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Purely   Listen
adverb
Purely  adv.  
1.
In a pure manner (in any sense of the adjective).
2.
Nicely; prettily. (Archaic)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Purely" Quotes from Famous Books



... Graves, refolding the will, "is purely formal. It is dated May 15th, three years ago. Your brother, Captain Warren, evidently realized, although no one else seems to have done so, the precarious state of his health, and prepared, as every careful person should, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... may call it. By this we are to understand the exercise of a mysterious mechanical power by an individual on man, spirit, or deity, to enforce a certain result. In magic there is no propitiation, no prayer. "He who performs a purely magical act," says Dr. Westermarck,[81] "utilises such mechanical power without making any appeal at all to the will of a supernatural being." Religion, on the other hand, is an attitude of regard and dependence; in a religious stage man ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... visit the Larchers, and one day he set out for Ashford, near which they lived.... He was very modest about his attempt to save their boy, and told himself that such courage as it required was purely instinctive. He had gone back without realising in the least that there was any danger. Seeing young Larcher wounded and helpless, it had seemed the obvious thing to get him to a place of safety. In the heat of action fellows were constantly doing reckless things. ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... council and was thrown back upon the aid of the heads of the executive departments, who were thus drawn close to him as his Cabinet.[Footnote: In this formative process the Postmaster-General was left outside in Washington's time, since his functions were purely of a business nature, not directly affected by the issues on which Washington desired advice. The Postmaster-General did not become a member of the Cabinet ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... dabbing with prose glue, so David collapsed and Talboys conquered—"spell" benumbed "charm." The sea-wizard yielded to the petrifier, and "could no more," as the poets say. Talboys smiled superior. But, as his art was a purely destructive one, it ended with its victim; not having an idea of his own in his skull, the commentator, in silencing his text, silenced himself and brought the society to a standstill. Eve sat with flashing eyes; Lucy's twinkled with sly fun: this made Eve angrier. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... This being purely a labour of love, Mr Squeers readily complied, and leaving the room for the purpose, almost immediately returned, supporting a sleek personage with an oily face, who, bursting from him, and giving to view the form and face of Mr Snawley, made straight up to Smike, and tucking that poor fellow's ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... people," it would have gasped. Had it been a "freak party," it would have been loud-voiced in its expressions of surprise. Being a "best party," it gave no outward sign; but a sense of blank astonishment, purely mental, was in the air. The duchess herself was the only person present who had heard Jane ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... pou] and is evidently quoted from memory, and the historical narration Josh. ii. 3-19. This is perhaps what we should expect: in longer quotations it would be better worth the writer's while to refer to his cumbrous manuscript. These purely mechanical conditions are too much lost sight of. We must remember that the ancient writer had not a small compact reference Bible at his side, but, when he wished to verify a reference, would have to take an ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... is cast adrift at the stern of a canoe, with a line of twenty feet, and from its striking resemblance to a little fish it is soon caught at, and in this way the Samoans secure a large quantity of their favourite food. No European fish-hook has yet superseded this purely native invention. They bait and use the steel fish-hook, however, and in some cases use it on their pearl-shells, as we have just remarked, instead of ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... so much diligence and with so many precautions, that the water which has rained over them for so many years has not been able to spoil them or to prevent their excellence from being recognized, and that they have been preserved very well, because they were wrought purely on the fresh plaster. On the walls, then, are the Nativity of Jesus Christ and the Adoration of the Magi—that is, over the tomb of the Aliotti. After this work Buonamico, having gone to Bologna, wrought ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari

... urged that such affirmative answers are purely hypothetical, and that other suppositions have an equal right ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... this is also increased, as is shown by comparing the outflow in the lymphatic vessels with the normal. The fluid exudate which has come from the blood and differs but slightly from the blood fluid exerts not only the purely physical action of removing and diluting injurious substances, but in many cases has a remarkable power, exercised particularly on bacterial poisons, of neutralizing poisons or so changing their character that ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman

... record of it. All the traditions of the early church recognize it. Mention of it is made in the earliest of all the creeds: the Apostles' Creed. If the doctrine of the virgin birth is rejected it must be on purely subjective grounds. If one denies the possibility of the supernatural in the experience of human life, it is, of course, easy for him to deny this doctrine. To one who believes that Jesus was human ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... proclaimed a purely friendly curiosity. "Certainly not," Eloquent answered, coldly. "I had the misfortune ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... of the Constitution of the United States which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment." The bill enacts into and establishes by law sundry rules and proceedings relative purely to the organization and polity of the church incorporated, and comprehending even the election and removal of the minister of the same, so that no change could be made therein by the particular society or by the general church of which it is a member, and whose authority it recognizes. This ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... "No? That's a purely professional prejudice of yours. Look at it from my point of view. Am I to wait to be strangled by invisible hands, rather than make an easy and graceful exit? Suicide! The word has no meaning for a man in my condition. If you'll tell me there's a chance, one mere, ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... am also a married man—irrevocably wedded to science. I desire no other spouse. I am ineligible; and everybody knows it. If at times a purely scientific curiosity leads me into a detached and impersonally psychological investigation of ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... talk any of the stock religious and devotional phrases which official Methodists so universally employed in mutual converse. She might have been an insurance agent, or a school-teacher, visiting in a purely secular household, so little parade of cant was there ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... in the great scheme of Nature's equilibrium, in which the devourer and the parasite would seem to play the all-important parts, the present example being especially emphasized because of its conspicuousness and its violence to purely human sentiment. The parasite would often seem to hold ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... which some would find in the second verse, never had any existence, save in the brains of Atheistic philosophers. It is purely absurd. God never created a chaos. Man never saw it. The crystals of the smallest grain of sand, the sporules of the humblest fungus on the rotten tree, the animalculae in the filthiest pool of mud, are as orderly in their arrangements, as ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... have made the journey for this pleasure: to have walked the deck on long nights, and have thought of home. You have no leisure to do so in the city. You don't see the heavens shine above you so purely there, or the stars so clearly. How, after the perusal of the above documents, we enjoyed a file of the admirable Galignani; and what O'Connell was doing; and the twelve last new victories of the French in Algeria; and, above all, six or seven numbers of Punch! There might have been ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... intercourse could be established, it would but serve to strengthen the historical character of the books of the Old Testament, and would be worth more than all the elaborate theories that have been started on the purely miraculous origin of these books. But though we by no means deny that some more tangible points of resemblance may yet be discovered between the Old Testament and the Zend-Avesta, we must protest against having so interesting and so important a matter handled in such ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... PORTRAITS of her—whether in sculpture, or painting, or engraving—are purely IDEAL. Perhaps the nearest, in point of fidelity, was that which was seen in a painted glass window of the church of the Minimes at Chaillot: although the building was not erected till the time of Charles VIII. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... appointment with one of the executives of U.C.L.I.—University of Columbia in Long Island—and, on the way back he stopped at the spaceport to see what he could find out. But all he got was purely negative information. ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett

... pointed out that in a week's time I should probably be applying to her mother for a small temporary loan. I did not think it an honourable thing to attempt to influence her mind beforehand by sending a present. I wished her to approach the question of the loan purely in a business spirit. I added that I thought we would leave the mushroom to grow for one more day, and then have it for breakfast. ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain

... However desirable the purely quantitative experimental methods may be, they naturally need always to be preceded by the qualitative studies of direct observations. Inevitably there will be numberless errors, apparent and real inconsistencies and contradictions, and ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... but it has been ably used by the latter to promote the solidarity of sympathy between herself and her colony. With the mother country alone an equitable arrangement, conducive to well-understood mutual interests, could be reached readily; but the purely local and peculiarly selfish wishes of Canadian fishermen dictate the policy of Great Britain, because Canada is the most important link uniting her to her colonies and maritime interests in the Pacific. In case of a European war, it is possible that the British navy will not be able to hold ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... me so convincing a proof of the unity of the Deity as these purely mental conceptions of numerical and mathematical science which have been by slow degrees vouchsafed to man, and are still granted in these latter times by the Differential Calculus and the Higher Algebra, all of which must have existed in that sublimely omniscient ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... impunity by thus dodging, as it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations, it will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside our province. We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and as for ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects."[402:1] And no student of history can deny that there is much to justify the jealousy with which the lovers of civil liberty watch the climbing of any sect, no matter how purely spiritual its constitution, toward a position of command in popular influence. The influence of the leaders of such a sect may be nothing more than the legitimate and well-deserved influence of men of superior wisdom and virtue; but when reinforced by the weight of official religious ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... turned to the Roman Catholic court of France—that infamous court, still crimsoned with the blood of the St. Bartholomew massacre. Then, with diplomatic tergiversation, he represented that the conflict was not a political one, but purely religious, involving the interests of the Church. He urged that the peace of France and of Europe required that the Protestant heresy should be utterly effaced; and he provoked the resentment of the ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... This one was a red ensign, in those days a purely naval flag, carried (since Trafalgar) by the highest rank of admirals. Ashore, any one could hoist it, but the flag to cover a soldier's body was the flag ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... time," said Marchmont. "The issues in this case of my friend Blackmore's are purely legal; or rather, there are no issues at all. There is nothing in dispute. I tried to prevent Blackmore from consulting you, but he wouldn't listen to reason. Here! Waiter! How much longer are we to be waiters? We shall die of old age ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... if I had to make use of him it would be because the crisis was only less serious than that of the Civil War, that the action taken would be practically a war measure, and that if I sent him he must act in a purely military capacity under me as commander-in-chief, paying no heed to any authority, judicial or otherwise, except mine. He was a fine fellow—a most respectable-looking old boy, with side whiskers and a black skull-cap, without any of the outward aspect of the conventional military ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... imagination; but every new development of the case is so utterly fantastic that I no longer regard my experience as being in the least degree outside the province of possibility. Before we go further, therefore, into the purely archaeological side of the inquiry (and I have still serious doubt respecting the usefulness of such a quest) let me relate a peculiar experience which I had last night after I ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... personal part extends to the end of verse 50. It contains three turnings or strophes, the first two of which have two clauses each, and the third three. The first is verses 46 and 47, the purely personal expression of the glad emotions awakened by Elisabeth's presence and salutation, which came to Mary as confirmation of the angel's annunciation. Not when Gabriel spoke, but when a woman like herself called her 'mother of my Lord,' did she break into praise. There is a deep ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Spain, alike illustrate the injurious effects of insufficient home defence upon movements of the armies in the field, or of the navies in campaign. In both instances dispositions of the mobile forces, vicious from a purely military standpoint, were imposed by fears for stationary positions believed, whether rightly or ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... that the Lutheran Church has failed to harmonize the doctrines of sola gratia and gratia universalis. However, the first of these strictures is based on gross ignorance of the facts, resulting from a superficial investigation of the articles involved, for the alleged disagreement is purely imaginary. As a matter of fact, no one can read the two articles attentively without being everywhere impressed with their complete harmony. In every possible way Article XI excludes synergism, and corroborates the sola gratia doctrine of Article II. And Article ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... the work, the necessary work, which few women are doing, to take up a work in which many women are engaged," he answered, uncertain of his argument, but quite sure of his intention. "You lose great opportunities to gain small ones, purely personal. That's the way ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... may take the case of mechanism and teleology. A system may be defined as "mechanical" when it has a set of determinants that are purely material, such as the positions of certain pieces of matter at certain times. It is an open question whether the world of mind and matter, as we know it, is a mechanical system or not; let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that it is a mechanical system. ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... unsuccessful lieutenants, Dragut must be esteemed a very fortunate man. His master, we are told, advanced him to all the military offices of the State—it would be interesting to know what these were in a purely piratical confederation ruled by a pirate! In the end Dragut was appointed to be kayia, or lieutenant, and given ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... light of a beautiful day. If there arise anything to make division between them, thou shalt use thy best endeavor to clear it away. Thou shalt labor to pacify them, and to soothe them; to show each of them the excellencies of the other. Thou shalt not think of thyself, but purely and disinterestedly thou shalt seek to further the well-being of others, and make them feel what a happiness is that which arises out of all duty done; and especially out of that duty which holds man and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... the quarrel was yours at all," returned Oaklands; "your share of it was ended when the toast affair came to a conclusion; the rest of the matter was purely personal ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... now, my lord, what you intended doing, and not what you have done, think it fit that I bring you back to something of more reality; for I do not suppose you have given yourself the trouble to come here purely and simply to add a chapter to the little treatise Des Rodomontades Espagnolles by M. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... events to their proper proportions and judges them, not by their action upon his own destiny, but by the way in which they influence the fortunes of the world. Now confess that your little mishap is purely individual and does not affect the equilibrium of the solar system. You know what Marcus Aurelius says, on ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... himself on his elbow and gazed in my face, and as he did so, a sudden light seemed to break in upon him. I knew suspense would be torture, and added, "Yes, dear Laurie, he was called home this morning; his death was by a pistol-shot, purely accidental,—no pain, no distress, conscious to the last, and quite satisfied to go; he desired me to give you his love, Laurie; now you know the truth, and you shall hear every particular as soon as you are strong enough to ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... Finchings'. Then came Charles Dickens—whose presence, I believe, is not contested. Before his quarrel with Mark Lemon and Bradbury and Evans, because Punch declined to print a justification of himself in connection with his purely domestic circumstances, he was the guest of Punch's publishers, who were his own publishers, and who were also the publishers of the "Daily News"—upon the preparations for which Dickens, as first editor, was then engaged. Moreover, Dickens was an intimate friend of Douglas Jerrold, whose influence ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... Genis somewhat more calmly, "why M. le Comte de Cambray was opposed to our union, was purely a financial one. Our families are of equal distinction and antiquity, but alas! our fortunes are also of equal precariousness: we, Sir, of the old noblesse gave up our all, in order to follow our King into exile. Victor de Marmont was ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... town, and there was evidence in sight that he did not rent them for the purpose of keeping cigars in them. He had several horses and carriages. He was a regular attendant upon all the social functions of the season, and at many of them he appeared to enjoy himself hugely. At the musicals and purely literary entertainments, however, Miles Dawson always looked, as he was, extremely bored. Once Miss Henderson had seen him yawn at a Shelley reading. He was, in short, of the earth earthy, or perhaps, to be more accurate, of the horse horsey. Intellectual pleasures were naught to ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... purely social application of this gossip may, however, be eyed with suspicion, as a French canard. It was so easy for "Figaro" to libel the Bismarck of 1871, whereupon the whole French press followed and barked ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... transfer of Formosa to Japan. In addition to the above, the eastern territory, originally inhabited by the Manchus, was divided into the three provinces already mentioned, all of which were at first organized upon a purely military basis; but of late years the administration of the southernmost province, in which stands Mukden, the Manchu capital, has been brought more into line ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... the Committee generally was averse to fight in this manner. Public opinion has its Bar as well as the Law Courts. If, after all, Melmotte had committed no fraud,—or, as was much more probable, should not be convicted of fraud,—then it would be said that the accusation had been forged for purely electioneering purposes, and there might be a rebound which would pretty well crush all those who had been concerned. Individual gentlemen could, of course, say what they pleased to individual voters; but it was agreed at last that no overt use should ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... under a system somewhat kindred to the metayer system as to-day existent in Tuscany and elsewhere, paying, according to the usual custom adopted by the northern conquerors of Italy, one-third of the produce[1] to their new masters. The whole organization of society was on a purely military basis; the soldiers of the conquering army, although they became landed proprietors, none the less retained their character and name of soldiers. Hence when these crude forms of social life began to crystallize into the carefully marked ranks of the ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams

... general, and cause them to recommend it to be read by their Children, that there is no Book fitter for them to read, which does in so delightful and instructing a Manner utterly overthrow almost all the Popish Opinions and Superstitions, and erect in their Stead, a Superstructure of Opinions that are purely Protestant. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... led the thousands of the land out of their narrow lives, and low endeavors, to the clear mountain heights of sacrifice! We stand now, a courageous, patient, steadfast, unselfish people before all the world. We stand, a people that has taken its life in its hand for a purely unselfish cause. We have won our place in the foremost rank of nations, not on our wealth, our numbers, or our prosperity, but on the truer test of our manhood, truth, and steadfastness. We stand justified at the bar of our own conscience, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... in our institutions of learning, so far as I have taken note of it, and the education induced thereby, are almost purely intellectual. The student's spiritual nature is left to take care of itself; and the consequence is that he becomes, at best, only a thinking and ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... this, Helvetius, starting from the proposition that "to judge is to feel," launched out into a complete theory of human character, which laboured under at least two fatal defects. First, it had no root in a contemplation of the march of collective humanity, and second, it considered only the purely egoistic impulses, to the exclusion of the opposite half of human tendencies. Apart from these radical deficiencies, Helvetius fell headlong into a fallacy which has been common enough among the assailants of the principle of utility; namely, of confounding the standard of conduct with ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... literature, had already published a group of Hindu stories [388] and was projecting manuals of Persian [389] and Arabic [390] literature and a series of translations of famous Eastern works, some of which were purely erotic. He now suggested that this series and Burton's Arabian Nights should be published nominally by a society to which might be given the appropriate name, "The Kama Shastra"—that is the cupid-gospel—Society, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... Priscus, built by Tarquinius Superbus, and dedicated in 509 B. C. by the consul M. Horatius Pulvillus, stood on a high platform 2071/2 feet long, by 1921/2 feet broad. The front of the edifice, ornamented with three rows of columns, faced the south. The style of the architecture was purely Etruscan, and the intercolumniations were so wide as to require architraves of timber. The cella was divided into three sections, the middle one of which was sacred to Jupiter, that on the right to Minerva, that on the left to Juno Regina; the top of the pediment was ornamented with a terra-cotta ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... tottering along with a bent and twisted frame, which for many years in the past, housed a veritable physical giant. The winds of 82 years had blown over him and now he was calmly and humbly approaching the end of his days. Humility was his attitude, a characteristic purely attributable to the genuine and old-fashion southern Negro. He slid into a nearby chair and began talking in ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac

... who once accepted Darwinism, but after further investigation repudiated it, said: "The Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it, in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but is purely ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams

... Another purely naval use of aircraft, on which, during the war, much effort was spent, was their use for the carrying and launching of torpedoes. The torpedo has long been one of the chief weapons of naval warfare; it is commonly carried by surface ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... or upon art, and not to any perfect condition of the intellect, considered in itself. Wisdom, again, is certainly a more comprehensive word than any other, but it has a direct relation to conduct, and to human life. Knowledge, indeed, and Science express purely intellectual ideas, but still not a state or quality of the intellect; for knowledge, in its ordinary sense, is but one of its circumstances, denoting a possession or a habit; and science has been appropriated ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... manner in which things link together. Setting forth on a purely selfish financial enterprise, behold Mademoiselle Chocardelle suddenly brought to the point of wielding an immense electoral influence! And observe also that her influence is of a nature to compensate for all the witty ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... laboured. In the Postscript, especially, Richardson is so preoccupied with demonstrating that Clarissa is a Christian tragedy that he neglects to develop in any detail the other claims he makes for it. Yet Hints of Prefaces shows that he had given considerable thought to what might be called the purely fictive qualities of his novel, and that at one stage he intended to present a much fuller account of them than he finally did. It is also clear that he realized that his didactic purposes could be achieved only if the novel succeeded first at the ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... would not have been moved to confidence or admiration. The secret scorn of women for the capacity to consider judiciously and to express profoundly a meditated conclusion is unbounded. They have no use for these lofty exercises which they look upon as a sort of purely masculine game—game meaning a respectable occupation devised to kill time in this man-arranged life which must be got through somehow. What women's acuteness really respects are the inept 'ideas' and the sheep-like impulses by which ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... like the identity of a human personality the whole range of man's experiences of a given object, or series of objects—all their outward qualities, and the visible facts regarding them—all the hidden ordinances by which those facts and qualities hold of unseen forces, and have their roots in purely visionary places. ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... with, that all business purely local—all which concerns only a single locality—should devolve upon the local authorities. The paving, lighting, and cleansing of the streets of a town, and, in ordinary circumstances, the draining of its houses, are of little consequence to any but its inhabitants. The nation at large ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... purely on Lizzie Tuoey's evidence that McGeorge's conversion to such ridiculous claims rested. She was not capable of invention, he pointed out, and continued that no one could make up details such as that, finally, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... by the people of California under the provisions of the proposed Direct Primary law. The so-called district plan for nominating United States Senators is worse than a makeshift. it provides for no pledge on the part of candidates and would be purely a ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn

... fearful of some accident betraying to Felicita the circumstance of Jean Merle living at Riversborough. There had never been any direct correspondence between Felicita and Mr. Clifford, except on purely business matters; and Felix was too much engrossed with his own affairs to find time to run down to Riversborough, or to keep up an animated interchange of letters with his old friend there. The intercourse between them ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... Miss Jennings on a purely personal matter," she said furiously. "How dare you turn ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... detachment from any sort of interest that does not belong to his subject. 'Louis Lambert' has cost me so much work! To write this book I have had to read so many books! Some day or other, perhaps, it will throw science into new paths. If I had made it a purely learned work, it would have attracted the attention of thinkers, who now will not drop their eyes upon it. But if chance puts it into their hands, perhaps they will speak of it!" In this passage there is an immense deal of Balzac—of the great artist who was so capable at times of self-deceptive ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... of New Zealand. They consist of three divisions—(1) the volcanic; (2) those formed of stratified volcanic tuff, sometimes entirely or partially covered by coralline limestone; and (3) those which are purely coralline. The first form a chain of lofty cones and craters, lying in a E.N.E. and W.S.W. direction, and rising from depths of over 1000 fathoms. Mr. J. J. Lister, who has described the physical characters of these islands, has shown very clearly that they lie along ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull

... were a band of Comanches, as their war-cry had already made known to us. Their arrival on the ground at that moment was purely accidental, so far as we or the Mexicans were concerned: it was a war-party, and upon the war-trail, with the intention of reiving a rich Mexican town on the other side of the Rio Grande, some twenty leagues from ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... cultivate that.' But do we not know how it has been fostered in China? Has not hatred of the foreigner been mistaken for patriotism, and been secretly instigated as a safeguard against foreign aggression? In this instance, however, there is no room to suspect such a motive. The movement is purely a result of provocation on our part; and it is fostered with a view to coercing our government into modifying or repealing our offensive exclusion laws. The Viceroy of Central China, with whom I have spent the last three ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... of Lever v. Chesterton & Another, the Defendant Chesterton will conduct his own case; as his heart is not, like that of the lady in the song, Another's. He wants to fight it purely as a point of the liberty of letters and public speech; and to show that the phrase "slavery" (wherein I am brought in question) is current in the educated controversy about the tendency of Capitalism today. The solicitor, rather to my surprise, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... under the mark as is above it that saying of some one, "An undevout astronomer is mad." A man's being endowed with rare mathematical talent is no cause why he should or should not be devout. His gifts to weigh and measure the stars are purely intellectual; and nature being seldom profuse upon one individual,—as she was upon Pascal and Newton,—the presumption as to an astronomer, of whom we know nothing, would be that what may be termed his emotive appreciation of stars and stellar systems is probably not so full as his intellectual. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... Gospel history, but from a sister poem to the "Heliand," a corresponding poem on the Old Testament. Professor George Stephens, of Copenhagen, offered a simpler explanation. He supposed that our piece is a purely domestic remnant of that school of English poetry which Bede described, and that the "Heliand" is a continental offspring of the same school, being a monument of the poetic culture which was planted along the borders of the ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... what Pau stares at. For the Pyrenees, viewed from this royal box, are purely magical. They do not rise so high—eleven thousand feet, as mountains go, is nothing wonderful. There is no might nor majesty about them—distant some thirty odd miles. They are just an exquisite wall, well and ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... that neither have we any details of endless torment. So the same argument applies. I would say further that we have very meagre details of heavenly joy. But that does not prevent our belief in it. Let it be clearly understood that a knowledge of details is not necessary to belief. It is purely a matter of revelation. There may be good reasons why details are not given. The fact is enough for the present; details will be known ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... ever again be based like those of the Old World upon a unity of race or religion is a matter of doubt. New England, of course, like Pennsylvania and Maryland, owes its inception to religion, but the original impulse has long been submerged by purely economic pressures. And the same motley immigration from the Old World is building up the bulk of the coming countries. At most, the dominant language gives a semblance of unity and serves to attract a ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill

... that many purely mechanical improvements, which have, apparently, at least, no peculiar connection with agriculture, nevertheless enable a given amount of food to be obtained with a smaller expenditure of labor. A great improvement in the process of smelting iron would tend to cheapen agricultural implements, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... to his study to write his letter of resignation. Sitting before that blank sheet of paper, he realised to the full how strongly he had resented the public condemnation passed on his own flesh and blood, how much his action was the expression of a purely mundane championship of his daughter; of a mundane mortification. 'Pride,' he thought. 'Ought I to stay and conquer it?' Twice he set his pen down, twice took it up again. He could not conquer it. To stay where he was not wanted, on a sort of sufferance—never! And while he sat ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... him to prepare himself for another examination, or he would be set aside altogether. But if he appeared again for another trial, he was sure to fare no better. He would be set aside at last. I remember an instance in which a member was expelled for a reason purely fictitious,—droll enough to be worth telling, if I could remember it,—and the secretary directed 'to write to his father, and break the matter gently to him, that it might not bring down the gray hairs of the old man with sorrow to ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... the 750 marks allotted respectively to Latin and to Greek, in the scheme of 1875, is this. There are three papers: two are occupied exclusively with translation. The third is language, literature, and history: the language means purely grammatical questions; so that possibly 583 marks are for the language proper. The remaining number, 167, should be allotted equally between literature and history, but history has always the lion's share, and is in fact the only part of the whole examination that has, ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... One read these things, got accidental glimpses of this and that, wondered and forgot, and so one grew. Then strange emotions, novel alarming desires, dreams strangely charged with feeling; an inexplicable impulse of self-abandonment began to tickle queerly amongst the familiar purely egotistical and materialistic things of boyhood and girlhood. We were like misguided travelers who had camped in the dry bed of a tropical river. Presently we were knee deep and neck deep in the flood. Our beings were suddenly ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... happened within me! Just when the mistress said, a short while ago, that I shouldn't dare to argue, but marry the man she said to marry, just then my whole heart revolted. "Oh, Lord, what a life for me!" I thought. [She weeps] What's the use in my living purely, guarding myself not merely from every word, but even from every look? Even so, evil seized upon me. "Why," I thought, "should I guard myself?" I don't want to! I don't want to! It was just as if my heart died within me. It seemed that if she ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... added their force to that of the military. In an hour a cordon of guards were stationed about the cavern while every road was picketed two miles away. Fortunately there had been no loss of life and no rescue work was needed. The earth-shaking had been purely a local matter, centered along the line ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... then, quite purely, her hands clasped simply together and her glance mistily off, the beautiful, the heroic, the lyrical prophecy of a soldier-poet ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... side opposite the crook. The impressions showed that the ferrule of this one was evenly convex; therefore it had no crook. The other matter is more complicated. To begin with, an artificial foot makes a very characteristic impression, owing to its purely passive elasticity, as I will show you to-morrow. But an artificial leg fitted below the knee is quite secure, whereas one fitted above the knee—that is, with an artificial knee-joint worked by a spring—is ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... complexities, even unto the third and fourth generation, the Freudian complexes, is governed therefore by the same laws that determine the movements of the stars and the eruptions of volcanoes. The most interesting factor in the instinct equation is the endocrine, because that is the one that is most purely chemical. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... Hathaway's face whether his sympathy with Colonel Pendleton's foibles or his assent to the criticisms of his visitors was the truer. Both were no doubt equally sincere. But the party was presently engaged in the absorption of refreshment, which, being of a purely, spirituous and exhilarating quality, tended to increase their good humor with the host till they parted. Even then a gratuitous advertisement of his virtues and their own intentions in calling upon him was oratorically voiced from available platforms and landings, in the halls and stairways, ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... is only waiting the moment to spring; and the inherent love of life breeds in me a physical fear of it as of a subtle enemy. For even if the soul is brave, the body dreads to die, and seems at moments to possess a second soul, purely physical, that cries out childishly against pain, ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... little of Caesar's history; and as he didn't know anything else, I went to work and drilled him like a galley-slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning Caesar which I knew would be used. If you'll believe me, he went through with flying colours on examination day! He went through on that purely superficial 'cram', and got compliments, too, while others, who knew a thousand times more than he, got plucked. By some strangely lucky accident—an accident not likely to happen twice in a century—he was asked no question outside of the narrow ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... such a monstrous fancy as that," said she; "but my fate is fixed all the same. Le Gardeur will vainly try to undo this knot in my life, but he must leave me to my own devices." To what devices she left him was a thought that sprang not up in her purely ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... Esprit, and a band of Ottawas who had joined them. Marquette was born in 1637, of an old and honorable family at Laon, in the north of France, and was now thirty-five years of age. When about seventeen, he had joined the Jesuits, evidently from motives purely religious; and in 1666 he was sent to the missions of Canada. At first he was destined to the station of Tadoussac; and, to prepare himself for it, he studied the Montagnais language under Gabriel Druilletes. But his destination was changed, and he ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... to have retired years before. There was some villany in his manager, was there not? It is difficult to find a purely honest man nowadays; but I do believe Lawrence was one. We dealt with him a great many years, but toward the last there was some dissatisfaction,—goods not coming ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... he fell back upon his analytic gift as a means of earning a living. Not counting his first published work, the Essay on the Principles of Human Action, which was purely a labor of love and fell still-born from the press, the tasks to which he now devoted his time were chiefly of the kind ordinarily rated as job work. He prepared an abridgement of Abraham Tucker's ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... attention to the course of history in China he would have known (a) that any usurpation of the Throne would infallibly lead to rebellion in China and intervention on the part of Japan, (b) that Yuan Shih- kai's power was purely personal and as such could not be transmitted to any son by any means known to the human intellect, (c) that all Yuan Shih-kai's sons were worthless, the eldest son being semi-paralyzed, (d) that constitutional government and the Eastern conception of kingship, which is purely theocratic, are ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... aim has been to produce a book that is practical,— practical from the student's standpoint, and practical from the teacher's standpoint. The study of Argumentation has often been criticized for being purely academic, or for being a mere stepping- stone to the study of law. It has even been said that courses in Argumentation and Debate have been introduced into American colleges and universities for no other purpose than to give the intellectual student the opportunity, so long monopolized by ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... when it comes to marauding other birds' nests and destroying their young. With all his vices, however, intemperance cannot be attributed to him, in spite of the name given him by the Adirondack lumbermen and guides. "Whisky John" is a purely innocent corruption of "Wis-ka-tjon," as the Indians call this bird that haunts their camps and familiarly enters their wigwams. The numerous popular names by which the Canada jays are known are admirably accounted for by Mr. Hardy in a bulletin ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... in 1893 by a few enthusiastic Irish spirits, was formed to effect an Irish renascence in matters of the mind and spirit. It was non-sectarian and non-political. Its purpose was purely psychological and educational—it sought the preservation of the Irish language from a fast-threatening decay, it encouraged the study of ancient Irish literature and it promoted the cultivation of a ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... parish—rung so merry a peal as on the morning that Helen Marsh was married to the handsome and Honourable Mr. Ivers. He was young as well as handsome—honourable both by name and nature—rich in possession and expectancy. On his part it was purely and entirely what is called a "love match"—one of the strangest of all strange things perpetrated by a young man of rank and fashion. His wealth and position in society enabled him to select for himself; and ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... proprietors, and there were some of vast possessions; the leading men of commerce, and there were some of great wealth; and the principal lawyers, and there were men of eloquence and ability among them—would have formed the nucleus of an aristocracy purely English, closely connected with the English throne as the fountain of honour, and not less strongly bound to English allegiance. An Episcopacy, of all ties the most powerful, required only a word for its creation. And in this manly, generous, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... he said, "that here we have no chance for stage tricks. All is plain and open as the day. Moreover, I will have no secrets from you even with regard to the subject itself. The phenomena that will be brought before you are purely psychological. The mind of my friend Kaffar will be, by a secret power, merged into mine. What I see he will see, although in your idea of the matter he does not see at all. Now, first of all, I wish you to blindfold my friend Kaffar. Perhaps Mr. Blake, seeing he ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking

... thought that the minister was in love with her. But she must have been mistaken, she reflected; it must have been her aunt after all, and the Rev. Cecil Thorne's shyly displayed interest in her must have been purely professional. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... head for a king's ransom; so you may eliminate the Cingalese from the case entirely so far as the attempts upon the child's life are concerned. Whoever is making the attempts is doing so without their knowledge and for a purely personal reason." ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... at the Lowell Institute was intended to be a purely military one. There was no intention of bringing politics or sectional pride into the discussion, and it was thought that the lectures could to-day be delivered without rousing a breath of ancient animosity. If there ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... taught, but these vagaries were trifles, scholarly and religious prejudices that were easily explained, not only by the fact that the physical sciences were eminently practical, of pure observation and deduction, while his forte was philosophy, purely speculative, of abstraction and induction, but also because, like any good Dominican, jealous of the fame of his order, he could hardly feel any affection for a science in which none of his brethren had excelled—he ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... Reason assert herself. He ran without question or amazement. His brain—the part where human reasoning holds normal sway—was dominated by the purely primitive instinct of flight. And in that sudden rout of courage and self-respect one conscious thought alone remained. Whatever it was that was even then at his heels, he must not see it. At all costs it must be behind him, and, resisting the sudden terrified impulse ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... to give no information whatever about him; and, secondly, because I do not myself know his name, his business with me having been transacted through a young friend of mine, who is also a friend of his. All I can say is, that his intentions towards your child are purely philanthropic, and the teacher whom he shall select will not be appointed, unless you approve. That teacher, I may tell you, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... make such statements! If our worthy senior hasn't eaten me up it's purely and simply because she dislikes human flesh as being sour. Did she not look down upon it as sour, why, she would long ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, to adopt the simple cast-iron beam for the crossing of several roads and canals along that line—this beam resembling in some measure the lintel of the early temples—the pressure on the abutments being purely vertical. One of the earliest instances of this kind of bridge was that erected over Water Street, Manchester, in 1829; after which, cast-iron girders, with their lower webs considerably larger than their upper, were ordinarily employed where the span was moderate; ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles



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