"Precise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would have offered no security for the early suppression of discontent, would have divided the people into the vanquishers and the vanquished, and would have envenomed hatred rather than have restored affection. Once established, no precise limit to their continuance was conceivable. They would have occasioned an incalculable and exhausting expense. Peaceful emigration to and from that portion of the country is one of the best means that can be thought of for the restoration ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... to the first consideration, it is unnecessary to add further remark; as regards the second, I may state, that although I may sometimes not have met with natives at those precise spots which might have been best suited for making inquiry, or although I may sometimes have had a difficulty in explaining myself to, or in understanding a people whose language I did not comprehend; yet such has not always been the case, and on many occasions I have had intercourse with ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... same volume is a Life of Miss Mary Carpenter, also written by Phyllis Browne. Miss Carpenter does not seem to me to have the charm and fascination of Mrs. Somerville. There is always something about her that is formal, limited, and precise. When she was about two years old she insisted on being called 'Doctor Carpenter' in the nursery; at the age of twelve she is described by a friend as a sedate little girl, who always spoke like a book; and before she entered on her educational schemes she wrote down a solemn dedication ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... with sighs and tears, and signs of deep dejection. At last, upon her pressing on her the duty of telling her all her thoughts, she gave to the sultaness a precise description of all that happened to her during the night; on which the sultaness enjoined on her the necessity of silence and discretion, as no one would give credence to so strange a tale. The grand vizier's son, elated with the honor of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... children in their other lessons, for they develop the powers of observation, of analyzing, of understanding and of memory, thus making them more orderly and precise. ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... man, general! Only, you understand, the less a diplomatist I am, the more precise my ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... a miracle of skill in chirography: none could equal him in wielding the kalem. His aim was not to impart a precise regularity to the characters, but to indicate by the writing the matter and style. Proverbs or utterances of wisdom were indited by him in a firm, bold hand with unadorned simplicity; love-songs with delicate, clear-cut lines, attractive capricious curves, enigmatical, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... slight hint that I was among a precise generation, there was nothing in my reception that was peculiar—unless, indeed, I were to notice the solicitous and uniform kindness with which all the attentions of my new friends were seasoned, as if they were anxious to assure me that the neglect of worldly compliments ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... were "slaves [168] already to worse masters" is, in the face of facts which could not possibly have been unknown to him, a piece of very daring assertion. But this should excite no wonder, considering that precise and scrupulous accuracy would be fatal to the discreditable cause to which he so shamelessly proclaims his adhesion. As being familiar since early childhood with members of almost every tribe of Africans (mainly from or arriving by way of the West ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... of it, Calhoun flipped off his receptor and swung the Med Ship to an exact, painstakingly precise aim at the sun around which Dara ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... among the long dusty shelves of our periodical papers, which then reposed in the ante-chamber to the former reading-room of the British Museum. To the industry which I had witnessed, I confided, and such positive and precise evidence could not fail to be accepted by all. In the British Museum, indeed, George Chalmers found the printed English Mercurie; but there also, it now appears, he might have seen the original, with all its corrections, before it was sent to the press, written on paper of modern fabric. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... visit the Army of the Potomac as soon as other engagements will permit, although I can not realize your complimentary assurance that great good to the army will result from it; nor can I anticipate the precise time when it will be practicable to ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... a man does, he never would have done in that precise way except for the peculiar training and experience which developed him; and no single incident in his life, however trifling, may be excepted in the work of rounding him out to the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... ambition for personal advancement, both leaders and followers were professed devotees of constitutions. No people, it was thought, could maintain a real republic and be a true democracy if they did not possess a written constitution. The longer this was, the more precise its definition of powers and liberties, the more authentic the republic and the more genuine the democracy was thought to be. In some countries the notion was carried still farther by an insistence upon frequent changes in the fundamental ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... days was a very present help in time of trouble. At Craps, I fear, my hand in late years had lost much of its cunning. I have had little opportunity of practising. But as a young man I was no mean exponent of the art. Let me see," said Uncle Chris meditatively. "What was the precise ritual? Ah! I have it, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... toast of "The School." He was very amusing indeed. Most of his speech would not be very comprehensible to an outsider for it largely consisted of an ingenious dove-tailing of the sentences in the Latin and Greek Arnold. I shall never forget the lucid and precise enunciation with which he delivered the idiotic sentences in those works, more especially where he said, "such a course would be more agreeable to Mr. Cholmeley and I would rather gratify such a man as he than see ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... satisfy Lady Mary. She would not choose to live in a crowd, but would like to have a small circle of agreeable people—she was very precise as to her desires: actually she wants to see eight or nine pleasant folk. She does not believe that she can find entire happiness in solitude, not even (or perhaps especially not) in a solitude of two; and she is at least ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... and came to a halt. "I beg your pardon. I didn't know anyone was here. I am sorry to have interrupted." His enunciation was almost painfully precise. ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... us as to our precise function out here. Here we are (as I may have mentioned) a magnificent battalion of young giants, complete with rifles—every man has at least one and Private Smithson has two—webbing equipment, cummerbunds, mufflers, cameras, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... has seen can boast of the same simplicity. The other point is that absolutely everything concerning sex which could possibly be objectionable has been ruled out. There is not a word or a sentence in the book that a precise maiden lady need hesitate to read to her Sunday School class or at a pink tea. In doing this Dr. Coriat has indeed achieved the impossible as all will readily agree. This book is probably too elementary for the majority of the readers ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... Julia," answered my uncle Jervas, smiling sleepily into my aunt's fierce black eyes. "I simply mean that your meticulous care of our nephew has turned what should have been an ordinary and humanly promising, raucous and impish hobbledehoy into a very precise, something superior, charmingly prim and modest, ladylike ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... for the common good Mrs. Bowers could conceive of no instrument so sure as the Widow Weatherwax, who providentially dropped in to borrow flour at the precise moment Mrs. Bowers had decided that if she ever meant to run over and copy the widow's unequalled recipe for floating island, this was the time to do it. Quite in the same breath with her greetings, therefore, ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... heat is much the more dangerous, and is by far more frequently followed by fatal results—particularly in crowded cities. Fortunately for the dwellers in rural districts the precise conditions under which excessive heat is followed by serious consequences are not so frequently encountered as in the more populous centers, and as a result we find that serious ill effects from high temperatures are by no means ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... that if he used a microscope on this letter the lines and edges would be just as precise and clear as they appeared to the naked eye, instead of the fuzziness that ordinary print ...
— A World by the Tale • Gordon Randall Garrett
... had been so precise that no one dared to disobey them, and the sham dauphin for a time disappeared from public view. When the period of his imprisonment was at an end, he was turned out of the Bicetre, with an order forbidding him to remain more than one day in Paris—a miserable vagabond ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me; now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives: I could do it; and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I don't care for striking: I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... swivel. In streams, especially if they be rapid, cast up and down, but chiefly athwart, by so doing your bait shows greatly to advantage. Trolling in the Tees is not much practised; the difficulty of procuring Minnows at the precise time when wanted, is I suppose the reason. But there are artificial Minnows which in heavy waters will kill well; those sold by Frederick Allies, South Parade, Worcester, and by Farlow, Tackle Maker, in the Strand, London, are excellent, ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... object. Immediately the question arises, Who are we? We, I, spirit—here also is a complex being, a multiplied being. I have perceptions; I see, I hear, etc. Seeing, hearing; all this is I. Consequently, the precise sense of this question is, Which among these determinations is it in accordance with which this content exists for our minds? Idea, will, imagination, feeling—which is the seat, the proper domain of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... right or wrong, noble or base; if a thing seen, it must either be ugly or beautiful: and what is either wrong or deformed is not, among noble persons, in anywise subject for laughter; but, in the precise degree of its wrongness or deformity, a subject of horror. All perception of what, in the modern European mind, falls under the general head of the ludicrous, is either childish or profane; often healthy, as indicative ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... second time in her life that she had been called upon to go through this precise torture. She remembered the hour only too well, when first it was made known to her that one in closest relation to herself was suspected of a hideous crime. And now, with her mind cleared towards him and readjusted to new ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... meadows and pastures 5%; forest and woodland 64%; other 28% Environment: hot, dry, dusty harmattan winds affect northern areas; poaching has diminished reputation as one of last great wildlife refuges; desertification Note: landlocked; almost the precise center of Africa ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... is a worthy disciple of Plato. Like him, starting from a small portion of fact, he founds his tale with admirable skill on a few lines in the Latin narrative of the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci. He is very precise about dates and facts, and has the power of making us believe that the narrator of the tale must have been an eyewitness. We are fairly puzzled by his manner of mixing up real and imaginary persons; his ...
— The Republic • Plato
... invention. We could not do without them but unless we are very careful, they will play tricks with us. They are apt to make history too precise. For example, when I talk of the point-of-view of mediaeval man, I do not mean that on the 31st of December of the year 476, suddenly all the people of Europe said, "Ah, now the Roman Empire has come to an end and we are living in the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... in silent retrospection, both upon their own past "ways particularly as private Christians," and also upon their "public actions as an Army." If they should each and all be led, in such retrospection, to fasten on some one precise point of time as that at which the Lord had withdrawn His former countenance and things had begun to go wrong, might there not be a lesson in that unanimity? And lo! on the third day it was so. They had all, in their silent review of the past, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... perfectly, either with two paddles or with one, that it seemed instinct with his own will, and to require no physical effort to guide it. He said that, when some Indians visited Concord a few years ago, he found that he had acquired, without a teacher, their precise method of propelling and steering a canoe. Nevertheless he was desirous of selling the boat of which he was so fit a pilot, and which was built by his own hands; so I agreed to take it, and accordingly became possessor of the Musketaquid. I wish I could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... the world, without the plough, the school-book, and the Bible; it would die out, of idleness and ignorance. If one century has kicked the Indian in America harder than another, it is because the kicks of labor, art, and knowledge are always the hardest, and in the precise proportion to the contiguity of ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... berries, mixed with trailers from the Japanese honeysuckle, which still showed green underneath where it had escaped the hardest freezes. Marian flitted in occasionally with suggestions, but the two did most of the work alone. Chicken Little began by giving Sherm precise directions as to how he was to arrange each branch and spray, but, presently, he began to try little effects of his own so much more charming than hers, that she ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... themselves, it is curious how they impersonated, so to speak, their respective lines of argument. The representative of evidence and sound reasoning, though accused of insanity, was precise, frank, rational and dignified in the witness-box; and I think you must have noticed his good temper. The party, who relied on hearsay and conjecture, was as feeble as they are; he was almost imbecile, as you observed; and, looking at both parties, it really seems monstrous that the plaintiff ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... across him by Mrs Weston, who had also pinned down the attention of Peppino on the other side of her. At that precise moment the flood of Mrs Quantock's spate of conversation to the Colonel dried up, and Robert could find nothing more to say to the hungry mouse. Georgie in this backwater of his own thoughts was whirled into the current again. But before he sank he caught Mrs Quantock's eye and put ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... is to be found in specific duties, so far as this may be practicable. They dispense with any inquiry at the custom-house into the actual cost or value of the article, and it pays the precise amount of duty previously fixed by law. They present no temptations to the appraisers of foreign goods, who receive but small salaries, and might by undervaluation in a few cases ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... our lodging. Also, had it not been for Talbot and Johnny, I am sure Yank and I would have taken to the jungle. There seemed to be required so much bowing, smiling, punctiliousness and elaborate complimenting that in a short time I felt myself in the precise mental attitude of a very small monkey shaking the bars of his cage with all four hands and gibbering in the face of some benign and infinitely superior professor. I fairly ached behind the ears trying to ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... immediately after I had lighted a second cigar. The reason I took that cigar will be obvious to every gentleman who smokes. Had I declined it, Pettigrew might have thought that I disliked the brand, which would have been painful to him. However, he did not at once bring out the tobacco; indeed, his precise words, I remember, were that we had lots of time. As his guest I ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... precise date, but I think it was about 1898, when Butler was searching in real landscape for the original of the castle which appears in the background of one of the Giovanni Bellini pictures of the Madonna and Child ...
— The Samuel Butler Collection - at Saint John's College Cambridge • Henry Festing Jones
... maintain that the words 'Many were created but few shall be saved' are nearer in meaning to 'Many are called but few chosen' than the repetition of those very words themselves. Our author has forgotten to notice that Barnabas has used the precise word [Greek: klaetoi] just before; indeed it is the very point on which his argument turns, 'because we are called do not let us therefore rest idly upon our oars; Israel was called to great privileges, yet they were abandoned ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... from his pocket a half-sheet of stamped and crested notepaper covered with Mr. Horace Pendyce's small and precise calligraphy. He read from it in a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... had got a pair of scales carefully adjusted, a small tin vessel in one of them, and balancing weights in the other. Then he went to the rack over the dresser, and mildly lamenting his wife's absence and his own inability to lay his hand on the precise vessels he wanted, brought thence a dish and a basin. The dish he placed on the table with the basin in it and filled the latter with water to the very brim. He then took the horse, placed it gently in the basin, which was large enough to receive it entirely, and set basin and horse ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... side of its orbit. Half the difference, or the time spent by a luminous vibration in crossing the "mean radius" of the earth's orbit, is called the "light-equation"; and the determination of its precise value has claimed the minute care distinctive of modern astronomy. Delambre in 1792 made it 493 seconds. Glasenapp, a Russian astronomer, raised the estimate in 1874 to 501, Professor Harkness adopts a safe medium value of 498 seconds. Hence, if we had any independent ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... plain for argument that the writ must have been dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this court. The case of Strader and others v. Graham is directly in point; and, indeed, independent of any decision, the language of the 25th section of the act of 1789 is too clear and precise ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... came along at the precise hour that should have brought the other, and it being too dark to distinguish one man from another, or from old Nick for that matter, we fell on to him, and but for the merest ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... as to Tennyson's precise rank in the glorious roll of the Poets of England can never be determined by us, if in any case or at any time such determinations can be made. We do not, or should not, ask whether Virgil or Lucretius, whether AEschylus or Sophocles, ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... Corteho, with an aspirate, according to the Arabesque guttural. It means what there is as yet no precise name for in England, though the practice is as common as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... however, at Washington, is by far the most precise in his statements, of all the witnesses. But it is proper, before entering upon the examination of his testimony, to state that he was not at the battle of the Thames; and that his letter, in regard to Tecumseh's ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... had a fair income, and so this prim, precise, exact and crystallized mode of education was continued. Out of her great love for her child, the mother sent him away from home when he was eight years old. Of course there were tears on both sides; but now a male man must educate him, and women were to be dropped out ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... in our camp yesterday and this morning, and of which you have a complete knowledge, has prevented me from answering in a precise manner to the object of your mission; nor even at this moment can I give you all the satisfaction that you desire. However, if you could grant me a fortnight, I would be entirely at your disposal at the end of ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... best fighting generals in the whole army. His predecessor, General A. S. Williams, the senior division commander present, had commanded the corps well from Atlanta to Goldsboro', and it may have seemed unjust to replace him at that precise moment; but I was resolved to be prepared for a most desperate and, as then expected, a final battle, should ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... we observed Rhodora, standing close by Grandmother's side. The two, with Hepatica and our two men, made a group, of which not the bride-elect, but Grandmother, was the precise centre. The moment Rhodora had reached Grandmother's side she had put herself in the background. Although she towered above the little old lady she did not overwhelm her, and Grandmother herself had never seemed a more gently dominating ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... erect, moved in front, with his feet turned out, taking long, regular strides, and with a precise and regular action which seemed to cost him no more effort than swinging one's arms in walking, as though it were in play, he laid down the high, even row of grass. It was as though it were not he but the sharp scythe of itself swishing through the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... top-growth of the Potatoes may be saved from late May frosts, and the Peas will give double the crop of a crowded plantation. The general sowings of Peas are made from March to June, but as regards the precise time, seasons and climates must be considered. Nothing is gained by sowing maincrop Peas so early as to subject the plant to a conflict with frost. It should be understood that the finest sorts of Peas are somewhat tender in constitution, and the wrinkled sorts are more tender ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... obtained the backing of a large section of the Unionist Party. They undoubtedly had the sympathy of Sir Anthony MacDonnell. It is difficult to say, at the present moment, what precise part was played by Mr. George Wyndham, then still the Irish Chief Secretary. But the eloquent fact remains that the ultimate triumph of the Ulster Unionists over the Devolution Party of 1903 was marked by his resignation. There would seem to be no substantial doubt that in 1903 there arose in ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... in Sydney! But, on the contrary, there had been quite a number of a kind which approximated more or less to the soft brown hat purchased by me in Dursley, and discarded upon Mr. Smith's urgent recommendation in favour of the more rigid and precise billycock. I reflected upon this significant fact for quite ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... freely-granted it, but on some conditions, which were to be observed on either side. These articles were,—"That noise was to be banished in dispute; no flying out to be permitted, nor any provocation by sharp language: That the arguments and answers were to be couched in precise terms, and drawn up in form of a just dispute, as it should be agreed by the judges, who were to moderate: That the approbation of the audience was to decide the victory: That if the point were doubtful betwixt them, the suffrages should be taken, and that he should ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... varied human herd pressed close around a platform upon which stood Samuel Brannan and Alcalde Hyde. The former had promised to act as auctioneer and looked over a sheaf of notes while Hyde in his dry, precise and positive tone read the details of the forthcoming sale. It would last three days, Hyde informed his hearers, and 450 lots would be sold. North of the broad street paralleling the Mission Camino lots were sixteen and a half varas wide and fifty varas deep. All were ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... to unify Germany had failed for two reasons - first, because its promoters had not sufficiently clear and precise ideas, and, secondly, because they lacked material strength. Until 1859 reaction against novelties and their advocates dominated in Germany and even Prussia as well as in Austria. The Italian war, as was readily foreseen, and as ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... is clear that the constitution of the Dominion is modelled on that of the United States.' It is, however, equally clear what the framers of the Act intended to convey. If they offended against the precise canons of constitutional theory, they effected a political object of greater consequence. The Canadian constitution, in their opinion, was British in principle for at least three reasons: because it provided for responsible government in both the general and local legislatures; because, unlike ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... the critical summary which I gave of Whitman's position among poets. It remains to say something a little more precise of the particular qualities of his works. And first, not to slur over defects, I shall extract some sentences from a letter which a friend, most highly entitled to form and express an opinion on any poetic question—one, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... some of the striking incidents of the battle, without being able even to fix the precise order of time in which they occurred. When the "Merrimac" sank the "Cumberland" with one blow of her ram in Hampton Roads, the Federal ship was at anchor. But even in the confusion and semi-darkness ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... will no precise form is necessary, though when drawn by a lawyer it usually begins with some such form as: "I, George Brown, being of sound mind and good understanding, do make and declare this to be my ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... like an antique statue, she seemed to be a prey to some dark and bitter grief. The husband's appearance may explain to a certain extent the evident fear of the two women. The laws of physiognomy are precise, not only in their application to character, but also in relation to the destinies of life. There is such a thing as prophetic physiognomy. If it were possible (and such a vital statistic would be of value to society) to obtain ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... planned slaughter by the Turkish rulers, with Germany as accessory before and after the act, of "at least 600,000 and perhaps as many as 1,000,000" Armenians. He rightly calls this murder of a nation probably the blackest deed in all the foul record of the war, in which (at the precise moment of its execution) the same people who now protest against the severity of our terms were taking a horrible and ruthless joy. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... discretion when you are talking to them. For instance, if one of the party is a celebrated shot, who has done some astonishing record at driven grouse, you may, after the necessary preliminaries, ask him to be good enough to tell you what was the precise number of birds he shot on that occasion. Tell him, if you like, that the question arose the other day during a discussion on the three finest game-shots of the world. If you happen to know that he shot eighteen hundred birds, you can say that most people fixed the figure ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... and I cannot say, under what precise form of organization it will be, but I trust and I believe—indeed, I am sure—that the Volunteers will become a permanent, an integral and characteristic part of the ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... natural both in its action and its end; and Nature, as we are well aware, knows nothing of forgiveness or compassion or tenderness: on the contrary she moves from lower to higher forms by forces that are their precise opposite. The wounded stag is not protected by his fellows, but gored to death; the old wolf is torn to pieces, the sick lion wanders away to die of starvation, and all these instincts, we are informed, have for their object ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... in exposed situations, would not make their revolutions during very stormy weather. A decrease in temperature always caused a considerable retardation in the rate of revolution; but Dutrochet (tom. xvii. pp. 994, 996) has given such precise observations on this head with respect to the common pea that I need say nothing more. When twining plants are placed near a window in a room, the light in some cases has a remarkable power (as was likewise observed by Dutrochet, p. 998, with the pea) on the revolving movement, but this differs ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... enhanced the value of their co-operation; the special qualities of each friend mutually strengthened and completed each other. Yule's was by far the more original and creative mind, Baker's the more precise and, at least in a professional sense, the more highly-trained organ. In chivalrous sense of honour, devotion to duty, and natural generosity, the men stood equal; but while Yule was by nature impatient and irritable, and liable, until long past middle age, to occasional sudden ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... form. They are constructed on a system of nineteen or twenty reeds to the inch, and they may be seen to be exactly similar to the modern reed taken from a loom in the village of Abu Kirkas. It is not possible, unfortunately, to assign a precise date to these objects. They were found in a tomb which contained no other remains; this tomb was surrounded by others, all of them likewise very much disturbed, but equally characteristic of the general nature ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... speech as closely as possible."[213] It goes so far as to include words like Pontifex, Ancilla, Lites, Egenus, Zizania. This theory was largely put into practice by the translators of the Rhemish New Testament, who say, "We are very precise and religious in following our copy, the old vulgar approved Latin: not only in sense, which we hope we always do, but sometimes in the very words also and phrases,"[214] and give as illustrations of their usage ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... not talking," Sir Ralph said; "it is time for you to change your suits, for these London citizens are, I have heard, precise as to their time, and the merchant would deem it a slight did you not arrive a few minutes before the stroke ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher; A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribbons to flow confusedly; A winning wave, deserving note, In the tempestuous petticoat; A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility;— Do more bewitch me, than when art Is too precise in ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... time of Bishop Seth Ward, two hundred years ago, it is evident that in his time the deflection was not increasing, nor do quite recent observations show any reason for serious anxiety. This haunting fear, however, has led to curiously precise experiments for ascertaining the state of the spire. Francis Price, at the end of the last century, describes many of these, especially one carried out in the presence of the bishop, on July 18th, 1717; he also illustrates an elaborate system of additional bands and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... always been the foes of maps, finding in them a kind of cramping of their mental legs. And in consequence they have struck upon certain devices for getting off the map and away from its precise and restricting bigotry. Davy fell asleep. It was Davy, you remember, who grew drowsy one winter afternoon before the fire and sailed away with the goblin in his grandfather's clock. Robinson Crusoe was driven ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... from each other. The difference, therefore, of our conduct in preferring the greater number depends not upon our passions, but upon custom, and general rules. We have found in a multitude of instances, that the augmenting the numbers of any sum augments the passion, where the numbers are precise and the difference sensible. The mind can perceive from its immediate feeling, that three guineas produce a greater passion than two; and this it transfers to larger numbers, because of the resemblance; ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... Marlborough Street of a gray winter's afternoon, when I was but a lad. I see my dear grandfather in his wig and silver-laced waistcoat and his blue velvet coat, seated at the head of the table, and the precise Scipio has put down the dumb-waiter filled with shining cut-glass at his left hand, and his wine chest at his right, and with solemn pomp driven his black assistants from the room. Scipio was Mr. Carvel's butler. He was forbid to light the candles after ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... clear, a scientific language you demand, without ambiguity, as precise as mathematical formulae, and with every term in relations of exact logical consistency with every other. It will be a language with all the inflexions of verbs and nouns regular and all its constructions inevitable, each word clearly distinguishable from every other word ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... something appealing in his sightless eyes, and I never watched him (as he patiently went his rounds in the dusty shed) without pity. He had a habit of kicking the wall with his right hind foot at a certain precise point as he circled, and a deep hollow in the sill attested his accuracy. He seemed to do this purposely—to keep count, as I imagined, of his ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... his exact, precise manner, as though carefully choosing and considering his words: "No, you won't throw me out. You'll listen to what I have come to tell you. The rest of your statement, Greenfield, is false and you know it. It ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... posterity is too often deceived by the vague hyperboles of poets and rhetoricians, who mistake the splendour of a court for the happiness of a people. Fortunately, John Villani has given us an ample and precise account of the state of Florence in the early part of the fourteenth century. The revenue of the Republic amounted to three hundred thousand florins; a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the train got clean round the curve above the station, Hill said, that Charley and the Hen could pull 'emselves together so they could talk. Then the Hen let a-go of Santa Fe's neck and said comical—speaking kind of precise and toney, like as if she was an officer's wife sure enough: "You had better return to your study, dear Uncle Charley, and finish writing that sermon you said we'd interrupted you in that was about caring for the sheep as well ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... of them convened at Aberdeen, upon the first tuesday of July 1605, being the last day that was distinctly appointed by authority; and when they had met, did no more but constitute themselves and dissolve. Amongst those was Mr. Welch, who, though he had not been present upon that precise day, yet because he came to the place, and approved what his brethren had done, he was accused as guilty of the treasonable fact committed by them. So dangerous a point was the name of a general assembly in king James's ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... as precise information, on this subject, cannot be too generally diffused, we request you to collect all possible intelligence relative to such blacks and people of color in the United States as are made Citizens of the French Republic, by the decree of the National ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... vast crowd all those who may easily conceal there a hurtful industry; to purge society of them, or tolerate them only as far as they can be useful to it by employments which no others but themselves would undertake, or discharge so well; to keep necessary abuses within the precise limits of necessity which they are always ready to over-leap; to envelop them in the obscurity to which they ought to be condemned, and not even draw them from it by chastisement too notorious; to be ignorant of what it is better to be ignorant ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Pap would not sit down under the injury. They knew him. They knew his record too well. Whatever jeopardy the woman stood in they were certain of the danger to young Alec. Of this the stories going about were precise and illuminating. Jack Beal, the managing director of the Yukon Amalgam Corporation, and a great friend of John Kars, had spoken with a certainty which carried deep conviction, coining from a man who was one of the most important commercial ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... the charts, some of even the best authorities putting them from one and a half to two degrees out both in latitude and longitude, as the captain showed us by a late edition of a standard work on navigation. Once he came pretty well south on purpose to sight them; but when he reached the precise latitude in which, according to his authority, they were situated, they were ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... of the sixteenth century we find ourselves in the domain of precise history. The narratives of the voyages of Jacques Cartier of St. Malo, that famous port of Brittany which has given so many sailors to the world, are on the whole sufficiently definite, even at this distance ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... truly fulfil the will of Heaven. Besides—Grotius and Lauterbach, and Puffendorf, and Titius, and many wise men beside, who have considered the matter properly, have determined that the property of a country cannot be acquired by hunting, cutting wood, or drawing water in it—nothing but precise demarcation of limits, and the intention of cultivation, can establish the possession. Now as the savages (probably from never having read the authors above quoted) had never complied with any of these necessary forms, it plainly follows that they had no right to the soil, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... with his name so subscribed, to be there registered; and shall faithfully preserve and keep the other, with his name thereon subscribed, in his own custody; and in every notification as aforesaid the agent shall specify his place of abode, and the precise day of the month and year appointed for the payment of the respective shares to the captors; and all notifications with respect to prizes condemned in Great Britain, shall be published in the London Gazette three days at least ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... are of different types. Each position of the brush conforms to a specific quality of the line, either sharp and precise or broad and quivering, the ink spreading in strong touches ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... to Phelim. The unpleasant dilemma in which Sally Flattery had placed him, by the fabricated account of her father's imprisonment, made him extremely anxious to see Foodie himself, and to ascertain the precise outrage for which he had been secured. Here then was an opportunity of an interview with him, and of earning five shillings, a good dinner, and a quart of strong beer, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... students of the records, including the present writer, the evidence nevertheless appears at present insufficient to justify the spiritualistic view even of a working hypothesis." "I cannot point to a single instance in which a precise and unambiguous piece of information has been furnished, of a kind which could not have proceeded from the medium's own mind, working upon the materials provided in the hints let ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... he was buried in the tomb of Francesco Villani, no mention being made of San Domenico. The exact words are, "Buried in the Chapel of the Rosary, in the parish of St. Matthew." The omission of the name of the church wherein this chapel stood has led to the belief that the precise spot where the mortal remains of Stradivari rest was unknown. Signor Sacchi finds that the historians of Cremona (but especially Panni, in his "Report on the Churches of Cremona, 1762") mention that the Church ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... Man is a complex thing, comprising a number of sheaths, bodies, coverings, or elements, from the grosser to the more spiritual, the various sheaths being discarded as the soul advances on its way toward perfection. There are disputes between the various schools regarding terminology and the precise arrangement of these "principles," but the following classification will answer for the purpose of giving a general idea of the Hindu views on the subject, subject always to the conflicting claims of the various schools. The classification is as follows, ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... jeweler he explained his precise object in the inquiry he had made, and the boys were complimented by ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... no thoughts to communicate. Socrates would add, perhaps, that language was given us to express, not to conceal our thoughts; and that, if they cannot be communicated, invaluable as they doubtless are, we had better keep them to ourselves; one thing it is clear he would do,—he would insist on precise defintions. But in truth it may be more than surmised that the obscurities of which all complain, except those (and in our day they are not a few) to whom obscurity is a recommendation, result from suffering the intellect ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... the other. He informs us, also, that they were supplied from the royal table, when living at court. (lib. 6, cap. 3.) But this is very loose language. The student of history will learn, on the threshold, that he is not to expect precise, or even very consistent, accounts of the institutions of a barbarous age ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... proportion of the slave population. The very ingenious and elaborate calculations of the French writer, by which he deduces the amount of the population from the produce and consumption of corn in Italy, appear to me neither precise nor satisfactory bases for such complicated political arithmetic. I am least satisfied with his views as to the population of the city of Rome; but this point will be more fitly reserved for a note on the thirty-first chapter of Gibbon. The work, however, of M. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... which both parties, under their respective circumstances, had reason to be satisfied; and that the arrangement worked not more stiffly than could be expected where the large margin of the unforeseen left so much to subsequent interpretation. Even Dido and Hiarbas were not agreed about the precise width of a bull's- hide. We do not, however, wish it to be inferred from this classical parallel, that our settlers claim to have rivalled the adroitness of the Punic queen in her ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... brushes away the mist of time to recall the details) where the bright sunlight fell athwart a tablecloth of excellent whiteness. They ate (may one be precise at so great a distance?)—yes, they ate broiled mackerel to begin with; the kind of mackerel called (but why?) Spanish. Whereupon succeeded a course of honeycomb tripe, which moved Dactyl to quoting Rabelais, something ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... in another way. It is hard to appreciate, without the actual experience, how much of military life is a matter of mere detail. The maiden at home fancies her lover charging at the head of his company, when in reality he is at that precise moment endeavoring to convince his company-cooks that salt-junk needs five hours' boiling, or is anxiously deciding which pair of worn-out trousers shall be ejected from a drummer-boy's knapsack. Courage is, no doubt, a good quality in a soldier, and luckily not often wanting; but, in the long ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... done very well. The colored cadet, Flipper, passed uncommonly well this morning, showing a practical knowledge of the subject very satisfactory to Senator Maxey, who questioned him closely, and to the rest of the board. He has a good command of plain and precise English, and his voice is full and pleasant. Mr. Flipper will be graduated next week with the respect of his instructors, and not the less of his fellows, who have carefully avoided intercourse with him. The quiet dignity which he has shown during this ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... dissolution, the people of the Danubian provinces were ripe for insurrection, and there were not wanting brave leaders to assist them in striking the blow for their independence. From the conflicting accounts of historians, neither the names nor number of those leaders, nor yet the precise events which led to the establishment of the new empire, are ascertainable with exactitude. Either there were two Wallachian brothers, Peter and Asan, to whom a near relative of the Greek emperor Isaac Angelos (1185-1195) treacherously allied himself, or three brothers, Peter, Asan, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... he went on, "at what precise time Fifty-Six came into my life. I could indeed find it out by examining my books, but I have never troubled to do so. Naturally I took no more interest in him at first than in any other of my customers—less, perhaps, since he never in the course of our connection brought ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... the preface that "some remarks upon the doses used may be found at the head of each medicine"? Possibly because it makes no difference whether they are employed in one Homoeopathic dose or another; but then it is very singular that such precise directions were formerly given in the same work, and that Hahnemann's "experience" should have led him to draw the nice distinctions we have seen in a former part of this ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... it would be difficult to explain the precise reasons. His mind seemed troubled; I advised him to unburden to me, which he did. The conclusion of the whole matter is, he has taken this step by my advice," said De Guy, with an air of ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... Dandolo was a very old man is certain, but there is doubt as to his precise age, as also as to the cause of his blindness. According to one account he had been blinded, or all but blinded, by the Greeks, and in a treacherous manner, when sent, at an earlier date, on an embassy to Constaritinople-whence his bitter hostility to the Greek Empire. I agree, however, ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... Biggit Be Robert Vauchop of Niddrie Marchal, and interit heir 1387." I am at present out of reach of all books of reference, and have only a few manuscript memoranda to direct further research; and these memoranda, I am sorry to say, are not so precise in their reference to chapter and verse ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various |
