"Element" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I resumed my seat in the corner of the office, I was conscious of a new element of the uncertain, the underhand, perhaps even the dangerous, in our adventure; and there was now a new picture in my mental gallery, to hang beside that of the wreck under its canopy of sea-birds ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... rose to the surface, each struggling in the arms of the other. Trow, though he was in an element to which he was not used, though he had sprung thither as another suicide might spring to certain death beneath a railway engine, did not altogether lose his presence of mind. Prompted by a double instinct, he had clutched hold of Morton's body when he encountered it beneath the waters. He held ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... to species. Varieties, in fact, are "incipient species." Hence, small "fortuitous" fluctuating, individual variations—i.e., those which chance to occur without predetermined direction—are the "first-steps" in the origin of species. This is the first element in the Darwinian theory. ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... fresh element in the misunderstanding. Thus the two argued time and again. Gwendolyn almost knew ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... element the moment he entered the classroom. It was a bear garden. The most moral individual has his days of perversity when a malign fate compels him to show the worst he has in him. A Scottish university class—which is many most moral individuals—has a similar eruptive tendency ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... Woods Ruth Fielding had seen loons dive and swim (and of all the feathered tribe, loons are the master divers) and she had wondered at the birds' mastery of the water. But no loon ever seemed more at home in that element than ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... near head of the column, i.e., from smallest element in the advance guard that can afford to cut down its numbers. 2. Speed rather than safety, to keep abreast of own column and to force the enemy to disclose himself by firing on F.P. rather than on main body. 3. Sent to investigate ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... Lord Byron. In the language of Mr. Moore, one of the first objects that met the eyes of the distinguished travellers, on their approaching the coast of Attica, was the noble poet, "disporting in his favourite element under the rocks of Colonna." They were afterwards introduced to each other by Lord Sligo, and it was in the course of their first interview at Lord Sligo's table that Lady Hester, with that "lively eloquence" for which she ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... upon his absorption with a disturbing element: "Mr. Courtland, this is the nurse from Good Samaritan Hospital. I thought you ought to know that Miss Brentwood has disappeared! We have searched everywhere, but can get no clue to her whereabouts. She wasn't fit to go. She had fainted again—was unconscious ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... class—the whole school mostly was in it—and he was teachin' us general things about the stars and what they was made of. So one day the professor called out quick as a test of what he had told us before: "What element is found on the planet Mars that is not found anywhere else in the universe?" And George Heigold who was sittin' way back yelled out "Sapolio"—and the whole school went wild, into a roar of laugh. While the professor marched up and ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... represents John and Jesus and Peter as saying (poenitentiam agere) do penance. From a late Latin compound (repoenitere) comes our English word 'repent,' which inherits the fault of the Latin; making grief the prominent element, and change of purpose secondary, if expressed at all. Thus our English word corresponds exactly to the second Greek word (metamelesthai), and to the Hebrew word rendered repent, but sadly fails to translate the exhortation of the ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... even for the evening and night of that very day in which she was wasting her strength on the Devizes road. It is the lack of object, of all aim, in the lives of the houseless wanderers that gives to them the most terrible element of their misery. Think of it! To walk forth with, say, ten shillings in your pocket,—so that there need be no instant suffering from want of bread or shelter,—and have no work to do, no friend to see, no place to expect you, no duty to ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... another door, made of crystal glass, and entered a large hall with a sparkling roof of rock crystal. In the centre was a fountain, a more wonderful creation fairyland does not contain. Hugo held his breath for fear of saying "Oh!" again. Strange gnomes and fairies seemed to be alive in it, and the element it contained, was not water, but fire. The most marvellous display of fireworks that you have ever seen, would be nothing ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... which lay in shadow on its banks, scattered at capricious intervals a pale but unpiercing wanness rather than lustre along the tide, or save where the stillness was occasionally broken by the faint oar of the boatman or the call of his rude voice, mellowed almost into music by distance and the element. ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... general readers to your side. I was myself acquainted with many of the persons you have sketched in your Lavengro, and I can testify to the extraordinary vividness and accuracy of the portraits. What I have seen, again, of yourself tells me that romantic adventures are your natural element, and I should a priori expect that much of your history would be stranger than fiction. But you must remember that the bulk of readers have no personal acquaintance with you, or the characters you describe. The consequence is that they fancy there is an immensity ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... foremost among the achievements of the Burgundian period. Here again the difference of language does not hamper the genius of the nation. While in music the Walloon element dominates, the Flemish dominates in Art; but it must be clearly stated that, in this branch, as in all other branches of Burgundian civilization, the two parts of the country are strongly represented, and that the title of "Flemish ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... birds. Here we see how potent has been the effect of the introduction of a single tree, nothing whatever else having been done, with the exception that the land had been enclosed, so that cattle could not enter. But how important an element enclosure is, I plainly saw near Farnham in Surrey. Here there are extensive heaths, with a few clumps of old Scotch firs on the distant hill-tops; within the last ten years large spaces have been enclosed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... be used as a food staple, a major element in the bill of fare, rather than as a dessert, and special care must be taken as to thorough mastication, which is almost equally true of apples, bananas and numerous other fruits which ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... the irritation and rancour seething in the breast of the new plantocracy, of whom the majority was of the type that then also flourished in Barbados, Jamaica, and Demerara, were nourished and kept acute in order to crush the African element. Harm was done, certainly; but not to the ruinous extent sometimes declared. It was too late for perfect success, as, according to the Negroes' own phrase, people of colour had by that time already "passed the lock-jaw"* stage (at which trifling misadventures [255] might have nipped the germ of their ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... each excitement of anger, train him in self-control. Self-mastery is a matter of learning to direct and apply our own powers at will. It is developed by habitual practice. It is the largest general element in character. The temper that smashes a toy is the temper that kills a human being when it opposes our will, but it is the same temper that, being controlled, patiently sets the great ills of society right, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... "For a space I thought he would kiss her. In faith, there is more to Monsieur du Cevennes than I had credited to his account. It takes power, in the presence of that woman, to resist the temptation to kiss her. But here's a new element, a new page which makes ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... hope or expectation is such a vital element of human experience, so does disappointment have its part in the mechanism of things, and, as we shall presently see, its wise and beneficial part. For, after all, how few things correspond with the forecast of expectation! To be sure, some ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... likely to be quite uniform in character, even though planned on the same lines; and it seems desirable to explain shortly the aim we have had in view in writing our own little book. In our accounts of places of interest we have subordinated the historical to the descriptive element; and whilst we have related pretty fully in the Introduction the events of national importance which have taken place within the county, we have not devoted much space to family histories. We have made it our chief purpose to help ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... rates but at the same time puts additional pressure on the hybrid system of strong political controls and growing market influences. China has benefited from a huge expansion in computer internet use. Foreign investment remains a strong element in China's remarkable economic growth. Growing shortages of electric power and raw materials will hold back the expansion of industrial ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... hitherto distributed by regiments throughout the army, was now consolidated into one corps, and from this time became a valuable element in the service, for it daily grew in efficiency. And such opportunities of doing field-work as a body were afforded it as ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... land of his birth. When such arguments are hurled at me by our own flesh and blood—our kinsmen from all parts of South Africa—I must confess I am not surprised that these persons indignantly refuse to accept citizenship upon such unreasonable terms. The element I have just referred to—namely, the Africander element—is very considerable, and numbers thousands, hundreds of whom, at the time this country was struggling for its independence, accorded it moral and financial support, and yet these very persons are subjected to a term of probation ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... my relations with my employer were quiet and peaceful, but still the unclean and degrading element which I so dreaded on becoming a footman was conspicuous and made itself felt every day. I did not get on with Polya. She was a well-fed and pampered hussy who adored Orlov because he was a gentleman and despised me because I was a footman. Probably, from the point of view of ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... pony forward. His breath came fast, and his heart thumped like a trip-hammer. The situation was inconceivably desperate. Somewhere through the hidden depths of the rushing stream, three monstrous and frightful reptiles, fearfully dangerous and terrible creatures in their own element, were darting swiftly towards them, and behind them the dacoits now lined the shore and prevented return into shallower waters which might promise safety from the ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... hungry clutch. What saved the two of them was the violent temper of the man. Always, it had been the demon to set him aflame. To-night, there in the faint light, within the grip of the waters, he was moved to insensate fury against the element that menaced. His rage mounted, and gave him new power in the battle. Maniacal strength grew out of supreme wrath. Under the urge of it, he conquered—at last brought himself and ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... this fertile country filled up with hamlets, mills, and churches; the War of Independence scarcely interrupted its prosperity, because the Quaker element adhered with constancy to neither side, and only one campaign was fought here. The story of the boy who ate a watch passed out of general knowledge and remark; he was known to have been a drummer at the battle of Chadd's ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Thomson. His well-merited titles, Baron Sydenham and Toronto, tend to obscure the fact that he was essentially a member of the great middle class, a civilian who had never worn a sword or {36} a military uniform. He represented that element in English life which is always enriching the House of Peers by the addition of sheer intellectual eminence, like that of Tennyson and Kelvin. He had a sense of humour, a quality of which Head and Durham were devoid. He was amused when he was ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... and textures, pre-eminent scholarship and poetic genius, and wits of the most serviceable sort for statesmanship and banking: it was a name so omnipresent that a Pope with a turn for epigram had called Florentines "the fifth element." And for this high destiny, though it might partly depend on the stars and Madonna dell' Impruneta, and certainly depended on other higher Powers less often named, the praise was greatly due to San Giovanni, whose image was on the fair ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... down and see what father and mamma were about could do so; one would go tapping about with a little crutch, another would curl himself up at the end of the room, and never seem at all in the way. The new feminine element had great fascinations for them, they made pictures for Emily, and brought her flowers, liking to have a kiss in return, and to feel the softness ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... lawyer to become a Peace Commissioner, thereby giving the impression that he desired his counsel and advice as to the negotiations in general, when in fact he did not. But, disregarding the personal element, I consider that he was justified in his course, as the entire constitutional responsibility for the negotiation of a treaty was on his shoulders and he was, in the performance of his duty, entitled to seek advice from those only in ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... invitations to her friends were very few, and the doctor was well aware that he must himself make occasion for going there if he desired to see the inmates of the house. But he very rarely made such occasion, perhaps feeling that he was more in his element at the workhouse ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... record, hardly mention even appears. When the central government falls and the last of its legions are destroyed or have departed, there seems to be no thought of any other element in society. If the evidence of the law codes did not tell us that a Roman population existed, history would record little to indicate its presence. Not only is even the slightest trace of nationality effaced, but the merging of the old conditions of life ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... myself once. I have not yet been to Ponce de Leon's spring. But there are some springs here of a wondrous look. They are so transparent that the fish can scarce believe themselves there in their own element. The Mackinack waters are almost turbid to them. They have a most sulphurous odour, and might renew a man's youth, but it must be at the expense of all sweet smells. I would rather keep on than go ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... of the same subdued and quiet order—drives, donkey-rides, picnics of the small and early type. An air of slow respectability pervades the place; the bulk of the colonists are people well-to-do, who can afford the expense of a winter away from home and of a villa at L150 the season. The bankrupt element of Boulogne, the half-pay element of Dinan or Avranches, is as rare on the Riviera as the loungers who rejoice in the many-changing toilets of Arcachon or Biarritz. The quiet humdrum tone of the parson best harmonises with that of the winter resort, and parsons ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... but connected with some way of giving Master Pomp tit for tat by means of a scare; but my invention was rather at fault, and idea after idea was dismissed as soon as formed. They were not pleasant ideas, some of them, and they were all wanting in the element I wished ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... elements; and the most recent advances of that science have now made it in the highest degree probable that these elements or the (as yet) irreducible primitive materials are themselves in turn only different combinations of a varying number of atoms of one single original element. But in all this we have not as yet obtained any further light as to the real nature of these original atoms ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... historian admits that Christianity, which had not modified the manners of Roman society, was itself an element in the dissolution of the Empire, and that the Church itself acquired some of the rudeness of the barbarians with which it came into such intimate contact. "Germans and Franks aspired to the honor of the episcopate, and carried ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... were soon in their element, and began working away with a great deal of enthusiasm in a small, corrugated iron shed which had been erected in the garden, and dignified by the name of laboratory. For, to the boys' great delight, a model furnace had been made, with ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... have it not must be made to those who are asked to part with a portion of their own power, and it is not strange that human nature, which is an essential element in the male sex, should hesitate and delay to yield one-half its power to those whose cause, however strong in reason and justice, lacks that physical force which so largely has been the means by which the masses of men themselves hare wrung their own ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... reception. The New York Herald, indeed, is of opinion that 'Dickens must apologise first'; and where a New York Herald is possible, anything is possible. But the prevailing tone, both of the press and of people of all conditions, is highly favourable. I have an opinion myself that the Irish element in New York is dangerous; for the reason that the Fenians would be glad to damage a conspicuous Englishman. This is merely an ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... setting his back to the foot of the mast. Had he guessed wrong? With their chosen champion down, would the crew now rush him? He had gambled on the element of fair play which existed in a primitive Terran warrior society after a man-to-man challenge. But he could be wrong. Ross waited, tense. Just let one of them pull a weapon, and ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... suffrage question was kept absolutely non-partisan, it could not escape their serious effects. The demand for free silver had made such inroads on the Republican party that it was threatened with the loss of the State, and it was soon made to understand by the liquor element that its continued advocacy of the suffrage amendment would mean a great loss of money and votes. It was found that the chairman of the State Central Committee, Major Frank M'Laughlin, was notifying the county chairmen not to permit the women to speak at the Republican ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... demanded Mrs. Smith, who recognized the necessity of an infusion of the stronger element to impart to social joys ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... her reasons from distant vistas of the woods, with meditative dark eyes. Evidently her dislike of men had no element of ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... whole of the neighbouring swamps, presenting an ocean overgrown with stupendous forest trees. So sudden is the calamity that every individual, whether man or beast, has to exert his utmost ingenuity to enable him to escape from the dreaded element. The Indian quickly removes to the hills of the interior, the cattle and game swim to the different strips of land that remain uncovered in the midst of the flood, or attempt to force their way through the waters until they perish from ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... Dolphin, The Bear, and The George, not unnaturally asks to be shown into the same chamber at the King's Head. But the King's Head does a business with real commercials, and the stranger finds himself—out of his element. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... business element, Boyee. Remember all the time that Worthington is a business city, the liveliest little business city between New York and Chicago. Business made it. Business runs it. Business is going to keep on running it. Anybody who works on a different principle, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... necessarily variable, being governed, as is everything else, by the law of demand and supply. A particularly choice item will command about the same price whenever offered,—generally an increasing one,—but the ordinary book can often be obtained at bargain figures. This element of uncertainty goes far toward making the auction sale so attractive to collectors with slender purses, as also to those who may be designated "moral book-gamblers," always ready to take a chance where the outcome is problematical. Many fine collections ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... industry into the garish light of undesirable publicity. In the sheds and the quarries the routine work went on as usual, but speculation was rife as to the outcome of the search for the missing treasurer. A considerable amount of money was put up by the sporting element among the workmen, that the capture would take place within three weeks. Meanwhile, the daily papers furnished pabulum for the general curiosity and kept the interest as to the outcome on the increase. Some reports had it that Champney Googe was already in Europe; others that ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... even though no further moral aim was connected with it, would undoubtedly be of itself a moral element. Suppose two pigs, for instance, had only a single wallowing-place, and each would like naturally to wallow in it for ever. If each pig in turn were to rejoice to make room for his brother, and were consciously to regulate his delight ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... deep; they go to the quick of feelings and of interests. These speeches, repeated to the partisans of the Tiphaines by the same mouths which told the Rogrons of the sneers of "those women" of the Tiphaine clique, fed the hatreds of both sides, now increased by the political element. The animosities caused at this time in France by the spirit of party, the violences of which were excessive, were everywhere mixed up, as in Provins, with selfish schemes and wounded or vindictive individual ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... great element in securing success in life.—A well-known writer and preacher, Dr. Arnot, tells that he once heard the following conversation at a railway station between a farmer and the engineer of a train: "What are you waiting for so long? Have you no water?" "Oh, yes, we have plenty ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... a gravity battery: Use about 3-1/2 lb. of blue stone, or enough to cover the copper element 1 in. Pour in water sufficient to cover the zinc 1/2 in. Short-circuit for three hours, and the battery is ready for use. If desired for use immediately, do not short-circuit, but add 5 or ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... the half a neck nearer that shows the blood and wins the race; the one march more that wins the campaign: the five minutes more of unyielding courage that wins the fight." Again and again had the irrepressible Carter Harrison been consigned to oblivion by the educated and moral element of Chicago. Nothing could keep him down. He was invincible. A son of Chicago, he had partaken of that nineteenth century miracle, that phoenix-like nature of the city which, though she was burned, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... range of observation was limited to peasant life, while the Dutch master painted all classes and conditions of men. Yet both alike were profound students of character and regarded expression as the chief element of beauty. Rembrandt, however, sought expression principally in the countenance, and Millet had a fuller understanding of the expressiveness of the entire body. The work of each thus ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... things were not in good form; they came from the trade element in the family. His cousin Caspar had Miss Lindsay's attention. She was describing a Polish estate where she had visited the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... intellect but superior cunning, by which tiny Jack gets the better of the giants. In the fairy tales of no country are 'improper' incidents common, which is to the credit of human nature, as they were obviously composed mainly for children. It is not difficult to get rid of this element when it does occur in ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... Marquis of Walderhurst had been announced, to the consternation of many, Lady Maria had been in her element. She was really fine at times in her attitude towards the indiscreetly or tactlessly inquiring. Her management of Lady Malfry in particular had been a delightful thing. On hearing of her niece's engagement, Lady Malfry had naturally awakened to a proper and well-behaved if belated interest ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a railroad from one city to another. The most natural interpretation which the common observer would put upon the manifestations of one of these autumnal maladies would be that some noxious combustible element had found its way into the system which must be burned to ashes before the heat which pervades the whole body can subside. Sometimes the fire may smoulder and seem as if it were going out, or were quite extinguished, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... votes. A number of the most flagrantly debauched aldermen, it is true, were defeated; but what is an alderman here and there? The newly elected ones, even in the face of pre-election promises and vows, could be easily suborned or convinced. So the anti-Cowperwood element was just where it was before; but the feeling against him was much stronger, and considerable sentiment generated in the public at large that there was something wrong with the Cowperwood method ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... sect, which, on the contrary, is more equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and broad, and full. It necessarily rises out of an existing state of things, and, for a time, savors of the soil. Its vital element needs disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and is employed in efforts after freedom, more vigorous and hopeful as its years increase. Its beginnings are no measures of its capabilities, nor of its scope. At first, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... suffice to show how far the art of enamelling was pushed in those remote days, and how great an industry it must have been. We can have no doubt that colours fixed in the fire must have formed the chief element in the decoration of the buildings of Nebuchadnezzar, of that Babylon whose insolent prosperity so impressed the imagination and provoked the anger of the Jewish prophets. It was to paintings of this ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... a fault goes unpenalized, but as a rule it can be said that a man who can become an ace may well be called a faultless flyer, for an ace is one who has rolled up a score of five victories against those whose skill was less than his own. Of course, there is the element of luck to be considered, for luck and skill must go hand in hand when youths go jousting in the clouds. But luck can only attend the skillful. With skill wanting, ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... Every element necessary for your body is found in some vegetable or animal food; therefore, you should refrain from confining yourself to a ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... my mother comes.]—The reaction has already begun in Orestes. In the excitement and danger of killing his enemy he has shown coolness and courage, but now a work lies before him vastly more horrible, a little more treacherous, and with no element of daring to redeem it. Electra, on the other hand, has done nothing yet; she has merely tried, not very successfully, to revile the dead body, and her hate is unsatisfied. Besides, one sees all through the play ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... name it the ludicrous, and a man is called ludicrous as faulty or contemptible. But when the cause of it is viewed as something more than this, as coming from some conscious power or tendency within us—a valuable gift and an element in our mental constitution—we call it humour, a term applied only to human beings and their productions; and a man is called humorous as worthy of commendation. Both are in truth feelings—we might say one feeling—and although we can conceive humour ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... because they had reached the water. Hundreds plunged in; and their heads were seen bobbing about all the surface of the bay. The rowers, however, pulled well, and presently left the greater number behind, to find satisfaction in the coolness of the element. ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... again, afterwards, never, that was to say, for any other woman, did Rowcliffe feel what he felt then. Looking back on it (afterward) he could only describe it as a sense of certainty. It lacked, surprisingly, the element of surprise. ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... that the plates were to be destroyed after one hundred impressions had been taken, but very recently they reappeared, and were sold to their present possessors, who did take them to Mr. Goulding. And here I am obliged to explain away the last element of astonishment, for Mr. Goulding naturally found the etchings in their original perfect condition simply because I had had them steeled in their full bloom when I had satisfied myself by ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... to Washington on business, this was Margaret's wedding journey. There is no other city in the world where a wedding journey can better be combined with such business as is transacted here, for in both is a certain element of mystery. Washington is gracious to a bride, if she is pretty and agreeable—devotion to governing, or to legislation, or to diplomacy, does not render a man insensible to feminine attractions; and if in addition to beauty a woman has the reputation of wealth, she is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... representations as to its indispensable necessity; and how much good was done by that instrumentality in giving food, clothing, and protection to those who were so suddenly brought out of the house of bondage, as against the ferocity of the rebel element, it is difficult to compute because of its magnitude. She deserves to be gratefully remembered among "the honorable women not a few," who, in their day and generation, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... bad or good; he no doubt wanted a lyric facility and technical skill; but he had the source of poetry in his spiritual perception. He was a good reader and critic, and his judgment on poetry was to the ground of it. He could not be deceived as to the presence or absence of the poetic element in any composition, and his thirst for this made him negligent and perhaps scornful of superficial graces. He would pass by many delicate rhythms, but he would have detected every live stanza or line in a volume, and knew very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... binding obligation of formal pow-wows. We have been unduly conscious of our own cunning, while undervaluing the craft that is native to all wild peoples; we have too often lost sight of the one really imperative element in any compact that is to be effective and enduring,—mutuality of honorable purpose. Most men, whether civilized or savage, can appreciate honest motives and behavior; and so can they detect dishonest wiles and artifices. Lewis and Clark knew well enough what was before them. ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... wily Greek that he was, proved by the manner and success of his appeals to dynastic loyalty in the first years of the struggle for the succession; and perhaps, we may trace it longer still in the leaders, as an element, blended with something of homesickness and something of national tradition, in that fatality which impelled each Macedonian lord of Asia, first Antigonus, then Seleucus, finally Antiochus the Great, to ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... his unbounded patriotism, and his unfaltering loyalty to duty. His mind was of an original and solid cast, admirably balanced, and combining the comprehensiveness of reason with the penetration of instinct. Its controlling element was a strong, sterling sense, that of itself rendered him a wise counselor and a safe leader. All of his personal attributes and antecedents made him pre-eminently a man of the people, and remarkably qualified him to be the stay and surety of his country in this ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... discussion arose from a paper by the Chairman on the new school of poetry "in which, in spite of its good points, he condemned the absence of the sentiment of the moral, which he held to be the really stirring and popular element ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... of David states that "Keen criticism is necessary to arrive at the kernel of fact," and, "the imaginative element in the story of David is but the vesture which half conceals, half discloses certain facts treasured in popular tradition." The Martian thinks this is polite language, but the word forgery is much more concise and to the point, and he finds an excellent example of this ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... woman, and highly accomplished, after the French rather than the English mode; and in those days, when intercourse with the Continent was long interrupted by war, such an element in the society of a country parsonage must have been a rare acquisition. The sisters may have been more indebted to this cousin than to Mrs. La Tournelle's teaching for the considerable knowledge of French which they possessed. She also took ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... is no mediocre element of respect. One of the things that the gamin is fondest of saying is: "I am fine and strong, come now!" To be left-handed renders you very enviable. A squint ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... scuttering in and out of his room. Nevertheless the Infant, though graciously accepting these attentions, had demanded and received Sonya's personal assurance that the particular game of the morning was not to be repeated. There was an unpleasant element in that game which grown-ups might not notice but which he, ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... above referred to was made when Green, (or Brownarms, or Broadshoulders, I forget which), was quaffing a cup of the cold element. Having drained it he spat out the last mouthful, and along with it a lively creature like a small shrimp, with something like a screw-propeller under ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... had won them with his own iron labor, and he toiled continually to increase them. His industry, inventiveness, and energy were inexhaustible. To him business seemed to be what water is to a fish: the element which gives delight and freedom. What was his business? Great and complicated enterprises: the erection of public edifices, the purchase, sale, and exchange of values of various descriptions, exchanges in many markets and corporations. To finish all this business it was necessary ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... were by this time out of sight beyond a thicket of bushes and small trees, but Katherine and Hazel did not hasten their steps, as they preferred to trust to the path to guide their steps rather than the view of the persons they sought to follow. In fact, they preferred to trust to the element of chance rather than run a risk of arousing the suspicion of the cold-faced ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... of January 1871, while the German cannon were still thundering against Paris, a ceremony of world-wide import occurred in the Palace of the Kings of France at Versailles. King William of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor. The scene lacked no element that could appeal to the historic imagination. It took place in the Mirror Hall, where all that was brilliant in the life of the old French monarchy used to encircle the person of Louis XIV. And now, long after ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... expect that some new theological or quasi-theological system will arise, which, mutatis mutandis, shall be Christianity over again. It is a frequent reproach against those who maintain that the supernatural element of Christianity is without foundation, that they bring forward no such system of their own. They pull down but cannot build. We sometimes hear even those who have come to the same conclusions as the destroyers say, that having ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... same original stock. Probably this opinion is still maintained in some quarters, but of late years views of a diametrically opposite character have been brought forward, and very ably advocated. In proportion as these views are admitted to have in them an element of truth, the importance of the older objection is diminished. It will therefore be unnecessary to dwell upon it. This new view is, that not only all branches of the human race, but all living beings now existing, or that have ever existed on the face of the earth, ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... extreme limits of this series would find a place all the forms of prestige resulting from the different elements composing a civilisation—sciences, arts, literature, &c.—and it would be seen that prestige constitutes the fundamental element of persuasion. Consciously or not, the being, the idea, or the thing possessing prestige is immediately imitated in consequence of contagion, and forces an entire generation to adopt certain modes ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... them had been with us. It was Watson, beyond a doubt. He was alive; one could almost believe him in the jewel. We had heard his story: "The screen of the occult; the curtain of shadow." We had seen him go. There was an element of horror in the thing, and of fascination. The great professor! The faithful Watson! Where had ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... with a white cross that extends to the edges of the flag; the vertical part of the cross is shifted to the hoist side, and that design element of the Dannebrog (Danish flag) was subsequently adopted by the other Nordic countries of ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... This fact has been of great value to the science of chemistry in developing the atomic theory, which has demonstrated that a body can only exist chemically combined when a definite number of atoms of each element is present, and that there is no certainty of such proportions existing except in the crystal. I hold before you a crystal of common alum. Its chemical symbol would be Al{2}O{3},3SO{3}KO,SO{3}24H{2}O. If we knew its weight and wished to know its ultimate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... not merely with the view of making the reader acquainted with the antecedents of my honoured mother; but the much higher object of illustrating the sovereign mercy of God, and tracing the growth of the religious element in the family. Many a page deeply interesting and instructive might be written which would unfold the grace of God in the history of particular families, flowing as a stream of light from generation to generation, or diffusing itself in the collateral branches; here swelling ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... a Stake of the church, the real estate scheme of making it a big city vanished with the prophet. Foreclosures of mortgages now began; the church printing-office was first sold out by the sheriff and then destroyed by fire, and the so-called reform element took possession of the Temple. Rigdon had placed his property out of his own hands, one acre of land in Kirtland being deeded by him and his ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... cross that extends to the edges of the flag; the vertical part of the cross is shifted to the hoist side; the banner is referred to as the Dannebrog (Danish flag) note: the shifted design element was subsequently adopted by the other Nordic countries of ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... an extraordinary magistracy, devised to meet unexpected pressure upon the ordinary machine of government. The emergence of the Ten proves this view. Without determining whether the Council existed previous to the year 1310, we may take that year as the date of its first appearance as a potent element in the State. The rebellion of Tiepolo and Querini, an aristocratic revolt against the growing power of the new commercial nobility, paralysed the ordinary machinery of State, and revealed the danger inherent in a large and slow-moving body of rulers. The Ten ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... another in the face; but among wits and criticks he is timorous and awkward, and hangs down his head at his own table. Dear Mr. Idler, persuade him, if you can, to return once more to his native element. Tell him, that wit will never make him rich, but that there are places where riches will always ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... Americanism. The brave record of the Ann Arbor men in the Civil War, and in France a half century later, where several of foreign parentage lost their lives, is ample proof of the solid qualities in this element among Ann ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... insist upon, however, if I have anything to do with the matter, and it is this: that when you have made up your mind on the subject you will stick to it. I have not found in your composition that element of stubbornness which is a constant source of embarrassment to me in all friendly and social ways, but which, when applied to certain lines of business, brings in the dollar and fifty-cent pieces. If you accept the position, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of manners is incessant,—an element as unconcealable as fire. The nobility cannot in any country be disguised, and no more in a republic or a democracy than in a kingdom. No man can resist their influence. There are certain manners which are learned in good society, and if a person have them, he or she must be considered, ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... The essential element of foods is the vitamin, a nitrogenous substance of indeterminate nature. Without it we would starve, though eating plenty of proteins, carbo-hydrates, fats, salts and water. Nothing will sustain ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower
... Gwent—"because you seem to eliminate the female element from your life altogether. Therefore, so I take it, you are not at your full strength, either as a scientist or philosopher. You are a kind of eagle, trying to fly high on one wing. You'll need the other! There, don't look at me in that savage way! I'm ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... Rhine forcing its way into this pool, and roaring with its foaming eddies, pierces the sluggish quiet of the waters, and rushes through the middle from one end to the other. And like an element separated from some other element by eternal discord, without any increase or diminution of the volume of water which it has brought into the lake, it comes forth from it again with its old name and its unalloyed power, never ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... representation is bad in itself; a realistic form may be as significant, in its place as part of the design, as an abstract. But if a representative form has value, it is as form, not as representation. The representative element in a work of art may or may not be harmful; always it is irrelevant. For, to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions. Art transports us from the world of man's activity to a world of aesthetic exaltation. ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... countenanced. I should find the long lost Mss. of that rhymer who took possession of me that night, and so save myself the discomfort of being turned into a Temple of Fame a second time. Truly there has been an element of the unusual throughout this whole affair with Weir. Once or twice I have felt as if about to sail out of the calm, prosaic waters of this every-day nineteenth-century life, and embark upon the phosphorescent ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... I need scarce advertise the reader that, during this whole entertainment, the commodore and his lieutenant were quite out of their element; and this, indeed, was the case with the bridegroom himself, who being utterly unacquainted with any sort of polite commerce, found himself under a very disagreeable restraint during ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... response to a stimulus, has only a limited field in human life or adult life. Sherrington points out in his notable book, "The Integrative Action of the Nervous System," that there is a play of the entire organism on each responding element, and there is also a competition throughout each pathway to action. Let us examine this ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... dear comrade, what an element of caricature lurks in clothes? A short, round coat on a stout man seems to exaggerate his proportions to such a ridiculous degree that the profile of his manly form suggests "the robust ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... proposes to himself the task of demonstrating that the miraculous element in Christianity is a delusion. The work is divided into three parts. The first part undertakes to prove that miracles are not only highly improbable, but antecedently incredible, so that no amount of testimony can ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... 'Imagine the Tale of a Tub to be read by Bishop Butler and by Voltaire, who called Swift a Rabelais perfectionne. Can anyone doubt that the believer would be scandalized, and the scoffer find himself in a thoroughly congenial element? Would not any believer shrink from the use of such weapons, even ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... substantial resistance attempted, the complex procedures to detonate the anionizers properly, so as to level the city but not the surrounding country, may have been hindered. There were several factors on our side though, the element of surprise being the foremost, for in their excitement the Zardovian resistance would likely mistake us for a regular sized army and flee in fear at our supposed superiority, especially since the presence of me, the kinsman redeemer, was known to the Zards. Also, the Zards were known to be ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... was fitted, both by art and nature, to adorn a ball-room, and conduct a ball. With that ease of manner which a perfect knowledge of the world and long practice alone can give, she floated round the circle, conscious that she was in her element. Her eye, with one glance, seemed to pervade the whole assembly; her ear divided itself amongst a multitude of voices; and her attention diffused itself over all with equal grace. Yet that attention, universal as it seemed, was nicely discriminative. Mistress of the art of pleasing, and perfectly ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... essence of Christianity, said, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." With this recognition of the feminine element in the Godhead in the Old Testament, and this declaration of the equality of the sexes in the New, we may well wonder at the contemptible status woman occupies in the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... knew but little of him and saw him only in his serious moods might have thought him lacking in that peculiarly human quality, humour. But neither was he an ascetic nor devoid of that element of innocent appreciation of the ludicrous and that keen enjoyment of a good story which seem essential to a complete man. His habit was sobriety, but he relished a joke that was free of all taint of uncleanness and that had about it no sting ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... once demonstrated and abused his power. At the period when he ran riot in his Satire, society had not yet caught him within its pale; and in the time of his Cains and Don Juans, he had again broken loose from it. Hence, his instinct towards a life of solitude and independence, as the true element of his strength. In his own domain of imagination he could defy the whole world; while, in real life, a frown or smile could rule him. The facility with which he sacrificed his first volume, at the mere suggestion of his friend, Mr. Becher, is a strong ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore |
