"Average" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had they liberty to carry salt directly to America, they would not only save the money paid for the sand, but also gain by the freight of salt perhaps L60 or L80 more. Thus on an average every ship that goes now empty from these ports to America, might clear L70 and there are above a hundred sail to that voyage every year. This is an annual loss of L7,000 at least; and besides, as the ship loses no time in this case ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... a half-grown shad," is a phrase which occurs, if the author remembers aright, in the Charcoal Sketches, by J. C. Neal. The Western people have carried this idea a step further, and applied it to sardines, as "small fishes," all of an average size, packed closely together in tin cans and excluded from the light of day. A man who has never travelled, and has during all his life been packed tightly among those who were his equals in ignorance and inexperience, ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... six chapels inside the church itself. The Apostles, who of course are present, have all of them real hair, but, if I may say so, they want a wash and a brush- up so very badly that I cannot feel any confidence in writing about them. I should say that, take them all round, they are a good average sample of apostle as apostles generally go. Two or three of them are nervously anxious to find appropriate quotations in books that lie open before them, which they are searching with eager haste; but I do not see one figure about which I should ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... delight I experienced in my rags and tatters which is denied the average American abroad. The European traveller from the States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself reduced to a chronic state of self-conscious sordidness by the hordes of cringing robbers who clutter his steps from dawn till dark, and deplete his pocket-book in a way that puts compound ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... made, for the latter bird is nearly, if not quite, as large as the former. A specimen of the Californian vulture has been measured, which proved to be four feet eight inches in length, and nine feet eight inches between the tips of the wings! Now, this is actually larger than the average size of the condors; and it is not improbable, therefore, that individuals of the Californian species may yet be found quite equal to the largest of ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... be as perfectly independent of each other, and as little under the necessity of making mutual concessions, as the representatives of London and Devonshire in the House of Commons are and ought to be. Now Temple's new Council was to contain fifteen members who were to hold no offices, and the average amount of whose private estates was ten thousand pounds a year, an income which, in proportion to the wants of a man of rank of that period, was at least equal to thirty thousand a year in our time. Was it to be expected that such men would gratuitously take on themselves ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... direct purpose of the average newspaper are financial profit. One is now and then founded, and conducted even at a loss, to serve party, social, religious or other ends, but where the primary intent is unselfish there ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... what's wrong?" he demanded. "What on earth is it? Why couldn't things have gone on as they were, without God knows how many people picking me for a target? As far as I can see I'm merely maintaining my usual average of imperfection and all the rest of the world ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... and wild,— A stunted, not too pretty, child, Beneath a battered gingham; Such things, to say the least, require A Muse of more-than-average Fire ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... Menstruation; Uterine Nerve-supply; the Function of the Uterus; Stages of the Menstrual Cycle; Average Duration of the Menstrual Flow; Character of the Flow; Relation of Ovulation to Menstruation; the Menstrual Wave; Definition of Menstruation; Premonitory Symptoms of the ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... size; each told me of men who had big pricks, rarely of those who had small ones. Experience has since taught me that harlots like talking about big pricks, for size affects their imagination agreeably. Of ridiculously small ones they make mention for a laugh, the average sizes pass without their notice. I used to ask them how mine compared with the big ones they spoke of, and got at last into my head the erroneous opinion about my own machine. At times I would produce it with an apologetic ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... to America; the soil and climate of the South were well adapted to its growth. Its culture from the seed was there very easy, but the separation of the seed from the fibre was so slow that it required an average hand one day to secure ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... and the blood and treasure which it had cost the nation to crush Napoleon had allayed in thousands of them the thirst for glory, and turned them into possibly humdrum but very sincere lovers of peace. Lord John's speech was an appeal to the average man in his strength and in his limitations, and men of cautious common-sense everywhere rejoiced that the young Whig—who was liked none the less by farmer and shopkeeper because he was a lord—had struck the nail exactly on the head. The growth of Lord ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... won't average such speed as we did during the hail storm," said Tom. "The wind of that carried us along at a terrific pace. But we will get there in plenty of time, ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... varieties of effect in the furniture-features generally common to all, as are often, like the infinitesimal varieties of eyes, noses, and mouths, too intricately minute to be traceable. Now, the parlor of Mr. Thorpe's house was neat, clean, comfortably and sensibly furnished. It was of the average size. It had the usual side-board, dining-table, looking-glass, scroll fender, marble chimney-piece with a clock on it, carpet with a drugget over it, and wire window-blinds to keep people from looking in, characteristic of all respectable London parlors of the middle ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... "You said just now you didn't understand what I was talking about. I'll put it plainer this time. You're a very beautiful girl, as you probably know, and you are destined, in all probability, to be the mate of a very average suburban-minded person, who will give you a life tantamount to slavery. That is the life of the middle-class woman, as you probably know. And why would you submit to this bondage? Simply because a person in a black coat and a white collar has mumbled certain passages over you—passages ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... 3824 tons of fuel, 6499 tons of coal and electric apparatus and appliances when we started; the whole concern, ship included, being valued at somewhere about two millions sterling. It may increase your idea of the size and needs of our little household when I tell you that the average quantity of coal burned on the voyage out has been ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... for a number it is easy to give the weights of the different things that will be required, as there will probably be an average of appetites, but this is not possible for one or two people; for where one person will eat nearly a pound of meat, another will only eat two ounces, so that of quantity the housekeeper must be the best judge, as she knows the appetites for which ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... the most scientific card game that has ever become popular in this country. The expert has the full measure of advantage to which his skill entitles him, and yet the game possesses wonderful fascination for the beginner and player of average ability. It is doubtless destined to a long term of increasing popularity, and it is, therefore, most advisable for all who participate that they thoroughly familiarize themselves with the conventional methods of bidding ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... (Mercurian) Goudan, Canisius, and Lanoy. Therefore, I am called a courtier, even when I am not at court. The whole college will bear witness that I go there less often than Father Reinel, who at least went once a day, whereas I go on an average but once ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... hard winter, as winters go, but the loss of cows had been above the average and the crop of calves below, and Billy for the first time faced squarely the fact that, in the cattle business as well as in others, there are downs to match the ups. In his castle building, and so far in his realization ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... In the highest characters it is chastened, refined, purified: it appropriates, indeed, language due only to the divine, it almost simulates idolatry; yet it belongs to the best part of man's nature. But in the lower and average characters, it is not so respectable; it is apt to pass into mere toying pastime and frivolous love of pleasure: it astonishes us often by the readiness with which it displays an affinity for the ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... facilities in Bulgaria are quite equal to the average of Europe. There are about 200 post offices, about 7000 miles of telegraph wires, and 600 miles of long-distance telephone. The postal and telegraph administration yields a ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... in the latter country some remarkable ruins near the town of Panuco, and among them a curious sepulchral effigy. "It was a handsome block or slab of stone, (wider at one end than the other,) measuring seven feet in length, with an average of nearly two and a half feet in width and one foot in thickness. Upon its face was beautifully wrought, in bold relief, the full length figure of a man, in a loose robe with a girdle about his loins, his arms crossed ...
— Some Observations on the Ethnography and Archaeology of the American Aborigines • Samuel George Morton
... rebuke left a deep impression, and was never forgotten. A life's experience in the pursuit of heavy game has confirmed my opinion expressed in the 'Rifle and Hound' in 1854—that the best weapon for a hunter of average strength is a double rifle weighing fifteen pounds, of No. 10 calibre. This should carry a charge of ten drachms of No. 6 powder (coarse grain). In former days I used six or seven drachms of the finest grained powder with the old muzzle-loader, but it is well known that the rim ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... and glued together by transverse rows of the same material. Mr Hooker told us that the trade in birds' nests employs a large amount of capital and men. However, the loss of life arising from accidents and exposure is very great. It has been asserted that, on an average, two out of every five men employed in bird's-nesting meet with a violent death. In China a "catty" or one pound and a quarter English, of the best nests, sells at about 9 pounds sterling. Their value depends chiefly upon their translucent whiteness. Those ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... a cantata about the Britons and the Danes. There is a Druid priestess who sings of Cynthia and Endymion, and a chorus of jubilant Vikings. It is charmingly printed, and as a libretto for music quite above the average. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... will signal at the rate of thirty-five words per minute, still less to the printing system, which can signal at the rate of fifty words per minute; but, even at this rate, the cable would be enabled to transmit in twenty-four hours one thousand despatches containing an average of twenty words apiece. Mr. Field, however, claims for the cable a speed of only twelve words per minute, which would reduce the number of despatches of twenty words each that could be transmitted in twenty-four hours to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... society, and ignore them, or condemn them, or laugh at them as abnormal or illogical or indicative of ignorance. So far as literature goes, the speech of the common people has little interest for us because it is not the recognized literary medium. These two reasons have prevented the average man of cultivated tastes from giving much attention to the way in which the masses speak, and only the professional student has occupied himself with their language. This is unfortunate because the speech of the common people has many points of interest, ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... there are indications which can scarcely prove deceptive. In our country an uniform experience of 40 years has shown that what ever the tariff of duties upon articles imported from abroad has been, the amount of importations has always borne an average value nearly approaching to that of the exports, though occasionally differing in the balance, some times being more and some times less. It is, indeed, a general law of prosperous commerce that the real value of exports should by a small, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... meet the human need about them in any way possible; above all, helping the people to help themselves ... in the Black Belt of Alabama, a county containing the largest proportion of blacks to whites. The average ratio for the seventeen counties in Alabama's cotton-belt is less than three to one. In Lowndes County in 1892 the ratio was seven to one—28,000 to 4000. This meant maximum conditions of ignorance and poverty—a county ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... is saved on a short voyage is consumed by extra expense on a long one; and the expenses average about the same, one year ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... well-shaped as the Greeks; but their complexions are fine, their hair generally black and glossy, and their head-dress particularly graceful; and not being addicted to the bath, like other eastern women, they prolong their beauty beyond the average period." The spirit of nationality, and zeal for national improvement, which pervades the population almost as one man, is strongly marked by many incidents related in Mr Paton's pages, and one is so remarkable that we cannot forbear quoting it. An idiot boy, to whom he had given ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... a distance from town or on the Continent will be glad to have some guide as to the quantity of cotton required to complete their work. The quantity of tatting or crochet cotton used by an average worker is found to be two yards to the square inch with a single shuttle; three yards to the square inch with ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... cost is still heavy, no doubt, and the electric light still stands in the category of luxuries which are almost beyond the reach of average middle-class incomes."—The "Times" on the growth ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... and the Erzgebirge on the other. One straggling peak near is crowned with a picturesque ruin, at whose foot the spacious bath-buildings lie half hidden in foliage. As we went down the principal street, I noticed nearly every house was a hotel; we learned afterwards that in summer the usual average of visitors is five thousand. The waters resemble those of the celebrated Carlsbad; they are warm and particularly efficacious in rheumatism and diseases of like character. After leaving Teplitz, the road turned to the east, towards a lofty mountain, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... approximated by an approximate "T-ing" or "flanking," such as is shown in Fig. 3; because the average distance from the ships of A to the leading ship in B is less than the average distance from the ships in B to any ship in A; and because the direction of fire from each ship in A is more nearly abeam ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... His cart stood a few yards off, already half full of timber; and the horse that cropped the grass was, like his master, valorous but not desperate; like his master, he was even prosperous, but yet was almost sad. The man was a Norman, taller than the average of the French and very angular; and his swarthy figure stood dark against a square of sunlight, almost like some allegoric figure of labour frescoed on a ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... necessary, she was succeeded (with intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables; terminating in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in Dora's bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but an average equality of failure. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... more harm in the long run. Cattlemen reckon that a wolf will get away with about four head a year. Myself, I think that's pressin' the average some; I'd put it at somewhere between two an' three. But it's ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... not all look towards Signor Odoardo's residence. One of them, for example, commands a little garden belonging to a worthy bachelor who smokes his pipe there on pleasant days. Signora Evelina finds the worthy bachelor to her taste, and the worthy bachelor, who is an average- adjuster by profession, admires Signora Evelina's eyes, and considers her handsomely and solidly enough put together to rank A No. 1 on ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... upon the same general plan. They were on an average about eight by ten feet in size, with a slightly sloping roof so low in the rear Bob could ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... taxed in comparison with England, it is by no means to be considered so when compared to most of the continental nations. The account usually rendered of American taxation is fallacious. It is stated, that something under six millions sterling, or about 10s. per head on an average, pays the whole army, navy, civil list, and interest of debt of the United States, while we require fifty millions, or nearly 2l. 10s. each, for the same purpose. But the fact is, that that sum is only about half what the Americans pay in reality; for each individual state has its own civil ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... have been easy to have revised all the figures, but of little advantage to our readers. For example, it is encouraging to the citizen to know that the average wheat yield per acre has increased more than two bushels since the first edition of this book, but it would not help the garden maker. The increase of possible products tends to counterbalance the increased cost of labor. So only the musty parts have been cut out of the book, which ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... saddles and revolvers strung to their belts, and each of them strove to keep up cowboy traditions by unloading his weapon on the slightest provocation. The gamblers also sustained the conventions of their profession by killing one another now and again, and the average citizen regarded these activities with a certain approval, for they all ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... the fighting quality of these troops, their peaceful work behind all the fronts bears witness to a thorough spiritual culture (Bildung) and a living organization such as the world has never seen, and this again indicates an average level of culture in all grades—of spiritual development and moral responsibility—to which no people in the world can show anything in the smallest degree comparable.—H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... state. There is an enormous difference between mean and maximum denudation and deposition. In the case of the great faults the upheaval along a given line would itself facilitate the denudation (whether sub-aerial or marine) of the upheaved portion at a rate perhaps a hundred times above the average, just as valleys have been denuded perhaps a hundred times faster than plains and plateaux. So local subsidence might itself lead to very rapid deposition. Suppose a portion of the Gulf of Mexico, near the mouths of the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... or, worse still, a Government servant. They therefore sit as far apart as possible, and smoke cigarettes between and during the courses with that self-centred absorption which would be rude, if it were not entirely satisfactory, to the average Briton. The ladies, of course, have the same easy method of showing a desire for silence and reflection in a country where nurses carrying infants usually smoke in the streets, and where a dainty confectioner's assistant places ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... people according to the measure of their comprehension. Where you have masses of people of crude susceptibilities and clumsy intelligence, sordid in their pursuits and sunk in drudgery, religion provides the only means of proclaiming and making them feel the hight import of life. For the average man takes an interest, primarily, in nothing but what will satisfy his physical needs and hankerings, and beyond this, give him a little amusement and pastime. Founders of religion and philosophers come into the world to rouse him from his stupor and point ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... can be more conclusive? What is true of one, must be so of all! What are all, but a collection of individuals? You might as well tell me that every Frenchman could suddenly grow an inch taller, without the average height ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... same time they were witnessing a rapid transformation of the external conditions of life, a movement to the continuation of which there seemed no reason for setting any limit in the future. The spectacular results of the advance of science and mechanical technique brought home to the mind of the average man the conception of an indefinite increase of man's power over nature as his brain penetrated her secrets. This evident material progress which has continued incessantly ever since has been a mainstay of the general belief in Progress which ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... masterpieces. Its plan was that of Liege—a ring of outer detached forts, constructed on the same armor-clad cupola principle. At Namur these were nine in number, four major forts and five fortins. The distance between each fort was on the average two and a half miles, with between two and a half to five miles from the city as the center ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... assumed the Roman purple; which gives to each not much more than two years. On the other hand, in the history of France, we find that, through a period of 1200 years, there have been no more than 64 kings: upon an average, therefore, each king appears to have enjoyed a reign of nearly nineteen years. This vast difference in security is due to two great principles,—that of primogeniture as between son and son, and of ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... and dry on the reefs, gal, and it seems likely you're the only one can get us off. You ain't got to go away from here, if you don't want to. I've made it pretty average plain to that Bostwick gal that no matter what happens, she's got no expectations as far as Prudence and me are concerned. It was money and nothing but money she was after. Her being Prudence's niece in kind of ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... is conceivable that what happens with the mystics is that their mental blinkers become slightly shifted, and they are thus able to respond to another aspect or order of reality. So that they are swept by emotions and invaded by harmonies from which the average man is screened. Life having for them somewhat changed in direction, the brain is forced to learn new movements, to cut along fresh channels, and thus to receive sensations which do not directly minister to the needs of physical life. "Our knowledge of things," says Bergson, ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... met with some way up the valley), appear like the shores of a still larger estuary. Farther up the valley, the sides are bounded throughout its entire length by level, gravel-capped terraces, rising above each other in steps. The width between the upper escarpments is on an average between seven and ten miles; in one spot, however, where cutting through the basaltic lava, it was only one mile and a half. Between the escarpments of the second highest terrace the average width is about four or five miles. ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... The straying fingers of the moonbeams through the chinks pencilled it strangely, and the shadows were huddled black behind it. But now it hung revealed, with no more likeness to a human body than any average well-meaning farm-implement might ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... bright idea struck her. She too went over and had a drink. After that I, personally, went to sleep. But in the morning I found Captain D. staring-eyed and strung nearly to madness, trying feverishly to calculate how seven dogs drinking on an average of three hours apiece could have finished by morning. When Harold Hill innocently asked if he had slept well, the captain threw the remaining but now ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... will grow larger; but he should be fed with discretion, and his health attended to, should his diet visibly disagree with him.[V] He will grow fatter and be more healthy on moderate meals than if overgorged. The better plan is to ascertain his average consumption, and then allow him a little less. Keep his digestion in good order, and disease will rarely trouble him. His coat and ribs will generally indicate whether he be sufficiently cared for, whether he be sick ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... of India, who more than twenty-five years ago called attention to the inferential character of the average man's faith in God. To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate; but He remains personally unknown to the individual. "He must be," they say, "therefore ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... weighs three and a half pounds, completed her year of an egg-laying competition at Delaware College, Newark, Del., and beat the previous record of 286 eggs by 28. The pen of five hens of which she was a member also broke the American pen record with 1,211 eggs. The average barnyard fowl produces only 70 eggs ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... paraded from the disobedience of youth, the rebellion of manhood, and the disappointment of age, divulged in the storied lives of the few hundred names admitted to be British poets; and the reading of whose works is, as a rule, a task of weariness. The career of Gay is a very fair one as an average of the poetic. He mainly avoided the ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... eagle feathers, and of course he wore two or three necklaces of beads and wampum. There was nothing unusual about the pony he was riding, except that it was larger and in better condition than the average Indian horse, but the one he was leading—undoubtedly his war horse—was a most beautiful animal, one of the most beautiful ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... 15 per cent. of mechanical power is obtained. Thus about nine-tenths of the original heat in coal is wasted. Proceeding further and putting mechanical power into electricity, only from 2 to 5 per cent. is turned into light; or, in other words, from coal to light we get on an average only about one-half of 1 per cent. of the original energy, a wastage of ninety-nine and one-half of every hundred pounds of coal used. The very best possible with largest and best machinery is a little more than one pound from every ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... is a safe enough plan. In no body of men in the world does honesty average higher than among the soldiers of the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... though my way of life has made me acquainted with all sorts and conditions of men, from the highest to the lowest, I deliberately affirm that the society I fell into at school was the worst I have ever known. We boys were average lads with much the same inherent capacity for good and evil as any others; but the people who were set over us cared about as much for our intellectual and moral welfare as if they were baby-farmers. We were left to the operation of the ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... already won from the bottom of the sea, of which they gave us to understand they had a good store. Before evening the first party returned, bringing a larger number of pearls than we expected. Few of them, however, were particularly fine, but on an average they were of good value, which encouraged us to hope that we should be well paid for our voyage. Notwithstanding the friendly behaviour of the natives, Harry considered it prudent to keep a vigilant watch during the hours of darkness. He told the natives that he should not expect to see ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... fiction in exaggerating the happiness of life in general or of the connubial state in particular. The young ladies are much more in danger of having their spirits depressed by the painstaking representation of miseries they are never likely to experience. The gloomy views of average human nature which once were conscientiously expounded by "painful preachers" are now taken up by painful play-wrights and story-tellers. Under the spell of powerful imaginations it is quite possible to see this world as nothing ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... by Morse instruments, usually direct from Chicago to Salt Lake, Hicks's self-acting repeaters being kept in the circuit at Omaha and Fort Laramie. At Salt Lake the messages are rewritten, and thence sent direct to San Francisco. The stations average about one for each fifty miles, and the whole length of the line is inspected twice a week by persons employed for the purpose. The cost of construction was about two hundred and fifty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... part of it afore, but 'twas years ago, and it's such a big place and the paths run so criss-cross I got sort of mixed up, and it took me longer to get out than it did to get in. I had the gen'ral points of the compass, and I guess I could have made a pretty average straight run for home, but every time I wanted to cut across lots there was a policeman lookin' at me, so I had to stick to the channel. That's what made me so late. Now do go and eat your breakfast. I won't feel easy ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... worked with a singular unanimity and with a hearty interest but seldom found in commissions of this character. It held twenty-five regular meetings and two special meetings, the aggregate of attendance at all meetings being two hundred thirty-one, making an average attendance of eight and fifty-nine hundredths at each meeting. When it is considered that each member had large personal interests, and that he served the State absolutely without compensation, only necessary ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... the door, so that it was impossible to see who entered. I saw the shadow of a woman on the wall, and supposed it to be a maid come to see after the fire. Next, the figure of an old woman emerged from behind the screen; she was of average height, and stout; she wore a woollen cap, and her dress was that of a superior servant indoors. Supposing her to be some servant's visitor come to have a look at the drawing-room while the party were at dinner, I moved ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... criticism. To this criticism I submit it, with this observation, that, if my work is to be regarded as a failure, or as the offspring of frivolous fancy, it must be demonstrated that men gifted with a normal average understanding would in any material point arrive at results other than those described by me if they were organised according to the principles which I have expounded; or that those principles contain anything which a sound understanding would not accept as a self-evident ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... account the sum of all my cares, I well perceiue my griefe innumerable growes, And still in reckonings rise more millions of dispayres. And thus, deuiding of my fatall howres, The payments of my loue I read, and reading crosse, And in substracting set my sweets vnto my sowres; Th' average of my ioyes directs me to my losse. And thus mine eyes, a debtor to thine eye, Who by extortion gaineth all theyr lookes, My hart hath payd such grieuous vsury, That all her wealth lyes in thy Beauties bookes; And all is thine ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... the synopses numbered and put on top here," he went on, "so you can run them over and see what they're like. A small company will do, Luck. That's one point that struck me. Two or three die, on an average, in the first four hundred feet of every story; so you can double a lot. I've had Clements go over them and start the carpenters on the street set where most of the exterior action takes place; we're behind on releases, you know, and these ought to be rushed. You'd better go over and see how ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... all study beyond the commonest acquirements of her sex. It was not with her, as with some, that the intellect alone had proved sufficient to make out of a helpless body a noble and complete human existence; Elizabeth's mind was scarcely above the average order, or if it had been, suffering had stifled its powers. Her only possession was the ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... snipe and cock, was driven almost frantic by the ruffed grouse; Voucher did better for a day or two, and then lost the knack; Marion Page attended to business in her cool and thorough style, and her average on the gun-room books was excellent, and was also adorned with clever ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... ever ashamed to be a Christian, or of what Christ was, or what he did and stood for. However, to ignore the fact that the mere word "missionary" aroused suspicion in the average English unconventional mind—such as those of these clean, natural-minded boys—would be a great mistake. Unquestionably, as in the case of Dickens, a missionary was unpractical if not hypocritical, and mildly incompetent if ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... he was before, and as he had become after I as Tootmanyoso had reigned about one hundred of your years. Man's life had been lengthened from your average age to one which before the employment of the means enjoined and carried out in my reign ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... distance is concerned, anyway, there is nothing noteworthy in this record. There are many men in Alaska who have done much more. A mail-carrier on one of the longer dog routes will cover four thousand miles in a winter, while the writer's average is less than two thousand. But his sled has gone far off the beaten track, across the arctic wilderness, into many remote corners; wherever, indeed, white men or natives were to be found in all the ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... despise other people, which so often accompanies genius. On first meeting with him I took him for a clergyman, and told him of it later. He felt rather flattered than otherwise by the mistake, and I have no doubt that his modest nature would at once refer to points on which the average clergyman would probably be his superior. Some artists are lost in admiration of their own works, so that the way to please them is to praise what they have done themselves; but the way to please Leslie was to praise what Constable had done. His admiration for Constable was quite as strong ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... something dazzling and disconcerting to an average layman about an actor's dressing-room, even though the dressing-room be that of an intimate friend. He feels like a being on the confines of two worlds and belonging to neither, awkwardly suspended 'twixt fact and fancy. The actor for a while has ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... your bedtime, were I to recount to you, for his advantage, a few of the arguments which have been used in favour of the Fixed Period,—and it would be useless, as you are all acquainted with them. But Sir Ferdinando is evidently not aware that the general prolongation of life on an average, is one of the effects to be gained, and that, though he himself might not therefore live the longer if doomed to remain here in Britannula, yet would his descendants do so, and would live a life more healthy, more useful, and more ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... work involved the excavation of about 375 ft. of the full width of Ninth Avenue to an average depth of about 58 ft., and the construction over this area of a steel viaduct, the deck of which was about 24 ft. below the surface, for the ultimate support of the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • B.F. Cresson, Jr
... possessed the rare gift of personal magnetism. Nature sometimes endows men and women with this quality in lieu of all other advantages, and such would seem to have been the case with Franklin Pierce. He was not much above the average in intellect, and, as Hawthorne afterward confessed, not particularly attractive in appearance; with a stiff military neck, features strong but small, and opaque gray eyes,—a rather unimpressive face, and one hardly capable of a decided expression. ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... standard by which all beauty may be measured, but without striking expression, except in the modest and graceful position of the limbs. The face, though regular, is not handsome, and the body appears small, being but five feet in height, which, I think, is a little below the average stature of women. On each side, as if to heighten its elegance by contrast with rude and unrefined nature, are the statues of the Wrestlers, and the slave listening to the conspiracy of Catiline, called also ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... fair sample of the average Frenchman's ironic astuteness, that clear practical vision that sees life without illusions. But if the war should drag on for years the question is, would he be willing to surrender the position of authority to which he had grown accustomed, and which satisfies ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... charter of the East India Company was prolonged for the further term of five years, on conditions similar to those in the last agreement. The company was to continue to pay L400,000 per annum, and to continue to export British goods, at an average of equal value with those sent to India during the last five years. The company, however, was now allowed to increase its dividend to twelve and a half per cent., provided it did not in any one year put on more than one per cent. If any decrease of dividend was found to be necessary, then ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... at the base of the plant, where we can readily find them. By having no petals, and other features assumed by an ordinary flower to attract insects, and chiefly in saving pollen, they produce seed with literally the closest economy. It is estimated that the average blind flower of the wood-sorrel does its work with four hundred pollen grains, while the prodigal peony scatters with the help of wind and insect visitors more than three ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... you a card, sir, of an establishment where those six boys can be brought up in an enlightened, liberal, and moral manner, with no mistake at all about it, for twenty guineas a year each—twenty guineas, sir—or I'd take all the boys together upon a average right through, and say a hundred pound ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... among my more widely travelled readers one or two who will know, from experience, that I am not exaggerating when I say that the body of the creature—of a deep ruby colour—was as big as the head of an average- sized man! Its head was about the size of an orange; it had a pair of wicked-looking eyes that fairly blazed with fury as, catching sight of me, it suddenly halted, glaring at me, emitting a low, angry, hissing sound, and clashing its formidable jaws together in what looked like an access of perfectly ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... did not differ in many particulars from the general average of cadet life, but a few incidents may be worthy of special mention. My experience in camp was comparatively limited. The first summer I was on guard only once. Then the corporal of the grand rounds ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... the midst of a war forced upon the world by German ambition, to take a sane and balanced view of the aims which German policy was setting before itself during these years of experiment and preparation. What did average German opinion mean by the phrase Weltmacht, world-power, which had become one of the commonplaces of its political discussions? We may safely assume that by the mass of men the implications of the term were never very clearly analysed; and that, if they had been analysable, ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... government immediately imposed a duty that was fixed early in 1620 at 1s. per pound of tobacco. Though this was only half the duty paid by Spanish tobacco, it was nonetheless a heavy burden to be imposed upon leaf that was declared never to have sold at more than 5s. a pound and that brought an average of only 2s. for the better grade in 1620.[A] The adventurers' attempted escape by shipping their tobacco to Holland won them a sharp reprimand from the privy council, and an order to bring all of Virginia's tobacco to England for payment of his majesty's ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... absolutely honest man is a little insane," went on Godfrey quickly. "Just as every great reformer and enthusiast is a little insane. The sane men are the average ones, who are fairly honest and yet tell white lies on occasion, who succumb to temptation now and then; who temporise and compromise, and try to lead a comfortable and quiet life. I repeat, Lester, that this fellow is a great criminal, ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... he was an excellent talker: his descriptive power being far above the average, and his humorous exaggerations of school occurrences always ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... different animals varies very much in color, taste, and nutritive value. That of the cow is a little heavier than water—its specific gravity being, on the average, about 1.030, water being 1.000. It is composed of three constituents—namely, butter, curd, and whey—each of which is also composed of a number of substances. These three constituents are of unequal weight, or specific gravity, and their separation is the chief process carried on in ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... years in organizing a training course for students who wish to teach ear-training on modern lines to classes of average children in the ordinary curriculum of a school has shown me that the great need for such students is to realize the problems, not only of musical education, ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... body, certain shades of countenance, certain gestures, tones of voice, spontaneous or willed actions, represent anger or joy, impatience or irritability, stern control or poise of mind. We realize that the average man has learned to conceal his mental reactions from the casual observer at will. But if we see him at an unguarded moment, we can very often get a fair idea of his mental attitude. Through these outward expressions we are able to judge to some extent ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... laboring classes in this country spend for liquor in twelve months would purchase five hundred of the average manufactories of the land; what they spend in ten years would purchase five thousand, and what they spend in twenty years would control the entire manufacturing interests of ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... both are laid at the opening of the tale, in a churchyard down by the Thames, as it winds past desolate marshes twenty miles to the sea, of which a masterly picture in half a dozen lines will give only average example of the descriptive writing that is everywhere one of the charms of the book. It is strange, as I transcribe the words, with what wonderful vividness they bring back the very spot on which we stood when he said he meant to make it the scene of the opening of his ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... more comfortably on her knee, she pondered once again. She knew that, for the present, her lines had fallen in very pleasant places, and she felt no desire to change to pastures new. And yet—and yet—. The average female life is long, and a Board, however thoughtful as to salary and pension, is an impersonal lord and master, and remote withal. So she answered quite simply, with her ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... of them or not—into which, if a young plant is brought, it is pretty sure to be killed. The temperature is so low that the tender shoots are nipped as with frost, and die. I have seen people, coming all full of fervour and of faith, into Christian congregations, and finding that the average round them was so much lower than their own, that they have cooled down after a time to the fashionable temperature, and grown indifferent like their brethren. Let us, dear friends, remember that a Christian Church is a nursery of imperfect Christians, and, for ourselves ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... adulterations; and milk, in particular, may always be tested by a lactometer,—a simple little instrument which the milkmen use, which costs a few shillings, and which tells the story in an instant. It is a glass bulb, with a stem above and a scale on it, and a weight below. In good average milk, at sixty degrees of heat, the lactometer floats at twenty on its scale; and in poorer milk, at from that figure down. If it floats at fifteen, the milk is one-fourth water; ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... from. There are dozens of physicians and lawyers, scores of school teachers, and hundreds of clerks in the departments. As to the colored department clerks, I think it fair to say that in educational equipment they average above the white clerks of the same grade; for, whereas a colored college graduate will seek such a job, the white university man goes into one of the many higher vocations which ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... what its evangelical parsons often were; and remember that Mr. Bronte was an evangelical parson, and the father of Emily and Charlotte, not of a brood of gentle, immaculate Jane Austens, and that he was confronted suddenly and without a moment's warning with Charlotte's fame. Why, the average evangelical parson would have been shocked into apoplexy at the idea of any child of his producing Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. Charlotte's fame would have looked to him exceedingly like infamy. We know what Charles Kingsley, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... rubbed upon this stone, it leaves a reddish mark, it is regarded as a satisfactory proof of its purity; otherwise, there is more or less alloy. The trader is obliged to depend upon the judgment and integrity of a native in his employ, who is skilful in trying gold. The average profit, acquired by the foreign traders in their dealings with the natives, is not less than a hundred per cent. on the principal articles, and much more on the smaller ones. No inconsiderable portion of this, however, is absorbed by the numerous "dashes;" in the first ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... Mr. Mack—was a popular character in the neighborhood. He possessed two social qualifications which invariably impress the average English mind—he was an old soldier, and he was a man of few words. The conclave on the platform insisted on taking his opinion, before it committed itself positively to an opinion of its own. A brisk fire of remarks exploded, as a matter of course, on all sides; but everybody's ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... sudden appearance of individuals far above the average of the human race, Lyell asks if such leaps upwards in the scale of intellect may not "have cleared at one bound the space which separated the higher stage of the unprogressive intelligence of the inferior animals from the first and lowest form of improvable reason manifested by man.") page ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... average of the weather for years past, and had come to the conclusion that July 13th is, on an average, the finest day in the year; but their attempt would be timed, if possible, to fall on a Bank Holiday when communications were temporarily disorganised. Therefore the nearest Bank ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... resist temptation, he abandons himself to some of those murderous occupations of which we have spoken, to the preparation of certain chemical productions, by which one in ten perishes; or, if he has the strength, he goes to get out stone in the forest of Fontainebleau, an employment which he survives, average time, six years! The condition of a liberated convict is, then, much worse, more painful, more difficult, than it was before his first criminal action: he lives surrounded by shackles and dangers; he is obliged to ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... condition worthy of human beings. Thus, C. Dupin is surprised at the great quantities of meat, butter, cheese and tea entered on the accounts of the poor-houses in England, and the great care taken to have these of the best quality.(100) A good symptom of such a state of things is a high average duration of human life, especially when there is a relatively large number of births. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... America is progressive, and the pluck and activity of the average American is unsurpassed. Who shall say, then, that Central America shall never become part of this Republic, which now increases its population over a million each year? What statesman shall now in the light of experience seek to bind this nation within the limits of a treaty, that these United ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... towards all points of the compass, moving, like the hands of a watch, with the sun. The movement very soon acquires its full ordinary velocity. From seven observations made during August on shoots proceeding from a plant which had been cut down, and on another plant during April, the average rate during hot weather and during the day is 2 hrs. 8 m. for each revolution; and none of the revolutions varied much from this rate. The revolving movement continues as long as the plant continues to grow; but each separate internode, as it ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... spectacle of millions of Women (over half a million in Britain, more in France, multitudes in Germany and America) manufacturing man-destroying explosive shells in ceaseless stream by day and night; (And it is estimated that on the average some fifty shells are expended for every one man slain) By the terrified faces — as of drowning men — of those suffering in countless hospitals from shell-shock; by their trembling hands and, limbs and horrible dreams at night — pursued by ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter
... became frightful; if water or food ran short the suffering was almost or quite beyond endurance; and in epidemics of scurvy, small-pox or ophthalmia the misery reached the limit of human experience. The average voyage however was rapid and smooth by virtue of the steadily blowing trade winds, the food if coarse was generally plenteous and wholesome, and the sanitation fairly adequate. In a word, under stern and often brutal ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... French colonies, afterward against the English colonists (the German prisoners generally settled in the country), induced the Germans to emigrate in such great numbers that, from 1770 to 1791, twenty-four emigrant ships on an average arrived annually at Philadelphia, without reckoning those that ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... for example, has a maximum depth of 1,096 feet—but is considerably less than that of Lakes Maggiore and Como, on the Italian side of the Alps. A series of observations of the temperature of the water were taken between the 11th and 18th of August. The average corrected ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... appearance of the Guadalquivir to interest the traveller: the banks are low and destitute of trees, the adjacent country is flat, and only in the distance is seen a range of tall blue sierras. The water is turbid and muddy, and in colour closely resembling the contents of a duck- pool; the average width of the stream is from a hundred and fifty to two hundred yards, but it is impossible to move along this river without remembering that it has borne the Roman, the Vandal, and the Arab, and has been the witness ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... are found in the district of Karnobat in Eastern Rumelia. The number of goats in the country tends to decline, a relatively high tax being imposed on these animals owing to the injury they inflict on young trees. The average price of oxen is L5 each, draught oxen L12 the pair, buffaloes L14 the pair, cows L2, horses L6, sheep, 7s., goats 5s., each. The principal cereals are wheat, maize, rye, barley, oats and millet. The cultivation of maize is increasing in the Danubian and eastern districts. Rice-fields ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... concerns utterance and vocalization. It naturally paid great attention to gesture and pose, attitude and bodily action. That it included comment on the meaning that lay back of the words may be gravely doubted. The average hula dancer of modern times shows great ignorance of the mele he recites, and this is true even of the kumu-hula. His work too often is largely perfunctory, a matter of sound and form, without appeal ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... due, began to be less anxious about selling me goods. They did not call me in, as of old, when I passed, nor did they urge me to buy when I went to their store. Still they sent home what I ordered; but their prices, which before were the lowest in the trade, were now above the average rates. I noticed, felt, and thought I understood all this. I had been careful not to borrow money from that firm; still, I was borrowing, somewhere, every day, and they, of course, knew it, and began to be a little ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... servile, menial, undignified, unbecoming, disingenuous; obscure, ignoble, plebeian, inglorious, undistinguished, vulgar; penurious, illiberal, sordid, miserly, stingy, mercenary parsimonious, ungenerous; midway, average, moderate, middle, medium, mediocre; intermediate, mediate, intervening; insignificant, paltry, inconsequential, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... more fortunate than the average in having their letters sent back to them for revision. The usual scheme is for the censor to clip out completely the portion of the letter carrying the damaging information. In case, therefore, a man has written something innocuous—but interesting none the less to his correspondent—on the other ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... average about four times the size of Bacterium termo; and when once they gain a place on and about the putrefying tissues, their relatively powerful and incessant action, their enormous multitude, and the manner in which they glide over, under, and beside each ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... he was commonly called, had been more than two years in the windmill, and was looked upon in all respects as "one of the family." He slept on a truckle-bed in the round-house, which, though of average size, would not permit him to stretch his legs too recklessly without exposing his ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... temper the wind of your obligations to the shorn lamb of your pleasures, you have discovered something that I myself have never yet succeeded in discovering! And as to 'wages'? Yes! I want to talk everything quite frankly! In addition to my average yearly earnings,—which are by no means small,—I have a reasonably large private fortune. Within normal limits there is no luxury I think that you cannot hope to have. Also, exclusive of the independent income which I would like to settle upon you, I should ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... and even economic class-interest, is by no means the only important political motive. Officials, whose salary is generally quite unaffected by their decisions on particular questions, are likely, if they are of average honesty, to decide according to their view of the public interest; but their view will none the less have a bias which will often lead them wrong. It is important to understand this bias before entrusting our destinies too unreservedly to ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... sleep diminish; and from this cause, conjoined with the peculiarity of the situation and the mood in which I found myself, I had surely "affrighted sleep" for that night. As I lay awake I indulged in the following mental calculation of my misery to coax a slumber: The average number of inspirations in a minute is fifteen—remember, snoring is an act of the inspiration—the number of hours I lay awake was six. Fifteen snores a minute make nine hundred an hour. Multiply 900 by 6—the number of hours I lay awake—and you have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... to continue the story from 1898 onwards. To understand my sequel it is not necessary to have read the play which so brilliantly placed the Warren problem before us. But as most persons of average good education have found Mr. Shaw's comedies necessary to their mental furnishing, their understanding of contemporary life, it is probable that all who would be drawn to this book are already acquainted with the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... from his splendid teeth which by itself was frequently worth as much to the treasury as all his other tricks put together. But the truth of it was, it was a feeble show, a scanty, pitiful show; and only the gross truculence of Trotter and the venomous litheness of the Signor withheld the average yokel from ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... name of one of the United States, yet not one American in a hundred can name five of the twenty-seven States, which, with two territories and a federal district, make up the great republic of Mexico. As to size, an equal ignorance prevails. The average person thinks that Mexico is about as large as Pennsylvania, and is surprised to hear that it has one-fifth the area of the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... an average, 40 in. of filter sand and 12 in. of filter gravel. The gravel is graded from coarse to fine; the lower and coarser part acts as part of the under-drain system, and the upper and finest layer supports the filter sand. ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... village to spread their strange news; and next day, when they went to their work below and explained to the enraged Gurkha overseer the reason of their absence on the previous day, they told him the full tale. No story is too incredible for the average native of India, and the overseer and various forest guards who also heard the narrative fully believed it and spread it through the jungle villages. It grew as it passed from tongue to tongue, until the story finally rivalled the most marvellous of the exploits of Krishna, ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... looking over the drag steers, he complimented me on having the fewest tender-footed animals of any herd that had passed Abilene since his arrival. Encouraged, I ventured the double question as to how this one would average with the other Buford herds, and did he know their whereabouts. As I recall his reply, it was that all Nueces Valley cattle were uniform, and if there was any difference it was due to carelessness in receiving. In regard to the locality of the other herds, ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... youngsters had been devoting themselves to target practice for months, and had developed a fine technique of range-finding and the various other tactics of Twentieth Century massed artillery, to which was added the scientific perfection of the rocket guns and an average mental alertness that would have put the artilleryman of the First World ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... Payne, when he reached the ground, "there seems to be a chain of islands running across that mud. I picked out a string of them. The first one is out there about a hundred yards away, and I believe that's about the average distance between them. If we can dope out some scheme for getting across a hundred yards of that mush at a time I believe we can make it. That mud doesn't run on forever; I'm sure I saw solid ground with timber on it ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... little shocked at the look of the animals drawn up; they were most miserably thin—most of them swelled in the legs—few without sore backs—and not one eye, on an average, in every three; but still they were all high steppers, and carried a great tail. 'There's your affaire,' said the old Frenchman, as a long-legged fiddle-headed beast was led out; turning out his forelegs so as to endanger the man ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... is one of the deep holes in the Atlantic coast line of Europe. The average depth of the Irish Sea, St. George Channel, the English Channel and the North Sea is only about 250 feet, and there are thousands of places in the North Sea, particularly, like the Dogger Banks, where the water is not more than a hundred feet deep," ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... It is perhaps easier to face the gibbet and the fire, and screw oneself up for once to a brief endurance, than to resist the more specious blandishments of the world, especially when it has been christened, and calls itself religious. The light laugh of scorn, the silent pressure of the low average of Christian character, the close associations in trade, literature, public and domestic life which Christians have with non-Christians, make many a man's tongue lie silent, to the sore detriment of his own religious life. 'Ye have not yet resisted unto blood,' and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... way, Monsieur le Marquis," said the family notary, M. Hebert, "by which you can put your estate in comparative safety. Your father raised his mortgages from time to time, as he wanted money, and often at interest above the average market interest. You may add considerably to your income by consolidating all these mortgages into one at a lower percentage, and in so doing pay off this formidable mortgagee, M. Louvier, who, I shrewdly suspect, is bent upon becoming the proprietor of Rochebriant. Unfortunately ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they dealt with local scenes and characters, were no longer read. In that respect, however, the West Riding hardly differed from the rest of England. What was peculiar to Yorkshire was the fact that, if you mentioned the name of Bronte in any average company, the chances were in favour of your being met with an indignant snort from someone who protested that Charlotte's stories were a disgraceful libel upon the district, and that "Wuthering Heights" was a book ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... glory by his victory at Trafalgar must convince the most sceptical that his seamen for the most part were little better than galley slaves. Life on board these frigates was well-nigh unbearable. The average life of a seaman, Nelson reckoned, was forty-five years. In this age before processes of refrigeration had been invented, food could not be kept edible on long voyages, even in merchantmen. Still worse was the fare on men-of-war. The health of a crew was left to Providence. Little or ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... theory upon the subject, it may be well enough to remark that recent scientific research has swept away many hoary anthropological fallacies. It has been demonstrated that the shape or size of the head has little or nothing to do with the civilization or average intelligence of a race; that language, so recently lauded as an infallible test of racial origin is of absolutely no value in this connection, its distribution being dependent upon other conditions than race. Even color, upon which the social structure of the United States is so largely ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... innovators, and therefore as leaders. Within a month they published Germinie Lacerteux and an elaborate study on Fragonard; and, while they plumed themselves (as they very well might) on their feat, the average intelligent reader joined with the average intelligent critic in concluding that such various accomplishment must needs be superficial. It was not credible that one and the same pair—par nobile fratrum—could be not only close observers of contemporary life, but also ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... Mr. Grisben and Mr. Balch, and Faxon, while their luggage was being lifted into the second sleigh, discerned them, by the roving lantern gleam, to be an elderly gray-headed pair, apparently of the average ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... least for some moments and in some situations, capable of some strong feeling, poetry is natural to most persons at some period of their lives. And any one whose feelings are genuine, though but of the average strength,—if he be not diverted by uncongenial thoughts or occupations from the indulgence of them, and if he acquire by culture, as all persons may, the faculty of delineating them correctly,—has ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... their very front. In Sligo and northern Mayo the consequences of the two centuries of degradation and hardship exhibit themselves in the whole physical condition of the people, affecting not only the features, but the frame. Five feet two inches on an average,—pot-bellied, bow-legged, abortively featured, their clothing a wisp of rags,—these spectres of a people that were once well-grown, able-bodied, and comely, stalk abroad into the daylight of civilization, the annual apparition of Irish ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... morning with a pocket compass and walked in a varying direction, perhaps on an average S. by W., 1754 paces. Then I struck into the bush, N.W. by N., hoping to strike the Vaituluiga above the falls. Now I have it plotted out I see I should have gone W. or even W. by S.; but it is not easy to guess. For 600 weary paces I struggled through the bush, and then came on the stream below ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inherited New England ideas that his boys and girls should be away from home so often in the evening, and especially on Sunday evening. The maxim of Robert Hardy's life was "Self-interest first." As long as he was not thwarted in his own pleasures he was as good-natured as the average man. He provided liberally for the household expenses, and his wife and children were supplied with money and the means to travel as they requested it. But the minute he was crossed in his own plans, or anyone demanded of him a service that compelled some self-denial, he became hard, ill-natured, ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... or course, taken from English women. In forty-four cases of my own, all women past the menopause, the average age of the first menstruation was fourteen years and four months; and the average age of the actual cessation of the menstrual flow was forty-eight years and five and two-thirds months. Subtracting from this the average ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... universe, considered as a whole, is to be regarded, the first answer that suggests itself to us is surely this: As regards space (and time) the universe is infinite. There are stars everywhere, so that the density of matter, although very variable in detail, is nevertheless on the average everywhere the same. In other words: However far we might travel through space, we should find everywhere an attenuated swarm of fixed stars of approrimately the same ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... for workers in most of the other industries—especially in the East—to understand the problems, struggles and aspirations of the husky and unconquerable lumber workers of the Northwest. The reason is that the average union man takes his union for granted. He goes to his union meetings, discusses the affairs of his craft, industry or class, and he carries his card—all as a matter of course. It seldom enters his mind that the privileges and benefits that surround him and the protection he enjoys are the ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... He had often been there for bait and milk and had listened times out of mind to Mrs. Pennington's dismal tales of her tribulations with hired girls. She never could get along with them, and they left, on an average, after a fortnight's trial. She was on the lookout for one now, he knew, and would likely be cross, but he thought she would give him ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... taken while the ship is on the mile, and the revolutions are recorded by ruechanical counters for the time occupied in running the mile. Not less than four runs are made during a trial extending over several hours. The i.h.p. in the table is not necessarily the maximum during the trial, for the average while on the mile is sometimes a little below the average for the whole of the trial. The revolutions are the mean for the two sets of engines, and the i.h.p. is the sum of the powers of the two sets. The pitch of the screw is measured. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... hesitating, for young Henry Stuart was well known, alike by settlers and savages, as possessing the swiftest foot, the strongest arm, and the boldest heart in the island, and Keona was not celebrated for the possession of these qualities in any degree above the average of his fellows, although he did undoubtedly exceed them in revenge, hatred, and the like. On one occasion young Stuart had, while defending his mother's house against an attack of the savages, felled Keona with a well-directed blow of his fist. It was, doubtless, ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... vestiarian philosopher was for a long time at a loss. At length, however, he took 300 measurements, without selection, including the length of the trunk, of the head and neck, and of the fork, and adding them all together, struck the average: from which it resulted, that the average head and neck gives 10-1/2 inches; trunk, 25 inches; and fork, 32 inches; making the whole figure, from the crown of the head to the sole of the shoe, 5 feet 7-1/2 inches. The ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... population (the circuit of its outer wall being twenty miles, while the population is but little over 300,000), is another characteristic feature; but this is in some measure accounted for by the great average of small houses, the amount of ground occupied by the Kremlin, the inner and outer boulevards, and the suburbs within the outer wall, the number of gardens and vacant lots, and the large spaces occupied by the ploschads or ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... neighbourhood, and that if there was any one in the place they would probably recognize me at once as the missing convict. This choked me off, for though as a rule I have no objection to a slight scuffle, I felt that in my present condition the average housemaid could knock me over with the flick ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges |
