"Comprehension" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... curious person," she remarked. "Are you always worried, then, if you find that some one else is seeing things or understanding things which are outside your comprehension?" ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... own papa, Mirko had said, but so soon he would be well; then he would be able to come back to them, and in the meantime he was going to learn lessons, learn the tiresome things that his Cherisette alone knew how to teach him with comprehension. The new tutor who came each day from the town was of a reasonableness, but no wit! "Body of Bacchus!" the father said, "the poor child had not been able to make the tutor laugh once—in ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... dear, by the jointure and settlement his father makes her; and says that the Duke of York and Duchess of York did come to see them in bed together, on their wedding-night, and how my Lord had fifty pieces of gold taken out of his pocket that night, after he was in bed. He tells me that an Act of Comprehension is likely to pass this Parliament, for admitting of all persuasions in religion to the public observation of their particular worship, but in certain places, and the persons therein concerned to be listed of this, or that Church; which, it is thought, will do them more ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... believe in it; she can't understand it. She's an excellent girl; but that little cup of black coffee, with a drop of cognac, served at this hour,—they exceed her comprehension. So I have to break the ice every day, and it takes the coffee the time you see to arrive. And when it arrives, monsieur! If I don't offer you any of it you must not take it ill. It will be because I know you have drunk it ...
— Four Meetings • Henry James
... interrupted Average Jones, in his turn. "He had no comprehension of what he was doing. He didn't understand that the vibration from his trombone on one particular note by the slide up the scale—as in the chorus of Egypt—would shiver that glass and set off the charge. All that he knew was to play the B-flat ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... favorite with the Royal Italian Opera subscribers. Nothing could possibly exceed the poetical grace of Eonconi in the title role, or surpass the propriety and expression of his singing. Mme. Castellan's Cunegonda was also exceedingly well sung, and Tamberlik outdid himself by his thorough comprehension of the music, the splendor of his voice, and the refinement of his vocalization in the character of Ugo.... The Mephistopheles of Herr Formes was a remarkable personation, being truly demoniacal in the ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... followed by sudden, horrified comprehension, then blankness, was becoming perfectly familiar. In fact, ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... divisions of the lambs which Sirrah had been unable to manage until he came to that commanding situation. But what was our astonishment when we discovered by degrees that not one was wanting! How he had got all the divisions collected in the dark is beyond my comprehension. I never felt so grateful to any creature below the sun as I did to my honest ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... singular, happy fellow, still young, for he was scarcely forty. A man of the world in its widest and best sense, gifted with a brilliant, but not profound, mind, with much varied knowledge, but no true erudition, ready comprehension without true understanding, he drew from his observations, his adventures, from everything he saw, met with and found, anecdotes at once comical and philosophical, and made humorous remarks that gave him a great reputation ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... democracy. Popular movements such as trade unionism must make mistakes constantly, but because of the spirit behind them, they have great powers of recovery. The trade union movement, as a whole in the United States, has not yet shown a thorough comprehension of the economic system of which it is a part; it has, therefore, often erred in its efforts to end an evil or injustice. Particular unions and leaders have often pursued mean, short-sighted and self-seeking policies—which have reflected upon the whole movement. Much like other economic groups, ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... inevitable. He was rather glad of the tidings, on the whole—at least there was a definite cause for Corydon's suffering, and a prospect of an end to it. Both of them had still their touching faith in doctors and surgeons, as speaking with final and godlike authority upon matters beyond the comprehension of the ordinary mind. The operation would not be dangerous, Corydon wrote, and it would make a ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... we tread on," exhibits human nature in its most abject and humiliating attitude. Such an attitude would little suit the purposes of the poet. What then must he do? He must throw the interest on the murderer. Our sympathy must be with him; (of course I mean a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy by which we enter into his feelings, and are made to understand them,—not a sympathy[1] of pity or approbation.) In the murdered person all strife of thought, all flux and reflux of passion and of purpose, are ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... occurrence was rare, and a triumph was gained over him only by the greatest exertions of the greatest orators. His labored speeches, as will be testified to by all who have perused them, are rich in profound thought, a clear discernment and comprehension of events, causes, and results, and occasionally in passages of stately and brilliant eloquence. Graceful rhetoric and shrewd logic appear to be ever at his command, as he has occasion, in the course of argument, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... exception about love, constancy, moon, stars, flowers. Such things have not been degraded by familiarity and parody as in the town; they retain for the country folk the vague charm (like that of music, automatic and independent of thorough comprehension) of belonging to a sphere of the marvellous; hence they are repeated and repeated with almost religious servility, as any one may observe who will listen to the stories and verses told and sung even nowadays in ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... comprehension immediately arose from Alec and Arthur, though even then Billy and Stallings did not seem to fully ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... confuting this assertion, arises merely from its generality and comprehension; to overthrow it by a detail of distinct facts, requires a wider survey of the world than human eyes can take; the progress of reformation is gradual and silent, as the extension of evening shadows; we know that they were short at noon, and are long at sunset, but our senses ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... individual difficulties it is indispensable, in order that courage may not waver, that hope may not falter—it is indispensable that there should be, as already urged, a clear intellectual comprehension of the full nature of the good thing for which battle is waged. The brilliant vision of attainable good must be preserved undimmed—ever present in sharp and radiant outline to the mental eye; and so its lustre may also fall in a flood ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the man you will see to remind you of the past, and yet my great reason for thinking it well for you to see him is a hope that you may be able to recall the past to him, so as to bring him back to something like clearness of comprehension. It seems as if nothing less ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... threw back his head and gazed at him in the most blazing way, almost without comprehension, apparently, of ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... murmur ran through the silence of the room; Grant raised his hand and a man brought in the prisoner. He looked at the set faces, and made a little gesture of comprehension. ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... and nodded in comprehension, then, as an officer appeared in the door of a coffee-house across the street, he stiffened into immobility and stared past Harmony into space. But the girl knew he would do ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... reckoned by our measures. There the sight is not our sight nor the hearing our hearing. I repeat that all things are different, but that difference I cannot describe, and if I could it would prove past comprehension. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... say—because, gentlemen, I ask upon independent principles, as the Deputy-Master of this Lodge, gentlemen—(cheers, hurra, hurra)—and the question is an important one—one of the greatest and most extraordinary comprehension, so to speak; because, gentlemen, it involves—this great question does—it involves the welfare of his majesty, gentlemen, and of the great and good King William, gentlemen, who freed us from Pope and Popery, gentlemen, and wooden ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... administration of the Liberals (1873-1878), led by the late Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, who had raised himself from the humble position of stonemason to the highest place in the councils of the country, by dint of his Scotch shrewdness, his tenacity of purpose, his public honesty, and his thorough comprehension of {408} Canadian questions, though he was wanting in breadth of statesmanship. Many generations must pass away before the personal and political merits of Sir John Macdonald can be advantageously and impartially reviewed. A lawyer by profession, but a politician by choice, ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... that our knowledge is not necessarily useless because it is rather dim and vague. It is one thing to use a mental state; it is another to have a clear comprehension of just what it is and of what elements it may be made up. The plain man does much of his thinking as we all tie our shoes and button our buttons. It would be difficult for us to describe these operations, but we may perform them very easily ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... its every feature an unpleasant something, which forced an unfavorable opinion of the individual. Mr. Livingston lived very many years in Louisiana, and rendered her great services in codifying her laws, and making them clear and easy of comprehension. He shed lustre upon her name, by his eminent abilities as a jurist and statesman, and thus has identified his name most prominently with her history. But without those shining qualities which clasp to the heart in devoted affection the great ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... As a comprehension of all delights he loved London; with its bustle and its living throngs of men and women; its shops, its turns and windings; the cries and noises of trade and life; beyond all other things. He liked also old buildings ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... without surprise, as things of course. In a certain sense, this may be well enough, inasmuch as all which comes directly from the hands of the Creator may be said so far to exceed the power of human comprehension, as to be beyond comment; but the truth would show us that the cause of this neglect is rather a propensity to dwell on such interests as those over which we have a fancied control, than on those which confessedly transcend ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... one of the most enchanting. We endeavor to explain by chemical laws the reduction of the materials which earth and air furnish, to a form in which they can be appropriated by the tree; by endosmose and exosmose we think we have overcome the obstacles to a clear comprehension of the circulation of the sap; and by a cell-theory we believe we have explained the whole growth of wood and leaves and fruit. But what microscope or what alembic shall ever tell us why a collection ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... A dozen Monadnocks or Ascutneys or Holyokes, more or less, make a Mont Blanc, with glaciers and avalanches and brooding eternity of frost. Such greatness, though it impresses me much, is not beyond my comprehension. It can be reckoned by cubic miles. So with the sea: it is only an expanse of water larger than the river that winds through the meadows. It is great, but it is only an aggregate of numerable quantities that my eyes can measure, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... He has to-day made more money than any one man ever made in a day since the world began, and he had only commenced his work when he quit to please me. As I stand in the Exchange and watch him do it, it seems commonplace and simple. Afterward it is beyond my comprehension. At the gait he is going, the Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Gould fortunes combined will look tiny in comparison with the one he will have in a few years. It is beyond my power of figuring out, and it gives me a headache every time I try to see ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... fired a gun, the savage nature would instantly have reacted, and it would have all been over in a few moments. But to laugh and light a cigarette! Watusk was rendered impotent by a morale beyond his comprehension. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... obscure depths across which his had flashed in a moment—fertile and sound in schemes, ready in action, splendid in display, as he was—nothing is more obvious and certain than that when Mr. Hamilton approached Washington, he came into the presence of one who surpassed him in the extent, in the comprehension, the elevation, the sagacity, the force, and the ponderousness of his mind, as much as he did in the majesty of his aspect, and the grandeur of his step. The genius of Hamilton was a flower, which gratifies, surprises, and enchants; the intelligence of Washington was a stately ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... gazed transfixed with horror from one son to the other, until the slow comprehension ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... so, my son; something may occur which may assist to work out the mystery,—a mystery which I acknowledge to be beyond my comprehension, and of too painful a nature for ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... seemed partly to come of slyness and in part of simplicity, and that I am inclined to imagine it had something to do with the daintiest suspicion of a cast in one of her large eyes, I shall have said all that I can, and the reader will not be much advanced towards comprehension. I had struck up an acquaintance with this little damsel in the morning, and professed much interest in her dolls, and an impatient desire to see the large one which was kept locked away for great occasions. And so I had not been very long in the parlour before the door opened, and in came Miss ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of appeal to Pupkin, and Pupkin looked one glance of comprehension, and turned and fled down Oneida Street. And if the scene wasn't quite as dramatic as the renunciation of Tancred the Troubadour, it at least had something of the same elements ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... the eyes he felt plunged into the pathless depths of a vast, powerful brain. He was in contact with an infinity of intelligence far beyond limits of human comprehension. It was a surging intelligence of energy, abysmal, vaporous and limitless, transcending the dimensions, ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... Wogan woke to a comprehension of his attitude, and placed Clementina back on her seat. Mrs. Misset by good fortune had a small bottle of Carmelite water in her pocket; she held it to the Princess's nostrils, who in a little opened her eyes and saw ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... up at Jane's, gathering from them her judgment of Owen Prothero. Prothero's case defied all rule and precedent, and Brodrick was not prepared with a judgment of his own. Now and then a gleam of comprehension, caught from Jane, illuminated his face and troubled it. He showed, not as a happy creature of the flesh, but as a creature of the flesh made uncontent, divinely pierced by the sharp flame ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... friend, the Poet—the infinite largeness of comprehension belonging to the Central Intelligence, how remote the creative conception is from all scholastic and ethical formulae, I am led to think that a healthy mind ought to change its mood from time to time, and come down from its noblest condition,—never, of course, to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... case with the one at Oxford and to which much of its success was attributed, are therefore of great value and may well be substituted for the academic debates so often heard on subjects quite foreign to the child's life and beyond his real comprehension. ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... have showered all the sweets of female friendship even on Miss Macnulty's head. But Miss Macnulty was as hard as a deal board. She did as she was bidden, thereby earning her bread. But there was no tenderness in her;—no delicacy;—no feeling;—no comprehension. It was thus that Lady Eustace judged her humble companion; and in one respect she judged her rightly. Miss Macnulty did not believe in Lady Eustace, and was not sufficiently gifted to act up to a belief which ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... shoulder-straps with the same facility as he forges diplomatic documents. Oral examination of prisoners has to be used with caution. But there are other resources of which I shall say nothing. It is not too much to say, however, that we have now a pretty complete comprehension of the strength, composition, and location of most German brigades on the Western front. Possibly the Germans have of ours. One thing is certain. Any one who has seen the way in which an Intelligence staff builds up its data will not ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... condition," was Varhely's response. "She must arrive at a comprehension that if she has succumbed, it is because she has committed faults. All defeats have their geneses. Before the enemy we were not a unit. There were too many discussions, and not enough action; such a state ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... didn't care for her at first, but she is so deliciously blind! Anything more exquisitely unserviceable as a chaperon I can't imagine. Absorbed in antiquity, she ignores the babble of contemporaneous lovers. That any man could look at Kitty when he could look at a cathedral passes her comprehension. I do not presume too greatly on her absent-mindedness, however, lest she should turn unexpectedly and rend me. I always remember that inscription on the backs of the little mechanical French toys,—"Quoiqu'elle soit tres solidement montee, ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... rise to a variety of gossip and opinion. Some of the over-wise even made themselves ridiculous by decrying the whole business; as nothing better than a hoax. But hoax, with these sort of people, is, I believe, a general term for all matters above their comprehension. For my part, I cannot conceive upon what data they have founded such an accusation. Let ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... dislike of one picture,—the Magnificat. I'd have torn it up, and put the fragments in the fire, but that it was not mine. But how in the world any Catholic could paint my beautiful child-prophetess of Hebron as Tissot has done baffles comprehension. But he has one lovely picture, "Because there was no Room." The narrow lane of the Jewish city,—the steep stairs to the rooms,—the blank walls perforated by a solitary, narrow window,—the rough stones, and the gentle animal that bore Mary, treading carefully over them,—the Jewish women, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... good old family, and all such humbug! She was a noble, self-devoted creature; as much above the comprehension of the rest of the world ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Arnold and those who hold the same view with him to decry. It was a national church (to prevent the hasty abolition of which, seems to have been Cromwell's main reason for dissolving the Barebones Parliament) with the largest possible measure of comprehension. To us the weak points of such a policy appear manifest enough, but by Mr. Arnold and those of his way of thinking it ought, if we mistake not, to be respected as an anticipation of ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... also containing three classes— Reptilia, Amphibia and Pisces. This division of the Vertebrata into hot and cold blooded is a curiously retrograde step, only intelligible when we reflect that the excellent entomologist had no real comprehension of vertebrate morphology; but he makes some atonement for the blunder by steadily upholding the class distinctness of the Amphibia. In this he was followed by Dr J. E. Gray; but Dumeril and Bibron in their great work,7 and Dr Gunther in his Catalogue, in substance, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... in fishing Miss Mamie out of her muddy bath. Indeed, I still felt I was getting credit I did not deserve, and blushed to myself. As to the invitation for to-morrow, that seemed to me a burst of glory quite past my present comprehension, and I resolved to treasure it as a secret in my own bosom until at least I had made sure it ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... She must mean her life with him! In a sudden, swift, pitying gleam of comprehension, I saw why my mother-in-law was so crabbed and disagreeable. Life had embittered her. I wondered miserably if my life with her son would leave similar marks ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... "How very slow of comprehension you are to-day, Gordon!" exclaimed the lady, impatiently; "Lionel Dale's income was only five thousand a year—very little, after all, for a woman with ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... moderate anti-slavery men,—seemed to Garrison and Phillips and their school a sinful compliance with evil. The extreme Abolitionists, as much as the extremists of the South, were opposed to the Union. They had no comprehension of the interests and principles involved in the preservation of the national life. One of the pleasant traits told of Garrison's private life is this: He was fond of music, especially religious music, but had little cultivation in that direction; and he would sit at the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... for the words one has. This girl's extremity was very great, not to be set in words. Words cannot bring to earth that which, ethereal, defies our comprehension as life and death defy it and, like life and death, to our comprehension only sublimely IS. Words only can say her spirit, bursting from bondage, streamed up to cleave to his; how tell the anguish, how the ecstasy? Words only can say her spirit, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... seized the corners of his mother's shawl and spread them out till it bellied like a sail. Bask-Wah-Wan scolded and struggled, but was blown down the beach for a score of feet and left breathless and stranded in a heap of driftwood. The men uttered sage grunts of comprehension, but Koogah suddenly ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... told her something about my father and mother being dead and our going west Then she hugged and kissed me and made me very miserable, I remember, wetting my face with her tears, that were quite beyond my comprehension. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... to a superficial comprehension, the most barren, the Great Masters gave loftiness and fruitfulness. The large eye of genius saw in the meanness of present objects their capabilities of treatment from their relations to some grand Past or Future. How has Raphael—we ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... to the comprehension of the conduct of Erasmus, seems to me to lie in the clear apprehension of this fact. That he was a man of many weaknesses may be true; in fact, he was quite aware of them and professed himself no hero. ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... surmised correctly, stood forward. There was some of his mother's haughtiness in his bearing, a great deal of her beauty. But added to both, a rare, high look as though always he were seeking what lay beyond his grasp, and perhaps his comprehension. He seemed altogether like a child whose emotional values did not stand clear. He gazed half prayerfully at his grandmother, as though asking and bestowing at the ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... betrays itself in listening more than in talking, and de Vasselot, with characteristic and an eminently national intuition, perceived that this girl from a covent school in the Rue du Cherche-Midi was not a person to whom to address drawing-room generalities, and those insults to the feminine comprehension which a ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... of Greed), besides many minor writings of the "Greatest Man of the Brown Race", has rendered a similar service for La Indolencia de los Filipinos in the following pages, and with that same fidelity and sympathetic comprehension of the author's meaning which has made possible an understanding of the real Rizal by English readers. Notes by Dr. James A. Robertson (Librarian of the Philippine Library and co-editor of the 55-volume series ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... turned his look upon her wet face with a moment's comprehension. "Tuts! never mind, Mary, my dear," said he, "it might have been with Jamie yonder on the field, and there—there you have a son—in a manner—left to comfort you." Then he began to wander anew. "A son," said ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... constitution of the cocoon or the evolution of the silkworm, he sought out Fabre in order to obtain from his store of entomological wisdom the elementary ideas which he would find indispensable. Fabre has told us, in a moving page (4/20), with what a total lack of comprehension of "poverty in a black coat" the great scientist gazed at his poor home. Preoccupied by another problem, that of the amelioration of wines by means of heat, Pasteur asked him point-blank— him, the humble proletarian of the university caste, who drank ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... far as secondary problems are concerned. Digestion, circulation, respiration, and motion are readily solved upon chemical and mechanical principles. Even the phenomena of the nervous system are, in a measure, capable of comprehension within a mechanical formula, leaving out of account the purely mental phenomena which certainly have not been touched by the investigation. All of these phenomena are reducible to a few simple fundamental activities, and these fundamental activities we find manifested by simple bits of ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... converted into a great jury, and after full allowance is made for weakness, corruption and coercion, they are advanced at each quadrennial contest in their knowledge of men, in their ability to deal with measures of policy, and in comprehension of the principles of government. If the losses in business were as great as is ever represented, the educational advantages of a Presidential canvass are an adequate set-off. The people have an opportunity to ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go back again to ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... think I've only had my wind knocked out," she said. Then, as gradually the comprehension of events returned to her: "The others? Who's hurt? ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... cried the Hungarians, and they were right. For Maria Theresa, who with her husband, was the tender wife; toward her children, the loving mother; was in all that related to her empire, her people, and her sovereignty, a man both in the scope of her comprehension and the strength of her will. She was capable of sketching bold lines of policy, and of following them out without reference to personal predilections or prejudices, both of which she was fully competent to stifle, wherever they threatened ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... give the world examples of such power as the benignity of their stars and the varied character of their fantasies enabled them to command, and while desirous of imitating the perfection of Nature by the excellence of Art, they were struggling to attain that high comprehension which many call intelligence, and were universally toiling, but for the most part in vain, the Ruler of Heaven was pleased to turn the eyes of his clemency towards earth, and perceiving the fruitlessness of so many labours, the ardent studies pursued without any ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... one naturally cares to know what was the elixir which gave her this enduring and general attraction. We think it was, in a great degree, that well-balanced development of mental powers which gave her a comprehension of varied intellectual processes, and a tolerance for varied forms of character, which is still rarer in women than in men. Here was one point of distinction between her and Madame de Longueville; and an amusing passage, which ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... successful treatment of vocal physiology—that is, such a discussion of the subject as shall lead to a clear comprehension of the nature of the principles involved, and place them on a practical foundation, make them at once usable in actual study and in teaching—such qualifications are many, and, in their totality and in an adequate degree, difficult to attain. After more than twenty years ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... from that, for at this revelation his jaw dropped and he stared at Peter as though the entire affair were beyond his comprehension. ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... examination of details, landed me in yet worse perplexity. I found the stars dotted quite casually about the sky, and I wanted to know what the sun was. Especially the phenomena of the moon struck me as extraordinary, and quite passed my comprehension; there must be some mystery to account for those many phases, I conjectured. Nor could I feel any greater certainty about such things as the passage of lightning, the roll of thunder, the descent of rain and snow ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... by the comparatively ignorant and childish. Remember that these people had to be stimulated to make the sacrifices demanded by the war, and that this could not be done by appeals to a knowledge which they did not possess, and a comprehension of which they were incapable. When the armistice at last set me free to tell the truth about the war at the following general election, a soldier said to a candidate whom I was supporting, "If I had known all that ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... has shows that our present system is seriously defective. There is need of a change. Unfortunately, however, many of the proposed changes must be ruled from consideration because they are complicated, are not easy of comprehension, and tend to, disturb existing rights and interests. We must also rule out any plan which would materially impair the value of the United States 2 per cent bonds now pledged to secure circulations, the issue of which was made under conditions peculiarly creditable to the Treasury. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... out? What would Joan of Arc do with it? Turn it loose, by the Lord God of heaven and earth, and let it swallow up the foe in the whirlwind of its fires! Nothing shows the splendor and wisdom of her military genius like her instant comprehension of the size of the change which has come about, and her instant perception of the right and only right way to take advantage of it. With her is no sitting down and starving out; no dilly-dallying and fooling around; ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... to turn into ridicule those who believed in it, since in this strange world it is equally difficult to arrive at knowing what one is or is not to believe; and since many freethinkers teach doctrines which are as much beyond the reach of human comprehension as the mysteries ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... judgment, they will pretend to judge of everything, and thus become cunning, deceitful, fruitful in shifts and chicanery, endeavoring to silence those who are weak enough to argue with them; for when one is obliged to give them an account of things above their comprehension, they attribute the most prudent conduct to caprice, because they are incapable of understanding it. In a word, the only way to render children docile and capable of reasoning is not to reason with them at all, but to convince them that it is above their ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... discuss the magnet or think about it at all. Please observe how the apparent nonsense of early speculation finally ripens into actual utility, and learn to respect those who deal as best they can with questions that seem beyond our comprehension. ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... children grew up they were sent to school, and both, though of different temperament, were distinguished for their superior ability. Jessie was quick at anything requiring an amount of ready talent and acute comprehension, such as Arithmetic, Geometry, and Modern Languages, but Charlie excelled in Classics and what are generally considered the heavier sciences, and was particularly talented as regards music. He would sit for hours playing the exquisite Lieder Ohne worte of Mendelssohn, while Jessie would ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... been astonished at his speech, to which he had listened with mouth open for want of comprehension, quite forgot the respect due to an ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... genius. Caesar is an example of this in politics; Da Vinci in painting; and the great Goethe in literature. Even if he does not reach these heights, the superior man is one of the most useful instruments of society. For universal comprehension usually includes a universal aptitude. Is not this demonstrated in England, where favorable conditions have developed many examples? What are great political characters like Disraeli and Macaulay, who could apply an ever-ready intelligence to literary composition and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... the Afghan masses on the opposite hill, and baulked an attempt against his right flank made by the Afghan cavalry swarming in the outer plain; but when its vent became too hot for the gunners to serve it, the dullest comprehension became alive to the folly of sending a single ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... clearest comprehension. Bueno. It may have been last week—or even this week—or perhaps yesterday—or of a possibility to-day. The Senor Corwin, who was wise and omniscient, would comprehend that the difficulty lay in deciding WHO was that man. Perhaps a friend of the Senor Corwin—perhaps only one who LOOKED ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... both himself and his bookseller, if lawfully required, can still produce authentic copies, and therefore wonders why the world is pleased to make such a secret of it. There is a third, known by the name of Tom Durfey, a poet of a vast comprehension, an universal genius, and most profound learning. There are also one Mr. Rymer and one Mr. Dennis, most profound critics. There is a person styled Dr. Bentley, who has wrote near a thousand pages of immense erudition, giving ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... that to reach the highest degree of perfection as a painter, it is necessary, not only to be acquainted with the ancient statues, but we must be inwardly imbued with a thorough comprehension of them. ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... fortune he had been free to use as he liked; she demanded to know why he had not taken her own money; but to ask financial favors of Aunt Sally, and this, too, without consultation, was beyond her comprehension. She was on secure ground here; he had always shared her feeling that Mrs. Owen required cautious handling, but he had nevertheless violated their compact. She rushed breathlessly and with sobs through ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Muelhausen as insignificant encounters between advance guards. If this be true in a military sense, and the preliminaries of the war produce the terrible effects I have witnessed, the disastrous results of the war itself will exceed human comprehension. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... understand why atheists and rationalists, who reject all revelation, should deny all supernatural authority to the ministers of God. But that professing Christians who accept the testimony of Scripture should share in this unbelief passes my comprehension. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... offence one may array against oneself powers that will continue their hostile operation for years and years,—unreasoningly, implacably, blindly, with the weight and persistence of natural forces,—of winds or tides. Any comprehension of the history of Japanese politics during the last fifteen years is not possible without some knowledge of clan-history. A political leader, fully acquainted with the history of clan-parties, and their offshoots, can accomplish marvellous things; and even foreign residents, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... the Greeks never show. Not even AEschylus, the most Hebraic of Hellenes, has any passages in which he loses control of his artistic sense. Neither he nor any other Hellene sees ecstatic visions or dreams ecstatic dreams. There is no place in the Greek comprehension for that state of mind which can beget visions like these: "And I looked, and behold! A whirlwind came out of the north, a gray cloud and a fire enfolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... agree with those who put either Clarendon or Burnet on a level with the characters in St. Simon or the Cardinal de Retz: there is a subtlety of analysis, a searching penetration, a breadth of moral comprehension, in the Frenchmen, which I do not find, nor, in truth, much desire to find, in our countrymen. A homelier hand does well enough for homelier men. Nevertheless, such characters as those of Falkland, or Chillingworth, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... poetic beauty, such as Turgenef, Fet,[3] and others, and every time I encountered one and the same attitude toward my objection to the praises of Shakespeare. I was not refuted when I pointed out Shakespeare's defects; they only condoled with me for my want of comprehension, and urged upon me the necessity of recognizing the extraordinary supernatural grandeur of Shakespeare, and they did not explain to me in what the beauties of Shakespeare consisted, but were merely vaguely and exaggeratedly enraptured with the whole of Shakespeare, extolling some ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... Almost stupidly staring, for an instant. And as I regarded him with fascinated horror, there came upon his heavy gray face a look of dawning comprehension. And I heard Snap's startled intake of breath. He moved to the spectro, where the zed-ray ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... who is constantly asserting his superior wisdom and opportunities of knowledge, and apologizing (not without reason) for his own want of clearness of speech. He will 'carry them over the stream;' he will answer for them when the argument is beyond their comprehension; he is afraid of their ignorance of mathematics, and thinks that gymnastic is likely to be more intelligible to them;—he has repeated his words several times, and yet they cannot understand him. The subject did not properly take the form of dialogue, and also the literary vigour ...
— Laws • Plato
... or as in Chinese pronunciation, wherein I am told the slightest change in accentuation or tone of voice alters the meaning of a whole sentence. Whatever is incoherent in my description must be referred to the fact of my never having attained to a full comprehension ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... phrases, things which had long given me great trouble to get any comprehension of, the Doctor gave me great help. He says some of these phrases and words are coined by the person himself, others are archaisms handed down from ancestors and believed to possess an efficacy, though ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... closest analysis will enable us to separate these two elements. Yet this machinery of apperception—humbling though its realization must be to the eager idealist—does not merely confuse the issue for us; or compel us to agnosticism as to the true content of religious intuition. On the contrary, its comprehension gives us the clue to many theological puzzles; whilst its existence enables us to lay hold of supersensual experiences we should otherwise miss, because it gives to us the means of interpreting them. Pure immediacy, as such, is almost ungraspable ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... this girl, who had never seen Forrest, seemed to have known him for life. Carl made vivid by his earnestness the golden hours of work together in California; the confidences in New York restaurants; his long passion for their Brazilian trip. Ruth's eyes looked up at him with swift comprehension, and there was a tear in them as he told in ten words of the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the celestial spaces in the flashing sunshine is beyond our comprehension. It accomplishes with ease what man strives in vain to do with all his strength. At West Point there are some links of a chain that was stretched across the river to prevent British ships from ascending; these links were made of two-and-a-quarter-inch iron. A powerful ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... the blood bond in Andrew Sevier's breast snapped and with an awed comprehension of the vast and everlasting Source from which flows the love that constrains and the love that heals, the love that only comes to bind in honor, he reached out and took his own. In the seventh heaven which is the soul haunt of all in like case, there ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... gravestone. Public and domestic history have thus marked with a bloody finger this hollow among the hills; and since the Cameronian gave his life there, two hundred years ago, in a glorious folly, and without comprehension or regret, the silence of the moss has been broken once again by the report of firearms and the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... word was uttered with an intensity that could surely only spring from something near akin to comprehension, if not from actual comprehension itself. It certainly startled Valentine, or seemed to startle him. His face showed an amazement like the amazement of a man raving to an image of wood, to whom, abruptly, the wood speaks ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... to cry out her comprehension and sympathy, but restrained by the sense that the moment was a critical one, where impulse must not be trusted too far. It was quite possible that a reaction of pride might cause Amherst to repent even so guarded an avowal; and if that happened, he might never forgive ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... surely as I can never be thou. After thousand times thousand spirit-lives lived through, I shall no more be able to comprehend thee than now, in this hut of earth. That which I comprehend becomes, by my comprehension of it, finite; and this can never, by an endless process of magnifying and exalting, be changed into infinite. Thou differest from the finite, not only in degree but in kind. By that magnifying process they make thee ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... character of her father, and the gentle piety of her mother, secured to her a combination of influences particularly favourable to the development of moral and religious feeling. Lessons of truth and love, as yet beyond the comprehension of the child, were effectively taught by means of bright and living examples; and hence grace began to operate with the ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... stories is in her intimate acquaintance and comprehension of humble life, and the sweet human interest she feels and makes her readers partake of, in the simple, common, homely people she ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Member. I have made a sketch of a Member who made an aggressive speech, and on being replied to by another Member, walked up to the Speaker, leant on his desk, and puffed his cigar right under his nose. All this to one accustomed to the English House of Commons is beyond comprehension, and the only parallel I can think of is the trial scene in "The Bells," when Mathias walks about the court and snaps his fingers at the judges and then acts the perpetration of the deed for which he is called ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... of Davis when he became President. It may be that as he went forward in his great undertaking, as antagonisms developed, as Rhett and others turned against him, Davis hardened. He lost whatever comprehension he once had of the Rhett type. Seeking to weld into one irresistible unit all the military power of the South, he became at last in the eyes of his opponents a monster, while to him, more and more positively, ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... our comprehension, was afterwards made use of as a weapon to accuse the prisoner of ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... philosophy of the world and of life is possible to a person only on the basis of a knowledge of one's self and of one's relation to surrounding nature." Diesterweg says: "No one can afford to neglect a knowledge of nature who desires to get a comprehension of the world and of God according to human possibility, or who desires to find his proper relation to Him and to real things. He who knows nothing of human history is an ignoramus, likewise he who knows nothing of natural science. To ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... of many words that are commonly used, and a consequent difficulty in using them accurately, but also a total ignorance of many other words, and an inability to use them at all; and these last are, as a rule, the very words which are absolutely necessary for the comprehension and expression of any thought that deals with something more than the most ordinary concrete notions. There is also a very common inability to appreciate the differences between words that are at all similar. Lastly, where the pupil has studied Latin, and ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... my mental survey of the situation from Boyce's point of view I had not taken into account the best and finest in the man. His reason rang true against my exceptional knowledge of him. I had worked myself into so sympathetic a comprehension that I KNEW he would be facing something unknown and terrible in the proposed ceremony; I KNEW that for his own sake he would have unequivocably declined. But, ad najorem matris gloriam, ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... themselves. It is not for us to argue which are right and which are wrong, but to stick to the subject of marriage and how it can perhaps be made happier in these present days, when all other conditions of life are changing, by a better comprehension of fundamental instincts and laws ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... rendered the translation as literal as possible, consistent with the comprehension of the author's meaning. This may be considered by some a slavish and dull compliance; but in my humble opinion we ought, in this case, to display the author's own thoughts and ideas; all we are permitted to do, is to change their garb. This course has one superior advantage which may compensate ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... live in fear their power and position would collapse were their own people to acquire knowledge, information, comprehension about our free society. Their world has many elements of strength, but this one fatal flaw: the weakness represented by their iron curtain and their police state. Surely, a social order at once so insecure and so fearful, must ultimately lose its ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... painful acuteness of comprehension to dropped words, and unconnected sentences, the meaning of which became clearer, and yet more clear to her. Jem was suspected. Jem was ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... shrinking soul—one, like herself, an exile from a lowly state, and with a heart filled with those simple memories which must not be too carelessly exposed—so seldom do they gather from without anything but cruel ridicule or cold lack of comprehension—one whom she could educate into an easy intimacy with her own impulses and yearnings, and thus, forgetting all social differences, draw closer and nearer to her as a friend ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
