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Idea   Listen
noun
Idea  n.  (pl. ideas)  
1.
The transcript, image, or picture of a visible object, that is formed by the mind; also, a similar image of any object whatever, whether sensible or spiritual. "Her sweet idea wandered through his thoughts." "Being the right idea of your father Both in your form and nobleness of mind." "This representation or likeness of the object being transmitted from thence (the senses) to the imagination, and lodged there for the view and observation of the pure intellect, is aptly and properly called its idea."
2.
A general notion, or a conception formed by generalization. "Alice had not the slightest idea what latitude was."
3.
Hence: Any object apprehended, conceived, or thought of, by the mind; a notion, conception, or thought; the real object that is conceived or thought of. "Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or as the immediate object of perception, thought, or undersanding, that I call idea."
4.
A belief, option, or doctrine; a characteristic or controlling principle; as, an essential idea; the idea of development. "That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one." "What is now "idea" for us? How infinite the fall of this word, since the time where Milton sang of the Creator contemplating his newly-created world, "how it showed... Answering his great idea," to its present use, when this person "has an idea that the train has started," and the other "had no idea that the dinner would be so bad!""
5.
A plan or purpose of action; intention; design. "I shortly afterwards set off for that capital, with an idea of undertaking while there the translation of the work."
6.
A rational conception; the complete conception of an object when thought of in all its essential elements or constituents; the necessary metaphysical or constituent attributes and relations, when conceived in the abstract.
7.
A fiction object or picture created by the imagination; the same when proposed as a pattern to be copied, or a standard to be reached; one of the archetypes or patterns of created things, conceived by the Platonists to have excited objectively from eternity in the mind of the Deity. "Thence to behold this new-created world, The addition of his empire, how it showed In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair, Answering his great idea." Note: "In England, Locke may be said to have been the first who naturalized the term in its Cartesian universality. When, in common language, employed by Milton and Dryden, after Descartes, as before him by Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Hooker, etc., the meaning is Platonic."
Abstract idea, Association of ideas, etc. See under Abstract, Association, etc.
Synonyms: Notion; conception; thought; sentiment; fancy; image; perception; impression; opinion; belief; observation; judgment; consideration; view; design; intention; purpose; plan; model; pattern. There is scarcely any other word which is subjected to such abusive treatment as is the word idea, in the very general and indiscriminative way in which it is employed, as it is used variously to signify almost any act, state, or content of thought.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Idea" Quotes from Famous Books



... for a hundred years, except that they have electric lighting everywhere, even in the pig-pens. There were no lights in the streets, though, I noticed, and I saw afterwards that a street light would be a foolish extravagance, for the people go to bed at dark. They have the real idea of daylight-saving, and do not let any of ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung

... affair, being merely a lamp screwed on to a wire gauze cylinder, and fitted to it by a tight ring. His idea was to admit the fire-damp into the lamp gradually by narrow tubes, so that it would be consumed by combustion. The Safety-Lamp was in truth the greatest triumph of ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... appears to be substantially that which had been announced, but developing in the particulars many new circumstances of the greatest importance. By this plan it appears that the subscription, even in idea or pretence, is not for the use of the Company, but that the subscribers are united into a sort of society for the remitting their private fortunes: the goods, indeed, are said to be shipped on the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... evinced, it is remarkable that it has only arisen since the time at which it began to tell against Ireland, that when the boot was on the other leg there was no suggestion of redistribution on the part of Conservatives. The truth is that for Unionists the idea of paring the claws of the Irish Party offers a tempting prospect. Our position in the matter is quite plain: so long as Great Britain insists on maintaining the Act of Union she must do so consistently in the sense that it is a contract, albeit secured by chicanery, ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... to observe that an idea occurred to Hobbes, which some authors have attempted lately to put into practice against their critics—to prosecute them in a court of law; but the knowledge of mankind was one of the liveliest faculties of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... the dog and scolded a little. He was not afraid. But it made him cross to be driven out of the cornfield. And he wished the dog would go away. But the dog—it was Farmer Green's Spot—the dog had no idea of leaving. He stayed right there and barked so loudly that it was not long before Farmer Green and his hired man came in sight. And with them was Johnnie Green and a little, young dog that had just been ...
— Sleepy-Time Tales: The Tale of Fatty Coon • Arthur Scott Bailey

... now quite her old self. Loud were the regrets at her departure, and overwhelming were the thanks and blessings showered in loving profusion; but it was two weeks later, when Tom, Carrie, and the twins each sent her a birthday present, that an idea came to Miss Mortimer. She determined at once to carry it out, even though the process might cause her ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... so-called second Nekyia) in which Hades appears the second time, has been sharply questioned both by ancient and modern critics on a number of grounds. These we shall not discuss, only stating that they are by no means conclusive against the genuineness of the whole passage. The general idea of it belongs here; the dead Suitors represent the grand end of the Trojan movement, and its reception into the Hades of famous deeds done and past, and very significantly Agamemnon voices the praise of Ulysses and Penelope, the great winners in the long struggle. Still ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... the epitome of her life. At our house she had just as little chance of a patient hearing, for though not school-girlish, we were more intolerant. We had a rage for practicality, and laughed all poetry to scorn. Neither she nor we had any idea but that our opinions were the opinions of all the sensible people in the world, and we used to astonish each other at every sentence . . . Charlotte, at school, had no plan of life beyond what circumstances made for her. She knew that she must provide for herself, and ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... deservedly so. To see, after eight years of hard work, blooming and thriving political plantations cut and maimed, and that by those who have a real interest to protect them, is very melancholy. I do not say these things with the most distant idea of bringing about any change, but only because in the high and very responsible position in which Providence has placed you, it is good to tell you the truth, as you ought to have weight and influence on the affairs of Europe; and England, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... him to more comfortable quarters, supplied him with relishing food and good medical assistance. Otherwise I think he would have died. The result is, that he feels deeply grateful to me for having probably saved his life. When I first broached the idea of his giving evidence against his old employer, I found him reluctant to do so—not from any attachment he bore him, but from a fear that he would be held on a criminal charge for concealing a felony. I have undertaken to assure him, on your behalf, ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... and larger. Some magnetic spell seemed to be dominating her, the idea was preposterous, and yet to agree to it was the strongest temptation she had ever had in all her life. She was filled with a wild longing to live, to do what she pleased, to be free to enjoy this excitement before her ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn

... sharply as they came forward. Clare recognised Brook and Lady Fan. Seated in the shadow on one side of the great black cross and a little behind it, she could see their faces distinctly, but she had no idea that they were dazzled by the light and could not see her at all in her dark dress. She fancied that they were looking at her as they ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

... the ayash tyucotz when performed about the time of the summer solstice. However clumsy and meaningless it may seem, it is still a solemn performance. It gives public expression, under very strange forms, to the idea that has found its most perfect utterance in the German philosopher's[8] definition of "abject reliance upon God;" whereas in its lowest form it is still "a vague and awful feeling about unity in the ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... have learnt, in literary matters, the art of expression to a certain extent. I can speak to you with entire frankness and unaffectedness, and I will say that I am conscious that I can now express lucidly, and to a certain extent attractively, an idea. My deficiency is now in ideas and not in the power of expressing them. I have quality though not quantity. It amuses me to read this old diary and see how impossible I found it to put certain thoughts ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... he well may, that the Poet's special purpose in this play was to set forth the precedence of innate over circumstantial distinctions. Gervinus also takes the same view: "The idea that merit goes before rank is the soul of this piece and of the relation between Bertram and Helena." And this high moral centre is not only pronounced strongly in verbal discourse, but, which is still better, is silently placed in the characters themselves ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... city, serves the same purpose. Above the serpents is the following inscription, in tolerably large white characters: Otiosis locus hic non est, discede morator. "Lingerer, depart; this is no place for idlers." An injunction by the way which seems rather to militate against the idea of the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... only inability for, but even natural repugnance to good thoughts is often a prominent feeling, let us not think this a "discouraging experience." What will be discouraged by it, except that self-confidence and self-reliance which are the bane, the very opposite, to the idea of faith? Surely it is for want of such a feeling, and not because of it, that faith is feeble. It is because we try to make those good thoughts and holy feelings of which Thomas Charles says so truly, ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... down beside the little soft balls of fur, and Sandyface came to rub around him and worship likewise. But she had no idea of the thought that ran ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... any idea which way they went, east or west?" Gardley was the keen adviser in a crisis now, his every ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... until the certainty of their bereavement had entered their souls. This one had the sad privilege of witnessing the tragedy. It was all happening in the little house of disjointed planks, and perhaps she took some comfort in the idea that she would be there at the last moment. It was easy to see, however, that she considered my efforts as some sort of rite which, at ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... said to give us perfect imitations of it, we have no bird in America that equals this classical songster. The following description, by Pliny, which is said to be superior to any other, may afford us some idea of the extent of its powers:—"The Nightingale, that for fifteen days and nights, hid in the thickest shades, continues her note without intermission, deserves our attention and wonder. How surprising that so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... march complete with equipment and Transport to its Mobilisation area on the sixth day after receiving the order "Mobilise." The amount of work done by Battalions and Companies was marvellous and only those who experienced it can have an idea of what ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman

... he remarked, "Ethel and I had a talk this evening before dinner about matters generally and she has started what I call a very good idea." ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties

... dear sir, to suggest to you an idea which I have lately thought of: all the continental officers labor under the most shameful want of clothing. When I say shameful, it is not to them, who have no money to buy—no cloth to be bought. You can conceive what may be theirs and our feelings, when they will be with the French ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... the holy father of a porter and the saintly cabman occupied the middle distance imperturbably, and did not come down from their hills to clout me with knowledge. From this fact I experienced a criminal elation. I lost view of the idea that if I had been brow-beaten by porters and cabmen from one end of the United States to the other end I should warmly like it, because in numbers they are superior to me, and collectively they can have a great deal of fun out of a matter that would merely afford me the ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... as hopeless in his love, as Harry Esmond? Alas, no one will wish to be as was Ralph Newton! But for one Harry Esmond, there are fifty Ralph Newtons,—five hundred and fifty of them; and the very youth whose bosom glows with admiration as he reads of Harry,—who exults in the idea that as Harry did, so would he have done,—lives as Ralph lived, is less noble, less persistent, less of a man even ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... The idea of not being happy, and in all respects as blissful as they could possibly be made, was one always assumed by the Follingsbee clique as an injustice to be wrestled with. Anybody that did not affect them agreeably, that jarred on their nerves, or interrupted the delicious ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... medium-sized man, with light hair and eyebrows, and a yellowish face, and a frame lean, though sinewy, and had only one good eye, the other pale like a fish's. His business eye always looked like it was boring a hole in some ingenious idea. As an arguer on the Hebe Maitland his style was airy and gorgeous, contrary to the style of Stevey Todd, who was ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... war; the Truce was only directed to a limitation of the times and seasons in which feuds could be waged, and a definition of the persons who were to be exempted from their menace. But from seeking to limit the fighting instinct of a feudal society, the Church soon rose to the idea of enlisting that instinct under her own banner and directing it to her own ends. So arose chivalry, which, like most of the institutions of the Middle Ages, was the invention of the Church. Chivalry was the consecration of the fighting instinct to the defence of the widow, the fatherless, and ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... ridiculous an extent are the notions formed of the nature of women, mere empirical generalizations, framed, without philosophy or analysis, upon the first instances which present themselves, that the popular idea of it is different in different countries, according as the opinions and social circumstances of the country have given to the women living in it any speciality of development or non-development. An Oriental thinks that women are by ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... lieutenant in the Zone Police who impressed Kirk as a real Remington trooper come to life; and many another. They all welcomed the Yale man with that freedom which one finds only on the frontier, and as he listened to them he began to gain some idea of the tremendous task that occupied their minds. They were all men with work to do; there were no idlers; there was no class distinction. One topic of conversation prevailed, and, although the talk drifted away from it at times, ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... it is," said the Baron, "that, in solitude, some fixed idea will often take root in the mind, and grow till it overshadow all one's thoughts. To this must all opinions come; no thought can enter there, which shall not be wedded to the fixed idea. There it remains, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... stories with the mellow background of the golden state of California. Poe and Hawthorne had made the short story a distinct type. Now Bret Harte, less artistic and careful in his style, followed their lead with short stories to which he added the new idea of coloring brilliantly the setting of the story with the atmosphere of ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... to do?" she said, shaking her head, hopelessly. "I don't know. I haven't the slightest idea, Mr. Glover. It is so bewildering. Do I understand that all this property ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... community from the crime of the individual. If the crime was of a minor nature, for the slaying of the guilty there was substituted a ransom through the presenting of a sacrificial victim or of similar gifts. Thus the whole criminal law rested as to its ultimate basis on the religious idea ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... idea of time utterly: he did not know whether he should find that night had come, or that the next day had dawned. He had waited there, period after period; he marked one of them by eating food that had no taste and drinking liquid that stung his throat ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... yourself a prophet who suddenly discovers that his God is laughing at him, a devotee whose saint winks and tells him that the devotion of years has been a farce, and you will get some idea of Lady Lavinia's frame of mind. Her sallow face flushed, her lip trembled, and she slewed round as far as her chair would permit her. Meanwhile Mr. Cargill, redder than before, went on ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... that, as her condition was still precarious, the news should be broken to her gradually and indirectly. The indefatigable Sol had a professional idea, which was not displeasing to the Twins. It being a lovely summer afternoon, the couch of Mornie was lifted out on the ledge, and she lay there basking in the sunlight, drinking in the pure air, and looking bravely ahead in the daylight as she had in the darkness, for her couch commanded a view of ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... up here; that's my idea," he said. "I don't know which I can stand most comfortably, your voices or your silence. Both make ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers

... I," announced Harry, "have found the engines and pumps apparently ready for duty in a moment. My idea is that they are trying to get this vessel ready for a cruise at the first ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... The idea of announcing Brissot's project to the authorities did not even enter my thoughts. It seemed a fatality which came to smite me, and of which I must undergo the consequences, ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... of some people in a future state will consist in watching the distress of their parents on returning to eternal companionship with their grandfathers and grandmothers; whilst "compulsory affection" is the idea which lies at the root of their word for ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... and, with a fine disregard for a librarian's feelings, annotated some of the volumes, his marginalia existing to this day. One of his favourite works was the Danica Literatura Antiquissima of Olaus Wormius, 1636, which inspired him with the idea of adopting the name Olaus, his subsequent contributions to The New Magazine ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... don't want you to know, mother," he answered. "You can now say honestly that I left home, and that you have no idea where I went to. Good-bye, give my love and duty ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... down again on Saturday, though. Leave of absence is going cheap, just now. I've an idea that our marching orders must be about due. Maybe I'll be able to run down myself, though my father hadn't the luck to be a friend of the Colonel's. If I don't, you're to keep your eye ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... still as a fish at the Quaker meetings, he had enough to say at home, and at the parish meetings. He had such a spice of the tyrant in him, that he could not even entertain the idea of marrying, without it must be a sort of shift for the mastery. He, therefore, not only cast his eye on one of the most high-spirited women that he knew in his own society, but actually one on the largest scale of physical dimensions. If he had one hero of his admiration more than ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... indulgence was preached, and against the Use conception of the efficacy of indulgences which the people obtained from such preaching. They were not his first protest, however. In a sermon, preached July 37th, 1516,[30] he had issued a warning against the false idea that a man who had bought an indulgence was sure of salvation, and had declared the assertion that souls could be bought out of purgatory to be "a piece of temerity." His warnings were repeated in other sermons, preached October 31st, 1516, and February ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... me some idea of the state of my native country, to become still more unhappy before many more years were over, owing to the misguiding of hot-headed men, and the cruel treatment of a Government whose only notion of ruling was ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... the people he would like to know; and it piqued him that there was a life, rich in friendships, no doubt, in tastes, in many noblenesses, one of thousands of such, that must be absolutely nothing to him,—nothing but a window into heaven momentarily opened and then closed. I have myself no idea that she was a countess incognito, or that she had descended from any greater heights than those where Mandeville saw her, but I have always regretted that she went her way so mysteriously and left no glow, and that we shall wear out the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... was depressed in favour of Lord Evandale, and her wishes in his favour took many shapes extremely tormenting to Morton; being now expressed as a friendly caution, now as an article of intelligence, and anon as a merry jest, but always tending to confirm the idea, that, sooner or later, his romantic intercourse with her young mistress must have a close, and that Edith Bellenden would, in spite of summer walks beneath the greenwood tree, exchange of verses, of drawings, and of books, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... miserable wretches, and the idea of what their feelings must be, occupied us, as they toiled along, each step bringing them nearer to their place of execution; and we could not help thinking what wild wishes must have sometimes throbbed within them, of breaking their ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... cowboys, was troubled with similar thoughts. He was trying to analyze his own feelings. Years without association with womankind had made him come to regard them with a measure of indifference and suspicion. He had developed the idea that women existed chiefly for the purpose of disorganizing the morale of the masculine members of the race. He was very sincere in this belief. Yet he was forced, now, to confess that he found something interesting in having a couple of attractive females at the Quarter Circle KT. ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman

... idea of Charles, upon hearing of Lord George Murray's arrival in Paris, was to imprison him as a traitor. "I hope in God," writes his father to the young Prince, "you will not think of getting Lord George secured after all I wrote to you about him, and will ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... uncertain state, people are apt to lounge and loiter without knowing why, to read placards on the walls with great attention and without the smallest idea of one word of their contents, and to stare most earnestly through shop-windows at things which they don't see. It was thus that Nicholas found himself poring with the utmost interest over a large play-bill hanging outside a Minor ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... had hoped she might consider the propriety of withdrawing to the dower house attached to the Coverdale estates, but if the idea had occurred to her, she had never given it utterance, and Hugh himself had lacked the courage to propose such ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... [20] An idea as to the lack of action in this story can be derived from the following statement by Otto (pp. 127-28), the brave hero: "Was man Schicksale zu nennen pflegt, habe ich wenige gehabt, aber erfahren habe ich dennoch viel und mehr als mancher durch seine glAenzenden Schicksale erfahren mag: nAemlich ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield

... scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an idea of the sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... to near the coast, Bouvet was forced to relinquish the idea. His sailors were worn out with fatigue, discouraged, and enfeebled by scurvy. The Marie was sent to the Isle of France, and the Aigle directed her course to the Cape of Good Hope, which she reached upon the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... the governor having no authority to tax the people: "they will petition the King for liberty of an assembly before they make any rates." The minister and five others were arrested; they had "obstructed an officer." The Rev. Mr. Wise was guiltiest of all; he did it with a word, an idea. They were brought to Boston, and thrown into jail, "for contempt and high misdemeanors." They claimed the habeas corpus; Chief Justice Dudley refused it, on the ground that it did not extend to America! They were tried before a packed jury, and such ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... chance to say much to him," he said, laughing good naturedly; "he did the talking. He seemed to have become possessed of the idea that I was past-master of the art of Gaelic, and when I confessed my culpable ignorance of the language, he flew into a rage. He seemed to lay the blame upon your friend, young McDonald." He looked steadily at Wee Andra ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... burden of life without support. The one idea, "He loves me!" gave her superhuman strength. She worked as hard as the most energetic spirits of our time. At the risk of her beauty and health, Didine was to Lousteau what Mademoiselle Delachaux was to Gardane in Diderot's noble and true tale. But while sacrificing ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... whether Floyd would be congenial or not, and is rather embarrassed. "We are not foolish young lovers," she explains, "but I do suppose we shall be happy. He is so kind, so warmhearted; he makes one feel warmed and rested. It did so surprise me, for I had not the faintest idea. I used to ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... such, is purely ideal, and can have no other foundation than the belief that Apollo sternly resents ill usage of his priests, and that too in the way here represented, viz., by sending plagues. This belief is in perfect harmony with the idea generally entertained of the power and agency of Apollo; and it is manifest that the idea placed in combination with certain events, gave birth to the story so far as relates to the god. We have not yet ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... was a more serious business. He had not Bannon's years of experience at bridge repairing; it had happened that he had never been called upon to put up a belt gallery before, and this idea of building a wooden box one hundred and fifty feet long and holding it up, thirty feet in air, on three trestles, was formidable. Bannon's nonchalant air of setting about it seemed almost ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster

... paid no attention to his wound, and, when the enemy hurried to shore the next day for another attack, they were greeted with such a terrific discharge of artillery that they gave up their idea of capturing the island and sailed away amidst cries of ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... our voyage was retarded, we were entertained with a scene, which as no one can behold without going to sea, so no one can form an idea of anything equal to it on shore. We were seated on the deck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be imagined. Not a single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun himself was the only object which engrossed our whole attention. ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... rise up tomorrow and emancipate, who would educate these millions, and teach them how to use their freedom? They never would rise to do much among us. The fact is, we are too lazy and unpractical, ourselves, ever to give them much of an idea of that industry and energy which is necessary to form them into men. They will have to go north, where labor is the fashion,—the universal custom; and tell me, now, is there enough Christian philanthropy, among your northern states, to bear with the process of their education ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... of human thought, and the respectability of individual character. I find everywhere an elevation of the character of man as man, an elevation of the individual as a component part of society. I find everywhere a rebuke of the idea that the many are made for the few, or that government is anything but an agency for mankind. And I care not beneath what zone, frozen, temperate, or torrid; I care not of what complexion, white, or brown; I care not under what circumstances of climate ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... Fact, Opinion, Illustration, &c., set forth in your Abstract that you correlate together, thus: You correlate the Title of the First Chapter to the Title of the Book; next, the Titles of the Chapters to each other; and then you correlate, in each chapter, the first leading idea or proposition to the title of the chapter, the second leading idea to the first, &c., &c. In this way you will proceed until you have absorbed all the new ideas, facts, statistics or illustrations, or whatever you wish to retain. You can then test yourself on the work by calling ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)

... not retire from business—and I once made the remark to his daughter. Her reply was: "I thought as you do once, but now I think differently. When I have been on a visit with my father, and he has stayed away for several weeks, you have no idea how restless and uneasy he has become from want of occupation. It has become his habit, and habit is second nature. It is not from a wish to accumulate that he continues at the counting-house, but because he cannot be happy without employment. I, therefore, do not any longer persuade him ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... spirits of the dead, are endowed with powers to aid the living members of the clan in material ways. The clans, therefore, pray to them that these material blessings may be given. "It is an almost universal idea of primitive man," says Fewkes, "that prayers should be addressed to personations of the beings worshipped. In the carrying out of this conception men personate the katchinas, wearing masks, and dressing in the costumes characteristic of these beings. These personations represent to the Hopi ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... sat down in the porch to take off our boots. I confess this view was to me entirely novel. I felt chagrined that I had been so lacking in intelligence as to miss so obvious a possibility. I had a faint, uneasy suspicion that my friend was laughing at me. But the idea was so pregnant with interest that I soon forgot my mortification. Before I had got my boots completely off I was away on a tour of this new and fascinating region. I leaned back in my chair and ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... thinking. It's not quite as simple as Dr. Nentrov expressed it, but that could be the general idea. We might be able to work out the location of the base line from that. There seems to be a break in the number sequence in here; that would be the time line Skordran Kirv found those slaves on." He reached for the pipe he had left on the desk when he ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... of the church seemed, as a whole, to impress the same idea and complete the symbolical images of the details by its vaulted nave, of which the groined roof was so like the reversed hull of a vessel, suggesting the graceful form of the ships that made ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... down the narrow limits of my cell I paced, praying at one moment for strength to hold out to the end, and at the next cursing myself for an idiotic splitter of hairs helpless to break away from the manaclings of an idea. Love, reason, common sense were all ranged on the side of the compromise with principle; and opposed to them there was only the stubborn protest against injustice pleading feebly and despairingly for its ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... her father. But a bright thought came to her, and she wondered at herself for not having thought of it before. She must pawn her best clothes; her red frock and bonnet with green ribbons. There was a natural pang at parting with them, even for a time; but she comforted herself with the idea that father would get them back for her as soon as he returned. She reached them out of the box, feeling carefully lest she should take any of Robin's or the baby's by mistake in the dark; and then she set ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton

... back to him," I cautioned. "He has got the idea into his head, and it will take a lot of arguing to convince him that Miss Barbara didn't give it to him ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... of January, 1833, his wife brought him another boy, his seventh child. Passionately fond of his little ones, and devoted to them heart and soul, he could not bear the thought of the coming day when he might have no bread to give them. The mere idea made him feel faint and giddy, and he rushed forth into the fields to cool his throbbing head. Not returning in time for the evening meal, his eldest daughter went in search through all the neighbourhood. After long inquiries and searching, she found her father lying on ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... "I 'd no idea he was so devoted," said Fanny, stooping to smell the flowers, and at the same time read a ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... talked over by the recruiting party, who were men specially selected for this duty on account of their knowledge of African languages, offered themselves as recruits. If medically fit, they were invariably accepted, though it must have been well known that they could not possibly have had any idea of the nature of the engagement into which they were entering. Some fifteen or twenty recruits being thus obtained, they were given high-sounding names, such as Mark Antony, Scipio Africanus, etc., their own barbaric appellations being too unpronounceable, ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis

... least idea where I am going, nor what I am to do. I wished to have gone to Rome; but at present it is pestilent with English,—a parcel of staring boobies, who go about gaping and wishing to be at once cheap and magnificent. A man is a fool who travels now in France or Italy, till this ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... in term time is only the repetition of every other, the account of one will give an idea of all, especially as I follow with regularity the plan of study I have formed. Every morning I rise at six o'clock, dress, and breakfast. At seven I go to my lectures, given during the morning in ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... authorized to claim as for what they were compelled to disclaim. And, as one mode of effecting this, it was proposed that the king should become an emperor. Some, indeed, alleged that an emperor, but its very idea, as received in the Chancery of Europe, presupposes a king paramount over vassal or tributary kings. But it is a sufficient answer to say that an emperor is a prince, united in his own person the thrones of several distinct kingdoms; and in effect we adopt that view of the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... haven't; but there was a page of accounts in the back part of the arithmetic I studied, and I got a pretty good idea of the thing from that. All the money received goes on one side, and all the money paid out goes on ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic

... superficial, and nature had not endowed him with all the qualities that are essential to the successful lawyer. His reading on the literary side was considerable, especially in the Spanish language. Early in life he accepted the idea that our relations with the Spanish race were to be intimate in a not far off future. He was a careful observer of character, and of conditions in affairs, and in a free debate he was never in peril of being overmatched. Of a mutual friend and an associate in politics he said: "He has ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... runner by a "sacrifice hit," all they have to do is to go to the bat and have themselves put out, so that the base runner at first base may be able to reach second base on the play which puts the batsmen out. This is a very erroneous idea of the true intent of a sacrifice hit. No skilful batsmen ever goes to the bat purposely to hit the ball so as to have himself put out; that would be a very silly move. On the contrary, he takes his bat in hand every time, with the primary ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick

... wonderful! What! A lady? Oh! a person. Oh, yes: I know. Yes, please, send her up. Have my servants finished their lunch yet? Oh no: please don't disturb them: I'd rather not. It doesn't matter. Thank you. What? Oh yes, it's quite easy. I had no idea—am I to hang it up just as it was? Thank you. ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw

... came at last and found him feverish and parched, unable to move. Mrs Clinton sent for the doctor, a slow, cautious Scotchman, in whose wisdom Mrs Clinton implicitly relied, since he always agreed with her own idea of her children's ailments. This prudent gentleman ventured to assert that Mr Clinton had caught cold and had something wrong with his lungs. Then, promising to send medicine and come again next day, went off on his rounds. Mr ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... or is it not?" she enquired severely. "These little personal reminiscences are very interesting among yourselves, I dare say, but I cut in here with the idea of ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... rise to discussion among archaeologists. The first impression that it conveys is that of an exceedingly uncouth representation of the Last Judgment, but the Marquis de Fayolle's explanation, namely, that the idea which the sculptor-monk endeavoured to work out here was the triumph of Death over Life, meets with fewer objections. There are three figures or heads symbolizing Death, of which the central one wears a diadem ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... idea of business than a goat," criticised Montgomery, and Paul lowered his head in humble confession. "That man who calcimines your studio could figure on a piece of work with more intelligence than you reveal. I'll pay $2,500. It's only a fair price, and I can't afford anything ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... so. At the conclusion we are shown the other chief actors standing, with appropriate emotions, over the heroine's grave, and thus find that the catastrophe has not really been the manifestation of an idea, but an occasion of sentiment. The habitual novel-reader, from thus looking sentimentally at the fictitious life which is the reflex of his own, soon comes to look sentimentally at himself. He thinks his personal ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green

... his great aspiration. Donald had come to him the week before, and with his usual frankness made known the fact that he could never entertain any further thought of entering the ministry, and had therefore abandoned all idea of returning to college. The sacrifice of his education was a great trial to Donald, but he could not ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... nephew of Cardinal d'Ascoli, fostered a fixed idea, the motive of his madness being the promotion of his uncle to S. Peter's Chair. In 1633 he applied to a hermit, who professed profound science in the occult arts and close familiarity with demons. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... kill it!" called Mr. Porter to his little boy. But Sammie had no idea of touching the queer bug he had seen, and at which the ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis

... an allowance; he was foolish enough and presumptuous enough to propose a match between you and this young lady. You were exhibited to her two nights ago; and I rejoice to tell you that she rejected the idea with disgust. Let me add that I have considerable influence with your father; and it shall not be my fault if you are not beggared of your allowance and sent back to your scrivening ere the week ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... psychophysical mechanism through which the different moods are aroused is for the most part hidden from us; yet in certain particulars we can form some idea of it. For example, the richness of feeling in the tones of certain instruments as compared with others is doubtless due to the fact that through the presence of more overtones and the admixture of noise, the reaction ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... was not yet entirely returned. Nevertheless, I took the heavy weight in my hands, throwing it over my head, and balanced it there a moment. A vague idea flitted at that instant across my mind to let the weight fall on my master's skull, and thus crush him at my feet. But that gleam of my bygone courage died out, and I dropped the weight on the ground. The lame ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue

... rushings, hissings, and splashings, and the crashing sound of breakers on the coast, but it was the surging of fiery waves upon a fiery shore. But what can I write! Such words as jets, fountains, waves, spray, convey some idea of order and regularity, but here there was none. The inner lake, while we stood there, formed a sort of crater within itself, the whole lava sea rose about three feet, a blowing cone about eight feet high was formed, it was never the same two minutes together. And what we saw had ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... time despaired of being able to bring the machine to a state of practical efficiency. None but those who have occupied themselves in the laborious and often profitless task of helping the world to new and useful machines can have any idea of the tantalizing anxiety which arises from the apparently petty stumbling-blocks which for awhile impede the realization of a great idea in mechanical invention. Such was the case with the water-tight arrangement ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... hen-chicken. Chickens' voices are squeaking and nasal; and they are timid, and powerless, and for this reason my whimsical countrymen have given the name of Pulcinella, or hen-chicken, to that comic character, to convey the idea of a man that speaks with a squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and weak fellow, who is always thrashed by the other actors, and always boasts of victory after they are gone."—Tolondron, p. 324. In Italian, Policinello is a little flea, active ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... to reassure him. "There are lots of good Jews there, and they don't neglect their Talmud, either." The amount that was necessary to take me to America loomed staggeringly large. Where was it to come from? I thought of approaching Shiphrah, but the idea of her helping me abandon my Talmud and go to live in a godless country seemed preposterous. So I began by saving the small allowance which I received from her and by selling some of the clothes and food she brought me. For the evening meal I usually received some rye bread and a small ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... caraway-seeds growing round the house. If she could only contrive some sugar and some vanilla-beans, she would be well satisfied to open her campaign. But as there had been for weeks only one single copper cent and two postage-stamps in the house, that seemed an impossibility. Hereupon an idea seized little Jane, and for several days she was busy in a mysterious rummage. Garrets and closets surrendered their hoards to her; files of old newspapers, old ledgers, old letter-backs, began to accumulate in heaps,—everything but books, for Jane had a religious respect for their recondite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... considered or which has touched them seriously, with their minds already made up. They have some sort of a persuasion about it, they have a theory which they have accepted; and, if you bring them a truth with ever such overwhelming credentials which clashes with this preconceived idea or prejudice, the chances are that it would be met with doubt, with denial, not a clear-cut, intelligent, well- balanced doubt, but a doubt that springs out of the unwillingness that a man feels to reconstruct ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... those engravings only yesterday," said Mr. Ellsworth, anxious to engage Elinor's attention; "they almost amount to a libel on childhood; they give the idea of mincing, affected little creatures, at the very age when children are almost invariably natural and interesting. I should quarrel very much with a portrait of my little girl, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... know, but I suppose it's rivalry, the idea that if your neighbor grows he grows at your expense. Your hostility carries over to us in America also. We're your children and we imitate our parents. The French in Canada hate the English in the Provinces and the English in the Provinces hate the French in Canada, when there's so much ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Don't you be too sharp. And it really is a first-rate idea. All these parcels now—I suppose there must be fifty of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various

... friend, to whom I once narrated this history, observed that it was David's guilt which made these prongs formidable, and that the "mens nil conscia sibi" strips a pitchfork of all terrors. I thought this idea so valuable, that I obtained his leave to use it on condition of suppressing his name.) Nevertheless, David did not entirely lose his presence of mind; for in that case he would have sunk on the earth or started backward; whereas he kept his ground and smiled at Jacob, who nodded his head up ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot

... an image into which the beauty, "born" of the vine, has passed; and you have the idea of Dionysus, as he appears, entirely fashioned at last by central Greek poetry and art, and is consecrated in the Oinophoria and the Anthestria, the great festivals of ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... It was either too hot, or too cold, or too damp, or too dusty, or there was sure to be some other reason, equally sufficient, for withholding her consent. As for balls and cotillon parties, the most enterprising and audacious youngster of them all would have quailed at the idea of facing the parson's wife with a request to take her sister to such a place. At last the report got wind that Mrs. Jaynes was saving Laura for Mr. Elam Hunt, until such time as, having finished his course of study at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... to him. But when they had turned him round to march to the shed where he was to be kept, till hung like a pig at sunrise, his eyes glanced about restlessly. For even as the sentence had been pronounced a new idea had come into his mind. Over the heads of the Gippy soldiers, with their pipestem legs, his look flashed eagerly, then a little painfully—then suddenly stayed, for it rested on the green turban of Yusef, the drunken ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... "Hawtrey's idea about his injuries is more or less correct, but we'll have no great trouble in pulling him round," he said. "The one point that's worrying me is the looking after him. One couldn't expect him to thrive upon slabs of burnt ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... written in the Book that holds the wisdom of our race that one who is reborn into the Kingdom of God, enters as a little child. It is there in black and white, yet few people get the idea into their consciousnesses. They expect regeneration to produce an upright man. God knows better than that. And we should know better too when it is written down for us. And so you good people who expect to see John Barclay turn rightabout face ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... to do. He had no actual faith in the idea that Birken was delirious, or acting under any influence but that of a ...
— Exile • Horace Brown Fyfe

... one man, you note. Ergo: blew himself up. That spoils your day off for you—don't it? Were you expecting that sort of move? I hadn't the slightest idea—not the ghost of a notion of anything of the sort being planned to come off here—in this country. Under the present circumstances it's nothing short ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... had had two predecessors, but none in the northern regions which he had now reached. Finding harbourage on the Californian coast, he repaired the Pelican thoroughly, and then proceeded on a voyage of circumnavigation; the spring of 1579 being now well advanced. His first idea was to look for that imagined North East Passage, in the search for which Willoughby had lost his life nearly five and twenty years before: and with this object in view he sailed some hundreds of miles further North than any explorers in the Pacific ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... process, instead of passing through “the Lincoln Gap,” if it then existed, found its way through a low tract of country northward into the Trent, and so passed out into the Humber. See “Lincolnshire Notes and Queries,” vol. i., pp. 53, 54, and 213. It would almost seem that the poet Drayton had an idea of something of this kind, when he says of ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... not warm to the idea. "My dear fellow, you seem to forget that all the evidence was pretty thoroughly sifted at the time, every possible clue followed up. The public would have been ready enough then to believe that you murdered old Lenman—you or anybody else. All they wanted was a murderer—the ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... seen the Chinese and Korean hunters perform similar ceremonies at the death of an animal, and the idea that it is necessary to propitiate the God of the Hunt is universal. When I was shooting in Korea in 1912, and also in other parts of China, if luck had been against us for a few days the hunters would invariably ask me to buy a chicken, or some ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... is not a thing of periods," she explained. "It should be like the air, absorbed, as it were, all the time, not like a meal, eaten just so often in the day. This idea of teaching by paroxysms is one of the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... withstand their entreaties that I would remain with them, having already decided to do so. Their helplessness appealed so strongly to my sympathies that I found it impossible to resist. Besides, I had an idea and a hope that even in the event of the town being taken I might prevail with the enemy to ameliorate their condition as prisoners. So I promised, and quietly passed from ward to ward announcing my determination, trying to speak cheerfully. Excitement, so great that it produced ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... is a beautiful idea," agreed Miss Patch warmly. Then, after a moment, she added, "How would you like it if I had the school, and you both came to me? I could go down to Charlie's room, as a rule, but I do believe that sometimes ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... than satisfied—his first idea had been the right idea, after all. Besides, she was correctly informed as to his professional position. The capacity which had raised him to fame and fortune was his capacity (unrivalled among his brethren) for the ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... anything I ever dreamed, and I want to say that there's no one in the Skandinavia, from Mr. Peterman downwards, has the littlest notion of it. It's not a mill. It's a world of real, civilised enterprise. And it's set here where you'd look for the roughest of forest life. I just had no idea." ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... give up the idea. He made up his mind to work in the direction of his desire, following his trade and laying by money for the venture. But Fate or Providence or Accident—whatever we may choose to call the unaccountable—stepped ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... that owned them. I took him up to the bar and had a drink; then I asked him what he was going to do with the alligators. He said he had a side-show, and he was going to play the fairs all over the entire Northern country, and he wanted them to draw custom. I told him I thought it an excellent idea, and said, "I have a ten-legged wolf in a cage that I will get on board at Vicksburg, and I will sell him cheap." This pleased him, and we took another drink. I insisted on paying for the drinks, but he would ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... instrument for carrying out the work of reconstruction. The sphere of selection is limited. England and Russia, as far as can at present be foreseen, appear to be the only two Powers whose mission or interest seems likely to impel their influence Eastwards. Any idea that England will ever deliberately enter upon the possession of even a part of Chinese territory may at once be dismissed as unworthy to be entertained. Although her vast trade and world-wide associations ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... have a very correct idea of general Proctor's force; it is not such as to create the least apprehension for the result of the contest, whatever shape he may be pleased hereafter to give it. Assure the general, however, that he will never have this ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... would be delighted to have him come, he said. He had entirely given up the idea of getting an assistant, but ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... I won't stay to supper, but I've got an errand first. I've struck a new idea about wine. Haven't you got a lot of wild ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... the most remote idea where the farm was. All she remembered to have heard was that it was west of Winnipeg, miles farther than her brother's. One couldn't drive to it, it was necessary to take the train. But whether it was a day's journey or a week's journey, she had never ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... the other side of the river, passes through an enclosed, broad rafter-made-gutter and turns the large wheel of the mill. The gutter was so full of water, that it streamed over and offered a most slippery way, to one who had the idea of crossing more quickly to the mill; a young man had this idea—the Englishman. Guided by the light, which shone from Babette's window, he arrived in the evening, clothed in white, like a miller's boy; he had not learnt to climb and nearly tumbled head over heels ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen

... began with his wild idea of not being Bertha's father, and ended with his throwing the lighted ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg

... alone. In an American tax what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons of Great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty—what? Our own property? No! we give and grant to your Majesty the property of your Majesty's commons in America. It is an absurdity in terms."[19] "The idea of a virtual representation of America in this House is the most contemptible that ever entered into the head of man." "I never shall own the justice of taxing America internally until she enjoys the right of representation." Not very many men in either house of Parliament ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... to America. It may not be a bad idea and need not be a failure, I know persons whose lives were wrecked here and who went to America and returned millionaires, to be envied and fawned upon. I don't doubt that after all you have gone through, you have carefully weighed and considered the step ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... attachment to their Arsacid princes, caused his attempts to fail of any good result, and tended on the whole to throw Armenia into the arms of Rome. Sapor, after a while, became convinced of the folly of his proceedings, and resolved on the adoption of a wholly new policy. He would relinquish the idea of conquering, and would endeavor instead to conciliate the Armenians, in the hope of obtaining from their gratitude what he had been unable to extort from their fears. Tiranus was still living; and Sapor, we are told, offered to replace him ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... their relations, their shapes, and their suggestions. These tended to form themselves into two main alternative classes. Either Mr. Cathcart was a harmless fanatic, or he was unusually sharp. But these again had almost endless subdivisions, for at present she had no idea of what was really in his mind—as to what his hints meant. Either this curious old gentleman with shrewd, humorous eyes was entirely wrong, and Laurie was just suffering from a nervous strain, not severe enough to hinder ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... was first published, the dialogue, having no letters of direction, was perplexed and obscure. Pope seems to have written with no very distinct idea; for he calls that an Epistle to Bathurst, in which Bathurst ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... Lady Canterbridge's slim, white hand in his own. The next moment voices were heard in the passage, and the door nearly opposite to them opened deliberately. The idea of their apparent seclusion and half compromising attitude flashed through the minds of both at the same time. Lady Canterbridge stepped quickly backward, drawing Bradley with her, into the embrasure of the window; ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... after living for thirteen years such a different life, I do not see things as I did when I was a girl, and have blamed myself often because I have felt the difference. But I have felt it, and therefore the idea of going back to Dulwich again is not so painful to me as I think ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty

... in manner of having revolved this idea also, more distinctly apropos and voiced with ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... indescribable by words, that if I had not had some knowledge in drawing, our history had been very incomplete. Thus it must have been, especially in the description of the Glumms and Gawrys therein mentioned. In order to gain (that so I might communicate) a clear idea of these, I made several drawings of them from his discourses and accounts; and, at length, after divers trials, I made such exact delineations, that he declared they could not have been more perfect resemblances if I had drawn them from the life. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... requesting the presence of the lady or gentleman in the place of the one who cannot appear. The answer should be brief but sincere; there must be no hint in it that the recipient is not altogether pleased with the invitation and with the idea of dining in someone's else place. To refuse an invitation to serve as a stop-gap, without an acceptable reason for doing so is an inexcusable violation of ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... meanly withheld from me the books necessary to my further advancement. I now found myself at a stand-still. I threatened Mr. Jones that I would complain to my uncle of his unjustifiable conduct. The idea seemed greatly to amuse him and my cousin—they laughed in my face, and dared ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... hours on said boundless bosom, before he turned his prow back towards land,—towards the far-famed Lime Rocks, on which the intrepid heroine dwells. He had thought of being wrecked at night, but fearing that IDA might not be able to find him in the dark, he gave up this idea. His present intention was that Miss LEWIS should believe him to be a lonely mariner from a far distance, tossed by the angry waves upon her rock-bound coast But there was a certain difficulty in the way, which Mr. P. feared would ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various

... idea that. The plan of grinding the glass was suggested by me. An ingenious one, is it not? My father had the good sense to adopt it. It's a pity that his example is not followed by all the lawyers and merchants ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... hopping in at the Duchess of Kendal's window at Twickenham, she chose to imagine the king's spirit inhabited these plumes, and took special care of her sable visitor. Affecting metempsychosis—funereal royal bird! How pathetic is the idea of the duchess weeping over it! When this chaste addition to our English aristocracy died, all her jewels, her plate, her plunder went over to her relations in Hanover. I wonder whether her heirs took the bird, and whether it is still flapping ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... I," said Gerald, delighted with the idea, for he was feeling all the time that he was vexing his sister, and wishing to do something by way ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... not Caesar Borgia's idea at all: he had stayed behind to confer with the pope, and had joined the French army with some of his troops on the very day on which the conference had been arranged for two days later: and a capitulation of any nature would rob ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... sort of encyclopedia like those of Celsus and Pliny, are all but completely lost: but the Florida, a collection, probably made by himself, of twenty-four selected passages from the public lectures which he delivered at Carthage, give an idea of his style as a lecturer, and of the scope and variety of his talent. The Ciceronian manner of Quintilian and his school has now completely disappeared. The new style may remind one here and there of ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... Kid rode as fast as they might toward the Shooting Star. It was their intention to reach the ranch and return as soon as possible, after having taken a bite to eat. The idea of resting was given up as the hours flew by. It seemed no time at all before the stars grew dull, and the gray fingers of dawn spread out ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker

... not wait for orders; there were a number of carriages still in the road and the men had no idea where their superiors might be. Their first thought was to get Giovanni conveyed to a hospital as soon ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford

... Be sure that the pattern is placed correctly upon the material with the straight grain or warp threads of the goods running directly on a line with the straight perforations indicated in the pattern. Lay the entire pattern upon the cloth. This gives an idea just where every piece is to ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... upon landing. Sierra Leone had given him an exalted idea of African civilization, but this was at once dispelled by the appearance of Bonny. The houses were constructed entirely of black mud, and the streets were narrow and filthy beyond description. The palace was composed of two or three ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... apprehended from this cause, to pub an end for ever to all partial and interested legislation on the subject, and to afford to every American citizen of enterprise the opportunity of securing an independent freehold, it seems to me, therefore, best to abandon the idea of raising a future revenue out of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... for a trip to study Saturn's rings at close hand. And because I'd done some technical work for him on the Moon, he figured he might as well take me as any other good all-around mechanic and technician. He hadn't asked me, though—that had been my own stupid idea. ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey

... she, "don't be ill-natured, for if you are, you've no idea how I shall be disappointed. Only conceive what happened to me three weeks ago! you must know I was invited to Miss Clinton's wedding, and so I made up a new dress on purpose, in a very particular sort of shape, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... idea which, without any parade of modesty, I hereby commend to the notice of the American, French and British Governments. Let them get together as soon as may be and give us an authoritative definition of Democracy. Then we shall know where, collectively, we are. Of course you may say that it ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... "That's a good idea, Miss," said the woman hopefully. "And mebbe I can make him start back for the woods again to-night. Oh, dear me! 'Tis an awful thing! I don't want him 'round—an' yet when he's sober he's the nicest man 'ith young'uns ye ever see. He jest dotes on this poor little thing," and she looked down ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... three months from February to May, 1862. In England, Lindsay might be hopeful of a movement by the Tory opposition, but thought it wiser to postpone for a time further pressure in that direction. May 8, Henry Adams could write to his brother of British public opinion, "there is no doubt that the idea here is as strong as ever that we must ultimately fail[625]," but on May 16, that "the effect of the news here [of New Orleans] has been greater than anything yet ... the Times came out and gave fairly in that it had been mistaken; ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... to amuse him," Mrs. King said. "That's a great mistake with children. Give a child a book, or put him down to some useful task; that's my idea." ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... us to the idea of Duty as set forth in his poems, and Duty resolves itself into three main elements: Truth—Work—Love. Truth comes first. Man's prime duty is to know things as they are. Truth can only be attained by light, and light he must cultivate, he must worship. Arnold's highest ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell

... "my idea is this. Have a wedding—a church wedding. I can rig up an altar, and we'll have the bride in a white, trailing gown; the groom, best man, and ushers in dress suits to advertise our gents' department, ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates



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