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Variation   /vˌɛriˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Variation

noun
1.
An instance of change; the rate or magnitude of change.  Synonym: fluctuation.
2.
An activity that varies from a norm or standard.  Synonym: variance.
3.
A repetition of a musical theme in which it is modified or embellished.
4.
Something a little different from others of the same type.  Synonyms: edition, variant, version.  "A variant of the same word" , "An emery wheel is the modern variation of a grindstone" , "The boy is a younger edition of his father"
5.
An artifact that deviates from a norm or standard.
6.
The angle (at a particular location) between magnetic north and true north.  Synonyms: magnetic declination, magnetic variation.
7.
The process of varying or being varied.
8.
(astronomy) any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite (especially a perturbation of the earth's moon).
9.
(biology) an organism that has characteristics resulting from chromosomal alteration.  Synonyms: mutant, mutation, sport.
10.
(ballet) a solo dance or dance figure.  Synonym: pas seul.
11.
The act of changing or altering something slightly but noticeably from the norm or standard.



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"Variation" Quotes from Famous Books



... the lessons gained by experience in treatment of house interiors, is that plain, flat tints give apparent size to small rooms, and that a satisfying effect in large ones can be gained by variation of tint or surface; also, that in a bedroom or other small room apparent size will be gained by using a wall covering which is light rather than dark. Some difference of tone there must be in large plain ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler

... him, but she was obliged to content herself with such a sweeping charge of her Zulus among Alwyn's Englishmen, that their general shrieked out in indignation against such a variation of the accustomed programme of all ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the call is insistent for the permanent solution. It is inevitable that large crops lower the prices and short crops advance them. No legislation can cure that fundamental law. But there must be some economic solution for the excessive variation in returns ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding

... be reiterated that our reasoning still leaves Utopian marriage an institution with wide possibilities of variation. We have tried to give effect to the ideal of a virtual equality, an equality of spirit between men and women, and in doing so we have overridden the accepted opinion of the great majority of mankind. Probably the first writer to do as much was Plato. His ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... abbreviation for the States, for example, must be used. It would be out of the question to have one person abbreviating Alabama one way and another person another. It would not only result in a slipshod lot of documents but the variation might mislead those who read it. In all such documents every detail must be the same. Moreover, often employees are far from being expert in such matters and a book to which they can refer is a great help to them. In addition, it settles all ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... over her black head and under her scarlet-stockinged legs with a precision and regularity that was like machinery; but there was nothing mechanical in the infinite variety and sweetness of her inclinations, and the spontaneous agile flexure of her lean waist and hips. There was one variation favourite with her, in which she crossed her hands before her with a motion not unlike that of weaving, which was admirably intricate and complete. And when the two took the rope together and whirled in and out with occasional interruptions, there was something Italian ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... conversational paraphrase of the words of his instructions, "as it shows the beginning and the animus of that course of conduct which resulted so disastrously," which is not "in precise conformity" with his instructions, but is just such a variation as is to be expected when one is talking with another and using the words that suggest themselves at the moment, just as the familiar expression, "hung up on a peg," probably suggested itself ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... rather large feet. She was as straight as a grenadier, and had it been her fate to carry a milk-pail, she would have carried it to perfection. Instead of this, however, she was permitted to expend an equal amount of energy in every variation of waltz and polka that the ingenuity of the dancing professors of the age has been able to produce. Waltzes and polkas suited her admirably; for she was gifted with excellent lungs and perfect powers of breathing, and she had not ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... all the soldiers, that they should take heed faithfully and courageously to do and execute the same. Their commissions were, for the substance of them, the same in form; though as to name, title, place, and degree of the captains, there might be some, but very small variation. And here let me give you an account of the matter and sum contained ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... unchangeableness of Thy Word, which I now knew, as far as I could, nor did I at all doubt thereof. For, now to move the limbs of the body by will, now not, now to be moved by some affection, now not, now to deliver wise sayings through human signs, now to keep silence, belong to soul and mind subject to variation. And should these things be falsely written of Him, all the rest also would risk the charge, nor would there remain in those books any saving faith for mankind. Since then they were written truly, I acknowledged a perfect man ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... and what I see when I now look at the sun is one member of this class. The various particulars constituting this class will be correlated with each other by a certain continuity and certain intrinsic laws of variation as we pass outwards from the centre, together with certain modifications correlated extrinsically with other particulars which are not members of this class. It is these extrinsic modifications which represent ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... drew up a table of all the experiments which had been made on this subject, the result of which is that the mean temperature of these kinds of animals appears to be 64 degrees 9 minutes Fahrenheit; and that the greatest variation in excess is 1 degree 7 minutes; and in defect 2 degrees 9 minutes Fahrenheit. Is it possible, then, that an animal can live in a fluid, the temperature of which is constantly varying, and preserve nearly ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... a strummy, decided sort of marchlike tune; and the dancers paired off. They performed a kind of lancer figure, very stately and solemn, seemingly interminable, with scant variation, small progressions, and mighty little interest to me. We sat in a stiff row and shed the compliment of our presence on the scene. It was about as inspiring as a visit to a hospital ward. What determined the duration of ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... by southeast trade winds; annual rainfall averages 124 inches; rainy season from November to April, dry season from May to October; little seasonal temperature variation ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... As the inclinations and circumstances of consumers cannot be reduced to any rule, so neither can the proportions in which the two commodities will be interchanged. We know that the limits within which the variation is confined are the ratio between their costs of production in the one country, and the ratio between their costs of production in the other. Ten yards of cloth cannot exchange for more than 20 yards of linen, nor for less than 15. But they may ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... you wish to direct attention to their variety—their difference, one from another. "The dividend was distributed among the various stockholders." The stockholders vary, as do all persons, but that is irrelevant and was not in mind. "Various persons have spoken to me of you." Their variation is unimportant; what is meant is that there was a small indefinite number of them; that ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce

... just as 'clear, unanimous, and connected,' about the former event as the latter (for the accounts of the Crucifixion vary not a little), and they must have had infinitely better means of knowing whether Christ reappeared than whether he had actually died. There is not the same scope for variation in the bare assertion that a man died, as there is in the narration of his sayings and doings upon the several occasions of his reappearance. Besides, in support of the reappearances, we have the evidence of Paul, who, though not an eye- witness, was well acquainted with those who were; ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... abounded. Queen Elizabeth's maids of honor played tag with hilarity, but the spirit of play with full abandon seems taking its departure from our overworked, serious, and tons, age. To requote Stevenson with variation, as laborari, [To labor] so ludere, et joculari orare sunt. [To play and to jest are to pray] Laughter itself, as Kuehne long ago showed, is one of the most precious forms of exercise, relieving ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... development, is as important as the principle of the three stages which governs the onward movement. This movement, however, is not in a right line, but displays a series of oscillations, unequal and variable, round a mean motion which tends to prevail. The three general causes of variation, according to Comte, are race, climate, and deliberate political action (such as the retrograde policies of Julian the Apostate or Napoleon). But while they cause deflections and oscillation, their power is strictly limited; they may accelerate or retard the movement, but ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... broad plains which lie between the Shannon and the mountains of Connemara and Mayo. This was the relative position into which these clans had settled at the Conquest, and it had been maintained with little variation. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... the winter months, Texas has winds from the north, which come on very suddenly, and produce great variation in the temperature. They are disagreeable, but wholesome, and clear the atmosphere. They do not extend north of the Red River, nor very far west, but increase in intensity as ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... of the Confederacy. Gresham's law ought to be called Aristophanes' law. In all matters pertaining to the sphere of civic life, merry Aristophanes is of more value than sombre Thucydides, and if the gospel of peace which he preaches is chiefly a variation on the theme of something to eat, small blame to him. Critics have found fault with the appetite of Odysseus as set forth by Homer. No Confederate soldier will subscribe to the censure, and there are no scenes in Aristophanes ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... humanist outlook on free will, and his tendency to emphasize the necessity of good works, contributed to inspire him with erroneous views, when the evangelical doctrine began to be wrought out more expansively, and led him to find the cause for the actual variation in the working of God's grace in man, its object. This subtle synergistic spirit attacks the very foundation of Lutheranism, flows out into almost every doctrine, and weakens the Church at every point. And it was practically ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... stability a general and lasting advantage, which will always overbalance the slow improvements of gradual correction. Much less ought our written language to comply with the corruptions of oral utterance, or copy that which every variation of time or place makes different from itself, and imitate those changes, which will again be changed, while imitation is employed in ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... miles east by south, and that course will carry us parallel with the shore of Santa Rosa Island, variation included," replied Christy, who had been a diligent student of the chart, and had written down all that it was important for him to remember, though he had one of his own charts, or a piece of one, ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... said, for I wasn't likely to get a better opportunity. "There's nothing much in it; it's merely a variation of Cinderella's slipper. Well, once upon a time there was an eccentric young prince who'd had his fling in his day, but had arrived at the lonely age of thirty without having met a woman whom he could love enough to make his ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... the pains of this, the most painful, stage of labor. The average duration of labor is eighteen hours in the case of the first child, and about twelve hours with women who have already borne children. The time, however, is subject to considerable variation, in individual cases, as has ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.

... this second visit to Lausanne, among a crowd of my English companions, I knew and esteemed Mr. Holroyd (now Lord Sheffield); and our mutual attachment was renewed and fortified in the subsequent stages of our Italian journey. Our lives are in the power of chance, and a slight variation on either side, in time or place, might have deprived me of a friend, whose activity in the ardour of youth was always prompted by a benevolent heart, and ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... the following variation:—"And to the east north are the wolds which are called Heath Wolds."[4] To the word wolds he appends a note:—"Wylte. See on this word a note hereafter." Very well; the promised note is to justify the metamorphosis of the warlike tribe, known in the annals and chronicles ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various

... guns for a supply of provisions, and at all times could meet with plenty of partridges and hares, though there were few days we did not kill a deer. The description of one day's journey will suffice for all, there being but little variation. The snow was at this time ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad

... knowledge; but we submit that any man with a passable degree of either taste or knowledge is able to decide, and will decide that No. 6 is not more impossible than No. 1, or No. 4 more monstrous than No. 2; while in Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, there is exhibited a variation in the form of capital letters, instances of which Dr. Ingleby intimates it is impossible to find in genuine handwriting, and the existence of which in the Collier folio Mr. Hamilton sets forth as one reason for invalidating the good faith of its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... is a sort of snaffle-bit with cheeks and a curb-chain, is a convenient style for this class of horse. A powerful variation of the Pelham, called the Hanoverian, has within the last few years come very much into use. It requires the light hands of a practised horseman to use the curb-reins of the Hanoverian on a delicate-mouthed horse; but when properly used no bit makes a horse bend and display himself ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... the Division, and the other adjoining Snake Hill; the third is a regular curve of 1 deg. 54' on the east-bound track, and a compound curve with a maximum of 2 deg. on the west-bound track, the variation being due to the track spacing of 37 ft. from center to center in the Bergen Hill Tunnels, while on the Meadows Division it is 13 ft. ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • E. B. Temple

... with the mathematical rules of "combination, permutation, and variation," but unhappily I could not give much time to their study, which I have regretted ever since. Otherwise, what I learned from the lectures was too slight for what I wanted, being, unluckily, altogether foreign to my nature, and more often a mere ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel

... place. One Rosewel, a Presbyterian preacher, was accused by three women of having spoken treasonable words in a sermon. They swore to two or three periods, and agreed so exactly together, that there was not the smallest variation in their depositions. Rosewel, on the other hand, made a very good defence. He proved that the witnesses were lewd and infamous persons. He proved that, even during Cromwell's usurpation, he had always ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... Springs. I feel a little better to-day, but suffer very much from the eyes. I hope I shall be able to travel to-morrow, for it is misery to remain in camp in the hot weather. Latitude, 28 degrees 57 minutes 24 seconds. Variation, ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... later studies. The technical purpose is clear, but not obtrusive. It is intended for the fourth and fifth finger of the right hand, but given in unison with both hands it becomes a veritable but laudable torture for the thumb of the left. With the repeat of the first at bar 36 Von Bulow gives a variation in fingering. Kullak's method of fingering is this: "Everywhere that two white keys occur in succession the fifth finger is to be used for C and F in the right hand, and for F and E in the left." He has also something to say about holding "the hand sideways, so that ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... of the fog evidently lay near the water, and the lookout had probably seen the light over the top of the bank, as it could not be made out on the bridge. Christy expressed his belief that the sun would burn the fog off soon after it rose. No variation of the drift lead had been reported, and the Bronx was not even swinging at her anchor. For an hour longer entire silence was preserved on the deck, and the lookout made ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... kill his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was known," and adding with a grim humour, "now whether shee was better roasted, boyled or carbonado'd, I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife, I never heard of." His statements are copied, with more or less variation, by Beverley, Stith, Keith and Burke, but not one of them go into the disgusting and improbable details named in the "Brief Declaration." Campbell also reports the stories, but adds, in regard to the wife murderer, "upon his trial it appeared that ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various

... knew ecstasy, and Liszt also; Wagner was the master adept of his century. Tschaikowsky followed him close; and in the tiny piano scores of Chopin ecstasy is pinioned in a few bars, the soul often rapt to heaven in a phrase. Richard Strauss has shown a rare variation on the theme of ecstasy; voluptuousness troubled by pain, the ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... of feminine fashion du Maurier's drawings in Punch are remarkable. It must not be imagined that the history of fashion is merely the tale of dressmakers' caprice. The very language of changing ideals is the variation of the toilet. When women were restricted to an oriental extent within convention, when to be "prim" was the aim of life, no feature of dress was lacking that could put "abandonment" of any but a moral kind, out of the question. A shake of the head ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood

... continued, through the Play, in the same place, where it was laid in the beginning. For the Stage, on which it is represented, being but one, and the same place; it isunnatural to conceive it many, and those far distant from one another. I will not deny but by the Variation of Painted scenes [scenery was introduced about this time into the English theatres, by Sir WILLIAM D'AVENANT and BETTERTON the Actor: see Vol. II. p. 278] the Fancy which, in these casts, will contribute to its own deceit, may sometimes imagine it several places, ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... possessing a great knowledge of themselves and of God, and whereof the greatest or chief part is eternal, and, therefore, that they should scarcely fear death. But, in order that this may be understood more clearly, we must here call to mind, that we live in a state of perpetual variation, and, according as we are changed for the better or the worse, we are ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... who commit criminal acts, show rather a variation of insanity than of criminality. It would be more exact to describe them as "criminal lunatics" than as "insane criminals." Two classes exist, a fact which is often overlooked, for there are both ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... a tongue current all over the island, called by the Spaniards la lengua universal and la lengua cortesana. This is distinctly said by all the historians to have been but very slightly different from that of Cuba, a mere dialectic variation in accent being observed.[15] Many fragments of this tongue are preserved in the narratives of the early explorers, and it has been the theme for some strange and wild theorizing among would-be philologists. ...
— The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations • Daniel G. Brinton

... originally one into a number of distinct tribes, are probably no more than distance and settlement in different parts of the country, leading to cessation of intermarriage and social intercourse. The tribes have then obtained some variation in the original names or been given separate territorial or occupational designations by the Hindus, and their former identity has gradually been forgotten. Both the Korwas of the Chota Nagpur plateau and the Korkus of the Satpura hills were known ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... first movement looked as though the ball were to be pushed somewhere through the Army's right flank, and Lehigh wheeled accordingly. But it was a left-end pass, after all. Dick and Greg got through by a very slight variation on their last ruse ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock

... group it appears that the eldest son will save himself, and in certain minor points the sculptors seem not to have followed the account of Virgil; but we see that it must be the same story that is illustrated, and we know that it was told with some variation by other poets. This group is a wonderful piece of sculpture, but it is not of the highest art, and it is far from pleasant to look at. The same is true of another famous group which is in Naples, and which is also from the ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... say; not to have kept it up, so, 'over there,' from that day to this, without a doubt or a pang; not, above all, to have liked it, to have loved it, so much, loved it, no doubt, with such an abysmal conceit of my own preference; some variation from that, I say, must have produced some different effect for my life and for my 'form.' I should have stuck here—if it had been possible; and I was too young, at twenty-three, to judge, pour deux sous, ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James

... short song, repeated, with some variation in the number and length of the notes, at brief intervals. The opening notes are thick and throaty, and similar in character to the throat-notes of many other species in this group, a softer sound than the throat-notes of the skylark and woodlark, which ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... indicated the precise spot where the letter lay when he had thrown it upon the desk. Captain Chinks was called in, and pointed to exactly the same place. There was not a variation of ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic

... distillations upon a very small scale. Those used in manufactures are generally made of copper, and are, of course, considerably larger. The principal construction, however, is always the same, although their shape admits of some variation. ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... in it there occurs very frequently the expression, 'your Father which is in Heaven'; or sometimes with the variation,'thy Father which is in Heaven,' or, 'which seeth in secret.' But you will also find that whilst our Lord speaks about 'My Father which is in Heaven,' He never says 'our Father'; excepting in the exception which proves the rule when He is putting into the lips ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... his plays, though two or three of his witty contemporaries were thrown in among them, as a make weight. The scene might be entitled, the different ways in which the very same story may be told without any variation in matter of fact; for the least attentive reader will perceive the perfect identity of the footboy's account with the Frenchman's own statement in ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... musters of the same according to the foregoing orders, having cognizance of what has passed in the congregation or elections made in the parishes or the hundreds, with power to punish any undue practices, or variation from their respective rules and orders, under an appeal to the Parliament. A marriage legitimately is to be pronounced by the parochial congregation, the muster of the hundred, or the phylarch. And if a tribe have a desire (which they are ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... milk. When the days work was done and it was time for the evening meal there was the fried meat again with the molasses and the corn bread. Mr. Womble says that they ate this kind of food every day in the week. The only variation was on Sunday when they were given the seconds of the flour and a little more molasses so that they might make a cake. No other sweetening was used ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... days of Elul, the ordinances have much the same character as those instanced. The variation consists chiefly in the god or gods to whom the days are sacred. Now it is Nabu and his consort Tashmitum—on the 4th, 8th, and 17th days—to whom gifts and prayers are brought; again Ninib and his consort Gula, ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... dialect, by a supreme government, and by the possession of a territory which it occupied and defended as its own. The tribes were as numerous as the dialects, for separation did not become complete until dialectical variation had commenced. Indian tribes, therefore, are natural growths through the separation of the same people in the area of their occupation, followed by divergence of speech, segmentation, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... pleasure in telling her tale that Wynnette, in her pungent way, said that the lady from the Wild Cats' Gulch was a reincarnation of the spirit of the Ancient Mariner, with the variation that to her every new acquaintance was a "wedding guest," to whom she was bound to tell her story. And that for all the sufferings the injured wife had endured she found full compensation in the narration of her great wrongs, and in the abuse of the enormous villainy ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... described as follows: Commencing at a stake marked "I.A." ran north at variation of 22 deg. 30' E. forty chains and set post at N.W. corner of claim thence east 20 chains and set N.E. corner thence south 40 chains setting S.E. corner thence west 20 chains to ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... well under weigh, with a fair wind up channel, and full-freighted; nor indeed were we long before we finished our trip to Cythera, and unloaded in the old haven; but, as the circumstances-did not admit of much variation, I shall ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... wings of the corona in 1878 gave apparent support to this hypothesis; if the substance of the corona could extend ten million miles from the sun, why might it not extend even one hundred million, gradually fading out beyond the orbit of the earth? A variation of this hypothesis assumes that the reflection is due to swarms of meteors circling about the sun, in the plane of its equator, all the way from its immediate neighborhood to a distance exceeding that of the earth. But in neither form is the hypothesis ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... fool" has sometimes been enshrined and idolized. But we may remember that Eugenics can never prevent absolutely the occurrence of feeble-minded persons, even in the extreme degree of the imbecile and the idiot.[26] They come within the range of variation, by the same right as genius so comes. We cannot, it may be, prevent the occurrence of such persons, but we can prevent them from being the founders of families tending to resemble themselves. And in so doing, it will be agreed by most people, we shall be effecting a task of ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... measurements. He gathered a rag here, a splinter there, and a pinch of earth yonder, inspected them profoundly, and preserved them. He took the "lay" of the place with a pocket-compass, allowing two seconds for magnetic variation. He took the time (Pacific) by his watch, correcting it for local time. He paced off the distance from the cabin site to the corpse, and corrected that for tidal differentiation. He took the altitude with a pocket-aneroid, and the temperature with a pocket-thermometer. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... not," added Foster. "If we steer that course, we should go forty or fifty miles south of Cape Sable, and thus run much farther than we need. What is the variation?" ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... meaning, which in the beginning would not have been suspected back of the dream, but which stand in a very close symbolical relation, even to details, to the dream facade. This peculiar thought-complex, in which all the threads of the dream are united, is the looked-for conflict in a certain variation which is determined by the circumstances. What is painful and contradictory in the conflict is so confused here that one can speak of a wish-fulfillment; let us, however, immediately add that the fulfilled wishes apparently are not wishes, but are such as frequently are contradictory to them. ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... complex outlines, such as are seen in the hemispherical bowl (b), the deep basin with slightly incurved rim (c), the globular form (d), and the elongated form (e). Occasionally we see an eccentric variation, such as is shown in f. Flat bottoms are unusual; a conical base is the rule. Outlines do not always exhibit these even, convex curves, but many are straight or concave in profile, as shown in Fig. 46. Complex forms are shown in Fig. 47, a and b, ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... constructing rheostats, or electrical resistances for making an artificial telegraph line, that powdered plumbago and carbon has the property of varying in its resistance to the passage of the current when under pressure. The variation seemed in a manner proportional to the pressure. As a matter of fact, powdered carbon and plumbago had been used in making small adjustable rheostats by M. Clerac, in France, and probably also in Germany, as early as 1865 or 1866. Clerac's device consisted of a small wooden tube containing ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... "A Variation in Flesh Colour and Green. The damsels—they were not altogether meritorious. The draughtsmanship displayed in them was ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... habits, its breath, its name. It is recalled all a lifetime, having been perceived a week, and is not scattered but abides, one living body of remembrance. The untravelled spirit of place—not to be pursued, for it never flies, but always to be discovered, never absent, without variation—lurks in the byways and rules over the towers, indestructible, an indescribable unity. It awaits us always in its ancient and eager freshness. It is sweet and nimble within its immemorial boundaries, but it never crosses them. Long white roads ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... changed with the years so that many words now connote more than they did originally. This is true of the word monotonous. From "having but one tone," it has come to mean more broadly, "lack of variation." ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... tail so proudly. Some of this, of course, was due to the difference between a mare and a stallion, but still more came from the differing natures of the two animals. In the head lay the greatest variation. The head of Gray Peter was close to perfection, light, compact, heavy of jowl; his eye at all times was filled with an intolerable brightness, a keen flame of courage and eagerness. But one could find a fault with Sally's head. In general, it was very well shaped, with the wide forehead and all ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... Poussin?" There immediately follows a remark upon another picture in the National Gallery, the "Mercury and Woodman," by Salvator Rosa, than which nothing can be more untrue to the original. He asserts that Salvator painted the distant mountains, "throughout, without one instant of variation. But what is its colour? Pure sky-blue, without one grain of grey, or any modifying hue whatsoever;—the same brush which had just given the bluest parts of the sky, has been more loaded at the same part of the pallette, and the whole mountain throw in with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... our perceptions, as Locke again said, are sufficient for our welfare and appropriate to our condition. They are not only a wonderful entertainment in themselves, but apart from their sensuous and grammatical quality, by their distribution and method of variation, they may inform us most exactly about the order and mechanism of nature. We see in the science of today how completely the most accurate knowledge—proved to be accurate by its application in the arts—may shed every ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana

... time—the country at its best—and with the attraction of an old book, I decided on a day's holiday, and eight o'clock the next morning found me in the train for C——, and after a variation in my programme, caused by my having walked three miles west before I discovered that my destination was three miles east of the railway station, I arrived at the rectory at noon, and found assembled some ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades

... see the whole effect of this, that when changes of land and sea, or of climate, or of food-supply, or of enemies occurred—and we know that such changes have always been taking place—and considering the amount of individual variation that my experience as a collector had shown me to exist, then it followed that all the changes necessary for the adaptation of the species to the changing conditions would be brought about; and as great changes in the environment are always slow, there would be ample time for the change to ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... of Maupassant's cynicism was just that variation of the artistic idea upon the temperament which puts the best finish upon work necessarily so limited, obliged to be so clenching, as the short story. Flaubert's gigantic dissatisfaction with life, his really philosophic ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... would be that the metal must have taken in some substance rather than have given off anything. But the phlogistians had not learned the all-important significance of weights, and their explanation of variation in weight was either that such gain or loss was an unimportant "accident" at best, or that phlogiston, being light, tended to lighten any substance containing it, so that driving it out of the metal by calcination naturally left ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... clocke we anchored, being little winde, and rode in eight fathoms water; the night was faire. This night I found the land to hail the compasse 8 degrees. For to the northward off us we saw high hils. For the day before we found not above 2 degrees of variation. This is a very good land to fall with, and a pleasant ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various

... whose help the mind perceives all the movements which are excited in the body and external objects. This gland, he affirms, is suspended in the middle of the brain in such a manner that it can be moved by the least motion of the animal spirits. Again, he affirms that any variation in the manner in which the animal spirits impinge upon this gland is followed by a variation in the manner in which it is suspended in the middle of the brain, and moreover that the number of different impressions on the ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... Christ's godhead, and roar and flee at the presence of the venerable bones of his servants,[19] which he also mentions and urges in his invective against Constantius.[20] In 358, he wrote his book On Synods, or On the Faith of the Orientals, to explain the terms and variation of the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... and so much time had already passed and been improved since the other schooner was last seen, he believed he might venture to steer in the precise direction he desired to go. The season is so short in those seas, that every hour is precious, and no more variation from a real object could be permitted than circumstances imperiously required. It was now generally understood that the craft was making the best of her ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... years intervening since the death of John Brown, the Drama of Life has been played with far more than the usual variation. In no equal space of time since the recording of events began, have more pages of history been turned than during the quarter of a century just closing. Owing to the efforts of Brown and others ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe

... however, for some minutes, gazing upon the magnificent geyser. I soon was able to perceive that the upward tendency of the water was irregular; now it diminished in intensity, and then, suddenly, it regained new vigor, which I attributed to the variation of the pressure of the accumulated vapors in ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... temptations of capitals, that is to say, with passion unbridled. The interpretation assigned to these categories is a fanciful one. Passions are born and bred and produce their full effect in every place and phase of life. They may assume varying forms in divers surroundings, but such variation has no analogy with change of age. Only by forcing the moral of his stories was the author able to give them these secondary significations. Indeed, he was often in straits to decide in which category he ought to class one and another novel. Pere Goriot was originally ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... perhaps, from the decomposition of some of the silicates in the lava itself—percolated through the rock, and deposited a siliceous coating on the interior of the vapour-vesicles. Variations in the character of the solution, or in the conditions of deposit, may have caused corresponding variation in the successive layers, so that bands . of chalcedony often alternate with layers of crystalline quartz, and occasionally of opaline silica. By movement of the lava, when originally viscous, the vesicles were ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... salt together thoroughly until the dressing is like whipped cream. Discard outer leaves of cabbage. Shred the rest finely and combine with dressing just before it is ready to serve. Serves six. As variation: Add ...
— Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking • Unknown

... with regard to Spanish deceit and falsehood, that very few of the commons seem as yet to have been convinced that they had been seduced by Buckingham's narrative: a certain proof that a discovery of this nature was not, as is imagined by several historians, the cause of so sudden and surprising a variation in the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... can be more adapted to stimulate and to feed curiosity than the aspect of the United States. Fortunes, opinions, and laws are there in ceaseless variation: it is as if immutable nature herself were mutable, such are the changes worked upon her by the hand of man. Yet in the end the sight of this excited community becomes monotonous, and after having watched the moving pageant for a time the spectator is tired of it. Amongst aristocratic ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... of the name should be sought for, and every variation from it should be noted. These should be taken so far as possible from original manuscripts, not ...
— The Composition of Indian Geographical Names - Illustrated from the Algonkin Languages • J. Hammond Trumbull

... Becket, another form of the same fable appears. The men of Strood are said to have docked the tail of his horse and to have been punished in the same way as St. Augustine's persecutors. In the story Rochester sometimes appears instead of Strood, and this is our excuse for alluding to the variation here. It seems to be due to a confusion of the old story with a new fact, as we have a contemporary statement that St. Thomas, on the Christmas Day before his death, excommunicated a certain Robert de Broc, because the latter had, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer

... plenty, and the quality was excellent. I fear you encourage gluttony, and nothing so interferes with work. We must effect a saving somehow; there is too great a variation between theoretical and ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... possibilities, "per variation et mutation" of gorgeous modern Pantomime, are exhausted—"which," as EUCLID observes, "is impossible"—except we may "add a rider" (as the Clown in the Circle might observe) that Pantomime is, in itself, a reductio ad absurdum—then, perchance, Sir DRURIOLANUS MAGNIFICUS may give us next ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various

... Leaves. L. E. D.—Physicians seem somewhat in dispute about the best mode of exhibiting this medicine; some recommending the extract, as being most easily taken in the form of pills; others the powder, as not being subject to that variation which the extract is liable to, from being made in different ways. With respect to the period, likewise, at which the plant should be gathered, they seem not perfectly agreed; some recommending it when in its full vigour, and just coming into bloom, and others, when the flowers ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... when in better humour, he made the second stanza, as in the text. There was only one variation afterwards made on my suggestion, which was changing hoary in the third line to smiling, both to avoid a sameness with the epithet in the first line, and to describe the hermit in his pleasantry. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... less and less marked; for each new plant, insect, or bird that established itself successfully tended to make the balance of nature more similar to the one that obtained in the mainland opposite, and so decreased the chances of novelty of variation. ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... functional harmony of structure, for thousands of cells would have to vary together in a purposive way before any real advantage could be gained in the struggle for existence, and it is in the highest degree unlikely that this should come about by chance variation.[486] The development of purposive internal structure is only to be explained by the properties of the ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... deceased understanding. Of pain there was some little; of pleasure there was much; but of moral pain or pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences, and were appreciated in their every variation of sad tone; but they were soft musical sounds and no more; they conveyed to the extinct reason no intimation of the sorrows which gave them birth; while the large and constant tears which fell upon my face, telling the bystanders of a heart ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... lines are sung first to the upper staff, then repeated to the music on the second, which differs somewhat from the first. Then follows the third and fourth lines, which are sung to the third staff, and repeated with slight variation from the fourth. ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes

... of the emotional constitution and of likings and antipathies are very numerous and wide. I may give two instances which I have not seen elsewhere alluded to, merely as examples of variation. One of them was often brought to my notice at the time when the public were admitted to see the snakes fed at the Zoological Gardens. Rabbits, birds, and other small animals were dropped in the different cages, which the snakes, after more or less serpentine action, finally ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman's usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they are now; or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is in truth the great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil to be avoided in not marrying, I shall be very well ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... tone than of form; the two things cannot well be separated. For such symphonic effects one employs what one might term emotion-mass with just as deliberate a regard for its position in the total design as one would employ a variation of form. One should regard this or that emotional theme as a musical unit having such-and-such a tone quality, and use it only when that particular tone-quality is wanted. Here I flatly give myself away as being in reality in quest of a sort of absolute poetry, ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert

... left on their own point of suspension to vibrate freely, the diamond-scales of Beauclerc's mind began to move, from some nice, unseen cause of variation. "But," said he, "General Clarendon, no one can ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... light when struggling among its fellows, and it now so far overhung the lake, that its summit may have been some ten or fifteen feet without the base. A gentle, graceful curve added to the effect of this variation from the perpendicular, and infused enough of the fearful into the grand, to render the picture sublime. Although there was not a breath of wind on the lake, the currents were strong enough above the forest to move ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... broke in as before. A pause—and like a variation in the song of the nightingale, rose the pathetic air ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood

... for the diversified human races? If all our breeds of cattle came from one stock, why not this stock from the auroch, which has had all the time between the diluvial and the historic periods in which to set off a variation perhaps no greater than the difference between some sorts ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... with such records for about forty years has taught Mr. Edison the precise meaning of each slightest variation in the lines. I have taken up and elaborated his idea. By examining them under the microscope one can analyze each tone with mathematical accuracy and can almost hear it—just as a musician reading the score of a song can almost hear ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... determines the separate words of this message of God, the letters of which are scattered throughout Nature. Metaphysics combines these words into propositions which enunciate a distinct truth. There is therefore neither conflict nor variation between the method of Logic and the method of Nature. The movement of both is in the same direction; the only difference is in the point of starting. And another truth no less important, which follows from the foregoing discussion, ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter

... me. 'Tis in everything else the same; a violent imagination hath seized me: I find it a nearer way to change than to subdue it: I depute, if not one contrary, yet another at least, in its place. Variation ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... little variety in the life of little Ned. Waking in the morning, he would start out with the matches, selling them if he could, if not, hunger, to which he was so accustomed, was his companion. So from day to day it was the same story, the only variation, the only change was in his dreams and visions; hunger could not deprive him of that solace, the cold could not freeze the warm fancies and imaginations. One morning in early spring little Ned awoke from his pleasant dreams and started on his route. Passing numberless people, some stopped ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt

... was adrift, knowing no craft, belonging to no religious body, and without social or political interest. I engaged myself to a schoolmaster. The story of my very brief stay with him has been elsewhere told with some variation, but I may as well relate it here so as to make my little history complete. The school was somewhere in Stoke Newington. I got there in the evening when it was quite dark. After a word or two with my chief I was shown into a large school-room. Two candles were placed ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... principal residences, Sempringham being another (Camden’s “Britannia,” p. 478). We here have the thoroughly Lincolnshire word ”kid” for faggot. {133} The name “Lope-thorpe” for the residence of the testator’s brother, Sir William Sherard, is a variation from Lobthorpe. A moat and fish ponds still mark the site of Lobthorpe Hall in North Witham, and there are several monuments in the church of Sir Brownlow Sherard and other members of the family. As there is no mention of the burial of this ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... for holidays would her petulant moods vanish, and in his company her old vitality sparkled like the noonday sun upon the ocean's surface. And if her affection for him knew no variation, his was no less true. The friendships and the adventures of school were forgotten in the comradeship of his sister as, over the fields of Roselawn or on the tennis-court, they would renew their childhood's hours. He taught her to throw a fly ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... books. For the more constant necessities of life, such as rent, food, laundry and transportation, there was no record whatever; and I correctly assumed that these were supplied without compensation and were therefore not a matter of personal choice or permissible variation. Of money in its ancient form of metal coins and ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... this as a blind man might, he entered the dining-room, which to his discomfiture was as empty as the salon above. Still following the host's voice, he dropped into a chair before the empty table, wondering what variation of the Barmecide feast was in store for him. Yet the hum of voices from the vacant chairs around the board so strongly impressed him that he could almost believe that he was actually ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... the room wore some variation of the same bandage dress, face paint, and turban. An exception, one of three such, was the feaster on ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... that to start the first word at 11 on the scale-bar, managing the spacing as suggested, will get your title in the centre of the page with practically no variation in ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... of such individuals and will generally be inherited by the offspring. The offspring also will thus have a better chance of surviving, for of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive. I have called this principle by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term, "natural selection." Mr. Darwin adds that his meaning would be more accurately expressed by a phrase of Mr. Spencer's coinage, ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... artificial. Groups having the morphological character of species, distinct and permanent races, in fact, have been so produced over and over again; but there is no positive evidence at present that any group of animals has, by variation and selective breeding, given rise to another group which was in the least degree infertile with the first. Mr. Darwin is perfectly aware of this weak point, and brings forward a multitude of ingenious and important arguments to diminish the force of the objection. We admit the value ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... of the Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her Public Liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it. For, as on the one side common experience sheweth, that where a change hath been made of things advisedly established (no evident necessity so requiring) sundry inconveniences have thereupon ensued; and those many times more and greater than the evils, that were intended to be ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... glass, which further can be used in photometrically estimating the temperature by using it to obtain extinction of the field. Once for all approximate estimations of the temperature of the field might be made in terms of the resistance of the platinum strip, the variation of such resistance with rise of temperature being known. Such observations being made on a suitably protected strip might be compared with the wedge readings, the latter being then used for ready determinations. Want of time has hindered me from making ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... substantial and unsubstantial; matter, as against form, yields the antithesis of substance and shape, or otherwise of material and modal—what is matter and what is the mere modification of matter, its variation by means ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... which the great majority of the inhabitants of this province, both by petition and through their representatives, have protested in every variety of language during the last twelve years—and that without any variation or the shadow of change. The bill even proposes to transfer future legislation on this subject from the Provincial to the Imperial Parliament! The authors of this bill are, it seems, afraid to trust the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... or matter, which is unproduced but productive. Prakriti means the original ground form of external existence (as distinguished from Vikriti, modified form). It is uncreated and indestructible, but it has a tendency to variation or evolution. The Sankhya holds in the strictest sense that ex nihilo nihil fit. Substance can only be produced from substance and properly speaking there is no such thing as origination but only manifestation. ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... destiny, as no affinity existed between them, no combination resulted. The power to fuse was wanting. Capability to evolve anything is not one of the marked characteristics of the Far East. Indeed, the tendency to spontaneous variation, Nature's mode of making experiments, would seem there to have been an enterprising faculty that was exhausted early. Sleepy, no doubt, from having got up betimes with the dawn, these dwellers in the ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... enormous population has, perhaps, never at any time more than a fortnight's supply of food in stock, and most families not more than a few days; yet no one ever entertains the slightest apprehension of a failure in the supply, or even of a variation in the price from day to day in consequence of any possible shortcoming. That this should be so, would be one of the most surprising things in the history of modern London, but that it is sufficiently accounted for by the magnificent system of ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... general, as I have observed, they who have had the Small Pox, and are employed in milking cows which are infected with the Cow Pox, either escape the disorder, or have sores on the hands without feeling any general indisposition, yet the animal economy is subject to some variation in this respect, which the following ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner

... minute, which is also to work a Root blower and the accumulator pumps. Having regard to these very different demands upon the power of the engine, it will be provided with expansion gear, allowing a considerable variation in the cut-off. A single boiler of 70 to 75 square meters heating surface will be sufficient. The accumulator is intended to work at 300 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... are to be the authority which he must obey; as he sails on in the dark, these are to be the lights on the deep by which he must steer. They provide for every stage of the way. They direct what ports to approach and what ports to avoid, what to do in different seas, what variation to make in certain contingencies, and what acts to perform at certain opportunities. Each paper of the series forbids the opening of the next until its own directions have been fulfilled; so that no one can see beyond the immediate point for which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... England is healthy, and, as it admits of much out-door exercise, and is not subject to any very sudden variation, or violent extremes of heat and cold, it may be said to be good, though not agreeable; but its great humidity is very sensibly felt by Americans and other foreigners accustomed to a dry atmosphere and clear sky. That Mr. Slick should find a rainy day in the country dull, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... character, I have considered them as species; on the contrary when the specimens from the same locality offer variations among themselves, as in those of the genus Hepoona, where the extent of the whiteness on the tail, and the variation in the colour of the body appear to differ in the specimens from the same place, I have regarded them as belonging to the same species, believing it to be a variable species which has an ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... that he had let the time go by, or that he had taken a double dose, or that he had confused directions. Was it two pink ones or two white ones, or one hour or two hours? He said it over and over with every variation ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston

... only TWO miles for water. We suffered no inconvenience from this; but it was deplorable to see the bed of what must in some seasons be a fine little stream so completely dry and dusty. This day we met with a new species of Psoralea.* At the camp I ascertained the magnetic variation to be 9 degrees 10 minutes 15 seconds East, by an observation of the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... strange and savage; feline caterwaulings that fiercely rend your ears and search your belly, or the long-drawn piercing hoot like the siren of a ship in distress. At times, even, something like shouts cross each other in the air-currents, with curious variation of tone that make the sound human. The country is bodily lifted in places and falls back again. From one end of the horizon to the other it seems to us that the earth itself is ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... over him, and he suffered the tortures of the damned. Not Brace; he alone would be held responsible for the death; and perhaps not altogether unjustly. Lying there, a prey to morbid apprehensions, he rebuilt the case in memory, struggling to recall each slight variation in temperature, each swift change for better or worse; but as fast as he captured one such detail, his drowsy brain let the last but one go, and he had to beat it up anew. During the night he grew confident that the relatives of the dead woman ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... change came over the disposition of the king, it is not strange that a similar revolution was noticed in the sentiments of the courtiers—a class ever on the alert to detect the slightest variation in the breeze to which they trim their sails. The greater part of the high dignitaries, the early historian of the reformed churches informs us, adapting themselves to the king's humor, abandoned the study of the Bible, and in time became violent opponents of practices which ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... human beings:—just what third-rate historians fail to make us feel when telling us of men and women who have actually lived. The time and place are very varied; hut through the greater portion of the book the party are travelling over the Continent. A further variation from the plan of the former volumes, besides the introduction of new characters, is, that while all the essays in the preceding series were written by Milverton, we have now one by Ellesmere, one by Dunsford, and one by Mr. Midhurst, each being in theme and manner very characteristic ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... to purchase the other materials for a hospital quilt, a pair of socks, and a shirt, to be sent to the Relief Association, to give comfort to some poor wounded soldier, tossing in agony in some distant hospital. And this, with but slight variation is the history of hundreds, and perhaps thousands of the articles sent to the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... Neither will it cause him to drop his habit of adding a spur to his initial letters or curtail the ends and tails that he was wont to make long. In short, the points to which the expert devotes his investigation are those least affected by any variation in the character of the pen used and the hand-gestures which have, by constant usage, become as much part of the writer's style as his walk and the tone of ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn

... 60th part of 24 hours, or 24 of our minutes. It may be observed that the ghari was a fixed quantity, not subject to variation, like the pahar, which last, in the north of India, was made to vary from seven to nine gharies, according to the season of the year, or as it referred to the day or night in the same season. Since the introduction of European ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... personal attendants on themselves during the whole walk, and also the umpires and starters and declarers of victory in the match shall be —— of Boston, known in sporting circles as Massachusetts Jemmy, and Charles Dickens of Falstaff's Gad's Hill, whose surprising performances (without the least variation) on that truly national instrument, the American catarrh, have won for him the well-merited title of the Gad's ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... of life, with its extremes, monstrous and profitless, is often found in the work of Tchekoff. His story "The Kiss" is but a variation of this theme,—the absurdity of life. Lieutenant Riabovich, under the influence of a chance kiss, a kiss that was not meant for him, dreams of love for an entire summer; he waits impatiently for the return ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... to which he directs the entire pairing of his stock. He breeds for beef, he breeds for calves and milk, he breeds for a homogeneous docile herd. Towards that ideal he goes simply and directly, slaughtering and sparing, regardless entirely of any divergent variation that may arise beneath his control. A young calf with an incipient sense of humour, with a bright and inquiring disposition, with a gift for athleticism or a quaintly-marked hide, has no sort of chance with him at all on that account. He can throw these proffered gifts of nature aside without ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... accomplishment. With his wind-blown, flame-like temperament, oscillating in the heat of youth between the inclinations he miscalled convictions, he was still, though Cyrus had disowned him, only a romantic variation from the Treadwell stock. Somewhere, in the depths of his being, the essential Treadwell persisted. He hated Cyrus as a man hates his own weakness; he revolted from materialism as only a materialist in ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... which represents the variation of the velocity of light in a moving medium is explained by the formulae of the third case, and requires another arbitrary assumption if ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead

... free trade in corn; but to all of them there lay the objection that when a pressure came it would bring with it distress to the agriculturists. Experience, he said, proved, that to impose a fixed duty without any reference to the variation of prices was objectionable and insufficient, because it was inevitably sometimes too high, and at other times too low with reference to the state of the country. It was therefore more advisable to adopt a scale of duties, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... them on his own opening, reasoning of course that as they had never heard of Stavlokratz they would not know of his opening; and with probably a very good hope of getting back his pound he played the fifth variation with its tricky seventh move, at least so he intended, but it turned to a variation unknown to ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany

... on the surface of the pulley diminishes so far as the diminution of P diminishes the normal pressure, but on the whole increases in consequence of the increase of the coefficient of friction. The value of the friction on the surface of the pulley, however, is more constant for a given variation of the frictional coefficient in Fig. 3 than in Fig. 2, and the variation of the difference of tensions to be measured is less. Fig. 3, therefore, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... moon. Others are sudden, and are called magnetic storms, but, like the storms of the atmosphere, they have their known seasons of frequency. The last and the most mysterious of these magnetic changes is that secular variation by which the whole character of the earth, as a great magnet, is being slowly modified, while the magnetic poles creep on, from century to century, along their winding track in ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell

... the value of time;—and when I had made all these arrangements, of which I am a little ashamed when I think of them, I had nothing better to do than to watch the dial-plate till the index pointed to noon. Five minutes elapsed, which. I allowed for variation of clocks—five minutes more rendered me anxious and doubtful—and five minutes more would have ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott



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