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More "Initiative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time it is all so gently graded, and marked by transitions so easy and natural, that no gap was anywhere to be discovered on which to found an order of privilege or caste. Now an equality like this, with the erectness, independence, energy, and initiative it brings with it, in men, sprung from the loins of an imperial race is a possession, not for a nation only, but for civilization itself and for humanity. It is the distinct raising of the entire body of a people ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... with this military tax which oppresses the country to put his regiments in condition to undertake a fresh war in Italy. It is money, that cursed money! which has killed the finest part of soldiering—personal bravery, initiative, originality—just as it has crushed the workman, ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... country's first deepwater port opened near Nouakchott in 1986. In the past, drought and economic mismanagement resulted in a buildup of foreign debt. In February 2000, Mauritania qualified for debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative and in December 2001 received strong support from donor and lending countries at a triennial Consultative Group review. In 2001, exploratory oil wells in tracts 80 km offshore indicated potential extraction at current world oil prices. A new investment code approved in December ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... States had now come in definitely as one of our Allies, and that I thought the effect would be the shortening of the war. America's decision could not have come at a better time. The year was opening out before us, and the initiative was coming into our hands The prospect was bright and our men ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... went quietly into the kitchen. There was nothing to say. She did not speak of the Drydens again for a long while. Her own condition engrossed her; and she was not eager to take the initiative in ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... passion; for never before had his hopes and aspirations been so entirely thrown over. He had set his heart upon establishing his darling in a position in life as far above his own as might be possible; now, by her own initiative, she had paved the way to an evident descent in the social scale. Not content with choosing one far beneath her, she had even chosen a Protestant! Yet Stephen had too strong a will to be easily contravened. He was determined ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... hedge of tall old trees, their roots under our feet, their branches over our heads, smothered and crushed on all sides the scattered germs of the new France. Where life and movement, association, local liberty, communal initiative should have been, there was administrative despotism; where there should have been the intelligent vigilance, armed at need, of the patriot and the citizen, there was the passive obedience of the soldier; where the quick Christian faith should have gushed forth, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... wanted—and indeed is the next stage of human evolution in England and in all Western lands—is that the people should emancipate themselves from class-domination, class-glamour, and learn to act freely from their own initiative. I know it is difficult. It means a spirit of independence, courage, willingness to make sacrifice. It means education, alertness to guard against the insidious schemes of wire-pullers and pressmen, as well as of militarists ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... a hundred men only write what they have read before they started, just as Rousseau in an eighteenth-century village believed that every English yokel could vote and that his vote conveyed a high initiative, making and unmaking the policy of the State; or just as people, hearing that the birth-rate of France is low, travel in that country and say they can see no children—though they would hardly say it about Sussex or Cumberland where ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... government left the Newfoundlanders, impoverished by the consequences of British misrule, to take the initiative; and it was not until 1878 that they were able to do anything. Then the Hon. William V. Whiteway induced the Newfoundland government to offer an annual subsidy of $120,000 per annum and liberal grants of crown lands to any company which would construct ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... was obdurate and closed his ears. The long distance between Madrid and Brussels and the procrastinating habits of the Spanish king added immensely to the regent's perplexities. She could not act on her own initiative, and her appeals to Philip were either disregarded or after long delay met by ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... to establish habits of adapting materials as we find them to the purposes we have in hand. This is the natural attack of childhood, and it should be fostered, for children can lose it and come to feel that specially prepared materials are essential, and a consequent limitation to ingenuity and initiative can ...
— A Catalogue of Play Equipment • Jean Lee Hunt
... speaking very earnestly, "that that is exactly what they are hoping for? This ambuscade didn't just happen—it is manufactured—it is politics. Men like these haven't the initiative, or whatever you call it, to get up a thing of this sort. Some one has done it for them. Don't you know why? They want to get rid of Mr. Maginnis. But they can't hurt him alone—without having it brought right home to them—to ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... act which would have permitted him to say that Germany in his person had been provoked, insulted by France. But there had been no violence, the insult had not been offered, the overt act had not occurred. Then, tired of this method, de Schoen took the initiative and presented a declaration of war ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... the chief credit undoubtedly belonged {4} to M. Venizelos. He had brought to the task a brain better endowed than any associated with it. His initiative was indefatigable; his decision quick. Unlike most of his countrymen, he did not content himself with ideas without works. His subtlety in thinking did not serve him as a substitute for action. To these ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... our initiative beginnin' first off at Gallops Junction,' he says, 'where we ain't known, an' where pa ain't known, an' where the book ain't known. I've a premonition,' he says, 'that 'twould be better so. If we was to start in here we would get discouraged, for the folks ain't used to buyin' "Wage of Sin." They've ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... well placed under the summit of the hill. The battle was fought on Sunday, October 23rd, 1643, and resulted in a draw, and, though the armies stood facing each other the next day, neither of them had the heart to take the initiative or to fight again, for, as usual in such warfare, brother had been fighting against brother and father against son; so Essex retired to Warwick and the king to Oxford, the only town on whose loyalty he could depend. But to return to the battle! The prayer of Sir Jacob Astley, the Commander ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... munificence. Under the ninth Ramesses the order was reversed—"now it is the king who testifies his gratitude to the High-Priest of Ammon for the care bestowed on his temple by the erection of new buildings and the improvement and maintenance of the older ones." The initiative has passed out of the king's hands into those of his subject; he is active, the king is passive; all the glory is Amenhotep's; the king merely comes in at the close of all, as an ornamental person, whose presence adds a certain dignity to ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... that have the commission form provision is made for the initiative, referendum, and recall. The initiative enables a body of citizens who sign a petition to obtain a certain law by popular vote, if the commission refuses to pass it. The referendum enables citizens to vote for or against a law that the commission has ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... she said. "Please hail me after this—because I don't care to take the initiative. If you neglect to do it, don't count on my hailing you . . ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... 287. George Francis Train on his own initiative spoke for woman suffrage before the ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... International Anarchist Congress held in Amsterdam in August, 1907. This Congress recommended "comrades of all countries to actively participate in autonomous movements of the working class, and to develop in Syndicalist organizations the ideas of revolt, individual initiative and solidarity, which are the essence of Anarchism.'' Comrades were to "propagate and support only those forms and manifestations of direct action which carry, in themselves, a revolutionary character and lead to the transformation of ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... not wait until madame Wang could open her mouth, but took the initiative to reply. "Our venerable lady," she urged, "had, even so late as yesterday, said that she meant to come; but, in the evening, upon seeing brother Pao eating peaches, the mouth of the old lady once again began to water, and after partaking of a little ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... favourably received. This surprised me, for under other governments I had seen that foreigners were considered anything but necessary to the colony and after having opposed, more or less openly, the intruder's initiative, the Authority seized the slightest pretext, that offered itself under a decent aspect, to send the new-comer back over the frontier for fear that their digestion might ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... my father been cashiered—for cowardice"—he stumbled a little over the words—"the knowledge of it would have knocked all the initiative out of me. I should have been afraid of showing the white feather. . . . The fear of being afraid would have been always at the back of me." He paused, then went on quickly: "And I think it would have been the same with Dad. It—it would have broken him. He could never have fought ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... rather, that thinkers postulating that infinity {7} as a basal axiom should have been comparatively blind to its logical implications. For if God is infinite, then He is all; and if He is all, what becomes of human individuality, or how are human initiative and responsibility so much as thinkable? Benjamin Jowett, in his Essay on Predestination and Freewill, glanced at this problem in passing, and the remarks he made upon it more than fifty years ago, if somewhat tentative, are well ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... p.0375] him associated with Clarke as one of the most active members of the Newport church, and as the date of the organization is uncertain, there is some reason to suspect that he was a constituent member, and that as a baptized man he took the initiative in baptizing and organizing. At any rate we have in Lucar an interesting connecting link between ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... if we dared to presume to criticise this magnificent theory of disease, we would simply say that it is not "cellular" enough, that it hardly as yet sufficiently recognizes the individuality, the independence, the power of initiative, of the single constituent cell. It is still a little too apt to assume, because a cell has donned a uniform and fallen into line with thousands of its fellows to form a tissue in most respects of somewhat lower rank than that originally possessed ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... of fifty-three years, in 1896. With cultivated tastes, she had also a practical talent for business, and, although well served by agents in the management of her large interests, was always thoroughly informed and full of initiative. In New York, among men of affairs, she was regarded as one of the most far-seeing judges of real estate values in the city. In the management of her domestic and other concerns she had an extraordinary faculty for administration, which failed of attaining genius only through the effort ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... adopted by the conference conforms almost entirely to the principles contained in the proposed anti-narcotic legislation which has been before the last two Congresses. It was most unfortunate that this Government, having taken the initiative in the international action which eventuated in the important international opium convention, failed to do its share in the great work by neglecting to pass the necessary legislation to correct the deplorable narcotic evils in the United States as well as ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... his thoughts he expressed aloud, but the animal made no response. It evidently threw the responsibility of taking the initiative on the man. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... possible freedom for initiative to our leaders, we are seeking everywhere to solidify and regularize every effort that has once been shown to be of any practical use. Any one amongst us, down to the youngest and poorest in any part of the world, may do a new thing next week which will prove a blessing to his fellows, and some ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... attacked the town. They contented themselves with attempting to steal cattle and skirmishing, and generally harassing those within. Such fights as these were mainly due to British initiative, and these were not fraught with success to us. Of this period it is pitiful to write. British valour and endurance were exhibited to the uttermost, and many gallant actions at different sorties might be recorded. So also might be given, did space allow, many instances of Boer cunning ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... artificial and deceptive fever in this sense, that it was not the natural and spontaneous result of the actual wishes and wants of the country; but true and serious in this sense, that the political parties who took the initiative in it found among some of the middle classes and the lower orders a prompt and keen adhesion to their proposals. The first banquet took place in Paris at the Chateau-Rouge Hotel on July 9, 1847. Garnier-Pages has himself told how the Royalist opposition and the Republican opposition ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... disappointed and dignified middle-aged men whose too eager patriotism had been rendered ridiculous by the vicious foolery of Government departments. No! He had some work to do and he was doing it. People were looking to him for decision, for sagacity, for initiative; he supplied these things. His work might grow even beyond his expectations; but if it did not he should not worry. He felt that, unfatigued, he could and would contribute to the mass of the national resolution in the latter and more racking half ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Socialists that the present regime of individual initiative and private capital tends to make men selfish and unbrotherly, while the tendency of Socialism would be to make men unselfish and fraternal. If the church were sure that this is the truth, she would be inclined to throw her influence on the side of Socialism. But, on the other hand, ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... broke in, keeping the initiative and the advantage. "Not as many as you like to think. And you people who are always dreaming up the rules never carry your thinking far enough. You are against drugs. Which drugs? What about the tannic acid ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... a savage of the savages, but Robert, startled at first by the unexpected appearance of such an enemy, called to his aid the forest stoicism that he had learned and sat down, calm, outwardly at least. The initiative was not his now, nor that of his comrades, and he glanced anxiously at de Courcelles to see how he would take this rude invasion of his camp. The French colonel looked at Tandakora, then at Jumonville, and Jumonville looked at him. The two shrugged ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... the undertaking. This has generally led to a great deal of dissatisfaction with companies holding such works, but it must not be forgotten that the companies would, in most instances, never have had any existence if the local authorities had taken the initiative, and that but for the companies this great boon of a pure supply of water would most probably have been long delayed to many large ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... effect one great release in his condition. He broke the oar he had plied so long, and he scuttled and sank the galley. He prevented the gradual retirement of an old conventional business from him, by taking the initiative and retiring from it. With enough to live on (though, after all, with not too much), he obliterated the firm of Barbox Brothers from the pages of the Post-Office Directory and the face of the earth, leaving nothing of it but ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... spoken of meeting the motions of the child, as though the educator might never need to take the initiative; in all probability that might be true in an ideal state. As things are it would be unsafe to rely absolutely upon questions; the parent and on occasion other educators must take the initiative in some cases. ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... your majesty intends to wait until the Russians fire the first gun, there will be no war, and may it be so! The Emperor Alexander has made up his mind not to take the initiative. Only when the armies of your majesty have crossed the frontier of Russia, when you have forcibly entered his states, will Alexander look upon the war as begun, but he will not carry it beyond the boundaries of his country: he will not meet the enemy, whom he would still like so much to call his ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... which, if it were brought forth into the sunlight, would glorify with brilliant inspiration a thousand lives. You have insight that, if it were energized, would make the desert blossom as the rose. You have initiative that once illuminated would create an empire fairer than any ever raised in marble. You have harmony lying latent in the vast octaves of your being, which if awakened into melody would sooth, comfort, restore, and purify the passions of a world. You have beauty, matchless in forms ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... of the slightest initiative! If I am absent for an hour, detained by more important work, everything comes to a standstill! I see I cannot rely on anyone here ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... have regretted your absence. Colonel Herrara is a good officer in many ways, and the regiment has maintained its state of efficiency; but he does not possess your energy and enterprise, nor the readiness to assume responsibilities and to act solely upon his own initiative—a most valuable quality," he said, with one of his rare smiles, "when combined with sound judgment, for an officer commanding a partisan corps like your own; but which, if general, would in a very short time put an ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... the power of fallen Man to determine; and were an attempt made to interpret it, the result would be a state of widespread moral chaos, for there would be as many interpretations of it as there were minds that had the courage and the initiative to undertake so audacious a task. As it is with the Law as such, so it is with each of its numerous commandments. The man who professes to obey the spirit of a commandment is in secret revolt against its divine authority. For he is presuming to criticise it in the light of his ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... Notice how it happens that his own deception has a direct influence upon his father, so that his departure to join Valentine is as much due to his own lack of firmness in his desire to stay on Julia's account, as to Valentine's initiative in going. ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... to tend towards the love of the "Vita Nuova" is to tend towards this. Say what you will of the irresistible force of original constitution, it remains certain, and all history is there as witness, that mankind—that is to say, the only mankind in whom lies the initiative of good, mankind which can judge and select—possesses the faculty of feeling and acting in accordance with its standard of feeling and action; the faculty in great measure of becoming that which it thinks desirable to become. Now to have perceived the ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... won't seem to be accomplishing much, as I always lay the foundation of my future work by studying my men. Some men have that within them which spurs them on; while some need artificial initiative—outside encouragement," he quoted glibly from "How to Get More Out of Your Factory." "Some men extend themselves under stern discipline; some respond only to a gentle rein. I study men—the men over me, under me, around ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pressure to bear on their consciences; but neither did he yield his view an inch to theirs. He acted as he had resolved to act, and made a minute in the presence of his Cabinet that he did so on his own initiative. It was essential that the Secretary of the Treasury, through whom he must act, should be with him. McLane had already been transferred to the State Department, and Jackson now nominated Taney, a strong-minded lawyer, who was his ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... unless the fugitive begins to throw lead his way—which method of procedure gives a man who is, in the vernacular, "on the dodge" all the best of a situation like that; for it gives an outlaw a chance to take the initiative, and the first shot often settles an argument of that kind. The dominating idea, as I understood it, was that the majesty of the law should prove a sufficiently powerful weapon; and in the main it did. No thief, murderer, ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... to accomplish this end. It is much easier to say what one shall not do than what one must do to change self-will into strength of character, slyness into prudence, the desire to please into amiability, restlessness into personal initiative. It can only be brought about by recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic or perverse, is as natural and indispensable as the good, and that it becomes a permanent evil only ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... underwriters and outside companies have blaced matters in my hands and will not bay until I take der initiative. We must hear from one John Rowland, who, with a little child, was rescued from der berg and taken to Christiansand. He has been too sick to leave der ship which found him and is coming up der Thames in her this morning. ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... assure himself that he was acting upon his own forceful initiative, but at the back of his mind was the completest realisation of his powerlessness to resist the gigantic social forces he had set in motion. He had got to marry under the will of society, even as in times past it ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... her life and taken her into their hearts in this way as if she really belonged, as if they loved her! She was too excited to talk. She hardly knew what to do first. But they did not wait for her initiative. Allison was off with his car and his man, munching cookies as he went, and promising to return in fifteen minutes hungry as ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... Hill had long cherished the silent ambition of winning her was a fact well known to him. Only once had they ever spoken on the subject, and then the words had been few and briefly uttered. But to Jack, who had taken the initiative in the matter, they had been more than sufficient to testify to the man's earnestness of purpose. From that day he had been heart and soul ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... ended his visits to the Harleys, but her bold brow and thoughtful face misled him. He regarded her as deeper than she was; he considered that she would soon discover how he no longer was a guest at the Harley table, and thought to save himself from an inference by a proclamation. He would take the initiative and seem to cast the Harleys into the outer darkness of his disregard. It would make for his standing with the San Reve; more, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Whilst China has been from the first fully prepared to co-operate with friendly Powers in the taking of war- measures which would ultimately improve her world-position, she has not been prepared to surrender the initiative in these matters into foreign hands. The argument that the mobilization of her resources could only be effectively dealt with by specially designated foreigners, for instance, has always been repellent to her because she knows from bitter experience that although Japan has played little or no part ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... year at college Hal had listened to lectures upon political economy, filled with the praises of a thing called "Private Ownership." This Private Ownership developed initiative and economy; it kept the wheels of industry a-roll, it kept fat the pay-rolls of college faculties; it accorded itself with the sacred laws of supply and demand, it was the basis of the progress and prosperity wherewith America had been blessed. And here suddenly Hal ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... statehood for a number of years; establishing in true American style a purely democratic government with representative institutions, in which, under certain restrictions, the will of the majority was supreme, while, nevertheless, the largest individual freedom, and the utmost liberty of individual initiative were retained. The framers showed the American predilection for a written constitution or civil compact; and, what was more important, they also showed the common-sense American spirit that led them ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... usual impetuousness Jack took the initiative, and said to Mr. Bills: "Your school can certainly wait; it must wait. A week or two can make no difference. At the end of that time, if she cannot walk, she can be taken to and from the school-house every ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... detailed examination of particular protective rates reveals evidence of suspicious and sometimes scandalous personal influences at work. The protective policy has always professedly been advocated for the general welfare to raise wages or to make the country prosperous, but the initiative has always been taken, and the valiant work in contributing funds for campaign purposes and in lobbying bills through Congress has been done, by the interested manufacturers. Even if it were beyond question sound in principle to exclude goods that can ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... crisis had just overthrown the fortunes of the people; they turned towards God and began to pray. On a route of three thousand miles, wherever one might stop, he found a meeting, a simple, spontaneous meeting, at which the pastors did not take the initiative, where they were present instead of presiding. Ere long, public attention became fixed on this movement, the greatness of which could not be contested; the most hostile journals ended by rendering it homage. And it lasted, it still subsists, ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... Foreign trade shrunk away to nothing; the stevedores and waterside workers might as well stop at home. It tightened the heart- strings—and the strings of the big purse that kept everything going. The established trades began to work shorter hours, and the less stable trades entirely ceased. Initiative drew in its horns; people began nothing new, and did no work for the warehouses; fear had entered into them. All who had put out their feelers drew them back; they were frostbitten, so to speak. The earth had withdrawn its ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... they are enemies and to co-operate with them would mean disloyalty to one's own country. Only in the case, which I hope will not be realized, of the United States also precipitating itself into the whirlpool of the war, would they be bound to transfer their initiative to the Swiss or the Dutch Jewry. The first labor of the initiators should consist in inviting the existing Jewish organizations of all countries to have themselves represented by a delegation on a permanent board or committee. It would be a matter of regret if they refused, but this ought ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... action awakening no question in his mind. If he thought at all about her thus assuming the initiative, the suspicion was dismissed with the idea that probably her eyes were more keen to discover the best path. In this she was certainly successful, and he contented himself by following her closely. The night was already dark, the way irregular ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... from that of the economic result that they had proposed to attain—the creation of a road which, in the words of Bismarck, "glorifies no other nation." As regards the piercing of the Gothard, the initiative does, in fact, belong by good right to the powerful "Iron Chancellor," so we have never dreamed of robbing Germany of the glory (and it is a true glory) of having created the second of the great transalpine routes, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... the benignant touch of fortune still upon his head, and thanked her heartily that Leo had taken the initiative; that no overt act of disloyalty blurred his escutcheon, and above all, that he had been spared the humiliation of acknowledging his inability to resist the strange fascination that dragged him from ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... acknowledge, even to themselves, that her evident conscientiousness bore no small part in causing that slight uneasiness of which they were aware in her presence. Possibly it roused in some of them such a dissatisfaction with themselves as gave the initiative to dislike of her. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... shows no sign of wishing to discard either the admixture of comedy with tragedy (save in The Broken Heart, which is perhaps a crucial instance), or blank verse, or the freedom of the English stage in regard to the unities. In short, Ford was a person distinctly deficient in initiative and planning genius, but endowed with a great executive faculty. He wanted guidance in all the greater lines of his art, and he had it not; the result being that he produced unwholesome and undecided ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... growth of his militant egoism, there had developed in Godwin Peak an excess of nervous sensibility which threatened to deprive his character of the initiative rightly belonging to it. Self-assertion is the practical complement of self-esteem. To be largely endowed with the latter quality, yet constrained by a coward delicacy to repress it, is to suffer martyrdom ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Protestant Holland condemn him. Though Bayle did not touch immediately the mass of mankind, he wrought with power upon men who gave themselves the trouble of thinking. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church that theologians, instead of taking the initiative in this matter, left it to Bayle; for, in tearing down the pretended scriptural doctrine of comets, he tore down much else: of all men in his time, no one so thoroughly ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... realise that only a few hours before I had unknowingly paraded along the same little raised path which the Germans were so jealously guarding. Of all my escapes this was the most inexplicable. To what was it due? Certainly not to my own initiative alone. Man's extremity is indeed ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... recurrence to the ordinary and calculable laws of the human understanding and moral sense; instead of leaving every man a judge of his own gifts, and of his right to act publicly on that judgment. The initiative alone is supernatural; but all beginning is necessarily miraculous, that is, hath either no antecedent, or one [Greek: heterou genous], which therefore is not its, but merely an, antecedent,—or an incausative alien co-incident in time; as if, for instance, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Suffrage. Initiative and Referendum. A Larger Navy. War. Peace. Foreign Immigration. The Liquor Traffic. Labor Unions. Strikes. Socialism. Single Tax. Tariff. Honesty. Courage. Hope. Love. Mercy. Kindness. Justice. Progress. Machinery. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... "once informed me that he intended to be a candidate for the Legislature, but would not declare himself until just before the election, and assigned as a reason that it was so very hard to be clever for a long time at once." Before the caucus had eliminated the individual initiative, there was much more of personal feeling in elections. A vote against a man had something of offense in it, and sometimes stirred up a defeated candidate to heroic vengeance. In 1827 the Legislature elected a State treasurer after an exciting contest, and before the members had left the house ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... defeated. We occupied a less formidable position, but one which would enable the whole of our force to act at once, should we be attacked. Our men were in high spirits, and as ready to attack the enemy's position as to defend their own, should the Pastucians, taking the initiative, assault us. Instead of doing so, however, a flag of truce was sent into our camp from the bishop, expressing his wish to prevent bloodshed by an amicable arrangement of matters. Our general replied that the surest way of bringing this about was for ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... here waiting table two hours three times a day, to pay for her room and board. In the meantime, she attends all the sessions and studies as much as she can; but she's very poor material for a teacher. I pity her pupils. She's a little thing, bright enough in her way, but she has not much initiative, not strong enough for the work, and she has not enough spunk. She'll never lead the minds of school children anywhere ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... lacking the initiative to make his way down the long aisle and find a table for himself, he might have stood there indefinitely, but for the restless activity of Adams, the head steward. It was Adams' mission in life to flit to and fro, hauling would-be lunchers to their destinations, ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... who have any knowledge of the subject that the economic decadence of Ireland is not due to any lack of natural resources; neither is it due to insufficiency of capital or absence of workers. It is due to want of initiative, want of enterprise, want of business method, want of confidence, and want of education on the right lines. The education which should have been fashioned to fit the youth of Ireland for a life of work and industry ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... this book, he remarks, "The present rhymer has no ambitions as a stage manager. The Poem Game idea, in its rhythmic picnic stage, is recommended to amateurs, its further development to be on their own initiative. Informal parties might divide into groups of dancers and groups of chanters. The whole might be worked out in the spirit in which children play King William was King James's Son, London Bridge.... The main revolution ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... not visit the girls in their new abode, and nothing more was said of his making the acquaintance of Mdlle. Roche. Meetings were appointed by post-card—always in Patty's hand if the initiative were female; they took place three or four times a week. As it was now necessary for Eve to make payments on her own account, Hilliard despatched to her by post a remittance in paper money, and of this no word passed between them. Three weeks later he again posted the same sum. On ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... but it is a truism, that, in matters of love, it is the weaker and the defenseless sex that takes the initiative. ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... initiative as usual. "Robbed seventeen birds' nests, climbed twenty-four trees, and jumped over ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... vol. iv., pp. 737 et seq.; Houssaye, pp. 354-362; also Nesselrode's communication published in Talleyrand's "Mems." Thielen and Radetzky have claimed that the initiative in this matter was Schwarzenberg's; and Lord Burghersh, in his despatch of March 25th ("Austria," No. 110), agrees with them. Stein supports Toll's claim. I cannot agree with Houssaye (p. 407) that "Napoleon had ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... way: "Well, we old workers might perhaps have 'reminisced' after death, but I doubt if the writing mediums could do as well as we have done with our pens. You say the history of woman suffrage can not be written until it is accomplished. Why not describe its initiative steps? The United States has not completed its grand experiment of equality, universal suffrage, etc., and yet Bancroft has been writing our history for forty years. If no one writes up his own times, where are the materials for the history of ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... communities, early and late, savage and civilized. We have seen how there has often been a coalescence between taboo regulations proper and ordinary civil law. To state the case more fully, these have been fused into a unity of social life with individual initiative, magical notions, arbitrary enactments. The actual social constitution even of slightly developed tribes is composite, the outcome of long experience and experiment in which all the lines of social feeling and thought have gradually drawn ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... his workpeople, we look to find rather in a reconstituted and moralized State. We all share this hope in our degree, The Times as well as the Daily News, and we do not expect the new spirit to operate simply through the free-will and private capacity and initiative of individuals. The joint stock company has ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... to my Presentment as a passive and percipient subject. In point of fact, however, I am in relation with the energetic system not merely or primarily as an Intelligence percipient of the transmutations proceeding in it at a particular point, but also as a Will initiative to some extent of such transmutations and capable of influencing and directing the physical process. Life necessarily involves a process of energetic transmutation constantly proceeding at that portion of the system of Energy ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... private and public life. But what is of interest here is that shifting of religious ideas in the course of which Tyche drives the gods into the background. We find indications of it as early as Thucydides. In his view of history he lays the main stress, certainly, on human initiative, and not least on rational calculation, as the cause of events. But where he is obliged to reckon with an element independent of human efforts, he calls it Tyche and not "the immortal gods." A somewhat similar view we find in another ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... eternity;" and of which the "mighty struggles to upheave its own weight, and that of the superincumbent mass of prejudice, envy, ignorance, folly, or uncongenial force, must ever ensure the deepest sympathy of all those who can appreciate the spirit of its qualities;" let the initiative skyward struggles towards the zenith-abysses of the inane impalpable ——, &c. &c. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... group of alert professional women, housed in a theatre building, and known as the Women's Crisis League. To their office she took her way, determined to enlist for Belgium. Mrs. Bracher was in charge of the office—a woman with a stern chin, and an explosive energy, that welcomed initiative in newcomers. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... "No," Charlotte said, surprisingly initiative in these junctures, "I don't know how it is in Mr. Vanecken's church, but, if father doesn't come, perhaps you'll have to give me away. At any rate, you're an old friend of the family, and I should be hurt if ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... of popular hero, idolized by his soldiers, for he possessed in greater degree than any other commander at the North that personal magnetism which wins men. But it was soon evident that he lacked those qualities of aggressiveness, energy, and initiative essential to a great commander; that he was unduly cautious. He seems to have habitually over-estimated the strength of the enemy and under-estimated his own. With this habit of mind, it was certain that he would never suffer a great defeat; but it was also ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... the Kaiser pronounced, "that my counsellors were unanimous in advising your withdrawal to what will shortly become the great centre of interest. From the moment of receiving our commands you appear to have displayed initiative. I gather that your personation of this English baronet has been ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... physical strength, Salve was far from being the equal of many of these men, who, he knew very well, were now only looking out for an occasion to get the better of him. His only chance was to take the initiative on all occasions, and to seem the most reckless and the most careless of life, and the most eager to fight of them all. He therefore flew at his man without hesitation on the slightest provocation, and whenever he threatened took care to keep ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... to his own initiative, Jackson conceived the most brilliant series of engagements in the history of modern war. He determined to use his infantry by forced marches to cover in a day the ground usually made by cavalry and fall on the armies of his opponents one by one before ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... I believe, took its direction chiefly from the initiative of Mrs. O'Donovan Florence. With great sprightliness and humour, and with an astonishing light-hearted courage, she rallied the Cardinal upon the neglect in which her native island was allowed to languish by the powers at Rome. "The most Catholic country in three ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... the military situation, has attributed the success of the Germans to their possessing the initiative and to the weather. Members have found it a little difficult to understand why, if even at the beginning of March the Allies were equal in numbers to the enemy on the West and if, thanks to the foresight of the Versailles Council, they ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... the task of the Governor of Jamaica. Lynch forwarded Coxon's commission to England, where in August 1682 the proprietors of the Bahama Islands were ordered to attend the council and answer for the misdeeds of their governor.[437] The proprietors, however, had already acted on their own initiative, for on 29th July they issued instructions to a new governor, Robert Lilburne, to arrest Clarke and keep him in custody till he should give security to answer accusations in England, and to recall all commissions against the Spaniards.[438] The ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... fortunes of Rome during this period, we find that Tiberius Gracchus had left another legacy to the State. This was the idea of a magistracy which, freed from the restraint of consulting the senate, should busy itself with political reform, remove on its own initiative the obstacles which the constitution threw in the path of its progress, and effect the regeneration of Rome and even of Italy by means of ordinances elicited from the people. The social question was here as elsewhere the efficient cause; but it left results which seemed strangely disproportionate ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... At the initiative of George Boult a subscription was opened for "the widow and children of the late William Day, who had left them without any ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... She knew her father disliked the idea of getting fat, while lacking the initiative of keeping thin. "What you need, Dad, is a cold plunge and ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... in a high treble, was standing with snout twitching and front feet apart, a picture of idiotic confusion. Perhaps the hen, with the superior feminine knowledge of her age, understood something of the situation, and appreciated the young porker's inability. Anyway, she took the initiative in aggression, and, vainly struggling to cover her rather riotous brood with outspread wings, cackled furiously and prepared for the onslaught which secretly she ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... they were on different "sides," they had not chanced to meet, either in lecture-room or elsewhere. Julian, not knowing whether his position as sizar would make any difference in Bruce's estimation of him, had naturally left him to take the initiative in calling; while Bruce, on the other hand, always a little jealous of his brilliant contemporary, and not too anxious to be familiar with a sizar, pretended to himself that it was as much Julian's place as his to be first in calling. ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... Arnold to bear. When were they to speak of it? Speak they must, if the affair went on to publicity. And, considering the natural difficulty Arnold would find in approaching such a subject, ought not she to take some steps of her own initiative? ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... was bad enough when he was separated from her by the entire length of the room; but their work required a certain collaboration, and there were occasions when he was established near her, when deliberately, in cold blood and of his own initiative, he was compelled to speak to her. No language could describe the anguish and difficulty of these approaches. His way was beset by obstacles and perils, by traps and snares; and at every turn there waited for him the shameful pitfall of the aitch. He whose easy courtesy charmed away the shyness ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... demands were defeated, mainly because middle-class opinion and a great deal of proletarian opinion as well had been led to believe that the builders' cessation of labour was a strike due to their own initiative against existing conditions, and thought the operation of such an initiative immoral in time of war. They did not know the plain truth that the provocation was the masters', and that the men were turned out of employment, that is deprived of access to the Capitalist ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... peoples, and has riven them apart. It has brought to the world vast and permanent wealth. It has enlisted the vision of statesmen, the genius of inventors, the courage of pioneers, the forcefulness of manufacturers, the initiative of merchants and shipbuilders, and the patient ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... men, nor even, I believe, from those of animals. Conservatism insists on unity and order; radicalism on wealthy life, diversified powers, particular independence. Either, left to itself, would crush society, one by emptying it of initiative, the other by splitting it into a company of warring atoms. Ordinarily each is dimly aware of its need of an opponent, yet does not on that account denounce him the less, or less eagerly struggle to expel him from provinces asserted ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... mix-up in the general handling, the Regimental folk atoned and there were many incidents of initiative and daring on the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... He gave the Adjutant a quick glance; but the man's face was inscrutable. Captain Hallam was a disciplinarian where discipline was needed, but he knew the value of what he called initiative. ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... little troubled by the state. That within their little means they did it well, no one can doubt. They taxed themselves without friction, they built their own monastery schools by voluntary effort, they maintained a very high, a very simple, code of morals, entirely of their own initiative. ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... blows from the caulked boots sounded like picket firing. I could not make out the different leads, feints, parries, and counters of this strange method of boxing, nor could I distinguish to whose initiative the various evolutions of that log could be ascribed. But I retain still a vivid mental picture of two men nearly motionless above the waist, nearly vibrant below it, dominating the insane gyrations of a ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... gains, but they were beginning to crowd him back at the points where he had crossed the river, and were raining bombs and machine-gun bullets upon the Austrian troops at the bridgehead. They were also taking the initiative in the fighting in the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... parents in exerting an unqualified control over the foetus in the womb, nor is it yet disposed to practice abortion on eugenic grounds. It is obvious, indeed, that medicine cannot in this matter take the initiative, for it is the primary duty of medicine to save life. Society itself must assume the responsibility ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... before nine o'clock arrived, Andrea employed in riding, paying visits,—designed to induce those of whom he had spoken to appear at the banker's in their gayest equipages,—dazzling them by promises of shares in schemes which have since turned every brain, and in which Danglars was just taking the initiative. In fact, at half-past eight in the evening the grand salon, the gallery adjoining, and the three other drawing-rooms on the same floor, were filled with a perfumed crowd, who sympathized but little in the event, but who all participated in that love of being present wherever there is anything ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... saw plainly that he was depressed, knew well that he had suffered. As the Bishop had perceived, it was written on his aspect. But her timidity as yet prevented her from taking the initiative with him, as later she would learn to do. She felt for him at this stage partly the woman's love, partly the deep and passionate loyalty of the disciple. And it was possibly this very loyalty in her ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... however, the comment associated with verse translations does not anticipate that of later times and is scarcely more significant than that which accompanies the novella. So long, indeed, as the theory of translation was so largely concerned with the claims of the reader, there was little room for initiative. It was no mark of originality to say that the translation must be profitable or entertaining, clear and easily understood; these rules had already been laid down by generations of translators. The real opportunity for a fresh, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... renounce his connection with 'Every Other Week.' In fact, this was not perhaps so simple as it seemed, and long before it could be put in effect it appeared still simpler to do nothing about the matter—to remain passive and leave the initiative to Dryfoos, to maintain the dignity of unconsciousness and let recognition of any change in the situation come from those who had caused the change. After all, it was rather absurd to propose making ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a Stuart, you, who understand everything, you will comprehend that the word is hard to pronounce;—I had, I say, the protection of my cousin the stadtholder of Holland; but without the intervention, or at least without the authorization of France, the stadtholder would not take the initiative. I came, then, to ask this authorization of the king of France, who has ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his driving gloves which he had not worn for more months than anyone cared to reckon. Miss Rosemary Allen did what she could to help, and wondered at the dominant note struck by this bald old man from the moment when he rose stiffly from his big chair and took the initiative so ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... dash, nerve, vim and initiative essential to a successful flier. He is moulded as a cog. He is part of a system—out of that he must not move. It has wrecked his initiative, and the sneer of the greatest German in history, Frederick the Great, has ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... lady who rents a first floor flat often finds the daughter of her door-keeper among her school-fellows, and some think this objectionable. It is said also that the pupils free themselves too much from home influence, and that too much opportunity is left for personal initiative. As a matter of fact the extensiveness of the many courses of study, all the learning that is required of pupils at the examinations, certainly does tend to their emancipation, to the coming of the future woman and future society, which you ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... succession, first one and then the other was victorious. The custom of the victors being to kill and banish the leaders and all prominent men in the defeated party, often destroying their children as well, it is evident that in time every strain distinguished for moral courage, initiative or intellectual strength was exterminated. By such a systematic killing off of men of initiative and brains, the intellectual level of a nation must necessarily be lowered more and more. In Rome as ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... of politics, know that nothing is more unnatural. For "institutions make men." And when amid a people used to institutions of one kind, we see suddenly arise institutions of an opposite kind, we know that behind them must be that active, that initiative force—the "men who in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... of great anxiety and concern to the Japanese government. The small duty of five per centum, which it has been permitted to collect on the goods imported, is scarcely more than enough to maintain the machinery of collection. And while the initiative is given to it to ask for a revision of the treaties, it has never yet been able to obtain the consent of the principal nations concerned to any change ...
— Japan • David Murray
... the risk of destroying the historical verities, I now regretted exceedingly that I had not of my own initiative altered my costume in such a way as to better protect the ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... office and end by reversing their function. The government reverts to the primeval robber; the church stands in the way of all wisdom. Under such circumstances it is a happy thing if the people possess enough initiative to assert themselves and, after clearing the ground in a more or less summary fashion, allow some new organisation, more representative of actual interests, to replace ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the initiative for a reform, through a letter from President Angell, calling for a meeting of representatives of the leading Western universities in Chicago in January, 1906. All the institutions represented at this meeting were unanimous ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... stabilizer is one which will act on its own initiative. The difficulty with automatic devices is, that they act too late, as a general thing, to be effective. The device represented in Fig. 70 is very simple, and in practice is found ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... far he had only 'thought right' what her conventions approved. He had seldom acted on his own initiative. She therefore had a phrase, 'Dear Edward is always right.' It was possible that when he left off his unquestioning concordance with her, she would leave off saying 'Dear Edward is always right.' So far he had not wanted anything particularly, and as it was as difficult to quarrel with Mrs. Marston ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... called the Counter-Reformation, was Rome. It was an enterprise requiring consistency in the objects aimed at, variety in the means, combination with the Powers and avoidance of rivalry, an authority superior to national obstacles and political limitations. At first the initiative did not reside with the Papacy. Farnese, in whose pontificate the transition occurred from the religion of Erasmus to the religion of Loyola, allowed men to act for him whose spirit differed from his own. He long put off the Portuguese demand for a tribunal ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... underwriter at all, but an accountant, and it was inconceivable that he would ever be anything else. Wagstaff, who supervised the Southern and a part of the Western field, was a good enough machine man, capable in a routine way and within his limitations, but helpless outside them; he had no initiative, wholly lacked dash and imagination, and it was out of the question that he be given charge of the general underwriting of the company, even under such a chief as Mr. Wintermuth. Cuyler, the head of the local department, was a city underwriter pure and simple; ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... chance, after the possibility of a broad handling of the settlement by the Czar, and as a very much bigger probability, is the insistence by America upon her right to a voice in the ultimate settlement and an initiative from the Western Hemisphere that will lead to a world congress. There are the two most hopeful sources of that great proposal. It is the tradition of British national conduct to be commonplace to the pitch of dullness, and ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... regulation relieves want without pauperising, the common garner merely serving as a compulsory savings bank. Many salutary laws benefit the Malay, possessing a notable share of tropical slackness, and the lack of initiative partly due to a servile past under the sway of tyrannical native princes. The little brown people of Java, eminently gentle and tractable, are honest enough for vendors of eatables to place a laden basket at the roadside for the refreshment of the traveller, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... Court House, and soon after that its line of fortifications at Centreville—the most extensive system of field fortifications in military history up to that time—was abandoned. As the Union armies took the initiative in their repeated efforts to reach Richmond, the crossroads at Fairfax Court House had key importance in the communication and ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... their personal attractions. As we shall see later, one of the ways in which an Australian wins a wife is by means of magic. In this game, as Spencer and Gillen tell us (556), the women sometimes take the initiative, thus inducing a man ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... been. He would blot out of his memory all the years she had brightened and darkened. And if any excuse can be found for him, it must be in his supposition that Denasia felt just as he did. She would be grateful to him for taking the initiative—glad to get back to her home and her people, glad to escape a life for which she must have discovered she had neither strength ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... foolishness, which indicated that he might reasonably expect the continued good-will of several sets, the orbits of which intersected in the social system of his native city. Indeed, the few qualified to snub him cared nothing about the matter, and it was not likely that anybody else would take the initiative in being disagreeable to a young man, the fortunes and misfortunes of whose race were part of the history of Manhattan Island. Siwards, good or bad, were a matter of course ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... informed that in marriage among the Moquis it is woman who takes the initiative, the girl pointing out the young man of her heart and the girl's father making the offer, which is never refused, Mrs. Stanley almost shed tears of gratification. Here was something like woman's rights; here was a flash of the glorious ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... the embodiment of the initiative and resourcefulness we are trying to inculcate in all our soldiers. I observed the entire operation and he has demonstrated a great potential for leadership." Fyfe hesitated and for a moment a shadow of repugnance darkened his features as if, for purposes of camouflage, he were ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... beyond the circle of the learned public. Philosophy as illumination, as a factor in general culture, is an exclusively modern phenomenon. In this speculative intercourse of nations, however, the French, the English, and the Germans are most involved, both as producers and consumers. France gives the initiative (in Descartes), then England assumes the leadership (in Locke), with Leibnitz and Kant the hegemony passes over to Germany. Besides these powers, Italy takes an eager part in the production of philosophical ideas in the period of ferment before Descartes. Each of these nations contributes ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... first time in copyright history we are ahead of England! Ahead of her in two ways: by length of time and by fairness to all interests concerned. Does this sound like shouting? Then I must modify it: all we possessed of copyright-justice before the fourth of last March we owed to England's initiative. Truly Yours, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... escort to Fort Pitt certain English traders resident in the Indian towns. The escort was fired on by militiamen under command of Connolly, who also issued a proclamation declaring a state of war to exist. Connolly, however, probably acted on his own initiative. He was interested in land on his own behalf and was by no means the only man at that time who was ready to commit outrages on Indians in order to obtain it. As Croghan lamented, there was "too great a spirit in the frontier ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... considerable experience in motor driving. The applicant should not be over thirty, and it was essential that he should be a gentleman and well educated, with a knowledge of foreign languages if possible; also that he should be thoroughly trustworthy and possessed of initiative. The salary would be a ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... whom they called Max seemed to be looked upon as a leader, for it is absolutely necessary that in every pack of boys some one takes the initiative. His whole name was Max Hastings, and on numberless occasions he had shown an aptitude for "doing things" when the occasion arose, that gained him the respect of his chums. For a complete record of these achievements the reader is referred ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... representatives. Their words and acts were to bind those on whose behalf they came, and those who chose them were to do so in the full knowledge that they would be so bound. In choosing them the electors deliberately surrendered their own share of initiative and sovereignty and combined to bestow it on a fellow citizen whom they trusted. In this way, and in this way alone, the people of Cornwall and of Northumberland could bring their wishes to bear and play their ...
— Progress and History • Various
... this spasmodic energy of scorn. Common sense is not the highest of dramatic qualities, but a modicum of it would have made Schiller's first heroine, to say the least, more interesting. She has no power of initiative and seems made only to be duped. Her inability to recognize her lover in the fourth act is a terrible strain upon one's patience. Indeed the whole love-affair between her and Karl is utterly un-human. What can one think, for example ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... powerlessness to defend him in any way against it. Although the envoy had been sent back, and war was now resolutely determined upon, the situation remained unchanged in so far as concerned the necessity of our waiting for the Priest Captain to take the initiative. To attack that great walled city was so hopeless a task that even the Tlahuicos—flushed though they were by their victory over the Council—did not venture to propose it; for they knew, as we all did, that ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... haul our ships ashore and careen them, because, the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack. Indeed, they may be seen exercising, and it lies with them to take the initiative; and not having to maintain a blockade, they have greater facilities for ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... Office, knowing little and caring less about that noble jewel in the British Crown, sent out as successor to so brilliant and successful an administrator—whom? One Sir James Robert Longden, a gentleman without initiative, without courage, and, above all, with a slavish adherence to red-tape and a clerk-like dread of compromising his berth. Having served for a long series of years in subordinate posts in [63] minor ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... him to the dining-room, where he was welcomed by a waiter who had sorrowfully thought not to come to his notice. He greedily scanned the menu card, while the waiter, of his own initiative, placed some trifles of ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... To the initiative of the Carl Rosa company was due the production of Mr. Frederick Corder's 'Nordisa,' a work of undoubted talent though suffering from a fatal lack of homogeneity, and of two operas by Sir Alexander Mackenzie. The first of these, 'Colomba,' was produced in 1883. It achieved a success, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... of scarcity. This regulation relieves want without pauperising, the common garner merely serving as a compulsory savings bank. Many salutary laws benefit the Malay, possessing a notable share of tropical slackness, and the lack of initiative partly due to a servile past under the sway of tyrannical native princes. The little brown people of Java, eminently gentle and tractable, are honest enough for vendors of eatables to place a laden basket at the roadside for the refreshment of the traveller, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... has been put on-line as part of the BUILD-A-BOOK Initiative at the Celebration of Women Writers through the combined work of: Adrienne Fermoyle, Andrea Jeddi, David Cheezem, Diana Camden, Flo Carriere, Jill Thoren, Judi Oswalt, Margaret Sylvia, Samantha M. Constant, Terri Perkins, and ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... consider the idea of selecting Trent or any German city as a fit place for such an assembly, while the Austro-Spanish rulers were equally strong against Rome or any other place in Italy. But of his own initiative Paul IV. took strong measures to reform the Roman Curia, established a special commission in Rome to assist him in this work, stamped out by vigorous action heretical opinions that began to manifest themselves in Italy, and presided frequently himself at ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... the wheel that he had the mastery of her and had shown that he possessed sea-legs, a fair amount of seacraft and, what the sailors did not possess, initiative, Captain Simms appointed ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... fortified a camp, whence he kept a look-out. There was some skirmishing, but no fighting on a large scale. This did not suit Spartacus, who had become confident in himself and his men. He desired battle, but wished the Romans should take the initiative, and was convinced that the near approach of winter would compel them soon to fight or to retreat. To encourage them, he feigned fear, and commenced a retrograde movement; but no sooner had the elated Romans advanced in pursuit than he turned upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... of action says no to all initiative and he considers that he has accomplished his whole duty toward society and toward himself when he says: "What's the use of undertaking this or that? I haven't a chance of succeeding and it is therefore idle to ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... condensation of the primary substance into concrete aggregation, and also does this in certain areas to the exclusion of others, we cannot avoid attributing to Spirit the power of Selection and of taking an Initiative on its ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... the most democratic and largest slave-holding counties in the State. The resolutions took the name of their mover, and are known in the political history of Missouri as the 'Jackson resolutions.' And Claiborne F. Jackson, who thus took the initiative in foisting treason upon the statute-books of Missouri, is, to-day, by curious coincidence, the official head of that State nominally in open revolt. But Jackson, it was early ascertained, was not entitled to the doubtful honor of the paternity of these resolutions. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the same to Jonathan Zane. He lay hidden under the fragrant lilacs, his eyes, accustomed to the dark from long practice, losing no movement of the guests. Finally it became evident that the party was at an end. One couple took the initiative, and said good night to ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... untold advantage that she had to take the initiative in excuses. Sophy was so meek with weariness, that she took pretty well all the kind fidgeting that could not be averted from her, and Miss Meadows's discourse chiefly tended to assurances that Mrs. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... plainly that he was depressed, knew well that he had suffered. As the Bishop had perceived, it was written on his aspect. But her timidity as yet prevented her from taking the initiative with him, as later she would learn to do. She felt for him at this stage partly the woman's love, partly the deep and passionate loyalty of the disciple. And it was possibly this very loyalty in her from which Meynell shrank. He felt ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... privilege given up—and I believe we are all, even the Government itself, entirely satisfied with the arrangement." I heard the same opinion afterwards expressed in Copenhagen, and felt gratified, as an American, to hear the result attributed to the initiative taken by our Government; but I also remembered the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company, and could not help wishing that the same principle might be applied at home. We have a Denmark, lying between New-York and Philadelphia, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... daughter was married to his brother. It was no wonder that he cherished the idea of resuming in person the scheme of reform, so soon as he should find himself in a position which would constitutionally allow him the initiative. Personal motives may have strengthened this resolution. The treaty of peace which Mancinus concluded with the Numantines in 617, was in substance the work of Gracchus;(29) the recollection that the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... history—but by the continuous pressure of an emancipating legislation, relieving land from shackles long since struck off other kinds of property—by the assertion, within a certain limited range, of communal initiative and control—and above all by the continuous private effort in all sorts of ways and spheres of "men of good will." For all sweeping uniform schemes he had the natural contempt of the student—or the moralist. To imagine that by nationalising sixty annual millions of ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Indian child, if such she could be called after the super-woman initiative of that forbidding trail. She was down on her knees peering at the tracks in the one little ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... doctrine, there is yet another which appeals to a yet larger and more intricate range,—that of human character and condition. Crimes are such complex issues as to demand the systematic diagnosis of the criminal. Heredity and environment, associations and standards, initiative and suggestibility, may all be condoning as well as aggravating factors of what becomes a "case.'' The peculiar temptations of distinctive periods of life, the perplexing intrusion of subtle abnormalities, particularly when of a sexual type, have brought it about ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... an obvious effort, Chris included him in the conversation, when he responded instantly, with that ready ease of manner which had first drawn her to rely upon him. But though he showed himself quite willing, as ever, to help her, he did not once on his own initiative address the man who had been introduced for his benefit; and Chris, aware of an atmosphere that was highly charged with electricity, notwithstanding its apparent calm, began to cast about for a means of ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... kingly house and his own country. Anne, on the contrary, in possession of official and legal authority, wielded it and guarded it with prudence and moderation in the interests of France and of the crown, never taking the initiative in war, but having the wit to foresee, maintain, and, after victory, end it. She encountered from time to time, at her own court and in her own immediate circle, a serious difficulty: the young king, Charles, was charmed by the Duke of Orleans's ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... with superior numbers. In that case his blows will shatter the Boer army in Natal, so that by the time he has joined hands with Sir George White the enemy will feel himself overmastered, will lose the initiative, and begin to shrink from the British attacks. That state of things in Natal would lighten Lord Methuen's work. But it would be rash to assume such favourable conditions. We must be prepared for the spectacle of hard and prolonged ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson
... an' good luck," repeated Riles. He was trying to play the game, but, as Gardiner often reminded him, he had no imagination. It would have been quite impossible for Riles, on his own initiative, to have thought of wishing the Harrises "good luck" on the journey they were about to commence...They were interesting types of villains—one, gentlemanly, suave, deep, and resourceful; the other, coarse, shallow, slow-witted, and brutal. The ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... that they may be able to fight the battle of life. He does not see that by using authority he is doing the very opposite of what he intends; he is making the child dependent on him, and for ever afterwards the child will lack initiative, lack ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... looked charming enough. She was—as Lady Casterley had shrewdly guessed—the kind of woman who spoils men by being too nice to them; of no use to those who wish women to assert themselves; yet having a certain passive stoicism, very disconcerting. With little or no power of initiative, she would do what she was set to do with a thoroughness that would shame an initiator; temperamentally unable to beg anything of anybody, she required love as a plant requires water; she could give herself completely, yet remain oddly incorruptible; in a word, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... such a thing would be hard for Arnold to bear. When were they to speak of it? Speak they must, if the affair went on to publicity. And, considering the natural difficulty Arnold would find in approaching such a subject, ought not she to take some steps of her own initiative? ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... people every little while. That is either a fool's notion or the wilful misrepresentation of a liar. Socialism does not mean that there is to be a great bureaucratic government owning everything and controlling everybody. It does not mean doing away with private initiative and making of humanity a great herd, everybody wearing the same kind of clothes, eating the same kind and quantities of food, and having no personal liberties. It simply means that all men and women should have equal opportunities; to make it impossible ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... little practice—with astonishing results. In two days we had, we prided ourselves, raised such collaboration from the ranks of the Mechanical to the society of the Fine Arts. My part was comparatively easy. Sinking his initiative he had more nearly converted himself into an intelligent piece of mechanism than I would have believed possible. It would, of course, be vain to suggest that Pong would not have gone faster if I had been able to drive with my own hands, or Berry had had my ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... hits the nail on the head when, in commenting on the existing abuses of kicking and dirty ball playing in the League arena, he says: "If the club owners would take the initiative in enforcing decorum upon their players, upon pain of fine or suspension, instead of shifting the burden and onus upon the umpire, the problem of order at ball games would be solved at once. But the majority of magnates ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... fairly with Alaska. No doubt, Executive action in advance of Congress might be satisfactory; but a President is apt to wait for Congress unless driven by irresistible necessities. He can only take the initiative through some form of military government. For this the War Department is not yet well organized. Possibly the easiest solution for the moment would be in the organization of another department for ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... insisted. Watching his chance, and skilfully manoeuvring, he succeeded in approaching the schooner stern first, when the cable just allowed him to touch the perpendicular deck. His shouts to the others had now quite a different ring. His words were commands, leaving no initiative to them. They realized also that their one and only chance for life lay in that boat; and returning hope lent them the courage which they had hitherto lacked. After a delay which seemed hours to the anxious captain at such a time, ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... principle involved, is that of the susceptibility of the Impersonal to suggestions from the Personal. This follows of course from the very Conception of Impersonality; it is that which has no power of selection and volition, and which is therefore without any power of taking an initiative on ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... that the entire complexion of the affair had changed. The ruffian, who had entered so confidently, was no longer the aggressor; a mere look, a word, a gesture from this aged, unknown person had put him upon the defensive. More extraordinary still was the fact that his power of initiative was for the moment completely paralyzed, and that he was tortured by a deplorable indecision. He was furious, that was plain, nevertheless his anger had been halted in mid-flight, as it were; desperation battled with an inexplicable ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... were friendly had become hostile to all comers. An exploration to the Nile sources was thus a march through an enemy's country, and required a powerful force of well-armed men. For the traders there was no great difficulty, as they took the initiative in hostilities, and had fixed camps as "points d'appui;" but for an explorer there was no alternative but a direct forward march without any communications with the rear. I had but slight hope of success without assistance from the authorities in the shape of men accustomed ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... this to be done? Direct legislation by the people might be realized through the adoption of the principles of popular initiative and referendum. Or, if representative legislative bodies should be deemed best, these measures, together with proportional representation and the right of recall, might be adopted. There is no apparent reason why all legislation, except temporary ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... very slight, confusion apparent in these expressions is manifest, and is ludicrously easy of correction. 'Aye, aye,' quoth she, and it will be observed that no emendation whatever is necessary to be made in these two initiative remarks, 'Aye, aye! This lantern was carried by my forefather'—not fourth son, which is preposterous—'on the fifth of November. And HE was Guy Fawkes.' Here we have a remark at once consistent, clear, natural, and in strict accordance with the character ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... driven to take the initiative. Already on one occasion she had forced the hand of the lingering Court, and resumed the campaign of her own accord, an impatient movement which had been perfectly successful. No doubt again the army itself was becoming demoralised, and showing symptoms of falling to pieces. One ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... that first thrifty New Englander who did not scorn the humble cod because it was cheap and plentiful (you remember how these same cod "pestered" the ships of Gosnold in 1602), but set to work with the quiet initiative which has distinguished New Englanders ever since, first to catch, then to barter, and finally to sell his wares to all the world. For cheap as all fish was—twopence for a twelve-pound cod, salmon less than a penny a pound, ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... competition in which Haydn won the prize, but there was never any such contest. The work was ordered from the author, but the question is who ordered it. Two religious circles, the Cathedral and the Cueva del Rosario, both lay claim to the initiative. I have gone over all the evidence in this dispute which is of little interest to us, for the only interest is the origin of the composition. There is not the slightest doubt that the Seven Words was written in the first place for an orchestra in 1785, and its destination, as we shall see, ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... son or sons—how could Granville be sure the supposed first wife was dead before the second was married? And supposing, for a moment, she was not dead—supposing his father had been even more criminal and more unjust than he at first imagined—how could he take the initiative himself in showing that his own mother, Lady Emily Kelmscott, was no wife at all in the sight of the law? that some other woman was his father's lawful consort? The bare possibility of such an issue was too horrible for any ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... propaganda. As a geneticist I can only go so far and be honest. I can make sure you have good heredity; that you have no obvious physical or mental defects; that your chance of having certain disabling diseases are small; that your intelligence is high, and so on. I can't really measure things such as initiative, wit, courage, determination, all the things that make one human so much better than another of equal ...
— Mother America • Sam McClatchie
... promptings, and in response to the influence of those other myriads of particles and groups of particles about it. And that system of these groups of particles which is enclosed within the rondure of the seed must have within it the ideal of the rose to be. Each particle will act on its own initiative, but all will act under the mutual influence of one another, and in their togetherness will make up the rose-spirit, being informed by the ideal of the rose which in its turn will suffuse the whole. And this rose-spirit—this rose-disposition—as it gives itself ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... that an international conference be called to recommend the passage of identical laws providing for the safety of all at sea, and we urge the United States Government to take the initiative as soon as possible." ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... as a second chance, after the possibility of a broad handling of the settlement by the Czar, and as a very much bigger probability, is the insistence by America upon her right to a voice in the ultimate settlement and an initiative from the Western Hemisphere that will lead to a world congress. There are the two most hopeful sources of that great proposal. It is the tradition of British national conduct to be commonplace to the pitch of dullness, and all the stifled intelligence of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Bombay and Persia were not confined to this single benevolent initiative of the Bombay Committee. [62] We should also notice the establishing of schools in the towns of Yezd and Kirman (1857) due to the munificence of the Parsee notabilities, and the pecuniary gifts given for the ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... so rich and rare. There is no other person in the world just like you. You have genius, which, if it were brought forth into the sunlight, would glorify with brilliant inspiration a thousand lives. You have insight that, if it were energized, would make the desert blossom as the rose. You have initiative that once illuminated would create an empire fairer than any ever raised in marble. You have harmony lying latent in the vast octaves of your being, which if awakened into melody would sooth, comfort, restore, and purify the passions of a world. You have beauty, ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... the sociological school of historians. It carries the more weight as its author himself is a historical specialist, and his historical syntheses deserve the most careful consideration. But there is much in the process of development which on such assumptions is not explained, especially the initiative of individuals. Historical development does not proceed in a right line, without the choice of diverging. Again and again, several roads are open to it, of which it chooses one—why? On Lamprecht's method, we may be able to assign ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... be that we write in it worthily. We have no precedents to guide us, and that is a glorious thing, for precedents, like other guides, are disposed to grow tyrannical, and refuse to let us do anything on our own initiative. Life grows wearisome in the countries where precedents and conventionalities rule, and nothing can happen unless it has happened before. Here we do not worry about precedents—we ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... Social Control of Marriage Choices.—Social wisdom obliges more deliberation in the case of young people seeking a marriage license on their own initiative and perhaps after a very brief acquaintance. There is a strong demand that a certain period shall elapse between the request for the license and its granting and that sufficient publicity be secured to make it easy for interested parties ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... he would ever be anything else. Wagstaff, who supervised the Southern and a part of the Western field, was a good enough machine man, capable in a routine way and within his limitations, but helpless outside them; he had no initiative, wholly lacked dash and imagination, and it was out of the question that he be given charge of the general underwriting of the company, even under such a chief as Mr. Wintermuth. Cuyler, the head of the local department, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... possession of poor Puff; as regularly as a policeman takes possession of a prisoner. The reader knows the sort of feeling one has when a lawyer, a doctor, an architect, or any one whom we have called in to assist, takes the initiative, and treats one as a nonentity, pooh-poohing all one's pet ideas, and upsetting all one's ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Presentment as a passive and percipient subject. In point of fact, however, I am in relation with the energetic system not merely or primarily as an Intelligence percipient of the transmutations proceeding in it at a particular point, but also as a Will initiative to some extent of such transmutations and capable of influencing and directing the physical process. Life necessarily involves a process of energetic transmutation constantly proceeding at that portion ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... and Mrs. Andersen often told each other it was strange that Miss Kronborg had so little initiative about "visiting points of interest." When Thea came to live with them she had expressed a wish to see two places: Montgomery Ward and Company's big mail-order store, and the packing-houses, to which all the hogs and cattle that went through Moonstone ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... as we entered, was like her children. None of them has the initiative or the energy of the man. They are subdued by the changeless conditions of their environment; his one adventure of the week ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... reasonable to enlarge the canon till it includes so great and startling a genius, rather than to draw it close and exclude him. His work is practically certain to stand as archetypal for many future poetic efforts—so great is his power as an originator, so fervid his initiative. It forms incomparably the largest performance of our period in poetry. Victor Hugo's Legende des Siecles alone might be named with it for largeness, and even that with much less of a new starting-point in conception and treatment. Whitman breaks with all precedent. To ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... devotion in gratified silence, accepting the German as an excellent comrade. As he controlled absolutely the family fortune, he aided Karl very generously without arousing the resentment of the old man. He also took the initiative in bringing about the realization of Karl's pet ambition—a visit to the Fatherland. So many years in America! . . . For the very reason that Desnoyers himself had no desire to return to Europe, he wished to facilitate Karl's trip, and gave him the means to make ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the competition for the cartoons to be painted in the Houses of Parliament, in which Haydon was unsuccessful. The disappointment was the greater, inasmuch as the scheme for decorating the building with historical pictures was mainly due to his initiative.] ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... not an easy problem for him, or for any person lacking initiative—a sexual characteristic. He might have emigrated, but his roots were deeply struck in his own place, so the idea never occurred to him; furthermore, our thoughts are often no deeper than our pockets, and one wants money to move anywhere. For any other life than that ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... ridge. But that he had happened to ride to the crest, the charge of the Light Brigade would have begun and ended without the knowledge of "C" Troop. No order from any source reached it, and Brandling, acting on his own initiative, took his guns rapidly to the front along the inner edge of the ridge and unlimbered at point G. He durst not fire into the bottom of the North valley where our light horsemen were mixed up with the enemy; all the diversion he could effect was to ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... former the Commission was explicitly endowed with the power, after a full hearing on a complaint made to it, "to determine and prescribe just and reasonable" maximum rates. By the latter it was further authorized to set such rates on its own initiative, and without waiting for a complaint; while any increase of rates by a carrier was made subject to suspension by the Commission until its approval could be obtained. At the same time, the Commission's jurisdiction was extended to telegraphs, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... mind that he must take the initiative and speak with Don Teodoro. He had been willing and ready to give up all right to hope for the woman he loved, in order that his friend might marry her, but the idea that there should be an irregularity about the marriage, or no real marriage at all, ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... need of no alliance, for the Italians have relatively so little capital to dispose of that they were unable to keep the Germans from attaining that very dominant position in Italy. As the Italians have, as a general rule, a lack of initiative and enterprise with respect to modern industry, it was to German efforts that the great industrial and commercial awakening of Italy and of Triest were largely due. In that town the Italians were principally agents; ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... of this new science, which has become known in Italy by the name of the Positive School of Criminology. This science, the same as every other phenomenon of scientific evolution, cannot be shortsightedly or conceitedly attributed to the arbitrary initiative of this or that thinker, this or that scientist. We must rather regard it as a natural product, a necessary phenomenon, in the development of that sad and somber department of science which deals with the disease of crime. It is this plague of crime which forms such a gloomy and painful contrast ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were fast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we cared not to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had taken the [v]initiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving to spring in upon us, and striking when they could with hatchet and knife. They were brave men that ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... government to educate our children? Only let the worker have leisure to instruct himself, and you will see that, through the free initiative of parents and of persons fond of tuition, thousands of educational societies and schools of all kinds will spring up, rivalling one another in the excellence of their teaching. If we were not crushed by taxation and exploited by employers, as we now are, could we not ourselves ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... faculties. He concluded that our educators, overwhelmed by the size and vigor of American industry, were too timid to seize upon the industrial situation, and to extract its enormous educational value. He lamented that this lack of courage and initiative failed not only to fit the child for an intelligent and conscious participation in industrial life, but that it was reflected in the industrial development itself; that industry had fallen back into old habits, and repeated traditional mistakes until American cities exhibited stupendous extensions ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... become divided. One point specially will be of great interest for you, who so heartily desire the success of this work. The conference is convinced that its mission is not to force any nation belonging to it to do anything she would not be freely prepared to do upon her own initiative; we all recognize that its sole function is to impart our collective sanction to what has already become unanimous in the ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... of whom must have the practical knowledge and experience gained by a residence of at least ten years in India and not more than ten years previous to the date of their appointment. This Council is more of an advisory than an executive body. It has no initiative or authority, but is expected to confer with and review the acts of the Secretary of State for India, who can make no grants or appropriations from the revenues or decide any questions of importance without the concurrence of a majority of ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... seen that Ivan IV. (the Terrible) took the initiative in reforms. After the conquest of Kazan he established many churches in that territory and elsewhere in Russia, and purchased an immense quantity of manuscript service-books for their use, many of which turned out to be utterly useless, on account of the ignorance and carelessness ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... that justice was certain in so good a cause, or inclined to procrastinate in a matter which did not concern them personally, had put off bringing the suit until they returned to Tours. Consequently the friends of Mademoiselle Gamard had taken the initiative, and told the affair wherever they could to the injury of Birotteau. The lawyer, whose practice was exclusively among the most devout church people, amazed Madame de Listomere by advising her not to embark on such a suit; ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... thinking. He has tried to communicate enough of the spirit of our literature to make students eager for a first-hand acquaintance with it, to cause them to investigate for themselves this remarkable American record of spirituality, initiative, and democratic accomplishment. As a guide to such study, there have been placed at the end of each chapter Suggested Readings and still further hints, called Questions and Suggestions. In A Glance Backward, the author emphasizes in brief compass the most ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... he was helped, to an extent which will never be appreciated, by Wilson: in the last expedition by Bowers. I believe that there has never been a finer sledge party than these three men, who combined in themselves initiative, endurance and high ideals to an extraordinary degree. And they could organize: they did organize the Polar Journey and their organization seemed to have failed. Did it fail? Scott said No. "The causes of this disaster are not due to faulty organization, but to misfortune in all ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... much rather you let them off than that I should; for it strikes me, that all the useful ends of discipline will be much better served, and your hands, as well as mine, essentially strengthened, by your taking the initiative in this business instead of me. My advice to you, therefore, is, that when I go below you send for the men, and say to them you have read their statement, and that, although it does by no means excuse, it certainly explains, and so far ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... was perhaps overstrained. It is not thus that women are won. The fruit that drops into people's mouths is usually over-ripe, and the Sabine maiden would have thought less of her Roman lover, though doubtless she would have taken the initiative rather than miss him altogether, had it been necessary to pounce on him in the vineyard and desire him straightway to carry her home. But the bird of prey must have its natural victim, and such hearts as our poor generous painter possessed are destined for the talons and the beak. Ah! those ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... little pension, for which he was indebted to Denis's compassionate initiative. But he was sinking into second childhood, worn out by his long and constant efforts, and not only did he squander his few coppers in drink, but he could not be left alone, for his feet were lifeless, and his hands shook to such a degree that he ran the risk of setting all ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... you bore yourself exceedingly well. I have always read of the initiative of the American soldier, Captain, and in this case, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... his confidence, or whether he thought it useless to discuss his projects further with one who could not or would not assist him in carrying them out; but although we continued to meet daily, as before, he did not recur to the interesting subject, and it was not for me to take the initiative in doing so. Curiosity, I confess, led me to direct my gondolier more than once to the narrow canal over which the Palazzo Martinelli towered; and on each occasion I was rewarded by descrying, from the depths of the miniature mourning-coach which concealed me, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... at this, and what seemed to threaten to be a general onslaught. My friends all prepared for their defence, and Jimmy took the initiative by striking out wildly, when half a dozen blacks dashed at him, got him down, and one was foolish enough to sit upon his head, but only to bound up directly with a shriek, for poor Jimmy, being held down as to arms and legs, made use ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... take the initiative. And now, realising the disinterested kindness of these good people, her sense of gratitude made her resolve to meet their ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... confess that when Viscount Grey answered the intimations of President Wilson and ex-President Taft of an American initiative to found a World League for Peace, by asking if America was prepared to back that idea with force, he spoke the doubts of all thoughtful European men. No one but an American deeply versed in the idiosyncrasies of the American population ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... messenger she recalled to his mind, that he himself had insisted upon her keeping her Jewish descent a secret. (133) Besides, she had always tried to refrain from appearing before the king at her own initiative, in order that she might not be instrumental in bringing down sin upon her soul, for she well remembered Mordecai's teaching, that "a Jewish woman, captive among the heathen, who of her own accord goes to them, loses ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... been sedulously restricted within narrow if varying limits. Their relief from those trammels set them free, and it was their joy to accept the devolved responsibility, and to act with soldierly initiative and vigour. The chief credit of the qualified yet substantial triumph over official hesitation certainly belongs to Pollock, who gently yet firmly forced the hand of the Governor-General, while Nott's merit was limited to a ready acceptance of the responsibility of a proffered ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... influences ceaselessly at work. Moral and physical stamina are broken, and the good workman, fresh from the soil, becomes in the first city generation a poor workman; and by the second city generation, devoid of push and go and initiative, and actually unable physically to perform the labour his father did, he is well on the way to the shambles at the bottom ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... pieces were blown out of the top of our trenches, but no infantry attack developed. After this a small mine was blown up under our old trenches at Hill 60 and a platoon was wiped out there. But an attempt by the Germans to occupy the crater was frustrated through the initiative of a machine-gun officer. I saw and felt the shock of this mine going up, and a wonderful sight it was in the evening light. The shelling went on for some time after dark, whilst to our right our artillery thundered away in support of ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... the debates. Sutton was a short, stout, pragmatical Englishman, whose desire to obtain extra allowances prompted him to revise, correct, and polish up reports which should have been verbatim, and thus to take the initiative in depriving official reports of debates of a large share of their value. Since then, Senators and Representatives address their constituents through the reports, instead of debating questions ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... confidently expected greeting; later, she eyed them with a distinctly grieved expression—the greeting had never been given; but at last, her hunger to talk with some one not of her own family led her to take the initiative herself. Meeting a tall, slender woman, whom she had already seen ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... of 1810, the matrimonial alliance with Austria was not settled. The initiative steps had not been taken by the monarch, the ministers of Foreign Affairs, or by the ambassadors. It is a curious and characteristic detail, that it was the divorced Empress, Josephine, who gave the signal. She summoned the Countess ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... record and emphasize the improvement all round in international relations, the desirability of further developing this improvement, and the hope that with it the growth of armaments would cease. But he was afraid of the kind of initiative which might come from America. The United States had no sympathy with European ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... He then was inclined to take the initiative. He had been to Tessa. She led the way through the nearest door, set down her lamp, and ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... he refused the pathetic overtures of sympathy which the relations in whose house he was—a married sister with her husband and children—offered him. He bore himself with courtesy and consideration, but he was so much worn with fatigue and despondency that he could not take any initiative. But I became aware very gradually that he was learning the true worth and proportion of things—and the months which passed so heavily for him brought him perceptions of the value of which he was hardly aware. Let me say that it was now that the incredible ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... blind desire seized him to dance? At the mere thought his heart gained a beat—that unruly heart, which had caused so much trouble. It had never been right since that August day in the Sevzevais sector, when, to quote his citation, he "had shown great initiative in assuming command when his officer was disabled, and, with total disregard for his personal safety, had held his machine-gun against almost impossible odds." In the accomplishment of this feat he had been so badly gassed ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... were hungry, and struck fiercely at the bait. She soon had plenty for supper and breakfast. Wherefore she abandoned that diversion, and took to prying tentatively in the lee of certain bowlders on the edge of the creek—prospecting on her own initiative, as it were. She had no pan, and only one hand to work with, but she knew gold when she saw it—and, after all, it was but an ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... I contrasted the sluggish conversation, the hide-bound officialism, the stereotyped and sleepy methods of the Western Powers with the sleepless energy, the daring initiative, the desperate industry and courage ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... general class thought in our country it has become the fixed conviction that no colored man has any well-defined power of initiative, that the colored man has no originality of thought, that in his mental operations he is everlastingly content to pursue the beaten paths of imitation, that therefore he has made no contribution to the inventive genius of our country, and so has gained no place for himself in the ranks ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker
... for some time; not hurt but apparently lacking the initiative to get up again. He had at that period the alternating lucidity and mental torpor of the half drunken man. But struggling up through layers of blackness at last there came again the instinct for flight, and he got on the horse and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the first evidence of that initiative which was such a conspicuous trait in the young man. He had come back to see the performances of his company, and had watched them with swelling pride. Several times he ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... thereof, or city or town, as a prerequisite for voting in any election for officers, other than the members of the General Assembly, to be wholly elected by the voters of such county or subdivision thereof, or city, or town; such action, if taken, to be had upon the initiative of a representative in the General Assembly of the county, city, or town affected: provided, that the General Assembly in its discretion may make such exemptions from the operation of said property qualification as shall not be in conflict with the ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... was formed the "Alliance of Christian Princes" at the initiative of the Borgia Pope Alexander VII. Louis XII., King of France, and Ferdinand V. of Spain announced their adherence to this effort against the Turk, and Pierre D'Aubusson, the veteran Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John, was nominated as Captain-General of the ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... culturally, while the right of the minority shall be safeguarded by proportional representation. National minorities shall enjoy equal rights. The government shall be parliamentary in form and shall recognise the principles of initiative and referendum. The standing army will be replaced by militia. The Czecho-Slovak nation will carry out far-reaching social and economic reforms. The large estates will be redeemed for home colonisation, and patents ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... the boys; they were quiet-looking and respectful, and they had been responsive enough to his suggestion about announcing their names. A happy inspiration told him that so long as he could keep on taking the initiative with boys, he would have no serious trouble. But it was one thing to recognize an effective mode of conduct, and another to have the resourcefulness for carrying it out. Irving was just thinking what next he should say, ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... be settled in Dublin. Irish internal expenditure to be handed to a financial council half elected and half nominated. An Irish Assembly to be created with a small power of initiative. ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... laughing and jostling, surrounded Yarchenko, seized him under the arms, caught him around the waist. All of them were equally drawn to the women, but none, save Lichonin, had enough courage to take the initiative upon himself. But now all this complicated, unpleasant and hypocritical business was happily resolved into a simple, easy joke upon the older comrade. Yarchenko resisted, and was angry, and laughing, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... would return to her old home some time, of course, for a visit; and letters such as this brought returns that amused Madeline, sometimes saddened her. She meant to go back East for a while, and after that once or twice every year. But the initiative was a difficult step from which she shrank. Once home, she would have to make explanations, and these would not be understood. Her father's business had been such that he could not leave it for the time required for a Western trip, or else, according to his letter, he would have come for her. ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... doubtful as to the wisdom of taking the initiative, so great was their fear of the Spaniards. However, the cheerfulness with which the two English boys proposed resistance animated them; and, with sharp whistles, they called the whole of their comrades ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... that they do. I don't mind telling you that you had the shave of your life on the Dutch frontier last time, and I don't mind telling you, also, that we had two of our men shadowing you. One of them acted on his own initiative, or you would never ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Eritrea in 1998-2000 and recurrent drought have buffeted the economy, in particular coffee production. In November 2001, Ethiopia qualified for debt relief from the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, and in December 2005 the International Monetary Fund voted to forgive Ethiopia's debt to the body. Under Ethiopia's land tenure system, the government owns all land and provides long-term leases to the tenants; ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... this in that wonderful encyclopaedic work of "London Labour and London Poor," which displayed his original mind and his power of research, as much as other books displayed his marvellous invention, fancy, and initiative, and it is the only one of his undertakings which he had perseverance enough to carry through to a triumphant conclusion—so far as it can claim finality. It was while he was engaged on this work that Landells (according to a private letter) visited him and found him, in company with his ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... they are followed by a study of the household budget and accounts, methods of buying, housewifery, and laundering. It includes about 160 carefully selected and tested recipes, together with a large number of cooking exercises of a more experimental nature designed to develop initiative ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose
... trustees ought to leave the management of the library practically to him, simply supplementing his ability without impeding it. They should leave to a librarian of good executive ability the selection, management, and dismissal of all assistants, the methods and details of library work, and the initiative in the choice of books. A wise librarian the trustees may very properly take into their confidence, and invite his presence at all meetings, where his advice would be ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... council of five members is made by a direct vote of the people. The legislature consists of members elected in the proportion of one to every 1100 inhabitants. The "obligatory referendum'' exists in the case of all laws, while 5000 citizens have the right of "initiative'' in proposing bills or alterations in the cantonal constitution. The canton sends 10 members to the federal Nationalrat, being one for every 20,000, while the two Standerate are (since 1904) elected by a direct vote of the people. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... find in the master a kind and generous friend. Nor should we omit to mention, amongst the numerous offshoots of his labours, the foundation of the Conservatorium of Music at Leipzig, a scheme entirely due to his initiative, and which under his fostering care developed into one of the first academies of the day. Lastly, amidst the whirl of work he found time to carry out a project which he had for long cherished—the erection, at the threshold of the Thomas School at Leipzig, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... where banks loaned money on personality; he had heard many a bank official express himself to the effect that a poor man with a vision and integrity was a better chance any day than a millionaire lacking a goal or scruples. But in the end he was swung from any initiative by a passive desire to even his score with Brauer. After all, it was diverting to wait for his ex-partner's next move. Brauer had had no compunctions in tricking him. Why, then, should he worry? No, it would be fun just to let Brauer stew in a sample ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... his own position; that of his opponent can only be known to him by reports, which are uncertain; he may, therefore, form a wrong judgment with respect to it upon data of this description, and, in consequence of that error, he may suppose that the power of taking the initiative rests with his adversary when it lies really with himself. This want of perfect insight might certainly just as often occasion an untimely action as untimely inaction, and hence it would in itself no more ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... another type of man habit is indeed second nature. Instead of the permanent fluidity of my particular case, such people are continually tending to solidify and harden. Their memories set, their opinions set, their methods of expression set, their delights recur and recur, they convert initiative into mechanical habit day by day. Let them taste any pleasure and each time they taste it they deepen a need. At last their habits become imperative needs. With such a disposition, external circumstances and suggestions, I venture to believe, may make ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... had its origin in the initiative of a few pilots who recognised a chance, took it, and thus opened yet another branch in the huge departmental store of aerial tactics. The exploits of these pioneers were sealed with the stamp of official approval, and ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... advance. The Field Marshal in his dispatch speaks of the "brilliant and predominating part" played by the two Dominion Corps—the "skill and determination of the infantry," the "fine performance" of the cavalry. By this victory the British Army recovered the initiative it had temporarily lost. All was changed. And even more striking than the actual gains in ground, prisoners, and guns, was the effect upon the morale of both German and British troops. The Germans could hardly believe their defeat; the British ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... young things should have dropped into her life and taken her into their hearts in this way as if she really belonged, as if they loved her! She was too excited to talk. She hardly knew what to do first. But they did not wait for her initiative. Allison was off with his car and his man, munching cookies as he went, and promising to return in fifteen minutes ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... of this passage the frequent and emphatic application of the principle is justified that we should neither design nor do anything, especially in respect to God's service and worship, without the initiative and command of the Word. As above narrated, Noah enters the ark upon God's command; and he leaves the ark upon God's command to leave it. He does not follow superstitious notions, as we see the Jews do, who, when they establish anything temporary by command, endeavor to retain it forever, as ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... was a pity they were so inactive. Could not one or two of the more favoured sex manage to inspire them with a little initiative? ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Initiative and Referendum. A Larger Navy. War. Peace. Foreign Immigration. The Liquor Traffic. Labor Unions. Strikes. Socialism. Single Tax. Tariff. Honesty. Courage. Hope. Love. Mercy. Kindness. Justice. Progress. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the figurative and symbolic language of ancient art, I asked him to draw up for me a few notes of the facts which he considered most interesting, as illustrative of its methods of representing nature. I suggested to him, for an initiative subject, the representation of water; because this is one of the natural objects whose portraiture may most easily be made a test of treatment, for it is one of universal interest, and of more closely similar aspect in all parts of the world than any other. Waves, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... golden key to the avenues of opportunity. She would not take him to school, but she would teach him each day all that she herself had learned. He was not difficult to teach, but learned, indeed, with what seemed to Cicely marvelous ease,—always, however, by her lead, and never of his own initiative. For while he could do a man's work, he was in most things but a child, without a child's curiosity. His love for Cicely appeared the only thing for which he needed no suggestion; and even that possessed an element of ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... talk to Ron in private, and try to instil into him some of her own energy and enterprise. He was a dear, wonderful fellow, but absolutely wanting in initiative. Poets, she supposed, were always dreamy, impracticable creatures, unfitted to attend to practical interests, and dependent upon the good offices of some adoring woman working ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... contrary, one is amazed to see what is accomplished in spite of the system, amazed to find what can be done by able men against the most determined opposition from their own side; but the great fact that was brought out by the earlier part of this campaign is that the man of intelligence and initiative and ability and energy was fast in the clutches of the Red Tape spider, which fussed round him until he was enveloped in the scarlet web and impotent to use brains or energy. Engineering is one of the few things of which corporate bodies admit their ignorance; ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... American spirit of initiative had entered deep into the soul of Edward Bok. The brother had left school a year before, and found a place as messenger in a lawyer's office; and when one evening Edward heard his father say that the office boy ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... one Legislature (biennial). Initiative petition possible. People: Majority voting ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various
... to this part of his story we have, at my initiative, left the bridge and are walking towards the Utopian guest house. The Utopian guest house! His voice rises and falls, and sometimes he holds my arm. My attention comes and goes. "Good-night," two sweet-voiced Utopians ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... of courtesy, due so little to my own initiative, and so largely to Joe's, gained for me many friends in and about the mosque—not only those of the dead man, one of whom rowed a caique, but among the priests who formed the funeral cortege—a fact unknown to me ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... whether of popular impulse or of official overbearance. Only in the House of Representatives were the people to be accorded an immediate audience and a direct means of making their will effective in affairs. The government had, in fact, been originated and organized upon the initiative and primarily in the interest of the mercantile and wealthy classes. Originally conceived as an effort to accommodate commercial disputes between the States, it had been urged to adoption by a minority, under the concerted and ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... we have to wait our turn. Anyone who fails to do so will find his teapot emptied and put away. On the first occasion, that was what happened to myself. Well, is there anything else to tell you? Already I have made the acquaintance of the company here. The naval officer took the initiative in calling upon me, and his frankness was such that he told me all about his father, his mother, his sister (who is married to a lawyer of Tula), and the town of Kronstadt. Also, he promised me his patronage, and asked me to come and take tea with him. I kept the appointment in a room where ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... said, with a smile, "that I don't accuse Jasper. He is such a machine, and I cannot imagine him capable of so much initiative as systematically to forge checks and falsify ledgers. I merely mention Jasper because I want to emphasize the injustice of putting any man under suspicion unless you have the strongest and most convincing proof of his guilt. To declare my innocence is unnecessary from my ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... leaves baggage and equipment behind, guns in the mud. The Germans had left very little; they were falling back in good order. Their soldiers were good fighters, especially when well led. They might lack the individual initiative of Frenchmen, the nervous energy with which Frenchmen would keep on fighting after mere bone and muscle had had enough, but they had plenty of courage. Their officers—the dragoon paused. Yesterday, he said, they had run into a troop of cavalry. The German officer ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... child should learn when quite young to avoid certain objects. But if the prohibitions are too general the child will be frequently tempted to break the rules, and then he will fall in his own esteem; or he will observe the rule and have too little outlet for his activity and initiative. The will does not thrive on what the child is prevented from doing, but on what the ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... of times he had to husband his strength most jealously. Add to all this that he was a slow and laborious writer, who would take more pains with a phrase than Scott with a chapter—then look at the stately shelf of his works, brimful of impulse, initiative, and the joy of life, and say whether it be an exaggeration to call his tenacity ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... to take the initiative in agrarian movements. In 172, after the close of the wars against the Ligurians and Gauls, we again see the senate spontaneously decreeing a new division of the lands. A part of the territory of Liguria and Cisalpine Gaul was confiscated and a senatus consultum ordered a distribution ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... satisfaction. He seems inclined to turn his attention to the unity of life, not simply as due to an identity of original impulse but to a common aspiration. There is involved a process of subordination and initiative on the part of the individual. The existence of society necessitates a certain subordination, while its progress depends on the free initiative of the individual. It is extremely dangerous for any society, whether it be an International League, a State, either Communistic or Capitalistic, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... vassals and the neighbouring tribes was shown in different ways. Bit-Agusi at once sent messengers to congratulate the conqueror, but the mountain provinces awaited the invader's nearer approach before following its example. Assur-nazir-pal, seeing that they did not take the initiative, crossed the Orontes, probably at the spot where the iron bridge now stands, and making his way through the country between laraku and Iaturi,* reached the banks of the Sangura* ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... question as to how all this initiative which has been so titanic is to be reconciled with the general good—a world- wide and insistent problem, which will be more serious there when the neighborliness is not so intimate. But the new neighborly element ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... circle of the learned public. Philosophy as illumination, as a factor in general culture, is an exclusively modern phenomenon. In this speculative intercourse of nations, however, the French, the English, and the Germans are most involved, both as producers and consumers. France gives the initiative (in Descartes), then England assumes the leadership (in Locke), with Leibnitz and Kant the hegemony passes over to Germany. Besides these powers, Italy takes an eager part in the production of philosophical ideas in the period of ferment before Descartes. Each of ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual initiative, so far from being discouraged, should be stimulated; and yet we should remember that, as society develops and grows more complex, we continually find that things which once it was desirable to leave to individual initiative ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... overstrained. It is not thus that women are won. The fruit that drops into people's mouths is usually over-ripe, and the Sabine maiden would have thought less of her Roman lover, though doubtless she would have taken the initiative rather than miss him altogether, had it been necessary to pounce on him in the vineyard and desire him straightway to carry her home. But the bird of prey must have its natural victim, and such hearts as our poor generous ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... bolt from the blue came the summons from the president, and I, all muddy, am called to the seats of the mighty. I have never seen a more splendid aggregation of women than the members of the Winnipeg Canadian Club, tall, strong, alert, and full of initiative. To face them is a mental and moral challenge. I try to hide those muddy shoes of mine. The Winnipeg women are indulgent, they make allowance for my unpresentable attire, and shower upon me cheery wishes for the success of my journey. Mrs. Humphry Ward calls attention ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... people. The legislature consists of members elected in the proportion of one to every 1100 inhabitants. The "obligatory referendum'' exists in the case of all laws, while 5000 citizens have the right of "initiative'' in proposing bills or alterations in the cantonal constitution. The canton sends 10 members to the federal Nationalrat, being one for every 20,000, while the two Standerate are (since 1904) elected by a direct vote of the people. The canton is divided into eleven administrative ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... statesmen are quite convinced of the fact that the private exploitation of industry is a great evil and one that ought to be put a stop to. On the other hand, there are Japanese statesmen who are firmly convinced that the State control of industries can only result in the destruction of individual initiative and genius, with the inevitable result of reducing everybody to a dead level of incompetence. In this matter Japan will have, as other nations have had, to work out her own salvation. In the process ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... obtained a satisfactory mastery of the body, and has a large range of movement at command; is now able to control the source of movement and to relax opposing muscles so that the movement may follow through; that is, may continue from its initiative in any part of the body to the desired climax, without muscular obstruction. The entire body is now ready and responsive to any call upon it, and the act of dancing becomes a pleasure and a joy it never ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... the Hague Tribunal is conceivably the germ of such an overriding direction and supreme court as the peace of the world demands, but in reality the Hague Tribunal is a mere legal automatic machine. It does nothing unless you set it in motion. It has no initiative. It does not even protest against the most obvious outrages upon that ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... vital necessity to restrain the individual initiative of subordinates and leave command to the chiefs, and above all to watch the training of the soldiers who are always ready, as they approach, to run on the enemy with the bayonet. I have always noted that if a body which is charged does not hold firm, ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... inform the President of Mexico of the above in greatest confidence, as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President of Mexico on his own initiative should communicate with Japan, suggesting adherence to this plan. At the same time offer to mediate between Germany ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... be ameliorated by the speedy opening of a trade school for those who have reached the age to obtain working papers; (4) if public instruction could not immediately undertake the organization of such a school, then private initiative must do it, even though it must depend for its support upon voluntary contributions. The result was that an extreme effort was put forth and the following November the first trade school in America, for girls of fourteen years of ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... manifold excellencies and diversities of Hellenic art are due to the fact that the Greeks had no "old masters" to copy from—no "schools" which supplied their imagination with ready-made models that limit and smother individual initiative. And one marvels to think into what exotic beauties these southern saints would have blossomed, had they been at liberty, like those Greeks, freely to indulge their versatile genius—had they not been bound to the wheels of inexorable precedent. If the flying monk, for example, were ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... them by their co-religionists. The man further reported that large numbers of fresh tribesmen had appeared on the scene, and that it was intended to attack us on the 16th. He advised the Commissioner to take the initiative, and gave him to understand that if we advanced the Bunerwals ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless. Therefore, it follows necessarily that, if Pandolfo was not in the first rank, he was in the second, for whenever one has judgment to know good and bad when it is said and done, although he himself may not have the initiative, yet he can recognize the good and the bad in his servant, and the one he can praise and the other correct; thus the servant cannot hope to deceive him, and is ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... If we get through here, now, the war will, must be, over next year. My Manchurian Campaign and two Russian Manoeuvres have taught me that, from Grand Duke to Moujiks, our Allies need just that precise spice of initiative which we, only we in the world, can lend them. Advice, cash, munitions aren't enough; our palpable presence is the point. The arrival of Birdwood, Hunter-Weston and Gouraud at Odessa would electrify the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... in opposing them. Thus it was in the present case." The significance of that passage is that the two friends made for themselves the opportunities by which they won fame and rendered service. They did not wait on Fortune; they forced her hand. They showed by what they did on their own initiative, with very limited resources, that they were the right men to be entrusted with work ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... the question reduced to the mere issue of which of the two houses should first take the field. The issue had been easily settled—in the manner of every issue referred in any degree to Amerigo and Charlotte: the initiative obviously belonged to Mrs. Verver, who had gone to Matcham while Maggie had stayed away, and the evening in Eaton Square might have passed for a demonstration all the more personal that the dinner had been planned on "intimate" lines. ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... gets to this part of his story we have, at my initiative, left the bridge and are walking towards the Utopian guest house. The Utopian guest house! His voice rises and falls, and sometimes he holds my arm. My attention comes and goes. "Good-night," two sweet-voiced Utopians cry to us in their universal tongue, and ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... state of the condemned departed is a state of complete damnation absolutely eternal. Against that form of representing future punishment which makes it unlimited by conceiving the destiny of the soul to be an eternal progress, in which their initiative steps of good or evil in this life place different souls under advantages or disadvantages never relatively to be lost, we have nothing to object. It is reasonable, in unison with natural law, and not frightful.13 But we are to deal, if we fairly can, a refutation against the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... signing papers and soliciting orders, while his associate was to attend to the technical end of the enterprise. In order to feed his presses with work, Balzac counted upon his energy, his will power, his spirit of initiative and his tact; he mentally recapitulated the number of publishers with whom he had had relations, and who beyond a doubt would entrust their work to him. The printing house was located on the ground floor of a distinctly gloomy building in the Rue des ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... difficult, Philip was obdurate and closed his ears. The long distance between Madrid and Brussels and the procrastinating habits of the Spanish king added immensely to the regent's perplexities. She could not act on her own initiative, and her appeals to Philip were either disregarded or after long delay ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... details. This rendered concerted action as impossible as it would have been had the differences related not to means, but to ends; and nobody united in himself sufficient technical knowledge with sufficient moral initiative to harmonize these conflicting elements, and thus to render concerted action practicable. The enterprise, in consequence, soon came to an end, certain of the directors bearing most of the loss. But I, at all events, got something for my money in ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... repeated Riles. He was trying to play the game, but, as Gardiner often reminded him, he had no imagination. It would have been quite impossible for Riles, on his own initiative, to have thought of wishing the Harrises "good luck" on the journey they were about to commence...They were interesting types of villains—one, gentlemanly, suave, deep, and resourceful; the other, coarse, shallow, slow-witted, ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... attentively, and could hear a deep half-suppressed sigh, and then footsteps stealing quietly away. I lay awake cogitating as to how I should receive her, whether to feign profound sleep, and so let her take all the initiative, or whether to pretend that the novelty of the bed, and thinking over her affectionate kindness to me had kept me awake. I decided upon pretending to be sound asleep, chiefly that I might see how she would carry out her designs, and also ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... became her to take the initiative in the healing of the breach which she felt growing wide between them, or simply to await the development of the course of action she had chosen to pursue, now became a problem to her perplexed mind. So much depended upon ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... disuse and his use of parliaments, Henry strengthened the royal power, the initiative of all legislation remaining in his hands. To the same end he continued to depress the great nobles and to create a new nobility dependent on royal favour. All who threatened to display a dangerous ambition, ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... of the musical movement of which Weymar is the real center lies precisely in this initiative, of which the public does not generally understand much, but which none the less acquires its part of importance in ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... cruelties and oppressions—keep them from her sight if you can. She would flare up at them and make trouble, in her small but quite decided and resolute way; for she has a character of her own, and lacks neither promptness nor initiative. Sometimes her judgment is at fault, but I think her intentions are always right. Once when she was a little creature of three or four years she suddenly brought her tiny foot down upon the floor in an apparent outbreak ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... you may polish and alter as you like, ALL BUT THE LAST PARAGRAPH. You see I have caved in. I like your asking to have your own way "for once." My wife takes the same line, does whatever she pleases, and then declares I leave her no initiative. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... not always be heard in the din; it was necessary to watch the front of the square, and move on or halt as it did, unless a particular rush at a certain point compelled those at it to take the initiative, and then others ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... confidently boasted, to drive the rebels before him. Prince Charles, leaving a few hundred men to continue the siege, matched out to Bannockburn. The English did not move out from Falkirk, and the prince, after waiting for a day, determined to take the initiative. ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... components. Sec. 209. Intelligence training development for State and local government officials. Sec. 210. Information sharing incentives. Sec. 210A. Department of Homeland Security State, Local, and Regional Information Fusion Center Initiative. Sec. 210B. Homeland Security Information Sharing Fellows Program. Sec. 210C. Rural Policing Institute. Sec. 210D. Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group. Sec. 210E. ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... so far as possible is begun and carried on by individual initiative; in the other the state gradually takes control of all enterprise. The philosophy of the one is based upon the saying: love one another; the political philosophy of the other is based upon the assumption that men are not brethren, but beasts and mechanical toys, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... willingness to obey authority. From the past the families on the Hill inherit their willingness respectively to command and to obey. This is true socially of certain families and religiously of others. That to-day some are not led is due solely to the decadence of initiative in the households which, by reason of wealth or dogmatic rectitude, inherit and claim the ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... the ninth Ramesses the order was reversed—"now it is the king who testifies his gratitude to the High-Priest of Ammon for the care bestowed on his temple by the erection of new buildings and the improvement and maintenance of the older ones." The initiative has passed out of the king's hands into those of his subject; he is active, the king is passive; all the glory is Amenhotep's; the king merely comes in at the close of all, as an ornamental person, whose presence adds a certain dignity ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... day. They did not return, but they drove the Turk before them and enabled others to dig in before he could re-form. You would have to go back to mediaeval times to parallel this fighting. There were impetuosity, dash, initiative, berserker rage, fierce hand-to-hand fighting, every man ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... was hesitation and mix-up in the general handling, the Regimental folk atoned and there were many incidents of initiative and daring on the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... and the wounded bull engage in, without thereby exciting the pathetic. When suffering man seeks to give an expression to his feelings, to remove his enemy, to shelter the suffering limb, he does all this in common with the animals, and instinct alone takes the initiative here, without the will being applied to. Therefore, this is not an act that emanates from the man himself, nor does it show him as an intelligence. Sensuous nature will always fight the enemy that makes it suffer, but it will ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... connection with 'Every Other Week.' In fact, this was not perhaps so simple as it seemed, and long before it could be put in effect it appeared still simpler to do nothing about the matter—to remain passive and leave the initiative to Dryfoos, to maintain the dignity of unconsciousness and let recognition of any change in the situation come from those who had caused the change. After all, it was rather absurd to propose making a purely personal question the pivot on which his relations with 'Every Other Week' turned. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual initiative, so far from being discouraged, should be stimulated; and yet we should remember that, as society develops and grows more complex, we continually find that things which once it was desirable to leave to individual initiative can, under ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... argue out so plain a point. It is individuals, and not the Holy See, that have taken the initiative, and given the lead to the Catholic mind, in theological inquiry. Indeed, it is one of the reproaches urged against the Roman Church, that it has originated nothing, and has only served as a sort of remora or break in the development of doctrine. ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Bank CE Council of Europe CEAO Communaute Economique de l'Afrique de l'Ouest; see West African Economic Community (CEAO) CEEAC Communaute Economique des Etats de l'Afrique Centrale; see Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC) CEI Central European Initiative CEMA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance; also known as CMEA or Comecon CEPGL Communaute Economique des Pays des Grands Lacs; see Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL) CERN Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked. This she did by repeating to me as far as possible, verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in the conversation. But it was a long time before I ventured to take the initiative, and still longer before I could find something appropriate to say at the ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... of Lieutenant Victor Blue in boldly plunging into the Cuban wilderness to obtain information regarding the position of Admiral Cervera's fleet, though in this dangerous sort of work the individual palm must be given to Lieutenant A. S. Rowan of the army, whose energy and initiative in overcoming obstacles are immortalized in Elbert Hubbard's "Message to Garcia," the best American parable of efficient service since the days ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... can hardly choose whether they will be married or not. They can say No to all offers, and some women do plan for opportunities to say Yes, yet most of us feel that there are few circumstances in which a girl of noble instincts could take the initiative. ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... enable the whole of our force to act at once, should we be attacked. Our men were in high spirits, and as ready to attack the enemy's position as to defend their own, should the Pastucians, taking the initiative, assault us. Instead of doing so, however, a flag of truce was sent into our camp from the bishop, expressing his wish to prevent bloodshed by an amicable arrangement of matters. Our general replied that the surest way of bringing this about was for ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... industry at the South could as a rule procure labor only by remitting round sums in money or credit which depleted their working capital and for which were obtained slaves fit only for plantation routine, negroes of whom little initiative could be expected and little contribution to the community's welfare beyond their mere muscular exertions. The negroes were procured in the first instance mainly because white laborers were not to be had; afterward when whites might otherwise have been available the established conditions ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... hostility shown us in Santa Sophia nor in the mosque of Omar in Jerusalem. Be that as it may, forbidden fruit is always sweet, and the Tommies were inclined to force an entrance. During a change of guard a Tommy who had his curiosity and initiative stimulated through recourse to arrick, the fiery liquor distilled from dates, stole into the most holy mosque in Kerbela. By a miracle he was got out unharmed, but for a few hours a general uprising with an attendant massacre of unbelievers ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... essere amato e onorato da' Fiorentini non altrimenti che Numa dai Romani e Solone dagli Ateniesi e Licurgo da' Lacedemoni.' The evil of the old system was that the Parlamento, which consisted of the citizens assembled in the Piazza, was exposed to intimidation, and had no proper initiative, while the Balia, or select body, to whom they then intrusted plenipotentiary authority, was always the faction for the moment uppermost. For the mode of working the Parlamento and Balia, see Segni, p. 199; Nardi, lib. vi. cap. 4; Varchi, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... confide their simple wants and childish hopes to him, he came to realize the immense ascendency which the priests of Colombia possess over the simple understanding of the people. An ascendency hereditary and dominant, capable of utmost good, but expressed in the fettering of initiative and action, in the suppression of ambition, and the quenching of every impulse toward independence of thought. How he longed to lift them up from the drag of their mental encompassment! Yet how helpless he was to afford them the needed lustration ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... editor of the New York Nation says: "Whatever improvement there has been in the condition of Bellevue Hospital, for example, and of the hospitals of Blackwell's and Hart's Islands, during the past twenty years—and it is very great—has, as a rule, been due to women's initiative ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... o'clock in the morning to play cricket on the croquet lawn, or to mimic the history of the early Church by shooting with a cross-bow at dolls tied to a tree; that as a matter of fact, left to your own initiative, you would have slept peacefully till roused in Christian fashion with a cup of tea at eight, they are firstly astonished, secondly apologetic, and thirdly sincerely contrite. In the present instance, waiving the purely academic question whether the awakening of George at a little before five ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... not work out correctly. It was a raw and bitter day; during the morning there were occasional snow flurries, and at midday a heavy downfall. Bennigsen seized the initiative, and opened the battle by a cannonade. Napoleon, divining his plan, sent a messenger for Ney to come and strengthen Soult. At nine the Russian right advanced and drove in the French left, which was weak, to the town. At that moment the order was given ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... was now time to load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were fast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we cared not to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had taken the [v]initiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving to spring in upon us, and striking when they could with hatchet and knife. They were brave men that we ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... cometary views "atheism," and tried hard to have Protestant Holland condemn him. Though Bayle did not touch immediately the mass of mankind, he wrought with power upon men who gave themselves the trouble of thinking. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church that theologians, instead of taking the initiative in this matter, left it to Bayle; for, in tearing down the pretended scriptural doctrine of comets, he tore down much else: of all men in his time, no one so thoroughly prepared the way ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and the university strikes me as typically American. There are two ways of doing things—leaving public undertakings entirely to private initiative, to individuals, to voluntary groups; that is one plan. There is another plan which consists in putting everything into the hands of the state. Constituted authority takes charge of the whole life of ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... also the hunting ground of those who sought to improve their lot. One night a well-known Signaller, a noted hunter with an eagle eye, observed a case of rum—for the moment unattended. The situation obviously required action and P——possessed the necessary initiative. Five seconds later he was being pursued down the Beach. After successfully losing his pursuers he humped the case to Russell's Top and opened it before a crowd of thirsty and expectant Signallers—to find that it was lime juice. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... a poet who was 'owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool'? Burns waited on in the expectation that those who had the power would take it upon themselves to do something for him. Perhaps he credited them with a sense and a generosity they could not lay claim to; though had one of them taken the initiative in this matter, he would have honoured himself in honouring Burns, and endeared his name to the hearts of his countrymen for all time. But such offices are created and kept open for political sycophants, who can importune with ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... two clean-faced and very much alive Americans arrived at the Polo Club for late breakfast. Indeed they were good to look at, being in the finest kind of health and full of initiative. That breakfast was royal in every flavour; they felt like young spendthrifts squandering their patrimony. Just as they were finishing, a distinguished looking Englishman came across ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... limitations to co-operative endeavor. It took many hard experiences for our farmers to learn these truths. But back of all lie some inherent difficulties, as, for instance, the number of people involved, their isolation, sectional interests, ingrained habits of independent action, of individual initiative, of suspicion of others' motives. There is often lack of perspective, and unwillingness to invest in a procedure that does not promise immediate returns. The mere fact of failure has discredited the organization idea. There is lack of leadership; for the farm industry, while ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... have been more frequently dealt with; or rather, that thinkers postulating that infinity {7} as a basal axiom should have been comparatively blind to its logical implications. For if God is infinite, then He is all; and if He is all, what becomes of human individuality, or how are human initiative and responsibility so much as thinkable? Benjamin Jowett, in his Essay on Predestination and Freewill, glanced at this problem in passing, and the remarks he made upon it more than fifty years ago, if somewhat tentative, are well worth ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... Unhappily, the time was approaching when the French soldiery had more cause to dread their own generals than those of the enemy; and these forces, besides being insufficient, were placed under the command of Marshal de Tesse, a cunning courtier but mediocre general, incapable of any initiative strategy, and whose sole study was to carry out to the letter the personal instructions of Louis XIV. and Chamillard. However, either from want of sufficient resources or want of skill, Tesse failed this once in the execution of his master's formal orders, which directed ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... in the last extremity, and you have to choose between adopting and at once executing a plan which you believe to be the right one and save the country, or defer to the opinions of military men in command and lose the country." He finally decided he would take the initiative; but there was Mr. Bates, who had suggested the gunboat fleet, and wanted to advance down the Mississippi, as originally designed; but after a little he came to see that no result could be achieved on that mode of attack, and he ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... age, and of depressed spirits and manner. However, Frank had been used to intercourse with clergy, though his relations with them seemed reversed, and instead of being patronised, he had to take the initiative; or rather, they touched each other's cold, shy, limp hands, and sat upright in their chairs, and observed upon the appropriate topic of early frosts, which really seemed to be ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... war-industry committees, the workmen had elected representatives, sitting with the representatives of the manufacturers and owners. In the cooeperative movement the bourgeois-intellectual element had taken the initiative, but had always emphasized the direct participation of the workmen and peasants in the actual management of the societies, as the ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... at home in the cottages of the village, while the three days' rest in Armentieres owed much of its enjoyment to the initiative shown by the 4th Division in organising both divisional baths and ...
— Short History of the London Rifle Brigade • Unknown
... the Mass is a careful and rapid ritual. Now it is the function of all ritual (as we see in games, social arrangements and so forth) to relieve the mind by so much of responsibility and initiative and to catch you up (as it were) into itself, leading your life for you during the time it lasts. In this way you experience a singular repose, after which fallowness I am sure one is fitter ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... and legitimate efforts to banish the abomination of lynching and torture from the land of the free and the home of the brave. It is my firm belief that in the statements made by Miss Wells concerning white women having taken the initiative in nameless acts between the races she has put an imputation upon half the white race in this country that is unjust, and, save in the rarest exceptional instances, wholly without foundation. This is the unanimous opinion of the most disinterested and ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... disguised. They showed frequent hostility towards coal-heavers, dockers, sailors, fishermen, and sundry other grades of workmen with whom they came in contact, but that is not to say they were always successful in their attacks, though they invariably took the initiative. In the old days the average British tar could not solve the mystery as to what foreigners, and especially Frenchmen, were made for; even at the present time they put on a lordly air when they come in contact ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... hands—after a little practice—with astonishing results. In two days we had, we prided ourselves, raised such collaboration from the ranks of the Mechanical to the society of the Fine Arts. My part was comparatively easy. Sinking his initiative he had more nearly converted himself into an intelligent piece of mechanism than I would have believed possible. It would, of course, be vain to suggest that Pong would not have gone faster if I had been able to drive with my own hands, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... of passing the act, was empowered; and that all laws or ordinances so made, subject to the provisions thereinafter contained for disallowance thereof by her majesty, should have the like force and effect as laws passed by the legislative bodies. The governor was further to have the initiative of all measures proposed in the council, five of whom were required for a quorum. Certain restrictive provisoes followed these provisions; and it was directed that a copy of every such law or ordinance "be transmitted to the home government;" and her ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... not disappear. The people at the Fort, even Allan Mowbray, himself, when he returned, dismissed the matter without further consideration. He laughed at the panic which had arisen in his absence, while yet he commended Murray's initiative and courage. ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... the ordinary was happening, though he did not know what, slung a maxim tripod over his shoulders, picked up a gun under each arm, and went straightaway to the centre of activity—a feat not only of wonderful physical strength, but considerable initiative and courage. We did not suffer heavy casualties, but 2nd Lieut. Mould's platoon had their parapet destroyed in one or two places, and had to re-build it under heavy fire, in which Pte. J.H. Cramp, the Battalion hairdresser, distinguished himself. Except for ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... there remained but one field of useful popularity for the onion to adorn; in time it might hope to supplant the sunflower as the floral emblem of Kansas, as typifying a great political principle which originated in that state: The Initiative, when one took a chance and ate a young onion; the Referendum, while one's digestive apparatus wrestled with it; the Recall, if it disagreed with one. Alone, of all the vegetables, stood spinach, with not a single detractor. On this issue the ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... was devoted to the king, but had no credit with the nation. The ministry had neither the initiative nor opposition; the initiative was in the hands of the Jacobins, and the executive power with the mob. The king, without an organ, without privilege, without force, had merely the odious responsibility of anarchy. He was the butt against which all parties directed the hate or rage of the people. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... President of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President of Mexico, on his own initiative, should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... big and powerful man—he was also courageous, but the absence of Dodge and the presence of Cunningham offered such sinister omen that temporarily he was bereft of his natural wit and initiative. ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... many defects. Mill decides in favour of democracy mainly on the ground that 'it promotes a better and higher form of national character than any other polity,' since government by authority stunts the intellect, narrows the sympathies, and destroys the power of initiative. 'The perfect commonwealth,' says Mr. Zimmern,' is a society of free men and women, each at once ruling and being ruled,' It is also fair to argue that monarchies do not escape the worst evils of democracies. An autocracy is often obliged to oppress the educated classes and to propitiate ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... happiest of mortals to whom God has given contentment.' He performs his daily labor, makes his prostrations, smokes his chibouk, and lives oblivious of care. He is far from being indifferent to reforms, but is loth to take the initiative in political innovations and social wars. His heart is with the cause, but here also he is resigned: 'God is great—His will be done.' This same spirit of resignation and submission to the divine will, from being a virtue ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... [Initiative and individuality missing.] The want of originality, which among the mestizos, appears to arise from their equivocal position, is also to be found among the natives. Distinctly marked national customs, which one would naturally ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... well-nigh appalled as I contrasted the sluggish conversation, the hide-bound officialism, the stereotyped and sleepy methods of the Western Powers with the sleepless energy, the daring initiative, the desperate industry and courage ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... give you plenty of proofs of this.... The following sentences occur in a letter written from Delhi during our recent panic, by an officer.... 'The native force here is much too small to be a source of anxiety, and unless they take the initiative it is my opinion that there can be no important rising. The Mussulmans of Delhi are a contemptible race. Fanatics are very rare on this side of the Sutlej. The terrors of that period when every man who had two enemies was sure to swing are not forgotten. The people declare ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... own regiments. It is good training for us. At home a subaltern is merely a machine to carry out orders; he is told to do this, and he does it; for him to think for himself would be a heinous offence. He is altogether without responsibility, and without initiative and, by the time he becomes a field officer, he is hidebound. He has never thought for himself, and he can't be expected to begin to do so, after working for twenty years ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of 5 administering the affairs of a continent under the form of a democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, also have brought the care and anxiety 10 inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... its sovereign, and the jungle domain took its place among recognized governments. The principal purposes animating the founders were the suppression of the slave trade and the conversion of the territory into a combined factory and a market for all the nations. It was largely due to Belgian initiative that the traffic in human beings which denuded all Central Africa of its bone and sinew every year, ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... a remarkable man, an interesting man, a man of power, of initiative, of will, of persistence; a man who plans vastly and who realizes his plans; a man who not only does things himself, but who, even more important than that, is the constant inspiration of others. I shall write ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... of England in Ireland finds an exact parallel, although on a smaller scale and for a shorter period, in the early foolishness of England in her own colonies. In both cases there is an attempt to suppress individuality and initiative, to exploit, to bully, to Downing Street-ify. It was a policy of Unionism, the sort of Unionism that linked the destiny of the lady to that of the tiger. The fruits of it were a little bitter in the eating. The colonies in which under the Home ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... bring my reflections on the preceding legends to an end. Polygamy apparently was unknown in the distant times we are considering. But the marriage bond was not indissoluble, and the initiative in the separation was taken ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... ever-welcome friend of teachers and children all over the wide and often remote districts of the West country which his work covered. He had not the gifts of his elder brothers—neither the genius of Matthew nor the restless energy and initiative of William Delafield, nor the scholarly and researching tastes of my father; and his later life was always a struggle against ill-health. But he had Matthew's kindness, and Matthew's humor—the "chaff" between the two brothers was endless!—and a large allowance of William's ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... resolutions. The financial crisis had just overthrown the fortunes of the people; they turned towards God and began to pray. On a route of three thousand miles, wherever one might stop, he found a meeting, a simple, spontaneous meeting, at which the pastors did not take the initiative, where they were present instead of presiding. Ere long, public attention became fixed on this movement, the greatness of which could not be contested; the most hostile journals ended by rendering it homage. And it lasted, it still subsists, it has produced something else than meetings ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... from these mere physical activities, he was preparing for the culmination of his work in the new parliament. It must be remembered not only that he distrusted the intelligence and initiative of colonial ministers too much to dream of giving place to them, but that his theory of his own position—the benevolent despot, secured in his supremacy through popular management—forced on him an elaborate programme ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... and easy adaptiveness, exactly fitted it to experiment by all the dreaming forces of the American woman. They were good needlewomen by inheritance and sensitive to art influences by nature, and the initiative capacity which belongs to power and feeling enabled them at once to seize upon this mode of expression and make it their own. It was the means of inaugurating another era of true decorative needlework, perfectly adapted to the capacity of all women, and destined to be developed on lines ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... of Russian-Polish relations has begun, and the noble initiative of A.J. Konovalov, who has donated 10,000 rubles for the needs of the war victims of ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... explained, "I won't seem to be accomplishing much, as I always lay the foundation of my future work by studying my men. Some men have that within them which spurs them on; while some need artificial initiative—outside encouragement," he quoted glibly from "How to Get More Out of Your Factory." "Some men extend themselves under stern discipline; some respond only to a gentle rein. I study men—the men over me, under me, around me. I study them and learn how to get from each the most that is in ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... standing side by side when you break the seal of the last communication, written or oral, which I shall probably ever submit to you. For our paths, henceforth, will lead us widely apart, Derrington. You are a free agent, the arbiter of your own destiny; I am one who can take no initiative regarding the paths I must tread. But this letter is not to speak of myself, but is to tell you about her, if, perchance, when you read these words, you have ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... ye, Bill? How's old Initiative and Referendum? When you coming back to Manhattan? You wouldn't know the old town now. Main Street is building up, and there is talk of an English firm putting up a new hotel. I saw Duffy a few days ago. He looks kind of thoughtful as if he were trying to calculate how much ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... good shots, good at billiards and tennis, good sailors, etc., giving their whole attention to each matter, though without enthusiasm. It is this dull concentration on particular callings which has deprived their character of that vital force, initiative, which, while the greatest of safeguards to rival nations, has removed from the Chinese mind the power to comprehend and carry out large and complicated undertakings involving the handling and direction of modern systems and appliances. The Chinaman ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... with every natural avenue of redress closed, and flushed with recent victory, the Covenanters resolved not only to hold together for defensive purposes, but to take the initiative, push their advantage, and fight for civil and religious liberty. It was the old, old fight, which has convulsed the world probably since the days of Eden—the uprising of the persecuted many against the tyrannical few. In the confusions of a sin-stricken world, ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... not until late in the afternoon that Blucher Peabody, the druggist, awoke from his lethargy and moved as though he intended to take the initiative. "Blootch" was Rosalie's most persistent admirer. He had fallen heir to his father's apothecary shop and notion store, and he was regarded as one of the best catches in town. He approached the half-frozen crowd that huddled near old Mrs. Luce's front gate. In this crowd were some ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... headland, and was still advancing. Already there was no way of escape by the sands, and the cove itself would be a bay in a little while—a bay without a boat! If he did not wake and bestir himself, the callous waves would come and cover him. Should she call? She was shy of taking the initiative even to save his life, and hesitated a moment, and in that moment there came a crash. The treacherous clay cliff crumbled, and the great mass of it on which she was lying slid down bodily on to the shining sand. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... the point that Peter himself disproved his own statement. At the time Peter felt there was an clench in the Illinoisan's logic, but he was not skilful enough to analyze it. Now the mulatto began to see that Farquhar was right. The negro question was a matter of individual initiative. Critics forgot that a race was composed of ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... improved the chances for copper mining to return to profitability and spur economic growth. Copper output has increased steadily since 2004, due to higher copper prices and foreign investment. In 2005, Zambia qualified for debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative, consisting of approximately USD 6 billion in debt relief. Zambia experienced a bumper harvest in 2007, which helped to boost GDP and agricultural exports and contain inflation. Although poverty continues to be ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... enterprise alone could make little headway in the actual colonization of the Negroes in a territory sufficiently distant to be beyond the pale of the white population. The one item of expense was too serious a handicap for individual initiative to overcome. Besides the case of Captain Izard Bacon of Virginia, who temporarily removed his fifty-two freedmen to Pennsylvania to await a favorable time for sending them over sea,[235] and of Mary Matthews of King George's ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... broadened the list of recommended books year by year, and have sought to improve the method of teaching literature. Especially have they hoped to create in the pupil the habit of reading good books and of discovering new material on his own initiative. Thus far their success has fallen much below their hopes, as the testimony of librarians, adduced above, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... new. A new Corps. A new element in which to work. New conditions in peace akin to those in war. And there had to be developed a new spirit, combining the discipline of the old Army, the technical skill of the Navy, and the initiative, energy and dash inseparable from flying. There were the inevitable accidents, but training had to be done. We existed for war and war alone would show whether we had thought and worked without respite aright. ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... looked at. She knew and was secretly amused at the fiasco that always attended the introduction of amiable young ladies to Ashbridge, and had warned her sister-in-law that Michael, when he chose the girl he wanted, would certainly do it on his own initiative. Now she felt sure that Michael, though he might not be aware of it himself, was, even if he had not chosen, beginning to choose. There was that in his eyes which none of the importations to Ashbridge ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... wait until madame Wang could open her mouth, but took the initiative to reply. "Our venerable lady," she urged, "had, even so late as yesterday, said that she meant to come; but, in the evening, upon seeing brother Pao eating peaches, the mouth of the old lady once again began to water, and after partaking of a little more ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Englishmen from flying at each other's throats. If they paid for peace by the continuance of foreign rule, it was better to be governed by Pandulf than pillaged by Falkes. The principal events of these years were due to papal initiative.[1] Honorius looked askance on the maimed rites of the Gloucester coronation, and ordered a new hallowing to take place at the accustomed place and with the accustomed ceremonies. This supplementary ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... hedge, and coolly reloaded their guns. Yet they, as well as their opponents, understood that time was fighting against them, and as soon as it became obvious that those in the barn intended no sortie they assumed the initiative. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... their shoulders spread. On th' other side, upon the fair hill's brow, Phoebus with Mars the fort-destroyer sat. On either side they sat, each facing each With hostile counsels; yet reluctant both To take th' initiative of ruthless war; Till Jove, enthron'd on high, the signal gave. Then all the plain, with men and horses throng'd, The brazen gleam illumin'd; rang the earth Beneath their feet, as to the battle-shock ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... continued on. "There are conditions for everything, commander. Men react according to certain patterns, given the proper circumstances. It is characteristic of the sort of men you will encounter on your new ship that they are unlikely to take the initiative in such matters, partly from their early training and partly from their association with a CO who pretty well dominated them. However, they will readily condone it if somebody else does take the initiative in their behalf. Particularly, if that man has some official ...
— Shock Absorber • E.G. von Wald
... given. She had declared herself to be afraid of Bios. She did not in the least doubt that great things might be ultimately done with Bios, but she did not quite see the way with her small capital,—thus humbly did she speak of her wealth,—to be one of those who should take the initiative in the matter. Bios evidently required a great deal of advertisement, and Lizzie Eustace had a short-sighted objection to expend what money she had saved on the hoardings of London. Then he opened to her the glories of Guatemala, not contenting himself with describing the certainty ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Socialism for at least five hundred years.... The Socialist political party-this is the vanguard of the working-class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative.... But in order to lead the wavering, the comrades Left Socialist ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... had been talking I had heard the cannonade in the distance—now at the north and now in the east. This seemed a proper moment, inspired by the fact that he was talking war, of his own initiative, to put a question or ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... is no real, efficient head to the committee," returned Allingham. "Blatchley's afraid of running counter to Mann; or if not exactly that, he waits for our acting mayor to take the initiative." ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... present case, when it is borne in mind that these various industries above described (whose annual sales run into many millions of dollars) owe not only their very creation (except the Bates machine) and existence to Edison's inventive originality and commercial initiative, but also their continued growth and prosperity to his incessant activities in dealing with their multifarious business problems. In publishing a portrait of Edison this year, one of the popular magazines placed under ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... by Thomas, Archbishop of York. Meanwhile the king enjoyed the temporalities of the see. In his person we meet a figure of much importance to the history of the fabric and see, for to his energy and initiative we owe the greater part of the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... are associated with Cairo, Teheran, Malta, and Potsdam, is evident.[253] The Executive Agreement thus became, in an era in which the instability of international relations forbade successful efforts at treaty-making, the principal instrument of Presidential initiative in the field of foreign relations. Whether the United Nations Charter and the Atlantic Pact signalize the end of this era will doubtless ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... of the hours; but these welcome messengers were infrequent, brief, and somewhat cold. They left Bertha so unsatisfied that before the close of the first year of her cousin's absence she opened a correspondence with him herself. The initiative letter was suggested by pleasant tidings, which she hastened to send. It was written immediately after the eighteenth anniversary of her birthday, and communicated the agreeable intelligence that upon that day she had again received a token of remembrance ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... said. "Please hail me after this—because I don't care to take the initiative. If you neglect to do it, don't count on my hailing you . . ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... particular hurry about it, either, this hot afternoon; but, for all that, Lee Bryant was proceeding on important business—important for him, anyhow. When everything one possesses is about to be risked on a venture, the matter is naturally vital; and at this moment he was moving straight to the initiative of his enterprise. ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... to work, and then loved to work; but, unless the stimulus were maintained the natural indolence of my disposition asserted itself, and I wasted my powers in dreams and trifles. My memory was very quick and retentive, in the main, but curiously capricious. I always lacked initiative and decision. At college my successes were continued. I gained medals and prizes, passed my examinations easily, and graduated 'with first-class honors.' In my professional lifework I have been successful rather beyond the average. I love ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... no questions, feeling that the initiative lay with him; but we drove on till we were at the gates of Gorice, and I burst out laughing when I heard the count order the coachman to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Association" to create public sentiment were vigorously seconded by the efforts of high official personages to set on foot concerted official action in aid of disunion. In this also, with becoming expressions of modesty, South Carolina took the initiative. On the 5th of October, Governor Gist wrote the following confidential letter, which he dispatched by a secret agent to his colleagues, the several Governors of the Cotton States, whom the bearer, General S.R. Gist, visited in turn during ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... companion who did not know how to think, and whose stock of ideas was so slight that the only common ground of talk between them was gossip and quodlibets. But her lack of sprightliness, beauty, grace, refinement, and that gentle initiative by which women may make even a sombre life so various, went for nothing with him. What his friends missed in her, he did not seek and would not have valued; and what he found in her, they were naturally ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... which convened at Hadley, was the first organized demonstration against the evangelical portion of the Low Church. Its initiative act was the adoption of a catechism which contained the views of the High Churchmen, and was the first issue of the celebrated series of Tracts which gave to the new movement the name of Tractarianism. It was published in 1833, and the last of the series, the ninetieth, appeared seven ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... territory, badly stung. These are illustrations, one of them on the largest scale, and the other belonging wholly to our own time and country, of the worth even of a very small minority, in such an initiative as is demanded now. What was done in Kansas can be done again in Florida, in Texas, if Texas do not take care for herself, in either Carolina, in any Southern State where the "righteous men" do not themselves appear to take ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... time, appeared wholly unpromising, turned out to be of cardinal value. We should be warned that what we gain in a thousand cases through time-clock and card-catalogue methods, might be lost ten times over through the shackling of the initiative of a single man of unrecognized genius. And all this would be very much to the purpose; but it is not upon any such special pleading that the case ought to be made to rest. The loss that would be suffered transcends all these concrete and definable instances of it. It would be ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... suspected him, the silly idiots! They might have known he hasn't the initiative to do a thing like that. And the girl can't prove her relationship to Uncle Douglas, just as I expected. I thought there might be some difficulty about that. But I wish I could find the will he made in her favour. I should feel safer then, for she told ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... had by this time grasped, told him more than her words; whether something had come into it, or whether he only read clearer, her whole story—what at least he then took for such—reached out to him from it. With the initiative she now attributed to Chad it all made a sense, and this sense—a light, a lead, was what had abruptly risen before him. He wanted, once more, to get off with these things; which was at last made easy, a servant having, for his assistance, on hearing voices in the hall, just ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... constructed, the squares and park-lands transformed from untidy wildernesses into handsome oases, and the general aspect of the city entirely transformed. I do not know that I ever saw so much done entirely at the initiative and by the energy and ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... hare-brained than ever, and he suspected that Enriquez had acquiesced in it only because of a natural inability to refuse anything to a pretty woman—that was typically Cuban. But his respect for Miss Evans's energy and initiative deepened when, on arriving at 56 New Street, he discovered that she had forestalled him and was even then closeted with the man he had come to see. Johnnie waited uneasily; he was dismayed when the girl finally appeared, with Enriquez in tow, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... the simile, the net of unconscious precedent is too closely drawn, the mesh of instinct is too fine to hope for any initiative. This was manifested by the most significant and spectacular occurrence I have ever observed in the world of insects. One year and a half ago I studied and reported upon, a nest of Ecitons or army ants.[3] Now, eighteen months later, apparently the same army appeared ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... delicacies as to the lady's side taking the initiative: and, in effect, the wealth and power of Wildschloss so much exceeded those of the elder branch that it would have been presumptuous on Eberhard's part to have made the proposal. It was more a treaty than an affair of hearts, and Sir Kasimir had not even gone through the form of inquiring if ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... know that Joyce had a visitor who might have influenced her to take this step; but I have reason to believe that Joyce did not act upon this other's initiative entirely. She had certain knowledge of her own that—urged the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... reprehensible talk, but much not truly reported; and his censors let their prejudices seduce them into treating the entire mass as evidence of facts and acts. If he ever instructed his officers to commence the expedition to the Mine by taking the initiative in an attack on San Thome, the direction was confined to talk. If, whether before or after the San Thome incident, he spoke of the capture of the plate fleet, that was nothing but talk. Captain Parker's ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... cleaving some bold and original way to the heart of a difficulty, as was his wont, he could see no ray of light thrown by the candle of his own inspiration. Inspiration, in fact, he wholly lacked. Once only in the past—after an attack of influenza—had he felt so barren of initiative as ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... berth, and a chance to lie back and look on. And while that helped to ripen his wisdom, it sapped his initiative. ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... prodigies and portents spring. Many of his ideas were in the air, and did not belong to him peculiarly; but so strangely rapid and perfect was his assimilation of them, so vigorous and minutely penetrative was the quality of his understanding, so firm and independent his initiative, that even these were instantly stamped with the express image of his personality. In a word, Voltaire's work from first to last was alert with unquenchable life. Some of it, much of it, has ceased to be alive for us now in all that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... concurrence which in those days was of far more easy attainment over book-burning or anything else than it is in our own time, or is ever likely to be in the future. It would also seem that during the eighteenth century it was generally the House of Lords that took the initiative in the time-honoured practice of condemning disagreeable opinions to the care ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... events in this fashion, thus seeking to minimise the importance of fatality, looking upon it as some vague and wandering creature that we have to shelter and guide. We gain the more courage thereby, the more confidence, initiative; and these are qualities essential to the doing of anything useful; and they shall stand us in good stead, too, when our own hour of danger draws nigh. But for all that, we do not pretend that there truly is no other ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the machine was set in motion by a violent bombardment. By the 8th the Austrians captured the bridgehead of Zaleszczyki; on the 9th the Russians drove them out again, capturing 500 men, 3 big guns, 1 field gun, and a number of machine guns. On May 10 the Russians took the initiative and attacked a front of about forty miles, along the entire Dniester line from west of Niczviska to Uscie Biskupic, crossed into the Bukowina and advanced to within five miles of Czernowitz from the east. A little ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... horrible activities is Mrs. Augusta Charleworth, occupying a high social position, but of German birth and therefore a German sympathizer. She is clever, and her brains supplement those of Dyer, who seems more shrewd than initiative, being content to execute the orders of others. Dyer was educated at Heidelburg, in Germany, which accounts, perhaps, for his being pro-German, although I suspect he is pro-anything that will pay him money. Dyer and the Hon. Andrew Duncan, while political pals, are not connected in ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... filled her pitcher, swung it lightly to her shoulder—and as the woman sometimes takes the initiative in an affair of this kind—smiled upon the willing and ready-looking fellow; not exactly at him, but as it were in his direction, you know; and he caught the faint glint of sunshine on her lips, and then—but in the ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... government, in society, in the church. But the civil wars, the manners returning to barbarism, the necessity for each to execute justice for himself,—these formed men comparable to those Italians of the sixteenth century, in whom Taine praises 'the vigorous initiative, the habit of sudden resolutions and desperate undertakings, the grand capacity to do and to suffer.' In Japan as in Italy 'the rude manners of the Middle Ages made of man a superb animal, wholly militant ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... few meagre possessions, and entered without zest upon his work. Somehow, the keenness had been taken out of him by that hour's conversation in the darkened bureau of the Chief. The weeks passed slowly, but Mercier never regained his enthusiasm. The physical atmosphere took all initiative away. His comrades were listless beings, always tired, dragging slowly to their daily rounds, and finishing their work early in the morning before the heat became intolerable. Then for hours they rested—retired to their bungalows or that of a comrade, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... condition of the general class thought in our country it has become the fixed conviction that no colored man has any well-defined power of initiative, that the colored man has no originality of thought, that in his mental operations he is everlastingly content to pursue the beaten paths of imitation, that therefore he has made no contribution to the inventive genius of our country, and so has gained no ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker
... true, generally, but of course in an infinitely lesser degree, of most of our immigrants. Usually it is the nervy and imaginative men who go to a new country. Our own pioneers were endowed with daring and vision. They had the courage and initiative to leave the scarcely warmed beds of their new-made homes and push farther on into ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... again, and Mr. Widden, with a despairing gesture, abandoned himself to gloom. He made no further interruptions, but at the conclusion of the walk hesitated so long on the door-step that Mr. Letts had to take the initiative. ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... gain to humanity consequent on the unbelief, or rather disbelief, in witchcraft and wizardry. Apart from the brutality by Christians towards those suspected of witchcraft, the hindrance to scientific initiative or experiment was incalculably great so long as belief in magic obtained. The inventions of the past two centuries, and especially those of the 18th century, might have benefitted mankind much earlier and much more largely, but for the foolish belief in witchcraft ...
— Humanity's Gain from Unbelief - Reprinted from the "North American Review" of March, 1889 • Charles Bradlaugh
... pull upon our faculties. He concluded that our educators, overwhelmed by the size and vigor of American industry, were too timid to seize upon the industrial situation, and to extract its enormous educational value. He lamented that this lack of courage and initiative failed not only to fit the child for an intelligent and conscious participation in industrial life, but that it was reflected in the industrial development itself; that industry had fallen back into old habits, and repeated traditional mistakes until American ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... overwhelm and destroy the detachments—Dundee and Ladysmith—in detail; they together being rightly considered one fraction of the enemy's whole force, present or hurrying over sea. So regarded, the vigour with which the British took the initiative, assumed the offensive, themselves in turn attacking in detail, and severely punishing, the separate factors of the enemy's {p.057} combination, is worthy of great praise. Sir Penn Symons is perhaps entitled to the greater meed because to him fell, ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... the condensation of the primary substance into concrete aggregation, and also does this in certain areas to the exclusion of others, we cannot avoid attributing to Spirit the power of Selection and of taking an Initiative on its ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... requirements to be a bed-sitting-room (with use of bath) within the four-mile radius than all four agents offered him a Tudor manor house in Westmoreland; further, they refused to offer him anything else, but on his own initiative he discovered a studio in Glebe Place and a ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Marshal in his dispatch speaks of the "brilliant and predominating part" played by the two Dominion Corps—the "skill and determination of the infantry," the "fine performance" of the cavalry. By this victory the British Army recovered the initiative it had temporarily lost. All was changed. And even more striking than the actual gains in ground, prisoners, and guns, was the effect upon the morale of both German and British troops. The Germans could hardly believe their defeat; the ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tell the real worth of any man to the army. Some men, who are efficient and valuable, in times of quiet, are not able to stand up in the gruelling of a battle; while other men, ordinarily useless and difficult to handle, will develop wonderful initiative, resourcefulness, and daring under stress or emergency. The quality of heroism may be surrounded by the most unlikely exterior—but at the supreme moment the hero in every man will come out and he may surprise us by rising to ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... and of legal knowledge of great value in that time of College chaos and disagreement; and he displayed uncommon tact and abundant patience and energy in his efforts to solve the delicate problems with which the University was then confronted. It was largely through his initiative that the movement was undertaken for the securing of a new Charter. In 1847 he accepted the post of Assistant Provincial Secretary, but as the seat of Government was then in Montreal he still remained Principal of McGill. After the burning of the Parliament Buildings and the violence in connection ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... For the latter I had attacked, the former I had defended. The latter, too, though the very existence of the Republic was to be risked in my person, had yet a certain great object in view; nor was it wholly on his own initiative, but with the support of those who could not be safe as long as I was so. But this ape of a fellow, in sheer wantonness, had selected me as an object for his invectives, and had persuaded certain persons[723] who were jealous of me that he would always be a ready instrument for ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... particular job; but does he not in time, because of his very expertness, lapse into a machine whose hands move automatically and whose mind is idle? Such a result is fatal both to his intellect and his will. He becomes passive until at length all initiative is destroyed. For many years the colored people of the South reaped precisely this harvest of mental inertia. Now, thank heaven, they are rousing out of the lethargy that has been their inheritance ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... that she had to take the initiative in excuses. Sophy was so meek with weariness, that she took pretty well all the kind fidgeting that could not be averted from her, and Miss Meadows's discourse chiefly tended to assurances that Mrs. Kendal ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and self-contained; and Carpenter carried Hicks away to bestow him, together with Dunne, in a hole in the malt-house under a heap of sacking. Nelthorp had already vanished completely on his own initiative. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... end of some fifteen or twenty minutes, she failed to reappear, he determined to take the initiative himself. By intruding upon this prolonged conference he hoped to learn something of value. Truth to tell, he was no master of finesse, and had but recently been promoted from an East End district where prompt physical action was of more value ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... been more frequently dealt with; or rather, that thinkers postulating that infinity {7} as a basal axiom should have been comparatively blind to its logical implications. For if God is infinite, then He is all; and if He is all, what becomes of human individuality, or how are human initiative and responsibility so much as thinkable? Benjamin Jowett, in his Essay on Predestination and Freewill, glanced at this problem in passing, and the remarks he made upon it more than fifty years ago, if somewhat tentative, are well ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... their neighbors, who were extremely interested and full of suggestions, but showed no inclination whatever to come and help turn the intruders out. That was a thing which had never been attempted in their village, and the prairie dogs were not noted for their initiative. In learning to get together and live in villages they had apparently exhausted it all. They were always ready to chatter, from morning to night, about anything, and protest against it, and declare that it must not be permitted, but they always shirked the bother of united ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Leopold as its sovereign, and the jungle domain took its place among recognized governments. The principal purposes animating the founders were the suppression of the slave trade and the conversion of the territory into a combined factory and a market for all the nations. It was largely due to Belgian initiative that the traffic in human beings which denuded all Central Africa of its bone and sinew every year, was brought to ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... themselves is tantamount to saying that without the Jew, the Russian nation can not reach the road of its own emancipation. No, however great my respect for the exceptional gifts of the Jewish people may be, I will not refuse the Russian nation the ability of taking the initiative in the ...
— The Shield • Various
... to the idea for which Germany now stands, the Anglo-Saxon instinctively and tenaciously believes in the liberty and initiative of the individual. We, of course, are no longer Anglo-Saxon. When De Tocqueville in 1831 visited our country, surveyed our institutions and, after returning home, made his trenchant diagnosis of our democracy, he could justly designate us ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... incautious word or a foolish joke against the Government was considered a serious crime, and might be punished by a long exile in some distant and inhospitable part of the Empire. Progress should by all means be made, but it must be made by word of command, and in the way ordered. Private initiative in any form was a thing on no account to be tolerated. Nicholas never suspected that a ruler, however well-intentioned, energetic, and legally autocratic he may be, can do but little without the co-operation ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... as they floundered and wallowed for interminable seconds over the greasy mud with the bullets slapping and smacking about them, as they wrenched and struggled over their own wire—where Ainsley, as it happened, had to wait to help his sergeant, who for all the advantage of their initiative in the attack and in the Germans being barely risen to meet it, had been caught by a bayonet-thrust in the thigh—the scramble across the parapet and hurried roll over into ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... that evening of his own initiative, for Irwin's morning salutation did not promise anything in the way of an invitation. A letter from Mrs. Irwin had, to his surprise, begged his company at this hour. He had gathered from the tone of the letter ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... mean part. The object of the People's Power League of Oregon is to free the representative assemblies of the State from the domination of political bosses, and an amendment to the constitution, providing for the adoption of proportional representation was, on the initiative of this League, submitted to the electorate in 1908 and carried with a large majority. The Oregon Legislature, which met in January 1909, was bitterly opposed to the change, and refused to pass the Representation Bill ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... and ways of the bishop.—His origin, age, capability, mode of living, labor, initiative, undertakings, and moral and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... put his arm round his shoulders that he might whisper to him; then he continued, screaming loudly: "Every act consists of three parts, my brother: Progresses, culmen, regressus. I will speak to you of the first, the second is never mentioned. Well, the initiative, so to speak, that is the man's privilege—your part! You must take the initiative, you ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... my unworthy breast, and that the mere fact of your bodily presence is agony to me. When I met you to-day I was battling with my invention to devise some means of leaving the place where you are without exciting suspicion. If you ever loved, have pity on me now; take the initiative, and rid me ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... purpose of the revolutionary leaders was to preserve the alliance with America. Robespierre at that time ( 1793) had special charge of diplomatic affairs, and it is shown by the French historian, Frederic Masson, that he was very anxious to recover for the republic the initiative of the American alliance credited to the king; and "although their Minister, Gouverneur Morris, was justly suspected, and the American republic was at that time aiming only to utilize the condition of its ally, the French republic cleared it at a cheap rate of its debts contracted ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... they got their eight-hour day they did not turn their leisure to production. And some of them dared to claim that the manual toilers alone produced the wealth and should alone be permitted to enjoy it, as if it were possible or desirable to choke off initiative and adventure or to devise a society in which the man whose ambition is to avoid work will set the pace for the man who loves it for itself and whose discontent goads him on to self-improvement! As if it were possible or desirable for the man who works half-heartedly ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... garden too and worked. And his work Neville felt that she too could have done; it was work needing initiative and creative thought, work suitable to his forty-five years, not cramming in knowledge from books. Neville at times thought that she too would stand for parliament one day. A foolish, childish game it was, and probably really therefore more in ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... under the guidance of Barneveld, were not likely to be driven headlong by Brandenburg and Neuburg. They managed with caution, but with perfect courage, to move side by side with Henry, and to leave the initiative to him, while showing an unfaltering front to the enemy. That the princes were lost, Spain and the Emperor triumphant, unless Henry and the States should protect them with all their strength, was as plain ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... empirically some of the principal perturbations that those bodies undergo, in their revolving motions around the powerful planet that rules them; but they had not been traced up to the principles of universal attraction. The initiative honour in this respect belongs to Bailly. Nor is this honour decreased by the ulterior and considerable improvements that the science has since received; even the discoveries of Lagrange and of Laplace have left ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... even went so far as to draw up a plan of action, which he submitted to his chief. Lincoln soon showed, however, that he was not a follower, but a leader of men, beneath whose good nature and kindly spirit was a power of initiative that has rarely been equalled among the statesmen of the world. Even the dictatorial Secretary of War found it necessary to yield to the President on all points that the latter regarded as being fundamental. ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... Angelica spent some time in the library together that morning. The bishop had sent for Angelica to talk to her, and she had come to talk to the bishop; and, being quicker of speech than he, she had taken the initiative. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... like their modern descendants, were fatalists, and a happy carelessness seems to have softened the strenuousness of their daily tasks. The peasants of the present day in Egypt so lack the initiative to develop the scope of their industries that their life cannot be said to be strenuous. In whatever work they undertake, however, they show a wonderful degree of cheerfulness, and a fine disregard for misfortune. Their ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... war. Joy was the order of the day, but the fatal mistakes of the campaign had already commenced; there had been inexcusable delay in declaring war; if it was pardonable to wait for the Milanese initiative, it was as inexpedient as it seemed ungenerous to wait till the issue of the struggle at Milan was decided. Then, after the declaration of war, considering that the Sardinian Government must have seen its imminence for weeks, and indeed for months, there was more time ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... more to a fuller recognition of the claims of individuality. The State is to be progressive, it is no longer to be static, and this alters the general condition of the Utopian problem profoundly; we have to provide not only for food and clothing, for order and health, but for initiative. The factor that leads the World State on from one phase of development to the next is the interplay of individualities; to speak teleologically, the world exists for the sake of and through initiative, and individuality is the method of initiative. Each man and woman, to the extent that his ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... determined to do serious work and who have ability to cope with these problems should be admitted. Every attempt to popularize the course should be discouraged. The class might be carried on under the auspices of a church, a charity organization society, or even of a library. The initiative should be taken by some one person with the requisite discrimination, tact, and organizing skill. According to my outline a two- years' course is needed, involving an hour of class work once a week, with, if possible, five hours a week of study, ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... He can take the direct loss on his books and go ahead and do business or he can stop doing business and take the loss of idleness. The loss of not doing business is commonly a loss greater than the actual money involved, for during the period of idleness fear will consume initiative and, if the shutdown is long enough, there will be no energy left over to start up ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... we suggest that an international conference be called to recommend the passage of identical laws providing for the safety of all at sea, and we urge the United States Government to take the initiative as ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... accomplish this end. It is much easier to say what one shall not do than what one must do to change self-will into strength of character, slyness into prudence, the desire to please into amiability, restlessness into personal initiative. It can only be brought about by recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic or perverse, is as natural and indispensable as the good, and that it becomes a permanent evil ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... On the first evening, she did little but go over the details of the afternoon. It was the first time her sympathies had ever been thoroughly aroused, and they threw a new light on her character. She had some power of initiative, latent before, which now began to exert itself. She looked more practically upon her state and began to see glimmerings of a way out. Hurstwood seemed a drag in the direction of honour. Her feelings were exceedingly creditable, in that they constructed ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... constituted ordinary and eight extraordinary torture; and this latter was seldom inflicted, except on those condemned to death, as almost no one ever survived it, the sufferer's legs being crushed to a pulp before he left the torturer's bands. In this case M. de Laubardemont on his own initiative, for it had never been done before, added two wedges to those of the extraordinary torture, so that instead of eight, ten were to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... terrible shyness for the girl. Why she, the belle of two seasons, whose composure always had been the envy of the girls of her age, should stand overcome with embarrassment before this jeans-clad German she truly did not know. All power of initiative seemed to have passed from her, and von Rittenheim stood before her and feasted his eyes upon her in a way that she had been wont to condemn as "horridly foreign," and she did ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... a half-smiling wistfulness, as if he would be glad enough to take her tone, were the thing only possible. But for such a juncture as this he had little initiative and less momentum, and he realized ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... only see before me a choice of two evils. To wait for events—with the too certain prospect of a vindictive betrayal of my indiscretion by Helena Gracedieu. Or to take the initiative into my own hands, and risk consequences which I might regret to the end of my life, by making my confession to ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... condition of the young, inexpert working girl must be ameliorated by the speedy opening of a trade school for those who have reached the age to obtain working papers; (4) if public instruction could not immediately undertake the organization of such a school, then private initiative must do it, even though it must depend for its support upon voluntary contributions. The result was that an extreme effort was put forth and the following November the first trade school in America, for girls of fourteen years of ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... same that it has always been: it is the hope and confidence that out of unknown homes will come men who will constitute themselves the masters of industry and of politics. The average hopefulness, the average welfare, the average enterprise, the average initiative, of the United States are the only things that make it rich. We are not rich because a few gentlemen direct our industry; we are rich because of our own intelligence and our own industry. America does not consist ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... lacks the dash, nerve, vim and initiative essential to a successful flier. He is moulded as a cog. He is part of a system—out of that he must not move. It has wrecked his initiative, and the sneer of the greatest German in history, Frederick the Great, ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... the value of 12,000 pieces of eight. Myngs was an active, intrepid commander, but apparently avaricious and impatient of control. He seems to have endeavoured to divert most of the prize money into the pockets of his officers and men, by disposing of the booty on his own initiative before giving a strict account of it to the governor or steward-general of the island. Doyley writes that there was a constant market aboard the "Marston Moor," and that Myngs and his officers, alleging it to be customary to break and plunder the holds, permitted the twenty-two chests ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... offered, and assisting the lady to gather up her bundles, Mr. Opp bowed her out, and turned to face the embarrassing necessity of giving instructions to his new employee. He was relieved to find, however, that the young gentleman in question possessed initiative; for Nick had promptly removed his coat, and fallen to work, putting things to rights with an energy and ability that caused Mr. Opp to offer up a prayer ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... be understood how ministers of undoubted ability and consecration, are backward to inaugurate such a movement. That many are in hearty sympathy with such a reformation, I know well. Only let the men in the Missionary Movement take a constitutional initiative in the matter, and they will be surprised how many ministers will be with them. I know for a fact that many are longing ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... men, the finest army that had ever been seen in Mexico—an army which he was maintaining at a daily cost of $23,000. Alvarez was equally strong in his mountain fastnesses, in the affections of the Pintos, or "Spotted People," and, above all, in the poverty of his country. Santa Anna took the initiative by sending 2000 men to garrison Acapulco, and Alvarez committed the first open hostility, by closing the passes against them. Then the campaign began. Santa Anna traveled at the head of his grand army. During his unobstructed march to Acapulco there occurred ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... fact of its necessity, as well as the inferior freedom and spirit of the Roman journals to those of Tuscany, seems to say that the pontifical government, though from the accident of this one man's accession it has taken the initiative to better times, yet may not, after a while, from its very nature, be able to keep in ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... strong-minded, ignorant man. Hardly able to compose a sentence in correct English, he employed educated, but unresourceful assistants who furnished the good grammar, while he supplied the initiative and original ideas, and increased the influence and circulation of his magazine. Also he lived strenuously up to the doctrines he taught; fasting, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... The slight, the very slight, confusion apparent in these expressions is manifest, and is ludicrously easy of correction. 'Aye, aye,' quoth she, and it will be observed that no emendation whatever is necessary to be made in these two initiative remarks, 'Aye, aye! This lantern was carried by my forefather'—not fourth son, which is preposterous—'on the fifth of November. And HE was Guy Fawkes.' Here we have a remark at once consistent, clear, natural, and in strict accordance with the character of the speaker. Indeed ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... instructed to inform the President of Mexico of the above in greatest confidence, as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President of Mexico on his own initiative should communicate with Japan, suggesting adherence to this plan. At the same time offer to ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... excellent, the second is good, the third is useless. Therefore, it follows necessarily that, if Pandolfo was not in the first rank, he was in the second, for whenever one has judgment to know good and bad when it is said and done, although he himself may not have the initiative, yet he can recognize the good and the bad in his servant, and the one he can praise and the other correct; thus the servant cannot hope to deceive him, ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... leader of a House that contained a large majority of his political opponents, now united among themselves. The schism in the Liberal party had been healed by the question of Reform, and they could now defeat the government whenever they chose to do so; consequently Mr. Gladstone took the initiative. His compulsory Church Rates Abolition Bill was introduced and accepted. By this measure all legal proceedings for the recovery of church rates were abolished. The question that overshadowed all others, however, was that of the ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... quantity and not quality. His practical religion became that of acceleration and facilitation—to do things more quickly and easily—and thus to minimize exertion became his great objective. Less and less he relied upon the initiative of his own brain and muscle, and more and more he put his faith in the power of machinery to relieve him of labour. The evil of our age is that its values are all false. It overrates speed, it underrates sureness; it overrates the new, it underrates the old; it ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... of speech and bearing when talking to them. And, above all things, if you want to please them, try to talk to them in French, however badly, for they all take it as a great compliment. Another thing I discovered was the unwillingness of the French officers to take the initiative in saluting; yet they would never fail to return such a courtesy. Perhaps their earlier experiences in this little matter had been discouraging. It is much the same with the poilus and farmer folk. If you wish them 'Bonjour' they would ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... prepared to resist the attack that from seven points was to be launched that evening upon the city. But Paris did not wait for the attack. It took the initiative. Mad with enthusiasm it conceived the insane project of taking that terrible menacing fortress, the Bastille, and, what is more, it succeeded, as you know, before five o'clock that night, aided in the enterprise by the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... was rendering for her the task of government more and more difficult, Philip was obdurate and closed his ears. The long distance between Madrid and Brussels and the procrastinating habits of the Spanish king added immensely to the regent's perplexities. She could not act on her own initiative, and her appeals to Philip were either disregarded or after long ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... the present possessors of landed property in the Far West or in the Far South. That is no reason why I should wish to dispossess them of land which they have legitimately acquired, whether they owe it to their luck or to their pluck, to favourable circumstances or to their initiative and perseverance." ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... experiment, though that method is at their disposal and is more in keeping with their calling. They gladly become ward-surgeons, assistants, demonstrators, external teachers, and are ready to fill such posts until they are forty, though independence, a sense of freedom and personal initiative, are no less necessary in science than, for instance, in art or commerce. I have pupils and listeners, but no successors and helpers, and so I love them and am touched by them, but am not proud of them. And so on, and ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... anticipations of what so gifted a people might become. After a while, however, if questioned, he would confess himself disappointed—that after the first extraordinary show of intelligence no progress was made—that they seemed marvellous in the initiative, but did nothing after. They speedily grew weary of whatever they could do or say, no matter in what fashion, and impatiently desired to try something new. The John Bull contentedness to attain perfection in some ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... Greco-Bactrian culture (in the present Afghanistan) and were worked out by the Toba artists; old forms were filled with a new content, and the elements in the reliefs of Yuen-kang that seem to us to be non-Chinese were the result of this synthesis of Western inspiration and Turkish initiative. It is interesting to observe that all steppe rulers showed special interest in sculpture and, as a rule, in architecture; after the Toba period, sculpture flourished in China in the T'ang period, the period of strong cultural influence from Turkish peoples, and there ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... people as cultured as ours are as competent to elect the treatment for their bodies as to choose that for their souls. The progress in medical science which has resulted from this complete independence and freedom of initiative on the part of the physician, stimulated by the criticism and applause of a people well able to judge of results, has been unprecedented. Not only in the specific application of the preserving and healing arts ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... paracysts. These, though produced after the macrocysts, finally exceed them in height, and seem to carry their summit so as to meet the crozier-like prolongations. It would be difficult to determine to which of these two orders of cells belongs the initiative of conjugation. Sometimes the advance seems to be on one side, and sometimes on the other. However this may be, the meeting of the extremity of the connecting tube with the summit of the neighbouring paracyst is a constant fact, observed over and over again a hundred times. There is ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... details, in so far as he knew them, in a few breathless sentences. The old man was clearly almost beside himself with grief and rage, and past the capacity to act intelligently upon his own initiative. He had not been satisfied, he said, to remain behind at the ranch and let Wade go to the timber tract alone, and so after a period of indecision he had followed him. Near the edge of the timber he had come upon Wade's ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... amounts of high explosive, new big guns, indeed a score of things, which were afterward obtained. Lloyd George at this period saw that, as usual, Britain was just "muddling through," relying on her stolidity and her power of endurance, rather than on her initiative and striking strength. His efforts to improve matters within Government circles could not have endeared him to his Government colleagues. But his blood was up, and he cared as little for their good opinion as he did for the good opinion ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... Ignorant myself of the initiative steps on the threshold of time, I supposed this proceeding was approved by the best authorities. However, I had been thinking, reading, observing, and had as little faith in the popular theories in regard to babies as on any other subject. I saw them, on all sides, ill half the time, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... generally willing to leave the initiative to the eager twins, but when she made a plan it was generally worth adopting, and the other members of the family agreed ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... about such things, though he understood vaguely that a woman might possibly be very ill even after then. But surely, if so, Anna or Dmitry would have told him on their own initiative. This thought comforted him a little, but still anxiety—like a sleuth-hound—pursued his every moment. He would not leave home—London saw him not even for a day. Some word might come in his absence, some message or ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... closely that the easy relationship between officers and men in the 1st line Territorial unit of 1914-1915 was the despair of the more crusted Regular martinet. Its joyous amateurism freed it from every trace of the mental servitude which is the curse of militarism, and stimulated initiative and individuality. Long before the War, most Territorials believed in universal training, not so much on account of the German peril, which to too many Englishmen seemed a mere delusion, as on account of its social value. It is pleasant to remember how solidly Lord ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... glanced at him nervously. "Poor Lilia was almost a daughter to me once. I know what Miss Abbott means. But now things have altered. Any initiative would naturally ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... performing the service. Three more days passed before Leonard had any conversation with Juanna, who moved about the place, pale, self-contained, and silent. Nor would he have spoken to her then had she not taken the initiative. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... with these patients as though not only initiative were lost but also the power to follow another's lead. But their independence asserts itself in opposing every suggestion and in acting so far as ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... suspicious, which I grieve to say did not lull them to security. He seemed to be either fixing up his cabin or smoking in his doorway. On the second day he checked this itinerant curiosity by taking the initiative himself, and quietly walking from claim to claim and from cabin to cabin with a pacific but by no means a satisfying interest. The shadow of his tall figure carrying his inseparable gun, which had not yet apparently "stood in the corner," falling upon ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... him, with a mixture of some truth, that the object of the Hertilande journey is to gather strength against Lacy, capture his castle of Ewyas, and kill himself—intelligence which he falsely attributes to Marion. He has, of course, little difficulty in persuading Lacy to take the initiative. Sir Ernault is entrusted with a considerable mixed force, and comes by night to the castle.] The night was very dark, so that no sentinel saw them. Sir Ernault took a squire to carry the ladder of hide, and they went to the window where Marion was waiting for them. And when she ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... see," she said, speaking very earnestly, "that that is exactly what they are hoping for? This ambuscade didn't just happen—it is manufactured—it is politics. Men like these haven't the initiative, or whatever you call it, to get up a thing of this sort. Some one has done it for them. Don't you know why? They want to get rid of Mr. Maginnis. But they can't hurt him alone—without having it brought right home to them—to ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... stimulator and firer, because he lacks the independence and faculty for initiative. It was so with the modern proletarian movement; it is so also in the struggle for the emancipation of woman, which is intimately connected with that of the proletariat. Even in the instance of the comparatively ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... tempted them; the reward of conquest was quickly obtained in Babylon and Egypt with their flourishing farms and prosperous cities. Waste land was reclaimed then as now by colonists from centres of civilization; the migrating pastoral folks lacked the initiative and experience necessary to establish new communities in undeveloped districts. Highly civilized men sowed the harvest and ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... Queen nor the King, he is silent and does not propose. He is so modest and diffident—perhaps he dare not. They must wait awhile. If he has not declared himself on the last day of his visit, they must take the initiative and woo him, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... returned soldiers. We couldn't do what it's the business of the country to do—and may perhaps do when the red tape is finally untangled. But we could do something, with a little brains and money and initiative. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Bismarck. According to this the coolness had already begun in December. The Emperor then demanded that something should be done about the Working Class Question. The Chancellor was against doing anything. The Emperor held the view that if the Government did not take the initiative, the Reichstag, i.e. the Socialists, Centre and Progressives, would take the matter in hand, and then the Government would lag behind. The Chancellor wanted to lay the anti-Socialist Bill with the expulsion paragraph again before the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... stood motionless with their blades crossed, Sir Robert's friends felt to a man, as skilled fencers, that the time had arrived for him to take the initiative, press his adversary home, and end the duel by ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... England, it was to some extent inevitable wherever the new movement in thought became accessible to intelligent administrators and officials. But in the peculiar atmosphere of British public life, with its remarkable blend of individual initiative and a lively sense of the State, this reaction has had the freest development. There was, indeed, Fabianism before the Fabian Society; it would be ingratitude to some of the most fruitful social work of the middle Victorian period to ignore the way ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... Louise? During all this time you have invariably eluded my efforts to converse on the subject. I indulged you, for I know my prudent, cautious son, and waited for him to give me his confidence voluntarily. Hitherto, however, I have but waited in vain, so that I am compelled to take the initiative, and sue for your confidence. Give it to me, Adolphus, tell me whether you ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... might confine her to a chair and render her dependent upon the service of others, but over it, also, was she spiritual victor. She could sit in her kitchen and issue orders; and her daughter, with no initiative genius of her own, had all aunt Ann's love of "springin' to it." She cherished, besides, a worshipful admiration for her mother; so that she asked no more than to act as the humble hand under that directing head. It was Amos ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... No measure would become a law until expressly sanctioned by Parliament; and Parliament, or either house, would have the power not only of rejecting but of sending back a bill to the commission for reconsideration or improvement. Either house might also exercise its initiative by referring any subject to the commission, with directions to prepare a law. The commission, of course, would have no power of refusing its instrumentality to any legislation which the country desired. Instructions, ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... condemn him. Though Bayle did not touch immediately the mass of mankind, he wrought with power upon men who gave themselves the trouble of thinking. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church that theologians, instead of taking the initiative in this matter, left it to Bayle; for, in tearing down the pretended scriptural doctrine of comets, he tore down much else: of all men in his time, no one so thoroughly prepared the way ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... prepared and that as between Austria and Germany the preparation of the latter was much more complete. It was the Germans, therefore, who, with the entire campaign carefully mapped out in advance, took the initiative. Germany, too, at the very outset saw the one clear ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... teller to know that Mr. Castle would take a drink, particularly with Penton. Was it a trick of the inspector's? If it was, he would approach the teller before going back to Toronto. Evan would let it rest at that. He would not take the initiative, both on account of Castle's peculiar actions and Mrs. ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... destroyed by high explosives: especially, of the laying waste smiling Afghan valleys, inexpedient to occupy:—these are a few of the surprises to which we may be treated if Russia gets the chance. In this manner she is doubtless prepared to take the initiative in her next war. ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... Ivan IV. (the Terrible) took the initiative in reforms. After the conquest of Kazan he established many churches in that territory and elsewhere in Russia, and purchased an immense quantity of manuscript service-books for their use, many of which turned out to be utterly useless, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... Andrea employed in riding, paying visits,—designed to induce those of whom he had spoken to appear at the banker's in their gayest equipages,—dazzling them by promises of shares in schemes which have since turned every brain, and in which Danglars was just taking the initiative. In fact, at half-past eight in the evening the grand salon, the gallery adjoining, and the three other drawing-rooms on the same floor, were filled with a perfumed crowd, who sympathized but little in the event, but who all participated in that love of being present wherever there is anything fresh ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... reached the forced engagement of the beautiful heroine to the wicked Russian Prince, when the door opened and the supper tray entered, followed by Mrs. Henshaw. Left to honour and her own initiative she had produced a huge lobster, followed by cheese, and three little dull looking jam tarts on a ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... those who sought to improve their lot. One night a well-known Signaller, a noted hunter with an eagle eye, observed a case of rum—for the moment unattended. The situation obviously required action and P——possessed the necessary initiative. Five seconds later he was being pursued down the Beach. After successfully losing his pursuers he humped the case to Russell's Top and opened it before a crowd of thirsty and expectant Signallers—to find that it was lime juice. In the opinion of the Section this incident was the one black spot ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... have another try, Colonel," inquired General Murger silkily. "Any amount of real initiative and originality about this Corps. But I am old-fashioned enough to prefer drill-book evolutions on the barrack-square, I confess. Er—let the Major carry on ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... article of the Russian proposals, relating to the non-augmentation of land and sea forces, is so inapplicable to the United States at present that it is deemed advisable to leave the initiative, upon this subject, to the representatives of those powers to which ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... we ever drag out the winter in this God-forsaken spot!" he grumbled—unconsciously shifting the initiative ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... we have to fight against are, of course, enormous, but much of what the old regime failed to do, for want of initiative or for other reasons, we have done and are doing. Some of the difficulties are of a most unexpected kind. The local inhabitants, partly, no doubt, under the influence of our political opponents, were extremely hostile with regard to the building of the power station, ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... of twenty-five had the wants and the sense of power inherited from a line of men eager of initiative, the product of an environment where only such could survive. Doubtless in him was the soul and body hunger of his grandfather, cramping and denying through hardship year after year, yet sustained by dreaming in the hardest times of the soft material luxuries that ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... Maitland, yielding the initiative to the other's superior generalship, stood sentinel, revolver in hand, until the detective returned, overheated and sweating, from his tour, to report "nothin' doin'," with characteristic brevity. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... and logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually destroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deductions of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... has been led to see that the poor girl has been so sadly compromised, surely we may trust that he will be enabled to carry out his engagement. I consider it doubly praiseworthy that he has taken this action on his own initiative. I may tell you in confidence that I was seriously debating with myself as to whether it were not my duty to approach him on the subject. But the news of his engagement relieved me of all responsibility. It is no doubt something of a sacrifice to a man of his ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... took its direction chiefly from the initiative of Mrs. O'Donovan Florence. With great sprightliness and humour, and with an astonishing light-hearted courage, she rallied the Cardinal upon the neglect in which her native island was allowed to languish by the powers at ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... as to be beyond question. Whatever Billie had done, it was through no connivance with the father, but upon her own initiative. Yet she was fully capable of the effort; convinced the cause of the South was in her hands, she was one to go through fire and water in service. Neither her life nor mine would weigh in the decision—her only thought the Confederacy. ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... however, in the training that comes through games, is the development of will. The volitional aspect of the will and its power of endurance are plainly seen to grow in power of initiative; in courage to give "dares" and to take risks; in determination to capture an opponent, to make a goal, or to win the game. But probably the most valuable training of all is that of inhibition—that power for restraint and self-control ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... were driven along a road, unaware of anything that lay beyond the hedges, pressed on every side by other members of the flock; getting perhaps a certain satisfaction out of the deep warm stir of the collective life, but ignorant of your destination, and with your personal initiative limited to the snatching of grass as you went along, the pushing of your way to the softer side of the track. These operation? made up together that which you called Success. But now, because you have achieved a certain ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... whom she looked at. She knew and was secretly amused at the fiasco that always attended the introduction of amiable young ladies to Ashbridge, and had warned her sister-in-law that Michael, when he chose the girl he wanted, would certainly do it on his own initiative. Now she felt sure that Michael, though he might not be aware of it himself, was, even if he had not chosen, beginning to choose. There was that in his eyes which none of the importations to Ashbridge had ever seen there, that eager deferential ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... that we encounter two little friends, sponsored by William Jennings Bryan—the Initiative and Referendum—means by which the Swiss people are given a direct voice in their government. By the Initiative a certain number of voters may propose new legislation and when the requisite number sign a petition the proposed law must then be submitted to popular vote. This rule applies ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... Governor-General who thus shuffled off his responsibility upon two soldiers who previously had been sedulously restricted within narrow if varying limits. Their relief from those trammels set them free, and it was their joy to accept the devolved responsibility, and to act with soldierly initiative and vigour. The chief credit of the qualified yet substantial triumph over official hesitation certainly belongs to Pollock, who gently yet firmly forced the hand of the Governor-General, while ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... and clearly not justifiable in assuming to correct him with my own hands. In 1862, when General Buell's army was assembling at Louisville, Terrill was with it as a brigadier-general (for, although a Virginian, he had remained loyal), and I then took the initiative toward a renewal of our acquaintance. Our renewed friendship was not destined to be of long duration, I am sorry to say, for a few days later, in the battle of Perryville, while gallantly fighting for his ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... the Prince called on Beethoven and was not received, when the latter was not in the mood for seeing him. Through his wilfulness, Beethoven lost the annuity which the Prince had settled on him on his coming to Vienna. The initiative in this matter was probably taken by Beethoven himself, as may be inferred from a letter he writes to a friend two years later: "My circumstances are improving without having recourse to people who ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... earlier members of this coterie appeared Wang Ngan-shi, an economist, of rare originality. His leading principle was the absorption by the state of all industrial enterprises—state ownership of land, and in general a paternal system to supersede private initiative. So charming was the picture presented in his book "The Secret of Peace" (still extant) that the Emperor gave him carte blanche to put his theory into practice. In practical life however it was a failure—perhaps because he failed to allow ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... "Arisbas, Euphues amidst his slumbers," by John Dickenson, 1594, &c.[103] All these authors continued their model's work in contributing to the development of literature written chiefly for ladies; in that way especially was Lyly's initiative fruitful. ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... pious munificence. Under the ninth Ramesses the order was reversed—"now it is the king who testifies his gratitude to the High-Priest of Ammon for the care bestowed on his temple by the erection of new buildings and the improvement and maintenance of the older ones." The initiative has passed out of the king's hands into those of his subject; he is active, the king is passive; all the glory is Amenhotep's; the king merely comes in at the close of all, as an ornamental person, whose presence adds a certain ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... friends, than to me, and criminal cases rather than civil procedure. Mr. Carter revels in murder trials. But why has this young man failed to consult me on a matter so greatly affecting your future? Why have you assumed the initiative? ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... road, monsieur, and there are many turns ahead. If you burden your mind so heavily with me you cannot attend to what is your real concern. Trust me more. Think less about me. I will show no irritation, no initiative, and I will follow where you point. I should like to think that you would rest to-night,—rest care free. I ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... with the muskets that there was now time to load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were fast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we cared not to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had taken the [v]initiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving to spring in upon us, and striking when they could with hatchet and knife. They were brave men that we slew ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... appealed to her imagination, too. It showed independence and initiative. It opened boundless possibilities. He might be an obscure and poorly educated boy today. In five years he could be a millionaire and the head of some huge business ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... he felt the benignant touch of fortune still upon his head, and thanked her heartily that Leo had taken the initiative; that no overt act of disloyalty blurred his escutcheon, and above all, that he had been spared the humiliation of acknowledging his inability to resist the strange fascination that dragged him from his allegiance, as ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... discover that he was really a rather mild person, except where his work was concerned, rarely taking the initiative in either praising or blaming anybody or anything, deeply influenced by the views of other persons, and content to be rather a listener and onlooker than an active participant in what did not immediately concern him. Rachael found this, for some subtle reasons ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... Ministry held themselves personally responsible for the security of the railway in the colony. Providentially, the firm of Weil and Company had sent vast stores to their depot in the town on their own initiative. This firm certainly did not lose financially by their foresight, but it is a fact that Mafeking without this supply could have made no resistance whatever. There were 9,000 human beings to feed, of which 7,000 were natives and 2,000 white people. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... ye margint to write ye alteration ... it was wrote in a piece of paper and affixt to ye Act".[990] When the bill came back to the House, Major Robert Beverley, who was again the clerk of the Assembly, acting it would seem upon his own initiative, tore off the paper containing this amendment. The bill then came before the House apparently assented to without change and was returned by them for the signature of the Governor and the Councillors. Neither Effingham nor any of the Council noticed the ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... them to the purposes we have in hand. This is the natural attack of childhood, and it should be fostered, for children can lose it and come to feel that specially prepared materials are essential, and a consequent limitation to ingenuity and initiative can ...
— A Catalogue of Play Equipment • Jean Lee Hunt
... authority was lost. The initiative in law and moral power passed from the monarch to the Assembly. Those who, by their counsels, had provoked this resistance did not dare to punish it Necker, whose dismissal had been decided on that morning, was, in the evening, entreated by the queen ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... net of unconscious precedent is too closely drawn, the mesh of instinct is too fine to hope for any initiative. This was manifested by the most significant and spectacular occurrence I have ever observed in the world of insects. One year and a half ago I studied and reported upon, a nest of Ecitons or army ants.[3] Now, eighteen months later, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... of thoughtful care and attention which we have given to these trees, we have gained a personal interest in them which we cannot lose. In this initiative work, I am convinced that we have wisely established such a broad foundation of general interest in forestry and kindred topics, that sooner or later, it will lead us to a complete mastery of the whole subject. The individual interest thus established, will continue to expand until it embraces ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... condemned departed is a state of complete damnation absolutely eternal. Against that form of representing future punishment which makes it unlimited by conceiving the destiny of the soul to be an eternal progress, in which their initiative steps of good or evil in this life place different souls under advantages or disadvantages never relatively to be lost, we have nothing to object. It is reasonable, in unison with natural law, and not frightful.13 But we are to deal, if we fairly can, a refutation against the doctrine ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... then, this constraint imposed upon civilized man in the expression of his feelings, confers upon him already a certain degree of authority over them, or at least develops in him a certain aptitude to rise above the purely passive state of the soul, to interrupt this state by an initiative act, and to stop by reflection the petulance of the feelings, ever ready to pass from affections to acts. Therefore everything that interrupts the blind impetuosity of these movements of the affections ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... demand to try and stand. I can see his straining efforts now, his eyes like the eyes of a spirit; I can hear his daily words: "Il me semble que j'ai un peu plus de force dans mes jambes ce matin, Monsieur!" though, I fear, he never had. Men of such indomitable initiative, though not rare, are but a fraction. The great majority have rather the happy-go-lucky soul. For them it is only too easy to postpone self-help till sheer necessity drives, or till some one in whom they believe inspires them. ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... the delegates of the old House of Peers ingenuously complained during these last few days that they no longer possess any initiative of legislation? But they have just as much or as little as the honourable ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... unexpected and to master it. Hans Nelson, immigrant, Swede by birth and carpenter by occupation, had in him that Teutonic unrest that drives the race ever westward on its great adventure. He was a large-muscled, stolid sort of a man, in whom little imagination was coupled with immense initiative, and who possessed, withal, loyalty and affection as sturdy ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... "Miss Harlowe seems to have plenty of initiative. She is one of the most active members of this new club, who have taken upon themselves the responsibility of helping needy students through college. I understand their treasury is already in a flourishing condition, thanks to their own efforts and a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... system there has been another disturbing cause, which is not likely to occur to the English mind. In England, individuals and companies habitually act according to their private interests, and the State interferes as little as possible; private initiative acts as it pleases, unless the authorities can prove that important bad consequences will necessarily result. In Russia, the onus probandi lies on the other side; private initiative is allowed to do nothing until it gives guarantees against all possible bad consequences. When any ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... Conversation constrained both by the grating and the presence of the warder, and Aubrey, more tenderly sensitive than his brother, and devoid of his father's experienced tact, was too much embarrassed to take the initiative, was afraid of giving pain by dwelling on his present occupations and future hopes, and confused Leonard by his embarrassment. Hector Ernescliffe discoursed about Charleston Harbour and New Orleans; and Aubrey stood with downcast eyes, afraid to seem to be ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... requiring consistency in the objects aimed at, variety in the means, combination with the Powers and avoidance of rivalry, an authority superior to national obstacles and political limitations. At first the initiative did not reside with the Papacy. Farnese, in whose pontificate the transition occurred from the religion of Erasmus to the religion of Loyola, allowed men to act for him whose spirit differed from his own. He ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... their peril. Still she looked white and thin, and needed a scarf for her arm, when she caused herself to be arrayed as splendidly as her sister had been, and descended to the hall, where, like Eleanor, she took the initiative by an appeal against the wrong and injustice that held two free-born ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ground stunt, then, had its origin in the initiative of a few pilots who recognised a chance, took it, and thus opened yet another branch in the huge departmental store of aerial tactics. The exploits of these pioneers were sealed with the stamp of official approval, and airmen ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... proceeded slowly, and I must be allowed to assert that the initiative which pushed it forward was mine. It made a jump when he spent a week-end in the Thames Estuary on my yacht. If any reader has a curiosity to know what my yacht is not like, he should read the striking yacht chapter in Nocturne. I am convinced that Swinnerton evolved the yacht ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... to qat to supplement income. The war with Eritrea in 1998-2000 and recurrent drought have buffeted the economy, in particular coffee production. In November 2001 Ethiopia qualified for debt relief from the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. Under Ethiopia's land tenure system, the government owns all land and provides long-term leases to the tenants; the system continues to hamper growth in the industrial sector as entrepreneurs are unable to use land as collateral for loans. Drought struck again late in 2002, leading to a 2% ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... good investigating committee should display initiative I broke the silence by questioning the little sergeant, and I began on a line which I felt would please the Commandant, "You were at Labiau during ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... more ground to be kept open for accommodating increased staff, and the maintenance of these openings must be paid for. There is an added expense for handling larger numbers in and out of the mine, and the lower intelligence reacts in many ways in lack of coordination and inability to take initiative. Taking all divisions of labor together, the ratio of efficiency as measured in amount of output works out from four to five colored men as the equivalent of one white man of the class stated. The ratio of costs, for reasons already mentioned, and in other than quantity relation, figures still ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... grandmother had been a Basque—possessed the same quality of the fortune hunter as his grandfather, only he did not propose to do his prospecting in the mines of Nevada. Following the general tactics of a Stone Age man—a belief in muscle and great initiative—Steve found himself at twenty-four in the city of Hanover and in the employ of Mark Constantine, a hide-and-leather magnate who was said to be like all hard-boiled eggs—impossible to beat. After Steve advanced to the top notch of his ability he discovered that the only reason he was not considered ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... play games, are initiated, are married, and are buried. But let the tribe increase in numbers, and spread through a considerable area, over the face of which communications are difficult and proportionately rare. Instantly the local group tends to become all in all. Authority and initiative must always rest with the men on the spot; and the old natal combinations, weakened by inevitable absenteeism, at last cease to represent the true framework of the social order. They tend to linger on, of course, in the shape of subordinate institutions. ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... saw that the Court would act upon their own initiative, I resolved to declare war against them and attack Mazarin in person, because otherwise we could not escape being ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... Private initiative was also liberally encouraged. An Imperial rescript promised that any farmer harvesting three thousand koku (fifteen thousand bushels) of cereals from land reclaimed by himself should receive the sixth class order of merit (kun roku-to), while a crop of over a thousand ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... not a story of the Maharajah's emeralds; only a knot in the landing-net of which I have already spoken. I may add with equal frankness that Haggerty, upon his own initiative, never proceeded an inch beyond the keyhole episode. It was one of his many failures; for, unlike the great fictional detectives who never fail, Haggerty was human, and did. It is only fair to add, ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
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