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Absolute   Listen
adjective
Absolute  adj.  
1.
Loosed from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional; as, absolute authority, monarchy, sovereignty, an absolute promise or command; absolute power; an absolute monarch.
2.
Complete in itself; perfect; consummate; faultless; as, absolute perfection; absolute beauty. "So absolute she seems, And in herself complete."
3.
Viewed apart from modifying influences or without comparison with other objects; actual; real; opposed to relative and comparative; as, absolute motion; absolute time or space. Note: Absolute rights and duties are such as pertain to man in a state of nature as contradistinguished from relative rights and duties, or such as pertain to him in his social relations.
4.
Loosed from, or unconnected by, dependence on any other being; self-existent; self-sufficing. Note: In this sense God is called the Absolute by the Theist. The term is also applied by the Pantheist to the universe, or the total of all existence, as only capable of relations in its parts to each other and to the whole, and as dependent for its existence and its phenomena on its mutually depending forces and their laws.
5.
Capable of being thought or conceived by itself alone; unconditioned; non-relative. Note: It is in dispute among philosopher whether the term, in this sense, is not applied to a mere logical fiction or abstraction, or whether the absolute, as thus defined, can be known, as a reality, by the human intellect. "To Cusa we can indeed articulately trace, word and thing, the recent philosophy of the absolute."
6.
Positive; clear; certain; not doubtful. (R.) "I am absolute 't was very Cloten."
7.
Authoritative; peremptory. (R.) "The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed."
8.
(Chem.) Pure; unmixed; as, absolute alcohol.
9.
(Gram.) Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence in government; as, the case absolute. See Ablative absolute, under Ablative.
Absolute curvature (Geom.), that curvature of a curve of double curvature, which is measured in the osculating plane of the curve.
Absolute equation (Astron.), the sum of the optic and eccentric equations.
Absolute space (Physics), space considered without relation to material limits or objects.
Absolute terms. (Alg.), such as are known, or which do not contain the unknown quantity.
Absolute temperature (Physics), the temperature as measured on a scale determined by certain general thermo-dynamic principles, and reckoned from the absolute zero.
Absolute zero (Physics), the be ginning, or zero point, in the scale of absolute temperature. It is equivalent to -273° centigrade or -459.4° Fahrenheit.
Synonyms: Positive; peremptory; certain; unconditional; unlimited; unrestricted; unqualified; arbitrary; despotic; autocratic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books



... stallion, raking his flanks. Wildfire answered with a scream and a greater speed. All except Lucy and Sage King and Wildfire seemed so strange and unreal—the swift rush between the pines, now growing ghostly in the dimming light, the sense of a pursuing, overpowering force, and yet absolute silence. ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... concluded by saying: "It is the Eye of Dread that sees into the hidden recesses of the heart,—to the uttermost end of life,—that follows the sinner even into his grave, until he yields to the demands of righteousness and accepts the terms of absolute truth," he carried them all with him, and again the tumult broke loose, and they shouted and laughed and wept and congratulated each other. The Judge himself sat stiffly in his seat, his chin quivering with an emotion he was making a desperate effort to conceal. Finally he turned and ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... tears and in absolute despair, and wrote to tell him of my conviction. Allowing for difference of time between Quetta and Oxford, my mental telegram reached me in the same hour that my brother, whilst on the march, and only thirty ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... man, then, in whom absolute wisdom exists (such a man, indeed, we have never as yet seen, but the philosophers have described in their writings what sort of man he will be, if he should exist); such a man, or at least that perfect ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... this wild neighborhood interested Darwin very greatly, and he describes them with care. In this connection a charming trait of Darwin's character comes beautifully in evidence. The absolute purity of his mind, his utter freedom from grossness, shows clearly in his account of the first really semi-civilized people he ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... characterized as a clever, and even brilliant, expose of philosophies which were no longer startlingly new. The supremacy of self-interest and "man the irresponsible machine" are the main features of 'What Is Man' and both of these and all the rest are comprehended in his wider and more absolute doctrine of that inevitable life-sequence which began with the first created spark. There can be no training of the ideals, "upward and still upward," no selfishness and unselfishness, no atom of voluntary effort within the boundaries of that conclusion. Once ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... fir trees; at the instinctive hatred of the queen bee for her own fertile daughters; at ichneumonidae feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars; or at other such cases. The wonder indeed, is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... is on its pedestal; you cannot reclaim the brass you flung into the crucible! There are rights, possessions, privileges, policies, relations, duties, acquired, retained, called into existence in virtue of the principle of absolute solidarity,—belonging to the United States as an organic whole, which cannot be divided, which none of its constituent parties can claim as its own, which perish out of its living frame when the wild ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... purchase. They needed it desperately, asked for it, got it, spent it, and gave it no further thought. It meant nothing to them that Lizzie was wasteful. It was only to their mother that the girl's slipshod ways were becoming an absolute trial. ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris

... an appeal to the people of the United Kingdom, through the columns of your paper, on behalf of the inhabitants of Mafeking. Nothing but absolute knowledge of their sufferings prompts me to thus inaugurate another fund, and one which must come in addition to the numerous subscriptions already started in connection with the South African War. I admit the generous philanthropy ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... arrested—the duke at Sceaux, and the duchess in her house in the Rue Saint Honore. The duke was taken to the chateau of Doullens, and the duchess to that of Dijon, and afterward to the citadel of Chalons. Both left at the end of a few months, disarming the regent, one by an absolute denial, the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... perfectly well; she was following Evors' narrative with breathless interest. How well she recollected the day of her own marriage and the receipt of that dreadful letter, which parted Gerald and herself on the very steps of the altar, and transformed her life from one of happiness into one of absolute self-sacrifice. She was beginning to see daylight now, she was beginning to discern a way at length, whereby she would be able to defy Fenwick and part ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... the first time in Chinese history a merchant, a commoner, had reached one of the highest positions in the state. It is not known what sort of trade Lue Pu-wei had carried on, but probably he dealt in horses, the principal export of the state of Chao. As horses were an absolute necessity for the armies of that time, it is easy to imagine that a horse-dealer ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... it must produce error. The remedy is nevertheless obvious, and consists in placing the stereographs at the same distance from the eyes as the focal length of the lens. But, if this cannot be done, it were surely better to submit to some trifling exaggeration than to absolute deformity and error. MR. S. says also, that as we mainly judge of distance, &c. by the convergence of the optic axis of our eyes (Query, How do persons with only one eye judge?), so, in short or medium distances, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various

... Madame de l'Enclos closed her eyes upon the things of earth, than Ninon conceived the project of withdrawing from the world and entering a convent. The absence of her father left her absolute mistress of her conduct, and the few friends who reached her, despite her express refusal to see any one, could not persuade her to alter her determination. Ninon, heart broken, distracted and desolate, threw herself bodily into an obscure convent in the suburbs of Paris, accepting it, in the ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... strangely beautiful soul, with (what seemed to me then) very effeminate manners. Dobell's mouth was ever full of very pretty Latinity, for the most part Virgilian. He was fond of quoting, as an example of perfect expression, sound conveying absolute sense of the thing described, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... and more heavily with Joan at Drift. A fortnight passed; but the hope of the ignorant and trustful dies very hard and the faith which is bred of absolute love has a hundred lives. The girl walked into Penzance every second day, and hope blazed brightly on the road to the post-office, then sank a little deeper into the hidden places of her heart as she plodded empty-handed ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... all these things that you have told us into grave consideration," the king said, when they were seated; "and have concluded that it will be for the best that this matter of these Spaniards should remain an absolute secret, and that no word shall be spoken to a single person, however dear, by any of those who have heard it. The country has long been in a disturbed state, and constant expeditions are necessary, for ourselves and for Mexico, to suppress risings, and put down outbreaks of discontent. ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... days' march—the Northmen will be unsuspicious of danger, and taken by surprise may be easily defeated." The proposition, however, was received with absolute derision. ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... was delighted with the Haneys, for they talked of their native West as people should talk. They were as absolute in their convictions as a Kentuckian. For them there was no other "God's country," and as it was his latest dream to go West and "do a big thing on a cliff or something" he put off every other engagement to enjoy their racy speech. He said at the first sitting: "I've had an idea of working ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... republican constitution, in imitation of that of the United States, it was settled that no Church but that of Rome should be tolerated in the country; and this law still remains one of the fundamental principles of the State, in which universal liberty and equality, freedom of the press, and absolute religious intolerance form rather a strange jumble. It is curious to observe that, though the Independence confirmed the authority of the Roman Catholic religion, it considerably reduced the church-revenues, by making the payment of tithes a matter of mere option. ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... taught that, since we all were equal in the eyes of God, we should all be equal likewise in the eyes of men, that temporal government along with class distinctions of every kind should be abolished, and that Christians should indulge in absolute community of goods. In religious matters, too, they had peculiar views, believing that only adults should receive baptism, and that all adults who had been baptized in infancy should be baptized again. By reason of this tenet they were known as Anabaptists. Their first appearance in ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... believes there is not a trait in this work for which he has not the authority of his own observation, or the authentic evidence which has been received by Royal Commissions and Parliamentary Committees. But while he hopes he has alleged nothing which is not true, he has found the absolute necessity of suppressing much that is genuine. For so little do we know of the state of our own country that the air of improbability that the whole truth would inevitably throw over these pages, might deter ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... kindly, so industrious, so simple in his work and his belief in himself. People laughed at him sometimes indulgently, but that was a very different thing to this hostility, this cold, implacable condemnation. That was beyond her, for she had been brought up in a school of absolute tolerance except ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... the congestion in this area of the pack is producing a scene of absolute chaos. The floes grind stupendously, throw up great ridges, and shatter one another mercilessly. The ridges, or hedgerows, marking the pressure-lines that border the fast- diminishing pieces of smooth floe-ice, are enormous. The ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... the assignment of Dr. West's property to Mrs. Saltonstall. That was something there was no gainsaying; it was a purely business affair, and involved nobody's rights but the assignor. But this was followed, a day or two after, by the announcement of the Doctor's will, making the same lady the absolute and sole inheritor of the same property. That seemed all right too; for there were, apparently, no legal heirs. Since then, however, it has been discovered that there is a legal heir—none other ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... have only one merit, that of absolute truth, I must confess that the subterfuge whereby Doris sought to justify herself to herself, delighted me. Perhaps no quality is more human than that of subterfuge. She might unveil her body, but she could not unveil her soul. We may only lift a corner of the veil; he who would strip human ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... put the finishing touch to his wonderful creation, would he abstain from the dissipation and self-indulgent idleness that was apt to follow any concentration on his part? I liked to believe that this would be the case; and as I cherished the idea, it grew almost into absolute faith. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... strangers in a strange land, were sent back to England, the Germans mutely concurring in the task. The wild rush from the Continent may have precipitated congestion at our ports and railway stations, but there never could have been that absolute chaos which reigned at Berlin on the fateful night of the 2nd of August. Humanity was thrown to the four winds. The much-vaunted Teuton organisation, system, and scientific control had broken down completely under the first test to ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... third person, spoken of immediately before, as one who promised to do honour to his country. It might refer to Octavius, of whom Cicero at this time, entertained a high opinion; or it may have been spoken in an absolute manner, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... the accusation, but he was found imprudent in his actions. In regard to the other two charges, that of the shops and that of the militia, absolute acquittal was decided. The verdict was announced the following morning and the sentence was published immediately ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... rabbits, his experiments, however certain of success he deemed them, were always made on or with regard to his own belongings. The little plot of garden-ground which he held in absolute possession was continually being dug up and refashioned, in his eager efforts to convert it successively into a vineyard, a Portuguese quinta, (to effect which he diligently planted orange-pips and manured the earth with the peel,) or, favorite scheme ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... palpable disappointment. In the first place, there seems to be no grand leading feature of simplicity; add to which, darkness reigns everywhere. You look up, and discern no roof—not so much from its extreme height, as from the absolute want of windows. Everything not only looks dreary, but is dingy and black—from the mere dirt and dust which seem to have covered the great pillars of the nave—and especially the figures and ornaments upon it—for the last ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... constituted them as sovereign rulers, although their charters were subject to revision or amendment. The London Company, thrice chartered to take over to itself the land and resources of Virginia and populate its zone of rule, was endowed with sweeping rights and privileges which made it an absolute monopoly. The impecunious noblemen or gentlemen who transported themselves to Virginia to recoup their dissipated fortunes or seek adventure, encountered no trouble in getting large grants of land especially when after 1614 tobacco became a fashionable article in ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... Mericour, in fear of a ducking, or worse, of ridicule, balanced himself, pole in hand, in the midst of the river. To the right of the river was Elysium—a circular island revolving on a wheel which was an absolute orrery, representing in concentric circles the skies, with the sun, moon, the seven planets, twelve signs, and the fixed stars, all illuminated with small lamps. The island itself was covered with verdure, in which, among bowers woven of gay flowers, reposed twelve ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with this instance of Harriot's generosity, and finding that nothing but the exertion of her authority, which her grand-daughter acknowledged absolute and always obeyed implicitly, could prevent her from performing her purpose, she determined to take the most effectual means of hindering it by advancing the money herself, and invited Miss Denham and her lover to her house; where the marriage ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... again and again while I was making the machine; but then I had cheerfully accepted it as an unavoidable risk—one of the risks a man has got to take! Now the risk was inevitable, I no longer saw it in the same cheerful light. The fact is that, insensibly, the absolute strangeness of everything, the sickly jarring and swaying of the machine, above all, the feeling of prolonged falling, had absolutely upset my nerve. I told myself that I could never stop, and with a gust of petulance I resolved to stop forthwith. Like ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... he had no small talk, is only quoted now because of the falsity of the prediction; both politicians soon came to form a better estimate of her judgement and public spirit. It was some years before this could be fairly tested. The Tories, while improving their position, failed to gain an absolute majority in the elections, and Peel's want of tact in insisting on the Queen changing all the ladies of her household delayed his triumph from 1839 to 1841. Meanwhile he spent his energies in training his party and organizing their resources. He studied measures and he studied men, and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... moral distinctions, as opposed to these theories, we mean,—that there are certain actions which are immutably right, and which we are bound in duty to perform, and certain actions which are immutably wrong, apart from any other consideration whatever;—and that an absolute conviction of this is fixed upon us, in the moral principle or conscience, independently of knowledge derived from any other source respecting the will or laws of the Almighty. This important distinction has been sometimes ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... an artist in verse, Tennyson is the greatest of modern poets. Other masters, old and new, have surpassed him in special instances; but he is the only one who rarely nods, and who always finishes his verse to the extreme. Here is the absolute sway of metre, compelling every rhyme and measure needful to the thought; here are sinuous alliterations, unique and varying breaks and pauses, winged flights and falls, the glory of sound and color everywhere present, or, if missing, absent of the ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... noticed the girl's presence, but more than once during the afternoon the corners of her mouth twitched when, in response to some question or remark of hers, the shortness of the girl's replies bordered upon absolute rudeness. ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... the great transept of the Palace, in the presence of this vast assemblage, and listening to the splendid orchestra and a chorus of between three and four thousand voices dealing with the massive and majestic strains of the "Messiah," the spell of the music fell upon Nina and held absolute sway over her. She got into a curious state of exaltation; she seemed breathless; sometimes, Mrs. Grey thought, she shivered a little with the strain of emotion. And all the time that Mr. Santley was singing "Why do the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... accorded to all foreign visitors. Their exodus will have no resemblance to a flight, for it will be a well-regulated movement under control of public opinion. The movement will not only be inaugurated with absolute conformity to law, but it cannot even be carried out without the friendly cooperation of interested Governments, who would derive considerable ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... myriads of sufferers whom their beneficent labors have relieved. They may or may not have felt that their work was durable. But durable it is, and it hands down to posterity a monumentum aere perennius, the absolute worth of which passes computation. No present or future modification of this work can rob its authors of that glory which crowns the head of ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell

... hours. Where nuts are not to be used for seed they may be thrown into boiling water for about five minutes—just long enough to kill the weevils. The nuts are then dried and sold. Most of the weeviled nuts will rise to the surface and may be discarded, but this test is not absolute and cannot be depended on to distinguish the sound from ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... carefully conceal from the knowledge of the Dutch. During the last war in Java, which continued from 1716 to 1721, the inhabitants of some parts of the country were so often plundered that they were reduced to absolute beggary; yet, after a year's peace, they were observed to have grown excessively rich, having plenty of gold, both ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... he sent her for answer she turned rather quickly to the door. Dear Sister, she was none of the Fates, she was obliged to give directions to Hilda standing in the door with her back turned. Happily for a deserved reputation for self-command they were few. It was chief and absolute that no one should be admitted. A bulletin had been put up at the hospital door for the information of inquiries; later on when the doctor came again there ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... measures proposed by the Senate are termed) have to be submitted first to the Caput, each member of which has an absolute veto on the grace. If it passes the Caput, it is then publicly recited in both houses, [the regent and non-regent,] and at a subsequent meeting voted on, first in the Non-Regent House, and then in the other. If it passes both, it becomes valid."—Literary ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... half the world around it could hardly sympathize with the whole of its own life. Humour, the faculty which above all corrects exaggeration and extravagance, died away before the new stress and strain of existence. The absolute devotion of the Puritan to a Supreme Will tended more and more to rob him of all sense of measure and proportion in common matters. Little things became great things in the glare of religious zeal; and the godly man learnt to shrink from a surplice, ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... was contented. He considered himself at liberty to accept Mr. Harding's last speech as an absolute refusal of the appointment. At least, he so represented it to the bishop and to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... he led me to surmise. He had been many years in company with the tribe, and although, as one received into it, he did not stand so high in rank and estimation as his wife, still, from his marriage with Nattee, and his own peculiar qualifications and dexterity, he was almost as absolute as she was. ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... learn obedience, and, besides, this obedience must be absolute. If such obedience has become habitual from the tenderest age, a look, a word, an intonation is enough to keep the child straight. The dissatisfaction of those who are bringing him up can only be made effective when it falls as a shadow in the usual sunny atmosphere of ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key

... an unnatural thing that Mary should have regarded her pledge to the Doctor as of so absolute and binding force; but they must remember the rigidity of her education. Self-denial and self-sacrifice had been the daily bread of her life. Every prayer, hymn, and sermon, from her childhood, had warned her to distrust her inclinations and regard her feelings as traitors. In particular ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... brow, as if in a frown of suppressed anger and determined will. Add to this the accounts of his contemporaries[1135] who saw or heard the curt accent or the sharp, abrupt gesture, the interrogating, imperious, absolute tone of voice, and we comprehend how, the moment they accosted him, they felt the dominating hand which seizes them, presses them down, holds them firmly ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... definite form to be created and a most definite conception to be realized. Mallarme was as severely bound by his problem as was Racine by his. It was as definite—for all that it was unformulated—as absolute, and as necessary. The same may be said of Picasso in his most abstract works: but not of all his followers, nor of all ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... we delineate the escape wheel ten inches in diameter, it will readily be seen that although we claim one and a half degrees lock, we really have only about one degree, inasmuch as the curve of the peripheral line m diverges from the line B f, and, as a consequence, the absolute lock of the tooth C on the locking face of the entrance pallet E is but about one degree. Under these conditions, if we did not extend the outer angle of the exit pallet at t down to the peripheral ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous

... on they would have met with no opposition, for the people were scattered in terror. On gazing shorewards, and round the Harbor, as far as we could see, was a dense host of warriors, but all were standing still, and apparently absolute silence prevailed. We saw a messenger or herald running along the approaching multitude, delivering some tidings as he passed, and then disappearing in the bush. To our amazement, the host began to turn, and slowly marched back in great silence, and entered the remote bush at the head ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... which was her home. Minna was so altered, looked so radiantly happy whilst she talked about this man that Miriam had wanted to put out a hand and touch her. Afterwards she could recall the sound of her voice as it was at that moment with its yearning and its promise and its absolute confidence. Minna was so certain of her happiness—at the end of each hurried little phrase her voice sounded like a chord—like three strings sounding at ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... picked up reading and writing, but with the return of his strength came no return of his former life. England, Devonshire, Brisport, Mary, Granny—the words brought no recollection to his mind. All was absolute darkness. At last he was discharged, a friendless, tradeless, penniless man, without a past, and with very little to look to in the future. His very name was altered, for it had been necessary to invent one. John Huxford had passed away, and John Hardy took his place ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... afterward that the one touch of absolute horror was that the reforming monsters, the young ones growing visibly before his eyes, had the gamboling instinct of young lambs or other creatures. They were much more lively than ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... of this reopening of previous possibilities under the head of regression in the next lecture. It is not at all absolute, at least not in one generation. Part of the improvement remains, and favors the next generation. This part may be estimated approximately as being about one-third or one-half of the improvement attained. Hence the conclusion that vegetative multiplication gives rise to varieties which ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... they may feel who have submitted to the preventive treatment detailed. I have been bitten several times, Mr. Youatt several also; yet in neither of us was any dread occasioned: our experience taught us the 'absolute certainty' of the 'preventive' means; and such I take on me to pronounce they always prove, when performed with dexterity and judgment." We acknowledge ourselves a convert to this gentleman's doctrine; and feel satisfied that if the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... an obscure little palace where she had bought the hangings, and if Mrs. Baxter had had the courage to acknowledge ignorance, Adelaide would have told the truth. As it was, she recognized that by methods such as this she could retain absolute control over people like ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... have always been regarded as an important point to be held by us, and much expense and labor incurred in fortifying them. I cannot approve of their abandonment, except in case of absolute necessity." ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... in absolute silence, a regiment of cuirassiers was passing, the level sun blazing like sheets of crimson fire across their helmets and breastplates. And now, listening, the far clatter of their horses came to his ears in an immense, ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... was a secret which her fears suggested that she had better lock up in her own heart. What chance would a poor unprotected girl have in a contest with the rich and powerful Assistant? Who would take her word in opposition to his? Spikeman well appreciated his advantage, and calculating with absolute certainty upon her silence, was, in ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... indifference, in ages of enlightened piety. However pure or impure the faith of the people might be, whether they adored a beneficent or a malignant power, whether they thought the soul mortal or immortal, they have, as soon as they ceased to be absolute savages, found out their need of civil government, and instituted it accordingly. It is as universal as the practice of cookery. Yet, it is as certain, says Mr. Southey, as anything in abstract science, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... absolute rest which followed the journey, Madge's thoughts were busy. The width of the continent would separate her from the past and those associated with it. Both the breadth of the continent and the ocean were between her and him from whom she had fled; yet he was ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... is God. My soul finds it in you.... The first effects of the war upon you have been trouble, sacrifice, pain, and horror. You have come out of it impaired physically and with mind still clouded. These will pass, and therefore I beg of you don't grow fixed in absolute acceptance of the facts of evolution and materialism. They cannot be denied, I grant. I see that they are realities. But also I see beyond them. There is some great purpose running through the ages. In our day the ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... voice were kinder even than common; the glance of her eye was tender, and she seldom looked at him without the glow that tinged her cheeks betraying the existence of feelings that habit and time had not yet soothed into absolute tranquillity. With Pathfinder, all was earnest, sincere, even anxious; but the tones never trembled, the eye never fell; and if the cheek flushed, it was with the emotions that ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... lover, although himself a little rueful, heartened her up with bright prophecies for their future. An immediate marriage for them was out of the question, for since Warner's death Mrs. Smith clung to her younger daughter with absolute dependence. The last of September was decided on for sailing, as that would allow General Smith time to enter Percival at school, and to complete other necessary arrangements before the family departure. The management of Shirley would remain ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... was aware, had scarce been provided for in our social scheme, I said to myself at first sight of our emphatic neighbour, a person clearly used to exceptional deference, "This must be a perfect specimen;" which was somehow very wonderful. The absolute first sight, however, had preceded the New Brighton summer, and it makes me lose myself in a queer dim vision, all the obscurities attendant on my having been present, as a very small boy indeed, at an evening entertainment where Mrs. L. figured in an attire that is still vivid to me: a blue satin ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... was sometimes legitimate. A notification of the king's, published in 1641, prohibited the Parliament from any interference in affairs of state and administration. The whole of Richelieu's home-policy is summed up in the preamble to that instrument, a formal declaration of absolute power concentrated in the hands of the king. "It seemeth that, the institution of monarchies having its foundation in the government of a single one, that rank is as it were the soul which animates them and inspires them with as much force and vigor as they can have ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... centuries Roman triumph and Celtic defeat. Horace's saying concerning the Gaulish ancestors applies equally well to Britons: never "feared they funerals."[4] The grave was for them without terrors; their faith in the immortality of the soul absolute; death for them was not the goal, but the link between two existences; the new life was as complete and desirable as the old, and bore no likeness to that subterranean existence, believed in by the ancients, partly localised in the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... which our newspapers now focus upon the public man in Lee's position. His character has been subjected to that ordeal, and who can point to any spot upon it? His clear, sound judgment, personal courage, untiring activity, genius for war, and absolute devotion to his State mark him out as a public man, as a patriot to be forever remembered by all Americans. His amiability of disposition, deep sympathy with those in pain or sorrow, his love for children, nice sense of personal honor, and genial courtesy endeared him to all his friends. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... dominated by the national sentiment there is a tendency for language and culture to become uniform and specific, so that linguistic and cultural boundaries at least tend to coincide. Even at best, however, the linguistic unification is never absolute, while the cultural unity is apt to be superficial, of a quasi-political nature, rather than deep ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... hurry her with the strength of a torrent to an end she dreaded, impressed her physically; so far subduing her mind, in consequence, as to keep the idea of absolute resistance obscure, though her bosom heaved with the breath; but what was her own of a mind hung hovering above him, criticizing; and involuntarily, discomfortingly. She could have prayed to be led blindly or ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... acknowledged himself as a woman-hater, that savoured too much of absurd male egotism, but he had an under conviction that women were, on the whole, admitting of course exceptions, self-centered in the pursuit of petty ends to the extent of absolute viciousness. He disliked women, although he had never owned it ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Empire. That this eclecticism will reach a point hitherto unsuspected is guaranteed in particular by the politico-aesthetic gourmanderie of a German king, who thinks he can play all the parts of monarchy, both of the feudal and the bureaucratic, both of the absolute and the constitutional, of the autocratic as of the democratic, if not in the person of his people, then in his own person, if not for the people, then for himself. Germany as the embodiment of the defect of the political present, constituted in her own world, will not be able to overthrow ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... you, upon the great mission which it is within the power of the proposed congress to accomplish in the interest of humanity, and upon the firm purpose of the United States to maintain a position of the most absolute and impartial friendship toward all. You will thereupon, in the name of the President of the United States, tender to His Excellency the President of the Mexican Republic a formal invitation to send two commissioners ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... of the preparation and properties of sulphuric acid. He obtained it, as the Nordhausen variety is still made, by the distillation of dried green vitriol. To him are also due the first indications of the preparation of absolute alcohol, by distilling spirit of wine from quick-lime. As a curious discovery made by the Saracens may be mentioned the experiment of Achild Bechil, who, by distilling together the extract of urine, clay, lime, and powdered charcoal, obtained an artificial carbuncle, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... Oman Type: absolute monarchy; independent, with residual UK influence Capital: Muscat Administrative divisions: there are no first-order administrative divisions as defined by the US Government, but there are 3 governorates (muhafazah, singular - muhafazat); Musqat, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... material comfort begins and ends with solvency, the sense of absolute security from want in old age. Small comforts he sets little store by; provided that he gets a good dinner, lesser considerations go. I do not hesitate to say that the comforts enjoyed by our own farm-servants half a century ago were far ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... Pizarro retired in the mean time to the small island of Gallo somewhat farther to the north, near the shore of the Barbacoas, and not far from Cape Mangles, where he and his people suffered extreme hardships from scarcity of provisions, amounting almost to absolute famine. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... show a disposition to adopt the Gregorian ideas for which Anselm stood. This disposition was less due to any change of heart on their part than to the knowledge which they had acquired of their helplessness in the hands of an absolute king, and of the great advantage to be gained from the independence which the Gregorian reformation would secure them. Even Gerard of York early showed some tendency to draw toward Anselm, as may be seen from a letter which he despatched to him in ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... seems clear that an absolute standard is available for testing the efficiency of training or habit building, and that a fairly accurate standard may be developed for testing the efficiency of instruction. Both training and instruction, however, ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... her words, would willingly give up the sight for a whole sea of placid joys. How much more, then, was this likely to be so when, as in Leo's case, to put myself out of the question, this extraordinary creature declared her utter and absolute devotion, and gave what appeared to be proofs of its having lasted for some two ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... Zweig puts it: "In vain will you remind him that the perfect, the absolute, are rarely attainable in this world; that, even to the sublimest will, no more is possible than an approach to perfection.... His glorious unwisdom makes it impossible ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... their ill-nature in open words. The man who strenuously insists to himself upon his will, and cherishes in silence his dislike of whatever is contrary to it, is oftener a harder man to live with than one who is violently outspoken. Fenton was hardly conscious of the absolute despotism with which he ruled his home, but his wife was too susceptible to his moods not to feel keenly the unspoken protest with which he met any infringement upon his wishes or his pleasure. Tonight he was in good humor, and his sense of beauty was touched ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... personal affair; in the war of righteousness every man fights for his own hand; all the six hundred precepts of the Mishna cannot shake my private judgment; my magistracy of myself is an indefeasible charge, and my decisions absolute for the time and case. The moralist is not a judge of appeal, but an advocate who pleads at my tribunal. He has to show not the law, but that the law applies. Can he convince me? then he gains the cause. And thus you find Christ giving ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... pointed out that Satan had been perforce their presiding magistrate ever since the settlement of Hell, because a change of administration is inexpedient in war-time: so that Satan must term after term be re-elected: and of course Satan had been voted absolute power in everything, since this too is customary in wartime. Well, and after the first few thousand years of this the younger devils began to whisper that such government was not ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... Assembly, if need be. It is well that the President should have made me acquainted with the views you all hold with such apparent unanimity. It is also well that you should be aware of my decision. Very often, when men think they have reached absolute disagreement, a way opens itself unexpectedly whereby the difficulties vanish. In this instance, certainly, it is hard to see how any solution of our dispute can be attained that shall ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... he, "are similar to those of the mayor of an Eastern city, but with no such aid of courts as he enjoys. I am supreme in every breach of peace, case of crime, disputed land title, over a space of three hundred miles. Such an absolute disposal of questions affecting property and personal liberty never ought to be ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... by the help of the lawyer.) He took the woman he wished to make his second wife for one night to an hotel. The decree nisi was granted. Then there was the six months waiting for the decree to be made absolute. The King's Proctor made inquiries, it was found that the wife also desired her freedom; the divorce was refused on the ground of collusion. Four people were rendered desperately unhappy, compelled either to part or to live together without ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... which may surround it and the will of its possessor. If it shall be mainly expended upon the growth and sustentation of muscle, it will not be expended upon the growth and sustentation of mind; and I have no hesitation in saying that it is an absolute impossibility for a man who engages in hard bodily labor every day to be brilliant in intellectual manifestation. The tide of such a man's life does not set in that direction. An hourglass has in it a definite quantity of sand; and when I turn it over, that sand falls from ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. Princess Mary, in her position as absolute and independent arbiter of her own fate and guardian and instructor of her nephew, was the first to be called back to life from that realm of sorrow in which she had dwelt for the first fortnight. She received letters from her relations to which she had to reply; ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... state of mind, he could be capable of making ludicrous jokes, nor how, with so bitter an example of despotic degradation [Footnote: What humiliation Caesar would have inwardly felt, could he have foreseen that, within a few generations, Nero, his successor in absolute authority, out of a lust for self-degradation, would expose himself frequently to infamy in the same manner as he, the first despot, had exposed a Roman of the middle rank, not without exciting a general feeling of indignation.] ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... of a more absolute affection than the most positive words could express! Ralph sat silent for a moment, as was his wont when under the influence of strong feeling. His head inclined downwards, and his eyes were fixed on the floor. A great struggle was ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... speakers and teachers, I realize to the fullest extent how daring is any attempt to prove, even by a plain history of strange occurrences happening to one's self, the actual existence of the Supernatural around us; and the absolute certainty of a future state of being, after the passage through that brief soul-torpor in which the body perishes, known to us ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... and faded into the gloom. As for Jones, he looked at me rather incredulously, and the absolute, almost childish gladness he manifested because I had been snatched from the grave, made me regret my deceit, and satisfied me ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... of courage and a perfect patriot, reconciling Burgundy to the national cause by a moving speech on 'the great pity that was in France.' How could a ribaulde, a leaguer-lass, a witch, a sacrificer of blood to devils, display the valour, the absolute self-sacrifice, the eloquent and tender love of native land attributed to the Pucelle of the play? Are there two authors, and is Shakespeare one of them, with his understanding of the human heart? ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... an hour passed whilst the boat advanced in this direction. Absolute silence, perfect calm reigned in the ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... must have faith to lean upon. While I loved you, I rested on absolute trust. I would have believed you against all the world. I would have been glad to share your lot, even in poverty and obscurity. I did not love you for your art nor your fame. You wavered; you forgot me. I don't know what it was that tempted you, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... is. This M. Armand is a great criminal, and has, of course, various followers, upon whom he must rely for the performance of certain details, since he can be in but one place at a time. Abject and absolute obedience is necessary to his success, and he compels obedience in the only way in which it can be compelled among criminals—by fear. For disobedience, there is but one punishment —death. And the manner of the death is so certain and so mysterious as ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... golden chair, a golden table, four-and-twenty silver cups, and four-and- twenty silver dishes. As he was too powerful to be successfully resisted, Tancred yielded to his demands; and then the French King grew jealous, and complained that the English King wanted to be absolute in the Island of Messina and everywhere else. Richard, however, cared little or nothing for this complaint; and in consideration of a present of twenty thousand pieces of gold, promised his pretty little nephew ARTHUR, then a ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... study to discover who among our fellow-citizens in this city are the greatest adepts in the various branches of knowledge. [14] I had been struck with amazement, I remember, to observe on some occasion that where a set of people are engaged in identical operations, half of them are in absolute indigence and the other half roll in wealth. I bethought me, the history of the matter was worth investigation. Accordingly I set to work investigating, and I found that it all happened very naturally. Those who carried on ...
— The Economist • Xenophon

... after they had put to sea they were attacked by pirates. They escaped only by running their vessel on shore on the coast of Finland. Here the king found himself in a state of almost absolute destitution, so that he had to pawn his clothing to satisfy the most urgent demands. At length, after meeting with various strange adventures, he found his way to the Hague, where he was, for the time, in ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... not only for its absolute merits, but as the bud from which English prose, that gorgeous and varied flower, has unfolded."—FRANCIS ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... it, and forebore to harass him with remonstrances, but resigned themselves to the knowledge that nothing would bring him home save absolute disqualification ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... iodide at a low red heat, using a nickel cathode and a graphite anode; he also showed that a more convenient process consisted in heating the iodide with an excess of sodium, forming an amalgam of the product, and removing the sodium by means of absolute alcohol (which has but little action on calcium), and the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... in earnest was he, and so intense and blank was Luca's absolute despair, that the young man had in turn given way to his entreaties. "Never can I do aught," he thought, bitterly, looking at his own clumsy designs, "And sometimes by the help of cherubs ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... while he could not go to sleep again. Fear had taken absolute and complete possession of him—the fear of the eternal damnation that the missionary had so vividly pictured. It was a picture that had been received at the time without being seen and through all these years had remained in his brain, covered and hidden. This day's work ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... into the middle of the street. Mahdi had opened a front window, and stepped out on to the roof of the verandah. He was dancing clumsily on the corrugated iron, and gesticulating, with his long, shaggy hands. Nickie was declaring with the warmth of absolute conviction that he was a king, but the yelling of the crowd rendered ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... India is, whether political rights and liberties have not, of late years, been conferred too rapidly upon them. It should not be expected that a people who, by instinct and unbroken heritage, are the children of the worst kind of autocratic and absolute government, should acquire, in one age or century, wisdom or aptitude to rule themselves. The mass of Hindus love to be led ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... south-south-west came on, and had we not had the good luck to have got under the lee of the Coin de Mire of the French we must infallibly have been wrecked; as it was we pulled along under this promontory and beached the boats in a little bay at its north-west extremity. Nothing but absolute necessity could however have induced me to take such a step, for the place was rocky and difficult of access, with a heavy surf breaking on the beach. The rain fell in torrents during the greater part of the evening, and the men spent the time in searching for oysters and shellfish ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... were a revelation to me. I'm going to have lots more of it. As it happens, they need me there. There's plenty of copper, but there's big transportation and employment problems that I seem better able to solve than the other chaps—though of course I'm an absolute muff when it comes to engineering problems. But I've had certain training and—I'm going to arrange things so that I get up there at least once a year. Next summer I'll make a much longer trip—see the mountains—oh, glorious mountains—and funny half-Russian towns, and have some fishing—— ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... With the absolute character of his nature and the finality of youth, he saw in a very decisive manner the plunge he was about to make. He was to leave one life and enter another, just as much as if he should leave Chicago and move to Calcutta—more ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... the Death of Christ as an expiation for man's guilt, and to lay too great a stress on the moral faculties remaining in the soul after the Fall, Bunyan errs still more widely on the other side in asserting the absolute, irredeemable corruption of human nature, leaving nothing for grace to work upon, but demanding an absolutely fresh creation, not a revivification of the Divine nature grievously marred but not ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... him at other times; three Bursars are to help him in the management, of the property. The Patron or Visitor, may inquire into the conduct of the Warden or into any accusations brought against him, and has the power of depriving him of his office. The Warden is not an absolute sovereign; the thirteen seniors are associated with him in the government of the College, and the Sub-Warden and five seniors are to inspect his accounts once a year. At the periodical scrutinies, when the conduct of all the members ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait

... most of all. When Arthur had peremptorily forbidden that any reference should be made to Graeme in household matters, Nelly had helplessly betaken herself to Rose, and Rose had as helplessly betaken herself to "Catherine Beecher." Nothing short of the state of absolute despair in which she found herself, would have induced Nelly to put faith in a "printed book," in any matter where the labour of her hands was concerned. But her accomplishments as a cook did not extend the making of "porridge" or the "choppin' of potatoes," and more ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... 4,261 square miles; population, 620,201; villages, 2,707; wells in use, 5,515. The Gazetteer figures apparently include wells of all kinds, and do not reckon hamlets separately. Wells are, of course, an absolute necessity, and their construction could not be avoided in a country occupied by a fixed population. The number of temples and mosques was very small for so large a population. Many of the tanks, too, are indispensably necessary ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman



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