominated seres, or silk worms, by ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... the brook. Honourable President and Brethren, it is known unto you that the division of our order was not brought about by any other reason than a dispute on both sides for the maintenance of the order. We know that, Hazael answered, and attribute no sinfulness to the brethren that differed from us. Our dream, Shallum continued, was to perpetuate holiness in this world, and our dream abides, for man is a reality only in his dreams; his acts are but a grotesque ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... reign, 683, came the first of the wars of liberation of the northern Turks, known until then as the western Turks, against the Chinese. And with the end of Kao Tsung's reign began the decline of the T'ang regime. Most of the historians attribute it to a woman, the later empress Wu. She had been a concubine of T'ai Tsung, and after his death had become a Buddhist nun—a frequent custom of the time—until Kao Tsung fell in love with her and made ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... inmost nature was pure, refined, and benignant. If his letters denying favors soothed rather than offended the applicant, and of those granting favors flattered rather than humiliated the petitioner, it was because of that angelic attribute of Ishmael's soul that made it so painful to him to give pain, so delightful to impart delight. There was no thought of diplomatic dealing in all Ishmael's ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... hostility to President Tyler, ratified it by a three-fourths vote. In England more serious opposition was encountered. In Parliament the treaty was termed "Ashburton's Capitulation," and Lord Palmerston went so far as to attribute its concessions to Ashburton's partiality toward his American wife. The ratification of the treaty was followed by an international controversy known as "The Battle of the Maps." An early map found by Jared Sparks, the American historian, in the Library of Paris, had been used ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... band of jail-breakers. The light from the binnacle illuminated a countenance of rugged yet symmetrical features, stamped with prison pallor, but also stamped with a stronger imprint of refinement. A man palpably out of place, no doubt. A square peg in a round hole; a man with every natural attribute of a master of men. Some act of rage or passion, perhaps, some non-adjustment to an unjust environment, had sent him to the naval prison, to escape and become a pirate; for that was the legal ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... not been proved. But this is at once explained, if we assume them as the simplest form of unity, namely, the unity of powers and properties. For these, it is evident, may be endlessly modified, but can never be decomposed. If I were asked by a philosopher who had previously extended the attribute of Life to the Byssus speciosa, and even to the crustaceous matter, or outward bones of a lobster, &c., whether the ingot of gold expressed life, I should answer without hesitation, as the ingot of gold assuredly not, for its form is accidental ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... truth of these statements, for their evident improvement and individual circumstances fully bear them out; and I believe them to be really serious in all they say, and truly anxious to become honest and respectable. I attribute, in a great measure, this salutary change to the effects arising in many respects from the establishment of reformatory schools; but I have more particularly found that greater advantages have emanated from those institutions ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... virtue of that inestimable attribute alone was she able to do with only four hours' sleep (when Adele Standish, for example, needed eight, and then was seedy) and be the first of the household to appear for breakfast—clear of eye and fresh of colour, with a countenance as serene ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... cannot read it, to this day, without that tingling and numbness down one's spine and through the top of one's head, which exceptional tragedy must produce in any sensitive organization; nor can I ever trust myself to hear it read by professional elocutionists. I attribute the success of the story entirely to the historic and unusual character of the catastrophe on whose ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... door and the continued ringing of the bell, was not enough for him: no, yielding to an irresistible desire of experiencing the same horror, he has positively revisited the empty place and once more pulled the bell. Let us, if you like, attribute the whole of this to disease—to a semidelirious condition—by all means; but there is another point to be considered: he has committed a murder, and yet continues to look upon himself as a ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... simply spies and tyrants, resistance to whom was innate virtue. He was forever ignoring or violating some written or unwritten law of the Academy; was frequently being caught in the act, and was invariably ready to attribute the resultant report to ill luck which pursued no one else, or to a deliberate persecution which followed him forever. Every six months he had been on the verge of dismissal, and now, a fortnight from the final examination, with a margin of only ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... daily the work of creation, and that hence the world of everyday was as inspired as the Torah, the one throwing light on the other. The written Law must be interpreted in every age in accordance with the ruling attribute of God—for God governs in every age by a different attribute, sometimes by His Love, sometimes by His Power, sometimes by His Beauty. "It is not the number of ordinances that we obey that brings us into union with God," said the Master; ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... later Black Bruin was climbing the mountainside on the way to his fastness when the wind brought him a new scent that he had sometimes smelled before, but what to attribute it to he had never known. The scent was very strong and Black Bruin knew that the intruder of his domain was near at hand. At last he made out a dim gray shape, near the trunk of a tree. Its color so blended with its surroundings that he might not have noticed it at all, had it not been ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... a young fellow to suppose that this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and manly disposition: he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute his good fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed such a love and affection as is only felt by children—such an affection, as we read in the charming fairy-book, uncouth Orson had for splendid young ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the Connecticut, flows through the village, so small that it is barely sufficient to furnish the necessary mill-seats for the accommodation of a community of farmers, but affording no encouragement to manufacturers. It is to this reason, perhaps, that we may attribute the fact that a place, which was amongst the earliest settlements of Massachusetts, should remain to this day so thinly inhabited. The rage for manufactures, so prevalent in New England, has led speculators to place factories on every stream of sufficient power to keep them in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... amendments to the constitution, and had received, in common with many others, an impression that the powers of the federal government, unless more distinctly defined, would be so exercised as to divest the states of every attribute of sovereignty, and that on their ruins ultimately there would be erected a splendid national instead of a ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... get that thing that thy heart desireth: and as thy heart is of no force, and impotent, without the aid of thy members, so without thy people thy reign is nothing. My son, thou shalt fear and dread God above all things; and thou shalt love, honour, and worship him with all thy heart: thou shalt attribute and ascribe to him all things wherein thou seest thyself to be well fortunate, be it victory of thine enemies, love of thy friends, obedience of thy subjects, strength and activeness of body, honour, riches, or fruitful generations, or any other thing, whatever it be, that chanceth to thy ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... those bodies which relieve their pain, from those which gratify their palate; and, if they are left to themselves, they will always choose what is painted in preference to every thing else; nor must we attribute the look of delight with which they seize toys that are painted red, merely to the pleasure which their eye takes in the bright colour, but to the love of the sweet taste which they suck from the paint. What injury may be done to the health by the quantity of lead which is thus swallowed, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... and wholeness we cannot attribute to Goethe. He is still a little straitened, a little pestered by the doubting and critical optics which our time turns upon man, a little victimized by his knowledge of limitary conditions and secondary laws. Nevertheless, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... Hugh," he added, "that your presence in the capital should not be advertised as connected with this—legislation. They will probably attribute it to us in the end, but if you're reasonably careful, they'll never be able to prove it. And there's no use in putting our cards on the table ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... portion of the brain to which they belong, the development and activity of which determine their power. The will and life are not identical, as Dr. H. suggests, for if they were, we should not have these two words with different meanings. If will is an attribute of life, that does not constitute identity. The speculations of Rosicrucians are of no authority in science. The divine love or influence is in direct relation to the brain, the central organ of the soul, and not to a muscular ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... helpful to study for a few minutes the principle of tenderness as an attribute in the nature of God. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." It is the father who sees his little child in deep pain that knows what pity is. It is that feeling which makes the father desirous of bearing all the pain. It was the pity or ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... 'the exquisite taste of a peach,' 'the exquisite beauty of a woman.' Similarly, in Egyptian, 'a town neterit is 'a divine town;' 'an arm netsri' is 'a divine arm,' and neteri is employed metaphorically in Egyptian as is [the word] 'divine' in French, without its being any more necessary to attribute to [the word] neteri the primitive meaning of 'strong,' than it is to attribute to [the word] 'divine' the primitive meaning of 'exquisite.'" [Footnote: La Mythologie Egyptienne, p. 215.] It may be, of course, that neter ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... this sort; for no knowledge is connate to him; he has only the faculty and inclination of receiving those things which relate to knowledge and love; and if he does not receive these from others, he remains viler than a beast. That man is born in this condition, to the end that he may attribute nothing to himself, but to others, and at length every thing of wisdom and of the love thereof to God alone, and may hence become an image of God, see the MEMORABLE RELATION, n. 132-136. From these considerations it ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... cannot praise too highly. I have never beheld any work done so quietly, so well, and I doubt if the history of war can show a bridge of * * 1350 feet, laid down so noiselessly and well in so short a time. I attribute it to the genius and intelligence of General William ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... destroyed; of the nations whose birth it had witnessed, whose progress it had watched, whose annihilation it had noted; of the joy and sorrow, the life and death, the grandeur and decay, of five thousand slow revolving years. It was the type of an attribute of man—of a faculty of his heart and brain. It was MEMORY—RETROSPECTION—wrought into visible, tangible form. All who know what pathos there is in memories of days that are accomplished and faces that have vanished—albeit only a trifling score of years ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... matters: judgment is but the extent of the light of the mind. This light penetrates to the bottom of matters; it remarks all that can be remarked, and perceives what appears imperceptible. Therefore we must agree that it is the extent of the light in the mind that produces all the effects which we attribute to judgment. ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... developed its inherent qualities, under her cunning and guarded instigation. Once set in action, his suspicion of Carmina passed beyond all limits. There could be no reason but a bad reason for that barefaced attempt to entrap him into a reconciliation. Every evil motive which it was possible to attribute to a girl of her age, no matter how monstrously improbable it might be, occurred to him when he recalled her words, her look, and her manner at their meeting on the stairs. His paltry little mind, at other times preoccupied in ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... complain when they don't get enough. We're shaping up into a fine body of men, our company commander told us this morning, and added, that if we continue to pick up cigarette butts several more weeks we'll be able to stack arms without dropping our guns. Eli, the goat, seems unwell to-day. I attribute his unfortunate condition to his constant and unrelenting efforts to keep the canteen clear of paper. It is my belief that goats are not healthy because of the fact that they eat paper, but in spite of ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... influence has issued in one long misconception of the metaphysical status of natural entities. The entity has been separated from the factor which is the terminus of sense-awareness. It has become the substratum for that factor, and the factor has been degraded into an attribute of the entity. In this way a distinction has been imported into nature which is in truth no distinction at all. A natural entity is merely a factor of fact, considered in itself. Its disconnexion from the complex of fact is a mere abstraction. It is not the substratum of the factor, but ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... thanks to all the citizens here assembled, and to yourself, sir, in particular,[*] I beg to add some remarks. That I have not here been honoured with the same demonstrations of local cordiality as in other places, I do not, with you, attribute to diplomatic influences. I know well the skill of Russian diplomacy, which indeed at Moldovarica instructs all its representatives to marry Moldovarican ladies. But I also know that the framers of your Constitution wisely discouraged the development ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... doubt that the value of paper in this country has already risen, norwithstanding the increased issues of the Bank. These increased issues I attribute chiefly to the great failures which have taken place among country banks, and the very great purchases which have been made for the continental markets, and, under these circumstances, increased issues might take place, accompanied even by a rise of value. But the currency has not yet recovered ...
— The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn: intended as an appendix to "Observations on the corn laws" • Thomas Malthus
... are the incidents of the two forms of the story different in many respects, but the styles are so absolutely different that it would seem impossible to attribute them to the same author. The first is a mere compilation by an antiquarian; it is difficult to imagine that it was ever recited in a royal court, although the author may have had access to a better version than his own. He inserts ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... favorable idea of their nature than they are able to maintain in after years. Real life, like the weather, is made up of gray and cloudy days alternating with those when the sun shines and the fields are gay. Young people, however, exhibit fine weather and no clouds. Later they attribute to marriage the evils inherent in life itself; for there is in man a disposition to lay the blame of his own misery on the persons and things ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... her?" Pere Ruys would ask; and Jenkins, with the authority of a physician, would attribute it to her age and a physical trouble. He himself avoided speaking to the girl, relying upon time to efface the sinister impression, and not despairing of obtaining what he desired, for he desired more ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... world for thinking so," said Wharton with emphasis, "and for thinking so about the particular kind of brain-power I happen to possess, which is the point. The processes by which a Birmingham jeweller makes the wonderful things which we attribute to 'French taste' when we see them in the shops of the Rue de la Paix are, of course, mere imbecility—compared to my performances in Responsions. Lucky for me, at any rate, that the world has decided ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... successive epochs, which most often decide the conduct of the greatest powers and the most able politicians. It is after the fair, when the course of facts and their consequences has received full development, that, amidst their tranquil meditations, annalists and historians, in their learned way, attribute everything to systematic plans and personal calculations on the part of the chief actors. There is much less of combination than of momentary inspiration, derived from circumstances, in the resolutions and conduct of political chiefs, kings, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... inherent attribute of all savages to be far in advance of the whites in the alertness and acuteness of two or three of the senses, the baby Pawnee was wonderfully so. He could hear the footsteps of a bear or the scratching of a panther, or even the tramp of a horse's hoof on the soft ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... He was not alarmed; he was only curious. It was no furtive light. Though the curtains were closed, it displayed itself boldly in the eyes of the neighbors and of the two or three ornamental constables who made their infrequent rounds in County Street. He could only attribute it to old Maggs, who lived in the coachman's cottage at the far end of the property, though as to what old Maggs could be doing in the house at this hour in the evening, at a time when the parents were abroad and Claude away on a holiday, he was obliged to be frankly ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... exercise of his duties. Posterity may perhaps like these qualities in an editor of memoirs and diaries; for such were Mr Neeld's favorite subjects. Sometimes he fell into a sore struggle between curiosity and discretion, having impulses in himself which he forbore to attribute to posterity. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... serpent: ask the Cherubim Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages Have rolled o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's, The seed of the then world may thus array Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all That bows to him, who made things but to bend Before his sullen, sole eternity; But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy 240 Fond parents listened to a creeping ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... you how large a place was occupied by the Guilds in English life. They were not Trade Unions in the modern sense, for they included both masters and men in one organisation. Nor must we attribute a modern meaning to those two phrases, masters and men, when we speak of the ancient Guild. For in a large measure every man was his own employer. He was a member of the league; he kept the rules; but he was his own master. The master ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... atheism. The gay, witty, pleasure-loving abbe, who derided piety, defied morality, was the pet of the salon, and figured in the worst scandals, was a fair representative of the fashionable clergy who had no attribute of priesthood but the name, and clearly justified the sneers of the philosophers. Tradition had given place to private judgment and in its first reaction private judgment knew no law but its own caprices. The watchword of intellectual freedom ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... and it is not likely that the world will ever see its like again. For observe, it was an assemblage of two hundred thousand young men—not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings, but stalwart, muscular, dauntless young braves, brimful of push and energy, and royally endowed with every attribute that goes to make up a peerless and magnificent manhood—the very pick and choice of the world's glorious ones. No women, no children, no gray and stooping veterans,—none but erect, bright-eyed, quick-moving, strong-handed young giants—the strangest population, the finest population, the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... visits to the Rio Seco, and I always contemplated with wonder the curious deviation of the river's course. But I must candidly confess that during my abode in Peru, I did not venture to attribute that deviation to so partial an uplifting; for I was ignorant of the existence of any similar phenomenon which would have supported such an opinion. Now, however, the example referred to by the eminent English geologist, and which has its existence on the same coast of Peru, sets all ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... rose from her seat, she looked up at him with the coquetry which was so inalienable an attribute of her soul that, had the Deity assumed masculine shape before her, she would instinctively have used this weapon to soften the severity of His judgment. "It was so kind of you not to send me away, Mr. Treadwell," she said ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... all standing in my corps. I sought to escape, but was prevented by accident; now I simply yield to the inevitable. I feel confident you will not misconstrue these words; you surely know me sufficiently well so as not to attribute them to cowardice. I shall face him exactly in accordance with your arrangements, asking nothing upon my part, yielding him every satisfaction he can possibly desire—but I shall ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... badly raised, sticky, and incapable of swelling in water. On the other hand, although some distinguished chemists deny or exalt the nutritive properties of bran, agriculturists, taking practical observation as proof, attribute to that portion of the grain a physiological action which has nothing in common with plastic alimentation, and prove that animals weakened by a too long usage of dry fodder, are restored to health by the use of bran, which only seems to act by ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... give the Scotch full credit for superior domestic economy, a practice which we had frequently an opportunity of observing, some five or six years since in Edinburgh, astonished us, we confess, not a little; and which, had we heard of, not beheld, we should rather have been inclined to attribute to our thoughtless ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... common than with us. Nevertheless, the arrangement of a separate nursery has its disadvantages. Nurses are sometimes not sufficiently educated to have much appreciation of the mental processes of the child. If the children are restless and nervous they are content to attribute this to naughtiness or to constipation, or to some other physical ailment. Their time is usually so fully occupied that they cannot be expected to be very zealous in reading books on the management of children. Nevertheless, in practical matters of detail ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... suffers somewhat, even in this respect, from the fact that the figures are not more than small life-size. With passages of Titianesque splendour there are to be noted others, approaching to the acrid and inharmonious, which one would rather attribute to the master's assistants than to himself. So it is, too, with certain exaggerations of design characteristic rather of the period than the man—notably with the two figures to the left of the foreground. The Christ in His meekness is too ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... from heaven Upon the place beneath; it is twice bless'd; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown. His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself, And earthly power doth ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... Just how this very prosperous business man of London, who was never in reality a poor boy, came to be adopted as the hero of the English version of this romantic tale has never been made clear. Probably it was due to the common tendency of the folk in all lands to attribute unusual success in any field to other than ordinary causes. However that may be, it is certainly true that no story more completely satisfies the ideal of complete success for children than this "History ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the vegetative one, and wants both the sensitive and rational, all three of which exist in man. And he, looking at these pines, and smelling to them, and tasting them, and feeling them, will justly, considering these four parts or particularities, attribute to it the principality ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... my dear Emmeline. Mine is so quiet that it does not deserve the name of enthusiasm," replied Ellen, laughing. "Nor could I have imagined you would have honoured me so far as to give me an attribute ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... depth and violence. So Mary had remained shut up with Rizzio, and Darnley, who had gone to the secret door several times, could hear the sound of instruments and the voice of the favourite, who was singing those sweet melodies which have come down to our time, and which Edinburgh people still attribute to him. These songs were for Mary a reminder of her stay in France, where the artists in the train of the Medicis had already brought echoes from Italy; but for Darnley they were an insult, and each time he had withdrawn ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... revel east and west Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations: They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase Soil our addition; and, indeed, it takes From our achievements, though perform'd at height, The pith and marrow of our attribute. So oft it chances in particular men That, for some vicious mole of nature in them, As in their birth,—wherein they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose his origin,— By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... point. It is never wholly recoverable. To recover it at all, an historian must have a certain detachment and ingenuousness; knowing the dignity and simplicity of his own mind, he must courteously attribute the same dignity and simplicity to others, unless their avowed attitude prevents; this is to be an intelligent critic and to write history like a gentleman. The truth, which all philosophers alike are seeking, is ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... foolish assertion of some Presbyterians, that the Catholic laity take no interest in the education question, and that, were it not for the priests, the laity would be perfectly satisfied to accept godless instruction for their children? Those who attribute this baneful indifference to the laity, misrepresent and calumniate them, and show their ignorance of their real feelings, and of the efforts which Catholics in Ireland, in Belgium, in Germany, and in other countries, have made to have and to preserve a good Christian ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... this question, but replied, "Because I saw the minstrel was a gentleman. He possessed a noble figure, and a handsome face in spite of his Egyptian skin. Like most young gentlemen, he might be conscious of these advantages, and attribute the artless approbation, the innocent smiles of my gracious queen, to a source more flattering to his vanity. I have known many lords, not far from your majesty, make similar mistakes on as little grounds," added she, looking disdainfully toward some of the younger ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... with a sort of triumph. Like the fakir, he possessed the art of spiritual detachment, which is an attribute of genius. From an intellectual eminence he was surveying his own peril. Colin Camber in the flesh had ceased to exist; he was merely a pawn in ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... establishes new theories—from the theories of atoms and ether, of light and heat, down to geological questions as to whether universal revolutions of the world or a continual development took place. The solution of all these questions, in their full extent, we do not attribute to philosophy, but to natural science; although to a natural science which permits philosophy to define the ideas with which it operates and the general principles to which it comes. For this renunciation—which philosophy, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... fair treatment of Germans in England, will beget fair treatment of the English in Germany. The Prussians, who have many Oriental characteristics—and some of them, a good deal of Oriental appearance—think orientally and attribute fair, or what we call sportsmanlike, treatment to fright and a desire ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... he bore with gently, but those of rulers he looked upon as grave; since the mischief wrought in the one case was so small, and so large in the other. The proper attribute of royalty was, he maintained, not an avoidance of responsibility, but a constant striving ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... him, and, believing herself unseen, looked up in is face as they met; and the passionate tenderness of the look, the sudden lighting of lip and eye, racked the poor, unwilling spy for days. To suit this abrupt descent from the pedestal, he was obliged to carve a new attribute to his idol, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... him to the full benefit of the conclusion he draws in his own favour, from the opponent criticisms he has met with. There are individual passages in his work which it would be difficult to reconcile with each other, and which invite very different criticisms. On some occasions he appears to attribute a certain value to these tentatives at social reform, and intimates that they may probably be the precursors, or may contain the germ, of some substantial improvement; whilst at other times, he scourges them without pity or compunction, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... Much heated argument has raged round the real or supposed sentiment that inspires such demonstrations on the part of linnets, sparrows, chaffinches, and other determined hunters of the cuckoo. It seems impossible, when we observe the larger bird's unmistakable desire to win free of them, to attribute friendly feelings to its pursuers. Yet some writers have held the curious belief that, with lingering memories of the days when, a year ago, they devoted themselves to the ugly foster-child, the little birds ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... not one of the King's Cooks cou'd make a Pudding like Sir John; nay, tho' he made a Pudding before their Eyes, yet they out of the very same Materials could not do the like. Which made his old Friends the Monks attribute it to Witchcraft, and it was currently reported the Devil was his Helper. But good King Harry was not to be fobb'd off so; the Pudding was good, it sate very well on his Stomach, and he eat very savourly, without ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... some say for want of sufficient studious preparation; his rambles and frolics with Bob Bryanton, and his revels with the club at Ballymahon, having been much in the way of his theological studies; others attribute his rejection to reports of his college irregularities, which the bishop had received from his old tryant Wilder; but those who look into the matter with more knowing eyes pronounce the scarlet breeches to have been the fundamental ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... plain poor Susan looks to-day," she said. "Such a colour, though to be sure I attribute that more to what she ate and drank than to anything else. Crimson. Oh, those poor fuchsias! I think ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... anaesthetic, beginning to breathe. Her ear, half-hidden among her blonde hair, was near to him. The temptation to kiss it was almost too great. But there were other people on top of the car. It still remained to him to kiss it. After all, he was not himself, he was some attribute of hers, like the sunshine ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... Government had no knowledge of the text of the Austrian note before it was handed in and has not exercised any influence on its contents. It is a mistake to attribute to ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... has higher admiration for the Pilgrim Fathers than I have—the men who believed in two great doctrines, which are the foundation of every religion that is worth anything: namely, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Man—these men of backbone and endowed with that great and magnificent attribute of stick-to-it-iveness. Macaulay said that no one ever sneered at the Puritans who had met them in halls of debate or crossed swords with them on the field of battle. They are sometimes defamed for their rigorous ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... distraught, she was compelled to speak and said, "Albeit, O my dearlings, to tell you wherefore I am sad and sorrowful may cause you grief, still there is no help but I explain the matter to you twain. This mansion, which our dear father (who hath found ruth) builded for us, is perfect in every attribute nor lacketh it any condition of comfort or completion. Howbeit I have found out by chance this day that there are yet three things which, were they set within these walls, of the house and grounds, would make our place beyond compare, and in the wide world there would ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... but she smiled wisely to herself. Inwardly she reflected that simplicity of dress was Clyde's long suit. With her hair, complexion, and figure the less fussiness there was to distract the eye the better. And Mrs. Wade was inclined to attribute to the fortunate owner of these things a perfect knowledge of ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... name of this disciple, is more pronounceable. He also was one of the principal disciples, called Buddha's "left-hand attendant." He was distinguished for his power of vision, and his magical powers. The name in the text is derived from the former attribute, and it was by the latter that he took up an artist to Tushita to get a view of Sakyamuni, and so make a statue of him. (Compare the similar story in chap. vi.) He went to hell, and released his mother. He also died before ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... have been inspired on a sudden during a walk, only by the contact and the generous struggle of the soul with the great spirit of nature? Who knows if it is not owing to a less frequent intercourse with this sublime spirit that we must partially attribute the narrowness of mind so common to the dwellers in towns, always bent under the minutiae which dwarf and wither their soul, whilst the soul of the nomad remains open and free as the firmament beneath ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... come in competition with those whose physical condition prepares them for mental labor, and whose situation in society holds forth every inducement to their exertions. To this system, which is co-eval with the foundation of the State, I attribute, in a great degree, that wonderful energy of character which distinguishes the people of New England, and which has filled the world with the evidences ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... tuppenny cuss why she's fighting, so long as she helps us to lick the Hun and does it quickly." But it does matter. The reasons for her having taken up arms make all the difference to our respect for her. Here, then, are the reasons which I attribute: enthusiasm for the ideals of the Allies; admiration for the persistency of their heroism; compassionate determination to borrow some of the wounds which otherwise would be inflicted upon nations which have already suffered. A small band of pioneers in mercy are directly responsible for ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... Paul calles it) "their Doctrines of Devils;" And by that meanes, the contagion was derived also to the Jewes, both of Judaea, and Alexandria, and other parts, whereinto they were dispersed. But the name of Daemon they did not (as the Graecians) attribute to Spirits both Good, and Evill; but to the Evill onely: And to the Good Daemons they gave the name of the Spirit of God; and esteemed those into whose bodies they entred to be Prophets. In summe, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... been told to all of them. Gordon was quick, and could learn from the manners of his companions what had been said about him, and could perceive that they were aware of something of his story. Blake had no such quickness, and could attribute none of it to another. "I am very proud to have the pleasure of making you acquainted with these five young ladies." As he said this he had just paused in his narrative of Mr Whittlestaff's love, and was certain that he had changed the conversation with great ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... it should not be his fault if he did not obey the injunction. Yet to the world it seemed wholly his own fault that at twenty-seven he had not given to Maitland Park a mistress, and even he himself could not attribute his continued celibacy to the coldness or cruelty of woman; for, in truth, though he had "knelt at many a shrine," he had "laid his heart on none." If hardly pressed for his reason, he might have said ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... audit. If the Sonnet is addressed to the god of love it reduces him to the limitations of mortality; if it is addressed to his friend, it indicates that, though but for a little while, Nature has lifted him to an attribute of immortality. The latter interpretation makes the poet enlarge and glorify his subject; the former makes him belittle it, and bring the god of love to the audit of age and the ravage of wrinkles. This is the last sonnet of the first series; with the next begins ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... short a time man has been evolving from a lower animal condition to his present state, and how much higher he is to-day than he was a hundred years ago even, when occasional drunkenness was considered an attribute of a gentleman. Now it is a vice ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... just to attribute all the commercial disasters which followed the winding up of the old United States Bank to General Jackson, and to the financial schemes of Van Buren. It was the spirit of speculation, fostered by the inflation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... to Fion (the Fingal of Mac-Pherson), there occurs, as in the primitive poetry of most nations, a cycle of heroes, each of whom has some distinguishing attribute: upon these qualities, and the adventures of those possessing them, many proverbs are formed which are still current in the Highlands. Among other characters, Conan is distinguished as in some respects a kind of Thersites, but brave and daring even to rashness. He had made ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the Rev. Knox-Little at the Church of St. Clements in Philadelphia in 1880: "God made himself to be born of a woman to sanctify the virtue of endurance; loving submission is an attribute of a woman; men are logical, but women, lacking this quality, have an intricacy of thought. There are those who think women can be taught logic; this is a mistake. They can never by any power of education arrive ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... I never got drowned, not even in liquor, although I have sat with some of the best in that capacity. I have myself been pretty temperate in everything, to which I attribute my longevity. And yet I am not sure that any rule can be laid down in this respect, for I have known men who saturated themselves in alcohol until they ought to have been kept out of sight of all decent people live longer than those that have kept ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... an attribute of many quilt makers, as shown by their efforts to copy various forms of leaf and flower. There are many conventionalized floral patterns on applique quilts that give evidence of much ability and originality in their construction. For the pioneer woman there was no convenient school ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... this contrast we must hesitate to attribute any substantial share in human development to biological factors, and our hesitation is increased when we consider the factors on which social change depends. It is in the department of knowledge and industry ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... derived from the quarterings of the knights' shields, or from what other source, I know not; but there is one magnificent attribute of the coloring of the late twelfth, the whole thirteenth, and the early fourteenth century, which I do not find definitely in any previous work, nor afterwards in general art, though constantly, and necessarily, in that of great colorists, namely, the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... combination. Before, the closed-plenum mesh kept Lonnie from leaving traces. Now, anything once embraced within the palpitating fields of the grid moved with and how the suit moved; not in accord with the natural laws of the surrounding continuum. That neat new attribute took care of the cubic yard ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... ground by airy fancies, More bright than madness or the dreams of wine; And, though full oft the objects of our love Were false, and in their splendour overwrought, [U] 570 Yet was there surely then no vulgar power Working within us,—nothing less, in truth, Than that most noble attribute of man, Though yet untutored and inordinate, That wish for something loftier, more adorned, 575 Than is the common aspect, daily garb, Of human life. What wonder, then, if sounds Of exultation echoed through the groves! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... over the seedlings is at once a safe and an efficient process, and possesses the additional advantage of being beneficial to the plant. We are aware that it does not always succeed, but we are inclined to attribute the failure to a bad quality of the lime, or a careless method of employing it. There should be enough put on to make the plants white, and they will be none the worse for the whitening. Dustings of fine ashes or soot are scarcely less effective, ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... secretly prided myself on acting in good faith, although this lowered me in the eyes of others. As a matter of fact the world has a considerable respect for cleverness, whatever form it takes, and success justifies everything. So the world was pleased to attribute to me all the good qualities and evil propensities, all the victories and defeats which had never been mine; credited me with conquests of which I knew nothing, and sat in judgment upon actions of which I had never been guilty. I scorned to contradict the slanders, and ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... when he longed to know, he could not even guess what she might be thinking, or what effect such "an arrangement" of red and yellow would have upon her imagination and judgment. She could not think or receive what was not true, he felt sure, but she might easily enough attribute truth where it did ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... torrentuous galopade, that I am compelled to seize occasion by the forelock; for each moment has its imperious employ. Do not then accuse me of negligence: if my correspondence has not always that regularity which I would fain give it, attribute the fault solely to the whirlwind in which I live, and which carries me hither and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... venture, she was surely led to the Promenade of the town by one of those occult impulses of the soul which lead us to follow hope irrationally. Thoughts conceived under the dominion of that spell are often realized; but we then attribute their pre-vision to a power we call presentiment,—an inexplicable power, but a real one,—which our passions find accommodating, like a flatterer who, among his many lies, does sometimes tell ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... scandalised that any one should attribute the possibility of such wayward behaviour to the venerable Earl. In his agitation he ate another muffin. After all, if the nobleman did go jumping in the winter why should this young and horsey man ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... diplomacy, coupled with the maximum and minimum provision of the tariff law, will be seen by some consideration of the wonderful increase in the export trade of the United States. Because modern diplomacy is commercial, there has been a disposition in some quarters to attribute to it none but materialistic aims. How strikingly erroneous is such an impression may be seen from a study of the results by which the diplomacy of the United States can ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... Jove, you should hear him on old Lord Murgatroyd's will! The quintessence of wit! I couldn't take it as he does. Expectations and all that sort of thing, you know, going up like a hot air balloon and bursting in plain view. But he never squeaked. Laughed it off. A British attribute, I dare say. I suppose you know that he is obliged to sell ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Count's arms, hung round his neck, and wept like a, village maiden, whose true love is pressed for the wars. Her husband, a little ashamed, while he was much moved by this burst of affection in one to whose character it seemed an unusual attribute, was, at the same time, pleased and proud that he could have awakened an affection so genuine and so gentle in a soul ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... another. There was undoubtedly a devil, else how could good Doctor Luther have thrown his inkstand at him? But he had never been seen in Doctor Lebensfunke's neighborhood; and, on the whole, Lottchen was inclined to attribute the Herr Doctor's trouble to an indefinable something whose nature was broadly hinted at by more tapping of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... one knows. Our officers are often surprised by this singular noise and attribute it generally to the echo produced by a hail of grains of sand blown by the wind against the dry and brittle leaves of weeds, for it has always been noticed that the phenomenon occurs in proximity to little plants burned by the sun and hard as parchment. This ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... fear and the dread of it on that first day caused me to throw many an anxious glance on my husband and my child. I had been very ill during the three weeks that our vessel was becalmed upon the Banks of Newfoundland, and to this circumstance I attribute my deliverance from the pestilence. I was weak and nervous when the vessel arrived at Quebec, but the voyage up the St. Lawrence, the fresh air and beautiful scenery were ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie |
