"Definite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all physical substances with its mossy mantle, as it invests all things of the mind with forgetfulness, seemed to have respected these signs, which apparently had been made with some degree of regularity, and probably with a definite purpose. Occasionally the marks were hidden under tufts of myrtle, which spread into large bushes laden with blossoms, or beneath parasitical lichen. So Edmond had to separate the branches or brush away the moss to know where the guide-marks were. The sight of marks renewed ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... stated that wool fibre consists of a definite (p. 008) substance, keratine, but this view cannot now be admitted, since wool appears to be composed of a mixture or combination of several very complex substances. It is possible and even probable that the outer epidermal scales have a somewhat different composition to the bulk of ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... Steinholt with a shudder. "Their brains were operated on and most of their faculties removed. They have no sense of fear, no consciences, no power of reasoning. They respond only to certain signals on a whistle and their only definite and active impulse is ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... steam mills is that they are apparently without millers—at least there is no unmistakable dominating presence in a white hat, to whom one can confidently apply the definite article, as in the mill on the hill. Millers' men there are in plenty, but the miller is lacking. This is because steam mills belong to companies. Thus, with the passing of the windmill we lose also the miller, that notable figure in English life and tradition; always jolly, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... there began an awakening concerning the vital Bible doctrine of the second coming of Christ, which has grown into the definite advent movement that is carrying the gospel message of preparation for the coming of the Lord to every ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... you refer me to any grammar, or other work, containing a clear and definite rule for the distinctive use of these auxiliaries? and does not a clever contributor to "N. & Q." make a mistake on this point at Vol. vi., p. 58., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... a sharp clatter of understanding and explanation, but no movement. The African is not great at making deductions. Captain Kettle had to give a definite order. "Now, overboard with you, all hands, and lib for beach. No time for lower boats. ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... a concept, is fast finding its way into the country press—in the Middle West, at least. As this ideal gains acceptance, giving definite direction to newspaper effort for the upbuilding of communities, the press gains an enlarged constituency with a truer conception of the power and ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... details obtruding themselves on his attention. He, seeing it thus vividly, made us also see it; and believing in its reality however fantastic, he communicated something of his belief to us. He presented it in such relief that we ceased to think of it as a picture. So definite and insistent was the image, that even while knowing it was false we could not help, for a moment, being affected, as it ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... prove to be whooping-cough, it will be later still in positively declaring its definite intentions. The cold or catarrhal stage will be much milder, the fever lower, the cough a trifle more marked, but will drag on for from a week to ten days before anything definite happens. Usually the child is supposed ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... have a great number of definite and indefinite articles, and prefixes, which they apply in a peculiar manner. The article te often stands before proper names; also before God, Te Atua; sometimes o, which then appears to be an article; as, O Pomare, O Huaheine, O Tahaiti. ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... of Kerensky's advance on Petrograd, at the head of some forces or other, soon became more persistent and assumed more definite outlines. We were informed from Tsarskoye-Selo that Cossack echelons were not far from there, while an appeal, signed by Kerensky and General Krassnov, was being circulated in Petrograd calling upon the whole garrison to join the government's forces, which were expected any hour ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... straight and lays bare the fat and the lean; indecision, a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it. Say yes or no—seldom perhaps. Some people have such fertile imaginations that they will take a grain of hope and grow a large definite promise with bark on it overnight, and later, when you come to pull that out of their brains by the roots, it hurts, and ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... on in Syria after the decisive battle of Boharsef, seems to have been on the model of those recorded by Major Sturgeon, and to have consisted of marching and counter-marching, without any definite object, except, perhaps, the somewhat Universal-Peace-Society one of getting out of the enemy's way. General Jochmus, we guess from his name, was a Scotch schoolmaster, with a Latin termination—there being no mistaking the Jock—and in his religious tenets we feel sure he was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... incentives of the businessman and the material interest of the community at large—not to speak of the selfish interest of the individual workman—are systematically at variance. The cost of production of workmen does not fall on the business concern which employs them, at least not in such definite fashion as to make it appear that the given business concern or businessman has a material interest in the economical consumption of the man-power embodied in this given body of employees. Some slight and exceptional qualification of this statement is to be noted, in those cases where the processes ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... and of the medallions surrounding the earliest painted effigies of holy personages, produced a complete set of pictorial themes illustrative of Gospel history and of the lives of the principal saints. These illustrative themes—definite conceptions of situations and definite arrangements of figures—became forthwith the whole art's stock, universal and traditional; few variations were made from year to year and from master to master, and those variations resolved themselves continually back into ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... he would have pulled up just the same if he had heard only the dreadful and definite ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... he had, hopeless of any definite end in tormenting the woman, and never having it in his mind merely to punish, was diverted by the exclamation to speak ironically. "You can tell Countess Anna that it is only her temporal sovereign who is attacked, and that therefore—" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that he had actually started. He had made his confession, just in order to make certain of his own soul, though scarcely expecting any definite danger, and sat now, his grey suit and straw hat in no way distinguishing him as a priest (for a general leave was given by the authorities to dress so for any adequate reason). Since the case was not imminent, he had not brought ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... well. He was evidently a chip of the elder block. It did not, indeed, occur to his young imagination to suppose that he could ever become anything in the most distant degree resembling his idol Bax. Neither did he entertain any definite idea as to what his young heart longed after; but he had seen life saved; he had stood on the sea-shore when storms cast shattered wrecks upon the sands, and had witnessed the exploits of boatmen in their brave efforts to save human life; he had known what it was to weep ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... nearly every channel of communication. The hundred tricks of dumb show, the glance, the lifted brow, the touch of the hand, the smile, the kiss,—all these acquired their several meanings, and somehow they seemed to speak to the silent sufferer in a language as definite as words. It came to be realized that this was a condition in which Mrs. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... to be philosophical. Let me ramble on. Here am I, an idler in my boyhood, a harmless pleasure-seeker in my youth till I ran up against tragedy, and since then a drifter, a drifter with a slowly growing vice, lolling through life with no definite purpose, with no definite hope or wish, except," he went on a little drowsily, "that I think I'd like to be buried somewhere near the base of those mountains, on the other side of the river, from behind ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Anne, you'll do," she said, adding cautiously, "that is, after a time"—so as not to exalt the girl above measure. It was, however, recognized by all as a definite triumph for my sister. My grandmother, a rigid Calvinist, who believed in Election with all her intellect, and acted Free Will with all her heart, elected Agnes Anne upon the spot. Had the girl not willed to rise out of the pit of sloth and mere human learning? And lo! she ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... powers and parties at the same time; to be ready to adopt any opinion and to possess none; to fall into the public humour of the moment, and to evade the impending catastrophe; to look upon every man as a tool, and never do anything which had not a definite though circuitous purpose; these were his political accomplishments; and, while he recognised them as the best means of success, he found in their exercise excitement and delight. To be the centre ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... trade conditions, and are losing business which they have been led to expect would be open to them almost immediately after the American occupation of the different cities in which they are located. Nor is it at all easy for an American to obtain any definite information or accurate details regarding any particular line of business and its possibilities. Local commercial methods are not reduced to the system which prevails among American business men. The Porto Rican merchant buys and sells, but I ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... obeyed her voice. He gazed again into the crystal, and it clouded over. But although he obeyed her, the crystal obeyed him and answered at least in part the questions his imagination asked. He was not conscious of asking anything, but being a soldier his curiosity followed a more or less definite line. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... notions about them (by the way I modified those considerably on closer acquaintance). I ought to study them, nothing like a woman for developing a fellow. So I laid in a stock of books in different languages, mostly novels, in which women played title roles, in order to get up some definite data before venturing amongst them. I can't say I derived much benefit from this course. There seemed to be as great a diversity of opinion about the female species as, let us ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... Matanzas Province. When I joined the army I had to go where I was sent, of course, but General Gomez has started inquiries, and as soon as I learn something definite I shall follow it up. I shall go where the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... purpose of extending, by the most desperate means and measures, the institution of slavery, and with it, of Southern Secession and all those social and political principles which have been of late years so unscrupulously advocated by Southern statesmen. It is, however, only of late that any thing definite relative to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Charles Martel and founder of the second dynasty, was the first of the French kings who was consecrated by the religions rite of anointing. But its mode of administration for a long period underwent numerous changes, before becoming established by a definite law. Thus Pepin, after having been first consecrated in 752 in the Cathedral of Boissons, by the Archbishop of Mayence, was again consecrated with his two sons Charlemagne and Carloman, in 753, in the Abbey ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... in His existence. We must believe in His reality, even though He is unseen. But we must believe even more than the fact of His existence; namely, that He is a rewarder, that He will assuredly honor with definite blessing those who approach unto Him in prayer. Importunity will, of course, ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... most reluctantly, she was compelled to give up for the time the purpose. Three months later came the seeming disaster, the real blessing in disguise, of Bull Run, and again was her heart moved, this time to more definite action, and a more determined purpose. Her son, a mere boy, had left school and enlisted to help fill the ranks from his native State, and she was ready now to go also. Applying to the patriotic ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... whose mind was never more fertile in resources than in critical emergencies, swore again that he would try all conceivable means to prevent the denouement of the bloody tragedy. But by what means? As yet he could form no definite plan; all must depend on circumstances. Meanwhile, it was necessary at all hazards, in order to gain time, to put some obstacle in the way of the execution on the following day—the day appointed by the judges. The only way of doing that was to cause the disappearance ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... south. Here he gained a little, but he heard a shout on his right and saw three warriors coming up the valley, not thirty yards away. At the same time, the long, fierce whine of the wolves was registered somewhere on his brain, but he did not take definite note of ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... about politics; not I. I had sworn fidelity to the King. I know my duty, and I would have fought against the Emperor."—"Indeed!"—"Yes, certainly I would, and I told him so myself."—"How! did you venture so far?"—"To be sure. I told him that my resolution was definite. 'Pshaw! . . . replied he angrily. 'I knew well that you were opposed to me. If we had come to an action I should have sought you out on the field of battle. I would have shown you the Medusa's head. Would you have dared to fire on me?'—'Without ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... no one to guide him in a definite direction. On the one hand, his guardian merely saw to it that his masters came at stated times and that Boris did not avoid school; on the other, his aunt contented herself with seeing that he was in good health, ate and slept well, was decently dressed, and as a well-brought-up ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... arrested, although a large reward had been offered for his apprehension. As to the head of the Confederacy, Jeff Davis, there is no reasonable doubt that he approved the act and motive of Booth, whether he had given him a definite commission or not. Davis tried to defend himself by saying that he had greater objection to Johnson than to Lincoln. But since the conspiracy included the murder of both Lincoln and Johnson, as well as others, this defense is very lame. It was certainly ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... with a definite air, and rolled her knitting up into her handkerchief. Gaites made a merit to himself of rising abruptly and closing his paper with a clash, as if he had been trying to read and had not been able for the talking near him. The ladies looked round conscience-stricken; when ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... he meant to, and he thought she would protest. He knew that her convictions of what should be and what should not be were clear-cut and definite. But a man, even though he be a lover, may know a woman's mind without knowing very much about the woman herself. There was no protest forthcoming. Quite the contrary, she answered him with a little shudder that was almost a caress, saying: "I think you ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... don't," said Jack. "I have feared for some time that your hair was getting too thick for the finer ideas of this household to penetrate to your brain. Allow me to apply a little of this ointment to the parting, which in your case is more definite than with Eleanor; and as our lightest actions should proceed from principles, I may mention that the principle on which I propose to apply the Leather-softener to your scalp is that on which the blacksmith's wife gave your ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... habit of prayer is a notable feature of him. All his great enterprises were commenced with prayer. In dark inextricable-looking difficulties, his Officers and he used to assemble, and pray alternately, for hours, for days, till some definite resolution rose among them, some "door of hope," as they would name it, disclosed itself. Consider that. In tears, in fervent prayers, and cries to the great God, to have pity on them, to make His light shine before them. They, armed Soldiers of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... visitations for the remainder of his lifetime. A much more serious trouble were the occasional visits of bands of wild Indians—Indios misterios, he called them; what they called themselves he had no idea. Neither had he any definite idea whence they came; from the other side of the Cordilleras, some people thought. But they neither pillaged nor murdered—except when they were resisted or in drink, for which reason the father always kept his aguardiente carefully hidden. Their worst propensity was a ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... silent. The last words seemed to come in a lower and lower tone as he went on. It had the effect of hopelessness. It came to me as a conviction that now was my time to find out if he had any definite suspicion; and as if in obedience to some ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... usual idiomatic mode of expressing possession of parts of the body, wearing apparel, etc., by the use of the definite article instead of the possessive adjective his, her, etc., the dative pronoun also being often added to indicate the possessor, as: Yo me corte el dedo, I cut ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... last Carmen but three, and with the refinement of the one who had made so great a success at Munich. They agreed that the savagery of the newest was very fascinating,—Stephen Linton called it womanly,—but they thought they should like to hear her in the third act before pronouncing a definite opinion regarding ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... a long time over this mysterious series of entries without arriving at any definite conclusion regarding them. Where was the so-called Mrs. Bradley? And why had her husband assumed the same name? Was he posing as Ruth Morton's brother, and if so, for what reason? She could not make head or tail ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... had rather liked him. He had had the impertinence and lack of taste to decline her friendship, tacitly, of course, but quite definitely. She had never been in love with him. If she had been she would have been more definite with him. But he had attracted her a good deal; and she always resented even the crossing of a whim. Something in his personality and something in his physique had appealed to her, a strangeness and height, an imaginativeness and remoteness which features and gesture ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... in the nerve substance has been called its excitability or neurility. But the nerve substance not only receives such an impression from a stimulus and is excited to such a change, but it possesses the property of conducting that impression in certain definite directions, and this property might be ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... thoughts, and Milan is mediaeval-minded, not to speak of Genoa, or Marseilles, or Paris, or those romantic German towns where the legends, if not the facts, abound; but, after all, for my pleasure in the past, I could not choose any place before York. You need not be so very definite in your knowledge. The event of Constantine's presence and election is so spacious as to leave no room for particulars in the imagination; and you are so rich in it that you will even reject them from your thoughts, as you sit in the close-cropped ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... definite of the two rather indefinite girls, with an assumption of bright interest. Leila Buckney, a few weeks ago, had announced her engagement to the mild-looking blond young man, Parker Hoyt, and she was just now attempting to hold him by a charm she ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... not recommend an unpractical physical mortification as the rule for such early hours with God. Fully believing that there is a place for definite "abstinence" in the Christian (and certainly in the ministerial) life, I do not think that that place is, as a rule, the early morning hour. Very many men only procure a bad headache for the day by beginning any sort ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... who spent his evenings in reading Wolff's "Metaphysics." And here let us remark, that this German prince, in order to read that work, was obliged to have the German translated into French by his friend Suhm, the Saxon minister at Petersburg. Chasot, who had no very definite duties to perform at Rheinsberg, was commissioned to copy Suhm's manuscript,—nay, he was nearly driven to despair when he had to copy it a second time, because Frederic's monkey, Mimi, had set fire to the first copy. We have Frederic's opinion ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... right, reached its destination intact. A skirmish followed between the Theban troops of the first division under Lacrates and the garrison of Pelusium under Philophron; but this first engagement was without definite result. ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... of life, but life is one of its conditions. Does it leave the body when life is artificially prolonged in a state of unconsciousness—by hypnotism, for instance? Is it more closely bound up with animal life, or with intelligence? If with either, has it a definite abiding place in the heart, or in the brain? Since its presence depends directly on life, so far as I know, it belongs to the body rather than to the brain. I once made a rabbit live an hour without its head. With a man that experiment would need careful manipulation—I would like ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... Hatto) were promulgated; but their thirteen short articles were taken up mostly with marriages, castles, leagues, etc., and didactic regulations were but meagerly touched upon. We cannot, therefore, point out any definite time and place and say, "Here is its fountain head." Only as it attains consciousness in the feudal age, its origin, in respect to time, may be identified with feudalism. But feudalism itself is woven of many threads, and Bushido shares its intricate nature. ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... that was proving most puzzling and unpleasant for the American medical authorities. The disease that Frank had spoken of had indeed made its appearance in various parts of the country, and while the doctors had many theories concerning it, they were all only theories as yet, and nothing really definite was known regarding it. The symptoms were much like those of virulent typhus. Men sickened and died within forty- eight hours, and once stricken, the unfortunate victim did not recover in one case out of ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... definite idea, no plan fixed, nothing further to say on a subject that had so suddenly taken ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... up together from obscure beginnings to their present affluence, as the owners of the "T.T." ranch and the "O——" ranch respectively. They had been partners in all but name. Now they contemplated a definite deed of that nature. It was a consummation which the older man had looked forward to ever since he first lent a hand to his new and youthful neighbor. It was a consummation which Jeffrey, with acute foresight and honest purpose, had set himself to achieve. ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... good wishes, sir, and I thank you for them. But it is too soon for congratulations—the lady does not even know my hopes yet. Indeed, I hardly knew them myself, as definite, ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... dry air and wind are the conditions to be avoided. Moist, not wet, soil and still, warm air are to be desired; whether the day is sunny or not is less important. There is a certain definite time, which does not usually extend beyond a few days, when any lot of plants is in the best condition for setting in the field. It is hardly possible to describe this condition more than to say it is when the plants are as large ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... latter, rather than her proper age, remarkably. She had an air of responsibility, sometimes expressed in a troubled frown, and again by the way she hurried sedately through drifting figures toward a definite purpose ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... dynasty; that she would rather do nothing than incur the suspicion of having acted from an undue regard for dynastic interests, and that she has the greatest horror of any step likely to bring about a civil war." Those high-souled expressions ought to have given definite pause to Regnier's importunity; but that busybody was indefatigable. A second letter to Madame Le Breton for the Empress simply elicited from the gentlemen of her suite the information that Her Majesty, having read his communications, had expressed the greatest horror of anything ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... with the mother until the sixth or seventh year. The toys were greater in variety than with any other people of antiquity. They were much the same in character as those of modern times, and their purpose was to amuse the children rather than to furnish a definite preparation for life, as in Persia and Sparta. Play, therefore, was recognized as an important factor in the child's life, and the toys in use stimulated and encouraged the joyous element in the child's nature. ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... What do you think an average colored Southern laborer expends per annum for his clothing, say the head of the family, the man—what does it cost him for clothing a year? —A. I cannot give you a definite answer. I will only say that we who are the producers of cotton are very glad to see them get in a prosperous condition in order that there may be more consumption, and when a man is prosperous he will buy two suits of clothes, where if he is not prosperous he ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... declared Hollyer doubtfully. "There was a feeling of suspicion and—before me—polite hatred that would have gone a good way towards it. All the same there was something more definite. Millicent told me this the day after I went there. There is no doubt that a few months ago Creake deliberately planned to poison her with some weed-killer. She told me the circumstances in a rather distressed moment, but afterwards she refused to speak of it again—even weakly denied it—and, ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... whose value he himself has a right to indicate by his own stamp. There is no pact with others to use language in any given way, except upon some very broad basis as to the main object of language. The first object is not to secure definite and comprehensive understanding, but to give expression, and to start thought which may lead to full understanding—as the parable hides the thought ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... become more rich or more powerful. We must also tax our ingenuity to find ways for the equitable division of the wealth and the just use of power. We are no longer satisfied with increase in the vast unwieldy bulk of our possessions, we eagerly seek to direct them to definite ends. Even here in America we are beginning to feel that "progress" is not an end in itself. Whether it is desirable or not, depends on the direction of it. Our glee over the census reports is chastened. We are not so certain that it is a clear gain to have a million people live where ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... of our previous definite information regarding the inhabitants of New Guinea applies only to a small portion of the north-west coast of that great island in the neighbourhood of Port Dorey, which is known to be peopled by several distinct varieties of mankind, of which one (with which, as occupying the coast, we are ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... thoughts surged through poor Dick's brain, but he could reach no definite conclusion regarding his father's disappearance. Yet he was certain of ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... to us from the early days of the Roman Republic; and even in Rome the tribunate was unlike all other magistracies. The holder had no outward signs of office, no satellites to execute his commands, no definite department to administer like the consul or the praetor. It was his first function to protest on behalf of the poorer citizens against the violent exercise of authority, and, on certain occasions, to thwart the action of other ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... perspicuity should be studied, and unusual and uncouth names sparingly inserted; and that the style of the original should be copied in its elevation and depression. These are the rules that are celebrated as so definite and important; and for the delivery of which to mankind so much honour has been paid. Roscommon has, indeed, deserved his praises, had they been given with discernment, and bestowed not on the rules themselves, but the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... objection to memoriter speaking is that it limits and handicaps the speaker. He is like a schoolboy "saying his piece." He is in constant danger of running off the prescribed track and of having to begin again at some definite point. ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... I have bidden you here to-night. Be assured that it was not to ask you to listen to gloomy sermons on the, to others, not very interesting fact of my approaching end, but rather for a joyful and a definite reason. One wish I have long had, it is—that before I go, I may see my son's child, the little Caresfoot that is to fill my place in future years, prattling about my knees. But this I shall never see. What I have to announce to you, however, is the first step towards it, my son's engagement ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... doctrine that the bodily form is moulded on the spiritual being, the speculations concerning the relations between the "objective" and the "subjective," the outward and the inward, the correspondence between the world of sense and the world of thought, have one and all taken definite place in the history of mental philosophy. We have here fully to realise that Overbeck had breathed the atmosphere of mystic spiritualism in Lubeck; hence his entrance into "spiritual art," hence his "soul pictures." ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... of weeks!" exclaimed Mr. Jelliffe. "That sounds like three or four. I know you fellows. No one ever managed to get anything definite out of a doctor, with the possible exception ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... enough to see everybody to-day," I said with emphasis, and I imagine that Mrs. Yocomb gave as definite a meaning to my ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... the gas-lit Kensington High Street, Hilary taking her servant's arm; for she felt strangely weak. As she sat in the dark corner of the omnibus she tried to look things in the face, and form some definite plan; but the noisy rumble at once dulled and confused her faculties. She felt capable of no consecutive thought, but found herself stupidly watching the two lines of faces, wondering, absently, what sort of people they were; what were their lives ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... intentionally without a definite Subject, q.d.: it was given to Him, Ewald Sec. 273a. The acting subject could not be at all more distinctly marked out, because there was a double subject. Men fixed for Him the ignominious grave with criminals; by the providence of God, He received the honourable grave with ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... peering could throw light on what the future would bring; sufficient for her to make sure that her particular little square in life's patchwork, as Isabella had called it, was not left with frayed edges. She had a definite task to perform, that of bringing happiness into the ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... purposes. You may frequent both Buddhist and Taoist temples just as you may belong to both the Geographical and Zoological Societies. Perhaps the position of spiritualism in England offers the nearest analogy to a Chinese religion. There are, I believe, some few persons for whom spiritualism is a definite, sufficient and exclusive creed. These may be compared to the Buddhist clergy with a small minority of the laity. But the majority of those who are interested or even believe in spiritualism, do not identify ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... for the hunting and killing of some large and fierce bears which had been seen in the neighborhood, and which had destroyed some of their cattle. They were permitted to keep the arrows, with a reprimand, and a strict watch on their movements was held for many days. Nothing definite could be discovered, however, and the fathers were forced to wait, with anxiety and added watchfulness, for ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... did not quite explain everything. Even her lover's first embrace had brought her no thrill, and now the close pressure of his arm left her quite unmoved. This was almost disconcertingly curious; but while she would admit no definite reason for it, there was creeping upon her a vague consciousness that the man was not the one she had so often thought of in England. He seemed different—almost, in fact, a stranger—though she could not exactly tell where the change in him began. His laughter jarred upon her. Some of the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... 1st of June, this river holding a definite course to the westward, and he being clear of the points of the hills, which hitherto had hindered him greatly, he determined to return, as he was ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... "blanc-bec" as a husband, since she must be at least ten years older than I (was she then thirty-two? I should not have thought it). I heard her disclaim any intentions on the subject—the director, however, still pressed her to give a definite answer. ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... commenced its spring term at Fort Bridger the same day. In his charge to the grand jury, Judge Eckels was explicit on the subject of polygamy, instructing them substantially as follows: That among the Territorial statutes there was no act legalizing polygamy, nor any act affixing a definite punishment to that practice as such; that, consequently, whether the old Spanish law or the Common Law constituted the basis of jurisprudence in the Territory, the definition of marriage recognized by both was to be received there, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... criticism cannot be made on this book since, as a matter of fact, all of the one hundred men and women, appearing in it, are among the best educated Negroes in the world. (2) This is the only book from which one can get anything like a definite and correct idea of the progress made by the Negro since his Emancipation along all lines. (3) There is no book but this one in which there can be found expressed the thoughts of any considerable number ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... a definite plan for a large border of fragrant flowers and leaves. I have been on a journey, and, having spent three whole days from home, I am able for once to tell you something instead of endlessly ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... him that he should moderate his stride to suit hers. He was tall and long-limbed, but not camel-like in his manner of walking, as so many tall men are apt to be. His eyes were bright with the excitement that predicted a no uncertain encounter, although he had no definite purpose in mind. There was something singularly wistful, unfathomable, in her velvety blue eyes that gave him ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... waved her aside, merely saying, as he went down the steps, "It isna an Edinburgh body," but giving no hint as to whether it was man, woman, or child. The people who had gathered about him thinking to hear something definite looked resentfully at his back as he walked away, and Mrs. Crumpet openly expressed her opinion that he knew nothing more about it himself. "If he did, he couldn't help letting it dribble out by degrees, like a leaky kirn, being ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... policy as to organization of State governments without delay. Affairs must necessarily be in a very unsettled state until that is done. The people are now in a mood to accept almost anything which promises a definite settlement. What is to be done with the freedmen is the question of all, and it is the all-important question. It requires prompt and wise action to prevent the negro from becoming a ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... Lella Mabrouka had heard some time ago the grunting of the camels. (She was a light sleeper always: and afterward she told Ben Raana and Tahar that Allah had doubtless sent some messenger to touch her shoulder at this hour of fate.) She had had no definite suspicions until that moment, except that she was always vaguely suspicious of the girls' confidences; but suddenly an idea leaped into her mind, the suggestion of just such a trick as she herself ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... the belief in the contagion of the true leprosy was very general, both among physicians and the common people; but it is also true that as medical science advanced, and the diagnosis of disease became more definite and reliable, this opinion lost ground, and was ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope
... perfectly definite in his intention; he meant to hold the snake if he could. Some of his training had been in the use of his eyes to control animals ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... imagination, the really individual part of the mind, is starved and atrophied. Especially in childhood there ought to be a space left between useful work and ordered play for the individually invented games, the pursuits that are not for any definite end, for dreams and lived-out tales, when the child may make what he likes, do what he likes, and in imagination be what he likes. If we scrupulously respected this growing-time we should soon have a race of sturdier mettle altogether. Just now this particular ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... miracles or marvels to prove the genuineness of the Adepts' powers. But they ask why the Adepts will not give some proof—not necessarily that they are far beyond us, but that their knowledge does at least equal our own in the familiar and definite tracks which Western science has worn for itself. A few pregnant remarks on Chemistry,—the announcement of a new electrical law, capable of experimental verification—some such communication as this (our interlocutors ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... time her charm was further affecting Michael—he was not conscious of any definite intention—only to talk to her—to detain her as long as possible. She was like a breath of exquisite spring air after ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... but he pretended to be guided by a body that called itself the National Republican Committee, which he assured his friends, the Monarchists, he used only as a screen. When Madame d'Uzes threw her last million into the gulf, it seemed expedient to the Royalists to exact more definite pledges from Boulanger than his word as a soldier. "If the present Government of France is overthrown," they said, "and an appeal made to the people, who will fill the interregnum? Will General Boulanger, if all power is intrusted to him, consent to give it up, if the nation votes for monarchy? ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... have been the cause of such a violent sickness. It looked more as if it had been brought about by something he had eaten or drunk. By this time the conviction he had tried to resist, that Rochester was meanly sacrificing him, became definite. Overbury is hardly to be blamed if he came to a resolution to be revenged on his one-time friend by bringing him to utter ruin. King James had been so busy in the Essex nullity suit, had gone to such lengths to carry it through, that if it could ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... swooped down upon San Francisco. He arrived in the train of Helena's triumphant return, under her especial patronage. Not that a few choice spirits in California had not discovered James for themselves long since; but James as a definite entity, known and approved by Society, awaited the second advent of Helena. He immediately became the fad; rather, Society split into two factions and was threatened with disruption. One young woman of the ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... as in most other things, it is best to take a definite line and stick to it. This man had obviously vacillated. His neck was swathed in a green scarf; he wore an evening-dress coat; and his lower limbs were draped in a pair of tweed trousers built for a larger man. To the north he was bounded by ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... you were not married in San Francisco?" interrupted Lady Linton, looking up eagerly, and hoping now to get something definite regarding that ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... gives to his Madonnas their unique expression and charm. He has worked out in them a distinct and peculiar type, definite enough in his own mind, for he has painted it over and over again, sometimes one might think almost mechanically, as a pastime during that dark period when his thoughts were so heavy upon him. Hardly any collection of note is without one of these circular pictures, into which ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... civil government, there must exist a legislative, a judicial, and an executive department. But no expression of the national will in a system of laws can be sufficiently definite to supersede the necessity of a perpetual succession of Legislatures to supply defects, and to meet emergencies as they arise. However well-informed men may be, and however pure the motives by which they are ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... one of the charms of life in this country. One gathers, indeed, that the art of running a Circumlocution Office is carried to a high pitch in the political sphere. But there it is exercised with a definite object; it is a means to an end, cunningly devised and skillfully applied; it is not a mere matter of instinct, inertia, and routine. The Tite Barnacles of Dickens's satire were perfectly honest ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... scholarships in four universities to enable young men to study the raw materials which he is using in his plant. I asked him if he was supporting any scholarships to study the human element in his plant, and he said "No." Yet when asked for definite figures, it appeared that eighty per cent. of every dollar which he spends, goes for labour, and only twenty per cent. goes for materials. He is endowing four scholarships to study the twenty per cent. and ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... the hunter had already given the example— each, no doubt, acting under the impulse of the rider. Mine was a feeling of simple astonishment. Such an apparition in that place, and at that hour, was sufficient cause for surprise; but a more definite reason was, my observing that a different emotion had been roused in the breast of the young hunter. His looks betrayed fear, rather than surprise! "Fear of what?" I asked myself, as the figure advanced; and ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Katherine, taken unawares and nearly falling off his small saddle area. But Sandhelo considered that his first orders had been pretty definite and he continued to back along the narrow ledge. "Stop!" screamed Katherine, while the audience roared with laughter, "'We turn ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... will, if not corrected, be likely to impair its efficiency by detaching seamen from their proper vocation and inducing them to enter the Army. I therefore respectfully suggest that Congress might aid both the army and naval services by a definite provision on this subject which would at the same time be equitable to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of blondes, in strong contrast with its near neighbor, France, where the brunettes reign supreme. It is singular that there should be such a marked difference in communities, differences as definite as geographical boundaries, and seemingly governed by rules quite as arbitrary. Why should a people's hair, eyes, and complexion be dark or light, simply because an imaginary line divides them territorially? No one for a moment mistakes a German for a Frenchman, an Antwerp lady for a Parisian. ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... family. This disappointment he might at any rate bear; it would be well for him if this were all. He put the paper down with an affected air of easy composure, and walked home through the glaring gas-lights, still trying to think—still trying, but in vain, to come to some definite resolve. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the city. For a moment he studied the probabilities of the short one's power of endurance, then, deciding it sufficient to last until the police arrived, he gripped the knife behind his back and darted toward an opposite corner where was an alley offering safety. There were very definite reasons why Johnny did not wish to figure even as a witness in any case in Vladivostok ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell |
