"Phenomenon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "was the ultimate expression of Chinese cunning; a phenomenon such as occurs but once in many generations. He was a superman of incredible genius, who, had he willed, could have revolutionized science. There is a superstition in some parts of China according to which, under certain peculiar conditions (one of which is proximity to a deserted burial-ground) ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... other world, with different government and different methods, and in the night one was roused from uneasy slumbers and sat blinking and surly, wrapped up in one's couverture and with one's oreiller all awry, to encounter a new social phenomenon, the German official, so different in manner from the British; and when one woke again after that one had come to Bale, and out one tumbled to get ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... the existence of matter; it does not satisfy the demands of the spirit. "It leaves God out of me."—Of these three questions, What is matter? Whence is it? Where to? The ideal theory answers the first only. The reply is that matter is a phenomenon, not a substance. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... concluding chapter of her Night-side of Nature, gives the testimony of an eye-witness to "the singular phenomenon to be observed by placing a scorpion and a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... the future. Chapter 1. General Plan of Brain, Synopsis of Cerebral Science Superficial Criticisms, a reply to Miss Phelps Spiritual Phenomenon, Abram James, Eglinton, Spirit writing Mind reading Amusement and Temperance MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE—Pigmies in Africa; A Human Phenomenon surviving Superstition; Spiritual test of Death; A Jewish Theological Seminary; National ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... excellent friend Saint-Herem. Was it not he who gave our French Raphael the subject of one of his immortal pages? Truly, madame, in these days of vulgar luxuries and brutal magnificences, is it not a phenomenon to meet a Medicis, as in the ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... vowels: a (as in fAther), i (as in machIne), u (as in fOOl), e (as in fEllow), and o (as in mOle). Although certain vowels become nearly "silent" in some environments, this phenomenon can be safely ignored for ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... that I should begin a lecture on the relations between thought and language with some definition of both these things; but thought, as Sir William Grove said of motion, is a phenomenon "so obvious to simple apprehension, that to define it would make it more obscure." {17} Definitions are useful where things are new to us, but they are superfluous about those that are already familiar, and mischievous, so far as they ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... individual is carried into a supersensuous state, in which perception, reason, and even responsibility to a great extent are, if not suspended, so far made abnormal that analysis becomes impossible. The term for this latter condition amongst revivalists was "the power," and it was distinctly a phenomenon sought for as the evidence of divine grace. The uncle of whom I have spoken had once during his prior religious experience felt the "power," and described it as an emotion which for the time lifted him above the consideration of his surroundings, and left him subsequently indifferent ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... one night; nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a millenium, passed in that time; or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of any human experience." One of the miracles of Mohammed appears to be illustrative of the same phenomenon. We read, in the Koran, that the angel Gabriel took Mohammed, one morning, out of his bed to give him a sight of all things in the Seven Heavens and in Paradise; and, after holding ninety thousand spiritual conferences, he was brought back again to his bed; all which was transacted ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... by south yesterday evening—ha? Is there anything more remarkable, Mrs. Lecount, than the variableness of the wind in this climate?" proceeded the captain, shifting the camp-stool to the scientific side of him. "Is there any natural phenomenon more bewildering to the scientific inquirer? You will tell me that the electric fluid which abounds in the air is the principal cause of this variableness. You will remind me of the experiment of that illustrious philosopher who measured ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... claims to have ascertained after careful investigation that the moon has an influence on a magnetized needle, varying with its phases and its declination. The phenomenon is said to be more prominently noticeable when the moon is near the earth, and to be very marked when she is passing from the full to her first or second quarter. The disturbances are found to be in their maximum ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... must not ignore the significance. In the first place, while it maintained the belief in degeneration, endorsed by Hebrew mythology, it definitely abandoned the Greek theory of cycles. The history of the earth was recognised as a unique phenomenon in time; it would never occur again or anything resembling it. More important than all is the fact that Christian theology constructed a synthesis which for the first time attempted to give a definite meaning to the whole course of human events, a synthesis ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... parole, which are perfectly adequate in theory, are to justify their existence in the practical everyday handling of the problem of criminology, we must not fail to take into full account the very obvious natural phenomenon that human beings vary within very wide limits in their susceptibility to correction or reformation, that some individuals because of their psychological make-up, either qualitative or quantitative, are absolutely and permanently incorrigible and present a problem which can be ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... the Capitol to the White House, at the close of the inaugural ceremonies, a bright star was visible in the heavens. The crowds gazing upon the unwonted phenomenon noted it as an auspicious omen, like the baptism of sunshine which had seemed to consecrate the President anew to ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the principal persons of his own race, time, and class. He seems, as I have said, to have possessed the peculiar temperament, which some call sensitive and others mediumistic, and which leads to the phenomenon generally known as second-sight, for, putting aside all other records about him which point in the same direction, it is recorded of him, not only by Adamnan, but also by Cuimine the Fair, that on one occasion when he came ...
— Brendan's Fabulous Voyage • John Patrick Crichton Stuart Bute
... the year we recorded temperatures below -50 deg. Centigrade. On August 23d the lowest temperature was recorded, -59 deg.. The aurora australis, corresponding to the northern lights of the Arctic, was observed frequently and in all directions and forms. This phenomenon changed very rapidly, but, except in certain ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... party of tourists, gathered at the margin of Mirror Lake, were astounded at the unwonted phenomenon of a whisky flask descending upon them like a comet out of a clear sky; and all the way back to the hotel they marveled greatly at the wonders of ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... A strange phenomenon now took place. Sanselme drew a long breath and began to run after the carriage—he felt no more lassitude nor weakness. His entire vital strength was concentrated in his superhuman effort. And this man who ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... Ages, Franklin, if such a phenomenon as Franklin were possible in the Middle Ages, would probably have been the founder of ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... she answered she caught my astonished eye (for a stuffed Shepherd King is undoubtedly a somewhat surprising phenomenon) and ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... wide-spread phenomenon in nearly all religions. It is to be found in apostolic Christianity. In the early Church it was regarded as a matter in the option of the Christian who was aiming at the religious life [see above, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... language was not powerful enough to describe the infant phenomenon. 'I'll tell you what, sir,' he said; 'the talent of this child is not to be imagined. She must be seen, sir—seen—to be ever so faintly appreciated. There; go ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... a singular phenomenon, that, whilst the sans-culotte carcass-butchers and the philosophers of the shambles are pricking their dotted lines upon his hide, and, like the print of the poor ox that we see in the shop-windows at Charing Cross, alive as he is, and thinking no harm in the world, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Cleobury-Mortimer, and also in Knighton, that the peculiar bluish tint has appeared amongst the inhabitants. Our correspondent states that it is most marked in the conjunctivae, or whites of the eyes. There must undoubtedly be some connection between this phenomenon and the condition of the trout in the Elan reservoirs, as all the above-mentioned towns lie close to, and receive water from, the great aqueduct. The most remarkable thing, however, is that the bluish discolouration does not seem to be accompanied by any ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... are all its varied dispensations? Religion points us up beyond the cloud of materialism, and behind the mechanism of nature, to an Infinite Spirit, to a God, to a Father. All things are moved by infinite Love. Life is not merely a phenomenon, it is a Lesson. Its events do not come and go, in a causeless, arbitrary manner; they are meant for our discipline and our good. In whatever aspect they come, then, let their appropriate lesson be heeded. This is the religious ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... While such conduct is not, perhaps, strictly laudable, we can disregard it if it be accompanied by a certain measure of decorum. Still, a combination of ruler-ship and dalliance with a vagrant charmer is a phenomenon that is as much out of place as is an attempt to govern a country ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... grip upon the waters of the Tien-ho, and turned the flowing stream into a crystal highway, along which men might travel with ease and safety. Such a sight had never been seen before by any of the people who lived upon its banks, and many were the speculations as to what such a phenomenon might mean to the welfare of the people of the region. It never occurred to any one that this great snow-storm which had turned into ice a river that had never been known to freeze before, was all the work of demons determined on the destruction ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... the fires and the shouts, rode with the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line. One was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov with their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the lights and shouts in the enemy's camp. Rostov rode up to Bagration, reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the generals ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... with him? It can't be liquor. Yet if he's not drunk, what's got into him?" the soldier asked aloud, expecting no answer that explained this phenomenon. ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... disappeared from sight. Far away out on the great plain, I saw a monstrous shadow blotting it out, and advancing swiftly. Only a third of the star was visible now. Then, like a flash, the solution of this extraordinary phenomenon revealed itself to me. The star was sinking behind the enormous mass of the dead sun. Or rather, the sun—obedient to its attraction—was rising toward it,[12] with the earth following in its trail. As these thoughts expanded in my mind, the star vanished; being completely hidden by the tremendous ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... helmet, exhibited a bald head, encircled by a border of black, curling hair, pretty long at the back of the head. By a remarkable Bacchic phenomenon, in proportion as intoxication gained upon him, a sort of zone, as purple as his jovial face, crept by degrees over his brow, till it obscured even the shining whiteness of his crown. Rose-Pompon, who knew the meaning of this symptom, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the first settlement of Zion, and while the gale from the northwest, with which the storm began, was rocking their adobe walls, uprooting trees and darkening the streets with billows of dust and sand, some of them seemed inclined to guess that the terrible phenomenon was one of the signs of the times of which their preachers are so constantly reminding them, the beginning of the outpouring of the treasured wrath of the Lord upon the Gentiles for the killing of Joseph Smith. To me it seemed a cordial outpouring of Nature's ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... Asia from May to December (most frequent from July to October); tropical cyclones (hurricanes) may form south of Mexico and strike Central America and Mexico from June to October (most common in August and September); southern shipping lanes subject to icebergs from Antarctica; occasional El Nino phenomenon occurs off the coast of Peru when the trade winds slacken and the warm Equatorial Countercurrent moves south, killing the plankton that is the primary food source for anchovies; consequently, the anchovies move to better feeding grounds, causing resident marine birds ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... firstly, shortening of the limb was often absent as a sign, and, secondly, pain was sometimes not at all pronounced even when the patient was moved. The primary absence of shortening, even persisting for the first two or three days, was a phenomenon always important to bear in mind, as it affected the degree of extension needed in the treatment of the fracture, which, if sufficient at the moment, often proved quite inadequate with the return of tone in the muscles. ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... most mysterious and painful phenomenon to the unhappy person who is the object of it, and more especially if he have incurred it by no one assignable reason. To Eric it was peculiarly painful; he was utterly unprepared for it. In his bright joyous life at Fairholm, in the little he saw of the boys at the Latin ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... stood in the water, forgetting to get out. But the princess disappearing, he scrambled on shore, and went in the direction of the tree. He found her climbing down one of the branches, towards the stem. But in the darkness of the wood, the prince continued in some bewilderment as to what the phenomenon could be; until, reaching the ground, and seeing him standing there, she caught hold of ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... just considered are not very serious, because they practically mean that death has no moral character at all; they reduce it to a natural phenomenon, and do not bring it into any relation to the conscience. It is a more respectable, and perhaps a more formidable objection, when death is brought into the moral world, and when the plea is put forward that so far from being God's judgment ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr. Lindsey's stamp. They know everything—O, to be sure!—everything that has been, and everything that is, and everything that, by any future possibility, can be. And should some phenomenon of nature or providence transcend their system, they will not recognise it, even if it come to pass ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... door of his suite, a little cloud of hotel boys scattered like sparrows. This phenomenon did not as yet mean anything to Geoffrey. The native servants were not very real to him. But he was soon to realize that the boy san—Mister Boy, as his dignity now insists on being called—is more than an amusing contribution to the local atmosphere. When his smiles, his bows, and ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... radiant heat at ordinary temperatures, it has been assumed that they radiate very little at any temperature. This may or may not be true, but certainly a visible flame must radiate as well as absorb heat. However this radiation may occur, since it would be a volume phenomenon rather than a surface phenomenon it would be considered somewhat differently from ordinary radiation. It might apply as increasing the conductivity of the gas which, however independent of radiation, is known to increase with the temperature. It is, therefore, to be expected that ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... July last, created in the minds of many a desire to have a full account of the movement, conduct, and origin of the storm cloud, together with such scientific explanation as would throw some light upon this remarkable phenomenon. After some weeks had elapsed, I gave the subject considerable attention, and have prepared this pamphlet, which I trust will meet some of the wants of intelligent inquirers upon this subject, and will also ...
— A Full Description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pa. • Richard Darlington
... appearances have been seen and heard in this country. If we may believe a tract published in 1643, spectral fights had taken place at Keniton, in Northamptonshire, during four successive Saturday and Sunday nights of the preceding Christmastide. By those who are reported to have witnessed the phenomenon—and among them were several gentlemen of credit mentioned by name as despatched by the king himself from Oxford—it was taken to be a ghostly repetition of the battle of Edgehill, which had been fought only two months before on the adjacent fields. The excitement of men's minds during periods of ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... any one "going over to Rome" is too common an occurrence nowadays to attract notice. But in the eighteenth century it was a rare and startling phenomenon. Gibbon's father, who was "neither a bigot nor a philosopher," was shocked and astonished by his "son's strange departure from the religion of his country." He divulged the secret of young Gibbon's conversion, and "the gates of Magdalen College were for ever shut" against the latter's return. ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... save God and God's will. (33) But as all things which come to pass through natural causes, come to pass also solely through the will and power of God, it comes to this, that a miracle, whether it has natural causes or not, is a result which cannot be explained by its cause, that is a phenomenon which surpasses human understanding; but from such a phenomenon, and certainly from a result surpassing our understanding, we can gain no knowledge. (34) For whatsoever we understand clearly and distinctly should be plain to us either in itself or by means of something else clearly ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... pell-mell over each other. They were being rapidly dragged down a steep declivity. Day dawned and revealed a terrible scene. The form of the mountains changed in an instant. Cones were cut off. Tottering peaks disappeared as if some trap had opened at their base. Owing to a peculiar phenomenon of the Cordilleras, an enormous mass, many miles in extent, had been displaced entirely, and was speeding down ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... already had its proper ending and there was no intention of adding to it, but now for a special reason, which I trust the reader will pardon when he hears it, I must go on to say something about that strange phenomenon of death succeeding death in old married couples, one dying for no other reason than that the other has died. For it is our instinct to hold fast to life, and the older a man gets if he be sane the more he becomes like a newborn child in the impulse to grip tightly. A strange and a rare thing ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... white like a steam-cloud toward the top, which was finally lost to view as it blended with the great white flakes of falling snow. Whether it covered a treacherous iceberg, or some other hidden obstacle against which our little sloop would dash and send us to a watery grave, or was merely the phenomenon of an Arctic fog, there was no way ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... be a few who do not, and as the consequences of this great physical fact are materially connected with the succeeding events of the narrative, we propose to give such a homely explanation of the phenomenon as we humbly trust will render it clear to the most clouded mind. The orbit of the earth is the path which it follows in space in its annual revolution around the sun. To a planet there is no up or down, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... situation—safer and cleaner in her motives! . . . With something of appeal for the steadying power of his friendship in her need, whose eventualities would be as vital to Jean as to herself, Ellen turned with a new warmth in her manner to greet the young man. Discussing the phenomenon of the bird migration, she went with him down the trail to ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... as the start of surprise with which a London journal upon rare occasion finds itself face to face with a something that also appears every morning at a price varying from a penny to threepence. Nothing will induce it to give the phenomenon a name, and it distantly alludes to it as "a contemporary." This is quite peculiar to Great Britain, and is in its way akin to the etiquette of the House of Commons, which makes it a breach of order ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the time, became impassable. The cause of this deepening of the stream was at first a great mystery, since the surface of the water, as was evident by marks along the shore, remained all the time at the same level. It was at length ascertained that the cause of this extraordinary phenomenon was, that the sands in the bottom of the river were trampled up by the feet of the men and horses in crossing, so that the current of the water could wash them away; and such was the immense number of footsteps made by the successive bodies of troops, that, by ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... unconsciously distorted everything. Life itself was simple enough: a biological phenomenon that had its growth, its maturity, its decay. Death was no mystery, pain no punishment, nor sin anything but the survival of lower attributes from a prior phase of evolution, or not infrequently the legitimate protest of the natural self against artificial ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... or bottle here. They had taken things out of the room. And they had taken Effie out of the room—picked up Effie and carried her out like a—an orgasm of terrible emotion surged enormously within him; a bursting thing was in his throat—No, it was gone. What phenomenon had suddenly possessed him? What was the matter? Effie had killed herself. No, he could not get hold of it. He turned away and began to wander from room to room. In some he lit lights because you naturally lit lights when ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... religion, though deeply dyed in native feeling, are still only definable and, indeed, conceivable by reference to classic and alien standards. Among the northern races culture is even more artificial and superinduced than among the southern; whence the strange phenomenon of snobbery in society, affectation in art, and a violent contrast between the educated and the uneducated, the rich and the poor, classes that live on different intellectual planes and often have different religions. Some educated persons, accordingly, are merely ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... which can be determined in general; the second implies its determination, both in a transcendental sense, abstraction being made of any difference in that which is given, and of the mode in which it is determined. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form."—Kant, "Critique," ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of the dramatic recitative introduced by Peri, Caccini and Cavaliere appears to be a striking phenomenon in the growth of music, and we are easily induced to believe that this new species burst upon the artistic firmament like a meteor. The truth is, however, that the vague desire for solo expression had made itself felt in music for centuries before the Florentine movement. The real significance ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... would not bear the test of examination, had yet received Mrs. Hastings—who had lived with the late governor-general before her marriage with him, and had been divorced from her former husband in consequence—at court most graciously. To account for this phenomenon, people fancied that the wife or the accused was a "congeries of diamonds and jewels:" and in truth Queen Charlotte did receive from her hands some few diamonds, and a splendid ivory bedstead, which seemed to justify their explanation of her ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... momentum depended on velocity of stroke, rather than on weight of metal; "beautifulest sheet-lightning," as I often said, "not to be condensed into thunder-bolts." Add to this,—what indeed is perhaps but the same phenomenon in another form,—his bodily frame was thin, excitable, already manifesting pulmonary symptoms; a body which the tear and wear of Parliament would infallibly in few months have wrecked and ended. By this path there was ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... world, but until the imagination can find a function for it in reason's ideal realm, every piece of knowledge remains useless, or even an obstacle in the way of our intended advance. This applies to individuals just as truly as it does to mankind. And since man's reason is a natural phenomenon and does apparently belong to the class of elemental forces, this warfare against the apparent fact, and the fortitude and hope which its whole-hearted prosecution begets, appear as a natural law to the intelligence and as a command ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... temperamentally a "libertine" patently putting on the mask of rigorism in order to be able at the same time to attack the exponents of austere theological morality from their rear while making a frontal attack on less exacting and more humanistic systems of morality. The phenomenon was not a common one, but it was not unique. Bourdaloue, the great seventeenth-century Jesuit preacher, not very long before had called attention to libertines in France who masqueraded in rigorist clothes in order to deepen the cleavages among the members of the Church: "D'ou il ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... No. 1. Phenomenon No. 2—also connected with the mechanics of quicker movement than Shanks's mare ever compassed—was one of those old high bicycles, a fifty-two inch, I should guess, dating from the late eighteen-seventies, which, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... disposed to return to his bed when the excitement had subsided. So splendid an illustration of the phenomenon of sleepwalking was enough to kindle his enthusiasm. He tried to draw uncle Obed into a discussion on the topic, but the latter was too sleepy. Mr. Grant made a home question of the matter, and did not care to indulge in any philosophical inquiries. One after another the family ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... it her misfortune? But to give the history of this being entire, it is necessary to begin seventeen years back, at the very beginning of her life, for in our human nature, as in the inanimate world, a phenomenon is better understood when we know ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... morning, a substantial breakfast about noon, and dinner at six in the evening. The dishes were constructed after French and Italian models, but the meat is mostly goat's flesh. Beef, when it appears, is a phenomenon of toughness. Vegetables are rather scarce. Cow's milk, and butter or cheese therefrom, are substances unknown in Greece. The milk is from goats or sheep, and the butter generally from the latter. It is a white, cheesy material, with a slight flavor of tallow. The wine, when ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... nearly overhead assumed the shape of a section of our fortifications, the segment of a circle, with the triangle penetrating through from the north. These shapes were distinctly defined. Could the operations beneath have produced this phenomenon? was it accidental? or a portent of the future? ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... sat chuckling all day long. He lived with the quaintest set he had ever conceived, and there was no page of 'Nickleby' which was fuller of comedy than a day of his own life. He met Crummies, and actually heard him wonder how those things got into the papers. He met the Infant Phenomenon. With his own hands he had helped to adjust the immortal real pump and tubs. He was still in the days when there was a farce in an evening's performance to play the people in, and a solid five-act melodrama for the public's solid fare, and a farce ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... our art any outstanding phenomenon like the interest in the radio that has swept the country this year, or any remarkable development in the science of photography like the invention a few years ago of the Lumiere plate. The day may ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1922 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... the gleam cube beneath it seemed to gleam brighter and brighter, as though it echoed the radiance of Sarka. Sarka knew, studying this phenomenon, that he possessed at least a hint of the secret of Luar's omnipotence. There had been a hint before, but by now its meaning was clearer. The white flames, out of the heart of the dying Moon, gave new life, exaltation, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... ethnic phenomenon that a descendant of the ancient Phoenicians can not understand the meaning and purport of the Cash Register in America? Is it not strange that this son of Superstition and Trade can not find solace in the fact that in this ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... other things, bore a close affinity to the rumbling of a surf upon the sea-shore. The surface of the lake was first broken after one of these symptoms, and it was this infallible sign of a gale which had assured Maso there was no time to lose. This movement of the element in a calm is a common phenomenon on waters that are much environed with elevated and irregular head-lands, and it is a certain proof that wind is on some distant portion of the sheet. It occurs frequently on the ocean, too, where the mariner is accustomed to find a ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... of some other minerals is greater than that of calcite (e.g. for cinnabar it is 0.347, and for calomel 0.683), yet this phenomenon can be best demonstrated in calcite, since it is a mineral obtainable in large pieces of perfect transparency. Owing to the strong double refraction and the consequent wide separation of the two polarized rays of light traversing the crystal, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... solely through the effect of the imagination. Certain people can increase or inhibit the beating of their hearts at will, i.e., by means of an intense and persistent representation. The renowned physiologist, E. F. Weber, possessed this power, and has described the mechanism of the phenomenon. Still more remarkable are the cases of vesication produced in hypnotized subjects by means of suggestion. Finally, let us recall the persistent story of the stigmatized individuals, who, from the thirteenth ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... omit from this brief notice of the work of Copernicus. Hipparchus had, by most sagacious interpretation of certain observations of his, discovered a remarkable phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes. It was a discovery of the first magnitude, and such as would raise to great fame the man who should have made it in any period of the world's history, even the present. It is scarcely ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... acquaintances of our acquaintances. This concatenation of acquaintances is really one of the marvels of social life, if one considers the chances against it, owing to the size and population of the country. As an example of this phenomenon, which we have all observed, William Hope was born in Derbyshire, in a small parish which belonged, nearly all of it, to Colonel Clifford; yet in that battle for food which is, alas! the prosaic but true history of men and nations, he entered an office ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... thirty-three capsules), and these flowers would probably have produced about thirty spontaneously self-fertilised capsules. Therefore an equal number of the crossed and self-fertilised plants would have produced capsules in the proportion of about 182 to 47, or as 100 to 26. Another phenomenon was well pronounced in this generation, but I believe had occurred previously to a slight extent; namely, that most of the flowers on the self-fertilised plants were somewhat monstrous. The monstrosity consisted in the corolla being irregularly ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... anything like a precise character. Many ingenious hypotheses have been thrown out, which may perhaps be accepted as steps towards a true explanation; and while waiting the result of further inquiry, we shall endeavour to make our readers acquainted with the interesting phenomenon. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... "The phenomenon in many cases reminds us of children, who say or sing some word or phrase, a rhyme or little verse, so long continuously, like automata, that the by-standers can endure it no longer. It is often the ring of the words, often the sense, often both, by ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... adversity so lengthened out as to constitute the rule of life, there comes a certain chill depression of the spirits which seems especially to shudder at cold water. In view of so wretched a state of things, we accept the ancient Deluge not merely as an insulated phenomenon, but as a periodical necessity, and acknowledge that nothing less than such a general washing-day could suffice to cleanse the slovenly old world of its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... swing, until chased away by the guard, on the heavy chain festoons that encircled the monument at one side of the square. This was the only monument in Polotzk, dedicated I never knew to whom or what. It was the monument, as the sky was the sky, and the earth, earth: the only phenomenon of ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... solved the difficult problem of universal liberty, freed man from the shackles of tyranny, and subjected his actions to the decision of twelve of his fellow countrymen? The liberty of the Greeks was a phenomenon, a meteor, which blazed for a short time, and then sank into eternal darkness. It was a combination of most opposite materials, slavery and liberty. Such can neither be happy nor lasting. The Goths on ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... to turn the machinery of cotton-factories. The inhabitants of this valley, in short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. But all of them, grown people and children, had a kind of familiarity with the Great Stone Face, although some possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... few words, is the answer to our question. And it is about the only one we can ever hope to obtain. Rust was altogether a remarkable phenomenon, a musician born, as it were, out of due time. If Beethoven, as seems quite possible, was acquainted with his music, then Rust exerted an influence over the master quite equal to that of Clementi. It almost seems as if we ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... to collect herself, but I saw very well that her troubled spirit vainly strove to recover itself. By a singular phenomenon I could see into her brain, and her thoughts appeared to me one after the other. She was saying to herself, "Let me collect myself; our Father, give me grace to collect myself," but the more effort she made to restrain her imagination the more it became ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... being no case at all, that of not having even the interest of the grievance of not being one: we as a rule catch glimpses in the down-trodden of such resentments—they have at least sometimes the importance of feeling the weight of our tread. The phenomenon was here quite other—that of a natural platitude that had never risen to the level of sensibility. When you have been wronged you can be righted, when you have suffered you can be soothed; if you have that amount of grasp of the "scene," however ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... very much further out from the land, and the lagoon will be many times deeper; in short, your fringing reef will be converted into an encircling reef. And if, instead of this being an island, it were a great continent like Australia, then you will have the phenomenon of a barrier reef which I have described. The barrier reef of Australia was originally a fringing reef; the land has gone slowly down; the consequence is the lagoon has deepened until its depth is now 25 fathoms and the corals have ...
— Coral and Coral Reefs • Thomas H. Huxley
... above the disused works a line of sparkling lights led the eye upwards to the snow-fields, as if traced in diamonds. The phenomenon was certainly astonishing, and I ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with no more experience of war than a bishop's wife, did not know what he was talking about. Throughout the essay, too, he is in two minds. One is that of a gentleman who knows that war is the same phenomenon, artistically, ethically, and socially, as a public-house riot with broken bottles caused by a dispute over one of those fundamental principles which are often challenged in such a place. Those riots are natural enough. They are caused by the nature of man. They continue to happen, ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... bare wild rosebush on the further bank was violently agitated, and then there ran from its root a black-headed rat with wings. Such was the general effect. I was not less interested when my startled eyes divided this phenomenon into its component parts, and recognized in the disturbance on the opposite bank only another fierce struggle among the hungry animals for existence: they need no professor to teach them the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. A weasel had gripped ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... atoms of the elements as instances of identically similar things, but these are things not of experience but of theory, and there is not a phenomenon in chemistry that is not equally well explained on the supposition that it is merely the immense quantities of atoms necessarily taken in any experiment that masks by the operation of the law of averages the fact that each atom also has its unique ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... the avowed humanitarian objects of the American Government might have been attained by peaceful methods, had not the country been goaded into a fever of restlessness and impatience by that deplorable phenomenon of democratic institutions known as the ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... at his cigar. There was always something, some sacrifice to make, and seldom for art's sake. It is all very well to witness a play from the other side of the footlights; everything appears to work out so smoothly, easily and without effort. To this phenomenon is due the amateur dramatist—because it looks simple. A play is not written; it is built, like a house. In most cases the dramatist is simply the architect. The novelist has comparatively an easy road to travel. The dramatist is beset ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... curious phenomenon in human affairs, that some of those matters in which education is most potent should have been amongst the least thought of as branches of it. What you teach a boy of Latin and Greek may be good; but these things are with him but a little time of each day in his after-life. ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... middle of the sixteenth century, as far as I can ascertain, another and even more painful phenomenon appears in our great cities—a dangerous class. How it arose is not yet clear. That the Reformation had something to do with the matter, we can hardly doubt. At the dissolution of the monasteries, the more idle, ignorant, and profligate members of the mendicant ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... it has, singularly enough, never been bombarded, nor has it been subjected to any serious air raids. This is the more surprising as all the neighboring towns, as well as Dunkirk, a dozen miles beyond, have been repeatedly shelled and bombed. The only explanation of this phenomenon is that the Germans do not wish to kill the Queen of the Belgians—she was Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, remember—who lives with the King at La Panne. It is possible that this may be the correct explanation. I remember that when I was in Brussels during the early days ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... consider that the combined attractions of youthful faces and sprightly conversation would be too much for any man, and mercifully divide the two. And this leaves them helpless before a little American girl, laughing, talking, jesting, teasing, till, bewildered by such a phenomenon, they are swept down so easily that one is reminded of Attila's taunt to the Romans, "The thicker the grass, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... sight, isn't it?" a familiar voice observed close behind her. With a start Milly turned and perceived, on the step below,—Edgar Duncan. His long face had an eager, wistful expression, also, caused perhaps by the aerial phenomenon above, as much as by the sight of his lost love; but the expression took Milly back immediately to the little front room on Acacia Street, when Duncan had stood before her ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... running westwards, takes its rise in the open sea; when following along the coast in small ships, it is the current running eastwards that is struck, so that one may be transported in two opposite directions at the same spot. This is a phenomenon which may frequently be observed in rivers, where the conformation of the banks gives rise to whirlpools. If straws or bits of wood are thrown into the river at such a place, those which fall into the middle ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... advanced them materially in their onward progress toward the higher condition of the Village Indians. Numerous tribes were thus raised out of savagery into barbarism by appropriating the arts of life of tribes above them. This process has been a constant phenomenon in the history of the human race. It is well illustrated in America, where the Red Race, one in origin and possessed of homogeneous institutions, were in three different ethnical conditions ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... strife and in collision; nothing was blended and united. Everything was in ferment; it was a period of chaos; every ray of light caused a storm. It was not a gentle age, or one we can call an age of light, but an age of struggle and combat. What distinguished Montaigne and made a phenomenon of him was, that in such an age he should have possessed moderation, caution, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... acid, a violent disengagement of iodine takes place, attended by a transient ignition; fused hydrate of phosphoric acid liberates iodine abundantly from iodide of potassium; this reaction is accompanied by the phenomenon of flame and formation of a ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... to the study of a phenomenon which in many respects is new and unprecedented, while none could ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... the bow-window say to the guard: "Take care of that child, George, or he'll burst!" and from observing that the women-servants who were about the place came out to look and giggle at me as a young phenomenon. My unfortunate friend, the waiter, who had quite recovered his spirits, did not appear to be disturbed by this, but joined in the general admiration without being at all confused. If I had any doubt of him, I suppose this half-awakened it; but I am inclined to believe that, with the simple confidence ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... on record that a Liverpool tradesman once wrote to Dickens, to express the pleasure he had derived from that great Englishman's immortal novels, and enclosed, by way of testimony, a cheque for five hundred pounds. This is a phenomenon which ought to be more widely known than it is, for there is no natural law to prevent its recurrence; and while the world will never hold another Dickens, there are many deserving novelists who may like to ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... charming mother of white hair and real lace with the well-groomed daughter. That comfortable mother at home and daughter in an office, but with no suitors, no ambition beyond the one at home. They are all examples of the mother-and-daughter phenomenon, that most touching, most destructive example of selfless unselfishness, which robs all the generations to come, because mother has never been trained to endure the long, long thoughts of solitude; because she sees nothing by herself, and within ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... but were they not of the spirit and understanding of the Puritans? (In fact, I suspect that Washington was a Puritan of the Puritans.) A Virginia Puritan, a cavalier Puritan even, was not then the strange phenomenon, the lusus naturae, it would be nowadays. Besides, let it be remembered that the Constitution was not the production of any man or set of men. It was the outgrowth of the political ideas and necessities of the age and country. These men, trained ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... by the entire college, engaged the serious attention of the new consuls, who were Publius Volumnius and Servius Sulpicius. In that year the sky seemed to be on fire, and a violent earthquake took place: it was believed that an ox spoke, a phenomenon which had not been credited in the previous year: among other prodigies there was a shower of flesh, which a large flock of birds is said to have carried off by pecking at the falling pieces: that which fell to the ground is said to ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... the idea is greatly confirmed. When we add that the powerful Molluscs which are slain, while the humbler Molluscs survive, are those which—to judge from the nautilus and octopus—love warm seas, the impression is further confirmed. And when we finally reflect that the most distinctive phenomenon of the period is the rapid spread of deciduous trees, it would seem that there is only one possible interpretation of ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... the great all-round circle could be seen faintly on either side. Below was a dome-shaped glare of white which contained an exaggerated mock sun, which was as dazzling as the sun himself. Altogether a fine example of a pretty common phenomenon down here." And the next day: "We saw the party ahead in inverted mirage some distance ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to France. Whithersoever we turn our eyes, we shall discover the same continual revolution ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... us,—this we waste away as an idle artificial firework, sent to amuse us a little, and sink it into ashes, wreck, and ineffectuality: such reception of a Great Man I do not call very perfect either! Looking into the heart of the thing, one may perhaps call that of Burns a still uglier phenomenon, betokening still sadder imperfections in mankind's ways, than the Scandinavian method itself! To fall into mere unreasoning deliquium of love and admiration, was not good; but such unreasoning, nay irrational supercilious ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... thus, although as regards the second line he stretches it a little. If Nilakantha be right, K.P. Singha must be wrong. Generally, however, it is the known incapacity of the ocean to transgress its continents that supplies poets with illustrations. Here, however, possibly, the rarity of the phenomenon, viz., the ocean's transgressing its continents, is used to illustrate the rare fact of the intelligence, succeeding by yoga power, in transcending the attributes ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... needs have had a special tenderness for the person (no noted man, however, in the world's history) so long ago laid beneath that stone, since she took such wonderful pains to "keep his memory green." Perhaps the proverbial phrase just quoted may have had its origin in the natural phenomenon here described. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... long in arriving at an explanation of this singular phenomenon. It was the flour that was causing such a "stoor." The movement of the ship had shaken out the canvas rag with which I had stopped the vent, and the flour was escaping. No doubt this was the cause ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... Another curious phenomenon appeared at the other end of the cove. The lava had poured down into the sea, and formed a stratum; a second river of fused rock had poured again over the first, and had cooled so rapidly as to hang suspended, not having joined the former strata, but ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... (Strictures of the Urethra.) Now, if anyone, even among the acute observing microscopists, can discern the structure to which Home alludes, he will certainly prove this anatomist to be a marked exception amongst those who, for the enforcement of any doctrine, can see any thing or phenomenon they wish to see. And, if Hunter were as the mirror from which Home's mind was reflected, then the observation must be imputed to the Great Original. Upon the question, however, as to which is the most frequent seat of stricture, I find that both ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... existence does not mean existence per se; and that a phenomenon does not mean a mere mode of mind. Objective existence is existence as an object, in perception, and therefore in relation; and a phenomenon may be material, as well as mental. The thing per se may be only the unknown cause of what we directly know; but what we directly know is something more than our own sensations. In other words, the phenomenal effect is material as well as the ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... these brave old Northmen,' he says in one place, 'what Meditation has taught all men in all ages, that this world is after all but a show—a phenomenon or appearance, no real thing. All deep souls see into that.'[12] Yes; but deep souls dealing with the practical questions of society, do well to thrust the vision as far from them as they can, and to suppose that this world is no show, and happiness and ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... one of the famous Wetherill brothers and trader at Kayenta, Arizona, is the man who discovered Nonnezoshe, which is probably the most beautiful and wonderful natural phenomenon in the world. Wetherill owes the credit to his wife, who, through her influence with the Indians finally after years succeeded in getting the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... them and Goldie and papa until he was "suited." He said that he hated to plant himself on people, and yielded to the request. The ladies Ebag fussed around his dark-eyed and tranquil pessimism, and both of them instantly grew younger—a curious but authentic phenomenon. They adored his playing, and they were enchanted to discover that his notions about hymn tunes agreed with theirs, and by consequence disagreed with the vicar's. In the first week or two they scored off the vicar five times, and the advantage of having ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... saw the missing kite struggling as usual against the controlling cord. But it had gone to the further side of the tower, and now hung and strained against the wind to the north. He thought it so strange that he determined to investigate the phenomenon, and to say nothing about it in ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... cavities of resonance to the shape they have to assume to sound the corresponding note. Every vocal tone is, in fact, a mental concept reproduced as voice by the physical organs of voice-production, so that every vocal tone is, in its origin, a mental phenomenon. That is why an inaccurate ear for pitch results in a vocalist singing off pitch. His mental conception of the note is wrong, the message conveyed from the mind over the nerves to the muscles of the vocal organs is wrong, consequently they shape themselves for a note ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... in doubt as to the cause of the awful phenomenon which was taking place, when, as I happened to touch the companion hatch, I found that it was gritty, as if covered with dust, while our lips and eyes informed us that a shower of light subtle ashes was falling—the deck being soon covered with ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... curious ribbons of ice may be observed, attached to the base of the stems, produced, I presume, by the moisture of the earth rising in the dead stems by capillary attraction, and then being gradually forced out horizontally, through a slit, by the process of freezing. The same phenomenon has been observed in other plants. See observations on helianthemum, page 27." Had the doctor given a more extended investigation, I fancy he would have agreed with me as to the cause. I found hundreds of diversified specimens. I am not aware that it was after ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... have not been exhausted by powerful emotions often have a vast amount of the vital fluid at their service. This phenomenon of the extreme clearness of the eye in moments of anger was the more marked in Mademoiselle Rogron because she had often exercised the power of her eyes in her shop by opening them to their full extent for the purpose of inspiring her ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... hands of Norton was a revelation. The logical plausibility of it, that made an appeal to his intellect, seemed missed by Kreis and Hamilton, who sneered at Norton as a metaphysician, and who, in turn, sneered back at them as metaphysicians. Phenomenon and noumenon were bandied back and forth. They charged him with attempting to explain consciousness by itself. He charged them with word-jugglery, with reasoning from words to theory instead of ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... The strange phenomenon of the opposition to Anarchism is that it brings to light the relation between so-called intelligence and ignorance. And yet this is not so very strange when we consider the relativity of all things. The ignorant mass has in its favor that it makes no pretense ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... reason, there also it was that the divine had been swallowed up by the abyss; the lesser star could not rise before the greater should submit to eclipse. Summer, therefore, had connected itself with death, not merely as a mode of antagonism, but also as a phenomenon brought into intricate relations with death ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... however, the earth is a magnet, and its magnetism is constantly changing. But why it is a magnet, or indeed what magnetism may be, is unknown, and obviously the most hopeful way of finding an explanation of a phenomenon is to study it. For many reasons the Discovery's winter station in the [Page 76] Antarctic was an especially suitable place in which to record the phenomenon ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... mediumship, such spirits can and do, come to and communicate with their friends and loved ones in earth life. All these things, I knew my father understood clearly, therefore I was prepared to accept the verity of his spiritual presence as readily as I would any other phenomenon of nature. In conclusion, I may as well tell you at this point, that the letter referred to by father as having been written by him in Alaska on December fifth, together with my conference in San Francisco, some months later, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... had not died away, as thunder does; on the contrary, it was not only continuous but was steadily growing; in volume with amazing rapidity, proceeding apparently from the direction of those curious ruddy flashes, which were also growing stronger, even as I stood staring and wondering what the phenomenon might mean. As the sound steadily increased so did its resemblance to thunder—or the rapid firing of heavy guns—become more pronounced, a distinct booming, like that of frequent heavy explosions, making itself ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... heard of it," said the Earl, "and Dr. Jones would demonstrate to your Grace that it is but a superstition of the vulgar regarding a natural phenomenon." ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... else to come in, which occurred shortly after—with the same result. Then they went out, and the place was soon crowded, and there was considerable excitement. Various theories were broached to explain the curious phenomenon. We enjoyed the sport immensely." It must be remembered that this was over forty years ago, when there was no popular instruction in electricity, and when its possibilities for practical joking were known to very ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... romantic side to his nature. The life of the mountains had imbued him with a half-savage superstition which revelled in the uncanny lore of such places. This was not the first time he had heard of a White Squaw, and, although he did not believe such a phenomenon possible, it appealed seductively to his love of the marvellous. Victor had turned over to sleep, but Nick was very wide awake and interested. He could not let such an opportunity slip. Victor was good at a yarn. And, besides, Victor knew more ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... social student, who does not measure his age by his prejudices, but fashions his theories according to the carefully ascertained facts, will try to discover the causes of this phenomenon. In those wide and varied areas where it is observed, we cannot say that anything has taken the place of Christianity. The Press sometimes flatters itself that it has taken the place of the pulpit, but opinions will differ in regard to its efficacy as a moral agency. ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... that is, every physical and psychical phenomenon which enters into the constitution of the universe, is a word of the revelation of this god, and there is no other revelation. All men must constantly live with reference to ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... informed me that his own small grand-daughter, aged six, had declared that she had seen the mysterious visitor, only she described him as having a white beard and funny spectacles. I asked him exactly where this phenomenon had been observed, and by Jingo, Jack, it was at the very place I met him; only when she saw him he had left the road and was hurrying down to the sea. She described him as running, which finally demolished her reputation for truthfulness, for as her grandfather ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... left untouched upon the field after the gastronomical battles were fought so bravely three or four times a day. Perhaps the pineapples and bananas, and the open barrel of strawberries, within reach of all at any hour, may account for the phenomenon. ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard |
