"Desideratum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... make complete eunuchs a desideratum. Bisson mentions that on one occasion he saw the chief eunuch of the Grand Cherif of Mecca—a large, finely-proportioned, powerful black—on his way to Stamboul for trial and sentence; he was heavily chained and well guarded. It appears that the eunuch had only been partly castrated, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... shallows, the breakers, the monsoons, the coasts and currents which have wrecked their ships, for their shipwrecks brought them shame. There was no pilot, no compass for those pilgrims of marriage. This work is intended to supply the desideratum. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... over which we crossed; but it is far from being a fine town in the interior. The streets are, like all French streets, narrow, and the houses have a look of antiquity, and a want of all repair; nothing like comfort, neatness, or tidiness, in any one of them. This is a melancholy desideratum in France, a want for which nothing can compensate. The road this day conducted us through a finer district than we have observed on this side of Paris; more especially between Nevers and St Pierre, where we have travelled through a richer ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... for lack of things that could and should have been done. An energetic campaign for new members is the most obvious desideratum. The committee to prepare and issue a bulletin on the roadside planting of nut trees, arranged to give information for every part of the country, has been innocuous as well as useless. Perhaps this meeting ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the American continent down to the present time, a shorter passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific ocean than the tedious and dangerous voyage round Cape Horn has been a desideratum in navigation. During the dominion of old Spain in the New World the colonial policy and principles of that jealous nation, to which Central America belonged, opposed insurmountable obstacles to any proposal for effecting ...
— A Succinct View of the Importance and Practicability of Forming a Ship Canal across the Isthmus of Panama • H. R. Hill
... chalking to an inn-keeper. I am apt to speak in the King Cambyses' vein, but you understand what I wish to convey. As to the continuation of the "Lives of the Poets," it is a work sadly wanting, but I am not the person to supply the desideratum, even were my power equal to the deed. Criticism is abomination in my sight. It is fit only for the headsmen and hangmen of literature, fellows who live by the agonies and death of others. You will say this is not the criticism you mean, and that there is a different species (the only genuine and ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... he rode home, meditating many things in his mind. It occurred to him that Mrs. Bold was sister-in-law to the archdeacon, and that not even for twelve hundred a year would he submit to that imperious man. A rich wife was a great desideratum to him, but success in his profession was still greater; there were, moreover, other rich women who might be willing to become wives; and after all, this twelve hundred a year might, when inquired into, melt away into some small sum utterly beneath his notice. Then ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... produced. Skin smooth and nearly covered with red, in the sun. Flesh is greenish white, very tender, juicy, and crisp. Without any shriveling or loss of flavor, it keeps till May. So good a winter and spring sweet apple is a desideratum in any orchard ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... His history is one long record of trekking away from British domination, not because he wishes to be exempted from all control and thus indulge in a lawless life, as some writers have erroneously maintained, but because he desires a government of his own. The chief desideratum with the Boer, in regard to government, is that it shall be his own, and not that of some other power, be it never so excellent a ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... only keenly but firmly magnified to dimensions of many feet; so could the same artificial light, passed through the faintest focal object of a telescope, both distinctify (to coin a new word for an extraordinary occasion) and magnify its feeblest component members. The only apparent desideratum was a recipient for the focal image which should transfer it, without refranging it, to the surface on which it was to be viewed under the revivifying light ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... not in any way of an exhausting character, and affords ladies a training in graceful and charming movements. Lawn-tennis may be played either in summer or winter, and in cold weather, if the ground be dry, is a very agreeable out-door recreation. At a croquet or garden party it is certainly a desideratum. ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... the embarrassment which most persons experience who design visiting the Cave, owing to the absence of any printed itinerary of the various routes leading to it, we have supplied, in the present volume, this desideratum, from information received from reliable persons residing on the different roads here enumerated. The road from Louisville to the Cave, and thence to Nashville, is graded the entire distance, and the greater part of it M'Adamized. From Louisville to the mouth of Salt river, twenty miles, the ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... indefinite a term as "Providence," supposing the term to be used by those who are unable to characterize it distinctly, to show wherein it consists, so as to enable us to decide whether a thing is rational or irrational. An adequate definition of Reason is the first desideratum; and whatever boast may be made of strict adherence to it in explaining phenomena, without such a definition we get no farther than mere words. With these observations we may proceed to the second point of view that has to be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... plantations, the best tracts of land in some provinces, those that from their easy access are more profitable than others, are in the hands of the religious corporations, whose desideratum is ignorance and a condition of semi-starvation for the native, so that they may continue to govern him and make themselves necessary to his wretched existence, is one of the reasons why many towns do not progress in spite ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... expense, but also because, as he argued, Dick would certainly acquire a wider knowledge of diseases and their cure—and acquire it much more quickly—under some hard-working practitioner among the East-End poor of London; and that, as he very truly pointed out, was the great desideratum in such a case as Dick's, far outweighing the extra hard work and the sordid surroundings to which Mrs Maitland had at first so strenuously objected. Moreover, Dick agreed with the solicitor; and in the end the maternal objections were overcome, careful enquiries were instituted, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... preparing for an excursion with Mr. Williams of the Geological Survey, who was about to move his camp from the Damooda valley coal-fields, near Burdwan, to Beejaghur on the banks of the Soane, where coal was reported to exist, in the immediate vicinity of water-carriage, the great desideratum ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... has now become a desideratum so great with England, that all her cunning and genius are brought to bear upon the subject. So long as Ireland was dependent solely upon her own resources, and the spirit of revolution confined strictly within her borders, England felt herself competent to avert the ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... item, forming an important drawback on the utility of the ordinary vapour-bath,—the application of it is attended with no inconsiderable expense. A machine which should obviate these objections, was a desideratum; and we think such a one has been invented by Mr. Burnet, of Golden Square. It is so simple as to be easily described without a diagram, and so well adapted to the end, and so easy and cheap in application, that we think we shall be rendering an acceptable service to our ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... has already been made of the sober gaze lightened by a suggestion of sly mirthfulness. In a company where sprightliness was the great desideratum, Stonor, no doubt, would have been considered slow. Men with strong reserves are necessarily a little slow in coming into action; they are apt, too, as a decent cover for their feelings, to affect more slowness than they feel. A woman can ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... pine and the exposed end block are of course very absorbent and require an extra feed or two in order that the final glueing of the nut and place of reception may have a good holding. The nut, now squeezed into position, will not require the clamp, but if time is no desideratum an application of that useful tightener will ensure a firm hold, and moreover the superfluous glue is ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... had inspired her with, to put her own shoulder to the wheel and do her very topmost best, for the one great desideratum, the success of the show, had kept her studying her little handful of lines long after she supposed she knew them perfectly. They weren't very satisfactory lines to study—just the smallest of conversational ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... lose themselves in the one first cause, the Will of God. Now this is what all systems of philosophy require as their starting-point, but it is entirely out of their unaided reach. But these words supply that indispensable desideratum. ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... poetry—the qualities, namely, of orderly structure, and such qualities generally as depend upon second thoughts. A collection of specimens of English poetry, for the purpose of exhibiting the achievement of prose excellences by it (in their legitimate measure) is a desideratum we commend to Mr. Saintsbury. It is the assertion, the development, the product of those very different indispensable qualities of poetry, in the presence [8] of which the English is equal or superior to all other modern literature—the native, sublime, and beautiful, but often wild and irregular, ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... examining the superstition before us, that the above question becomes explicitly propounded, and its solution demanded of physiologists. Its solution cannot fail of being full of interest, but it is yet, unluckily, a desideratum, or, like the principle which gives motion to the divining rod, as yet only ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... States of the Union which first took steps to connect the fertile regions lying beyond the Allegheny Mountains with the Atlantic should have made the greatest progress in importance and prosperity. It was the fortune of the State of New York to take the earliest step to effect this great desideratum, although Washington had perhaps first suggested its importance, in agitating a movement for the purpose of connecting the country adjoining the Great Lakes with his native Virginia. The construction ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... disappointment which not infrequently ensued, it is easy to understand how through many years balloon ascents, no longer a novelty, had begun to be regarded with distrust, and the profession of a balloonist was doomed to become unremunerative. A simpler and cheaper mode of inflation was not only a desideratum, but an absolute necessity. The full truth of this may be gathered from the fact that we find there were not seldom instances where two or three days of continuous and anxious labour were expended in generating ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... a desideratum," he reflected. "I want him first to give me a certificate that my uncle is dead, so that I may get the leather business; and then that he's alive—but here we are again at the incompatible interests!" And he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... triumphs it has achieved. This seat had been previously known in at least nine patented reapers; but it had not been well placed, and an appropriate location for it was, up to 1847, an acknowledged desideratum. Whatever, however, may have been the value or the success of the reaper as improved in 1847, such value or success can exert no influence in determining ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... desideratum: the Indians can only be made to respect the lives and property of the American parties, by rendering them dependent upon us for their supplies; which alone can be done with complete effect by the establishment of a trading post, with resident traders, at some point which will unite a sufficient ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... any other. When one considers the number of points given in the standard for this particular feature, and the very important factor it occupies in the sale of the dog, too much attention cannot be given by breeders for the attainment of this desideratum. I am, of course, thoroughly in sympathy with the absolute justice that should always prevail in the show ring in the consideration of the place color and markings occupy in scoring a candidate for awards. Twelve points are allowed in the standard for these, and any dog, I care not ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... who knows how singularly difficult it is to find suitable matter and suitable forms for the higher intellectual culture of youth, and how much more difficult it is to set aside the matter and forms once found, will understand how it was that the Romans knew no mode of supplying the desideratum of a more advanced Latin instruction except that of simply transferring the solution of this problem, which instruction in the Greek language and literature furnished, to instruction in Latin. In the present day a process entirely analogous goes on under our own eyes in the transference ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and kindred tribes, disease was frequently ascribed to some hidden wish ungratified. Hence the patient was overwhelmed with gifts, in the hope, that, in their multiplicity, the desideratum might be supplied. Kettles, skins, awls, pipes, wampum, fish-hooks, weapons, objects of every conceivable variety, were piled before him by a host of charitable contributors and if, as often happened, a dream, the Indian oracle, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... of women's education cannot omit to mention the splendid work of Emma Willard and Mary Lyon. Mrs. Willard was an exponent of the belief that freedom of development for the individual was the greatest desideratum for humanity. She not only diffused this idea in her addresses and writings but tried to utilize it in the establishment in 1814 of the Troy Female Seminary, which was the forerunner of many others throughout the country. Mary Lyon ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... ideal for all those who are naturally short-sighted. To philosophers, however, this horizon, like every other, is a mere misunderstanding, a sort of slamming of the door in the face of the real beginning of their world,—their danger, their ideal, their desideratum.