"Reality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... might be desired of me, yet with no conception of the reality, I followed after the orderly through the stockade gate, and across the small parade ground toward the more pretentious structure occupied by the ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... slow—Welles again gives to Seward a lesson of good-behavior, of sound sense, and of mastery of international laws. The prize courts side with Welles. Because Neptune has a white wig and beard, he is considered slow, when in reality he is active, unflinching, ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... not a fine Providence that gives us different things to love? In the purchase of my farm both Horace and I got the better of the bargain—and yet neither was cheated. In reality a fairly strong lantern light will shine through Horace, and I could see that he was hugging himself with the joy of his bargain; but I was content. I had some money left—what more does anyone want after a bargain?—and I had come into possession of the thing I desired most of all. Looking at bargains ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... [19] In reality the numbers were even more in favor of the Commons: the representatives of the clergy were three hundred and eight, and those of the nobles two hundred and eighty-five, making only five hundred and ninety-three of the two superior orders, while the deputies of the Tiers- Etat were six hundred ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... In reality he felt the benignant touch of fortune still upon his head, and thanked her heartily that Leo had taken the initiative; that no overt act of disloyalty blurred his escutcheon, and above all, that he had been spared the humiliation of acknowledging his inability to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... hath learned obedience royal, He straight will set the child upon the throne; To whom the seen things all, grown instant loyal, Will gather to his feet, in homage prone— The child their master they have ever known; Then shall the visible fabric plainly lean On a Reality that never can ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... Principle of all things—has been the inevitable and necessary tendency of the human mind; to resist which, skepticism and positivism have been utterly impotent. The first philosophers, of the Ionian school, had just as strong a faith in the existence of a Supreme Reality—an Ultimate Cause—as Leibnitz and Cousin. But when, by reflective thought, they attempted to render an account to themselves of this instinctive faith, they imagined that its object must be in some way appreciable to sense, and they sought it in some physical element, or under some visible and ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... smouldering hate of Lady Newhaven, his sense of injustice and anger against fate; he forgot everything in his love for Rachel. It became the only reality of his life. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... pride with which she looks upon the career and stature of her grown-up and eldest son. (Laughter and cheers.) To be sure, as it is with all sons and all mothers, little passing and temporary misconceptions may occasionally occur, and which only show how deep in reality is their mutual love. (Laughter.) The mother may sometimes think it sad that her child has forgotten some little teaching learnt on her knee, and that one or two of the son's opinions smack of foreign notions—she may think that some of his doings tend not only to injure her, but himself also ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... such porcelain, such flowers, such electric and glowing splendour, such food and so many kinds of it, such men, such women, such chattering gaiety, such a conspiracy on the part of menials to persuade him that he was the Shah of Persia, and Geraldine the peerless Circassian odalisque! The reality left his fancy far behind. In the second place, owing to his prudence in looking up the subject in Chambers' Encyclopaedia earlier in the day, he, who was almost a teetotaler, had cut a more than tolerable figure in handling ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... marriages if men wedded their mistresses. The education of girls requires, therefore, important modifications in France. Up to this time French laws and French manners instituted to distinguish between a misdemeanor and a crime, have encouraged crime. In reality the fault committed by a young girl is scarcely ever a misdemeanor, if you compare it with that committed by the married woman. Is there any comparison between the danger of giving liberty to girls and that ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... mind him, dear Helen; it is his ways: he seems rough and stern, but in reality he is kind and good, dear," ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... personal means were larger, so I could give Bertram enough and leave Sandymere to you; then I'd know the place would be in good hands. On the surface, you're a happy-go-lucky fellow, but that's deceptive. In reality, you have a surprising grip of things—however, you know my opinion of you. But ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... too? All those swept dreams That I had hoped in future years to see Around me bloom, in living, grand reality; No longer far-off things, or ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... of such were instantly stopped with a gag. If, notwithstanding this, the overflowings of sorrow found a passage through other channels, they were checked by the 'scourge inexorable;'—the cruel monsters thus endeavoring to lessen the appearance of pain, by increasing its reality. These were scenes of ordinary occurrence; troops of these poor slaves were continually seen fettered as before described, marching two and two, with commanders before and behind, swords by their ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... was no longer able to fill. Life seemed a desert without some form of belief, and notwithstanding her success, her life was often intolerably lonely. She had often thought of the world's flowers and fruits as mere semblance of things without true reality, and what seemed a bountiful garden, a mere hard, dry, brilliant desert. It was only at certain moments, of course, that she thought these things, but sometimes these thoughts quite unexpectedly came upon her, and she could no longer conceal from herself the fact that she was lonely in her soul, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... sky was one sheet of blackness—for not a cloud could be seen, or anything, except the passing gleam of a cottage taper, lessened by the haziness of the night into a mere point of faint light, and thrown by the same cause into a distance which appeared to the eye much more remote than that of reality. ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Mr. Hopewell, "you know Sam well enough, I hope, to make all due allowances for the exuberance of his fancy. The sketch he has just given you of London society, like the novels of the present day, though founded on fact, is very unlike the reality. There may be assemblages of persons in this great city, and no doubt there are, quite as insipid and absurd as the one he has just pourtrayed; but you must not suppose it is at all a fair specimen ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... innermost sanctuary of the spirit, into which no human eye can penetrate, and where truth, as a holy messenger sent from God, presents herself, seeking for admission to dwell there, and take possession of the soul's temple for ever,—it is there that the reality of a man's truthfulness, sincerity, and honesty must be tried and decided upon by the all-seeing Judge, who can alone search the heart. How do we deal there with what claims to be truth? With what spirit do we listen to her voice? With what care do we examine her credentials? ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... can express no more than an instant of action. Theatrical dancing can exhibit all the successive instants it chuses to paint. Its march proceeds from picture to picture, to which, motion gives life. In painting, life is only imitated; in dancing, it is always the reality itself. ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... farther, they noticed that the swamp was full of life. What had seemed to be a waste was inhabited in reality by many of the people of the wilderness. The five had approached it from the west, and now Henry, who was able to go farther east than they had been before, found a small beaver colony at a point on the brook, where there was enough ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... but in reality village, or collection of huts, is, as is well known, situated at the mouth of the river Chagres, where it empties itself into ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... too soon was Angela's dreaded foreboding to become reality. However great the awe which fell upon the Chevalier at old Francesco Vertua's death-scene, when the old man, despising the consolation of the Church, though in the last agonies of death, had not been able to turn his thoughts from his former sinful ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... strong feeling of reality, when my guide took me to a grave where a flat, green, mossy stone, broken across the middle, is reputed to be the grave of Michael Scott. I felt, for the moment, verily persuaded that if the guide would pry up one of the stones we should see him ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... painting, I have never seen the peculiar sheen of these petals in the least degree delineated. It seems some new and separate tint, equally distinct from scarlet and from crimson, a splendor for which there is as yet no name, but only the reality. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... "I must settle my position in the country. I am Duke of Brabant and Count of Flanders, in name, and I must be so in reality. This William, who is gone I know not where, spoke to me of a kingdom. Where is this kingdom?—in Antwerp. Where is he?—probably in Antwerp also; therefore we must take Antwerp, and we shall know how ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... only be considered as a piece of advice; it is customary to refer a piece of advice to a committee, but if it is supposed to pray for what they think a moral purpose, is that sufficient to induce us to commit it? What may appear a moral virtue in their eyes, may not be so in reality. I have heard of a sect of Shaking Quakers, who, I presume, suppose their tenets of a moral tendency; I am informed one of them forbids to intermarry, yet in consequence of their shakings and concussions, you may see them with a numerous offspring about them. Now, if these people were to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... navigations were one compelling cause. Then the change, already alluded to, which Columbus had noticed in his voyages to the Indies, on passing a line a hundred leagues west of the Azores, was in his mind, as it was in reality, a circumstance of great moment[21] and significance. It was not a change of temperature alone that he noticed, but a change in the heavens, the air, the ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... be said to bear Mrityu (death) in his mouth. Do thou, O Bharata, watch and observe the character of thy external and internal enemies, (by means of thy spiritual vision), And the man who is able to perceive the nature of the eternal reality is able to overreach the influence of the great fear (perdition). Men do not look with approbation upon the conduct of those who are engrossed in worldly desires and there is no act without having a desire (at its root) and all (Kama) desires are, as it were, the limbs (offshoots) ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... indication of the speaker's frame of mind which is given by the form of the verb is called the "mood" of the verb. All verbs given so far have been in the "indicative mood", which represents an act or state as a reality or fact, or in the "infinitive mood", which expresses the verbal idea in a general way, resembling that of a substantive. The "conditional mood" does not indicate whether or not the act or state mentioned is a fact, but merely expresses the speaker's ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... dawn and endured another of those journeys when discomfort mocked at sleep, until sheer exhaustion made one doze for a minute of unconsciousness from which one awakened with a cricked neck and cramped limbs, to a reality of ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... by her stay in the South, but she was not yet out of danger, the doctor said, and must use care. Her husband and Amy were still anxious about her, and watched her carefully; for, though she was no relation to Amy, she still acted, and in reality was, almost as ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... bliss, but hoped or guessed, Is sweeter than the whole possest;— That Beauty, when least shone upon, A creature most ideal grows; And there's no light from moon or sun Like that Imagination throws;— It is, alas, that Fancy shrinks Even from a bright reality, And turning inly, feels and thinks For heavenlier things ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... awaited canoe trip, which had been put off "until Gladys learned to swim," had at last become a reality, and bright and early one morning the Winnebagos started off on a fifteen-mile paddle up the Shadow River. Sahwah led the procession in the Keewaydin, uttering shouts which she fondly believed to be in imitation of an Indian warrior. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... place, and to put such truly abominable stuff in your mouth in the second place, you could not, even then, in the third place, afford to give fifteen cents for what is in fact worth less than a mill. You are in reality giving away your money to the ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... the tribunes, who attached a real meaning to the constitution, were desirous of establishing in their assembly an opposition analogous to that of England; as if the rights, which that constitution professed to secure, had anything of reality in them, and the pretended division of the bodies of the state were anything more than a mere affair of etiquette, a distinction between the different anti-chambers of the first consul, in which magistrates under ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... reaching a conclusion for himself concerning his relation to the kingdom which he was preaching. From the time of his baptism and temptation every manifestation of the inner facts of his life shows unhesitating confidence in the reality of his call and in his understanding of his mission. This is the case whether the fourth gospel or the first three be appealed to for evidence. It is generally felt that the Gospel of John presents its sharpest contrast ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive piece of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to defy suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... reply of Russia to this warning was quite conciliatory. The Russian foreign minister, M. Sazonoff, assured the British minister that Russia had no aggressive intentions, and would take no action unless forced. Austria's action, M. Sazonoff added, in reality aimed at over-throwing Russia's influence in ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... PRAETEREA MOS] The reality of this practice in England may be illustrated from Erasmus' Christiani matrimonii Institutio, 1526, where he describes unseemly wedding festivities. 'Mox a prandio lascivae saltationes usque ad cenam, in quibus ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus
... excellent reason to laugh when the tears are in our eyes; but only children are bold enough to follow the impulse. So strangely, in human existence, does the mockery of what is serious mingle with the serious reality itself, that nothing but our own self-respect preserves our gravity at some of the most important emergencies in our lives. The two ladies waited the coming ordeal together gravely, as became the occasion. The silent maid flitted noiseless up stairs. The silent man waited motionless ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... year, the dreariness of the place, and the decayed aspect of our habitation, I was afraid that her resolution would sink under the sudden transition from a town life to such a melancholy state of rustication; but I was agreeably disappointed. — She found the reality less uncomfortable than the picture I had drawn. — By this time indeed, things were mended in appearance — The out-houses had risen out of their ruins; the pigeon-house was rebuilt, and replenished by Wilson, who also put my garden ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... to treatment, he said that he had not been used very hard, but had been worked hard and allowed but few privileges. The paltry sum of twenty-five cents a week, was all that was allowed him out of his hire. With a wife and one child this might seem a small sum, but in reality it was a liberal outlay compared with what many slaves were allowed. Perry being a ready-witted article, thought that it was hardly fair that Mr. Williams should live by the sweat of his brow instead of his own; he was a large, portly man, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... thro' his dream the name of his home shouted out,—hears and hears not, Faint, and louder again, and less loud, dying in distance,— Dimly conscious, with something of inward debate and choice, and Sense of [present] claim and reality present; relapses, Nevertheless, and continues the dream and fancy, while forward, Swiftly, remorseless, the car presses on, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... good fortune came opportunely; for in England the harvest had again failed, and the threat of famine had become the reality. On the 23rd of December malt was sold in London for forty shillings a quarter, and white flour at six shillings a bushel. The helpless remedy was attempted of crying up the base money, but the markets answered ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... things, except death, has happened, we think it very likely we shall not live again. It seems to be the same with peoples; the new peoples believe, the old peoples doubt. It occurs to very, very few men to be convinced, as a friend of mine has been convinced against the grain, of the reality of the life after death. I will not say by what means he was convinced, for that is not pertinent; but he was fully convinced, and he said to me: 'Personally, I would rather not live again, but it seems that people do. ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... it really frightened the bear," she said moderately, refraining from the dramatic note of completeness which her husband, in spite of himself, gave to everything he touched, and adding instead the pungent, homely savor of reality, which none relished more than Sylvia and her father, incapable themselves of achieving it. "'Most likely the bear would have gone away of his own accord anyhow. They don't attack people unless they're stirred up." Arnold bit deeply into ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... gave their verdict; women pricking cards with pins in order to count the votes; some of the deputies fallen asleep, and only waking up to give their sentence,—all this had the appearance rather of a hideous dream than of a reality." ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... back on it now, it seems more like some wonderful dream than a reality, wherein men strove with women and children for food to keep life ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... out from the palace, laughing and talking with the two knights who had entered with him, it was evident that he was well pleased with his reception by the grand master, who had assigned to him a suite of apartments in the guest house. In reality, however, D'Aubusson had no doubt that his object was a treacherous one, and that, like Demetrius, who had come under the pretence of bringing about a truce, his object was to find out the weak points and ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... and Nathaniel was not the first or the last editor to whom the statement has applied. His difficulties are imaginary, but he realizes what they might be in reality. ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... we not see that many are willing to do or to have or to seem to be what is just and honourable without the reality; but no one is satisfied with the appearance of good—the reality is what they seek; in the case of the good, appearance ...
— The Republic • Plato
... his pen run into such rhymes as these, which he generally passes off as old proverbs" (Scott). Many of the charming scraps of "Old Ballads" and "Old Plays" at the head of Scott's own chapters are in reality the ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... belong to this class. And in Assyria where doorways were several yards deep and two or three wide, these sills were in reality the pavements of ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... Fairbridge was in reality very artistically planned as to the sites of its houses. Instead of the regulation Main Street of the country village, with its centre given up to shops and post-office, side streets wound here and there, and houses were placed with a view ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ironical tone, "you need no vouchers to convince me of the reality of your sorrow. You know I can never forget your jumping so courageously into the river, to save ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... their sound and great noise, are absolutely void of life and motion, and so are accounted with God as nothing—that is, no Christians, no believers, not under the Covenant of Grace for all that (1 Cor 13:1-4). 2. Men may not only do this, but may also be changed in reality, for a season, from what they formerly were, and yet be nothing at all in the Lord's account as to an eternal blessing. Read 2 Peter 2:20, the Scripture which I mentioned before; for, indeed, that one Scripture ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... what we do not really want, prompted by the anger of the moment. What, in our selfish views, seems nothing at the time, becomes most horrible in the reality. Alas, poor ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... sure of the reality of this phenomenon, and incidentally to regain his breath, there sounded from a distance down the street a noise the like of which he had never before heard: a noise resembling more than anything else the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... discover it, being a master of your profession, which, by the by, has procured you the honor of having been chosen by me to bear the weight of this secret, which now is shared by us, and by us two alone. I say, advisedly, by us two alone. You could not, as a matter of fact, prove the reality of this secret to anyone, unless I were to confess it, and I defy you to obtain my public confession, as I have confessed it to you, and without ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... It began with sovereign grace in a by-past eternity, and no link will be awanting till the ransomed spirit be presented faultless before the throne! Grace and glory! If the earnest be sweet, what must be the reality? If the wilderness table contain such rich provision, what must be the glories of the eternal banqueting house? Oh! my soul, make sure of thine interest in the one, as the blessed prelude to the other. "Having access by faith into this grace, thou canst rejoice in hope of the glory of ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... out, and I to church,—so mother thought,—but in reality to meet Sarah. For an hour we walked about, then as it grew dark began kissing. What a difference the morning had made. No resistance now, my hand roved over the smooth bum and belly, a slight objection on the part of the thighs as my hand touched the hairy covering, but for an instant only, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... relieve the thunderous humming in his head, then comprehending that the amazing sound was a reality, he strove to solve the source of the bewildering tones. A deep, low murmuring filled the air, swelling in volume with each heavier gust which drove over the mountain: the sound deepened and strengthened, mounting to a sustained musical rumble that almost ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... entirely outside of himself; he utterly lacked the power of self-amusement, and, although he seemed content when she was near, during the long hours of her absence he was like a fretful child. He refused to frequent the theater, ostensibly because of their secret, in reality because of his shame at allowing her to work. As Lorelei came to know him better and to understand the conflicting forces within him, she began to wonder how long he could hold himself true to ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... all for the best in kindness to us. Sometimes, it is true, things do not occur exactly as we could wish, but that does not alter the rule; for if we could but see the end, we should discover that the very thing of which we most complain was in reality most for our good. Remember that, nephew, whenever you get into danger or difficulty; be sure that you do your duty, and all will come right at last. But I have not told you ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... to this subject was that all 'sea-faring' men were liable to impressment unless specially protected by custom or statute. A consideration of the long list of exemptions tends to make one believe that in reality very few people were liable to be impressed. Some were 'protected' by local custom, some by statute, and some by administrative order. The number of the last must have been very great. The 'Protection Books' preserved in the Public Record Office form no inconsiderable ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... were directed to the dell where the foxgloves were unusually fine that year, covering one of the banks of the ravine with a perfect cloud of close-grown spikes, nodding with thick clustered bells, spotted withinside, and without, of that indescribable light crimson or purple, enchanting in reality but impossible to reproduce. It was like a dream of fairy land to Hubert to wander thither with his Vera, count the tiers of bells, admire the rings of purple and the crooked stamens, measure the height of the tall ones, some almost equal to himself in stature, and recall the fairy lore and ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... say that from your heart, Mary. If you mean to refuse me again, it is not because you doubt the reality of my love." ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... plan, almost without effort, I had drifted into a position of utmost delicacy. Any accident or mistake might lead to disastrous results. Not only my own life, but the life of the young woman below, could be endangered by a single careless word, or act. The whole affair seemed more a nightmare than a reality. I was actually serving as first officer on a pirate ship in search of vessels to rob on the high seas, commanding a crew of West Indian cut-throats—the very scum of hell, and under the order of a Portuguese devil, whose ambition coolly plotted murder. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... another world, and of the reality of a life after death, especially if connected with a belief in future rewards and punishments, might have done much, or at any rate something, to counteract the effect upon morals and conduct of the degrading tenets and practices connected with the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... surrounded by powerful walls and the bishop has now got his fifty guards and possibly a couple of thousand young native Catholics, who can probably be armed and fight. So although it seems as if the whole Roman Catholic population of Peking is pouring in on us, we are in reality only getting a few hundred miserables who had no time to fly to their chief priest when the storm caught them; we have to prepare for the worst, as everything is developing ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... Syrians. The rule of the Monophysite faith was defined with exquisite discretion by Severus, patriarch of Antioch: he condemned, in the style of the Henoticon, the adverse heresies of Nestorius; and Eutyches maintained against the latter the reality of the body of Christ, and constrained the Greeks to allow that he was a liar who spoke truth. [125] But the approximation of ideas could not abate the vehemence of passion; each party was the more astonished that their blind antagonist could dispute on so trifling a difference; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... years were rounding half a century, and he sat the old nag with erect dignity and perfect ease. His bearded mouth showed vanity immeasurable, and suggested a strength of will that his eyes—the real seat of power—denied, for, while shrewd and keen, they were unsteady. In reality, he was a great coward, though strong as an ox, and whipping with ease every man who could force him into a fight. So that, in the whole man, a sensitive observer would have felt a peculiar pathos, as though nature had given him a desire ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... analysis, another fertiliser may include 20 per cent. of phosphate of lime, and two per cent. of ammonia. Viewed by this light solely, the first manure would be considered the more valuable of the two, whereas it might, in reality, be very much inferior. If the phosphate of lime in the manure, containing 40 per cent. of that body, were derived from coprolites or apatite, and its ammonia from horns, the former would be worth little or nothing, and the latter, by reason of its exceedingly slow evolution from the horns, would ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... touch than the young can understand. Those ghostly women of an early folly often sit beside a man and the later, purer love of his life. Some men are able to ignore the gray spectres and get a deal of comfort from the saner reality of maturer years; I never could. That girl"—he touched the closed book as if it were the grave that concealed her—"has always come between me and later desires for a home and closer ties. Her wonderful eyes, that looked so much and meant so little, have held me by a power that ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... used ostensibly as a shooting and hunting-box by Michael Roburoff and a couple of his friends, and in reality as a meeting-place for the Inner Circle or Executive Council of the American Section of the Brotherhood. This Section was, numerically speaking, the most important of the four branches into which the Outer Circle of the Brotherhood ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... steadily, and by and by began to be entertained by his own thoughts as pleasantly as a poet or romancist is entertained by the fancies which come and go in the brain with all the vividness of dramatic reality. Yet always he found himself harking back to what he sometimes called the "incurability" of life. Over and over again he asked himself the old eternal question: Why so much Product to end in Waste? Why are thousands of millions of worlds, swarming with life-organisms, created ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... despotism of the age of the Bourbons. His ideal of man was the unconventional, unconstrained, solitary, but harmless and easy-going savage. Hobbes was the growth of a sterner and more serious age. The only reality to him in heaven and on earth was force: his one idea in philosophy was coercion. Human nature to him was an embodiment of brute violence ever in need of violent restraint. Rousseau, an optimist, saw nothing but good in man's original nature: to the pessimist ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... of Machecoul seeking a place vulnerable, but finding none. The ramparts rose as it had been to heaven, and the flanking towers were crowded night and day with men on the watch. Round the walls for the space of a bow-shot every way there ran a green space fair and open to the view, but in reality full of pitfalls and secret engines. From the battlements began the arrow hail, so soon as any attempted to approach the castle along any other way than the thrice-defended road to ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... in upon rudely when he was thrust into what proved to be the guardhouse. In reality he was thrown in by the two soldiers who had picked him up and sent him sprawling on the floor. 'What less could one expect from a Boche?' he muttered. For aught he knew, he soon would get worse. A sentry was posted at the door and Francois was informed that if he tried to escape he would be ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... of this had the quality of a dream; it was clear-cut, as vivid as anything I had ever experienced; my mind worked with an unusual precision and clarity, and not even a fleeting doubt came to me of the reality of my observations. "This is some sort of bombing attack," I remember reflecting, "some assault of super-monsters of the skies, perfected by a super science." And I did not have to be told the fact; ...
— Flight Through Tomorrow • Stanton Arthur Coblentz
... less tried than mine? But if the martyrdom which I have endured for the past year were made known, how astonished everyone would be! Since it is your wish I will try to describe it, but there are no words really to explain these things. The words will always fall short of the reality. ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... freight with them; but they generally die either on the passage or soon after their arrival in the islands. The debility of their constitutions is astonishing." From this it would appear that most of the so-called Gaboons must have been in reality Pygmies caught in the inland equatorial forests, for Bosman, who traded among the Gaboons, merely inveighed against their garrulity, their indecision, their gullibility and their fondness for strong drink, while as to their physique he observed: "they ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... interesting to the historical psychologist—and it is a feature that is in danger of being overlooked—is that she cannot really be said to have suffered for the technical offence for which she took her trial. That was the pretext rather than the cause. In reality she was the innocent victim ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... Nyoda musingly, "if you read the newspapers, you see that stranger things happen in reality than in fiction." ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... at the very moment of this injunction much livelier curiosities, for the dream of lectures at an institution had at last become a reality, thanks to Sir Claude's now unbounded energy in discovering what could be done. It stood out in this connexion that when you came to look into things in a spirit of earnestness an immense deal could be done for very little more ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... missed the opportunity of tasting a last century wine. Perhaps it may be thought from the procession of ports produced on such occasions as I have described that we indulged in a sustained and severe wine-bibbing bout. But it was not so. In reality we only just tasted each vintage, so that we had the maximum of variety ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... off," (ver. 13,) notwithstanding, that many of them were found afterwards to have left their first love, Rev. ii. But yet, beloved, to speak more inwardly, and as your souls stand in the sight of God, the generality of those who are near hand in outward ordinances are yet far off from God in reality,—"without God and without Christ," as really, as touching any soul-feeling, as those who are altogether without. The bond of union and peace was broken in paradise, sin dissolved it, and broke off ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... like a tonic to her during these days of overwork. He seemed to be entirely unaffected by the general depression, a fact which he attributed himself to the happy accident of being in a position to sit back and watch the others toil. But in reality Jill knew that he was working as hard as any one. He was working all the time, changing scenes, adding lines, tinkering with lyrics, smoothing over principals whose nerves had become strained by the incessant ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... symbol of your Church, Monsignor! It is a very strange one! It seems about to be expanded into a reality of dreadful earnest! 'I know not the man,' said Peter. Does not the glittering of the world's wealth piled into the Vatican,—useless wealth lying idle in the midst of hideous beggary and starvation,— proclaim with no uncertain voice, 'I KNOW NOT THE MAN'? The Man of sorrows,—the ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... with the forms of its clouds—so lovely, above all, those long trailings and bandings of mists which make its altitudes appear to hang in air. A land where sky and earth so strangely intermingle that what is reality may not be distinguished from what is illusion—that all seems a mirage, about to vanish. For me, alas! it is about to vanish ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... risen early as usual, and, after a satisfying breakfast, had gone to his store to arrange for the day's business. One or two of his henchmen, seeming loafers, but in reality a bodyguard, were lounging within call. A married daughter was chatting with her father while her young baby played among the barrels and ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the dread spot had been with her, in every dream she had watched men digging, digging—digging with frantic haste; and, as in her dreams, all strength seemed to fail, and some unseen power to hold her back, so now, in that frightful reality, her arms fell half paralyzed, and she could not lift her hand to ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... the litter and discoloration of human life; with the paths unworn, and the houses still sweating from the axe, such a settlement as this seems purely scenic. The mind is loth to accept it for a piece of reality; and it seems incredible that life can go on with so few properties, or the great child, man, find entertainment in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you will recognize by the date is my birthday; 36 years old. Only think, I shall never be 26 again. Don't you wish you were as young as I am? Well, if feelings determined age I should be in reality what I have above stated, but that leaf in the family Bible, those boys and that daughter, those nieces and nephews of younger brothers, and especially that grandson, they all concur in putting twenty years more to ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... now concerning the earthly spirit, which is empty and foolish, and without virtue. And first of all the man who is supposed to have the Spirit, (whereas he hath it not in reality), exalteth himself, and desires to have the first seat, and is ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... and presently, no doubt at the bidding of an oath I could not hear, he hurriedly thrust the top into his pocket, and once more joined the straining group of men. The snatched pleasure must be put by at the call of reality; the world and its work must rush in upon his dream. I have often thought about the top and its spinner, as I have noted the absorbed faces of other people's pleasures in the streets,—two lovers passing along the crowded Strand with eyes only for each ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... expired. As it had been reported that he was "leading a hermit's life and destitute of means," it was commonly believed that this worthy and devoted missionary was exhausted from lack of proper food, and in reality died of starvation. ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... Sari, had sent my letter and map to him by a runner, and that he and Ja had at once decided to set out on the completion of the fleet to ascertain the correctness of my theory that the Lural Az, in which the Anoroc Islands lay, was in reality the same ocean as that which lapped the shores of Thuria under the name of ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... uncertain light, the towers and domes of a spectral city. It was now for the first time that I realized the peculiar position of Venice. I had often read of the city whose streets were canals and whose chariots were gondolas; but I had failed to lay hold of it as a reality, and had unconsciously placed Venice in the region of fable. There was no missing the fact now. I was hemmed in on all sides by the ocean, and could not move a step without the certainty of being drowned. What was I to do? In answer to my inquiries, I was ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... large a part that seven weeks' experience played in my life as a novelist. For years afterwards it cropped up as inevitably in my work as King Charles's head in Mr Dick's Memorial, but at least it has enabled me to feel that few writers of fiction in my time have gone nearer to reality in their studies than myself. I certainly worked the little mine that I had opened for all that it was worth, and readers of mine who give themselves the trouble to remember will recall the wanderings of the hero of Skeleton Keys, of Frank ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... Bonaventuri. They came to Florence, where she became the mistress of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francis of Medicis. He was very anxious to have a child by her; upon which she pretended to be brought to bed of a son, who had in reality been bought of one of the lower orders. He was called Don Anthony of Medicis. In order to prevent the Grand Duke from discovering her fraud, Bianca caused several of the persons who had had a part in the deception to be assassinated. At length the wife of Francis, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... feel its power. Petrarch was a real lover, and Laura doubtless deserved his tenderness. Of Cowley, we are told by Barnes, who had means enough of information, that, whatever he may talk of his own inflammability, and the variety of characters by which his heart was divided, he, in reality, was in love but once, and then never had resolution to tell ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... window, but the monotony was not relieved by any change in the face of things and so they determined that it was rather stupid to stand there. Nettie brought down her two dolls and they played with these for a while, but keeping house in a make believe way was not so exciting when there was the reality close at hand, and they decided that paper dolls would be ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... Assyrian history with the data for the reign of Tiglath Pileser I (circa 1100 B.C.). Taking up first the Annals, we find that the annalistic documents from the reign may be divided into two general groups. One, the Annals proper, is the so called Cylinder, in reality written on a number of hexagonal prisms. [Footnote: Photographs of B and A, Budge-King, xliii; xlvii; of the Ashur fragments, of at least five prisms, Andrae, Anu-Adad Tempel, Pl. xiii ff. I R. 9 ff.; Winckler, Sammlung, I. 1 ff.; Budge-King, 27 ff., with variants and BM numbers. Lotz, ...
— Assyrian Historiography • Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead
... been looked upon as a mere nightmare had not the melancholy sight of fields laid waste, and of the harbour with six ships lying on their sides, and all the others at anchor, almost entirely disabled, testified to the reality of the disaster. All around the town the country was devastated, the crops were ruined, the trees—even the largest of them—violently shaken, the village destroyed. It was a heart-rending spectacle! The Esperance had its main-mast ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... returned Grace, "even through the medium of Omar Khayyam. The key is a reality, but there is some one on the other side of that door who doesn't belong there. Whether she is not aware that she is a trespasser I do not know. However, we shall soon learn." Grace rapped determinedly on one of the upper panels ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... dream of dreams has become a reality—under what enchanting conditions! Mrs. L., my beloved friend, invited me to stay three weeks with her in the apartment which she has taken, 28 Opernstrasse, which was the habitation of Wagner's special doctor. Mrs. L.'s other guests were her sister, her niece, and Mr. ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... flowing hair and long beard; to sit on his throne and play the ruler, listening to the ambassadors who came from all directions, and giving them the answers that had been taught him, as if of his own sovereign will. In reality, however, he had nothing but the royal name and a beggarly income at the will of the mayor of the palace." The new mayors had succeeded in putting down all opposition when, to the astonishment of every one, Carloman abdicated and assumed ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... the Moors that remained in Malacca. It was soon discovered however, that Utimuti carried on a private correspondence with Prince Al'oddin, under pretence of restoring him to the sovereignty of Malacca, but in reality for the purpose of using his remaining influence among the people to set himself up. On receiving authentic information of these underhand practices, Albuquerque caused Utimuti with his son and son-in-law to be apprehended, and on conviction ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... would feel the pains of hell; for he holds a hell within himself. Do you ask how this can be? The Prophet says, "All men are liars" [Ps. 116:11] and again, "Every man at his best state is altogether vanity." [Ps. 39:6] But to be a liar and vanity, is to be without truth and reality; and to be without truth and reality, is to be without God and to be nothing; and this is to be in hell and damned. Therefore, when God in His mercy chastens us, He reveals to us and lays upon us only the lighter evils; for if He were to lead us to the full knowledge ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... garrison of his Majesty's regular troops placed in their stead. And although this exchange is made ostensively by the immediate order of the lieutenant-governor, yet it appears by the inclosed depositions, that Col. Dalrymple in reality took the custody and government of the fortress by order of general Gage; and therefore the lieutenant governor has no longer that command, which he is vested with by the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... knowing. We venture our fortune on the signature of a man on the other side of the world, whom we never saw, upon the belief that he is honest and trustworthy. We believe that occurrences have taken place, upon the assertion of others. We believe that one will acts upon another, and in the reality of a multitude of other phenomena ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike |
