"Irregular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not tax our imagination unduly to conceive how it may be a frequent cause of diarrhea, which is only Nature's effort to get rid of its useless and excessive burden of retained feces and gases. Constipation, semi-constipation, and irregular action of the bowels, excessive fermentation, putrefaction, self-generated or auto-infection, are the factors to be considered. It is to be noted that in many cases diarrhea is simply an increased peristalsis ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... as we, that the Sundays usually found up forgotten bits of tidewater, were a trifle irregular in the matter of church-going. Our houseboat would have had to have a church-boat for a consort to make it otherwise. Yet, as Sunday after Sunday Gadabout lay in her quiet creek harbours, the spirit of ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... Wisconsin Employment Peace Act which proscribed as an unfair labor practice efforts of a union, after collective bargaining negotiations had become deadlocked, to coerce an employer through a "slow-down" in production achieved by the irregular, but frequent, calling of union meetings during working hours without advance notice to the employer or notice as to whether or when the employees would return, and without informing him of the specific terms sought by such tactics. "No one," declared the Court, can question ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... started for the door, carrying the glass and ax-helve with him. Suddenly the door opened, and a female figure ran so violently against the ax-helve, that the said figure was instantly tumbled to the floor, and seemed an irregular mass of faded pink calico, and subdued ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... seemed, upon careful consideration of the situation, that if the ravages of the blacks were to be stopped there was only one course to be pursued, and that was to dispatch against them a force of irregular cavalry composed of farmers, hunters, transport riders, and others, men who had lived long enough in the country to become inured to the climate and accustomed to the methods of travel in it, who could move as independently of impedimenta as the savages ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... or to battle by the sworn testimony of the chosen representatives, the good men and true, of the neighbourhood. But the custom was not yet governed by any positive and inviolable rules, and the action of the King's Court in this respect was imperfectly developed, uncertain, and irregular. ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... grasses. Now and then it dipped down to strips of shingle beach, or skirted little coves with boundaries of bushes and brambles edging the sand. Miles are not easy to reckon when people are following the ins and outs of an irregular coast. Half a dozen times Eyebright clambered to the water's edge and peeped round the shoulder of a great rock, thinking that she must have got to the cave at last. Yet nothing met her eyes but more rocks, and surf, and fissures brown ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... to great ferocity, but scowl he ever so much, a laugh kept idling in his irregular bushy beard, which lifted about his face in the wind like a mane, or made a kind of underbrush through which his blunt fingers ran ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... their known history the country occupied by the Chinese was the comparatively small region above mentioned. It was then a tract of an irregular oblong shape, lying between latitude 34 deg. and 40 deg. N. and longitude 107 deg. and 114 deg. E. This territory round the elbow of the Yellow River had an area of about 50,000 square miles, and was gradually extended to the sea-coast on the north-east as far as longitude 119 deg., when its ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... northward, commanded a broader view of the river, at a spot where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of history. It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between two nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther side of the river, and the glittering line of the British on the hither bank. He awaited, in an agony of suspense, the rattle of the musketry. It came; and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle-smoke around ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... debate. They argued that there was no precedent in History for the judicial trial of a King, and that, if the Army were determined that Charles should be punished capitally, the business should be left to the Army itself as an exceptional and irregular power. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... her unhappy plumpness it would be hard to reckon. She made no account of her satin skin, or her glossy black hair, or her lustrous violet eyes with their long, black lashes, or her flashing white teeth; she glanced dismally at her shape and scornfully at her features, good, honest, irregular American features, that might not satisfy a Greek critic, but suited each other and pleased her countrymen. And then she would sigh heavily over her figure. Her friend had not the heart to impute the marquis's beautiful, ...
— Different Girls • Various
... morning, while she was searching for signs of other seeds, Margery discovered the beets. In irregular patches on the row, hints of green were coming. The next day and the next they grew, until the beet leaves were ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... the close of this busy week, when tired out, that he got the fever which eventually carried him home. The fever was very irregular in type, but after some days I felt it was an exceptional type of typhus fever. Great weakness of the heart was a characteristic feature all through his case, and but for this sad complication I believe he would have been alive to-day. Weak action of the heart was an old enemy ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... creature. She didn't care to be a queen of society now half so much as she did to be a lovable woman. She was so glad he didn't hate her for the dreadful things she said, but took them so beautifully and was kinder than ever. His letters were such a comfort, for the home letters were very irregular and not half so satisfactory as his when they did come. It was not only a pleasure, but a duty to answer them, for the poor fellow was forlorn, and needed petting, since Jo persisted in being stonyhearted. She ought to have made ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... from his duties as professor, was devoted to the completion of the various zoological works on which he was engaged, and to the revision of materials he had brought back from the glacier. His habits with reference to physical exercise were very irregular. He passed at once from the life of the mountaineer to that of the closet student. After weeks spent on the snow and ice of the glacier, constantly on foot and in the open air, he would shut himself up for a still longer time in his laboratory, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... at the temple of Eko-In, near Ryogoku-bashi; one at the temple of Denbo-In, in Koishikawa; one at the temple of Denbo-In, in Asakusa; and a beautiful example at Zojoji in Shiba. These are not cut out of a single block, but are composed of fragments cemented into the irregular traditional shape, and capped with a heavy slab of Nebukawa granite, on the polished surface of which the design is engraved in lines about one-tenth of an inch in depth. I should judge the average height of these pedestals to be about two feet four inches, and their greatest ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... eagerly, and, as a result, when the carriages started away from the station, the villagers on the platform, led by the three "old boys," gave an irregular but hearty cheer for Frank Merriwell and his friends. Frank turned a laughing face toward ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... is," she complained, "that each teacher expects you to give all your time to her particular subject. Miss Harper looks reproachful if I can't say my history, and Miss Rowe scolds if I miss in my grammar. Then Mademoiselle gives me yards of French poetry and two or three irregular verbs to learn, and Miss Lincoln asks me why my essay is so short. I could spend the whole of prep. over just one lesson, and then not know it properly in the end. Unless I take my books to bed, I can't possibly get through everything ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... have created Celebes in a capricious moment, such a medley of bold promontories, jutting peninsulas, deep gulfs and curving bays does its outline present. Indeed, its coast line is so irregular and so deeply indented by the three great gulfs or bays of Tomini, Tolo, and Boni that it is small wonder that the first European explorers assumed it was a group of islands and gave it the name of plural form which still perpetuates the very natural mistake. Its length ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... the subject that has the smallest pretensions to system, and that is fanciful, involved, irregular, abrupt, and obscure, is PURCHAS HIS PILGRIMS. Even admitting the plan of that work to be in itself excellent; although it may be a General History, so far as it extends, it certainly is in no respect a Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels. In a very large proportion of that curious ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... ascription to him of the already quoted modernization of Sacchetti not inappropriate. He left several other pieces of a similar nature, some of which at least are known to be adaptations of popular songs[46]. Such, for instance, is the irregular canzone beginning: ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... more as an ornament than a thing of practical use; it appears more a work of art than a work of heart. Abe didn't profess to understand the rules of sermonizing, nor did he make any particular effort in that direction; as may be supposed, therefore, he was often disconnected and irregular, but he knew nothing about it, and nobody else cared; people liked him as he was. His sentences were not like beautiful stones turned and polished by the hand of a lapidary, but they were rough lumps, in ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... the worst kind of jog-trot. His epitaphs and elegies are his best work, and the best of them is that on his mother. Very much the same may be said of the strictly miscellaneous part of the Miscellany. The greater part of the Uncertain Authors are less ambitious, but also less irregular than Wyatt, while they fall far short of Surrey in every respect. Sometimes, as in the famous "I loath that I did love," both syntax and prosody hardly show the reform at all; they recall the ruder snatches of an earlier time. But, on the whole, the ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... of this evergreen grove, was a building of hard, dark red bricks, and so irregular in construction as to defy all description; it had so many gable ends, tall chimneys, little dormer windows and latticed windows, as to confuse the spectator; and so many great doors, each with its own portico, as to make a strange visitor utterly uncertain concerning the whereabouts ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... assaulted. In either case the superiority of European discipline was made manifest; but in either case also the assailants were able to retreat without much loss. Meantime the hardships of the march continued; the irregular attacks of the enemy were becoming more and more numerous; so that the troops, continually halting and forming into squares to receive the charge of the cavalry by day, and forced to keep up great watches at night, experienced the extremes of fatigue as well as of privation. ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... best of times the life of a sailor was hard, and Desmond found it at first almost intolerable. Irregular sleep on an uncomfortable hammock, wedged in with the other members of the crew, bad food, and over exertion told upon his frame. From the moment when all hands were piped to lash hammocks to the moment when the signal was given for turning in, it was one long ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... effect. The chorus has many passages of lyrical charm ... but it is the great story which moves us most deeply, the stress of dramatic and logical sequence, so that we have no time to notice the art of it all. This is a high tribute to Mr. Hewlett's technical skill. At its best the irregular verse has a sharp freshness which the more orthodox metres ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... a chair in silence. An irregular movement in the lower part of her veil seemed to indicate that she was breathing with difficulty. The doctor observed her with close attention. "Let me see my prescription again," he said. Having added ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... south, many, if not all, of the monasteries seem to have been planned on the regular models; but in the north, where the Irish missionaries had borne the largest share in the work of conversion, the monasteries were irregular bodies on the Irish plan, where an abbot or abbess ruled over a mixed community of monks and nuns. Hild, a member of the Northumbrian princely family, founded such an abbey at Streoneshalch (Whitby), made memorable by numbering amongst its members the first known English ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... a tributary of the Indus, had at this time but little water. The bed of the river was for the most part dry, and only consisted of rapid, irregular rivulets, which here and there exposed between them larger and smaller, but for the most part, muddy islands. The bed of this river formed the chief obstacle to the Russian attack, for they had to pass it before reaching the English front ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... and the rivers of Southwestern Belgium on the other. On the southern face of this watershed, the general trend of which is from east-southeast to west-northwest, the ground falls in a series of long irregular spurs and deep depressions to the valley of the Somme. Well down the forward slopes of this face the enemy's first system of defense, starting from the Somme near Curlu, ran at first northward for 3,000 yards, then westward for 7,000 yards ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... rigidity of rule used to apply to the song-poet also, although the minstrel has always been permitted more latitude than other poets. To-day, however, the poet of the popular song may write in any measure his fancy dictates, and he may make his metre as regular or as irregular as he wishes. He may do anything he wants, in a song. Certainly, his language need not be either exact or "literary." Practically all that is demanded is that his lyrics convey emotion. The song-poet's license permits a world of metrical and literary sinning. I am not either apologizing for or ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... in early stages. Disease develops slowly. There is a loss of flesh, a short dry cough, irregular appetite, rapid breathing, weakness, bloating, diarrhoea, the milk is lessened and is watery and blue in color. The coat is rough and back arched. Whenever an animal is suspected of having tuberculosis, have a competent person give the ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... very heavy pressure was heard on the port beam and bow (south) and very close to the ship. This occurred again at irregular intervals. Quite close to the ship the ice could be seen bending upwards, and occasional jars were felt on board. I am inclined to think that we have set into a cul-de-sac and that we will now experience the full force of pressure from the south. ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... "Land ho!" was raised. Half an hour later the irregular heights of the Cape Verde Islands began to be visible from the deck. But the schooner bore away to the southeast and no close view ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... westward approaches within six miles of Lake Garda. There, too, the mountains, which hem in the gorge of the river on its right bank, bend away towards the lake and leave a vast natural amphitheatre, near the centre of which rises the irregular plateau that commands the exit from Tyrol. Over this plateau towers on the north Monte Baldo, which, near the river gorge, sends out southward a sloping ridge, known as San Marco, connecting it with the plateau. At the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... served as guides to the nectary. These marks follow the veins in the petals, or lie between them. They may occur on only one, or on all excepting one or more of the upper or lower petals; or they may form a dark ring round the tubular part of the corolla, or be confined to the lips of an irregular flower. In the white varieties of many flowers, such as of Digitalis purpurea, Antirrhinum majus, several species of Dianthus, Phlox, Myosotis, Rhododendron, Pelargonium, Primula and Petunia, the marks generally persist, whilst the rest of the corolla has become of a pure white; ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... Their chief use is in seasoning and garnitures. In short, a professor has said, "Meats with truffles are the most distinguished dishes that opulence can offer to the epicure." The Truffle grows in clusters, some inches below the surface of the soil, and is of an irregular globular form. Those which grow wild in England are about the size of a hen's egg, and have no roots. As there is nothing to indicate the places where they are, dogs have been trained to discriminate their scent, by which they are discovered. Hogs are very fond of them, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... of somewhere about my own age, and as I faced him I saw that he was thin, and had black hair, a yellowish skin, and dark eyes. He was showing his rather irregular teeth in a sneering smile that made his hooked nose seem to hang over his mouth, while his high-pitched, harsh, girlish voice rang and buzzed in my ears ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... larger work, its psychological effect upon the mind is that of uncompromising and somewhat repellent austerity; it suggests the prison-like palace rather than the domestic atmosphere of a true home,—an atmosphere to be had in stone only by preserving the greater spontaneity of irregular shapes and rock faces characteristic of Germantown ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... the narrative; but I saw I was no longer listened to with attention. Wingrove was on his feet, and pacing the floor with nervous irregular strides. Every now and then, I saw him glance towards his rifle—that rested above the fireplace; while the angry flash of his eyes betokened that he was meditating some serious design. As soon as I had described the winding up of the duel, and ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... a leading newspaper said of him, "General Gordon is without doubt the finest captain of irregular forces living." About the same time Mr. Gladstone said of him, "General Gordon is no common man. It is no exaggeration to say he is a hero. It is no exaggeration to say he is a Christian hero." Mr. W. E. Forster also remarked of him, "I know ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... to have an unbroken inclination, so as to require only parallel drains, it becomes important to know how these parallel drains, (corresponding to the lateral drains of an irregular system,) should ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... of pirates, the city of Algiers is situated on the shores of a pretty deep bay, by which the northern coast of Africa, is here indented, and may be said to form an irregular triangular figure, the base line of which abuts on the sea, while the apex is formed by the Cassaubah, or citadel, which answered the double purpose of a fort to defend and awe the city, and a palace for the habitation ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... Government's policy towards Ireland, cannot but recognise in this experiment an example which might be profitably followed in dealing with what—with all due deference to Hibernian susceptibilities—we are reluctantly driven to call the irregular conduct of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... residency of Ternate, Dutch East Indies, in the Molucca Sea, in 0deg13'-0deg55' S. and 127deg22'-128deg E. With its subordinate islands, Mandioli, Tawali and others, it lies west of the southern peninsula of the island of Halmahera or Jilolo, and has an area of 914 sq. m. It is of irregular form, consisting of two distinct mountainous parts, united by a low isthmus, which a slight subsidence would submerge. The island is in part of volcanic formation, and the existence of hot springs points to volcanic activity. There are, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... red rays of the morning. Then, the whole line of summits, "the thousand peaked," rises to view; and finally, a lower range covered with forests, and hence called the Black Mountains, draws its dark and irregular outline ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... a projection of the rambling, irregular structure, which made the angle wherein the ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... camps must have formed a sort of irregular triangle. The English at Venette being only half a mile from ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... Mr. Dykeman! You're not lending yourself to accuse a man like Worth Gilbert of so grave a crime as murder, just because you found his ideas irregular—maybe ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... nervous, irregular sobbing, cut by moans and muttered words, broken by the convulsive movement of her shoulders. Pam was appalled, much as a man might have been, for she herself had never been hysterical, and this mixture of ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... 'Angel' and 'Eros.' The meats and wines of the two are, in very great part, almost identical in character; but, in one case, they are served on the deal table of the octo-syllabic quatrain, and, in the other, they are spread on the fine, irregular rock ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... young man thus strengthened his intellect by hard though irregular study, his meditative and impassioned nature, feeling in the highest degree the necessity of confirming its impressions, experienced more imperatively than a youth of fifteen generally does, the want of examining the traditional ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... he crossed the Barriere and started at a brisk walk down the long stretch of the Chemin de Pantin. The night was dark. The rolling clouds overhead hid the face of the moon and presaged the storm. On the right, the irregular heights of the Buttes Chaumont loomed out dense and dark against the heavy sky, whilst to the left, on ahead, a faintly glimmering, greyish streak of reflected light revealed the ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... all athwart there came A post from Wales loaden with heavy news; Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer, Leading the Herefordshire men to fight Against the irregular and wild Glyndower, Was by the rude hands of ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... of the arms, it was so paid by the special order of General Fremont himself out of moneys intended to be applied to other purposes. The money was actually paid to a gentleman known at Fremont's headquarters as his special friend, and was then paid in that irregular way because this friend desired that that special bill should receive immediate payment. After that, who can believe that Stevens was himself allowed to pocket the ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... was youthful in years and delicate in physique, so that her lessons were irregular. Besides herself, there were only two waiting girls, who remained in attendance during the hours of study, so that Y-ts'un was spared considerable trouble and had a suitable opportunity to attend to the improvement ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... he shewed a very acute penetration. My wife paid him the most assiduous and respectful attention, while he was our guest; so that I wonder how he discovered her wishing for his departure. The truth is, that his irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as turning the candles with their heads downwards, when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a lady. Besides, she had not that high admiration of him which was felt by most of those who knew him; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... decoration,—and puts his spirit frankly and immediately to his readers. The verse does not seem to have been shaped; it might have grown: it takes no apparent heed of externals, but flows on like a brook, irregular, rhythmical, and always fluid and real. A cry will always be raised against the producer in any field who discards the authority of the models and falls back upon simple Nature, or upon himself, as Millet did in painting, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... that he could not summon courage to enter a room full of company, even with some great stimulating compensation in view. On the present occasion, though only the family had assembled, his olive complexion crimsoned as he advanced towards the countess, and his expressive, though irregular and not strictly handsome features became almost distorted; he unconsciously thrust his fingers through his hair, throwing it into startling disorder, and twisted his dark moustache until it stood out with sufficient ferocity to ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... over it and back to their shooting (fine popping, though) it was too late. My gun never jammed once." Here he went into technicalities about his new machine-gun, but further on reverted to the Spad: "She loops wonderfully. Her spin is a bit lazy and irregular, but deliciously soft." The letter concludes with many suggestions ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... you some questions," said he, "that will sound rather indiscreet and irregular, but I beg you to answer them if you can, because the matter is of great importance to a number of people. ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Burial; in another, again, the noble Harvard Commemoration Ode.... He had plainly a most defective ear for rhythm and verbal harmony. Except when he confines himself to simple metres, we rarely find five consecutive lines which do not in some way jar on us. His blank verse and the irregular metres which he, unfortunately, so often employs, have little or no music, and are often quite intolerable. But after all the deductions which the most exacting criticism can make, it still remains that, as a serious poet Lowell stands high. As ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... continued into the neck and opens below in the vagina by an aperture which is round in virgins and is called the external os uteri. The walls of the womb consist of a thick layer of unstriped muscle. When childbirth takes place it causes tearing which makes the external os uteri irregular and fissured. During copulation the aperture of the penis or male organ is placed nearly opposite the os uteri, which facilitates the entrance of spermatozoa into the uterus. (For the illustration of ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... attempts to cheer and amuse; and Rose often found him much downcast after a visit of condolence from the Clan. She still kept her place as head-nurse and chief-reader, though the boys did their best in an irregular sort of way. They were rather taken aback sometimes at finding Rose's services preferred to their's, and privately confided to one another that "Old Mac was getting fond of being molly-coddled." But they could ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... of the last Lark is anything but flippant. It is something to have known youth and gayety, enthusiasm and a bravery which flies in the face of day, and now—something to have lost them. The Lark has lived and now dies well, and, to some at least, the time of its irregular appearance will no longer be ...
— The Purple Cow! • Gelett Burgess
... exerts, a special supervenient power of deciding action in one way or the other: a power not determined by any causal antecedent, but self-originating, and belonging to the class of agency that Aristotle recognizes under the denomination of automatic, spontaneous (or essentially irregular and unpredictable). Chrysippus replied by denying not only the reality of this supervenient force said to be inherent in the soul, but also the reality of all that Aristotle called automatic or spontaneous agency generally. Chrysippus said that every movement was determined by antecedent ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... Capitol, the divided condition of Italy would have offered the fairest opportunity of a second conquest. But in arms, the modern Romans were not above, and in arts, they were far below, the common level of the neighboring republics. Nor was their warlike spirit of any long continuance; after some irregular sallies, they subsided in the national apathy, in the neglect of military institutions, and in the disgraceful and dangerous use of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... adapt the law to facts as we find them, than to proceed on the principle that as there is no redress called for save where there is a wrong, if we do not allow the redress, there will, of course, be no wrong. There is no escape from the conclusion that divorce or irregular connections will prevail in every community; why not agree with Milton that honest liberty is the greatest foe ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... in those stormy times of feuds, conspiracies and wars, there was hardly any general rule. The nobles, displeased at some act of the king, would themselves, through some one or more of their number, summon a diet and organize resistance. The numbers attending such an irregular body were of course very various. There appear to have been diets of the empire composed of not more than half a dozen individuals, and others where as many hundreds were assembled. Sometimes the meetings were peaceful, and again tumultuous with ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... temptation simply and crudely to give in, bundle down the pulpit stairs and bolt, was contemptibly great. His eyesight played tricks on him. Below there, in the body of the church, the rows of faces ran together into irregular pink blots spread meaninglessly above the brown of the oaken pews, the brown, drab, and black, too, of their owners' Sunday best. Here and there a child's light frock or white hat intruded upon the prevailing neutral tints; as ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... fresher and smelled of the rank ironweed and sunflowers growing on the flatter shore. The river was brown and sluggish, like any other of the half-dozen streams that water the Nebraska corn lands. On one shore was an irregular line of bald clay bluffs where a few scrub-oaks with thick trunks and flat, twisted tops threw light shadows on the long grass. The western shore was low and level, with corn fields that stretched to the sky-line, and all along the water's edge were little sandy ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... justice, to shake off the yoke of Genoa, and can do likewise with that of the French. Amen." But in the spring it was the then famous but since forgotten Abbe Raynal of whom he became a devotee. At the first blush it seems as if Buonaparte's studies were irregular and haphazard. It is customary to attribute slender powers of observation and undefined purposes to childhood and youth. The opinion may be correct in the main, and would, for the matter of that, be true as regards the great ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... centre consisted of a column formed by two other regular battalions; and on the left one battalion, with the remainder of the colony troops, was posted; the bushes and corn-fields in their front were lined with fifteen hundred of their best marksmen, who kept up an irregular galling fire, which proved fatal to many brave officers, thus singled out for destruction. This fire, indeed, was in some measure checked by the advanced posts of the British line, who piqueered with the enemy for some hours before the battle began. Both ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... rather than red, and generally parted like those of a wild animal. The girl's smoothly sinewy throat moved with every step, showing the quick play of the elastic cords and muscles. Her blue-black hair was plaited, though far from neatly, and the braids were twisted into an irregular flat coil, generally hidden by the flap of the white embroidered cloth cross-folded upon her ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... it in order not to give us a specimen of his handwriting. There are telltale things about a man's handwriting which give him away even when he tries to disguise it. But he's tried to disguise even his printing. Look how irregular the letters are—some slanting to the right and some to the left, and some are upright. Look at the two ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... by elms on either side, forming an irregular avenue. Almost every elm in spring has its chaffinch loudly challenging. The birdcatchers are aware that it is a frequented resort, and on Sunday mornings four or five of them used to be seen in the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... "The Catfish" had given a very shrewd guess, to say the least. In the afternoon we had a fair breeze from the south-east. All sail was made, and we bowled along at a grand rate. Early the next morning we saw the first ice,—three or four low, irregular masses, showing white on the sea, and bearing down toward us from the north-west with the polar current. This current, coming along the coast of Labrador, is always laden with ice at this season. To avoid it, we now bore away to the north-east, keeping for several ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... surrender its last secret. We thank God for the geological curiosity of Professor Hitchcock, and the mechanical curiosity of Liebig, and the zooelogical curiosity of Cuvier, and the inventive curiosity of Edison; but we must admit that unhealthful and irregular inquisitiveness has rushed thousands and tens ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... painter of women from the woman's point of view that desires the world only to think of woman in her pose as woman, reticent, careful to screen the impulsive, most of all the vexatious, the violent, and the irregular moods of femininity's temperament from the eyes of the passer-by; always eager to show woman dressed for the part, and well dressed. She was incapable of stating the deeps of character; and had she had the power, she ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... in which he went over his arguments one by one, and sought to refute them. He announced the willingness of the parent State to accede to the separation when the proper time came; but he pointed out that North Carolina could not consent to such irregular and unauthorized separation, and that Congress would certainly not countenance it against her wishes. In answering an argument drawn from the condition of affairs in Vermont, Martin showed that the Green Mountain State should not be treated as an example in point, because ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... faces; parting from friends; the ringing of the bell; last adieus,—some, who were to go with us, hurrying aboard, others, who were to stay behind, as hastily going ashore; the withdrawal of the plank,—sad sight to many eyes! casting off the lines, the steamer swinging heavily around, the rushing, irregular motion of the great, slow paddles; the waving of handkerchiefs from the decks, and the responsive signals from the crowd lining the wharf; off at last,—the faces of friends, the crowd, the piers, and, lastly, the city itself, fading from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... point open between the Tagus and the sea. This was the barrier to which Wellington meant in the last resort to draw his assailants, whilst the country was swept of everything that might sustain an invading army, and the irregular troops of Portugal closed ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... 21, 1866, he first introduced his friend Arminius,[26] Baron Von Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, the cultivated and enquiring Prussian who had come to England to study our Politics, Education, Local Government, and social life. A series of similar letters followed at irregular intervals during the years 1866, 1867, 1869, and 1870. And Arminius' drastic method of questioning and arguing became the idoneous vehicle for Arnold's criticisms on such topics as our Foreign Policy, Compulsory Education, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... and cheaper food, in turn, promotes marriage, and increases the population, until again there is a shortage of food; and this oscillation, though irregular, will always be found, and there will always be a tendency for the population to ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... diffusion. In some years it is quiescent, though never absent; in others it becomes diffused, for reasons of which nothing is known, and its diffusive activity varies greatly from equally inscrutable causes. At irregular intervals this property becomes so heightened that the disease passes its natural boundaries and is carried east, north and west, it may be to Europe or beyond to the American continent. We must assume that the micro-organism, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... after leaving Fort Ellis, we found large quantities of the "service" berry, called by the Snake Indians "Tee-amp." Our ascent of the Belt range was somewhat irregular, leading us up several sharp acclivities, until we attained at the summit an elevation of nearly two thousand feet above the valley we had left. The scene from this point is excelled in grandeur only by extent and variety. An ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... of dismal loneliness. The searching eye caught no relief from desolate sameness, drear monotony. Nowhere was there movement, or, any semblance of life. Behind, the land was broken by ravines, but in every other direction it stretched level to the horizon, except that far off southward arose irregular ridges of sand, barren, ugly blotches, colorless, and forever changing formation under the beating of a ceaseless wind. It was desert, across which not even a snake crawled, and no wing of migrating bird beat the ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... room she tore the envelope open. The handwriting was queer and irregular. But a man may write badly and still be honest and true. And the words she read were wonderful. This individual, who merely signed A. B. C., was eager to have her come to him. She would be treated with the greatest respect. If the man and the place were not suited to her she would ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... murder it was, was in the highest degree cruel, mercenary, and devilish, that at the time of her arrest she was prominently connected with religious and benevolent institutions of the city, though it was well known she had previously led an irregular life, and the profound secrecy in which the dark deed had slumbered for a whole year, all seemed to concur in riveting public attention upon it; and yet, previous to the trial, the belief was prevalent in the community ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... the house there was an irregular stone wall and an ornamental iron gate with a pull-out Brugglesmith bell at one side. We pulled the bell and were answered by a big shaggy Saint Bernard that came barking and bouncing around the corner. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... conveyed. If Bothwell no longer lived, there would be no need to declare the marriage null and void, and thus sacrifice his daughter's position; but supposing him to be in existence, Mary had already shown herself resolved to cancel the very irregular bonds which had united them,—a most easy matter for a member of her Church, since they had been married by a Reformed minister, and Bothwell had a living wife at the time. Of all this Cicely was absolutely ignorant, and ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... perfectly unintelligible to Henri, and was attributed by him to the frenzy of madness; but, in fact, there was truth in it. Denot's irregular spirit had been cowed by de Lescure's cold reasoning propriety, and he now felt it impossible to submit himself to the pardon of a man who, he thought, would forgive and abhor him. It was to no purpose Henri threatened, implored, and ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... it must be. Without loss of time a letter must be sent to Rome, backed by strong interest, so as to make it appear that the ceremony at Montpipeau, irregular, and between a Huguenot and Catholic, had been a defiance of the Papal decree, and must therefore be nullified. This would probably be attainable, though he did not feel absolutely secure of it. Pending this, Eustacie must be secluded in a convent; ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what was going on. As they did so there rang out the sharp, peremptory crack of a rifle-shot from the escort, followed by another and another, but these isolated shots were drowned in the long, spattering roll of an irregular volley from the plain, and the air was full of the phit-phit-phit of the bullets. The tourists all huddled behind the rocks, with the exception of the Frenchman, who still stamped angrily about, striking his sun-hat with his clenched hand. Belmont ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the landscape were brought into stronger and more horrifying relief; the scorched and trampled fields were seen to be strewn with unburied corpses of men and horses, and ploughed up with cannon shot and torn into great irregular gashes by shells that had buried themselves in the earth and ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... to the cast of this great fleet of vessels, lies the great 'shippe-swallower,' the Goodwin Sands. The sands are very irregular in shape, and are not unlike a great lobster, with his back to the cast, and with his claws, legs, and feelers extended westwards towards Deal and the shipping in the Downs. Far from the main body of the sands run all manner of spits ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... Cloud piled Tom and the others. They made a rush for the irregular mass of rock which bore so strong a resemblance to the head ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... musket or sword, of an appropriate size. All these were dogs, and their duty was to defend the walls from an attacking party, consisting also of dogs, whose movements now commenced the operations of the siege. In the foreground of the stage were some rude buildings and irregular surfaces, from among which there issued a reconnoitring party; the chief, habited as an officer of rank, with great circumspection surveyed the fortification; and his sedate movements, and his consultations with the troops that accompanied him, implied that an attack was determined upon. ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... he has settled and immovable convictions about your character, your habits, your physical condition, your position, and your mental attributes. He touches a nerve and you wince. "Ah," says he to himself, "this man takes too much alcohol and tobacco and tea and coffee." He sees the teeth are irregular. "Poor fellow," he says, "how badly he was brought up!" He observes that the teeth are neglected. "A careless fellow," he says. "Spends his money on follies and neglects his family I'll be bound." And by the time he has finished with ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner) |
