"Construe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prove so helpful. One of them, though he has since become an energetic man of business on the Pacific Coast, was certainly not helped into his present position by his Latin; for of all the translations I have ever heard or read of, one of his was the worst. Being called to construe the first line of the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... and had had to do with many very serious things indeed—things which touched even the life of his master. So it is no wonder that at this time of day he rather resented pains being taken with his education. It was like setting a double-first to construe ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... view as urged above). That all-knowing, all-powerful Brahman, which is the cause of the origin, subsistence, and dissolution of the world, is known from the Vedanta-part of Scripture. How? Because in all the Vedanta-texts the sentences construe in so far as they have for their purport, as they intimate that matter (viz. Brahman). Compare, for instance, 'Being only this was in the beginning, one, without a second' (Ch. Up. VI, 2, 1); 'In the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... vicinity of Covington; the city was placed under martial law, and every citizen was required to report himself for military duty. So persistent were the detectives in their search for treason, that all the business houses in the town had to be shut up, and it became so frequent a matter to construe thoughtless words into expressions of disloyal sentiment, that it was unsafe to speak any other language than Dutch. Thousands of respectable citizens, nightly left their comfortable homes, to cross the river, and shiver and ache with apprehension and fatigue, in the ditches ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... wrenching himself violently away from the benign influence, "it was not to sympathize with Hector, but to conquer with Achilles, that Alexander of Macedon kept Homer under his pillow. Such should be the use of books to him who has the practical world to subdue; let parsons and women construe it otherwise as ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Harrington to Prince Henry (brother of Charles I.) about Dr John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1592, says that no one "could be admitted to primam tonsuram, except he could first bene le bene con bene can, as they called it, which is to read well, to conster [construe] well, and to sing well, in which last he hath good judgment." [The three bene's are ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... and when pressed to be more explicit, said: "You must take it as we received it." "But what did you mean to take?" asked Livingston. "I do not know," replied Talleyrand. "Then you mean that we shall construe it our own way?" said Livingston again, to which Talleyrand made final reply: "I can give you no direction. You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... look'd about, she did behold How over that same door was likewise writ, Be Bold—Be Bold, and everywhere Be Bold. Whereat she mused, and could not construe it; At last she spied at that room's upper end Another iron door, on which was writ— ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the Peace, especially in the country, surpasses all description, and it is so much the order of the day that all cases which are not too utterly flagrant are quietly reported by the newspapers, without comment. Nor is anything else to be expected. For on the one hand, these Dogberries do merely construe the law according to the intent of the farmers, and, on the other, they are themselves bourgeois, who see the foundation of all true order in the interests of their class. And the conduct of the police corresponds to that of the Justices of the Peace. The bourgeois may do what he will ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... happy for the revelling in brilliant pranks and conceits of a modern vein of composition. And in the elusive humor of the subject is not the least charm and fitness. Too much stress has been laid on the graphic purpose. There is always a tendency to construe too literally. While we must be in full sympathy with the poetic story, there is small need to look for each precise event. We are tempted to go further, almost in defiance, and say that music need not be definite, even ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... to understand whether we all construe the rule referring to the secrecy of our transactions alike. I am told that different constructions are placed upon it by different members, and would suggest the propriety of the PRESIDENT'S giving his views of ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... will say that too many young workmen use the lathe too much, and seem to depend on a fine looking lathe and handsome tools, and spend too much time in using the lathe and in decorating their bench with a fine display. But don't construe this as meaning that one can do nice work with a jack knife and handsaw, for I most certainly believe in a good and substantial set of tools, or I would not have taken so much space in speaking of them. Next, one must have a good bench, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... councillors, Fujiwara no Yoshitsugu, Fujiwara no Momokawa, and Fujiwara no Uwona. It was with the Fujiwara families that the responsibility rested chiefly, and the general conduct of the Fujiwara at that period of history forbids us to construe their apparent indifference in a wholly bad sense. Probably the simplest explanation is the true one: Koken herself ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... repeat to you that I cannot engage in an affair of honour with a thief. I knocked him down this morning, but that was in the heat of righteous anger. For fear that your report to him may lead Mr. Lapelle to construe my refusal to meet him day after to-morrow morning as cowardice on my part, permit me to make this request of you. Please say to him that I shall arm myself with a pistol as soon as I have reached my house, ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... confirmation from every recent decision of the supreme court of the United States, in which certain laws of individual states have been sustained, in cases where, to say the least, it was very questionable whether they did not infringe the provisions of the constitution, and where a disposition to construe those previsions broadly and extensively, would have found very plausible grounds to indulge itself in annulling the state laws referred to. See the cases of City of New York vs. Miln, 11th Peters, 103; Briscoe vs. the Bank of the ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... "In Grammar Schools, boys were made to construe their Latin into French."—Ibid. "Pueri in scholis, contra morem caeterarum nationum, et Normannorum adventu, derelicto proprio vulgari, construere Gallice compelluntur. Item quod filii nobilium ab ipsis cunabulorum crepundiis ad Gallicum idioma informantur. Quibus profecto rurales homines assimulari ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... This sentence altogether is difficult to construe, and Mr. Watters, in the "China Review," was the first to disentangle more than one knot in it. I am obliged to adopt the reading of {.} {.} in the Chinese editions, instead of the {.} {.} in the Corean text. It seems clear that only one person is ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... am translating the 'Oberon' of Wieland; it is a difficult language, and I can translate at least as fast as I can construe. I have made also a very considerable proficiency in the French language, and study it daily, and daily study the German; so that I am not, and have not ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... occasion would be sufficient to effect it. They will instantly take fire on such a declaration, proclaim the judgment of the Company in their favor, demand a reparation of the acts which they will construe wrongs with such a sentence warranting that construction, and either accept the invitation to the proclaimed scandal of the Nabob Vizier, which will not add to the credit of our government, or remain in his dominions, but not under ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... right, upon all doubtful points, to construe the charter in that manner which was most favorable to himself. But no interpretation was allowed inconsistent with the "Sacrosancta Dei" and the "Vera Christiana Religio"—the former implying a prohibition of the most wicked kind of blasphemy, as well as the desecration ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... prophecy has led some interpreters to construe it as, 'When a king over men is righteous... then it is as a morning,' etc. But surely such a platitude is not worthy of being David's last word, nor did it need divine inspiration to disclose to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Thy commandments,' he meant, 'The prevailing opposition is the reason why I, for my part, grasp Thy law more strongly.' The hostility of others evokes my warmer love. The thought, so understood, is definite, true, and important, and so I venture to construe it, and enforce it as containing a lesson ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was done at that little age, and it comprised this: "He got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latin and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turn English into Latin, and vice versa, construe and prove what he read, and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, ellipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius's 'Janua,' and had a strong ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... of a Greek proverb, he calls me downright ass." But while Boyle complains of these sprinklings of ink, he himself contributes to Bentley's "Collection of Asinine Proverbs," and "throws him in one out of Aristophanes," of "an ass carrying mysteries:" "a proverb," says Erasmus, (as 'the Bees' construe him.) "applied to those who were preferred to some place they did not deserve, as when a dunce was made ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... I remained a poor man, I had felt no jealousy; for I trusted in the promise we had exchanged and relied on your honesty in keeping your word. But, when I had perceived your new intention, something went wrong inside my brain, so that I began to construe all your former good as bad. I thought that from the first you had never intended to keep your word, and had brought me into the Klondike to get me out of the way, so that, possessed of the secret information which I had given you, you might steal a march on me, and set out for El Dorado ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... way!" grunted Netta. "Latin has a paralysing effect upon my brain. Instead of sharpening me it deadens my faculties. When I've been trying to construe a page of Virgil, my intellect ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... subject, would not be worth ink and paper; and I am, moreover, aware, that this reasoning may be abused. Any attempt to construe the purposes of Deity must be liable to the same misapplication. And, besides, it is not my design to go so far back; I seek not so much to excuse as to account for—less to justify than to analyze—the characteristics of the class before me. I ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... crowing twelve as loud as he can. It is therefore time for me to depart. I have briefly made you acquainted with the Emperor's intentions and desires, and your wise and fertile brain will know how to enlarge and construe. Farewell, Sir Stadtholder in the Mark, farewell, and may ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... infallibility. There are verses in the Mahabharata that are exceedingly difficult to construe. I have derived much aid from the great commentator Nilakantha. I know that Nilakantha's authority is not incapable of being challenged. But when it is remembered that the interpretations given by Nilakantha came down to him from preceptors ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... so construe the Law of Love and Service? Does it permit us to seek protection under false pretences; to say yes when we mean no; to kneel before a God we do not believe in; to accept immunity under a law we ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... bounds which they continually overleap. They define number, for instance, as a form, or inflection, and yet speak of nouns "plural in form but singular in sense," or "singular in form but plural in sense;" that is, if you construe them rigorously, plural or singular in form but singular or plural form in sense. They tell you that case is a form, and yet insist that nouns have three cases, though only two forms; and speak of the nominative and the ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... you found any friend who can construe That Latin account, t'other day, of a monster? If we can't get a Russian—and that story in Latin Be not too improper, I think ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... the player) 'reputed able, at my proper cost, to build a windmill. What though the world once went hard with me, when I was fain to carry my playing fardel a foot-back; Tempora mutantur, I know you know the meaning of it better than I, but I thus construe it; it is otherwise now; for my very share in playing apparel will not be sold for two hundred pounds.' 'Truly' (said Roberto) 'it is strange that you should so prosper in that vain practise, for that it seems to me your voice is nothing gracious.' 'Nay, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... same manner Hale insisted on paying for six loaves of sugar which the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury sent to his lodgings, in accordance with ancient usage. Similar cases of the judge's readiness to construe courtesies as bribes may be found in notices of trials and ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... letter: 50 It were a shame to call her back again, And pray her to a fault for which I chid her. What a fool is she, that knows I am a maid, And would not force the letter to my view! Since maids, in modesty, say 'no' to that 55 Which they would have the profferer construe 'ay.' Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love, That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse, And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod! How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence, 60 When willingly I would have had her ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... for brevity. He claims that "if the English book were printed in such paper and letter as the Latin is, it should not exceed the Latin in quantity," and that students "shall not find any more English than shall suffice to construe the Latin withal, except in such few places where the great difference of the phrases of the languages enforced me." Yet he believes that his version is not unnecessarily hard to understand, and he urges readers who have found it difficult to "read it ofter, in which doing you ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... have now invaded the frontier of the Colony, and as I construe my instructions from the government, it is my duty to march forward to ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... "Gentlemen, I'll let you construe your own contracts according to your consciences. I have one of my own to carry out. Mac Tavish has just handed me a jolt ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the balance of the Prince to that of the worker. For the machinery of the city could not continue in operation a fortnight, before some accident requiring delicate repair work would put it partially out of commission. And the Yun-Yun was quick to resent anything it could construe as a slight on one ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... said that she had just met a lunatic who had alarmed her by fixing his attention upon herself, and speaking to her in a ruffian manner; and it was also true that she did sincerely regard him in that light. This led me at the time to construe the whole affair into a casual collision with some poor maniac escaping from his keepers, and of no future moment, having passed by without present consequences. But had she, instead of thus reporting her own erroneous impression, reported ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... witness of the bitterness, the tumult of my feelings, during this day; ever since you left me. You cannot conceive any thing more forlorn, more vacant, more anxious, than this weak heart has been and still is. I was terrified at my own sensations, and, with my usual folly, began to construe them into omens of evils; so inadequate, so disproportioned was my distress to the cause that ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... transcendental poets of the day—take him fresh from Alexander Smith, or Alfred Tennyson's Maud, or the Mystic of Bailey—and we will engage to find him at least ten passages in the first ten pages of Men and Women, some of which, even after profound study, he will not be able to construe at all, and not one of which he will be able to read off at sight. Let us take one or two selections at random from the first volume, and try. What, for instance, is the meaning of these four stanzas from the poem entitled ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... was gone. Still, such was the force of habit, that he never went without the Latin grammar in his pocket, and I have often watched him sitting down in the poultry-yard, fancying, I presume, that he was in his school. There would he decline, construe, and conjugate aloud, his only witnesses being the poultry, who would now and then raise a gobble, gobble, gobble, while the ducks with their quack, quack, quack, were still more impertinent in their replies. A sketch of him, in this position, has been taken by Sarah, and now hangs over ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... however, though it would be wrong to construe it as an omen of Divine wrath, cannot but have an injurious effect on the fruits of the earth. Let it be your care to see that the scarcity of this one year does not bring ruin on us all. Even thus was it ordained by the first occupant of our present ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... not let me add to your uneasiness," he resumed, "while I am attempting to alleviate it. Instruct me what I can do to show my esteem and respect, rather than permit me thus unguided, to rush upon what you may construe into insult and arrogance." ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... you would construe them," cries Partridge; "for Horace is a hard author, and I cannot understand as ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... then," said George, pointing out a passage in the volume, "what you think of these lines. My good uncle would call them gibberish. I am not sure that I can construe them; but when I was your age, I think I could—what ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... from a violent paroxysm as starvation from a mortal shot, filled him and wrung him body and soul. The discovery had not been altogether unexpected, for throughout his anxiety of the last few days since the night in the churchyard, he had been inclined to construe the uncertainty unfavourably for himself. His hopes for the best had been but periodic interruptions to a chronic ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... been lost on the Provencal, who well knew how to construe the wind by the direction of straws, and saw at once, by the boldness of the populace, that they themselves were conscious of a coming tempest. "Par Dieu," said he, as he saluted Adrian, who, gravely, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... understanding is formed; and confuses their ideas of piety, by mixing them with so much heterogeneous matter. They only casually read, or hear read, the Scriptures of truth, while they are obliged to learn by heart, construe, and repeat, the poetical fables of the less than human gods of the ancients. And, as the excellent author of 'The Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion' observes, 'Nothing has so much contributed to corrupt the true spirit of the Christian institution, as that ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... clear and unequivocal in its terms, and no Supreme Court can indefinitely continue to construe it as meaning anything but what it says. This Court should be bombarded with suits until it makes some definite pronouncement, one way or the other, on the broad question of the constitutionality of the disfranchising ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... strange than true— That cloudy weather can construe Unto our thoughts a gloomy view, That all things ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... wailing for children, furnished heartrending sights, but no victim bore such physical marks as the most vivid imagination could construe into ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... boy can construe Homer, if he understands Horace, and can taste Virgil; but how seldom does he ask, or examine, or think whether he can restrain his passions,—whether he is grateful, generous, humane, compassionate, ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... admitted even if we construe Saxonicum as ravaged by Saxons, rather than occupied by Saxons—a construction which is so little natural, that I doubt whether it would ever have been resorted to if the language of Gildas had not been supposed to preclude the notion of any Saxon invasion ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... observations which I had to address you upon this paper; and having shown you that by the least liberal construction, no criminality of intention can be imputed to the author, how can I doubt of your acquittal? For it is your duty to construe the author's words so as to give them an innocent meaning if they will bear it, and not come to a conclusion of guilt from them unless you shall be convinced that they will not possibly admit of any other ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... to all military commanders, and I can see no good reasons why I, too, may not ask for it; and this simple concession, involving no public interest, will much soften the blow which, right or wrong, I construe as one of the hardest I have sustained in a ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... say. Now the business was not a pretty or a romantic one—it had something to do with leather—but it was extremely profitable, and as I looked forward to one day sharing all Jack's worldly goods I did not grumble at the leather. Not that Jack had ever yet said a word to me which I could construe into a downright offer. He had looked, certainly, but then with eyes like his there is no knowing what they may imply. They were dark blue eyes, and his hair was bright brown, with a touch of yellow in it, and his moustache was tawny, and his skin was sunburnt ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... country, birth, alliance, &c., ebb and flow with our conceit; please or displease, as we accept and construe them, or apply them to ourselves." Faber quisque fortunae suae, and in some sort I may truly say, prosperity and adversity are in our own hands. Nemo laeditur nisi a seipso, and which Seneca confirms out ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the native fairy tales; and a wise teacher led him later through Virgil and Terence and Plautus and the Italian poets in the same freedom of spirit. Withal, he never acquired any facility in Greek,[152] and, refusing to play the apprentice where he was accustomed to be master,[153] he declined to construe in a difficult tongue; read his Plutarch in Amyot; and his Plato, doubtless, in the Latin version. It all goes with the peculiar spontaneity of his mind, his reactions, his style; and it was in virtue of this ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... enough," he rasped on. "The police could only construe your visit to Moyne's flat as zeal on behalf of the bank. And it was safer, much more circumspect on your part, not to order the flat searched at once, but only as a last resort, as it were, after you had led the police to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... depend upon honesty and confidence for their value, and are at a sad discount in hard times of fraud and corruption. Unprincipled men find means of evading the written agreement upon their face by ingenious subterfuges or downright repudiation. An arbitrary majority will construe the partnership articles to suit their own interests, and stat pro constitutione voluntas. It is true that the litera scripta remains, but the meaning is found to vary ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... piece though written by a professed republican, I dared not declare myself the panegyrist of a nation, whose maxims were exactly the reverse of my own. More grieved at the misfortunes of France than the French themselves I was afraid the public would construe into flattery and mean complaisance the marks of a sincere attachment, of which in my first part I have mentioned the date and the cause, and which I was ashamed ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... then Master of Trinity. One of the subjects I had to take up was either the 'Amicitia' or the 'Senectute' (I forget which). Whewell, more formidable and alarming than ever, opened the book at hazard, and set me on to construe. I broke down. He turned over the page; again I stuck fast. The truth is, I had hardly looked at my lesson, - trusting to my recollection of parts of it to carry me through, if ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... had afterwards proof to the contrary, a coward; and matching myself against him I knew I would do the king's navy more credit than he. But I kept my thought to myself—and next day made a sad bungle, I remember, of my construe of Thucydides' account of the sea fight ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... been for days, nor indeed since the last conversation I have recorded. But her face, though it was now sensible, was pinched and white, and so drawn with mortal fear that I believed her dying, and sprang to her, unable to construe otherwise the pitiful look in her ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... dream and vision of the conceiving master-mason, some mediaeval Vilars or other unknown to fame, were for a few minutes flashed down through the centuries to an unappreciative age. Giles saw their eloquent look on this day of transparency, but could not construe it. He turned ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... faults and virtues, though at some times she rated their combination more reverently than at others. Truth to tell, she had known him well; her judgment, impelled by the suggestion of his possible love, had scanned him patiently. Yet now she owned herself at fault, unable to construe the manner of this action or assign a particular motive with which it was in harmony. It is by manner that the individual is revealed (for many men may do the same deed), and a friend who perforce must know a friend only by faith ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... mentioned Michael Angelo's poetry some time ago; it is the most difficult to construe I ever met with, but just what you would expect from such a man, shewing abundantly how conversant his soul was with great things. There is a mistake in the world concerning the Italian language; the poetry of Dante ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... of the language, when it refers to superior powers, has such a tendency to exaggeration, as to afford great facilities to those who would construe it ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... and swimming were remarkable; and a better rabbit-dog and more sagacious, courageous watchdog never lived. As to the languages, I will acknowledge he could speak none; but he understood English perfectly, and never failed to construe rightly any of Mr Clare's Latin addresses—much better than ever Walter could do. Indeed, Mr Clare's commands to and conversations with Ugly ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... unions are intended as guides for and restrictions upon the administrative officials, but in all cases the latter are given considerable latitude. The cost of the benefit, therefore, depends largely upon the strictness with which the officials construe the rules. In those unions where the injuries entitling to a benefit are not specifically defined, the officers have great discretionary power. Indeed, even if they have the best intention, it is in many trades often impossible ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy
... there could be no genuine Fairfax; to-night he entertained many doubts of his former deductions. He found it possible to construe Dorothy's actions both ways. She was afraid to have him search out the man who had written her wedding certificate, perhaps because it was a fraud, or perhaps because there was a Fairfax somewhere, concerning whom ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... lecture in the Hall, I could not bear Meeke's superiority, and I tried to sit as far from him as I could, that I might not hear him construe." ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... manifested love and good-will toward his virulent enemies. How could Christ approve such malice? Truly he could not endorse it. Nor could he commend his enemies for crucifying him and putting him to death upon the cross without cause. No such conclusion may be drawn. The devil and his adherents must not construe the passage to mean license to heap all manner of torture and distress upon Christ and his saints as upon those who must not only patiently bear these things, unmoved by revengeful desires, but must render gratitude to their persecutors as if their acts were praiseworthy. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... case it is a severe strain upon common sense to construe the rules so as to prevent a quorum of the House from taking any proceedings at all required by the Constitution; and it is still more difficult to find any justification for holding that the special resolutions of this House ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... that thus Mr. Jerome would have the saving grace to admire and toady him. But Mr. Jerome showed no signs of doing anything of the sort; he treated him with an austere and distant politeness that Lord Ashbridge could not construe as being founded on admiration and a sense of his own inferiority, for it was so clearly founded on dislike. That, however, did not annoy Lord Ashbridge, for it was easy to suppose that poor Mr. Jerome knew no better. But Barbara annoyed him, for not only ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... a suspicious glance up and down the street. There was no one whom even the clever Henri Dubois could construe as an enemy—no one save some chattering Marseillais loitering around their doorsteps, and three girls huddled together in ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... hours of the morning are slipping away; we must construe our hieroglyphics without further palaver. The sleeper lies upon his side, his left hand resting near his face upon the pillow. Were he to move it ever so little during our examination, the history of years might be thrown into confusion. Nevertheless, we shall ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... were already withdrawn in consequence of the impressive warnings their commanding officer had received from the Department of War. It is hoped and believed that his Government will take a more dispassionate and just view of this subject, and not be disposed to construe a measure of justifiable precaution, made necessary by its known inability in execution of the stipulations of our treaty to act upon the frontier, into an encroachment upon its rights or a stain upon ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... returned to his room and made another frantic search—but they were nowhere to be found; and as he could not bring himself to receive his guests in his ordinary morning costume—which the Professor would probably construe as a deliberate slight, and which would certainly seem a solecism in Mrs. Futvoye's eyes, if not in her daughter's—he decided to put on the Eastern robes, with the exception of a turban, which he could not manage to wind round ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... much to decry. For after all, it must be allowed, that nothing could be justly urged against the English government, with respect to France, except the omission of a mere form, which other nations might interpret into an irregularity, but could not construe into perfidious dealing, as the French had previously violated the peace ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... from New York, her owner and master were justified in believing that, whatever else and theretofore happened, this simple, humane and universally accepted principle would not be violated. Few, at that time, would be likely to construe the warning advertisement as calling attention to more than the perils to be expected from quick disembarkation and the possible rigors of the sea after the proper safeguarding of the lives of passengers by at least full opportunity to take ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... in their person that every hostile weapon levelled against them was immediately turned into some agreeable present. Stones became balls of silk—arrows, flowers—swords, feathers, etc. Even so it is with Lady Placid. The grossest insult that could be offered she would construe into an elegant compliment; the very crimes of others she seems to consider as so much incense offered up at the shrine of her own immaculate virtue. I'm certain she thinks she deserves to be canonised for having kept out of Doctors' Commons. Never is ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... maintain, notwithstanding a recent act on the part of the Emperor, which some construe into the expression of unfavorable sentiments toward us. I allude to the appointment of Fronto, Nigridius Fronto, to be chief priest of the temple of the Sun, which has these several years been building, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... ungentlemanly!" He crumpled up my verses and tossed them into the waste-paper basket. "We had better get on with our Tacitus." And "Offensive!" I heard him muttering once more, as he picked up the book and found his place. I began to construe. His outburst had disconcerted me, and no doubt I performed discreditably: but glancing up in some apprehension after a piece of guess-work which even to me carried no conviction, I saw that again he was not ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... with the prodigious talents which we have. I have always had a regard for dunces,—those of my own school days were among the pleasantest of the fellows, and have turned out by no means the dullest in life; whereas, many a youth who could turn off Latin hexameters by the yard, and construe Greek quite glibly, is no better than a feeble prig now, with not a pennyworth more brains than were in his head before his ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... Declaration of London and the general subject of contraband, Page was instructed to call the British Government's attention to the consequences which followed shipping troubles in previous times. It is hard to construe this in any other way than as a threat to Great Britain of ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... suppose a mind of the latter of our two classes, whose imagination is pent in consequently, and who takes its {41} facts 'hard;' suppose it, moreover, to feel strongly the craving for communion, and yet to realize how desperately difficult it is to construe the scientific order of nature either theologically or poetically,—and what result can there be but inner discord and contradiction? Now, this inner discord (merely as discord) can be relieved in either of two ways: The longing to read the facts religiously ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... completely liberate himself from the bonds of sloth, of worldly vanity, dissipation, and unworthy love, before he could step forth and walk steadily along the new road which had appeared to him. His ignorance was appalling. He could no longer construe a line of Latin, he had not for months opened a book; and as to Italian, he knew it no better than any Piedmontese street porter. His idleness, his habit of absolute vacuity, was even worse; his desire to shine before the frivolous women, the inane young men of Turin, nay, merely ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... way—'because he was in a foolish anxiety lest you might have vanished; I told him it was best that he should have the evidence of a very practical person's senses that you were really here and that he hadn't only dreamt it. And as we did know each other, you see—You will construe my behaviour ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... approached, the society found itself driven to the necessity of helping in this, too, by the fact that the present warden would furnish the men with only the same outfit as in summer, the under-clothes they might happen to have on at the time, added. And, in making out this summer suit, he would construe the letter of the law in the superlative degree, which says, "A suit of cheap clothing,"—he obtaining the cheapest, the most miserably poor. To illustrate, a man left prison in one of those suits, and, before walking a mile, was obliged to call and borrow sewing implements to repair them. The day ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... official oath to-day with no mental reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... To construe the expression "managing all their affairs," into a surrender of self government, would be, we think, a perversion of their necessary meaning, and a departure from the construction which has been uniformly put on them. The great subject of the article is ...
— Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, at January Term, 1832, Delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in the Case of Samuel A. Worcester, Plaintiff in Error, versus the State of Georgia • John Marshall
... convulsed, familiar with Teuton naivete. Then he dubiously shook his head. To Jim's unexpected discomfort the affair was regarded seriously. If he had not ejaculated this affront, something could be done. But now he had been guilty of what the Germans might rightfully construe as a voluntary indignity offered to the Imperial Secret Service in the performance of its highly responsible duties. If he wanted to avoid important trouble, the only simple and effective course would be to quit the country. He could leave that ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... merit and reward that God is obliged in strict justice (ex obligatione iustitiae), prior to and apart from any formal act of acceptance or promise on His part, to reward good works by the beatific vision. This view is scarcely tenable because there is no common basis on which to construe a relation of strict justice between the Creator and His creatures,(1311) and moreover St. Paul expressly teaches that "The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... I entreat you, construe my gratitude into any sense of future favors,—no such thing; for whatever may be my success with you hereafter, I am truly deeply grateful for the past. Circumstances, into which I need not enter, have made me for some years past a resident in a foreign country, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... active, and excelled at football and the like all the lads of my age. I likewise began, what I had never done before, to take pleasure in the exercises of the school. I made great progress in Welsh and English grammar, and learnt to construe Latin. My master no longer chid or beat me, but one day told my father that he had no doubt that one day I should ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... evidence which proved Addison to be the author of this version? Was it a work which Tickell was incapable of producing? Surely not. Tickell was a Fellow of a College at Oxford, and must be supposed to have been able to construe the Iliad; and he was a better versifier than his friend. We are not aware that Pope pretended to have discovered any turns of expression peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of expression been discovered, they would be sufficiently accounted for by supposing Addison to have corrected ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... often called, rebukingly, "temper" is but the cordial and puissant vitality which contains all the elements that make temper the sweetest at last. Who amongst us, how wise soever, can construe a child's heart? who conjecture all the springs that secretly vibrate within, to a touch on the surface of feeling? Each child, but especially the girl-child, would task the whole lore of a sage deep as Shakspeare ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dear Theo., can't this be done a little oftener? You must, by this time, I think, have gone through Lucian. I wish you to begin and go through it again; for it would be shameful to pretend to have read a book of which you could not construe a page. At the second reading you will, I suppose, be able to double your lessons; so that you may go through it in three weeks. You say nothing of writing or learning Greek verbs;—is this practice ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... began to construe the words that I had read—"Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me"—in a different sense from what I had done before. For then I had no notion of any deliverance ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... surface of the proposition but the senator perceived in it all the opportunity their two modest accomplices of the boiler deck asked. That pair and their adherents—not followers—you wouldn't catch them leading—they and their gathering adherents would construe the landing of the players as an attempt to deliver them out of their hands and would undertake to seize and maltreat the actor, at least, the moment he should be off the boat. That they were likely to fail was little to the senator; there would be a tumult, so managed as to bring Hugh to the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... that he expects in future, to concert with thee in the affair of slavery. I herewith send thee some pamphlets, and in a confidence of thy goodness of heart, which by looking to the intention, will construe the freedom I have taken in ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... blissed it all this livelong night; They took 't away, to vex me, maybe, And now they say I killed the child outright. And never shall I be glad again. They sing songs about me! 'tis bad of the folk to do it! There's an old story has the same refrain; Who bade them so construe it? ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... finally. "I am most grateful, and I am sure my people will construe it as yet another sign of the ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... our mistakes is that we confuse life and lifetime, and construe life to mean the span of life. In this conception the unit of measurement is so large that our concept of life evaporates into a vague generalization. Life is too specific, too definite for that. The quality of life may better be measured and tested ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... written hands, but to decline all the nouns, conjugate the verbs regular, and most of the irregular; got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latin and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turn English into Latin and vice versa, construe and prove what he read, began himself to write legibly, and had a strong passion for Greek. The number of verses he could recite was prodigious, and he had a wonderful disposition to mathematics. As to his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... "Forty Years on" is sung all over the world. But, when I went to Harrow, we were confined to the traditional English songs and ballads, and to some Latin ditties by Bradby and Westcott, which we bellowed lustily but could not always construe. E. E. Bowen's stirring, though often bizarre, compositions (admirably set to music by John Farmer) began soon after I entered the school, and E. W. Howson's really touching and melodious verses succeeded Bowens' some ten years after I had left. Other song-writers, of greater ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... inoffensive person who is no match for him. That is a piece of cowardice, and protest is more than justifiable. There is a fine true story of a famous head-master, who disliked a weakling, putting on a stupid, shy, and ungainly boy to construe, and making deliberate fun of him. There was a boy present, of the stuff of which heroes are made, who got up suddenly in his place and said, "You are not teaching that boy, sir; you are bullying him." The head-master ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... which, as far as I could with truth, I did not scruple to bestow on his many superior gifts; and the next to conceive some chagrin that I should for a moment hesitate. The noblest natures, Louisa, are the most subject to pride, can the least endure neglect, and are aptest to construe whatever is not directly affirmative in their ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... character, I do not hesitate to take up her defence. Something presses heavily on her mind; what, I cannot surmise. But I will see her and find it out. Till then, wear your willow as gracefully as you do your laurels, and construe nothing to your disadvantage. This I ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... began to construe the Latin language, which I had never done before, notwithstanding my long and diligent study of Lilly, which illustrious grammar was not used at Edinburgh, nor indeed known. Greek was only taught ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... interior words, they too are subject to illusion; the enemy can form and counterfeit them. Or if they come from a good angel (for God Himself never speaks thus) we may mistake and misapprehend them. They are spoken in a divine manner, but we construe them in a human ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... the Scholar," cried Captain Westbury, laughing; and he called to a trooper out of the window—"Ho, Dick, come in here and construe." ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sport.— [EXEUNT.] So, now I have the keys, and am possest. Since he will needs be dead afore his time, I'll bury him, or gain by him: I am his heir, And so will keep me, till he share at least. To cozen him of all, were but a cheat Well placed; no man would construe it a sin: Let his sport pay for it, this is ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... First, What real Use or Advantage can this Translation be to the Publick? As for school-Boys and Learners, Bernard's and Hool's Translations, the great number of Notes, a School-Master, or their own Industry will well enough teach 'em to construe it. Men of Sense and Learning, they read it wholly for the Latin sake; therefore a Translation is of no use to them. Lastly, They won't fit our Stage; and consequently they are impertinent at best. To these we answer; First, As to School-Boys and Learners; ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... not wish to alarm his wife by calling her attention to this spectre, which he believed at her side, but he could not hide from her his agitation, which every movement of his caused her to construe as falsely ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... deliver the glorious message with which he is charged by the true Head of the Church. For a man thus minded, there is within the pale of the establishment no place. He has been at no college; he cannot construe a Greek author or write a Latin theme; and he is told that, if he remains in the communion of the Church, he must do so as a hearer, and that, if he is resolved to be a teacher, he must begin by being a schismatic. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it not been for the question of women's suffrage being agitated throughout the country at the time, we should not have heard a syllable of the Scottish women's franchise bill," a sneering admission which we willingly construe ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... away, labouring to construe some hideous dream of the past; half was in the present, cringing before some sickening reality. She remained so for perhaps ten seconds, and then—plucky girl that she was—she mastered herself, looked deliberately round and up with a circular glance, strangely in ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers |
