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noun
Main  n.  
1.
Strength; force; might; violent effort. (Obs., except in certain phrases.) "There were in this battle of most might and main." "He 'gan advance, With huge force, and with importable main."
2.
The chief or principal part; the main or most important thing. (Obs., except in special uses.) "Resolved to rest upon the title of Lancaster as the main, and to use the other two... but as supporters."
3.
Specifically:
(a)
The great sea, as distinguished from an arm, bay, etc.; the high sea; the ocean. "Struggling in the main."
(b)
The continent, as distinguished from an island; the mainland. "Invaded the main of Spain."
(c)
Principal duct or pipe, as distinguished from lesser ones; esp. (Engin.), a principal pipe leading to or from a reservoir; as, a fire main.
Forcing main, the delivery pipe of a pump.
For the main, or In the main, for the most part; in the greatest part.
With might and main, or With all one's might and main, with all one's strength; with violent effort. "With might and main they chased the murderous fox."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Main" Quotes from Famous Books



... to these two sections, the last part of this book deals with the practical applications of synthetic tannins, and it is hoped that the tanner will find much valuable information in these pages. The main outlines of the synthesis of tanning matters should prove of great value to the chemist engaged in ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser

... difficulty in finding the Vico Carlo, though it was one of the narrowest and steepest of the small, narrow, and steep lanes leading off the main thoroughfare into the masses of tall and closely-built houses on the side of the hill. But when she looked up and recognized the little plate bearing the name at the corner, she turned a little pale; something, she knew not ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... decree issued in June 1901, relative to the associated committees of employers and workmen, enabled these bodies, if they so chose, to elect their members in accordance with the principle of proportional representation. Some sixteen towns, including Frankfort-On-Main, Munich, Carlsruhe, Fribourg, Mannheim, &c., availed themselves of the privilege, and the results have been most satisfactory. Much greater interest has been taken in the elections. In Carlsruhe, for instance, the number ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... return to Tonquin, that Lizerolles would be left deserted, her house would be desolate without daughter-in-law or grandchildren; and, as he drew these pictures, he came back, again and again, to his main argument: ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... more important details of the main battle of Antietam, this cavalry charge has been almost overlooked by the newspaper chroniclers; and yet it is doubtful whether even the Galloping Second when they dashed into Fairfax Court-House, or Zagonyi's "Body-Guard" and Frank White's "Prairie ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... of Hattenbach enjoys its good old standing, as you say, and has overcome the crisis. Then your father must have had some consideration—without me. Well, then.——And Rudolstadt still stands—on the old spot. That's the main thing. But now let us talk about something else, I beg ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... they are fully convinced that the teaching of Christ differs in no essential point from that which is practically carried out in Freeland, and which we wish to make the common property of the whole world. We now come to the main subject of the first question for discussion—namely, to the inquiry why the former attempts to base human industry upon justice and freedom have ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... of the supposed facts on which Evolution is based; as others have dealt frequently with their various weaknesses. Nor do I think it necessary to deal with the extravagant subordinate hypotheses by aid of which facts are forced under the main hypothesis, e.g., those which explain how the horse grew out of the hipparion. The crudest finalists have been everywhere out-stripped by Evolutionists in dextrous application of the argument a ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... days the men commenced to improve in looks and health. Uncle Kit had them to exercise some every day, and in a short time we were on the road for the Pacific Coast. We had no trouble until we crossed the Main Divide of the Rocky Mountains. It was on a stream called the "Blue," one of the tributaries of the ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan

... waiters, they passed without lingering through the lounge into the entrance hall, where Francis and Andrew Wilmore were already waiting for a taxicab. Almost as they appeared, a new arrival was ushered through the main entrance, followed by porters carrying luggage. He brushed past Francis so closely that the latter looked into his face, half attracted and half repelled by the waxen-like complexion, the piercing eyes, ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... into two prisons, one for the French, the other for Americans. The prison yard is little more than an acre—the whole island being little more than five acres. It is connected on the south side with the main land by a bridge. The parade, so called, is between the turnkey's house and the barracks. From all which it may be gathered that Melville Island is a very humble garrison, and a very dreary spot for the ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... happened down below on the bridge; but once over that and in the town all they had to do was to ride straight ahead. They were going to bicycle fifteen miles to Ruehl, a small town with a railway station on the main line between Kunitz and Cologne. Express trains do not stop at Ruehl, but there was a slow train at eight which would get them to Gerstein, the capital of the next duchy, by midnight. Here they would change into the Cologne express; here they would join the bribed ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... study the life of the people is to travel on the canals; but these are not so numerous here as in other parts of the country, and, besides, it is not very easy to arrange for a passage on the barges. But, in addition to the main lines of the State Railway, there are the 'Chemins-de-fer Vicinaux,' or light district railways, which run through all parts of Belgium. The fares on these are very low, and there are so many stoppages that the traveller can see a great many places in the course of a single day. There are cycle tracks, ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... reefs. Not unfrequently, however, heavy seas sweep through the wide channels between these small islands interfering seriously with vessels lying alongside the present limited wharfage. Northeast, La Gallega and Gallaguilla reefs run northward from the harbor for 3,300 meters and these with the main coast line, form a bay exposed to the full fury of the winds from the north, and when northern winds prevail rough water is driven through the passage between La Gallega and Caleta reefs with great violence, and sets up a rapid and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various

... and thirty head of horned cattle, and hogs, sheep; and poultry in proportion, is manifestly a most complicated machinery. No wonder it should have been difficult to manage during slavery, when the main spring was absent, and every ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... distraction, but at sunset he yearned for the grave in Greyfriars. The steps up which he had come lay in plain view from the doorway of the chapel. Bobby dropped down the stairs, and turned into the main roadway of the Castle. At the first arch that spanned it a red-coated guard paced on the other side of a closed gate. It would not be locked until tattoo, at nine thirty, but, without a pass, no one could go in or out. Bobby sprang on the bars and barked, as much as to say: "Come awa', ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... going S.S.E. along shore, the trees being wonderfully even, the east shore being higher than the west shore[311]. After sailing 18 leagues we had sight of a great river, called Rio de Benin, off which we anchored in 3-1/2 fathoms, the sea being here very shallow two leagues from the main[312]. The 15th we sent the pinnace and boat with the merchants into the river; and as we rode in shallow water, we made sail with the starboard tacks aboard till we came to 5 fathoms water, where we anchored having ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... exceedingly anxious to begin my book. I am bent upon getting to work at it. I want to prepare it for the spring; but I am determined not to begin to publish with less than five numbers done. I see my opening perfectly, with the one main line on which the story is to turn; and if I don't strike while the iron (meaning myself) is hot, I shall drift off again, and have to go through all ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... intended to marry the woman? At last he owned that he might have done so. Of course he had been anxious to get his money, and he had thought that he might best do so by such an offer. He was reduced to much misery during his cross-examination; but on the one main statement that he had been present at the ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... Ste. Marie d'Oloron joins the main town; and here is situated the cathedral, once of great importance, but now, like all the religious establishments in this part of France, preserving little of its ancient glory. The pillars, however, of its aisles ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor, No pathless waste, no undiscovered shore, No secret island on the trackless main, No peaceful desert, yet ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... explain nothing. It is supposed that he lost his head with the pride of the achievement, and essayed feats that neither his previous training nor his natural abilities justified him in attempting. However that may be, the fact remains that the main body of the water came down the kitchen chimney; and that the boy and the empty pail arrived together on deck before ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... The main injury was in the lumbar region over the upper lumbar vertebrae. The spinous process of the lower dorsal vertebra seemed to be unusually prominent, leading to the supposition that the spinous process ...
— Report on Surgery to the Santa Clara County Medical Society • Joseph Bradford Cox

... Prescott clambered up on one of the long flat cars loaded with rails and ties, and in a few minutes the train started. It followed what was called a cut-out line, which worked round the muskeg and back to the main track through a country too difficult for the latter to traverse; and for a while Prescott's interest was occupied by its progress. Groups of men in brown overalls were seated on the rails, which clanged musically in rude harmony ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... fate and mine are sealed; I strove against the stream and all in vain; Let the great river take me to the main. No more, dear love, for at a touch I ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... woods she flies, The woods' delights do tune her accents sweet. When some strong hand doth tender plant constrain With his debased top the ground to meet, If it let go, the crooked twig again Up toward Heaven itself it straight doth raise. Phoebus doth fall into the western main, Yet doth he back return by secret ways, And to the earth doth guide his chariot's race. Each thing a certain course and laws obeys, Striving to turn back to his proper place; Nor any settled order can be found, But that which doth within itself ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... Gentleman the President of the Board of Control. There were some good things in it, no doubt. I do not suppose that any man could stand up, and go on speaking for five hours, without saying something that was useful. But as to the main question on which this matter rests, I do not believe that the plan which the Government proposes to substitute will be one particle better than that which exists at ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... provide a special correspondent for the event,' said Atlee; 'but I take it they give the main ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... found that very little policy was requisite to foment quarrels among theologians. He permitted no church assemblies; being sensible that from thence had proceeded many of the past disorders. And in the main, the Scots were obliged to acknowledge, that never before, while they enjoyed their irregular, factious liberty, had they attained so much happiness as at present, when reduced to subjection under ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... for Mr. Mayhew and his daughter soon entered and took seats in the main lobby, where he and Stanton had sat nearly three months before. Van Berg congratulated himself that he was outside in the promenade, and so had not been observed; and he sought a dusky seat from which he might seek some further ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... the same small vestibule at which we have before been presented to the aged Medon, and passed at once into a colonnade, technically termed the peristyle; for the main difference between the suburban villa and the town mansion consisted in placing, in the first, the said colonnade in exactly the same place as that which in the town mansion was occupied by the atrium. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... there I had to stick plumb until daylight this morning; and I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or faithfuller, and yet he was risking his freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too, and I see plain enough he'd been worked main hard lately. I liked the nigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars—and kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as well there as he would a done at home—better, maybe, because it was so quiet; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... imaginative perfection by Greek workmen, is distinguished from it as Byzantine. But I wish the reader, for the present, to class these two branches of art together in his mind, they being, in points of main importance, the same; that is to say, both of them a true continuance and sequence of the art of old Rome itself, flowing uninterruptedly down from the fountain-head, and entrusted always to the best ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... counselled her to despair. When the Countess leaned to Prosper's chair she measured how long this could be borne; but when by chance her hand touched on his arm, to rest there for a moment, Isoult was as near jealousy as a girl, in the main logical by instinct and humble by conviction, could ever be. Then came doubt, and brought fear to drag her last hand from the rock and let her fall. Fear came stealthily to her, like a lurking foe, out of the Countess's ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... was kindly in the main. She combined it with an easy tolerance of weakness, and an invincible and cheery romanticism, as Willy Cameron discovered the night they first went to a moving picture theater together. She frankly ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... and pluperfect tenses of the subjunctive are used with cum, 'when,' to describe the circumstances of the action of the main verb. Compare 14, 20, and ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.

... was drawn up outside Windy Corner, and just as he caught sight of the house it started, bowled up the drive, and stopped abruptly when it reached the main road. Therefore it must be the horse, who always expected people to walk up the hill in case they tired him. The door opened obediently, and two men emerged, whom Mr. Beebe recognized as Cecil and Freddy. They were an odd couple to go driving; but he saw a trunk beside the coachman's ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... Hornton Street and his interview with Lady Sophia, but also the two sermons he had heard at St. Joseph's, and the rector's lamentable outburst of the previous night. This last, having a remarkably retentive memory, he reproduced in the main in Mr. Harding's own words, omitting only the rector's reference to his moral lapses. During the whole time he was speaking Stepton was closely engaged with the Cambridge marmalade, and showed no symptoms of attention to anything else. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... his feet, and, advancing to where the mate stood near the main-rigging, tapped that individual softly on the ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... ship. You will readily imagine the intensity of interest with which we studied the faces and forms of those whom I will call our captors. Now that we were in contact with them we could better observe their resemblances to, and differences from, ourselves. In all the main features of body they were human beings, but of a somewhat superior stature. Noses and mouths were small and delicate; hair long, silken, and either light gold or rich chestnut in color; skin white and smooth; ears small and peculiarly formed, with a curious mobility; and eyes ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss

... of paintings was an interesting one, made up of the work of the best artists in town. Fenton had spared no pains either in procuring what he wanted, or in arranging the gallery. The Fatima hung in a position of honor opposite the main entrance. The selection of so prominent a place for his own work offended Fenton's taste, and annoyed him with an uncomfortable sense of how strongly the picture was in evidence. The exigencies of hanging, and the fact that ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... the war-dance of the day when the Renascence came to Europe in all the violence of its reaction against the severe curbing and cramping of the hearts of men. The examination of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, was not the main object,—man then seemed consumed with the anxiety to break through all barriers to the inmost sanctuary of his being, there to discover the ultimate image of his own violent desire. That is why in this literature we find such poignant, ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... lion's roar, the howl of midnight wolves, The scaly serpent's hiss, the raven's croak, The burst of fighting winds that vex the main, The widowed owl and turtle's plaintive moan, With all the din of hell's infernal crew, From my grieved soul forth issue in one sound— Leaving my senses all confused and lost. For ah! no common language can express The cruel pains ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... now fast settling down, and the sea was making a complete breach over her. To enable the water to run off the decks and to allow us to launch the boats, we cut away the stanchions and bulwarks between the fore and main rigging. Such food and water as could be got at was then handed up on deck, ready to be placed in the boats. The crew did not wait the captain's orders to lower them. He seemed unwilling to abandon the ship till the last moment. There was a dinghy stowed in the longboat. While the men were ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... some distance along a rocky valley, almost desolate of habitations, and at parts so cumbered with rocks and stones as to be scarcely passable by the horses, still less by the artillery, which struggled forward in front of the main body. The rocks on the right bank towered to a vast height, breaking here and there into a gorge which admitted some mountain stream down into the river below, and less frequently falling back to make way for a wild saddle-back ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... I wish to remind you that the lower end of the main drain must be protected from the iniquity of the sewer or cesspool to which it runs by another trap, or dam, just below the open pipe that admits fresh air from outside the house (Fig. 5), and also, as ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... followed the crash of Sedan and the downfall of the Second French Empire. If I have incorporated this historical matter in my book, it is because I have repeatedly noticed in these later years that, whilst English people are conversant with the main facts of the Sedan disaster and such subsequent outstanding events as the siege of Paris and the capitulation of Metz, they usually know very little about the manner in which the war generally was carried on by the French under the virtual dictatorship of Gambetta. ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... executor, Basnage, never could mention him without tears! With simplicity which approached to an infantine nature, but with the fortitude of a stoic, our literary philosopher, from his earliest days, dedicated himself to literature; the great sacrifice consisted of those two main objects of human pursuits, fortune and a family. Many an ascetic, who has headed an order, has not so religiously abstained from all worldly interests; yet let us not imagine that there was a sullenness in his stoicism,—an icy misanthropy, which shuts up the heart ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... passed—they never knew how long—till at length a sudden flame shot up above the roof of the kitchens at the rear, which the wind caught and blew on to the timbers of the main building, so that presently this began to blaze also. The house had been fired, by whom was never known, though it was said that the traitor, Jonathan Dicksey, had returned and done it, either for a bribe or that his own sin might be forgotten ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... it is the proximate motive of the specific act, although there may be some deeper motive behind. It seems to me that this statute must be taken to use its words in a strict and accurate sense." 250 U.S. at 626-627. In the Holmes-Pollock Letters this is the main point discussed by the two correspondents regarding the Abrams Case; the clear and present danger doctrine is not mentioned. 2 Holmes-Pollock Letters, 29, 31, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... Darsie, not, it is to be feared, with absolute veracity. "I am proud to be a Newnhamite, and if the girls do have a few mannerisms, they count for precious little beside their virtues. They are up to work, and they do work with might and main, though there can be no place in the world where there is no fun. We are always having some prank or other— politicals, and cocoa-parties ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... was aware of his approach, sent for Pemponius the propraetor, with the troops he had in the camp above Suessula; and then prepared to meet the enemy and to make no delay in fighting. He sent out Caius Claudius Nero in the dead of night with the main strength of the cavalry, through the gate which was farthest removed from the enemy, with orders to make a circuit so as not to be observed, and then slowly to follow the enemy as they moved along, and as soon as he perceived the battle ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... upon the Treasury growing out of the war have been dealt with upon wise and simple principles which have commanded general assent and in the main have resulted in doing full justice both to the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... spent in preliminary examination of different parts of the Australian shores and seas, the Rattlesnake sailed from Sydney, at the end of April 1848, for the main object of her cruise. She had the Bramble, a small schooner, as tender, and was accompanied by the Tam o' Shanter, a vessel chartered for the conveyance of Mr Kennedy's expedition, which was to land at Rockingham Bay, 1200 miles to the northward, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various

... they left him alone with that woman?... They must take her off the boat at once, even if it had to be done by main force.... He ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... But rafts that strain, Parted, shall they lock again? Twined we were, entwined, then riven, Ever to new embracements driven, Shifting gulf-weed of the main! And how if one here shift no more, Lodged by the flinging surge ashore? Nor less, as now, in eve's decline, Your shadowy fellowship is mine. Ye float around me, form and feature:— Tattooings, ear-rings, love-locks curled; ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... the main reason for proclaiming any rule of diet is, that the outsiders may be afforded facts to aid their own judgment; and that our engagement has no other element of obligation than that we shall not vitiate ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... murdered early in the march, and his Kaffir, who might have given him news of me, was carried up the stream in the tide of the disorderly army. Therefore, he and his men rode back with all haste to the Berg by way of Main Drift, and reached Bruderstroom before Laputa had crossed ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... coarse grass, the playground of a colony of field-mice. The earliest lesson in woodcraft that the little ones took, away from the den, was in this hollow. Here they had their first course of mice, the easiest of all game. In teaching, the main thing was example, aided by a deep-set instinct. The old fox, also, had one or two signs meaning "lie still and watch," "come, do as I do," and so ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... that excited them—three large red weasels, or ermines coming along the stone wall, and leisurely and half playfully exploring every tree that stood near it. They had probably robbed the thrashers. They would go up the trees with great ease, and glide serpent-like out upon the main branches. When they descended the tree they were unable to come straight down, like a squirrel, but went around it spirally. How boldly they thrust their heads out of the wall, and eyed me and sniffed me, as I drew ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... Canaries in Africa, for example. But what is still more important, we must bear in mind how many species and genera of Pleistocene mammalia have everywhere become extinct by causes independent of Man. It is always possible, therefore, that some types of Cheiroptera, originally derived from the main land, have survived in islands, although they have gradually died out on the continents from whence they came; so that it would be rash to infer that there has been time for the creation, whether by variation or other agency, of new species or genera in ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... draw our guns and to transport our baggage and ammunition[2]. Our first day's march on the 16th of August 1519, was to Xalapan, and our second to Socochima, a place of difficult approach, surrounded by vines. During the whole of this march, the main body was kept in compact order, being always preceded by an advance of light infantry, and patroles of cavalry. Our interpreters informed the people of this place, that we were subjects of the great emperor Don Carlos, who had sent us to abolish human sacrifices and various ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... adhere to the bottom, leaving only the fibres arising from the young wood; though it is probable some will appear with hardly any fibres; but as the bottom part, having been under ground, and contiguous to the root of the main plant, is naturally disposed to send forth fibres for rooting; preparatory to planting them out, the stems of the shrub and tree-suckers should likewise be trimmed occasionally, by cutting off all lower laterals; ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... took the ring, and got him to horse, and having bidden all adieu, fared forth on his journey; and being arrived with his company at Genoa, he embarked on a galley, and having departed thence, in no long time arrived at Acre, and joined the main Christian host; wherein there by and by broke out an exceeding great and mortal sickness; during which, whether owing to Saladin's strategy, or his good fortune, he made an easy capture of well-nigh ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... divided. Two guns pounded away at Taylor's feint, while two shelled the main column. The latter was struck repeatedly; more than twenty men dropped silent or groaning out of the hurrying files; but the survivors pushed on without faltering and without even caring for the wounded. At last a broad belt of green branches rose between the regiments and the ridge; and the rebel ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... could not deter the young seaman from again seeking employment upon the billowy main, and for the third time he shipped upon an American merchantman. Again his course lay toward the West Indies, and again he was intercepted by the inevitable man-of-war. This time he was not so fortunate ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... version of the events. The Martian finds that the terms used for these fabrications are "redaction" or "recension," but, in his understanding, he finds the word most descriptive of the process to be forgery. "The main point is that practically all the experts assure you that in scores of material points the Old Testament history has been discredited, and has only been confirmed in a few unimportant incidental statements; and that the books are a tissue of inventions, expansions, conflations, ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... When I reached the main street I saw that my hope was futile, for another batch of cowboys were coming in full gallop toward me, very thoroughly heading me off in that direction. To escape them, I headed up the street away from the station, with the pack in close pursuit. They yelled at ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... Cottenham. The town itself depressed him immeasurably. It was the most shapeless, nondescript, undignified town he had ever seen, and yet it was one of the richest places in England. There was no seemliness in its main streets; little huckstering shops hustled larger and more pretentious shops, but all of them had an air of vivacious vulgarity. They had not been given the look of sobriety which age gives even to ugly streets in ugly towns. They seemed to be striving against each other in ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... admitted on the stage. I think, however, it will form no objection; considering, first, that the facts are matter of history, and, secondly, the peculiar delicacy with which I have treated it. (In speaking of his mode of treating this main incident, Shelley said that it might be remarked that, in the course of the play, he had never mentioned expressly Cenci's worst crime. Every one knew what it must be, but it was never imaged in words—the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... at them. After walking in silence for a few minutes, they began to descend the eastern face of the hill, and before them lay that portion of the great gulf which pictures have made so familiar. The landscape was still visible in all its main details, still softly suffused with warm colours from the west. About the cone of Vesuvius a darkly purple cloud was gathering; the twin height of Somma stood clear and of a rich brown. Naples, the many-coloured, was seen in profile, climbing from the Castel dell' Ovo, around which the sea slept, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... a private station to this great position that there was much jealousy of him on the part of the great nobles, and their lack of support of the best soldier and bravest man of their nation was the main cause of his downfall and the subsequent disasters ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... of living in Virginia was determined, not so much by design, as by force of circumstances. Available land and tobacco were determining factors in developing large plantations along the main waterways and small plantations in the hinterlands. Self-sufficiency was concomitant with their ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester

... replied, "For though we do not wish war, the principles at stake here are important enough for us to sacrifice an easy life for them. We've grown used to it, everything is done in such a way as to promote secrecy and stealth, those being our main advantages in the conflict. Out of hundreds of outposts like the one we were just in, for example, only four others have ever been discovered, and the Zards still have no clue where our fortress is." This he ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn

... says of this winter campaign: "It is, perhaps, one of the most wonderful instances of perseverance and spirit upon record." So much for the endurance and bravery of our foes. I am compelled to pass unnoticed many important incidents of the campaign in order to reach sooner the main facts. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... remedy? "Why, away with paper currency altogether!" says one. Yes,—tear up your Croton-water-pipes, because the breaking of a main sometimes submerges your dwellings; destroy your railroads, because the trains sometimes run off the track; arrest your steamships, because an "Arctic" and a "Central America" go disastrously down into the deep, deep sea! That were not wise, surely; that were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... you came into my mind at the moment. I remembered the whole scene on the moorland. I could not get away from the memory. Then the thought flashed into my mind to make you my heir. It seemed absurd, but it remained a fixture, nevertheless. The main thoroughly reasonable objection was that I knew exceedingly little about you. The child is not always father to the man. Fate takes a hand in the after moulding at times. Yet if it were not you it would be Gateley. That, at ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... the abuse of the day before. In the summer time baseball games were played in Milton on Sunday. In the fall and winter very many people spent their evenings in card-playing or aimlessly strolling up and down the main street. These facts came to Philip's knowledge gradually, and he was not long in making up his mind that Christ would not keep silent before the facts. So he carefully prepared a plain statement of his belief in Christ's standing on ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon

... as the slight shafts which are set on its angles; while in other very noble Gothic buildings the pinnacles are introduced as niches for statues, without any reference to construction at all: and sometimes even, as in the tomb of Can Signoria at Verona, on small piers detached from the main building. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... the protagonist, was atheist. But her subject provinces supported her exultantly, Catholic Cologne and the Rhine and tamely Catholic Bavaria. Her main support—without which she could not have challenged Europe—was that very power whose sole reason for being was Catholicism: the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine which, from Vienna, controlled and consolidated the Catholic against the Orthodox Slav: the House of ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... strangeness of the place, a bright log fire burned in a huge open fire-place, which furnished both light and heat to the main corridor. ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... by laying siege to Blois and Tours, which the triumvirate had taken and treated with the utmost cruelty; but heavy rains, and the impossibility of carrying on military operations on account of the depth of the mud, compelled him to relinquish his project, and reduced the main army to ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... One is the account given by "A King's Counsel," in his recent book, I Heard a Voice (Kegan Paul), which I recommended to inquirers, though it has a strong Roman Catholic bias running through it which shows that our main lines of thought are persistent. A second is the little book The Light on the Future, giving the very interesting details of the beyond, gathered by an earnest and reverent circle in Dublin. The other came in a private letter ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... echo, and the mariners they shouted in such sort that the sky rang again with the noise thereof. One stood in the poop of the ship, and by his gesture bids farewell to his friends in the best manner he could. Another walks upon the hatches, another climbs the shrouds, another stands upon the main yard, and another in the top of the ship. To be short, it was a very triumph (after a sort) in all respects to the beholders. But, alas, the good King Edward (in respect of whom principally all this was prepared) he only by reason of his sickness was absent from ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt

... not stop to question. She came flinging down stairs, two steps at a time, and Miss Blake and Delia smiled above her head as she bent down, wrenching and tugging with her main strength at the boards and stubborn nails, too excited to know that half the force she used would ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... house gave. A howling corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in the summer time, an undesirable corner at the best of times. Shelterless fragments of straw and paper got up revolving storms there, when the main street was at peace; and the water-cart, as if it were drunk or short-sighted, came blundering and jolting round it, making it muddy when all else ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... flow of foul air was partially checked. Twice had each person been forced to retreat to the main drift, and Fred was about to go for the third time when it seemed as if the flooring of dirt ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis

... that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various

... at their epoch, but which for a long time have been forever destroyed. The large bay placed over the small front door gives a mysterious light in the nave of the church, and sends the rays directly upon the main altar or dagoba, leaving the lateral columns and porticoes in a semi-obscurity well calculated ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... 2d of January 1711, the last Tatler came forth; and on the 1st of the following March appeared the Spectator, which is now the main pillar of Addison's fame, and the fullest revelation of his exquisite genius. Without being as a whole a great, or in any part of it a profound work, there are few productions which, if lost, would be more missed in literature. One reclines on its pages as on pillows. The ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... at recess. The Princess took me into the teacher's den, which was cut off from the main room by a beautifully carved screen. Here I was introduced to the Japanese lady teacher and served with tea. She spoke no English and but little Chinese, and the embarrassment of our effort to converse was only relieved by the ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... and swampy—the breeding-grounds of myriads of waterfowl. There were lakelets in many of these isles, in the midst of which were still more diminutive islets, whose moss-covered rocks and fringing sedges were reflected in the crystal water. Under a cliff on the main island stood the Eskimo village, a collection of stone huts, bathed in the slanting light ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... self-controlling power in him; no common sense, and not a vestige or remorse or shame. In his wild imagination, he believed himself capable of doing the greatest work and of filling the loftiest station in life. Who will dare question that this mother's effort to destroy him while in embryo was the main cause in bringing him to the level of ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... hundred regulars, an equal number of Canadians, and a composite band of Indians, La Barre set out from Quebec to destroy the Senecas. News had been sent to the French trading posts of the north, and it was arranged that the main column should be joined at Niagara by a force of Hurons, Ottawas, Ojibwas, Pottawattamies, and Foxes, whom the coureurs de bois had rallied for a last supreme effort. But in spite of the strength of this array, it was not expected by those who knew the vacillating ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... rose and fell with the storm, and bounded over the waves. My uncle was cast headlong upon the deck. I with great difficulty dragged myself towards him. He was holding on with might and main to the end of a cable, and appeared to gaze with pleasure and delight at the spectacle of the ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... turret chambers, that overlooking the orchard, he found himself surveying the distant parkland with the eyes of a captive and longing for the coming of one who ever tarried yet was ever expected. The long narrow gallery over the main entrance, with its six mullioned windows and fine collection of paintings, retained, as a jar that has held musk retains its scent, a faint perfume of Jacobean gallantry. But the pictures, many of them undraped studies collected by Sir Jacques, which now held the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... that wafts us o'er the main To utmost Thule and home again, Through mingled din of sea and sky, Even in the twinkling ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... family since the Revolution. He left it gladly, however, for the farm life seemed to him much harder and more squalid than he had remembered it to be, and he disliked James Mason's wife. As he and Laura walked down the long, rough track connecting the farm with the main road on the day of their departure, Stephen Fountain whistled so loud and merrily that the skipping child beside him looked at him ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... otherwise; but our having different parts of the Brandywine creek to guard, and the uncertainty which road to Philadelphia the enemy would attempt to take, naturally afforded them an opportunity of passing with their main body at a place where only a part of ours could be posted; for it must strike every thinking man with conviction, that it requires a much greater force to oppose an enemy in several places, than is sufficient to defeat him in any ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... rather out of the ordinary is this "Spirit of the Border." The main thread of the story has to do with the work of the Moravian missionaries in the Ohio Valley. Incidentally the reader is given details of the frontier life of those hardy pioneers who broke the wilderness for the planting of this great nation. Chief among these, as a matter of course, is Lewis Wetzel, ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond

... Out in the main attic all was velvet blackness save where the moon flung a path of silver half-way across the floor from the east dormer window. With a resolute ignoring of that fearsome darkness to the right and to the left, Pollyanna drew a quick breath and pattered straight into that silvery ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter

... frequent expeditions to Saratoga and to other places not far from home to attend to cases to which I was called, and to sell medicines; and considering that the main object I had in settling in Rensselaer County was rest and more leisure than I had enjoyed for some years, I had a great deal more to do than I desired. Nevertheless, I might have continued to live on my little farm, ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott

... propose the totally improbable act of voluntary and gratuitous manumission of their slaves, for the purpose of elevating them to political equality, what would be the effect upon our country? Three millions and a half of Negroes let loose upon our community, in competition, in the main departments of industry, with free white labor. Or would you, in accordance with the legislation of many of the States, exclude the negro from the Northern, Middle, and Western States, and the Territories, and ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit

... capable of being improved into a general reconciliation. But if we do acquiesce in it, he beseeches my fair-one not to suspend my day, that he may be authorized in what he says, as to the truth of the main fact. [How conscientious this good man!] Nor must it be expected, he says, that her uncle will take one step towards the wished-for reconciliation, till ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... had been a main contributory factor to its success; that, plus the fact that nine healthy adults out of ten dearly love to put on freakish garbings and go somewhere. To be exactly truthful, the basic idea itself could hardly be called new, since ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... helmets, to distinguish them above the rest. They had another body of forces, amounting to somewhat more than twenty thousand, not inferior to the linen legion, either in personal appearance, or renown in war, or their equipment. This number, composing the main strength of the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... in that stockade, Mr. Travers having fallen into a phase of sulks complicated with shivering fits. Of Lingard d'Alcacer had seen almost nothing since they had landed, for the Man of Fate was extremely busy negotiating in the recesses of Belarab's main hut; and the thought that his life was being a matter of arduous bargaining was not agreeable to Mr. d'Alcacer. The Chief's dependents and the armed men garrisoning the stockade paid very little attention to him apparently, and this gave him the feeling of his captivity ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... any good orator, while her main thesis gained impressiveness from silence. It was only too evident ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... the days of George the Second. There had been a gradual and marked improvement in the moral tone of the drama, unaccompanied, it must be owned, by any very decided improvement in the moral tone of society. Perhaps the main difference between the time of the Restoration and that of the early Georges is that the vice of the Restoration was wanton school-boy vice, and that of the early Georges the vice of mature and practical men. In the Restoration ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... along the Ganges till we come to Luckieserai Junction, where the loop-line falls into the main line," the ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... just now, would be to run too far in advance of the main story. I must, therefore, return to Beaurepaire, and show, amongst other things, how this very letter came ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... somewhere, and that soon after he struck New York he married one of the Chetwood girls. And that takes more or less capital to start with. Guess Vincent had it; for I hear his old man left him quite a wad and that now he's the main guy of a threshin' machine trust, or something like that. Anyway, Vincent belongs in the four-cylinder plute class, and he's beginnin' to be heard of among ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... by these insanitary conditions. The construction of the sewers lasted about 19 years, when in 1892 the water and drainage works were taken over by the government, and are now administered at public expense and at a profit. The main sewer is 16 m. long and extends southward beyond Quilmes. The total cost of the two systems exceeded six millions sterling. Buenos Aires is now provided with a good water-supply, and its sanitary ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... he wanted a dark gray hair switch, and it was easy to discern that his main idea was ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... its playful, not its dangerous mood. It stopped the carriages of the gentry, made the occupants cheer for Wilkes and Liberty, scrawled the number Forty-five upon the polished panels, broke the glasses, but in the main let the carriage-owners go unmolested. The Duke of Northumberland was forced to toast the popular favorite in a mug of ale. One ludicrous occurrence very nearly became an international episode. The Austrian Ambassador, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Adelaide, and as the greater portion of these lands is planted with fine shady trees, this feature renders Adelaide one of the most attractive cities in Australasia. South Adelaide is bounded by four broad terraces facing north, south, east and west. The main thoroughfare, King William Street, runs north and south, passing through Victoria Square, a small park in the centre of the city. Handsome public buildings are numerous. Government House stands in grounds on the north side of North Terrace, with several other official buildings in the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Nature—"Nature red in tooth and claw," rather than the equally pervasive Nature of the brooding wing and the flowing breast. Had not Professor Drummond unfortunately mixed it up with a good deal of extraneous sentiment, his main thesis would ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... sooner passed into the main hall than Kitty came running down-stairs, with a large packet in ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... for the slender figure he constantly expected to see riding eastward before him; often they dropped to the trail underfoot to see that her horse's tracks had not turned to right or left should she leave this main horseman's highway for some one of the countless ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... he was, had chosen for his captain one who had sailed the Spanish Main. He had commanded on merchant-ships which had been suddenly turned into men-of-war, and was suited to the present enterprise: taciturn, harsh of voice, singularly impatient, but a perfect seaman and as brave as could be. He had come to Quebec late the previous autumn ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... republican government which carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican, monarchical, and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance as it has already done the forms of the British government. The main body of our citizens, however, remain true to their republican principles; the whole landed interest is republican, and so is a great mass of talents. Against us are the executive, the judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... it was decided to return to America, partly to negotiate directly with the publisher, but chiefly because, having exhausted her resources, Margaret's pen must henceforth be the main reliance of the little family. It is pathetic to know that, after their passage had been engaged, "letters came which, had they reached her a week earlier, would probably have induced them to remain ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... distantly related to the main line, I fancy. The country is full of them, but only a few belong to the McLeans. Of course, I suppose they all hail from the old Highland clan, but even there the line of demarcation between chieftain and gillie of the same name was broad as the border itself. If the young ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... music had been lacking in that dignity which should be its main characteristic, and this fault was largely due to the Flemish composers, who thought most of displaying their technical skill. They frequently selected some well-known secular tune around which to weave their counterpoint, many masses, for instance, having been ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... couplets, interspersed after a rather unusual fashion with innumerable lyrics, seems in the main authentic. Sir Adhelmar de Nointel, born about 1332, was once a real and stalwart personage, a younger brother to that Henri de Nointel, the fighting Bishop of Mantes, whose unsavory part in the murder of Jacques van Arteveldt history has ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... only lead to his ruin. Victurnien's early training, noble and pious though it was, had isolated him too much. He was out of the current of the life of the time, for the life of a provincial town is certainly not in the main current of the age; Victurnien's true destiny lifted him above it. He had learned to think of an action, not as it affected others, nor relatively, but absolutely from his own point of view. Like despots, he made the law ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... a fatiguing journey, they reached the main road, and here they turned toward the south, in which direction they ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... an enemy's country could not preserve better order. Far in advance of the main body of the toilers is the vanguard, a group of twenty of the acknowledged leaders of the men. It is at their suggestion that the cowed wretches have mustered up courage enough to cross the bridge and enter upon ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... mountain torrents pouring to the main, From every glen a living stream came forth: Prom every hill in crowds they hasten down To worship Him who deigns in humblest fane, On wildest shore, to meet ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy

... followed by the errors incident to the voluntary system of religion, and a democratical education. To these must be superadded the want of moral courage, arising from the dread of public opinion, and the natural tendency of a democratic form of government to excite the spirit of gain, as the main-spring of action, and the ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)



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