"Comprehension" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a desire which had become the ruling necessity of his life. To him she was a being of a different sort, from a different world—a mystery. They had nothing in common but a rebellious discontent with life, and this glamorous bewildering thing, so much stronger than they, so far beyond their comprehension, which they called ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... the dog, and followed. By some instinct of his own, the terrier was keeping to a submerged road, though how he managed to remain on it was beyond the lad's comprehension, for the night was as dark as a wolf's throat and the path was under water half ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... expressed regret that he was obliged to leave the following morning. He noticed a slight change of expression on the diplomatist's face when he mentioned that he had come over in a hurry to discuss some business matters with his sister. A moment later M. Delacour was smiling perfect approval and comprehension and moving towards the door. At the door he lingered to express a hope that Harold would stay for the ball. He said that Mildred must do her best to persuade her brother ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... the low murmur ran through the silence of the room; Grant raised his hand and a man brought in the prisoner. He looked at the set faces, and made a little gesture of comprehension. ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... that would simply annihilate the enemy, and as he would doggedly carry on a fight, so he ruminated, begged, and urged until his idea was realized. But he was forced to practice exhausting perseverance, and on several occasions the lack of comprehension or sympathy which he encountered infuriated him. Yet he never gave up. It was not his way in a workshop, any more than in the air; and when, after some ten months' struggling, trying, and frequent beginning ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... tolerate stupidity and lack of comprehension when they are simple and wholly natural, but what of an utter obtuseness of understanding which dresses itself up and becomes rhetorical? Can ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... are glad to meet you here. We are glad to see you and we are glad to have you see us. We are glad to see you, for we recognize in the breadth of your knowledge, such knowledge as is useful to your race, a greater comprehension than any living man has presented to our generation. We are glad to see you, because in our judgment you have brought to the analysis and distribution of this vast knowledge a more penetrating intelligence and a more ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... Tori Shichi (Korean pronunciation, Nori Sachhi) and others. The envoys carried also a memorial which said: "This doctrine is, among all, most excellent. But it is difficult to explain and difficult to understand. Even the Duke Chou and Confucius did not attain to comprehension. It can produce fortune and retribution, immeasurable, illimitable. It can transform a man into a Bodhi. Imagine a treasure capable of satisfying all desires in proportion as it is used. Such a treasure is this wonderful doctrine. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... and sixty, she had philosophers, wits, beauties, and saints clustering around her; and one naturally cares to know what was the elixir which gave her this enduring and general attraction. We think it was, in a great degree, that well-balanced development of mental powers which gave her a comprehension of varied intellectual processes, and a tolerance for varied forms of character, which is still rarer in women than in men. Here was one point of distinction between her and Madame de Longueville; and an amusing passage, which Sainte-Beuve has disinterred from the ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... the little drama with dawning comprehension. Then Ned did not— Helen—it was really Ethel's sister with whom he longed to make peace, ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... labor made him his friend and companion, and set him up against Philo's auditors, among whom Cicero was one, who wrote an admirable treatise in defense of his sect, in which he puts the argument in favor of comprehension in the mouth of Lucullus, and the opposite argument in his own. The book is called Lucullus. For as has been said, they were great friends, and took the same side in politics. For Lucullus did not wholly retire from the republic, but only from ambition, and from the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... recognizing him, from his pictures, as the author of her favorite story. He is bourgeois if it gives him no joy when the weight of his name swings the beam toward the good cause; or when the mail brings luminous gratitude and comprehension from the perfect stranger in Topeka or Tokyo. No; fame to the truly cultivated should be fully as enjoyable as traveling hopefully ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... phantasms of visual perception, independently of words, and such condition is exemplified in those born deaf, who are consequently dumb: to whom the business of life is a mere pantomime, who only communicate the impulses of passion, and expose their want of comprehension. ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... Aeschylus, is by no means his highest or his best. Nor can I explain this by saying that Horace had too tame and unimaginative a mind to appreciate Aeschylus. Horace knew what he could himself do, and, with admirable wisdom, he confined himself to that; but he seems to have had a perfectly clear comprehension of the merit of those great masters whom he never attempted to rival. He praised Pindar most enthusiastically. It seems incomprehensible to me that a critic, who admired Pindar, should ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... is hard for common apprehension to conceive this absolute, and seize upon this identity of thought and thing, Schelling invented a faculty of mind expressly for the comprehension of such profound doctrines of philosophy. He called it intellectual intuition. Those who possess it not—and it is by no means general—must be content to live without philosophy. Nor can those on whom nature has failed to bestow this intellectual intuition, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... comprehension of the stranger's object. Curiosity, however, prompts Sorel at this point to an inquiry: "'Ow ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... pacing the room. He halted, and stared at her in sheer astonishment. Many a beautiful woman touches the height of her beauty after the birth of her first child; and this woman had never stood before him in loveliness that, passing comprehension, so nearly touched the divine. But her perversity ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... drum, duicoshtcurenomengri, or a thing beaten by two sticks; a tambourine, angustrecurenimengri, or a thing beaten by the fingers; and a fife, muipudenimengri, or thing blown by the mouth. All these compound words, however, would be more or less indefinite, and far beyond the comprehension ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... he got into blue water the moment he approached the finesse of deportment. He was exactly of that school of elegants who fancy drinking a glass of wine with another, and introducing, are touches of breeding; it being altogether beyond his comprehension that both have especial uses, and are only to be resorted to on especial occasions. Still, the worthy master, who had begun life on the forecastle, without any previous knowledge of usages, and who had imbibed the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... responsibility for him, Kate. He passes my comprehension entirely. He looks like a cherub on a Della Robbia frieze and converses like the king of the brownies. I expect to hear him ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... An', tho' the gentry first are stechin, Yet e'en the hall folk fill their pechan With sauce, ragouts, and sic like trashtrie, That's little short of downright wastrie. An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in I own it's past my comprehension." ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... Hethbridge was too impulsive, too excitable, and too much given to pleasure to be devoid of heart. Behind her action there must have been some strange, illogical, feminine motive, for there was a deliberation in every move—one of those motives which are quite beyond the masculine comprehension. One notices that when a woman takes action in this incomprehensible way her lady friends are never surprised; they seem to have some subtle sympathy with her. It is only the men who look puzzled, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... that the above sentence should stand precisely as it appeared in the first edition of this work; because a circumstance has arisen from it, which could have been as little in the anticipation, as it is in the comprehension, of the author. A lady, of high connections, and of respectable character, conceived the passage in question to be somewhat indecorous; or revolting to the serious sense entertained by all Christians, and especially by CHRISTIAN MINISTERS, of the mode of devoting the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the constellations which we could not hope to see, even if we could survive so long? The answer is: Because these things aid the mind to form a picture of the effects of the mobility of the starry universe. Only by showing the changes from some definite point of view can we arrive at a due comprehension of them. The constellations are more or less familiar to everybody, so that impending changes of their forms must at once strike the eye and the imagination, and make clearer the significance of the movements of ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... has wasted the energies of this by-product of humanity. And the feeble-minded are happy when they have occupation suited to their needs. If one will but see them when they are set at occupations within their comprehension and ability, he will quickly understand the joy they ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... the heads of the peeping children disappeared. They gazed at each other in solemn wonder. They had never seen the like of this before. To stamp on the floor without an apparent reason, and without being done in fun, was beyond their comprehension. ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... to stone. Slowly a dim comprehension seemed to dawn upon her; and it is no exaggeration to say that it was a ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... the Pall Mall Gazette in which he set forth—in the strangest English surely ever penned by man, woman, or child—the facilities and delights of cycling in France on seven francs a day. Why anyone in his sober senses should dream of travelling abroad on seven francs a day passes my comprehension. Money means to the traveller not only health, enjoyment, comfort, but knowledge. Why should we expect, moreover, to be wholesomely housed and fed in a foreign country upon a sum altogether inadequate to the tourist's needs at home? The ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... of all children, irrespective of their hereditary and physical qualities, to the point where they, in turn, may reproduce their kind. Advocates of Birth Control offer and accept no such superficial solution. This philosophy is based upon a clearer vision and a more profound comprehension of human life. Of immediate relief for the crushed and enslaved motherhood of the world through State aid, no better criticism has been made ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... tremendous was the restraint imposed upon their nerves. A crime so huge, so daring as the abduction of a Princess, the actual invasion of a castle to commit the theft of a human being just as an ordinary burglar would steal in and make way with the contents of a silver chest, was beyond their power of comprehension. ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... my comprehension," said my father, when he came home to dinner. "I can understand tardiness," he continued, categorically, "as the result of indolence. Lazy people dread effort and postpone it. There is a man in my employ who continues ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... world was to be finally accomplished by a catastrophic disturbance of the atmosphere, he would have assimilated the information under the simple idea of dirty weather, and no other, because he had no experience of cataclysms, and belief does not necessarily imply comprehension. The wisdom of his county had pronounced by means of an Act of Parliament that before he could be considered as fit to take charge of a ship he should be able to answer certain simple questions on the subject of circular storms such as hurricanes, ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... I could never see any possible benefit. How a knowledge of what acid will turn blue litmus-paper red is going to help an officer to find fodder for his troop horses, or inspire him to lead a forlorn hope, was then, and still is, beyond my youthful comprehension. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... to the comprehension of the conduct of Erasmus, seems to me to lie in the clear apprehension of this fact. That he was a man of many weaknesses may be true; in fact, he was quite aware of them and professed himself no hero. But he never deserted that ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... themselves. As soon as he was settled, he turned his attention to the needy slaves around him. He urged upon his parishioners the duty of having a meeting expressly for them every Sunday, with a sermon adapted to their comprehension. After much argument and importunity, it was finally agreed that they might occupy the gallery of the church on Sunday evenings. Many colored people, hitherto unaccustomed to attend church, now gladly went to hear the gospel preached. The sermons were simple, and they understood them. Moreover, ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... live in fear their power and position would collapse were their own people to acquire knowledge, information, comprehension about our free society. Their world has many elements of strength, but this one fatal flaw: the weakness represented by their iron curtain and their police state. Surely, a social order at once so insecure and so fearful, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of comprehension. He supposed that the difficulty had arisen from the conduct of one or more of the regular customers. He felt that he would very much like to meet the man whose undesired attentions had driven his companion ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... never have been explained and never will be. It is characteristic of a panic that its occurrence cannot be accounted for; and therefore it was that the ancients attributed it to the direct interposition of a god, as arising from some cause quite beyond human comprehension. If panics could be clearly explained, some device might be hit upon, perhaps, for their prevention. But we see that they occurred at the very dawn of history, that they have happened repeatedly for five-and-twenty centuries, and that they are as common now ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... England. Women who were beauties found that in his stately rooms they might gather courts about them. Men of letters knew that in his libraries they might delve deep into the richest mines. Those who loved art found treasures in his galleries, and wide comprehension and finished tastes ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... me it is a mystery above your comprehension. A mystery, indeed. A religion that rejects a revealed truth because it is incomprehensible contains in itself the seeds of dissolution and will end in rationalism. Is not everything around us a mystery? ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... Mrs. Gillespie, "and there is a grace in her politeness that can only proceed from great natural delicacy and refinement of character. How she can have such manners, living and working in the way you say she does, I confess is beyond my comprehension." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... have to call the doctor," was her comment. "Either for you or for myself, Teddy. One of us is gone—wholly gone, mentally. There's no question about it, either you are rambling in your speech, or I have entirely lost all comprehension ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... every one who violates the labor discipline in any enterprise and in any business. That those who are responsible should be discovered, tried, and punished without mercy. The petty bourgeois environment, which we will have to combat persistently now, shows particularly in the lack of comprehension of the economic and political connection between famine and unemployment and the prevailing dissoluteness in organization and discipline—in the firm hold of the view of the small proprietor that "nothing matters, if only I gain as ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... he could, and perhaps his simple explanation was better adapted to Dick's comprehension than one from an older person would have been. Dick felt more free to ask questions, and the example of his new friend, for whom he was beginning to feel a warm attachment, had considerable effect upon him. When, therefore, ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... itself needs no little power of subtle comprehension to understand; for intrinsically it is a fixed quality while outwardly it changes, just as the tide of custom ebbs or flows. Intrinsically then, it is that quality in a woman which breeds respect in men—respect, the lure of which is ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... Fate had been far beyond his comprehension for the last five months, and it was quite enough for him to feel himself in the familiar arms, and ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not God's ways in these also be beyond his understanding? Might he not trust him to do him justice? In such high affairs as the rights of a live soul, might not matters be involved too high for Job? The maker of Job was so much greater than Job, that his ways with him might well be beyond his comprehension! God's thoughts were higher than his thoughts, as the heavens were ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... that journeys along the celestial spaces in the flashing sunshine is beyond our comprehension. It accomplishes with ease what man strives in vain to do with all his strength. At West Point there are some links of a chain that was stretched across the river to prevent British ships from ascending; these links were made ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... apparent from many of his public utterances. In fact, the amazing intimacy which he professes with his Maker, and the strange manner in which he implies that he and the Creator have interests in common, and joint understandings that are beyond the comprehension of ordinary mankind, would savor of downright blasphemy, were it not for the undeniable sincerity of his Teutonic majesty, who really regards himself as a Divine instrument. Indeed, there is no doubt that it is this belief which he honestly entertains that has served to keep his private ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... that I couldn't be angry with her. How could I, poor thing? She has always loved me, and been so anxious to please me, and this time she seriously thought that Robert and I would be delighted. Extraordinary defect of comprehension! ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... to David's doctor, asking endless questions, pledging him to secrecy, and urging him to wire an answer C. O. D. Little Julia was instructed as to her mother's charms and her father's virtues far beyond the point of her comprehension. And Jerry spent long hours with Connie in the car, explaining its mechanism, and making her a really proficient driver, although she had been very skilful behind the wheel before. Also, he wrote long letters to his dealer in Denver, giving him such a host of minute ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... they persevered, no one flinching from the work. Harry Shafto attracted the notice of the commander by his activity. Willy Dicey imitated him to the best of his power. Although not so strong as a man, by his intelligence and comprehension of what was to be done he was able to direct others, and thus rendered ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... as the fashion of late dinners continues, however, it must remain a measure of prudence to let nothing absolutely essential to the comprehension of a play be said or done during the first ten minutes after the rise of the curtain. Here, again, A Doll's House may be cited as a model, though Ibsen, certainly, had no thought of the British dinner-hour ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... process of gradual elimination, to those clearly essential and representative. To embrace more confuses the attention, wastes mental force, and is a hindrance to correct appreciation. The rejection of details, where permissible, and understandingly done, facilitates comprehension, which is baffled by a multiplication of minutiae, just as the impression of a work of art, or of a story, is lost amid a multiplicity of figures or of actors. The investigation precedent to formulation of ideas must be close and minute, but ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... alone too, her husband's business, her son's thoughts, as far from her as now, when her silent representative held her old place in the silence and darkness. I had known it so, often enough. Love itself does not always give comprehension and sympathy. It might be that she was more to us there, in the sweet image of her undeveloped beauty, than she might have been had she lived and grown to maturity and fading, ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... character and scope of the Prince's public life. There would have been little object served in elaborating the description of these ceremonial events. They are of value and necessary to a clear comprehension of the position and manifold duties of the Prince of Wales, and quite enough have been given for this purpose. During all these thirty years the work of the Heir Apparent increased in its importance and multifarious character until every interest and element in the population found a place ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... He cocked his head on one side, and, laying his hand on Max's arm, entertained him in odd German. The others were silent. Ciccio made no pretence of listening, but smoked and stared at his own feet. Louis and Geoffrey half understood, so Louis nodded with a look of deep comprehension, whilst Geoffrey uttered short, snappy "Ja!—Ja!—Doch!—Eben!" ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... saw in Hawke's gesture the secret sign of a hidden friend, and he threw up his hand in a Parisian gesture of gratitude and comprehension, and failed not to report to his mistress, who saw Hawke's fine ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... moment, at the door of the dining room, appeared an immaculate Jacky in his new suit, his face shining with bliss and soap. He came and stood beside Maurice, waiting his monarch's orders, and listening, without comprehension, to ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... towering above scraggly growth. No one can ever forget that tall, dynamic figure in the spacious pulpit of Christ Church preaching the Word of God with gripping power. It was not merely the power of virility and eloquence, but the power of grasp, of comprehension, the ability to communicate truth and make it come alive, and cry out for expression in the hearts and lives of his hearers. We felt the majesty of the human spirit, the impatience of sure faith with the rags and blemishes of doubt and ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... better nature overcome by persistent undermining when the work is carried out by men chosen as possessing "a mind self-possessed and tranquil, delicate in its perceptions, sure in its intuitions, and capable of a wide comprehension of various subjects." What youthful nature could be strong enough to resist the cunning pressure of influences wielded thus? So Rene Drucquer carried the secret in his heart until circumstances rendered ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... perspective as any painter of to-day, and their men and women are such glorious creatures, with backgrounds of such stately architecture or such magnificent scenery, all displayed in a revel of color, that pleasure outruns comprehension in the beholder. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... else appeared to understand the theory, and that even Mr. Darwin's warmest adherents regarded it with disfavour. If Mr. Darwin means that every cell of the body throws off minute particles that find their way to the germ-cells, and hence into the new embryo, this is indeed difficult of comprehension and belief. If he means that the rhythms or vibrations that go on ceaselessly in every cell of the body communicate themselves with greater or less accuracy or perturbation, as the case may be, to the cells that go to form offspring, and that since the characteristics of matter are determined ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... party round the Hellespont, their friendship was important. Theodosius also was less of a zealot than some of his admirers imagine. The sincerity of his desire to conciliate Eleusius is fairly guaranteed by his effort two years later to find a scheme of comprehension even for the Anomoeans. But the old soldier was not to be tempted by hopes of imperial favour. However he might oppose the Anomoeans, he could not forgive the Nicenes their inclusion of the Holy Spirit in the sphere of co-essential deity. Those of the Semiarians who were willing to join the ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... present in His exaltation. We have to think of a double form of His present activity—His work with and in us here on earth, and His work for us there in the heavens. We have to think of a double form of His work in the heavens—that which the Scripture represents in a metaphor, the full comprehension of which surpasses our present powers and experiences, as being His priestly intercession; and that which my text represents in a metaphor, perhaps a little more level to our apprehension, as being His preparing a place for us. Behind the veil there is a working Christ, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... this total want of comprehension in which everything that surrounds us lives; in this incommunicable world, where everything has its object hermetically contained within itself, where every destiny is self-circumscribed, where there exist ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... could not possess very high aims and was not worth much. How this sordid struggle for an hour or two of physical existence could ever be regarded as a deeply earnest and important business was beyond his comprehension The atmosphere choked him, he longed for air and space. Thrusting his way through to the side of the ravine, he began to climb the overhanging cliff, swinging his way ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... with publisher or stage-manager, and he knew his absence from England to be unmarked and unregretted. Annette and he seemed to get on well enough together. There was no real communion between them. Paul was all on fire about his work, and she had no more comprehension of his thoughts than a canary-bird would have had. But it was not possible for a man of his temperament to live constantly under the same roof, and to sit daily at the same table with anybody, male or female, without ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... the ancients for their extreme simplicity, are said to have sent express for Hipocrates to cure their great townsman Democritus, whom they believed to be out of his senses, because his sayings were beyond their comprehension. Hippocrates, on conversing with Democritus, having at once discovered that the cause lay with themselves, assembled the senate and principal inhabitants in the market-place with the promise of instructing them in the cure of Democritus. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... defective comprehension of fractions, the Egyptian was able to work out problems of relative complexity; for example, he could determine the answer of such a problem as this: a number together with its fifth part makes 21; what ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... He stood staring. Almost stupidly staring, for an instant. And as I regarded him with fascinated horror, there came upon his heavy gray face a look of dawning comprehension. And I heard Snap's startled intake of breath. He moved to the spectro, where the zed-ray ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... Lords of the Commonwealth, and Anabaptists and Antinomians were in high places, so that the most orthodox Presbyterians found themselves side by side with them in private gatherings and committees. In the Established Church of the Protectorate there was to be a comprehension of Presbyterians, Independents, and such Baptists and other really Evangelical Sectaries as might be willing; and, accordingly, the question of mere Toleration outside the Established Church no longer concerned the Evangelical sects lying immediately beyond ordinary Independency. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... being left alone, but Mrs. Stannace herself determined the proportion, which on Limbert's side at least and in spite of many other fluctuations was never altered. His income had been "fixed" with a vengeance: having painfully stooped to the comprehension of it Mrs. Stannace rested on this effort to the end and asked no further question on the subject. The Major Key in other words ran ever so long, and before it was half out Limbert and Maud had been married and the common household set up. These first months were probably the happiest ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... rather a pleasant one. Whenever a desperate service was to be done, "the boys," as they, more Hibernico, familiarly termed themselves, were foremost in the ranks of volunteers. The contempt of danger, or non-comprehension of it, manifested by some of these gentlemen, was perfect. "My fine fellow," said an engineer officer, during the unsuccessful siege of Badajoz in May 1811, to a man under Lieutenant Grattan's orders, who sat outside a battery, hammering at a fascine; "my fine fellow, you are too ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... partially recovered my comprehension I rushed madly to the door, with the dim idea of beating it in. My fingers touched a cold and solid wall. There was no door! I felt all along the corridor for many yards on both sides. There was not even a crevice to give me hope. I rushed downstairs shouting madly. No one ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... then, suddenly, as the rumble of the train came nearer, I sprang down the steps, and, crouching at the side of Lossing, whispered across to Murphy, 'Lay low and be ready; someone's coming out.' There was no time for more words, but I never doubted the readiness of my two helpers, nor their quick comprehension of the situation. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... perfectly calm, and as devoid of feeling as any one could desire, and it was open to her comprehension that he avoided her whenever he possibly could. She told herself this was all she could, or did, desire; yet, nevertheless, she writhed beneath the certainty ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... architect of the final edifice of science, by drawing its plans and making them intelligible, leaving their perfect execution to an intellectual world which could not fail to be moved to its supreme effort by a comprehension of the work before it. The 'Novum Organum,' itself but a fragment of the second division of the 'Instauration,' the key to the use of the intellect in the discovery of truth, was published in Latin at the height of his splendor as Lord Chancellor, in 1620, and is his most ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... a thoughtful man. In any surroundings you can find tranquillity in yourself. Free and deep thinking which strives for the comprehension of life, and complete contempt for the foolish bustle of the world—those are two blessings beyond any that man has ever known. And you can possess them even though you lived behind threefold bars. Diogenes lived in a tub, yet he was ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was peculiarly unsuitable. His mind, happy only while it was active, could ill accommodate itself to pursuits which almost forbade exertion; and a business within the comprehension of a peasant was not for a character which could fill, and animate, with its own energy an extended sphere of action. Even now, when agriculture has become an eminently scientific profession, it requires to make it interesting ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... to the producer, he or she was given a stage training in chorus work following a tryout. The training was obtained in rehearsals, conducted for weeks, without compensation. The instructor might become impatient at any evidence of slowness of comprehension or execution; he might resent tardiness, absence, or slight infringement of stringent rules, and in such cases dismissal was the ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... truth which the Gospel subsequently taught me more fully, that men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. I understood that for the comprehension of life, it was essential that life should be something more than an evil and meaningless thing revealed by reason. Life must be considered as a whole, not merely in its parasitic excrescences. I felt that to be good was more ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... that commanding situation. But what was our astonishment, when we discovered by degrees that not one lamb of the whole flock was wanting! How he had got all the divisions collected in the dark, is beyond my comprehension. The charge was left entirely to himself, from midnight until the rising of the sun; and if all the shepherds in the forest had been there to have assisted him, they could not have effected it with greater propriety. All that ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... with strained, dim sight, till just at the dividing portal between the lounge and the ballroom the Princess turned and looked back at him with a smile. Over all the intervening heads their eyes met in one flash of mutual comprehension! then, as the fair face vanished like a light absorbed into the lights beyond it, Gervase, left alone, dropped heavily into a chair and stared vaguely at the elaborate pattern of the thick carpet at his feet. Passing his hand across his forehead he withdrew ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... mysterious Providence, the wisdom of whose ways is above human comprehension, had visited her with wasting sickness, and her little means had become exhausted. It was now, too, midwinter, and the snow lay heavy and deep through all the surrounding forests, while storms still seemed gathering in the heavens, and the driving wind roared amid ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... we may be called by our proper name again—and Ave will be well,' cried the child, as the ideas came more fully on her comprehension. 'O, Cora! O, Cousin Deborah, do you hear? Does Ave know? May I ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... application of the preceding rules we are enabled to reduce the 64 possible moods to 11 valid ones. This may be done by a longer or a shorter method. The longer method, which is perhaps easier of comprehension, is to write down the 64 possible moods, and then strike out such as violate any of ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... thus prescribed for my symptoms, she gazed through her talc window with marked particularity into her "Lightning Conductor's" un-goggled face. It wore a puzzled expression at first, which suddenly brightened into comprehension. "Do they repent having brought me along, and want to get rid of me?" I asked myself. I could scarcely believe this. They were too kind and cordial; still, something in that look exchanged between them hinted at a secret which concerned ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... spirits, Terence," he said. "I don't believe that those fellows intend to carry out their threats. Though why they have made us prisoners is beyond my comprehension." ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... intelligent and educated. Although it was bitter to him to be a prisoner at such a time, he had some comprehension of what had occurred, and he knew that John had been in a position to see far more than he. He asked the young American many questions about his flight in the air, and about Philip Lannes, ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... young players commonly overlook the homely Pawns, or deem them scarcely worthy of regard, and are amazed to learn that the combinations of these simple elements are among the most refined and arduous studies of the science. Yet such is the fact, and without a thorough comprehension of their quiet but remarkable predominance in almost every circumstance of the game, it is impossible for any one to attain a ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... writers been interpreted to be the seven mountains on which the city of Rome is situated. For proof of this interpretation they quote Rev. 17:9. How that inanimate, literal mountains can represent heads, since the head contains the power of intellect and authority, lies beyond our comprehension. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... several sturdy infants rolling about on the grass by their sides. The eager faces of her audience were intently fixed upon her as she poured forth a torrent of words, the meaning of which was beyond our comprehension. So intently were they listening, that we ran but little chance of being discovered, unless she should happen to turn her eyes in the direction of the ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... angels tread among them without brushing their heavenly garments against those earthly ones. The roof! the dome! Rich, gorgeous, filled with sunshine, cheerfully sublime, and fadeless after centuries, those lofty depths seemed to translate the heavens to mortal comprehension, and help the spirit upward to a yet higher and wider sphere. Must not the faith, that built this matchless edifice, and warmed, illuminated, and overflowed from it, include whatever can satisfy human aspirations at the loftiest, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be given by those European governments which have a right comprehension of human dignity, and who know that whatever is unjust bears with it a germ of destruction; but this impulse, it is melancholy to add, will be powerless if the union of the planters, if the colonial assemblies or legislatures, fail to adopt ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... open, and he stared upward, stupidly at first, then with a bright gaze of comprehension. He struggled and sat up, swaying from side ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... brave news indeed," cries he, "and easeth me beyond comprehension, for I could see clearly enough she was smitten with this painter, by her writing of nothing else; and seeing she could not get at his true name and condition, I felt some qualms as to how the matter might end. But do tell me, Kit, is he an honest, wholesome ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... might, during the hours when she knelt supplicating beside Karen's bed, have been imaged as a furnace and Karen as a corpse lying in it, strangely unconsumed, passive and unresponsive. There was no cruelty in Karen's coldness, no unkindness even. Pity and comprehension were there; but they were rocks against which Madame von Marwitz dashed ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... I, after a short pause, "is your opinion of this philosopher? I understand that he has just written a work* above all praise and comprehension." ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... simplify language. Children always observe this, and are always displeased with it, unless they are very young; and it is not necessary. They can understand ordinary language well enough, if the subject is within their comprehension, and treated in a manner adapted to their powers. If you doubt whether children can understand language, tell such a story as this, with ardor of tone and proper gesticulation, to a child only two ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... though on the whole most favorable to the clear comprehension of the events, leads likewise to apparent inaccuracy. That which we expect to find in one part is reserved for another. The estimate which we are to form, depends on the accurate balance of statements ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... them with reasons for action which might have little effect upon them at the time, but for which they would be the wiser and better all their lives after. In research, in originality, in variety of knowledge, in richness of invention, in depth and comprehension of mind, Burke had as much the advantage of Lord Chatham as he was excelled by him in plain common sense, in strong feeling, in steadiness of purpose, in vehemence, in warmth, in enthusiasm, and energy of mind. Burke was the man of genius, of fine sense, and subtle reasoning; ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... question gives as ample proof as any other of the sound and subtle insight brought to bear by the translator upon the object of his labour and his love. His keen and studious intuition is here as always not less notable and admirable than his large and solid knowledge, his full and lucid comprehension at once of the text and of the history of Shakespeare's plays; and if his research into the inner details of that history may seem ever to have erred from the straight path of firm and simple certainty into some dubious byway of ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... swiftly while we spoke together in low and guarded tones; now I nodded my comprehension, sheered off to the right, took the trail-lead, replacing the Stockbridge Mole, and signalled the nearest Oneida, Grey-Feather, to join Mayaro on the left flank. This made it necessary for me to call the Wyandotte into touch, which I did; and the other ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... appearance the effect of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" was felt in the broader and more generous stamp which it impressed on the temper of the national Church. Hooker had in fact provided with a theory and placed on grounds of reason that policy of comprehension which had been forced on the Tudors by the need of holding England together, and from which the church, as it now existed, had sprung. But the truth on which Hooker based his argument was of far higher value than his ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... quite balked his comprehension. Having taken in all visible details and circumstances, he very considerately turned his ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... spirit visits time and distance do not exist. There all things are new and strange, not to be reckoned by our measures. There the sight is not our sight nor the hearing our hearing. I repeat that all things are different, but that difference I cannot describe, and if I could it would prove past comprehension. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... said. "It is called the Toinnette. Take it, dear, and keep it—for memory." Then, as he took it from her, her eyes widened in a sudden anguish of dread and comprehension. ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... especially to the son of Hela—the grim combat had widened even more that subtle and growing comprehension of the world as it existed for them. It was the unforgettable wisdom of experience backed by an age-old instinct and the heredity of breed. They had killed small things—Neewa, his bugs and his frogs and ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... good fiction does for any of us is to broaden our comprehension of other lots than our own. The average man or woman has little opportunity actually to live more than one kind of life. The chances of birth, occupation, family ties, determine for most of us a line of experience not very inclusive and but little varied; and this is a natural ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... that Deacon Pembrook can perform the experiments successfully. In other words, to come down to your comprehension, he succeeds in living so pure and careful a Christian life that he has the respect and confidence of everybody. What if he can't preach? He can practice. However, I am willing to admit that the dear old man would be more edifying if he would study his lesson ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... certain individual evil with what is the best on the whole. This incomplete explanation, leaving something to be discovered in the life to come, is sufficient for answering the objections, though not for a comprehension of the matter. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... story already, my reader will remember, in my uncle's writing, at home: when we returned I read it—not with the same absorption as if it had come first, but with as much interest, and certainly with the more thorough comprehension that I had listened to it before. That same written story I shall presently give, supplemented by what, necessarily, my uncle Edmund had to supply, and with some elucidation from the spoken narrative of ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... of its wonders. The sleeping faun, praised on from century to century, and never yet praised enough; so drunk, so fast asleep, so like a human body! Modesty reproving Vanity, by Leonardo da Vinci, so totally beyond my expectation or comprehension, great! wise! and fine! Raphael's Mistress, painted by himself, and copied by Julio Romano; this picture gives little satisfaction though except from curiosity gratified, the woman is too coarse. Guido's Magdalen up stairs, the famous Magdalen, effacing ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... more of drunken acquiescence than of comprehension went up in chorus from all but one of the revelers; he held his glass silently a moment, disposed to put it ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... cabman said that these things were the proof of progress, and by that I knew he had been reading his newspaper, as every intelligent American should. The papers tell their clientele in language fitted to their comprehension that the snarling together of telegraph-wires, the heaving up of houses, and the making ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... us the greatest satisfaction to answer the numerous and varied questions of our inquisitive little readers; and except in instances where the answer, were it given correctly, would occupy too much space in our columns, or be too scientific for the comprehension of the youthful querist, we have left but two or three questions to ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Revelation, although he admitted that it was the most difficult book in the Bible to understand. He did not profess to understand it all, but he used to quote that saying of Dr. Mackie's, "The blessing to be looked for does not come by comprehension, but by the reading of the revelation God has given us in His Word, Rev. i. 3." But though he read and studied his Bible as earnestly as he would any other book, he never forgot the fact that only the Holy Spirit can teach us the truths ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... cabin of the man-made meteor that the brain of Harkness had conceived—two men and a girl. And they stared at one another unsmilingly, with eyes which reflected their comprehension of the risks that they ran and the dangers which lay ahead in the dark void. Yet the brown eyes of Mam'selle Diane, no less than the others, were afire with the thrill of adventure—the same response to the same lure that has carried men to each ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... own sermons were full of vigor, and a brilliant imagination embellished them with abundant illustrations, but depth of thought and zealous research made the majority of his writings far above the comprehension of the multitude. His printed funeral sermons are quaint in their deep, black borders, with drawings of death's heads similar to those that adorned the tombstones. His sermon after the death of George I. may have embodied the feeling prevalent at that time; but, in view of the ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... so close an affinity between the two fluids, the workings of the viewless winds are, in their nature, much less subject to the powers of human comprehension than those of the sister element. The latter are frequently subject to the direct and manifest influence of the former, while the effects produced by the ocean on the air are hid from our knowledge by the subtle character of the agency. Vague and erratic currents, it is ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... time presses, and I am told the Bahee's wife loves punctuality—but she's liberal-minded like her husband, and makes allowance for laziness, especially in hot weather. She is a regular trump, it seems, and quite amazed our electricians, during her visit to the big ship, by her intelligent comprehension of all they explained to her. She is an accomplished equestrian, and dresses as a native princess, with a huge ornament in her nose, but does not disdain to mingle with English ladies in the Bombay Rotten Row, and uses ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... primitive, elemental idea that was expressed in Lolla's words was beyond her comprehension, and, in fact, a good many people older and wiser than Bessie do ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... that was raised to his was for a moment simply shocked and surprised, but under his steady gaze comprehension dawned, and Ruth turned hastily aside, saying, in a tremulous voice which ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... possessed a really antique spirit, so in his studies he was faithful to the same ideal. In the treatment of science in general the ancients were in a rather unfortunate position, since for the comprehension of the varied objects of nature a division of powers and capabilities, a disintegration of unity (so to speak) is almost unavoidable. In a like case the modern scholar encounters an even greater danger, because in the detailed investigation of manifold subjects, he ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the late Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, who had raised himself from the humble position of stonemason to the highest place in the councils of the country, by dint of his Scotch shrewdness, his tenacity of purpose, his public honesty, and his thorough comprehension of {408} Canadian questions, though he was wanting in breadth of statesmanship. Many generations must pass away before the personal and political merits of Sir John Macdonald can be advantageously and impartially reviewed. A lawyer by profession, but a politician by choice, not ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... to the love and representation of humanity to symbolise it by a sorrowful street-girl in Venice who wistfully asks an alms; worn and broken with sorrow and wrong; whose eyes appeal for pity, for comprehension of her good and for his love; and whose fascination and beauty are more to him than those of her unsuffering companions. The other side of that class of women is here given with clear truth and just compassion, and the representation is lifted into imaginative strength, range and dignity of thought ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... has not forgotten, David," she said after a moment of deliberation, "but—well, I will be frank with you. She has suddenly shot past my comprehension. It is the privilege of a girl to change her mind, you know, when she changes the ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... happened almost in a day. How can one reconcile the multitudinous pacific notes which issued from Washington with the bugle-song to which the American boys march: "We've got four years to do this job." The cleavage between the two attitudes is too sharp for the comprehension ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... not a debauche nor depraved, but a singular, happy fellow, still young, for he was scarcely forty. A man of the world in its widest and best sense, gifted with a brilliant, but not profound, mind, with much varied knowledge, but no true erudition, ready comprehension without true understanding, he drew from his observations, his adventures, from everything he saw, met with and found, anecdotes at once comical and philosophical, and made humorous remarks that gave him a great ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... flash to seize any situation in which I am concerned. But I don't need to tell you that! You, too, have married a Britisher, and know just how much that dear old American joke about English slowness of comprehension amounts to—unless the creature is ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... passing their comprehension, had been rejected—or so it seemed to him He could not understand that they had spared him. Why! He was as good as they! His pride was hurt. No! They should not ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... flesh were hushed; hushed these shadows of earth, sea, sky; suppose this vision endured, and all other far inferior modes of vision were taken away, and this alone were to ravish the beholder, and absorb him, and plunge him in mystic joy, so that eternal life might be like this moment of comprehension which has made us sigh with Love—might not that be the fulfilment of 'Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord'? Ah, when shall this be? Shall it not be, O my God, when we rise ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Deuteronomy, and Lachlan was trying for the same period to have the minister removed from Drumtochty. Donald, deprived by one stroke of both his friends, fell back on me, and told me many things I loved to hear, although they were beyond my comprehension. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... into the grip of the current, the bateau slowly swung around till it headed the other way. Mandy Ann turned and hurried again to the point nearest home. Whereupon the bateau calmly repeated its disconcerting manoeuvre. All at once the whole truth of the situation burst upon Mandy Ann's comprehension. She was lost. She was being carried away so far that she would never, never get back. She was being swept out into the terrible wilds that she had heard stories about. Her knees gave away in her terror. Crouching, a little red tumbled heap, on the bottom ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... daintiness to an intimate acquaintance. The earlier encounters stand out clear and hard, but then the impressions become crowded and mingle not only with each other but with all the subsequent developments of relationship, the enormous evolutions of interpretation and comprehension between husband and wife. Dipping into my memories is like dipping into a ragbag, one brings out this memory or that, with no intimation of how they came in time or what led to them and joined them together. And they are all mixed up with subsequent associations, with sympathies and ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... to be a sudden comprehension on the part of the dog, like the clearing of a distorting mist. He realized in the tone of the man's voice the recognition and appreciation of qualities which stand not alone for unquenchable hatred, but for undying fidelity as well; and when "Scotty's" hand fell upon his head, and gently stroked ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... Victoria's comprehension of the spirit of her age has been constantly asserted. It was for long the custom for courtly historians and polite politicians to compliment the Queen upon the correctness of her attitude towards the Constitution. But such praises seem hardly to be justified by the facts. In her later years Victoria ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey |