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} In more polite language: La philosophie ne suffit pas au grand nombre. Il lui ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... thirst that oppresses him almost to death. Should the friendly tree prove a date-palm, he will find food also—a dainty repast of ripe, golden fruit, wholesome and nourishing—ready prepared to his hand. But, after all, to a traveler over those sterile regions water is the grand desideratum, and this he is sure to find in the vicinity of the wild palm. The Bedouins, who consider it beneath their dignity to sow or reap, gather the date where they can find it growing wild; but the Arabs of the plains cultivate the tree with great care and skill, thus improving the size and flavor of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... in brawling and smoking. At 9 A.M. the islanders, receiving intelligence of our arrival, came down the hill of which this island is formed, in great numbers, and held a market; but as we were unprovided with what they wanted, little business could be done. The chief desideratum was flesh of fish or beast, next salt, then tobacco—in fact, anything but what I had brought as market money, cloth and glass beads. This day passed in rest and idleness, recruiting ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of a varied line of manufactures, the annual products of which aggregate many millions of dollars, and it is driving, besides the iron and steel mills of Pittsburgh, potteries and brick works, over forty glass furnaces and a long list of factories in which cheap power is a desideratum. The gas is the product of ages, which has been accumulated in the porous limestone of Ohio and Indiana. It has been produced so slowly that when once exhausted it will take many thousands of years for it to again accumulate in sufficient quantities to ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... by the simple power of gravity. But this applied only to a comparatively small part of the road. An economical method of working the coal trains, instead of by horses,—the keep of which was at that time very costly, from the high price of corn,—was still a great desideratum; and the best practical minds in the collieries were actively engaged in the attempt to solve ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... mistake. Suggestions by others of the ideas of health, vigor, and hope, are influential with many people for restoring health and energy both of mind and body. Having then such an effective power to work with, the great desideratum has been to find the best means for regulating and controlling it, so as to render it subservient to our will for relieving and curing diseases. The modes devised, both by mesmerists and hypnotists, for these ends, are a real, solid, and important ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... sir, conceive my happiness upon hearing this—upon at length getting into my possession precisely the sort of work which you so long since had looked upon as a desideratum in the history of mankind, and which I had utterly despaired ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... is to be hoped that a better classification may soon be obtained. Who knows but that some ardent young zoologist, who has taken his first lessons from this little book, may be the man to supply the desideratum? Who knows? ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... for the Poor, and rendering them industrious, is, and ever has been, a great DESIDERATUM in political economy, it may be proper to enlarge a little ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... desideratum is, to secure comfort on the passage, by the most efficient and economical means, thereby, as far as possible insuring the arrival of the company at their destination in ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... legends of their country, often urged upon the Welsh literati the duty of reproducing the Mabinogeon. Southey, in the preface of his edition of "Moted'Arthur," says: "The specimens which I have seen are exceedingly curious; nor is there a greater desideratum in British literature than an edition of these tales, with a literal version, and such comments as Mr. Davies of all men is best qualified to give. Certain it is that many of the round table fictions originated in Wales, or in Bretagne, and probably might ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... satellites. Both Antonio and Salvator greatly racked their brains how they should prevent Splendiano and Pitichinaccio from going along with Signor Pasquale. Every scheme that occurred to them for the accomplishment of this desideratum had to be given up owing to want of time, for the principal plan in Nicolo's theatre had to be carried out on the evening of the ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... contest between the increasing volume of the gas, tending to raise the pressure, and the growing space behind the advancing shot, tending to relieve it. As artillery science progresses, so does the duration of this contest extend further along the bore of the gun toward the great desideratum, a low maximum pressure ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... cannabis in the same relation which morphia bears to opium. I believe that, in collaboration with my friend Dr. Frank A. Schlitz (a young German chemist of remarkable ability and with a brilliant professional career before him), I have at last attained this desideratum. I have no room or right here to dwell upon this interesting discovery further than to say that we have obtained a substance we suppose to bear the analogy desired and to deserve the title of Cannabin. If further examination shall establish our result, we have in the form of grayish-white ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... fact, and has in all cases conceded the thoroughness and sufficiency of Motley's investigations. The present writer's apology for attempting what has been done so incomparably well is, that he feels an essay of moderate length, which, because of its brevity, may find an audience, is a desideratum in English literature, this essay to point out the heroic proportions of William; enough so, if may be, to lend eagerness to those who read, so they may be decoyed into perusing Motley's noble histories. I would help a ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... the rings consists of a number of twisting exercises with the arms. Not only are these valuable in producing freedom about the shoulder-joint, which, as has been explained, is a great desideratum, but twisting motions of the limbs contribute more to a rounded, symmetrical development than any other exercises. If the flexors and extensors are exercised in simple, direct lines, the muscular ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... requisites for gentility—a companion to the toilet, the salons, the Queen's Bench, the streets, and the police-stations, has long been felt to be a desideratum by every one aspiring to good-breeding. The few works which treat on the subject have all become as obselete as "hot cockles" and "crambo." "The geste of King Horne," the "[Greek: BASILIKON]" of King Jamie, "Peacham's Complete Gentleman," "The Poesye of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... modifications of old methods by "new thought," she accepts the idea of instilling mental and moral desiderata into the receptive pupil, via the charming tale. But, confronted with the concrete problem of what desideratum by which tale, and how, the average teacher sometimes finds her cheerfulness displaced by a sense of inadequacy to ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... positions. 3, 7, 11, 15. 'Çaltsoï aça litsòï, "yellow wing," a large bird of prey; kini, hen hawk; bitselitsòï, "yellow tail," a bird of undetermined species; a'a'i, magpie; tse, a tail; bitse, its tail. 4, 8, 12, 16. Cija, my treasure; cigèl, my desideratum, my ultimatum, the only thing I will accept. When supposed to be said by a god, as in this song, it means the particular sacrifice which is appropriate to him. In this case probably the feathers spoken of are "cigèl" and the mountains "cija." The refrain "qaò yaè" ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... troops. And you shall carefully study the country in general, and its water and food-products, so that you may inform yourself better, in order if possible, to preserve health, which is the principal desideratum. In order to guard the health of your men, I charge you specially that you take good care of your sick. You shall put a soldier of good temper in charge of them who shall minister to them. From ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... about that expedition in a tapissier, the ability to weave quickly, was as great a desideratum as fine work. Various other expedients were resorted to beside the Sixteenth Century equivalent of "Step lively." Large tapestries were not set on a single loom, but were woven in sections, cunningly united when finished. In this manner more men could ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... conditions in this respect are revolutionised. There is no need to attempt the construction of wind-motors that shall run lightly in a soft zephyr of only five or six miles an hour, and stability is the main desideratum to be ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... Disputatae de Virtutibus in Communi, art. 12: "Ad hoc autem, quod moveamur recte in finem [scil. Deum], oportet finem esse et cognitum et desideratum. Desiderium autem finis duo exigit, scil. fiduciam de fine obtinendo, quia nullus sapiens movetur ad id quod consequi non potest; et amorem finis, quia non desideratur nisi amatum. Et ideo virtutes theologicae sunt tres, scil. fides qua Deum cognoscimus, spes qua ipsum nos obtenturos ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... of being oppressed with fear, they are buoyed up with delusive confidence and courage; for if they did indeed believe that the Church—the Church of Ireland especially—was in danger, and that its preservation was the one paramount desideratum, they would gladly avert, as far as they might, that danger by a compromise involving a very small (if any) sacrifice of principle, and which would secure to the Irish clergy, as far as human prudence, legislative ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... government, double the amount of that paid to the British line, it is said that we are to be irrecoverably beaten in the passage of the 'ferry,' as Jonathan calls it, between Liverpool and New York. East sailing is no doubt an essential desideratum in these days—but what a price to pay for it! A quarter of a million on one side the Atlantic, and half a million on the other: as though there were not enterprise enough in either land to undertake the work—and do it well ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... alphabetical arrangement presented in the following sheets, pointing out at once the article necessary to be consulted, prevents the drudgery of going through several pages in order to find it, and supplies by its convenience and universal adaptation, the desideratum so long needed in this species ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... the author's orthodox creed? We believe that all he claims is absolutely true. But is he candid? Why has not the church the courage to expunge the old fatalism from her creed, and present to the world a statement that she really believes? I am persuaded that such candor is the desideratum of ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... Port Dalhousie on the latter (a distance of 26 miles), and lies at an average distance of about 13 miles inland from the Niagara River. The Welland Railway also connected these two points, running nearly parallel with the canal. To protect these two arteries of commerce from destruction was a desideratum to the General commanding, and his plan of campaign was framed on these lines. Port Colborne lies about 19 miles west of Fort Erie, and Gen. Napier decided to mobilize a force at that point and another at St. Catharines, 10 miles ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... or sentimental quality of the theme should have first consideration and dictate the form of arrangement. A unity between the idea and its form of expression constitutes the desideratum of ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... while natural sexual union in monogamic marriage is never legally or ecclesiastically immoral, it is very often far from ideal. It is not ideal if it is unethical, unhygienic, or unaesthetic. It is unethical, if it is not a bi-personal desideratum (i.e., based on mutual love[9]); it is unhygienic when not promotive and conservative of health; and it is unaesthetic if the concomitant psychical reactions are not in harmony with the beautiful in nature and life. ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... strove for it," he said in a clear, penetrating voice, calculated to attract the attention, if not the interest, of those even outside the charmed though widening circle. "I strove for just that, feeling that here, above all, it was the one desideratum. At times I feared—" he turned to the impassive Mongolian a puckered forehead—"that I might be sacrificing somewhat of the virile. But no! I said—surely I can sacrifice all things, all considerations, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... were the caprice of the moment. That his complexion was pallid and that underneath his eyes were faint blue lines, which were certainly not the hall-marks of robust health, disturbed him not at all. These things were correct. Health was by no means a desideratum in the set to which he was striving to belong. He looked through his eyeglass at ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for speed, but it soon wears out all but the strong, expert swimmer. In acquiring it you must remember that pace is the great desideratum, and, consequently, rapidity of action is requisite. To gain this you must combine two movements in one, by striking with the propeller on whichever side you swim at the same time as the feet, ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... Few authors are better deserving of an extended biography, a desideratum which, in an age characterised by its want of literary research, is not likely to be soon supplied, than Thomas Erastus, whose theological, philosophical, and medical celebrity entitle him to rank with the greatest men of his century. At present we have to ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... the division, when, supported by the Fifth Corps it could have broken in the enemy's right at a vital point; and I have always since regretted that I did so, for the message Humphreys conveyed was without authority from General Grant, by whom Miles had been sent to me, but thinking good feeling a desideratum just then, and wishing to avoid wrangles, I faced the Fifth Corps about and marched it down to Five Forks, and out the Ford road to the crossing of Hatcher's Run. After we had gone, General Grant, intending ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... are tolerably numerous, a thoroughly unexceptionable white is still a desideratum—one combining the perfect opacity or body of white lead with the perfect permanency of zinc white. The nearest approach to it that has yet been made, is Chinese white, which possesses in a great measure the property of the former, ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... delightedly. "You are certainly more alert than most! But, as I was saying, I am usually to be found Thinking. The first condition of Thinking is solitude. And that, I fear, is a desideratum most difficult of realization." ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... they were the same in every country, there could be no danger of their being misunderstood. Full of this project, the Ambassador was 262 lamenting one day before the King, that the nations of Europe were wholly destitute of this grand desideratum; and he strongly recommended the establishment of a college founded upon the simple principles he had suggested. The king, either to humour this Quixotic foible, or to gratify his own ambition at the expense of truth, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... was rather the result of despair than of actual preference; my father and mother were weary of house-hunting, and the attractive points about the place thus seemed to them to counterbalance its somewhat more obvious faults. It had at least one desideratum, namely quietness. Indeed it would have been difficult to find a more retired place so near to London. In 1842 a coach drive of some twenty miles was the only means of access to Down; and even now that railways have crept closer to it, it is ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... before had resolved in his mind to supply the grand desideratum, of keeping up something like an incessant firing upon the enemy during the heat of the attack,—had no further idea in his fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco against the town, out of one of my uncle Toby's six field-pieces, which ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... this desideratum is very nearly, if not quite, supplied by Plagiolophus, remains of which occur abundantly in some parts of the Upper and Middle Eocene formations. The patterns of the grinding-teeth of Plagiolophus are similar to those of Anchitherium, and their crowns are as thinly covered with ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Quarterly No. 8. Owing to the repeated delay in publication, the circulation fell off from 5,000 to 4,000, and Mr. George Ellis had obviously reason when he wrote: "Hence I infer that punctuality is, in our present situation, our great and only desideratum." ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... like the old Italian larvae and most of the sisterhood, display extraordinary affection for the blood of new-born unbaptized infants; and it is a great desideratum to kill them before the preventive rite has been irrevocably administered; for the bodies of unbaptized children were almost indispensable in the witches' preparations. Soon as buried their corpses are dug out of their graves and carried away ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... has appealed with greater force to English-speaking peoples; it has its advocates in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as well as in England, and as a common electoral method for the British Empire is a desideratum in itself, the balance of advantage, at least for English-speaking peoples, would appear to be with the single ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... (J.R.) The Literature of Political Economy, London, 1845.—This is a very valuable work up to the date of publication, but a good bibliography of the subject is still a desideratum. The late Professor Stanley Jevons proposed to draw up a Handy Book of the Literature for the Index Society, but, to the great loss of bibliography, was prevented by other work from undertaking it. He contributed a list of Selected Books in ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... to this motor, engineers and electricians had been approaching more and more to that desideratum which is known as a steam horse in a watch case. Gradually the results of the pile of which Captains Krebs and Renard had kept the secret had been surpassed, and aeronauts had become able to avail themselves ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... experiments on the preparation of ethers, it appeared a desideratum to find a ready method of ascertaining how much spirit of any density would be equal to one chemical equivalent of absolute alcohol. By a modification of a rule employed by the Excise, this question may be easily solved. The Excise rule ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... everybody." The negro, thus protected against oppression by possessing the ballot, would cease to be the prominent object of philanthropic interest. Northern distrust, disarmed by Southern magnanimity, would give place to the liveliest sentiments of confidence and regard. The great political desideratum would be attained. The negro question would be forever removed from the political arena. National parties would again crystallize upon legitimate questions of National interest—questions of tariff, finance, and foreign relations. The ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... nature and quantity of the ash can be determined without much difficulty, the determination of the chemical composition of coal entails considerable labor and skill; hence a method giving the calorific power of any fuel in an exact and reliable manner by a simple experiment is a great desideratum. This will become more obvious when one takes into consideration the many qualities and variable characters of the coals yielded by the South Wales and North of England coal fields. Bituminous coals—giving some 65 per cent, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... be able to give a clear explication and complete enumeration of all the ideas of reason, and of the necessary and universal principles or axioms which are grounded on these ideas. This is still the grand desideratum of metaphysical science. Its achievement will give us a primordial logic, which shall be as exact in its procedure and as certain in its conclusions as the mathematical sciences. Meantime, it may be affirmed that philosophic ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... and hermetically sealed in tin cases, are extensively consumed both in our home and foreign markets. But, notwithstanding its great commercial value, naturalists have failed to present us with any accurate account of its consecutive history from the ovum to the adult state. This desideratum we are now enabled to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... almost forgetting to smoke, waited developments with interest. The Billionaire, however, wasted but scant time in consideration. It was not money now, he lusted for, but power. Money was, to him, no longer any great desideratum. At most, it could now mean no more to him than a figure on a check-book or a page of statistics in his private memoranda. But power, unlimited, indisputable power over the whole earth and the fulness thereof, power which none ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... volume, to let us know how the hero and heroine conducted themselves when married. Their main object seems to be merely to instruct young ladies how to get husbands, but not how to keep them: now this last, I speak it with all due diffidence, appears to me to be a desideratum in modern married life. It is appalling to those who have not yet adventured into the holy state, to see how soon the flame of romantic love burns out, or rather is quenched in matrimony; and how deplorably the passionate, poetic lover declines into the phlegmatic, prosaic husband. I am inclined ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Inasmuch as they express the opinion and guarantee the privileges of a dominant class, they are bulwarks erected against popular change. The privileged classes of any society regard stability as the chief political desideratum. They resist, and if possible prevent, those legal and political readjustments which the general progress of society makes necessary. Their interests are furthered in proportion as the system is one which ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... regarding the future. I believe the human race is improving, despite the disadvantageous surroundings and conditions which hamper honest effort and stultify truth. A higher efficiency is the goal, and the intention is to obtain this desideratum by fair and by just means. There is an awakening, an unrest, a groping for knowledge in almost every field of human endeavor, and there is none in which the yearning for fact, for truth, for instruction, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... desideratum of an Arab. His head, as I have described, should be a mass of grease; he rubs his body with oil or other ointment; his clothes, i.e. his one garment or tope, is covered with grease, and internally he swallows as much as he ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... blood-hound and the rifle bring him in a prisoner, and even Miss Emily would now be unable to save him from the penalty. How could he live in New Orleans, or how escape from there? He was without money, and he had sense enough to know that money is a desideratum, especially ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... and the opinion you entertain of the testimony." Under the pleadings, the entire history of the case went before this jury, and their verdict was final. It was this method of trial which prevented so long that great desideratum in all judicial systems—a court for the correction of errors and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... many of too low a kind to rank under the head of topography and history." Thus the design of Oldys, in forming this elaborate collection, is condemned by trying it by the limited object of the topographer's view. This catalogue remains a desideratum, were it printed entire as collected by Oldys, not merely for the topography of the metropolis, but for its relation to its manners, domestic annals, events, and persons connected with ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... pushes away from him any shred of the knowable." From such passages one has a glimmer of what Comenius did mean by his Pansophia. He hoped to do something himself towards furnishing the world with this grand desideratum. He had in contemplation a book which should at least show what a proper Encyclopaedia or Consolidation of Universal Truth ought to be. But here again he invites co-operation. Many hands in many ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... reflecting that in most countries are to be found, either in a moral or a physical sense, advantages and disadvantages in which others are deficient. Le POUR et le CONTRE, as a well-known traveller observes, se trouvent en chaque nation. The grand desideratum is to acquire by travel a knowledge of this POUR et/i> CONTRE, which, by emancipating us from our prejudices, teaches us mutual toleration —for, of every species of tyranny, that which is exercised on things indifferent in themselves, is the most intolerable. Hence it is less ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... pounds been twenty thousand pounds, he might have taken himself to Miss Puffle, who lived near Saffron Walden and who would own Snickham Manor when her father died. The property was said to be involved, and Miss Puffle was certainly forty-eight. As an heir was the great desideratum, he had resolved that Matilda Thoroughbung should be the lady, in spite of the evils attending the new connection. He did feel that in throwing over Harry he would have to abandon all the Annesleys, and to draw a line between himself with ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... vessel may fail of reaching the guaranteed speed there is to be deducted from the contract price the sum of $25,000. There seems to be no doubt among the naval experts that she will meet the conditions as to speed, and this is a great desideratum, since her chief function is to be to sweep the seas of an enemy's commerce. To do her work she must be able to overhaul, in an ocean race, the swiftest ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... be inconsistent with the expression of any passion; which shall always keep the body in a graceful position, and shall so vary its motions; at proper intervals, as to seem the subject operating on the speaker, and not the speaker on the subject. This, it will be confessed, is a great desideratum; and an attempt to do this, is the principal object ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... showing that the object-lesson and common-things teaching is but a partial and preliminary resource in the business of education; that, to avoid working positive harm, it must be restricted within due limits of age, capacity, and subject; that it is not, therefore, the real and total present desideratum of our schools; and that, subsequently to the completion of the more purely sensuous and percipient phase of the mind, and to the acquirement of the store of simpler ideas and information, and the degree of capacity, that ought to be secured during that period—hence, from an age ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... which mixed themselves up with his career of philosophy... Many years later we find Newton in correspondence with Locke, with reference to a mysterious red earth by which Boyle, who was then recently dead, had asserted that he could effect the grand desideratum of multiplying gold. By this time, however, Newton's faith had become somewhat shaken by the unsatisfactory communications which he had himself received from Boyle on the subject of the golden recipe, though he did not abandon the idea of giving ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as far as his means allow, is the object of the writer of these pages; and in order to show the degree of credit to which his remarks may be entitled, and his reasons for differing from the French as regards the means by which the great desideratum is to be achieved, he will briefly state, that in early life he left Europe under the prevailing impression that the opening of a canal across the isthmus of Panama was practicable; but while in the West Indies, some doubts on the subject having arisen in his mind, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... popular Selection from the French Classics, has professionally experienced the want of a book of French Poetry for Children, and to supply this desideratum, has produced a little volume with the above title. It consists of brief extracts, in two parts—1. From Morel's Moral de l'enfance; 2. Miscellaneous Poems, Fables, &c., by approved writers; and is in French just what Miss Aikin's pretty poetical selection is in English. We hope it may become ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... checking, or altogether destroying, the fermentation of substances. In the present case, it seems, enough of it had not been produced to answer the purpose effectually. Some other acids have the same power. Hence the desideratum mentioned in the text is easily supplied. The juice, it may be thought, will be changed by the addition of a strong acid, and rendered unserviceable. There can be no doubt, however, that when it is required for the purpose ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume. Magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not to be lavished upon all kinds of books indiscriminately. I would not dress a set of Magazines, for instance, in full suit. The dishabille, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... certain penalty to the player and loss to his team. So that, while the boy who does not play "snappy" and hard cannot rank high, neither can the boy who plays "rough-house." Forcefulness under control is the desideratum. ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... twenty-four years he has taken life easy, which he has been able to do from the sensible step he adopted of quitting active business before it wore him out. At the age of seventy-five he is still hale, hearty and vigorous, looking younger than his actual years, and possessing that great desideratum, a sound ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... that his system is not (like the Madras system) independent of the teacher's, ability, and therefore not unconditionally applicable.—Upon some future occasion we shall perhaps take an opportunity of stating what is in our opinion the great desideratum which is still to be supplied in the art of education considered simply in its intellectual purposes—viz. the communication of knowledge, and the development of the intellectual faculties: purposes which have not been as yet treated in sufficient insulation from the moral purposes. For the ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... mettlesome, stood waiting for music that could scarcely be lighter or more devoid of moral quality than her own immature heart. Life, at that time, had for her but one great desideratum—fun; and with her especial favorites about her, with a careful selection of "nice brothers," canvassed with many pros and cons over neglected French exercises, she had the promise of plenty of it for a long evening, and her dark eyes glowed and cheeks flamed ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... desirable, and if the modern idea of traffic had found a place in their hearts, they had no facilities for conveying it from place to place. Even at the present time, with all our improvement in the arts, the great desideratum is an appropriate vessel for carrying petroleum from place to place, or retaining it safely in any locality; but the Indians were utterly destitute of any appliances suitable for the purpose. If they were ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... commences with the assertion that he "has no prejudices to overcome, and would do the black all the good in his power," and winds up with a postscript strongly insisting upon the necessity of corporal punishment, the "great desideratum in obtaining labor from ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... vast power, and from his towering figure, he seemed like a giant among pigmies. Marat might be termed the representative of the kennel. He was a low demagogue, flaunting in rags, dirty, and venomous: he was always calling out for more blood, as if the grand desideratum was the annihilation of mankind. Among the extreme men, Robespierre, by his eloquence, his artifice, and his bold counsels, contrived to maintain his position. This was no easy matter, for it was necessary to remain firm and unfaltering in every emergency. He, like the others ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... to their vividness and distinctness was desirable. An immediate mental recall at the end of five seconds of visual stimulation, under favorable though not unusual conditions of light, position and distance, seemed most likely to secure this desideratum. Experimentation showed that five minutes was, on the whole, a suitable period in which to secure the information needed without developing a fatigue in the subject ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... mouth becomes a desideratum or necessity to the upstream people. Otherwise they may be bottled up. Though history shows us countless instances of upstream expansion, nevertheless owing to the ease of downstream navigation and this increasing historical importance from source ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... Procrustes, from the collector's point of view, is entirely logical, and might be considered as the acme of bookmaking. To the true collector, a book is a work of art, of which the contents are no more important than the words of an opera. Fine binding is a desideratum, and, for its cost, that of the Procrustes could not be improved upon. The paper is above criticism. The true collector loves wide margins, and the Procrustes, being all margin, merely touches the vanishing point of the perspective. The smaller the edition, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... and room prevented my enlarging on my hint about the stage, but as far as my own determination goes at present, I think it is the course that I shall most likely pursue. You know that independence of mind and body seems to me the great desideratum of life; I am not patient of restraint or submissive to authority, and my head and heart are engrossed with the idea of exercising and developing the literary talent which I think I possess. This is meat, drink, and sleep to me; my world, in which I live, and have my happiness; ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... ordinary houses would please nearly everybody; that is what I assert without apology. Now in modern England (as you eagerly point out) it is very difficult to give nearly everybody houses. Quite so; I merely set up the desideratum; and ask the reader to leave it standing there while he turns with me to a consideration of what really happens in the social wars ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... well be supposed that, in this climate, the principal desideratum which art is called upon to furnish for the promotion of health, is warmth, as well in the external air as in the inhabited apartments. Exposure to a cold atmosphere, when the body is well clothed, produces no bad effect ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... did desist; but some, secreting their cigars in the hollow of their hands, took whiffs by stealth, and blushed to find it flame; while others, who were such grandees and big pots that their own convenience was the first and foremost desideratum, continued to ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... of a definition of Courage; as happens in the search dialogues, there is no definite result, but the drift of the discussion is to make courage a mode of intelligence, and to resolve it into the grand desideratum of the knowledge of good and evil—belonging to ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... How much gain in weight is desirable beyond the point where the lung capacity increases at an equal rate is unknown. If such measurements were applied to the different gymnastic systems, we might be able to compare their efficiency, which would be a great desideratum in view of the unfortunate rivalry between them. Total strength, too, can be greatly increased. Beyer thinks that from sixteen to twenty-one it may exceed the average or normal increment fivefold, and he adds, "I firmly believe that the now so wonderful performances of most of our ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... cannot be more profitably or pleasantly spent, and, as I am told you are somewhat of an aboriginal scholar, you can assist them with your advice and judgment. A perfect analysis of the language is a great desideratum. I pray you, in the spring, to let me have ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... honest living, it became a land of great estates and wealthy men, and the self-respecting peasantry were transformed into soldiers for foreign wars, or joined the rabble in the streets of Rome. [14] Wealth became the great desideratum, and the great avenue to this was through the public service, either as army commanders and governors, or as public men who could sway the multitude and command votes and influence. Manifestly the old type ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... moderns. This celebrated astronomer does not belie, in this notice, his reputation for handling scientific subjects so as to make them clear to common apprehension. He announces, in his second page, that he has completed and will soon publish a Treatise of Popular Astronomy; a desideratum for France. Sir John Herschel has supplied it for English readers, in his Outlines. The present history and explanations of the Calendar may be recommended, as material, to your Professor Loomis. In the section concerning the period at which the Paris ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... to the wearisome labor of deciphering illegible handwriting will welcome the appearance of any 'standard text-book enabling all to become tolerable writers.' What a desideratum! Let the disappointment over manuscripts frequently rejected, simply because illegible, and the despair of printers, tell. The book before us seems well adapted to attain the end it proposes. The writer says: 'This work is no creation of a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to give, coupled with some modifications, and point to the Central climatic division of the continent as possessing, in its dry elastic atmosphere and generally equable temperature, the requisite desideratum. ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... condemned by the general opinion of mankind. Such questions will have to be settled by discussion in some sort of federal council or parliament, if Europe would keep pace with America in the advance towards universal law and order. All will admit that such a state of things is a great desideratum: let us see if it is really quite so utopian as it may seem at the first glance. No doubt the lord who dwelt in Haddon Hall in the fifteenth century would have thought it very absurd if you had told him that within four hundred years it would not be necessary for country gentlemen to live in ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... data fuit ad desideratum nimis diu divini vatis Danici incomparabile opus. Arcta etenim, qu nos et Britannos intercessit amicitia, me allexit, ut, clementissime annuentibus Augustissimis patri patribus CHRISTIANO VII. et FREDERICO ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... towards this great desideratum in English History has been lately made, by the publication of the early History of the English East India Company, by John Bruce, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... resemblances prevail over differences" between parent and offspring. Surely, as a rule, resemblances DO prevail over differences, though I quite agree with you that the latter have been far too much overlooked. The great desideratum for the species question at present seems to me to be the determination of the law of variation. Because no law has yet been made out, Darwin is obliged to speak of variation as if it were spontaneous or a matter of chance, so that the bishops and superior clergy generally (the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... every one has begun conscience-dissecting—thinking—and a rumour has got abroad that we live to get thoughts of God. And because thoughts of God are novel and comforting, they have been raised up as the great desideratum. And the state of society responsible for the production of these thoughts is considered blessed. The work of intensifying the characteristics of that society is thought blessed, and because in ease we think not, ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... kerbed and in good condition. Trees are bigger and more numerous than usual, and the place has a generally bowery appearance such as is uncommon in Ireland, which is not famous for its timber. Trees are in many parts the grand desideratum, the one thing needful to perfect the beauty of the scenery, but Ireland as compared with England, France, Holland, Belgium, or Germany may almost be called a treeless country. Strange to say, the Home Rule Bill, which affects everything, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the option between glory and shame, if our salvation or destruction, depended on this sum, it is impossible that he should have been active, and made a merit of that activity, in taking off a shilling in the pound of the land-tax, which came up to his grand desideratum, and upwards of 100,000l. more. By this manoeuvre, he left our trade, navigation, and manufactures, on the verge of destruction, our finances in ruin, our credit expiring, Ireland on the point of being ceded to France, the colonies of being torn to pieces, the succession of the crown ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the author of the Characteristics is hardly less a desideratum than that of his grandfather, the Lord Chancellor, and would make an interesting work, written in connection with the politics as well as literature of the reigns of William and Anne; for the third Lord Shaftesbury, though prevented by ill-health from undertaking office ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... who, in 1843, placed an Ericsson propeller in the French frigate Pomone, and soon afterwards the British Admiralty determined to place it in the Amphion. Not only was the performance of these vessels highly satisfactory, but they were the first ships in the navies of Europe in which the great desideratum was secured of placing the machinery below the load-line. Ericsson's propeller having been the first introduced into France, it was generally adopted; but afterwards, in consequence of the accounts of Smith's screw received from England, it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... them if you happen to strike the channel. The difficulty is, however, that the sandy bottom shifts. To-day it is, and to-morrow it is not. I was eating one of those large, hearty breakfasts which the combination of a dead flat calm and a sunshiny brisk air make such a desideratum. I was, moreover, perched on the top of the wheel house, and reflecting on the poor taste of the author of the Book of Revelation when he said that in heaven "there shall be no more sea." At this moment ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... The great desideratum in modern times is an efficient check upon the power of banks, preventing that excessive issue of paper whence arise those fluctuations in the standard of value which render uncertain the rewards of labor. It was supposed ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that notices of such truly valuable, and oftentimes curious and rare, books, as the ensuing pages describe; but more especially a Personal History of Literature, in the characters of Collectors of Books; had long been a desideratum even with classical students: and in adopting the present form of publication, my chief object was to relieve the dryness of a didactic style by the introduction of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... an excellent thing [he writes] when you ask, "Where can we look for more poetry per page than Keats furnishes?" It is strange that there is not yet one complete edition of him. {*} No doubt the desideratum (so far as care and exhaustiveness go), will be ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... Dictionary, or Cyclopaedia of Naval Science and Nomenclature, is still a desideratum. That of Falconer is imperfect and out of date. We have heard that the design of such a work has been entertained, and materials for its execution collected, by Captain W. H. Smyth, whom, we earnestly recommend to prosecute an undertaking of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth |
