"Act" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laughed in that frantic manner, and if only——But no, he could not look back on the last five minutes. The past was a grey blank, but the flaming episode of the kiss had burnt a big black hole in his present consciousness. He felt that by that rash, unpardonable act he had desecrated the holy thing; and with it all, had forestalled, delayed, perhaps for ever prevented, the sanction of some diviner opportunity. If he had only waited another year, she could not have called him ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... reciprocal terms each other and one an other divide, according to some mutual act or interchangeable relation, the persons or things spoken of, and are commonly of the singular number only. Each other, if rightly used, supposes two, and only two, to be acting and acted upon reciprocally; one an other, if ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... erotic dreams), has since recurred to it deliberately (at about fortnightly intervals) as a substitute for copulation, for which he has never felt the least desire. But occasionally, when sleeping with a male friend, he has emissions in the act of embracing. The second is constantly and to an abnormal extent (I should say) troubled with erotic dreams and emissions, and takes drugs, by doctor's advice, to reduce this activity. He has recently ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the end of the century it assumed in France a very tangible form in the series of mysterious dramas known as the "Affaire des Poisons," of which the first act took place in 1666, when the celebrated Marquise de Brinvilliers embarked on her amazing career of crime in collaboration with her lover Sainte-Croix. This extraordinary woman, who for ten years made a hobby of trying the effects of various slow poisons on her nearest relations, thereby ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... by experience, in armies as in civil life, that injury does not often result from simple wetting with rain when the person is fairly exposed in the open air, and habitually inured to the contingencies of weather. Irregular troops, which act in the advanced line of armies, and which have no other shelter from weather than a hedge or tree, rarely experience sickness—never, at least, the sickness which proceeds from contagion; hence it is inferred that the shelter of tents is not necessary for the preservation of ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... the peaceful use of airplanes are beginning to suggest themselves daily. After the main body of this book was in type the Postmaster-General of the United States called for bids for an aerial mail service between New York and Washington—an act urged upon the Government in this volume. That service contemplates a swift carriage of first-class mail at an enhanced price—the tentative schedule being three hours, and a postage fee of twenty-five ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... thereby rendering union impossible. Now God Himself has established the Sovereign Pontiff in order to direct and enlighten society, to point out evil and indicate the proper remedy. This induced me, some years ago, to publish the 'Syllabus.' I now confirm that solemn act in your presence. It is to be, henceforth, the rule of your teaching. We have to contend, unceasingly, with the enemies who beset us. Placed on the mountain-top like Moses, I lift up my hands to God in prayer for the triumph of ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... miles above Florence, we were to find saddle-horses, the journey we were about to make being in those days practicable in no other way, unless on foot. There was at that time a certain Antonio da Pelago, whose calling it was to act as guide, and to furnish horses. I had known him for many years, as did all those whose ramblings took them into those hills. He was in many respects what people call "a character," and seemed to fancy himself to have in some degree proprietary rights over the ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... They get on as long as everything goes smoothly, but when there is friction they lose heart. They depend on stronger personalities for their spirit and strength. They lack independence or originality. They only dare to do what others do. They do not step boldly from the crowd and act fearlessly." ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... sexual aim in the man consists in the discharging of the sexual products; it is not contradictory to the former sexual aim, that of obtaining pleasure; on the contrary, the highest amount of pleasure is connected with this final act in the sexual process. The sexual impulse now enters into the service of the function of propagation; it becomes, so to say, altruistic. If this transformation is to succeed its process must be adjusted to the original dispositions and all ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... brighten the whole sky. One of Franklin's plain phrases has its wise lesson: "As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence." Frederika Bremer says: "Marriage has a morrow, and again a morrow." You will need to bear with each other, and to so act, each to the other, that every day may be made beautiful and happy, and the whole future one of mutual ...
— The Wedding Day - The Service—The Marriage Certificate—Words of Counsel • John Fletcher Hurst
... him on the driver's seat. She saw the rider bursting out of the gloom, and then her eyes fell on the forty-five which he was in the very act ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... stick. If these scraps of food are not thoroughly and carefully removed after each meal, the warmth and moisture in the mouth makes them begin to decay. The acids from this decay will be likely not only to upset your stomach and digestion, but to act upon the glassy coating of your teeth. After a little while, spots will begin to form on the surface of your teeth; they will lose their bright, shiny, pearly look; the acids will eat further into the teeth, and very soon there ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... of Sable by Baron de Leri, in 1519 (Ed. 1611, p. 22), even before the date of the Verrazzano letter.] There is therefore no acknowledgment, in the history of this enterprise, of the pretended discovery. The next act of the regal prerogative was a grant to the Sieur de Monts, by the same monarch in 1603, authorizing him to take possession of the country, coasts and confines of La Cadie, extending from latitude 40 Degrees N. to 46 Degrees N., that is, ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... come and leaned close to him over the outspread chart, her breath on his cheek—so close to him that a roving tress of her hair flicked him. But because a sudden fire had leaped from the touch to his brain was no reason for the act by which he had just damned himself as a ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... independence and sovereignty, I resign the appointment I accepted with diffidence; which, however, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of the nation, and the patronage of Heaven. I close this last act of my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them to His holy keeping. Having finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and natural gas on federal lands, particularly the outer continental shelf, has been accelerated at the same time as the Administration has reformed leasing procedures through the 1978 amendments to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. In 1979 the Interior Department held six OCS lease sales, the greatest number ever, which resulted in federal receipts of $6.5 billion, another record. The five-year OCS Leasing schedule was completed, requiring 36 sales over ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Jimmy Carter • Jimmy Carter
... among the best known young men in society, who have perfect address and tact, a number to act as ushers. They are distinguished by white boutonnieres, like those worn by ushers at a wedding, and they are deputy hosts. It is their duty to see that wall-flowers are not left decorating the seats in the ballroom and it is also their duty to relieve a partner who has too long been ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... and for the acts of that board of commissioners her majesty's government is responsible. Under these circumstances, my lords, I venture again to say, what I before said, that it is not a discreet act of authority to recall from power—to recall from such an important what not, is one thing; to excite the common people of the country to approach as near as possible to the commission of crime, and to do all ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... thing was that my father was not playing a part—that it was his nature to act in just that way. It is a curious thing to say of any person that his highest or most shining qualities were nothing but defects, since, apart from these same singular qualities, he was just an ordinary person with nothing ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... understanding between us, and I came to be regarded as a friend before whom there was less necessity to act. ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... what you said, my dear, so long as the captain knows. We are well assured that your every word and thought and act were true and maidenly. Let Windom visit you and become acquainted with your father. The more you all see of him the ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... their pens and inkhorns; and they let a full year pass over before they resumed their studies. Of these Persians we can believe in the sincerity; but the motives of English scholars performing a similar act of renunciation might ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... several political groups act as de facto parties: Bedouins, merchants, Sunni and Shi'a activists, and secular leftists ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... did not appear to be quite satisfied with the conduct of Perth, and, reaching over the shoulder of the second master, he took the paper from the atlas. Of course this act produced a sensation among the boys; the most insignificant event creates a sensation in the school-room. Mr. Mapps lowered the pointer, and intimated by his actions that he did not intend to proceed till order was restored. Perth was confounded this time, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... by memory every letter of the Bible, but unless the Spirit of God were in his heart, helping him to act out in his life the words he repeats with his lips, all his knowledge of the Bible would only lie as a dead-weight upon his soul. 'The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.' (2 Corinthians iii. 6.) So wrote the Apostle Paul, ...
— The Bible in its Making - The most Wonderful Book in the World • Mildred Duff
... father's only sister. Circumstances prevented my coming to see your father and mother for several years; but now that God has seen fit to give you this terrible affliction, and has taken your dear mother to Himself, I have arrived, determined to act a mother's part to you. I do not take the least notice of what that rude little girl says. When I have had her for a short time under my own control, she will know better. Now, one of you children, please have the politeness to offer me a chair, and then ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... killed two birds with one stone," said Joe. "We got rid of the men who have been making us lose money my means of the counterfeit tickets, and we have also under lock and key Bill Carfax, who tried several times to injure me, or at least to spoil my act, by means of acid on the trapeze rope and ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... from thee, and from those with thee, after laying down your arms and giving up the thought of fighting, so that I may send you one with safe conduct, by which you will obtain assurance of benefits of the blessings of this world and the next. Otherwise, and if you do not act thus, you will have to encounter war from God and His prophet. And know that the Most High God is mighty for thy destruction, as He has destroyed others before thee, who were much stronger than thee, and more numerous. And you, and your ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... her and our little home. Really, I don't believe I will know how to act if I become the wife of the mayor of Los Angeles. I have grown to detest formality, dances and dinners and receptions and things. If there is one thing Reggie and I will quarrel about that will be it. He has always been invited everywhere and he ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... appeared upon the balcony of the American Legation, and performed an illegal act. Upon a day not designated as a Caracunan national holiday, she raised the flag of an alien nation and fixed it, and the gilded youth of Caracuna in the street below cheered, not the flag, which would have been unpatriotic, but the flag-raiser, which was but gallant, until ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... "No, but you act like one." He spoke almost before he thought. "You are a woman nearly twenty-six years old, yet you haven't the poise of girls eighteen that I have known. Still, they were farm or working girls. I've sometimes wondered what it is that makes you and your friends always seem so childish ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... sentiment. It has to wear. It has to last. It must have a solid and dependable foundation, to stand the test and strain of daily life together. I know so many married couples intimately. I stay in their homes, and act sponsor to their children; with the result that I vowed never to risk it myself. And now I have let you put this question, and you must not wonder if I ask for twelve hours to ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... up the river to the railroad dock, where the crocodiles were put on the cars and the boys took their train for the North. When the good-byes were said, the captain carried Tom across the dock on his shoulder and Dick's last act before leaving was to formally present him ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... of the hall whither her restless thought had driven her, she stared in a fruitless inquiry at the wall confronting her. Her mind, like her feet, was at a standstill. She could neither think nor act. In fact, she was at the point of a nervous collapse, when slowly from out the void there rose to her view and pierced its way into her mind the outline of the door upon which she had been steadily looking but without seeing it till now. Why did she start as it thus took on ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... charms of "Thomas" and "Thompson." The train bore us triumphantly into a dawn arrival at Hardwar. The majestic mountains loomed invitingly in the distance. We dashed through the station and entered the freedom of city crowds. Our first act was to change into native costume, as Ananta had somehow penetrated our European disguise. A premonition of capture weighed on ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... to be an especially favourable prospect. "Prisoners of Hope" had been published as a book and had made a good success, but Miss Johnston's future still lay ahead of her. With Page to think meant to act, and so, instead of writing a formal letter, he at once jumped on a train for Birmingham, Alabama, where Miss Johnston was then living. "I remember quite distinctly that first meeting," writes Miss Johnston. "The day was rainy. Standing at my window ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... I had visions that my expedition would be entirely wrecked. There was a limit to human endurance and we could not perform miracles. We still had thousands of kilometres to travel over most difficult and dangerous country. Besides, I reflected, after all, I might only be performing an act of kindness by relieving the town of the expense and trouble of keeping its only prisoner, not to speak of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... said Christopher, 'had sprained his wrist by a fall this evening. He came to me and requested me to play for him behind the scenes in the last act. You know what happened. That ...
— Cruel Barbara Allen - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... discover the particular part of his tent-floor in which the hole was dug, and, as to venturing to touch his pillow while his shaggy head rested on it, no one was daring enough to contemplate such an act although there were men there capable of ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... with the preparatory attitude is there's no end to it. There is so much to learn in this world that it won't do to wait. If you wait to fit yourself before acting, you never will act. You will somehow lose the habit of acting. Study too conscientiously the one hundred best books on swimming, and of course you'll learn a great deal about it, but you never ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... days' leave, and gee! I did feel sore over it. I was on sentry duty with Ernie Rowe, and I was just in the act of changing my boots for a pair of rubber waders when along came an officer. I paid no special attention to him, as a sap ran underneath Hill 60 and there were always engineering officers around. This chap stopped and passed a few commonplace remarks about the wetness ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... chief industries, he is able by his former knowledge to realize the existence of these industries sufficiently to feel the need of a fuller realization. In the same way the student who has traced the events of Canadian History up to the year 1791, is able to know the Constitutional Act as a problem for study, that is, he is able to experience the existence of such a problem and to that extent is able to know it. His mental state is equally a state of ignorance, in that he has not realized in his own consciousness all the facts relative to the Act. In ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... je crois qu'il y reussira': You do very well, it is your destination; but remember that, to succeed in great things, one must first learn to please in little ones. Engaging manners and address must prepare the way for superior knowledge and abilities to act with effect. The late Duke of Marlborough's manners and address prevailed with the first king of Prussia, to let his troops remain in the army of the Allies, when neither their representations, nor his ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... She takes counsel with herself before acting. It is plain from your last words that you don't understand Vera Vassilievna. You will, of course, act in accordance with her wishes. I will not insist any ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... in their corner. He was beginning to feel uncomfortably stranded in the middle of the long room, when Dr. Lindsay crossed to his side. The talk at dinner had not put the distinguished specialist in a sympathetic light, but the younger man felt grateful for this act of cordiality. They chatted about St. Isidore's, about the medical schools in Chicago, and the medical societies. At last Dr. Lindsay suggested casually, as he ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... to these three great parties, there are minor parties and groups which sometimes act with one party and sometimes with another, the National Liberals, for example, and the Progressives. Since the war certain members of the National Liberal party were most bitter in assailing President Wilson and the United States. In the demand for ruthless submarine war they acted with ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... to return them to me, senor, and in acknowledgment of your courtesy I pledge you the honour of a Spanish gentleman that I will remain silent as to your visit to this island. Otherwise I promise you that I will immediately spread the news of your presence in these waters, and of your atrocious act of piracy, throughout the length and breadth of the Spanish Main, with the result that you will be hunted by every Spanish ship of war in the Caribbean Sea, with consequences to yourself and your piratical crew ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... worst thing that has ever occurred to knock the romance out of us, was to see a girl in the second act, after "twelve years is supposed to elapse," with the same pair of red stockings on that she wore in the first act, twelve years before. Now, what kind of a way is that? It does not stand to reason that a girl would wear the same pair ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... I, "I'll take your caution into consideration, and act upon it or not as seems best when ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... Act Second proves Andronic is no fool, for he advises Honorius to flee that creature,—and what better advice in those matters is there than that of retreating? Decidedly, too, the virtuous Doge is worth having,—really a Middle-Age electric telegraph,—for he gives all about him ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... different though equally general position, "That, by the law of the land and the known law and usage of Parliament, no person eligible by common right can be incapacitated by vote or resolution of this House, but by act of Parliament only." It is remarkable that, in the debate which ensued, two members who successively rose to the dignity of Lord Chancellor, Mr. Thurlow and Mr. Wedderburn, took different sides; but nothing could shake the ministerial ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... dream, from which she was powerless to arouse herself; in which she was compelled to act a painful part, until some merciful influence from without ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... promptly. "Susy, you and I are too big to act so. Let's go and do up our work right nice, and then see ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... volumes out at a window. The destruction was lamentable; but wonders have been done in extending the shrivelled documents and rendering their ashes legible. The public use of the collection had been already regulated by Parliament when a comprehensive Act was passed in 1753, and the nation acquired under one title the Cottonian Library, Sir Hans Sloane's Museum, the Earl of Oxford's pamphlets and manuscripts, and all that remained of the ancient ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... tranquillity and pleasure cannot be expected to have much weight with a man under an immediate purpose of suicide, it is so much the more to be wished, that men would impress their minds, in their sober moments, with a conception, which, being rendered habitual, seems to promise to act as a successful antidote in ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... could not but remember that she must expect no sympathy or support from Mrs. Rolleston, who had once said, "It would be a most unsuitable connection." She passed the day in reviewing the situation. This was the first time she had ever been called on to think seriously and painfully, and act for herself without a friendly word to support her. Perhaps Du Meresq's behaviour the day before had not a little braced her to the energetic course she had determined on. It was, indeed, no easy task to extort ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... signed authorization to act for them in the matter," declared Johnny, remembering that ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... fellow, I'm thinking that you and I, If we act like other people, shall be older by and by; What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be, There is always a line of breakers to ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a soldier had given her confidence, and having delivered her message both women left everything else to him. His experience or his soldier's instinct told him what they were doing and also how to act. They were a raid which had gotten around the body of the army and were striking for the capital; and from their position, unless they could be delayed they might surprise it. In the face of the emergency ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... come across a man by the name of John Haynes, who for several years had been a trader among the Indians. He was thoroughly acquainted with the whole region about to be traversed, and consented to act as a guide. For the next day's march, instructed by their guide, the party divided into two bands, following along two obscure trails, which came together again after winding through the wilderness a distance of about twenty ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... "An act is judged by its results; it is considered either virtuous or vicious according as its results are harmful or helpful to ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... The one great act of John Jacob Astor's life, which must forever keep the name of Astor before the people, is the establishment of the Astor Library by donating for that purpose $400,000, to which have been added large ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... immodesty? These are social or conventional virtues; he represents mainly primary qualities and forces. Does life, does death, does nature, respect our proprieties, our conventional veils and illusions? Neither will he. He will strip them all away. He will act and speak as if all things in the universe were equally sacred and divine; as if all men were really his brothers, all women his sisters; as if all parts of the human body were equally beautiful and wonderful; as if fatherhood and motherhood, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... at Rosario, and at this time, that we buried our young friend, Captain Speck, well loved of young and old. His friends did not ask whether it was cholera or not that he died of, but performed the last act of friendship as became men of heart and feeling. The minister could not come that day, but Captain Speck's little friend, Garfield, said: "The flags were set for the angels to come and take the Captain to Heaven!" ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... Archbishop from arriving here. Then the marriage would be postponed until to-morrow night, and you would have time to act." ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... any finite mind to fix the degree of criminality of any human act or of any human life. The Infinite One alone can know how much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers or our fathers. We all participate in one another's sins. There is a community of responsibility attaching to every misdeed. ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... command, "Remember the sabbath day"—continue to prosecute the fishing on that day. But many a good man among the fishermen has borne testimony to the fact that these do not gain additional wealth by their act of disobedience; while they lose in the matter of nets (which suffer from want of frequent drying) and in the matter of health (which cannot be maintained so well without a weekly day of rest), while there can be no doubt that they lose the inestimable ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... material world. I do not profess to know what is meant by "intelligible"; it seems to mean "familiar to imagination." Nothing is less "intelligible," in any other sense, than the connection between an act of will and its fulfilment. But obviously the sort of nexus desired between cause and effect is such as could only hold between the "events" which the supposed law of causality contemplates; the laws which replace causality in such a science ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... exclaimed, partially recovering myself. "Are you in your right senses? Do you know that the firm I bank with represents one of the first houses in the world? What do you mean—you, who are a total stranger to me—by taking this extraordinary interest in my affairs? If you want me to act on your advice, ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Vanslyperken, or of the dog, still a tail is a tail, and whether mangy or not, is bona fide a part of the living body; and this aggression must inevitably come under the head of the cutting and maiming act, which act, however, it must, with the same candour which will ever guide our pen, be acknowledged, was not passed until a much later period than that to the history of which our ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... knowing when the mood of passionate affection would give place to a chill aversion that seemed almost like hate. Perhaps it had been good for her, so she told herself in after years, her lonely, unguided childhood. It had forced her to think and act for herself. At school she reaped the benefit. Self-reliant, confident, original, leadership was granted to her as a natural prerogative. Nature had helped her. Nowhere does a young girl rule more supremely by reason of her beauty than among her fellows. Joan soon grew accustomed ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... the whole heart or spirit of Romeo and Juliet is summed up and distilled into perfect and pure expression; and these two are written in blank verse of equable and blameless melody. Outside the garden scene in the second act and the balcony scene in the third, there is much that is fanciful and graceful, much of elegiac pathos and fervid if fantastic passion; much also of superfluous rhetoric and (as it were) of wordy melody, which flows and foams hither and ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... developed we say he is a genius, but all things exist as possibilities in every mind. Nature puts no limitations on man. Whatever his limitations, they are self imposed, nature is not a party to the act. ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... moments sat the wretched mother, gazing upon the still quivering remains. At intervals, she stooped down and kissed the pale, withering lips. She did not weep. I have said she was an Indian. They do not act as whites do; but, anyhow, her anguish was too keen to allow her tears to flow. She did not scream or call for help. It could be of no use now. It was too late. She knew there was no one near—no one within miles of her. When she raised her eyes from ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... prisoners. In the first place, he undertook to indicate the motive and occasion of the horrid, vile, and barbarous crime which had been committed, and which, he declared, scarce anything in the annals of justice could parallel; then, he would set forth the circumstances under which the act was perpetrated; and, finally, he proposed to show what grounds existed for inferring that the prisoners were ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... the land or general laws of the United States have been extended over these lands except as to the punishment for crimes and other provisions contained in the intercourse act which relate to trade and the introduction of spirituous liquors and arms among Indians, and do not sanction settlement. It is clear that no authorized settlement can be made by any person ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... eminent parliamentary lawyer of his day, but his devotion to the science of law had, to some degree, impeded his enjoyment of its sweets. During some of the best years of his life he had been more intent on increasing his legal lore than on swelling his legal profits. And thus the same legislative act which enriched the Museum Library, in both of its departments, helped to smooth the declining years of a man who had won uncommon distinction in his special pursuit.' A catalogue of the manuscripts was compiled by Sir Henry Ellis, and published in 1818. Hargrave, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... market, walking after his master with such a stately, grave look!—only a dog, yet he could go backwards and forwards just as he pleased: he had good luck! Why, the very vilest cur, yelping there in the gutter, had not lived his life, had been free to act out whatever thought God had put into his brain; while he—No, he would not think of that! He tried to put the thought away, and to listen to a dispute between a countryman and a woman about some meat; but it would come back. He, what had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... to Robert Lloyd twenty-five years earlier Lamb had said of Manning: "A man of great Power—an enchanter almost.—Far beyond Coleridge or any man in power of impressing —when he gets you alone he can act the wonders of Egypt. Only he is lazy, and does not always put forth all his strength; if he did, I know no man of genius at all comparable ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... ground-floor in the Schools' quadrangle) these touching remains of Hellas are interred. There are the funereal stelae, with their quiet expression of sorrow, of hope, of resignation. The young man, on his tombstone, is represented in the act of rising and taking the hand of a friend. He is bound on his ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... are speaking always of the real, active, continual, national worship; that by which men act while they live; not that which they talk of when they die. Now, we have, indeed, a nominal religion, to which we pay tithes of property, and sevenths of time; but we have also a practical and earnest religion, to which we devote nine-tenths of our property and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... he not some day curse me? My brother, my brother! the curses of our children are horrible; they can appeal against ours, but theirs are irrevocable. Grandet, you are my elder brother, you owe me your protection; act for me so that Charles may cast no bitter words upon my grave! My brother, if I were writing with my blood, with my tears, no greater anguish could I put into this letter,—nor as great, for then I should weep, I should bleed, I should die, I should suffer no more, ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... universe. He argued that such did not exist, because his supposed action was not definitely presentable. 'I should enquire after its shape,' he says:—'Has it legs or arms? If not, I would wish it to be made clear to me how a thing without these appliances can act so perfectly the part of a builder? He challenged the theist (the theist addressed at the time was Dr. Martineau) to give him some account of his God's workings; and 'When he does this,' said Dr. ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... when, on the evening of the third day, he came himself to Iriga, in order to fetch more provisions, on the pretext that the work still required some time for execution, I explained that I should endeavor to ascend the mountain on the following morning, and requested him to act as guide. He consented, but disappeared, together with his companions, during the night; the Filipinos in the tribunal having been good enough to hold out the prospect of severe punishment in case the work ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... fashion told us nothing of what goes on further in her soul, though he overmotivates everything else, even devotes whole scenes to this one purpose. We first see her again in the last act in the famous sleep walking scene. She begins to walk in her sleep, falls ill with it one might well say, just on that day when Macbeth goes to war. Her lady in waiting saw her from this day on, at night, "rise ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... very strongly, and soon realized that an ontological basis was required for his own theories; that to reform art he must reform human life. "Oh ye men," he exclaims passionately in a letter: "feel rightly, act as you feel! be free!—then ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... Revere was a Boston craftsman of Huguenot descent, who was and is well known as a silversmith, engraver, and cartoonist. His prints and articles of silverware sell to-day for high prices, and his house in North Square has recently been fitted up as a public museum, chiefly on account of a single act at a critical moment. One is glad to know, however, that Revere's fame is not accidental. His pictures are historically interesting; we should be the poorer without his prints which give views of Boston, and without his picture of the Massacre. His silver—we have mentioned ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... assumed a lordly air, which that fair lady encouraged. He tasted the delights of despotic sway which Nais had acquired by right of conquest, and liked to share with him; and, in short, that evening he tried to act up to the part of the lion of the little town. A few of those who marked these airs drew their own conclusions from them, and thought that, according to the old expression, he had come to the last term with ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... and Puritans, had drawn them more together of late than ever before. Both were men of considerable enlightenment of mind; both desired to see toleration extended to all (though each might have regarded with more complacency an act of uniformity that strove to bring all men to his own particular way of thinking and worship), and both agreed in a hearty contempt for the mean and paltry King, who had made such lavish promises in the days of his adversity, only ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... her tearful remonstrances against what was, to her perception, an act of arbitrary and wanton cruelty, and other spectators had ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... was a failure. After the first act, many left the theatre; at the end of the second, most of the others started out. A cynical critic as he rose from his aisle seat ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... the men we had as recruits: soldiers ready made, as far as concerned their capacity as individual fighters. What was necessary was to teach them to act together, and to obey orders. Our special task was to make them ready for action in the shortest possible time. We were bound to see fighting, and therefore to be with the first expedition ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... to run off to Beaune, a town of Burgundy, where the fugitives proposed to study music under the Fathers of the Oratory. To provide funds for the journey, he stole a sum of about the value of a dollar from his uncle, the priest. This act, which seems to have been a mere peccadillo of boyish levity, determined his future career. Finding himself in total destitution at Beaune, he wrote to his mother for money, and received in reply an order from his father to come home. Stung with the thought of being posted as a thief in his ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... not suit Mlle. Fouchette, since she was at this moment in the act of touching it up and making it over with colors from an enamelled box,—a trick of the Parisienne of ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... Sabbath the Jew would say, "I cannot sell on that day; it is a Sabbath day to our God." Boys and girls were not allowed to play with their Babylonian playmates on the Sabbath. Such experiences helped them to remember that they were Jews. They thought of it also as an act of respect to Jehovah. It took the place of animal sacrifices. As the time went on there grew up rules and regulations in regard to Sabbath-keeping which became more and ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... come with his ready sympathy, not expressed as the world expresses its sympathy, in words, but by a hundred little self-abnegations. He was always ready to act up to the principles of his companion for the moment or to act up to no principles at all should that companion be deficient. Moreover, he never took it upon himself to judge others, but extended to his neighbour a large tolerance, in ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... curious species are—the slow lemurs of South India, small tailless nocturnal animals, somewhat resembling sloths in appearance, and almost as deliberate in their movements, except when in the act of seizing their insect prey; the Tarsier, or specter lemur, of the Malay islands, a small, long tailed nocturnal lemur, remarkable for the curious development of the hind feet, which have two of the toes very short, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... regards his enterprise as subversive and in bad taste, and secondly by an inner weakness that limits his capacity for it, and especially his capacity to throw off the prejudices and superstitions of his race, culture anytime. The cell, said Haeckel, does not act, it reacts—and what is the instrument of reflection and speculation save a congeries of cells? At the moment of the contemporary metaphysician's loftiest flight, when he is most gratefully warmed by the feeling that he is far above all the ordinary airlanes and has absolutely novel ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... adopted with regard to the family of the Incas. He desired to establish the position of the King of Spain without a rival. He, therefore, sought to malign the preceding dynasty, persecuted the descendants of the Incas, and committed one act of ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... no excuse at all for a minister who at our desire takes a measure contrary to our safety, that it is our own act. He who does not stay the hand of suicide is guilty of murder. On our part, I say, that to be instructed is not to be degraded or enslaved. Information is an advantage to us; and we have a right to demand it. He that is bound to act ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... another nail to their coffin," declared Gipsy. "We've tried them fairly, and they've refused to act fairly. We'll give them one more chance at the meeting to-morrow, and if they won't accept our terms—then we'll break loose and be off on our own. Are ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... at an end, there was a bit of juggling by a juggler who made several bad breaks in his act, and then came the lady bareback rider. At the same time, Frozzler came out, dressed in a ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... tumblers, conjurers, allegories, martyrdoms, marriages, elephants on the tight-rope, learned horses, and learned asses too, if we may trust Apuleius of Madaura; with a good many other spectacles of which we must not speak in the presence of a vestal? It is an age of execrable taste, and we must act accordingly.' ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... nature capable of adopting a rational or civilized attitude toward this question. It appears that neither of your Excellencies has any intention of abandoning your present war of mutual threats and blackmail until forced to do so by some overt act on the part of one or the other of your Excellencies' Governments, which would result in physical war of pan-Asiatic scope and magnitude. I am further convinced that this deplorable situation arises out of the megalomaniac ambitions ...
— Operation R.S.V.P. • Henry Beam Piper
... affirmed that he took no part in this black deed; nevertheless, the woman's dying appeal to Heaven preyed on his mind; he feared that it might have won a hearing, and the "person" eventually commissioned to execute vengeance—after the usual days, of course might act on the principle of the old proverb: Tell me whom you are with, and I will tell you what you are—and punish the innocent (himself to wit) along with the guilty. But while thus anxious about his spiritual interests, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... immediately struck by his own lack of social dexterity. Why did he act so readily on the whimsical suggestion of another person, and follow the minister, when he might have said that he would call on Mr. Woodwell to-morrow, and, making himself known to Miss Power as the visiting ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... getting quite beyond Miss Day; but his mother has always opposed it, and I have foolishly given up to her for peace sake. I set my foot down now, however, and he shall go. He deserves it richly, the young rascal! such a base, cowardly act as to attack a little girl, big, strong boy that he is! I'm ashamed of him. You, Horace, were a wild, headstrong fellow, but I never knew you do a mean or cowardly thing; you were ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... power of movement in a fourth dimension. If so, such four-dimensional movement may be the proximate cause of the phenomenon of growth—of those chemical changes and renewals whereby an organism is enabled to expand in three-dimensional space, just as by a three-dimensional power of movement (the act of walking) man is able to traverse his two-dimensional space—the surface of ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... up his hands in surrender. "I'm not. I can't take a chance of getting the federal government into the act. Gosh, I'd have the FCC, the FBI, and maybe a dozen others on my trail. I quit. The Megabuck Mob ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... "wrong" would be the effect of an action—that is, whether it was conducive to one's welfare and that of the race, or the reverse. In this view, if a child places its hand on a hot stove, the action is "wrong," because it brings pain and unhappiness, although the act is neither moral or immoral. And another action is "right" because it brings happiness, well-being and satisfaction, present and future, although the act was neither moral nor immoral. In this view there can be neither reward nor punishment, in the common acceptation ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... Primate of Armagh condemned the Epistle to Polycarp as a forgery. He has still less reason to claim Bentley as on his side. On authority which Bishop Monk, the biographer of Bentley, deemed well worthy of acceptance, it is stated that in 1718, "on occasion of a Divinity Act," the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, "made a speech condemning the Epistles of S. Ignatius." His address created a "great ferment" in the university. [7:1] It is further reported that Bentley "refused to hear the Respondent ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... mitigation of their disabilities, serving, so to speak, as an earnest of the grant of equal rights. Even in clerical Austria, the imposition of military duty upon the Jews was preceded by the Toleranz Patent, this would-be Act of Emancipation. [1] ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... to banish memories, and readjust the lonely soul, its most triumphant acts may be annihilated by the physical contact of its mate. Unless replaced. Fool that she had been merely to have buried the memory of this man by an act of will. She should have taken a commonplace lover, or husband, put out that flaming midnight torch with the standardizing light ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... sent by the guardian spirit or some other superhuman being. Sneezing was once looked on as a happy omen: when Telemachus gave a resounding sneeze Penelope interpreted it as a sign that news of his father was at hand.[1627] An act performed without ulterior purpose may be taken to symbolize some sort of fortune. When the Calif Omar sent an embassy to the Persian King Yezdegird summoning him to embrace Islam, the angry king commanded that a clod of earth ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... to, and the boats shoved off about midnight. In two of them the marines of the frigate, with their officer, were embarked, to act on shore if necessary. The plan was, that they were together to board each vessel in succession, beginning at the largest. With muffled oars and in dead silence away they pulled. The night was dark; but the ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... be dispensed with without much heart-breaking—even a friend and rubbish may be shot out of the way, and the bosom remain tranquil; but a helpless, new-born infant!—O there is a pleading eloquence in its feeble wail that goes to the heart and ear of the stranger—and must act like living fire in the bowels of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... their terrible passion for strong drink, they would have carried their furs to the English or the Dutch, for it was proven that the offer of Governor Andros, to forbid the sale of brandy to the savages in New England on condition that the French would act likewise in New France, was formally rejected. "To-day when the passions of the time have long been silent," says the Abbe Ferland, "it is impossible not to admire the energy displayed by the noble bishop, imploring the pity of the monarch for the savages of New France with all ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... is uneasy about her. Shall I play to you a little, Mr. Sefton? It is getting too dark to read." Bessie made this overture as a sort of amends to Richard, and the friendly little act seemed ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... served to correct of the arid self-seeking, which looked to knowledge for no object but power. A man tempted by passions like Audley, or seduced into fraud by a cold, subtle spirit like Leslie, will find poor defence in the elegant precept, 'Remember to act as a gentleman.' Such moral embroidery adds a beautiful scarf to one's armour; but it is not the armour itself! Ten o'clock, as I live! Push on, Pisistratus! and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Islands, the king, personating the god, uttered the responses of the oracle from his concealment in a frame of wicker-work. But in the southern islands of the Pacific the god "frequently entered the priest, who, inflated as it were with the divinity, ceased to act or speak as a voluntary agent, but moved and spoke as entirely under supernatural influence. In this respect there was a striking resemblance between the rude oracles of the Polynesians, and those of the celebrated nations of ancient Greece. As soon as the god was supposed to have entered ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Christianity is the only agency that can save us from the moral degeneracy involved in migration, even if the immigrants were of our moral grade before coming. As Dr. Strong says, the very act of migration is demoralizing. All the strength that comes from associations, surroundings, relations, the emigrant leaves behind him, and becomes isolated in a strange land. Is it strange, then, that those who come from other lands, ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... Mrs. Portheris, in the act of exchanging unemotional farewells with mamma, turned round. "Do I understand that you are now a Senator?" she inquired. "I had no idea of it. It is certainly a distinction—an American distinction, of ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... I we criticized the analysis of a presentation into act, content and object. But our analysis of belief contains three very similar elements, namely the believing, what is believed and the objective. The objections to the act (in the case of presentations) are not valid against the believing in the case of beliefs, because ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... herself to it more, and if circumstances had only been endurable, their union might have presented the same character common to most aristocratic couples in England, and that even Lord Byron might have been able to act from virtue in default of feeling; but that little requisite for him ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... and quick exclamations, amidst which I saw, in the dim light, Moggridge in the act of heaving a rope overboard towards some dark object in ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of Madame de Maintenon, he redoubled his attentions to the latter, who, in her transport at finding a dauphin on whom she might rely securely instead of one who did not like her, put herself in his hands, and, by that very act, put the king in his hands. The first fortnight made perceptible to all at Marly this extraordinary change in the king, who was so reserved towards his legitimate children, so very much the king with them. Breathing more freely after so great a step had been made, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... miles an hour, always allowing five minutes for turning at the corner of every street. If you are curious to know why I am in such a hurry to describe a Volante, as if it were the great feature of Cuba, the reason is, simply, that my first act on landing was to get into one of the said vehicles and drive to ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... to obey orders. On the other hand, he remembered that he had deliberately resolved to throw off his allegiance, and as he drew near the piece of wreck, he reflected that he was at that moment assisting in an act which might cost the lives of all ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... his way now to see Gates. Gates was a comparatively recent addition to his list of friends, a New York newspaperman who had come to England a few months before to act as his paper's London correspondent. He was generally to be found at the Pen and Ink Club, an institution affiliated with the New York Players, of which ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... the state of being, or the act of; fy, to make or become; ance or ence, the act or state of; ive, having a tendency to, or the power or nature of; ory, the power or nature of, or belonging to; and ous, partaking of, or ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... States the city may not act except where authorized expressly and especially by the state. In Europe the city may do anything it is not forbidden to do, and municipal success there is based on this greater freedom. The European city, though subject to general state law, makes its own local laws, not in conflict ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... himself, in a low tone, as if he were rather proud of having hit on a neat way of expressing a great truth which he believed was an original discovery of his own. "Yes," he continued, "I have got my men, you see, into splendid working order. They act from morning to night in concert—one consequence of which is that all is Harmony, and there is but one man at the helm, the consequence of which is, that all is Power. Harmony and Power! I have no faith, Beniah, in a divided command. My men ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... the reader with my thoughts about the first-night audience, strange assembly as it is,—those I reserve for my Memoirs,—nor the humiliating story of how I got lost during the entr'acte in a lot of red plush passages, and saw the third act from the gallery. The only point upon which I wish to lay stress was the remarkable effect of the acting upon me. You must remember I had lived a quiet and retired life, and had never been to the theatre before, and that I am extremely sensitive to vivid impressions. At the risk of repetition ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... act came back to Syd with his senses, and he loosened the handkerchief the boatswain wore from about his neck, plunged it into the bucket, and drew it out full of water to hold over Strake's mouth, and let the water drip down as the poor ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... we did not expect, when the proper time came, to admit them to the Union as States. This I did to the best of my power. I was invited to give an address before a college in Pennsylvania, where I took occasion to make an emphatic declaration of the doctrine on which I meant to act. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar |
