"Decisive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... army which had returned from New Granada, a division, under the brave General La Torre, was destined to act against the patriots in Guayana. A division of the latter, under General Piar, having obtained a decisive victory, Bolivar was enabled to invest Angostura, and the town of old Guyana, which were successively taken on the 3rd and 18th ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... ironically conveying to Phoebe's mind the conviction that she did not believe that Robert's attachment could suffer from what had here passed. Either she meant to grant the decisive interview, or else she was too confident in her own power to believe that he could relinquish her; at all events, Phoebe had sagacity enough to infer that she was not indifferent to him, though as the provoking damsel ran down-stairs, Phoebe's ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beauty, of their honest pride and rejoicing in their own splendor, of their superior fondness for what is innocent and elevating over what is base and degrading, when brought within equal reach, the Central Park has already afforded most encouraging, nay, most decisive proof. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... were complete; we needed neither Congressional nor State legislation in aid of them. The opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley, in a case in the United States Circuit Court in New Orleans (1 Abb. U. S. Rep., 402) would seem to be decisive of this question, although the right involved in that case was not that of the elective franchise. The learned ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... an examination, Petrie," said Smith in his decisive way, "and the officer here might 'phone for the ambulance. I have some investigations to make also. I must have the ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... members have of late been trying very actively to establish and define its relation to the high-school and the university. Mr. Maurice Winter Moe, Instructor of English at the Appleton High School, Appleton, Wisconsin, and one of our very ablest members, took the first decisive step by organizing his pupils into an amateur press club, using the United to supplement his regular class-room work. The scholars were delighted, and many have acquired a love of good literature which will never leave them. Three or four, in particular, have become ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... will be able to acquire new ones everywhere. Moreover, I cannot understand why she should desire to be in Paris. Why does she so long to place herself in the immediate reach of tyranny? You see I pronounce the decisive word! I am really unable to comprehend it. Can she not go to Rome, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, or London? Yes, London would be the right place! There she can perpetrate libels whenever she pleases. At all of these places ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... Mr. Gallivant in a most decisive tone and with a profoundly irritated air. "Hand it back, Thwicket! Hand it right over, and draw me a check for my balance of $382.22. I'm going to cut the d—d Gordian knot and get out of this! No use talking, my head's all bemuddled. 'F I was to go into the Street to-day I'd ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... effect. It is scarcely too much to say that in this engraving we can distinguish the different washes of colour, the greys and warmer tints, the broad touches of his pencil on the white caps of the women, and the very work of his hand in the bold, decisive shadows. ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... and thrown into the conflict. Under the supervision of the Chief of Staff, two million American soldiers received the final touches in their military training and were transported safely overseas. They became the decisive factor in the war during the summer and fall of 1918. To their glory be it recorded they never retreated. Chateau-Thierry, St. Mihiel, Siecheprey, Boureches Wood, Cantigny, Belleau Wood, the Argonne, Sedan and Stenay ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... Similarly he writes of John Home's tragedy, Douglas, that the finest scene was, "we learn with pleasure but without surprise," unchanged from the first draft;[358] and elsewhere he speaks of the greater chance for popularity of the "bold, decisive, but light-touched strain of poetry or narrative in literary composition," over ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... fresh horses from General Howard, and started in chase. On September 17 he came up with Chief Joseph's rear guard, captured several hundred ponies and sent back word to General Howard that there was to be a decisive battle. ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... the work of filling a magazine with Saxon Poems,—counterparts of those of Ossian, as like his as one of his misty stars is to another. This incapability to amalgamate with the literature of the Island is, in my estimation, a decisive proof that the book is essentially unnatural; nor should I require any other to demonstrate it to be a forgery, audacious as worthless.—Contrast, in this respect, the effect of Macpherson's publication with the Reliques of Percy, so unassuming, so modest in their pretensions!—I ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... vast concourse of spectators. The stripling De Soto displayed skill with his weapon which not only baffled his opponent, but which excited the surprise and admiration of all the on-lookers. For two hours the deadly conflict continued, without any decisive results. De Soto had received several trifling wounds, while his antagonist was unharmed. At length, by a fortunate blow, he inflicted such a gash upon the right wrist of Perez, that his sword dropped from ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... that you give the legal means for making this contest a short and decisive one: that you place at the control of the government for the work at least four hundred thousand men and $400,000,000. That number of men is about one-tenth of those of proper ages within the regions ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Austria was the leader of the Catholic party in Europe, which was striving to restore the papal supremacy. Gustavus Adolphus held a similar relation to the Protestant party. He was engaged in the Thirty Years' War, and won many decisive victories. He captured Munich, and overran Bavaria, but was finally killed in the battle of Luetzen, in 1632. By his prowess and skill he raised Sweden to the rank of one of the ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... that when spring, or at the latest early summer, brought firmness to the mired highways and deeper cover to the woods, the organization of which he was a prominent member would strike, and stake its success or failure upon decisive issue. Then Parish Thornton, and a handful of lesser designates, would die—or else the "riders" would encounter defeat and see their ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... render it the more acute and concentrated for the things of the mind. As distant hills and tree tops show most distinctly before a storm, so every possibility which can arise from a conflict of duties stood out with a decisive clearness for his consideration. He had married in haste a child-bride. There was no blinking the fact. She had the strenuous religious fibre, and with it real Bohemian blood. She was also at the yielding age, when a dominant ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... and then what was evidently considered a decisive message came. It was Jill's voice, weary and desperate. It said, "Please come out and listen! Please come and let them explain everything. They can do it. I understand and I believe them. It's true. It's not treason. I—I beg you to come ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... to Rule 13th, "When a pronoun has two or more antecedents connected by or or nor, it must agree with them singly, and not as if taken together." Therefore, their should be his; thus, "Neither prelate nor priest can give his flocks any decisive evidence that ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of Orange, moneyless, resourceless, defeated the richest empire of the world without winning a single decisive victory. So viewed, he is a statesman of magnificent proportions. At his death, fifteen out of the seventeen provinces were in rebellion; and had he lived, there can be no rational doubt the remaining two had rebelled and the seventeen become free. As it was, seven provinces won their ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... philosophers reckoned with the gods, to be sure, but they never assumed that man's earthly life should turn entirely on what was to happen after death. This was in theory the sole preoccupation of the mediaeval Christian. Life here below was but a brief, if decisive, preliminary to ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... of the most decisive proofs of the awfully degraded state of human nature. Men believe, or pretend to believe, that this life is but a span in companions with eternity—that there is a heaven to reward the righteous and a hell to receive the unconverted sinner; and yet make no personal inquiry at the holy ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... small keys and old-fashioned mourning-rings. His complexion was pale and sodden, and his hair short, dark, and sleek. The bookseller valued himself on a likeness to Buonaparte; and affected a short, brusque, peremptory manner, which he meant to be the indication of the vigorous and decisive character of ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... commencement of the present legal year—at that period of it when his was erewhile ever the most conspicuous and shining figure, his exertions were the most interesting, the most important, his success was at once the most easy, decisive, and dazzling. Yes, there were assembled his brethren, who, with saddened faces and beating hearts, had attended his solemn obsequies in that very temple where was "committed his body to the ground, earth to earth, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... recognized the party expediency which compelled a plank in the national platforms in favor of woman suffrage and voted for it. At the Republican State convention in September U. S. Senator LeBaron B. Colt, who had been non-committal on the question, came out with a decisive pronouncement in its favor. The Republicans saw the handwriting on the wall. They recognized that the votes of western women had re-elected President Wilson. For the first time since the Republican party was organized, a Democratic U. S. Senator was elected. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... controverted points of history and science, and wonderful is the forensic and argumentative ability which these debates have developed. They are getting to be positively interesting. The only drawback to them is, that in the absence of any decisive authority they never come to any satisfactory conclusion. We have now been discussing for sixteen days the uses of a whale's blow-holes; and I firmly believe that if our voyage were prolonged, like the Flying Dutchman's, to all eternity, we should never reach ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... apparent intention of acquiring the land of the Costobocci by force of arms; and upon conquering them they injured Dacia no less. The Lacringi, fearing that Clemens out of dread might lead these newcomers into the land which they were inhabiting, attacked them off their guard and won a decisive victory. As a result, the Astingi committed no further deeds displaying hostility to the Romans, but by making urgent supplication to Marcus received money from him and asked that land might be given them if they should harm in some way his temporary enemies. Now these performed some of their ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... with him, including artillery, infantry and cavalry. In the intention of intimidation, however, he was greatly mistaken, though the difference in numbers between the two parties was in itself almost decisive, should they come to a conflict. Yet the Mexicans had but poorly estimated the mettle contained in the American commander and his forty men. They were ready, one and all, to sell their lives dearly in a cause good as that before them. Unshaken in their purpose, the little band ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... be considered as anything but a reformer in the domain of strategy. With more justice he has been styled the "father of modern tactics." He was the first to recognize that the conditions of swift and decisive war brought about by the French Revolution involved wholly new tactics, and much of his teaching had a profound influence on European warfare of the 19th century. His early training had shown him merely the pedantic minutiae of Frederick's methods, and, in the absence of any ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... officer he exclaimed, "Send this message,—'England expects every man to do his duty.'" When the signal was comprehended by the men, cheer after cheer rang out upon the air, and under its inspiration they won a glorious and a decisive victory. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... been witnesses of my prosperity when at Berlin. The talents I possessed, and the favour I then enjoyed, attracted the notice of all foreign ministers. They were bosom friends, equally well read in the human heart, and equally benevolent and noble-minded; their recommendation at court was decisive; the nations they represented were in alliance with Russia, and the confidence Bestuchef placed in ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... Brandenburg: Eldest Son always to inherit the Electorate unbroken; after Anspach and Baireuth no more apanages, upon any cause or pretext whatsoever; and these themselves to lapse irrevocable to the main or Electoral House, should they ever fall vacant again. Fine fruit of the decisive sense that was in the Hohenzollerns; of their fine talent for annihilating rubbish,—which feat, if a man can do it, and keep doing it, will more than most others accelerate his course in this world. It was in this dim old Town ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... to fancy that, because I don't talk about what is passing, that I don't see it either. Now this is quite a mistake," said Marston, calmly and resolutely—"I have long observed your growing dislike of Mademoiselle de Barras. I have thought it over; this fracas of today has determined me; it is decisive. I suppose you now wish her to go, as earnestly as you once wished her to stay. You need not answer. I know it. I neither ask nor care to whose fault I am to attribute these changed feelings—female caprice accounts sufficiently for it; but whatever the cause, the effect ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... study my face without speech, his hand still on the button of the bell-rope, his eyes in mine; this was the decisive heat. My face seemed to myself to dislimn under his gaze, my expression to change, the smile (with which I had begun) to degenerate into the grin of the man upon the rack. I was besides harassed with doubts. An innocent man, I argued, would have resented the fellow's impudence an hour ago; and by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... words given to the throng, upon general matters—for Mr. Huntley touched no more on the other topic—and then he continued his way to Lady Augusta's. As he passed the house of the Reverend Mr. Pye, that gentleman was coming out of it. Mr. Huntley, a decisive, straightforward man, entered upon the matter at once, after some moments ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... mind: "Arise and anoint him, for this is he." But the college had its own way of saying these big things; documents, questions, boards, had each a bearing on the matter, or a drop of ink to spend, and each offered a delay to the decisive action that the President had then and there resolved on. But they slowly ran their course and in the early autumn Jim was back, a college boy, and Belle had taken up the ruler's ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... enough. He noted that the table was gay with cut flowers, and a neat waitress had evidently been detailed by the management to look after these distinguished guests; Marigny's stage setting for his first decisive move was undoubtedly well contrived. It was delightfully pastoral—a charming bit of rural England—and, as such, eminently calculated to impress an ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... and John F. Lanneau, and Miss Betsey Tilden. In 1835, Mr. William M. Thomson was married to Mrs. Abbott, the widow of the late English Consul, who, from an early period in the mission, had given decisive evidence of attachment ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... because it had cost so much. But he could afford to be extravagant for a wife like Maude Glendower, and trusting much to the wheat crop and the wool, he started for Troy about the middle of March, fully expecting to receive from the lady a decisive answer as to when she would make ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... and that a substitute for complete induction, which is never attainable, may be found, on the one hand, in the collection of as many cases as possible, and, on the other, by considering the more important or decisive cases, the "prerogative instances." Then the inductive ascent from experiment to axiom is to be followed by a deductive descent from axioms to new experiments and discoveries. Bacon rejects the syllogism on the ground ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... lasting up until nearly midnight. But on this particular night there was a difference, the singing and shouting coming to an end before four bells, or ten o'clock, a circumstance that further confirmed Dick in his impression that the mutineers meditated some step of a more or less decisive character. Yet when, by the carefully screened lamp in the tent, he consulted his watch and found that the hour of midnight was already past, he had entirely failed to detect any sign of life or movement on ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... next morning she took decisive action. There were two plans between which she had to choose. Mr. Beebe was walking up to the Torre del Gallo with the Emersons and some American ladies. Would Miss Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch join the party? Charlotte declined for herself; she had been there in the rain ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... in her short, decisive way that Craddock Dene might have settled down with Mrs. Temperley peaceably enough, if it hadn't been for her action about ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... half of their forces. Baillie, a veteran officer, was next routed by him, at the village of Alford, in Strathbogie. Encouraged by these repeated and splendid successes, Montrose now descended into the heart of Scotland, and fought a bloody and decisive battle, near Kilsyth, where four thousand covenanters ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... Mrs. Perry's answer was decisive, and at the same time conclusive as to the facts. She had not only seen Savareen sitting on his black mare at the door, immediately after the town bell ceased ringing for eight o'clock; but she had listened to the conversation between ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... day since I sent you my last letter. During this brief time I have gone through experiences which must have afforded you in old Europe many a surprise, and which—if I am not mistaken in the views of my new countrymen—will, in their immediate consequences, be of decisive importance to the whole of the habitable globe. It is the freedom of the world, I believe, that has been won on the battle-fields of the Red Sea and the Galla country; a victory has been gained, not merely over the unhappy John of Abyssinia, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... was a decisive event with Jurgis. It made him irrevocably a family man; it killed the last lingering impulse that he might have had to go out in the evenings and sit and talk with the men in the saloons. There was nothing he cared for now so much ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... all very dirty, but that did not prevent the analyst from finding a number of blood stains and hairs, and giving valuable and decisive evidence ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... struggle of the host for immunity. Hence the fast and furious struggle between man and his microscopic enemies merely indicates to what extent natural selection has developed the ATTACK and the DEFENSE respectively. This struggle is analogous to the quick and decisive battles of the carnivora when fighting among themselves or when contending against their ancient enemies. But when phylogenetically strange animals meet each other, they do not understand how to conduct ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... to the necessity for prompt and decisive action by the voice of the sergeant saying in ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... a dry, decisive method of speech which gave one the impression she was well accustomed to laying down the law—and that her laws were expected to remain unbroken. The "occasional trip to London" sounded bleakly in Nan's ears. Still, she argued, Lady Gertrude would only be her mother-in-law—and ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... his two sons, Almutamin in Zaragoza and Alfagib in Denia. The Cid and his followers cast their lot with the former, while Alfagib sought in vain to maintain the balance by allying himself with Sancho of Aragon and Berenguer of Barcelona. After a decisive victory in which Berenguer was taken prisoner Almutamin returned to Zaragoza with his champion, "honoring him above his own son, his realm and all his possessions, so that he seemed almost the lord of the kingdom." There the Cid continued to increase in wealth and fame at the expense of Sancho ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... was significant, but in no way decisive. Granting that Miss Lloyd could have been the criminal, it would have been possible for her secretly to procure a revolver, and secretly to dispose of it afterward. Then, too, a small revolver had been used. To be sure, this did not necessarily imply that a woman ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... the safety of the establishment to Mr. D.'s intrepidity: had he hesitated to act at the decisive moment, the game was up with him, for he had only two lads with him, on whose aid he could place but little reliance. Mr. D. has been thirty years in the Company's service, and is still a clerk; but he is himself to blame for his want of promotion, having been so inconsiderate as to ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... in A Century of Wrong to interest them. But those who take a fresh and intelligent view of a long and complicated historical controversy will welcome the authoritative exposition of the causes which, in the opinion of the authors of the Ultimatum, justified, and, indeed, necessitated that decisive step. To what Mr. Reitz has said it is only necessary to ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... President, had been published in the National Intelligencer antecedent to the embargo, the sweeping tendency of whose effects formed, to his understanding, a powerful motive, and together with the papers a decisive one, for assenting to the embargo; a measure which he regarded as "the only shelter from the tempest, the last refuge of our violated peace." He adds: "The most serious effect of Mr. Pickering's letter is ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... In every decisive popular movement in Germany the forest is the first to suffer. A large part of the peasants live in continual secret feud with the masters of the forest and their privileges; no sooner is a spark of revolution lighted, then, before everything else, there flares ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... has continued to increase in fame as years have passed away, is the most decisive of all proofs that his poems have the pure and sterling merit which began to be ascribed to them soon after his death. M. Bonstetten tells me that Gray died without a suspicion of the high rank he was thereafter to hold in the annals of British genius? What did poor Collins think ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... battles, in the first rank, revolver in one hand, note-book in the other; grape-shot never made his pencil tremble. He did not fatigue the wires with incessant telegrams, like those who speak when they have nothing to say, but each of his notes, short, decisive, and clear, threw light on some important point. Besides, he was not wanting in humor. It was he who, after the affair of the Black River, determined at any cost to keep his place at the wicket of the telegraph office, and after having announced to his journal the result of the battle, ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... after a few more days of tender nursing to be the leaves of "that vagabond weed, the wild-cucumber vine." Here too he gathered material for future books, and did much writing. Evening twilight often found him pacing the large hall, his hands behind him, his head doing active duty in decisive nods of yea and nay, and words spoken aloud for putting on paper in his library next morning. Some of this writing was to his profit and pleasure, and some, alas! to his sad disturbance—as was "A Letter to his ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... the case before a class of tyros, or a circle of grey-beards, who wished to form or to strengthen their judgments upon fair and rational grounds, nothing could be more satisfactory, more luminous, more able or more decisive than the view taken of it by Sir James Mackintosh. But the House of Commons, as a collective body, have not the docility of youth, the calm wisdom of age; and often only want an excuse to do wrong, or to adhere to what they have already determined ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the Anchorage she seemed like a different person from the one who had entered it but a short time before. Her step was quick and decisive, as if she had something ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... to sanction the belief, that the same plan may be traced out in what may be called the general life of the globe, as in the individual life of every one of the forms of organized being which now people it." Or we might quote, as decisive, the judgment of Professor Owen, who holds that the earlier examples of each group of creatures severally departed less widely from archetypal generality than the later examples—were severally less unlike the fundamental form common to the group as a whole; and ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... matters pertaining to the government of themselves amongst & within themselves without any authoritative (though not consulatory) concurrence or interposition of any other persons or Churches whatsoever, condemning all imperative and decisive power of Classes, or compound Presbyteries and Synods, as a meere usurpation. Now because we conceive that your judgement in this case may conduce much by the blessing of God, to the settling of this question amongst us; Therefore we doe earnestly intreat the same at your hands, and that ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... of shame because the escape from it is purposely made difficult to them. They are held constantly in debt and are made to believe that their immunity from arrest depends upon their keeping on good terms with the owners of disorderly houses. But the decisive point for us is that while they are held back at a time when they know too much, they are not brought there by force at a time when they know too little. The Philadelphia Vice Report analyzes carefully the conditions and motives which have brought the prostitutes to their life of ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... have before you the reason why I suspend the decisive negative to the ladies of his family. My mother, Miss Lloyd, and Miss Biddulph, who were inquisitive after the subject of our retired conversation, and whose curiosity I thought it was right, in some degree, to gratify, (especially as these young ladies are of our select acquaintance,) ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... The decisive battle was fought at Chaeronea in Boeotia. On that fatal field the well-drilled and seasoned troops of Macedonia, headed by a master of the art of war, overcame the citizen levies of Greece. The Greeks fought bravely, as of old, and their defeat was ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... lan! I hearn him a-talkin' to Miss Marvyn las' night; it kinder' mos' broke my heart. Why, dem two poor creeturs, dey's jest as onhappy's dey can be! An' she's got too much feelin' for de Doctor to say a word; an' I say he oughter be told on't! dat's what I say," said Candace, giving a decisive ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... the mobilisation arrangements of the Indian Army that within eleven days a corps of all arms, twenty-five thousand strong, had derailed at a little roadside station, and under Sir Robert Low had marched forty-two miles to the frontier, fought a decisive action, and forced the first barrier of mountains on its road to Chitral. Unhappily it does not lie within the region of this story to relate how the gallant forlorn hope under Colonel Kelly, overcoming stupendous difficulties, ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... of her province, that there maybe no avoidable ill-will on the part of the medical officers, and no cause of contention with the captain of service, or whatever the administrator of the interior may be called. She must have a decisive voice in the choice of her nurses; and she will choose them for their qualifications as nurses only, after being satisfied as to their character, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for a time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on the left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just above the village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took place there Freeman ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... last he had the joy of seeing himself at the head of a very respectable band of nearly fifty determined men. The majority of them were for advancing to the enemy without a day's delay, and striking a decisive blow once for all. But ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... all about this Chiao Ta?" remarked lady Feng; "but the secret of all this trouble is, that you won't take any decisive step. Why not pack him off to some distant farm, and have done with him?" And as she spoke, "Is our carriage ready?" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... woman never goes out of town, unescorted," was the decisive answer. "This is a Southern ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... really shameful. But the partridge seemed to gain strength as the fox put forth his, and after a quarter of a mile race, racing that was somehow all away from Taylor's Hill, the bird got unaccountably quite well, and, rising with a decisive whirr, flew off through the woods, leaving the fox utterly dumfounded to realize that he had been made a fool of, and, worst of all, he now remembered that this was not the first time he had been served this very trick, though he never knew the ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... same year, 1807. These celebrated Orders simply meant that so long as Napoleon tried to blockade the British Isles by enforcing his Berlin Decree, just so long would the British Navy be employed in blockading him and his allies. Such decisive action, of course, brought neutral shipping more than ever under the power of the British Navy, which commanded all the seaways to the ports of Europe. It accentuated the differences between the American and British governments, ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... and persuasions could counteract the pertinacious plash-plash of-the rain, and the chilling mist, and perhaps the uneasy pricks of her awakening chaperon-conscience. Nor could he extract a decisive "Yes" from his fluttering volatile enchantress. At Kaltbad, where they said farewell, he pressed her hands with passion. "For a little while! Be prudent and strong! You have the goodness of a child—and a child's will. Oh, if I could ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... neither many nor—for Low Islanders—industrious. But the lagoon has two good passages, one to leeward, one to windward, so that in all states of the wind it can be left and entered, and this advantage, for a government of scattered islands, was decisive. A pier of coral, landing-stairs, a harbour light upon a staff and pillar, and two spacious Government bungalows in a handsome fence, give to the northern end of Rotoava a great air of consequence. This is confirmed on the one hand by an ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... him that Fate was idly tossing the dice to and fro, before allowing herself to make the final, decisive cast. From the farther side of the hill, he heard a sudden terrified snort from one of the Boer ponies, then the thud of feet, as they charged up the approaches of the long slope. From behind him, there arose a groan, as one of the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... take back to Portsmouth. "I have seen Master George Messerve," he said, "and believe he fully sympathizes with us. He has already publicly resigned the office of stamp distributor, and I doubt not will be found on our side when the decisive moment comes." ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... the resistlessness of British valour. The matchless gallantry, felicity, and rapidity of the military operations against a formidable foe of desperate bravery and overpowering numbers, through a tremendous struggle and terrific carnage—the blaze of four mighty and decisive victories won in six weeks—proudly seal our prowess in arms. The spotless justice of the cause; the admirable temper of its management; the almost fastidious forbearance which unsheathed the sword only under the stern compulsion of most wanton aggression; and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Indian women were not interested in basket weaving. They shook their heads vehemently. Then at Bet's proposal that they sell her some that were already made, the ones they carried along, their heads shook more than ever and their grunts and frowns were decisive. Kit translated it to the girls as a flat refusal. Flat refusals always spurred ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... general, famous for his decisive defeat of the Persians at Marathon, 490 B.C.; failing in a naval attack on Paros, and fined to indemnify the cost of the expedition, but unable to pay, was cast into prison, where he died of his wounds ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... in silence. They were a group of statues. Then suddenly there was movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline's knife and fork clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, grew more decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet, uttering a cry. The wave of panic reached George; he turned and, mumbling something unintelligible as he went, rushed out of the room and down the winding stairs. He came to a standstill in the hall, and there, all by himself in the quiet ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... nature of the crisis. Lord John Russell had made his protest months before against the dilatory action of that department, and, though he knew that personal odium was sure to follow, endeavoured at the eleventh hour to persuade Lord Aberdeen to take decisive action. 'We are in the midst of a great war,' were his words to the Premier on November 17. 'In order to carry on that war with efficiency, either the Prime Minister must be constantly urging, hastening, completing the military preparations, or the Minister of War must be strong ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... me," sighed he, "I must, as usual, vote with Count Bartenstein. His will be, as it ever is, the decisive voice of the day; and its echo will be heard from the lips of the empress. Let us echo them both, and so be the means of helping to crush the presumption of yonder ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of that miserable country whence these meritorious outcasts are driven, had the happiness, in former and better times, of exercising a charity as decisive for life or death as that which the females of Great Britain are now conjured to perform. St. Vincent de Paule, aumonier general des galeres, to whom France owes the chief of its humane establishments, instituted amongst the rest, the Foundling Hospital of ...
— Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy (1793) • Frances Burney
... Mr. Bennett asks the gentlemen present for suggestions. He listens attentively to each one, and decides quickly whether they shall be presented in the Herald, and at what time; and if he desires any subject to be written upon, he states his wish, and "sketches," in his peculiar and decisive manner, the various headings ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... torment their crimes of loyalty and courage, had already found a refuge beyond the reach of his spies and torturers that he opposed even now to bonds and blows a resistance that no armed force could overcome. If he saw the smiles at all, he took them for a tribute to his brisk, decisive action with the cane. ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... ensured by the creation in peace of an organisation which will bring every available man, horse, and gun (or ship and gun, if the war be on the sea) in the shortest possible time, and with the utmost possible momentum, upon the decisive field of action—which in turn leads to the final doctrine formulated by Von der Goltz in excuse for the action of the late President ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... brilliant officer in different society. Had he seen Connal only as a man shining in company, or considered him merely as a companion, he must have been dazzled by his fashion, charmed by his gaiety, and imposed upon by his decisive tone. ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... that the proof on which the President Bouhier builds his opinion, would be decisive, if there were no error in the text of a[15] letter written by Grotius to his brother, April 14, 1640, in which he says, "I have completed my fifty-eighth year:" but the other passages of Grotius just cited demonstrate that the editors of this letter, instead of incepi, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... excitement, brought tidings to her young mistress that the Hebrews were marching to battle, when Zarah heard that the decisive hour had come on which hung the fate of her country, and with it that of Lycidas, all other fears yielded for a time to one absorbing terror. On her knees, with hands clasped in attitude of prayer, yet scarcely able to pray, Zarah listened breathlessly to the fearful sounds which ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... splendid day. Shaped our course northward, to the west of Bielkoff Island. Open sea; good wind from the west; good progress. Weather clear, and we had a little sunshine in the afternoon. Now the decisive moment approaches. At 12.15 shaped our course north to east (by compass). Now it is to be proved if my theory, on which the whole expedition is based, is correct—if we are to find a little north from here a north-flowing current. So far everything is better than I had expected. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... the room, and for a while we had quite a merry time of it. There were flags of all nationalities hung about the little hall dependent from short wooden lances with gilt heads, and these our assailants tore down and used as weapons against us. The conflict was brief and decisive; numerically there were perhaps six to one against us, but we ended by forming in lines, and the barbarous English fashion of striking straight from the shoulder sent the enemy in a hurry towards the narrow and winding stair which afforded the only exit from the place, and ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... throbbing. Time and change of scene had proved powerless against the deep love and devotion that filled his heart, and he was more than ever determined to wed the companion of his youth; and now that she was no longer ignorant of the truth concerning her birth, he could press his suit as a lover. As the decisive moment approached, the moment when Dolores' answer would make or mar the happiness of his life, he experienced a profound emotion which was increased by the host of memories that crowd in upon a man when he returns ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... all the weights of sense and the world. Rather He would deepen them and strengthen them, and His eternal requirements addressed to feeble wills are not meant to 'quench the smoking flax,' but to kindle it to decisive consecration and self-surrender. The loving look interprets the severe words. If once we meet it full, and our hearts yield to the heart that is seen in it, the cords that bind us snap, and it is no more hard to 'count all things but loss,' and to give up ourselves, that we may follow Him. The sad ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... some approach to the monotone. According as feeling is stronger and firmer, as in the expression of courage, determination, firm resolve, resistance, intense devotion, the voice is kept sustained, with pauses rather abrupt and decisive; if the feeling, though of high sentiment, is tranquil, without aggressiveness, the voice has more of the wavelike rise and fall, and at the pausing places the tone is gradually diminished, rather than abruptly broken off. In ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Devonian rocks. Subsequently to these elvans, veins of copper and lead were produced, being of a date certainly posterior to the Silurian, and anterior to the Devonian; for they do not enter the latter, and, what is still more decisive, streaks or layers of derivative copper have been found near Wexford in the Devonian, not far from points where mines of copper are ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... its simplest form, a more complex instrument than the smooth-bored piece, and will always require superior intelligence to manage it. The army which naturally possesses this requisite in the highest degree will best handle this decisive weapon, and be, other things equal, the strongest army. This consideration operates in favor of our people, among whom the rifle has always been in so much more constant and familiar use than with those of other ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... order that I might ensure their exemption from the fate to which in these days all letters seem to be destined, and I could not review them without a mixed feeling of gratitude for the considerate indulgence and kindness of which they contained such decisive proofs, and of regret that such a source of constantly recurring interest and ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... decide," Albert replied, as he parried the blow, and thrust his lance into the unprotected face of Adolphus. At that moment the horse of Adolphus fell, and he himself was instantly slain. Albert remained the decisive victor on this bloody field. The diet of electors was again summoned, and he was now chosen unanimously emperor. He was soon crowned with great splendor ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... supposed works have passed (see ante pp. 217-220); and Paley's references are such vague "quotations" that they may safely be left to the judgment of the reader. Tischendorf, claiming two and three phrases in it, says somewhat confusedly: "Though we do not wish to give to these references a decisive value, and though they do not exclude all doubt as to their applicability to our Gospels, and more particularly to that of St. John, they nevertheless undoubtedly bear traces of such a reference" ("When ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... declares at first, with reference to the small ether, which is enjoined as the object of sight, 'If they should say to him,' &c.; thereupon follows an objection, 'What is there that deserves to be sought for or that is to be understood?' and thereon a final decisive statement, 'Then he should say: As large as this ether is, so large is that ether within the heart. Both heaven and earth are contained within it.' Here the teacher, availing himself of the comparison ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... and then Cocardasse suddenly spoke in a decisive tone. "Captain, you have no right to kill us," he growled, and Passepoil, nodding his long head, repeated his companion's ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... literature, after having slept nearly since the age of Elizabeth, may be attributed in a great measure to the influence of his example. Gray, Hurd, and the two Wartons, had done something towards awakening it, but the spell was completed by him. The decisive impulse was given by the copious extracts from the great poets in those languages, which he inserted in the notes to his Essay on Epic Poetry, and which he accompanied by spirited translations. Lord Holland, the best informed and most elegant of our writers on the subject of the Spanish ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... shall hear of us," she said, addressing herself to Bodza. "Till then avoid every decisive step. Whomsoever you may capture keep a strict watch upon them, and see that no harm befall them. Do you take me? It is possible that the captives may attempt to put an end to their own lives. But we shall require them all on account of ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... going to test your faith in me and my kindness. I am going to speak plainly, and perhaps you may think even harshly. You are very sick, and if I am to be your physician I must give you some sharp, decisive treatment. Will you remember through it all that my only motive is to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all he does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure, because he is waiting for some one to advise him or because he dare not act in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his conceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is "not appreciated," ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... Convention after having entrusted to a Joint Committee, by a decisive vote, the task of devising means for securing for the Prayer Book "increased flexibility of use," should have thought it necessary subsequently to take up with this compromise of a compromise (for such the proposal ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... for decisive action; the maids he was obliged, for the moment, to abandon, and attend only to his own safety: accordingly, he approached the window, to see if he could not spring from it. It was a tolerable distance from the ground, and on the other ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... to the beam which it had so often in vain attempted to reach. Bruce, seeing the success of the spider, resolved to try his own fortune; and as he had never before gained a victory, so he never afterward sustained any considerable or decisive check or defeat. I have often met with people of the name of Bruce, so completely persuaded of the truth of this story, that they would not on any account kill a spider, because it was that insect which had shown the example of perseverance, and given a signal ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... could bring. He went home and spent the day perusing his text-book on logic. He would conjure up imaginary objections and would proceed to demolish them in short order. He slept somewhat that night, anticipating a decisive victory on ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... emitting such gases is as yet in practical use or has undergone adequate experiment; consequently, a vote taken now would be taken in ignorance of the facts as to whether the results would be of a decisive character or whether injury in excess of that necessary to attain the end of warfare—the immediate disabling of the enemy—would ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... of scenery and the analysis of subjective emotions, are conspicuously absent. Yet among the manifold causes to which may be ascribed the wide recent expansion of the Novel of Manners, we may well reckon the decisive impulse that it received from these famous authoresses. They were, in fact, the founders of the dominion which women bid fair to establish over this class of fiction, where they are already extending it to a degree that threatens to evict the men. Various ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... more decisive still. The words formed by the understanding effect nothing; but, when our Lord speaks, it is at once word and work; and though the words may not be meant to stir up our devotion, but are rather words of reproof, they ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... from the country south of Gurague. She bare seven sons, who became mighty robbers and founders of tribes: their progenitors obtained the name of Gallas, after the river Gala, in Gurague, where they gained a decisive victory our their kinsmen the Abyssins. [3] A variety of ethnologic and physiological reasons,—into which space and subject prevent my entering,—argue the Kafirs of the Cape to be a northern people, pushed southwards by some, to us, as yet, unknown cause. The origin of ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... But the Secessionists here as elsewhere in the South were propagandists, fiery with enthusiasm and energy, and they controlled the community although they were outnumbered by those who held, in a more quiet way, contrary opinions. When the decisive conflict came it was short and sharp and carried with a rush. By intrigue, by menace, by passionate appeals seasonably applied with sudden intensity of effort at the time of the assault upon Sumter, the convention was induced to pass an ordinance of secession. Those who could not bring themselves ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... Walker, upon being advised as to the necessity of wearing a white vest to a party: "But, Mr. Daniel, suppose a man hasn't got a white vest and is too poor these war times to buy one?" "—— it, sir! let him stay at home," was the decisive answer. ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... to the late supper her eyes were shining with happiness, and Maggie thought the decisive hour had come; but in answer to a question about the drive, Amy said, "I couldn't have believed that so much enjoyment was to be had in one afternoon. Webb is a brother worth having, and I'm sorry I'm going to ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... out of Germany and, if necessary, completely to blockade that country. The two greatest conflicts of the nineteenth century were the European struggle with Napoleon and the American Civil War. In both the blockade had been the decisive element, and that this great agency would similarly determine events in this even greater struggle was apparent. What enraged the British public against any suggestion of the Declaration was that it practically deprived Great Britain of this indispensable means of weakening ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... upon him such contempt, abhorrence, and hatred, there is an end of all government whatsoever, and then liberty is indeed to shift for itself." He quotes from the paper: "'He [the king] has taken a decisive personal part against the subjects of America, and those subjects know how to distinguish the sovereign and a venal Parliament, upon one side, from the real sentiments of the English nation upon the other.' For God's ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... Becomes King Seizure of a part of Liege Seizure of Silesia Maria Theresa Visit of Voltaire Friendship between Voltaire and Frederic Coalition against Frederic Seven Years' War Carlyle's History of Frederic Empress Elizabeth of Russia Decisive battles of Rossbach, Luthen, and Zorndorf Heroism and fortitude of Frederic Results of the Seven Years' War Partition of Poland Development of the resources of Prussia Public improvements General services of Frederic to his country His character ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... consisted of ten fresh battalions; and their charge was so impetuous, that the British legion and the Spanish troops were obliged to give way. From this time the army of Don Carlos gained courage, and province after province was invaded by his guerilla chiefs. Still no decisive event favoured his design upon the Spanish throne. In one grand point he, however, succeeded, that of annihilating or dispersing the British legion. Unsupported by the people for whom they fought, many of them were slain in various engagements of desultory ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... through the column for the first time since the storm struck. Turning to the support of Dell, the older boy lent his assistance, forcing the angle, until the drag end of the column had passed into the sheltering haven. The fight was won, and to Dell's courage, in the decisive moment, all credit was due. The human is so wondrously constructed and so infinite in variety, that where one of these brothers was timid the other laughed at the storm, and where physical courage was required to assault a sullen herd, the daring of one amazed the other. Cattle ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... had all day Sunday in which to forecast, with mingled dread and gladness and suspense, that all-important, all-decisive first moment! All day Sunday to frame and unframe penitent speeches. All day Sunday! Would it ever be Monday? If so, what would Tuesday bring? Would the sun rise happy on Mrs. Stephen Waterman of Pleasant River, or miserable Miss Rose Wiley of ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... I brought Your Majesty this. (He takes a miniature from his pouch.) It is newly drawn by Mr. Cooper. It is of a young man, Andrew Marvell, of whose verses Your Majesty would think well. He should do much. Cooper has drawn it well—it's very decisive ...
— Oliver Cromwell • John Drinkwater
... Pilgrim's Progress. Many have died remarkably happy in the Lord, who, till very near their last moments have been in bondage through the fear of death. We may be sure of this, that wherever the Lord has begun a work, He will carry it on to the great decisive day. The proof of this is 'he would not go back!' 'If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Hearing these decisive and terrible words, Lady Macbeth, who had been waiting for a sign of weakness or vacillation on the part of her son-in-law, rose and, with a scared look, left the library. Lady Jane looked up to her husband as if ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... He had ceased to show his diminished head on the streets of Jordantown. He had been sober for two months, spending all of his time attending to his farm. He was like a good soldier, who in the face of a decisive battle indulges in no weakness, keeps his wits about him. She was sure he was camping in the spirit beneath her walls, waiting for the citadel to fall. They practised the fine honour of noble enemies. He never asked her any question about what was going forward in the ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... ties and steel began to move and the construction gangs followed close on the heels of the graders. And when the last spike in the track to the scene of the decisive battle was driven, the track-men with their sledges stepped aside to clear the way for the panting engines that drew the first train loaded with piling and timbers for ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... younger merchants and their clerks neglected business with charming impartiality, and trade was going to "rack and ruin" until Rosalie declined to marry George Rawlins, the minister's son. He was looked upon as the favoured one; but she refused him in such a decisive manner that all others lost hope and courage. It is on record that the day after George's conge Tinkletown indulged in a complete business somersault. Never before had there been such strict attention to customers; merchants and clerks alike settled down to the ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... warriors for the simple reason that it would give them (the emotionalists) "a shock". So that the agony of British troops and the anxiety of British wives and mothers is not to be lessened, nor the perils of non-combatants greatly minimized, or the war hastened by a decisive concentration of the Empire's forces on the battlefield, because of the "shock" it would give the emotionalists for black to fight against white. The common-sense view would show the advantage in permitting all subjects, including the coloured races of South Africa, to take part in the struggle ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... already done his part as a writer. "I should have thought so too" (said the King), "if you had not written so well."—Johnson observed to me, upon this, that "No man could have paid a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive." When asked by another friend, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, whether he made any reply to this high compliment, he answered, "No, sir. When the King had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... surprises in the Northern army, and D'ri was the greatest of all. That long, wiry, sober-faced Yankee conquered the smartness of the new camp in one decisive and immortal victory. At first they were disposed to ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... battle was given to the French and Bavarians under Marshal Tallard, who had his head-quarters at the village of Plentheim, or Blenheim. At the cost of eleven thousand killed and wounded in the armies of Marlborough and Eugene, and fourteen thousand killed and wounded on the other side, a decisive victory was secured, Tallard himself being made prisoner, and 26 battalions and 12 squadrons capitulating as prisoners of war. 121 of the enemy's standards and 179 colours were brought home and hung up in Westminster ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele |
