"Gravity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... convinced me that Dr. High's opinion of the gravity of the case was correct, and we telephoned at once for a specialist from the city, and for a trained nurse. After a short consultation with Dr. High I reentered my friend's room, and I fear that my face gave me away, for Sir ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... warring Mexico, bringing—and this was the worst feature of it—his daughter with him. And at such a time! Scarce a day passed without its rumors or reports of new affronts and even atrocities being perpetrated upon American residents of Mexico. Each day, too, the gravity of these acts increased. From mere insult they had run of late to assault and even to murder. Nor was ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Advantage, it will easily be prov'd of what necessity there is for its encouragement in this Populous City: If there were no Politick Reasons, yet the Good to Religion that may be done by it, is a convincing Argument at once for its Lawfulness and Use. I know the Gravity of some can't dispense with so much time to be spent in Diversion, tho' I can't think this a reasonable Objection where so much Profit may attend our Delight. If it be lawful to recreate our selves at all, it can ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous
... force.36 Gravity, cohesion, bitterness, thought, love, recollection, are manifestations of force peculiarly conditioned. Our perceptions are a series of states of consciousness. An attribute or property of a thing is an exercise of force or mode of activity producing a certain state of consciousness ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... cut, and the British premier is quoted as advising the Cunard Company to run without freight if necessary to "beat off the American line."[AM] The increasing subsidies occasioned a Parliamentary investigation. The committee, evidently impressed by the gravity of the American competition, reported that "the cost of the North American service was not excessive," but they advised that all contracts thereafter "be let at public bidding."[AN] This recommendation was not heeded. In 1857, upon the plea that ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon
... found in the bottoms of holes dug in the ground during wet seasons and is often found standing on the surface of the soil after heavy or long continued rains. It is sometimes called ground water or standing water and flows under the influence of gravity. ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... my mind all gravity Is a grave subjection; Sweeter far than honey are Jokes and free affection. All that Venus bids me do, Do I with erection, For she ne'er in heart of man Dwelt with ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... known in history as the Peace of Paris, it was Selwyn who accompanied the Duchess when she joined her husband. "She sets out the day after to-morrow," wrote Walpole on September 8th, "escorted to add gravity to the Embassy by George Selwyn." After the treaty was completed on February 10th of the following year, as a memento of his visit the Duke presented Selwyn with the pen with which this unpopular document ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... of discretion I had a call to take upon me the Function of a Parish Clerk, and to this end it seemed unto me meet and profitable to associate myself with the parish clerks of this land, such I mean as were right worthy in their calling, men of a clear and sweet voice, and of becoming gravity." ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... milk has stood usually for twenty-four hours? this is known as "gravity cream." (2) By an apparatus known as a separator; this is known as "centrifugal cream"; most of the cream now sold in cities is of this kind. The richness of any cream is indicated by the amount of ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... Despite the gravity of the situation, Maurice could not repress his laughter. "He will not harm you; he threatened you merely to delay me. Open the door." He stepped out into the refreshing air. "By the way, tell your master not to go to the trouble of having ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... the Rover himself was thoughtful to gravity. He bowed as he came within the influence of the lamp, and his voice was heard muttering some low and hasty syllables, that conveyed no meaning to the ears of his listeners. Indeed, so great was the abstraction in which he was ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... gentle Spaniard for his gravity; He almost honour'd him for his docility; Because, though young, he acquiesced with suavity, Or contradicted but with proud humility. He knew the world, and would not see depravity In faults which sometimes ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... with laughter—a laugh of extravagant gaiety, of mocking mirth, that brought the blood to her face and shook her from head to foot. Only when she saw that her husband's gloom underwent no change did this merriment cease. Then, with abrupt gravity, which was almost annoyance, her eyes shining with moisture and her cheeks ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... solemn young man held three sheets of school composition paper. As he read the pencil writing on page one he lost his gravity. Over page two he smiled broadly. At the end of the last ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... know," said Alric, with much gravity and importance, for he observed that the girls about the room were working softly that they might hear him, "I dreamed that I was out on the fells, and there I met a dreadful wolf, as big as a horse, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the consciousness of his own call to this exalted ideal. It made his face, in repose, grave. His gravity came from the sense of duty and the consciousness of problems to be met and solved as his fathers before him had ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... slippers, he listened for a time which kept his guests in torture of suspense. Then, "I'm here all night. But scrape the county with a tooth-comb," he said, and hung up the receiver. Swinging his chair round, he faced the two men, and spoke with gravity. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... the roof, while a most delicious odour filled every room. By the aid of a ladder she reached up to the spot whence the light came, found the pill of immortality, and ate it. She suddenly felt that she was freed from the operation of the laws of gravity and as if she had wings, and was just essaying her first flight when Shen I returned. He went to look for his pill, and, not finding it, asked Heng O what ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... understanding of Maryland and Virginia about congressional exercise of constitutional power, abrogates no grant, and that to plead it in a court of law, would be of small service except to jostle "their Honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the constitution gives Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District." Nor that the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause before their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the suggestion with the same gravity, and one of them not only surrendered his place to the curious Miss but lifted her and placed her in a seat near ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... down into one of his pockets and drew forth a box of candy which he laid on the chair by his side. "I want to see how you are progressing with your studies," he remarked with gravity. "By the ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... took a turn to and fro in the dusty room before throwing himself again in his chair, while the old man quietly took the long, snake like tube of his pipe in hand, examined the bowl to find it still alight, began to smoke with all the gravity of a Mussulman, and the tobacco once more began to scent the air of the ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... method of settling the Irish question. This was good old party warfare; the Liberals cheered in delight, and the old warrior glowed with all his old fire. There was a softer and more subdued tone when the Prime Minister referred to Foreign Affairs, speaking of these things with the slowness and the gravity which such ticklish subjects demand. But again Mr. Gladstone was in all the full blast of oratorical vehemence when he took up the attack that had been made on the Irish policy of Mr. Morley. Now and then ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... truthful; when the college tutor, thinking that he hears the rattling of dice, makes his way into Pen's room, Pen and his two companions are found with three Homers before them, and Pen asks the tutor with great gravity; "What was the present condition of the river Scamander, and whether it was navigable or no?" He tells his mother that, during a certain vacation he must stay up and read, instead of coming home,—but, nevertheless, he goes up to London to amuse himself. The reader ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... demands for its staff should (some of them, at least) be married women. Otherwise, the same loss of efficiency that the rapid turn-over of the women teaching staff of our schools occasions will be discovered in our social work as it changes its centre of gravity from the private to ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... do, to fall in with some whimsical Turn in a Great Man, to make way for things of real and absolute Service. In the time of Don Sebastian of Portugal, or some time since, the first Minister would let nothing come near him but what bore the most profound Face of Wisdom and Gravity. They carry'd it so far, that, for the greater Shew of their profound Knowledge, a Pair of Spectacles tied on their Noses, with a black Ribband round their Heads, was what compleated the Dress of those who made ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... betrayer of his species into the hands of those who claimed it as their property by divine right—a work imposing, solid in many respects, abounding in facts and admirable reasoning, and in which all flashy ornaments were laid aside for a testamentary gravity, (the eloquence of despair resembling the throes and heaving and muttered threats of an earthquake, rather than the loud thunder-bolt)—and soon after came out a criticism on it in The Monthly Review, doing justice to the author and the ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... for some time seen very plainly that you are eprise, and have been extremely uneasy at the discovery. You must have observed my silent gravity, surpassing that of mere illness and its consequent low spirits. I had some thoughts of writing to Susan about it, and intended begging her to do what I must now do for myself—that is, beg, warn, and admonish ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... lighted up by the soft radiance of two lamps enclosed in crystal globes, a young woman was sitting at the piano. Her head slightly bowed and her eyes half-closed, she sang an Italian melody; she sang and smiled, and at the same time her face wore an expression of gravity, almost of sternness ... a token of perfect rapture! She smiled ... and Praxiteles' Faun, indolent, youthful as she, effeminate, and voluptuous, seemed to smile back at her from a corner, under the branches of an oleander, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... of course, too good to be neglected by "The Sauveterre Independent." Although a morning paper, it published, "in view of the gravity of the circumstances," an evening edition, which a dozen newsboys cried out in the streets up to mid-night. And this was ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... watching, torch in hand, the gate from which no living man returns. Roughly as they are hewn, it would be difficult to surpass the stateliness of their aspect or the art with which they are designed; Roman gravity, but quickened with Etruscan fire, invests them: ... and our thoughts are irresistibly carried forward to the supreme sculptor whom the Tuscan land was one ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... much as I am," said Stacy, "that this good fortune is rather crowding to us three alone. For myself, I know," he continued, with a backward glance towards a blanketed, covered pile in the corner of the cabin, "that I feel rather oppressed by—by its specific gravity, I calculate—and sort of crampy and twitchy in the legs, as if I ought to 'lite' out and do something, and yet it holds me here. All the same, I doubt if anybody will come up—except from curiosity. Our luck has made them rather sore down the ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... favourable notion by any imprudent exhibition of parsimony. On entering the world of London, the Clubs flew open to receive him, and he woke one morning to find himself, not indeed famous—but the fashion. To this fashion he at once gave a certain gravity and value, he associated as much as possible with public men and political ladies, he succeeded in confirming the notion that he was "born to ruin or to rule ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the two children. Virginia's favorite game was playing "lady" with a train floating gracefully behind her; Nellie's chief joy in life was seeing how long she could stand on her head, her short skirts obeying the laws of gravity all the while. Hannah, however, vibrated obligingly between the two sports, ...
— The Little Mixer • Lillian Nicholson Shearon
... head with rather more of gravity than the nature of the conversation warranted, and her lips were slightly compressed as she observed that Arthur's blue eyes were fixed pensively, but intently, on ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... sort of power, too, in the gravity with which B. tells a humorous anecdote. He invariably maintains a sober face while every body is in an agony of laughter around him. Just as it begins to subside, the echo of his own wit comes back to ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... different things. Mass is the characteristic of a quantity of matter; it depends neither on the geographical position one occupies nor on the altitude to which one may rise; it remains invariable so long as nothing material is added or taken away. Weight is the action which gravity has upon the body under consideration; this action does not depend solely on the body, but on the earth as well; and when it is changed from one spot to another, the weight changes, because gravity varies with ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... an affected gravity, and whooting voice, pleaded his well-known wisdom; and said, 'He doubted not but the preference would be granted to him without contest, by all the whole assembly for what was so likely to produce ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... buried his right hand in his pocket. Two hundred francs if the man would drive him to Paris. The chauffeur declined with the gravity of a man faithful to his obligations. . . . "Five hundred?" . . . and he showed his fist bulging with gold coins. The man's only response was a twirl of the handle which started the machine to snorting, and away they sped. There was not a battle in the neighborhood of Paris ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... felt as if I could sink into the ground. And when Belle—who can't help seeing everything in a ridiculous light—began to laugh he turned and spoke to her as he has never spoken to any of us before, And yet he did not seem angry, but his gravity was more oppressive than ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... element should be so conspicuous in this play.... (This) coarseness, so repulsive to ourselves, was introduced, it is impossible to doubt, for the express purpose of counter-balancing the extreme earnestness and gravity of the play. It seems so logical, so irrefutable; and so completely misinterprets every creative force of Aristophanes' Psyche that it certainly deserves a little admiration. It is in the best academic tradition, and ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... sufficient gravity, "then is this earl no longer a man, but a swine, and not fit for men's discussion, much less that ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... Surya, when thou hast sought my protection, thou hast nothing to fear! He would transcend the simplicity that exists in Brahmanas, the stability that exists in the Earth, the mildness existing in the Moon, the gravity existing in Varuna, the effulgence existing in Agni, the brightness of Meru, and the heat of the sun, who would slay a suppliant for protection! The man that can slay a suppliant is capable of violating the bed of his preceptor, of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... boards is not stated, but I believe they are generally cut an inch and a quarter thick for the Quebec trade, and as they shrink somewhat in drying, we may estimate ten square for one cubic foot of boards. This gives a total of 70,000,000 cubic feet. The specific gravity of white pine is .554, and the weight of this quantity of lumber, very little of which is thoroughly seasoned, would exceed a million of tons, even supposing it to consist wholly of wood as light ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... just as if it had been a walk to Tarbert or Loch Katrine they were going, and the steward bowed with perfect gravity in reply. ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... always felt that Faber's 'God of my Childhood' describes the normal and true development of a child's life. I am sure that, although the gravity of sin should be early recognised, greater stress should be laid upon the Fatherhood and kindness of God. I was noticing to-day, when reading the second lesson, how Westcott and Hort have placed the clause in the Lord's Prayer which speaks of the ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... the brooding sunshine, the beds of scarlet and crimson geraniums ranging away on glowing perspective to left and right. He glanced at the three ladies seated beneath the giant ilexes, and back at his companion. He felt absurdly keen further to excite her friendliness and dispel her gravity. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... intelligent eyes on his bygone rival; and noticing the changed expression of the once aggressive countenance, the changed costume in which, without tinge of rustic foppery, there was the token of a certain gravity of station scarcely compatible with a return to old loves and old habits in the village world, the last shadow of jealousy vanished from the clear surface of ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for smoking at Hamburgh, that children about ten years of age may be seen with pipes in their mouths, whiffing with great gravity and composure. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... different places, and is no sure test of age; because in some parts of the swamps, especially near the river, the peat is often so fluid that heavy substances may sink through it, carried down by their own gravity. In one case, however, M. Boucher de Perthes observed several large flat dishes of Roman pottery, lying in a horizontal position in the peat, the shape of which must have prevented them from sinking or penetrating through ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... them, issued a warning to the public (following that of the Dominion Government of the previous week) in which he called attention to the exposure, privation, suffering, and danger incident to the journey at that advanced period of the season, and further referred to the gravity of the possible consequences to people detained in the mountainous wilderness during five or six months of Arctic winter, where no relief could ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... theories, a matter of very little moment. He was of course aware how widely the judgment of many would differ from his, and when his mind was directed to the political aspect of the situation, he acknowledged the gravity of the disclosure. But honestly he could not pretend to think it a thing which should alter or lessen the esteem or love in which Medland's friends held him. And even if the original act were seriously worthy ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... bows, and treating her with the greatest respect. Beauty was much pleased with them, and asked them to show her about the palace. Instantly, two tall and graceful apes, in rich dresses, placed themselves, with great gravity, one on each side of her, while two sprightly little monkeys held up her train as pages. And from this time forth they waited upon her wherever she went, with all the attention and respect, that officers of a royal palace are accustomed to pay to ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Unknown
... halfway down, floating on minimum gravity, before it really occurs to me that he may ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... is true an old (or superanuated) Maid in Boston is thought such a curse, as nothing can exceed it (and looked on as a dismal spectacle) yet she by her good nature, gravity, and strict virtue convinces all (so much as the fleering Beaus) that it is not her necessity but her choice that keeps her a Virgin. She is now about thirty years (the age which they call a Thornback) yet she never disguises herself, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Cora was indignant to the boiling-point. She meant to be behind-hand at the reception, as a display of what she deemed good form; but a dinner was a dinner, as her husband, in the privacy of the carriage, was taught past all forgetting. Yet his fault lost its gravity before Mrs. ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... conflicting with each other; one of them tending to undo, wholly or partially, what the other tends to do. Thus the expansive force of the gases generated by the ignition of gunpowder tends to project a bullet toward the sky, while its gravity tends to make it fall to the ground. A stream running into a reservoir at one end tends to fill it higher and higher, while a drain at the other extremity tends to empty it. Now, in such cases as these, even if the two causes which are in joint action exactly annul one ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... said John, with a shade of expression in his look and tone which overcame the whole party, himself and poor William alone retaining entire gravity. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Joanna, showing her teeth. "And as for these rogues, they do laugh at you—see!" But as Belvedere turned to scowl upon and curse his ribalds, Joanna deftly whisked the pistols from his belt and every face was smitten to sudden anxious gravity as ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... course, natural to a land of ocean-like rivers and almighty tall pumpkins. No one has made such charming use of the trick as Mark Twain. The dryness of the story of a greenhorn's sufferings who had purchased "a genuine Mexican plug," is one of the funniest things in literature. The intense gravity and self-pity of the sufferer, the enormous and Gargantuan feats of his steed, the extreme distress of body thence resulting, make up a passage more moving than anything in Rabelais. The same contrast, between an innocent style of narrative and the huge palpable nonsense of the story told, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... western counties, for instance, one should never take less than a handful of primroses or violets into a farmer's house, as neglect of this rule is said to affect the success of the ducklings and chickens. A correspondent of Notes and Queries (I. Ser. vii. 201) writes:—"My gravity was sorely tried by being called on to settle a quarrel between two old women, arising from one of them having given one primrose to her neighbour's child, for the purpose of making her hens hatch but one egg out of each ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... my dear friend,' said Perker, suddenly recovering his gravity, and drawing the great man's great man into a corner, by the lappel of his coat, 'you must persuade the Serjeant to see me, ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... impute them to fancy, and to think that they have done their full duty when they tell the sufferer that such sensations are merely indicative of her age, and that in a year or two they will all pass away. Such medical attendants do not appreciate the gravity of the sufferings they have been called to relieve. Says a distinguished writer on the subject, after entering into some details in the matter: 'I would not dwell on things apparently so trivial as these, had ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... apt to suppose that others are looking at them, too. With this disposition they watch their language and their actions with care, and do not lay themselves open so as to betray their deficiencies; to preserve their dignity they think it necessary to retain their gravity. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... cases the water ought to be carefully poured off from the sediment, as the neutralized lime, when freed from its extra quantity of carbonic acid, falls to the bottom by its own gravity. To economize the use of soap, put any quantity of pearlash into a large jar, covered from the dust, in a few days the alkali will become liquid, which must be diluted in double its quantity of soft ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... tried that tone at first, before she was more than chilled by his sombre and imperious gravity, before her mother supported him unrelentingly and galled and exasperated her by persecution, he might have attracted, fascinated, conquered. As it was, she ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Attic slave, by profession formerly a teacher of the Epicurean philosophy, now a minion of Mithradates; an excellent master of persuasion, who by the brilliant career which he pursued at court knew how to dazzle the mob, and with due gravity to assure them that help was already on the way to Mithradates from Carthage, which had been for about sixty years lying in ruins. These addresses of the new Pericles were so far effectual that, while the few persons possessed of judgment escaped from Athens, the mob and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Density.—Vapor density, or specific gravity referred to H as the standard, (Physics) is the ratio of the weight of a given volume of a gas or vapor to the weight of the same volume of H. A liter of steam weighs nine times as much as a liter of H. ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... was, in fact, very generally applied, and Kepler, who shared Galileo's admiration for Gilbert's work, adopted it in his own attempt to extend the idea of magnetic attraction to the planets. The general idea of "gravity" opposed the hypothesis of the rotation of the earth on the ground that loose objects would fly off: moreover, the latest refinements of the old system of planetary motions necessitated their orbits being described ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... with pleasure, as if it were something done specially to please him. Then his face assumed a fitting gravity, and ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... solid body having a specific gravity of 2.2, water being unity, and since 1 cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 lb., in round numbers 137 lb. of compact carbide only occupy 1 cubic foot of space. Again, since acetylene is a gas having a specific gravity of 0.91, air being unity, ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... my toast, the little doctor preternaturally solemn, and my captain almost as grave, but for a wicked twinkle in his eye. I knew they thought my toast a boyish one, and doubtless understood its inspiration, while they struggled to preserve their gravity out of courtesy to me. Whether mademoiselle's eyes were more mocking than ever I did not know, for I looked not in her direction. But madame glowed with genuine pleasure and declared 'twas a pretty toast, and she thanked me for her share in it. Whereupon mademoiselle ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... as he, Bakahenzie, would have done in his place. Therefore upon these matters did he talk very guardedly with Marufa, who was unusually reticent. However, after communing with himself in sphinx-like gravity, Marufa assented to the proposal that Zalu Zako be isolated ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... Manto, I know I'm superior. I realize what a godsend this planet is—you don't. It has the right gravity, a suitable atmosphere, the proper ...
— The Hunters • William Morrison
... slide along the ice on the further side of the gap, in obedience to the impetus given to them by the frightful speed at which they were travelling, the spear, obeying the same laws of motion, accompanied them, but, being of a less specific gravity, lagged behind in the race, just as the stone, ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... The gravity with which the old man uttered these words impressed the engineer, who was not far from sharing his sentiments. They were those of the sailor who leaves his disabled vessel—of the proprietor who sees the house of his ancestors pulled down. He pressed Ford's hand; but now ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... Mr. Wessels reported the discussions with Dr. Coster as above given. Both he and Mr. Solomon represented to them the gravity of the plea, and said that there was the possibility that the judge would invoke Roman-Dutch law and ignore the laws of the country, in which case it would be in his power to pass sentence of death. In their ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... As stated above (A. 1), blasphemy is opposed to the confession of faith, so that it contains the gravity of unbelief: while the sin is aggravated if the will's detestation is added thereto, and yet more, if it breaks out into words, even as love and confession add to the praise ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... OR CORN-CRAKE.—This bird is migratory in its habits, yet from its formation, it seems ill adapted for long aerial passages, its wings being short, and placed so forward out of the centre of gravity, that it flies in an extremely heavy and embarrassed manner, and with its legs hanging down. When it alights, it can hardly be sprung a second time, as it runs very fast, and seems to depend for its ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... rose, and moving to the table, called her meeting to order. The ladies seated themselves in a business-like way round about, and listened with masculine gravity to a long written report on the work done or needing to be done at the Children's Hospital. Debate rose on the question of putting in a new kitchen range and renewing the plumbing. Mrs. Dyer took the floor, or the table, very much to herself, dealing severely ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... hearing, Isaac laughed. The only time he had done it during six years. And what a laugh! How, sublimely devoid of merriment! a sudden loud cackle of three distinct cachinni not declining into a chuckle, as we do, but ending sharp in abrupt and severe gravity. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... in her gravity. "I never know them myself. I have none of that poise which it is worth such a struggle to gain. That is the reason why—." She stopped, perhaps through consciousness that the conversation was getting toward egotism; perhaps because she did not want to give confidence where it was better ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... Lord Mountclere for more than a week, when she received another letter, which put an end to her season of relaxation, and once more braced her to the contest. This epistle was very courteously written, and in point of correctness, propriety, and gravity, might have come from the quill of a bishop. Herein the old nobleman gave a further description of the accident, but the main business of the communication was to ask her if, since he was not as yet very active, she would come to Enckworth Court and delight himself ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... ideal test of truth being that its negative is unthinkable, and by the application of that test judges that gravitation must be universal even in the stellar regions, because in the absence of proof to the contrary, "the idea of matter without gravity is unthinkable;"—when those from whom it was least to be expected thus set up acquired necessities of thought in the minds of one or two generations as evidence of real necessities in the universe, we must admit that the metaphysical ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... Stentorian tones. The compound ejaculation thus formed was one which nobody's gravity could resist; and the surprised and grieved expression with which poor Caesar would look round upon an audience which he had thus convulsed was even more irresistible than the original expression. Everybody who came to "Gunn's" went ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... her gravity at her uncle's indignation, which seemed so disproportioned to the cause. But, to turn the current of his ideas, she remarked that he had certainly been at pains to select two admirable specimens of her ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the bath room and sat down on the rush bottomed chair by the table, his temper coiled, and ready to fly out like a spring. He was seated like this, curling his toes and nursing his resolve, when the Agile One, with an absolute gravity that disarmed all anger, entered with the dressing gown. He stood holding it up, and Jones, rising, put it on. Then the A. O. filled the bath, trying the temperature with a thermometer, and so absorbed in his business that he might ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... of a psychological quirk. Then I routinely show them reproductions of X-rays of the large intestine showing obvious loss of normal structure and function resulting from a combination of constipation, the effects of gravity, poor abdominal muscle tone, emotional stress, and poor diet. In the average colon more than 50% of the hastrum (muscles that impel fecal matter through the organ) are dysfunctional due to loss of tone caused by impaction of fecal matter ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... Babylon thoughtfully. 'I have heard of hotels that run themselves. If they do, you may be sure that they obey the laws of gravity and run downwards. You will have your hands full. For example, have you yet heard about ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... performed on each side during the siege of Trino; a great deal of fatigue was endured, and considerable losses sustained; but fatigue was no more considered, hardships were no more felt in the trenches, gravity was at an end with the generals, and the troops were no longer dispirited after the arrival of the Chevalier Grammont. Pleasure was his pursuit, and he made ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... our roasting is not magnificent, for we have no jack." MR. T. "No jack! Why, how do they manage without?" DR. J. "Small joints, I believe, they manage with a string, and larger are done at the tavern. I have some thoughts (with a profound gravity) of buying a jack, because I think a jack is some credit to a house." MR. T. "Well, but you'll have a spit too." DR. J. "No, Sir, no; that would be superfluous; for we shall never use it; and if a jack is seen, a spit will be presumed." MRS. T. "But ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... our own memory, youth was not accustomed to wear braccas, being content with tibialia reaching to the knees." The stern disciplinarian might find an excuse for prolonging the whipping age in the Founder's wish that, "years alone should not make an adult, but along with years, gravity of deportment and good character." As late as the foundation of Pembroke College at Oxford (1624) whipping is the penalty contemplated for undergraduates under eighteen. But when we come to the statutes which were drawn up in 1698 with ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... the return from exile (xl.-xlviii.). With some justice Lucien Gautier has called him the "clerical" prophet, and Duhm goes so far as to say that he annihilated spontaneous and ethical religion. This, as we shall see, is a grave exaggeration; but there can be no doubt that in Ezekiel the centre of gravity of prophecy has shifted. He threw ritual into a prominence which, in prophecy, it had never had before, and which, from his day on, it successfully maintained ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... held up to derision in Beckmesser's song. The tittering swells into a roar, and at last Beckmesser, cursing Sachs for a deceiver and false friend, flies. With that, fooling ends. To music of a rare sweet gravity Sachs invites the "volk" to hearken to the song when given by the man who composed it. Walther steps up and sings; as he goes on the people again make themselves heard, but to praise, not to deride; towards the finish their voices form a choral accompaniment, and we have the counterpart to the ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... looked up at him with eyes dry and mournful. His frank, glowing face, made serious by the gravity of the adventure, his strong, straight figure and the liquid sympathy in his blue eyes, perhaps, also, her imminent need of long-denied help and kindness, thawed ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... few patches of this kind, my dear friend, which may as well come out in the next edition, e.g. that wonderful note about the relation of God to gas, the gravity of which greatly tickled ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... opened for them by the Rev. John Langdon in person. He seemed a preternaturally grave young man to Anna and his clerical attire was above reproach. Any misgivings one might have had regarding him on the score of his youth, were more than counterbalanced by his almost supernatural gravity. ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... dignified yet stately manner with which she rebuked Mr. Hamilton in the public parlor for entering upon the discussion of a work on materialism, lately published; and some among them, also, will not forget the expression of amused surprise on Mr. Hamilton's face, that gradually changed to sardonic gravity, as he courteously waived his point; certainly not Mr. Oakhurst, who, from that moment, began to be uneasily impatient of his friend, and even—if such a term could be applied to any moral quality in Mr. ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... is most to be pitied, a saturnine husband whose gravity is only increased by the gaiety of his wife, or the gay wife whose exuberance of spirits finds no sympathy in the Mentor-like husband. Half, if not all, the unhappy marriages, accounted for by incompatibility of humour, might with more correctness be attributed to ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... man might pretend to look at the weather, which was fine; or he might affect earnest conversation with a bystander: it was bootless. The pony saw through it. No feint hoodwinked him. This animal was thoroughly a man of the world. His undistracted eye stayed fixed upon the dissembling foe, and the gravity of his horse-expression made the matter one of high comedy. Then the rope would sail out at him, but he was already elsewhere; and if horses laugh, gayety must have abounded in that corral. Sometimes the pony took a turn alone; next ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... is listened to with as much gravity as though a statement had been made that the prisoner had been in Newfoundland at the time of Ussher's death, and Mr. Allewinde's assistant begins to argue the case. The sub-sheriff and his two clerks are put into the chair, and ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... troops he was so beloved, that nothing but the strict discipline which he enforced could have prevented their following him in crowds wherever he went. Whenever he smiled, as he passed along, in conversation, they laughed without inquiring why; and now, this morning, on observing the gravity of his countenance, they glanced from one to another, as if to inquire ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... things which ought to be taken away than left. Be it so; do you, who are a scholar, find no fault with any thing in mighty Homer, I pray? Does the facetious Lucilius make no alterations in the tragedies of Accius? Does not he ridicule many of Ennius' verses, which are too light for the gravity [of the subject]? When he speaks of himself by no means as superior to what he blames. What should hinder me likewise, when I am reading the works of Lucilius, from inquiring whether it be his [genius], or the difficult nature of his subject, that will ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... took up the coin with a certain slow gravity which was almost like dignity. "Thank you," he said, laying the paper on the counter. ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... should vary your address agreeably to the different ages of the persons to whom you speak. It would be rude and absurd to talk of your courtships or your pleasures to men of certain dignity and gravity, to clergymen, or men in years. To women you should always address yourself with great respect and attention; their sex is entitled to it, and it is among the duties of good manners; at the same time, that respect ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... without any semblance of prudery, walked to the gangway, and, without aid, jumped into the boat. Seating herself on the scarlet cushions, the cockswain receiving permission from her to go on, with all the gravity due to a queen gave the word to his men, and away the gig shot, the girl kissing her hand all the time affectionately, and with no lack of elegance in the bowing inclination of her body in answer to our acts of reciprocal adoration. I need scarcely say, that the girl had never touched her native ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... General Wise now laughs at this incident as heartily as any one, and often relates it himself, while it may well be doubted whether ever again in life General Lee found either the occasion or the disposition to relax his wonted gravity. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... to me with an almost tearful gravity. Everything it contained was a relic, or souvenir. That agate inkstand had belonged to her elder sister, who died just when Marcelle was old enough to know and love her; this mother-of-pearl paper-cutter was a present to her from her aunt, before she became her adopted child; ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... suggesting the proper or common-sense course. I could not help thinking that, if he had been but a trifle less of a party man, there was no one in the colony who would have made a better Speaker, with his sufficiently portly person and commanding presence, his imperturbable gravity, and his well-filled head in everything required from that quarter for the position. But this was an utter non possimus with the nominees and squatting members, most of whom, with Ebden at their head, would almost rather have endured a presentable Vandemonian expiree in the chair than the ultra-democratic ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... a rare blackbird, Senor Francisco," returned my friend, vainly endeavoring to recover his customary gravity. "By Saint Cristobal! I have not laughed so heartily for a year past as at this poor black fool. Faith, I sought to enlist him in the service of His Most Christian Majesty, yet his method of coming down a companion ladder convinced me he sadly lacks the necessary ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... matter, and by the irregularity of their shapes. For primarily their rarity is shown by the facility with which there passes through them the matter of the vortices of the magnet, and that which causes gravity. Further, one cannot say that these bodies are of a texture similar to that of a sponge or of light bread, because the heat of the fire makes them flow and thereby changes the situation of the particles amongst themselves. It remains then that they are, as has been said, assemblages ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens
... to nerves," said Captain Crabbe, who had returned wounded from France after being in the field since the outbreak of the Great War. "If one cannot always explain, one need not therefore ridicule." Crabbe made this remark with a gravity that was somewhat ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... would be unfair to conceal from you—the possibility that we may be obliged to spend a quite appreciable portion of our lives here; and I intend to make the very fullest provision possible for such a contingency. But do not be frightened," he continued, catching the sudden look of gravity that leapt into her face; "you shall not be detained here a moment ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... continuously without any seemingly ill effect. Page alludes to the custom of smoking as being universal, "Men, women, and children—delicate, refined girls, and youngsters who would not with us be promoted to the dignity of pantaloons—smoke with a gravity and gusto that is irresistibly ludicrous to a foreigner." The Paraguayans consider excessive smoking of other tobacco as injurious but not of the delicate flavored leaf of Paraguay. These cigars are rolled firm and strong usually ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings |
