"Potent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was a great and potent Prince, and during his stay at this place there used to be in his service none but beautiful girls, of whom he had a great number in his Court. When he went to take the air about the fortress, these girls used to draw him about in a little carriage which they could easily move, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... his bride, and the nuptials were consummated. Towards the close of night he arose, and having taken off her ring, put his own in its room on her finger, and wrote upon the palm of her hand, "I am called Alla ad Deen, the son of a potent sultan, who rules in Yemen; if thou canst come to me there, well; otherwise ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... directed, and could not help seeing the words, "Will of John Wilmot Liddell," and a date some seven or eight years back, inscribed upon it. She handed it to her uncle, arranging his pillows so that he might sit up more comfortably, while she rather wondered at the commonplace aspect of so potent an instrument. A will, she imagined, was something huge, of parchment, with ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... awkward weapon placed in the hands of his enemies by President Kruger himself—had been exposed and denounced as farcical, and it now required but little to convince the once admiring world of the President's real character and intentions. That little was forthcoming in a touch of ridicule more potent than all arguments. ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... and the sects of the Roman world admitted with equal credulity and similar abhorrence the reality of that infernal art which was able to control the eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs and execrable rites, which could extinguish or recall life, influence the passions of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant demons the secrets of Futurity. They believed with ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... his intention may have been, it was thwarted by the visitation of a power more potent than all the hosts of the King. Nature, herself, frowned upon him and his schemes and swept them all to ruin in the rush of angry waters. The rain that began the day Sir Aymer De Lacy made his forced ride from Sheffield to Lincoln had continued ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... lavished the treasures of the state; they were adorned with orders and titles, and the magnates bowed to the ground before these potent favorites of the all-powerful empress, and the people shouted with transport when their beloved czarina, with her magnificent train of newly-created noblemen, made her appearance in the streets, and with gracious smiles returned the humble salutations of ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... always be an affectation where there is an ideal. It is the worst sort of superficiality not to see the pressure of a general sentiment merely because it is always broken up by events; the Crusade itself, for example, is more present and potent as a dream even than as a reality. From the first Plantagenet to the last Lancastrian it haunts the minds of English kings, giving as a background to their battles a mirage of Palestine. So a devotion like ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... potent strengthener—then and afterward. With surprisingly little embarrassment she stood before her good-natured, sympathetic employer, and while Pat scraped out an accompaniment sang the pathetic story of the "maiden young ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... world which we inhabit. It sometimes seemed to him that this spirit was the most valuable possession he had; he thought that by means of it he could set flowering waste tracts of the earth, cure many ills, or raise up beauty where none now existed; it was, too, a fierce and potent spirit which would devour the dusty books and parchments on the office wall with one lick of its tongue, and leave him in a minute standing in nakedness, if he gave way to it. His endeavor, for many years, had been to control the spirit, and at the age of twenty-nine ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... poisonous mushrooms, the Amanita phalloides and the fly agaric, or Agaricus muscarius, are the most potent. The active principle of the former is phallin, and of the latter muscarine. The Amanita phalloides is distinguished from the common mushroom (Agaricus campestris) by having permanent white gills and a hollow stem. The Agaricus ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... fumigated out of the system as the evil spirit was driven from the bridal-chamber in the story of Tobit. The Doctor of earlier days, even as I can remember him, used to exorcise the demon of disease with recipes of odor as potent as that of the angel's diabolifuge,—the smoke from a fish's heart and liver, duly burned,—"the which smell when the evil spirit had smelled he fled into the uttermost parts of Egypt." The very moment that disease passes into the category of vital processes, and is recognized as an occurrence absolutely ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... their glorious Revolution: they trusted reason and have had their reward; no such leap forward has ever been made as France made in that one decade, and the effects are still potent. In the last hundred years the language of Moliere has grown fourfold; the slang of the studios and the gutter and the laboratory, of the engineering school and the dissecting table, has been ransacked for special terms to enrich and strengthen the language in order that it may ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... surely to be found in that of which I know we are all equally proud—community of race, language, literature, religion and institutions, together with the glorious traditions of a common history.... A racial federation between Britain and America would probably prove a potent factor in hastening the era of general disarmament.... The authority, more fortunate even than President Monroe, will lay impossible, and then it will be seen that every man who by rash action or hasty word makes the preservation of peace difficult has committed a crime not only ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... Adolphe fashion. His face is vile. The woman cries aloud and protects herself with her hands. In Marthe Baraquin, by Rosny senior, you will find the material for this picture, though Legrand found it years ago in the streets. Unpleasant, truly, yet a more potent sermon on man's cruelty to woman than may be found in a dozen preachments, fictions, or the excited outpourings at a feminist congress. Legrand presents the facts of the case without comment, except the irony—such dismal irony!—of the ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... against the propriety of allowing females the privilege of voting. I do this because I know from past experience that these popular objections, having no logical bearing upon the subject, are yet, practically, among the most potent arguments against the interpretation of the fourteenth amendment, which I consider the only one that its ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... Central Powers in the Western Hemisphere. The consequence was that within a very few months the cable censorship had transformed itself to a great extent out of an effective shield for defence into a potent weapon of attack. The measure of its services to the country will never be known, as some of its procedure cannot perhaps advantageously be disclosed. Its labours were unadvertised, and its praises remained unsung. But those who were behind ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... bit of philosophy to his memory for future use and set to work removing the heavy belt worn by the Earl. This, he knew, was another potent talisman, which could guard its wearer from physical harm ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... was an ominous circumstance, that we learned in a few days to designate the new master by a nickname, and that the name stuck—a misfortune which almost never befalls the truly superior man. He had, however, a certain dash of cleverness about him; and observing that I was of potent influence among my school-fellows, he set himself to determine the grounds on which my authority rested. Copy and arithmetic books, in schools in which there was liberty, used in those ancient times to be charged ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... telling a falsehood—and what reason could he have for doing so—it became evident that M. Lacheneur's conduct concealed some great mystery. Why, without some potent motive, should he have refused to give his daughter to Maurice d'Escorval whom she loved, to bestow her upon ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... and portrays an heroic scene of early days. There are other portraitures, in which perhaps a wandering lover is seen as a hero, to the lady's eyes, of these later times. On the outside of the structure are posted up by the hundred pictures of once woebegone ladies, now rejoicing in the potent influence of the Tamiya shrine to restore to them the strayed affections of husband or lover. Next in line is an open, shed-like structure. It is a poor chance if here the casual visitor does not encounter one or two of the petitioners, patiently trotting round in a circle from front to back, and ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... walk away with much stronger toward good, in the midst of a world which we never had entered and of which we never had dreamed before—shall we perversely put on again the old man of criticism, and dissemble that we have been conducted by a most beneficent and most potent genius? Nothing proves to me so manifestly in what a pestiferous condition are its lazarettos, as when I observe how little hath been objected against those who have substituted words for things, and how much against those who have ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... split into two shadows that stole closer, loomed before her. She could not tell which belonged to Jim till he touched her. His touch was potent. It seemed ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... people, brutish-looking peasants swilling neat spirits, cattle drovers and the like. I stood up at the bar and ordered a double noggin of Korn—a raw spirit made in these parts from potatoes, very potent but at least pure. A man in corduroys and leggings was drinking at the bar, a bluff sort of chap, who readily entered into conversation. A casual question of mine about the game conditions elicited from him the information ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... ourselves." She felt truly, and spoke sagaciously. Dumouriez, whose rapid glance had seen behind the Girondists a party stronger and bolder than their own, began from this time to connect himself with the leaders of the Jacobins. He thought, and with reason, that party hatred would be more potent than patriotism, and that by flattering the rivalry of Robespierre and Danton against Brissot, Petion, and Roland, he should find in the Jacobins themselves a support for the government. He liked the king, pitied the queen, and all his prejudices were in favour ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... walls widened, and the vault Swelled upward, like some vast cathedral dome, Such as the Florentine, who bore the name Of heaven's most potent angel, reared, long since, Or the unknown builder of that wondrous fane, The glory of Burgos. Here a garden lay, In which the Little People of the Snow Were wont to take their pastime when their tasks Upon the mountain's side ...
— The Little People of the Snow • William Cullen Bryant
... that in his recent college days his right punch had been a potent factor. In the gym it had come to be an unanswerable argument, and outside of the gym on one or two occasions—perhaps others might have been recalled—it was ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... Malone and the lieutenant, Fernando's rival, were rowing toward Duck Island fire or six miles away. The island was reached. It was a dismal affair little more than an elevated marsh. When the tide was out on Duck Island, its extended dreariness was potent. Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools and tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open bay were all hard facts. Occasionally, here and there, could be seen a few green tussocks, with their scant blades, their ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... in this part of the country, the neighborhood of the lake rejoices in the possession of a Cracker doctress of wondrous powers. Who but her knows that chapter in the book of Daniel the reading of which stays the flowing of blood, or that other chapter potent to extinguish forest-fires? One does not need a long residence in the State to learn to appreciate the good-fortune of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... omitted. He knew everything that a man on earth can know or imagine. Every invention already in existence or yet to be, was known to him, and much more; still everything on earth has a limit. The wise king Solomon was not half so wise as this man. He could govern the powers of nature and held sway over potent spirits; even Death itself was obliged to give him every morning a list of those who were to die during the day. And King Solomon himself had to die at last, and this fact it was which so often occupied ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... which legislation can be only palliative and of local efficiency. Public sentiment, on the other hand, if properly fostered in the schools, would gain force with the growth and development of our boys and girls, and would become a hundredfold more potent than any law enacted by the State or Congress. I believe such a sentiment can be developed, so strong and so universal that a respectable woman will be ashamed to be seen with the wing of a wild bird on her bonnet, and an honest boy will be ashamed to own ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... relates to the question of ability to sustain heavy financial burdens, England, in 1815, can hardly be compared for a moment with a country like our own, possessing as it does, in abundance and perfection, the potent agencies of productive and distributing power just ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... her silver sisters, resembling as they do delicate and fragile foolish ware that sells itself in a market created by its own vanity, where false coin passes easily without detection, and is even more potent and valuable than true. And yet in her case, flattery is very easy, for the grossest is only ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... arrive. As the want of these and the presence of the enemy's ironclads had been the reasons which, in Farragut's opinion, had made necessary the postponement of the purely naval part of the combined operation, a short description of the vessels which formed so potent an element in his calculations will not ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... abnormal means, had infected all ranks from the highest to the lowest; and such symptoms, when they appear, are a sure evidence of approaching disorder, for they are an evidence of a present madness which has brought down wisdom to a common level with folly. At such times, the idlest fancy is more potent with the mind than the soundest arguments of reason. The understanding abdicates its functions; and men are given over, as if by magic, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... construction, with a colonnaded porch in scale and keeping with the body of the basilica, it offers to the eye of wonder the actual spectacle of that unstinted outlay of riches which has filled Rome with its multitudes of pious monuments—monuments mainly ugly, but potent with the imagination even in their ugliness through the piety of their origin. Where did ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... happened to her? she wondered vaguely—she realised it all fully, completely, yet with no thrill of gladness. Something subtly potent seemed wound about her heart, holding her back; something that was stronger far than the thought of Jim was calling to her, crying aloud across the barren deserts of her soul. And in that moment she knew that her marriage with Jim had become a final impossibility, and that it was imperative ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... or recompenses!"—Coupled with the physical needs which requires a certain amount of ease and of daily food, and which, if too strenuously opposed, produces passing jacqueries, there is a still more potent longing which, on suddenly encountering its object, seizes on it, clings to it, gorges it, and produces revolutions that last: this longing is the desire to contemplate one-self with satisfaction and complacency, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... by the aurora borealis. Thus the months went by until the middle of May arrived, and the ptarmigan began to appear. A considerable number were shot, their flesh having a beneficial effect on the crew. Under the snow was found an abundance of sorrel, a most potent antidote against scurvy. Footsteps of deer were seen, the animals evidently moving northwards. As soon as the cold decreased, the commander made an excursion across Melville Island, on which the vegetable productions were dwarf ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... his hopeless love which has just been mentioned. And another and no less potent cause which tended to deepen and intensify this spirit of inward dissatisfaction was the delay that occurred between his passing his entrance examination into the legal profession in July, 1795, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... repetition of his advice to keep quiet, he departed. I could scarcely suppress a smile in his presence. Little did he dream of the remedy which had banished my fever—cold baths and excitement had produced an effect upon me far more potent than ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... Praise exercises an all-potent influence, not only upon the feelings, but also upon the intellect; so that under the influence of that agreeable sensation I straightway felt much cleverer than before, and thoughts began to rush with extraordinary rapidity ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... comes to the fore: back to the sources! It is not merely an intellectual, philological requirement; it is equally an ethical and aesthetic necessity of life. The original and pure, all that is not yet overgrown or has not passed through many hands, has such a potent charm. Erasmus compared it to an apple which we ourselves pick off the tree. To recall the world to the ancient simplicity of science, to lead it back from the now turbid pools to those living and most pure fountain-heads, those most limpid sources of gospel doctrine—thus he saw ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... heart of Ireland has sunk the sense of the degradation wrought upon its people—our lost brothers and sisters—so deep and humiliating that no agency less potent than the red tide of war on Irish soil will ever be able to enable the Irish race to recover its self-respect, or establish its national dignity in the face of a world horrified and scandalized by what must seem to ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... this the "therapeutic test." It has been proved that the state of piety possesses a direct curative value through its capacity to exhilarate or pacify, according to the needs of a disordered mind. As a potent form of suggestion, it lends itself to the uses of psychiatry; it may be medicinally employed as ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... him; he would be gone to bed by this time, tired of waiting; and they would send and invite him to breakfast. To Matilda's surprise, and as well to her huge delight, she saw that David was won by the influence that had long been so potent with her, and made no very great opposition. Miss Redwood was called in to prayers, and after that the little family separated for ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... by that wretchedly false Irishman whom he had trusted with all the confidence of a candid nature and an open heart! He had been most treacherously misused! Treachery was no adequate word for the injury inflicted on him. The more potent is a man, the less accustomed to endure injustice, and the more his power to inflict it,—the greater is the sting and the greater the astonishment when he himself is made to suffer. Newspaper editors sport daily with the names of men of whom they do ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... abhorrence, the reality of that infernal art, which was able to control the eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant daemons the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest inconsistency, that this preternatural ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... during the season, and with every meeting her witchery over Joe had become more potent. He had stolen a glove from her during one of his visits to Goldsboro, her home town in the South, and during the exciting games of the last World's Series he had worn it close to his heart when he had pitched his team ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... extinction of the home-cult.... In other respects the later codes allow of individual liberty unknown in previous generations. But the ordinary person would not dream of attempting to claim a legal right opposed to common opinion. Family and public sentiment are still more potent than law. The Japanese newspapers frequently record tragedies resulting from the prevention or dissolution of unions; and these tragedies afford strong proof that most young people would prefer even suicide to the probable consequence of a successful appeal to law ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... spirit; the brilliant eyes that had captivated a million hearts, were dimmed and bloodshot; the once noble brain, which had used its hundred gifts with equal success and ability, was deprived of all power of acting; the tongue, whose potent spell had entranced thousands, was scarcely able to articulate. Alas, and a thousand times alas! that man can thus mar his Maker's work, and stamp ruin and wretchedness where a wealth of mental power had ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... that matter were anything but novel—which it sought to propagate, nor in the institutions which it sought to found. The people cares very little for institutions and even less for doctrines. That the Revolution was potent indeed, that it made France accept the violence, the murders, the ruin and the horror of a frightful civil war, that finally it defended itself victoriously against a Europe in arms, was due to the fact that it had founded not a new system ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... potent, grave, and reverend signiors, My very noble and approv'd good masters, That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, It is most true; true, I have married her: The very head and front of my offending Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... camping circle, in the phratries, in the ceremonials, and in many other ways, served to commemorate intertribal as well as intergentile relations, and thus to promote peace and harmonious action. It is significant that the taboo was less potent among the Siouan Indians than among some other stocks, and that among some tribes it has not been found; and it is especially significant that in some instances the taboo was apparently inversely related to kin-naming and ordination, ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... gloomy death, with all his meagre train; Wide o'er the nations spreads his iron reign! Sea, earth, and air, the bounteous ravage mourn, And all their hosts to native dust return! Again thy glorious quickning influence shed, The glad creation rears its drooping head: New rising forms, thy potent smiles obey, And life re-kindles at the genial ray; United thanks replenish'd nature pays, And heaven and earth resound their ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... the wonderful changes wrought by Emancipation, I am more and more constrained to believe that the reasons, which years ago led me to aid the bondman and preserve the records of his sufferings, are to-day quite as potent in convincing me that the necessity of the times requires ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... special help to the financial Hercules of the day. A question, perhaps of no great practical importance, had occurred to Mr. Palliser,—but one which, if overlooked, might be fatal to the ultimate success of the measure. There is so much in a name,—and then an ounce of ridicule is often more potent than a hundredweight of argument. By what denomination should the fifth part of a penny be hereafter known? Some one had, ill-naturedly, whispered to Mr. Palliser that a farthing meant a fourth, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... of the graduates returns to direct the athletic affairs of his Alma Mater, or those of another college he naturally becomes a potent influence in the life of the students. Great is his opportunity for character making. The men all look up to him and the spirit of hero worship is present everywhere. Such athletic directors are chosen largely because of their success on the athletic field. And when one ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... with a new reverence for truth and goodness, may be forgotten. The memory may not now cherish the look, the smile of approbation, which strengthened the heart, when it was struggling against the foe within; but its influence was none the less potent. "It is the last pound which breaks the camel's back;" and that look, that smile, may have closed the door of the heart against a whole legion of evil spirits, and thus turned a life of woe and bitterness into a life ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... teach the creature Greek, as a diversion. She seems to be about twelve years old, and has the makings of a wonderful character. In the summer you had better come down and pay me a visit, if you are not too busy with your potent ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... As then the dreams and terrors of the night Decamp, so from my mind were driven All its own thoughts and feelings. Close she leant Propped on a swarthy arm, while the other helped With eloquent gesture potent as wizard wand, Veil the world off as with an airy web, Or flowing tent a-gleam with pictured folds. These tauten and distend—one sea of wheat, Islanded with black cities, borders now The voluminous blue pavilion of day. There-under to the nearest of those towns This ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... wire-pullers behind the scenes can as securely anticipate the obedience of their agents, as the members of the bureaux in any cabinet in Europe can look with confidence to the compliance of their subordinates. Party is the most potent despot of the times. Its very irresponsibility gives it an energy and weight that overshadows the regular action of government. And thus it is, that we hear men, in their places in the national legislature, boasting of their allegiance to its interests ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... histories of the Jews offered no fit material for dramatic representation. In his view the Jews never created dramatic poetry, partly because of the Mosaic prohibition against plastic delineation of their Deity, partly because the tragic element, which was so potent an influence in the development of the Greek drama, was wanting in their heroes. The theory that the Song of Songs, that canticle of canticles of love, was a pastoral play had no lodgment in his mind; the poem seemed less dramatic to him than the Book of Job. The ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... earthquake, faulty construction and defective materials were responsible for much of the damage caused by the Riviera earthquake. But, if we may judge from the sharp local variations in its amount, the nature of the surface-rocks must have exerted a still more potent influence. At Cervo, for example, the injury to property amounted to less than 3 per head of the population; at Diano Marina, only two or three miles to the west, it rose to 22 per head. The death-rate at Cervo was about ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... long before he had arrived half-way, "nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita," when more than one other great intellect has been but commencing its true work. I believe, that, if Shelley had lived, he would himself have been the most potent and useful commentator on his own writings, in the production of other and more complete works. But meanwhile the true measure of his genius is to be found in the influence which he has had, not only over those who have proclaimed their debt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... with him. I kissed the ground; and laying my hand upon my head, signified that I was ready to receive that honor. He won the first game; but I won the second and third; and perceiving he was somewhat displeased at my success, I made a stanza to pacify him, in which I told him that two potent armies had been fighting furiously all day, but that they concluded a peace toward the evening, and passed the remaining part of the night very amicably together upon the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... was well known in every dusky Northwold lane or alley, where she always found or made a welcome for herself. The kindly counsel and ready hand were more potent than ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Bismarck had greeted as among the greatest men of the age, it may well have seemed flatly inconceivable that this insignificant little Swiss diplomatist could long refuse the alliance he proposed. Yet stronger and more potent may have been the feeling—although of this there is no positive evidence extant—that the social movement which he had so much at heart could not well endure a further scandal. The Hatzfeldt story had been used against him frequently ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... have reserved for the last the most potent and forcible cause of destruction, the domestic hostilities of the Romans themselves. Under the dominion of the Greek and French emperors, the peace of the city was disturbed by accidental tho frequent seditions: it is from the decline of the latter, from the beginning of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... mood. She slept poorly and was so pale and tragic at breakfast next morning that Marilla was alarmed and insisted on making her take a cup of scorching ginger tea. Anne sipped it patiently, although she could not imagine what good ginger tea would do. Had it been some magic brew, potent to confer age and experience, Anne would have swallowed a quart ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... patron, co-equal in praise —Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the aegis and spear! Also ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer, Now, henceforth and forever,—O latest to whom I upraise Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock! Present to help, potent to save, ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... of his game and pleasantly cheered by the potent draught, thought that he had never ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... day, when I called on Rumanika, the spoils were brought into court, and in utter astonishment he said, "Well, this must have been done with something more potent than powder, for neither the Arabs nor Nnanaji, although they talk of their shooting powers, could have accomplished such a great feat as this. It is no wonder the English are the greatest men in ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... injury which sin has done to God. Given such conditions, and we need only speak the word to God's duly appointed minister and our sins are no more. The dark veil which hung around the soul like a cloud is lifted, and we again rejoice in the smile of our heavenly Father. How simple, yet how potent are the means provided for our salvation! None but God could have thought of them, nothing but the love of God could have ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... most potent magic—gold, Leroy quickly procured a carriage, old and dusty; but a veritable thing of beauty in such a strait as this. He meant to get to Hampton, and from there use his own motor. He hastened back to the little ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... magic couldn't produce any needed device and since the people here had depended on magic too long to develop the other necessary skills. When only the broadest powers of magic remained, they were hopeless. Names were still potent, resonance worked within its limits, and the general principles of similarity still applied; but those were not enough for them. They depended too heavily on the second great principle of contagion, and that seemed to be wrapped up with some kind of association through ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... we will reputt yow, be ye assured." At which wordis, the faythless man effrayed, adjudgeed the innocentis to dye, according to the desyre of the wicked. The meak and gentill Jerome Russall conforted the other with many confortable sentences, oft saying unto him, "Brother, fear nott: more potent is He that is in us, then is hie that is in the world: The pane that we shall suffer is schorte, and shalbe lycht; but our joy and consolatioun shall never have end: And thairfoir lett us contend to enter in unto our Maister and Saveour, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... its satisfaction on what is utterly beyond its sway, on praise and admiration. These stimulants—withdrawn more or less even from the most successful in latter years—leave a void which becomes the very nursery of ennui, or even of self-disgust. Instead of glory being "the potent motive-power in all great souls," as M. Sainte-Beuve approvingly quotes, it is, with a surer moral ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... statement. He has always been an opponent of the "Company Store" system; now he sees that it is likely to be the potent factor in ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... motives of the chiefs; But in the public life the seeds of war Their hold had taken, such as are the doom Of potent nations: and when fortune poured Through Roman gates the booty of a world, The curse of luxury, chief bane of states, Fell on her sons. Farewell the ancient ways! Behold the pomp profuse, the houses ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... "without any doubt would undertake the cause most earnestly." His councillors, also—even those who had been most active in dissuading his Majesty from such a policy—would then be unanimous in supporting the annexation of the Provinces and the war with Spain. In such a contingency, with the potent assistance of Holland and Zeeland, the King would have little difficulty, within a very short time, in chasing every single Spaniard out of the Netherlands. To further this end, many leading personages in France avowed to the envoys their determination "to venture their lives and their fortunes, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the galley, contemplating it in the glassy waves below. Just at this moment the illustrious sun, breaking in all his splendor from behind a high bluff of the Highlands, did dart one of his most potent beams full upon the refulgent nose of the sounder of brass, the reflection of which shot straightway down hissing hot into the water, and killed a mighty sturgeon that was sporting beside the vessel. When this astonishing ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... expressing my cordial gratitude and hearty thanks to the Press in general, which has received my Eastern studies and contributions to Oriental knowledge in the friendliest and most sympathetic spirit, appreciating my labours far beyond the modicum of the offerer's expectation and lending potent and generous aid to place them before the English world in the fairest and most favourable point of view. To number a small proportion of "black sheep" is no shame for a flock amounting to myriads: such exceptional varieties must be bred for the use and delectation ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... every spark of rising heresy, and given over a noble nation to bigotry, dark, blind, inexorable as the doom of fate. Linked with pride, ambition, avarice, every passion of a rich, strong nature, potent for good and ill, it made the Spaniard of that day a scourge as dire ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... into the hand of her from whom I look for indulgence, life and pity, and which now constrains me to make known to you the love that I have so long concealed, for neither my heart nor I can now control this potent God.' ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... headquarters in St. Louis. The administration of the Treasury Department, especially the Internal Revenue Bureau, was permeated with corruption. The worst feature of it all was that officers who desired to be upright found themselves powerless against the intrigues and the potent political influence of the rascals at the headquarters of executive authority. When the evidence of wrongdoing accumulated by the new Secretary of the Treasury was laid before the President he was dumfounded by its wickedness and extent, but showed himself ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... and said, "Oh, that is Mark Twain." I do not remember just how their instant encounter was contrived by Arnold's wish; but I have the impression that they were not parted for long during the evening, and the next night Arnold, as if still under the glamour of that potent presence, was at ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... for an instant only, the two stood together on the narrow beam, Garstin a shrinking form, his every limb shaken by something more potent than the gusty wind, his face turned anywhere but downwards. Trevannion did not hold him, but his hand rested reassuringly on the other's quivering arm. For an instant only, and then Garstin was pushed on to the firm bank again and hurried ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... answer; everyone knew Patsy, who was almost as much a part of Dry Lake scenery as was Old Dock, and it was gratifying to a Flying-U man to see the sympathy in their faces. But Patsy needed something more potent than sympathy, and the minutes ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... sounds like an invisible express train thundering through the sky above you. The solitude and the silence assume an oppressive significance. They are only the garment of the mighty mystery that envelops you. You feel that these dead walls have ears, eyes, and most potent voices, that you are not in the midst of a great loneliness, but that all around the earth is full of most tremendous secrets. And then you realise that the city that is as dead as Nineveh to the outward eye is the most ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... roused; you have the secret of awakening that expression you will, and you can choose amongst that pleasant variety. With you she will sit silent as long as it suits you to talk alone; you can hold her under a potent spell: intelligent as she is, eloquent as she can be, you can seal her lips, and veil her bright countenance with diffidence; yet, you know, she is not all monotonous mildness; you have seen, with a sort ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... to undertake it is to lose caste in the class to which they belong. We may call this fantastic idea "vanity" or "false pride," or what we will; but that does not do anything to banish it, or to render it less potent for mischief. Seeing that so much is at stake—that employers are clamouring for servants, and that women are sadly in want of some occupation which would lessen competition and raise wages in the sewing business—it is evident that ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... acknowledging the potent influences at work, and accepting these representative utterances, it may yet be asked by the incredulous—What of the inherent conservatism, the proverbial tenacity of India? Is there really any perceptible and significant change ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... changes, migrations, and movements of the people as described in Mr. Stephen's account. These changes were due to a variety of causes, such as disease, death, the frequent warfare carried on between different tribes and branches of the builders, and the hostility of outside tribes; but a most potent factor was certainly the inhospitable character of their environment. The disappearance of some venerated spring during an unusually dry season would be taken as a sign of the disfavor of the gods, and, in spite of the massive ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... with the results of our labor. By far the most important part of my work, in the estimation of the Indians at least, was the concoction of "medicine," or mystery in which my master and myself were supposed to be all potent The red men are slaves to superstition, and in order to gain control over them it is absolutely necessary to profess a thorough intimacy with everything that is mysterious and supernatural. They believe ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... suffused with wrath at the pleasantry, and he regarded him with a fixed stare. On board the Conqueror there was a witchery in that glance more potent than the spoken word, but in his own parlour the new captain ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... a much more potent influence than either Spenser or the metaphysical school. He learned his blank verse from the dramatists. Perhaps he took the subject of Comus from the Old Wives' Tale of George Peele; and when he set ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... modifications are inherited" (p. 108). [And on the following pages he gives five further examples of such effects.] "Habit in producing constitutional peculiarities and use in strengthening and disuse in weakening and diminishing organs, appear in many cases to have been potent in their effects" (p. 131). "When discussing special cases, Mr. Mivart passes over the effects of the increased use and disuse of parts, which I have always maintained to be highly important, and have treated in my 'Variation ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... wasn't responsible for the shaking of the candle. His hand shook as the shadows shook, as the thing on the bed shook. The sense of loneliness grew upon him until it became complete, appalling. For the first time he understood that loneliness can possess a ponderable quality. It was, he felt, potent and active in the room—a thing he couldn't ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... the principle of evaluation, and the difficulty under many circumstances of applying it, is the source of commercial fraud, and one of the most potent causes ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... this paper without expressing the conviction that history has not yet done justice to the share borne by colored soldiers in the war for the Union. Their conduct during that eventful period, has been a silent, but most potent factor in influencing public sentiment, shaping legislation, and fixing the status of colored people in America. If the records of their achievements could be put into such shape that they could be accessible to the thousands of colored youth in the South, they would kindle ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... was so wise and knew so many potent spells that he had power over evil such as no man has had before or since, set himself to work to put those enemies of mankind out of the way. Some he conjured into bottles, and sank into the depths of the sea; some he buried in the earth; some he destroyed altogether, as one burns hair ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... once in existence, varieties obey the fundamental law of reproduction that like tends to produce like; and their offspring exemplify it by tending to exhibit the same deviation from the parental stock as themselves. Indeed, there seems to be, in many instances, a pre-potent influence about a newly-arisen variety which gives it what one may call an unfair advantage over the normal descendants from the same stock. This is strikingly exemplified by the case of Gratio Kelleia, who married a woman with ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... will also mark that these priests are inclined to think that the act of sacrifice, the offering of, say, certain oblations in a particular manner with particular words accompanying them, is in itself potent, quite apart from the psalms which they sing over it, that it has a magic power of its own over the machinery of nature.[1] Really this is no new idea of our Vedic priests; ten thousand years before them their remote forefathers believed it and acted upon it, and if for example ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... lofty trees that bent not with the weight of the panther. The young hunter married the maiden for whose sake he would have killed the old white owl; their children were many and good; and the hunter himself had become head chief of the Unamis or Turtles, the most potent tribe of Delawares, and who reckon themselves the parent of all other Indians. They had fought many great battles; they had warred with the nations of the North and the South, the East, and the West, with the Shawanos of the Burning Water[A], the Mengwe of the Great Lakes, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... motive, the mission, of the conservatory system in this country, inasmuch as organized is more potent than individual effort to elevate our national taste, to prepare the way for the future artist, that he may be born under the right conditions, his divine gift fostered and directed to become worthy of its exalted destiny. Already centuries old in Europe, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... to quite another aspect of the Terre Napoleon story, and one which to many readers will be more fruitful in interest. An investigation of the work of Baudin's expedition on the particular stretch of coast to which was applied the name of the most potent personage in modern history has necessarily demanded close application to geographical details, and a minute scrutiny of claims and occurrences. We enter into a wider historical realm when we begin to consider the motives ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... a sigh at the remembrance of all her books and boxes, and various comforts there. By degrees the girls came to spend the chief of the morning upstairs, at first only in working and talking, but after a few days, the remembrance of the said books grew so potent and stimulative that Fanny found it impossible not to try for books again. There were none in her father's house; but wealth is luxurious and daring, and some of hers found its way to a circulating library. She became a subscriber; ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... coursing hares, as with water-dogs in swimming—and the want of exercise, in the case of lapdogs—must have produced some direct effect on their structure and instincts. But we shall immediately see that the most potent cause of change has probably been the selection, both methodical and unconscious, of slight individual differences,—the latter kind of selection resulting from the occasional preservation, during hundreds of generations, of those individual dogs which were the most useful to man for certain ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... story of Don Rafael's life, instead of my own, I might give an interesting and instructive narrative, which showed,—as he alleged,—how those potent controllers of outlaws,—"circumstances,"—had changed him from a very respectable soldier of fortune into a genuine buccaneer. He asserted that my uncle had been his schoolmate and professional companion in the old world. When the war of South American independence demanded ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... without reason that the best thing to do would be to give Kate a chance for a long private talk with her father. Her influence would be more potent than any he ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... the effect of his words was more potent on her than if he had not accused her by indirection. Still she ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... to familiarize names, having never been equaled by any successor. He was, in fact, the very man fitted by nature to retrieve the desperate fortunes of her beloved province, had not the Fates, those most potent and unrelenting of all ancient spinsters, destined ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... news he presents and his manner of presenting it, by the iteration of an idea until it becomes familiar, by the reading-matter selected, and by the quotations of opinions as news, and not professedly to influence the reader. And this influence is all the more potent because it is indirect, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the roadside, and lay there till morning, when they woke, declaring, as did the monks, that they had been all bewitched. They knew not—and happily the lower orders, both in England and on the Continent, do not yet know—the potent virtues of that strange fungus, with which Lapps and Samoiedes have, it is said, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... good humour, was meekly stupid, and, when in bad humour, was sulkily stupid. Yet the Queen, whose kindness had endeared her to her humblest attendants, would hardly have made an enemy of one whom it was her duty and her interest to make a friend, had not an influence strangely potent and strangely malignant been incessantly at work to divide the Royal House against itself. The fondness of the Princess for Lady Marlborough was such as, in a superstitious age, would have been ascribed to some talisman or potion. Not only had the friends, in their ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... being an artist myself! It stands out of the path with such names as Dickens, Dumas, Byron—not indeed that I am claiming for him an equal rank with those immortals, who wielded a weapon so much more potent than a mere caricaturist's pencil! But if an artist's fame is to be measured by the mere quantity and quality of the pleasure he has given, what pinnacle is too ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... stranger than fiction, and the simple story of the boys of the gallant "Yankee," as set forth in the diary of Number Five of the After Port Gun, should appeal to the heart of every reader in this great country of ours—a country made grander and better and more potent in the world's history by the achievements of such brave lads as those who formed the crew of the "Yankee." Number Five's diary was written simply for his family, but the fame gained by the "Yankee" ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... such a supposition. Among men, in spite of the occasional existence of the petty professional jealousies and antagonism, we find, viewing society as a whole, that common interests, and above all common labours, are the most potent means of bringing them into close and friendly relations; and, in fact, they seem generally essential for the formation of the closest and most permanent human friendships. In every walk of human life, whether trade, or profession, we find men associating by choice mainly with, and entertaining ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... great book. It seems to me, for example, as if no one who read here the too brief extracts from Erasmus or from Cervantes, to take at random two writers widely separated in thought, could fail to pursue the acquaintance thus begun, so potent are the sympathetic charm, the wit, the wisdom and the humor of both these great men. There is, at least, variety in these little volumes, and while many things in them may not appeal to us, they may to our neighbors. That which "is dumb to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... influence, so potent on his life as that of his sister, was itself a great event. There had been between them from the cradle, which, it may be said, they had shared, a strong and perfect sympathy. They had experienced ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... order to lay in a sufficient spirituous supply was reluctantly given, and in due time we started, one of our train of pack-horses having on each side of the saddle large demijohns of the fluid which was to be so potent for diplomatic purposes. At the close of the first day's travel, just as our hammocks had been swung, I heard a scream and saw the people of our own and neighboring huts snatching cups and glasses and running pell-mell toward the point where our ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... to see that though Burns admired unaffectedly the "classic" writers, his native realism and his melody made him a potent agent in the cause of naturalism and romance. In his ideas, even more than in his style, he belongs to the oncoming school. The French Revolution, which broke upon Europe when he was at the height of his ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... production, in its modern significance, was born of the industrial revolution in England in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The great inventions of that period were both its father and its mother, while, as Mr. Brooks Adams has shown, the looted treasure of India was the potent midwife. Had there not been an unwonted increase of capital, the impetus would not have been given to invention, while even steam might have languished for generations instead of at once becoming, as it did, the most prominent factor ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... cuttings of hair or clippings of nails are enough to put their owner magically in your power; and that is the reason why, if you are a prudent person, you will always burn all such off-castings of your body, lest haply an enemy should get hold of them, and cast the evil eye upon you with their potent aid. In the same way, if you can lay hands upon anything that once belonged to an elf, such as a fairy-bolt or flint arrowhead, you can get its former possessor to do anything you wish by simply rubbing it and calling upon him to appear. This is the secret of half the charms and amulets ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... garret of a country home can ever forget its mysterious charm. But I must remember that I am writing of flowers, and leave the captivating subject of garrets. Multitudes of potent herbs may now be found in the woods, by the road-side, everywhere: tansy, camomile, wormwood, everlasting, wild basil, lavender, germander, pennyroyal, spearmint, balm, peppermint, horehound, hyssop, thyme, rosemary, sage, wild bergamot, catnip, motherwort, ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... minor concertos are frequently heard because of the chances afforded the solo player. I have written elsewhere at length of the Klindworth, Tausig and Burmeister versions of the two concertos. As time passes I see no reason for amending my views on this troublous subject. Edgar S. Kelly holds a potent brief for the original orchestration, contending that it suits the character of the piano part. Rosenthal puts this belief into practice by playing the older version of the E minor with the first long tutti curtailed. But he is not consistent, for he uses ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... This vast and potent organization is based upon the principle of trade homogeneity—namely, that each trade is primarily interested in its own particular affairs but that all trades are interested in those general matters which affect all laboring men as a class. To combine effectually these ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... Hall; Margaret of Richmond, mother of King Henry VII., Christ's and St. John's Colleges, about 1506; Thomas Audley, Chancellor of England, Magdalen College, much increased since both in buildings and revenue by Christopher Wray, Lord Chief Justice; and the most potent King Henry VIII. erected Trinity College for religion and polite letters—in its chapel is the tomb of Dr. Whitacre, with an inscription in gold letters upon marble; Emanuel College, built in our own times by the most honourable and prudent Sir Walter Mildmay, one ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... every charity and organized entertainments of a fantastic extravagance which whetted the appetite of society, grown jaded with all the old ways. The men of all ages flocked round her, and she played with them all—ambassadors, politicians, guardsmen, all drawn by her own potent charm, and she disarmed criticism by her stupidity and good nature, and the lavish amusements she provided for every one—while the chef they had brought over with them from Paris would have ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... experience, vast powers of work, and decided views naturally obtained great influence with his superiors; and that such an influence was potent became generally believed among persons interested in and often aggrieved by the policy of the Government. Stephen was nicknamed as 'King Stephen,' or 'Mr. Over-Secretary Stephen,' or 'Mr. Mother-Country ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... un-Christian pomp and arrogance of ruling prelates, the mean cruelty of William of Noellet in refusing to allow corn to be imported from the Papal States in Tuscany in time of famine, the harshness and lack of tact in the policy of Gregory toward his unsatisfactory children, were all forces potent to destroy among the rebels any strong sense of committing a religious crime in their opposition to the Church. Catherine stands as mediator between the two parties. Not for a moment condoning the sin of a rebellion heinous indeed ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... gave evidence of great excitement as the services progressed; the deep solemnity of the prayers, and the devout strains of Christian song, took powerful hold of the red man's feelings. Doubtless he understood little of the scene in which, for the first time, he mingled; but a potent influence went along with it, and so affected was he, that his hand sought Tom's, and he held it in a strong, tender grasp till the meeting closed, his frame trembling with emotion. And yet Tom could not converse with him afterwards; and what the nature of the emotion ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... the prisoners, turned upon the braves, with blazing eyes, violently throwing out his hands with the gesture of breaking bonds. Like all sudden demonstrations of undemonstrative men, it was extravagant, weird, and theatrical. But it was more potent than speech—the speech that, even if effective, would still have betrayed him to his countrymen. The braves hurriedly cut the thongs of the prisoners; another impulsive gesture from Elijah, and they, too, fled. When he lifted his eyes cautiously from ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... boast of, but harmless. For the further cheapness promised we next ordered it by the case, one of red and one of white—a rare bargain we thought. But in the end it was the most expensive wine it has ever been our misfortune to invest in. For when it came in cases it was so potent that nobody could drink as much as a glass without going to sleep. I never had it analyzed, but, after a couple of bottles, I did not dare to put it on the table again, or to use it even for cooking or as vinegar. To balance our accounts, we did without wine of any kind, or at ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... seriousness, Julius returned the volume of St. Augustine to its place, and, sitting down at the writing-table prepared to chronicle the day's events. Perhaps by putting a statement of them on paper he could rid himself of their all too potent influence. But his thought was tumultuous, words refused to come in proper order and sequence; and Julius abhorred that erasures should mar the symmetry of his pages. Impatiently he pushed the diary from him. Clearly it, like the City of God, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... in all parts, even in foreign nations, for that service. Amasis, at that time king of Egypt, and the Grecian inhabitants of his country, contributed considerable sums towards it. The Alcmaeonidae, a potent family of Athens, took upon themselves the conduct of the building, and made it more magnificent, by considerable additions of their own, than had been proposed in ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... Western waters. Though the naval battles in the Atlantic were perhaps more brilliant, he says, none, unless that between the Merrimac and the Monitor, had more important results. Eads has been called as potent as a great general in clearing the upper Mississippi. He did not, to be sure, build the entire gunboat fleet, but he did build, as Captain Mahan says, the backbone of it; and that the praises for that ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... it was, bore a good result. When Adam met him, and inquired what doom had been decreed against him, Cain told how his repentance had propitiated God, and Adam exclaimed, "So potent is repentance, and I knew it not!" Thereupon he composed a hymn of praise to God, beginning with the words, "It is a good thing to confess thy ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... him a son of the heather-crowned mountains and a descendant of the proud races that scorned the "Sassenach," and retained sufficient of the material whereof their early Phoenician ancestors were made to be capable of both the extremes of hate and love in their most potent forms. He moved slowly towards the group of men awaiting his approach with a reserved air of something like hauteur; it was possible he was conscious of his good looks, but it was equally evident that he did not desire to be made the object of impertinent ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... not anxious; we are quite prepared. Sheathed though our claws may be, they're always sharp. Pray drink again, nor fear the potent touch That snatches back the life when the spent heart, Oppressed by cruel tasks, as yours, can ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... device was to hold Granger conventions in state capitals while the legislature was sitting and thus to bring personal pressure in the interest of their favorite bills. This method of suasion is an extremely potent political force and explains the fact that, in certain States where the Granges were most powerful, they had practically everything their own way in ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... An equally potent cause for his resignation was the meagreness of his salary of $3500. It was wholly insufficient and his estate was going to ruin. He yearned to return to his beloved pursuit, that ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... crowds; he breathed the incense of his fame; he adored that life long dreamed of; radiant, he sprang to radiant triumphs; he raised his stature; he evoked his illusions to bid them farewell in a last Olympic feast. The magic had been potent for a moment; but now it vanished forever. In that awful hour he clung to the beautiful tree to which, as to a friend, he had attached himself; then he put the two stones into the pockets of his overcoat, which he buttoned ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... Heaven the Royal Blessing, speaking thus: "For this cause may the blessing, Sire of kings, Cleave to thy seed forever! Spear and sword Before them fall! In glory may the race Of Nafrach's sons, Aengus, and Aileel, Hold sway on Cashel's summit! Be their kings Great-hearted men, potent to rule and guard Their people; just to judge them; warriors strong; Sage counsellors; faithful shepherds; men of God, That so through them the everlasting King May flood their land with blessing." Thus he spake; And round him all that ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... law which pervaded older and more civilized communities.... Young men who had learned to believe that the roughs were destined to rule and who, under the influence of that faith, were fast drifting into crime shrunk appalled before the thorough work of the Vigilantes. Fear, more potent than conscience, forced even the worst of men to observe the requirements of society, and a feeling of comparative security among all ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... place against the best value of my son's life the paltry value of a safe? And can I say, until time has told me, whether this trip of yours could not possibly have been better? Such an experience is as potent for evil as for good. One dollar is exactly like another—there are many in the world: but no Joe is like my Joe, nor can there be any others in the world to take his place. Don't you see, Joe? ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... motives which were then predominant in her soul would maintain their ruling force for ever. And many months went by before she suspected that her imagination had deceived her; imagination, ever the most potent factor of her being, the source alike of her strength and her weakness. But there came a day when the poignancy of her grief was subdued, and she looked around her upon a world more desolate than that in which she found herself on the day ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... French officers, and they too looked at the island, but the fleeing canoe danced on the crest of a high wave and its call was potent in the souls of white men and red alike. It was still too far away for them to tell that it was empty. Sudden fear assailed them in the darkness, that it would escape and with it the three who had eluded them so often, and whom they wanted most to take. ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... religion, but somehow Middlemarch tolerated this deficiency in him as if he had been a Lord Chancellor; indeed it is probable that his professional weight was the more believed in, the world-old association of cleverness with the evil principle being still potent in the minds even of lady-patients who had the strictest ideas of frilling and sentiment. It was perhaps this negation in the Doctor which made his neighbors call him hard-headed and dry-witted; conditions of texture which were also held favorable to the storing of judgments connected with drugs. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... was one of the results of their memorable armada, and was only coined after their conviction of the splendid folly which they had committed, I cannot ascertain. England must always have been a desirable ally to Spain against her potent rival and neighbour. The Italians have a proverb, which formerly, at least, was strongly indicative of the travelled Englishmen in their country, Inglese Italianato e un diavolo incarnato; "The Italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate." Formerly there existed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... The potent new threat from an advancing Soviet Union, against the background of regional instability of which it can take advantage, requires that we reinforce our ability to defend our regional friends and to protect the flow of oil. We are continuing to build on the strong political, economic, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... dislike toward the wife of the uncle, and as no children were born to them, they looked forward with certainty to inheriting the vast wealth of their childless relative, without seeming to regard the rights or interests of the wife, who, in Germany as well as in America, frequently exercises a potent influence in the ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... Anzeigen in November, 1772, a notice of some of Buerger's early poems. "The 'Minnelied' of Mr. Buerger," he says, "is worthy of a better age; and if he has more such happy moments, these efforts of his will be among the most potent influences to render our sentimental poetasters, with their gold-paper Amors and Graces and their elysium of benevolence and philanthropy, utterly forgotten." With such clear vision could Goethe see at ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... well trained in his craft. His subjects were many—the peasantry of France, landscape, and the sea holding prominent places—and his influence, though not direct because he had no pupils of consequence, has been most potent with the late men. ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... The more delicate illustrations of the fine union of qualities which attain the highest triumphs are, of course, only seen and comprehended by physicians, whose general opinion on their fellows is in the end almost always a just one. There is a potent combination of alertness in observation, with a never-satisfied desire to know even the trifles of a case, which, with sagacity, gives a medical mental character as rare as ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... their homage and to offer the tribute which should provide their spiritual superior with palfrey and trappings. No bishop assisted at the solemnity to receive into the higher ranks of the church nobility a dignitary whose voice in the legislature was as potent ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... world. The hope, if I could only live long enough, of increasing it to a certain sum, has impelled me to resist the disease by such palliative means as I could devise. The one effectual palliative in my case, is—opium. To that all-potent and all-merciful drug I am indebted for a respite of many years from my sentence of death. But even the virtues of opium have their limit. The progress of the disease has gradually forced me from the use of opium to the abuse ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... embellishment of trifles, and the art of hiding all uncomfortable feeling, are essential to the courtier: and Saint Simon, and Cardinal de Retz, and Roederer, and an encyclopaedia of Memoires, will instruct you, if you wish, in those potent secrets. Thus, it is a point of pride with kings to remember faces and names. It is reported of one prince, that his head had the air of leaning downwards, in order not to humble the crowd. There are people who come in ever like a child with a piece of good news. It was said of the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... unappreciated he carried his dimpling personality to the bunk house where he was hailed with delight. When a flask that had come in with Long Steve, who had made a brief trip to the outer world, disappeared before that joyous gentleman had consumed half of the potent contents, and when later the empty flask was found in the covers of Emmet's bunk, Willie Dart looked on with sorrowful, innocent eyes while Steve and Emmet resorted to physical argument. When a game of crib was being played while half a dozen men looked on, and a portion of the deck vanished, ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory |
