"Attribute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it places the beginning of religion in the lowest known form of it and thus makes for the belief that the course of the world's faith has been upward from the first. But it presents the gravest difficulties; for why should the savage make a god of a stick or a stone, and attribute to it supernatural powers? Who told him about a god, that he should call a stick god, or about supernatural powers, that he should suppose a stick to work wonders? There is nothing in the stick to suggest such ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... cultivation of the military spirit has a corrupting influence on community. And members of the clergy and of the bar have not unfrequently so far forgotten, if not truth and fact, at least the common courtesies and charities of life, as to attribute to the military profession an unequal share of immorality and crime. We are declared not only parasites on the body politic, but professed violators of God's laws—men so degraded, though unconsciously, that "in the pursuit of justice we renounce the human character ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... vocation for the religious life, he could go to Glastonbury and rejoin the Order when he was a priest. It was true that Father Rowley disapproved of Father Burrowes; but he had never expressed more than a general disapproval, and Mark was inclined to attribute his attitude to the prejudice of a man of strong personality and definite methods against another man of strong personality and definite methods working on similar lines among similar people. Mark remembered now that there had been a question ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... could attribute it to no particular disease,' said Mrs Nickleby; shedding tears. 'We have too much reason to fear that he died of a ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... that you are anxious to return and have an interview with the old fellow with horns on his head?" Mr. Brown asked, and I observed a wonderful change in his bearing all at once, which I could only attribute to putting on clean clothes, or due to the magical influence of my flask. I was inclined to the latter opinion, and therefore tasted the liquor for the purpose of seeing if I could not ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... thanking her, sped away; while Sophy slowly went upstairs and hid herself on her couch. For a woman to find a man thinking her over-hard and severe, is sure either to harden or to soften her very decidedly, and it was a hard struggle which would be the effect. There was an inclination at first to attribute his surprise to the lax notions and foolish fondness of his home, where no doubt far worse disorders than Gilbert's were treated as mere matters of course. But such strong pity for the offender did not seem to accord with this; and the more she thought, the more ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sayin' as I got most to the boat landin', "the phosphorescence that ignorant sailors attribute to electricity in the air is really a minute ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... at an interval, in 1830, by The Gownsman, which lived to the seventeenth number, and at the opening of which Thackeray no doubt had a hand. It professed to be a continuation of The Snob. It contains a dedication to all proctors, which I should not be sorry to attribute to him. "To all ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... Nationale. And when he opines that "it (the work) was most probably not commenced earlier than the fifteenth century of our era" (Pref. p. xiii.) M. Hermann Zotenberg, judging from the style of writing, would attribute the MS. to the beginning[FN456] of the xivth century. The French Savant has printed a specimen page in his Histoire d'Ala al-Din (p. 6; see my Suppl. vol. iii., Foreword p. ix.); and now, at the request of sundry experts, he ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 it, and I feel sure that if all goats got together and decided to ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... you have gained? In the first place, time—often a physical impossibility to sin, which you may attribute to chance, but which was, in reality, the work of Providence; and is it nothing, one sin the less, in the life of an immortal soul?... Then a vague uneasiness which will soon allow of no rest, a confidence which may enable you to sympathize, ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... variety of side-whiskers no longer obtains even in light literature, and the most imaginative of us is frankly aware of the fact that a detective is just a common man earning (or pretending to earn) a common living by common and obvious means. Yet in spite of ourselves we are accustomed to attribute superhuman acuteness and a lightning-like rapidity of intellect to this vague and romantic class of fellow-citizens. The ordinary work of a detective, however, requires neither of these qualities. Honesty and obedience are his chief requirements, and if he ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... is 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 ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... a copy of this picture almost everywhere. I do not affirm that this is the original. But it has always been in the family, and old inventories attribute it to Michael-Angelo. That is all I can say ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... intimately from close association will attribute any vice to me sooner than arrogance, and will acknowledge that I am closer to the Socratic utterance, 'This alone I know, that I know nothing,' than to this, 'I yield to none.' But if they imagine that I have so ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... wretched and degenerate cowardice; no, never let him that was born to execute judgment secure his honours by cruelty and oppression. Hath not thy Koran told thee that fear and submission is a subject's tribute, yet mercy is the attribute of Allah, and the most pleasing endowment of the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... little acquaintance with formal Logic as it is taught by Mill and Whately, whom I select as typical masters of Induction and Deduction, without wishing to depreciate the host of other authorities. Mr. Bradlaugh really gave his class lessons in Metaphysics; his talk was of substance, mode, and attribute, rather than of premises and conclusions. Mr. Bradlaugh and I were brought into closer acquaintance by the Republican agitation in England after the proclamation of the present French Republic. I attended the Republican Conference at Birmingham in 1871, when I ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... ways, but I think you are laboring under a mistake, which, in justice to Mr. Stewart, I want to correct. Indeed, he was rather—rather abrupt and strange when he came up to me last night; but as I understand him now, I can attribute that to his gallantry. He was somewhat wild and sudden and—sentimental in his demand to protect me—and it was not clear whether he meant his protection for last night or forever; but I am happy to say be offered me ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... is also more culpable to kill an elephant than an echinoderm. Many men are both morally and intellectually lower than many quadrupeds, and are, in my opinion, as wholly destitute of that indefinable attribute called soul as all the lower animals commonly ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... not thy professions of love sternly and scornfully rejected and rebuked? When were thy frequent pledges and still more frequent gifts believed or accepted? But as I am persuaded that no one can long persevere in the attempt to win love unsustained by some hope, I am willing to attribute to myself the blame of thy assurance, for no doubt some thoughtlessness of mine has all this time fostered thy hopes; and therefore will I punish myself and inflict upon myself the penalty thy guilt deserves. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... impressed nine people out of ten with a strong and special regard for him, because almost every one supposed himself to be admitted at first sight to the inner confidence of the King. And to what could he attribute this? He would do his own merits great demerit unless he attributed it to them, and to the King an unusual share of sagacity in ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... is nothing if not sympathetic, and every one of the ten stories is not only thoroughly readable, but is instinct with sentiment; for Mr Scott still retains a wonderful enthusiasm, usually the attribute of youth. 'Drifting' is a very fresh and convincing narrative, founded, we understand, upon truth, and containing within a small compass the materials for a very stirring drama. 'A Cross of Heather,' too, is a charming romance, told ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... the strongest reasons to believe that all the measures for mobilization which can be taken before the publication of the general order have already been taken here, and that they are anxious here to make us publish our mobilization first in order to attribute ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... prove to one who has watched him as I have that his nature is fickle and capricious. I confess that when I heard you say, just now, that his letters of late had been rarer and less ardent, I could not wholly attribute it to the reason which so quickly satisfied you. As a rule, these intensely ardent feelings are not of long duration, and I know well both the intensity and the brevity of Horace's attacks of love. It was for this very reason that I so ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... peaceably, nothing more conduceth to the settlement and safety of the public, nothing so much draweth blessings down from heaven upon the commonwealth, as true religion, yet nothing hath been more ordinary than to attribute all the miscarriages and mischiefs that happened unto it; even those are laid at his door, which plainly do arise from the contempt or neglect of it, being the natural fruits or the just punishments of irreligion. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... though desolate and forbidding, it seems a distinct place to repair to; yet where the visitants must be rare, and there can be no disturbance. Water-fowl flock hither; and the lonely angler may here be seen; but the imagination, not content with this scanty allowance of society, is tempted to attribute a voluntary power to every change which takes place in such a spot, whether it be the breeze that wanders over the surface of the water, or the splendid lights of evening resting upon it in the midst of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... play; that an act is not a chapter of a novel, still less a compote of bits of many chapters; that, while to be charmingly discursive is a paramount quality of the higher type of novelist, the same attribute in a play, whose very breath of life is essential brevity, makes it appear to go on crutches, like his own discomfited hero. It bemuses an audience and gravels the players—as the queer uncertainty of touch of so skilful, so conscientious an actor as Mr. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... an impression of heat he will not, for instance, attribute this to a piece of hot iron, but will regard it as the emanation of some soul-process, which he has hitherto experienced only with his soul's inner life. He knows that behind imaginative experiences exist psycho-spiritual things and processes just ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... liveliest interest. Thus, by bringing the negro under the American system, we have completed his emancipation. He has ceased to be a pariah. From an outcast he has been transformed into a human being, invested with the great National attribute of self-protection, and the re-establishment of peace, and order, and security, the revival of business and trade, and the restoration of the Southern States on the basis of loyalty and equal justice to all, will be the happy results of this astonishing metamorphosis, provided the party which ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... enterprise, through the inexperience and timidity of their officers, he began to speak with the young men, first to the effect that they ought not to ascribe the misfortune of the Romans to the courage of their enemy, nor attribute the losses they sustained by rash counsel to the conduct of men who had no title to victory: the event had been only an evidence of the power of fortune. When he found the young men embraced the thing, he went to the magistrates and council ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... into its elements, which traces causes to their first principle, and, by the power of generalization and combination, unites the whole in one harmonious system—then, so far from deserving contempt, it is the highest attribute of the human mind. It is the power which raises man above the brute—which distinguishes his faculties from mere sagacity, which he holds in common with inferior animals. It is this power which has raised the astronomer ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... theory two main objections may be urged: (1) As, on Burke's own showing, the objects of the imagination, at least as far as poetry is concerned, are, and must be, presented first to the mind, it is (in the strictest sense of the term) preposterous to attribute their power over us to a purely muscular operation (2) The argument, taken by itself, is barely relevant to the matter in hand. Even where a physical basis can be proved—as it can in the case of music, painting, and ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... popular, his genius was, from the very first, recognised by the best judges. All through he wrote for the reader who brought something of mind, thought, and attention, not for him who read merely to be amused without trouble; and it is therefore futile to attribute failure to him because he did not achieve what he did not aim at. Nevertheless, the long delay in receiving even the kind of recognition which he sought was a disappointment to him. Few writers have ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... neither Christian nor Greek, but belongs to the old religion of India. Let me try to state the argument and its consequence in a clear form. Since God is the Infinite, and the Infinite is the antithesis of the finite, every attribute which can be affirmed of a finite being may be safely denied of God. Hence God can only be described by negatives; He can only be discovered by stripping off all the qualities and attributes which veil Him; He can only be reached by divesting ourselves of all the ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... book-lover. His happiness consists not in reading, which is an active virtue, but in the contemplation of bindings, and illustrations, and title-pages. Thus his felicity partakes of the nature of the bliss we attribute to the gods, for that also is contemplative, and we call the book- lover 'happy,' and even 'blessed,' but within the limits of mortal happiness. But, just as in the matter of absence of fear there is a mean which we call courage, ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... quality. I found the other day, by a play of Etheridge's, that we have had a sort of Carnival even since the Reformation; Ytis in "She would if She could," they talk of going a-mumming in Shrove-tide.(179)-After talking so much of diversions, I fear you will attribute to them the fondness I own I contract for Florence; but it has so many other charms, that I shall not want excuses for my taste. The freedom of the Carnival has given me opportunities to make several acquaintances.; and if I have no found them refined, learned, polished, like some ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... acknowledged, he said, in all duty and thankfulness acknowledged, that, before they called, her "preventing grace" and "all-deserving goodness" watched over them for their good; more ready to give than they could desire, much less deserve. He remarked, that the attribute which was most proper to God, to perform all he promiseth, appertained also to her; and that she was all truth, all constancy, and all goodness. And he concluded with these expressions: "Neither do we present our thanks in words or any outward sign, which can be no sufficient ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... would not suffer to remain uncontradicted for an hour. It was natural, therefore, that when they heard a man of their own white race accused of conspiring to blow up the gaol and the prisoners who were there under the safeguard of his honour, they should attribute to the accused a similar impatience to be justified; and it is with a sense of painful surprise that they find themselves to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... subject of violent extremes of opinion in the eighteenth century, and so lightly esteemed by some that Hume could doubt if he were a poet "capable of furnishing a proper entertainment to a refined and intelligent audience," and attribute to the rudeness of his "disproportioned and misshapen" genius the "reproach of barbarism" which the English nation had suffered from all its neighbors. Only recently has the study of him by English scholars—I do not refer ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... but as a theme for poetry; and, while disdaining to imitate Burns' poetry slavishly, and some of them not writing in verse at all, they found in Scottish subjects ample scope for the exercise of their genius; and in some measure to his influence we may attribute the fictions of Mrs Hamilton and Miss Ferrier, Scott's poems and novels, Galt's, Lockhart's, Wilson's, Delta's, and Aird's tales and poetry, and much of the poetry of Campbell, who, although he never writes in Scotch, has embalmed, in his "Lochiel's ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... burlesque, that it was impossible to take it either ill or seriously. Indeed, when I am on the very point of the most alarmed displeasure with him, he always falls upon some such ridiculous devices of affected homage, that I grow ashamed of my anger, and hurry it over, lest he should perceive it, and attribute it to a misunderstanding he might think ridiculous in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... her mind in the stress of more personal events? Banneker would have liked to know, but deemed it better not to ask. Once he tried to elicit from her some indication of when she would marry him; but from this decision she exhibited a covert and inexplicable shrinking. This he might attribute, if he chose, to that innate and sound formalism which would always lead her to observe the rules of the game; if from no special respect for them as such, then out of deference to the prejudices of others. Nevertheless, he experienced ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the theory of the thing. The laws of Nature warn every man who uses tobacco for the first time, that he is dealing with a poison. Nobody denies this attribute of the plant; it is "a narcotic poison of the most active class." It is not merely that a poison can by chemical process be extracted from it, but it is a poison in its simplest form. Its mere application to the skin has often produced ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... uncommon scenes in which she had been engaged since she last saw him, had almost wholly driven him from her remembrance, or when at any time he recurred to it, it was only to attribute the discontinuance of his visits to the offence she had given him, in refusing to follow his advice ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... degree to children. The Hindus have probably recognised that children are very delicate and succumb easily to disease, and they could scarcely fail to have done so when statistics show that about a quarter of all the babies born in India die in the first year of age. But they do not attribute the mortality to its real causes of congenital weakness arising from the immaturity of the parents, insanitary treatment at and after birth, unsuitable food, and the general frailty of the undeveloped organism. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... or child. It destroys the appetite—and our appetite is the best part of us. What would we be without appetites? Miserable beings! worse than the beasts of the field!" And away shuffled the Doctor to admonish Monsieur Grillade on the iniquity of neglecting this the noblest attribute of man. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... soul to destroy it, as Isaiah says, "My people, they that call thee blessed are themselves deceiving thee." They are in error who raise you above councils and the universal Church; they are in error who attribute to you alone the right of interpreting Scripture. All these men are seeking to set up their own impieties in the Church under your name, and alas! Satan has gained much through them in the time ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... motives, has advocated their cause with untiring energy, and by appeals to reason expressed by an eloquence the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned—the name which ought to be associated with the success of these measures is the name of Richard Cobden. Without scruple, Sir, I attribute the success ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... that would probably not only be sufficient to have paid his debts, but to have equalled the wants of no small portion of his prolonged life. The work itself seems to bear testimony to an earnest, amiable, and religious mind; there would appear, therefore, no moral fault to which to attribute his unfortunate condition. We must suppose that struggles with the world's difficulties, incompatible though they seem with art, are necessary; and that the cradle of genius must be first rocked by Want—that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... he was inclined to be thoughtful and nervous, to fall into troubled trances at table or in the middle of a conversation, and to start rather violently when aroused from those trances. Primmie was disposed to attribute these lapses to disease. She confided her ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... said Tim. 'The people could have given the money if they liked. I attribute the failure of the fund to the apathy or treachery of the priests, call it which you like. There isn't a Protestant church in the country where the parsons don't preach "Give give, give" to their people ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... to be aware of some motive for your commandant's dislike?" she asked him. "Tell me to what you attribute it?" ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... of the sixteenth century to whom, thus far, we have been able to attribute so little of the wholesome and pleasing, the womanly or love-inspiring, there is one striking exception in Marguerite d'Angouleme, a representative of letters, art, culture, and morality. With the study ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... her! In an access of hunger for his good opinion she bethought herself of what she had latterly endeavoured to forget, so unpleasant had been its issues—the identity of her family with that of the knightly d'Urbervilles. Barren attribute as it was, disastrous as its discovery had been in many ways to her, perhaps Mr Clare, as a gentleman and a student of history, would respect her sufficiently to forget her childish conduct with the lords and ladies if he knew that those Purbeck-marble and alabaster ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... while by refusing, you will, on the contrary, receive terrible torments, for you bear on your shoulders the heaviest and most dangerous burden, if you well consider it, of any men in the world to-day. We likewise beseech your lordships, with all due humility and reverence, not to attribute our coming to temerity, but to accept and judge it by the spirit that has prompted it, which is the wish to act according to God's precepts as we are ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... her that it was not natural that she should feel so kindly disposed towards the woman who had taken her lover from her. Yet it was true. Although she could not help an occasional wince at some look or word, yet she had no hard feeling. She did not attribute this lack to any excellence of her own character. It seemed to her but simple justice that a woman who had made so sad a mistake, and who had expiated it so rudely, should have her reward; whereas, what had she ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... sir, was born no earlier than seven o'clock on the morning of this day. I was in my bed, sir; the maid had come in with my tea and toast. 'Stop,' said I, sternly. She stopped. And in those few moments of undisturbed reflection, sir, the thought came to life, the thought which you so falsely attribute to the Chinese, a savage tribe whose sole distinction is ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... make herself a nuisance by trailing through the street, picking up and carrying about with her pah!—that's what I call getting vulgarity into your bones and marrow. Making believe be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If any man can walk behind one of these women and see what she rakes up as she goes, and not feel squeamish, he has got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one of 'em into my room without serving 'em as David served Saul at the cave in the wilderness,—cut off his skirts, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... Vocibus Antiquis. p. 151. Basle ed. 1549). Justus Lipsius doubts whether the Discourse on the Causes of the Corruption of Latin Eloquence proceeded from Tacitus, or the other Roman to whom many impute it, Quintilian, for he says in his Preface to that Dialogue: "What will it matter whether we attribute it to Tacitus, or, as I once thought, to Marcus Fabius Quinctilianus? ... Though the age of Quinctilianus seems to have been a little too old for this Discourse to be by that young man. Therefore, I have my doubts." "Incommodi quid erit, sive Tacito tribuamus; sive M. Fabio ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... of 1348 he lost two of his largest arms. These were large and sound, and were more than a foot in diameter at the points of breakage. As these were broken by a down-pressing weight or force, we may attribute these breaks ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... Without adverting to the dark necessities that compass our chaotic sense when we ascend by continual abstraction to the absolute, without entangling ourselves vainly in those wildernesses that no created intellect can range or measure—even one sole attribute of God, His holiness, makes it as impossible for Him to proceed except by certain steps as it would be impossible for a man, though a free agent, and apparently master, as he feels and thinks, of his own life, to cut his ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... 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 ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... disillusionment is insistently stressed by the characters who flit through the shadowy foreground. It is the definitely realized and concrete sense of landscape that Mr. Lawrence has achieved which is his finest artistic attribute, and the sensitive response to light which is so characteristic an element in his vision bathes all the pictures he presents in a rich glow, whose gradations of light and shadow respond finely to the emotional reactions of his characters. He is the most sophisticated of the contemporary ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... his practical suggestions in treatment may be attributed in large part the extraordinary vogue which the great Coan has enjoyed for twenty-five centuries. One may appreciate the veneration with which the Father of Medicine was regarded by the attribute "divine" which was usually attached to his name. Listen to this for directness and honesty of speech taken from the work on the joints characterized by Littre as "the great surgical monument of antiquity": "I have written this down deliberately, believing ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... anomaly of the child as due to some incident during the period of the mother's pregnancy, and the truth is often distorted and the imagination heavily drawn upon to furnish the satisfactory explanation. It is the customary speech of the dime-museum lecturer to attribute the existence of some "freak" to an episode in the mother's pregnancy. The poor "Elephant-man" firmly believed his peculiarity was due to the fact that his mother while carrying him in utero was knocked down ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... much as to the higher education of women, I would be inclined to attribute the really remarkable awakening of woman's song that characterises the latter half of our century in England. No country has ever had so many poetesses at once. Indeed, when one remembers that the Greeks had only nine muses, one is sometimes ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... learned than either; Mr. Webster was stronger in logic and in speech; Calhoun more acute, refined, and philosophic; Van Buren better skilled in combining and directing political forces; but to no one of these was given the sublime attribute of leadership, the faculty of drawing men unto him. That is natural, not acquired. There was not in the whole country, during the long period of their rivalry, a single citizen of intelligence who was indifferent to Clay or to Jackson. For the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... doctor must be kept in ignorance of the cause of his departure. He must attribute it solely to a passion for traveling. And Erik therefore frequently spoke of his desire, when his studies were completed, of engaging in some scientific expedition. While pursuing his studies at Upsal, he prepared himself by work, and the most severe exercise, for the life of fatigue and danger ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... and the expression of his face was not pleasant. Still, no one would attribute anything but the friendliest motive ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... none of the feeling which your words seem to attribute to us, my dear sir," the agent had answered. "Baron Bangletop would feel highly honored to have so distinguished a sojourner in England as yourself occupy his estate, but he does not wish you to take it without fully ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... is rather embarrassing to say. For instance, is the coloration due to the hydrocarbons which the waters hold in solution, or is it because they flow through districts of peat, coal, and anthracite; or should we not rather attribute it to the enormous quantity of minute plants which they bear along? There is nothing certain in the matter. Under any circumstances, they are excellent to drink, of a freshness quite enviable for the climate, and without after-taste, and perfectly harmless. Take ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... was womanly; she was well bred; she possessed every attribute that in theory he admired; yet she had never awakened this sparkling interest, this attraction which was pungently flavoured with surprise that he could be so strangely attracted. He could gaze unmoved by the hour on Margaret's smooth loveliness; but the tantalizing ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... nature tameness was the attribute farthest removed, looked first at the lady, in helpless bewilderment, then at me, with mute reproach for having placed him in his ridiculous position, and lastly at the maid, who regarded him with open ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... cosmos came into existence we shall find that ultimately we can only attribute it to the Self-Contemplation of Spirit. Let us start with the facts now known to modern physical science. All material things, including our own bodies, are composed of combinations of different chemical elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, &c. Chemistry recognizes in all ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... of the air and common pump,—the barometer and the cupping glass,—the sipping of our tea, and the traversing of an insect on the mirror or the roof,—the operations appear so very dissimilar, that we are ready to attribute them to the action of a variety of agents. But it is not so;—for when we trace each of them back to its primitive cause, we find that each and all of these wonders are produced by the weight of the atmosphere, and that alone. In precisely the same ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... was to be sociable. But the general tenour of his life was other; proud, reserved, self-contained, repellent; brooding over his own ideas, not easily admitting into his mind the ideas of others. It is indeed an erroneous estimate of Milton to attribute to him a hard or austere nature. He had all the quick sensibility which belongs to the poetic temperament, and longed to be loved that he might love again. But he had to pay the penalty of all who believe in their own ideas, in that their ideas come between them and the ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... There are many who attribute to mammon-marriages all the terrible evils of our disordered love-life of to-day. It is, therefore, well to remember that such conditions are not really a new thing, and cannot be regarded as the result of our ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... to which we must so often find ourselves liable, ought certainly to teach us moderation and forbearance towards those who cannot accommodate themselves to our sentiments: if they are deceived, we have no right to attribute their mistake to obstinacy or negligence, because we likewise have been mistaken; we may, perhaps, again change our own opinion: and what excuse shall we be able to find for aversion and malignity conceived against him, whom we shall then find to have committed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... experience, all over the continent. A man born here is distinguishable by his gait from among an hundred other men, so remarkable are they for a pliability of sinews, and a peculiar agility, which attends them even to old age. I have heard some persons attribute this to the effects of the whale oil, with which they are so copiously anointed in the various operations it must undergo ere it is fit either for the European market ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... them with those of the French, and, as far as I have had opportunity to observe, they lose very much by the comparison. We not only found the French a much less imposing people, but that politeness diffused through the lowest ranks had an air so engaging that you could scarce attribute it to any other cause than real benevolence. During the time, which was near a month, that we were in France, we had not once to complain of the smallest deficiency in courtesy in any person, much less of any positive rudeness. We had also perpetual occasion ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... disposed to attribute the difficulty that he experienced in supplying his army with food to the condition of the roads rather than to the lack of mules, packers, teamsters, and wagons. In an interview with a correspondent of the ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... from two or three other doubtful species of wolves (namely, the European, Indian, and North African forms); from at least one or two South American canine species; from several races or species of the jackal; and perhaps from one or more extinct species. Those authors who attribute great influence to the action of climate by itself may thus account for the resemblance of the domesticated dogs and native animals in the same countries; but I know of no facts supporting the belief in so powerful ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... read South's Sermons on Prayer; but avoided the question which has excruciated philosophers and divines, beyond any other. I did not press it further, when I perceived that he was displeased[306], and shrunk from any abridgement of an attribute usually ascribed to the Divinity, however irreconcilable in its full extent with the grand system of moral government. His supposed orthodoxy here cramped the vigorous powers of his understanding. He was confined by a chain which early imagination and long habit made him think massy and strong, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... you attribute this improvement?—Partly to the healthy and proper efforts which have been made to elevate the working classes; partly, I am sorry to say, to an ambitious desire throughout the nation always to get on to a point which it has not yet reached, and which makes one man struggle with ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... that frown back the sunshine—and mountains, as if they were all dead, insensible to the heavens. Is this all mere imagination—or the truth? We deceive ourselves in what we call a desert. For we have so associated our own being with the appearances of outward things, that we attribute to them, with an uninquiring faith, the very feelings and the very thoughts, of which we have chosen to make them emblems. But here the sources of the Dee seem to lie in a region as happy as it is high; for the bases of the mountains are ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... be added that as not only proper names but nouns, generally in Indian languages are connotive, predicating some attribute of the object, they can readily be expressed by gesture signs, and therefore among them, if anywhere, it is to be expected that relations may be established between the ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... by confiscating all ecclesiastical property; the Jacobin operators continue and complete the job; we have seen by what decrees and with what hostility against collective and individual property, whether they attribute to the State the possession of all corporations whatever, even laic, such as colleges, schools and scientific or literary societies, hospitals and communes, or whether they despoil individuals, indirectly through assignats and the maximum, or directly through the forced loan, revolutionary taxes,[4142] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... next move will be in the downhill direction. Yet, notwithstanding all this, we talk and act, and think, and feel, too, like boys. I do not speak this reproachfully, but as a fact which develops a curious attribute of ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... worse. About a year ago I was advised by a friend to try your Sanative Wash and Vegetable Compound, which I did. After using your Vegetable Compound and Sanative Wash I am now enjoying better health than I ever did, and attribute the same to your wonderful remedies. I cannot find words to express What a godsend your remedies have been to me. Whenever I begin to feel nervous and ill, I know I have a never failing physician at hand. It would afford me pleasure to know that my words have directed ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... from that of the Romanticists. But it was not in this department that M. Sainte-Beuve was destined to become the founder of a school. His poetical talent, though unquestionable, had been bestowed, not as a special attribute, but as an auxiliary of other faculties granted in a larger measure. He has himself not only recognized its limits, but shown an inclination to underrate its value. "I have often thought," he remarks in one of his later papers, "that a critic who would attain to largeness of view would be better ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... other nations? This is a question frequently asked by inquiring Congressmen, who imagine that an answer may readily be had from one of those gifted librarians who is invested with that apocryphal attribute, commonly called omniscience. But the inquirer is suddenly confronted by the fact (and a very stubborn fact it is) that not a single foreign nation has ever taken any census of wealth whatever. In Great Britain (about which country inquiry ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... difficulty: If we attribute the daily rotation to the higher region of the heavens, we should have to endow it with force and power sufficient to carry with it the innumerable host of the fixed stars—every one a body of very great compass and much larger than the earth—and all the planets, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... or distiller frequently sustains in the distillation of his produce, a loss, equal and in proportion to the foregoing—from the use of indifferent yeast, and often without knowing to what cause to attribute it. This statement will shew more forcibly, than any other mode—and is made very moderate on the side of indifferent yeast, for with bad sour yeast the yield will be oftener under one gallon to the bushel than above one and an half—whereas with good yeast the yield will rarely be so ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... that became her very well, and as she approached, their old understanding immediately arranged itself between them. "I should be perfectly justified in sulking," he declared gaily, disencumbering a chair of a battered tin box of empty twisted tubes for her, "and asking you to what I might attribute the honor of this visit." He put up his eye-glass and stared through it with an absurd affectation of dignified astonishment. "But I'll magnanimously admit that I'm delighted to see you. I'll even lay aside my wounded sensibilities enough to ask ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... only light up when the air is admitted, it was only at his approach that her eyes became smiling and animated. But here in this dear valley every moment appeared an age of pleasure; she saw him all day and was therefore all day happy,— resembling, she often thought, that people of Zinge[273] who attribute the unfading cheerfulness they enjoy to one genial star that ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... all the worse because they laid the blame upon themselves. They were accustomed to attribute sickness to this or that trivial cause—if Corydon caught a cold, it was because she had sat in a draught, and if Thyrsis was laid up with tonsilitis, it was because he had gone out for kindling-wood without his hat. ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... idiots, and that those whose duty it became to enforce it were 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 six demerit to run on, Mr. Billy McKay had ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... duplicates reversed in the air above the old familiar rocks, I do not, as I stand on Rye-beach, observing the interesting phenomenon, believe there are two sets of islands there; but recalling facts which I have learned, and philosophical truths which I have acquired and verified, I attribute the appearance to its true cause, refraction of light. When in passing from room to room in the dark, with my arms outspread, I run my nose against the edge of a door, I do not therefrom conclude that my nose is longer than my arms! When I see a man stumble in the street, I do not at ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... she's out of place When these are balked, and science, art, or trade Has won the dedication of her thought? Nay! the affections are for all; and he, Or she, has most of life, who has them most. O, not an attribute of sex are they! Heart loneliness is loneliness indeed, But not for woman any more than man, Were she so trained, her active faculties Could have a ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... around the rivers subject to inundations, but also wherever the trunks of palm-trees are near each other. The least fertile spots are those destitute of trees; and attempts to cultivate them would be nearly fruitless. We cannot attribute this difference to the shelter afforded by the palm-trees, in preventing the solar rays from drying and burning up the soil. I have seen, it is true, trees of this family, in the forests of the Orinoco, spreading a tufted foliage; ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... coasts, we find that the mouse was the sacred animal of Rudra. 'The mouse, Rudra, is thy beast,' says the Yajur Veda, as rendered by Grohmann in his 'Apollo Smintheus.' Grohmann recognises in Rudra a deity with most of the characteristics of Apollo. In later Indian mythology, the mouse is an attribute of Ganeca, who, like Apollo Smintheus, is represented in art with his foot upon ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... process of law * * *' Are Madison and his contemporaries in the framing of the Bill of Rights to be charged with writing into it a meaningless clause? To consider 'due process of law' as merely a shorthand statement of other specific clauses in the same amendment is to attribute to the authors and proponents of this Amendment ignorance of, or indifference to, a historic conception which was one of the great instruments in the arsenal of constitutional freedom which the Bill of Rights was to protect and strengthen." Warning ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... gunpowder, pottery and other articles in common use. This knowledge which he claimed to possess was tested by actual demonstration during the trial for his life. His superior skill in planning was universally admitted by his fellow workmen. He did not, however, attribute this superior influence to sorcery, conjuration or such like agencies, for he had the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... matter that should be, of which the heavens are framed, whether or no of any fifth substance distinct from the foure elements, as Aristotle[1] holds, and with him some of the late Schoolemen, whose subtill braines could not be content to attribute to those vast glorious bodies, but common materialls, and therefore they themselves had rather take paines to preferre them to some extraordinary nature, whereas notwithstanding, all the arguments they could invent, were not able to convince a ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... useless, and so utterly fail to add to our knowledge of the woods. Would counting the leaves and branches in the forest, and making a pattern of each, and tabulating the whole mass of figures be any addition to our knowledge? I attribute the whole procedure, as I have said, to his uncontrollable intellectual activity, and the imaginary demands of this Journal, which continued to the end of his life. The very last pages of his Journal, a year previous to his death, are filled with minute ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... as to the origin of the name of this place. Some attribute it to the Malay name for a shrub which largely abounded near the shore, a sort of "Phyllanthus emblica" of the spurge order; others, again, ascribe it to a plant called the "Jumbosa Malaccensis," or "Malay apple tree" of the myrtle bloom order; others, again, say that the Javanese ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... of the Caledonia were in a state of hopeless dejection and violent exasperation. An attempt was made to throw the blame of their misfortune on the unpardonable carelessness of the responsible military authorities, rather than attribute it to an accident that could ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... West Indies, and to attack each separately." The remark illustrates the fool's paradise in which many Spaniards, even naval officers, were living before the war, as is evidenced by articles in their own professional periodicals. To attribute such folly to us was not complimentary; and I own my remarks, upon first reading it, were not complimentary to the writer's ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... Pennant, by Inigo Jones, in 1617, at a cost of L2,000. Dr. Donne, the poet, preached the consecration sermon. One of the monuments belonging to the earlier chapel is that of Dr. John Yonge, Master of the Rolls in the reign of Henry VIII. Vertue and Walpole attribute the tomb to Torregiano, Michael Angelo's contemporary and the sculptor of the tomb of Henry VII. at Westminster. The master is represented by the artist (who starved himself to death at Seville) in effigy on an ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Gods, there are who deny the very existence of the Godhead; others say that it exists, but neither bestirs nor concerns itself nor has forethought for anything. A third party attribute to it existence and forethought, but only for great and heavenly matters, not for anything that is on earth. A fourth party admit things on earth as well as in heaven, but only in general, and not ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... moved into the go-cart from the leading-strings. 'If Endymion serves me for a pioneer, perhaps I ought to be content, for thank God I can read and perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths; and I have, I am sure, many friends who if I fail will attribute any change in my life to humbleness rather than pride,—to a cowering under the wings of great poets rather than to bitterness that I am not appreciated.' And for evidence of any especial bitterness because of the lashing he received one will search the letters ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... that he "prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to set it forth, and further that he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses." (103) Therefore, I can not find anyone, save Ezra, to whom to attribute the sacred books. ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... had read or heard of the bewildering power of women, which for his part hitherto he had been inclined to attribute to shallow and very common causes, such as underlie all animate nature. Yet that of Stella—for undoubtedly she had power—suggested another interpretation to his mind. Or was it, after all, nothing but a variant, one of the Protean shapes of the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... sand, and throw it over the nurses, just as they are doing at Old Orchard and Old Point. Here, with a maid, is a pair of children who freely show one attribute of childhood not so pleasing as others,—cruelty. They have a little monkey, fastened by collar and chain, and it is pitiful and yet ludicrous to see the close watch the animal keeps on his captors' movements. He has found a slack chain his best policy, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... supposing I do hold the opinions you attribute to me, I wish not to engage my vanity so as never to retract, nor to deprive myself of the resource of a conversion on some future day after ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... itself! Do not exclaim too hastily. Whether the globules are animated or not, it is very certain, let me tell you, that your life depends entirely upon them; that it is weakened if they are weakened; that it revives with them; and that whether you attribute individual life to them or not, makes no alteration in the fact: their action upon you remains the same. And he must be a very clever man who can show me the exact difference between action and life. Hereafter, when ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... of her old archness. 'I may have a tolerable opinion of my own attractions—women commonly have, it is said. But I am not so foolish, my lord, as to suppose that on the three or four occasions on which I have seen you I can have gained your heart. To what I am to attribute your sudden—shall I call it whim or fancy—' Julia continued with a faint blush, 'I do not know. I am willing to suppose that you do not mean to ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... 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 that fell ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... good account who their own fathers were, which not every one of the rabble that poured into the city at first could do; others, from patronage, their word for protection of inferiors, the origin of which they attribute to Patron, one of those that came over with Evander, who was a great protector and defender of the weak and needy. But perhaps the most probable judgment might be, that Romulus, esteeming it the duty of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... people, eager for the blood of one man, and he innocent, and sees, standing in their midst, the meek and lowly Jesus, calm as an evening zephyr over Judea's plains, from whose eye flows the gentle love of an infinite divinity,—his face beaming in sympathy with every attribute of goodness, faith and humanity,—all this, too, before his mad, unjust accusers, from whose eyes flash in mingled rays the venom of scorn and hate,—his mind grows strong with a sense of right. His feelings will not longer ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... had but now seemed so far away, pressed upon him remorselessly. And to-morrow! He did not want Roach to be taken. Always there would have been danger to himself and his associates in the capture of the murderer, but now when the vindictive wretch would assuredly attribute his disaster to the man to whom the lightning flash had revealed his presence on the shores of the bay, the danger was trebled. And it was imminent. He had little doubt that another night would see Roach in custody, and he had no doubt at all that the scoundrel ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... a freethinker; for he disbelieved the gods of his country, and the common creeds about them, and declared his dislike when he heard men attribute "repentance, anger, and other passions to the gods, and talk of wars and battles in heaven, and of the gods getting women with child," and such like fabulous and blasphemous stones. I pick out these particulars, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... undermined health which was never strong, and which had been sorely tried by 'the wind of a cursed to-day, the curse of a windy to-morrow,' at St. Andrews. If a reader observes in Murray a lack of strenuous diligence, he must attribute it less to lack of resolution, than to defect of physical force and energy. The many bad colds of which he speaks were warnings of the end, which came in the form of consumption. This lurking malady it was that made him wait, and dally with his talent. He hit on the idea of translating ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... name caused no blush upon Althea's cheek. She spoke of him kindly and naturally, as of a brother that was dear to her. In the distant years, he had been convinced of Hubert's honorable nature. He might not have changed. At all events he was gone now, and might never return. It was more agreeable to attribute Althea's rigid coldness to a shock of grief, rather than to a shock of hatred to himself or of affection for another. Nevertheless, he gave her no peace nor quiet. He became angered if she did not converse, and equally out of temper ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... commoditie out of it. The curious and most excellent have the sufficiencie to cull and chuse that which is worthie to be knowne and may select of two relations that which is most likely: from the condition of Princes and of their humours, they conclude their counsels and attribute fit words to them: they assume a just authoritie and bind our faith to theirs. But truly that belongs not to many. Such as are betweene both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all; they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... combine. Yet the experience and the feelings to which I refer do not in themselves constitute men Poets, but only prepares them to be the auditors of those who are. How far I shall be found to possess that more essential attribute of Poetry, the power of awakening in others sensations like those which animate my own bosom, is that which, to speak sincerely, I know not; and which, with an acquiescent and contented spirit, I expect to be taught by the effect which I shall ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... attribute Byron's "love of mountain prospects" in his childhood to the "after-result of his imaginative recollections of that period," but (as Wilson, commenting on Moore, suggests) it is easier to believe that the "high instincts" of the "poetic child" did not wait for association ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... 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 scepter 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 his sceptered sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... they had had the requisite vitality and courage, have cut him off from their denominational fellowship. He was a sincere, earnest believer in the cardinal point of Quakerism, the Divine presence in the human soul—this furnishes the key to his action through life. This divine attribute he regarded not as the birth-right of Friends alone, not of one race, sex or class, but of all mankind. Therefore was he an abolitionist; therefore was he interested in the cause of the Indians; therefore was he enlisted in the cause of equal rights for women; therefore was he a friend ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... very much the custom here, whenever the example of America is quoted in favour of the practicability of republican institutions, to attribute our success to the fact of society's being so simple, and the people so virtuous. I presume I speak within bounds, when I say that I have heard the latter argument urged a hundred times, during the last eighteen months. One lady, in particular, who is exceedingly clever, but who ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... may add security to their majesties throne, and peace and happiness to all mankind. The hand of God was visibly pressed upon the French; and, I hope, there is not a person in the British fleet, who does not attribute this great victory to the blessing of the Almighty on our exertions in a just cause. With every sentiment of respect, believe, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... of the observer is directed as he makes his judgment, in the former case restricts unconscious wanderings of the eye, and sets up a process of continuous and effortful fixation which accompanies each act of determination. I attribute the depression of the eyes to this process of binocular adjustment. The experience of strain in the act of fixation increases and decreases with the distance of the object regarded. In a condition of rest the axes of vision of the eyes tend to become parallel; and from this point ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... difficult to explain the bold introduction of so important an insertion, unless we attribute it to the over-wisdom of some modern printer, who regarded Edward III. as the only excellent and redoubted prince of ...
— Iron Making in the Olden Times - as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean • H. G. Nicholls
... most happy monarch of the world, as well on account of his peaceful as prosperous reign. One thing only disturbed his happiness, which was, that he was pretty old, and had no children, though he had so many wives. He knew not what to attribute this barrenness to; and what increased his affliction was, that he was likely to leave his kingdom without a successor. He dissembled his discontent a long while; and, what was yet more uneasy to him, he was constrained to dissemble. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... wrong-doer that which takes pleasure in wrong, for there is none else. Once we rub out the distinction between God and man, we rub out all moral distinctions as well. If we are not other than He is, how can we act other than He wills? If we hold that the soul is only "a finite mode of God's infinite attribute of thought," part of "the necessary expression of the infinite attributes of eternal Being," the sense of sin can be ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... secure his honours by cruelty and oppression. The righteous Allah planted me not here to spread a poisonous shade over the offspring of His Prophet Mahomet: though fear and submission be a subject's tribute, yet is mercy the attribute of Allah, and the most pleasing endowment of the vicegerents of earth. But as thou, weak man, hast dared to advise the extirpation of one of the race of the mighty Dabulcombar, the vengeance of my injured brother's blood fasten upon ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the most strange and delicious hallucinations on those who use it. All travellers who have visited the East agree in saying that its effects are very superior to those of opium. We evidently must attribute to some ecstatic vision the supposed existence of the enchanted gardens, which Marco Polo described from popular tales, and which, of course, never existed but in the imagination of the young men, who were either mentally excited after fasting and prayer, or intoxicated ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... of pregnancy is extremely common. Some sociologists declare that it is becoming more and more frequent, and see in it a grave national danger. French statesmen attribute the alarming decline of the birth-rate in their country, in great part, to a rapid increase in the number of pregnancies which end prematurely. Reliable English and German statistics indicate that of the pregnancies ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... inability. I was conscious of the cause, but as it was supposed to be a physical one, the reason of it was sought for, but to no purpose. In the same circumstances now I should be worse. When I say my mind cannot be occupied as formerly, do not attribute it to my wishes. This is what I fear; it makes me almost despair, makes me feel that I would rather die than live under such thoughts. I never could be happy if you thought so. My future will be my only evidence. My experience, which is now my own evidence, I cannot ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... time I do attribute to Gentility, that if he be well-descended, of worshipful or noble parentage, he will express ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... invention was not always a reliable quantity, but with that eccentricity which goes with any attribute of genius, it was likely at any moment to rise supreme. If to the critical, hardened reader the tale seems a shade overdone here and there, a trifle extravagant in its delineations, let him go back to his first long-ago reading of it and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to have been the daughter of a wandering, pioneer missionary, but the king, I mean Dingaan, murdered her parents, of whom he was jealous, after which she went mad and cursed the nation, and it is to this curse that they still attribute the death of Dingaan, and their defeats and ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... in every attribute, in manner, in movement and in appearance; indeed, for a woman of the present day unusually and refreshingly feminine. Yet she had certain mental characteristics which were entirely unlike most women. One was her extreme aversion for shops, and indeed for going into any concrete little details. ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... turned away. And then, to crown the horror literally as well as figuratively, Hugh saw that her hair sparkled and gleamed goldenly, as the hair of a saint might, if the aureole were combed down into it. She moved towards the door with a fettered pace, such as one might attribute to the dead if they walked; — to the dead body, I say, not to the living ghost; to that which has lain in the prison-hold, till the joints are decayed with the grave-damps, and the muscles are stiff with more than deathly cold. She dragged one limb after the other slowly ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... confer numberless benefits upon them for years, and the more that is done for them the more they will expect. They do not seem to comprehend the motive which dictates an act of benevolence or charity, and they invariably attribute it to fear or the expectation of reward. When they make a present, it is with a view of getting more ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... relationship and responsibility between the individuals taxed and the Federal Government were thus created by the exercise of the highest attribute of sovereignty, it was provided in the statute that any State or Territory and the District of Columbia might lawfully "assume, assess, collect, and pay into the Treasury of the United States" its quota of said tax in its own way ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... I discovered something new to admire, some trait of character, some mental attribute, or a dainty mannerism that ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... operations of the human intellect and the everywhere diffused mind of Deity, the peerless wisdom of Jehovah. Even the expression appears to me inaccurate—portion of omnipresence—omnipresence is an attribute whose very essence is unlimitedness. How can omnipresence be affirmed of anything in part? But enough of this spirit of disputatiousness. Let us attend to the proper business of human life, and talk a little together respecting our domestic ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... information, and since he had been thus busy in sedition, it would be well for him to retire out of the way of mischief, otherwise the government might be obliged to take note of him. Ser Ceccone wanted no evidence to make him attribute his failure to Tito, and his spite was the more bitter because the nature of the case compelled him to hold his peace about it. Nor was this the whole of his grudge against the flourishing Melema. On issuing from his hiding-place, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... elements which go to make up the "popular" man, Laurence possessed the faculty of winning the devoted attachment of individuals, and that to an extent of which he himself little dreamed. Not the least important item which went to make up that attribute lay in the fact that he was a most indulgent listener, whom nothing astonished, and who could look at all sides of any given question with the tact and toleration of a man who thinks. This faculty he seldom exercised, and then ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford |
