"Definite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she had already come to a definite resolution, to explain to the high-priest that she could not undertake the office of the twin-sisters, who wept by the bier of Osiris, and that she would rather endeavor to earn bread by the labor of her hands for herself and Irene—for that Irene should do any real ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... more Saxon became aware of a growing dissatisfaction. She did not question the facts. The trouble was that they were not alluring. Somehow, she could not find place for them in her valley of the moon. It was not until the genial Jew left the train that Billy gave definite statement to ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... differentiate itself from the ecclesiastical profession, and to become a definite vocation in its various branches. Crowds of students flocked to the seats of learning, and, as travelling scholars, earned a precarious living by begging or "professing" medicine, assisting the illiterate ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... in a linguistic map, and for the purpose of establishing these, and, in a rough way, the boundaries of the territory held by the tribes composing them, these data are very important, and when compared with one another and corrected by more definite data, when such are at hand, they have usually been found to ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... Maurice Mangan's cool-blooded presentation of his case; undefined longings were in his brain; the future was to be quite different from the past—and somehow Honnor Cunyngham was the central figure in these mirage-like visions. He had formed no definite plans; he had prepared no persuasive appeal; the only and immediate thing he knew was that he wished to be in the same place with her, breathing the same air with her, with the chance of catching a distant glimpse ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... in taking up a new work for the piano, the child could and should play right through every page from beginning to end for the purpose of obtaining a definite first impression of the whole. A mess would probably be made of it technically, but no matter. He would gradually discover just where the places were that required technical smoothing, and then by playing them over slowly these spots would ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... knees. This last incident showed him plainly that his father was putting him to a severe test of some sort, and he could have no doubt that it was for a purpose. His father was the kind of man who does things with a very definite purpose indeed. Cyrus looked back over the day with an anxious searching of his memory to be sure that no detail of the singular service required of ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... and its subsequent mortifying withdrawal, when contrasted with the brilliant success resulting from Farragut's dash by the forts, afford a very useful lesson in the adaptation of means to ends and the selection of a definite objective, upon compassing which something happens. The object of the United States Government being to control the lower Mississippi, that was effected by means of isolating its defenses, which then fell. When the further ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... body of laws (642-701). Under the Franks, the Roman municipal system was not extinguished; the Teutonic count or bishop standing in the room of the Roman president or consular, and a more popular body taking the place of the restricted municipality. The Roman civil polity, with its definite enactments for every relation in life and every exigency, was always at hand, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... have coral three or four times as big; and there are certain creatures of this kind that do fabricate very large masses, or half spheres several feet in diameter. Thus the activity of these animals in separating carbonate of lime from the sea and building it up into definite shapes ...
— Coral and Coral Reefs • Thomas H. Huxley
... people are not told about it, told about it regularly? Keeping everlastingly at it. Hammering away day after day. Continuous effort in the right direction, systematic, persistent. The advertising must be clear, logical and convincing; containing exact and definite information, telling the store news plainly and honestly, telling the people what the store can do for them, telling it often and in the right way. Some departments may be systematized so fine that they don't require such undivided ...
— How Department Stores Are Carried On • W. B. Phillips
... appearance was ill-favored enough to have aroused distrust in anybody but a man like Scipio. Now he seemed to be pondering a somewhat vexed question, and his brows were drawn together in a way that suggested anything but a clear purpose. But finally he seemed to make up his mind to a definite course. He spoke without turning to his companion, and perhaps it was for the purpose of hiding a ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... respected elders a second ceremony is carried out of the same nature, being known as Badapani or 'Great Water.' On this occasion the jiva or soul is worshipped with greater pomp. Except in the case of wicked souls, who are supposed to become malignant ghosts, the Binjhwars do not seem to have any definite belief in a future life. They say, 'Je maris te saris,' or 'That which is dead is rotten ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... returned the other; "most wicked men have their seasons of remorse. Can you tell me nothing of him more definite than ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... muffled, as if darkness repressed and shut it in. The brain was not commanding the limbs with the instantaneous co-ordination of the daytime. The sensation that this produced—it is very difficult to give any definite idea of it—was an impression of physical and mental incompetence and uncertainty. And all the time every ounce of the body was crying out to the mind to let it lie down ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... go and seek the cabaretier himself, to force him to a definite explanation, when the door of the court in which he was with Raoul, a door which communicated with the garden situated at the back, opened, and a man dressed as a cavalier, with his sword in the sheath, but not at his belt, crossed ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... autumn of 1859 the frail physique of the now famous Opium-Eater grew gradually feeble, although suffering from no definite disease. It became evident that his life was drawing to its end. On December 8, his two daughters standing by his side, he fell into a doze. His mind had been wandering amid the scenes of his childhood, and his ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... keep their parents. Were they less gifted, mentally? He did not think so, for their remarks gave evidence of keen powers of observation; he would have laughed at many of their witty remarks if he had not been conscious of his superior caste. There was no definite line of demarcation between him and the fools who were his school-fellows. But there was a line here Was it the shabby clothes, the plain faces, the coarse hands, which formed the barrier? Partly, he thought. Their plainness, especially, repulsed him. But were they worse ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... said to be endued with attributes should, in the first instance, be practised, for, O ruler of Mithila, if the breath (that is inhaled and suspended) be exhaled without mentally reflecting the while upon a definite image (furnished by a limited mantra), the wind in the neophyte's system will increase to his great injury.[1658] In the first Yama of the night, twelve ways of holding the breath are recommended. After sleep, in the last Yama of the night, other ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... had remarked that one of them was addressed to the Earl of Sunbury; and the very haste with which the statesman removed them from his sight naturally gave rise to a suspicion of something being wrong, though Wilton could form no definite idea of what was the motive ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... in his wanderings Sam entered the Parker House. He had no definite object in view, but, feeling tired, thought he would sit down a few ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... other hand, the dog's ration for many days is carried on the sled he hauls. There is a definite limit to it, of course, and knowledge of this limit made every experienced dog driver incredulous, from the first, of Doctor Cook's claim to have travelled some eleven hundred miles, from Etah to the North Pole and back, with a team of dogs hauling their own food. It is possible, however, on ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... came on, the certainty of the gold deposits deepened; but the tales of savage cliffs, of snow-walled trails, of swift and icy rivers, grew more numerous, more definite, and more appalling. Weak-hearted Jasons dropped out and returned to warn their friends of the dread powers to be encountered in the ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... back to where Ruba was fumbling the ship into more definite action. "Go on and talk," he bade her. ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... practical objects be obtained better or worse by its cultivation? to what then does it lead? where does it end? what does it do? how does it profit? what does it promise? Particular sciences are respectively the basis of definite arts, which carry on to results tangible and beneficial the truths which are the subjects of the knowledge attained; what is the Art of this science of sciences? what is the fruit of such a Philosophy? what are we proposing to effect, what inducements ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... "It's a definite proof, sir, of what I just said, that short cuts don't always pay. I was cursing myself for getting lost in the wilderness, when all the time it was the only way whereby I could reach Glen West in safety. Had I gone any other route, by a short cut, for instance, you would have pitched me at once ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... need scarcely observe, a strong spice of wickedness in George. If he had suggested a lion, or even an elephant, there would have been something definite for poor Jerry's anxious mind to lay hold of and try to reason down and defy, but that dreadful "anything" that might come, gave him nothing to hold by. It threw the whole zoological ferocities of South Africa open to his unanchored imagination, and for a long ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... themselves are so familiar. And I believe that many people go to churches and chapels all their lives long, and hear this doctrine dinned into them, that they are to be saved by faith, and not by works, and never approach a definite understanding of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... west of the spring of the apse at St Pancras. It shares its western porch with St Pancras and two, if not four, of the northern group of churches. In the north and south doorways of this porch it has kinship with Monkwearmouth, and at Brixworth there are definite signs that these doorways led into passages which may have been connected with other buildings of the monastery, or possibly even with an atrium or fore-court. The aisled nave and the traces of a crypt bring it into relation, not merely with Hexham or Ripon, but with the historical ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... spite of observed tendencies to variation among animals and plants, early man must have been convinced of the existence of distinct kinds ('species') in both the vegetable and animal worlds; he recognised that plants of definite kinds yielded particular fruits, and that different kinds of animals did not breed promiscuously with one another, but that, pairing each with its own kind, all gave rise to like offspring, and thus arose the idea of distinct 'species' ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... numbers of the assailants, an irregular street-firing broke out between Brown's sentinels and individuals with firearms. The alarm was carried to neighboring towns, and killed and wounded on both sides augmented the excitement. Tradition rather than definite record asserts that some of Brown's lieutenants began to comprehend that they were in a trap, and advised him to retreat. Nearly all his eulogists have assumed that such was his original plan, and ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... smiling, "but I really didn't have time to form a definite opinion before I heard that you were captured. Would you like to get back to your plane?" ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the fount of ecclesiastical energy, and it was crude workmanship, existing purely as an accessory of worship. Cimabue, of whom, I may say, almost nothing definite is known, and upon whom the delightful but casual old Vasari is the earliest authority, as Dante was his first eulogist, carried on the Byzantine tradition, but breathed a little life into it. In his picture here we see him feeling his way from the unemotional painted symbols ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... of a stern resolve not even to let himself doze, the tired boy must have slept awhile, sitting with his back against a tree. There was just a first glimmer of light penetrating the thick foliage above when he opened his eyes with a sudden definite feeling of something having ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... mankind. That question, as well as the question of the advantage of a mixed diet of animal and vegetable substances, and the best proportion and quantity of the substances so mixed, must be settled, as also the question as to the harm or good in the habitual use of small quantities of alcohol, by definite careful experiment by competent physiologists, conducted on a scale large enough to give conclusive results. The cogency of the arguments in favour of vegetarianism which I am about to discuss ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... but now it seemed to him that they were, in some undefinable measure, linked together. As Olva watched him, half contemptuously, half sarcastically, he tried to pin his brain down to the actual, definite connection. It seemed ultimately to hang round that dreadful evening when they had been together; it was almost—-although this was absurd—as though Bunning knew; but, in spite of the certain assurance of his ignorance ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... he wanted her. He finally decided to have a straight-out talk with her, to arrive at some sort of understanding. She ought to get the child and take care of it. She must understand that he might eventually want to quit. She ought to be made to feel that a definite change had taken place, though no immediate break might occur. That same evening he went out to the apartment. Jennie heard him enter, and her heart began to flutter. Then she took her courage in both hands, and ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... with their cathedrals, and regarded them rather as curiosities, alien to the times, and heirlooms from a dead past, they did not cease to speak of them with some pride. But popular taste—so far as architectural taste can be spoken of as prevalent in any definite form throughout the greater part of the last century—was all in favour of a 'Palladian' or 'Greek' style. It was a style scarcely adapted to our climate, and unfavourable to the symbolism of Christian thought, yet capable, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... excitement, and negroes of all ages and sexes were arrested by the wholesale, and hurried to prison. The Supreme Court was to sit in the latter part of April, and the interval of a few days was spent in efforts to get at the guilty parties. But nothing definite could be ascertained, as the conspirators, whoever they were, kept their own secret. At length, despairing of getting at the truth in any other way, the authorities offered a reward of a hundred pounds, and a full pardon to any one who would turn State's evidence, and reveal ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... none had been seen before. These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great distance, and entering into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly—very suddenly—this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in a circle of more than a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining and jet-black ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... confuse the third type with the second, for they seem to be much alike. Here and there, of the resentful strugglers, will be one whose resentment is intelligent. He struggles, but it is not aimless struggle. He has seen or suspected in a definite direction a point where he would be more or less free, perhaps entirely free. He realizes how he is hemmed in, realizes how difficult, how dangerous, will be his endeavor to get to that point. And he proceeds to try to minimize or overcome the difficulties, the dangers. He struggles now gently, now ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... had no very definite intention of undertaking the journey at once; but now that his mind was turned in that direction, he saw that to-day was as good as to-morrow, or even the day after; he fired up the stove and again took the batter in hand. This time the pancakes went ahead ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... war. For them, it is essential to provide new cottages with larger gardens, otherwise they will go to the Dominions, to America, or to the towns. A fresh census should be taken and kept up to date, the wants of each man noted, and a definite attempt made now to earmark sites and material for building, to provide the garden plots, and plan the best and prettiest type of cottage. For lack of labour and material no substantial progress can be made with housing ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... of a brown horse be yet unformed, the tendency to form it has to be stopped. Whichever is the case, a certain amount of hindrance results. But if, on the other hand, "a black horse" be the expression used, no such mistake can be made. The word "black," indicating an abstract quality, arouses no definite idea. It simply prepares the mind for conceiving some object of that colour; and the attention is kept suspended until that object is known. If, then, by the precedence of the adjective, the idea is conveyed without liability to error, whereas the precedence ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... And he did not propose to endure the torture of sitting perfectly still hour after hour, morning after morning, while any young woman made a bust of him. Yet he allowed a number of mornings to pass without taking any definite steps toward the vengeance which he felt to be so ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... he spoke of village gossip, and the faked stories that are circulated on Wall Street to make stocks go up or down, and then of the wild way we girls take up absurd reports. The last suggestion appealed to me, but I couldn't remember anything definite enough, so I decided to invent a rumor. Then I forgot all about it till that Saturday that I went skating, and 'you know the rest,' as our friend Mr. Longfellow aptly remarks. When I get my chef-d'oeuvre back you may have a private view, ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... dismal chambers. Should he go to the theatre? His sitting there would be a mockery while this vague and terrible fear was present to his heart. Or go down to see Ingram, as had been his wont in previous hours of trouble? He dared not go near Ingram without some more definite news about Sheila. In the end he went out into the open air, as if he were in danger of being stifled, and, walking indeterminately on, found himself once more at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... Everything was confusion to him. Where was he? What ship? What voyage? The last he remembered would be setting the tune to a Dago fiddler in a gaudy saloon, with lashings of drink to keep his feet a-tripping. Now all was mixed and hazy, but in the mist one thing stood definite, a seamanlike order: "Top'sl halyards! Damn smart!" Hans laid aft and ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... remembered that for a long time breathing, for the voice-user, must be a voluntary process, which, as has been pointed out, is not the usual and natural one for the individual when not phonating, which latter is essentially reflex or involuntary. The voice-user, in other words, must, with a definite purpose in view, take charge of himself. In time, breathing for him too will become reflex—i.e., correct breathing for the purposes of his art will become a habit. It must be pointed out that the breathing for any particular composition, literary or musical, should be carefully studied ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... the spell of a fully organized instinct is busy, one driven by a loosely organized instinct may be better described as restless. He tries this thing and that, and goes through the kind of behavior that is called "trial and error". A closely knit instinct, then, gives a perfectly definite series of preparatory reactions, while a loosely organized instinct gives trial and error behavior. We shall see later how trial and error furnishes a starting point for learning, and how, in an animal that can learn, those ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... daddy's arm under hers, and carefully steadied the difficult, ricketty gait, supporting the heavy figure with a practised skill which took the place of strength in her slight frame. Her features were formed after the same pattern as his, the definite profile, tense spreading nostril, and firm lips, being repeated with merely feminine modifications; and as her clear, merry eyes, freshened by the sea-breeze, flashed with fun at the stumblings and uncertainties of their course, they met the ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... Returning from Sheerness to Queensborough, however, she had taken the night boat for Flushing and Antwerp,—and not without her plan, who was not a woman to waste her strength aimlessly; Kirkwood believed that she had had from the first a very definite campaign in view. In that campaign Queensborough Pier had been the first strategic move; the journey to Antwerp, apparently, the second; and the American was impressed that he was witnessing the inception of the third decided step.... The conclusion of this process ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... day in the same routine of life, taking it for granted that you are at the work the Lord wants you to do, and not earnestly seeking to know his will. Those who are spiritual can not be contented without a definite knowledge of the will of God. If you are going along without any real and positive knowledge of the will of God and are not seeking to know ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... top of the Peary to the sea-bottom. It looked hopeless, and to these men inside it was hopeless. He knew he must speak in confident, assured tones to drive away the uncaring lethargy holding them all, and he framed definite, concise words with which to ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... second. Through Metastasio's interest Haydn became acquainted with Nicolo Porpora, the most eminent teacher of singing and composition of his day, who was at the time giving singing-lessons to Marianne. But before sufficient time had elapsed for the latter introduction to produce any definite result, Haydn had found employment in ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... been properly convinced—with as little bloodshed as necessary, but always beyond any dispute—an Imperial Proconsul, in this case Obray, Count Erskyll, would be installed. He would by no means govern the planet. The Imperial Constitution was definite on that point; every planetary government should be sovereign as to intraplanetary affairs. The Proconsul, within certain narrow and entirely inelastic limits, would merely govern ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... still better, to the masterly introductions he is contributing to the series of Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, and to Dr. Hyde's Beside the Fireside. In my remarks I have mainly confined myself to discussing the origin and diffusion of the various tales, so far as anything definite could be learnt or conjectured ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... truce prepared for the definite "Peace of Cherasco," April 1631, which confirmed the Duchy of Mantua to the Duke of Nevers but left only Pinerolo in the hands of ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... that France is bled white, we must let figures, facts, statistics and definite proofs speak. The public shall judge ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... there is much reliable evidence indicating that, while an innate tendency towards general emotions of affection is strong in the average young woman, there is general absence of the localized passions that naturally and automatically develop in young men. In other words, the first definite sexual temptation is likely to come to a young woman from outside herself, and young men should be impressed with their responsibility for allowing even the beginning of situations that may arouse dormant but ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... were making, Mr. Kinzie questioned the women as to our whereabout. They knew no name for the river but "Saumanong." This was not definite, it being the generic term for any large stream. But he gathered that the village we had passed higher up, on the opposite side of the stream, was Wau-ban-see's, and then he knew that we were on the Fox River, and probably about fifty miles ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... refer me to any grammar, or other work, containing a clear and definite rule for the distinctive use of these auxiliaries? and does not a clever contributor to "N. & Q." make a mistake on this point at Vol. vi., p. 58., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... stories of elaborate treachery. Neither the great world nor the world of journalists laid any deep schemes; definite plans are not made by either; their Machiavelism lives from hand to mouth, so to speak, and consists, for the most part, in being always on the spot, always on the alert to turn everything to account, always on the watch for the moment when a man's ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... their part in the Kingdom. But no proof, I think it may be said, can be shown that this great idea, in any conscious sense, governed the Parliaments of James and Charles. It is we who,—reviewing our history since the definite establishment of the constitutional balance after 1688, and the many blessings the land has enjoyed,—can perceive what in the seventeenth century was wholly hidden from Commonwealth and from King. And even if in accordance with the common belief, we ascribe English freedom and prosperity ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Note to "N. & Q" some time ago, expressing my conviction that the original locale of this beautiful idea was in St. Chrysostom. but, as I could not then give a reference to the passage which contained it, my suggestion was of course not definite enough to call for attention. I am now able to vindicate to the "golden-mouthed" preacher of Antioch this expression of poetic fancy, the origination of which has excited, and deservedly, so much inquiry among the readers of "N. & Q." It occurs in Homily X., "On the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... well be supposed, was one of transcendent interest to Jack Carleton, for it was the first definite knowledge obtained of his missing friend. The heart of the listener was filled with pitying sorrow when he learned how Otto had been left to die alone in the wilderness. Tears filled his eyes, his voice trembled, ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... for a job. At the same time he experienced a mild misgiving lest he might be forfeiting the services of one who could be really useful to him. Banneker's energy and decisiveness at the wreck had made a definite impression upon him. But there was the matter of the rejected hundred-dollar tip. Unpliant, evidently, this young fellow. Probably it was just as well that he should be broken in to life and new standards elsewhere than in the Vanney interests. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... side; their colour, too, was lit up by the peculiar light, which gave a singular softness to the large shadows of the trees upon the sward. In a meadow by the wood the oaks cast broad shadows on the short velvety sward, not so sharp and definite as those of summer, but tender, and, as it were, drawn with a loving hand. They were large shadows, though it was mid-day—a sign that the sun was no longer at his greatest height, but declining. In July, they would scarcely ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... Very much thrilled even with this degree of success, and taking the picture on paper, I put my plate away, and set myself to study what I should do next. It had not yet occurred to me to inquire of myself what definite thing I really was after. My deepest hope was in the undefinableness of its object: I knew only that a clear idea (and Plato says all clear ideas are true) of the subtile susceptibilities of nitrate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... quest of houses and food until the morrow. As I lay so leisurely watching the sun, it occurred to me that there was no reason why man should not give up quests when he wanted to—he was not fixed in a definite course like the sun. ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... is an artistic element in literature upon which the value of any work largely depends. There is art in the choice and marshaling of words. Furthermore, every department of literature—history, poetry, fiction—has a separate and definite purpose. In the successful realization of this purpose each species or form of literature must wisely choose its means. This conscious and intelligent adaptation of a means to an end is art. Apart from the careful ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... little. The woman who could refuse his millions, offered in such a manner, for him could have no real existence. Somewhere or other he must have blundered, he told himself. Or perhaps she was clever; she was leading him on to more definite things? ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... truth. It is everything—it is also nothing. Inconceivable visions arise within the mental universe, but nothing assumes definite form. It is all that is past. It is likewise everything that the ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... in the world happens by chance. God is a God of order. Everything is arranged upon definite principles, and never at random. the world, even the religious world, is governed by law. Character is governed by law. Happiness is governed by law. The Christian experiences are governed by law. Men, forgetting this, expect Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith to drop into their souls from the air like snow ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... is needed to determine the full requirements of nut trees and to work out the interplanting relationships. In view of the vast potentialities for their use, investigational programs may soon be under way and much more definite information be made available ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... prevailed in Europe until the 15th century. This piece, according to Forbes, was called among the Persians pil, an elephant, but the Arabs, not having the letter p in their alphabet, wrote it fil, or with their definite article al-fil, whence alphilus, alfinus, alifiere, the latter being the word used by the Italians; while the French perhaps get their fol and fou from the same source. The pawns formerly could move only one square at starting; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... Enquirer or Political Justice. In the Revolt of Islam, and still more in Prometheus Unbound, Shelley's imagination is becoming its own master. The variations are more important, more subtle, more beautiful than the theme; but still the theme is there, a precise and definite dogma for fancy to embroider. It is only in Hellas that Shelley's power of narrative (in Hassan's story), his irrepressible lyrical gift, and his passion which at length could speak in its own idiom, combine ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... new parts or characters—that is the secret of the evolutionary process. Thus there was a time when no animal had horns; then horns appeared. "In the great quadruped known as titanothere," says Osborn, "rudiments of horns first arise independently at certain definite parts of the skull; they arise at first alike in both sexes, or asexually; then they become sexual, or chiefly characteristic of males; then they rapidly evolve in the males while being arrested in development in the females; finally, they become in ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... Under definite heads I am giving some very brief sketches of living, down-to-date aborigines, such as have come under my own observation in Utah ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... officer is promoted to the rank of lieutenant, may be about the time when he ought fairly and finally to brace himself up to follow a particular line, and resolve, ever afterwards, manfully to persevere in it. His abilities being concentrated on some definite set of objects; his friends, both on shore and afloat, will be furnished with some tangible means of judging of his capacity. Without such knowledge, their patronage is likely to do themselves no credit, and their protege very little, if ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... the greatest work in the Javanese literature, but it yields in point of antiquity to the "Arjuna Vivaya." Its language also is less pure, and contains a certain admixture of ordinary high Javanese or Krama. A definite date (1195, A.D.) is assigned to it, and the name of its author is said to be Hempu, or M'pu, S'dah. The subject of the poem is identical with that of four of the parvans of the Mahabharata, but the scene is changed from India to Java. It contains an account of the struggle between the Pandavas, ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... he said. Nice and definite; quite a difference from the way he stumbled around over listing his previous publications. "Seventy-five's the Kapstaad price, regardless of what you people here have been getting from that crook of a Belsher. We'll have to go far enough beyond that ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... notes, and a central region corresponding with our habitual experience of the human voice; and in this "musical space" notes are experienced as moving up and down and with a centrifugal and centripetal direction, and also as existing at definite spans or intervals from one another; all of which probably on account of presumable muscular adjustments of the inner and auditive apparatus, as well as obvious sensations in the vocal parts when we ourselves produce, and often when we ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... errand was known to Pitt; it is certain that Lord Edward Fitzgerald, another of the patriot leaders, who had been summoned to carry on more definite negotiations in Basle, revealed inadvertently as he returned the secret of his hopes to an agent of the English Cabinet. Vague as were the offers of the United Irishmen, they had been warmly welcomed by the French Government. Masters ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... thicker; but, at the same time, separating and taking strange shapes, so that the red of the sun struck through ruddily between them. Then, as I watched, the weird mistiness collected and shaped and rose into three towers. These became more definite, and there was something elongated beneath them. The shaping and forming continued, and almost suddenly I saw that the thing had taken on the shape of a great ship. Directly afterwards, I saw that it was moving. It ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... sequestered country of the Roman empire, he relates that in Thebais from ten to one hundred persons had frequently suffered martyrdom in the same day. But when he proceeds to mention his own journey into Egypt, his language insensibly becomes more cautious and moderate. Instead of a large, but definite number, he speaks of many Christians, and most artfully selects two ambiguous words, which may signify either what he had seen, or what he had heard; either the expectation, or the execution of the punishment. Having thus provided a secure evasion, he commits the equivocal passage to his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... being calculated to prevent aggression and to facilitate a definite finding of the nature provided for in Article 15d, the establishment of such zones between States mutually consenting thereto is to recommend as a ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... and swept all the clouds from heaven. Only a few vapours, as thin as moonlight, fleeted rapidly across the stars. It was bitter cold; and, by a common optical effect, things seemed almost more definite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was absolutely still; a company of white hoods, a field full of little alps, below the twinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. Would it were still snowing! ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... piece de resistance the epic Tann Bo Cuailgne, you seem (as you do in the Mahabharata) to be standing upon actual memories, as much historical as symbolic. Here all the figures, though titanic, are at least half human, with a definite character assigned to all of importance. They revel in huge dramatic action; move in an heroic mistless sunlight. You can take part in the daily life of the Red Branch champions as you can in that of the Greeks before Troy; they seem real and clear-cut; you can almost remember Deirdre's beauty ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... "Why shouldn't I stay—for a time at least? I have plenty of work to go on with. Indeed it was with the definite intention of doing this work that I came. If you want me, I'll stay right enough. The bargain that was made with your father was a straight, fair business arrangement. I have no scruples about requiring him to carry out his part of it The trouble was that it seemed as if insistence would be unfair ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... (Hebrews 10:19). Probably the very first thing to know is that you must understand whether or not you are sanctified. Are you, or are you not? On which side of the Jordan are you, on the Canaan side or on the wilderness side? A definite answer to this question is essential. Sometimes there are doubts in your mind whether you are or are not sanctified. Well, let us first get rid of all doubts. The experiences of God in the soul are too definite to need their possession entertained with a doubt; and to know where ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... extravagances are to them as the matador's flag to the bull in the Spanish ring. Unless you do take the interest, unless you do fight to stem the movement of these dwarfed and bitter leaders, unless you do overcome their arguments based on much solid-rock truth by definite personal work, by definite constructive education, your civilization, my civilization and the civilization of all the centuries will ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... delicate task he had undertaken. Paris, big in many respects, is small in its society, which, because of its well marked limits, makes a noise in the world quite incommensurate with its importance; whereas London, close neighbor and rival, contains a dozen definite circles that seldom overlap. The woman Julius had seen with Alec in the Louvre was not on Princess Michael's visiting list, of that he had no manner of doubt. Therefore, from his point of view, the only possible ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... French themselves. Our boasted individuality is merely in the primal stage compared with the finished production in France. Even the children are far more complex and intractable than ours. They have definite opinions on the subject of life, character, and the disposition of themselves ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... fact that when the same tribes desire to express the sexual relation of marriage it is gestured otherwise. Many signs but little differentiated were unstable, while others that have proved the best modes of expression have survived as definite and established. Their prevalence and permanence being mainly determined by the experience of their utility, it would be highly interesting to ascertain how long a time was required for a distinctly new conception or execution to gain currency, become "the fashion," so to speak, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... was old Cardigan's way of teaching his boy financial responsibility. All that he possessed he had worked for, and he wanted his son to grow up with the business to realize that he was a part of it with definite duties connected with it developing upon him—duties which he must never shirk if he was to retain the rich redwood heritage his father had been so eagerly storing ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... papers will, I think, show that his definite indebtedness to his cotemporaries was vanishingly small. The work of MICHELL and WILSON he alludes to again and again, and always with appreciation. Certainly he seems to show a vein of annoyance that the papers of CHRISTIAN MAYER, De novis in coelo sidereo phaenomenis (1779), ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... ultimate discrete particles of inert "ponderable matter"—we can with more or less probability ascribe a number of eternal and inalienable fundamental attributes; they are probably everywhere in space, of like magnitude and constitution. Although possessing a definite finite magnitude, they are, by virtue of their very nature, indivisible. Their shape we may take to be spherical; they are inert (in the physical sense), unchangeable, inelastic, and impenetrable by the ether. Apart from the attribute of inertia, the most important characteristic ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... only a low mound of sand-covered debris with no standing fragment of wall visible. The present condition of this early Walpi is illustrated in Fig. 2. In the absence of foundation walls or other definite lines, the character of the site is expressed by the contour lines that define its relief. Another of the sites occupied by the Walpi is said to have been in the open valley separating the first from the second ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... we reach the place, Whither you wish to lead us, for a space Let us say why we came To see you here to-day: a definite aim All of ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... methods of grafting herbs, but a secondary and more important object was the study of the reciprocal influences of stock and cion, particularly in relation to variegation and coloration. This second feature of the work is still under way, in one form or another, and we hope for definite results in a few years. As a matter of immediate advantage, however, herbaceous grafting has its uses, particularly in securing different kinds of foliage and flowers upon the same plant. There is no difficulty in growing a half ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... desire to associate the homage due to this distinguished man with some visible memento can not be gratified. There is no reason to suppose that he was interred in any other place than the Friends' old burying-ground in Germantown, though the fact is not attested by any definite source of information. After all, this obliteration of the last trace of his earthly existence is but typical of what has overtaken the times which he represents; that Germantown which he founded, which saw ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... expected the elders there, to learn what to do. We all retired to Maple Grove, on the Kentucky River, and kneeled in prayer and asked the Lord to show us whether or not these reports were true. I was the mouth-in- prayer, but received nothing definite in answer to my prayer. I told the elders to follow their own impressions, and if they wished to do so to return to Nauvoo. Each of them made his way back. I spent the evening with a Mr. Snow. He claimed to be a cousin of Brother Erastus Snow, and was favorable to us. ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... merely served to confirm that the Mars Convicts operate under definite limitations. They could kill us but can't afford to do it. If they are to thrive in space, they need Earth, and Earth's resources. They are aware that if the Machine's leadership dies, Earth will lapse into utter anarchy and turn ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz
... and governments included in this publication are not independent, and others are not officially recognized by the US Government. "Nation'' refers to a people politically organized into a sovereign state with a definite territory. "Dependent'' area refers to a broad category of political entities that are associated in some way with a nation. Names used for page headings are usually the short-form names as approved by the US Board on Geographic Names. The long-form name is included in the "Government'' section, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... first trip we met, at the landing opposite this place, a middle- aged woman of considerable intelligence, and possessing more knowledge of the country than any of the men. Our first definite information about Lake Nyassa was obtained from her. Seeing us taking notes, she remarked that she had been to the sea, and had there seen white men writing. She had seen camels also, probably among the Arabs. She was the only Manganja ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... never-caught-asleep order; and his taciturn manner and way of drinking in everything said to him while he looked at you out of his steady eyes, and then merely nodded and gave a significant little grunt at the end, added immensely to his reputation for profound wisdom. People were able to quote few definite opinions uttered by "Silent Simon," but any that could ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... great deal more profound than most people imagine. When the caterpillar is just ready to turn into a butterfly it lies by for a while, full of internal commotion, and feels all its organs slowly melting one by one into a sort of indistinguishable protoplasmic pulp; chaos precedes the definite re-establishment of a fresh form of order. Limbs and parts and nervous system all disappear for a time, and then gradually grow up again in new and altered types. The caterpillar, if it philosophised on its own state ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... the writer keeps up, or the attempt he makes to estimate Christianity apart from all question of the truth or falsity of Christ's personal pretensions towards God. The author may have reached in his own mind the most definite theologic convictions, but he sedulously withholds them from his reader; and the consequence is, that the book awakens and satisfies no intellectual interest in the latter, but remains at best a curious literary speculation. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... one other sat in the shadowy hollow of the orchestra, two obscure little shapes on the floor of the enormous cavern. The other was Talbot Potter's manager, Carson Tinker, a neat, grim, small old man with a definite appearance of having long ago learned that after a little while life will beat anybody's game, no matter how good. He observed the nervousness of the playwright, but without interest. He had seen ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... tourists who liked to rub shoulders with native life; but for a pretty young girl travelling alone, it seemed to him that, though it was clean enough, nothing could be less appropriate. Victoria had made up her mind and engaged her room, however; and so as no definite objection could be urged, he followed Caird's example, and held his tongue. As they bade the girl good-bye in the tiled hall (a fearful combination of all that was worst in Arab and European taste) Nevill begged her to let ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... it makes itself divine; and approaching perfection, by the same progress it also approaches immortality. It is conceivable that by error and sin it kills itself, and by virtue renders itself imperishable. This immortality is not or does not seem to be personal, it is literally a definite re-entry into the bosom of God; Spinozian immortality would therefore be a prolongation of the same effort which we make in this life to adhere to universal order; the recompense for having adhered to it here below is to be absorbed in it there, and ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... idea of getting it back from their fishing profits," she said. "What they earn will just about pay for it, and then there they are back where they started—with nothing. Better let me pay for everything until the men get back. Then they will have something definite ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... variations from the typical form of a species must have some definite effect, however slight, on the habits or capacities of the individuals. Even a change of colour might, by rendering them more or less distinguishable, affect their safety; a greater or less development of hair might modify their habits. More important changes, such as an increase in the power ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... spectacle unsurpassed in interest by any other species—every branchlet crowned by its graceful hydranth, and budding with Medusae in all stages of development (Fig. 3), some still in the condition of minute buds, in which no trace of the definite Medusa-form can yet be detected; others, in which the outlines of the Medusa can be distinctly traced within the transparent ectotheque (external layer); others, again, just casting off this thin outer ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... we know, that a great battle has been fought near Richmond, but the result for some reason is withheld. We speculate, talk, and compare notes, but this makes us only the more eager for definite information. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... however, which is to be decided upon definite principles and according to ascertained facts, is entirely different from and unconnected with the other questions of the manner in which the strife is carried on on both sides and the treatment of our citizens entitled to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... having assumed a hostile attitude in the centre of the peninsula, and that the consequences of such a position might be serious for Piedmont on occasion of the Franco-Prussian war and the complications to which it might give rise. Visconti Venosta further states that the basis of a new and definite solution of the Roman question had been confidentially recognized in principle, and was subject only to ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell |
