"Concentrate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all this was that D.B. did take a correspondence course in electrical engineering. It was pretty tough work. He had not studied for years. One of the first things he had to learn was how to study; how to concentrate; how to learn the things he had to know without tremendous waste of energy. After a little while he learned how to study. Then he progressed, a little at a time, with the intricate and complicated mathematics of the profession he had determined to make his ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... concentrate his mind on his tasks, but it seemed hopeless. The words of the German in the trolley came back to him continually—"I won't fight for Germany. I won't fight for the United States either, but I'll fight all right." What could he have meant? Did he mean that he wouldn't try to enlist ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... head of a match and get it hot before it will begin to burn; that gunpowder does not go off unless you heat it by the sudden blow of the gun hammer which you release when you pull the trigger; that you have to concentrate the sun's rays with a magnifying glass to make it set a piece of paper on fire; and that to change raw food into food that tastes pleasant you have to heat it. If heat did not start chemical change, you could never ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... perdition in a world which is to come, while never a helping hand is stretched out to save them from the inferno of their present life? Is it not time that, forgetting for a moment their wranglings about the infinitely little or infinitely obscure, they should concentrate all their energies on a united effort to break this terrible perpetuity of perdition, and to rescue some at least of those for whom they profess to believe their ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... become acquainted with the power of concentration. I propose that we all quit work and begin to concentrate. Matter is only a creation of spirit. Let us exercise our several sovereign spirits and try to turn out a better line of matter. Let us have fewer rocks and stones and more comforts. Sweat and toil are a great mistake. Let us turn Delance's Hill into plum-pudding and the ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... attempting, if they escaped the north sea fleet under Admiral Pellew, to force their way into the Sound; at the same time it was not yet certain that the Russian ships at Archangel would not try to effect a passage into the Baltic. Sir James therefore found it necessary to concentrate his force in Hawke Roads, and felt confident that he could still protect the trade, if not prevent the superior fleet from ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... "Concentrate," she admonished him. "Let the whole curnt of your magnetism flow into that question. Excuse me! I left the slate in the nex' room. My control will ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... sort. A brilliant improvisatore; rapid in thought, in word and in act; everywhere the promptest and least hesitating of men. I likened him often, in my banterings, to sheet-lightning; and reproachfully prayed that he would concentrate himself into a bolt, and rive the mountain-barriers for us, instead of merely playing on ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... free, popular institutions as were the patriots of '76. There is alarm at the tendency to slip away from the early traditions, at the centralization of power, at class legislation. The influence of usury is so strong to promote a favored class and to concentrate power, that it must be resisted as an enemy to our republican institutions. It gradually undermined and then destroyed the republic of Venice, and it is now doing its first work with us. It must soon emerge from its cover. Then our people will ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... of attack. At dawn, at noon, when the sun was reddening in the west, just before the dusk, in pitch darkness, even, the steady, regular bombardment that had never ceased all through the days and nights would concentrate into the great tumult of sudden drum-fire, and presently waves of men—English or Scottish or Irish, Australians or Canadians—would be sweeping on to them and over them, rummaging down into the dugouts with bombs and bayonets, gathering ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the outer ovolemma and the greater part of the vesicle, and concentrate our attention on the germinative area and the four-layered embryonic disk. It is here alone that we find the important changes which lead to the differentiation of the first organs. It is immaterial ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... attempting to interview a large number of ex-slaves the workers should now concentrate on one or two of the more interesting and intelligent people, revisiting them, establishing friendly relations, and drawing them out ...
— Slave Narratives, Administrative Files (A Folk History of - Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves) • Works Projects Administration
... forces from the southern frontier, as was related in the last chapter, under the idea that the Norman invasion would probably be postponed until the spring; so that, instead of sending his troops into their winter quarters, he had to concentrate them again with all dispatch, and march at the head of them to the north, to avert ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... vitriol is caused to flow. The vitriol dissolves the nitrogen oxides, and so-called "nitrous vitriol" flows out at the base of the tower. The recovery of the nitrogen compounds from the nitrous vitriol is effected in Glover towers (the invention of John Glover of Newcastle), which also serve to concentrate to some extent the weak acid produced in the lead chambers, and to cool the hot gases from the sulphur burners or pyrites kilns. The weak chamber acid is mixed with the nitrous vitriol from the Gay-Lussac tower, and the mixture ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... other poultry-farmers what the poet who makes the songs of a people is to the boss who makes their laws. This sentiment may have been met with a furore of acceptance, all the other guests leaning forward to look at the honored guest and concentrate their applause upon him, as they clapped and cheered, and one fine fellow springing to his feet and shouting, "Here's to the man who made two-yolk eggs grow where one-yolk eggs ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... united the rest of his force in the rear to check the enemy, if they came too close. The distance between Knyphausen's force and that which brought up the rear suggested the idea to Washington to concentrate his assault on the rear force, and to hasten the attack before the British should reach the high ground of Middletown, about twelve miles away, where ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Canada. He was not conceited. His was only the boundless hopefulness of youth coupled with the assurance which experience had already given him, that whenever he set his mind to anything, he accomplished it, no matter how many difficulties stood in the way. So he was determined to concentrate all his efforts on his work, and as for serving humanity, he could do it best, he assured himself, by being ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... eager after gain. Though she was not lacking in sense or perspicacity, religious theories, and her complete ignorance of higher emotions had encircled all her faculties with an iron hand; they were exercised solely on the commonest things of life; spent in a few directions they were able to concentrate themselves on a matter in hand. Repressed by religious devotion, her natural intelligence exercised itself within the limits marked out by cases of conscience, which form a mine of subtleties among which self-interest selects its subterfuges. ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... it! Thousands of them. It's not right to expect a clergyman's wife to be an unpaid curate—plus a housekeeper, and it needs special grace to stand a succession of committees. How would it be to drop some of the most boring duties and concentrate upon the things that you could do with all your heart? You'd be happier, and would do ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... fix his attention upon these statistics; he began moodily to twist a button of his jacket and to concentrate a new-born and obscure but lasting hatred upon the court-house. Miss Raypole's glib voice continued to press upon his ears; but, by keeping his eyes fixed upon the twisting button he had accomplished a kind of self-hypnosis, or mental anaesthesia, ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... Jablunka Pass; called in the Jablunka and remoter posts; anxious to concentrate, before the Enemy get nigh. That is the King's notion; and surely a reasonable one; the AREA of the Prussian Army, as I guess it from the Maps, being above 2,000 square miles, beginning at Breslau only, and leaving ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... conceived a dislike to the circle she found there, and this was the too early beginning of disputes which lasted for the remainder of their union. In the year of his marriage we find Comte writing to the most intimate of his correspondents:—'I have nothing left but to concentrate my whole moral existence in my intellectual work, a precious but inadequate compensation; and so I must give up, if not the most dazzling, still the sweetest part of my happiness.' We cannot help admiring the heroism which cherishes ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... of the above principle, on the contrary favor its execution most admirably; for her duties, though of the manual order for the most part, are not of a nature to distract the mind or absorb the heart; she can easily and constantly concentrate the thoughts of the one and the affections of the other ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... sun, as though there had been a mighty shattering of mirrors here into little particles which had fallen upon everything. There was, however, no lack of contrast. To the shining rocks and the fierce sunshine, which seemed to concentrate its fire wherever it fell in the open spaces of the deep gorge, succeeded the ancient forest and its cool shade; but the darkly-lying shadows were ever broken with patches of sunlit turf. Pines and firs reached almost ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... me, his scent for the weaknesses of his friends being absolutely fiendish. I was angry because he had succeeded,—because he knew he had succeeded. All the morning uneasiness possessed me, and I found it difficult to concentrate on the affairs I had in hand. I felt premonitions, which I tried in vain to suppress, that the tide of the philosophy of power and might were starting to ebb: I scented vague calamities ahead, calamities I associated with Krebs; and when I went out to the Club for lunch this ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... represent a community to whose laws they have voluntarily subscribed, and whose honor they uphold. It is well, too, to have an impersonal costume, if for no other reason than to counteract the tendency of girls to concentrate upon their personal appearance. To have a neat, simple, useful garb is a novel experience to many an overdressed doll who has been taught to measure all worth by ...
— Educational Work of the Girl Scouts • Louise Stevens Bryant
... did not go. Some power seemed to restrain him. But when he tried to analyse his feelings, he confessed himself muddled. He had obtained, nay, invited, Warde's confidence; and he dared not abuse it. It was a time of anguish. He was unable to concentrate his mind upon work or play, deprived of sleep, haunted by the conviction that if Desmond knew all, he would turn from him for ever. Then, at the most difficult moment of his life, the way ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... our army was as follows: After the offensive of July, 1917, the Czechs retreated to Kieff where they continued to concentrate fresh forces. At that time they numbered about 60,000, and this number had gradually increased to 80,000 by the end of 1917. They always observed strict neutrality in Russia's internal affairs on the advice of their venerable leader, Professor Masaryk. ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... with Farrar was an indirect result of the incident I have just related. A few mornings after, I was seated in my office trying to concentrate my mind on page twenty of volume ten of the Records when I was surprised by O'Meara himself, accompanied by two gentlemen whom I remembered to have seen on various witness stands. O'Meara was handsomely dressed, and his necktie made but a faint pretence of concealing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a decision—too little to gain; the task of transporting men and materials across three thousand miles of ocean seemed insuperable; the differing traditions of her population would make it impossible for her to concentrate her will in so unusual a direction. Basing their arguments on a knowledge of the deep-seated selfishness of human nature, Hun statesmen were of the fixed opinion that no amount of insult would compel America to take ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... assistants and saw there for miles large beds of black sand on the beach in layers from one to six inches thick—hundreds of thousands of tons. My first thought was that it would be a very easy matter to concentrate this, and I found I could sell the stuff at a good price. I put up a small plant, but just as I got it started a tremendous storm came up, and every bit of that black sand went out to sea. During the twenty-eight ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... little club," Mrs. Ballinger continued, "is to concentrate the highest tendencies of Hillbridge—to centralise and focus ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... lessons once in power of will—concentration and all that sort of thing. It made me feel wickedly old; but I learned a great deal about keeping my mind on one subject all the time. You know, it doesn't matter what you concentrate on—even if it's only making biscuits, or something messy and domestic like that—it does you good. It trains you not to waste words, and to store up your mental energy, and all that sort of thing. And all the time I was studying that course, ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... that quiet, iron look change but once. I will tell you about it. It was one of those days after the battle of Trenton, when he tried to concentrate the troops that he had scattered over the country, to bring them to bear upon the British. His object was to show the enemy that they could ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... American fliers had come within striking distance, they found themselves opposed by a score of military hydroplanes that rose presently, with a great whirring of propellers, from the decks of the German battle-ships. Had the Americans been able to concentrate here their entire force of fifty aeroplanes, the result might have been different; but the fifty had been divided along the Atlantic coast—ten aeroplanes and five submarines being assigned to each harbour that ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... Bonacieux, darting at her the most loving glance that he could possibly concentrate upon her charming little person; and while he descended the stairs, he heard the door closed and double-locked. In two bounds he was at the Louvre; as he entered the wicket of L'Echelle, ten o'clock struck. All the events we ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of water may be the same as that in an ordinary bath. In those cases alone where it is intended to localize the current by means of the surface board, and to concentrate it very strongly in one spot, the water in the tub should be left low enough to leave the particular spot to be treated uncovered by this; the surface board can then be applied to this spot without the loss to the current of strength, through derived ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... had been standing perfectly still while trying to concentrate on a way out. Sunshine had shone uninterruptedly on one side of his space suit for as long as five minutes. Despite the insulation inside, that was too long. He turned quickly to expose another part of himself to the sunlight. He knew abstractedly that the ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... amuse me. I have some threads I can pick up still—in Bond Street. Let me advise you to concentrate on that riviere. If you really feel inclined to trust me, I will take it to a man I know; he will show it to—" he named a famous firm. "In a few days—well, give me a week—and I undertake to bring you proposals. If you accept them, I will collect ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and east of France. Davoust was 'in petto' singled out for the defence of Paris. He, was to arm the inhabitants of the suburbs, and to have, besides, 20,000 men of the National Guard at his disposal. Napoleon, not being aware of the situation of the Allies, never supposed that they could concentrate their forces and march against him so speedily as they did. He hoped to take them by surprise, and defeat their projects, by making Murat march upon Milan, and by stirring up insurrections in Italy. The Po being once crossed, and Murat approaching the capital of Lombardy, Napoleon with the corps ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... McDowell suggested to General Scott to concentrate in Washington the small army, the depots scattered in Texas and New Mexico. Scott refused, and this is called a general! God preserve any cause, any people who have for a savior a Scott, together with ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... were to be satisfied—if Wordlings were all that men cared for? What was to become of the race, if the few women who loved art, and through art learned really to love their kind, were forever to be denied? And here was Vina Nettleton with the spiritual power to concentrate her dream into an avatar (if into the midst of her solitary labors, a great man's love should suddenly come)!... Did the Destiny Master fall asleep for a century at a time, that such a genius for motherhood should be denied, while the earth was being replenished ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... should do when we decided where that "next" was to be—all these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle, irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon a definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable wall. I felt no inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that I should never write again. Thinking along this line only brought ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "I am saving up those two broadsides for a possible emergency, and if we were to fire now there would be no time to reload before we are down upon him. But go you, my hearty, and see that the guns of the starboard broadside are so trained as to concentrate their fire on a point at about fifty ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... its own. Slowly I began to feel what It wanted, what It hated, how It planned and how It acted. And this to me was a miracle, the one great miracle of the strike. For years I had labored to train myself to concentrate on one man at a time, to shut out all else for weeks on end, to feel this man so vividly that his self came into mine. Now with the same intensity I found myself striving day and night to feel not one but thousands of men, a blurred bewildering multitude. And slowly in my striving I ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... securities that were quoted on the New York Stock Exchange, and I found that when I opened my paper in the morning I was tempted to look first at the quotations of the stock market. As I had determined to sell all my interests in every outside concern and concentrate my attention upon our manufacturing concerns in Pittsburgh, I further resolved not even to own any stock that was bought and sold upon any stock exchange. With the exception of trifling amounts which came to me in various ways I have ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... down town that afternoon in search of his cap, he pondered as he walked over the advisability of making a fresh start. It would not be a bad idea. But first he must concentrate his energies on recovering what ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... patient develops weariness and languor and loses his mental and physical vigor. He is no longer forceful or energetic, his efficiency is impaired and as a consequence his nervous system begins to show signs of depleted strength. He cannot concentrate his thoughts, he falls behind in his studies, his mental effort is sluggish, he becomes diffident and shy, shuns society, loses confidence in himself, is morbid and emotional and may even ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... emphasis on the control of expiration and on the brief retention of the breath before exhaling it. In his first exercise the abdomen is pushed forward and contracted, the idea of breathing being excluded in order to concentrate attention upon making the ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... peculiarities, could scarcely be included in the Alexandrian school. The loss of active life, consequent on this gradual dissolution, was much increased when Alexandria fell under Roman sway. Then the influence of the school was extended over the whole known world, but men of letters began to concentrate at Rome rather than at Alexandria. In that city, however, there were new forces in operation which produced a second grand outburst of intellectual life. The new movement was not in the old direction—had, indeed, nothing in common ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... civilized lands of a network of railway lines, furnishing a rapid, safe, and miraculously cheap means of transportation to every part of the civilized world. In order to realize the greatest benefit from these devices, it has become necessary to concentrate our manufacturing operations in enormous factories; to collect under one roof a thousand workmen, increase their efficiency tenfold by the use of modern machinery, and distribute the products of their labor to the markets of the civilized world. The agency which has acted to bring ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... delight in them, have felt that there must be something wrong in the world when such a woman misses her vocation, and has to scatter her love to the four winds of heaven, for want of an object upon which to concentrate it in ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... Selingman demanded, almost indignantly. "You are like all enthusiasts of your sex. You are too intense, you concentrate too much. You have lived in a cold and austere atmosphere. You have waited a long time for the hand which is to lead you ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Concentrate all those UV beams on one spot, and see if you can blast a hole in him before he shakes it loose," ordered the ray technician. "He'll wiggle if you start off with the beam. Train your sights on the nose of that first ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... and British, whose retreat had carried them to the Marne, now outnumbered the Germans, and, what is more important, were able to concentrate their forces by calling in those troops who had been engaged in the counter-offensive in Alsace. Taking advantage of their superiority in numbers, the Allies took the offensive. Holding the Germans fast in the centre, the Paris garrison struck hurriedly ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... Mr. G.S. Arundale, the well-known Principal of the Central Hindu College, writes: "At frequent intervals, of course, boys come with complaints, with petitions, and here I have to be very careful to concentrate my attention on each boy and on his particular need, for the request, or complaint, or trouble, is sometimes quite trivial and foolish, and yet it may be a great source of worry to the boy unless it is attended to; and even if the boy cannot be ...
— Education as Service • J. Krishnamurti
... glittering, fleeting light, surpassing all else in their wild loveliness, fairer than even the blush of dawn; but, whirling idly through empty space, they bear no message of a coming day. The sailor steers his course by a star. Could you but concentrate yourselves, you too, O northern lights, might lend your aid to guide the wildered wanderer! But dance on, and let me enjoy you; stretch a bridge across the gulf between the present and the time to come, and let me dream far, far ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... her notes; but she could not concentrate herself upon her work. The imaginary history of the young man obtruded upon her; she decided that she would go out for a walk, and take up her work again when she returned. She was getting her ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... inventor, even a prestidigitateur (ugh, what a word!), always some one who is en vue for the moment. To-day it was a man who had invented a machine to count the pulse. He strapped a little band on your wrist and told you to concentrate your thought on one subject, then a little pencil attached to the leather handcuff began muffing up and down slowly or quickly, as your ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... spectator toward the new goal. But such help by the writing on the wall is, after all, extraneous to the original character of the photoplay. As long as we study the psychological effect of the moving pictures themselves, we must concentrate our inquiry on the moving pictures as such and not on that which the playwright does for the interpretation of the pictures. It may be granted that the letters and newspaper articles take a middle place. They are a part of the picture, but their ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... awaiting that day in which a greater quiet—that which can be never broken—shall come to wrap me all about. I dream of a bench before the threshold, and of fields spreading away out of sight. But I must have a fresh smiling young face beside me, to reflect and concentrate all that freshness of nature. I could then imagine myself a grandfather, and all the long void of my ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... it; they seek elsewhere for a virgin soil, to be exhausted in its turn. But here is also "intensive" agriculture, which is already worked, and will be more and more so, by machinery. Its object is to cultivate a limited space well, to manure, to improve, to concentrate work, and to obtain the largest crop possible. This kind of culture spreads every year, and whereas agriculturists in the south of France and on the fertile plains of western America are content with an average crop of 11 to 15 bushels per acre by extensive ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... Aquinas synteresis.[12] Eckhart was at first content with this teaching of St Thomas, whom he always cites with great reverence; but the whole tendency of his thinking was to leave the unprofitable classification of faculties in which the Victorine School almost revelled, and to concentrate his attention on the union of the soul with God. And therefore in his more developed teaching,[13] the "spark" which is the point of contact between the soul and its Maker is something higher than the faculties, being ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... of the garrison of Glencoe, and on the evening of October 10 I had an interview on the subject with his Excellency the Governor, at which I laid before him my reasons for considering it expedient, from a military point of view, to withdraw that garrison, and to concentrate all my available troops at Ladysmith. After full discussion his Excellency recorded his opinion that such a step would involve grave political results and possibilities of so serious a nature that I determined to accept the military risk of holding ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... alone in the compartment of the train that bore her away from Florence and from Jean. She had a book; it lay open on her lap, and she had tried to read, but the lines all ran together and the effort to concentrate her thoughts made her head ache. She was very unhappy. It seemed to her that now indeed life was emptied of all sweets and the taste of it was as dust and ashes in her mouth. She was leaving youth and joy behind; or rather, she had killed them and ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... Men who thus concentrate their attention upon mere physical laws or phenomena, get to believe in no others. They are impatient of any things in the universe except what they can number, or measure, or weigh. They are in danger of regarding the Supreme Being Himself as an "anomaly." They certainly seem to do ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... agreement between Bulgaria and Turkey might engage the Greek army in a struggle with the forces of three Powers at once. Even if the attack came from Bulgaria alone, he added, the Greek army needed three weeks to concentrate at Salonica and another month to reach the theatre of the Austro-Servian conflict, and in that interval the Bulgarian army, invading Servia, would render impossible all contact between the Greek and Servian armies. ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... his left shoulder thoughtfully and saw a slight tremor at the corners of the girl's mouth. It caused his vision to clear and concentrate; he found that the lips were, in fact, in the very act of smiling. The ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... and old habits of mind resumed sway, she began to concentrate her thoughts on three questions: Should she accept Graydon and take her chances with him? Should she accept Mr. Arnault, with his wealth, and be safe? or should she hesitate a little longer, in the hope that she could secure Graydon and ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... suffered most. Sangar after sangar was obstinately held; each sangar as it was rushed coming at once under fire of the one above it. And here I may note the admirable service done by the artillery and Maxim guns. Several attempts were made by the enemy to concentrate from above and hold the lower sangars and positions, but all such attempts were frustrated by the admirable practice of the Mountain Batteries and Maxim guns over the head of our advancing infantry. Although at several points sangars were only carried by hand—to—hand fighting, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... qualities exist, in due proportion, they will form a lovely character, harmonious and beautiful as the seven colors of the rainbow; yea, with the addition of an eighth, of crowning lustre. But, if any one suffers his religious feelings to concentrate on one point, as though the whole of religion consisted in zeal, or devotional feeling, or sympathy, or the promotion of some favorite scheme of benevolence, you will find an exhibition of character as unlovely and repulsive ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... words, he stripped from his person the cumbrous upper coat in which he was wrapt, confronted the door of the apartment, on which he fixed a keen and determined glance, drawing his person a little back to concentrate his force, like a fine horse brought up to the leaping-bar. I had not a moment's doubt that he meant to extricate himself from his embarrassment, whatever might be the cause of it, by springing full upon those who should appear when the doors opened, and forcing his way through ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... He folds his arms and closes his eyes. You can see that he is trying to concentrate his thoughts in preparation for prayer. It is doubtless hard to divert them from the swift channel in which they have been ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... culture; a directing of the mind from facts to underlying principles; a development of the reasoning powers so as to bring the emotions and passions into subjection; the acquirement of the power to concentrate the mind, one of the best methods of cultivating self-control,—these are some of the objects and results of sound ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... all the letters on file are applicable. They show, as I think, that I took measures anticipatory to the order you gave me, personally, in your passage up the river to the battle-field, viz: to hold myself in readiness to march in any direction; that my brigades were ordered to concentrate at the place most proper and convenient for a prompt execution of the orders, whatever they might be, because it was at the junction of two roads, one leading to Pittsburg Landing, the other to the right of the army. To one of these points, it may be added, I was sure of being ultimately sent, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... afield and live laborious days in the pursuit of fame, and be egoistic to the back-bone, although one's interests, in this case, include even the contents of the minds of generations yet unborn. One may forego many pleasures and concentrate all one's efforts upon the attainment of intellectual eminence or of a virtuous character, and yet seem to have a claim to the ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... The 20th Brumaire, at one o'clock in the morning, Bonaparte was appointed First Consul for ten years. He himself selected Cambaceres and Lebrun as his associates under the title of Second Consuls, being firmly resolved this time to concentrate in his own person, not only all the functions of the two consuls, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... carried to the point of scorn and allied to a tenacity of purpose and a keenness of vision which she had never owned. Not a reproach escaped him—less, she thought, from generosity than because he chose to concentrate his mind on something useful. It was no use lamenting the past; it might be possible to undo it for all practical purposes. The affair was never again referred to between them except as a factor recommending or dictating some course of action; its private side—its revelation ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... following the path that was pointed out to him. As the champion of property, as the chief of the coalesced parties which had triumphed over "the enemies of property" in the streets and lanes of "the capital of civilization," he was required to concentrate his energies on domestic matters. Yet further: all men in other countries who were contending with governments were looked upon by the property party in France as the enemies of order, as Agrarians, who were seeking the destruction ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... still running on the theatre. Owing to failing health and to his unfortunate love affair, he now found it more difficult to concentrate his mind than formerly, and the incessant work of earlier years was no longer possible; so that the easy road to fortune offered by a successful play became doubly attractive. "Richard Coeur d'Eponge," however, never ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... "For a little while, O Arjuna, concentrate thy attention and fix thy mind and hearing on thy inner soul. If thou listenest to my words in such a frame of mind, they will meet with thy approbation. Abandoning all worldly pleasures, I shall betake myself to that path which ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... domestic enough to beguile him into marriage when his resources were still very moderate and partly uncertain. His friends wished that so ingenious and agreeable a fellow might have more prosperity than they ventured to hope for him, their chief regret on his account being that he did not concentrate his talent and leave off forming opinions on at least half-a-dozen of the subjects over which he scattered his attention, especially now that he had married a "nice little woman" (the generic name ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... owing to the rigid economy enjoined by the Home Government. As the financial outlook darkened, Portland and Dundas sent urgent warnings to the new Governor of Hayti, Major-General Simcoe, bidding him concentrate the whole of the British force at Cape Nicholas Mole, the probable objective of the French and Spaniards. The military administration must be withdrawn to that fortress, the British cavalry being sent home. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... to define Webster's touch upon Italian tragic story, I have been led perforce to concentrate attention on what is painful and shocking to our sense of harmony in art. He was a vigorous and profoundly imaginative playwright. But his most enthusiastic admirers will hardly contend that good taste or moderation determined the movement of his genius. Nor, though his insight into ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... a strong effort to concentrate his attention upon the learned treatise, which formed a part of the little library he had brought with him. But Annetta's idle talk about the nuns, and especially about Maria Addolorata and her singing, kept running through his head in spite of his determination ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... did not come to pass by accident, neither was it the result of a single cause. It was the culmination of a series of events, each of which had a tendency, more or less marked, to concentrate into the close of the fifteenth century the results of an instinct to search over ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... do to concentrate his attention on the patter of a salesman, but he would not let his mind wander from the single track upon which he was projecting it. He knew he was being watched closely. To make a mistake ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... during his Sundays with her, his mother divined none of his unhappiness. But he himself failed to perceive the burden which that same mother, hitherto as near to him as he to her, was herself bearing. How should he guess that she was at last obliged to concentrate her every faculty upon herself in order to keep from him any betrayal of her condition? Ivan had, certainly, more than once remarked the haggard pallor of her face; or caught her in an involuntary movement of pain. There were nights at school when ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... training; Washington, the wisest and best as well as the first of American presidents, and the purest and noblest type of the American character, may be mentioned as examples of those representative heroes in history who anticipate and concentrate the powers of whole generations. But they never represent universal, but only sectional humanity; they are identified with a particular people or age, and partake of its errors, superstitions, and failings, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... can guide a ship by a series of lenses," he declared at last. "But here's the really important thing. That field concentrates the forces of gravity already present. Those forces exist throughout all of space. There are gravitational lines everywhere. We can concentrate them in any direction we want to. In reality, we fall toward the body which originally caused the force of gravitation, not to ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... thought and nerve greater than is exacted by any other kind of war. It is a deadly and gallant tournament. The airman goes out to seek his enemy: he must be full of initiative. His ordeal may come upon him suddenly, at any time, with less than a minute's notice: he must be able to concentrate all his powers instantaneously to meet it. He fights alone. During a great part of his time in the air he is within easy reach of safety; a swift glide will take him far away from the enemy, but he must choose danger, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... that he happens to know. He will find that to gain such perfect control of thought is enormously more difficult than he supposes, but when he attains it it cannot but be in every way most beneficial to him, and as he grows more and more able to elevate and concentrate his thought, he may gradually find that new worlds are opening ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... an out, Gus. It's too good a thing to abandon. Suppose you and the Consul go away and give me time to concentrate my thoughts on this problem. It's a holy terror; but—Well, I've seen dogs almost as sick ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... of Sherman's Army was crossing Broad River at Alston and Freshley's, and the other near Ridgeway, General Hampton wrote General Beauregard to concentrate all his forces at or near the latter place by shipping Hardee and all forces under him at once by railroad—Stephenson's Division of Western men, now with Hampton and all the cavalry to fall upon the Fifteenth Corps, under Blair, and crush it before the other portions of the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... the tendency to divert attention from general principles and to concentrate it on concrete questions."[175] But if the Socialists cannot educate the masses to know what they want concretely, how much less will they understand general principles? If they cannot judge such concrete and separate ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... but it was merely the selfishness of one who had seen the happy and unhappy sides of life and wished to enjoy to the utmost what was left to her of the former. The vicissitudes of fortune had not soured her, but they had perhaps narrowed her in the sense of making her concentrate much of her sympathies on things that immediately pleased and amused her, or that recalled and perpetuated the pleasing and successful incidents of other days. And it was her drawing-room in particular that enshrined the memorials or tokens of ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... who are afraid. For in those who are angry, by reason of the heat and subtlety of the vital spirits, which result from the craving for vengeance, the inward movement has an upward direction: wherefore the vital spirits and heat concentrate around the heart: the result being that an angry man is quick and brave in attacking. But in those who are afraid, on account of the condensation caused by cold, the vital spirits have a downward movement; the said cold being due to the imagined lack of power. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... "Now, concentrate for a moment on the word Venus," he directed. I did so, and shortly I heard a faint humming which rose within the instrument. Then Melbourne turned a switch with a nod of satisfaction, ...
— The Chamber of Life • Green Peyton Wertenbaker
... Lennox Simpson) strongly urges—quite rightly, as I think—the great importance of nationalizing all Chinese railways. At Washington recently, he helped to secure the Shantung Railway award, and to concentrate attention on the railway as the main issue. Writing early in 1919, ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... morning to evening; men of different costumes, all offering samples of different articles for sale—Polish Jews, beggars, men of business, carriers, porters, servants, etc. Anton found it difficult to concentrate his thoughts amid this endless going and coming, and to get through his ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... one of the world's major suppliers of licit opiate products; government maintains strict controls over areas of opium poppy cultivation and output of poppy straw concentrate ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... had ceased with the death of the king, were at liberty to leave the country, now submissive to parliamentary rule, and cross over to Ireland, with Cromwell at their head, to crush out the nation almost, and concentrate on that fated soil, within the short space of nine months, all the horrors of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the occultist merely employs the crystal in order to concentrate his power, and to bring to a focus his astral vision. There is no supernatural virtue in the crystal itself—it is merely a means to an end; a piece of useful apparatus to aid in ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... To gently tauten and then slacken a rope three times before giving a heavy pull, the object being to concentrate the force of several men. The wind is said to veer and haul when it alters its direction; thus it is said, to veer aft, and ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... love me," said Switzer as if stunned by the utterly inexplicable phenomenon. "But she did once," he cried. "She did before that schwein came." No words could describe the hate and contempt in his voice. He appeared to concentrate his passions struggling for expression, love, rage, hate, wounded pride, into one single stream of fury. Grinding his teeth, foaming, sputtering, he poured forth his ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... and families and neighbours to come smelling round those dockyard gates. They might see the spotting tops of the cruisers inside. Of course there is a regular forest of masts and gantries showing, and a couple of spotting tops more or less might not be noticed. But my general idea is to concentrate attention on those dear old dummies down at Picklecombe Point. They are the centre of interest, the eye of the picture—the cynosure, as a scholar would say. I am not a bad scholar myself. I passed the seventh standard, and went to school all the time I was in the Red Marines. I ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... however, to have had a capacity for making a real success in that way, and, indeed, it would appear as if he had too much of the often fatal gift of the amateur in his composition to allow him to concentrate his energies on any one pursuit. He sought for success in various fields and never found it, and he died soon after his son, George Canning, was born. The mother of the future statesman was thus left a widow while ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the arrival of the blacksmith and the shoemaker, because they come to eat on the spot the corn which heretofore he has carried ten, twenty, or thirty miles to market, to exchange for shoes for himself and his horses. With each new consumer of his products that arrives he is enabled more and more to concentrate his action and his thoughts upon his home, while each new arrival tends to increase his power of consuming commodities brought from a distance, because it tends to diminish his necessity for seeking at a distance a market for the produce of his farm. Give to the poor ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... conveying a fine idea. But this I do know, that it is very difficult to display a dogged devotion to a mere spirit, however great. In everyday life ordinary men require something much more material, effective, definite and symbolic on which to concentrate their love and their devotion. And then, what is it, this Spirit of the Sea? It is too great and too elusive to be embraced and taken to a human breast. All that a guileless or guileful seaman ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... a fine grey limestone in the neighbourhood of Katariff. The collection of people is exceedingly interesting upon a market day, as Arabs of all tribes, Tokrooris, and some few Abyssinians, concentrate from distant points. Many of the Arab women would be exceedingly pretty were their beauty not destroyed by their custom of gashing the cheeks in three wounds upon either side; this is inflicted during infancy. Scars are considered ornamental, and some of the women are much disfigured ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... too careful, he thought. Of course, he could deal with any recalcitrant slave by other means, but the distorter was convenient and could be depended upon to give any degree of pressure desired. And it was a lot less trouble to use than to concentrate on more fatiguing efforts such as neural ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... the breach and drive the enemy back from zigzag traverse to traverse with bombs. But such a small action requires as careful planning as a big operation of other days. We had taken the two hundred yards. The thing was to hold them. That is always the difficulty; for the enemy will concentrate his guns to give you the same dose that you gave him. In an hour after they were in, the British soldiers, who knew exactly what they had to do and how to do it, after months of experience, had turned the wreck of the German trench into a British trench ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... city rate is to be expected, since with greater knowledge of sanitary matters, more precautions against disease would naturally be taken. But it is not likely that the country is becoming more careless, although the tendency to concentrate population even in rural hamlets may have an effect. It is rather more likely that the reports are made more carefully and that the records are more complete now than formerly. The apparent increase in ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... fixed by abundant certainties and manifold inductions. And yet it may sometimes occur that a single fact may be of such a nature that there is no escaping the conclusion which it forces upon the mind. It may concentrate in itself all the elements of certainty usually obtained from many sources. It may be determinative in its very nature, and admit of scepticism only at the expense of rationality. A single human grave, with its entombed skeleton, discovered in some uninhabited waste, where it was never ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... it," said Linda quietly. "I'm not built that way. I shan't concentrate on any boy to the exclusion of chemistry and ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... apparently, it answered its purpose. It freed him from preoccupation with the work of others. When his great opportunity came to him, in the commission to decorate the Camera della Segnatura, his painfully acquired knowledge was sufficiently at his command to give him no further trouble. He could concentrate himself on the essential part of his problem, the creation of an entirely appropriate, dignified, and beautiful decorative design. It was the work for which he was born, and he succeeded so immediately and so admirably in it that neither he nor any ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... he may get out of them all the law will let him. He ought to pouch the money that's owing him; he ought to shave away his insurance, his lightning-rod, and his horsedealing business; and he ought to sell his farms and his store, and concentrate on the flour-mill and the saw-mill. He has had his warnings generally from my lawyers, but what he wants most is the gentle hand to lead him; and I should think that yours, M. Fille, is the hand the Almighty would choose if ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... picked out of the concentrates by hand and small ones and fragments are removed by the "greasers," which are shaking tables heavily smeared with grease over which the concentrates are washed and to which diamond alone, of all the minerals in the concentrate, sticks. The grease is periodically removed and melted, and the diamonds secured. The grease can then be ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... sublime creatures are rare. Faithful disciples of the blessed St. Thomas, who wished to put his finger into the wound, they are endowed with an incredulity worthy of an atheist. Imperturbable in the midst of all these fraudulent headaches and all these traps set by neurosis, they concentrate their attention on the comedy which is being played before them, they examine the actress, they search for one of the springs that sets her going; and when they have discovered the mechanism of this display, they arm themselves by giving a slight impulse to the puppet-valve, and thus ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... fresh briefs? One of two results must clearly follow. Either the great Westminster philosopher is right, and love will play a far less important part than it has done in human affairs, or else it will concentrate itself, and take a far more intense and passionate character than ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... effect, and orders were despatched to the commanders of the various armies to fall back with all speed. Thus, although the French accomplished the wonderful feat of marching seventy-eight miles in two days, which was done in the hope of falling upon the Russians before they had time to concentrate, they found the town already evacuated, and the whole of the ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... being rather to keep up a strong, slow heat by means of the red embers. She next directed the boys to supply her with pine or cedar boughs, which she stuck in close together, so as to enclose the fire within the area of the stakes. This was done to concentrate the heat and cause it to bear upwards with more power, the rice being frequently stirred with a sort of long-handled, flat shovel. After the rice was sufficiently dried, the next thing to be done ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... away from the dames of Goya, clad in white cambric, with their rosebud mouths and with their hair done up like a turban, to concentrate his attention on a nude figure, the luminous gleam of whose flesh seemed to throw the adjacent canvases in a shadow. He contemplated it closely for a long time, bending over the railing till the brim of his hat almost touched the canvas. Then he gradually moved away, without ceasing ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to concentrate all the world's disdain in the look that measured me, running from my head to my unoffending feet, from my feet ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... infinite variety of the universe, their own share in it seems trifling, and scarce worth a thought, and they prefer the contemplation of all that is, or has been, or can be, to the making a coil about doing what, when done, is no better than vanity. It is hard to concentrate all our attention and efforts on one pursuit, except from ignorance of others; and without this concentration of our faculties, no great progress can be made in any one thing. It is not merely that the mind ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of Trafalgar was prepared in the same way, and the various memoranda written in the period before the battle have revealed to recent investigation the unwearying care which Nelson devoted to finding out how best to concentrate his force upon that portion of the enemy's fleet which it would be most difficult for the enemy to support with ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... importance to the development of embryology. For this discussion, we will divide the seventeenth century into three overlapping, but generally distinct, periods; and, without pretence of presenting an exhaustive exposition, we will concentrate upon the concepts and directions of change characteristic of each period, with primary reference to those individuals who best reveal the character ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... nice girls," she ended politely, "only, you see, Mrs. Trent, they don't match us; and it is extremely hard to concentrate one's mind upon lessons, unless ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... paper money. We have first, as yet undeveloped but intellectually active (and therefore desirous of progress) colonial countries, possessed in abundance of natural means of production without however being able to concentrate them into the hands of an undertaker (Unternehmer) for want of money.(951) Here both the saving of the precious metals and the facilitation of transportation effected by means of paper money are of greatest utility. And then we have very ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... invariably to the minute. Nearly always at those starts he looked grave, resigned, and calm, but unexpectedly careworn. It was as if he had wrestled with all his problems, with a hundred world-issues in the watches of the night, and was still in the throes of them, and unable for the moment to concentrate his attention on the immediate town and crowd that hurrah'd around him. But, of course, he stood up and acknowledged the plaudits—though often as one in a dream. But the picturesqueness of his appearance in the morning sunshine—with his ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... help wishing to preach the Gospel there? He crossed the narrow strait, and then advanced from one Greek town to another, till he stood on the very spot where Socrates had taught and Demosthenes thundered. In his third journey he had to concentrate his work on Ephesus; because, like a skilful general, he would not leave territory in the rear unconquered. But Rome was now the aim of all his desires—Rome, the very citadel of the world which he had to conquer. He approached it at last in the garb of ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... a quiet corner of the cliffs for a schoolroom—Mrs. Paterson wishes me to keep them out of doors—and I will say that I find it difficult to concentrate with the blue sea before me and ships a-sailing by! And when I think I might be on one, sailing off to foreign lands—but I WON'T let myself think ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... promulgated on December 13th; the executive was vested in three consuls, Bonaparte, Cambaceres, and Lebrun, of whom Bonaparte was nominated First Consul for ten years. He was practically paramount, the two remaining consuls being ciphers, and the other institutions being so organized as to concentrate power in the executive. Sieyes became president of the Senate. The governmental crisis being settled, energetic steps were taken with regard to the civil war in the west. A proclamation was issued promising religious toleration at the same time that decided military action ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... was sitting in Mr. Fraser's study reading the "Shakespeare" which Arthur had given to her, and in the woes of others striving to forget her own. But the attempt proved a failure; she could not concentrate her thoughts, they would continually wander away into space in search ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... 'Satan' and idle hands,' but will merely say, that, as a matter of public safety, you'd better leave me alone; for such is the destructiveness of my nature, that I shall certainly eat something hurtful, break something valuable, or sit upon something crushable, unless you let me concentrate my energies by knocking on these young fellows' hats, and preparing them for ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... diary for nearly a fortnight, for I have been too troubled about Mr. Rawlings to concentrate on anything else. He is certainly a most remarkable man. Though obviously suffering he shrinks from any declaration. Often we are alone for hours (I have asked dear Netta to give him the necessary opportunity to unburden himself) and he does ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... represent in his park the scenes of which he had pictures in his portfolio. The most charming contrasts of foliage, the rarest trees, long valleys, and prospects the most picturesque that could be brought from abroad, Borromean islands floating on clear eddying streams like so many rays, which concentrate their various lustres on a single point, on an Isola Bella, from which the enchanted eye takes in each detail at its leisure, or on an island in the bosom of which is a little house concealed under the drooping foliage of a century-old ash, an island fringed with irises, rose-bushes, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac |
