"Firstly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... written this letter, firstly to tell you the news, and secondly to say a word on the general political outlook, and, as opportunities for discussing the latter are much less frequent than they were in the old days, we should seize those which present themselves all the more eagerly. Besides, ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... YORK . . . , Oct. Saturday '53. MY DEAR SISTER,—I have not written to any of the family for some time, from the fact, firstly, that I didn't know where they were, and secondly, because I have been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to leave New York every day for the last two weeks. I have taken a liking to the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to come under the fire of the main infantry force. As soon as the enemy should be routed, the XIIth Soudanese were to return to the Sirdar. The cavalry, camelry, and Horse Artillery were to pursue—the objective being, firstly, Koyeka, and, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... show firstly, that formations are distinct merely from want of fossils <of intermediate beds>, and secondly, that each formation is full of gaps, has been advanced to account for fewness of preserved organisms compared to what have lived on the world. The very same argument explains why in older formations ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... Firstly, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... in his concluding words, and we shall find that the explanation of the matter really lies in the clear understanding of what are the probabilities, and what the actual details, of the cases presented for consideration. We may firstly, then, glance at a few of the peculiarities of the frogs and toads, regarded from a zooelogical point of view. As every one knows, these animals emerge from the egg in the form of little fish-like "tadpoles," provided with outside gills, which are soon ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... dog-goned purty gal," "The old cock's puttin' on frills," and similar appropriate remarks, ad infinitum. In the meantime—the young woman disappearing within the hotel, and Matheny occupying himself firstly with the wants of his team, and lastly with his own and those of his traveling companion—gossip had busily circulated the report among the idlers of Wilson's Bar that Bob Matheny had taken to himself a young wife, who was accompanying ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... tell you why;—I believe that they are the only two or three words of your handwriting in my possession. For your letters I returned; and except the two words, or rather the one word, 'Household', written twice in an old account book, I have no other. I burnt your last note, for two reasons:—firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, I wished to take your word without documents, which are the worldly ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... side of Brunellesco's plan for the Basilica of Sto. Spirito at Florence, a plan almost identical with that of the Capella degli Angeli, confirms this supposition. Only two small differences, or we may say improvements, have been introduced by Leonardo. Firstly the back of the chapels contains a third niche, and each angle of the Octagon a folded pilaster like those in Bramante's Sagrestia di S. M. presso San Satiro at Milan, instead of an interval between the two pilasters as seen in ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... nothing but walk continually about the room with gleaming eyes and a flushed face waiting furiously for the post; for she was sure it would bring her a letter from Sally or her mother. And she was right, for the rush to the street door that followed the postman's knock resulted firstly in denunciations of an intransitive letter-box nobody but a fool would ever have tried to stuff all those into, and secondly in a pounce by Laetitia on ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... sources of the philosophical aim, which are perennial in their human significance. He, firstly, who begins with the demands of life and its ideals, looks to philosophy for a reconciliation of these with the orderly procedure of nature. His philosophy will receive its form from its illumination ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... evil entreated, wandering in wildernesses and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth, self-banished from all the pleasures and delights upon earth, and standing in sore need even of bread and shelter. This they did for two causes: firstly, that never seeing the objects of sinful lust, they might pluck such desires by the root out of their soul, and blot out the memory thereof, and plant within themselves the love and desire of divine ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... against him, and, as far as they are true, shall frankly stand confessed—some of them as very serious faults. Firstly, he speaks on occasion of gross things in gross, crude, and plain terms. Secondly, he uses some words absurd or ill-constructed, others which produce a jarring effect in poetry, or indeed in any lofty literature. Thirdly, he ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... ceased to be of political importance since the failure of its chief, Umra Khan, to appropriate to himself Bajour, Dir, and a great part of the Kunar valley. It was the active hostility between the amir of Kabul (who claimed sovereignty of the same districts) and Umra Khan that led, firstly to the demarcation agreement of 1893 which fixed the boundary of Afghanistan in Kunar; and, secondly, to the invasion of Chitral by Umra Khan (who was no party to the boundary settlement) and the siege of the Chitral ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... with all else that Tennyson wrote, tutors, with here and there a subtle word, this nature-loving nation to perceive land, light, sky, and ocean, as he perceived. To this we return, upon this we dwell. He has been to us, firstly, the poet of two geniuses—a small and an immense; secondly, the modern poet who answered in the negative that most significant modern question, French or not French? But he was, before the outset of all our study of him, of all our love of him, the poet of landscape, ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... to the preacher; much easier to the hearer. Only, let it be remembered that an "introduction" should introduce; that "divisions" should divide, and sub-divisions sub-divide. Needless and trifling "majors" or "minors" are irritating and confusing. "Firstly," "Secondly," "Thirdly," and—under very special circumstances—even "Fourthly" may contribute to the making of the dark places plain, but the days have long since passed away in which "Ninthly" and "Tenthly" could be borne; though there have actually ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... These two ideas, firstly the pupil-teacher parental idea and secondly the democratic idea (that is to say the idea of an equal ultimate significance), the second correcting any tendency in the first to pedagogic arrogance ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... last in a low voice, "that you had been any other, seeing that Alexander MacDougall has a double cause of enmity against you—firstly, as being a follower of Bruce, who slew his kinsman Comyn, and who has done but lately great harm to himself and his clansmen; secondly, as having dispossessed Allan Kerr, who is also his relative, of his lands and ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... works, should this publication have obtained the preference and the attention of the printer? Caxton states his reasons very clearly: firstly, for him as for Layamon, Arthur is a national hero, and Englishmen should be proud of him: then again he is one of the nine worthies of the world. These nine dignitaries were, as is well known, three pagans, Hector, Alexander ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... 'contratabular' possession, given to children who are merely passed over in the will. Second, that which the praetor promises to all duly instituted heirs, and which is for that reason called secundum tabulas. Then, having spoken of wills, the praetor passes on to cases of intestacy, in which, firstly, he gives the possession of goods which is called unde liberi to family heirs and those who in his Edict are ranked as such. Failing these, he gives it, secondly, to successors having a statutory title: thirdly, to the ten persons whom he preferred to the ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... that white men can not labor in the tropics, which we may freely admit; but the inference that the climate of the Southern States is tropical we have the best authority for denying: firstly, from the testimony of all Southern writers when describing their own section of country, and not arguing upon the slavery question; and, secondly, from Humboldt's isothermal lines, by which we find that the temperature of the cotton States is the same as that of Portugal, the south of Spain, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... glass of water, drew a deep great breath. Then she rang for Lizzie, and carried her letters to the shaded, cool little study back of the large drawing-room. Fortified by the effort this required, she sank comfortably into a deep chair, and began to plan sensibly and collectedly. Firstly, she reread ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... apply throughout time to all animals—that is, if they vary—for otherwise natural selection can do nothing. So it will be with plants" (ibid., p. 113). Strictly speaking, therefore, the origin of species in general lies in variation; while the origin of any particular species lies, firstly, in the occurrence, and secondly, in the selection and preservation of a particular variation. Clearness on this head will relieve one from the necessity of attending to the fallacious assertion that natural selection is a deus ex ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... We must hurry before Henny Pace gets back from market. I came early so as to avoid her and see you a moment alone. She is a kind, good soul and I am really very fond of her for auld lang syne, but you might as well try to hold a conversation with a bumping bug in the room as Henrietta. Firstly, do you mean ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... cauld, dour, deidly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to yourself. Look at us two here upon the sands. Here am I, fair hotching to be off; here's you (for all that I ken) in two minds of it whether you'll no' stop. Do you think that I could do that, or would? No' me! Firstly, because I havena got the courage and wouldna daur; and secondly, because I am a man of so much penetration and would ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of what he had said to Lady Agnes. It only remained to lay the whole matter before Inspector Darby, and Lambert was half inclined to go to Wanbury for this purpose. He did not, however, undertake the journey, for two reasons. Firstly, he wished to avoid asking for official assistance until absolutely forced to do so; and secondly, he was too ill to leave the cottage. The worry he felt regarding Agnes's perilous position told on an already weakened frame, and the invalid ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... difference of the situation, I beg leave now to assert that it is an error to suppose that non-interference in foreign matters has been bequeathed to the people of the United States by your great Washington as a doctrine and as a constitutional principle. Firstly, Washington never even recommended to you non-interference in the sense of indifference to the fate of other nations. He only recommended neutrality. And there is a mighty diversity between these two ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... at once started digging shelters for themselves and the women and children. The latter were placed together, and were put into a small ravine not far from the trench, as it was necessary to place them in a really deep trench, firstly to keep them safe, and secondly to prevent their waving or signalling to the enemy. The existence of this ravine, therefore, saved much digging, as it only required some hollowing out at the bottom and a little ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... makes game of his appearance as he drives out the next day. Resolved to take his revenge, Hacon disguises himself as a beggar, attracts the princess's notice by means of a golden spinning-wheel, its stand, and a golden wool-winder, and sells them to her for the privilege of sleeping firstly outside her door, secondly beside her bed, and finally in it. The rest of the tale narrates Hacon's method of breaking down ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... reasons that have led me to it—besides the "consideration that it necessitates no departure what- "ever from the chosen pursuits of my life—are three- "fold. Firstly, I have satisfied myself that it can "involve no possible compromise of the credit and "independence of literature. Secondly, I have long "held the opinion, and have long acted on the opinion, "that in these times whatever brings a public ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... question. Nevertheless, a comparatively small admixture of the element of interest may well be found to be most advantageous as far as beauty is concerned; for beauty is and remains the end of art. Beauty is in twofold opposition with interest; firstly, because it lies in the perception of the idea, and such perception takes its object entirely out of the range of the forms enunciated by the principle of sufficient reason; whereas interest has its sphere mainly in circumstance, and it ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... a laundryman, to buy soap. This is not for lack of confidence in receiving their pay, for the same thing happens with those who have the best credit, with the cura of the village, and even with the captain-general himself. It consists, firstly, in the fact that the majority have no money, because of their dissipation; and secondly, because they are sure that after they have received a part of their price, their customer will not go to another house, and that he will wait for the workman as long as he wishes (which is usually as long ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... understood that partitions are run through those cellars which are adapted to the size of the family. The wealthy and principal men in New England, in the beginning of the colonies, commenced their first dwelling-houses in this fashion for two reasons: firstly, in order not to waste time in building, and not to want food the next season; secondly, in order not to discourage poor laboring people whom they brought over in numbers from Fatherland. In the course of three or four years, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... still remembered, read in 1813 before the Royal Society a short paper entitled "An Account of a White Female, part of whose skin resembles that of a Negro" (published in 1818). In this communication, as Darwin said, "he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then, he adds, but what is done in this latter case 'by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature, in the ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... were greatly sought after as husbands for several reasons—firstly, they were big men, and big men are always good to look upon; secondly, their social standing was very high and their respectability undoubted; thirdly, a policeman's pay was such as would bring comfort to any household which was not needlessly and criminally extravagant; and this was often ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... Firstly, England, and in one sense England alone, is the mighty mother of nations. Three great nations have already sprung from her loins; a fourth in Africa is already in process of consolidation. From the narrow confines of our sea-girt island ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... forbidden was only the least of their abounding flavours, looked back upon his past self with a slightly pathetic admiration, and set himself to go all over those successful adventures, in love and in other arts, firstly, in order that he might be amused by recalling them, and then because he thought the record would do him credit. He neither intrudes himself as a model, nor acknowledges that he was very often in the wrong. ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... were the last men to allow themselves to be beaten by mere facts. "Give me a doctrine and I will find the reasons for it," said Chrysippus. So they perfected, if they did not invent, that ingenious and plausible form of pleading, the Theodicy; for the purpose of showing firstly, that there is no such [72] thing as evil; secondly, that if there is, it is the necessary correlate of good; and, moreover, that it is either due to our own fault, or inflicted for our benefit. Theodicies ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... words expressing all those of our possessions which are not of an intellectual nature. There are two kinds of property. Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from the Creator of the universe,—such as the earth, air, water. Secondly, artificial or acquired property,—the invention of men. In the latter equality is impossible; for to distribute ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Firstly, that a request should be addressed this very day to Lord Kitchener, asking that through the intervention of ambassadors sent by us to Europe, the condition of our country may be allowed to be placed before President Kruger, which ambassadors are to ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... have it so, I will speak," said Aristides, raising his voice. "Before your own Spartans, our comrades in arms, I proclaim our causes of complaint. Firstly, then, I demand release and compensation to seven Athenians, free-born and citizens, whom your orders have condemned to the unworthy punishment of standing all day in the open sun with the weight of iron anchors ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... threw himself with an energy more like six-and-twenty than sixty into the consideration of the whole case. He undertook the proving Lucy's descent, and volunteered to go and find out Mr. Gisborne, and obtain, firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could respecting the working of the curse, and whether any and what means had been taken to exorcise that terrible appearance. For he told me of instances ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... insoluble, problem whether they are, or are not, accompanied by cerebral changes of the same nature as those which give rise to ideas and inferences in ourselves. When a chicken picks up a grain, for example, are there, firstly, certain sensations, accompanied by the feeling of relation between the grain and its own body; secondly, a desire of the grain; thirdly, a volition to seize it? Or, are only the sensational terms of the series ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... "Firstly, I'm going to fill the biggest bath in this hotel with hot water, get the biggest piece of Pears' soap in London, and jump in: Then, if my tailor hasn't betrayed me, I'm going to put on dress clothes, and whilst I am dressing summon Julien (if he's maitre d'hotel here) to a conference, ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Felton: I was delighted to receive your letter yesterday, and was well pleased with its contents. I anticipated objection to Carlyle's letter. I called particular attention to it for three reasons. Firstly, because he boldly said what all the others think, and therefore deserved to be manfully supported. Secondly, because it is my deliberate opinion that I have been assailed on this subject in a manner in which no man with any pretensions to public ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... from its top, and waving to and fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem. It is of much higher importance than it may seem that this statue should be repaired at the public cost, as it ought to have been long ago; firstly, because it is beneath the dignity of England to allow a memorial, raised in honor of one of her defenders, to remain in this condition, on the very spot where he died; secondly, because the sight of it in its present state, and the recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... this, we shall proceed to examine the changes produced by respiration; firstly, on the air, and ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... time, the French style of criticism had been, firstly, as offered by Bayle, of a precise, inquiring, and subtle tone. Fenelon represented criticism as an elegant and delicate art, while Rollin exhibited its most useful and honest side. From a due sense of decency, I refrain from mentioning the ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... probability that cockatoo and crow would recur in different areas, and that an opposition of characters should be found in other cases. The hypothesis needs at any rate to be combined with a theory, firstly, of borrowing of phratry names, a process which must indeed have played a large part in the development of the present system, but which does not necessarily involve the supposition that the borrowed names replaced previously existing home-made names; and, secondly, of ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... modification of species by a continuous law. The next step in his progress was attention to domestic animals and cultivated plants. As he wrote in 1864 to Haeckel, one of his most brilliant followers: "In South America three classes of facts were brought strongly before my mind. Firstly, the manner in which closely-allied species replace species in going southward. Secondly, the close affinity of the species inhabiting the islands near South America to those proper to the continent. This struck me profoundly, especially the difference of the species in the adjoining islets ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... withdrew. The close cross- examination she had undergone respecting Leach had convinced her of two things,—firstly, that her new mistress, though such a childlike-looking creature, was no fool,—and secondly, that though she was perfectly gentle, kind, and even affectionate in her manner, she evidently had a will of her own, which it seemed likely she would enforce, if ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... (from my knowledge of the Darling country) whether Mr. Howitt has been able to push his way out as far as Cooper's Creek yet for the want of rain, and am almost satisfied in my own mind that Burke and party either reached the north coast, or at all events went a very long way out, on a bearing of (firstly by account of the natives) 311 1/2 degrees to or passing a salt lake or watercourse (perhaps then fresh) where the natives report that the whites killed their horse. They call the place Beitiriemalunie; there is also another lake, salt now (perhaps then fresh) called Baramberrany. ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... furnished upper floor to let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that as a temporary tenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very well of it, for three reasons I'll give you. That is to say: Firstly. It's altogether out of all your beats, and is well away from the usual heap of streets great and small. Secondly. Without going near it yourself, you could always hear of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert. Thirdly. After a while and when it might ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... reminded of the sermon of the colored brother on woman, the heads of which discourse were: "Firstly. What am woman? Secondly. Whar did she come from? Thirdly. Who does she belong to? Fourthly. Which way am ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... parson, "for two reasons: firstly, I have broken the laws, and ought to stand the penalty; and secondly—you must really excuse me, Jools, you know, but the pass has been got onfairly, I'm afeerd. You told the judge I was innocent; and in neither case it don't become a Christian (which I hope I can still ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... And the man still clung and floated, though no power on earth could save. "Could we send him a short message! Here's a trumpet, shout away!" 'Twas the preacher's hand that took it, and he wondered what to say. Any memory of his sermon? Firstly? Secondly? Ah, no. There was but one thing to utter in that awful hour of woe. So he shouted through the trumpet, "Look to Jesus! Can you hear?" And "Aye, aye, sir!" rang the answer o'er the waters loud and clear, Then they listened, "He is singing, 'Jesus, lover of ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... phantoms have over the minds of those who would be angry if they were supposed to be uneducated. How often has one heard the existence of the sea-serpent declared impossible and absurd, on these very grounds, by people who thought they were arguing scientifically: the sea-serpent could not exist, firstly because—because it was so odd, strange, new, in a word, and unlike anything that they had ever seen or fancied; and, secondly, because it was so big. The first argument would apply to a thousand new facts, which physical science is daily proving to be ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... arrived at the door of his own dwelling. He paused, however, on the threshold, and went on in a solemn tone of deep contrition, "Firstly, I hae thought my ain thought on the Sabbath. Secondly, I hae gien security for an Englishman—and, in the third and last place, well a-day! I hae let an ill-doer escape from the place of imprisonment. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... the previous day, two days earlier than she had been expected. A telegram had preceded her appearance. It was a lengthy telegram, an explicit telegram. It set forth various facts in a manner entirely characteristic of Trix. Firstly, it announced her almost immediate arrival; secondly, it remarked on the extraordinary heat in London; and thirdly it stated quite clearly her own overwhelming and instant desire for the nice, fresh, cool, ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... us—and perhaps proves himself to have been a greater man even than the latter. In fact, he was certainly so intellectually, and quite equal in mechanical power. His greatest production is a large triptych in the Hospital of St. John, representing in its three compartments: firstly, the "Decollation of St. John Baptist"; secondly, the "Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine to the Infant Saviour"; and thirdly, the "Vision of St. John Evangelist in Patmos." I shall not attempt any description; I assure you that the perfection of character ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... in accordance with the expressed will of the Sunchild, the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks began as soon as he had left us to examine, patiently, carefully, earnestly, and without bias of any kind, firstly the evidences in support of the Sunchild's claim to be the son of the tutelar deity of this world, and secondly the precise nature of his instructions as regards the future position and ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... PLEASANT-LEARNING-LAND, but my object in this place is to speak of pictures only, as perhaps the greatest of all educating powers, and to demonstrate that they are not sufficiently used for educational purposes. Firstly: pictures are in a universal language—when they are true to nature every person on the earth can understand them. Show a picture of a person or a bird, a horse or a house, a ship, a tree, or a landscape, and everyone knows what is meant, and this is why most ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... specimens to Kew, and was assured that the species was Origanum vulgare. My plants formed one great clump, and had evidently spread from a single root by stolons. In a strict sense, therefore, they all belonged to the same individual. My object in experimenting on them was, firstly, to ascertain whether crossing flowers borne by plants having distinct roots, but all derived asexually from the same individual, would be in any respect more advantageous than self-fertilisation; and, secondly, to ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... the very general wearing of the republican colours, the singing of the Volkslied, and so forth, and they regarded these demonstrations as meaning more than they actually did. Three things were forgotten. Firstly, that a great proportion of the Afrikanders in the Colony who really meant business had slipped away and joined the republican ranks long ago. Secondly, that the abortive rebellion of a year ago had left the people of the border districts disinclined to repeat ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... To "Twenty-firstly" on they go, The lads do not attempt to scout him; He argued high, he argued low, He also argued ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... from Champagnole to Morez, and it is as yet the only ill-advised thing I have done on this journey. The fact is, and intending travellers should note it, that there are only three modes of travelling in these parts, firstly, by hiring a private carriage and telegraphing for relays; secondly, by accomplishing short stages on foot, by far the most agreeable method for hardy pedestrians, or thirdly, to give up the most interesting spots altogether. The diligence must not be taken into account as a means of locomotion ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... tell you first that I am not only a doctor, but that I am one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten times doctor. Firstly, number one is the base, the foundation, and the first of all numbers; so am I the first of all doctors, the most learned of the learned. Secondly, there are two faculties essential for a perfect knowledge of things: the sense and the understanding; I am all sense, all understanding: ergo, ...
— The Jealousy of le Barbouille - (La Jalousie du Barbouille) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... that it seems incredible that any such connection could exist. Yet no one who had seen snow mountains could doubt for an instant that that rose-flushed strip of white was the Himalaya. For it possesses two unmistakable characteristics which distinguish it from any cloud. Firstly, the lower edge is absolutely straight and horizontal: it is exactly parallel with the horizon. Secondly, the upper edge is jagged, and the outline of the jaggedness cuts clean and perfectly defined against the intense blue of ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... are five in number, as follows: Firstly, that the short-story must be short, i.e., capable of being read at one sitting, in order that it may gain "the immense force derivable from totality." Secondly, that the short-story must possess immediateness; it should aim at a single or unique effect—"if the very initial sentence ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... two reasons they knew were, firstly, that Almanza had proved to be too timorous as regarded the taking of life, and secondly that his death would give them ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... in Holloway Prison on this my first visit to such a place. Firstly, the outward cleanliness, and I might almost say pleasantness, of the place; and secondly, the illogical nature of the law which treats the unconvicted men, who in its eyes are consequently innocent, like convicted criminals. Nothing could be more uncomfortable ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... interest to be picked out of the following honest and straightforward bit of criticism, if we examine it closely: and, firstly, as to its author? Is there not something very characteristic in its general tone, something dimly sketching a shadowy outline of a kindly, fussy, busy, querulous old man, much given to tiny minuti, ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... seemed studiously to avoid reference to the spectacular side of what they had been through, lest it might obscure the real challenge of what God was saying to us. Then, too, revival is not something that God does firstly among the unconverted, but among His people. Revival simply means New Life, and that implies that there is already Life there, but that the Life has ebbed. The unconverted do not need revival, for there is not any life ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... "With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which presses so seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark that there is a sort of knowingness, the wit of which depends, firstly, on the modesty it gives pain to; or, secondly, on the innocence and innocent ignorance over which it triumphs; or thirdly, on a certain oscillation in the individual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroaching evil of his nature—a sort of dallying with the devil—a fluxionary ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... authorities who allege that man, when standing up, needs something as a prop or support. There is a shadow of reason, I grant, in this supposition, but after years of keen observation I am inclined to think that the umpire keeps his bat by him, firstly, in order that no unlicensed hand shall commandeer it unbeknownst, and secondly, so that he shall be ready to go in directly his predecessor is out. There is an ill-concealed restiveness about his movements, as he watches the batsmen getting set, that betrays ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... This observation, if it may be used at all in elucidation of the origin of the curious family life of these insects, points not to sudden creation, but to gradual acquirement and modification as having been the method of development of the specialized classes and castes in termite society. Firstly, we may thus regard the beginnings of the further development of a colony to appear in a nest in which workers and soldiers are alike, as stated by Mr. Bates. Then, through the practice of the fighting instinct, we may conceive that natural selection would be competent to adapt ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... for him, and in presence of Comptroller Croft, gave him information that he had brought the Queen to this conclusion: firstly, that she would be satisfied with as great a proportion of religious toleration for Holland, Zeeland, and the other United Provinces, as his Majesty could concede with safety to his conscience and his honour; secondly, that she required an act of amnesty; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Hydrostatics, and Pneumatics. These laws had been shown to hold good, so far as they could be checked by observation and experiment, throughout the universe, on the assumption that all such masses of matter possessed inertia and were susceptible of acquiring motion, in two ways, firstly by impact, or impulse from without; and, secondly, by the operation of certain hypothetical causes of motion termed 'forces,' which were usually supposed to be resident in the particles of the masses themselves, and to operate ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... you say in these sections is reduced to three points. Firstly, the thanks that you give and should have given to our Lord for the good success of the flagship, and the same has been done here. May He be praised for all, and thus it is to be hoped, in His divine mercy, that He will be in all other events; for the just end and cause to which all is directed ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... my conversation with my hostess' daughter—conversation which took place on the balcony, and which generally lasted till midnight—and the lesson I gave her every morning, produced the inevitable and natural results; firstly, that she no longer complained of her breath failing, and, secondly, that I fell in love with her. Nature's cure had not yet relieved her, but she no longer needed to be let blood. Righelini came to visit her as usual, and seeing that she was better ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... seen flash for an instant through the crowd—Michel de Bourges from the height of Bonvalet's balcony, myself from the Boulevard du Temple—this spark seemed extinguished. Maigne firstly, then Brillier, then Bruckner, later on Charmaule, Madier de Montjau, Bastide, and Dulac came to report to us what had passed at the barricade of St. Antoine, the motives which had decided the Representatives present not ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... of Sun Tzu's life and performances, and summing up in remarkably concise fashion the evidence in its favor. This is followed by Ts'ao Kung's preface to his edition, and the biography of Sun Tzu from the SHIH CHI, both translated above. Then come, firstly, Cheng Yu-hsien's I SHUO, [39] with author's preface, and next, a short miscellany of historical and bibliographical information entitled SUN TZU HSU LU, compiled by Pi I-hsun. As regards the body of the work, each separate sentence is followed by a note on the text, ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... let the king guard the thoughts of his heart in three manners: firstly let him not desire nor greatly care to have superfluous and worthless honors. Superfluous and worthless honors the king ought not to desire. For that which is beyond necessity cannot last, and being lost, and come short of, turns to dishonor. Moreover, the wise men have said that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in losing their sight than their hearing for many reasons: firstly, because it is by means of their sight that they find the food which is their nourishment, and is necessary for all animals; secondly, because by means of sight the beauty of created things is apprehended, especially those which lead to love, while he who ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... the Emperor's power was really too great, or out of revenge for his betrayal over the papal election. But he was strenuously hostile to Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn for two excellent reasons: firstly she and her kin belonged to the anti-ecclesiastical party which Wolsey had dreaded since 1515, and secondly he desired Henry to marry the French Princess Renee in order to strengthen his anti-imperial policy. Further, he was anxious ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... morning the solemnity had simply increased. Then we went to church. The minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little sounding-board above him, and he commenced at "firstly" and went on and on and on to about "twenty-thirdly." Then he made a few remarks by way of application; and then took a general view of the subject, and in about two hours reached the last ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... it will set aside prejudice and pride, and just attend and watch, will be led, without difficulty, to the following conclusions: firstly, without an altogether special divine support, no authority can claim and exercise infallibility in its teaching; and secondly, without such infallibility in its teaching no continuous unity can be maintained among vast multitudes ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... being English by birth and Canadian by residence, I mention this for two reasons: firstly, because England and the Empire are very proud to claim him for their own, and, secondly, because I do not wish his nationality to be confused with that of his neighbours on the other side. For English and American humourists have ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... Firstly, the beans should invariably be washed and placed in a basin of cold water the night before they are required for use, and should remain in soak about ten or twelve hours. If left longer than this during hot weather they are ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... on the proposal of Curee and the report of Jard- Panvillier, the Tribunate sent to the Senate a proposal to the effect: "Firstly, that Napoleon Bonaparte, at present Consul for life, be appointed Emperor, and in this capacity entrusted with the government of the French Republic. Secondly, that the title of Emperor and the imperial power be hereditary in his ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... Lord Ellenborough and his own brother, Sir William Scott, it finally appeared to Lord Eldon, on whom the Prime-minister naturally depended, as his chief legal counsellor, though in its political aspect he judged for himself—was, firstly, "whether it could possibly be inconsistent with justice or the law of nations that, till some peace were made by treaty with some person considered as Napoleon's sovereign, or till some peace were made with himself, we should ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... religious movements of a people thus passing into the self-conscious stage, and unfolding with unparalleled freshness and power all the various activities of the human mind. We can only point out a few of the lines of development which become prominent at this period. And firstly we notice the rise of rationalism, that is of the impulse to criticise belief and to ask for that element in it which approves itself to the reflecting mind. Reason asserts its right to judge of tradition; ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... "Firstly, then," said Bill, drawing his chair nearer Islington, "answer me one question, Tommy, fair and square, and ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... enclosure of the buildings that, on these faces, were considered to be sufficiently defended by the swamp and the wide waters beyond. On the southern and western aspects of the camp matters were different, for here the place was strongly fortified both by art and nature. Firstly, a canal ran round these two faces, not very wide or deep indeed, but impassable except in boats, owing to the soft mud at its bottom. On the further side of this canal an earthwork had been constructed, having its crest stoutly palisaded and its steep sides ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... anxious to discover their thickness. They are most certainly the result of the freezing of comparatively recent pools in the winter pack, and it follows that they must be getting weaker day by day. If one could be certain firstly, that these big areas extend to the south, and, secondly, that the ship could go through them, it would be worth getting up steam. We have arrived at the edge of one of these floes, and the ship will not go through under sail, but I'm sure she would ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... 'Firstly, they are comprehended as hale beggars in the law of the wise king, Don Alonso, by which he expelled all sturdy beggars, as being ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... do as Anthony was doing, but he was not lacking in that; it was not a small matter to go to Papists' Corner and give a warning to a Catholic priest: but firstly, James Maxwell was his friend, and in danger: secondly, Anthony had no sympathy with religious persecution; and thirdly, as has been seen, the last year had made a really deep impression upon him: he was more favourably ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the policy of make-believe and "cutting the loss" had to be redeemed at the cost of 20,000 lives and of L200,000,000. Reconciliation, in large measure, has come since. But it has only come because British statesmen showed, firstly, in the war, their inflexible resolution to stamp out the policy of separation, and secondly, after the war, their devotion to the real welfare of South Africa in a policy of economic reconstruction, and in ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... watching me she had touched grease. I looked about the room, and there on the dressing-table close by the chest of drawers was a pot of cold cream. That was the grease Helene Vauquier had touched. And why—if not to hide some small thing in it which, firstly, she dared not keep in her own room; which, secondly, she wished to hide in the room of Mlle. Celie; and which, thirdly, she had not had an opportunity to hide before? Now bear those three conditions in mind, and tell me ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... knee-joints, his head thrown well back, and his arms arranged in two perfect capital V's, with the elbows pointing directly at the walls on either side of him, had been busily engaged for the last hour and a quarter in trying to focus firstly the Lord Chancellor's house on the opposite side of the square, and secondly the pleasant-looking second-cook in it. That his chivalrous efforts had not yet been crowned with complete success will be understood when we say that he had seen during his first half-hour of ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... least three classes, or rather have three origins. Firstly they are nature spirits, similar to those revered in China and Tibet. They inhabit noticeable natural features of every kind, particularly trees, rivers and mountains; they may be specially connected with villages, houses or individuals. Though not essentially evil they are ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... Firstly, Martin questioned the boy closely as to the circumstances of his past life—his relations with his father, his training, intellectual and religious, and his final resolve to escape, carried out by the help of Sir Richard and his family. Next, he went on to ask the youth of his wishes concerning ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... "My theory is this. Firstly, there is no dependence to be placed on the Masoretic points, especially when affixed to names of places. Secondly, we have no certain knowledge of the language used by the Midianites in those ancient times. Their territory extended ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... tempted. Those who seem to have escaped have generally taken the course of repressing the whole sexual side of their natures, and of shutting their eyes to the sexual facts of life, which is not a wise course. And so, firstly, in view of the task of facing temptation it would be well for us all to realize that temptation itself is not sin. We may expose ourselves to quite unnecessary temptation. We may play with fire. We may be fools, ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray |
