"Variable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... September [1609], faire weather, the wind variable betweene east and south; we steered away north northwest. At noone we found our height to bee 39 degrees, 3 minutes. The second, in the morning, close weather, the winde at south in the morning; from twelve untill two of the clocke we steered north northwest, and ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... important, subjects included within the range of meteorology, is not perhaps sufficiently realized in the minds of active participators in the world's stirring work. Irrespective of any scientific object, how much utility is there to all classes in what is commonly called 'weather wisdom'? In our variable climate, with a maritime population, numbers of small vessels, and especially fishing boats, how much life and property is risked unnecessarily by every unforeseen storm? Even animals, birds, and insects have a presaging instinct, perhaps a bodily feeling, that warns them; but man often ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... parentage. No such extreme variations are seen in any of the lower orders. Indeed, in one's lifetime one sees but very slight variation in any of the wild or domestic creatures, less in the wild than in the domestic because they are less under the influence of that most variable of animals, man. And man's variations are mainly mental and not physical. The higher we go in the scale of powers, the greater the variation and hence the more rapid the evolution. Probably man's body has not changed radically in vast cycles of time, but his mind has developed ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... virtue might not men aspire? We need not say with Rousseau that men are naturally virtuous. The child, as Helvetius delighted to point out, will do that for a coral or a doll which he will do at a mature age for a title or a sceptre. Men are rather the infinitely malleable, variable stuff on which education ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... for example, to the property that a man creates and acquires in business enterprises, which are presumably undertaken for gain, and as a means of living rather than for themselves. All new machinery, all new methods, all uncertain and variable and non-universal undertakings, are no business for the State; they commence always as experiments of unascertained value, and next after the invention of money, there is no invention has so facilitated freedom and progress as the invention of ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... and Cabinet.*—Another governmental group which, like the Privy Council, differs from the cabinet while containing it, is the ministry. The ministry comprises a large and variable body of functionaries, some of whom occupy the principal offices of state and divide their efforts between advising the crown, i.e., formulating governmental policy, and administering the affairs of their ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... It was not then the custom to observe a fixed price and simply show the goods; but clerks were expected and instructed to use persuasion, to expatiate on quality and beauty, and to take less than they first asked. The cost price was marked with secret characters; the selling price was variable. The more you could get out of a gullible customer, the better; and he who could get the most was the smartest clerk. A thrifty purchaser would beat down the price little by little, the sharp clerk yielding ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... and the fact that she was the sole heir to millions was the least of the sailor's considerations as he dropped his nickel down the slot. Neither did the identity of the young lady's paternal ancestor constitute a problem, despite the recent interview with that variable individual. Matt regarded Cappy somewhat in the light of a mixed blessing; while he respected him he was a little bit afraid of him, and just at present he disliked him exceedingly. And lastly, his own social and economic status ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... the 23rd January. It has little elevation, and is scarcely possible to be seen at a greater distance than twelve leagues. The wind then became very variable; and, like Captain Cook, we met with currents, which carried us every day fifteen minutes south of our reckoning; so that we spent the whole of the 24th in plying in sight of Botany Bay, without being able to double Point ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... plant, in a broad sense all loads may be grouped in three classes: 1st, the approximately constant 24-hour load; 2nd, the steady 10 or 12-hour load usually with a noonday period of no load; 3rd, the 24-hour variable load, found in central station practice. The economical load at which the boiler may be run will vary with ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... differences and distinctions of the race would require a book all to itself, for in 1597, more than three hundred years ago, Gerarde wrote: "There are, under the name of Caryophyllus, comprehended diuers and sundrie sorts of plants, of such variable colours and also severall shapes that a great and large volume would not suffice to write of euery one in particular." And when we realize that the pink was probably the first flower upon which, early in the eighteenth ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... the most devoted of lovers. Indeed, they were lovers. Only one of those savage tests, to which in all probability they would never be exposed, would or could reveal just how much, or how little, that vague, variable word lovers ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... she's the worst that ever deserved it. The wind is not more variable, nor the sea less careless of constraint She takes it off her mother, no doubt, who was the dearest madcap, the most darling wretch ever kept a sergeant's section of lovers at her skirts. I wish you could do something with her, Mr. Brooks. I do not ask high schooling, though there you ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... have been to boast of himself as loving the Master more than the other disciples did,—but as the disciple whom Jesus loved. In this distinction lies one of the subtlest secrets of Christian peace. Our hope does not rest in our love for Jesus, but in his love for us. Our love at the best is variable in its moods. To-day it glows with warmth and joy, and we say we could die for Christ; to-morrow, in some depression, we question whether we really love him at all, our feeling responds so feebly to his ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... consist of the valleys of the Nubra and Shayok rivers. These are deep, fierce, variable streams, which have buried the lower levels under great stretches of shingle, patched with jungles of hippophae and tamarisk, affording cover for innumerable wolves. Great lateral torrents descend to these rivers, and on alluvial ridges formed at the junctions are the villages ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... discover the difference of the earth's diameters; proving its true ratio to be not less variable than as 45 is to 46, and shortest in its pole's axis 174 miles.... likewise a method for fixing an universal standard for weights and measures. By ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... husband; and albeit he was far from possessing those mental perfections and that cultured charm which alone make an indefinite period of companionship endurable, I was not slow to reconcile myself to a temperament which, fortunately, was very variable, and which thus served to console me on the morrow for what ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... Gorch, in lat. 18 deg. 30' S. ten miles from which is Moro Moreno, from which the shore runs to Arica, and all this coast, up to the hill of St Francis, is very much subject to south winds, though the adjoining seas have the winds variable and uncertain. On the 20th the whole air was darkened by an Arenal which is a cloud of dust, and so thick that one cannot see a stone's throw. These are raised by the wind from the adjoining shore, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... disease have a capricious and variable appetite as regards their ordinary feed but evince a strong desire to lick and eat substances for which healthy cattle show no inclination. Alkaline and saline-tasting substances are especially attractive to cattle having a depraved appetite and they frequently lick lime, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... road, and took a short cut over the mountains. It would be but vain repetition to describe our "ups and downs" for the next few hours. The agony was just as exquisite, the scenery was just as grand and variable, but as far as I know it the English language contains no words of sufficient intensity to express more than I have already iterated ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... public highway were categorically classed, which is the beginning of foresight and surveillance, and each contingency had its own compartment; all possible facts were arranged in drawers, as it were, whence they emerged on occasion, in variable quantities; in the street, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... state, he thought, was the aristocracy, whose business it was to keep the people down and hold the king in check. His career—now supporting the royalists, now the roundheads, now neither—seems incoherent and unprincipled; but in truth he was one of the least variable men of his time; he held to his course, and king and parliament did the tacking. He was an incorruptible judge, though he took bribes; and an unerring one, though he disregarded forms of law. He was tried for treason, and acquitted; joined ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... still do fly away, Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain,) Walkt forth to ease my pain Along the shore of silver-streaming Thames; Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems, Was painted all with variable flowers, And all the meads adorned with dainty gems Fit to deck maidens' bowers, And crown their paramours Against the bridal day, which is not long: Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... water of the Atlantic is, if anything, lighter than that of the surface. Moreover, while a rapid superficial current is setting in (always, save in exceptionally violent easterly winds) through the Straits of Gibraltar, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, a deep undercurrent (together with variable side currents) is setting out through the Straits, from the Mediterranean ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... determined on wrangling any more, I should 'bout ship and settle the difference with them in a less ceremonious manner in the harbour. This effectually stopped their tongues, and we again proceeded on the journey. After two entire days' sailing across the Gulf with variable and gentle breezes, we arrived at our destination, Kurrum, in safety, on the third evening, the 24th March, and at once sent some Government letters to the Akils, ordering their attendance, and to proclaim publicly the ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... known the Dictator intimately since his Korean days; and who faithful to the extraordinary English love of hero-worship believed that such a surprising character could do little wrong. British policy which has always been a somewhat variable quantity in China, owing to the spasmodic attention devoted to such a distant problem, may be said to have been non-existent during all this period—a state of affairs not ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... race of the kings of France, the French sou or shilling appears upon different occasions to have contained five, twelve, twenty, and forty pennies. Among the ancient Saxons, a shilling appears at one time to have contained only five pennies, and it is not improbable that it may have been as variable among them as among their neighbours, the ancient Franks. From the time of Charlemagne among the French, and from that of William the Conqueror among the English, the proportion between the pound, the shilling, and the penny, seems to have been uniformly the same as at present, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... all mammals. But it also gives suck to its young. Now, looking to these two features alone, should we say that a porpoise ought to be classed as a fish or as a mammal? Assuredly as a mammal; because the number of teeth is a very variable feature both in fish and mammals, whereas the giving of suck is an invariable feature among mammals, and occurs nowhere else in the animal kingdom. This, of course, is chosen as a very simple illustration. Were all cases as obvious, there would be but little distinction between natural and ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... demonstrably certain. If the issues of wars were known beforehand, and could be discounted, there would be no wars. Good wars are fought by nations who make their choice, and would rather die than lose what they are fighting for. Military fortunes are notoriously variable, and depend on a hundred accidents. Moral causes are constant, and operate all the time. The chief of these moral causes is the character of a people. Germany, by her vaunted study of the art and science of war, has got herself into a position where no success can come to her ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... round it gave it quite a rural effect, and we wished long life to the solitary specimen of eucalyptus, whose glaucous-green leaves and tender shoots seemed ill-fitted to bear the nipping frosts of our variable climate. ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... world. Hence the many transformations of that semi-madness, and their quick variety. Young Gourlay was showing them now. His had always been a wandering mind, deficient in application and control, and as he neared his final collapse it became more and more variable, the prey of each momentary thought. In a short five minutes of time he had been alive to the beauty of the darkness, cowering before the memory of his father's eyes, sobbing in self-pity and angry resolve, shaking in terror—indeed he was shaking now. But his vanity came uppermost. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... precipitous hill blocked the way, extending a considerable distance along the creek, and leading sheer to the water from a variable height of forty to ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... basis of the sexual excitement are in full accord with the auxiliary conception which we formed for the purpose of mastering the psychic manifestations of the sexual life. We have determined the concept of libido as that of a force of variable quantity which has the capacity of measuring processes and transformations in the spheres of sexual excitement. This libido we distinguished from the energy which is to be generally adjudged to the psychic processes with reference to its special origin and thus we attribute to it also a qualitative ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... Froebel puts it, "the finest and most variable material that can be offered a boy for purposes of representation." The little boxes associated with the Kindergarten were originally planned for the use of nursery children two to three years of age, and in most if not in all Kindergartens these have been replaced by larger bricks. ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... these added extra distances in the air, Bryce decided, that sometimes made the bird flights look so bewilderingly variable in speed and direction. He had not thought before how difficult it would be to plot a straight course from one side of the globe ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... the breakfast table of the millionaire Coronel R. da Silva, with its black beans, the dreadful farinha, the black coffee, and the handful of mutilated bolachas or biscuits. The only variable factor was the meat, sometimes wild hog, occasionally tapir, and very often the common green parrot or the howling monkey. At most meals the pirarucu fish appears, especially on Mondays when the rubber-workers have had the whole of Sunday in which to indulge in the sport of shooting ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... have been doing that for millions of years. The shock of their meeting has transformed their motion into light and heat. They have united to form a single sun and a nebula, which will some day condense into a system of planets like ours. To-night the astronomers on Earth will discover a new star—a variable star as they'll call it—for it will grow dimmer as it moves away from our system. ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... be the meeting-place of the east and west monsoons, and the moist current is, in consequence, often feeble and variable. The country suffered again from famine in 1861 and 1877, although not so severely as in 1833. In northern Bundelkhand a canal from the Betwa river has been constructed, but is of only very limited use. The peculiarities ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the professor. "We have risen above the range of the variable winds, and are now feeling the influence of an adverse air current, which, in this latitude, invariably blows from the northward; and if we were to maintain our present altitude, for which, however, there is not the slightest necessity, ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Academy asks that we DETERMINE THE OSCILLATIONS OF PROFIT AND WAGES, it asks thereby that we DETERMINE VALUE. Now that is precisely what the gentlemen of the Academy deny: they are unwilling to admit that, if value is variable, it is for that very reason determinable; that variability is the sign and condition of determinability. They pretend that value, ever varying, can never be determined. This is like maintaining that, given the number ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... manner in which its light varies from time to time. The star known by the name of Algol,[32] popularly called the "Demon Star"—whose astronomical designation is [b] (Beta) Persei, or the star second in brightness in the constellation of Perseus—was discovered by Goodricke, in the year 1783, to be a variable star. In the following year [b] Lyrae, the star in Lyra next in order of brightness after Vega, was also found by the same observer to be a variable. It may be of interest to the reader to know that Goodricke was deaf and dumb, and that he died in 1786 ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... heard a passion so confusd, So strange, outragious, and so variable, As the dogge Iew did vtter in the streets; My daughter, O my ducats, O my daughter, Fled with a Christian, O my Christian ducats! Iustice, the law, my ducats, and my daughter; A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats, Of double ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... crystals, who can only feel the antagonism, not argue about it. But there is a yet more singular mimicry of our human ways in the varieties of form which appear owing to no antagonistic force; but merely to the variable humor and caprice of the crystals themselves: and I have asked you all to come into the schoolroom to-day, because, of course, this is a part of the crystal mind which must be peculiarly interesting to a feminine audience. (Great symptoms of disapproval ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... conversing in groups; and when any of Wallace's officers approached, they separated, or withdrew to a greater distance. This strange conduct Wallace attributed to its right source, and thought of Bruce with a sigh, when he contemplated the variable substance of these men's minds. However, he was so convinced that nothing but the proclamation of Bruce, and that prince's personal exertions, could preserve his country from falling again into the snare from which he had just snatched it, that he was preparing to ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... being far less tiresome to walk than to ride. The road winds in a very circuitous route through a dense forest, the lofty trees of which, rising upon either hand, cast their deep shadows upon us. The place, that would otherwise have been gloomy, was enlivened by the variable songs of the mocking-birds, and the notes of their more ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... this girl, insisting to share his name, for a slip of his tongue, despite the warning sent her through her uncle, had that face much as a leaden winter landscape pretends to be the country radiant in colour. She belonged to the order of the variable animals—a woman indeed!—womanish enough in that. There are men who love women—the idea of woman. Woman is their shepherdess of sheep. He loved freedom, loathed the subjection of a partnership; could undergo it only in adoration of an ineffable splendour. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... considered suitable for thick-barked trees such as hickory and walnut due to the difficulty of preventing "air-pockets" beneath the bark. Shaving the edges of the bark at the side of the shield may eliminate this difficulty. Joley (9), reported variable success in shield budding of walnut in California. Patch budding, either by the annular method or with the Jones patch-budding tool was described by Reed (17), and is reported by Chase (6), Zarger (30), and others to be the most practical method of propagation ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... 15th the wind had shifted to south-east; and the great bank then trending south-westward, we followed it with variable soundings between 3 and 10 fathoms. At ten o'clock the water had deepened to 15; and being then nearer to the west than to the east side of the gulph, and the wind having come more ahead, we tacked to the east-south-east; but in fifty minutes were ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... each with his sling. What idle fabricators of crazy systems will tell me that climate is the creator of genius? The climate of Austria is more regular and more temperate than ours, which I am inclined to believe is the most variable in the whole universe, subject, as you have perceived, to heavy fogs for two months in winter, and to a stifling heat, concentrated within the hills, for five more. Yet a single man of genius hath never appeared in the whole extent of Austria, an extent ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Texas and Arizona, has been recommended and J. cordiformis, the Japanese heart nut, is also promising. This nut can be recommended for planting for its own sake as the tree is hardy, a rapid grower, comes into bearing early and bears a fairly good nut. There are no grafted trees, however, so the variable seedlings will have ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... strife as a memory assumes are as manifold as are the moods of involuntary meditation—moods variable, and at times widely at variance. Yielding instinctively, one after another, to feelings not inspired from any one source exclusively, and unmindful, without purposing to be, of consistency, I seem, in most of these verses, to ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... clear. Pains and pleasures give us what mathematicians call the 'independent variable.' Our units are (in Bentham's phrase) 'lots' of pain or pleasure. We have to interpret all the facts in terms of pain or pleasure, and we shall have the materials for what has since been called a 'felicific calculus.' To construct this ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... there was an odd occurrence. Soon after our arrival we had learned that Mr. Schurman was a man of very variable opinions. He was rather readily convinced by plausible arguments, but sometimes very suddenly reversed his ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... supplemental blood-poisoning by intestinal absorption of septic matter, which soon brings about Sir Andrew Clarke's "inadequacy of kidney,"—all will be readily understood. When this point is reached, a too hearty meal, exposure to variable weather, or a little extra care or anxiety, are sufficient, as determining causes, to bring life ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... up the branch of a tree with red berries perfectly fresh. The clouds around the setting sun assumed a new appearance; the air was more mild and warm, and during night the wind became unequal and variable. From all these symptoms, Columbus was so confident of being near land, that on the evening of the eleventh of October, after public prayers for success, he ordered the sails to be furled, and the ships to lie to, keeping strict ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... knew that Kwannon was the second planet of the Gettler Beta system, 23,000 miles in circumference, rotating on its axis once in 22.8 Galactic Standard hours and making an orbital circuit around Gettler Beta once in 372.06 axial days, and that Alpha was an M-class pulsating variable with an average period of four hundred days, and that Beta orbited around it in a long elipse every ninety years. He didn't believe there was going to be a Last Hot Time. He was ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... cava superior, G, Plate 1; on the left, the pulmonary artery, B, and the descending thoracic aorta. In the healthy living body, the thoracic sounds heard in percussion, or by means of the stethoscope, will vary according to the locality operated upon, in consequence of the variable thickness of those structures (muscular and osseous, &c.,) which invest the thoracic walls. Uniformity of sound must, owing to these facts, be as materially interrupted, as it certainly is, in consequence of the variable contents of the cavity. The variability of the ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... all his Ishmaelitish tactics there were thoughts of a reconstruction. He may have been right or wrong in his courses. At any rate, it is necessary in a sketch of his career to set out the connecting links in years of activity which to a casual observer may seem disjointed, variable, and erratic. ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... two stood this variable, sensuous, woman's nature, so capable both of good and evil. Rachel felt the burden of their virtues too much for her, together with the sting of ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pleasant and the domestic machinery running smoothly. It was astonishing what a peculiar and uncomfortable state of things was produced by the 'resting and reveling' process. The days kept getting longer and longer, the weather was unusually variable and so were tempers; an unsettled feeling possessed everyone, and Satan found plenty of mischief for the idle hands to do. As the height of luxury, Meg put out some of her sewing, and then found time hang so heavily, that ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... however, resting on an annual vote, was obviously uncertain; and it became necessary to declare the terms on which it was enjoyed. The minister of the day notified to the officers of the Anglican and Scotch churches that incomes dependent on variable resources and mutable opinions were liable to casualties. He therefore warned them that, beyond the fair influence of the crown and the equitable claims of existing incumbents, no guarantee could be given.[223] During a financial crisis these views were reiterated by one governor, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... a melo-drama. An English garden, adorned at every turn with statues of the heathen deities (although they were all but personifications of the various attributes of nature,) would be ridiculous. Setting aside the injury they must sustain from our damp, variable climate, they would be out of keeping with all around; here it is altogether different; the very air of Italy is embued with the spirit of ancient mythology; and though "the fair humanities of old religion," the Nymphs, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... lover is ever attempting is a search for a formula for the summation of an infinite series of which love is the variable.—Few lovers seem to ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... (Siam type), blood red (Burmah type), or pale (Ceylon), is more pleasing usually than the red of any of the other species. Viewed from the back of the stone (by transmitted light) it is still pleasing. It may be purplish, but is seldom orange red. Also, owing to the dichroism of the ruby the red is variable according to the changing position of the stone. It therefore has a certain life and variety not seen in any of the others except perhaps in red tourmaline, which, however, does not approach ruby ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... mechanical representation of the whole physical world. Even were we disposed to admit the strangest solutions of the problem; to consent, for example, to be satisfied with the hidden systems devised by Helmholtz, whereby we ought to divide variable things into two classes, some accessible, and the others now and for ever unknown, we should never manage to construct an edifice to contain all the known facts. Even the very comprehensive mechanics of a Hertz fails ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... good as a principle of English law, would have secured the acquittal of so wicked a poisoner as Palmer. He quoted from the famous French lawyer d'Aguesseau: "The corpus delicti is no other thing than the delictum itself; but the proofs of the delictum are infinitely variable according to the nature of things; they may be general or special, principal or accessory, direct or indirect; in a word, they form that general effect (ensemble) which goes to determine the conviction of an honest man." If such a contention as M. Chaussier's ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... light and variable airs through the day, gradually shoaling our water till nine P.M., when the anchor was dropped in 14 fathoms, having previously passed over a rocky ledge of apparently coral formation, in 13 1/2 fathoms. The land over the south point of Roebuck Bay bore East-South-East, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... a nebulous but suggestive remark that the newspaper occupies the borderland between literature and common sense. Literature it certainly is not, and in the popular apprehension it seems often too erratic and variable to be credited with the balance-wheel of sense; but it must have something of the charm of the one, and the steadiness and sagacity of the other, or it will fail to please. The model editor, I believe, has yet to appear. Notwithstanding ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the Rondo, and other larger or (as they are sometimes called) higher forms, is the Subject or Theme. The form and contents of this factor, the Theme, are so variable that a precise definition can scarcely be given. It is a musical sentence of very distinct character, as concerns its melodic, harmonic and, particularly, its rhythmic consistency; and of sufficient length to establish this individuality,—seldom, ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... but various are the effects ideas have on the minds of men. On some minds they exercise only a passing influence; they are then what we call "Impressions"; variable as lights and shadows over a summer lake they come and go. Impressions are indeed only on the surface of the mind, like foot-prints on the sand washed ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... might it not come from some estate where a bull with mortal horns had caused some great misfortune, and baptized the soil with the blood it had spilt? Certes, this plan presented itself bristling with difficulties: but the greatest of all was Mademoiselle de Montalais herself. Capricious, variable, close, giddy, free, prudish, a virgin armed with claws, Erigone stained with grapes, she sometimes overturned, with a single dash of her white fingers, or with a single puff from her laughing lips, the edifice ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... one else the founder of that branch of his science which treats of variable stars. His methods have been followed by his successors to the present time. It was his policy to make the best use he could of the instruments at his disposal, rather than to invent new ones that might prove ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... is of fresh and brackish-water origin, and very variable in mineral character and thickness. Near Ryde, it supplies a freestone much used for building, and called by Professor Forbes the Nettlestone grit. In one part ripple-marked flagstones occur, and rocks with ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... me, Maitre Ranulph, you know where to find me," she said scarce above a whisper. He looked at her sharply, almost fiercely, but again the tenderness of her eyes, the directness of her gaze, convinced him. She might be, as she was, variable with other people; with himself ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mm. The carriage has a movement of 80 mm., is made of gun metal and fitted exactly to the guides; it is also provided with a second or top carriage with 40 mm. motion. The top carriage can be moved by hand and accurately set by means of a micrometer screw. The microscope is of variable magnifying power, focused by rack and pinion. Illumination for transparent objects is given from below by means of a plane mirror. The instrument is mounted on heavy supports, under an angle to make it convenient for the ...
— Astronomical Instruments and Accessories • Wm. Gaertner & Co.
... selections for better parent trees than any available at the present time. If the pecan behaves like the citrus fruits of California, we will be able in the future to have strains and varieties which will be very much less variable than ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... eternity of their existence, in the perfection of their nature, infected by no contact with ourselves: and men, dwelling on the earth, with frivolous and anxious minds, with infirm and mortal members, with variable fortunes; labouring in vain; taken altogether and in their whole species perhaps, eternal; but, severally, quitting the scene ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... take a wet-weather racket with you when you go to tournaments; it is, like a pair of steel-pointed shoes, a necessary item in your tennis bag. In England, with such variable weather, it is necessary to play in the rain, or at any rate on a wet ground, and with sodden balls; and the very best gut in the world cannot stand rough usage. It is a good plan, too, to take to tournaments at least two rackets as much alike as possible. If anything ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... them descending gradually, passed through a gulch, where the darkness was greater, and such light as sifted through the larch and poplar trees rested in variable spots on the earth. Overhead the somber obscurity appeared touched with a veil of shimmer or sheen like diamond dust floating through the mask of night. Their horses but crept along; the girl bent forward wearily; heretofore ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... by from his income his entire old-age fund. If the rate were a hundred per cent per annum, taking a very small part of the fund out of the income of his active years would suffice, since the fund itself would earn the remainder. Is the income which is provided for the future to be treated as a variable amount in addition to some other income, or is it to be regarded as a fixed amount, which is needed for some definite purpose? On the answer to this question depends the entire issue as to whether a low rate ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... the earth. It is the rational principle, mind regarded as a work, as creation—not as the creator. The old tradition of Parmenides and of the Eleatic Being, the foundation of so much in the philosophy of Greece and of the world, was lingering in Plato's mind. The Other is the variable or changing element, the residuum of disorder or chaos, which cannot be reduced to order, nor altogether banished, the source of evil, seen in the errors of man and also in the wanderings of the planets, a necessity which protrudes through nature. Of this too there ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... mysterious independent variable of political calculation, Public Opinion—which some whisper is, in the present case, very much the same thing as publican's opinion—has willed otherwise. The Heads may return to their wonted slumbers—at any ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... to increase and to appear where it is absent," as Dr. Wallace believes, then we ought to find it varying in the direction of greater brightness in some species in a family so numerous and variable as the Dendrocolaptidae, however feeble and in need of a protective colouring these birds may be in a majority of pases. And this in effect we do find. In many of the dark-plumaged species that live in perpetual shade some parts ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... cold and variable climates you would do well to have an enclosed place, a kind of conservatory covered over with glass, arranged so as to be opened in warm weather, particularly when the sun shines, and closed during the greater part of the winter, at which time the water, in which the beasts swim, ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... not long after Boteler, he says: 'Ships which must be carried by wind and sails, and the sea affording no firm or steadfast footing, cannot be commanded to take their ranks like soldiers in a battle by land. The weather at sea is never certain, the winds variable, ships unequal in sailing; and when they strictly keep their order, commonly they fall foul one of another, and in such cases they are more careful to observe their directions than to offend the enemy, whereby they will be ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... mistakes on this head. Those of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vermont, etc., do not admit of female electors. Whether this be right or wrong, the objection to our Constitution is, that it does not settle the point one way or the other with an absolute certainty. The practice is variable. The generally received opinion, however, is that the Constitution permits it. In this state of the matter it is not competent for the Legislature to interfere. Nothing short of a constitutional declaration can decide the question; which is, in fact, an important one, and is growing ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the moon, th' inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable— ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... relics of Rome have been found in it, but it has not the characteristic of Roman work. It runs upon no regular lines; its contour is curved and variable. It is surely far older than the Roman occupation. Earth, heaped and beaten hard, is the most enduring of things; the tumuli all over England have outlasted even the monoliths, and the great defensive mounds at Norwich and at Oxford ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... all inevitably out of sight. I have heard it mentioned as an article of belief among sextons that a hundred years is the fair measure of a head-stone's "life" above ground, but this reckoning is much too short for the evidences, and makes no allowance for variable circumstances. In some places, Keston for instance, the church is founded upon a bed of chalk, and out of the chalk the graves are laboriously hewn. It is obvious therefore that the nature of the soil, as it is yielding or impervious, ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... not amounting to its total removal, that is, a change which leaves it still the same thing it was, must be a change either in its quantity, or in some of its variable relations to other things, of which variable relations the principal is its position in space. In the previous example, the modification which was produced in the antecedent was an alteration in its quantity. Let us now suppose the question to be, what influence the moon exerts on ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... generally Charles's son George; Charles Darwin is "the father" or "Mr. Darwin, senior". Dwarka Nath Tagore was Rabindranath (both transliterations are variable) Tagore's grandfather. The evil Professor Whitney is William Dwight Whitney, author of the standard Sanskrit ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... reflexes and instincts, or between instincts and the still less easily describable original tendencies. The fact is that original tendencies range with respect to the nature of the responses from such as are single, simple, definite, uniform within the individual and only slightly variable amongst individuals, to responses that are highly compound, complex, vague, and variable within one ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... from a child upwards, and had his impression of to-day modified by that of to-morrow, and belied by that of the day after, till at length the stable characteristics of the country are all blotted out from him behind the confusion of variable effect. ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is variable, freezing nights and thawing in the day. The soil in this locality is rich, and, where trodden, extremely muddy. We shall miss the clear water of the mountain streams. A large number of troops ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... connect as shown in Fig. 7, where A is the homemade ammeter; B, a standard ammeter; C, a variable resistance, and D, a battery, consisting of three or more cells connected in multiple. Throw in enough resistance to make the standard instrument read 1 ohm [sic: ampere] and then put a mark on the paper scale of the instrument to be calibrated. Continue in this ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Nitrogen is variable, but, in general, the older peats contain the most. To this topic we shall shortly recur, and now ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... misfortune, by which it was decreed that the virtue and the constancy of our heroine should be tried, was not yet ended. The disposition of a melancholy lover is in the utmost degree variable. Now the fair Delia studiously sought to plunge herself in impervious solitude; and now, worn with a train of gloomy reflections, she with equal eagerness solicited the society of her ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... on horseback; and when he lived with Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, he exceeded the Persians, themselves in magnificence and pomp. Not that his natural disposition changed so easily, nor that his real character was so very variable, but whenever he was sensible that by pursuing his own inclinations he might give offence to those with whom he had occasion to converse, he transformed himself into any shape and adopted any fashion, that he observed to be most agreeable to them. So that to have seen him at Lacedaemon, a man, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... features. Her strength and her weakness alike lay in her affections. Her gladness was like a burst of sunlight; and if, in her depression, she resembled night, it was night wearing her stars. She was a muse, a grace, a variable child, a dependent woman, the Italy of human beings." Miss Jewsbury married, and went to India, where she soon died. Mrs. Hemans paid a heartfelt tribute to her memory, in the course of which she says, "There was a strong chain of interest between us, that ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... surrounding her. It may have been that her brilliant, exciting life led naturally to a partly physical reaction, and that she became too tired by the emotions she had gone through, to adapt herself with buoyancy to the ever variable conditions of existence. At all events she is a refreshing figure in the midst of much that is unsatisfactory—a woman witty, highly gifted, a queen of society, who was yet kindly, generous, and absolutely ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... efforts of the Northern Nut Growers Association members several good varieties have been found and propagated. These varieties have been widely distributed but have not been extensively planted. The results are variable as might be expected, but generally the reports are satisfactory. In the eastern states the following varieties seem to do reasonably well: Faust, Bates, Ritchie and Stranger. In British Columbia, Messrs. J. U. and David Gellatly have located several very good strains such as Gellatly, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... demanded ransoms accordingly, from six thousand to six hundred dollars each. He ordered them a berth on deck, at the after part of the vessel, where they had nothing to shelter them from the weather, which at this time was very variable,—the days excessively hot, and the nights cold, with heavy rains. The town being plundered of every thing valuable, it was set on fire, and reduced to ashes by the morning. The fleet remained here three days, negotiating for the ransom of the prisoners, and ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... and the competition of life; antagonistic cooperation. The struggle for existence must be carried on under life conditions and in connection with the competition of life. The life conditions consist in variable elements of the environment, the supply of materials necessary to support life, the difficulty of exploiting them, the state of the arts, and the circumstances of physiography, climate, meteorology, etc., which favor life or the contrary. The struggle for existence is a process in which ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... is extremely variable in these steppes, so that Madame de Bourboulon records having experienced in the morning a frost of one degree below zero, and some hours afterwards a heat of thirty degrees above zero (Centigrade). These changes are most numerous and most ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... shall be compelled to swallow the whole social code, make a covenant with society, sign a pledge of abstinence, and give to another a life interest in all my affairs, when I know too well that I am but taking to my arms a variable creature like myself, whose wishes are apt to become insistent and burdensome in proportion to the decrease of her beauty and interest?" These are the men, who, unwilling to risk the manifold contingencies of an authorized connection, ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser |
