"Modify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have laid bare my heart and allowed you to read it, you will believe in the sincerity of what I am about to add. Though the glimpse I had of you was all too rapid, it has sufficed to modify my opinion of your conduct. You are a poet and a poem, even more than you are a woman. Yes, there is in you something more precious than beauty; you are the beautiful Ideal of art, of fancy. The step you took, blamable ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... are all matters of deep consideration to the professors of the geomantic art, who thrive on the ignorance of superstitious clients. They are called in to select propitious sites for houses and graves; and it often happens that if the fortunes of a family are failing, a geomancer will be invited to modify in some way the arrangement of the ancestral graveyard. Houses in a Chinese street are never built up so as to form a line of uniform height; every now and again one house must be a little higher or a little lower than ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... respiration. Although the animals did not make any detectable movement, not even of an eyelid, in response to noises, it seemed not improbable that if the sounds acted as auditory stimuli at all, they would in some degree modify the form or rate of ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... in "The Nation" that if all pianoforte music in the world were to be destroyed, excepting one collection, my vote should be cast for Chopin's preludes. If anything could induce me to modify that opinion to-day, it would be the thought of Chopin's etudes. I would never consent to their loss. Louis Ehlert, speaking of Chopin's F Major ballad, says he has seen even children stop in their play and listen to it enraptured. But, in the etudes I mentioned a moment ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... in the world would have a God, had not pains been taken in infancy to give them one. Each would receive from his parents and teachers the God whom they received from theirs; but each, agreeably to his disposition, would arrange, modify, and paint him in ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... exact than the assertion. Every novelist whose work is to endure even for a generation must draw from life, sometimes generalizing broadly and sometimes keeping close to the single individual, but always free to modify the mere fact as he may have observed it to conform with the larger truth of the fable he shall devise. Most story-tellers tend to generalize, and their fictions lack the sharpness of outline we find in nature. Daudet prefers to retain as much of the actual individual as he dares ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... influences. It is really a change in the equilibrium of the brain and mental faculties and produces great modifications in the memory and in sensibility. Life is indeed a long series of habits to which we are accustomed; hypnotism changes these habits which in a normal condition we do not try to modify, and on awakening, all memory of the change is gone, ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... tertiary formations, the tooth-like serrations of the jaws in the Odontopteryx of the London clay being mere processes of the bony substance of the jaws, and not teeth in the proper sense of the word. In view of the characteristics of this bird we are therefore obliged to modify the definitions of the classes of birds and reptiles. Before the discovery of Hesperornis, the definition of the class Aves based upon our knowledge of existing birds, might have been extended to all birds; it might have been said that the absence of teeth was characteristic ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... to a certain extent independently of external circumstances; appearing under all sorts of management, and being little affected by changes of locality, separation from diseased stock, or such causes as modify the production ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... Certainly, in Goethe's romances, and even more in the romances of Victor Hugo, there are high examples of modern art dealing thus with modern life, regarding that life as the modern mind must regard it, yet reflecting upon blitheness and repose. Natural laws we shall never modify, embarrass us as they may; but there is still something in the nobler or less noble attitude with which we watch their fatal combinations. In those romances of Goethe and Victor Hugo, in some excellent ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... changes for the better, as youth fondly imagines; and that experiments are not invariably successful. They have also learnt that no amount of talk will alter hard facts, and that the law that effect will follow cause is an inflexible one which torrents of fluent platitudes will neither affect nor modify. Even should this entail their being labelled with the silly and meaningless term of "reactionary," I do not imagine that their equanimity is much upset by it. It is, perhaps, natural for the elderly to make disparaging comparisons between ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... tone of concentrated rage which betrays years of repressed passion and unflinching resolution. One could scarcely hope to modify her views even by the wisest and most practical advice. The baron did not even think of attempting to do so. He had known Madame d'Argeles for years; he had seen so many proofs of her invincible ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... the most important questions of dialectics—so important that Porphyry, touching on it in his Preliminaries, did not dare to take the responsibility of cutting the knot, but said, "It is a very grave point,"—Champeaux, who was obliged to modify his idea and then renounce it, saw his course fall into such discredit that they hardly let him make his dialectical lectures, as though dialectics consisted entirely in the question ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... explosive in the presence of explosive mixtures of gas or coal dust. With most commendable energy, the manufacturers of explosives, noting the early failures of their powders in the testing gallery, began at once to modify them in such ways as suggested by the behavior of the explosives when under test, and, in a short time, returned to the Testing Station with improved products, able to stand the severe tests required. In this way the Testing Station has ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... told you that there exists a strong desire among the intelligent to modify this system. Consolidation, as you know from my letters, is wished by no one, for the great difference between the town and the rural populations causes both to wish to remain independent. Three languages ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the first instance, had concluded his speech against the second reading by the blunt motion that the Bill be rejected; and it was only when it had been pressed upon his attention that such a method of disposing of the measure would be a downright insult to the Commons that he consented to modify his proposal into the formal and familiar amendment that the Bill be read a second time this day six months. The effect would be just the same in either case, for no Ministry would think of retaining office if the discussion of its most important measure were postponed ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... in hideous mud-deluges, their "markets" and them, unless they think of it?—In that case it were better to think of it: and the Democracies and Universal Suffrages, I can observe, will require to modify themselves a good deal! ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... of English grown wheat, beans, mangels, and other plants, serve to give us a general idea of the nature of those vegetables when produced in this country. But this kind of information, though very important, must necessarily be defective, as differences in climate modify—often to a considerable extent—the composition of almost every vegetable. Thus, the results of Anderson's analyses prove Scotch oats to be superior, as a feeding stuff, to Scotch barley, whilst, according to Voelcker and the experience of most English ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... happy and industrious life. His technical position was that of master to a form low down on the Modern Side. But his work lay elsewhere. He organized. If no organization existed, he would create one. If one did exist, he would modify it. "An organization," he would say, "is after all not an end in itself. It must contribute to a movement." When one good custom seemed likely to corrupt the school, he was ready with another; he believed ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... been simplified by about 30 affixes, which are used to modify the meanings of root words. The ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 1 • Various
... for its object the acknowledgment of past services, and the relief of the poor, no future occurrences can at all modify it. For the very reason that I know I could one day legally cancel the present free and deliberate act, I declare, that if ever I were to attempt such a thing, under any possible circumstances, I should deserve the contempt and horror of all ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... significant syllable or word placed before and joined with a word to modify its meaning: as, unsafe not safe; remove move back; circumnavigate ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... colored man. At the time we thought the writer was mistaken, but since looking over his itinerary, which our readers will find in another part of the magazine, we have been led to feel that we shall have to modify somewhat our opinion. The doctor himself explicitly declares that at one point in their journey he and his companions were all of the same color. At any rate he is not ashamed to call them brethren, and we may also add that they ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various
... all this play atmosphere may seem incongruous and unnecessary to teachers used to more conventional methods, but I feel sure that an actual experience of it would modify that point of view conclusively. The children of the schools where story-telling and "dramatising" were practised were startlingly better in reading, in attentiveness, and in general power of expression, than the pupils of like social conditions in the same grades of other cities ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... about this talking, which you forget. It shapes our thoughts for us;—the waves of conversation roll them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me modify the image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an artist models in clay. Spoken language is so plastic,—you can pat and coax, and spread and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick on so easily, when you work ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... originated in the scientific world. The immense growth of scientific knowledge during the last century was bound to react on human conceptions of scientific procedure. The enormous number of new facts brought to light by manipulating hypotheses could not but modify our view of scientific law. Laws no longer seem to scientists the immutable foundations of an eternal order, but are inevitably treated as man-made formulae for grouping and predicting the events which ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... neighbours who have ventured to use their minds with some measure of independence. A very brief contact with people who, when the occasion comes, do not shrink from saying what they think, is enough to modify that excessive liability to be shocked at truth-speaking, which is only so common because truth-speaking itself is ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... "my wife understands me." And he went out then and there to his Council. His conviction of her submissiveness (and of other things about her to modify it) may be gauged by the fact that he never saw her again (except ceremonially) until a certain moment after ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... giving potatoes to store cattle, since writing the above, I wish to modify the opinion I have expressed to a certain extent. I had a conversation with Mr Hope on the subject, and he states that his belief is, that potatoes are not prejudicial to the growth of store cattle when put to grass, and that his practice is to give ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... be expressed in words or manner; subject, of course, to the approval of your judgment. The kind and degree of feeling produced in you will necessarily depend on your own character; and it is therefore useless to say it should be this or that. Nevertheless, you may endeavour to modify the feeling into that which you believe ought to be entertained. Beware, however, of the two extremes; not only in respect of the intensity, but in respect of the duration, of your displeasure. On the one hand, avoid that weak ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... opinions of European thinkers had brought uppermost, these in particular: That the human mind has a certain order of possible progress, in which some things must precede others, an order which governments and public instructors can modify to some, but not to an unlimited extent: that all questions of political institutions are relative, not absolute, and that different stages of human progress not only will have, but ought to have, different institutions: ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... appeal. Mercy is not an attribute of war, either in its methods or decisions. The latter must stand in the end as against the conquered. From war there is no appeal but to war. Time and enlightenment may modify or alter the mandates of war, but in this age of civilization and knowledge, neither nations nor peoples move backward. Ground gained for freedom or humanity, in politics, science, literature, or religion, is held, and from this fresh ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... accustomed, as usual, to judge of the moral condition of the people solely according to the vicissitudes of earthly power, the events of battles, and the influence of religion, but to pass over with indifference the great phenomena of nature, which modify, not only the surface of the earth, but also the human mind. Hence, most of them have touched but superficially on the "Great Mortality" of the fourteenth century. We, for our parts, are convinced that in the history of the world the Black Death is one of the most important events ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... let us forget that, although to obey this commandment is in some respects a great deal harder to-day than it was then, the diverse circumstances in which Christian individuals and Christian communities are this day placed may modify the form of our obedience, but do not in the smallest degree weaken the obligation, for the individual Christian and for societies of Christians, to follow this commandment. The multiplication of numbers, the cessation of the armed hostility of the world, the great varieties ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... could be desired.[8] That writer analyzes egoism into a series of propositions all of which are equivocal, false, or, so far as true, non-egoistic in their meaning. I shall reduce Moore's propositions to two, and modify them to suit my ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... their feet now, insisting that the King modify Joan's frankness; but he was not minded to do it. His ordinary councils were stale water—his spirit was drinking wine, now, and the taste of it ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... constitution of our empire conformable in every respect to the wishes and wants of the nation, as well as to that state of peace, which we are desirous of maintaining with Europe, we have resolved, to propose to the people a series of arrangements, tending to modify and improve its acts, to surround the rights of citizens with all their guarantees, to give to the representative system its full extent, to invest the intermediate bodies with the respectability and powers that are desirable; in a word, to combine the highest degree of political liberty, and personal ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... acting in spite of the Faculty in the interests of the Comedie Francaise. The English public had given me such proofs of appreciation that the Comedie was rather affected by it, and the Figaro, which was at that time the organ of the Theatre Francais, requested Johnson to modify his praises of me. This he did the whole time that we were ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... they surlily slouched about the deck, letting go halliards, clewing up and hauling down; and perhaps, more than all, the aspect of the heavens, conveying a message that no man could misinterpret, caused them somewhat to modify their attitude, and by four bells the ship was as nearly ready for what might come as we ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... malignant disposition, was an unknown, undiscovered, and therefore unexplored region for some thousands of years, and it remained for an American to discover and describe this vast territorial acquisition, and to annex it to the domain of medicine, which, through its skill, could modify the influence of the evil genius that there presided and spare humanity much of the ills to which ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... explain it away, to modify its miseries, to extract its sting—whether they have come from the party of unbelief, or the party of education, or the party of amusement, have failed—and failed utterly. No matter what men say or do to get rid of it, there ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... respects the Discourse has hardly been touched. It is only an individual's expression, in his own way, of opinions entertained by hundreds of the Medical Profession in every civilized country, and has nothing in it which on revision the writer sees cause to retract or modify. The superstitions it attacks lie at the very foundation of Homoeopathy, and of almost every form of medical charlatanism. Still the mere routinists and unthinking artisans in most callings dislike whatever shakes the dust ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... diminution of the pomp which is always the delight of the ignorant, acknowledged,—proclaimed as one of its chief merits,—a still more fatal defect for attracting converts from among beings whose ignorance had never been suffered to doubt, till then, that men in ecclesiastical garb could modify, or suspend, or defeat for them the justice of God; it proclaimed itself unable to give any exemptions or commutations ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... slaves of those who were in arms against the United States or actively aiding the enemy, and which created a "bureau of abolition." Whether Fremont was acting from conviction or "playing politics" may be left to his biographers. In a most tactful letter Lincoln asked him to modify the order so as to conform to the Confiscation Act of Congress; and when Fremont proved obdurate, Lincoln ordered him to do so. In the outcry against Lincoln when Fremont was at last removed, the Abolitionists rang the changes on this reversal of ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... confined myself to making some formal improvements, correcting indubitable mistakes, and indicating here and there my desire to modify or develop at some future time statements which seem to me doubtful or open to misunderstanding. The changes, where it seemed desirable, are shown by the inclusion of sentences in ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... commerce, in conformity with the treaties of 1674, &c. between this country and England, on the faith of which reposes the confidence in this flag; and if the republic does not answer to such reasonable expectations, and undertakes to modify any part of those treaties to the prejudice of commerce, the king is immovably fixed in his determination, to deprive the nation of those advantages, which his Majesty, out of pure kindness and without any obligation by treaty, has hitherto ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... the habit of changing my mind, Sir Abel," he said. "I proposed to make you a free gift of my time and such experience as I may possess. Nothing has occurred to alter or modify that intention. There are circumstances, into which I do not choose to enter, which would render it extremely distasteful to me to accept anything—over and above my pension—from yourself or from any member ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... no doubt of one thing," Cuthbert said, as standing with Mary on the Trocadero, they one day watched the duel, when the guns at Meudon were replying vigorously to the fire of the forts, "I must modify my first opinions as to the courage of the Communists. They have learnt to fight, and allowing for all the exaggeration and bombast of their proclamations, they now stand admirably; they have more than once retaken positions from which they have been driven, and although ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... no bridge and no river had appeared. Not Beppina only, but Beppo too now began to be alarmed. Where were they going? Oh, if only the grey walls of the Grifoni palace would rise before them! Beppo even began to modify his opinion about Teresina. Her ruff and streamers would have been as welcome a sight to him just then as an oasis to travellers in the desert. But alas! Teresina was at that moment many miles away, and distracted with anxiety and grief. The ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... and Sentimental Poetry', raisonnement is out of place; in comedy, pathos. Lessing had yielded to the 'whim' of mixing the two. If, therefore, it was desired to make an acceptable stage-play out of 'Nathan' it would be advisable to modify it in the direction of tragedy by reducing its raisonnement, or else to make it more like comedy by reducing its pathos. In other words, theory had given Schiller a point of view which is not the modern point of view. To-day no one, unless it were a pedant, would be ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... than himself, and often ends by writing novels which are so lifelike that no one can possibly believe in their probability. This is no isolated instance that we are giving. It is simply one example out of many; and if something cannot be done to check, or at least to modify, our monstrous worship of facts, Art will become sterile, and beauty will pass away from ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... we must somewhat modify any European model is in the limited training provided for girls. A country which is frankly coeducational in its public schools, state universities and professional colleges, must continue to be so when installing a new educational department to meet ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... other beneath us, and hills from valleys, and forests from bare plains. There was little wind, except the fierce currents rushing upward, produced by the heat of our own conflagration. This, for the time, subdued everything to itself, and, as we approached the ground, served by its direction to modify the fury of our descent. The denser lower atmosphere also contributed to the same end; and, most fortunately, when we reached the earth, and the collision came, we struck in water instead of on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... it did not suggest doubts of his wisdom. A man whose opinions at fifty are his opinions at fourteen has opinions of very little value. If his intellect has developed properly, or if he has profited by experience, he will modify, though he need not retract, his early views. To claim to have learnt nothing from 1792 to 1830 is almost to write yourself down as hopelessly impenetrable. The explanation is, that what Hazlitt called his opinions ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... towards the skies; it spreads itself around, or it slants along the earth, just as Nature intended that it should, and in accordance with the power of the providential breath which bends it. In the forest it is different. There the tree grows towards the light wherever the light may be. Forced to modify its natural habit in obedience to the pressure of circumstances over which it has no command, it takes such form and height as its neighbours will allow it to, all its energies being directed to the preservation of its life in any shape ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... iron bands. The whole of the ship's interior is thus filled with a network of braces and stays, arranged in such a way as to transfer and distribute the pressure from without, and give rigidity to the whole construction. In the engine and boiler room it was necessary to modify the arrangement of stays, so as to give room for the engines and boiler. All the iron, with the exception of ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... "a sturdy, high-hearted race, sound in body and fierce in spirit which, under the stimulus of those great shins of beef, their common diet, were the wonder of the age." Carlyle's advice when he read this passage in proof was characteristic:—"Modify a little: Frederick the Great was brought up on beer-sops; Robert Burns on oatmeal porridge; and Mahomet and the Caliphs conquered the world on barley meal." But the passage stood unmodified, in spite of Froude's regard ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... holds, indeed, that nebulae are, in reality, vast swarms of meteors, and the light they emit results from continual collisions between the constituent particles. The French astronomer, Faye, also proposed to modify Laplace's theory by assuming that the nebula broke up into rings all at once, and not in detail, as Laplace had wished ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... to a reasonable frame of mind, to a toleration of existence under the German Empire. But his efforts brought down on him the unsparing ridicule of the Parisian-minded Bruxellois. They were prompt to detect his attempts to modify the text of French operettas so that these, while delighting the lovers of light music, need not at the same time excite a military spirit or convey the least allusion of an impertinent or contemptuous kind towards the Central Powers. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... the missionaries' sons playing cricket with the Maori scholars. The mention of this little incident was doubtless intended to soften the impression of extreme austerity, and is not without its value to this end. But it does not go very far to modify the picture of old-fashioned gravity and severity. In modern times the missionaries would have been ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... is that mysticism can modify the needs of the body, without, for all that, having much effect on, or destroying the health. I know well, you would answer me with that terrible phrase of Saint Hildegarde, a phrase at once just and sinister: 'the Lord dwells not in ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... between his Creation and the Flood. It will be our task, then, to examine the relations which the Hebrew narratives bear both to the early Sumerian and to the later Babylonian Versions, and to ascertain how far the new discoveries support or modify current views with regard to the contents of those early chapters ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... person or that; but whether the whole universe and its history is not one perpetual and innumerable series of special providences. Whether the God who ordained the laws is not so administering them, so making them interfere with, balance, and modify each other, as to cause them to work together perpetually for good; so that every minutest event (excepting always the sin and folly of rational beings) happens in the place, time, and manner, where it is specially needed. In ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... informed than I as to the latest modes. We will drive in the park, use our eyes on the avenue, and visit several fashionable establishments first. Then I wish to find a dressmaker who is not an idiotic slave of fashion, and who can modify the prevailing styles by taste and appreciation of the person for whom she works. The one whom I employ must make dresses for me and under my direction, and not dresses in the abstract, as if they were for the iron-framed form on which she exhibits ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... above enemy territory. Judged on a basis of the maintenance of adequate observation, which is the primary object of aerial attack and defence, the British have won consistently. At no time has the R.F.C. been obliged to modify its duties of reconnaissance, artillery spotting, photography, or co-operation with advancing infantry, which was introduced successfully last summer. On the contrary, each of these functions, together with bombing and "ground stunts" ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... An adverb is a word used to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb; as, She sings sweetly; she is very talented; she began to ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... taken at the instance of General Custer. They proved most effective, notwithstanding their somewhat ludicrous appearance. They were furnished the regular soldiers' uniform which they were permitted to modify to suit their individual ideas and taste. As a rule their head dress was the customary Indian one of feathers. Their arms were the regulation carbine and revolver of the cavalry to which they added on their own accord, hatchet, ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... litter like English straw; but chiefly because the droppings from the cattle are made up into flat cakes and dried in the sun, which are then used as fuel in conjunction with a certain amount of wood. This custom is so rooted that it would be hopeless to try and modify it. Nor indeed is there any other fuel available. It is long before coal will find its way into common ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... Best-Dunkley was being treated unjustly, especially as the North Lancs. had only arrived with ten! And the Irish had not yet arrived at all! (These facts must soon have become apparent to General Stockwell, and, perhaps, caused him, inwardly at any rate, to modify his judgment). And the way Colonel Best-Dunkley took it, the calm and submissive manner in which he bore General Stockwell's curses and the kind and polite way in which he afterwards gave orders to, and conversed with, his inferiors, both officers and men, endeared him to all. ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... this, and to begin discussions anew thereon on something that is very vague, will certainly land us in difficulties. I believe that we are entitled to hold you to the Middelburg proposals, which we can modify as far as ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... who had tried a pair of boots before, but could not get them on. The king was made to understand that his gift of land must be not to the Captain, but to the King of England, and with this he complied. He was also persuaded to modify his demands; as to the fugitives, Gardiner undertook not to encourage or employ them, but would not search them out or return them. Mr. Owen was also favourably received, as the umfundisi or teacher; a hut was allotted to him, and he was allowed to preach. He ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... convolutions and their anfractuosities, and observing from point to point how beautifully and harmoniously the innumerable functions blend with each other; how the different portions of a convolution vary, and how the different conditions of the brain and different degrees of excitement modify the results; and these investigations have been carried on for years, until results were clearly established and over and over confirmed by psychometry, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... office. Beresford refused, and sent off an appeal to his old friend, Auckland, with the result that the Cabinet soon met to consider the questions aroused by this and other curt dismissals. It being clear that Fitzwilliam was working with the Ponsonbys for a complete change of system, he was asked to modify his conduct. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... came from Indians living eastwardly of Heywood Sound, the undersigned determined to modify the propositions of the Government, so as to meet in some degree the ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... character of the defence. The savages had indeed succeeded, but at what a cost! As I made my way up through that shambles of a wrecked garden I acquired a new impression of the invincible courage of the South African native which I have never since had occasion to modify. ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... be produced. The disadvantage, however, to which our shipping is subjected by the operation of these discriminating duties requires that they be met by suitable countervailing duties during your present session, power being at the same time vested in the President to modify or discontinue them as the discriminating duties on American vessels or their cargoes may be modified or discontinued at those islands. Intimations have been given to the Spanish Government that the United States may be obliged to resort to such measures as are of necessary ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... mining and metallurgy, in geology and chemistry and physics and mechanics, he can quickly pick up the routine methods of practice. And he can do more. He can understand their raison d'etre, and he can modify and adapt them to the varying conditions under which they must be applied. He can, in addition, if he has any originality of mind at all, devise new methods, discover new facts of mining geology—the interior ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... concerning hormones. The hormone theory supposes that the somatic modifications due to external stimuli—in the case of the Flat-fish the disappearance of pigment from the lower side, the torsion of the orbital region of the skull, and the extension of the dorsal fin—modify the hormones given off by these parts, increasing some and decreasing others, and that these changes in the hormones affect the determinants, whatever they are, in the ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... occurred in his brief command of an army to prove or disprove the high estimate that had been placed upon his military ability; but after studying the orders and dispatches of Johnston I am compelled to materially modify my views of that officer's qualifications as a soldier. My judgment now is that he was vacillating and undecided in ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... it marks a point in history from which succeeding years and later progress will be counted. It is so variously significant that the future alone can determine the ways in which it will touch and modify the life ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... of a quality; but neither has any absolute existence? But now we make the further discovery, that neither white or whiteness, nor any sense or sensation, can be predicated of anything, for they are in a perpetual flux. And therefore we must modify the doctrine of Theaetetus and Protagoras, by asserting further that knowledge is and is not sensation; and of everything we must say equally, that this is and is not, or becomes or becomes not. And still ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... Homeric tradition is affected by the recent discoveries made in Crete. The civilisation there unearthed raises questions of great interest; the problems it suggests are certain to modify current ideas ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... glorious company of immortal dead whose earthly frames are gathered in England's great mausoleum, there is no other one who has done so much to modify ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... to withhold food stuffs and raw materials from the Allies would be sufficient to protect legitimate commerce between the United States and the Central Powers. To this note Secretary Lansing replied at length. He held: (1) that the United States was under no obligation to change or modify the rules of international usage on account of special conditions. (2) He rejected what he construed to be the contention of the Austrian Government that "the advantages gained to a belligerent by its ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... dwellings of the ancient Egyptians, as if to check a too high standard. After he was gone, Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his; and her mind was much exercised with arguments drawn from the varying conditions of climate which modify human needs, and from the admitted wickedness of pagan despots. Should she not urge these arguments on Mr. Casaubon when he came again? But further reflection told her that she was presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject; he would not ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the same as it was when I started with the first years of James I."[155] The most important contribution to this portion of his period had been Spedding's edition of Bacon's Letters and Life. In a note to page 208 of his second volume he tells how Spedding's arguments have caused him to modify some of his statements, although the two regard the history of the seventeenth century differently. Writing this soon after the death of Spedding, to which he refers as "the loss of one whose mind was so acute and whose nature was so patient ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... at least some slight element of doubt. But we cannot have reason to reject a belief except on the ground of some other belief. Hence, by organizing our instinctive beliefs and their consequences, by considering which among them is most possible, if necessary, to modify or abandon, we can arrive, on the basis of accepting as our sole data what we instinctively believe, at an orderly systematic organization of our knowledge, in which, though the possibility of error remains, its likelihood is diminished ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... the great room was half filled with small tables. The few that resisted the seductive charms of the national card game continued to support the bar. Of these, Smallbones only remained long enough to air his spleen at the doctor's expense. But even he found it incumbent upon him to modify his tone. For one thing he received an unmerciful baiting from his companions, and besides, he knew, if he allowed his tongue to riot too far, how easy it would be for his denunciation to reach the strenuous doctor's ears. Gay and Wilkes left shortly ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... Hawes," was his reply, as he strode off down the lane. And he left me holding him in a strange sort of regard; he had flattered me and had hinted at a future generosity. Could it be that he intended to modify his evidence when again he should appear against Alf? A demonstrator of anatomy—and he could soothe a nerve as well as expose a muscle. I felt kindly toward him as I rode along, though blaming myself for my weakness. But I have never known a very large man who had ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... of holdings, combined with the decrease in the number of holders whose interests had to be consulted, made it easier than it had formerly been to modify the traditional routine of husbandry. Even though the new land acquired by tenants from the demesne or from old bond-holdings did not happen to be adjacent to strips already in their possession, exchange ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... so impassioned, so heedless of all save my mimic sorrow and the swing of the purple lines, that I could not bring myself to modify my voice, and the passers-by heard my shrill ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... undoubtedly, contribute to form the cause of that preference for particular qualities in objects by which the characteristics of the taste of different nations is discriminated. Although, of all the general circumstances which modify the opinions of mankind, climate is, perhaps, the most permanent, it does not, therefore, follow that, because the climate of France or Italy induces the inhabitants to prefer, in works of art, certain qualities of ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... into the street he looked about him for a cab, but was obliged to walk some distance before encountering one. In this little interval he saw no reason to modify the determination he had formed in descending the steep staircase of the Hotel de la Garonne; indeed the desire prompting it only quickened his pace. He had an hour to spare and would also go to see Madame Carre. If Miriam and her companion had proceeded ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... admitted, these are certain, whatever may be the space of time required for their realisation. A progression resembling development may be traced in human nature, both in the individual and in large groups of men. Not only so, but by the work of our thoughtful brains and busy hands we modify external nature in a way never known before. The physical improvements wrought by man upon the earth's surface I conceive as at once preparations for, and causes of, the possible development of higher types of humanity, beings less strong in the impulsive parts ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... observe that all questions of property are subordinate to the authority of civil laws, which extend, restrain, modify, and alter the rules of natural justice, according to the particular CONVENIENCE of each community. The laws have, or ought to have, a constant reference to the constitution of government, the manners, the climate, the religion, the commerce, the situation of each society. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... home, no place to which he could return as to his own. He found himself wishing that he had not torn up Cecily's letter; he remembered its general effect so well that he wanted to read the very words again, in the secret hope that they would modify and soften his memory. His own answer met and destroyed the hope; he knew that he would have responded to anything friendly, had ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... things, yielding fruits of increase. I don't mean that you should be at the mercy of a persuasive speaker, or of the last book you have read—but, on the other hand, to meet an interesting man or to read a suggestive book ought to modify your views a little. You ought to be elastic. The only thing that is never quite the same is opinion; and to be holding a ten years' old opinion simply means that you are stranded. There's nothing worse than to be high ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... photographs, however (those obtained by Mrs. Dupont Lee), further evidence has caused me to modify my belief in their supernormal value, and I should now attach no "evidential value" to them at all, strictly speaking. In an excellent criticism of the Lee photographs, published in the Proceedings, Amer. S.P.R., ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... not among his own Northern Democrats at Freeport? And yet it seemed to give him a keen pleasure to call his hearers "Black Republicans." "Not black," came from the crowd again and again, and once a man: shouted, "Couldn't you modify it and call it brown?" "Not a whit!" cried the Judge, and dubbed them "Yankees," although himself a Vermonter by birth. He implied that most of these ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of the Church is to govern a given subject, we must first ascertain how far it was of the exclusive cognizance of the Church; and, if we find that it was principally but not exclusively of ecclesiastical cognizance, how far the common law interfered to modify the ecclesiastical laws by which it was to ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... at hand. In the reign of Edward IV., Caxton, the earliest English printer, set up his press at Westminster, and the king and his nobles came to gaze at it as at some new toy, little knowing how profoundly it was to modify their methods of government. Henry VII. had enough to do without troubling himself with such matters. It was his part to close an epoch of English history, not to open a ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... is not healed with the same plaister: if the accessions of the disease be vehement, modify them with soft remedies: be in all things wise as a serpent, but harmless as ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake |
