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Closest   /klˈoʊsəst/   Listen
Closest

adverb
1.
(superlative of 'near' or 'close') within the shortest distance.  Synonyms: nearest, nighest.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Closest" Quotes from Famous Books



... were the men of the nation whose minds and aims were in the closest sympathy with his. Kollontaj, Ignacy and Stanislas Potocki, and the band of Poles who had been responsible for the drawing up of the Constitution of the 3rd of May, had gathered together in the Saxon city out of reach of Russian vengeance, where they could best concert measures ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... were fighting in the early morning in the streets of Landrecies. A German infantry column, about the strength of a brigade, emerged from the wood north of the town and advanced south in the closest order, filling up the ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres

... slaveholder, living in Virginia, owned a beautiful slave woman, who was almost white. She became the mother of a child, a little boy, in whose veins ran the blood of her master, and the closest observer could not detect in its appearance any trace of African descent. He grew to be two or three years of age, a most beautiful child and the idol of his mother's heart, when the master concluded, for family reasons, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... again unto his father's house. And when they found the Sword of Conquest hidden underneath his mantle, they marvelled he had carried such a treasure with him through the years, all unbeknown even to those who walked the closest at ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... seriously ill, he would be better off at his daughter-in-law's than here. Ah, yes. I suppose it is for the best—for him. For us—well, it will be hard to think of Burnside without his gracious presence. He was my parents' oldest, closest friend, as he ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... with confidence to students of seventeenth-century domestic manners. To apologise for it, to treat it as if it were some freak, some unowned sin of Digby's, would be the greatest mistake. On the contrary, its connection with his life and career is of the closest; and I make bold to assert that of all his works, with the doubtful exception of his Memoirs, it is the one best worth reprinting. It is in no spirit of irony that I say of him who in his own day was looked on almost as ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... down the apartment with smoke. Two of the five others were prosperous owners of saloons; two were known to the public (whose notion of what it meant when it used the term was something of the vaguest) as politicians; the fifth was Mr. Farbach's closest friend, one who (Joe had heard) was to be the next chairman of the city committee of the party. They were seated about a table, enveloped in blue clouds, and hushed to a grave and pertinent silence which clarified immediately the ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... achievement: achieving for himself and his family, and discharging the first duty of any man, that in case of his incapacity those who are closest to him are provided for. But such provision does not mean an accumulation that becomes to those he leaves behind him an embarrassment rather than a protection. To prevent this, ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... good society, or from carelessness, speak of persons by their Christian names, who are neither relations nor intimate friends. This is a familiarity which, outside of the family circle, and beyond friends of the closest intimacy, is never ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... must implore "With trembling voice: thou only canst preserve, "Thou only canst the loving nymph destroy. "With thee the choice remains. No foe thus sues, "But one by nearest ties to thee conjoin'd, "Pants to be join'd more nearly; link'd to thee "With closest bands. Let aged seniors learn "Our laws, and seek what moral codes permit. "What is permitted, and what is deny'd, "Let them enquire, and closely search the laws: "A bolder love more suits our growing years. "As yet ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... earthly existence, created characters of more than Roman strength and greatness; and the good men and women of Puritan training excelled the saints of the Middle Ages, as a soul fully developed intellectually, educated to closest thought, and exercised in reasoning, is superior to a soul great ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... parts of the empire until the period was about to expire during which his existence had been warranted as actually ascertained. At last, while he was exhibiting to a numerous audience his usual tricks of legerdemain, the hands whose activity had so often baffled the closest observer suddenly lost their power, the cards dropped from them, and he sunk down a disabled paralytic. In this state the artist languished for two years, when he was at length removed by death. It is said that the diary ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Prince of Wales what his movements had been; who the friends were that knew of the expedition; whom, as Esmond conceived, the Prince should trust; entreating him, above all, to maintain the very closest secrecy until the time should come when his Royal Highness should appear. The town swarmed with friends of the Prince's cause; there were scores of correspondents with St. Germains; Jacobites known and secret; great ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... beauty, and dignity of demeanour, had hitherto been, perhaps, the closest to the mother's heart— had been, if not the most cherished, yet the most valued; Gertrude had been the apple of her eye. This should be altered now. If a mother's love could atone for a mother's negligence, Mrs. Woodward would atone to her child for this hour of misery! And Katie—her ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... blackness and listening, while she seemed to be telling him her woman's reasons for her present hatred of the man who had been for so long a time her closest friend. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... man; most charitable, most Christian, but weakest of men! Why couldst thou not have asked herself? Was she not the daughter of thy loins, the child of thy heart, the most beloved of thee of all humanity? Had she not proved to thee, by years of closest affection, her truth and goodness and filial obedience? And yet, groping in darkness, hearing her name in strains which wounded thy loving heart, and being unable to defend her as ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... Wednesday or Thursday, please God—I will send it in two days' posts, seven letters each day. If you have it set at once (I am afraid you couldn't read it, otherwise than in print) I know you will impress on B. & E. the necessity of the closest secrecy. The very name getting out, would be ruinous. The points for illustration, and the enormous care required, make me excessively anxious. The man for Dombey, if Browne could see him, the class man to a T, is Sir A—— E——, of D——'s. Great pains will be necessary with ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... warnings to all that they should keep aloof, lest unawares touching a leper, or drawing unto too great a nearness, they should become partakers of this disease. So far from any danger of the kind existing, nearly all who have looked closest into the matter agree that the sickness was incommunicable by ordinary contact from one person to another. A leper might transmit it to his children, or the mother of a leper's children might take it from him; but it was by ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... the right of our lines around Petersburg. The night of the 24th of March was fixed upon for this assault, and General Gordon was assigned to the execution of the plan. The point between Fort Stedman and Battery No. 10, where our lines were closest together, was selected as the point of his attack. The attack was to be made at night, and the troops were to get possession of the higher ground in the rear where they supposed we had intrenchments, then sweep to the right and left, create a panic in ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... text is true. In closest touch With European courts and cabinets, The imminence of dire and deadly war Betwixt these east and western emperies Is lipped by special pathways to mine ear. You may not see the impact: ere it come The tomb-worm may caress thee [Perceval shrinks]; ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... the enemy as possible in his retreat—two Corps will generally be in first line. A Cavalry Division will be directed to work on the front and flank of either Corps and well in advance. The Commander of the cavalry will remain in the closest concert with the Corps Commanders on the flank on ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres

... a copy of the Aldine edition of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' (1502), and on the title is the signature Wm. She., which experts have declared—not quite conclusively—to be a genuine autograph of the poet. {15} Ovid's Latin text was certainly not unfamiliar to him, but his closest adaptations of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' often reflect the phraseology of the popular English version by Arthur Golding, of which some seven editions were issued between 1565 and 1597. From Plautus Shakespeare drew the plot of the 'Comedy ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... Powers, and realizing the length of our Atlantic and Gulf coasts, extending from Maine to Panama, a glance at the map shows us that, apart from the home naval bases on our continental coasts, the position on American soil which is the closest to European bases is on the little island of Culebra, which occupies a salient in the northeastern end of the ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... tenement-house question that in these words presents itself for consideration, and that makes part of the general problem. Taking New York as illustrative of some of the worst forms of over-crowding, though Boston and Chicago are not far behind, we turn to the work of one of the closest and most competent of observers, Dr. Annie S. Daniel, for many years physician in charge of out-practice for the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. The report of this practice for 1891 includes ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... your life, but your wife is patient; the closest relation to you—your wife, and you make her suffer for this, simply because you are stronger than she. She is always with you, and cannot get away. Don't you see ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... opening the door. The ordering of some flowers for a dbutante evidently steadied her and allowed her to regain self-control, for she drove in succession to the jeweller's to select a wedding gift, and to the dressmaker's for a fitting, at each place giving the closest attention to the matter in hand. These nominal duties, but in truth pleasures, concluded, nominal pleasures, but in truth duties, succeeded them, and the carriage halted at four houses long enough to ascertain that the especial objects ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford

... to become intellectually strong, after reading with the closest attention, form this habit: frequently close your book and sit and think, or stand and walk and think—but think, contemplate, reflect. Turn what you have read over and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... to be broken to her—not yet. You see—well, I was Jones' closest friend. He left his will with me, his personal effects, and all that. So I'm the one that received the wire of his death. In a month or so, of course, it will be published in the newspapers—when letters have come ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... of looking at it. The Civil Tribunal would call it a binding agreement of the closest tenure,—if you want to go to law ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... everything and going off with him—and that though she had known that there was, even then, a part of his acute, clever brain telling him insistently that she would be a drag on him in his new life.... She had also been cut to the heart that Godfrey had not written to her father when his one-time closest friend, her twin-brother, George, had ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... lady, "I think you have earned that." "No, no," he responded, handing it back to her; "that would not be right. I can't take pay for doing my duty." To a would-be client who had carefully stated his case, to which Lincoln had listened with the closest attention, he said: "Yes, there is no reasonable doubt that I can gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads; I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and thereby get for you six hundred dollars, which rightfully belongs, it ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... to have told you.... But, you see, I wanted to show you that even in the closest and best marriages, even for the women ... whom you respect, Christophe ... there are times, not only of aberration, as you say, but of real, intolerable suffering, which may drive them to madness, and wreck at least ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... I am pierced through by the darts of keenest sorrow when I consider that between you [i.e., Rufinus and Jerome] (to whom God granted in fullest measure and for a long time that which both of us have longed for, that in closest and most intimate fellowship you tasted together the honey of Holy Scriptures) such a blight of bitterness has broken out, when, where, and in whom it was not to be feared, since it has befallen you at the very time when, unencumbered, having cast away secular burdens, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... transferred to convocation. The convocation, as we know, were then in difficulty with their premunire; they had consoled themselves in their sorrow with burning the body of Tracy; and they would gladly have taken further comfort by burning Latimer.[127] He was submitted to the closest cross-questionings, in the hope that he would commit himself. They felt that he was the most dangerous person to them in the kingdom, and they laboured with unusual patience to ensure his conviction.[128] With a common person they would have rapidly ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... understanding is love's essence), the truth is easily indicated by the one and aptly comprehended by the other. A hint taken, a look understood, conveys the gist of long and delicate explanations; and where the life is known even YEA and NAY become luminous. In the closest of all relations - that of a love well founded and equally shared - speech is half discarded, like a roundabout, infantile process or a ceremony of formal etiquette; and the two communicate directly by their presences, and with few ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... couch, emitting little moans of discomfort to attract sympathy. And he, himself, would have been quite willing to give it. But now, he came to the conclusion more than ever that she was not a woman who cared for the closest relationship. Such a moment as this had been an excellent opportunity for a woman to have forced sentiment into the position, and dragged it on from there to intimacy, to have put out her hand to touch ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... to their member from time to time reached them. A bolt in the approaching Congressional convention was even threatened, and altogether serious trouble was brewing. The demand was imperative upon the part of his closest friends that he at once come home and face his accusers. Homeward he at length turned his footsteps, and was met at the depot by a large concourse of his friends and constituents. Hurriedly alighting from the train and stepping upon the platform, with beaming countenance ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... many mining districts that ore deposits of these igneous associations were deposited with a rough zonal arrangement about the igneous rock. At Bingham, Tintic, and Butte (pp. 204, 208, 235), copper ores are on the whole closest to the igneous rock, and the lead, zinc, and silver ores are farther away. Furthermore, the quartz gangue near the igneous rock is likely to contain minerals characteristic of hot solutions, while farther ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... the detestable and tyrannical police we spent the last four days and nights together in the closest intimacy. When she left I wanted her to take fifty Louis; but she would only have thirty, saying that she could travel to Montpellier on that sum, and have money in her pocket when she got there. Our parting ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... to say upon the puzzling subject, not even to her best and closest friends. She was sorry indeed two hours later when they were at lunch on the porch of the Reef Harbor House with some of the Camerons' friends that Helen brought the conversation around again to ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

... things they had done for me. I held them now a long while, over my heart. About us it was growing darker and darker, and I had to look hard to see her face, which I meant always to carry with me; the closest, realest face, under all the shadows of women's faces, at the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... political principles, which he had feared from the registered victory of ultramontane reaction. However this may be, Acton's whole career is evidence of his detachment of mind, and entire independence even of his closest associates. It was a matter to him not of taste but of principle. What mainly marked him out among men was the intense reality of his faith. This gave to all his studies their practical tone. He had none ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... and reconciler. Its bow of promise shines broadly in the lurid sky; it irradiates the murky visage of the gathering, muttering tempest. It awakens a hope, and the only well grounded hope, of averting the miseries of an insane struggle between those who ought to be the closest allies, to see which can the more injure the other. Need I urge that in this crisis the friends of Association ought to be most earnest and untiring in the promulgation and advocacy of their faith; that they ought to improve the opportunities ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... (which she had carried all this time) into an absurd little silver chain-bag hanging at her waist. She had no time to look at Felix Kennaston. There was such scant room in the bag; her purse took up so much space there was scarcely any left for the folded paper; the affair really required her closest, undivided attention. Besides, she had not the least desire to look at ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... share of this Israelitish blood, as shown in their language, and in their weights and measures, etc. After giving various Tables of the metrological standards of different European nations, Professor Smyth adds, "It is not a little striking to see all the Protestant countries standing first and closest to the Great Pyramid; then Russia, and her Greek, but freely Bible-reading church; then the Roman Catholic lands; then, after a long interval, and last but one on the list, France with its metrical system—voluntarily ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... birth, is plunged into cold water, is not perhaps a conscious method of eliminating the weak, though it must operate in that direction. At a later period of life should any disease believed to be infectious break out in a tribe, "those attacked by it are immediately left, even by their closest relatives, the house is abandoned, and possibly even burnt. Such derelict houses are no uncommon sight in the forest, grimly desolate mementoes of possible tragedies." When a person becomes insane, he is first of all exorcised ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... Boat in the first hour that the Isle of Increase lay astern of us. And I wear it now as a token of my grief for her grief. See now, love, since I have answered thee this question without anger or amaze, thou needest not fear to ask me any other; for this of all things lies closest to ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... graver uses of books, this counsel no less holds. No reading does us any good that is not a pleasure to us. Her paths are paths of pleasantness. Yet, of course, this does not mean that all profitable reading is easy reading. Some of the books that give us the finest pleasure need the closest application for their enjoyment. There is always a certain spiritual and mental effort necessary to be made before we tackle the great books. One might compare it to the effort of getting up to see the sun rise. It is no little tug to leave one's warm bed—but once we are out in ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others

... conjunction with my Father and Mr. Lamb, in 1797, and these and Mr. Lamb's were published together, apart from my Father's, the year afterwards. "While Lamb," says Sergeant Talfourd, "was enjoying habits of the closest intimacy with Coleridge in London, he was introduced by him to a young poet whose name has often been associated with his— Charles Lloyd—the son of a wealthy banker at Birmingham, who had recently cast off the trammels ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... were two only children of a very affectionate family; and they had grown up in the closest habits of intimacy. They had written to each other those long letters in which thoughtful people who live in retired situations delight; letters not of outward events, but of sentiments and opinions, the phases of ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... universal game of double-dealing, shall not the cleverest tricksters play each other false by haphazard, and so betray their closest secrets, to their own and their friends' ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... later the birds fled to the closest cover, startled by the innumerable bugles sounding the note of preparation. Soon the different corps, divisions, and brigades were upon their prescribed lines of march. No movement could be made without revealing the close proximity of the enemy. Rifle-reports from skirmish ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... to? A lily just dipped in the summer dew? Parian marble—snow's first fall? Her brow was fairer than each,—than all. And so delicate was each vein's soft blue, 'Twas not like blood that wandered through. Rarely upon that cheek was shed, By health or by youth, one tinge of red, And never closest look could descry, In shine or shade, the hue of her eye, But, as it were made of light, it changed With every ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... avoid the labour of performing them, a labour which is always punctually rewarded, is surely to sink under weak temptations. Idleness never can secure tranquillity; the call of reason and of conscience will pierce the closest pavilion of the sluggard, and though it may not have force to drive him from his down, will be loud enough to hinder him from sleep. Those moments which he cannot resolve to make useful, by devoting them to the great business of his being, will still be usurped by powers that ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... ears of the boys on guard. If Patsy had not begun the bombardment with his old rifle, they would very likely have fired a few shots themselves—enough to attract attention. With that end in view, he could see why Patsy's shack had been chosen for the attack. Patsy's shack was the closest to where they had been holding the cattle. It was absurdly simple, and evidently the ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... kuku.[2] Curiously enough this root kuku resembles to a marked degree several of the Persian words for "fowl," and is no doubt remotely derived from the cry of the bird. Among those Negro races which do not speak Bantu languages, though they may be living in the closest proximity to the Bantu, the name for fowl is quite different.[3] The fowl was only introduced into Madagascar, as far as researches go, by the Arabs during the historical period, and is not known by any name similar ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... plantation coopers and much of it ultimately found its way to the West India market. A tradition—much quoted—has it that barrels marked "George Washington, Mount Vernon," were accepted in the islands without any inspection, but Mr. J.M. Toner, one of the closest students of Washington's career, contended that this was a mistake and pointed to the fact that the Virginia law provided for the inspection of all flour before it was exported and the placing of a brand on each barrel. However this may be, we have Washington's own word ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... innocent persons—you remember the case of poor Ricci? Incriminating papers were smuggled into people's houses—they were condemned to death on the paid evidence of brigands and galley-slaves. The families of the revolutionists were under the closest observation and were shunned by all who wished to stand well with the government. If Briga had been seen going into our house he would at once have been suspected. If he had hidden Emilio's letter at home, its discovery might have ruined his family as ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... back in his seat and lay against the cushions without moving. He saw himself now very clearly, for he had the power to see himself with the closest fidelity. He knew now that all his explanations were excuses, that the bitter things he had sometimes said of those who had qualities which he had not, were invented to prevent him from admitting that he was without ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... of settling one's grievances is natural enough, when men are united into groups bound together by the closest of sentimental ties, and on the other hand there is no central and impartial authority to arbitrate between the parties. One of our crew has been killed by one of your crew. So a stand-up fight takes place. Of course we should like to get at ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... will never be sent to you. But I like to think of you reading it, some day, page by page, when I'm fat and forty, or, what's more likely, when Duncan has me chained to a corral-post or finally shut up in a padded cell. For you were the one who was closest to me in the old days, Matilda Anne, and when I was in trouble you were always the staff on which I leaned, the calm-eyed Tillie-on-the-spot who never seemed to fail me! And ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... closest thing to a priestess that this tribe knows, and she serves a goddess older and more powerful than Lurgha—the Mother Earth, the Great Mother, goddess of fertility and growth. Nodren's people believe that unless Cassca performs her mysteries and sows part of the first field in the spring ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... in a letter to Lord Sheffield:— "Yesterday the august scene was closed for this year. Sheridan surpassed himself; and, though I am far from considering him a perfect orator, there were many beautiful passages in his speech- -on justice, filial love, etc.; one of the closest chains of argument I ever heard, to prove that Hastings was responsible for the acts of Middleton; and a compliment, much admired to a certain historian of your acquaintance. Sheridan, on the close of his speech, sunk into Burke's arms—a good actor: but I ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... suffered and should even now suffer such cruel treatment at your hands? We were violently and wrongfully torn away from our friends, and after we had been carried off we were neglected by our brothers, fathers, and relatives for so long a time, that now, bound by the closest of ties to our enemies, we tremble for our ravishers and wrongers when they fight, and weep when they fall. Ye would not come and tear us from our ravishers while we were yet maidens, but now ye would separate wives from their husbands, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... nature of the scandal started by Lord Roxmouth, and the loyal and strict silence he had maintained on the subject that was nearest and dearest to his own heart, had been very trying to him. There was no one to whom he could in any way unburden his mind. Even to his closest friend, Bishop Brent, he had merely written the briefest of letters, informing him that Miss Vancourt had left Abbot's Manor for a considerable time,—but no more than this. He longed passionately for news of Maryllia, but none came. The only person to whom he sometimes ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... task—penetrating the vast and bewildering riddle of the world. In Plato he found the philosophical method suffused by a burning poetical imagination; and he thought that Plato solved far more metaphysical riddles by a species of swift intuition than ever could be done by the closest analysis. He realised that Plato's theory was of a great, central, motionless entity, which acted not by expulsive energy but by a sort of magnetic attraction; and that all the dreams, the hopes, the activities of human minds were not the ripples of some central outward-speeding ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... developments in China could be written in which the Russian Asiatic Bank, the Foreign Bank of Belgium, the French Indo-China Bank and Banque Industrielle, the Yokohama Specie Bank, the Hongkong-Shanghai Bank, etc., did not figure prominently. These banks work in the closest harmony, not only with railway and construction syndicates and big manufacturing interests at home, but also with their respective foreign offices. It is hardly too much to say that legations and banks have been in most important matters the right and left hands of the same body. American business ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey

... ease of a shadow. At last, by watching him I, too, came to learn his secret and was charmed to find that it made my pace both quiet and swift. Indeed, I took great care to practice this silent trail walking—a knack that can be acquired only by the closest observation; for a hundred books could not teach a hundredth part as much as a ten-mile hike at the heels of a trained woodsman when he is trying to go noiselessly. Finally he turned and ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... own hand, but Titus none; so much so that one Archedemus, an Aetolian, made it a jest against him that while he, the Aetolian, was running with his drawn sword, where he saw the Macedonians drawn up closest and fighting hardest, Titus was standing still, and with hands stretched out to heaven, praying to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... I burn inward: my blood's all on fire! Alcides, when the poisoned shirt sate closest, Had but an ague-fit to this my fever. Yet, for Eurydice, even this I'll suffer, To free my love.—Well ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... mother and one-third to the daughter. As a matter of fact, after his death twins were born—a boy and a girl. A very nice point then arose. How was the estate to be equitably divided among the three in the closest possible accordance with the spirit of the dead ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... ascetic is usually too full of his own plans to feel sympathy with others, too much in earnest to feign it like a diplomatist. Basil had enough worldly prudence to keep in the background his belief in the Holy Spirit, but not enough to protect even his closest friends from the outbreaks of his imperious temper. Small wonder if the great scheme met ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... bundle, and found the news true. In a little Dr. Roberts looked up from a letter he was reading and said he was appointed to the vacancy. Then the full extent of my loss flashed upon me. Mackenzie dead—Roberts to go to Tientsin! One of my closest friends dead—my ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... of animals the closest inbreeding is frequently resorted to in order to improve the stock, and many examples can be given of the closest possible inbreeding for generations without apparent detriment, but it is universally admitted that the animals ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner

... so important an occasion. In the month of July, 1700, at the great conference, the imperial ministers came to the resolution that the wishes of the Elector should be complied with; and as soon as the conditions could be determined, involving the closest alliance both for the war and for the affairs of the empire, the treaty was signed on November 16, 1700. On the side of Brandenburg the utmost care was taken not to admit a word which might imply anything further than the assent and concurrence of the Emperor. The Elector affected to derive from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... evidence of overmastering haste or enthusiasm. Only half-dozen questions on paper; very early got to business in Committee on Indian Councils Bill; supposed to be measure involving closest interests of the great empire that CLIVE helped to make, and SEYMOUR KEAY now looks after. Appearance of House suggestive rather of some local question affecting Isle of Sheppey or Romney Marsh. Below Gangway, on Ministerial side, only MACLEAN present. Member ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... The closest inquiry among the members of the crew failed to reveal any one who had witnessed the leap of the men. Percival was positive, however, that some one ran along the lower deck, but whether toward or away ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... the leg of his journey closest to the boat. On impulse, Rick called, "Come aboard and have ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... well advanced before Mr. Datchery can discern Her Royal Highness. But by that time he has made her out, in the shade. She is behind a pillar, carefully withdrawn from the Choir- master's view, but regards him with the closest attention. All unconscious of her presence, he chants and sings. She grins when he is most musically fervid, and—yes, Mr. Datchery sees her do it!—shakes her fist at him behind the ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... fearful trade was brought under the notice of a young member of Parliament singularly zealous in the cause of humanity and religion, endowed with untiring industry and powerful eloquence, and connected by the closest ties of personal intimacy with Mr. Pitt. To hear of such a system of organized murder, as the British officers described the slave-trade to be, was quite sufficient to induce Mr. Wilberforce to resolve to devote himself ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... might, sometimes about some lace and perfumes which she wanted Anne to procure for her in London at the sign of the Flower Pot, sometimes grumbling at her husband having gone off to the midst of the party closest to the fire, "Just like Mr. Archfield, always leaving her to herself," but generally very well amused, especially when a group of gentlemen, officers, and county neighbours gathered round the open door talking to the ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... any drawback whatever, thanks to the untiring efforts of the teachers and of Mr. and Mrs. Dodge, who all planned so well to make it a success. For three and one-half hours the audience gave the closest attention, and the comments since have been very flattering. Several, including some Northerners, have declared it to be the ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 07, July, 1885 • Various

... experience of humanity must have taught you that. Personally speaking, I have never been happy since my boyhood. This surprises you? I daresay it does. But, my dear Vesey, old friend as you are, it sometimes happens that our closest intimates know us least! And even the famous firm of Vesey and Symonds, or Symonds and Vesey,—for your partner is one with you and you are one with your partner,—may, in spite of all their legal wisdom, fail to ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... examining magistrate, however, indicted the whole eleven who attended the conference, under Article No. 102 of the Penal Code, and issued warrants for their arrest. Among those arrested was Kamanev, one of Lenine's closest friends, who behaved so badly at his trial, manifesting so much cowardice, that he was censured by ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... is no one object or interest in his poem. No narrow plain, like that watered by the Scamander, is the theatre of their exploits. Jupiter, from the summit of Gargarus, could not have beheld the contending armies. The most ardent imagination, indeed, is satiated with his adventures, but the closest attention can hardly follow their thread. Story after story is told, the exploits of knight after knight are recounted, till the mind is fatigued, the memory perplexed, and all general ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... must have been between November 1442 and April 1443 a desperate attempt was made on the life of King Deva Raya by one of his closest relatives — a brother, according to Abdur Razzak, a nephew, according to Nuniz. Abdur Razzak's story is without doubt the more reliable of the two, since he is a contemporary witness. The story as ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... cakes, fruit, and cold well water were served in the dining room. Quincy ate slowly, but his thoughts were not about the food. He had shown little interest in the Fernborough girls with the exception of those in the families of his relatives and closest friends. But he was nearing the susceptible age, when, to a pure- minded boy, a girl playmate, by some mysterious transformation, becomes an object of admiration, and even veneration. That delicious mystery that surrounds young womanhood was attracting him. Mary was ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... solve the difficult problem of Mrs. Piozzi's conduct and character, it should be kept in view that the highest testimony to her worth has been volunteered by those with whom she passed the last years of her life in the closest intimacy. She had become completely reconciled to Madame D'Arblay, with whom she was actively corresponding when she died, and her mixed qualities of head and heart are thus summed up in that ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... astringents and finally washed in cool toilet water and lightly brushed with powder, until at the end of an hour's labour, the face of the Baroness had resumed its roseleaf bloom and transparent smoothness for which she was so famous. And when by the closest inspection at the mirror, in the broadest light, she saw no flaw in skin, hair, or teeth, the Baroness proceeded to dress for a drive. Even the most jealous rival would have been obliged to concede that she looked like ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... personal interest he will use care when the eye of the foreman is not upon him. The product also can be slightly increased in many ways by the workman's exertions or suggestions. In some cases the quality of the work cannot be insured by the closest inspection as well as it can be by a small degree of personal interest. Either responsibility for the fault cannot be fixed, or the defect is one not measurable by any easily applied standard. ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... the fact, that the King's councillors themselves, to be secured against acts of violence, passed a special law, which characterised attacks on them as attacks on the King himself. But then, like men who stood in the closest connexion with the King and his State, they used their authority with unapproachable severity. The internal tranquillity of England has been thought to be mainly due to the erection of ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... bridge in ruins and shuddered. It was the closest we could have been to death and have escaped. Then she turned to the wheel quickly and the ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... been closest to us when our signal had been picked up, was the first ship in. She let down into the ravine, after some maneuvering around, and Mohandas Feinberg and half a dozen of his crew got off with an improvised stretcher on a lifter and a lot of blankets. ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper

... between seven men. With the good things already enumerated, a plentiful supply of charcoal and coke is usually to be expected. The horse transports with these provisions never get nearer than, at the closest, say half-a-mile of the front trench itself, when the men in charge dump their loads down and get away back to their stores and billets as quickly as possible. There is a lot to risk, for as a rule the enemy have the road well set, and the shelling ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey

... dishonesty and villany in their worst developments. I have observed, in doing business with lawyers, that they are exceedingly hawk-eyed, and jealous of everybody. The omission of a word or letter in a will, they will scan with the closest scrutiny; and while I could see no use for any but the most concise and simple terms to express the wishes of the testator, a lawyer would be satisfied with nothing but the most precise and formal instrument, stuffed full of legal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... raised and spread abroad, as if in the act of shedding forth a benediction, which every man—so broad, so wise, and so serenely affectionate was the bronze pope's regard—might hope to feel quietly descending upon the need, or the distress, that he had closest at his heart. The statue had life and observation in it, as well as patriarchal majesty. An imaginative spectator could not but be impressed with the idea that this benignly awful representative of divine ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... calls upon his companion to review the length of way they had passed. This is certainly painting from nature, and the thoughts, however obvious, or destitute of refinement, are perfectly in character. But as the closest pursuit of nature is the surest way to excellence in general, and to sublimity in particular, in poetical description, so we find that this simple suggestion of the shepherd is not unattended with magnificence. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... and who were determined to destroy the Union, gradually spread the spirit of jealousy and discontent into other States of the South; their immediate object being to bring the Southern States into the closest possible relations the one with the other; to inspire them all with common sympathies and purposes; to compact and solidify them, so that in all coming movements against the other States of the Union, they might move ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... plain beyond the forest the hunters were returning from the day's sport. They were widely separated, hoping to raise a wandering lion on the homeward journey across the plain. The Hon. Morison Baynes rode closest to the forest. As his eyes wandered back and forth across the undulating, shrub sprinkled ground they fell upon the form of a creature close beside the thick jungle where it terminated abruptly at the ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the Infinite; we are magnificently unabashed as we familiarly approach Him. "Closer is He than breathing; nearer than hands or feet." Not then by denying or condemning or distrusting the world in which we live, not by asserting the differences between God and humanity do we understand Him. But by closest touch with nature do we find Him. By a superb paradox, not without value, yet equally ineffable in sentimentality and sublime in its impiety we say, beholding man, "that which is most ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... accidental conceptions of what are termed barbarous ages, and to draw from them their finest imagery and, machinery. If we look through our most admired poets, we shall find that their minds have been impregnated by these popular fancies, and that those have succeeded best who have adhered closest to the simplicity of their rustic originals. Such is the case with Shakspeare in his Midsummer-Night's Dream, which so minutely describes the employments and amusements of fairies, and embodies all the notions concerning them ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... then took a more serious aspect. It implied mutual separation. It came to this—that, after six months of the closest intercourse, hallowed and purified by a series of the most cruel vicissitudes, Cary should be sent flying back to whence he came, while she would be driven again to the solitude of Pointe-aux-Trembles. Could this be? ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... calm, judicial manner, having regained control of himself completely. "I understand now, thoroughly, and for the first time, the situation we are facing. It is, as you say, a political issue no longer. Targo and his closest followers have convinced a very large proportion of our entire nation, I am certain, that myself, and my family, and you, the strangers, are possessed of a diabolical power that must be annihilated. Targo will never rest until ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... you, Para Mor?" cried John Splendid. "It's a time for short ceremony. Here are three or four of your closest friends terribly keen to see the inside of ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... Ravenna, but without army, war-material, or money. In the summer of 545, Totila, having subdued the land all about Rome, laid siege to Rome itself. Belisarius occupied Porto, and Totila set up his camp eight miles from Rome, commanding the Tiber, and turning the siege into the closest blockade. In vain Belisarius attempted to burst the Gothic bar of the river and introduce provisions to Rome. In vain embassies were sent to Constantinople for help. The most frightful distress ensued at Rome. At length, after about ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... is not of any locality or of any class, has no fixed relation to Church or State, to professional, political, or social life, has acquired none of that companionship and confidence which unites old neighbors in the closest ties, and give to friendship its fullest ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... moreover, becomes Narcissa's confidential friend, and the whole disgraceful arrangement is made possible by Narcissa herself, who calmly accepts these two precious associates at their own valuation, and admits them to the closest intimacy without any knowledge of their true characters and early lives. The fine flavour of real life in the book seems to me to be of the putrid kind which some palates relish, perhaps; but it cannot be wholesome, and it may be poisonous. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... of our ocean always promotes ignorance, and misunderstandings," he said. "And 'tis true too that the closest of kin will quarrel, but families usually unite against ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... purpose; and when the Boers saw that the attack had withered they shot all the straighter, and several of the boldest leapt out from their trenches and, running forward to meet the soldiers, discharged their magazines at the closest range. It was a frantic scene of blood ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... their appointed place. My father, who is a mighty prince in the Mediterranean Sea, determined that his only child should be endowed with a soul, even at the cost of much suffering, which is ever the lot of souls. But a soul can be infused into one of our race, only by being united in the closest bands of love to one of yours. And now I have obtained a soul; to thee I owe it, O best beloved! and for that gift I shall ever bless thee, unless thou dost devote my whole futurity to misery. For what is to become of me should thou recoil from me, and ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... Louise first conceived the idea of banding her closest companions to support the government in all possible ways, she was a bit doubtful if their efforts would prove of substantial value, although she realized that all her friends were earnestly determined to "do their ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... the temptation to insult or strike him, a useless form of violence at a time when the law recognized the code. But I could not remove my eyes from him. He was the companion of my childhood, and we had lived in the closest intimacy for many years. He understood perfectly my love for my mistress, and had several times intimated that bonds of this kind were sacred to a friend, and that he would be incapable of an attempt to supplant me, even if he loved the same woman. In short, I had perfect confidence in him ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... like the sort of rough prima facie harmony which, without any more profound study, most people make for themselves. But the harmonising process necessarily implies matter to harmonise, and that matter must have had the closest possible resemblance to the contents of ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... would talk of his own writings with a wonderful frankness and candour, and would even criticise them with the closest severity. One day, having read over one of his Ramblers, Mr. Langton asked him, how he liked that paper; he shook his head, and answered, "too wordy." At another time, when one was reading his tragedy of Irene to a company at a house in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... Oxford, and the next year matriculated for his university work. Arnold's career at Oxford was a memorable one. While here he was associated with such men as John Duke Coleridge, John Shairp, Dean Fraser, Dean Church, John Henry Newman, Thomas Hughes, the Froudes, and, closest of all, with Arthur Hugh Clough, whose early death he lamented in his exquisite elegiac poem—Thyrsis. Among this brilliant company Arnold moved with ease, the recognized favorite. Having taken the Newdigate prize for English verse, and also having ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... poisoning, after a very brief illness. Friday night he was with a merry group of diners in one of our best-known and most brilliantly lighted Broadway restaurants. He partook heartily of lobster salad, of which, his closest friends declare, he was inordinately fond. Almost immediately he complained of being ill and was taken home in a taxicab." If I were H. Wellington Jones and it were my fate to die of poison I could frame a nobler end for myself. "Mr. H. Wellington Jones," I would ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... idea is true which we find in Aristotle, that we are suffering some such punishment as theirs of old, who fell into the hands of those Etruscan bandits, and were put to death with a studied cruelty; their living bodies being tied to dead bodies, face to face, in closest possible conjunction: that so our souls are coupled to our bodies, united like the ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... wit, humor, and originality. In autumn of 1833, having both of us migrated from Gottingen to Berlin for the prosecution of our studies, we became fellow-lodgers in the house No. 161 Friedrich Strasse. There we lived in the closest intimacy, sharing meals and outdoor exercise. Motley by that time had arrived at talking German fluently; he occupied himself not only in translating Goethe's poem "Faust," but tried his hand even in composing German verses. Enthusiastic ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... period Carl Schurz most captivated me. When we first came into personal relations, at the Liberal Convention, which assembled at Cincinnati and nominated Greeley and Brown as a presidential ticket, he was just turned forty-three; I, two and thirty. The closest intimacy followed. Our tastes were much alike. Both of us had been educated in music. He played the piano with intelligence and feeling—especially Schumann, Brahms and Mendelssohn, neither of us ever having quite reached the "high ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... have been supposed to be as indifferent to the acceptance, as to the refusal. "Sir," he answered to the remark of the king, "I am duly sensible of your majesty's favour; but, I can never consent to receive a patent of nobility that, in my eyes, will always seem to be sealed with the blood of my closest and best friend." This reply was remembered, and the subject ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... version, though not so ambiguous. The French Bible avoids the incongruity: "Et iis virent paroitre Moyse et Elie, qui s'entretenoient avec Jesus." That is, "And there appeared to them Moses and Elias, who were talking with Jesus." Perhaps the closest and best version of the Greek would be, "And there appeared to them Elias, with Moses;[397] and these two were talking with Jesus." There is, in our Bible, an other instance of the construction now in question; but it ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... His parents had died at an early period, and he had, ever since his youth, lived with Chia Chen. He had at this time grown to be sixteen years of age, and was, as compared with Chia Jung, still more handsome and good looking. These two cousins were united by ties of the closest intimacy, and were always together, whether they went out or stayed ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... because of her love and response—so now we see, living and working in our own being, the reason and meaning of His commandment to love Him with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is doing this after He has Himself given us the power to do it which makes us able to live in the closest, most delicious and precious nearness to God during all our waking hours. But it takes time, and it takes much pain to learn how to live this, as it were, double life—this inward life of companionship, of wonderful and blessed inward intercourse with God, and the outward intercourse ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley

... the lily lives upon and loves the water, So Upatissa and Kolita likewise, Joined by closest bond of love, If by necessity compelled to live apart, Were overcome by grief ...
— The Essence of Buddhism • Various

... art coming! At thy table We are witnesses for this, While remembering hearts thou meetest, In communion closest, sweetest, Earnest of our coming bliss. Showing not thy death alone, And thy love exceeding great, But thy coming, and thy throne, All for ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton

... demarcated line of frontier, it has been fixed by the intervention of European governments interested in maintaining order. In Mohammedan lands the basis of a ruler's authority, in theory at least, is religious, and all through Western Asia there is the closest connection between the State and the dominant creed of Islam; for a Mohammedan sovereign's authority is ecclesiastical, so to speak, as well as civil; he is bound, in the words of our Litany, not only to 'execute ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... He was only a boy of sixteen, but he helped in all the church work, translated Mr. Nelson's speeches from English into Mohawk and the various other Indian dialects spoken on the Reserve, drove him about through the rough forest roads, paddled him down the river, and was the closest companion the good missionary had in all that wild, remote country. Even Wampum's parents were Christian church workers, but, kindly as their hearts were, they, too, shook their heads sorrowfully over the hopelessness of trying to Christianize the ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... be goin', but befo' I goes I want to tell you I 'members your ma, Miss Sallie Woodward. Your grandpa was de closest neighbor and fust cousin to Dr. Sam. Deir chillun used to visit. Your ma come down and spen' de day one time. She was 'bout ten dat day and she and de chillun make me rig up some harness for de billy goat and hitch him to a toy wagon. I can just see dat goat runnin' away, them little chillun fallin' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... told how, on the Emperor's order, all the cavalry were in action at a particularly difficult moment. Now, in these circumstances, it is not good enough for a unit commander to send his troops blindly forward, a thing I have seen done on several occasions, but he must pay the closest attention to the ground over which his squadrons are about to pass, in case he sends them into bogs ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... spread before us, flashing under the arc lights, we were away above yard speed. Running a locomotive into one of those big yards is like shooting a rapid in a canoe. There is a bewildering maze of tracks, lighted by red and green lamps, which must be watched the closest to keep out of trouble. The hazards are multiplied the minute you pass the throat, and a yard wreck is a dreadful tangle; it makes everybody from road-master to flagman furious, and not even Bartholomew wanted to face an inquiry on a yard wreck. On the other hand, he couldn't ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... discovery of that photograph has done more to convince me of the innocence of Miss Merlin than any amount of testimonials to her good character could ever have done. You see," he added, smiling whimsically, "all sorts of people hitherto unsuspected by their closest friends of criminal tendency, develop that taint, so that I am never surprised to find a convicted thief or assassin possessed of credentials which would do justice to an Archbishop. But when I see an obviously artificial clew I recognize ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... question—the only men mentioned constantly by Michael in his letters as being always with him in his experiments, sharing his interests and his dangers: Ronald Ingram, and Billy Cathcart—dear boys, both; her devoted adorers; almost her dearest, closest friends; faithful, trusted, tried. And now the haunting question circled around all thought of them: "Was it Ronald? Or was it Billy? Which? Billy or Ronnie? Ronnie or Billy?" Myra had said: "I shall never even try to guess," and she had said it honestly. She did not try to guess. ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... said no more of "King" Plummer, quickly turning the talk to the campaign, and showing at once that she had followed every phase of it with the closest and most anxious attention. Mrs. Grayson had walked on a little and was talking to her husband, but she glanced back and saw what she had expected. She and her husband turned presently in their walk, and she said, looking significantly at Harley ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... as possible, all intercourse with the offending States. This done, to hold ourselves ready to move on the first general ferment in the South, which, my life upon it, will occur full soon, and in the meanwhile, to cultivate the kindest relations, and to keep up, industriously and with system, the closest intercourse with our ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... neither Xavier nor his co-workers know anything of the mighty works afterward attributed to him, but the highest contemporary authority on the whole subject, a man in the closest correspondence with those who knew most about the saint, a member of the Society of Jesus in the highest standing and one of its accepted historians, not only expressly tells us that Xavier wrought no miracles, but gives the reasons ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac

... years before, the dark-skinned Moors had come over from Africa and invaded the European peninsula which lies closest to the Straits of Gibraltar, and the people of that peninsula had been battling fiercely ever since to drive them back to where they came from. True, the Moor had brought Arabian art and learning with him, but he had brought also the Mohammedan religion, ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... farms and cattle, or who pulled an oar in his boat when he ventured out in search of cod and halibut, thought "Squire Webster" a man who realized their ideal and perfection of good-fellowship while it may confidently be said that many of his closest friends among men of culture, including lawyers, men of letters, and statesmen of the first rank, must have occasionally resented the "anfractuosities" of his mood and temper. But Seth Peterson, and Porter Wright, and John Taylor, never complained ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... and with all his vanity and little weaknesses, he is still a gallant lad and a gentleman. Poor boy! he is very strangely placed here at the court, an attendant on the Prince and Princess, while his father is known to be a staunch adherent of the Pretender—a Jacobite. He was your father's closest friend, and I knew his poor wife—Andrew's mother—well. It was very sad her dying so young, and leaving her motherless boy to the tender mercies of a hard world just when dissensions led his father to take the other side. The Princess knows ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... secured for Ireland by the Union. It has been shown, secondly, that the experience of the Colonies since the establishment of responsible government has in every case forced union upon them, and union in the closest form which the facts of trade and geography permitted of. Colonial experience is thus no argument even for a federal scheme of "Home Rule all round," if such a scheme could possibly result from an Irish Home Rule Bill, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... immediate neighbourhood must have been the perpetrators of the horrible outrage, or, at least, must have given active and guilty assistance to the principal parties concerned in it; now we, the undersigned, tenants on the property, and living in the closest proximity to Edenburn House and demesne, take this opportunity of declaring in the most public and solemn manner that neither directly nor indirectly, by word or deed, by counsel or approval, had we any participation in the tragic disaster of November 28. The relations hitherto existing between ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... Maria, when we were girls together," or, "Well, Jane, when we were at school you never would listen to me." A man's friendship is apparently based upon a knowledge of another's redeeming qualities. A woman's dearest friend is she whose faults will bear the closest investigation. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... reservoir, which distributes food, drink, air, and heat to every part of the system, in exchange for its waste material. It knocks at the gate of every organ seventy or eighty times in a minute, calling upon it to receive its supplies and unload its refuse. Between it and the brain there is the closest relation. The emotions, which act upon it as we have seen, govern it by a mechanism only of late years thoroughly understood. This mechanism can be made plain enough to the reader who is not afraid to believe ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... half a century ago, the feeling of the medical profession, in the English-speaking world was almost unanimous in disapproval and condemnation of methods and of experiments which now pass without notice, and uncondemned. When men, educated to come into the closest of relations with their fellow-beings, are thus prejudiced and uninformed, should we wonder that their views are so widely accepted? The wonder to me is rather that so large a minority are not to be convinced that everything in a ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... gallant men, not braver officers than true patriots, he tells us, "that Sextus, the questor, was paymaster, secretary at war, and commissary general; and that the sacred discipline of the Romans required the closest connexion, like that of father and son, to subsist between the general of an army and his questor. Cicero was general of the cavalry, and the next general officer was Flavius, master of Ihe artillery, the elder Lentulus was admiral, and the younger rode in the band of volunteers; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... and played it as quick as he knowed how. "Ah, Patrick," says he, "so you have taken your poor brother's place." And to the little man, who was staring at Blister like a stuck pig, he says: "They were twin brothers, sir, this gentleman and the deceased—and, as you see, so alike that few of their closest friends ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier

... Abolition of Slavery, and had a strong sympathy for national movements, which she showed by entertaining Garibaldi in 1864. She combined a considerable sense of humour with a rare capacity for affection, and became one of the Queen's closest friends; after the Prince Consort's death she was for some ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... prior to, and not subsequent to, the behaviour-response and the visceral disturbances. It is a direct and not an indirect outcome of the presentation to the special senses. Be this as it may, there is a growing tendency to bring into the closest possible relation, or even to identify, instinct and emotion in their primary genesis. The central core of all such interpretations is that instinctive behaviour and experience, its emotional accompaniments, and its expression, ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... installed as a Knight of the Garter. When in his tenth year Philip Sidney was sent from Ludlow to Shrewsbury Grammar School, where he studied for three or four years, and had among his schoolfellows Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, who remained until the end of Sidney's life one of his closest friends. When he himself was dying he directed that he should be described upon his tomb as "Fulke Greville, servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney." Even Dr. Thomas Thornton, Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, under whom Sidney was placed when ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney



Words linked to "Closest" :   superlative, nighest, nearest



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