"Comprehend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moved, or you affect to be moved. 'Tis well: if a word from a stranger can thus affect you, you may be better able to comprehend the feelings of that person whose affections you have so long outraged; your equal in blood, Duke of St. James, your superior ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... impulse must arrest or inhibit the action of the impulses that ordinarily cause the heart muscles to contract. But the idea of such inhibition of one impulse by another was utterly novel and at first difficult to comprehend. Gradually, however, the idea took its place in the current knowledge of nerve physiology, and in time it came to be understood that what happens in the case of the heart nerve-supply is only a particular case under a very general, indeed universal, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... not comprehend the English," he assured her; "and if she does she will only hear the echo of what she reads in ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... made a deep impression on a moral, intelligent, but self-righteous unbaptized woman. She could not comprehend how one so wicked and debased could speak of Jesus with so much joy and praise, when she, who was so very superior a character, felt nothing of the kind. On this she became unhappy; she began to perceive her hitherto ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... sublime or rugged scenery, was not in the spirit of the Renaissance. Humanity occupied the attention of poets and painters; and the age was yet far distant when the pantheistic feeling for the world should produce the art of Wordsworth and of Turner. Yet a few great natures even then began to comprehend the charm and mystery which the Greeks had imaged in their Pan, the sense of an all-pervasive spirit in wild places, the feeling of a hidden want, the invisible tie which makes man a part of rocks and woods ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... conclusion of our logical faculties upon this subject. Our intellect, Bergson says, cannot grasp the true nature of life, nor the meaning of the evolutionary movement. With the emphasis of italics he repeats that "the intellect is characterized by a natural inability to comprehend life." He says this in a good many pages and in a good many different ways; the idea is one of the main conclusions of his book. Our intuitions, our spiritual nature, according to this philosopher, are more en rapport with the secrets of the creative energy than are our ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... There the miseries of life and the disintegration of society are too notorious to require analysis; and these countries are already experiencing the actuality of what for the rest of Europe is still in the realm of prediction. Yet they comprehend a vast territory and a great population, and are an extant example of how much man can suffer and how far society can decay. Above all, they are the signal to us of how in the final catastrophe the malady of the body passes over into malady of the mind. Economic privation proceeds ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... existence justified by itself. While art borrows from nature and mankind all that we ourselves deem beautiful, perfect, valuable, and imposes on the world a man-made law—science strives to understand all things and all creatures according to the law which dominates them; it strives to comprehend nature and humanity—even where they are foreign and hostile—not according to human values, but according to their inherent nature—and this is only possible when the individuality of all things is respected. The method of science has slowly become the perfect weapon by whose aid ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... troubling it with salutary pain, now animating it with even more wholesome delight. All the while is the order of household affairs regulated for the comfort and profit of these lowly little ones, though they regard it reverently because they cannot comprehend it. They may not know of all this,—how their guardian bends over their pillow nightly, and lets no word of their careless talk drop unheeded, hails every brightening gleam of reason, and records every sob of infant grief; and every chirp of childish glee,—they may not know this, because ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... The flash was almost too novel for its inexpressibly dangerous nature to be at once realized, and they could only comprehend the magnificence of its beauty. It sprang from east, west, north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped with blue fire for bones—dancing, leaping, striding, racing around, and mingling altogether ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... try one?" he asked, seeing that my pipe was finished, and I presently found myself enjoying the best cigarette I had ever smoked. "You comprehend French—no?" ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... propriety of suppressing all wholesale trade, of shutting up the shops of every man who sells what he does not make, and of extruding all whose agency and profit intervene between the manufacturer and the consumer. They may, by stretching their understandings a little wider, comprehend, that all those who by undertaking large quantities of manufacture, and affording employment to many labourers, make themselves considered as benefactors to the publick, have only been robbing their workmen with one ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... of paper in a dazed fashion. She could not comprehend the good fortune that had suddenly come to her. Then she handed the check back to Mr. Bartlett. "I can't take your money," she said. "I really ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... her daughter had been a Nun; but after Lartigue and his companions were assured that her daughter's narrative would appear, then the mother was probably bribed, formally to swear to a wilful falsehood; for it is most probable, that she either did not see, or from intoxication could not comprehend, the contents of the paper to which her signature is affixed. Her habitual intemperance, her coarse impiety, her long- indulged hatred and cruelty towards her daughter, and her flat self- contradictions, with her repeated and public declarations, that ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone through some struggles—which indeed it has. And after all, its worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes comfort—subdues ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... indolent man, the country was distracted by sanguinary broils; the governors of several provinces and districts withdrew their allegiance; and the dominions of the khans of Kalat gradually so diminished that they now comprehend only a small portion of the provinces ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... its factitious cheerfulness. "Monsieur," he replied sharply, "I did not come to you to bandy words. If you will reflect on the occupation you were indulging last night at the moment we surprised you, you will comprehend that it was certainly to be inferred that, if you were not a thief, you were an eavesdropper; which, to my way of thinking, is as bad. If you address me again in that insulting tone, I shall leave you till such a time as you may be willing to listen at least with common courtesy ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... enlarged. And now I come to make known unto you that though ye have heard strange things of our Lord, yet let not your hearts faint or fear, but rather fortify yourselves in your Faith because all his actions are miraculous and secret, which human understanding cannot comprehend, and who can penetrate into the depth of them? In a brief time all things shall be manifested to you clearly in their purity, and ye shall know and consider and be instructed by the Inventor himself. Blessed is he who can expect and arrive to the Salvation of the true Messiah, who will ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... practiced by the Greeks and Romans, both on the stage and in the tribune, induced by their habit of addressing large assemblies in the open air, where it would have been impossible for the majority to comprehend what was said without the assistance of some conventional signs, which enabled the speaker to address himself to the eye, as well as the ear of the audience. These were chiefly made by certain positions of the hands ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... understand—that one should want to be someone else. (To want to be someone else is to want to cease to be he who one is.) I understand that one should wish to have what someone else has, his wealth or his knowledge; but to be someone else, that is a thing I cannot comprehend." It has often been said that every man who has suffered misfortunes prefers to be himself, even with his misfortunes, rather than to be someone else without them. For unfortunate men, when they preserve their normality in their ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... not for some time, and until, by repeated trances, if they are to be so called, my mind became better prepared to interchange ideas with my entertainers, and more fully to comprehend differences of manners and customs, at first too strange to my experience to be seized by my reason, that I was enabled to gather the following details respecting the origin and history of the subterranean population, as portion of one great family ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... I suppose we cannot comprehend infinity, because we are essentially finite ourselves. But it by no means follows that we cannot apprehend and believe in attributes which we are unable to comprehend. We can ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... themselves above the common orders of mankind, might condescend to imitate the candour of Socrates; and where they find incontestable proofs of superior genius, be content to think that there is justness in the connexion which they cannot trace, and cogency in the reasoning which they cannot comprehend. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... fetched them arms, they held the torches, they sent them forth with vows and prayers and imprecations, their children clinging to their robes, and repeating with enthusiasm, phrases which they could not comprehend. ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... but this inferiority was partly disguised by distance, and more than atoned for by the strange rising of its walls and towers out of the midst, as it seemed, of the deep sea; for it was impossible that the mind or the eye could at once comprehend the shallowness of the vast sheet of water which stretched away in leagues of rippling lustre to the north and south, or trace the narrow line of islets bounding it to the east. The salt breeze, the white moaning sea-birds, the masses of black ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... we but enter into the heart of even the most brutish negro slave who ever was brought down the Nile out of the desert by Nubian merchants, to build piers and docks in whose commerce he did not share, temples whose worship he did not comprehend, libraries and theatres whose learning and civilisation were to him as much a sealed book as they were to his countryman, and fellow-slave, and only friend, the ape. There was metaphysic enough ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... compartments are the haunts of the Aristockracy said the earl and they are kept going by peaple who have got something funny in their family and who want to be less mere if you can comprehend. ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... MARRIAGE OF CHARITY AND FAITH; for good relates to charity, and truth to faith. Some of the spirits above-mentioned who did not see the angel and the writing, being still near, and hearing these things, said in an under tone, "Yes, we also comprehend what has been spoken;" but the angel then said to them, "Turn aside a little from me and speak in like manner." They turned aside, and then said aloud, "It is not so." After this the angel spoke concerning the MARRIAGE OF GOOD AND TRUTH with married pairs, saying, that if their minds ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... la Fayette is a most valuable auxiliary to me. His zeal is unbounded, and his weight with those in power, great. His education having been merely military, commerce was an unknown field to him. But his good sense enabling him to comprehend perfectly whatever is explained to him, his agency has been very efficacious. He has a great deal of sound genius, is well remarked by the King, and rising in popularity. He has nothing against him, but the suspicion of republican principles. I think he will one day be of the ministry. His ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... He could not comprehend her mood in the least and his demeanor showed it. Her command had a funny little ripple in it—as of laughter suppressed. There were queer quirks at the corners of her full, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... position was no less desperate than when, in his first consulate, he had allowed himself to be similarly surrounded in the Ligurian defiles which thenceforth bore his name. But as an accident saved him then, so the incapacity of Perseus saved him now. As if he could not comprehend the idea of defending himself against the Romans otherwise than by blocking the passes, he strangely gave himself over as lost as soon as he saw the Romans on the Macedonian side of them, fled in all haste to Pydna, and ordered his ships to be burnt and his treasures to be sunk. But even ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... not comprehend. I knew well that I did not deserve my joy, poor fool that I was, mere man of the people, with the trestles of the village fair for all my royal throne. But, since she loved me, a crowd of ideas confused and giddy thronged on my brain and whirled madly together. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... completely command the street but that the houses would have protected them against any very fatal consequences. A great part of the army had passed before the surrender of the fort, which so completely commands the narrow valley leading to Aorta that it is difficult to comprehend the negligence of the Austrians in not throwing up more efficient works; by very simple precautions they might have rendered the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... French line from Switzerland to the North Sea; and one of them was that part in the region between the Forest of the Argonne and Rheims. General Langle de Cary was in command of the army which held this section. It requires no military genius to comprehend that the French center and the right wing from Belfort to Verdun were not safe until the Germans had been forced back across the Aisne at every place. The French general had made an effort to drive the Germans under General von Einem from Champagne Pouilleuse. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... from the sky!" said the Nightingale, in undisguised astonishment. "I cannot comprehend you. Pray tell ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... are more or less simple. A man's life is so complex, his nature so inevitably the sum and work of it of it lies so far outside of woman's sphere, his mind spiked with a thousand magnets, each pointing to a different possibility,—that she would need divine wisdom to comprehend him in his entirety, even if he made her a diagram of every cell in his brain,—which he never would, out of consideration for both her and his own vanity. But within certain restrictions there can be a magnificent sense ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... confronting the discoveries of modern science than by turning back the leaves of religious history to the first blurred pages of the Christian tradition. I believe, indeed, that it is now wholly impossible for any man to comprehend the Light which shone upon human darkness nearly two thousand years ago without bringing the documents of the Church to the light which is shining across the world at this present hour ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... the gap saw movements they could not quite comprehend. Safety lines were overhauled for the last time, the picks put in the keeping of Morris Blood, who lay flat on the ledge. Glover and Bill Dancing, facing outward, planted themselves side by side against the rocky wall. Smith Young, facing inward, flattened ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... can never comprehend the cruelty in your way of viewing human beings, Aglauron. To err, to suffer, is their lot; all who have feeling and energy of character must share it; and I could not endure a woman who at six-and-twenty bore no trace ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Walt Whitman—he "argued not concerning God." It is a point of view which people like Mr. Shaw can never understand; any more than he or his like can comprehend that there are areas of human feeling over which for him and other such bulls in china-shops should be posted ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... no notice of her. She ground her teeth with the fury of hate, and swore that she would yet disappoint him of his purpose, whatever it were, in this masquerade of service. Her heart being scarcely of the calibre to comprehend one like Malcolm's, her theories for the interpretation of the mystery were somewhat wild, and altogether of a character unfit to see ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... not take her over a moment to comprehend all. While her face was crimson, she acted decidedly and with a. certain dignity. Going directly to De Forrest she said, "Julian, I have found what I lost. Get up and ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... opportunities of observing how readily dogs comprehend language, and how they are aware when they are the subject of conversation. A gentleman once said in the hearing of an old and favourite dog, who was at the time basking in the sun,—"I must have Ponto killed, for he gets old and is ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... continuum of smells." She thinks, compares, remembers, reasons by smells. By smell she makes her estimates of character: all her judgments are founded upon smells. Smelling thousands of things which we cannot smell at all, she must comprehend them in a way of which we can form no idea. Whatever she knows has been learned through mental operations of an utterly unimaginable kind. But we may be tolerably sure that she thinks about most things in some odor-relation to the experience of eating or to the intuitive dread of being eaten. ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... result of the present experiment in diplomacy will be to make the countries which it visits better known to the Chinese, and also to make the Chinese better known to them. Each will know the other better and will better comprehend that condition of mutual dependence which is the law of humanity. In the relations among nations, as in common life, this is of infinite value. Thus far, I fear that the Chinese are poorly informed with regard to us. I am sure that we are poorly informed with regard to them. We know ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... creations, of giving them flesh and blood, of making the figures which appeal to your mind's eye in the printed drama live before you on the stage. "To fathom the depths of character, to trace its latent motives, to feel its finest quiverings of emotion, to comprehend the thoughts that are hidden under words, and thus possess one's self of the actual mind of the individual man"—such was Macready's definition of the player's art; and to this we may add the testimony of Talma. He describes tragic ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Judah; Jethro being a priest of Midian. How all this proves that 'Moses was a great impostor,' as the poet says, and that Jehovah was not 'the original God of Israel,' but (1) Moses's family or tribal god, or (2) 'the god of the Kenites,' I profess my inability to comprehend. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... was dispersing, Edward called a coach; and before Ratty could comprehend how the affair was managed, he was shoved into it and driven from the scene of action. Ratty had a confused sense of hearing loud shouts—of being lifted somewhere—of directions given—the rattle of iron steps clinking sharply—two or ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... the guiding forces of the Army and Navy, by the. Congress and by the country at large. I believe it holds a promise of great benefit to humanity. I shall resist any attempt to resort to the old methods and the old standards. I am especially solicitous that foreign nations should comprehend the candor and sincerity with which we have adopted this position. While we propose to maintain defensive and supplementary police forces by land and sea, and to train them through inspections and maneuvers ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... of my last interview with her; but I never thought of saying a word about it. I cannot help thinking now that I was waked up and sent to the old woman, my great-grandmother, in the middle of the night, to help her to die in comfort. Who knows? What we can neither prove nor comprehend forms, I suspect, the infinitely larger part ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... mind slow in its own nature, or unenlivened by information, will contentedly read in the same book for twenty times, perhaps, the very act of reading it being more than half the business, and every period being at every reading better understood; while a mind more active or more skilful to comprehend its meaning is made sincerely sick at the second perusal; so a soul like his, acute to discern the truth, vigorous to embrace, and powerful to retain it, soon sees enough of the world's dull prospect, which at first, like that of the sea, pleases by its extent, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Child I may compare, Who sees the riches of some famous Fair, He feeds his eyes but understanding lacks, To comprehend the worth of all those knacks; The glittering plate and Jewels he admires, The Hats and Fans, the Plumes and Ladies' tires, And thousand times his mazed mind doth wish Some part, at least, of that brave ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... the reader may know that the Old Dessauer is alive, ready for action if called on; and Bruhl ought to comprehend better how riskish his game with edge-tools is. Bruhl is not now in an unprepared state:—here are Uhlans at one's elbow looking on. Rutowski's Uhlans; who lies encamped, not far off, in good force, posted among morasses; strongly entrenched, and with schemes ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of his smile seemed expressed by his false teeth that were forever falling out of place when he loosed his facial muscles. He walked rather stealthily back to the desk where the proprietor of the shop was working; but he spoke loud enough for Nate Perry's practical ear to comprehend the elder man's mission. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Lotze, though later, with two other students, I attended Trendelenburg's difficult course, and tried to comprehend ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... solid earth which we may at present neglect, not as being persuaded that this part may not also be found to come under the general rule of formation with the rest, but as considering this part to be of no consequence in forming a general rule, which shall comprehend almost the whole, without doing it absolutely. This excluded part consists of certain mountains and masses of granite. These are thought to be still older in their formation, and are said never to be found superincumbent on strata which must be acknowledged as the productions ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... jealous, then! But thou canst not comprehend. Canst thou comprehend this, that thou art more beautiful by many times than any other woman I have ever seen? Thou art a heaven of loveliness, and I cannot live without thee. That is true ... Nedjma. I am going to take thee for my wife, because I cannot live without thine eyes, thy lips, the fragrance ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... itself to the masses of men. It is definitely theistic, but the view that the divine power is visible only in phenomena and is to be identified practically with the world is one that men in general find difficult to comprehend. The demand is for a deity with whom one may enter into personal relations—the simple conception of a god who dwells apart satisfies the religious instincts of the majority of men. The ethical questions arising from ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr., as it appeared in the printed report, we are able to comprehend the characteristics of the two men. Gould was cool and collected from beginning to end, with no indication in his statements that the events of the 24th of September had in any particular disturbed him in temper or nerve or confidence ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... with which he bound them. To these they became familiarised by habit, especially when the throne exerted its power in acts gratifying to national vanity, or even in ministering to the more ignoble passions.' Unable, apparently, to comprehend the principle which underlay the whole policy of Akbar, that of conquering that he might produce union, and regarding him as he rightly regarded his Afghan and Pathan predecessors, Colonel Tod attacks him for his conquests. Yet even Colonel Tod is ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... remarkable among the Digger tribe, with matted hair, and were almost entirely naked: looking very poor and miserable, as if their lives had been spent in the rushes where they were, beyond which they seemed to have very little knowledge of any thing. From the words we could comprehend, their language was that of the ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... face grew red As his escutcheon on the wall; He could not comprehend at all The drift of what the Poet said; For those who had been longest dead Were always greatest in his eyes; And he was speechless with surprise To see Sir William's plumed head Brought to a level with the rest, And made the subject ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Comanche. I was not so sure of the correctness of my words— either of the pronunciation or the syntax—but I had the gratification to perceive that I was understood. Perhaps my gestures helped the savages to comprehend me—the meaning of these was not to ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... not to comprehend why I include vanity among the causes of emigration, and yet I assure you it has had no small share in many of them. The gentry of the provinces, by thus imitating the higher noblesse, imagine they have formed a kind of a common cause, which may hereafter tend to equalize the difference of ranks, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Seated by Marzio's side, and learning from him all that could be learned, Gianbattista had acquired at the same time a thorough knowledge of his instincts and emotions, which neither Maria Luisa nor Lucia was able to comprehend. ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Patsy who sorted the wools and threaded the needles, and set right the sewing-cards of the babies; and only the initiated can comprehend the labyrinthine maze into which an energetic three-year-old can transform a bit of sewing. It was he who fished the needles from the cracks in the floor, rubbed the blackboards, and scrubbed the slates, talking ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... The mass of the people they considered as thoroughly loyal, attached to our rule as well from gratitude as from self-interest, being thoroughly conscious of the benefits it had conferred upon them. Holding these opinions, they did not comprehend either the nature or the magnitude of the crisis. To their inability to do so, many lives and much treasure were needlessly sacrificed.'—'The Indian ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... immense uncertainty, he felt as if attacked by vertigo, and his thoughts whirled within his brain. Then, fatigued with his vain toils and hopeless endeavors, he would sink down depressed, unmanned, life-wearied, only living in the sensation of that silent grief which he felt and could not comprehend." ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Grizzy could comprehend of this harangue was that it was reckoned a great honour to be acquainted with a Campbell; and chuckling with delight at the idea of her own ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... would seem that even the Professor did not fully comprehend the depth of Mrs. Scarlet's vindictiveness ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... seeing that in the said treatise I have anatomized the rest of the sea towns as well of Nicaragua, Yucatan, Nueva Espana, and the islands, as those of the inland, and by what means they may be best invaded, as far as any mean judgment may comprehend. ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... subjects. The most dangerous enemies of Rome, during the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, were, 1. The Franks; 2. The Alemanni; 3. The Goths; and, 4. The Persians. Under these general appellations, we may comprehend the adventures of less considerable tribes, whose obscure and uncouth names would only serve to oppress the memory and perplex the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... it all that he did not come to his senses for nearly a quarter of an hour. He could not possibly comprehend that he had come back to Loefdala. He had not been at all conscious that the stable-boy had grown tired of driving about in the ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... that as in the one, so likewise in the other, by summarie contents foregoing euerie chapter, as also by certeine materiall titles added at the head of euerie page of the said historie, it is a thing of no difficultie to comprehend what is discoursed ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (1 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed
... fascinating child," said Mrs. Gillespie. "I cannot comprehend where she gets the manner she has. I never saw a more perfectly polite child, and there she has been for months, with nobody to speak to her but two gentlemen and the servants. It is natural to her, I suppose; she can have ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... introduction of Hermetic and other symbols into Masonry; that they framed the three degrees for the purpose of communicating their doctrines, veiled by their symbols, to those fitted to receive them, and gave to others trite moral explanations they could comprehend."[129] How gracious of them to vouchsafe even trite explanations, but why frame a set of degrees to conceal what they wished to hide? This is the same idea of something alien imposed upon Masonry from ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... a very liberal offer, though it is probable he did not think she would want any considerable portion of it, or that she could even comprehend the meaning of so large a sum. Katy was sorely tempted to negotiate with him for the loan but she was not sure that it would be proper to borrow money of the servant, and perhaps Mrs. Gordon would ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... young people, and only vaguely sensed by their parents. They were traditional ideas, generally approved by right-minded people and passed along. Their origin, in nearly all cases, was the accumulated experience and wisdom of people who did comprehend. ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... words, but it is by no means monotonous, for it has four accents; the even, the raised, the lessened, and the returning, which multiply every word into four; as difficult, says Mr. Astle, for an European to understand, as it is for a Chinese to comprehend the six pronunciations of the French E. In fact, they can so diversify their monosyllabic words by the different tones which they give them, that the same character differently accented signifies sometimes ten or more ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... galleon breasts the sky-line; no explorer in evening clothes makes love to an heiress. Here ride no rollicking cowboys, nor heroes of the great European war. It is a world whose crises you cannot comprehend unless you have learned that the difference between a 2-A pencil and a 2-B pencil is at least equal to the contrast between London and Tibet; unless you understand why a normally self-controlled young woman may have a week of tragic discomfort because she is using a billing-machine instead of her ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... convolutions of the Idea in its Dialectic development, but of the Idea itself or himself we had no idea whatever. It was all darkness, a vast abyss, and we sat patiently and wrote down what we could catch and comprehend of the Professor's explanations, but the Idea itself we never could lay hold of. It would not have been so difficult if the Professor had spoken out more boldly. But whenever he came to the relation of the Idea to what we mean by God, there was always even with ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... a privilege for the wealthy as for the poor to have an opportunity to send their children to good public schools. It is a maxim in education that the teacher must first comprehend the pupil mentally and morally; and might not many of the errors of individual and public life be avoided, if the citizen, from the first, were to have an accurate idea of the world in which he is to live? The demand of labor ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... explains much of Browning's philosophy. The source of the pagan Cleon's profound discouragement was the fact that man should be dowered with "joy-hunger," should be given the ability to perceive and comprehend splendor and breadth of experience, but should, through the straitness of human limitations, be held back from satisfaction and achievement, and should be left to die thus dazzled, thus baffled. The secret of Browning's optimism, on the other ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... my words short. "The woman! The woman!" I heard the cry in several languages at once, but I could not comprehend it. I saw the crowd rise and surge toward me, making for the entrance of the tent. I turned and ran with them. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... word, Agnes never neglected the little thing, though sometimes, between it and her patients, she was nearly beside herself. Reader, if you are a woman, and have ever had even an ordinary sickness in your household, you can easily comprehend the position in which Agnes was placed with her three patients to nurse, and an infant to care for at the same time. Yet she never murmured, never ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... smiling, "I comprehend. There is some maid in the question, and if I advance you to the command of my house-guard and give you an officer's responsibility, you will of a surety be ever desiring to go gadding to the greenwood—and around ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... shouted after me at least twelve times in succession, 'Aristocrat, aristocrat!' And now it comes back to me about the other one, the lean Andrew, his brother. He was your Andrew, was he not, Marie?—the Andrew with the violets? Oh, now I comprehend this great ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... the "true Sublime in Human Nature"—Greatness and Goodness combined. So thoroughly has he explained his intention in the Prefaces to the Miscellanies, and to the book itself, that it is difficult to comprehend how Scott could fail to see his drift. Possibly, like some others, he found the subject repugnant and painful to his kindly nature. Possibly, too, he did not, for this reason, study the book very carefully, for, with the episode of Heartfree under one's eyes, it is not strictly accurate ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... Lord tried Abraham by certain words, which he fulfilled: God said, Verily I will constitute thee a model of religion unto mankind; he answered, And also of my posterity; God said, My covenant doth not comprehend the ungodly. And when we appointed the holy house of Mecca to be the place of resort for mankind, and a place of security; and said, Take the station of Abraham for a place of prayer; and we covenanted with Abraham and Ismael, that they should cleanse my house for those who ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... before me other phenomena which I do not consider as beings like myself, but as irrational objects. Speculation finds it easy to show how the conception of such objects develops itself purely from my power of conception and its necessary modes of action. But I comprehend these same things also through need and craving and enjoyment. It is not the conception—no, it is hunger and thirst and the satisfaction of these that makes anything food and drink to me. Of course, I am constrained to believe in the reality of that which ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... said the General, "when will you learn to comprehend the refined taste which I fear you will never emulate? You ought to know, sir, that a breakfast without a lady is an unnatural thing in society, calculated to disturb the composure and injure the digestion of any gentleman. As Mrs. Harrington is not able to preside, will you have the goodness ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... other great discoveries that were to have an important effect upon the lives of countless numbers of people, the discovery of Lake Tahoe was accidental. Nor did its finder comprehend the vast influence it was to possess, not only upon the residents of California and Nevada, but upon the travel-loving and sight-seeing portion of the population ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... fixed musingly upon him and in them brooded a confidence which he could not analyze or comprehend. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... decision. Then arrived Osiander. He was a man of great strength of character and intellect, and he succeeded in demonstrating to the Duke the dishonourable nature of his intentions. Also he induced his Highness to comprehend that the Pope, though ready to gather all men, and especially princes, into the maw of Rome, could not make a double marriage legal where there was no feasible plea for annulment of the first union. To be politically hostile to Austria ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... positive, the scientific spirit shall make men progressively more and more conscious of these 'bleibende Verhaltnisse,' more and more capable of living in the whole; also, that in proportion as we gain a firmer hold upon our own place in the world, we shall come to comprehend with more instinctive certitude what is simple, natural, and honest, welcoming with gladness all artistic products that exhibit these qualities. The perception of the enlightened man will then be the task of a healthy person who has made himself acquainted ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... make for the Empire. When the testing time came fifteen months after this appreciation was published all hope of unimpaired maintenance of the Union had to be sorrowfully given up, and only those who were in a position to comprehend, with sympathy, the depth and intensity of the feeling in Ulster on the subject could realise all that this meant to the people there. Yet, all the same, their "citizen army" did not hesitate to "hold itself at the disposal ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... papers; for, if my artifice is discovered, I shall no longer be good for any thing; and shall have to discontinue the game. Moreover, I know very well that, for my duty and conscience, I am doing, in all this, nothing but what I ought; and I need no other theology than my own to comprehend it.' The king answers—'Trust, in every thing, to my circumspection. My theology understands the thing just as yours does, and considers not only that you are doing your duty, but that you would have been remiss towards God and man, had you not done so, in order to enlighten my understanding, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... suggesting, in a lively manner, the means by which the two opposite characters thus typified effect their rise. When it is said that a certain person misunderstands another because the lesser of two objects can not comprehend the greater, the application of what is true in the literal sense of the word comprehend, to its metaphorical sense, points to the fact which is the ground and justification of the assertion, viz., that one mind can not thoroughly ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... distilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman springs? You have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry. "What reward have I then, for all my labor?" What reward! A large, comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man,—of God; a rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, furnished with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and reflection; a perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... and truth were fully understood and appreciated, and that what he said always commanded a sympathetic hearing among men with totally different political ideas, but with chivalrous and loyal instincts to comprehend his own. I shall never forget his account of the terrible day when the news of Mr. Lincoln's death came. By some accident a rumor of it reached him first through a colleague. He went straight to the Foreign Office for news, hoping against hope, was received ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... boughs. Into them went the forerunners, to be pierced by the sharp, fire-hardened stakes set at the bottom of each pit. Vainly did those who were near enough to understand their danger call to the ranks behind to stop. They could not or would not comprehend, and had no room to extend their front. Forward surged the human torrent, thrusting all in front of it to death by wounds or suffocation in those deadly holes, till one by one they were filled level with the ground by struggling men and horses, ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... matter without having any point of contact, any kind of analogy with it; and which itself receives the impulse of matter by means of material organs, which announce to it the presence of other beings? Is it possible to conceive the union of the soul with the body; to comprehend how this material body can bind, enclose, constrain, determine a fugitive being, which escapes all our senses? Is it honest, is it plain dealing, to solve these difficulties, by saying there is a mystery in them, that they are the effects of a power more inconceivable ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... surprise at being received by my smiling, blond-haired friend, who failed to comprehend their mournful but ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... comprehend the meaning of my cries; for he made off with me through the aperture by which he had entered, carrying me along as easily as if I was an infant in arms. As he made off through the window, my companions, whose responding shouts I had just before heard, ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... better nature of Maverick had been roused, and he turned a look of loathing upon the complacent Frenchman seated by him (which fortunately the stolid Papiol did not comprehend). For a moment, his thought ran back to a sunny hillside near to the old town of Arles, where lines of stunted, tawny olives crept down the fields,—where fig-trees showed their purple nodules of fruit,—where a bright-faced young peasant-girl, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... difficult to comprehend that such changes can occur in a body after it has become entirely solidified, owing to the usual conception that the particles are then rigidly fixed. However, this rigidity is only comparative. The molecules in the solid state have not the large mobility they possess as a liquid, ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... battin' his noble brow, "you do not comprehend. You make to laugh. And me, I come to you from the ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... lawyers and doctors, engineers and painters. Actors almost never. They sent her books and flowers; valued her opinion, delighted in her conversation, wished she wouldn't sometimes look at them so quizzically. And if they didn't always comprehend her wit, they never failed to appreciate the contour of her face, where the thoughtful brow was contradicted by the lovely little nose, and both were drowned in the twin wells of the wide-apart, misleadingly limpid eyes ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... persuading him that a sealer could not work to any advantage, unless he had the means of occasionally warming himself. The miserly propensities of the deacon were not so engrossing that he did not comprehend the wisdom of making sufficient outlay to secure the execution of his main object; and among other things of this nature, the schooner had sailed with a very large supply of wood, as has just been stated. Wood and onions, indeed, were ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... have villages—so big!—oh!" Nuna paused from incapacity to describe, for Eskimos, being unable to comprehend large numbers, are often obliged to have recourse to illustration. "Listen," continued Nuna, holding up a finger; "if all the whales we catch in a year were to be cooked, they would not feed the people of their largest village ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... innocent; he knows nothing that we know, and knows that of which all others are ignorant; his education has been taken in hand by the Lord Himself, who teaches him truths which we cannot comprehend, models his soul after heaven, infuses Himself into him, possesses him, and deifies him in ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... that you are in any danger. It is possible that I have been too anxious. Do you speak the French language easily? Do you comprehend it, when ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... wreathed the unknown fireman in all the attributes of virtue and of manliness; happy was she to find them realized in Marion. And he, when sitting in the shadows of the old marble pile, gazing up at the brilliant sky, had pictured a being beautiful and good, whose soul could comprehend the yearnings of his own, and this he found in May. Thus their two souls grew together, until their thoughts, their hopes, their very ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... saved through the knowledge of the truth. In joining himself to the Eunuch from Ethiopia who, sitting in his chariot read the Prophet Esaias, Philip asked, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" and all his effort went to make the dusky stranger comprehend. To make men understand, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... comprehend the situation altogether? The Pollard type of submarine boat is now the most formidable and dangerous in the world—and only the United States Government can buy boats from the makers! Any country in the world that goes ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... without weariness, without impatience, guiding the whole of the great production. And though Mr. Irving never spares himself, he is very considerate to others. When, for instance, a young actor is unable to comprehend the full meaning of an explanation, Mr. Irving walks up and down the stage, one arm on his shoulder, and explains the whole conception of the part. He is not only a great actor, but a great teacher; and his influence pervades and dominates every being in the theatre. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... controversies, are mild and moderate in comparison of polemical divines; and whenever a man's knowledge and experience give him a perfect assurance in his own opinion, he regards with contempt rather than anger the opposition and mistakes of others. But while men zealously maintain what they neither clearly comprehend nor entirely believe, they are shaken in their imagined faith by the opposite persuasion, or even doubts of other men, and vent on their antagonists that anger and impatience which is the natural result of this state of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... where the Korean had taken refuge from the rain, he somehow very strongly suspected that that individual had been awake and sitting up at the moment of his approach; yet he was obliged to shake the man vigorously for a full minute before he could be made to comprehend that it was time ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... would be so kind as to be a Mahometan. She was very much alarmed, for she thought I was delirious, which I believe I was; for I tried to explain the reason of my request, but it was in such an incoherent manner that she could not at all comprehend what I ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Peace of Nations, as well as the infernal Mission of those who either openly or secretly, are opposed to our mission. In this their condition they are supporting the Papal Imperial Royal or Monarchial powers. This will be evident to those who comprehend this book. Then they will know that those are either wittingly deceivers, or are deceived and repeat the lies and slanders of others, who say that I make too great claims and am anxious to be a great ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... clenched in his hair, began another circle. He reverted to his grievance. The quarrel this time was sharp and brief. Brian hated repetitions. Hotly impenitent he flung out of the studio and slammed his bedroom door, leaving Kenny dazed and defensive and utterly unable to comprehend the twist of fate by which the dignity of his grievance ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... disown you. Can you understand that? If you marry her, I will never see you or speak to you again. Do you think you can understand that? If you marry her, not a dollar of my property shall ever be yours. Do you fully comprehend me? I mean all I say, literally and exactly. I won't leave you even the hope of breaking my will when I am dead. I will give away every penny before I die. I will found a hospital, or an insane asylum for just such lunatics as you are, and every dollar I possess shall be in its ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... the tea duty will be a means of supporting the Parliament of Great Britain in raising money from us. How it can affect this matter I am utterly at a loss to comprehend. Have not large quantities of tea for some years past been imported into this Province from England, both on account of the dealers in tea there and the merchants here, all which have paid the American duty? How in the name of common sense does it differ, ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... deeply disappointed. He regretted not only the loss of Black Rifle and his men, but the further evidence of an unyielding temperament on the part of their commander. His own mind however so ready to comprehend the mind of others, could understand Braddock's point of view. To the general Black Rifle and his men were mere woods rovers, savages themselves in everything except race, and the army ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Instead of being published in monthly parts at a shilling each only, it will be published in weekly parts at threepence and monthly parts at a shilling; my object being to baffle the imitators and make it as novel as possible. The plan is a new one—I mean the plan of the fiction—and it will comprehend a great variety of tales. The title is: ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... comprehend all this, that we cannot set definite boundaries to these seemingly conflicting views, is not at all surprising; for we are but finite.[55] Even His universe partakes so much of His prerogative of infinity that it is utterly beyond the compass of our finite minds. Indeed, if either the ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... to comprehend the authority by which Mr. Bradley's understanding speaks, his words leave me wholly unconverted. 'External relations' stand with their withers all unwrung, and remain, for aught he proves to the contrary, not only practically workable, but ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... doth offend: why should it trouble thee? Hath anything happened unto thee? It is well, whatsoever it be, it is that which of all the common chances of the world from the very beginning in the series of all other things that have, or shall happen, was destinated and appointed unto thee. To comprehend all in a few words, our life is short; we must endeavour to gain the present time with best discretion and justice. ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... mountains. The Guhyakas, O great king, protect the mountains of Gandhamadana. Without doubt, Vishnu, otherwise, called Janardana, protects all creatures. (For all that the Vahikas have no especial protectors among the gods). The Magadhas are comprehenders of signs; the Koshalas comprehend from what they see; the Kurus and the Pancalas comprehend from a half-uttered speech; the Salwas cannot comprehend till the whole speech is uttered. The Mountaineers, like the Sivis, are very stupid. The Yavanas, O king, are omniscient; the Suras are particularly so. The Mlecchas ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to Senator Hale of New Hampshire, Senator Toombs agreed that the Territory of Kansas would certainly be a free State. Such, he thought would be its future destiny. "The senator from New Hampshire," he said, "was unable to comprehend the principles of the bill. The friends of the Kansas bill, North and South, supported the bill because it was right, and left the future to those who were affected by it. The policy of the Kansas bill wrongs no man, no section of our common country. We have never asked the ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... and similar expressions of the alchemists, Hitchcock rightly calls our attention to Plotinus, who writes, for example (Enn., VI, 9, 10): "We must comprehend God with our whole being, so that we no longer have in us a single part that is not dependent upon God. Then we may see him and ourselves as it beseems us to see, in radiant beams, filled with spiritual light, or rather as pure light itself [notice ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... of the like of this palace." Then the Sultan turned to the Vizier and said to him, "How now? Deemest thou Alaeddin worthy to be bridegroom to my daughter the Lady Bedrulbudour? Hast thou seen and considered this royal building and all these riches which man's wit cannot comprehend?" The Vizier, of his envy of Alaeddin, answered him, saying, "O King of the Age, indeed this palace and its building and all these riches may not be but by means of enchantment, for that no man among men, no, not the mightiest of them in dominion ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... difficult to explain to you, Manuel, just now, but after you have been married to Gisele for a while you will comprehend without any explaining." ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... "Ah, you don't comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... pardoned," I said, by way of explanation, in order to get her to comprehend my meaning from her own experience. "Your sins are pardoned." She got very confused. "You know," I continued, "that it is a happy day when Jesus takes our sins away." This only made matters worse. She became greatly embarrassed. While we spoke of London and Gospel preaching she ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... to the others in the picture, and then to the chief, the latter seemed for the first time to comprehend, but he slowly shook his head and grunted, or made use of his own language to indicate that he had no knowledge of them. The boys ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... dropped at his feet. At another time a wounded lioness had leaped into his path and crouched to spring. Then he had not been afraid. Then he had aimed as confidently as though he were firing at a straw target. But now he felt real fear: fear of something he did not comprehend, of a situation he could not master, of an adversary as strong as Fate. By a word something had been snatched from him that he now knew was as dear to him as life, that was life, that was what made it worth continuing. And he could do nothing to prevent it; he ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... backward into the past with the incalculable velocity of thought, and he began to comprehend his day's adventures, to conceive them as a whole, and to recognize the sad imbroglio in which his own character and fortunes had become involved. He looked round him, as if for help, but he was alone in the garden, with his scattered diamonds ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... as the fundamental part of botany, and the study of which is rendered attractive and easy by the introduction of natural methods, is to the geography of plants what descriptive mineralogy is to the indication of the rocks constituting the exterior crust of the globe. To comprehend the laws observed in the position of these rocks, to determine the age of their successive formations, and their identity in the most distant regions, the geologist should be previously acquainted ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... element in this one-sided pertinacity," I suggested, "and a wise man might humor and use it for the best ends. Instead of attempting to pull these hopeful people back into the church, cannot you urge the church forward to comprehend their position? This impulse,—fanatical as some of its manifestations doubtless are,—might it not be constrained, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... lend themselves to design—the artist is strongly influenced by color. This is especially true in the case of Holland, where the uncertain light and the vague shadows which continually veil the air soften and obscure the outlines of objects until the eye neglects the form it cannot comprehend, and fixes itself on color as the chief quality that nature possesses. But there are yet other reasons for this: a country as flat, monotonous, and gray as Holland is has need of color, just as a southern country has need of shadow. The ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... why, followed the example. He did not even comprehend where his companion was going, for he had said nothing ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... asleep. I waited, therefore, without moving, till the sounds of revelry subsided, the tom-toms were no longer beaten, the trumpets ceased braying, and the cymbals clashing. Then I could hear the guards talking to each other outside. The few words I could comprehend out of this jargon were not very consolatory. I made out clearly that they proposed to shoot all their prisoners the next day, and that, besides those already in camp, they expected a number more from other estates ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... comprehend her hesitation and tone. Said he,—"Pierre is wonderfully changed since he and I wore the green sash of the seminary. He is taller than I, wiser and better,—he was always that,—but in heart the same generous, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the prime necessity. We study analysis here in the studios, learning how to separate music into its component parts, together with simple chord formations, general form and structure of the pieces, and so on. Can you comprehend the dense ignorance of many music students on these subjects? They will come here to me, never having analyzed a bit of music in their lives, having not an inkling of what chord structure and form in music mean. If they played piano even a little, they could ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... I am not egotist. I not proud myself with chateaux en Espagne. I am but a particular gentleman, come here for that what I said; but, since I learn to comprehend the language, I discover that I am become an object of pleasantry, and for himself to mock, to one of your comedians even before I put my foot upon the ground at Douvres. He was Mr. Mathew, who tell of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... He knew by the words of Guapo, and the earnest gestures of the rest, that there was some danger:—but of what? Why was he to run? He could not comprehend it. He hesitated, and might have stayed longer on the spot, had not his father, seeing his indecision, shouted out to him ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... boat department, required an account of the number of boats, the means of preventing accidents, &c. He entered so minutely into particulars with him, that the man could scarcely recover from his surprise, or comprehend how an Emperor should know so much as a boatman. Napoleon persisted in the speedy departure of his troops. Several times he ordered me to go and hasten the embarkation: he was in the habit of employing those about him for every thing that came into his head. His genius knowing ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... influences. The public school is the one experience that is common to them all, and therefore the greatest single force in bringing them all to share in a common ideal, to reverence the great men of our country's history, and to comprehend the meaning of democracy. How does it ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... niceties of language. The point which deserves notice in this account of his studies is their wide sweep, so superior and bracing, as compared with that narrow restriction to the "authors of the best period," patronised by teachers who imperfectly comprehend their own business. Gibbon proceeded on the common-sense principle, that if you want to obtain a real grasp of the literature, history, and genius of a people, you must master that literature with more or less completeness from ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... wife and children sued for his estate. It was awarded to them by the courts and established a precedent that guaranteed social status to the children of such unions. This is one of the things that easterners can not comprehend. I have never heard the opprobrious phrase "squaw man" used on the Canadian frontier; and descendants of the MacKenzies, the Isbisters, the Hardistys, the Strathconas, the Macleans, the MacLeods—blush, not with shame but pride, in acknowledging ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... to profit or to delight; or to deliver at once both the pleasures and the necessaries of life. Whatever precepts you give, be concise; that docile minds may soon comprehend what is said, and faithfully retain it. All superfluous instructions flow from the too full memory. Let what ever is imagined for the sake of entertainment, have as much likeness to truth as possible; let not your play demand belief for whatever [absurdities] it is inclinable ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Here only can you comprehend this assertion—a civilization other than our own, other and different, but in its kind as complete and as elegant. It is another animal, but equally perfect, like the mastodon, previous to the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... your Excellency endeavours to compel or force these people to a life to which they have never been accustomed. In vain do you tell them that apple-pies, pudding, roast beef, minced pies, or tarts, are delicious, that sugar is sweet, that wine is exquisite. Alas! they cannot, they will not comprehend what deliciousness is, what sweetness, or what the flavour of the grape. And even if they were convinced of the superior excellence of your way of life, never, never would they be persuaded; and that if for no other reason, but because force or persuasion is employed to induce ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... fail to realize the amount of training needed to make a personnel competent to perform their tasks successfully, in competition with the highly trained men of other navies. But operations have suffered incomparably more than material and personnel; because naturally the people do not comprehend the supreme importance of being ready, when war breaks out, to operate the material and personnel skilfully against an active enemy, in accordance with well-prepared strategic plans; nor do they realize how difficult and long would be the task of preparing and testing ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... receipt of two letters as additions to your books, which I have read with deep interest, and shall take care of them, and read them over again, so that I may thoroughly comprehend them, and be able to think of them for future use. I myself am not fully satisfied with our co-operation, and never have been; it is too much tinged with the very elements that they complain of in our ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... struck with the remarkable contrast between the conversions to God in the apostolic time and those which we hear of now? How much more simple they were! A man is riding in a chariot, reading his Bible, and trying in vain to comprehend it. An apostle comes, and explains to him the prophecy, and applies it to Jesus. Presently they come to water, and he says, "See, here is water;" he is baptized, and goes on his way rejoicing. We fear there are not many churches now who would receive that Ethiopian as a member, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... few seconds, unable to comprehend the serene faith that this little but exceedingly important man reposed in his fellow-man. He appeared to take it for granted that this startling piece of confidence would not be betrayed, no matter to ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... are held to be but modifications of, and specialized forms of, this original sense of feeling. I am telling you this not merely in the way of interesting and instructive scientific information, but also because an understanding of this fact will enable you to more clearly comprehend that which I shall have to say to you about the ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... it would mean if Eustis went under? A smash to shake the state! Consider, too, the effect of failure upon the man himself! He can't fail, though—if Mr. Inglesby chooses to lend a hand. Now do you begin to comprehend?" ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler |
