"Concentration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Brougham played the part of a mere partisan, and was set down by the country for such. The patriotic prestige associated with his name passed away. Lord Melbourne, in reply, characterized Lord Brougham's speech as "a laboured and extreme concentration of bitterness." Concerning the charge against ministers of neglect in not providing against the possibility of an outbreak, his lordship said, that it was a difficult question which they had at the time to decide. By not re-enforcing the troops ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Georges Fromont had not yet retired. He was sitting by the fire, with his head in his hands, in the blind and dumb concentration due to irreparable misfortune, thinking of Sidonie, of that terrible Sidonie who was asleep at that moment on the floor above. She was positively driving him mad. She was false to him, he was sure of it,—she was false to him with the Toulousan ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... equally fit for that larger work without which the machine must inevitably break down. The method is scientific and it has been tested on men of all ages from eighteen to seventy. It embodies the elimination of all wasted effort and concentration upon points of approved and essential worth. It is as much a man's duty to make himself fit and to keep himself in that condition as it is to carry on any other part of his work. This method should be adopted not only in every department at Washington, but throughout the country; ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... from Ned Gunther this morning," said Rebecca, cheerfully,—powdering the tip of her pretty nose, her eyes almost crossed with concentration,—"and I think it made him ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... ignorance of the fact that combination of capital in the effort to accomplish great things is necessary when the world's progress demands that great things be done. It is based upon sincere conviction that combination and concentration should be, not prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits controlled; and in my judgment this conviction ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... had embittered. And so that happened which is intimated to us under the form of the Fall of the Angels. One part of them concentrated itself with Lucifer, the other turned itself again to its origin. From this concentration of the whole creation—for it had proceeded out of Lucifer, and was forced to follow him—sprang all that we perceive under the form of matter, which we figure to ourselves as heavy, solid, and dark, but which, since it is descended, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... with gods and men and all their works, there was only nothingness; hideous, inscrutable and unfathomable. And in it, above it, around it—for what are the dimensions of nothingness?—there reigned the incomprehensible Unity of the Primal One, in calm and pitiless self-concentration, beyond—the Real, nay even beyond the Conceivable—for conception implies plurality—the Supreme One of the Neo-Platonists to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thought beside thought for this being of the species, this being that grows beautiful and powerful, in this persuasion I find the ruling idea of which I stand in need, the ruling idea that reconciles and adjudicates among my warring motives. In it I find both concentration of myself and escape from myself; in ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... currents," with a force corresponding to the energy we possess. Its motion is "similar to that of the rays from burning bodies;" "it possesses different qualities in different individuals." It is capable of a high degree of concentration, "and exists also in trees." The will of the magnetiser, "guided by a motion of the hand, several times repeated in the same direction," can fill a tree with this fluid. Most persons, when this fluid is poured into ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... being ultimately sent, if the exigencies of the battle required the presence of my command. They show, that after you parted from me, going up the river, I took measures to forward your messenger to me instantly upon his arrival (see Colonel Ross' letters), then rode to the place of concentration, and waited impatiently and anxiously the expected instructions; that they came to hand about 12 o'clock (my own remembrance is 11:30 A.M.), and that the officer who brought them, also brought the news that you were driving the enemy all along the line. (See letters of General Knefler ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... cut him short. The frowning brows drew closer over the sightless eyes, which were focussed upon the cowpuncher with a concentration more overpowering than if ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... stronger member of the combination who usually calls the tunes. Resting as it does primarily on the superior fiscal resources of the National Government, Cooperative Federalism has been, at least to date, a short expression for a constantly increasing concentration of power at Washington in the stimulation ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... swift glance around the office. Mr. Pendleton was at work at Powers's desk and didn't even look up. It was a remarkable exhibition of concentration on his part. Blake, however, swung around in his chair ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... the other hand, Arnold and Montgomery had vainly essayed to assail British power in the Canadas. New York was the objective point of those who had now come to be regarded as the invaders of our soil. Its splendid harbor and its central position afforded a good standpoint. The concentration of the troops of Howe, which had evacuated Boston, the war ships commanded by his brother, Lord Howe, and the forces under Clinton, which had been occupied in futile operations in the South, enabled ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... as soon as he entered into competition with the department store. He put in side lines of toys, and art supplies, and cameras and candy. He began to spread himself thin and had no time for expert concentration on his one specialty. Thus he lost his one advantage over the department store—his strength in the region where it was weak; and of course he succumbed. If you will think for a moment of the special ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... paraphernalia of the modern recital with its lowered lights and its solitary figure playing away at a polished instrument one may find something of the physical apparatus employed by the professional hypnotist to insure concentration—but even this can not account for the pianist's real attractiveness. If Mr. Frohman's "vitality" means the "vital spark," the "life element," it comes very close to a true definition of magnetism, for ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... there was no stimulus as yet sufficiently strong to arouse his latent spirituality. And yet his intellect was keen; and to those studies to which he was by nature or inheritance especially attracted, economics, banking, and all branches of finance, he brought a power of concentration that was as stupendous as his physical strength. His mental make-up was peculiar, in that it was the epitome of energy—manifested at first only in brute force—and in that it was wholly deficient in the sense of fear. Because of this ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... days before sacrificing to ancestors, a strict vigil and purification was maintained, and by the end of that time, from sheer concentration of thought, the mourner was able to see the spirits of the departed; and at the sacrifice next day seemed to hear their very movements, and even ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... part of the old house, he caught himself longing again for the safety of the moonlit square, or the cosy, bright drawing-room they had left an hour before. Then realising that these thoughts were dangerous, he thrust them away again and summoned all his energy for concentration ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... generating a large proportion of export earnings. Raising livestock, particularly cattle and sheep, is the major agricultural activity. In 1991, domestic growth improved somewhat over 1990, but various government factors, including concentration on the external sector, adverse weather conditions, and greater attention to bringing down inflation and reducing the fiscal deficit kept output from expanding rapidly. In a major step toward greater regional economic cooperation, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... humming fragments of Horace lines, sometimes with eager concentration, and then with pauses at parts where his memory failed, at which he would grow ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... the most exquisite workmanship, when compared with this living memento of the fragility, the instability, of reason, and the wild luxuriancy of noxious passions? Enthusiasm turned adrift, like some rich stream overflowing its banks, rushes forward with destructive velocity, inspiring a sublime concentration of thought. Thus thought Maria—These are the ravages over which humanity must ever mournfully ponder, with a degree of anguish not excited by crumbling marble, or cankering brass, unfaithful to the ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... of his youth, his energy, and relentless concentration of purpose, had rapidly become the ruling spirit of the house of Barking Brothers & Barking. Iglesias had no cause to love him, since to him he owed his dismissal. But that fact failed to colour his present meditations. Under the influence of his cherished and new-found charity, Dominic had little ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... confronted by a task in the solution of which it can achieve results of decisive importance in a new direction, for the following reasons: The relative importance of the Arm during actual operations having been materially increased, the period of concentration preceding actual collision (notwithstanding the fact that the actual effectiveness of Cavalry in the face of modern firearms has been decreased) offers opportunities which under certain conditions promise higher ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... castings in a chamber between the fuel tank and the small but enormously powerful turbine that whirled with the released atomic energy. The Rogan leader blinked assent. His small, horrible mouth was pursed with his concentration of thought. ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... and under such control been seen, one so ready at all times for any task, so capable of immediate and absolute concentration. Its flexibility[1147] is wonderful, "in the instant application of every faculty and energy, and bringing them all to bear at once on any object that concerns him, on a mite as well as on an elephant, on any given individual as well ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... probably due to this fact that so many men in our history have become distinguished in professional life, in the forum, on the bench, and in the national Congress; in childhood and youth they were inured to habits of work. This kept them from temptation, and endowed them with habits of industry, of concentration, and of purpose. The old adage that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do," found little application in the rural life of a ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... mornings, opened by prayer or by readings of Plato, or whatsoever else is dearest to the Morning Muse.' Yet he could not wholly escape the recluse's malady. He confesses that he sometimes craves 'that stimulation which every capricious, languid, and languescent study needs.' Carlyle's potent concentration stirs his envy. The work of the garden and the orchard he found very fascinating, eating up days and weeks; 'nay, a brave scholar should shun it like gambling, and take refuge in cities and ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... who had been humorous fell into the solemn tone of the gathering. It was, perhaps, here that the socialist surpassed everyone else in the fervor of economic discussion. He was usually a German or a Russian, with a turn for logical presentation, who saw in the concentration of capital and the growth of monopolies an inevitable transition to the socialist state. He pointed out that the concentration of capital in fewer hands but increased the mass of those whose interests ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... after his somewhat desultory college course, his months of loafing about on sea and shore had actually unfitted him for concentration upon any ordinary work. And he was not sanguine enough to expect an extraordinary situation to come ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... excellent Miss Weyman only know it, a very little more concentration on Christian's part, and it is possible that she, and Judith, and the Twins, might all have seen the Pale Horse thundering past the schoolroom windows. Stranger things have happened. The Indian rope and basket trick, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... that the path of interest is that of honor and of duty. It is the Union only that has made her great. It is the concentration by the Union of interstate and international commerce in her great city, that was consummating its imperial destiny. Before the Union of 1778 and 1787, New York city was the village of Manhattan: destroy the Union, and she will again become little more than the village of Manhattan. The ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and increased pressure.[129] Condensation has long been used with great success, but in this process the nature of the milk is materially changed. The keeping quality in condensed milk often depends upon the action of another principle, viz., the inhibition of bacterial growth by reason of the concentration of the medium. This condition is reached either by adding sugar and so increasing the soluble solids, or by driving off the water by evaporation, preferably in a vacuum pan. Temperature changes are, however, of the most value in ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... I was charmed with his comprehensive intelligence, and with the scope and liberality of his views. In everything relating to mechanics, his opinions were marked with originality. This had evidently been his favorite field, where his quick perceptions and powers of concentration and analysis had elevated him to an eminence where he stood almost alone. I had never met his equal. In plausible suggestions relative to the possibilities of the future, he took me quite above my level, and left me floating in a maze of glittering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the son of lightning; lightning being to light, as regards concentration, what wine is to the other strengths of the earth. And who that has rested a hand on the glittering silex of a vineyard slope in August, where the pale globes of sweetness are lying, does not feel this? It is out of the bitter salts of a smitten, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... her helpless against the corresponding battery of the enemy, which pounded away until a huge, yawning gap was opened. Some of the shots went clean through the battered hull and splashed into the water, hundreds of feet distant. The disadvantage was more than offset by the concentration of the Americans on the upper deck and in the rigging. The fire of the Bonhomme Richard became so terrible that every officer and man of the enemy kept out of sight, observing which an American ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... and creative style—a style which may be said to write things instead of words." Hunt's introduction is a fine piece of critical work. His alert, sparkling, and nimble intellect—somewhat lacking in concentration and seriousness—but sensitive above all things to the picturesque, was keenly awake to Dante's poetic greatness. On the other hand, his cheerful philosophy and tolerant, not to say easy-going moral nature, was shocked by the Florentine's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Dr. O'Connor said, "is the timing. You see, Charlie was incapable of continued concentration. He could not keep his mind focused on another mind for very long, before he hopped to still another. The actual amount of time concentrated on any given mind at any single given period varied from a minimum ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... than ever. The general and his staff reappeared in the midst of the concentration. Their coming was announced. After vainly haranguing the stolid officials at head-quarters upon the enormity of their conduct in declining to see the fearful blunder made by their President and commander-in-chief, after attempting to harangue a battalion of dusty infantry in the ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... to moralize over precious stones, and see in them the petrified souls of men and women. There is no stone so sympathetic as the opal, which one might fancy to be a concentration of Mrs. Browning's genius. It is essentially the woman-stone, giving out a sympathetic warmth, varying its colors from day to day, as though an index of the heart's barometer. There is the topmost purity of white, blended with the delicate, perpetual verdure of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... once determined to make every effort to prevent such a concentration of his opponents, and by the evening of the 15th a cavalry division had crossed the Moselle and reached the village of Mars-la-Tour, where it bivouacked for the night. It had seen troops in motion towards ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... of such obstacles as this, Janet had anticipated. She knew well that slough of the mind which sucks in its own despair, and with all the concentration of her persuasion, she strove to lift Sally out of the morass. Failing on that occasion, she turned the conversation into another channel—let it drift as it pleased; but the next day she led it back again. At all costs Sally must ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... moment—here was no time for manners; the cold, contemptuous rage that fought within him was too deep and gripping to permit of any thought that would not center about the two figures on the path. He watched them, screened by the brush, with the deadly concentration of newly aroused murder-lust. Once, as he saw them halt at the edge of the grass plot, and he observed Masten draw Hagar close to him and kiss her, his right hand dropped to the butt of his pistol at his right hip, and he fingered it uncertainly. He drew the ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... resemblance which this nation—so civilized, so thoroughly European—bears in one respect to the despotisms of the East: the convulsions of the capital decide the fate of the country; Paris is the tyrant of France. He saw in this inflammable concentration of power, which must ever be pregnant with great evils, one of the causes why the revolutions of that powerful and polished people are so incomplete and unsatisfactory, why, like Cardinal Fleury, system after ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... concentrated and approaches nearer to the condition of saturation. Hence, in considering the causes of calculi we can not ignore the factor of an excessive ration, rich in mineral matters and in carbonaceous matters (the source of carbonates and much of the oxalates), nor can we overlook the concentration of the urine that comes from dry feed and privation of water, or from the existence of fever which causes suspension of the secretion of water. In these cases, at least the usual quantity of solids is thrown off by the kidneys, and as the water is ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... baptized scholars, and putting into shape such knowledge as I have of Melanesian tongues, that made a good summer programme, as I was obliged to content myself with a small party gathered from but few islands. Concentration v. diffusion I soon began to think ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hills back of Poona he had met a murderer. That cat-scream at the last chilled him to the very centre of things. Cheetahs were malignant; no two ways about that. Skag hadn't failed. He never was better. There was no fear nor any lack of concentration in his work upon the cheetah beast. Any tiger he knew would have answered to his cool force, but the ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... I would not pretend to say it positively—that is why your fears are not unnatural, though peculiar; I fancy that you heighten them by your self-concentration. The world and objects in it divert other men, while your attention is upon your own feelings. Pardon me for saying that you think of little except yourself. This new old experience of battle and peril you apply without ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... her pen in the midst of some work requiring the whole energy of her mind, and much concentration of thought, and go to her garden for half an hour; and while apparently wholly absorbed in pruning or transplanting, she was really engaged in her work; and the apparent loss of time was amply repaid by the rapidity with which she wrote out the ideas conceived and matured during this healthful ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... the Artist finds, is engaged in a constant struggle between an impulse to excentration and the necessity for concentration. She wants to fly off to the zenith and to the horizon, but is continually being drawn into the centre. She wants to let herself go, but has to keep herself in. And all this is to the good. For ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... conversation of necessity took on a disjointed character. Unless you had great power of concentration you forgot in the intervals what you had been talking about. When a group of High School boys had been served and had gone their hilarious way Virginia began again. "You know the house with the ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... is said they intend, in reply to Major Broadfoot's remonstrance, to allege that the fact of our having collected so large a force, with all the munitions of war, on the frontier, is the cause of the concentration of their forces on the Sutlej; that they intend to demand the reasons of our preparations; to insist on the surrender to the Lahore government of the treasure which belonged to the late Rajah Soocheyt Singh; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... hold the country with a comparatively small force of scattered detachments, which are, however, supplied with arms, munitions and stores under great difficulties from far distant centres, and her troops are practically incapable of concentration. Indeed the farther they go the weaker they become; the very magnitude of the area being an additional cause of weakness. This is a condition somewhat precarious in itself, and would certainly not appear to be an alarming one as a basis of attack against our Empire, even were ...
— Indian Frontier Policy • General Sir John Ayde
... of feeling which characterises the Celtic race is closely allied to its need of concentration. Natures that are little capable of expansion are nearly always those that feel most deeply, for the deeper the feeling, the less it tends to express itself. Thence we have that charming shamefastness, that veiled and exquisite ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... articles of the Westminster statute were only less important than the clause De donis, notable among them being the institution of justices of nisi prius, appointed to travel through the shires three times a year to hear civil causes. This was part of the simplification and concentration of judicial machinery, whereby Edward made tolerable the circuit system which under Henry III. had been a ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... of dead monotony, it kills the brain. Unfetter your thoughts from notions, prejudices and limitations. Think well of yourself, think well of what you have, think well of what you do, think invincibly, think persistently, think with unflinching resolve. Concentration is getting at a thing, thinking it, planning it, preparing for it, working on it, DOING IT. Your conditions, mental, physical, financial, are thought made; fill your mind with different thoughts and you will have different conditions. Thought gathers around you the things ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... him—perpetrating a bitter jest at his expense. Ever since he had quitted Silverquay he had been roving from place to place, seeking forgetfulness, and had at last turned his steps toward Monte Carlo, hoping that in the keen concentration and excitement of pitting his wits against the god of chance he might temporarily drown the memories that pursued him. And then, who should he encounter on the very first night of his ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... ever since in the family, who continued in the same line of husbandry with that praiseworthy perseverance for which our Dutch burghers are noted. The whole family genius, during several generations, was devoted to the study and development of this one noble vegetable, and to this concentration of intellect may doubtless be ascribed the prodigious renown to which ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... cigar to his mouth, Goodwin observed her, and saw that her eyes followed it and rested upon it with icy and significant concentration. Apparently she had not heard a word he had said. He understood, tossed the cigar out the window, and, with an amused laugh, slid from the table to ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... the note and read it a dozen times without a pause, her eyes leaping along the lines back and forth with pathetic eagerness and concentration. Presently she sat down on the bench and covered her face with her hands. A tremor first, then a convulsive sobbing, shook her collapsed form. Jean regarded her with a drolly sympathetic grimace, elevating his long chin and letting his head ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... that for six years he had been concentrating upon the single problem of having James Holden returned to his custody, and in that concentration he had lost sight of the more important problem of achieving his true purpose of gaining control of the Holden Educator. The letter had not been the end of a long quest, but ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... been an embarrassed matter. She sat stuffed into a small chair and listened with an intense and very blinky sort of concentration. She must have known it—for three weeks Gloria had seen no one else—and she must have noticed that this time there was an authentic difference in her daughter's attitude. She had been given special deliveries to post; she had heeded, as all mothers seem to ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... exhibit, in its highest elevation, a theatrical meteor of incredible love and impossible valour, and to leave no room for a wilder flight to the extravagance of posterity. All the rays of romantick heat, whether amorous or warlike, glow in Almanzor, by a kind of concentration. He is above all laws; he is exempt from all restraints; he ranges the world at will, and governs wherever he appears. He fights without inquiring the cause, and loves, in spite of the obligations of justice, of rejection by his mistress, and of ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Pascoli's Vergilian economy contrasting with the exuberance of D'Annunzio somewhat as with us the classicism of the present poet-laureate with that of Swinburne. In Germany the Parnassian reserve, concentration, and aristocratic exclusiveness was to reappear in the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... and splendid breadth of execution. The painting of this "Circumcision" is bold and resolute, the draperies sweep in broad folds round the figures. The attitude of the standing woman to the right is grand, and the earnest concentration of the faces on the ceremony, and the absence of any connecting link between them and us, give dramatic reality to the scene. Vasari writes of it: "At Volterra he painted in fresco"—(a mistake—it is his usual oil medium)—"in the church of S. Francesco, above the altar of the brotherhood, ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... exercise of the Federal power which alone can really control the railroads. Those who believe in efficient national control, on the other hand, do not in the least object to combinations; do not in the least object to concentration in business administration. On the contrary, they favor both, with the all important proviso that there shall be such publicity about their workings, and such thoroughgoing control over them, as to insure their being in the interest, and not against ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... his already, and nothing could take it away. He wouldn't let it be taken away! He said that sight was first given to all created creatures in the form of a desire to see, desire so intense that with the developing faculty of sight, animals developed eyes for its concentration. He reminded me how in dreams, and even in thoughts—if they're vivid enough—we see as distinctly with our brains as with our eyes. He said he meant to make a wonderful world for himself with this vision of the brain and soul. ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... this selfish concentration, which is a part of dandyism, is also a symbol of that einsamkeit felt in greater or less degree by the practitioners of every art. But, curiously enough, the very unity of his mind with the ground he works ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... head. In his attitude she sensed a new concentration upon something ahead. She became aware of a strange stir that was not of the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... seen, is profuse in his assurances that it is the veritable God. That is what makes his whole attitude and argument so baffling. One can understand an idolater who says "I believe that my God inhabits yonder image," or "Yonder image is only a convenient point of concentration for the reverence, gratitude, and love which pass through it to the august and transcendent Spirit whom it symbolizes." But how are we to understand the idolater who adores, and claims actual divinity for, an emanation from his own ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... always fastidious. He would study as he liked, and not by rule. His school and college mates believed in his great possibilities through all his forming period, but it may be doubted if those who counted most confidently on his future could have supposed that he would develop the heroic power of concentration, the long-breathed tenacity of purpose, which in after years gave effect to his brilliant mental endowments. "I did wonder," says Mr. Wendell Phillips, "at the diligence and painstaking, the drudgery shown in his historical works. In early life he had no industry, ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of John Sherman, who stood third in the poll. On the twenty-eighth ballot, two votes were cast for Garfield; although he protested that he was not a candidate and was pledged to Sherman. But it became apparent that no concentration could be effected on any other candidate to prevent the nomination of Grant, and votes now turned to Garfield so rapidly that on the thirty-sixth ballot he received 399, a clear majority of the whole. The adherents of Grant stuck to him to the end, polling 306 votes on the last ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... upon his nervous face. She noted the anxious straining of his shifty eyes. Their whites were bloodshot, and his brows were drawn together in the painful concentration of a ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... characteristics, and other personal mental belongings—he is able to set them aside in the "not-me" collection of curiosities and encumbrances, as well as valuable possessions. This requires much mental concentration and power of mental analysis on the part of the student. But still the task is possible for the advanced student, and even those not so far advanced are able to see, in the imagination, how the process may ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... window on to the thin black London turf outside, and her eyes were blank from the intensity of concentration. She had no thought for the lawyer; if he had been sympathetic even to impertinence she would not have ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... built before any attempt is made to decorate gable and walls. It is not probable that these arts really gained a place in Italy during the regal period of Rome; it was only in Etruria, where commerce and piracy early gave rise to a great concentration of riches, that art or handicraft—if the term be preferred—obtained a footing in the earliest times. Greek art, when it acted on Etruria, was still, as its copy shows, at a very primitive stage, and the Etruscans may have learned from the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... then, electric working of a trunk line results in increased economy over steam locomotives by concentration of the power and especially by the use of water power where possible. Thus economy is secured to the greatest extent by a complete electrical service and not by a mixed service of electric and steam locomotives. Electrification gives an increase in capacity both ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... their arms without the slightest regard whether they interrupted their neighbors or not. Unpleasant sounds were heard from all parts of the room, and everywhere the faces of the guests bore the marks of concentration. No one listened to me when I remarked that beyond doubt our absent amphytrion was more unhappy than ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... Caesars, I have not yet spoken of the great central city—the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was tributary. Rome was so grand, so vast, so important in every sense, political and social; she was such a concentration of riches and wonders, that it demands a separate and fuller notice than what I have been able to give of those proud capitals which finally yielded to her majestic domination. All other cities not merely yielded precedence, but contributed to her greatness. Whatever was costly, or ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... his staff, but his own example was a stimulus to exertion in others and he was well served. One who knew him well, and for many years was closely associated with him in railway work, tells me that his most striking characteristics were reticence, combativeness, concentration and tenacity of purpose, and that his memory and mastery of detail were remarkable. Deficient perhaps in sentiment, though in such silent men deep wells of feeling often unsuspectedly exist, he was, by those who served ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... surroundings is visible in the writing. The elaboration of the theme would have been impossible or at least very unlikely if its author had not been thrown in on himself during its composition. Its intricacy and involution is the product of an over-concentration born of empty surroundings. It lacks vigour and rapidity; it winds itself into itself. The influence of Ireland, too, is visible in its landscapes, in its description of bogs and desolation, of dark forests in which lurk savages ready to spring out on those who are rash ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... seen them; in what circumstances; in whose hands? Again and again I travelled old ground, exhumed buried cases, dwelt upon names of forgotten criminals, and of big world people. An hour's intense mental concentration told me nothing; the dark of the hour before dawn gave way to the cold breaking of morning light, and yet I tossed in an agony of blank and futile reasoning. I must have slept from the sheer blinding of the brain somewhere about that hour; and in my dreaming I got what wakefulness had denied ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Saxe had besieged Tournay, and inflicted upon the relieving army of the duke of Cumberland the great defeat of Fontenoy (q.v.). In Silesia the customary small war had been going on for some time, and the concentration of the Prussian army was not effected without severe fighting. At the end of May, Frederick, with about 65,000 men, lay in the camp of Frankenstein, between Glatz and Neisse, while behind the Riesengebirge about Landshut Prince Charles had 85,000 Austrians and Saxons. On the 4th of June ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... taken to make this force efficient. Under Garibaldi's own orders there were between 7000 and 8000 volunteers. Those who have made a higher estimate have included other bands which, either from the difficulty of provisioning a larger number, or from want of time for concentration, remained ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... ache would climb up to the back of her neck, and her half-baked power of concentration falter at the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... was presented by the musician Wilhelm Baumgartner, a merry, jovial fellow, without any aptitude for concentration, who had learned just enough about the piano to be able, as teacher at so much an hour, to earn what he required for a living. He had a taste for what was beautiful, provided it did not soar too high, and possessed a true and loyal heart, ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... and smokes a narghile every evening after supper. The lounge of the hotel looks like a creche for the children of refugees. But couples are seen here on the couches interested only in themselves, and a long-haired Russian is at the piano playing Scriabine devotedly and with deep concentration, as if the boisterousness of the children ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... She frowned in concentration, before moving. She was advancing her men in echelon attack, taking losses in exchange for territory and trying to pen him up in such small space ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... different tendencies,—the body in Mollusks having always a soft, massive, concentrated character, with great power of contraction and dilatation, while the body in Articulates has nothing of this compactness and concentration, but on the contrary is usually marked by a conspicuous external display of limbs and other appendages, and by a remarkable elongation of the body,—that feature characterized by Baer when he called ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... Tish's gift of concentration that she thought out her plan so thoroughly under the circumstances, for the valley was shelled all that afternoon. We found an abandoned battery position and the three of us took refuge in it, leaving Tish outside knitting calmly. It was a poor place, but by taking in our ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... The concentration of thought to which the constant nearness of a great prophet (and 'more than a prophet') naturally gave birth had the only possible result. All barriers were completely broken down, and HĚŁuseyn recognized in his heaven-sent teacher the ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... discontent, a savage self-pillorying. He was genuinely sorry that this young woman was so pretty; still, had she the graces of Calypso, he must have come. She would distract him, and he desired at that time distraction least of all diversions. Concentration and singleness of purpose—upon these two attributes practically hung his life. How strangely fate had stepped with him. What if there had not been that advertisement for a private secretary? How then should he have gained a footing in this house? Well, here he was, and speculation ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... and leaned back, tortured. He and his wife, Betty, had taken this house in Pine Hills, a small and extremely quiet suburban village, solely for the purpose of concentration on the book which was to be the most important work he had done. He went to the door of the room that he used for a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... plaster, he produced beautiful reproductions, really beautiful. Then he set-to to make a head of Ursula, in high relief, in the Donatello manner. In his first passion, he got a beautiful suggestion of his desire. But the pitch of concentration would not come. With a little ash in his mouth he gave up. He continued to copy, or to make designs by selecting motives from classic stuff. He loved the Della Robbia and Donatello as he had loved Fra Angelico when he was a young man. His work had some of the freshness, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... permanent nature. They were those propounded originally by Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, and applied with extraordinary success to the formation and to the circumstances of the colony of South Australia. The most prominent features which they present are, — the concentration of population, and the ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... they could in the shape of elementary facts in geometry and astronomy from the Egyptians and Babylonians. But some of the essential characteristics of the Greek genius assert themselves even in their borrowings from these or other sources. Here, as everywhere else, we see their directness and concentration; they always knew what they wanted, and they had an unerring instinct for taking only what was worth having and rejecting the rest. This is illustrated by the story of Pythagoras's travels. He consorted with priests and prophets and was initiated into the religious rites practised in different ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... actual. Its delicious mountain scenes lose their woodland fragrance. Its motive, bluntly disclosed in the wager scene, seems coarse, unnatural, and offensive. Its plot, really simple, moves heavily and perplexes attention. It is a piece that lacks pervasive concentration and enthralling point. It might be defined as Othello with a difference—the difference being in favour of Othello. Jealousy is the pivot of both: but in Othello jealousy is treated with profound and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... heart of this subject of mastery lies Concentration: without that, little of value can be accomplished. Students think if they sit at the piano and 'practise' a certain number of hours daily, it is sufficient. A small portion of that time, if used with intense concentration, will accomplish more. One player will take hours to learn ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... peace and dignity of the great commonwealth to which he was at heart loyal. Being convinced otherwise, he abode grimly by the statutes therein made and provided. Nevertheless he returned to his shop and proceeded to cut up a quarter of beef with an energy of concentration and a ruthlessness of fury that caused Potts to shudder as he passed the door sometime later. By such demeanor, also, were the bondsmen of Westley—the first flush of their righteous enthusiasm faded—greatly disturbed. They agreed that he ought to be watched closely ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... regretting his inability to dine that night, and each time he destroyed it. He carried the first message around Richmond golf course with him, intending to dispatch his caddy with it immediately on the conclusion of the round. The fresh air, however, and the concentration required by the game, seemed to dispel the nervous apprehensions with which he had anticipated his visit, and over an aperitif in the club bar he tore the telegram into small pieces and found himself even able to derive a certain ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for psychological explanations, of Locke. It was at this very time that my father commenced writing his Analysis of the Mind, which carried Hartley's mode of explaining the mental phenomena to so much greater length and depth. He could only command the concentration of thought necessary for this work, during the complete leisure of his holiday for a month or six weeks annually: and he commenced it in the summer of 1822, in the first holiday he passed at Dorking; in which neighbourhood, ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... life. It brought me into direct contact with God, and was the commencement of a total change of heart and mind and consciousness; the centre of my consciousness, without any effort of my own, suddenly moving bodily from a concentration upon the visible or earthly to a loving and absorbed concentration upon, and a fixed attention to, the Invisible God—a most amazing, undreamed-of change, which remained permanent, though fluctuating through innumerable degrees of intensity before coming to a state of equilibrium. ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... course, she hadn't got her Egyptian bracelet that looked so well, and her hair wasn't done in a coronet, but only just twisted up anyhow. Besides, when it's a difficult scherzo and you take it quick, your appearance of having the concentration of Bonaparte and Julius Caesar, and the alacrity of a wild cat, doesn't bring out your good points. Give us an andante maestoso movement, or a diminuendo rallentando that reaches the very climax and acme of slowness itself just before the applause comes! It was rather as a meditation ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... aj in the former text also is a being having its Self in Brahman. That this is so, moreover, appears from the Svetsvatara itself. For in the early part of that Upanishad, we have after the introductory question, 'Is Brahman the cause?' the passage 'The sages devoted to meditation and concentration have seen the person whose Self is the divinity, hidden in its own qualities' (I, 1, 3); which evidently refers to the aj as being of the nature of a power of the highest Brahman. And as further on also (viz. in the passages 'From that the Myin creates all this, and in this the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... The concentration of the hotel staff upon the transfer of Mr. Congdon's luggage to his room left the Governor and Archie to manage the removal of their own effects to the waiting car. Seebrook and Walters obligingly assisted, ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... admit that every torch should not become darkness at the instant he shone out with his conquering ray. At the aspect of Philippe, then, he was perhaps more terrified than any one round him, and his silence, his immobility were, this time, a concentration and a calm which precede the violent explosions ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
