"At first hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Philadelphia magazines is impossible. Many of them have disappeared and left not a rack behind. The special student of Pennsylvania history will detect some omissions in these pages, for all that has here been done has been done at first hand, and where a magazine was inaccessible to me, I have not attempted to see it through the eyes of a more fortunate investigator. I have done my best to make the story, dull and dreary as it surely is at times, not unworthy ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... the hope of effecting at least the beginning OF a beginning of such a movement that I got up the "Shakespeare Course" in Baltimore. I wished to show, to such a class as I could assemble, how much more genuine profit there would be in studying AT FIRST HAND, under the guidance of an enthusiastic interpreter, the writers and conditions of a particular epoch (for instance) than in reading any amount of commentary or in hearing any number of miscellaneous lectures on subjects which range from Palestine to Pottery in the course ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... not culminate in the university, and make that the goal towards which its efforts are directed, is an absurdity. There must be good teachers before there can be good schools, and good teachers can only be formed in institutions that are chiefly concerned with knowledge at first hand. This has been a recognized principle in Germany for half a century, or longer; is now almost universally admitted in France, and is the goal toward which the whole civilized ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... interested in learning of these things at first hand will do well to make the grand tour of the trenches when the war is finished. Perhaps the thrifty continentals will seek to commercialize such advantage as misfortune has brought them, in providing favorable opportunities. Perhaps the Touring Club of France will lay out a new route, following ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... Gratio Kelleia and of the Ancon sheep. People forget, or do not take notice of them until they come to have a prominence; and if that is true of artificial cases, under our own eyes, and in animals in our own care, how much more difficult it must be to have at first hand good evidence of the origin of varieties in nature! Indeed, I do not know that it is possible by direct evidence to prove the origin of a variety in nature, or to prove selective breeding; but I will tell you what we can prove—and this comes ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... by some Arabs going to the coast. I will announce my discovery to Lord Clarendon; but I reserve the parts of the Lualaba and Tanganyika for future confirmation. I have no doubts on the subject, for I receive the reports of natives of intelligence at first hand, and they have no motive for deceiving me. The best maps are formed from the same sort of reports at third or fourth hand. Cold N.E. winds ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... these sentiments warmly and sincerely; for, as strange as it may appear to those who have not studied human nature at first hand, every word of this eulogy was ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... well-known painter, living at Parma, did not believe the stories told of Paganini's ability to play the most difficult music at sight. Being the possessor of a valuable Stradiuarius violin, he challenged our artist to play, at first hand, a manuscript concerto which he placed before him. "This instrument shall be yours," he said, "if you can play, in a masterly manner, that concerto at first sight." The Genoese took the violin in his hand, saying, "In that case, my friend, you may ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... studied economics at first hand. The dignified frappe which he received in way of honorarium for his university lecture had its advantages. People in San Francisco wanted to hear what the editor had to say as well as to read his utterances. He was invited to give the Fourth of July oration at the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... advantages of knowledge gained at first hand. The faculty of accurate observation is one of the most satisfying that can enter into a person's mental equipment. It can be trained, broadened, and made more and more accurate. In some trades and professions it is an indispensable part of one's everyday ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... sketch accordingly. In this childish reminiscence one can see already the first workings of that spirit which made Gibson afterwards into the greatest sculptor of all Europe. He didn't try even then to draw horse or man by mere guess-work; he went out and studied the subject at first hand. There are in that single trait two great elements of success in no matter what line of life—supreme carefulness, and perfect honesty ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... for the dissemination of news. The ordinary citizen gathered news and information also from the pulpit and from guild and parochial meetings, and from the bellman. The only authoritative news he received at first hand he got by listening to the ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... to be the ONE great magazine of the world. If you have seen any number during the past year YOU yourself KNOW how true this is. It prints more and better short stories, and it contains more pages and more and better paintings. Its serious articles are written at FIRST HAND by the great scientists, historians, and explorers themselves. Mark Twain writes only for Harper's; W.D. Howells writes only for Harper's; Henry James writes only for Harper's; and Howard Pyle, Edwin A. Abbey, and other great artists ...
— Wholesale Price List of Newspapers and Periodicals • D. D. Cottrell's Subscription Agency
... of the facts in this chapter of adventures with grizzlies in Placer and El Dorado counties in 1850 and 1851, I am indebted to Dr. R. F. Rooney, of Auburn, Cal., who obtained the details at first hand from pioneers.—A. K. ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... it plainer, I am to keep strictly within the limits of my own experience, and am not to inform you of what other persons told me—for the very sufficient reason that you are to have the information from those other persons themselves, at first hand. In this matter of the Moonstone the plan is, not to present reports, but to produce witnesses. I picture to myself a member of the family reading these pages fifty years hence. Lord! what a compliment he will feel it, to be ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... years, Valerie was a woman in experience. Experience, not gained altogether at first hand, be it understood, but such as a clever woman easily gathers from the lives of those about her. As the motherless daughter of M. Selpdorf, she had had exceptional opportunities. Thrown into the midst of a brilliant but vicious society, her eyes had seen more ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... been rumors of gold or silver, and some one, believing the stories, made a map, maybe by hearsay, maybe at first hand. Maybe he talked too much, and some other fellow knocked him on the head and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... as it really is and war as the people at home think it is. This is a difference which will never be understood by any excepting those who have been over there. Those so unfortunate as to be unable to learn it at first hand will be forever ignorant of the real meaning of war. There is no language which can adequately describe it; no artist can paint it; no imagination can conceive it. It is just short of the knowledge of one who has died and returned to life. So, ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... nothing at first hand. But I can see why Bert's going to the war, and why Jamesy took to drink, and why ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tendency to symbolism and imagery gives Pico's work a figured style, by which it has some real resemblance to Plato's, and he differs from other mystical writers of his time by a real desire to know his authorities at first hand. He reads Plato in Greek, Moses in Hebrew, and by this his work really belongs to the higher culture. Above all, we have a constant sense in reading him, that his thoughts, however little their positive value may be, are connected with springs beneath ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... Sorabjee, a Parsee Christian lady, was appointed by the Government of Bengal to be a legal adviser to the Bengal Court of Wards, or landowning minors. Zenana or harem ladies, e.g. the widowed mothers of the minors, would thus be able to consult a trained lawyer at first hand within the zenana or harem. Missionaries are discussing the propriety of authorising certain Christian women to baptize women converts within the zenanas.[28] Long ago missions organised zenana schools, and ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... experience outside of rutted convention, were stirring her warm-blooded youth. She had seen enough of life lived in a parlor, and when there came knocking at her door a chance to know the big, untamed outdoors at first hand she had at once embraced it like a lover. She was eager for her new life, and she set out skillfully to make these men tell her what she wanted to know. To them, of course, it was an old story, and whatever ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... despatches needs no comment. We see the whole situation with that vividness which only a relation at first hand ever gives. The effect of these two examples was instantaneous. Most of the other towns surrendered upon the first summons. The Irish army fell back in all directions. An attempt was made to save Kilkenny, but after a week's defence it was ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... not strong among men of strength, thinkers and benefactors at first hand, germinators of thought and heroism in the van of the race,—such as bear the stamp of a primitive and primeval energy, like Abraham, Noah, Moses, David and Paul, Buddha and Mohammed, Socrates and Plato, in the East; Garrison and John ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... has grown vague and wide in significance as the modifying elements that limited its meaning have been removed. In the Chinese the problem is a much simpler one. We need simply to take the existing words out of their place in the sentence and let them stand alone, and we have root words at first hand. We may go through the whole range of human speech and, with more or less difficulty, arrive at a similar result. In short, the evidence seems conclusive that the language of mankind began in the use of isolated words of vague and broad significance, and that all the subsequent development ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... coming with me to the door. "If you don't mind rough spots now and then, I'll try to show you a few things at first hand." ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... of Kinsale and his former connection. Was he secretly working with them still? Was there a plot to frustrate Everson's plans? At least the best thing to do was to get out to the wreck and answer our many questions at first hand. ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... more NAIVE absurdity? It is as if a man wouldn't go to heaven unless he went in a special train, or as if he thought (as some people think about vaccination) Confirmation more effectual when administered at first hand. When that eminent person, the Begum Sumroo, died, it is said she left ten thousand pounds to the Pope, and ten thousand to the Archbishop of Canterbury,—so that there should be no mistake,—so as to make sure of having the ecclesiastical authorities on her side. ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... university. It seemed to Hugh that the arguments employed must be identical with those that might formerly have been used to justify the retention of Hebrew in the curriculum—the advisability of making acquaintance at first hand with a noble literature, the mental discipline to be obtained; "Greek has such a noble grammar!" said one of these enthusiasts. Hugh grew a little nettled at the tone of the discussion. The defenders of Greek seemed to be so impervious to facts which told ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... people weren't the only delegation to reach Blanley that day. Enough of the trustees of the college lived in the San Francisco area to muster a quorum for a meeting the evening before; a committee, including James Dacre, the father of the boy in Modern History IV, was appointed to get the facts at first hand; they arrived about noon. They talked to some of the students, spent some time closeted with Whitburn, and were seen crossing the campus with the Parapsychology people. They didn't talk to Chalmers or ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... of the sea also, in one of which, "The Pilot," he took as his hero John Paul Jones, tales founded on his own knowledge of a sailor's life won at first hand; but it was the Indian tales that brought him greatest fame. Whether the pictures of the men of the Six Nations be accurate or not they made direct appeal to the imagination of the world, and Indian character will always stand as Cooper drew it. Shakespeare ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... felt and penetrated nothing.[91] In other words, this is to say that his material of thought was not fact but image. When he plunged into reflection, he did not deal with the objects of reflection at first hand and in themselves, but only with the reminiscences of objects, which he had never approached in a spirit of deliberate and systematic observation, and with those reminiscences, moreover, suffused and saturated by the impalpable but most potent essences of a fermenting imagination. Instead of urgently ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... acquainted with the assassins of history. Of those who slew Caesar I learned in my schooldays, and between Ravaillac, who did the business for Henry of Navarre, and Booth and Guiteau, my familiar knowledge seems almost at first hand. One night at Chamberlin's, in Washington, George Corkhill, the district attorney who was prosecuting the murderer of Garfield, said to me: "You will never fully understand this case until you have sat by me through one day's proceedings in court." ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... poem, the Lusiad of Camoens, is full of jubilation over the discovery of the New World. Camoens made his notes of foreign places at first hand; he had served as a soldier, fought at the foot of Atlas in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, had doubled the Cape twice, and, inspired by a deep love for Nature, had spent sixteen years in examining the phenomena of ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... controversy. The revolutionaries thought him a caricature and a libel, the reactionaries a scandalous glorification of the Devil; and impartial men such as Dostoevsky, who knew the revolutionaries at first hand, thought the type unreal. It is impossible that Bazarov was not like the Nihilists of the sixties; but in any case as a figure in fiction, whatever the fact may be, he lives and will continue to live....—From "An ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... before an impartial posterity, of a great historical humbug, the sum "down," in other words, that any lively publisher would give for it, figured vividly in Mr. Locket's calculations. It was therefore altogether an opportunity of dealing at first hand with the lively publisher that Peter was invited to forego. Peter gave a masterful laugh, rejoicing in his heart that, on the spot, in the repaire he had lately quitted, he had not been tempted by a figure that would have approximately represented the value of his property. ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... novel of incident, of the open air, of the sea, the shore, the mountain eyrie, and of breathing, living entities, who deal with Nature at first hand.... The adventures described are peculiarly novel and interesting.... Packed with incidents, infused with humor and wit, and faithful to the types introduced, this book will surely appeal to the large audience already won, and beget ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... a good mind to go, anyway," said the old man, suddenly, "I would like to write a paper on the habits of the Patagonians and how can I if I don't study them at first hand?" ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... is not acquired by means of mathematical operations or laboratory experiments, that is to say, three-fourths of the human phenomena which interest us most. Observe that the records collected by the investigators of the S. P. R., like those discussed by M. Bozzano, are all told at first hand and that those stories of which the narrators were not the protagonists or the direct witnesses have been ruthlessly rejected. Furthermore, some of these narratives are necessarily of the nature of medical observations; ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... state, which is the chief heir to our social inheritance. The family, however, is now, as it has always been, the interior, vital, and so far indispensable social relationship, beginning, as it does, at first hand the training of each individual toward membership in society-at-large. In the past, under the mother-rule, the social elements of the family were emphasized, since her power was one delegated by the group of which she and her children were a part and closely ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... have all the facts at first hand before venturing an opinion," Craig replied with precisely that shade of hesitancy that might reassure the anxious father and mother, without ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... of the hunting field could not lure his desire. New York was full of marvelous novelties; its daily routine, even in the hotel and on the streets, gripped his heart and his imagination; and he confessed to himself that New York was life at first hand; fresh drawn, its very foam sparkling and intoxicating. He walked from the Park to the Battery and examined all that caught his eye. He had a history of the city and sought out every historical site; he even went over to Weehawken, and ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... made up from the writings of naturalists who have told us of the behavior of animals as they have seen it at first hand and of the beginnings and the growth of life so far as they know about it. In selecting these from the wealth of available material the editor has been guided by this rule: The subject matter must be interesting to young people; it must be told in a clear ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... judgment of the public! 'Tis the manner of thy craft,—yet see!"—and with a dexterous movement of his arm he threw the fruit-peel through the window far out into the garden beyond—"There goes thy famous criticism!" and he laughed.. "And those that taste the fruit itself at first hand will not soon forget its flavor! Nevertheless I hope indeed that thou wilt strive to slaughter me with thy blunt paper sword! I do most mirthfully relish the one-sided combat, in which I stand in silence to receive thy blows, myself unhurt and tranquil as a marble god whom ruffians ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... closest intimates he was. Speaking of Mr. Harris's gift for negro dialect, Mr. Stanton told me that there was one negro exclamation which "Uncle Remus" always wished to reproduce, but which he never quite felt could be expressed, in writing, to those unfamiliar with the negro at first hand: that is the exclamation of amazement, which has the sound, "mmm—mh!"—the first syllable being long and the ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... part of our knowledge which it is more useful to obtain at first hand—to go to the fountain-head for—than our knowledge of History.—J. S. MILL, Inaugural Address, 34. The only sound intellects are those which, in the first instance, set their standard of proof high.—J. S. MILL, Examination of ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... with this method of interpretation by signs, he had a directer means of approaching the gods. He could visit one of the oracles and consult the deity at first hand about his most trivial and personal family affairs. Some of the questions put to the oracle at Dodona have been preserved to us, [Footnote: See Percy Gardner, "New Chapters in Greek History."] and very curious they ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... amity and see all the New Scots at work in tracking down the breakers of the laws that are made in the picturesque building with the clock tower so close by. And not very distant is the War Office, where mobilisation-while-you-wait may be studied at first hand, we don't think. Indeed, London offers such opportunities that we shall be surprised if the Selborne Society ever looks at a mole ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... of paternal Majesty on Wilhelmina; the rumor of which has gone into all lands, exciting wonder and horror, but could not be so exact as this account at first hand. Naturally the crowd of street-passengers, once dispersed by the Guard, carried the matter abroad, and there was no end of sympathetic exaggerations. Report ran in Berlin, for example, that the poor ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... hear of you again at first hand: our last traditions represented you at Edinburgh, and left the prospect of your return hither very vague. I have only time for one word tonight: to say that your room is standing vacant ever since you quitted it,—ready ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... wise as are those who come into contact with Nature at first hand, did not interfere with his son's queer predilections or attempt to stay his development on the lines of instinctive preference, aiding the boy indeed in every way to make the most of himself on the path ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... of the year 1860, Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, and a man who had made his own intellectual fortune, had been elected president by the Republicans who were very strong in the anti-slavery states. He knew the evils of human bondage at first hand and his shrewd common-sense told him that there was no room on the northern continent for two rival nations. When a number of southern states seceded and formed the "Confederate States of America," Lincoln accepted the challenge. The Northern states were called ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... passion, that judges truly, that thinks clearly, and forms independent convictions. There has been in our educational system an overemphasis on the acquirement of facts, a natural result of our modern dependence upon books; too much is accepted on authority, too little thought out at first hand. We must "banish the idolatry of knowledge," as Ruskin exhorted, and "realize that calling out thought and strengthening the mind are an entirely different and higher process from the putting in of knowledge and the heaping up of facts." We have many well-informed scholars to one clear and reliable ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... for circulation of a commodity is very much advanced when the demand is wont to increase with the supply, as is the case with gold and silver, but not with learned books, optical instruments etc. Many commodities have but little circulating capacity, because no one desires to purchase them but at first hand. See Menger, Grundsaetze, I, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... appeal. Not that they can play with this power, and dispose of it by arbitrary will. The media through which it is to flow have been divinely appointed: its channels are limited to certain physical substances and bodily acts or postures, selected at first hand for the purpose:—water at one time, bread at another, oil at a third, handling of the head at a fourth. But the infusion of the supernatural efficacy into these "alvei" depends on an act of the appointed official; through whom ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... since the day of the inquest, now a week past. To begin with he had seen Hilliard secretly, and learned at first hand all that that young man could tell him. Next he had made sure that the finger-prints found on the speaking tube were not those of Mr. Coburn, and he remained keenly anxious to obtain impressions from Captain Beamish's fingers to compare ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... middle-class family of Berlin. A full university training at Halle, Goettingen and Erlangen was accorded him, during which he cannot be said to have distinguished himself by any triumph in the field of formal studies, but in the course of which he assimilated at first hand the chief modern languages of culture, without any professional guidance. At an early stage in his growth he discovered and fed full upon Shakespeare. As a university student he also fell in love with the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and the Jews themselves, have a perfectly clear notion of the aims and ways of Zionism; the Gentiles, because they do not care sufficiently for Jewish affairs to take the trouble to inform themselves at first hand as to the particulars; the Jews, because they are intentionally led astray by the enemies of Zionism, by lies and calumnies, or because even among the fervent Zionists there are not many who have probed the whole Zionist idea to the bottom, and are willing or able to present it in a clear and ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... it. She was one of those happy beings in either sex who can amuse themselves, who can hold pleasant communion with the inner self, who can find romance in old houses, and yet love books, who prefer sunrises and sunsets at first hand, ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... for the first time in months, had turned in, we sat talking about our fire. We were considerably subdued and sobered; for this was the first coherent account we had heard at first hand. Two things impressed us—the tragedy, the futility. The former aspect hit us all; the latter struck strongly at Old and Cal. Those youngsters, wise in the ways of the plains, were filled with sad surprise over the incompetence ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... as swiftly as English; and he was one of the swiftest readers I have known. Thus equipped, he had the advantage of being one of the few English men of science who made it a practice to follow German research at first hand, and turn its light upon their ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... lake, or more than a hundred miles of dense forest and bridgeless streams—when he decided upon a flying trip to Detroit, where, during the French regime, the adventurous Cadillac had landed in 1701. He would inspect the western limit of the frontier now under his care and obtain at first hand a knowledge of the peninsula. "For," as he remarked to Glegg, his aide, "if I can read the signs aright, the two nations are rushing ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... wasted an evening for you, sir. I'm sorry. I hoped the troubles of those men, when you heard them at first hand, would interest you." ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... giving any support to silver, he was preparing to urge on Congress the repeal of the silver-purchase clauses of the Sherman act. Mr. Cleveland's intention became known in official circles in Calcutta. That this was the case I learned at the time and at first hand. The government of India believed that the cessation of all silver purchases in America would still further reduce the exchange value of the rupee, and therefore, in advance of the pending anti-silver ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... loneliness.... All the future grew black and impenetrable; but he knew shapes of terror, demons of longing and grief and guilt loomed there, waiting for him. He knew that he was about to understand a little of life in a very ancient and commonplace way: the way of experience and of reality: that at first hand he was to have the taste against his palate of that bitterness and desolation, that terror and helplessness, which make the songs and fictions of man one endless tragedy.... Destiny was taking him, as the jailer who comes to the condemned man's cell on the morning ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... about my trip. He told me of his own journey through the Congo in 1908 (he was then Prince Albert), when he covered more than a thousand miles on foot. He said that he was glad that an American was going to write something about the Congo at first hand and he expressed his keen appreciation of the work of American capital in his big colony overseas. "I like America and Americans," he said, "and I hope that your country will not forget Europe." There was a warm clasp ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... (1923:239-240) primarily on differences in the structure of the baculum. I assign Tamias to the tribe Marmotini. I assign Eutamias to the tribe Callosciurini, but do so only tentatively because I have not, at first hand, studied the bacula of most of the Callosciurini. The fossil record is too incomplete to reveal the time when the two tribes diverged. The subgenera Eutamias and Neotamias are closely related. Indications are that the divergence of the two ...
— Genera and Subgenera of Chipmunks • John A. White
... counsel, Mr. Ivins, peered into every item of Mr. Roosevelt's political career with a microscope. Mr. Barnes had, of course, all the facts, all the traditions that his long experience at Albany could give him. And as he dated back to Boss Platt's time, he must have heard, at first hand from the Senator, his relations with Roosevelt as Governor. But the most searching examination by Mr. Barnes brought him no evidence, and cross-examination, pursued for many days, brought him no more. When it became Roosevelt's ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... thing in poetry. Chaucer, the first in time of our great English poets, was true to this old tradition. He was page, squire, soldier, statesman, diplomat, traveler; and then he was a poet, who portrayed in verse the many-colored life which he knew intimately at first hand. ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... he should have spent at the Jingle-bob. As a boy hobo, or road- kid, he drifted on across the United States, getting acquainted with its peace officers, police judges, vagrancy laws, and jails. And he learned vagrants themselves at first hand, and floating laborers and petty criminals. Among other things, he got acquainted with farms and farmers, and, in New York State, once picked berries for a week with a Dutch farmer who was experimenting with one ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... of "gentle exercise," Bob found himself put on to work. He learned something of cutting out and mustering, both in cleared country and in scrub; helped bring home young cattle to brand, and studied at first hand the peculiar evilness of a scrub cow when separated from her calf. They gave him jobs for himself, which he accomplished fairly well, aided by a stock horse of superhuman intelligence, which naturally knew far more of the work than its rider could hope to do. Bob confided ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... I cried with joy. "You have painted his portrait in the gallery of city types. But I must meet one face to face. I must study the Man About Town at first hand. Where shall I find him? How shall ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... France and read Tourgueneff. W.D. Howells stayed at home and read Henry James. Henry James's mind is of a higher cast and temper; I have no doubt at one time of his life Henry James said, I will write the moral history of America, as Tourgueneff wrote the moral history of Russia—he borrowed at first hand, understanding what he was borrowing. W.D. Howells borrowed at second hand, and without understanding what he was borrowing. Altogether Mr. James's instincts are more scholarly. Although his reserve irritates me, and I often regret his concessions to the ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... was your wife that made you good, wasn't it?" I persisted, determined, now that I had started this investigation, to obtain confirmation at first hand on all points. ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... the rule of the Few, which will be either direct or representative, according as either they themselves by their own votes at first hand, or representatives whom they elect, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... abounds in birds and flowers; and, indeed, one may know by the frequent allusions to flowers and birds and the nice observation shown in these allusions, that these things must have made a strong impression on the youthful mind of the poet. He learned nature at first hand, and had his lesson by heart, unconsciously imbibing it from his walks alone, or with his dearly loved elder brother, Charles—elder by five years—over all the country-side; and there is no doubt that the wild and dreary side of that region, the flat expanse of the fens slowly ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... in others. In days when most English professors were content with a narrow empirical training, he had trudged with his knapsack over half Europe in quest of knowledge, had studied in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria, and had made himself acquainted at first hand with the best that was taught in their schools. He was a first-rate lecturer, clear and simple, and took much pains to get to know his pupils. When Lister had held for a short time the post of Acting House Surgeon at University College Hospital, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... period of his life, he had occasion to study at first hand certain places where he received original information which he later used in writing "Konovalov" and "The Ex-Men," which have thus acquired an autobiographical value. In fact, he worked a long while with ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... that such knowledge may be gained, effort has been made to put into the book only a minimum of matter calculated to take the student away from the Bible itself to a discussion about it and to put into it a maximum of such matter as will require him to study the scripture at first hand. ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... The Slav Invasion. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa. $1.00, net. Study at first hand of conditions in Pennsylvania mining regions and ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... volume of twenty-four representative drawings collected under the apt title of Personalities (SECKER). Not for me to attempt detailed consideration, even if it were not the duty of every amateur to fall a victim at first hand to Mr. KAPP'S amazing art. But one can hardly pass without tribute such things as the head of the Japanese poet on page 1 ("Seer of Visions"), a really wonderful example of much meaning in few lines, or the WYNDHAM LEWIS, the only drawing in the book in which a suggestion of cruelty tinges ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... Spencer in regard to the religious ideas of the Australians—according to that writer, mere dread of casual 'spirits'—she was obliged to alter her attitude, in consequence of all that she learned at first hand. She also explains that her tribe are not 'wild blacks,' though, in the absence of missionary influences, they retain their ancient beliefs, at least the old people do; and, in a decadent form, preserve their tribal initiations, or Boorah. How she tested and controlled the evidence of her informants ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... their forefathers felt—a sort of poetical Tractarianism, in short. Their metre betrays them, as well as their words; in both they are continually wandering, unconsciously to themselves, into the elegiac—except when on one subject, whereon the muse of Scotia still warbles at first hand, and from the depths of her heart—namely, alas! the barley bree: and yet never, even on this beloved theme, has she risen again to the height of Burns's ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Horny—into a familiar acquaintance not without a certain grim charm of his own. No doubt also there enters into their humour something of the original barbaric attitude towards things. For a primitive people who saw death often and at first hand, and for whom the future world was a vivid reality that could be felt, as it were, in the midnight forest and heard in the roaring storm, it was no doubt natural to turn the flank of terror by ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... measurement, and, indeed, he scarcely denied it on accusation. But my single experience of the more magnificent scoundrels of whom he bought the wood originally, contented me with the swindle with which I had become familiarized. On this occasion I took a boat and went to the Custom House, to get my fuel at first hand. The captain of the ship which I boarded wished me to pay more than I gave for fuel delivered at my door, and thereupon ensued the tragic scene of bargaining, as these things are conducted in Italy. We stood up and bargained, we ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... the familiar objects about us the student may well combine some reading which may serve to show him how others have been successful in thus dealing with Nature at first hand. For this purpose there are, unfortunately, but few works which are well calculated to serve the needs of the beginner. Perhaps the best naturalist book, though its form is somewhat ancient, is White's Natural History of Selborne. Hugh ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... Excellency, because what was alluded to in conversation as "the mystery of Samburan" had caused such a sensation in the Archipelago that even those in the highest spheres were anxious to hear something at first hand. Davidson had been summoned to an audience. It was a high official on ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... often great one feels that he can "do" a place in much less time than it would take in Europe, where objects of historic and other interest are so crowded together. If interested in the work of foreign missions abundant opportunity offers for their study at first hand. ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... keep the heavens from falling. He is credited with a great sanitary feat in the draining of a marsh, and his knowledge of medicine was held to be supernatural. Fortunately, some fragments of the writings of Empedocles have come down to us, enabling us to judge at first hand as to part of his doctrines; while still more is known through the references made to him by Plato, Aristotle, and other commentators. Empedocles was a poet whose verses stood the test of criticism. In this regard he is in a like position with Parmenides; ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Darwin's theory of the origin of species by variation and natural selection. The keynote of Lyell's work, throughout his life, was observation. Lyell was no cabinet geologist; he went to nature and studied phenomena at first hand. Possessed of abundant leisure and ample means he travelled far and wide, patiently collecting material and building up the modern science of physical geology, whose foundations had been laid by Hutton ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... other lands and other times. You have seen and watched the unfolding of forces that sprang up after the Civil War. Those forces mounted in the eighties and exploded in free silver in 1896. They began to hit through the directed marksmanship of Theodore Roosevelt during his second term. You knew at first hand all that went with these forces of human hope, futile or valiant endeavor, articulate or inarticulate expression of the new birth. You saw and lived, but in greater degree, what I have seen and lived. And with this ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... the prime not yet I understand— Scarce know the love that loveth at first hand: Help me my selfishness to scatter and scout; Blow on me till my love loves burningly; Then the great love will burn the mean self out, And I, in glorious simplicity, Living by ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... cook," explained Mrs. Bowen. "She sings ballads to Effie that she learned from her mother, and I suppose Effie wants to hear them at first hand." ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Arizona Tom and Harry had studied the occurrence of precious ores, and also the methods of assaying and extracting ores. Having their time wholly to themselves after finishing in Arizona the dauntless young pair went to Nevada, there to study mining at first hand. In time they located a mining claim, though there were other claimants, and around this latter fact hung an extremely exciting story. Both young engineers nearly lost their lives in Nevada, and met with many strenuous situations. Their sole idea in pushing their mine forward to success ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... I say, Sir Ethelred? A new man's antagonism to old methods. A desire to know something at first hand. Some impatience. It's my old work, but the harness is different. It has been chafing me a little in one ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... and sits through the visit. I must speak plainly to you, my dear, as I have a right to. If the minister has anything of importance to say, let it come through the lips of some mature person. It may lose something of the fervor with which it would have been delivered at first hand, but the great rules of Christian life are not so dependent on the particular individual who speaks them, that you must go to this or that young man to find out what they are. If to any man, I should prefer the old gentleman whom you have mentioned in your letters, Father ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "panted on till ninety," you will find it in the venerable treatise of Sir John Floyer; would you listen to the story of the King's Evil cured by the royal touch, as told by a famous chirurgeon who fully believed in it, go to Wiseman; would you get at first hand the description of the spinal disease which long bore his name, do not be startled if I tell you to go to Pott,—to Percival Pott, the great surgeon ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... additional whet to appetite in the connection of Carew with Gethin. He was naturally an object of curiosity to his tenant Trevethick, and never before had the old man had the opportunity of hearing at first hand of the eccentricities of the Squire. In relating them Richard took good care to show by implication on what intimate terms he stood with him, and hinted at the obligation under which he had put him by throwing his ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... original elements. The sharp eyes of birds spy them out, and thus the lining to many a nest is furnished. I knew of one feathered seeker of cast-off clothing which met disaster through trying to get a supply at first hand—a sparrow was found dead, tangled in the hairs of a pony's tail. The chickadee often lights on the backs of domestic cattle and plucks out hair with which to line some snug cavity near by for his nest. Before the cattle came his ancestors were undoubtedly ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... read at first hand the story of fur, more interesting than dark otters, Hudson Bay sables, or silver-fox, one form silhouettes on the white canvas of the North. It is the figure of the Trapper. Here, as elsewhere, the man who mixes brains with his bait and makes a scientific ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... plenty of estimable people besides ourselves frequented Bertrand's. The place was not in bad odor at all, but merely a little miscellaneous, and suited our plebeian fancies all the more on that account. If young fellows want to be really comfortable in life, we thought, and see a little at first hand just what sort of people make up the world, they must not be too particular. So we used to sit down at the next table to one where a gambler or a horse-jockey would perhaps be seated, or a man of worse fame, and order our humble repast with a quiet conscience and a strengthened ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... the believers discouraged. "I discern in the alleged communications from my wife's mother," wrote my father, "much of her own beautiful fancy and many of her preconceived ideas, although thinner and weaker than at first hand. They are the echoes of her own voice, returning out of the lovely chambers of her heart, and mistaken by her for the tones ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Witches and Witchcraft has always suffered from the biassed opinions of the commentators, both contemporary and of later date. On the one hand are the writers who, having heard the evidence at first hand, believe implicitly in the facts and place upon them the unwarranted construction that those facts were due to supernatural power; on the other hand are the writers who, taking the evidence on hearsay and disbelieving ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... one of those officers who seemed never to grasp an order at first hand. Even when it came in writing, clear, brief, and explicit, he often required explanations. "I don't think I understand, sir," he began, but Warren ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Mellstock Quire and its old established west-gallery musicians, with some supplementary descriptions of similar officials in Two on a Tower, A Few Crusted Characters, and other places, is intended to be a fairly true picture, at first hand, of the personages, ways, and customs which were common among such orchestral bodies in the villages of ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... or heard at first hand of the indescribable cruelties and atrocities of the Huns. Ned, Bob, Jerry, and their comrades saw with what fervor the French and British were proceeding with the war, and their own ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young |
